Conversation with Doug LeBlanc

[Ancient Faith Radio; October 4, 2007]

Frederica: There goes the bell on the door of the Virginia Barbeque, I guess that’s the name, the simple name of this place. We’re sitting here, my friend Doug LeBlanc and I, on the main street leading into Ashland, Virginia where Randolph-Macon College is, really a gorgeous little town. And Virginia Barbeque is set in a house that looks to me like from about 1900; it’s a charming little house with a front porch and an American flag waving out there, and what’s unusual is they don’t do just one kind of barbeque. You can get Texas, North Carolina, or Virginia style. They did not have South Carolina style, which I was deeply disappointed about, because that’s the best. I’m sitting here talking to my friend Doug, whom I’ve known since, I think it was 1991 when we met for the first time, wasn’t it?

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Problematic Honor

[Ancient Faith Radio, September 27, 2007]

Last May, Father Thomas Hopko gave the commencement speech at St. Vladimir’s Seminary.  Somebody forwarded me the text of this, and it’s so terrific.  I sent it on to the members of my family, and the subject line I used was, ‘A Hopko scorcher!’ because he can really be pretty scorching, when he gets going. 

One thing that particularly interested me toward the end of this speech was he started talking about a book by CS Lewis.  He says, ‘I think all thinking Christians, surely all seminary students and graduates, should be required to read it, the most incisive analysis of what has happened to humanity in the last fifty years.’  CS Lewis’ book, The Abolition of Man, 1944.  It is rather a short book; I think it’s a series of three or four lectures that Lewis gave. 

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Franchise Row

[Ancient Faith Radio; September 19, 2007]

It’s a hot Tuesday afternoon.  I’m here at – I’m embarrassed to say where I am – I’m in the parking lot at Taco Bell; I’m just about to go through the drive through and get some lunch.  But I just pulled over for a minute to look around this corner.  You have this corner where *you* live.  At this stoplight I can see there’s Panera Bread, Office Depot, Lowes Home Supply, Walgreens, Kmart, Target, Toys R Us, Best Buy.  That just scratches the surface, you know?  It’s everything that clusters together, like birds of a feather: these big box stores and these very big standard franchise outlets, all over the country.  It doesn’t matter where I go, you know, if I’m east coast, west coast, north or south, this same stuff, this is the landscape everywhere you go. 

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Dating vs Courtship

[Ancient Faith Radio; August 2, 2008]

Frederica: We’re at Five Guys Burgers, which is the best burgers in Baltimore, and everybody is chowing down except me, because I came late, so mine is still on order.  These are some pretty hefty burgers.  In Pasadena.  They just opened one of these in Pasadena; I got the word from the end of the table.  Our Pasadena.  Pasadena, Maryland.  And Jocelyn sent me something she’d written earlier today about dating, and ‘I kissed dating goodbye,’ versus ‘I gave dating a chance,’ versus people should just do courtship.  And you’d read an article by somebody who said he’s very much in favor of courtship, but the problem is when people meet for the first time, they want to get to know each other.  They’re not ready to jump into courtship.  So his solution was parents should absolutely control every moment of their children’s lives, and children should know that their parents are going to choose their mate when they’re grown up.  They will have no choice whatsoever.  I don’t think that’s completely feasible [laughter] but it does show that even for people who are kind of opposed to the dating whirl, what’s the alternative?  So, what do you think? Jocelyn?  My daughter-in-law Jocelyn, married to my handsome son Steve.  Did you and Steve date?

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Victoria's Secret

[Ancient Faith Radio; July 26, 2007]

This shopping mall, Arundel Mills Mall, is one (I think) of a national chain of malls, the Mills malls.  All of them are made up of a lot of discount stores.  We’ve got a discount Saks 5^th Avenue, a discount Neiman Marcus; there’s always an Outdoor World, I can see that over there.  There’s a Bed Bath & Beyond, a, what’s it called? Birmingham Coat Factory? That doesn’t sound right.  Burlington! Burlington Coat Factory.  So it’s a big mall; it’s built in a circular shape so as you walk around it, I think it’s a whole mile if you walk all the way around the circuit.  And it’s a great place for people to come with kids because you can walk, it’s air conditioned, it’s warm in the winter.  And as you go along, there are different, kind of, themes, as you go from section to section.  Right now, you might be able to hear this electronic sound of a cricket overhead.  And there goes a loon or something.  This section here is supposed to be like, you’re out in a marsh and there are giant dragonflies and butterflies hanging overhead and a bench – a sort of circular thing to sit on – that’s a great big water lily. 

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The Emerging Church and Orthodoxy

[Precipice Magazine, July 2007]

1.) Can you offer some insight about how the Orthodox Church understands evangelism? Do you feel that, overall, that it is considered a priority when compared with Protestant Evangelicalism?

The Orthodox Church has a beautiful history of evangelism — but, unfortunately, it is largely history. A factor we tend to forget, which has made the path of Eastern Christianity so different from that of the West, is that for the most part they have not been free. Many Orthodox lands have been under Muslim rule for over a millennium, virtually since Islam began.

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Bonnaroo

[Ancient Faith Radio; June 21, 2007]

Frederica: I’m sitting here on the sofa in the blue room in my house with my son Stephen, who has a red wristband on that says ‘Bonnaroo.’  Does it say ‘Bonnaroo 07’ or just ‘Bonnaroo?’ 2007.  And on the other sofa is Jocelyn, I think fast asleep.  Yeah, she’s fast asleep.  They’re exhausted because last night at this time they were just getting in the car to leave the Bonnaroo music festival and they had an 11-hour drive and have done laundry and a number of other things in between.  Steve, when was the first time you and Jocelyn went to Bonnaroo?

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Barbara Nicolosi on Hollywood for Christians

[Ancient Faith Radio; June 15, 2007]

Frederica: Here we are.  I’m at a beautiful outdoor café, what was the name of this place?  I’ve forgotten already.  Tree, something, Italiano, I think. [Laughs]  I’m looking around, I’m trying to see if there’s a sign.  Anyway, I’m in Malibu Village in Malibu, California on an overcast day.  It’s pleasantly cool; it’s just perfect here, as it so often is.  June gloom, I’m told.  I’m sitting here with my friend, Barbara Nicolosi, who is a screenwriter, who is a teacher of screenwriting and has a number of other talents and one of the things that frustrates her is Christians that think they’re going to write a screenplay and convert the world to Christianity with a script that is pretty unprofessional.  But let me let you speak for yourself; just start in anywhere.  Hit it, Barbara.  They can’t see you moving your hands and making faces; you’ve actually got to – [laughs]

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Muvico

[Ancient Faith Radio; June 8, 2007]

This movie theater here: the Muvico 24, is just south of Baltimore and it’s such a hoot.  I don’t know too much about this company, this chain, Muvico theaters, but they build their theaters to have these grandiose themes, and this one is Egyptian temple, that’s the theme we have going on here.  As you approach this 24-auditorium theater, there are these huge columns with big capitols on top.  Everything looks like it’s destroyed, like it’s in ruins.  It all has cracks painted into it, Egyptian figures going around these columns.  I’m guessing there’s about 20 columns with black bases and then the sandstone rising up above that.  Huge multi-colored panels and snake heads and all kinds of crazy things. 

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Open Season on Beauty

[Dallas Morning News, October 1, 2006] 

 “I didn’t like the part in the restaurant,” Hannah, my 6-year-old granddaughter, said. We were leaving a screening of Sony’s new animated feature, “Open Season,” and I was trying to remember any scene in a restaurant. When she said it was “too messy,” I realized that she meant an early scene where the movie’s lead characters, a suburban bear and a one-antlered deer, run loose in a mini-mart.

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