For some reason only Johann Gerhard is translated but all the other greats like Abraham Calov, Hulsemann, are not translated into English. I would if I could but that's not my specialty; I'm only good at Semitic languages like Arabic; this I think is one reason why so many people are Reformed . Since the Reformed a lot of them at least were from Scotland and the surrounding area they wrote in English, most Americans then followed that since they could read the "Fathers" in English. The Lutherans in America in the 1800s had high hopes for the spread of Lutheranism but if you look at the South today we obviously lost badly to the baptists and Presbyterians, (nothing against those denoms). I would say we exclude people because we come off like an "ethnic" church like the Eastern Orthodox to ordinary Americans, because the writings are not in English; too much German untranslated too.

Here in the US I've held out a lot of hope with the Trump presidency, and then all Hell broke loose. I thought, due to some prophecy, that Trump would win a 2nd term, triumphing over the forces that were unrighteously opposed to him. However, he lost, and I lost faith in the so-called "prophets." Others encouraged me that Trump could still win a 2nd term. And strangely, a whole thing started about whether Biden had truly, legitimately won the White House.

And over the last couple of years real hope has built that Biden would be taken down, or that Trump could win a 2nd term. But the forces against him just kept coming, in the most wicked, devious style ever.

None of this is, however, purely political. Trump has promised to represent the Christian cause, and has not deviated from it. And the Democrats, along with Biden, have gotten ever more antichristian.

Then I came upon this prophetess, Julie Green, and naturally I was skeptical. But she sounds like she's speaking right out of my own Christian heart. Let me know what you think if you wish to take the time. Or, if you know something about her, let me know. There doesn't seem to be much about her when I did a quick search, though it may be there. Here is one of her latest youtube videos (don't get thrown off by the imperfect text rendering)...
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A report this week, from Greg Reese ...​

​

CCP Satellites Over Maui At Time of Fires​

Sep 14, 2023

Greg Reese​

Mounting evidence suggest that Maui fires were caused by Directed Energy Weapons

https://gregreese.substack.com

Steve Favis is an expert in computer science and advanced robotics. He has been researching the Maui fires and has compiled evidence that the technology exists to have started these fires from a satellite in earth orbit. He has also confirmed that the CCP had satellites capable of doing so above Maui at the time of the fires. His work has been published on his website stevefavis.com and includes everything you need to recreate his findings.

The most efficient way to ignite a fire on the surface from a satellite in earth orbit would be to paint the target in segments by pulsing the laser with an advanced targeting system. To see if this were possible, Favis calculated what it would require to create a meter-wide mile-long fire.

Fired from a satellite, the Earth's atmosphere will absorb and scatter some of the laser energy. And so the laser would need to be in a wavelength range that minimizes this. The most effective wavelength would be in the near-infrared range which would allow better transmission through the atmosphere. The near-infrared range would be invisible to the naked eye, and would also have a minimal reaction with objects colored blue on the Earth’s surface.

The power of the laser would need to be in the hundreds of kilowatts range. And so Favis based his calculations on a 10-megawatt laser firing from earth orbit. Assuming that the atmospheric loss amounts to 50% of the overall power and only 5 megawatts reaches the surface as a one square meter beam, it would ignite a fire almost instantly.

If this 5-megawatt beam was pulsed across a one-meter by one-mile-long area in segments, then the time to ignite the entire area would be roughly 2.7 minutes. And it would take approximately 8.8 seconds to melt an aluminum alloy wheel.

The amount of energy required to pulse a 10-megawatt laser for 2.7 minutes would require approximately 3,220 capacitors, which would amount to about 32,200 kilograms in weight.

Using Matlab software and plugging in public data provided from NORAD, he found that satellites launched and monitored by the CCP were directly above the Maui fires at the time of ignition.

The CCP’s most powerful rocket, the March 5, can launch up to 48,500 kilograms of payload. Which is enough to carry the required payload. But Favis has found that the CCP has much more powerful lasers deployed already. He has calculated that the CCP has up to 70 GIGAwatt lasers in earth orbit right now. That’s at least a hundred times more powerful than what he factored into these calculations.

Adjusting NORAD’s default Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, to the local time zones Favis found the following:

The Olinda fire was ignited at approximately 10:47 pm on August 7th. At this exact time, CCP satellite labeled NORAD_53299 was directly over the location.

The Lahaina fire was ignited at approximately 6:37 am on August 8th. At this exact time, CCP satellite labeled NORAD_55836 was directly over the location.

The Kula fire was ignited at approximately 11:30 am on August 8th. At this exact time, CCP satellite labeled NORAD_53299 was directly over the location.

The so-called Deep State does not want you to know that deadly lasers of mass destruction are freely traveling above us. And you can check this all for yourself at stevefavis.com where he provides the source code and has developed a specific software program that you can download and check for these satellites yourself.

I made myself potato latkes for breakfast this morning. MMMM..... good.

No one will be condemned to hell by God because of something that they did not know.

Deuteronomy 4:

19 Beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

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These people knew the sun, moon, and stars but not the LORD. God would not send them all to hell wholesale.

Can people who don't have the spiritual knowledge of Jesus be saved?

Yes, Matthew 5:

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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You will be judged based on what you have heard and seen, not on what you do not know, John 9:

41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

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There are people who are fooled by Satan, but everyone, every culture everywhere in space and time knows the golden rule, Matthew 7:

12 in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

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Paul elaborated on the heart and conscience of Gentiles in Romans 2:

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

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Jesus will judge their works according to their own conscience, Revelation 2:

23b I am the One who searches minds and hearts, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

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The judgment on you depends on how much you know and see. This principle can be applied to the souls of babies and children and people who have mental health issues. You are only responsible for what your conscience can teach you, Matthew 19:

14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

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Ultimately, God has the final say, Romans 9:

15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

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See also The gospel is preached even to those who are DEAD.

In 1961 to 1965, Mother Mary appeared to children at Garabandal, Spain. She revealed that a
pope will travel to Moscow & after Europe will experience troubles & upheavals. No pope in the
past has gone to Moscow. This prophecy will be fulfilled after about 60 years.
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Many Catholics believe, and I dare say many Protestants and Orthodox also think, that some people whose thought processes are disturbing, can be healed with a gentle word and patient doing of good to, for, and with them. Is that so?

Aurora libraries were one of nearly a dozen across the Chicago area targeted by bomb threats on Tuesday. The threats forced the closure of those locations, but they were reopened Wednesday.

Other libraries were also impacted by threats, including a branch of the Joliet Public Library, which closed for a time after a threat was received online.

Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook was also threatened through an online chat service, forcing an evacuation and a soft lockdown at nearby schools.

Oak Park, Evanston, Addison all were threatened as well.

The threats earlier this week came as Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias testified at a U.S. Senate Judiciary hearing on the state's first-in-the-nation ban against book bans.

The first-of-its-kind law, signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on June 12, states that Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of “partisan or doctrinal” disapproval will be ineligible for state funding as of Jan. 1, 2024, when the new law goes into effect.

Five adults and a 15-year-old were in custody Thursday on murder charges after a woman's body was found in the trunk of a car parked outside a popular spa in Georgia's Gwinnett County. The six suspects referred to themselves as belonging to a religious group called "Soldiers of Christ," police said.

The victim, according to arrest warrants, was starved and beaten for weeks before she eventually died.

Detectives believe the victim moved to the United States from South Korea in the summer to join a religious organization, known as "Soldiers of Christ." The suspects referred to themselves as members of the group, investigators said.

Matthew 16:24-26​

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me".

I don't know about the rest of you but I don't want any crosses. In fact. I usually pray that they be lightened or removed.
Can I call myself Christian?

To read today’s article, it is helpful to recall that in the context of biology and medicine the prefix trans can always be translated by not a or just not. Try it below.

Keep this helpful tip in mind as we read the peer-reviewed paper “Should Uterus Transplantation for Transwomen and Transmen Be Subsidized?” by Timothy F. Murphy, who tells us he has a “PhD”, and Kelsey Mumford, in the AMA Journal of Ethics.

The title is biological nonsense. This is not to say it is empty of meaning; in woke madness discourse it doubtless carries rich meaning. But in Reality, the real world, it is absurd.

A uterus may, one supposes, be transferred from one female to another, the operation variously successful depending on a host of reasons, some obvious, some not. A uterus might even be cut out of one female and shoehorned to the insides of a man. This operation will not be successful, even if, by some chance, the organ can be kept from rotting away.

The reason some would consider putting a uterus into a man is because of several reasons. One is madness. Pure insanity. Some men pretend to be a woman for the sexual satisfaction it brings them. Others are deluded enough to believe they can be turned into a woman, if only given enough drugs and with sufficient surgery. That goal is impossible—not unlikely, impossible. It is not possible. It will never happen, not matter how “advanced” medical science becomes.

The sexual perversion is easy enough to understand, and from reports these men do not ordinarily seek internal surgeries, and are satisfied with fake breasts and certain cosmetic procedures. Of the kind that when they look in the mirror, and take their glasses off, and squint, and get liquored up, allows them the meager pleasures they seek.

Those men wanting to have a uterus cut out of a woman and superglued to their colon, or wherever, are in a different class. That level of madness has to be cultivated. It must have explicit cooperation from Experts.

Experts convince men that their madness is sanity. Experts have to prescribe the punishing regime of drugs which corrupts the bodies and (further) addles the minds of those who take it. Experts have to sharpen their knives, dig into the gut of a women, cut open the men, and suture the wounded organ into the men.

This is all most lucrative. For Experts.

Continued below.

Oops: Pelosi's Words From 2019 Are Now Being Used Against Democrats in Biden Impeachment Push​

Here she is:

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But Moses replied, “Are you jealous on my account? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would place His Spirit on them!” Numbers 11:29 (BSB)

‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out My Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on My menservants and maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy. Acts 2:17-18 (BSB)

If there is a prophet among you,
I, the LORD, will reveal Myself to him in a vision;
I will speak to him in a dream. Numbers 12:6 (BSB)

In this time of extreme division amongst entire societies and even in the church, Lord may you pour out your Spirit again upon your people that we may prophecy in Your Holy Name!

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the overall task of interpretation, and one thing that keeps jumping out at me is how much the direction of the interpretation is taken. What I mean is, do we use the NT as the lens through which to read the OT? The OT as the lens to read the NT? Some combination of both? One book I think is seriously impacted by this is Romans, since if we read it in the light of the OT the dominant question is why God would be merciful to the people who had treated Israel so terribly, and how He could extend such mercy while remaining just and true to His promises. Yet if we instead move from the NT to the OT, the dominant question revolves around how guilty sinners could avoid punishment and how Christ delivers Jew and Gentile alike. So which should be our dominant approach, interpreting the OT in light of the NT or the NT in light of the OT?

Gen 25,:23 God told Isaac's wife, Rebekah 'Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger."

The fraternal twins were born with Esau as the oldest then Jacob. When they were adults, Esau sold Jacob his birthright for red pottage.

Gen 27, Isaac blessed Jacob who presented himself as Esau. Jacob is blamed by Esau for stealing his birthright and blessing (which included wealth & the authority to rule the family).

Most everyone emphasizes what Jacob did aided by Rebekah to get the blessing. Most ignore their family dynamics. Esau knew what he was doing when he sold his birthright. He married women that caused his parents grief They wouldn't get gold stars for their parenting skills though.

More importantly,, what about what God said in.Gen 25:23? What God told her while she was pregnant? Of course, others say she was the deceiver and they don't believe God spoke to her. But Scripture states she asks the Lord and He answered her. Was she trying to get the blessing to the same son as the birthright? Did she have any responsibility in what God told her? (If we get a prophetic word that we will be going to another country to lay hands on the sick & through prayer believe that is God's plan, we need to get a passport). How could the elder serve the younger otherwise in that age?

15 Sept 2023

Nasa unveils findings of study into UFOs​

Nasa has revealed the findings from its long-awaited report into UFOs – and says there is ‘no reason to conclude existing reports have an extraterrestrial source’.

The study was conducted by its Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Independent Study Team, a group of 16 experts from across science, data, artificial intelligence (AI), space exploration, aerospace safety, media and commercial innovation.

Sharing a selection of videos showing incidents of UAP, including the famous ‘Tic Tac’ footage shown before the US Congress during a hearing in July, the team highlighted the threat to airspace by such unidentified flying objects.

However, quoting Sherlock Holmes, they dashed the hopes of alien hunters everywhere by stating there was no evidence the technology was of extraterrestrial origin.

‘There is an intellectual continuum between hypothesising that faraway extraterrestrial civilisations might produce detectable technologies, and looking for those technologies closer to home,’ the team wrote.

‘But in the search for life beyond Earth, extraterrestrial life itself must be the hypothesis of last resort – the answer we turn to only after ruling out all other possibilities. As Sherlock Holmes said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

‘To date, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAP.’

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OB

Please pray for Cathy.

God bless you.

1 John 4:13-17 ESV


Before I delve into this passage of Scripture this morning, I want to encourage you to read all of 1 John, and that you read each verse in the context of the whole, and that you don’t take any isolated verses and make a doctrine around them which does not agree with the book, as a whole. It is also helpful, as well, if you have access to a Greek interlinear, to look at the meaning of some of these words, for the English words don’t always capture the true meaning of the words in their original context.

Since this passage of Scripture is talking much of abiding in Christ, the first word I want to look at is this word “abide.” It means to follow, obey, keep to, hold to, conform to, act in accordance with, uphold, agree to/with, comply with, and pay attention to, as well as it means to continue with, remain in, and stay with. In context, with regard to us abiding in Christ and him in us, the second definition fits better. But the first definition fits biblically with how we are to respond to him and to what he did for us.

Now we can’t claim that we are abiding in Christ just because we believe he has given us his Spirit. We must keep reading. And we can’t just verbally confess him with our lips only, or only that Jesus is the Son of God. For one, this word “confess” means to speak the same as, to agree with, to speak to the same conclusion as, and to align with. And aligning ourselves with the fact that Jesus is the Son of God is more than just an intellectual assent to who he is/was, but it involves aligning our lives with him, with his life.

For if we testify that God the Father sent his Son Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world, then we are agreeing with God, and we are aligning ourselves with God, not just intellectually, but spiritually, from the heart. But we have to understand what it means that he became our Savior, for he did not die just to forgive us our sins and to save us from hell and to promise us heaven. He died to deliver us out of our slavery (bondage, addiction) to sin, and he rose from the dead to empower us to follow Jesus with our lives.

And then it speaks of us knowing and believing the love that God has for us, and that whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Now this is not human-based love, but this is love which comes from God, for God is love. It is agape love which centers in moral preference, and which means to prefer what God prefers. So, we prefer to live through Christ, to embrace God’s will for our lives, and to obey his will through his power. And what God prefers is all that is holy, just, honest, morally pure, upright, and faithful.

But let me just review a little bit from chapters 1-3 which leads up to this. In 1 John 1 we learn that if we say we have fellowship with God/Christ while we walk (in conduct, in practice) in darkness (sin, wickedness), we lie and we do not practice the truth. And we learn in 1 John 2 that if we say that we know God but we do not keep (obey) his commandments (New Covenant), in practice, we are liars. And in 1 John 3 we read that no one who abides in Christ makes sin his practice, for whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, but whoever practices righteousness is righteous, and is of God.

And then if we keep reading in 1 John 4, we read in verse 20 that if we say that we love God but we hate our fellow humans (or fellow Christians), we are liars. For if we do not love our fellow humans, whom we can see, then we cannot love God whom we have not seen. So, this agape love must be perfected in company with us, and it must be something that we abide in, so this means we are preferring to live through Christ and to obey his will in his power and to live holy, upright, godly, morally pure, honest, and faithful lives to the glory of God, and in the power of God, continuing to the end.

And then we can have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. For Jesus died on that cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, and that we might live for him and no longer for ourselves. And he shed his blood to buy us back for God (to redeem us) out of our lives of slavery to sin so that we will now honor God with our bodies, and so that we will no longer obey sin, but so we will obey our Lord. For if sin is what we obey, and if we do not obey our Lord, we will not inherit eternal life with God, regardless of what our lips have professed.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

Constantly Abiding

By Anne S. Murphy, 1908

There’s a peace in my heart that the world never gave,
A peace it cannot take away;
Though the trials of life may surround like a cloud,
I’ve a peace that has come here to stay!

All the world seemed to sing of a Savior and King,
When peace sweetly came to my heart;
Troubles all fled away and my night turned to day,
Blessèd Jesus, how glorious Thou art!

This treasure I have in a temple of clay,
While here on His footstool I roam;
But He’s coming to take me some glorious day,
Over there to my heavenly home!

Constantly abiding, Jesus is mine;
Constantly abiding, rapture divine;
He never leaves me lonely, whispers, O so kind:
“I will never leave thee,” Jesus is mine.

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What started as a short reply to our pious and reverend Presbyter @ArmyMatt unleashed something of a can of worms in my mind as I realized it crossed the nexus of several areas of theological study I have been focused on for the past decade, resulting in a voluminous post that was only tangentially related to the thread which prompted it. Indeed I must apologize for the length of the post that follows, but these are topics close to my heart, for reasons that should become apparent.

ArmyMatt said:

Fr Tom actually said His Eminence never struck him as going that far, more like only universalism really made sense to him, but he could still be wrong.


agreed.

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What Metropolitan Kallistos, memory eternal, said in his lecture Salvation In Christ in 2008 is that it is acceptable to hope that all may be saved, but an error to say that all must be saved, and this to me seems reasonable. He also mentioned the remark by CS Lewis that the gates of Hell are locked on the inside. I think it’s pretty clear that His Eminence was not a Universalist, but considered some form of apokatastasis a possibility one could hope for, and there is a world of difference I think between that and people like Dr. David Bentley Hart who are trying to argue that Holy Orthodoxy is and should be Universalist, which is a view contrary to the Fifth Ecumenical Council that if adopted would cause new schisms in the Eastern Orthodox communion and worsen existing schisms, driving more people over to the Old Calendarist jurisdictions, and also destroy the ecumenical relations the Antiochian and Alexandrian churches have established with their Syriac and Coptic Orthodox counterparts, since the Oriental Orthodox positively reject universalism. I shall return to the issue of neo-Universalists like Dr. David Bentley Hart shortly.


First, however, I felt that I should highlight the most compelling statement that Metropolitan Kallistos Ware made against Universalism (which is also prove positive that he was not himself a universalist by any stretch of the imagination), that being that the one thing God cannot do is force us to love Him. This is based on the idea that love must be voluntary or it is not true love. This statement is also what led me to definitively reject Calvinism (which I am unable to prove is false on the basis of the actual scriptural text, but as St. Irenaeus of Lyons pointed out in the second century (I think it was St. Irenaeus of Lyons, I am going off of the recollection of a lecture on the importance of a canon of interpretation given by Fr. John Behr), that Sacred Scripture is like a mosaic depicting a King, which without the canon of Holy Tradition received from the Apostles and the Fathers of the Orthodox Church, the words of the Holy Bible become like the tiles of the mosaic, which can be rearranged to depict something else, such as a lion or a serpent or really any arbitrary image; it is the Tradition of the Church which assembles them into their proper meaning). Indeed I made the decision to convert to Holy Orthodoxy based on three things: firstly, a lifelong fascination, particularly with Middle Eastern Christianity, secondly, watching videos of the Orthodox liturgy on YouTube and before YouTube came into being, hearing Orthodox music, particularly the exquisite setting of All Night Vigils composed by Rachmaninoff (later I discovered his setting of the Divine Liturgy, which I liked even more), and thirdly, on an intellectual level, I was convinced by the lectures given by Fr. John Behr, who I encountered first (specifically his lecture on “The Heresy of Orthodoxy” which addressed the idiocy and uselessness of the Gnostic gospels and attempts by heretical Christians, Unitarian Universalists and non-Christians like Elaine Pagels, Karen L. King, Jean Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman to discover “the historical Jesus”) who led me to the brilliant lectures by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who reminded me of my late beloved father, who was a Rhodes Scholar and spoke in a similar manner, and their lectures, combined with others, provided the intellectual basis that coupled with the spiritual and noetic attraction I had with Orthodox Christianity at a convenient time, when I had become thoroughly frustrated with the combination of liberal theology and obnoxious praise and worship music in the mainline Protestant church of which I was a member and in which I had attempted to minister before throwing in the proverbial towel (I then spent a transitional year as an Episcopalian, because my friend Fr. Steven Dean was in the last year of his ministry before retirement, and was one of the last conservative Episcopalian priests in the Diocese of Los Angeles, and I wanted the chance to enjoy his company and that of his parishioners before his departure, at which time I promptly joined the Eastern Orthodox Church; indeed midway through my friend’s last year I stopped receiving communion there and began the preparations for conversion; I had actually been inadvertently received by a priest who spoke very poor English without Chrismation due to a mutual misunderstanding, so I had to see to it that oversight was corrected.


Now, with apologies for that very personal segue, which I felt curiously compelled to write, and perhaps belatedly returning to the subject of people pushing for the Orthodox Church to teach universalism: I do admire Dr. David Bentley Hart for his academic work including his withering response to Richard Dawkins, The Atheist Delusion, as well as his recent translation of the New Testament that seeks to translate not just the words or the meaning, but also the literary style of the Apostles and Evangelists from the original Greek into English. However, I feel very strongly that if he and other Universalist-leaning clergy and laity really want to belong to an Eastern Christian church that has an actual history of sustained official belief in a definite Apokatastasis, they should join the Assyrian Church of the East or the Ancient Church of the East, which are basically the same, latter being slightly more traditional*, but the two are in the process of reunfication. Now, these churches at present do not believe in apokatastasis, at least on any widespread scale, although until recently Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s observation in the first edition of The Orthodox Church, which I do feel is somewhat better written and more interesting than subsequent editions, that a shortage of qualified theologians hindered, among other things, Eastern Orthodox-Assyrian relations since the Assyrians were not able to clearly articulate the more subtle aspects of their doctrine. This is now fortunately no longer the case, and some aspects of Assyrian doctrine are surprising, such as their rejection of Nestorian Christology in favor of a translation of Chalcedonian Christology in the sixth century (although they are still technically in violation of the Council of Ephesus as they continue to use the term “Christotokos” and also venerate Nestorius as a confessor, although I have been repeatedly assured that they do not object to the use of the term Theotokos). Additionally, they are also not iconoclasts, as is widely supposed, but rather stopped placing icons due to continued Islamic defacing and desecration thereof, which may sound implausible, and it is possible that there is a lost history of iconoclasm, as one occasionally finds an Assyrian who thinks the church is iconoclastic, but their canons actually require an icon based on that of Christ Pantocrator or the Image Not Made By Hands to be present in the center of the altar, however, these canons are not widely followed due to, as far as I can tell, poor catchessis (and perhaps a fear of parishioners in some places defecting from one of the two churches to the other, perhaps not even intentionally, because Chaldean Catholic churches, which are the Eastern Catholic uniate equivalent of the Church of the East, recently have made a point of adding these icons, having usually lacked them until recently).


However, although it does not appear to reflect their present theology, we can definitely say that the Church of the East believed in Apokatastasis during the late first millennium, a time during which they enjoyed positive relations with both the Eastern Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox (the much loved Syriac Orthodox Maphrian*** Gregorios bar Hebraeus, when he reposed in an Assyrian village while en route from Tikrit to the monastery of St. Matthew in the hills above what is now Mosul, was given a funeral by the Church of the East presided over by the Catholicos himself, and separately there were numerous positive encounters with the Patriarchate of Antioch, which was unable to operate in the Persian Empire due to the centuries-long cold war, occasionally a shooting war, so to speak, between the Romans and the Sassanians. We can assert this due to the Book of the Bee, an attempt by the Bishop of Basra to write a history of the world, past, present and future, summarizing what was recorded in Scripture and the eschatological theology of the Church of the East, in which eternal torment in Hell was denied, with the author instead stating that each infidel would be released after receiving an appropriate number of stripes (lashes) for their offenses, ergo Hell becomes identical to the Roman Catholic concept of purgatory, which obviously contradicts the teaching of the majority of Orthodox Church fathers such as St. John Chrysostom, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council, which rejected all forms of Monergism which include, by necessity, Universalism.


Likewise, we see Apokatastasis described in the recently translated writings of St. Isaac the Syrian (admittedly, some Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, along with what I suspect is a majority of the Coptic Orthodox, who particularly dislike the Church of the East and all it stands for, to the point of blocking its admission to the association of Middle Eastern churches, reject the idea that these writings, which identify St. Isaac as a member of the Church of the East, were written by the same St. Isaac they venerate. While I myself am confident in the scholarship of Sebastian Brock, I respect the opinions of those who, for pious reasons, do not accept that the recently translated writings were by the same person, and suggest that there was another monk named Isaac who was a member of the Church of the East whose writings have been conflated with those of St. Isaac by Sebastian Brock. If this proves to be the case (which I personally doubt, but it could be), it does not change the fact that the Assyrian church definitely embraced Apokatastasis at a time when both the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox had fairly decisively rejected it.


It is my view that the harm that could be done to Eastern Orthodoxy if we do not act to contain the problem of universalism is considerable. It would represent a departure from the Apostolic tradition, pose a theological problem as eloquently articulated by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware as I mentioned previously, that God cannot force us to love Him and for that reason we cannot say that all must be saved; additionally, we do have prominent warnings in scripture that people will be consigned to the outer darkness, and some Orthodox fathers even suggested that this was a mercy, because God in His infinite love is a consuming fire, and being in the immediate presence of God in the World to Come, a place eternally illuminated by the Light of God Himself, would be torture for those who hate Him, and therefore the work of an Orthodox Christian is to repent of evil and align ourselves with God so that His uncreated energies are received by us as Love rather than as fiery wrath (since God, being impassable, does not go from being in a good mood to suddenly being enraged, as a primitive anthropomorphology would suggest, but rather, the wrath of God is what one experiences when through sin we align ourselves against the consuming fire of His Love and are therefore burned rather than comforted. Immediate universalism results in this theology being discarded outright, while the idea of Hell as Purgatory contradicts scriptural texts and the rejection of monergism. Indeed, the disturbing aspect to this theology, as expressed in the Book of the Bee, which is presumably being advocated by Dr. David Bentley Hart and other misguided Eastern Orthodox Christians who have rejected the Orthodox doctrine on the soul after death in favor of a misinterpretation and misappropriation of Patristic concepts of apokatastasis, is that if we combine the writings of Eastern Orthodox theologians concerning the nature of God’s love, which Metropolitan Kallistos summarized as God being unable to force us to love Him, or perhaps one might prefer to say, God is unwilling to force us to love Him since that would be coercive, and since sin can be described as rejecting God’s love in favor of self-love due to submission to the passions, with the ancient Assyrian eschatological interpretation of Apokatastasis that can only be described as Hell-as-purgatory, an idea which I should reiterate no longer appears to be the prevailing doctrine of either the Assyrian or the Ancient Churches of the East, and which indeed does not even appear to remain in a vestigial form like Nestorianism, which functionally has been rejected, since like the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, the Assyrians affirm that the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ is united in His incarnation without change, confusion, separation or division, while paradoxically continuing to use the term “Christotokos” for reasons of tradition and defiance of the Council of Ephesus and continuing to venerate Nestorius (to the extent that one of their three Anaphoras, which is an obvious adaptation of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, is pseudepigraphally attributed to Nestorius due to its origin in the Church of Constantinople of which the heresiarch was Patriarch until being deposed by the Council of Ephesus, thanks primarily to the efforts of St. Cyril the Great with the useful backing of St. Celestine), well, the problem is that it leads to a scenario which, on closer examination, amounts to God, who we believe to be infinitely loving, consigning people to be tortured until they love Him back, which is obviously inconsistent.


(Continued in next post)

I believe those who are truly great will have known to of been great soul winners on earth. Precious in the sight of God is the death of His servants. Martyrdom for the Lord is a great thing as well. But if I had to pick which one pleased God most I would go with Soul winning. Because filling up heaven is the most important thing on earth. What do you think?

God bless!

I talked to my son and he said he was thinking about going to church. He moved and there's a Catholic church down the street from his house. Please pray that he does go and that his wife abandons witchcraft and goes with him.

Recent history, i.e Donald Trump, suggests that we're frighteningly close to an anocracy, historically one of two precursors of a Civil War.

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(Keith & Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Sandra McCracken)



For what we have done and left undone, we fall on Your countless mercy.
For sins that are known and those unknown, we call on Your Name so holy.

For envy and pride, for closing our eyes, for scorning our very neighbor
In thought, word, and deed, we’ve failed You, our King ...
How deeply we need a Savior

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on us

For what You have done, Your life of love, You perfectly lived, we praise You.
Both tempted and tried, You fixed Your eyes, You finished the work God gave You.

And there on the tree, a King among thieves, You bled for a world’s betrayal.
You loved to the end, our merciful Friend, how pure and forever faithful.

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on us

For hearts that are cold, for seizing control, for scorning our very neighbor
In thought, word, and deed, we’ve failed You, our King ...
How deeply we need a Savior

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on us