Challenging Traditionalist Views On Liturgical Praxis

Last updated on: March 9, 2026 at 2:04 am By Henry Karlson

An issue I have with many so-called traditionalists, Catholic or Orthodox, is that they do not know history, and the development and changes which have happened in religious praxis throughout Christian history. They don’t know or appreciate tradition, that tradition is meant to be living and not a dead-end. They think various practices they like have always been and should always be what is practiced. Similarly, they think their interpretation of them has always been how they were always interpreted.... Read more

Reflections For Lent 2026 Part Three: The Fall Of Adam

Last updated on: March 8, 2026 at 1:16 am By Henry Karlson

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Scripture does not specifically provide us a singular origin for evil. It presupposes some sort of evil was already present in the world before the fall of Adam and Eve. There are suggestions that indicate Satan and other similar spirits had their own fall due to pride. One of the ways that pride was interpreted by people of many different religious traditions is that Satan was unwilling to bow down to and show respect to humanity (a tradition which is... Read more

Rethinking Creation: Misogyny In Abrahamic Traditions

Last updated on: March 5, 2026 at 2:23 am By Henry Karlson

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Interfaith dialogues can help people not only better see and appreciates the commonalities and differences between various faiths, but to have people of those faiths discern problems they have in common, problems which they can engage together, hoping that by doing so, they can find a solution to them which will help all involved. We find this happening many times, such as in the way feminist Muslim theologian Riffat Hassan saw her work with Jews and Christians helped her see... Read more

My Engagements With World Religions: Reflections (Two)

Last updated on: March 3, 2026 at 2:55 am By Henry Karlson

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Hinduism and Buddhism, just like Christianity, Judaism and Islam, share many things in common. Studying one helps in studying the other. For those in the West, this means learning to think and see things through a different cultural perspective. This is something I not only learned but tried to teach my students when I taught classes on Hinduism and Buddhism. I often used a thought experiment to do so. I told them to imagine they were an archeologist from thousands... Read more

Reflections For Lent 2026 Part Two: Humanity

Last updated on: March 1, 2026 at 2:13 am By Henry Karlson

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There are two accounts of the creation of humanity in Genesis. While they have elements in common, even the earliest Christian commentaries noticed their differences. Patristic commentators and theologians tried to give explanations for those differences. For example, some suggested the first story concerns the creation of human nature as it exists in eternity, in “the kingdom of God” or heaven, or in relation to human nature, and the second shows us how that humanity was given material or historical... Read more

The USCCB, Trump, Birthright Citizenship And Human Rights

Last updated on: February 28, 2026 at 12:12 pm By Henry Karlson

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One thing I’ve noticed is that Trump, and his followers, engage all kinds of equivocations with their rhetoric, using them to justify the unjustifiable. They will say they are against one thing, like illegal immigrants, but then they will show their definition of illegal immigrant is based neither on law or on any moral basis, but on the basis of xenophobia and hate. And when they do this, they do not get properly called out by the media. Their narrative... Read more

Atheism As A Response To Bad Christianity

Last updated on: February 26, 2026 at 4:50 pm By Henry Karlson

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Atheism is a challenge for Christians, not in an apologetical sense, but rather, in the way it represents the reaction many moral and ethical people will have against the bad actions (and theology) of modern-day Christians. Christianity, in many ways, has turned bad thanks to the way many Christians have not lived up to the praxis set up by Christ. As they defend their actions, they end up creating monstrous notions of God which no one should believe. To be... Read more

My Engagements With World Religions: Buddhism Part III

Last updated on: February 25, 2026 at 3:31 am By Henry Karlson

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When I moved to the Washington, DC, area, I continued reading as much as I could from Buddhist sources, but now, I included much more secondary literature. I started making connections between various elements of Buddhist thought, especially from those I was most interested in, with ideas stated by various patristic writers. For example, I saw St. Maximos the Confessor, and his description of a pleasure-pain cycle in the human condition that leads to our perdition, as being similar to... Read more

True Peace Is Established By Love And Justice, Not Threats

Last updated on: February 23, 2026 at 3:10 am By Henry Karlson

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Over the years, I’ve often explained how Christians should work for and promote peace because they follow Jesus, “the prince of peace.” Sadly, many Christians seem to want to turn him into a militant warrior-messiah who fights for the nationalistic causes, just like Judas. They think he wants us to pick up the sword and fight with and for him. Why didn’t they pay attention to Jesus when he repudiated this notion by telling Peter to put his sword away?... Read more

Reflections For Lent 2026 Part One: Creation

Last updated on: February 22, 2026 at 2:52 am By Henry Karlson

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Everything begins with God: God is “in the beginning” which is without end, that is, in the eternal now, the archē from which all things come. In this archē is God, God with God, and God proceeding from God through God to God. God is all in all, including in God’s own-self. God is love, making love itself eternal. But how can God be love? By way of the Trinity, with the persons of the Trinity loving each other; in... Read more

What did the Israelites worship while Moses was on Mount Sinai?