Prayer is a conversation of man with God. He who prays with a broken and humbled spirit is filled with divine gifts and blessings — that is, with joy, peace, comfort, illumination and consolation — and he, too, becomes blessed. Prayer is the double-edged sword that slays despair, saves from danger, assuages grief, and so on. Prayer is a preventive medicine for all diseases of soul and body. – Elder Ephraim of Mt. Athos

OrthodoxyToday.org | Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse | Mar. 28, 2009

When Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave his Nobel Lecture in 1970, he quoted this Russian proverb: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”

We know Solzhenitsyn’s story. In WWII Solzhenitsyn was a Soviet Army officer who was arrested and sentenced to eight years in the Gulags under Stalin. In prison Christ captures him. The encounter changes him, so much so that he clandestinely wrote the three volume “Gulag Archipelago” that laid bare the moral bankruptcy of Marxism. His work caused the collapse of the Marxist establishment in Western Europe and tilled the intellectual ground that led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. Continue Reading »

InsideCatholic.com | Deal W. Hudson | March 25, 2009

If you think the pro-life movement has run out of energy and new ideas, you should meet Lila Rose. You may not know her name, but you very likely have seen the media coverage of her various sting operations at Planned Parenthood clinics around the country.

Rose is 20 years old, but she is already entering her fourth year of covert operation, as it were, exposing the underhanded — and, in some cases, potentially illegal — practices at abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood. Continue Reading »

BreakPoint | Stephen Reed | March 19, 2009

The idea that someone else can vicariously take responsibility for your sin and, additionally, impute their righteousness to you, runs counter to their form of reason. After all, isn’t human responsibility for our actions what makes us higher than the animals? If you have someone taking care of your sins for you, well, where’s the penalty? Moreover, where’s the credit for doing good? Continue Reading »

AmericanThinker | Christopher S. Brownwell | March 25, 2009

Why would I choose to be a conservative? Why would I choose the persecution? I am constantly ridiculed for my beliefs. I have been compared to Nazis. Liberals call me a sexist, racist, bigoted homophobe. My intentions are mischaracterized, and then I am judged by those mischaracterized intentions. For example, because I favor policies to help get everyone off of welfare to succeed on their own, my intentions are characterized as trying to keep blacks and minorities poor. These liberals then brand me a racist because they perceive my intentions are to keep blacks poor. Continue Reading »

American Orthodox Institute | March 26, 2009
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AFP | March 24, 2009

Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is “significant” evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.

The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions. “Our finding is very significant,” said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California. Continue Reading »

The Global Warming Cultists will not like these latest developments.
WorldNetDaily | March 22, 2009

Temperatures dropping, fewer hurricanes, arctic ice growing, polar bear population up.
This may come as bad news for Al Gore. The modest global warming trend has stopped – maybe even reversed itself.

And it’s not just the record low temperatures experienced in much of the world this winter. For at least the last five years, global temperatures have been falling, according to tracking performed by Roy Spencer, the climatologist formerly of NASA. Continue Reading »

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AmericanThinker | Ben-Peter Terpstra | March 22, 2009

Is abstinence, in particular, more realistic than promiscuity or less so? Is Christianity more realistic than Oprah or less so? Is the Pope wiser than Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet” tour dancers?

In the Christian tradition, real believers have the audacity to believe that condoms don’t protect souls. The adulterer doesn’t need rubber, he needs a heart check. Continue Reading »

Politico.com | Craig Gordon & Jonathan Martin | March 22, 2009

President Barack Obama said he believes the global financial system remains at risk of implosion with the failure of Citigroup or AIG, which could touch off “an even more destructive recession and potentially depression.”

His remarks came in a“60 Minutes” interview in which he was pressed by Steve Kroft for laughing and chuckling several times while discussing the perilous state of the world’s economy. Continue Reading »

Touchstone Mag | Louis Markos | April 2009

We hold these truths to be self-evident,” the United States’ Declaration of Independence boldly asserts, “that all men are created equal.” This noble sentiment declares unapologetically that all human beings—no matter their age or sex, culture or religion, race or ethnicity, social class or educational achievement—possess intrinsic dignity and worth. Unfortunately, over the last century, America—and even more Western Europe—has increasingly shifted its focus from political liberty to social engineering, from equal protection before the law to sameness mandated by law, from equality to egalitarianism. The focus today is not on equal creation but on creating equality.

This almost obsessive urge to create equality has spread even to the Church herself. The last several decades in America have witnessed many Christians’ slow surrender to egalitarian values and the projection of those values back onto Jesus, the Bible, and church doctrine and discipline. Continue Reading »

Investor’s Business Daily | John Tamny | March 19, 2009

In his 1942 book, “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy,” Joseph Schumpeter asked the essential question: “Can capitalism survive?” His unsettling answer was, “No. I do not think it can.”

Schumpeter’s words were in no way meant to denigrate capitalism. Instead, he felt “its very success undermines the social institutions which protect it.” History in many ways proved his views prophetic.

The success of capitalism means that many are allowed to do things that have nothing to do with productivity. And from government and academic elites that frequently seek to undermine the very system that enabled their cushy jobs, to foundations created by capitalist profits that often dismiss same, the commercial success wrought by the pursuit of profit has created an unproductive elite that lives off the very business profits that it regularly casts a skeptical eye on. Continue Reading »

OrthodoxBiz.com | Glen Chancy | March 2, 2009

Globally, Orthodox Christianity is known to be highly conservative concerning what is frequently referred to as “traditional Christian morality.” In Europe, for example, more progressive and liberal elements of society spare no effort in attacking the Church as a bastion of traditionalist repression, especially concerning homosexuality.

Ironically, however, in the United States an image seems to be growing of the Orthodox Church as more liberal towards sexual sins than, for example, the Evangelical denominations. Quite a few people, judging by chatter on the Internet, are getting the impression that Orthodoxy is similar to the Episcopal Church in respect to moral issues. Continue Reading »

AmericanThinker | Steven Plaut | March 16, 2009

Marxists claim that Marxism is a science. It is not. It is a sort of pagan religious cult. It is a theology. It is a form of superstition.

Marxists claim that Karl Marx understood capitalism and economics. He did not. They also claim that the entire validity of Marx’s set of theories on all subjects rests ultimately on how valid Marxist economic thought is. Marxist economic thought was completely wrong. Continue Reading »