Family

At Risk Is Nothing Less Than the Right Ever to Resist Again

November 7, 2016November 7, 2016 by Orthodox Editors

by Jeffrey T. Brown –
Vote as if your right to live, to worship, to speak, and to ever be heard again, that is your right to be a free and independent American citizen, depends on this election, because it does.

We have witnessed a series of cultural storms over the last several decades, many of which have altered our landscape. Most have been artificial storms, created and powered by an ideology that seeks complete control over this nation and its future, set in motion to create the chaos in which to implant “progress.” These storms have eradicated our family structures, our nation’s history, our ethical standards, our moral standards, our legal frameworks, our borders, our Constitution, and our discourse.

However, they have been mere precursors to the tsunami that Mrs. Clinton represents. She is the culmination of socialist, fascist Progressivism. She has come to complete the transformation, unless we stop her. We will probably not get another chance. [Read more…]

Americans for Natural Marriage are ‘Confessors of the Faith’

October 23, 2016November 7, 2016 by Orthodox Editors

by Fr. Mark Hodges –
Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church met with famous American Evangelical leader Franklin Graham last week, with whom he shared his admiration for American evangelicals’ defense of Christian morals. Kirill called those who suffer for their stand supporting natural marriage modern-day Confessors.

The head of the world’s largest Orthodox church noted tragic changes in Western spiritual life, including turning away from “Christian tradition” and creating societies in which moral values are no longer dominant. Kirill also noted with regret recent legislation and court decisions allowing homosexual “marriage,” “equaling it to natural marriage that the Lord has given us in commandment.” [Read more…]

America, the Religious Persecution Storm is Upon Us

October 18, 2016November 7, 2016 by Orthodox Editors

by Franklin Graham –
For some time now, I’ve been warning about the coming storm of religious persecution and oppression in America. Over the course of the past year, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the storm is no longer just approaching, it is hard upon us.

The threats to the historic and sacred history of our nation’s religious liberty are advancing on several prominent fronts. [Read more…]

Normality is Not Hatred – Natural Family is Foundation of Civilization

October 12, 2015December 17, 2015 by Orthodox Editors

by James Kalb –
the loss of an understanding of human nature means a loss of understanding what marriage is: the physical, social, and spiritual union of a man and a woman.

Very recently the view that homosexuality is entirely normal has become not only widespread but compulsory in secular public discussion.

Leaders of thought tell us the change has been part of a general deepening of moral insight and improvement in the art of living. The older outlook oppressed millions out of fear, bigotry, and ignorance. We have learned better now, except for a few haters and dimbulbs who need to be re-educated or else shamed and shut up until death frees the world from their presence.[Read more…]

Climbing Together Towards God: Primary Purpose of a Christian Marriage

October 5, 2015February 16, 2018 by Orthodox Editors

by Fr. Vladimir Anderson –

Life is an uphill struggle; the path is narrow and difficult. There are many obstacles, precipices and steep cliff faces along the way. Progress is often slow and seemingly unnoticeable. Like a thick mist, the spirit of the world envelopes the climbers who, losing sight of their goal, turn their thoughts to the easy life in the valley below. Is there any point in all this exertion, they wonder. It is especially difficult for those who climb alone not to become sidetracked or utterly discouraged. For this reason the One Who calls us to the top of the mountain has given to most of us a companion, a fellow-climber, that together we might more easily ascend God’s holy mountain.

This after all, is the primary purpose of a Christian marriage. At the very outset of their journey together, husband and wife must agree mutually to help one another and their children to reach the Kingdom of Heaven. While it is easy to acknowledge this as the goal, in actual practice it is a very difficult and never ending labor. [Read more…]

Forming a Moral Foundation is Vital in Educating Children

October 29, 2014September 6, 2016 by Orthodox Editors

by Anthony Esolen –
The forming of a moral imagination is not something additional in the education of a child. It is the education of a child.

What is remarkable in our age is not that half of our citizens believe it is wrong to kill the child in the womb, the child whose existence, except in the rare case of rape, is owing to our own voluntary actions. That would be like congratulating ourselves for believing that it’s wrong to steal someone’s car, to lie under oath to hurt an enemy, to throw our aged parents into the street, or to desecrate churches.

Where is the great moral insight? What’s remarkable instead is that half of us believe it is all right to snuff out the life of that child – because nothing must be allowed to interfere with our “right” to pursue pleasure, as we use the child-making thing as a sweating-off spa on our way to money, prestige, a five-bathroom mansion for two, a tenured chair in Women’s Studies, the mayoralty of Camden, another year of nights out on the town, whatever. [Read more…]

The Left Is Deconstructing The Middle Class

September 13, 2014September 26, 2014 by Orthodox Editors

by Jack Curtis –
A lasting legend from Russia’s Communist Revolution illustrates the attitude of the Progressive Left toward the middle class: the examination of rounded up citizens by the revolutionaries. If a captive’s hands weren’t calloused, he was executed. That doesn’t fit America; better to enlist the citizens in the deconstruction. Though slower than the Russian approach, that hasn’t proven difficult; the left’s programs are popular with voters.

America’s middle class is a historical anomaly, a result of combining British government and jurisprudence; classical liberalism; a disparate stream of immigrants and an entire new, unexploited; and a lightly governed continent where the prior occupants were no barrier. Add to that an industrial revolution. Though seldom discussed in public now, the resulting huge, educated, propertied, and politically powerful middle class is seen from the left as an obstacle, an impediment to the reshaping of American society desired by Progressives. In short, it accumulates and retains too much of the political power, property, and wealth that Progressives prefer in the hands of government. [Read more…]

Charles Dickens Can Help Us Fight the Moral Madness

September 1, 2014September 4, 2014 by Orthodox Editors

by Anthony Esolen –
I recently observed that there must be something odd about someone who likes to play Naming of Parts with the children of strangers, whether it’s a slobbering bachelor down the street who’s friendly with one kid, or a minor governmental functionary who is friendly with two dozen. For suggesting that parents and not slobs or schoolteachers have the sole authority to teach their children about sex, I was called “bizarre.”

Get used to it, comrades. The collapse of moral values is now shifting into a mad inversion. It used to be considered evil to deprive a child of a mother or a father. It will now be considered evil to insist that a child should have a mother and a father. It used to be considered evil to walk naked in front of children. It will now be considered evil to demand that people stay clothed in front of children. [Read more…]

Conservatives Must Defend Marriage for Principled and Practical Reasons

August 14, 2014August 16, 2014 by Orthodox Editors

by Carson Holloway –
To hear some commentators talk, America’s struggle over the meaning of marriage is already over, and conservatives have lost. Like latter-day Edgar Allan Poes, they are busily preparing a premature burial for marriage as a male-female union. Conservatives should imitate Poe’s protagonist and refuse to cooperate with this ghoulish enterprise, showing their opponents that they and their cause are very much alive.

Recent suggestions of surrender are noteworthy because they go beyond the now-familiar claims from the left about the “inevitability” of nationally approved same-sex marriage, claims that were always intended as a substitute for actual argument about the proper understanding of marriage. Now, even some voices on the right are speaking of American conservatism’s coming defeat and surrender on the question of marriage.

Calls for capitulation are premature, however, for reasons of both principle and politics. [Read more…]

Christian Woman’s Role in the Home: Nurturer of the Spirit

June 17, 2014June 27, 2014 by Orthodox Editors

by Matushka Susan Young –
Most especially we must bring otherworldliness into the home and keep worldliness out by our prayerful attitude.

The duty of a laywoman in the Orthodox Church, especially a married woman, is to keep alive the spirit of other-worldliness which has been so lost today. The beginning of this is seen in the very concept of Christian marriage which is not to be thought of as a source of personal happiness or self-gratification, but rather as the means by which two people may save their souls and bring up children in godliness. All this presupposes a common understanding and mutual struggle.

How can a mother bring up children in godliness? First it must be remembered that the mother has the great role of nurturer. The mother is the first object of the child’s affection because she is his feeder and nourisher, not only of the body, but also of the soul. She must surround her child with an atmosphere of prayer and make of her home a place where virtues are emphasized. From infancy up she can say morning and evening prayers with the child, gradually allowing him to take more responsibility as he grows and learns. She ought to bless her child often, at the least when he leaves for school and when he goes to bed. [Read more…]