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Archive for July, 2008
Fr. Michael Azkoul, Photius Jones and the gang ask the difficult questions about Augustine
Saturday, July 26th, 2008I just posted this comment to energeticprocession.wordpress.com (my favorite site, hands down). I wish I could see the look on P. Robinson’s and Photius’ faces when Fr. Michael first popped in. Exiting for all of us, especially me, a long-standing admirer of Fr. Michael’s writings. Anyway, you all should also check the comments on my [...]
Anti-Romanides Sentiments On OrthodoxWiki Will Not Go Unanswered
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008I posted an ‘edit’ to the Romanides entry in Wiki. In case they do no accept it (quite possible), you can comment here, of course. Maybe you will see it [here].
You obviously have no idea what Fr. John Romanides means when he says “Franks.” He means exactly what Greeks and Ottoman Turks [...]
westernorthodox.blogspot.com not a dia-blog, but rather a mono-blog
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008Why is westernorthodox.blogspot.com such a popular spot when it refuses to publish comments which ask the difficult questions? Because it is not a real blog. It is a mono-blog. I can’t think of anything more disingenuous or sad. It’s like a talk-show where all the “callers” are really the producers and [...]
James has officially entered the “westernorthodox.blogspot.com” fray
Sunday, July 13th, 2008Here’s my recent comment to a post on: http://westernorthodox.blogspot.com/2006/02/most-unique-orthodoxy-ever.html
I think you guys should chime in, because I think the westernorth. crowd needs to see that I am not a lone nut, preachin’ sola barbe.
Hey “Ille,” just though you would like to know that any first-year seminarian in any Orthodox seminary knows that we [...]
Jeffrey D. Finch’s “Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace. . .”
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008I recently read Jeffrey D. Finch’s anti-Orthodox essay “Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace, and the Breach between East and West,” p. 233-249 in Christensen and Wittung (eds.), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Madison 2007).
The theological errors are so numerous that it is truly difficult to know where [...]
Will the real martyrs please stand up?
Sunday, July 6th, 2008Recently, a simple-minded passer-by noticed my stack of patristics books and pushed his nose into my day by inquiring “do you believe in the King James Bible?” I responded, “Why, are you Anglican?” He then informed me that I should only follow the King James Bible because “millions of martyrs have died for [...]
Ascesis: A Modern Heresy
Sunday, July 6th, 2008A close friend of mine recently told me a story about an experience he had at work in the surgery room of a hospital.
One of the surgeons my friend works with lent him one of those courses on cd about “Books That Will Change You.” I asked my friend–we’ll call him John–who the professor was who [...]
Second Adam: Beginning and End
Saturday, July 5th, 2008This is an excerpt from the thesis I’m writing.
Candid comments are always welcome.
A SURVEY OF THE RELEVANT TEXTS: THE SECOND ADAM AS THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THEOLOGY.
“The fact that Christ did not exist historically at the time of Adam’s creation is of no significance. It is a fundamental biblical teaching that on [...]
The Eolian harp
Saturday, July 5th, 2008 What I found strange in my former realm of study is the fact that English Romanticism is actually Naturalistic, at least as C.S. Lewis defines “Naturalism” in Miracles. If you read poems such as Coleridge’s “Eolian Harp”, you find such passages as:
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That [...]
Tempt Not the Stars
Friday, July 4th, 2008Sample Chapter (1)
“Tempt not the stars, young man, thou canst not play
with the severity of fate.”
–John Ford
That morning the lights were especially bright in the conference room. I don’t know why the conference room—or rooms I should say, for there were seemingly hundreds of them in the building—was so drab and dingy compared to [...]