Orthodox theology

A deep vein winds through human thinking that we are somehow damaged or broken, cut off from something God-given and elementally pure. Whether we are or not is not a question I know how to approach, and yet I find the idea strangely and darkly appealing.

Cultures rooted in Christianity are versed in this myth. We [...]

Fifty years ago Umesao Tadao began a comparative study of civilizations. His ecological view of history （文明の生態史観） holds that the functional analysis of how the components of a culture work together is more telling than knowing where each of the components came from. For example, the development of Japanese society is more similar to Western [...]

Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

And they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

“Seeking Justice, of Gods or the Politicians” considers the changing nature of theodicy—justice of the gods. Theodicy was invoked as an explanation for disasters like Katrina (and still is, cf. PZ Myers’s record of theodicy in action!). But now we are more likely to blame the environment or our leaders.

[W]ith the prospect of thousands of [...]

From today’s lectionary:

Saint Alexander was sent to the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea as the delegate of Saint Metrophanes, Bishop of Constantinople (see June 4), to whose throne he succeeded in the year 325. When Arius had deceitfully professed allegiance to the Council of Nicaea, Saint Alexander, knowing his guile, refused to receive him into [...]

Karen Armstrong writes that “it is both wrong and dangerous to believe that literal truth can be found in religious texts,” and traces the current passion for literal truth among some religions to, ironically enough, the flowering of knowledge during the scientific revolution.

The Christian world is usually framed between the poles of evangelical Protestantism and [...]

For all that is created is changeable, and only that which is un-created is unchangeable. – from An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II Chapter III by St John Damascene.

John’s Sacred Places meditates on the place of the sacred in everyday life. The photographs are of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples—half-hidden behind walls, tucked between buildings, adjacent to street traffic—in Japan.

He writes on the series:

The subject matter, holy or sacred places, is loaded with chances to be overly poetic, nostalgic and trite. I want [...]

From today’s lectionary:

Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe. — John 20:25