Category: Orthodoxy

A Counterculture of Modesty

From The Guardian, a book review titled The first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century, begins with an unqualified assumption:

We believe in sexual freedom. We take it for granted that consenting men and women have the right to do what they like with their bodies. Sex is everywhere in our culture. We love to think and talk about it; we devour news about celebrities’ affairs; we produce and consume pornography on an unprecedented scale. We think it wrong that in other cultures its discussion is censured, people suffer for their sexual orientation, women are treated as second-class citizens, or adulterers are put to death.
Yet a few centuries ago, our own society was like this too …. Continue reading “A Counterculture of Modesty” →

MED Christianity

Last year, I read Timothy Ferris’ new book, The Four-Hour Body. He’s a fan of the idea of the minimum effective dose (MED): “the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome.” He applies it to things like time in the gym, surprising the reader with phenomenal muscle gains and fat loss with just 2 30-minute workouts per week. “Why waste your time on anything beyond what it takes to produce the desired result?,” is the unsurprising question/message from the author of The Four Hour Work Week. Continue reading “MED Christianity” →

True Religion, False Religion

Wow! Father Andrew Stephen Damick sure knows stumbled onto how to drive up blog traffic!

The Contemporary Christian Music equivalency tables probably say “If you like Eminem, you might like  .” Said Bethke perpetrated a YouTube rap/rant titled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.” It seems that 12,000,000 people have consented to watching it. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Continue reading “True Religion, False Religion” →

Insouciant Radicals

I have mentioned fairly recently the work of Evangelical Daniel Clendenin in understanding Orthodoxy and explaining it to his fellow Evangelicals. I discovered Sunday afternoon that I actually had retained a copy of  (and a link to) his “Why I’m Not Orthodox” article in Christianity Today, and that I had inaccurately recalled the exact words of his conclusion on why he remains Evangelical. Continue reading “Insouciant Radicals” →

Tofu Tidbits* 12/10/11

  1. Medical toking.
  2. Humorless, grim Soviet conservatism.
  3. I’m insular; how about you?
  4. Fashion forecast: stasis.
  5. Humanists find a god.
  6. Progressivism in 4 points.
  7. Polar political points.
  8. The heart led the head.

* Temporarily renamed in honor of the Nativity Fast, about which Mystagogy has some more information.

Continue reading “Tofu Tidbits* 12/10/11” →

Tofu Tidbits* 12/9/11

  1. A single point of light.
  2. Science and Faith.
  3. Football and Faith.
  4. Decorating Politics with Slogans.
  5. Hormones and Life Savers.
  6. Civil and mature debate my way, you &#!!%^^!.
  7. Danu
  8. Othello

* Temporarily renamed in honor of the Nativity Fast, about which Mystagogy has some more information.

Continue reading “Tofu Tidbits* 12/9/11” →

Godbaby (and mom)

Back in my Conscientious Objector days, I had a passionate pacifist quote from Menno Simons (whence Mennonite, I believe) on my wall for several years, and even tried attending a Mennonite church because of their historic pacifism. I was kindly disposed toward them.

So that was the first reason it especially caught my attention when I came across this Thursday night:

Another Radical Reformation theologian set forth a Christology that said the Son of God became man not “of the womb” of Mary, but rather simply “in the womb” (Menno Simons), which means that Jesus’ humanity is a new creation, not an assumption of the humanity created in Adam. Mary becomes a kind of surrogate mother, and Jesus is not truly a member of our race.

(Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems through the Lens of the Ancient Christian Faith) So I’d been unwittingly flirting with a novel (yes, 500 years old is “novel”) Christology, though even then, I knew that Christology was where most cults (in the theological sense, not necessarily sociological) became cultic. (For the record, I don’t know if Menno Simons’ Christological heresy is held by Mennonites today.)

It caught my attention for a second, bigger, reason: I heard this same sort of “Mary was just a conduit for the godbaby, Jesus” thing from a Breathless Woman’s Inspirational Show on WMBI in Chicago (flagship station for Moody Bible Institute’s mainstream Evangelical radio network) while driving a Chicago expressway, and I startled my wife when my head exploded at the heresy of it. (I’ve learned a few things in 40 years.)

Breathless Woman’s Inspirational Show is a peculiar radio genre. I can literally tell, within seconds, that I’m listening to “Christian” radio, just by the tone of voice, even if what the hostess is saying is “take two eggs and fold them into two cups of flour.” It’s the same with CCM (Contemporary Christian Music); I’ll know within eight bars, apart from the lyrics, that this is “Christian” music.

But BWIS is a little like Rush Limbaugh in a way. These “ministries” are on the air so many hours per week that they can’t possibly be working from a script – not a real, written one, anyway.

So on the one hand, I need to cut heretical Breathless Woman’s Inspirational Show hostess a little slack. She may not really have meant it. She surely hasn’t thought it through.

But she has an unwritten Romophobic script: don’t say anything about the Virgin Mary that might give aid and comfort to Catholicism. So “incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary” blithely becomes “Wow! Isn’t it amazing! Mary allowed her womb to be used so Jesus could zoop down to earth through her! What a gal! (Not that she’s anything more than an inspiring example, mind you.)”

I cannot cut that any slack at all, even if I cut some slack for the airhead ministress that utters it.

In contrast (and here, I enter dangerous territory, because I’m blogging without taking time to look up everything), the historic teaching is:

  • “And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man ….” (Nicene Creed)
  • What is not assumed is not redeemed. (St. Athanasius, I believe). Jesus had to be a full member of the human race to redeem the human race.
  • “Who’s the only human who ever gave God something that He didn’t already have?” (Riddle) Answer: The Virgin Mary gave God human flesh.
  • “… ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father ….” (Nicene Creed) Note: human flesh, which the second person of the Holy Trinity assumed permanently, is seated at the Father’s right hand right now. (Salvation is bigger than you may have thought.)

And that, folks, is why we call her Theotokos or just “Mother of God.”

But if you’d rather be a heretic than give aid and comfort to Roman Catholicism (and Orthodoxy, and the Magisterial Reformation), it’s a free country. Just don’t say I didn’t tell you.

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