Orthodox Editors

How to Destroy a Culture in 5 Easy Steps

Joe Carter - First Things
Joe Carter

by Joe Carter (First Things) –

In his book The Future of Marriage, David Blankenhorn, a liberal, gay-rights-supporting Democrat and self-professed “marriage nut,” offers this sociological principle: “People who professionally dislike marriage almost always favor gay marriage.” As a corollary, Blankenhorn adds: “Ideas that have long been used to attack marriage are now commonly used to support same-sex marriage.”

Blankenhorn provides almost irrefutable proof that this is the expressed agenda of many—if not most—professional advocates of same-sex marriage. Other scholars have noticed the same and have attempted to present the public with the facts about the less-than-hidden agenda to use homosexual rights to deinstitutionalize marriage and to separate sexual exclusivity from the concept of “monogamy.”

Since the agenda is an open secret, how has this anti-marriage program been able to advance to the level of public policy? And how did it happen so quickly? [Read more…]

The American Creed: ‘We hold these truths…’

America Freedom Creed Truths by Chuck Colson –
The great British intellectual G. K. Chesterton wrote that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on [a] creed.”

Think about that for a moment. Other nations were founded on the basis of race, or by the power of kings or emperors who accumulated lands—and the peasants who inhabited those lands.

But America was—and is to this day—different. It was founded on a shared belief. Or as Chesterton said, on a creed.

And what is that creed that sets us apart? It is the eloquent, profound, and simple statement penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” [Read more…]

On Independence Day: The Gift of Life

Life is a Gift from Godby Fr. James Farfaglia –
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). We have heard and read these famous words many times. Yet, it should be interesting for us to note that of the three fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the founding fathers of our nation recognize life as the first of these three unalienable rights.

Why is the right to life the first of these God given rights?

Life is a gift from God. The first pages of the Holy Bible direct our gaze to the awesome gift of life. [Read more…]

American Leftism: An Infantile Disorder

American Leftists Cry Baby Democrats by Victor Volsky –
In his fascinating essay “The Metaphysics of Contemporary Theft” describing the rising tide of parasitism engulfing the U.S., Victor Davis Hanson suggests that the Obama Administration only pretends to want to destroy the American way of life so as not to deprive itself of its source of sustenance:

Its real goal is a sort of parasitism that assumes the survivability of the enfeebled host. That does not mean it has not done a lot of damage and will not do even more in the next two years; only that it never quite wanted to see cap and trade legislation enacted, blanket amnesty, Guantanamo shut down, or Predators ended; these were simply crude slurs by which to demonize Bush, ways of acquiring power and influence, but not a workable plan of living. Note that Obama is now zealous on just those issues which he could have easily rammed through his Democratically controlled congress in 2009-10 when he had large majorities, such as amnesty and cap and trade

[Read more…]

In a New York Minute: Coming Persecution of Christians over True Marriage?

New York marriage - persecution by Deacon Keith Fournier –
The truth about marriage is not only a ‘religious’ construct, it is objectively true

The leaders of the homosexual equivalency movement are dedicated to building a society where the positive law of the Nation forces us all to call to be a marriage what can never be a marriage – or face the police power of the State. They scored what they believe was a decisive “victory” for their brave new world in New York last week. History will prove them wrong. However, with the tragic act of the legislature in New York, hostility toward Christians will continue to grow.

Sadly, even those who knew they were doing something which violated the Natural Law and threatens the common good – voting to call something a marriage which can never be a marriage – succumbed to the pressure of the mob last week. And the mob celebrated in the streets of New York on Sunday. The mob also placed on display some of the behaviors which will soon be protected by the positive or “civil” law of the State. To borrow from the refrain of the old Eagles song, “In a New York Minute, everything can change. In a New York Minute, things can get pretty strange.” [Read more…]

President Quixote’s Legacy: Confused, Ill-Educated and Not Too Bright

Incompetent in Chief Obama by Monty Pelerin –
The number of Obama supporters seems inversely related to his time in office. Many wonder what happened to “The One We Are Waiting For.”

Obama assumed office in difficult economic times. After a couple of years of excuses — which included “the problems were worse than we knew” and the generic, all-purpose “it’s Bush’s fault” — Obama now owns the original problems and new ones of his own doing. An incomplete report card on his “accomplishments” would include the following:

  • the economy worsened
  • discretionary military efforts (“kinetic” if you prefer) increased
  • an unpopular, flawed health care plan was forced on the public
  • inflation increased, especially in critical goods like food and gasoline
  • job prospects decreased
  • the stimulus failed miserably
  • “transparency in government” became a laugh-line for late night TV
  • corruption in government accelerated to Chicago-style warp speed [Read more…]

Stefan Kanfer: Curb Your Dogma

Catholic Schools Matter by Stefan Kanfer

Apostate David Mamet confronts the secular religion of liberalism.
“I had my first conversation with a conservative at the age of 60.” On the face of it, that claim seems absurd: David Mamet must have dwelt in a hermetically sealed environment for six decades. But the playwright/director is telling the truth; he’s spent his career in show business, an ecosystem as airtight as academia.

Unlike so many of his colleagues, however, Mamet began to question the shibboleths and doctrines he had long taken for granted. In four years, the 64-year-old moved inexorably from left to right, like the hour hand on a clock. In The Secret Knowledge, his latest collection of essays, he confesses that “I examined my Liberalism, and found it like an addiction to roulette. Here, though the odds are plain, and the certainty of loss apparent to anyone with a knowledge of arithmetic, the addict, failing time and time again, is convinced he yet is graced with the power to contravene natural laws.” But there was a profound difference; the gambler hurts primarily himself. “The great wickedness of Liberalism, I saw, was that those who devise the ever new State Utopias, whether crooks or fools, set out to bankrupt and restrict not themselves, but others.” [Read more…]

Economic Slavery: Modern-Day Indentured Servitude

Economic Slavery Indentured Servitude by Frank Ryan –
The “tax the rich” hysteria gripping this nation is absolute insanity. Cries to raise taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 or some other magical number are unbelievable.

As a CPA, I find the “tax the rich” schemes to be pure junk science. To that end, the illogical precepts underpinning these arguments must be exposed. (Incidentally, by way of full disclosure, I would not be personally affected by these tax increases. I merely want to expose the scheme for the fraud that it is.)

Many in Congress have attempted to make earning an income distasteful, so those pitiable enough to earn an income are subjected to public scorn. Politicians and many in the media are collectively pushing policies to “punish those people” by taxing them into economic slavery and involuntary servitude. [Read more…]

Bishop Michael: Affirming the Sanctity of Marriage

Bishop Michael OCA OrthodoxARCHPASTORAL LETTER RE-AFFIRMING THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE

June 24, 2011 Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Beloved Fathers and Mothers, Brothers and Sisters in the Lord:

Christ is in our midst! – He is and ever shall be!

On this very day, we have witnessed the successful efforts of public officials in the State of New York to legally re-define the meaning of marriage to include unions between two persons of the same gender. It is important for us, as Christians of the Orthodox Church, preserving the Tradition of teaching the truth handed down by the Lord Himself, “the faith which was once for all delivered to the Saints” (Jude 3), to re-affirm the meaning of marriage given to us in His Sacred Scripture.

In the document, Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctify of Life, written and adopted by the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America in 1992, we read (in part) the following summary of the teaching of our Faith on this matter:

(1) God wills that men and women marry, becoming husbands and wives. He commands them to increase and multiply in the procreation of children, being joined into “one flesh” by His divine grace and love. He wills that human beings live within families (Genesis 1:27; 2:21-24; Orthodox Marriage Service). [Read more…]

Yes, We Still Have a Prayer

Pray for America prayer important by Quin Hillyer –
Pray. Really. Pray. Praying might just be what we need if we want this blessed country to thrive as a beacon of freedom.

It’s always a bit of a risk, and can be borderline off-putting, to intertwine prayer and politics in an overt way, or even to seem to do so. Readers or listeners rightly recoil when somebody suggests that God takes sides in politics, or that his (the person’s) own politics are more godly than that of his opponents, or (worse) that he undertook his own candidacy or cause because God “told” him to do so. That’s not what this is about. This also isn’t one of those “the-sky-is-falling” sorts of rants in which the point is that the nation is somehow on the verge of utter disaster and can be saved only by openly miraculous, divine intervention. Things aren’t great in the good’ol USA right now, but we’re not (quite) at that extremity yet.

Instead, at issue here is something more subtle. At issue is a country that has lost its way, in part because far too many millions of its individual citizens have lost their own way in their daily lives. [Read more…]