Reflections in Christ

by Fr. Lawrence Farley

Eternal Security

The first knock-down drag-out theological scrap I ever had was in high school and it was over the doctrine of Eternal Security.  I was not keen to have the scrap because the person I was contending with was a spectacularly pretty girl to whom I was greatly attracted, but I knew that truth trumped hormones.  Not by much, mind you, but enough for me…

Reading the Song of Solomon Today

The Biblical Song of Solomon (also called the Song of Songs) has always been read by Christians on two different levels—that is, it has been read on an historical level and on an allegorical one.  This is how Christians read the entirety of the Old Testament.  Take for example the story of the passage through the Red Sea.  Christians have read…

Comfort in Affliction

Earth is very dangerous planet to live on—at least under the present circumstances.  One day, in the age to come, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, the nursing child will play over the hole of the asp, and they shall not hurt or destroy in all God’s holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover…

The God of the Old Testament

In the rough and tumble world of online discussion of just about any current theological issue, eventually one is sure to come across a denunciation of the God of the Old Testament.  His detractors deride Him as cranky, vengeful, wrathful, unreasonable, arbitrary, blood-thirsty, and (in the always colourful words of Richard Dawkins), “as the most…

Justifying Genocide and Building a Better World

I have just finished watching a brief ten minute video on Youtube from 2008 entitled, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Nazi”, originally entitled “Happy Nazis”.  It is a chilling documentary which compares two photo albums received by the US Holocaust Museum.  One set of photos shows some of the upper level leaders and some women workers…

A Retro Church

A number of years ago I was chatting with a co-worker at my secular job and she asked me to what church I belonged.  When I answered, “the Orthodox Church”, she responded, “Oh, that church is so retro”.  She was a sweet lady, and offered her comment as a simple observation, not a criticism.  Though I smiled back and said, “Thank you. We…

Loving the Sinner

The concept of loving the sinner while hating the sin has fallen upon hard times.  Fallen man finds it very difficult to hold in tension the notion that one must love the sinner along with the notion that one must hate the sin which the sinner commits.  It is easy—far too easy—to equate the sinner with his sin and conclude that because the sin…

Advice to the Confused

I suppose that most pastors have had the experience of a young parishioner approaching them privately and confiding in them their suspicion or decision that they were gay, bisexual, or transgender.  Such confusion is in the air, has the Nihil Obstat of both secular culture and governmental sanction, and also bestows a kind of odd popularity, making…

Do We Really Need Deacons?

Recently I overheard a conversation about deacons and someone opined that if there were no deacons in the Church no one would notice, and that they could be eliminated with no ill effect at all, since they were simply a speed bump a priestly candidate encountered on the way to priestly ordination. I take the point, and admit that this accurately…

I Wonder Where the Lions Are?

These past days have seen the departure from our midst of two men who have justly been described as “lions of the OCA”:  Fr. Steven Belonick and Fr. John Matusiak.  I knew them both. 

Fr. John and I regularly exchanged email, news, weather reports, and prayer requests in his capacity as editor of the “Reflections in Christ” column on the…

A Floating Axe-head

It is very easy to miss the story of the floating axe-head.  Indeed, a book containing stories in 2 Kings that I found in a theological library which should have included that story in 2 Kings 6:1-7 completely omits it.  The book comments on the story immediately before the story of the floating axe-head, and the story which immediately follows it,…

A Reason for the Hope that is in Us

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”  These words of Christ, spoken to Thomas and recorded in John 20:29, have often been misunderstood.  Some suggest that Christ was offering a blessing to those who believe in Him without any evidence at all, who accept Him on blind faith.  This is not what Christ meant, for Thomas never…

In the Beginning: Lessons from Genesis

The first thing one must do before reading a book is to recognize from which library shelf it came—that is, its literary genre. For example, if one is reading a satire one will misunderstand its contents if one takes it for history or politics. (Thus Swift’s A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burden to…

(Another) Merry Hipster Christmas!

The “Hipster Nativity Set” is (sadly) back in the news.  A year or so ago, some enterprising entrepreneurs created this Nativity set, which includes the traditional figures, but all in a distinctly hipster form.  Joseph has a man-bun and is taking a selfie.  Mary is holding a Starbucks latte in one hand, making a peace sign with the other, and is…

The Marks of the Church: The Church as One

Every Sunday we confess in the Creed that the Church is “one” — that is, we confess the unity of the Church of God.  But what does this confession mean?  In what sense is the Church one?  It cannot mean that the one church is made up of all the various different Christian denominations, for when these words of the Creed were written these…

Hearing—and keeping—the Word of God

In the “bad ol’ days” when I was still highly resistant to what I now call “Holy Tradition,” I was keen to sniff out the slightest whiff of idolatrous veneration of the Mother of God — including employing the term used by those poor deluded people (the Catholics)—“the Mother of God.”  (I did not really know back then that the Orthodox…

What Does the Word “Church” Mean?

Every Sunday the Creed is said in Church in which Christians say the words, “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”  It many ways it is an odd thing to say.  In the Creed we confess things that are matters of faith, things contestable, maybe even controversial.  Thus we confess that God the Father Almighty made the heaven and…

“We’re All Dying, Aren’t We?”

“We’re all dying, aren’t we?”  These words could have come from the lips of any thoughtful philosopher from the days of Marcus Aurelius on.  In fact they came from the lips of Marilyn Monroe in the last complete film she ever made, “The Misfits”, finished in November 1961.  There is a certain poignant irony to this, given that one of the…

The Seal of the Prophets

The importance of John the Baptizer may be gauged by the amount of paint and ink the Church spends on him.  His portrait is painted and is found on every single icon-screen in all the churches, regardless of whether or not he is that church’s patron saint.  And many hymns have been written to celebrate his life.  Much ink is required for these…

What It Was that Saved Thomas

Thomas had a heart that had taken one too many beatings.  Despite his often being stigmatized by later generations as “Doubting Thomas,” there is nothing in his past record to indicate such a defect of character.  In John’s account of Christ’s raising of Lazarus, when the Lord said that Lazarus had died and that He was going to enter the…