Tag Archives: christian perspective

Heaven & Earth (& Hell) 3 – Unraveling the Caricature

There are many threads one can use to begin unraveling the somewhat common modern caricature of the Christian perspective on reality I described in the last post. I want to start with the affirmation of the very basic Christian belief that God is not somewhere else. The Christian God is everywhere present and filling all [...]
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Four Hundred Texts on Love 13

46.  He who has been granted divine knowledge and has through love acquired its illumination will never be swept hither and thither by the demon of self-esteem. But he who has not yet been granted such knowledge will readily succumb to this demon. However, if in all that he does he keeps his gaze fixed [...]
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God Is Holy

I was reading something this past week when I had a sudden epiphany. For the first time, I had a sense that I grasped something of what people tend to mean when they use that tricksy word, holy. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, the word itself means something set apart particularly for religious purposes, something or [...]
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Original Sin 4 – Karma

Although not directly related to the topic of original sin, I think it’s important to briefly touch upon the framework of karma as I explore the ways I interacted with the idea of inherited guilt in my personal journey. Before my turn toward Christianity, the primary lens through which I interpreted and made sense of [...]
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Evangelical Is Not Enough 9

Thomas Howard’s ninth chapter, The Liturgical Year: Redeeming the Time, focuses on the Western version of the Christian calendar. (I’ll note here that it’s different from the Eastern version.) I believe evangelicals struggle with this idea because they have some confused ideas about the nature of time from a Christian perspective. For instance, I hear [...]
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For the Life of the World 26

The series now continues with the sixth chapter of For the Life of the World. Here is the link to Deacon Michael Hyatt’s  podcast on chapter six. For the Life of the World: Part Thirteen In this chapter, Fr. Schmemann weaves a look at the way our culture approaches life, death, and health in and [...]
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A Pluralist Lost In Christian Pluralism

I often have a difficult time expressing my thoughts about the myriad strands of Christian belief without saying things that are prone to be misunderstood. I doubt this attempt will be any different. But I’ve had a variety of thoughts swirling around my head lately and it’s time to reduce at least some of them [...]
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For the Life of the World 17

We now move on to sections 1-2 of the fourth chapter, Of Water and the Spirit, of For the Life of the World. Here is the link to Deacon Michael Hyatt’s  first podcast on chapter four. For the Life of the World: Part Nine As the title suggests, this chapter explores Holy Baptism. Fr. Schmemann’s [...]
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For the Life of the World 2

In this week’s podcast, Deacon Michael Hyatt got through the first four sections of the second chapter of For the Life of the World entitled The Eucharist. I’ve read the entire chapter, but since I am listening and studying along with the podcast, I’m going to proceed at the same pace here. First, here is [...]
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The Didache 10 – The Second Commandment

This series is reflecting on the Didache if you want to read it separately. And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, [...]
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