Orthodoxy in Dialogue has been asked to publish the following letter anonymously for the protection of the young recipient.  It was emailed by Orthodox grandparents to their gay Orthodox grandson, a boy in his early teens who only recently began the process of coming out, as he departs for church camp. The authors—and also the grandson, who has given his consent—hope that other young Orthodox people who identify as LGBTQ will feel encouraged by this demonstration of love, acceptance, and affirmation.

[Photo Removed by Demand of the OCA’s General Counsel]

Photo credit: Orthodox Church in America

We want to say a couple of things before you go to church camp.

The older you are, the greater the likelihood that LGBTQ stuff will be addressed at church camps. We don’t mean just in conversation with your peers, but more formally by the priests and other adults running the camp.

Never, ever forget that, if we who are sinful love you so much, not “anyway” but exactly as you are, for who and what you are, how much more infinitely and perfectly does God love you.

Anyone who tries to make you feel otherwise is a liar for whom “God” has been reduced to a lifeless ideology instead of an experience of divine love at the deepest level of the human soul. Read More

The Squad

L to R: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)

The recent racist gauntlet thrown down by President Donald Trump against four United States Congresswomen of color has been met with an interesting menagerie of justifications by the Right. But I think we can identify one congruity that most share. It’s the unasked question which should be important to anyone for whom moral considerations run deep: How can we—tribal, divided, and angry at each other as we are—agree on a definition of what racism is?

It should also be an important question for Orthodox Christians and Christians in general. Both have a sketchy human rights record in history, but more recently the Christian Right has exhibited head-splitting silence regarding the plain immorality of kenneling men, women, toddlers, and infants at the US-Mexico border.

The inevitable outrage among those same Christians (I’m thinking of Vice-President Mike Pence) if those human beings suffering in dog kennels were white is worth advisement. Read More

Rod Dreher and friends fretting over the African barbarian invasion of Europe

A number of Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers felt deeply touched for a few seconds before they realized that their brother Orthodox Christian Rod Dreher’s latest piece at The American Conservative—Trump Summons Demons—falls short of anything like a change of heart. Who wouldn’t be moved by his profession of concern for the life of Rep. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-MN) in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s latest of many, many Naziesque rallies this past Wednesday in Greenville NC?

Yet Dreher’s own record of telling life-threatening lies about people he doesn’t like casts doubt on his sincerity. As we noted a year ago in the addendum to Rod Dreher Glorifies Colonialism, Adds African Barbarians to List of People who Terrify Him: Read More

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