The Forge 2.22.12

Have you heard of the Thirteenth Apostle?  He's No Longer an Ancient Curiousity, and back in action spreading Christianity throughout Africa at an unprecedented rate.  This is exciting stuff and should encourage and inspire Christians everywhere.   ht: Jason Rossiter

If you have ever dipped into Biblical studies for very long, you have come across the discipline of Textual Criticism.  Textual Criticism gathers up all the manuscripts and fragments of the Bible found throughout the ages, and tries to determine what is original and what is not.  Orthodox Christians have been proponents for the Majority text.  This means that the manuscripts, fragments, and versions in the majority win the day.  Gabe Martini in his continuing series on the Bible has one of the clearest arguments for the Majority text written without any scholarly jargon:   Origin of the Biblical Context

Recently Catholic bishops made it to Capitol to discuss contraception and Obama care.  Here is one of the best commentaries on the event:  Just Against Abortion

The Abbot of a Monastery on Vashon Island, Washington writes a daily blog that short and insightful, and should be placed in your Reader or daily activities.  Here's a recent one, he wrote on Post Christian America.

God Bless.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Theistic Evolution Orthodox?

Image
Everyday Theology or Speculative Theology? Eagle River Institute, I’m disappointed.  Your institute has produced consistent edifying lectures for the Orthodox Christian. Yet, you allow someone to present on Evolution as if this is the only sensible position for an Orthodox Christian.  It is not! The presentation is upsetting. Maybe you found the arguments edifying for the average Orthodox Christian, but please qualify it. This is a historical aberration and deserves to be contrasted in the light of the historic Christian position. This article stands as a counterpoint to the theistic evolutionary position held by Dr. Gayle Woloschak in her presentation at the Eagle River Institute in August. There are more episodes to come, and depending on their content, I may put together another response. First of all, I am not judging this person’s Christian faith and commitment to Christ and Orthodoxy.  I am not judging her piety or personal holiness. I am judging her ideas about th
Read more

4 Senses of Scripture

Image
Scripture is a critical element in the life of a Christian, but it does not take much effort to see the abuse and twisting that the Bible has endured at the hands of well meaning and not-so well meaning people over the centuries.   To protect against such error, the Bible should be read within the context of the Church.  This means many things but one aspect of context is a particular approach to reading Scripture.   This approach can be summarized as the Four Senses of Scripture.  From early times times, the faithful approached Scripture this way.  Faithful Jews prior to Christ used this method, and it became incorporated into the life of the Church from the beginning.   Later in history these 4 Senses were listed and categorized with helpful labels by St. John Cassian (360-435).  The labels stuck and have been used ever since.   What are they? Literal:   Another way of stating this is literary.  Obviously not every Scripture is meant literally.  Genre must b
Read more

The Problem of Orthodox Culture

Over the past months several Orthodox writers have taken up the topic of Orthodox culture and whether we can create one in this country.  Much of the writing flows out the pens of artists, so I am sure that this is a desire longing for an ethos where there is a richness of art seen in places like old Russia with majestic architecture, beautiful music and haunting works of literature.  I long for this too. What is the critical mass of people for such a culture to emerge?  Evangelicals have had this mass in America for some time, but only recently is there a serious arts movement bubbling up.  Rather than a culture of high art, I propose we are looking for community, and this is the base where we must start. The magnet that draws Americans into the Evangelical world, robust Catholic life, and even stranger American movements such as Mormonism is not theology, but community.  This is a place where you can enter and every part of your life is infected by it.  For these be
Read more