Sarx

Whatsoever is wrong with the world or whatsoever we imagine to be wrong with the world in our judgement or whatsoever God sees as wrong in the world because of our sin, the simple solution is that we fail to love enough. Neither pity nor preaching nor teaching nor liturgy nor praying nor certainly judging [...]

FTEN, IT Seems, some of the most heated debates (on and off line) start from the assumption that Party A is “attacking” God/Jesus/HaShem/Allah/Something Holy and that Party B needs to leap to “Defend” the Almighty. Please note the obvious oxymoron of “Defending the Almighty”. “Defending Marriage” is one of these. Defending Jesus in the Eucharist [...]

HE MOVEMENT “Community” is a Finnish ecumenical organisation that seeks to include members of sexual minorities (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, etc) in the full life of the Church. I found out about them reading a report against them from a conservative group within the Finnish Orthodox Church, the Brotherhood of St Kosmas of Aitolia. [...]

1) There is a right way to do Christianity and a wrong way to do it. 2) This right and wrong has little to do with “doctrine” per se (debatable, iota-sized technicalities about begetting and essence and accident and que) and much to do with practice (do justice, love mercy, pray for enemies, forgive, etc). [...]

EEN A GOOD Day since my earlier post: UPDATE (1): Fr Peter responds in grace and love and keeping to the traditional teachings of his church. Amen! Update (2) Rick Warren does the right thing UPDATE (3) Rod’s on board. Update (4) The Vatican Chimes in today as well. They all hedge their bets but [...]

HINGS THAT MAKE You want to be an atheist… 1) I do, really, believe there is a right way to do CHristianity and a wrong way to do it. 2) I do, really, believe that this right and wrong has little to do with “doctrine” per se (iota sized technicalities about begetting and essence and [...]

Clicking through the internet, the phrase “Christ Mystery” in a Catholic context sounded at once rather engaging and surprising. Canon Edward West told me once *never* to refer to it as “the Christ Event” because it was dated (this was in 1985, and even then, the theological lingo of the late 60 and early 70s [...]

HE REALITY Of multiple canons and fragmentary textual-versions of the Bible highlights the multivalent possibilities of Text. The church of history is filled with many textual “truths”. It can be a downer if one is a text-only fundamentalist. One wants to see “one truth” that one can follow, instead one is made to see that [...]

ER HOST IS Not alone in not-understanding the Calendar Schism. I agree with Fr Victor (memory eternal!) who said to me “such a division should never have happened”. But I don’t know what end or solution he intended by that statement: I think he only lamented thereby the sorrowful division in Christ’s body. For most [...]

HE NEXT Section of the JRF’s essay, Is Reconstructionist Judaism For You? is the most important. (This is part three in our short exploration.) Those of you who are more-mature in your practice (this usually means Ethnic Orthodox or culturally Catholic instead of the hyper-maximalism common in the convert community) may find here a very [...]