Month: April 2009

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HT: Second Hand Smoke

Keep the Human in Humane

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Wesley J. Smith

Wesley Smith, occasional commentator on AOI blog published the is article on To the Source. Visit Smith’s blog Second Hand Smoke.

When Aldous Huxley wrote his prophetic 1932 novel Brave New World, he envisioned a dystopian future in which mankind would become, in the words of bioethicist Leon Kass, “so dehumanized that he doesn’t even realize what has been lost.”

Huxley believed we would evolve into a society steeped in radical hedonism—where drugs would be used to erase every negative emotion and promiscuity would be not just the norm, but the expected. He also saw our future as becoming profoundly utilitarian and eugenic, depicted in his novel by genetically engineered babies being decanted through a cloning-type process rather than being born, a society without families, without the old and sick—who are done away with rather than being cared for—and without real purpose other than experiencing transitory pleasure. It is a world in which human life has been objectified and thereby made less than human.

Looking around, can there be any doubt of Huxley’s prescience across the board? Continue reading →

The god Called Earth

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Steve the Builder

Couples who refuse to have children in order to protect the environment, says Steve Robinson, “reject religion and dogma, (yet) their devotion to the earth is indeed a religious devotion very similar to the ancient pagans.” In fact, the “eco-fundamentalists has a version of the prosperity gospel… we ‘serve the earth god,’ name it and don’t claim it, and you get nice stuff and exotic vacations.”

Robinson continues, “The ecologist and Orthodox Christian agree that the human being is indeed taken from the dirt of the earth and thus shares in the nature of the earth itself. But Christianity says he also is given the breath of God who created the very dirt from whence he came, and so he shares in the nature of the spiritual and is given dominion over the dirt, but not for gluttonous consumption but as a means of expressing love in the image of the one who created all things out of love.”

Listen to the podcast:

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Mattingly on Pew’s ‘Changes in Religious Affiliation’ survey

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The new “Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.” survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life yesterday is getting a lot of coverage in the mainstream and religious press. The survey looks mostly at Catholic and Protestant “fluidity of religious affiliation in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.”

A good place to start on this issue is Terry Mattingly’s post “Ch-ch-ch-changes in pews (saith Pew)” at GetReligion.org, which looks at how the press covers faith. Terry, an advisor to AOI, closes with this observation:

… let me note one other issue that may be hidden down in this Pew Forum research (and I intend to ask about it).

Anyone who works in the wider world of modern religion knows about the so-called 80-20 rule. This states that about 80 percent of the work, worship and giving is done by about 20 percent of the membership, the most dedicated members who have the strongest ties to their particular faith and to the content of its doctrine.

What happens when these people convert from one faith to another? What are the doctrinal fuses that must be lit to drive a devout believer — say a clergyperson — from Canterbury to Rome, from Nashville to Geneva, from Jerusalem to Athens? I know, from experience (my Orthodox parish is about 90 percent converts), that this is a radically [different] matter than making a church switch due to marriage or a change in zip code.

Alas, how do you put that kind of human blood, sweat and tears into a poll questionnaire?

Patriarch Kirill welcomes Metropolitan Jonah in Moscow

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Official statement from the Moscow Patriarchate (HT: Byzantine, TX, and Rocor United):

On the 26th of April 2009, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America served liturgy with Patriarch Kirill at Christ the Savior Cathedral. The Patriarch then addressed Metropolitan Jonah with the following words:

Your Eminence Jonah, Archbishop of Washington and New York, Metropolitan of all America and Canada, beloved in Christ brother and co-celebrant! Wise bishops and priests! Dear brothers and sisters!

Metropolitan Jonah (left) and Patriarch Kirill in Moscow

Christ is Risen!

It brings me great joy to greet the delegation of the Orthodox Church in America headed by His Eminence Vladyka Jonah during these bright Paschal days. In your first official visit as a newly-chosen primate, which you are making to the Moscow Patriarchate, you have emphasized the special interrelation of American Orthodoxy with its Mother Church. This relation, filled with a spirit of love and unity, truly can be characterized by the words of the apostle, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). Today we have sealed our unity with communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and every one of us, in answer to the touch of Grace of the risen Lord, can, together with Thomas, from all his heart exclaim, “My Lord and my God! (John 20:28). Continue reading →

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