Orthodox Editors

Defending Constantine and Christendom

Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom by Mark Tooley
The destruction of Osama bin Laden underlines how many U.S. church voices, even since 9/11, have adamently insisted that Christianity demands pacifism.

Much of the Evangelical Left, so influential on Christian college campuses and increasingly prominent in Washington, D.C., relies on neo-Anabaptist beliefs. Sojourners activist Jim Wallis, who last week launched a crusade against “cuts” in the 2012 federal budget, adheres partly to this tradition. These neo-Anabaptists demand total pacifism and reject the military. Unlike traditional Anabaptists, they are not separatists, and many exuberantly advocate Big Government control over medical care, food, energy, and virtually all of life. The godfather of sorts for these disjointed neo-Anabaptists was the late Mennonite theologian and Notre Dame professor John Howard Yoder. He joined most Anabaptists in assuming that Christianity was massively corrupted by 4th century Roman Emperor Constantine’s embrace of Christianity. The resulting Christendom created over 1,600 years of wars and oppression ostensibly in the name of Christ.

Constantine famously professed Christianity after winning a military battle before which a cross had appeared to him in the sky. His conversion largely ended Rome’s persecution of Christians and facilitated Christianity’s eventually becoming the majority faith for the West. [Read more…]

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The Danger in Severing God from America’s Identity

America In God We Trust by William Sullivan –
It is beyond dispute that there is a link between socialism and American progressivism. Both flawed ideologies are predicated upon the soundness of a large and powerful government designed to disperse the fruits of labor by seizing means and property from the productive. And as many conservatives are quick to point out, nothing could be more antithetical to the ideals scribed in the Constitution

But beyond the insidious application of socialism under the less condemning titles of “progressivism” and “social justice,” the liberal left poses another threat to America that is less defended. It has, for over a century, laid perpetual siege upon Christianity, seeking to excise all Christian influence from American government and its institutions piecemeal, from banning prayer in schools to seeking taxpayer-funded abortions. [Read more…]

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The Welfare State and the Selfish Society

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager
by Dennis Prager –

In the contemporary world, where left-wing attitudes are regarded as normative, it is a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, emanates from and creates selfishness, while socialism, the welfare state and the “social compact,” as it is increasingly referred to, emanate from and produce selflessness.

The opposite is the truth.

Whatever its intentions, the entitlement state produces far more selfish people — and therefore, a far more selfish society — than a free-market economy. And once this widespread selfishness catches on, we have little evidence that it can be undone.

Here’s an illustration: Last year, President Obama addressed a large audience of college students on the subject of health care. At one point in his speech, he announced that the students will now be able to remain on their parents’ health insurance plan until age 26. I do not ever recall hearing a louder, more thunderous and sustained applause than I did then. [Read more…]

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Death by Liberalism

Death by Liberalism - book by J.R. Dunn
Many AT readers are aware that I have been working on a book project for the past several years. I have mentioned it occasionally on this site, more often in the past few weeks as publication drew nearer. Now zero hour has arrived: Death by Liberalism. The Fatal Outcome of Well-Meaning Liberal Policies is available as of today. (Buy it here.) It’s the first publication from Broadside Books, renowned editor Adam Bellow’s new conservative imprint.

Simply put, DbL deals with the appalling and overlooked fact that liberalism kills. This is no metaphor, no exaggeration, and no mistake. Liberal policies put in place by liberal politicians to achieve liberal goals kill thousands of Americans each year. In the past half-century, liberalism may have killed up to 500,000 American citizens (and this is not even counting DDT or ethanol, which are responsible for a death rate orders of magnitude larger in the international sphere). We have known for years that liberalism is corrupt, wasteful, and futile. Now we know that it is even worse. Liberalism is lethal. [Read more…]

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Celebrating the Resurrection

Christ Resurrection - Pascha Orthodox by Mark Tooley
Hundreds of millions of Christians will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. And after a century and a half of liberal Protestant attempts to redefine the resurrection into merely a metaphor, the vast majority of Christians still believe that Christ’s body physically arose. Revisionist theologians still find airtime on the History Channel or PBS, but their project never gained a mass following. Even most secular media coverage about religion today focuses largely on orthodox expressions of Roman Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism. Whatever their own beliefs, most reporters and pundits intuit that rationalist liberal theology does not command a lot of adherents.

The Jesus Seminar, founded in 1985 to adjudicate over which Scriptures were historically accurate, and which always excluded any talk about miracles, once gained widespread attention for its routine objections to traditional Christian belief [Read more…]

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Why Obama Doesn’t Think Much of Easter

Obama Disregards Easter by L.D. Breen
The media and the blogosphere are abuzz with dumbfounded reactions to the White House’s snub of Christians during the weekend. No presidential proclamation celebrating Christianity’s highest holy day of Easter was issued, compounded by the White House chief spokesman’s scoffing response to reporters’ questions about the omission.

As Fox News noted on Monday, “By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.” On top of neglecting Easter, the president “also failed to release a statement marking Good Friday.” The White House did, however, “release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day,” which fell on Good Friday. [Read more…]

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Why Don’t Christians Help … Christians?

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager
by Dennis Prager –

In 1969, at the age of 21, I was sent to the Soviet Union. I was a young American Jew who spoke Hebrew and Russian and who practiced Judaism. My task was to bring Jewish religious items into the Soviet Union and the names of Jews who wished to leave the Soviet Union out of that country. Upon returning to the United States, I became the national spokesman for the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, one of the most effective organizations for Soviet Jews in the world.

As such, I spoke before synagogues of every denomination, Hadassah groups, Jewish federations, Jewish groups on college campuses. If there was a Jewish organization, it cared about the plight of Soviet Jews. For decades, virtually every synagogue in America had a “Save Soviet Jewry” sign in front of it.

Over time, the plight of the Soviet Jews awakened me to the plight of all Soviet dissidents, whether secular ones — such as that great man, the physicist Andrei Sakharov — or Christian. [Read more…]

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Film Director Peter Weir On ‘The Way Back’ Interview

Film Director Peter Weir
Film Director Peter Weir

Radio Free Europe –

Peter Weir is Australia’s most acclaimed film director, with movies like “Gallipoli,” “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “The Truman Show,” and “Dead Poets Society” to his name.

His most recent release, “The Way Back” starring Ed Harris and Colin Farrell, traces the purportedly true journey of prisoners who escaped from the Siberian gulag and made it to India, via the Gobi Desert, the Himalaya Mountains, and Tibet.

Weir recently visited Prague for the Febiofest film festival, where he was given the Kristian Award. He spoke with RFE/RL writer-at-large James Kirchick about his research of the gulag, his political reawakening, and how audiences are reacting to “The Way Back.” [Read more…]

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The Bridegroom Matins – Orthodox Holy Week

Icon of Christ The BridegroomChrist the Bridegroom is the central figure in the parable of the ten Virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13); Christ is the divine Bridegroom of the Church as described in the Book of Isaiah (chapter 54), as well as the primary image of Bridegroom Matins.

The title is suggestive of His divine presence and watchfulness (“Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…”) during Holy Week and His selfless love for His Bride, the Church.

The Troparion
Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy is the servant whom he shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, oh my soul. Do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom.

But rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou our God.

Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us. [Read more…]

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