Orthodixie

This document is causing quite a stir.

I visited a sick man last week … “Hey, Father, what do you think of this ‘Gospel of Judas?”

I helped teach a 7th & 8th grade Church School class this morning … “Hey, Father, what do you think of this ‘Gospel of Judas?”

You know, it’s just the World, I tell you. Just the World. Dan Brown has proven that there’s lots of money to be made dissing Christianity these days. It’s all the rage. (There’s truly nothing new under the sun.)

Anyway, let me give it a go: “Hey, Father, what do you think of this ‘Gospel of Judas?”

Again, “Gospel of Judas?”

UPDATE: Mollie at GetReligion offers an answer (and, the same icon!) H E R E.

YET ANOTHER … Excellent!

By now I’m sure you’ve all heard the hoopla about the “missing link” recently discovered in Canada.

Even though this find does not challenge intelligent design, there may be good reasons to be skeptical about it.

Really? Read on …

These fish are not necessarily intermediates, explain Discovery Institute scientists I queried about the find. Tiktaalik roseae is one of a set of lobe-finned fishes that include very curious mosaics–these fishes have advanced fully formed characteristics of several different groups. They are not intermediates in the sense that have half-fish/half-tetrapod characteristics. Rather, they have a combination of tetrapod-like features and fish-like features. Paleontologists refer to such organisms as mosaics rather than intermediates.

Source

Click the subject link above to uncover more … uh, ahem! … missing links? (Sorry.)

A move by Southern Baptists to bar enlistment of missionaries who profess to speak in tongues as they pray is stirring some controversy within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

by Anita Wadhwani (The Tennessean)

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention’s international missionary branch say their vote in November to ban the private practice of speaking in tongues – which they call “private prayer language” – is in line with Baptist traditions and the beliefs of most Baptists.

Southern Baptist ministers opposed to the new directive include those who say they or other Baptist church members have been taken over during prayer by the Holy Spirit and made to utter words in languages they often do not understand.

“Are we now going to set a policy that says if God in his sovereignty gives someone a prayer language, we are now going to disqualify them?” says Rick White, pastor of the 6,000 member Baptist-affiliated People’s Church in Franklin, Tenn. “My concern is, who’s next?”

The article.

Toward the end of the article …

Baptist experts say openly speaking in tongues from the pews is a rare phenomenon that is frowned upon by most in the denomination.

My question: What is a “Baptist expert?”

Growing up in the rural South, there were “understandings.” A Baptist who started speaking in tongues would understand the necessity to join the Pentecostal (later, Assemblies of God) church. A Baptist predestined for better business connections might understand the need to become a Presbyterian. A Baptist who moved up the social ladder, unless of course he was a member of “First Church,” would understand the need to join the Episcopal church. Obviously, these “understandings” now need an interpreter.

Wait … isn’t that similar to what St Paul said?

HT: News Forum

Here follows a few excerpts from a worthy piece written by Fr Aris Metrakos of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Columbia, SC.

HT: OrthodoxyToday & thanks to FWD from a blog reader.

The Next Triumph of Orthodoxy

Another Sunday of Orthodoxy has come and gone. Anyone who bothered to attend a Pan-Orthodox vesperal celebration of the final victory over iconoclasm and the accomplishments of the seven Ecumenical Councils — and by all accounts, most American Orthodox stayed home — was treated to the standard Lenten fare: a group of clergy that looked more like they were ready to saddle up and rescue Frodo Baggins than they were to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles, a congregation that resembled a Fellini film, and a sermon filled with self-aggrandizing rhetoric.

After the obligatory pot-luck reception, the ethnic Orthodox packed-up their “Lenten cheese-pies” and climbed into their luxury sedans and SUV’s so that they could go out for some “real food.” Some converts wondered why they gave up Amazing Grace for the Dismissal Hymn of St. Mark (aren’t they both in third tone, after all?). Other converts dutifully wrapped-up their head coverings before scarfing down the remaining strawberries dipped in dairy-free chocolate. Everyone felt a little-bit better about the “Triumph of Orthodoxy”, the prospects for Orthodox unity, and the inevitability of “Making America Orthodox.”

But what is it all for?

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Everyone is guilty of this mission creep. Some Orthodox want to preserve their ethnic identity, others the glory of Byzantium or Mother Russia. There is the pietism of prostrating super-Orthodox and the petulance of the president of the parish organization who has been told by the priest that there really is a Nativity Fast. We produce DVD’s, CD-ROM’s and Websites with ease. In all of our busyness, we forget that Jesus Christ called us to “make disciples of all nations” and to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

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American Orthodoxy needs mission priests, not married monastics.

For their own part, when it comes to the way priests in America are treated, the laity needs to wake up and smell the incense. During the course of his ministry, every priest will suffer withering attacks from people who “do not like him.” These assaults will take the form of phone calls to hierarchs, anonymous letter-writing campaigns, and petition drives …

Go H E R E . . . for the whole thing.

From ZENIT News Services

ROME, APRIL 5, 2006 – The National Geographic Society has announced its intentions to publish an English translation of an ancient text called “The Gospel of Judas” later this month.

Q: What is the “Gospel of Judas”?

Father Williams: Though the manuscript still must be authenticated, it likely represents a fourth- or fifth-century text, and is a copy of an earlier document produced by a Gnostic sect called the Cainites.

The document paints Judas Iscariot in a positive light, and describes him as obeying a divine ordinance in handing over Jesus to the authorities for the salvation of the world.

It may well be a copy of the “Gospel of Judas” referred to by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his work “Against the Heresies,” written around A.D. 180.

Q: If authentic, what challenge would this document pose to traditional Christian belief? Will it “shake Christianity to its foundations” as some press releases have suggested?

READ ON …