Orthodixie

There’s a new Orthodox Bookstore Website … right here.

In addition to Dawn’s & my comments on the recent Billy Graham Crusade, HERE’s Jan Bear’s.

Touchstone:

If the heretics deny scripture outright and the liberals reinterpret it to the specifications of modernism, the Evangelical method of nullifying the Word of God is to ignore what they don’t like and substitute something they prefer, slathering down the whole process with pious claptrap and painfully tendentious “scholarship.” The egalitarians of this generation sound very much like their fathers, referring, in their own fashion, to “the original Greek” to show that Jesus didn’t make real wine at Cana, or that wives aren’t really expected to “obey” their husbands.

… More

Some have fought harder for this than others. Some have been scarred along the way. May God grant a peaceful reconciliation to the Russian Orthodox Church.

THE Anglican Church of the US gave the first justification yesterday of its decision to consecrate an openly homosexual man to the episcopate, arguing that same-sex unions can be open “to God’s blessing and holy purposes” in the same manner as marriage. Read it.
THX: OrthodoxyToday

What Tom Cruise is and what he believes …

According to experts and the church’s own literature, OT-VII (”OT” stands for Operating Thetan, “thetan” being the Scientology term for soul) is the penultimate tier in the church’s spiritual hierarchy — the exact details of which are fiercely guarded and forbidden to be discussed even among top members. It is where a Scientologist learns how to become free of the mortal confines of the body and is let into the last of the mysteries of the cosmology developed by the church’s longtime leader, science fiction novelist and “Dianetics” author L. Ron Hubbard. This cosmology also famously holds that humans bear the noxious traces of an annihilated alien civilization that was brought to Earth by an intergalactic warlord millions of years ago.

This just in! Benny Hinn’s not packin em in … Can his ministry be healed? (That’s the 4 million dollar question.)

Finally …

Birds Prefer to Poop on White Cars
More H E R E.
THX: News Forum

Billy Graham says Bill Clinton would make an excellent evangelist. (Not to mention the Rev’s endorsement of Hil for Prez.)

Lord. Have. Mercy.

Read it H E R E.

Graham called the Clintons “wonderful friends” and “a great couple,” quipping that the former president should become an evangelist and allow “his wife to run the country.”

More H E R E.

After reading the comments on Dawn’s site, I posted my own:

We are all sinners as is Rev Graham. But you know, saying that Bill Clinton — Bill Clinton! — would make a great Evangelist is just plain dumb. God help us! Maybe I’m wrong, but if Bill Clinton becomes an Evangelist, I’ll KNOW the day that Graham so often talks about has indeed drawn nigh. (Come to think of it, Mr Clinton has already helped convince me of that.)

I’ve just returned from a Diocesan event where, in a homily, a priest said that people don’t want the real Jesus. Rather, they want some sort of cosmic religious Barney.

I have tremendous respect for Billy Graham. On the way home from Atlanta, we were listening to the Crusade on his own radio station, WMIT. I was thinking, having gone to a couple of his crusades while a kid, that it would be good for my kids to hear this living legend (and neighbor) preach. I was saddened to have to turn it off. Other than proclaiming that if he died he would instantly be in Heaven in the presence of Jesus, I didn’t hear much of a message. It all seemed to be about himself.

Sad.

At one of the Crusades in Charlotte, I must have been about 12, I started to go forward during the altar call. My mother chastised me saying, “We’re already saved”. But I wasn’t as interested in meeting the Man as I was in meeting the man. I, too, am guilty.

“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Ps.146:3).

A convent where a Romanian nun was crucified during an apparent exorcism ritual was not sanctified by the church and has been closed, an Orthodox Church official said today.

Bishop Corneliu Barladeanu, who is in charge of the Vaslui province, said the monk who headed the convent, Daniel Petru Corogeanu, was suspended from the priesthood and can no longer hold religious services. He was also excluded from monastic life.

“The convent is closed and won’t reopen,” he said.

=================

The article goes on to say that the priest never finished seminary but was allowed to serve because of a priest shortage. The convent wasn’t built by the Church, but rather by a lawyer. It was all of four years old. The four nuns involved in the incident, upon hearing that the priest was suspended and the convent dissolved, struck the bishop and therefore are not among those being transferred to other convents. Zeal not according to knowledge. The Church cannot keep all evil things from happening, but once they’ve happened, it’s good to see the bishop say no, this is not what the Church teaches, this is not how such situations should be handled, this is not monasticism, this is not right.

This post, written by Matushka Ann Lardis, was taken from the Orthodox List.

We took the long way ’round to the Southeast Diocese Parish Life Conference, through Chattanooga, to Atlanta from Asheville, allowing us the opportunity to show our children a peaceful reminder of a terrible time.

The Battle of Resaca, a major skirmish, is mentioned in Gone with the Wind.

The first time I visited this Confederate cemetery, I was struck by the Battle Flag flying solo. Immediately I was reminded that this would have been the Flag that these men, buried here, fought under.

It’s quite different from those who would, these days, use this symbol as a sign of bigotry and hate.

As ever, victors write histories & dead men tell no tales.

May the merciful and all knowing God, as ever, grant rest to the souls of the faithful — those known and unknown.

The following post is from Protopriest Alexander Lebedeff of the Russian Church Abroad. Interesting. Any thoughts? Comments welcome.

I don’t know if anyone has paid attention to the interview that the General
Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr. Samuel Kobia, gave at the
conclusion of his official visit to Moscow.

In the course of the interview, he said that one of the main topics of
discussion during his meetings with the Moscow Patriarchate was the work of
the special Commission on the Participation of the Orthodox Church in the
Ecumenical Movement, which was created at the request of the Orthodox after
the Inter-Orthodox Conference held in Thessalonica in 2000, where the
Orthodox Churches stated that if significant changes were not made
regarding Orthodox participation in the WCC, all of the Orthodox would
withdraw.

Based on the work of this Commission, two important changes were made that
Dr. Samuel Kobia, in his interview in Moscow announced, will be implemented
at the next General Assembly of the WCC, scheduled to take place in Porto
Allegre, Brasil, next year:

1) there will be no more joint prayer among participants. Each confession
will pray separately.

2) resolutions will not be passed by voting, but by consensus

What does this mean regarding Orthodox participation in the WCC?

The most important obstacle, from an Orthodox perspective, was joint prayer
with the heterodox. This has now been prohibited.

Secondly, the Orthodox positions were previously being marginalized,
because of the overwhelming majority of Protestant members in the WCC. This
meant that if a Resolution were proposed on issues such as tolerance of
homosexuality, or same-sex marriages, or “inclusive language” in the
Bible–the Orthodox would have been outvoted.

Now, this cannot happen. If the Orthodox members do not agree, then no
consensus is achieved, and the measure does not pass. Effectively, this
means that the Orthodox have a veto on any decisions of the World Council
of Churches.

With joint prayer with the heterodox excluded, and the Orthodox Church
given veto power over decisions made by the WCC–there is no doubt that the
situation regarding the participation of the Orthodox Church in the WCC has
significantly changed.