Orthodox Editors

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…]

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…]

False Hope – The Truth About Embryonic Stem Cells

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
by Chuck Colson –

Embryonic stem cell research destroys human lives. And it’s also destroying the credibility of scientific researchers, as well.

Many of us remember sadly when Ron Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Reagan said he was there to talk about research into “what may be the greatest medical breakthrough in our or in any lifetime: the use of embryonic stem cells…to cure a wide range of fatal and debilitating illnesses: Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes” and more.

Reagan then invited listeners to imagine being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and undergoing a procedure that involves the use of embryonic stem cells. These cells would — if injected in the brain — replace the “faulty cells whose failure to produce adequate dopamine led to the Parkinson’s disease in the first place.” Reagan explained. “In other words, you’re cured,” he announced. [Read more…]

The Fathers of the Orthodox Church on Abortion

Christ, the Author of Life from OrthodoxyToday –
The following represent the teaching of the Orthodox Church from the [early] second century through the fifth century…. Note that penalties, when they are given, are neither civil nor criminal, but ecclesiastical and pastoral (excommunication for the purpose of inducing repentance). Also note that the these quotes deal with both surgical and chemically induced abortion, both pre- and post-quickening.

From the Letter to Diognetus:
(speaking of what distinguishes Christians from pagans) “They marry, as do all others; they beget children but they do not destroy their offspring” (literally, “cast away fetuses”).

From the Didache:
“You shall not slay the child by abortions.”

From the Letter of Barnabus:
“You shall not destroy your conceptions before they are brought forth; nor kill them after they are born.”

From St. Clement:
“Those who use abortifacients commit homicide.” [Read more…]

Planned Parenthood Is About Abortion

Planned Parenthood Abortion Evil by Joseph Lawler –

Whether or not Planned Parenthood survives the negotiations to prevent a government shutdown, Republicans will have scored a victory if the episode draws more attention to what it is the organization actually does.

Planned Parenthood has done a great job of using the media to cultivate an image of a squeaky-clean organization that provides such unobjectionable-sounding itmes as reproductive health services and family-planning aids in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion. Despite the fact that the wider media consistently describes them as such, that depiction is not accurate. It can’t be overlooked that Planned Parenthood performs abortions on a massive scale: 332,278 abortions in 2009, more than one-quarter of all abortions nationwide. [Read more…]

Why God Isn’t Doing Well These Days

Dennis Prager
Dennis Prager
by Dennis Prager –

God is not doing very well these days. Here are four reasons:

The first is that increasingly large numbers of men and women attend university, and Western universities have become essentially secular (and leftist) seminaries. Just as the agenda of traditional Christian and Jewish seminaries is to produce religious Christians and religious Jews, the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists. The difference is that Christian and Jewish seminaries are honest about their agenda, while the universities still claim they have neither secularist nor political agenda.

That is why the more university education a person receives, the more he is likely to hold secular and left-wing views. The secular left argues that this correlation is due to the fact that a college graduate knows more and thinks more clearly and therefore gravitates leftward and toward secularism. But if you believe that the average college graduate is a clear and knowledgeable thinker as a result of his or her time at university, I have more than one bridge to sell you. [Read more…]

What We Can’t Not Know – Universal Moral Truths

What We Can't Not Know by Chuck Colson –
Want to clear the room at a party? Just say something like, “There is such a thing as right and wrong, and everybody knows it.”

The great commandment in this postmodern, relativistic world of ours is this: “Don’t impose your morality on me.”

Obviously, it didn’t used to be this way. Once, if you mentioned basic moral rules like the Ten Commandments, everyone would agree that they were right. Not only were they right for all, but they were also known to all. Everyone knew that honoring parents and telling the truth is right for everyone. And everyone knew that deliberately taking innocent human life, sleeping with your neighbor’s spouse, and mocking God is wrong for everyone. Today all of that has changed.

Or has it? According to University of Texas Professor J. Budziszewski, it really hasn’t — at least not in the way you might think. [Read more…]

Shhhh: Judeo-Christian Culture Is Actually…Superior

Judeo Christian Morality Bible by Stuart Schwartz –
Shhh. I am about to say is something so radical that it will jangle every politically correct nerve in your body. And yet…it is true. The founding and traditional culture of the United States, its Judeo-Christian heritage and boots-on-the-ground decency is superior to all other cultures this world has produced. And it certainly beats the radical worldview (part Marxist, part Islamic, and all thug) that our political and media elites — led by the president of the United States — are imposing upon us.

Scream if you must — but then think. Think about what former Godfathers Pizza CEO Herman Cain — Christian and African-American — and so many others recognize as “the greatest country in the world.” Outside of the cocoons of condescension wrapping the university and urban strongholds of our trendy elites, this is recognized not as jingoism but truth. [Read more…]

GOP: Still Clueless After All These Years

Communism in Americaby Tim Daughtry –
One of the most brilliant strokes of political genius ever was the idea of capturing a nation’s cultural institutions as a means of capturing political power. Unfortunately, it was the Marxist intellectuals of the early 1900s who hit upon the idea. The real path to revolution, they realized, was not control of the means of production, but control of the topic of discussion.

Marxist theorists saw schools, labor unions, news media, seminaries and even the family as fronts in the war against free societies. The power of these institutions lay in the fact that they determine the “narrative” of the political debate. They determine the buzz phrases, which topics get discussed and which ones ignored, who are the “good guys,” and who are the “bad guys.”

So when Marxists come to power, as they did in 2008, the narrative that rings from the institutions is “hope, change and reform.” When the mainstream comes to power, as we did in 2010, the narrative becomes “hate, extremism and shutting down the government.” [Read more…]

We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers

America in Trouble Liberty Cryingby Stephen Moore –
If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?[Read more…]