Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God; and cry to the Lord.
(Joel 1:14)
Category Archives: Back to Basics
Love became man.
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A very Merry Christmas to all of us celebrating the feast of our Lord’s Incarnation today!
How amazing is it that we have a God who wants us, loves us, and is willing to come out of His majesty to literally be one of us? He Who is outside of time accepted to be in it, He without a body took on Flesh! What was the point of that? Really, why did Love become man?
I was born this way, so how can you blame me?
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So many of us ask this question, either about ourselves or about others. Lady Gaga has also most graciously written a song about it. With the progress we’ve made in the human genome project and our understanding of genetics in general, we are finding more and more things that ‘wire’ a person to behave in a certain way. So, we find ourselves asking the question, “If I was born this way, why am I being blamed? That’s not fair!” Let’s discuss the extremes we have when discussing genetic issues: “celebrating a disease” and “victimising the victim”.
Continue reading I was born this way, so how can you blame me?
Cold-blooded murder: are you afraid of the truth?
The Truth is not afraid of discovery, because it helps us inform us more about God.
Last Friday you find out from watching the news that Hany Shenouda, prominent steward of the Service (amin el khidma) at your church, is found guilty of the murder of Hermonia Grangeria in an alley near his house. To most people in the church, he has only been an image of piety. He’s at every church service, he’s the go-to deacon for mid-week anything, and he’s at every tasbeha/psalmody every week. He taught you how to make korban. He taught the kids Sunday School. Everything about him points to, “this guy is clergy material.”
Continue reading Cold-blooded murder: are you afraid of the truth?
Don’t blame it all on God. Back to basics: Origins, Free will, and Sin.
We have to be very careful not to attribute causality to God when typically the reason for anything is our whole fallen world that we all work in. What God does is use the evil that we do to work good from it, but He certainly doesn’t will for any of these things to happen.
Continue reading Don’t blame it all on God. Back to basics: Origins, Free will, and Sin.