Marginal Christianity

"Once on Mount Athos there was a monk who lived in Karyes. He drank and got drunk every day and was the cause of scandal to the pilgrims. Eventually he died and this relieved some of the faithful who went on to tell Elder Paisios that they were delighted that this huge problem was finally solved. Father Paisios answered them that he knew about the death of the monk, after seeing the entire battalion of angels who came to collect his soul. The pilgrims were amazed and some pro...tested and tried to explain to the Elder of whom they were talking about, thinking that the Elder did not understand. Elder Paisios explained to them: 'This particular monk was born in Asia Minor, shortly before the destruction by the Turks when they gathered all the boys. So as not to take him from their parents, they would take him with them to the reaping, and so he wouldn't cry, they just put raki [a Turkish drink close to vodka] into his milk in order for him to sleep. Therefore he grew...

by S.D. Kelly May 29, 2015   I t’s been a rough couple of weeks in the world of Reality TV. Bethenny Frankel is back on the Real Housewives of New York , inciting botox-compromising levels of rage in her fellow housewives. She even has a hashtag touting her return: #theBisback. Yes. Yes, she is. And Fox cancelled American Idol after 14 seasons, which, in Reality TV years, makes the show a million years old. In its way, this is sobering news, like hearing that the fossilized remains of your favorite museum dinosaur finally disintegrated, unable to endure the harsh light of the 21st century. Most dramatically, the Duggar family fiasco has come to light — in which it was revealed that the now-grown oldest son, Josh Duggar, was guilty of molesting several girls when he was fourteen. This led TLC to pull 1 9 Kids and Counting , finally bringing to a halt the Duggar-franchise juggernaut. Something was bound to go wrong with 19 Ki...

What Will Pass for Mercy April 21, 2015 by Guest Contributor 0 Comments By Brian Volck “Do not say God is just. Justice has not been evident in God’s dealings with you.”
—Isaac of Syria Among the habits I’ve lately tried living without are reading online comment boxes (Good Letters being an exception) and making predictions. I bypass comments because I encounter enough wrath, ridicule, and unreason without wallowing in still more online. As for prophecy, my ability to predict the future isn’t what it used to be. Parents routinely ask me, a pediatrician, what’s in store for their children. I offer probabilities and guesses. Harder still to predict “the fate of the nation.” I don’t know where the United States, with an armada of oncoming problems and a conspicuous dearth of creative proposals in response, is heading. Maybe it’s just a passing foul mood, a temporary crisis of confidence, but decline—perhaps precipitous—in America’s global economic and political infl...