Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk: Culture is at risk of becoming anti-culture without the Church

Brilliant! Met. Hilarion’s warning deals with what Nietzsche called the “transvaluation of values” — what his dark prophesy warned would happen in the West because “God is Dead,” by which he meant that Western culture was entering into a period where it functioned within the cultural structures shaped by Christianity but without concrete, existential communion [...]

Another one? Greco-triumphalism trumps the moral tradition — again

Alexi Giannoulias is the Democratic candidate for US Senate (Obama’s old seat). He crows about his endorsement from Planned Parenthood (“incredibly honored to be the only senate candidate to be endorsed by Planned Parenthood!!” twitter), favors homosexual marriage and wants to repeal DOMA, even marched in Chicago’s gay rights parade (dissipation alert) calling it “a [...]

Religion as the ground of culture?

Looks like religion may have led to civilization. HT: Mystagogy
From Newsweek Magazine:
History in the Remaking
A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.
They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East [...]

Jacobse: Sunday of Orthodoxy sermon

Yup, it’s a bit long and even though I am a believer in short sermons, it held the audience nevertheless. I gave it yesterday at the Sunday of Orthodoxy Vespers at St. Paul Antiochian Church in Naples, FL.
Sunday of Orthodoxy
February 21, 2010
On this day we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the commemoration of the defeat [...]

Papal Environmentalism: Pro-Life and Pro-Marriage

Ethics and Public Policy Center | George Weigel

In his January 11 address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI continued to carve out an interesting Catholic position on ecology. The Pope insists that care for creation is a moral obligation that falls on both individuals and governments. His very invocation [...]

Fr. Chad Hatfield: The Manhattan Declaration

Ancient Faith Radio

Fr. Chad Hatfield, discusses The Manhattan Declaration, “a call of Christian conscience” that he helped produce, and defends Orthodox participation in such cultural manifestos.
Listen here:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

British Bishops Urge ‘Carbon Fast’ for Lent

Pity these poor guys, trying so hard to remain relevant — and even then they are months behind.
LONDON (AP) — Several prominent Anglican British bishops are urging Christians to keep their carbon consumption in check this Lent.
The 40-day period of penitence before Easter typically sees observant Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians give up meat, alcohol [...]

Peter Kreeft: Moral exhortations

H/T: Mere Orthodoxy
Peter Kreeft is an incisive social thinker who draws from Catholic social teaching for insight into the deeper currents of American culture. The Orthodox and Catholics see eye to eye on many of his points.

Wesley J. Smith: Unless we all matter

The Source
“God loves each of us, as if there were only one of us.” – St. Augustine.
If you want to accurately predict what could soon go wrong in society, just read the professional journals.  Case in point: A bioethicist named Alasdair Cochrane, a deep thinker at the Centre for the Study [...]

Albert Mohler: Vanishing Christianity — A Lesson from the Presbyterians

AlbertMohler.com
“Liberal Protestantism, in its determined policy of accommodation with the secular world, has succeeded in making itself dispensable.” That was the judgment of Thomas C. Reeves in The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Protestantism, published in 1996. Fast-forward another fourteen years and it becomes increasingly clear that liberal Protestantism continues its suicide — with [...]

Patriarch Kirill & Pope Benedict: A Tale of Two Leaders for a new Missionary Age

I’ve been asked to become an Orthodox columnist on Catholic.org and accepted. Below is my first essay. Regular readers will notice ideas we discussed on the AOI Observer.
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Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
NAPLES, FL. (Catholic Online) – Over four decades ago Pope John Paul II said that the restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church was necessary for the [...]

“Christian Family – a ‘little church’ and a basis of healthy society.”

Final document of the plenary session of the Christian Interconfessional Consultative Committee of the CIS and Baltic countries, Moscow, 4 February 2010
4.02.2010 · Analitics, Inter-Christian relations, New documents
Christian Churches of the CIS and Baltic countries, in a plenary session of the Christian Interconfessional Consultative Committee of the CIS and Baltic countries held in [...]

Western intellectuals embarrassed to talk about faith, renowned European journalist says

Interfax
Moscow, February 9, Interfax – Many intellectuals in the West are embarrassed to confess their faith, Tatiana Goricheva, an Orthodox philosopher, journalist and missionary said.
“Academic environment in Europe dramatically differs from ours. Even if a person is a deep believer, he will keep silence about it or offer some snobby excuses for his religious feeling. [...]

Russian church leaders defend marriage, speak out on family crisis

Russian Orthodox Church leaders called on Christians on Thursday to be firm in defending traditional marriage and lamented the family crisis in the country.
According to some estimates, over half of the marriages in Russia end in divorce. Women in the 140-million-strong country undergo some 1.5 million abortions annually.
“We, Christians of different denominations, should profess the [...]

Church has right to bring Gospel values to public debate, pope says

Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Catholic teaching and the truths of the Gospel have a right to be heard in public debate, especially in a country where so many people claim to be Christian, Pope Benedict XVI told the bishops of England and Wales.
However, the church must recognize dissent within its own ranks and [...]

Coptic march Melbourne – What you didn’t see

H/T Free Copts

Gates of Vienna also asks “Where is Freedom of Religion?”

Mesmerizing talent

This video shows the winner of 2009’s ” Ukraine ’s Got Talent”, Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch. The images, projected onto [...]

Forty years of feminism now bearing fruit

Maybe the essay below will help St. Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) understand why the conferral of a doctorate on Dr. Rowan Williams has been met with criticism from those outside the academy. For most, the issue is not whether Dr. Williams merits the honor as an academic, but that his refusal to act against the moral [...]

Archbishop Hilarion: The Church has been granted the Primate required by our troubled time

Compare the vision expressed below with recurring missteps like Orphangate, the uncritical embrace of global warming activism, assertions of ethnic supremacy (Hellenism uber alles?), the flattering of politicians, and the like and ask yourself: –Who really gets it? –Who has the better grasp of the crisis in Western culture? –Who really comprehends that any [...]

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk: “The work of the Church is always mission-oriented because mission is a vocation of the Church”

The more I read what is coming out of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), the clearer it becomes that they understand the culture within the Church and outside of it. The ROC will emerge as the world leader of Orthodoxy because it comprehends that the crisis in Western culture, including Russia, is primarily moral and [...]

James J. Jatras on the Manhattan Declaration

James J. Jatras, advisor to AOI, explains why he signed the Manhattan Declaration. For more video go to Peter and Helen Evans website.

The DECR Chairman: “We vigorously oppose atheism perceived as a ‘common denominator’ of all religions”

We vigorously oppose atheism perceived as a ‘common denominator’ of all religions, as secular politicians sometimes try to present it, saying, ‘There are differences among religions; therefore, let us proceed from atheistic prerequisites so that no religion feels offended.’ This position is absolutely false and unacceptable to us. We state that traditional religions have much [...]

Ukrainian Orthodox Church makes public its resolution on abortions and same-sex marriages

“Putting a homosexual marriage on the same level with a conventional one is a conscious destruction of fundamental public morals providing a basis for a global demoralization of society.”

On 21 January 2010, the Theological and Canonical Commission at the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church made public its Resolution on abortions and same-sex marriages. [...]

“The Pope Is the First Among the Patriarchs.” Just How Remains to Be Seen

ROME, January 25, 2010 – This evening, with vespers in the basilica of Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls, Benedict XVI is closing the week of prayer for Christian unity.
There are some who say that ecumenism has entered a phase of retreat and chill. But as soon as one that looks to the East, the facts [...]

Robert P. George: Why I signed the Manhattan Declaration

Peter and Helen Evans are posting interviews with signers of the Manhattan Declaration. The latest is Robert P. George. They have around 20 interviews including some Orthodox signers on their site www.peterandhelenevans.com.

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