May 21, 2013

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Gore Vidal and the Sky God

August 9, 2012 10:04 PM
Albert Mohler

Source: The Christian Post | R. Albert Mohler, Jr. From the essay: Gore Vidal was a controversialist, but in making this argument, he was simply saying aloud what many others in his social class and literary circles were thinking. He outlived most of his contemporaries and critics, but he lived a tragic life and he died a tragic death. Christians, sobered and saddened by the legacy of this "slashing literary provocateur" must not miss the troubling parable of Gore Vidal and the Sky God. It tells us a very great deal about the intellectual world Gore Vidal now leaves behind. The death of author and controversialist Gore Vidal last week brought an end to one of America's most gifted and flamboyantly offensive literary voices. Eugene Luther Gore Vidal was born in 1925 on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point. For decades, Vidal was one of America's most outrageous men of letters. His life was marked by a long series of confrontations and he died as … [Read more...]

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Paul Bunyan Meets the Intractable East: A Tribute to Fr. Peter Guillquist

August 9, 2012 8:02 PM
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- Source: Orthodox Christian Laity | George Matsoukas The mission is ongoing The Orthodox Christian Laity Board OCL was blessed to have Father Peter Gillquist as an advisor for more than 12 years. From day one, when I met him, he was bigger than life. Physically he was tall, robust and exuberant in nature. He reminded me of Paul Bunyan. He energized our board when he attended meetings and was our featured speaker at open forums and programs. He truly transcended all the Orthodox Christian groupings that exist in America. The Holy Spirit, present everywhere, and fills all creation, brought Father Peter and his brothers and sisters to Orthodox Christianity in 1987 and Orthodox Christianity in the United States has been nourished and nurtured by his sense of mission and outreach and it will never be the same. His vision and love for Orthodox Christianity are recorded in his written works. His work with assisting in developing the Orthodox Study Bible Old and New Testament is … [Read more...]

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A Religious Freedom Election

August 9, 2012 7:42 PM
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Source: The Weekly Standard | Wesley J. Smith A court case in Colorado shows what’s at stake this fall. A recent federal trial court ruling has warmed the hearts of social conservatives and civil libertarians alike. A judge in Colorado on July 27 protected a Catholic-owned small business against the “free birth control rule”—which requires companies subject to the Affordable Care Act to offer their employees free contraception, sterilization, and other “preventive” services. The free birth control rule does not yet apply to religious institutions. Houses of worship with faith objections are exempt permanently, and religious institutions operating in the general community do not have to comply until next year. But the regulation—which went into effect on August 1—allows no religious conscience exemptions for private businesses, meaning that all employers who come under the Affordable Care Act must comply or face federal … [Read more...]

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Dismantling of a Culture

July 18, 2012 7:46 PM
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Source: National Review Online | Kathryn Jean Lopez America’s elites now disdain the rest of America. David Gelernter, the Yale professor of computer science, has an alarming yet cautiously exuberant book out, America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered In the Obamacrats). He tells us where we are and how and why we got here, and gives readers a pep talk,   encouraging them to be the light (not “lite”) we need. He talks about it all with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Is there a precise moment where you can say, yes, yes, this is the moment when America went “lite”? DAVID GELERNTER: The Cultural Revolution itself began right after World War II (when our leading colleges were still in the hands of the generally centrist WASP elite) and culminated around 1970, when intellectuals were in control, and preparing to use these universities as platforms for imposing their … [Read more...]

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Wesley J. Smith: Freedom of Worship’s Assault on Freedom of Religion

July 18, 2012 4:03 PM
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- From the essay: Freedom of religion means the right to live according to one’s own faith, that is, to “manifest” our religion or belief in practice, both “in public or private,” without interference from the state. Strident secularism is on the march and freedom of religion is the target, with secularist warriors attempting to drive religious practice behind closed doors by redefining religious liberty down to a hyper-restricted, “freedom of worship.” Source: First Things On the Square | By Wesley J. Smith Until very recently, the West saw religious liberty as a weight-bearing pillar of human freedom. Thus, the very first clause of the First Amendment (1789) states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. More broadly, Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) provides: Everyone has the right to freedom of … [Read more...]

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Book Review: The Second Russian Revolution (1987-1991)

July 12, 2012 4:28 PM
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Belows is the review I wrote of Leon Aron's new book Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991. It is a great read and I recommend it highly. It chronicles Glasnost, the period of awakening in Russia from around 1987-1991 that, Aron argues, was a moral awakening, indeed a repentance, of the first order that enabled the Russians to throw of the spiritual shackles of Communism. Nothing is more powerful than a word spoken in truth, wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn, arguably one of the most influential moralists of the last century. Glasnost was the period where speaking the truths that got you killed just a year or two earlier resounded ever more loudly in the public square. Lest we complacent Westerners take this development for granted, let's remember that we have largely left off believing that truth even has an objective character. We are very close to the (philosophical) materialist assumptions that justified such great … [Read more...]

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Catholic Online: Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America Suddenly Resigns His Office: Why?

July 10, 2012 12:26 PM
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Unbeknownst to most Orthodox, Met. Jonah was the voice of Orthodoxy in the other Christian communions. His words reached into Baptist meetings, Episcopal assemblies, even the Vatican. He traveled these halls effortlessly because he held to the simple teaching of the Gospel but in the fullness of the Orthodox moral tradition. That enabled him to be heard by our non-Orthodox brethren and strengthen them at the same time for he was able to impart a depth and wisdom that many were looking for but had yet to discover. Met. Jonah's successes, as well as the genuine fondness and respect shown him by Christians of other communions, shows us that Orthodoxy can speak to the larger culture and that it has some very important things to say. It also shows, as his forced retirement this week makes clear, that the afflictions borne by other other communions afflict us as well. From the article: There is another element in this which is of immediate importance, and directly follows on … [Read more...]

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Chicago Tribune: Chicago Native Quits as Leader of American Orthodox Church

July 10, 2012 12:13 PM
Metropolitan Jonah, center, is vested by Subdeacon Brother Gregory, left, and Subdeacon Gregory Lardin before a 2009 service at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago. (Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune / July 26, 2009)

Source: Chicago Tribune | By Manya A. Brachear The Chicago native elected to the helm of the Orthodox Church in America resigned over the weekend, saying in a letter that he has "neither the personality nor the temperament" to lead the church. [...] Elected in late 2008 to lead one of several branches of Orthodox Christianity in the United States, Metropolitan Jonah had been a bishop for 12 days when he became primate. Parishioners looked to him for reforms after his predecessor retired amid allegations that millions of church dollars were used to cover personal expenses. "People were looking for that new wind of leadership that he seemed to embody," said the Rev. John Adamcio, rector at Holy Trinity Cathedral, the seat of the Chicago Diocese. "He was under an awful lot of pressure to right the ship and keep the church on course." [...] He insisted on amplifying the church's voice in the public square, moving the church's headquarters from Syosset, N.Y., to Washington … [Read more...]

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Get Religion: Covering Warfare in a Byzantine Maze – Literally

July 10, 2012 11:54 AM
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Terry Mattingly’s advice for journalists about the coup in the OCA. A key quote: Of course, it is “politics” when an Orthodox leader defends the church’s doctrines in public. It is not “politics” when liberal activists inside the church work to silence the voice of the church, while quietly lobbying in seminaries and elsewhere to redefine those same doctrines. H/T FrJohnPeck.org Source: Get Religion | By Terry Mattingly It goes without saying that I have received quite a bit of email from GetReligion readers, and others, wanting to know my take on last Friday’s resignation, and now the ongoing humiliation, of Metropolitan JONAH of the Orthodox Church in America. In a way, this news was rather shocking, yet not all that shocking because the bitter infighting between the OCA’s old guard and its idealistic young leader has been building for more than a year. If you need a refresher course on the borders of this truly Byzantine scandal, then click … [Read more...]

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Russian Warns on Demonic Roots of Socialism

July 6, 2012 3:45 PM
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Source: Acton Institute | By John Couretas In Rome to address a conference sponsored by the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) on June 29, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov expressed amazement for the support that socialism gets in some quarters in the West even though it has “never worked in world history.” In an interview with the Zenit news service, Komov pointed to how this ideology had caused such great pain and suffering “all in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.” His criticism was also leveled at the “softer version of socialism” of administrations in the West led by President Barack Obama and recently José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the former prime minister of Spain.Komov believes that if you “dig deep enough into the ideological roots of these socialist movements, you end up finding satanic roots in them.” And although only a softer version is prevalent now, “it is still very dangerous,” he says. “I … [Read more...]

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Dangerous Flirting: Russia Wonders Why West Is Enamoured With Socialism

July 6, 2012 3:32 PM
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Highlights: Alexey Komov - Russia's representative to the World Congress of Families The traditional nuclear family is a particular enemy of socialism...because it is the basic institution that preserves values and passes them on to the next generation. "The state, if it wants to dominate life and the individual from birth to death, needs to destroy the family, because the family is independent of the state," he argues. "As Marx and Engels said, the family is a repressive, bourgeois institution that needs to be destroyed; they need to get rid of its patriarchal power and that of Christianity because they are the main obstacles of the social revolution."  Rocco Buttiglione -- Italian politician [The] meaning of tolerance has subtly changed over the years, so subtly, in fact, that it has escaped people' s notice. "'Don't be judgemental,' people say, but you can translate that as 'Don't think' because to think means to pass judgement,"... [To] think means to create … [Read more...]

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Why is Jerry Sandusky Guilty?

July 3, 2012 8:33 PM
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If Sandusky would have lived 2000 years ago, he would not have been found guilty of anything. Source: Catholic World Report | By Benjamin Wiker There is no doubt that Jerry Sandusky is guilty, the real question is why? Why is it that we, here and now, would send a man to prison for molesting boys? Why is the public reaction one of both deep disgust and quite visceral anger? Just canvass a few opinions about what people would like to be done to punish Sandusky if they were the judge. But why? What is the cause of this deep disgust? This seething anger? There is only one cause: Christianity. We still have minds, consciences, and hearts, and hence a legal system, historically formed by Christian moral principles. There is no other reason. Allow me to explain, beginning first with the “that” of his guilt. Jerry Sandusky has been declared guilty of 45 of 48 counts of child sexual molestation. The coaching hero of Penn State used his status to draw in young boys … [Read more...]

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