20 Jun 2017

Charles Taylor and “The Witch”

Last year, a curious little horror movie made something of a splash in the indie scene. The Witch: A New England Folktale follows an early American Puritan family’s descent into wilderness madness after their banishment from their community. As the story progresses, it becomes less and less clear whether the misfortunes that befall them are of their doing, or are the work of actual demonic forces. The Witch, with its surreal interludes and conclusion, was

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06 Jun 2017

Random Thoughts from a Western Adventure

My family recently returned from an excursion in the wild western part of our great nation, where we were summoned for my brother’s wedding. Going for drives—especially long ones—is something that I rather enjoy, even with a 9-month old in tow (though I should note that she is quite generous with her patience at being locked in her car seat for extended periods of time). Thus, we decided to extend our wedding trip and spend

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16 Apr 2015

Unique Characteristics of Eastern Orthodox Spirituality (Part I)

When I first discovered Eastern Orthodox Christianity, I intuitively recognized a different “spirituality” from what I had experienced as an Evangelical Christian. Over the years, and especially since “spirituality” has become a buzzword within our culture, I have tried to identify the primary characteristic and distinctive features of Eastern Christian spirituality and to contrast them with where I came from. I did this first for the purpose of better understanding our Eastern Christian spiritual tradition

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15 Apr 2015

Cosmic Communion (Part III)

The Role of Creation in our Journey with Christ: Part III There is a running joke that Orthodox Christians do everything in threes, so this will be my last article under this title.  In the past two articles I have been discussing the unique Christian approach to God’s earthly creation as a sacramental reality: that it can be and is in fact designed to be how we encounter intimate communion with God the Creator especially

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