Category: Worship
He called back the sheep who had been led astray
Today, my Parish joyously will worship God for the first time in our new Church building.
Our Patron Saint is Alexis Toth of Wilkes-Barre. Yes, he labored for God in North America, and was canonized just twenty years ago. He was instrumental in the return of 17 Carpatho-Russian and Galician Uniate parishes in America to Holy Orthodoxy, and also started 15-20 new parishes, so we sing of how “He called back the sheep who had been led astray.”
That’s what he’s done for us who have him as patron, since most of us in the Parish are grateful converts from other Christian traditions (together with a few whose families had been wrested from Orthodoxy). No, I wasn’t led astray from Orthodoxy; I was born astray from Orthodoxy – to devout parents who cast their lot with, and then did the best they could with, what they knew of Christianity in the North American milieu of the late 4os forward.
With our new Church building, we have room for about twice as many strays to come home. Y’all come! 2115 S.R. 225 East, Battle Ground, Indiana. Matins 8:15, Divine Liturgy 9:30.
Today also is the observance of St. Ambrose of Milan, who was instrumental in the conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo, and the 95th birthday of my late father (who, yes, turned 22 the day Pearl Harbor was attacked). He barely got to know anything about Orthodoxy between my conversion and his death, and one thing he read worried him (I won’t go into that now). But God is gracious, and loves mankind, and I’ve claimed Ambrose as dad’s patron saint, who I like to say “is Orthodox now.”
Too bad we’re in the Nativity Fast, because I feel like a party!
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Saturday, 11/15/14
Sunday 11/2/14
Monday, 10/13/14
Pulpit Provocation Sunday
Today is “Pulpit Provocation Freedom Sunday,” which vies powerfully for “most annoying idea ADF ever came up with.”
Here’s the deal. ADF, a public interest law firm with which I have been affiliated and still support sporadically (if you think that’s hypocritical, ask a conscientious liberal if he’s even had to suppress a gag reflex to support the ACLU) is inciting pastors to preen and preach about politicians today.
“Pastors should decide what they preach from the pulpit, not the IRS,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley, who heads the Pulpit Freedom Sunday event. “Churches should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to talk about ….”
To the list of people who shouldn’t decide what pastors preach, I would add public interest law firms trolling for a test case on the odious Johnson Amendment.
I’m with ADF on the Johnson Amendment, but concertedly preaching politics on a particular day sends a powerful message that the Church is something infinitely inferior to what the Church really is.
My concern is only heightened by the realization, acquired over the last 17 years or so, that pastors really shouldn’t be deciding in a vacuum, or according to what “God laid on muh heart” (a cue that a hobby horse is about to be mounted again), what to preach. They should feel powerfully constrained to preach the whole counsel of God by following traditional lectionaries. The alternative is a theoretical superiority of the Scriptures over all human opinion coupled with a very real shrinkage of the canon to a few of Pastor Billy Bob’s favorites (Daniel chapter 7, Revelation 21 and a few others, for instance).
But I’ll give ADF credit for one thing. It’s working against an extremely lawless, arrogant administration, with a cribbed view of religious liberty and paranoia against the Bill of Rights, that just might take the bait.
If it does, I know who I’ll be rooting for: the schismatic religiopreneurs who never thought their show of bravado would actually land them in hot water.
UPDATE/BACKDATE: When sharing this through Hootlet, I was auto-reminded of similar posts in the past. It gratifyingly appears that my response to this irritant has been fairly consistent over the past 16 months.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
“Cheer me or die”: Cruz to swarthy pseudo-Christians
Monday 9/8/14
Wednesday, 7/24/14
- The foes of conservatism
- “Liturgy” isn’t liturgy
- Friends don’t let friends matriculate in the Ivy League
- An expensive endeavor
- Imposing religion
- Gawd’s furrin policy
I happen to be on a bit of a run, but I’m still not ready to return to constant daily blogging. We’ll see. I, too, am trying to live well and balanced.
