This week I want to take Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil story in a different direction than I have been following in the last three essays. A remarkable thing about Tom Bombadil (and unique in Middle Earth) is that the ring of power had no influence on him and it could therefore not master him. When hobbits, …
Continue reading Tom Bombadil vs the Priority of our Desires
One of the difficult things for non-Orthodox readers to grasp when they read Orthodox writings is the idea of the "passions." The word is a technical term of sorts within Orthodoxy, but it is used rather differently than it is in contemporary culture (thus the difficulty in grasping the term). The sentence, "He has a …
For all of his good qualities—Lawgiver, mediator between God and the nation, organizer of the Exodus—Moses was not an example of holiness in this life. He was quite the opposite. When viewed from his death backwards (Josh. 1:1-2), the defining moment of his life was one of anger and pride. That incident began with a …
In the era of the Enlightenment religion was understood primarily as associations of subscription to particular beliefs, it would be more fruitful to consider them as schools whose pedagogy has the twofold purpose of weaning us from our idolatry and purifying our desire.British philosopher/theologian Nicholas Lash, The Beginning and the End of Religion, 1996 (1994 …
This week we have watched, and possibly participated in, one mob seeking to defend what they euphemistically call their way of life, and a second mob seeking to destroy and banish the first mob. The white supremacists are certainly contemptible both because of their willingness to act on their prejudices and the violent way in …
Continue reading Passions, Tyranny, and Joy: The Struggle of the Christian Life
After writing the post, Gender Identity and the Passions, last week I ran across some notes that I had taken from a 2015 podcast back in 2015 by Fr Stephen Freeman that I can’t find in the “Glory to God” podcast feed. His essay illustrates why it is so difficult for Christians to speak in …
Continue reading Living For Other People rather than Against Them
I watched a twitter tiff unfold last week that was rooted in two people talking right past each other. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson (@sista_theology) tweeted something in defense of LGBT people after President Trump’s tweet about trans people no longer being welcome in the military. Sistrunk Robinson considers herself an evangelical (MA from Gordon Conwell) but …
Some thoughts as the Orthodox Christian Church finishes the second week of Lent. As a youth I was heavily influenced by the parachurch organization, The Navigators. For the Navs, the solution (the very good solution, I will add) to most spiritual problems was to pray, memorize scripture, and get together with your trusted group of like-minded people to …
Just Another Jim 