Philanthropy will flow like the floodgates of heaven.<\/strong> Finally, the many Orthodox Christian philanthropists who annually give millions of dollars to secular institutions will finally find their own Church completely transparent, completely accountable, and worthy of their faith-building support…<\/li>\n<\/ul?\n\nFr. John believed that it would take twenty years before his predictions took root. I think he overshot the mark. In three short years we already see some of them taking place, particularly the rooting out of moral corruption like active homosexuality and financial misdealing to the elevation of more stable and mature bishops. This is especially evident in the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) where the election of Met. Jonah, a moral traditionalist, has brought the hidden sympathy and accommodation towards homosexual ideology into sharper relief. It's an issue that won't go away soon and one that other jurisdictions will eventually face, especially the Greek Orthodox Church (GOA).\n\nWe also see the elevation of more mature men as bishops, particularly widowers and men shaped in a concrete monastic experience. This too is important because a mature episcopacy strengthens and safeguards the priesthood. Priests need the care of good bishops in order to fulfill their vocations with confidence and creativity. Healthy bishops make for healthy priests. Healthy priests make for healthy parishes. \n\nThe rest of Fr. John's predictions can only come to fruition when these first two elements are built up. But don't we see that building beginning in places, particularly the OCA? Frankly, I am surprised these changes are happening as fast as they are, and much of it points to good.\n\nThe current conflicts in the Church are necessary in order to throw off the lethargy and complacency of the past. We have to break our accommodation with the ideologies of the moral libertines in the dominant culture. They demand with a despotic urgency that those who point to God as the touchstone of truth remain silent in the face of their reproofs and scorn. This slackness, this unwillingness to bear the reproach of those who despise all authority beyond their own, is cowardly. It arises from an estrangement from the God we purport to serve. \n\nAs we recover the Gospel and cultivate obedience to it, a wellspring will emerge that waters the worthwhile and creative work that Fr. John believes is possible and will even happen. We might see it happening sooner than he first anticipated. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in 2008, Fr. John Peck penned the essay “The Orthodox Church of Tomorrow,” a bold and somewhat audacious prediction of the future of the American Orthodox Church in the next decade and beyond. Response was swift ranging from praise to reproof to outright condemnation. Clearly Fr. John had struck a nerve. Three years later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[296],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10505"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10509,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10505\/revisions\/10509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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