Oil & Water: Orthodoxy in Progress

Is there a difference between "spiritual discernment" and "ethical decision-making"?           Often times, in contexts of Faith, particularly the processes whereby people of Faith navigate life in this world, the virtues of spiritual discernment and ethical decision-making can be confused with one another and the line between the two can become blurred. In my opinion, this confusion is largely based on the simplified moral conduct which replaces the spiritual life when religion becomes more concerned with law than with relationship. Far too frequently, sermons and lessons which neglect their responsibility of expounding on deeper spiritual truths and the New Covenant faith which sets Christianity apart turn instead to basic ethical precepts and codes of moral conduct. While this is not an inherently negative process of aligning one’s life with acceptable methods of carrying out tasks and relationships — in fact it is often quite helpful to provide structur...

Orthodoxy in Progress: Finding Beauty in the Mystery of Paradox Expect the Unexpected          One of the many memorable aphorisms of my late grandfather which has remained with me most clearly and deepened in meaning for me exponentially is, "The more you know, the more you know you don’t know." As an adolescent, I would simply chuckle approvingly at its apparent cleverness, but an age of spiritual, psychological, and theological formation since then has given me a greater appreciation of this wisdom (which happens to be an idea attributed to Plato, apparently) and the beauty of paradox. What my grandfather accepted, and sought to impart, was a humble and reverent submission to the immensity of the mystery and magnitude of our existence, and the incomprehensible beyond. The presence of unknowability and mystery in life is so often conveyed to our imaginations in irony, speculation, or perhaps most acutely, paradox: that which strikes common sense as contra...

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: "The Rule of Prayer is the Rule of Belief" Excerpts abridged from a research paper presented to Dr. Eric N. Newberg, Department of Theology Oral Roberts University, by Nicholas B. A. Heide (2016). Liturgy: The Worship of the Assembly Early Evidence: The Didache “But every Lord’s Day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.” The Didache , or “teaching,” is a catechetical corpus of texts used to describe and presumably mandate Christian practice, and its authorship is ascribed to the Twelve Apostles; this instructional first-century document was re-discovered in 1883 in a Constantinopolitan monastery, providing yet another early extra-biblical example of the corporate Liturgical worship celebrated by the Christian faithful of the nascent Church. St. Athanasius of Alexandria is known to have numbered the Didache among the “books not included in the...