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Orthodoxy Versus Christian Materialism (Part I)

By Father Stephen Freeman Over the years I find myself coming back to a number of ideas within the modern world that differ markedly from Orthodox thought. These are ideas that are imbedded so deep within our culture that they seem self-evident to most people. Many Orthodox believers hold to one or more of them, distorting their understanding of the faith. This article is an effort to create a list and address each one. If

Look Who’s Talking

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, April 6, 2017  Everyone is familiar with that “voice in the head.” By this, I mean the negative voice. It is mean, judgmental, angry, jealous, envious, salacious, just bad. Sometimes it goes quiet. Sometimes it is so overwhelming that it drowns everything else out. One simple question we can ask: “Who’s doing the talking?” This voice is not the product of reasoning. We have not weighed, measured, compared and reached a

The Fourth Friday of Great Lent: Christianity in a Plain Brown Wrapper

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 29, 2021 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2Co 3:18) Among the many losses within modern Christianity has been the place of transformation. Nineteenth century revival movements and theology emphasized a single experience that was associated with salvation. Those who concerned

Put Your Money to Work – It’s for Your Salvation

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 5, 2017  And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. (Luk 16:9) I recall a conversation long ago with a young, up-and-coming entrepreneur. He was a new member of the parish I was serving (Anglican). We had been speaking about stewardship – money. His comment to me was straightforward: “You make it sound like

Psychology as the New Sacrament

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, September 13, 2016  The creation of the “two-storey universe” was an unintended consequence of the Protestant Reformation. I have recently been enjoying Brad Gregory‘s The Unintended Reformation, in which he traces the various historical currents and ideas that gave rise to the modern secular notion of the world. It is a magisterial treatment, and I recommend it to serious students of history, as well as anyone wanting to better understand our modern

The Holy and Great Council and the Hidden Work of God

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, June 5, 2016 The science of psychology had its beginnings in the 19th century. It has since gone through many changes, complete with clinical science of the brain and its chemistry. However, in its earliest days it had something of a mystical twist. Freud, Jung and their cohort could see the surface of the personality and the various disorders it presented. Their instinct was that the causes of those disorders lay somewhere

The Change We Should Believe In

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 25, 2016  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Co 3:18) Among the many losses within modern Christianity has been the place of transformation. Nineteenth-century revival movements and theology emphasized a single experience that was associated with salvation. Those who concerned

The Fourth Tuesday of Great Lent. The Lenten Struggle. Putting Off the Old Self.

The Lenten Struggle Lent is the perfect time to struggle with the ego By Abbot Tryphon, March 26, 2019 Modern psychology has told us we must feel good about ourselves and instructed us to reject the idea of guilt and sin. Sin is seen as religion’s instrument for keeping people in line, making them dependent on an institution that should be relegated to the Dark Ages. In an age where man is elevated to being

Jesus Is Not Your Imaginary Friend

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, November 27, 2015  At some point in our history, we began to attribute a merely mental reality to anything that was not an object and reduced the importance of objects to what they could contribute to our mental reality. We live in a sea of psychology. Things, we believe, are only what we think they are. My “relationship” with you means nothing more than the set of inner experiences and dispositions I have towards

Thoughts on Spirituality and Psychology. Thoughts on Sacred and Secular.

By Michael Haldas Thoughts on Spirituality and Psychology, June 21, 2016 “In a psychological culture, morality and psychology are the only human realities we acknowledge. We do not see nor understand the nature of spiritual things. We are locked in a world of cause and effect and presume that everything works in such a manner. The landscape of psychological causes (and effects) is the world as we choose to see it. But it does not