To be born with an ascetic temperament comes with a unique spiritual vocation—to enter into and abide in the world. To believe that one is and must be perfect calls one to a counter-intuitive spiritual life—to be human and risk sinning. The sacramental embracement of life in the world, and the love of your own sinfulness for real redemption, notions at the heart of Eastern Orthodox theology, could have only been encountered by the young Evangelical that I was in the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Christians  know of their need to be rid of and separate from “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 Jn 2:16), seeing themselves as “a prisoner of the law of sin…” and proclaiming, “What a wretched man I am!” (Rom 7:23-24). However, there is the occasional person born who is an ascetic by nature, whose core identity is wrapped up in being perfect, recognizing no conflicting law at work in themselves—it is for such as I that The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot impart spiritual wisdom.

It is one thing to join a holy order; it is another to be born into one. The Sermon on the Mount implanted the monastic vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity into my childhood soul. Content with so little, I never had to be denied; I obeyed every authority to the extent that discipline was unnecessary; and I was so chaste that, despite our culture, I did not encounter pornography until the age of 17, at which point I slowly began the self-flagellation of anxiety and depression. However, being raised in a Protestant tradition which lacked a monastic tradition, the university became my monastery, where I could contemplate God and ignore my bodily reality. Once I entered into the Gaelic paradise of Scotland for my Masters of Theology degree, I accidentally encountered Dostoevsky. It was when that I saw my life in Aloysha, that the instantaneous conviction arose that Father Zosima’s prophecy over him was a prophecy to me as well—“…you will go out beyond these walls, but in the world you will abide as a monk.”   Read More

Father James Martin, SJ. Loyola University. March 2018.

Since Building a Bridge, a book on ministering to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics, was published, I have been asked—at Catholic parishes, retreat centers, colleges and universities and conferences—a few questions that recur over and over. The most common are: “What can we say to gay people who believe that God hates them?” “How can we help young people who feel tempted to suicide because of their sexual orientation?” And “What can we say to gay or lesbian Catholics who feel that their own church has rejected them?”

Another common question is about the church’s official teaching on homosexuality, homosexual activity and same-sex marriage. Usually these questions are asked not by Catholics who are unaware of the church’s teaching (for most Catholics know the teachings); rather they are asked by Catholics who want to understand the basis for the church’s teachings on those topics.

Building a Bridge intentionally steered clear of issues of sexual morality, since I hoped to foster dialogue by focusing on areas of possible commonality; and the church hierarchy and the majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics remain far apart on these issues. It also makes little sense to begin a conversation with topics on which the two sides are the farthest apart. Overall, the book was about dialogue and prayer, rather than moral theology. (As a Catholic priest, I have also never challenged those teachings, nor will I.) Read More

With the publication of this article on the nexus between Orthodoxy and Protestant fundamentalism in America we are delighted to introduce the author as a new editor at Orthodoxy in Dialogue.

“A fundamentalist,” Jerry Falwell famously quipped, “is an evangelical who is angry about something.”

This isn’t a bad definition, either. Scholars have had a lot to say about Protestant fundamentalism over the past several decades, but Falwell’s simple statement remains strikingly relevant, appearing in just about every academic work on the subject since George Marsden’s groundbreaking Fundamentalism and American Culture was first published in 1980. Back then, Marsden was essentially pleading for his fellow scholars to pay attention to fundamentalism, to include it in their analyses of American religion, to not write it off as an oddity. In 2018, many scholars (myself included) would argue that fundamentalism has defined post-World War II American religion more than any other movement. How things change in such a relatively short time!

At this point you might be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with Orthodoxy?” My answer to you is, “More than you think.” I am by no means a theologian. I am not a scholar of the Orthodox Church. I am, however, an Orthodox Christian and a historian who focuses on 20th-century American religion. I study fundamentalists and evangelicals. My purpose in writing for Orthodoxy in Dialogue is to make connections between Orthodoxy and the broader religious culture in the US, a culture dominated almost entirely by evangelicalism.

Falwell distinguished fundamentalists from the rest of the evangelical fold by emphasizing their anger. Today, the defining line between “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” has blurred to the point of often becoming indistinguishable. Some still proudly label themselves as fundamentalist, but the movement has now nestled rather comfortably beneath the wide net of evangelicalism, sharing the same beliefs and working toward the same goals. Their evangelicalism is rooted in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, first and foremost. The Bible is literal, it is the rock upon which their entire faith rests. Alongside biblical literalism is the belief in the end times, of the imminent return of Christ to Earth to raise the faithful into heaven and usher in the millennium. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue has recently added a Patrons page. With gratitude to God we have acquired our first two Patrons, who wish to remain anonymous. They have shown their support for our work by making a significant financial contribution.

We launched almost eight months ago with the sole intention of serving the Orthodox Church through the provision of a forum for free and open dialogue on an unlimited range of topics. In that time we quickly became one of the most visited Orthodox blogs on the internet, and have published 198 articles and editorials by 97 authors. See our Archives by Author for the complete catalogue of articles and authors.

Our Letters to the Editors page has proven more popular than we expected. We have published 16 letters to date. The page ranks among our top ten “articles.” Read More