As pravoslavie.ru reports: The reason of the break-off is the dispute on the canonical jurisdiction of Qatar territories, to which both Local Churches have claims This break has been on the horizon for a couple of years now, and it breaks my heart. Antioch and Jerusalem are among the very earliest Churches and most ancient patriarchates. Although neither of these Churches are in communion with Rome, it’s still very sad to see something, which appears to me as a glorified pissing match, turn… Read more

One of my pet peeves is going to a church where people pressure you to take your kids to a nursery to to children’s church. This was actually a big issue when I was a protestant. It is less of an issue in the Catholic Church. The reason I was bothered by it was because I feared that separating kids from worship would be detrimental to both the spiritual life of the children as well as to the broader life… Read more

Recently Theologues asked me to contribute a few titles to their summer reading list. I thought I would include my selections here you you all. On top of these I have also been reading some Plato, Hume, and a few books by Michael Chabon (just finished this, and started this yesterday). There’s also my comps list too…. which I won’t put down in it’s entirety here, but I’m sure you’ll here about it soon. It’s not really “summer reading” as much as… Read more

I’ve now had time to sink into Pope Francis’ new encyclical on “Care for our Common Home.” I hope to unpack more of it soon but there have been a few quotes from it that have been coming back to me over and over.  These are probably not the 10 things everyone needs to take away from the letter, but I think they might be the things I need to take seriously in my own life. Hopefully in the weeks… Read more

The primary season is now well underway here in the United States. Candidates from both parties are entering into the ‘ring’ and as they do so the direction of our political campaign is beginning to form.  Right now candidates are listening closely. In the political climate of the 21st century the next president is often the one is able to first articulate a vision of the future that strikes the heart of the nation. Obama did it in 2008 with… Read more

Yesterday I tried to turn on my computer. It wouldn’t boot. The windows logo just stayed there flashing over and over again. I tried a repair function: failure I tried a memory check: failure I tried to use a restore option: failure I tried to use a Windows 7 recovery disc: failure I put the hard drive in another machine to try recovery: failure I think we’ve all been in situations like this. The technology that we have come to… Read more

Although some of my fellow Patheos writers might disagree with me… I really love the new logo for the Year of Mercy. I think it’s a great image and one that I would proudly display over most church-related logos. Here are 10 reasons why. I love the icon style This picture is based off the traditional style of byzantine iconography. I have written about my love of this style many times before (Exhibit a). It’s a style that is designed… Read more