No, I’m not blocking you. Threaded comments only go ten levels deep. After that the reply buttons disappear and you have to hit the last button that appears.

You are here to pick a fight Dove Weed. I’m not interested in a fight with you. You haven’t even told me who you are.

That’s why I suggested starting your own site and putting your “pearls” there. No one is stopping you and you still have the freedom to do that.

I’ll take you up on your offer to close the discussion.

Fr., Are you blocking me? Why are there missing reply buttons to many comments?
I also really don’t understand your reactions.
Are you really so thin skinned that you can’t think critically, and only want accolades for whatever you come up with on your own? And then expect those who differ from you to go “start their own site”. Great! then there can be all kinds of conflicting information that will only serve to repeal rather than attract others to Orthodoxy.
You call your site an “institute”, but there is no simple, evident train of thought that establishes your goals and the objectives by which to attain them. There is only a hodge podge of “in the news” with your self appointed as judge, jury, and executioner.
You don’t seem to realize that in the modern world of narcissistic self-reference, self-made truth, you have no authority, and refuse to approach the problem you want to address with thoughtful analysis.
See Modern Culture . Click on “+” sign to expand transcript of audio. Especially note reference to Daniel Bell (author of Cultural Contradiction of Capitalism).
The degree to which you accurately define the problem of modern culture will determine whether you hit or miss your mark. And only Orthodox Christian Cosmology (which of necessity includes anthropology) can accurately address the modern issues of man AND nature (Creation). Man is not divinely instructed to “control” nature, but to have dominion over it as the Lord Jesus Christ has, as evident in how “the winds and waves obeyed him.” Human technology is a false paradigm for “controlling” nature in the absence of repentance, humility and obedience to God, and pursuit of the true meaning of life – to attain to union/communion with God. Modern “economics” is all about applied “science”, technology and high “finance” (usury) for the purpose of human aquisitiveness by which lording over others as well as all creation is achieved. Abortion is all wrapped up in such nonsense. Myopically making abortion the bell weather of human value is missing the mark.
Also see – https://marshillaudio.org/page/about
I leave you to your own devices.
No more pearls before swine.

Dove, why not start your own site? That way you could provide your own resources.

No reply button for your comment.
I engage in American Studies to better analyze American culture, to “think like a fox in order to catch a fox”. I’m also trying to point you in the direction of developing point by point thought process that shows the fallacies of the main thoughts in modern american culture, that you could develop as the primary documents for your site, and then discuss those points, revise, make them stronger, instead of just blogging randomly about anything and everything “in the news”.
See — Two Nations Under Mammon
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/2013/10/02/two-nations-under-mammon/
Do you want to collaborate on Orthodox Christian outreach that calls American culture to repentence?
Or do you just want to “have it your [ineffective] way”?
Is being a servant of God who brings others to Christ your goal?
Or wasting time on self importance?
Have you considered that “fun morality” was identified the 1950s as having already been operative before that in replacing “christian” morality of American culture?
See – All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture”
http://www.ligonier.org/store/all-gods-children-and-blue-suede-shoes-paperback/
The Pursuit of Happiness
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/pursuit-happiness/

Well, I guess you would call this a full broadside. How about reframing your essay so we can get an idea of what you actually do instead of what you don’t like?

Trying to discuss with you is a waste of time because you have no grasp of American history, where America/Americans came from and how they got to where they are today, just as you had no idea for years about how to approach young people with the Gospel.
American culture grew out of Puritanism which is Calvinism.
Calvinism may not strictly express itself today, but it is at the root of American culture.
American “culture” views all “christianity” as “Catholic”/”Protestant” UNLESS there is effort made at distinction.
Since “conservatives” of both these religious camps in America have teamed up for over 3 decades in culture “war” (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), the “culture” views both camps as being the same. Having never heard of Eastern Orthodoxy, the “culture” for the most part conflates it with the chiliastic/imperialism of such western “christianity”, especially when the “Orthodox” march in lockstep in culture “war”.
American culture no longer cares about “christianity” as historically practiced/expressed in America.
America is where the Puritan Calvinists came to throw off European “complexity”, authority of church (Rome) and state, and that theme has colored the whole of American history.
What we have today is the logical outgrowth of that process that never found the ground for its existence in the Truth of Orthodoxy.
By your own admission on Ancient Faith radio, you only recently woke up to the fact that preaching morality at young people was a waste of time.
Well what took you so long? That’s all that western “christianity” can do and has been doing because it doesn’t have the COSMOLOGY of the Eastern Church.
You are fatally fetally fixated on abortion because you “think” it’s the litmus test of human value and Christian anthropology.
Your presumption is wrong so you’re barking up the wrong tree and the “culture” will only continue to ignore you.
Christian anthropology doesn’t exist apart from its COSMOLOGY.
Those who understand the implications of that COSMOLOGY realize that there is so much more to Christianity, that addressing abortion and homosexuality in order for modern people to see their need for God is not what will lead people to God.
Only a fool would preach morality at people who have inherited the “rugged individualism” of the American frontier, who today live by “different strokes for different folks”, I’ll do things “my way”, I’m OK you’re OK, I can do what I want as long as I “don’t hurt anyone else”, etc. etc. etc.
It is that American mentality of individualism, competitiveness instead of cooperation, putting others first, that is at the heart of America’s social ills.
America failed to develop a secular ethic when it cast off “christianity” beginning with Deism/Unitarianism of the 19th century. America is now and has been for a long time about worshipping the mammon god all dressed up in Jesus drag, and scientific “truth”, especially regarding the all hallowed “economy”.
Your boogaboo, “progress”, first made it’s appearance in “science” (technology). It was only natural that such notion of “progress” would spread into other areas of society as well, but you ignore that “liberalism” in economics and humanities go hand in hand and are not independent of one another. Economic progress has been and continues to create great upheavals in society, so it’s no wonder that “progressive” ideas spill over outside of economics and also cause such upheaval.
You would do better to repent of foolishness, pray, and do your job of properly instructing young people and not merely preaching morality at them. Then they will know how to defend their faith out in the world, and there is no better evangelism than that. The greatest deterrent to church growth is young people who leave the faith.
Young people like all people are rational beings created in the image and likeness of God. They need to know the rational ramifications of all the “philosophy”, nonsensical “ideas” that have poured out of W. Europe for centuries, and how those “ideas” subtly surface today to lead people astray. For instance, that reality is subjective means whatever I “think” about something is my “truth”. They also need to know the ramifications of all the heresies rebutted in the Ecumenical councils, and where those heresies are alive today. For instance, Montanism and Pentecostalism, one of the homegrown American heresies. Then they will know how to defend their faith in the world.
Rx: enroll in American Studies. Do your homework. Stop wasting time on foolish paradigms, and start accurately analysing the problem. Stop wasting time on narratives like “liberalism” is the boogeyman, communism, etc., such ilk is out to get us.
“We” are our own worst enemies as long as we continue such foolishness.
Start doing what’s needed to have access to the wisdom of God so you act the way He would.

No, because most women don’t know they are pregnant a few weeks conception and thus often are not aware a spontaneous abortion even took place. For the same reason forcible abortions never happen a couple weeks of conception either. They happen when the knowledge is certain that a baby is forming.

Abortion is always a choice and the abortionist is the slave master. He’s the one who does the killing. The power of life and death is in his hands. He has already decided that some unborn are not worthy of life long before he picks up the suction tube. He would not be an abortionist otherwise.

Fr Jacobse writes: “Kind of like thinking that if a man’s skin is not white, he is not worthy of life”

That’s not a very good analogy.

I’ve heard of families holding funerals for their unborn after a miscarriage that occurred after several months of development. Have you heard of one who held a funeral for an embryo that died within a couple weeks of conception?

It’s not the same.

Still, as I said, I’m not a supporter and wouldn’t shed a tear were it to be outlawed entirely.

Kind of like thinking that if a man’s skin is not white, he is not worthy of life, or more accurately the life he possesses is granted solely through the benevolence of another man.

Those silly abolitionists! They don’t realize that the Three Fifth’s Compromise could put an end to all the unpleasantness!

“You have to realize that the self-appointed gate-keepers of popular culture are often the last to change.”

I think you overestimate (or misunderstand) the “popular” support for legal abortion. With a few exceptions, it is only tolerated (particularly after the earliest stages), not viewed as a moral good in itself.

By failing to distinguish between a day-old fertilized egg and a six-month-old developed fetus, pro-life advocates have been partially responsible for the perception that they are unwilling to compromise and have thus made it more difficult to impose greater legal restrictions. The “life begins at conception” position is difficult for most to embrace. To most, it’s a clump of cells. A child with a face, heart and lungs? That’s a different story, even if it’s within the womb. That’s why you’re seeing these Planned Parenthood stories on media outlets besides Fox and CBN.

The argument might make some sense if the culture were Calvinist. It isn’t and has never been, not to the extent you portray it anyway. My points about Calvinism as the ground of secularism hold true, but it no longer holds that the culture is predominantly Calvinist. Even that characterization needs some qualification since ameliorating factors came into play (Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” is very helpful here).

In any case, I think your conclusion that any clarification of morality in the public square constitutes a kind of theocratic longing is short-sighted. America has no cultural magisterium so moral questions invariably end up in the public square. That’s where they are discussed and sometimes fought.

Further, your argument that the explication of sound (Christian) morality de-facto conflates with “conservative political ideas” would extend farther than this site. The Bishops themselves would have to recant their criticisms of abortion, homosexual marriage, and other issues by this definition.

Parading around with Calvinists in social protest, and lobbying alongside typical American “moral majority” conflates Orthodoxy with evangelical Reformed Prostestantism, thereby nullifying any possibility for Orthodox evangelism in America, for the uniqueness of Orthodox theology to shine as the Pearl of Great Price.

No it doesn’t. I can see by this statement you have assimilated the false characterizations of the dominant media. You have to realize that the self-appointed gate-keepers of popular culture are often the last to change. Don’t let them intimidate you. (Besides, very few participants in the Washington, DC rally were Calvinists in the way you use the term.)

Case in point: With the most recent revelations about what really happens behind the closed doors of Planned Parenthood (Planned Parenthood Clinic Cut Through Dead Baby’s Face to Get His Intact Brain), who has been telling the truth all these years?

Where were was your voice during the debates?

Ever read the Church Fathers on abortion? Should we have kept the exhortations hidden because would be construed as conservative?

“…synthesizing the correct ideas…”
So what are the correct ideas? Conservative political ideas?
That’s what seems to have mostly ciruculated on this site in the past, though it seems to be less overt now, but that may simply mean it’s covert rather than repented and changed.
I would the think correct ideas would be truth of the historical record as opposed to the twisted, plethora of propaganda that circulates throughout time, and especially today.

“…as long as the memory of a Christian moral/social consensus remained, the approach was to address these question primarily as political…”
IMO that is/was a big mistake for Orthodox Christians because Orthodoxy frames “morality” much differently than Calvinism which as you acknowledge is the primary lay of the spiritual land in America. The difference between Luther and the Reformed is that Luther did NOT put morality first as Calvin/Zwingli did. Luther said that was putting the cart (morality) before the horse (God’s grace). In that sense Luther was Orthodox and the Reformed unorthodox. Emphasis on “morality” first (or exclusively) is Hebraic/Old Testament rather than New Testament. Like Judaism and Roman Catholicism it is a form of works righteousness rather than Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, a striving for theocratic lording over others rather than a means of bringing sinners to repentance and their Lord of their own free will.
Parading around with Calvinists in social protest, and lobbying alongside typical American “moral majority” conflates Orthodoxy with evangelical Reformed Prostestantism, thereby nullifying any possibility for Orthodox evangelism in America, for the uniqueness of Orthodox theology to shine as the Pearl of Great Price.
So the question really is what’s the goal of this Institute and the Orthdox who gather here? Is the goal to evangelize America or take control of the US government in order to legally force “morality” on sinners? Legal morality is legalistic. It does not and never has had the power to change the human heart. Is it the fear of suffering that motivates out of some Old Testament mindset afraid that God will judge the US as he did Sodom and Gommorah, and we Orthodox Christians will have to suffer alongside those sinners? So somehow if we make them behave, then God will bless us and we can live happily ever after in our middle class standard of living and not have to change.

“…the public square is important, very important in fact but the message has to more sharply focused.”
Focused on what? Abortion and homosexuality? Where are your posts that search for focus?

“…the Calvinist takeover of culture…”
If the Luther-Zwingli debates represent a historical turning point in the desacramentalization of culture, and that period has to be thoroughly understood, then where is your discussion of that?
I suggest you start a documents section that you revise over time as need be, a section that focuses on each major point.
What in essence you are saying is that the Reformed rejection of the sacraments (mysteries), their non-sacramentalization is the beginning point of western secularism.
As one Orthodox writer put it, denying the sacraments is the same as denying the humanity of Christ. IOW Reformed Protestantism is the same old heresy of Docetism recycled in more recent times. Interesting how we always come back to the same old heresies. America uniquely gave us Unitarians, Transcendentalists, and then Millerites, Adventists, Pentecostals, Christian Scientists, Mormans and Jehovah Witnesses.
Perhaps a documents section should discuss the modern day equivalents of all the old heresies that the Church debunked in the Ecumenical Councils.

“…not sure if the problems you raised about language, while compelling, are easily resolved.”
If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. While laborious, whatever is written or said must first start with definition of terms as Socrates insisted. The new content you mention basically makes for “loaded words”, which should be avoided, hence “traditional” rather than “conservative”.
I think as an Orthodox priest you know very well what “traditional” means – holding to the faith of the fathers, to the Ecumenical Councils, etc. “Conservative” is a political term that means supporter of status quo, which is never defined. Ultimately the status quo was originally monarchy and aristocracy. Traditional becomes “conservative” when secular politics enter the realm of the Church and blind the clergy and laity to true Church teaching. That blindness results from some hidden desire of the heart that hasn’t been repented.
A documents section could contain a glossary of terms with definitions and discussions of the varying meanings of word useage, loaded words, how to avoid them, etc. For instance “sin” is a loaded word in modern western secular culture. The uniqueness of Orthdox Christian cosmology enables the Church to instead approach the culture with its need for union/communion with God. This could be a good and useful starting point for figuring out how to approach today’s culture in a uniquely Orthdox Christian way so that the failings of deviations from the Faith are apparant and Orthodoxy isn’t lumped into the same pidgeonhole of American “christianity”.

No, not delusion. What I wrote was that I have never criticized them. The quote you offer is not a criticism. The exhortation I drew was that as they engaged the culture of their time, so must we. As a result it does not qualify your conclusion that follows it.

That’s as far as I am going with this sub-thread, BTW. I am closing it down.

You would accuse you me of “delusion,” perhaps?

https://www.aoiusa.org/the-new-gnosticism-of-the-homosexual-movement/#comment-208803

You reference Fr. Florovsky as an authority, but Fr. Florovsky was writing to specific historical and cultural questions (the place of Orthodoxy in a non-Orthodox culture for example), relevant in his day but not so much anymore… I think the same is true of Fr. Schememann’s work… All this is to say that recourse to Fr. Florovsky, Schmemann and the other great luminaries of the Paris exile also demands of your listener that he enters the spirit of the culture as it existed when they wrote…

Did I write this foolishness, or did you? Read your own ridiculous posts in that thread, then return here to my redux: “You are killing the prophets by distraction. The prophets should be calling for the people of God to repent, but you would like them to be outraged, to battle at the intersection of culture. You would call them to social theory and political strategy. But you are very wrong. “But rather seek first the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be given to you.” (Lk. 12:31) What is so hard to understand about that?” I am neither “all over the place,” nor am I “confused.” If you are having cognitive difficulties, contact me privately.

This is patently false. That one can enter into a civil marriage contract has zero bearing on their capacity or ability to bear children, nor does it say anything about whether one will make a good parent or a wicked one. It certainly says nothing about one’s stance on abortion (which is completely unrelated).

Besides, most of the children adopted by gay couples were already abandoned by their heterosexual parents. Most will not seek to “manufacture” one.