essays

Deep in the heart of a typical American city there is a magnificent old Orthodox church. The community housed here was founded about a hundred years ago, a gathering of families who had emigrated from Greece, Russia, Syria, or some other ethnically-Orthodox land.

These newcomers found America vast, confusing, and intimidating. They banded together and formed a congregation, then called a priest from the “old country.” The growing parish was an island of familiarity, a place where they could not only worship in the language they longed all week to hear, but also share news from home, enjoy the foods and dancing that eased homesickness, and choose mates for their growing children.

Time passed. The parishioners saved up and bought a church building from a Protestant congregation. They beautified it lavishly, with icons that looked vaguely Italian, in a 19th century devotional style.

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[Beliefnet: March 23, 2006] 

Hell has never been a fashionable destination, but it in recent years it's met a fate that even the most passé hotspots don't endure; people suspect it doesn't exist. Or, if it does exist, it attracts no customers; "we are permitted to hope that hell is empty" is how this is sometimes phrased. Even the most conservative Christians have a hard time putting a positive spin on a wrathful God who flings evildoers into flaming torment.

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[Sojourners, April 2006]

On a November evening a couple of weeks after the 2004 election, the regular monthly meeting of Orthodox Young Adults was held at my house. These 20 or 30 college students and young professionals are Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area.

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[National Review Online, March 17, 2006] 

 
There's something exhilarating about watching a clever liar in full, resplendent flight. Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhardt) has what he cheerfully describes as a "challenging" job: he represents the interests of the tobacco industry in a world that generally considers the product reprehensible.

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[National Review Online, March 10, 2006]

You'd have to have an extraordinary amount of confidence in a film to give it a title like "Failure to Launch." It's a target as big as a barn. And I'm left wondering what made the folks behind this film so sure that it was guaranteed boffo. It's got the elements a standard romantic comedy requires: two hot stars, their oddball friends,

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[Christianity Today, March 2006]

Selected for Best American Spiritual Writing, 2007

If you hang around with Christians, you find that the same topic keeps coming up in conversation: their worries about “the culture.” Christians talk about sex and violence in popular entertainment. They talk about bias in news reporting. They talk about how their views are ignored or misrepresented. “The culture” appears to be an aggressive challenge to “the church,” and Christians keep worrying over what to do about it.

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(National Review Online, March 1, 2006) 

1. What is “the Great Canon of St. Andrew” and what’s so great about it?

This complex poem (actually a chanted hymn) was written in the early 700’s, and it picked up the adjective “Great” for two reasons: it’s extra-long (about 250 verses), and it’s majestic. The Great Canon was written by St. Andrew

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