Category: Faith

Relics…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Although as a general rule Orthodox Christians do not “proof text”, that is take a selection of individual verses from the Bible to “prove” a particular doctrine, here are some passages from the Bible which do undergird the larger Orthodox understanding, forged not just from the texts but also from the lived experience of the Faith,  that the power of God is able to manifest itself, in certain circumstances, through either the remains of a holy person or objects that may have been touched by the holy person.

 

Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the main’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet. (2 Kings 13:21, NIV)

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding to 12 years came up behind him [Jesus] and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment. (Matthew 9:20-22, NIV)

People brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by… and all of them were healed. (Acts 5:15-16, NIV)

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. (Acts 19:11-12, NIV)

 

While one may rightly object to the abuse of the practice of veneration of relics, it should also be noted that it is not without biblical precedent. It is also not without precedent in the larger human understanding. We often, as humans, cherish objects, for example, that have been given to us by those who have departed this life because we understand that a certain part of the person and their attributes remain with us in those objects. We obviously don’t and shouldn’t worship such things, but they do hold a cherished and venerable place in our hearts.  Historically, even in the earliest eras of the Faith Christian believers understood that the graces of God were so profound and powerful in certain people that they were holy, as it were, right down to the bone and that this holiness, because all true holiness is from God, is not ended by death.

 

Worth a Read…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

A review of the book “The Unintended Reformation”…

The underlying problem is that most people seek–and through relentless advertising are encouraged to pursue–ever greater material affluence and comfort, despite the fact that the average American income, for example, rose eightfold in real terms during the twentieth century.  Westerners now live in societies without an acquisitive ceiling:  a distinctly consumerist (rather than merely industrial) economic ethos depends precisely on persuading people to discard as quickly as possible what they were no less insistently urged to purchase, so that another acquisitive cycle might begin

If “rights” and “persons” no less than “morality” are mere constructs without empirical grounding in the findings of science, and only science can legitimately tell us anything true about reality, then such constructs can be deconstructed and dismissed in the pursuit of alternatives.

>Reformation leaders thought the root problem was doctrinal, and in seeking to fix it by turning to the Bible they unintentionally introduced multiple sorts of unwanted disagreement.  This constituted a new set of problems, different from the first.  What was true Christianity and how was it known?  Doctrinal controversy was literally endless, and religio-political conflicts…were destructive and inconclusive.

What sort of public life or common culture is possible in societies whose members share ever fewer substantive beliefs, norms, and values save for a nearly universal embrace of consumerist acquisitiveness?

Read more here.

I’m Aware…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

of the sins, the struggles, the general craziness that rears up, sometimes daily, in the Orthodox Church. I’m aware of our scandals, our tragedies, the games played behind the scenes, and many places where we fall short of our ideal. I am touched by them. At times I am, regrettably, part of them. I sin and struggle and so do the people of my Church.

I’d like it to be better. I wish everyone in my Church were perfect and myself the first. The process of becoming perfected is horrible sometimes.  There is so much to clear away, so much to remove, so much illness to be scoured out. The thought of it overwhelms me at times. Sometimes I despair. Sometimes I think of just letting it all fall away and leave for that elusive something, somewhere, where the grass across the fence seems greener.

But I won’t. I plan to stay.

I know that the day to day affairs of Orthodoxy can be touched by deep darkness and knicked by a thousand small sinful cuts. Yet I know that its also the way out of all of those things, the sins, the struggles, the dark moments, and the disease which sometimes effects everything from the largest structure of the Church to the smallest corner of my soul. It remains the beautiful path. Narrow for sure, often untrod, and surrounded by dangers, but yet the beautiful path.

My prayer is only that I stay on this path as best as I can and when I wander away I retain enough sense to find my way back. While I see the cares and struggles around me I pray that God gives me the vision to keep my eyes focused on Christ who walks with me on the way and is also the goal of my travels. If I do that I may not always be in the most comfortable spot but I will be safe, and that makes all the difference.

An Atheist’s Conversion Story…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment
I started reading the Gospels to learn what Jesus taught about living a good life and found that He taught much more about His identity as God and the nature of eternal life. I knew that it would be hard to accept one dimension of His teaching while rejecting the others. If I had good reason to believe that the Gospels were reliable eyewitness accounts, I was going to have to deal with the stuff I had always resisted as a skeptic. What about all the miracles that are wedged in there between the remarkable words of Jesus? . . . And why was it that I continued to resist the miraculous elements in the first place? 

My Hope Is…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

that we would be the kind of Church whose joy, whose love, whose fullness of life would be attractive to people who are searching. May God bless this brave young man who has returned to Christian faith from Islam.