A Link

This entry on a blog I've begun reading by an orthodox convert layman titled "This is Life! Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis" is spot on. I agree with his criticisms of "progressive" Christianity, and his writing happens to be hilarious too. Especially this bit:

What’s so funny is that these “progressives” are still stuck in that three-centuries old modernist paradigm of binary opposites: “belief-centered” versus “transformation-centered.” Haven’t any of them heard of this new thing called “Post-mo-der-nism”? It’s pretty slick. It attempts to deconstruct such binarism. So, I mean, how progressive can one be if one is still stuck in a centuries-old paradigm?

Purpose

I've resurrected this blog, yet I have yet to elucidate its mission, its purpose, and its raison d'etre. It will be different from it's previous incarnation, where I mostly used it as a venue to either brag or to bitch and moan about my life. There will be no more such bloviating. This blog will be a place for me to discuss my thoughts on religion and politics, and to post links and quotes from interesting things online. I will probably still give random updates on the state of my existence, yet I do not want that to be the focus of this blog. There are more than enough self-obsessed blogs out there as it is.

So, with that, dear reader, please enjoy what I may come up with. Also, if anyone out there can come up with a better title for my blog, please let me know in the comments.

Wisdom

I think I shall start this blog anew. To start, a passage by St. Theophan the Recluse:

If, when they [the self-reliant] grieve at their downfall, reproaching and abusing themselves for it, they think: ‘I shall do this and that, the consequences of my downfall will be effaced and all will be well once more,’ this is a sure sign that before the downfall they trusted themselves, instead of trusting God. . . . If a man does not rely on himself but puts his trust in God, when he falls he is not greatly surprised and is not overcome with excessive grief, for he knows that it is the result of his own impotence, and, above all, of the weakness of his trust in God. So his downfall increases his distrust of himself and makes him try all the harder to increase and deepen his humble trust in God. . . .

For by thinking that they [the self-reliant] are something important they undertake too much, hoping to deal with it by themselves. When the experience of their downfall shows them how weak they are, they are astounded, like people, who meet with something unexpected, and they are cast into turmoil and grow faint-hearted. For they see, fallen and prone on the ground, that graven image which is themselves, upon which they put all their hopes and expectations. This does not happen to a humble man who trusts in God alone, expecting nothing good from himself. Therefore, when he falls into some transgression, he also feels the weight of it and grieves, but is not cast into turmoil and is not perplexed, for he knows that it happened through his own impotence, to experience which in downfalls is nothing unexpected or new to him. [Unseen Warfare, pp. 87, 88]

Fin

The blog is dead. Long live the blog!

Shame

This article is a telling indicator of our complete inability to deal well with Iraq. In it, the author asks many people in key positions of government the simple question: "Do you know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites?

This was something I learned in my Introduction to Religion class freshman year at Hillsdale College. Have the officials of our government become so arrogant, and frankly, lazy, that even learning the basic rudimentary beliefs of the people we are currently occupying is beyond them?

This is terrifying to me; such ignorance in the hands of those in such power shows very poorly for our nation, our educational system, and our culture. Such basic lack of curiosity - of that essential modicum of interest in a subject necessary to have in order to even adequately deal with a problem - is a glaring problem. The author only interviews a few people, yet somehow I have the uneasy suspicion that if you asked the same question of key people in the upper echelons of the executive branch, one would find the same ignorance.