Culture war

Unpracticed Faith is Functional Atheism

Unpracticed Faith is Functional Atheismby Regis Nicoll –
Unpracticed faith—that is, faith without works—St. James writes, is dead. It has no transformative or sanctifying power; it is intellectual assent that descends into paralyzing doubt (or worse), which is no faith at all. That’s because faith is revealed, confirmed, and made perfect by our actions not affirmations (for by their fruits you will know them).

Consider a child, standing nervously at the edge of the pool, coaxed by his father to dive into the water. He has a choice: plunge headlong into the pool where the able arms of dad are ready to receive him, or remain at water’s edge frozen in fear, dithering in doubt. He may sincerely believe that his father won’t let harm come to him, but until he jumps, fear holds him captive in functional unbelief, revealing that his faith is in a danger that his father cannot save him from.

When the “rubber” of belief meets the “road” of decision, a choice has to be made. There is no middle road other than doubt, which defaults to unbelief and tosses us to and fro on the agnostic waves of uncertainty. [Read more…]

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Ashley Purpura: Orthodox Church Needs Women Priests and Bishops

Ashley Purpura: Orthodox Church Needs Women Priests and Bishops Ms. Ashley Purpura, Ph.D. recently published her outrageous “Beyond the Binary: Hymnographic Constructions of Orthodox Gender” article on “Public Orthodoxy.” Relying on secular LGBT language and concepts, she ridiculously asserted that the “Orthodox understandings of gender span a spectrum of diverse views” and maintained that singing certain liturgical hymns are evidence of “gender-bending” Church traditions! Thankfully, Fr. John Whiteford easily dissected her absurd claims and exposed Ms. Purpura’s blasphemous tendencies (see: Public Orthodoxy: Promoting Cultural Marxism and LGBT Blasphemy).

It turns out Ms. Purpura specializes in distorting and attacking Orthodox Church right order, teaching, and theological Traditions. In her dissertation, titled Flexible Fixity: Theorizing, Realizing, and Negotiating Byzantine Ideals of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, submitted in support of her Ph.D. from Fordham University in 2014, she challenges the “male-generated and delienated tradition” used to justify a male only priesthood, bemoans the “problem of hierarchic exclusivity,” and advocates for the reevaluation of the outdated Church tradition of ordaining only men as deacons, priests, and bishops.[Read more…]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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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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‘Apocalypse’ Averted

Hillary American Apocalypse Avertedby Archpriest Alexander F.C. Webster –
In A Christmas Carol, a seasonal favorite that Charles Dickens wrote in 1843, the miserly misanthrope Ebenezer Scrooge is privileged, thanks to the silent, ominous Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, to glimpse his miserable future and lonely demise. Before he turns to read the tombstone inscribed with his own name, Scrooge asks the specter with great trepidation, “Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

In view of the numerous overwrought displays of grief, disbelief, and even violent protests following the unexpected defeat of Hillary Rodham Clinton by President-Elect Donald J. Trump in the November election, I propose that we consider what might have been if the Democrat nominee had prevailed. What are the “shadows of things” that might have been? [Read more…]

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Culture Wars Threaten the Orthodox Church, Our Freedom, and Our Families

Culture Wars Threaten the Orthodox Church, Our Freedom, and Our Familiesby Fr. John Whiteford –
It would be nice if we could ignore the culture wars, but the culture wars are coming after us, our Church, and our families. You can choose what you are prepared to defend, but you cannot choose who will attack what you wish to defend.

There are those in the Orthodox Church who say that we should have nothing to do with the culture wars that have been raging in our culture since the 60’s. They accuse conservative converts of trying to bring those culture wars into the Orthodox Church. Ironically, those who talk like this are usually the very people who actually are bringing the culture wars into the Orthodox Church by their promotion of the acceptance of homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, women’s ordination, and various other liberal causes.

It is not as if the Orthodox Church was full of people who thought gay marriage was a great idea until converts started showing up. In fact, the Orthodox in traditionally Orthodox countries are very conservative, and though, for example, there are not lots of Protestant converts to Orthodoxy in Russia, the Russian Church has taken a very strong and vocal position on these issues. [Read more…]

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The Importance of Saying ‘Merry Christmas’

Merry Christmas - Nativityby Dennis Prager –
The nearly universal change from wishing fellow Americans “Merry Christmas” to wishing them “Happy Holidays” is a very significant development in American life.

Proponents of “Happy Holidays” argue that it’s no big deal at all, and that proponents of “Merry Christmas” are making a mountain out of a molehill, especially when proponents say that the substitution of “Happy Holidays” is part of a “war on Christianity.”

But the “Happy Holidays” advocates want it both ways. They dismiss opponents as hysterical while, at the same time, relentlessly pushing to rid America of “Merry Christmas.” [Read more…]

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Addressing the Moral Leadership Crisis

Addressing the Moral Leadership Crisis by James Kalb –
We live in an age of bad leadership. To judge by appearances, politicians today are mostly driven by partisanship and personal advantage. Business leaders are rapacious and indifferent to the welfare of their employees and customers, and to the value of their products. Artists, intellectuals, scholars, and journalists are more concerned with career and ideology than the good, beautiful and true, which they mostly don’t believe in anyway. And religious leaders make their way by manipulating language and symbols for the sake of comfort and worldly position.

In each case the vices seem similar: unrestrained ambition, loss of connection to those they should be leading, and lack of concern for the goods they are responsible for promoting. Those who aspire to high position make career a sort of absolute, and when they reach the top mostly think of increasing their glory by cultivating the esteem of other careerists, especially those in the media. [Read more…]

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National Suicide? Cutting Off a Society’s Ethical and Religious History

National Suicide? Cutting Off a Society's Ethical and Religious Historyby Archbishop Charles Chaput –
If human laws do not reflect the deeper law of God, there is little chance of survival. That is why people of faith must participate in politics and public life because the current culture rejects God’s law or even Natural Law as a foundation for our society.

We now come to our third point: The law can’t teach effectively without the support of a surrounding moral culture, because law arises from that culture. As many thinkers, including St. John Paul II, have recognized, culture precedes politics and law. Law embodies and advances a culture, especially its moral aspects.

We Christians need to keep this in mind as we work for justice in our societies, despite the very negative climate of today’s culture wars. We should use political means as fruitfully as we can, without apologies. [Read more…]

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Christians Must Reject a Worldly Mindset

Christians Must Reject a Worldly Mindset by Mike Willis –
We must ever be on our guard to keep our mindset different from that of the world in which we live. As we see our age becoming more secular and its morals changing, Christians will need to be reminded that we have really never lived in a Christian society and be willing to be different from those about us.

Every generation of men has its own “worldly mindset.” What is esteemed in one age differs from what is esteemed in another. The kinds of sin that become most predominant from one age to another may shift. Consequently, Christians must be aware of those things that are esteemed by the world, lest he conform in his mind to the spirit of the age in which he lives.

John wrote, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17). [Read more…]

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It’s a Great Day in America

Duck Dynasty Conservative Values Pro Gun Pro Familyby Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh –
“It’s a great day in America.” The atheist left is rejoicing that an NBA player is out of the closet and Tim Tebow, “the often-polarizing quarterback,” as the Washington Post describes him, is gone. Sport analysts and other NFL teams did not think he was good enough as a pro quarterback but he was a very popular player. His overt Christianity was offensive and annoying to the liberal PC police.

We are living in the “Great Diversion” era, one unresolved real or manufactured crisis after another and a disastrous economy, yet an NBA player’s sexual orientation, which should be nobody’s business, demands accolades and public speeches.

The word “courage,” which MSM uses loosely to describe such public disclosure, has lost its meaning entirely. Courage is fighting in battle when everyone else retreats, saving another human being from peril when the rest are cowards, and sacrificing heroically and bravely to the betterment of mankind.

No wonder people are turning away from the ugly and terrible reality to the “pane et circenses” (bread and circuses) reality TV, not just any reality TV, but Duck Dynasty. [Read more…]

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Educating Ignorance

University Indoctrination Center by Janice Shaw Crouse –
The best-kept secret in America today is the precipitous drop in the quality of college since the Left seized power in higher education. Every year, various magazines publish a list of rankings for American undergraduate institutions. Forbes assures parents that “Every school with a Forbes grade meets a high standard.” U.S. News and World Reportassures its readers that they consider a wide variety of factors in measuring a college’s effectiveness. While American colleges were once great institutions of learning, those who know higher education today recognize that “high standards” of quality are casualties in the war against traditionalism and American values. Where religion and love of country and family were once revered, radical Leftist ideology now prevails. Traditional values have been replaced by moral relativism, anti-establishment teachings, and the breakdown of the family.

The radicalization of colleges did not happen overnight. What we have now is a product of past indifference and disinclination to do anything to reverse the spread of Leftist trends. [Read more…]

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Christians Must Not Retreat from the Culture, We Must Work for its Conversion

Christians Must Convert the Cultureby Deacon Keith Fournier –
Two years before becoming Pope, Karol Cardinal Wotyla spoke to the U.S. Bishops. His observation was republished in the Wall Street Journal on November 9, 1978:

“We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine providence. It is a trial which the whole Church must take up.”

And take it up we have. However, there is much, much more to do. The ground has shifted and the struggle is intensifying. Our cultural mission lies at the heart of what it means for us as Christians to be leaven, light, salt and the soul of the world. This is no time to retreat from culture, we must work for its conversion. What is needed are men and women of Christian courage. [Read more…]

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Dumbing Down American Public Education

Dumbing Down American Public Educationby Glenn Fairman –
In thinking about how valuable education is in cultivating the next generation of Americans, my mind took me back nearly twenty years to when I was a graduate student functioning as a substitute teacher at La Puente High School in Southern California. On one assignment, I was to cover a social studies class of some old-timer; he had written down in his instructions that since his classes were on a field trip, my sole duty was to show a movie at 6th period to those who did not attend. What I found that day opened my eyes.

In a dusty corner shelf of the room was a set of thirty-year-old textbooks from the mid-1960s, and although my memory cannot now relinquish their title, their contents burned themselves into my brain. As I flipped through the pages, I was astonished to find what I would now consider an upper-level college textbook under color of what in the high schools used to be termed “civics.” This text contained a very detailed understanding of political theory, constitutional law, macroeconomics, American history, and comparative political systems. I spent the rest of the day in slack-jawed amazement, perusing what a student in a working-class town was expected to know before the mavens of education began tinkering with the curricula of our schools. [Read more…]

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Election 2012: A Church Gone Astray

A Church Gone Astrayby Louie Verrecchio –
In the days following last week’s U.S. presidential election, a staggering amount of analysis has been focused on Republican messaging, demographics and core constituencies, but it misses the most fundamental point entirely.

If the Second Coming of Obama is evidence of anything it is the godlessness of a nation, the majority of whose citizens worship an idol who not only grants free license to practically every immoral impulse that one can imagine, but who also evidently demands human sacrifice to the tune of more than a million innocent souls each year.

This culture of depravity is the result of an underlying spiritual malady that has been allowed to fester and spread over the last five decades virtually unopposed by the only force capable of overtaking it.

The United States — a land wherein class-envy passes for compassion, same-sex “marriage” is accepted as fairness, and contraception is considered a matter of healthcare — is about to reap the just rewards, not so much of a nation that has abandoned the principles of its Founding Fathers, but of a Church that has abandoned its Founder and the mission He has given her. [Read more…]

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