It has been nearly ten years since Jaroslav Pelikan died and a full twenty-five since he completed The Christian Tradition, his five-volume, 2,100-page history of “what the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the Word of God.” Who was Jaroslav Pelikan, and why does his work remain so important for serious Christian scholarship today? Continue Reading »
Almost three decades ago, theologian Ronald Goetz spoke of the rise of a “new orthodoxy” in Christian thought. He was referring to twentieth-century theology’s enthrallment with the theme of the suffering of God. Continue Reading »
I sometimes see reflections of my Eastern Orthodox faith in unexpected places. Take the hit CBS television show Elementary, a contemporary rendition of the great Sherlock Holmes stories. Continue Reading »
Last Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”—the breakfast salon of the bien pensant—Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Rick Stengel took on Vladimir Putin. Stengel attempted to explain how Putin’s conduct in Ukraine damages Putin’s own interests. Putin, Stengel told his interlocutor Steven Rattner with an air of frustration, “is making fundamental errors” that would get him in trouble with the Russian people. “He’s moving further away from the West,” Stengel said, at a time when “people want to be closer to the West.” Rattner agreed that Putin is being “irrational.” Isn’t it obvious? Continue Reading »
Three years ago or so I received a Facebook message from a thoughtful young friend-of-a-friend. After studying Christian history, she concluded that she knew too little about the Orthodox Church, so I answered her questions as best I could.I also admonished her to discover the Church through its . . . . Continue Reading »
I recall being deeply moved by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’ recounting of his journey from Lutheranism into the Roman Catholic Church (“How I Became the Catholic I Was”). It is a move that not a few have made, with denominational provenance spanning most every Protestant confession. . . . . Continue Reading »
In a conversation about Russian Orthodoxy some dozen years ago, that famous source who can only be quoted off-the-record, the Senior Vatican Official, said to me, “They only know how to be chaplain to the czar—whoever he is.” Such asperity reflected deep frustration over the Russian . . . . Continue Reading »
At the beginning of the twentieth century, those Westerners who knew about the Orthodox Church tended to think it exotic and theologically and culturally irrelevant. Orthodox theology was very little known and even less understood, and perhaps even less valued than understood. The Bolshevik . . . . Continue Reading »
by Frank TurkSo you know: Pack a lunch.And before you read a single word of this post, I require of you that you read this post, by me, regarding this essential conflict involved in talking about this topic. If you do not read that post, and you want to reproach me about my post here, I will simply . . . . Continue Reading »
What is often difficult in getting a perspective on socio-political perspectives is to get past the popular rhetoric and get into the heads of the secular philosopher. So I took Hebrews 11 and reframed it in materialistic terms that would convey the ideas of today’s progressive. This . . . . Continue Reading »
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