God is always offering us grace, offering us the opportunity to grow and be become better than we are today. The key is not to become complacent, especially in regards our religious faith. If we think we do not have any room to grow, any room for improvement, not only will be become stuck where we are at, we will find we will be, as it were, left behind. Instead of having a living, dynamic faith, our faith will become... Read more
Because Scripture says humanity is made in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen. 1:27), many upon reading that statement misinterpret it as indicating that only humanity can be said to be made in the image and likeness of God. This is a bad reading of the text, because it doesn’t say only humanity is made in this manner. If I said something similar, such as a particular artist made a painting in their own image, this would not... Read more
“All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything” (1 Cor. 6:12 RSV). Paul’s words here are very important. They explain to us that Christian morality should have a practical, not just theoretical, side to it. Morality should not be some legalistic enterprise telling us to do things or not to do things, restricting our freedom without any substantial justification. It should be... Read more
F.L. Cocozzelli. Commissar Conservatives. How Laissez-faire Libertarianism Is Disturbingly Similar To Communism (New York: Progressive Works Publishing, 2022), xliii + 259 pgs.[1] After the fall of the Soviet Union, many in the West believed that the collapse of the Soviet regime was proof that capitalism was superior in all ways to communism. They explained that this meant not only that capitalism was good, but because it was good, the more it can be left unfettered, the more good capitalism can... Read more
It’s easy to assume monasticism is all about works. Certainly, many monastic texts will emphasize the need to engage ascetic discipline, giving all kinds of warnings to those who do not faithfully live out their religious vocation, and in doing so, serve as evidence that this is what monasticism is about. But if this really what monasticism was about, it would not have thrived for centuries. Monasticism, likewise, would have been rejected by Christianity because its principles would run contrary... Read more
Jesus told us we are to be the salt of the earth, but warns would could happens if we fail to live up to our obligations: “”You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men” (Matt. 5:13 RSV). Salt helps preserve and protect food, keeping it from spoiling, that is, salt... Read more
There are two common errors which religious people often fall into. The first is the way many of them become triumphalistic with their faith; they end up think their faith, and their way of engaging their faith, is better than anyone and everyone else’s leading them to look down upon, if not be abusive towards, those who believe or act differently to them. The second error comes from an inversion of this; instead of being prideful and triumpalistic, such believers... Read more
Early monastic literature contained within it an ambivalent picture of the ecclesiastic structure of the church. On the one hand, the structure was recognized as important, and necessary. On the other hand, they saw that those who got drawn into it, seeking or even being elevated to positions of authority such as priests or bishops found their spiritual lives tended to diminish as they had to deal with the public instead their own private spiritual development. This often meant bishops... Read more
We are to remember the past, including, and especially the wrongs which were done, but also the way those wrongs were overcome. Christians should look to and accept history as it is presented in secular sources, even as they can interpret it in a way to believe that God had a role in the shaping of history. That is, though God has made room for human freedom, and so much of history is the representation of what humanity has done... Read more
One of the worst approaches to the Christian faith is to treat it as if it were something which can be easily proven through argumentation, acting as if someone did not agree with such arguments, they must be a bad thinker. The Christian faith, indeed, any faith, or scientific examination, or philosophical engagement with truth, should not to be treated as a simple ideology which can be easily proven to others. This is what so many so-called apologists fail to... Read more
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