For those of you who have been wondering at my abscence, it was because last week was our youngest daughter’s wedding. Therefore, we were quite occupied with all the inevitable last minute details. One of those details is that last week, two days before the wedding, I had the opportunity to chrismate our daughter into […]
The most God-believing nation in Europe and Asia
A person commented on my Tolstoy post by sending me a link from an article in the Christian Science Monitor called, How Russians survived militant atheism to embrace God. It is an article worth reading in its entirety. Below are a few quotes from the article: Sometimes really huge news stories occur that receive almost […]
Phronema and American Orthodoxy
Yesterday I mentioned that there are two great streams of Orthodoxy currently, the Russian and the Byzantine. But, even those streams of Orthodoxy have some variation in different countries. Thus, Romanian Orthodoxy has a different but very similar phronema to Russian Orthodoxy. And, potentially, in the future there could be additional great streams that make up […]
Missions and Phronema
What does the Greek term “phronema” mean? According to the Wikipedia, “Phronema is a transliteration of [a] Greek word, . . . which has the meanings of ‘mind’, ‘spirit’, ‘thought’, ‘purpose’, ‘will’, and can have either a positive meaning (‘high spirit’, ‘resolution’, ‘pride’) or a bad sense (‘presumption’, ‘arrogance’). . . . The term phronema […]
Missions and difficult transitions
One of the most difficult transitions for a mission to a new area to make is the transition from being a church that looks like a transplant to being a church that culturally fits into the country into which it was planted. What do I mean? Well, you can see the struggle in Scripture and […]
Abstinence-only education among high risk youth
Efficacy of a Theory-Based Abstinence-Only Intervention Over 24 Months A Randomized Controlled Trial With Young Adolescents John B. Jemmott III, PhD; Loretta S. Jemmott, PhD, RN; Geoffrey T. Fong, PhD Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010;164(2):152-159. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of an abstinence-only intervention in preventing sexual involvement in young adolescents. Design: Randomized controlled trial. […]
Marriage and permanency
When I first saw this comic today, I read it quickly and was mildly offended at the mother’s comment in the second panel. Then I reread it and realized that I did agree with it. You see, at first I had read the second panel from the sacramental viewpoint. From the view of God’s desire […]
Never Ceese and Augustinian Original Sin
So, you do not know why the book, Never Ceese, fits the worldview of Roman Catholic Christianity? Well, let Father Orthoduck tell you. But, let Father Orthoduck warn you that there is some heavy theology ahead. OK, here is the theology. All Christians agree that the Fall has damaged humanity, but they do not agree […]
Review of Never Ceese
I am finally writing the review on the book Never Ceese which I have mentioned before. Here is my short opinion of the book: BUY IT, BUY IT, BUY IT Ms. Dent has written a book that both follows some of the typical “rules” for vampires and werewolves and yet twists those typical rules in […]
More suffragette tidbits
For those of you who are interested, here is another small list of suffragist tidbits. 1. The first legal woman voter in Colonial America was Lydia Chapin. She was granted the right to vote at a town meeting in Uxbridge, Massachussetts, in 1756. 2. In 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan […]