I tried to make my way through “The Pilgrim’s Regress” again, armed with “Finding the Landlord: A Guidebook to C. S. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress.” I thought it would help me unravel all the esoteric allegories. I’d love to report that it did, but … nope. I still only partly understand who Mr. Sensible and the […]

Like a lot of churches, our church is always looking for a fundraiser. So we’ve put together a CD of some favorite Orthodox hymns, and I’m shamelessly hawking it on my blog. Yes, I am exploiting the hallowed spaces of the Ortho-blogosphere to sell wares, and I promise to feel really bad about that at […]

Here’s a map that Greg sent me of the breakouts of Christian churches by county throughout the country. (Click on the image to enlarge it).
Well, we can certainly understand why everyone thought Huckabee would win in South Carolina.
Kind of humbling that we Orthodox are sharing the “Other” category with Quakers and Adventists. Boy, talk about […]

It’s two days after Christmas now, and the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio stations have all gone back to playing the usual dreck. Have you ever noticed that the world’s interest in the “holiday season” abruptly cuts out once the possibility for shopping is over? What a world.
And what a pity! Because the Advent season is over and […]

More fun from a collection of his essays in this book. This essay is called “On the Transmission of Christianity” and was a preface to a book published in 1946 called “How Heathen is Britain?” The theme of how in the world Christians can hope to pass on the faith in a culture that seems […]

Back when I was reading “Diary of a Russian Priest,” I happened on a thought by Fr. Elchaninov that one of the signs that a Christian society had become too nominal was a tendency to exaggerate the importance of morality.
It surprised me when I read it, because I had been mulling over some terrible news […]

The Episcopal Church in America (ECUSA) is looking for the next bishop of the Chicago diocese, and their committee has nominated a sexually-active lesbian priest as one of the finalists. Orthodixie has a fine round-up along with excellent comments. One blogger that Fr. Joseph linked to mentioned the ECUSA committee’s “Bishop Search Prayer,” (link HERE) […]

I’m wondering if I can ask for a few names from our church to your prayer list: Nicolae, his daughter Laura and her family.
Laura is a lovely woman from Romania in our church. Her parents came from Romania to visit her for a few months after her second child was born. But the afternoon after […]

(I have a friend who is a serial e-mailer — everyone has one or two of those friends, right? They send everybody e-mail humor, cons, inspiration and supposed news bulletins that are usually bogus (”Send this e-mail to 3000 of your friends!!! Congress is passing a bill to tax churchgoers and casserole-makers up to $30,000 […]

This item came from Wall St. Journal’s “Best of the Web” feature - HERE. It’s short and to the point, and it needs no comment from me, so what’s not to love?
The ‘Crime’ of Being Christian
“Saudi officials have arrested a man in Mecca for being a Christian, saying that the city, which Muslims […]