How to Overcome Despondency

How to Overcome Despondencyby Bishop Arsenius (Zhadanovsky) –
One must not delay in warring against despondency, for the next step after despondency is despair – which leads to perdition.

Despondency from Physical Ilnesses
Despondency springs from various sources, primarily from our physical illnesses. In this case, despondency is suppressed by spiritual inspiration, spiritual interests. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, it says in the Scriptures. The holy Apostle Paul was beset by a physical infirmity: [T]here was given to me a thorn in the flesh, he says, …to buffet me (II Cor. 12:7). Saint John Chrysostom takes “thorn in the flesh” to mean a severe headache. However, the same Apostle Paul testifies, …when I am weak, then am I strong (II Cor. 12:10), because he was wholly caught up in serving the Lord. Our bodily infirmities and the resultant despondency can be overcome only by the strengthening grace of God. [Read more…]

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Gay Iconoclasm: Holding the Line Against the Radical LGBT Agenda

Gay Iconoclasm: Holding the Line Against the Radical LGBT Agendaby Fr. Josiah Trenham –
So here is the essence of the conflict, my friends. It is the LGBT versus the JCIB: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Gay propaganda throws such classical wisdom to the wind without a thought nor a reference, as though it never existed, as though these religious traditions do not possess the hearts of the great majority of the world’s populations. They want civilizations to reorient themselves, overthrowing millennia of wisdom, to embrace the legitimization of sodomy and to crown it with the august dignity of the title marriage. Such a cultural redefinition of marriage is suicidal.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Your All-Holiness Catholicos and Patriarch of Georgia, Ilia II: Evlogēson, Despota. I ask your blessing. Highly esteemed and deeply respected brothers, Levan and Alan and Larry, such a joy to be here in Georgia, and I’m so deeply grateful to have this invitation to speak.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, as my father and his father before him. Los Angeles is the birthplace of the LGBT revolution. Los Angeles is the international center for homosexual propaganda and activism, the leading producer of its literature, the primary source of its media, the location of its religious iteration in the so-called “gay church,” and the center of its financial base in Hollywood. [Read more…]

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Classical Christian Education and Public Witness

Classical Christian Education and Public Witnessby Stephen Turley –
If Christians are to remain faithful to the biblical Gospel, we must once again affirm the public witness of the church, particularly in the field of education. For such an affirmation not only awakens the soul to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, but in embodying the Truth, it exposes the state-financed educational system which denies Truth as what it is: a lie.

The emergence of classical Christian education over the last few decades has thrown into relief the question of the relationship between public education and Christian witness. With ninety-percent of children in the U.S. attending public schools, the modern pulpit appears generally indifferent on the issue of private vs. public education for its parishioners; indeed, one might say pastors are generally supportive of public education.

Perhaps the most common rationale for such support is that Christian students have the opportunity–indeed, the obligation–to be “salt and light”, to be “in but not of’ the world”. But what does a faithful Christian witness in public life demand of us when it comes to schooling? [Read more…]

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Christian Martyr is the Opposite of Muslim Suicide Terrorist

Christian Martyr is the Opposite of Muslim Suicide Terrorist by G.K. Chesterton –
A Christian martyr is the opposite of a Muslim suicide terrorist. They are at the opposite ends of heaven and hell. One man flung away his life; he was so good that his dry bones could heal cities in pestilence. Another man flung away life; he was so bad that his bones would pollute his brethren’s.

“About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end.

In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live.

The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and the queer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide. [Read more…]

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Nanny State Insanity: Abortion and Marijuana are Safe, Pregnancy and Soda are Dangerous

Nanny State Insanity: Abortion and Marijuana are Safe, Pregnancy and Soda are Dangerous by George Neumayr –
For the Nanny State Left, abortion is safe and pregnancy is risky. Fertility is treated as a disease requiring “preventive” drugs and pregnancy is seen as a disability.

Under the nanny state, what qualifies as a risk is often perplexing. Its champions usually see risks everywhere, from climate change to oversized sugary drinks to cupcake parties in public school classrooms. They press for more and more safety and healthy regulations in every area of life, demanding that society err on the side of caution. But when topics such as over-the-counter abortifacients and drug legalization come up, proponents of the nanny state suddenly change their tune. Risks are downplayed and freedom is extolled.

The New York Times, which normally favors hyperactive legislation and regulations for imaginary risks, has adopted a dismissive attitude about the real risks of marijuana use. Its editorial board has pronounced marijuana a “substance far less dangerous than alcohol” [Read more…]

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Moral Lives, Repentance, and Confession Before Holy Communion

Moral Lives, Repentance, and Confession Before Holy Communion Orthodox Churchby Fr. Paul Gassios –
Many times you have to say to your kids “no, you can’t do that” even if it means your child getting angry at you; they might even say they hate you when you need to enforce an admonition with some type of consequence when they defy it.

In a similar fashion our Orthodox Church teaches certain things that at times are not popular concerning the lifestyles we are to live. There are times we as priests and laity need to say to ourselves and others “no we can’t do that” and if we do; there is a consequence we face if we choose to ignore what the Church teaches. I have already stated when it comes to matters of faith such as the Nicene Creed, that if we don’t accept the tenets of the Creed and outright reject the confession of faith found in it, one should not come to communion until they change their thinking and can say “Amen!” to what the Creed professes to be true.

In the moral area, if someone commits certain sins such as murder or adultery, our Church canons (or rules) call for a certain number of years where one cannot go to communion and must do acts of penance (i.e. actions to show you are sorry for what you did) before someone can be restored to communion. [Read more…]

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Scriptures and Christian Saints: Homosexuality is an Abomination

Scriptures and Christian Saints: Homosexuality is an AbominationThe teaching is clear and unchanging. Scriptures, Christian Saints, and Church Fathers warned the faithful that homosexuality is an unrighteous act, a mortal sin, an abomination. There is no lukewarm, duplicitous, ambiguous, or confused language in their preaching.

Leviticus 18:22
“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-11
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

Romans 1:24-32
“Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. [Read more…]

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Fr. Michael Courey: Orthodox Church Must be More Inclusive, Welcome Same-Sex Couples

Fr. Michael Courey: Orthodox Church Must be More Inclusive, Welcome Same-Sex Couples On March 12, 2016, as a featured speaker at the Christian Family Life and the Challenges of Faithfulness symposium organized and sponsored by Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in California, Fr. Michael Courey called on the Orthodox Church to be more inclusive and welcome same-sex couples into her sacramental life.

While admonishing those who “place too much emphasis on our sacramental life on exclusiveness rather than inclusiveness,” and bemoaning that “the Church is so oriented towards the traditional conservative view of marriage and the family” that young and old singles “feel there is no place for them in the pews,” Fr. Michael challenged the Church to “embrace and welcome all who seek shelter from the stormy seas of life, traditional and non-traditional families, with open arms and open minds.”

Fr. Michael Courey, is a Greek Orthodox priest serving St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church in Redondo Beach, California. The Huffington Ecumenical Institute (HEI) was originally funded by a $5 million dollar donation by openly homosexual and LGBT activist millionaire Michael Huffington who also supports same-sex marriage. [Read more…]

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The Comforting Doctrine of Hell

Jesus Christ Descent Into Hell, Resurrection Salvationby Leon J. Podles –
Modern Christians don’t deny Death, although they don’t like to think about it, and if they believe in an afterlife, they look forward to a pleasant Heaven. However, the other certainty, Judgment, and the other possibility, Hell, have vanished from the minds of Christians.

Surely God is non-judgmental, as non-judgmentalism is one of the few virtues that receive public tribute. And surely no one goes to hell, if it exists. The strong universalist strain in modern Christianity has many variations, ranging from the hope that all will be saved, held by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Richard John Neuhaus, and perhaps by John Paul II (and with which I feel the deepest sympathy), to a total rejection of the doctrine of hell as a patriarchal trick that thwarts self-liberation.

However, the traditional teaching on hell is in fact a sign of the genuineness of Christianity, and it is therefore a cause for hope. Liberal Christianity is largely a human construct; it is what happens to a revealed religion after human beings finish redecorating it to modern tastes.

H. Richard Niebuhr summarized the liberal gospel: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” [Read more…]

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We Are Far Too Easily Pleased

Jesus Christ King and Lord of All Creation, Second Coming Every Knee Shall Bowby David Mathis –
It’s a beautiful thing when a single sentence reorients a soul for good. When one proposition proves potent enough to be life-changing for the better. Especially when it’s a short one.

For me, it was the spring of 2000 — perhaps you have your own story about being rocked by this shorty from C.S. Lewis. An older student, who was leading a Bible study on my freshman hall, picked Desiring God as our semester focus. I emphatically did not enjoy reading and had made my way through high school and my first year of college leaning heavily on Cliff’s Notes. [Read more…]

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Former Homosexual: Even Harsher Language on Homosexuality Needed from Christian Hierarchs

Former Homosexual: Call for Even Harsher Language on Homosexuality from Christian Hierarchsby Joseph Sciambra –
I will always be thankful to that priest – because, he was not afraid. Some would argue that he was about as un-pastoral as you can get: he named the sin, told me where it came from (the devil and hell itself) and then went about casting it out. It sounds harsh, but sometimes the most invasive forms of cancer require the most severe forms of therapy.

Leading up to and during the October Synod on the Family, countless pro-“gay Catholic” advocacy groups have sent out “calls for the harsh language of previous Vatican documents referring to LGBT people as ‘disordered’ to be rescinded.” Recently, even someone in the “Spiritual Friendship” group, a loose confederacy of self-proclaimed “gay” and chaste Catholics who have been embraced by some in the hierarchy, said this: “…we often stay away from the language of ‘disorder’ and ‘brokenness’ that often surrounds the issue.” [Read more…]

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Christian Pastors Must Stand for Truth, Righteousness, and Morality in the Public Arena

Fr. Josiah Trenham Christian Pastors Must Stand for Truth, Righteousness, and Morality in the Public Arenaby Fr. Josiah Trenham –
You’d be right to ask, I think, what’s a pastor doing at this conservative political conference. I certainly know some of my clerical colleagues are asking what I’m doing here. Some of my own parishioners are probably asking—if they even know—are asking what I’m doing here. The IRS is certainly asking what I’m doing here. That unbiased and non-partisan government agency has been telling lies to clergy for 50 years to keep our mouths shut and to steal freedom of speech in the pulpit.

So let me answer that question, what’s a pastor doing here at this conservative political conference. It is perfectly natural for me to be here. Absolutely natural. Pastors and politics are intimately connected and have always been intimately connected in God’s design, from the beginning, in the old and the new covenant, from Israel right through two millennia of Christian history. Where you have politics, you have pastors. It’s only the Johnny-come-lately secularists who would like us to think and act differently. [Read more…]

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Parents’ Love for Christ and Each Other Makes for Good Children

Parents' Love for Christ and Each Other Makes for Good Childrenby Saint Porphyrios –
What saves and makes for good children is the life of the parents in the home. The parents need to devote themselves to the love of God. They need to become saints in their relation to their children through their mildness, patience and love. They need to make a new start every day, with a fresh outlook, renewed enthusiasm and love for their children. And the joy that will come to them, the holiness that will visit them, will shower grace on their children.

Generally the parents are to blame for the bad behaviour of the children. And their behaviour is not improved by reprimands, disciplining, or strictness. If the parents do not pursue a life of holiness and if they don’t engage in spiritual struggle, they make great mistakes and transmit the faults they have within them. If the par­ents do not live a holy life and do not display love towards each other, the devil torments the parents with the reactions of the children. Love, har­mony and understanding between the parents are what are required for the children. This provides a great sense of security and certainty. [Read more…]

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The Anti-Christmas Atheist Missionaries

Anti-Christmas Atheist Missionariesby William Sullivan –
Every year, atheist groups invest time and money to convey their belief that there is no God, that no Christ-child ever existed in a manger like in that nativity scene (a beautiful representation of hope and life that is apparently an eyesore to them), and that the premise of Christmas is altogether false.

If you’ve ever attempted a reasonable conversation with an American atheist about his or her distaste for religious influence in American politics, you know well that the primary beef atheists tend to have with religion is due to religionists’ assumed compulsion to impose their religious beliefs upon those who would choose to be unreligious.

If you happen to be an atheist, I’d wager you’d still agree with that observation. [Read more…]

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The Pursuit of Happiness: Bear Your Cross With Gratitude

The Pursuit of Happiness: Bear Your Cross With Gratitudeby Fr. Thaddaeus Hardenbrook –
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the Declaration of Independence states, are unalienable rights granted by our Creator, to be protected by the government. Unfortunately the definitions for these terms were never truly agreed upon and, being defined by men, change over time. When does the right to life begin? In the womb or after birth? To what extent are we free? Until we hurt ourselves or others? And happiness, that popular but pitiful word constantly bent to the whim of emotions and impulses.

At the time of the writing of the Declaration, the meaning of the word happiness was greatly debated. Some restricted its meaning to only the acquisition of material possessions. For others it meant absolute freedom. Others insisted that happiness was attained only through the practice of reason and truth. [Read more…]

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