This week’s edition of the Orthodixie Podcast is a little different — I have a guest! Fr Danoslav Gregorio, pastor of St Swithun’s by the Swamp in Appleton, Indiana, joins me to talk about his new book: “An Empty Church is a Peaceful Church.”
Don’t miss it!
(Oh, and don’t be late!)
The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.
Why are you astonished since the Holy Spirit is simultaneously with us and in the heavens, and the Body of Christ is in the heavens and with us? Heaven gained a Holy Body, and the earth received the Holy Spirit. Christ came down to earth and brought here the Holy Spirit, and ascended into heaven taking with Him our Body.
— St John Chrysostom
Thanks to FWD from Fr Josiah Trenham.
Y‘all’ve no doubt heard about the new kids’ fantasy movie coming out just in time for Shoppermas: The Golden Compass. It’s based on a best selling (though not in the US) trilogy by Philip Pullman. It’s a good versus bad story … with God being the bad Guy.
(My mind swims to an unbelievable island where God, lonely and needing work, remembers how Denzel Washington, the good guy’s good guy, surprised everyone by being so very bad in Training Day. Wait. Where was I?)
The urban legend source, Snopes, does a fair job with The Golden Compass data.
Mr Pullman ain’t a big fan of CS Lewis’s fantasy novels where God wears a white hat. Instead, Pullman is reported to have declared the intent of his own books is to undermine Christian belief. (Gosh, now there’s an idea! Hollywood, are you listening?)
The movie stars Nicole Kidman who claims to be a Catholic.
Where was I?
OH!
Here we go … The movie stars Nicole Kidman who claims to be a Catholic.
She is reported to have said that she would never have signed on to the project if she thought the films were anti-Catholic. (I imagine Albus Dumbledore, knowing now what he didn’t know then, wishes that he could renegotiate his own raw deal.)
Ms Kidman can click HERE for different directions.
Mr Pullman said: “I don’t know whether there’s a God or not. Nobody does, no matter what they say. I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away.
Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.”
Source
It should be noted that …
While many Christians appear to be quite alarmed by the movie and books, Dr. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, actually supports and endorses the movie. He believes that it is not anti-Christian, as such, but rather anti-dogmatic or anti-control, issues that need to be addressed in the church.
Source
Friends, when thinking about all these things — The Golden Compass and all — it should be remembered that the Castaways, though they thought they were all alone … were not. Rather, forgotten aviator Wrongway Feldman, who had disappeared 33 years earlier, was living on the island as well. Though the Professor finally got him back into the air, he turned out to be of no help to the Castaways … as he could not remember the island’s coordinates when he met up with the authorities.
(Hopefully that last paragraph is clear enough even for the directionally challenged.)
Fr. Joseph:
I wanted to both congratulate you and personally thank you for the book you wrote. There are countless truths in love … thank God, throughout the book. However, the message, over and over, to come to one’s senses, confess, receive forgiveness, and struggle to repent is overwhelming. But, even more so … there is but one choice: Obedience. True blessing lies not in passions but in learning to surrender even our God-Given desires over to Him. Finally, that Struggle is good … keeps me from feeling like a failure all the time and gives me Hope to carry on in the struggle.
Thanks again for … writing such a life-saving and life-giving book; for as you said also: evil is nothing, God always creates, His nature and love cannot be denied …
Thank God!
— Sent via email from a layman.
More on DEFEATING SIN …
Bishop BASIL & Fr Chad Hatfield
Constantine Shepherd, Youth Director
John Maddex of Ancient Faith
Fr Michael Dahulich, Dean of St Tikhon’s Seminary
You can order a signed copy of DEFEATING SIN through PayPal in the side margin (at left) or — unsigned, multiple copies — through the publisher at Regina Orthodox Press.
An Episcopal church invites a Jewish Rabbi, who also happens to be a homosexual, to help them better understand the Bible.
With a bit of characterization and Jewish witticism, Rabbi Steven Greenberg made his point clear: You shouldn’t use the Bible to pass judgment on others. Greenberg shared this belief during a sermon yesterday at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on the campus of Ohio State University.
Greenberg, who was raised in Bexley and is in Columbus for five days, is America’s first openly gay Orthodox rabbi. He spoke yesterday about homosexuality in the context of traditional faith as part of a lecture series sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. He will speak about same-sex marriage at 7 p.m. today at the church, 30 W. Woodruff Ave.
He wasn’t saying that the Bible is not the revealed word of God. But according to Jewish tradition, he said, God gave that word to man and entrusted him to decipher it.
“No one can say, ‘It says in the Scripture,’ to ground any policy,” Greenberg said. “All we can say is, ‘My community says this.’ “
Here’s the Story.
Denise Williams, a four-year member of the church, said she appreciated the sermon’s meaning.
When she heard Greenberg say that the Bible is not “truth with a capital T,” “at first, I was like, ‘What? We’re in a church,’ ” she said.
“But after he went on and described what he meant, I understood. It was given to us to decipher.”
Any resemblance of the image of the Lego Ludo set with Episcopalians the Village People is purely coincidental.
