One thing we ought to be able to agree upon

One thing we ought to be able to agree upon:
We can't kill in His name.

When is virginity not a virtue?

When is virginity not a virtue? When it is flaunted as a sexual
tease. Public professions of virginity, ostensibly indicating the
renunciation of sexual power, are often about wielding it. Hollywood
and music world examples are not lacking. Modesty appears to be rare.
(Then again, it doesn't draw attention to itself.)

God a poor excuse?!

God: no better reason for love; no worse excuse for hate.

Sharing Jerusalem

When we can learn to share Jerusalem, we can learn to share the rest
of the world as well.

three-fold nature of Church

For various reasons, I'm becoming persuaded that the Orthodox,
Catholic, Protestant distinctions within Christianity serve a
positive end, and may be reflective of the Church's trinitarian
origin. Strange, but I've not heard this said before. Am I missing
something?
Please do not misunderstand. This is not a "branch theory" I'm alluding to.

through the Holocaust

Through the Holocaust, Christians learn... we would have crucified
Him too.

Regarding Silence of the Quakers:

A Quaker website (http://www.fum.org/about/welcome.htm) states the following:

"Friends have no creeds—no official words can substitute for a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. These unofficial statements give a general sense of Friends' faith.

—God is love and wants to communicate inwardly with everyone who is willing.

—Worship is spiritual and must be Spirit-led.

—All people are equal before God and may minister as they are led by God.

—Jesus Christ is our present Teacher and Lord, and we seek to conduct church affairs in unity under his guidance

—The Spirit of God gives guidance that is consistent with the Bible.

—As people respond to the Light of Christ within, their lives begin to reflect Jesus' peace, integrity, simplicity and moral purity."

Here's what's interesting. There actually is a great deal of content

in these words. Think about it. It's interesting that it

takes even that many words to define a non-verbal position.

I think what's unique about Orthodoxy is that it both understands the

inadequacy of words and, at the same time, understands that some words

are infinitely less misleading than others when it comes to describing

what is ultimately beyond human language. First of all, while God is

known only to Himself in His essence, he doesn't remain in Himself,

but is always moving out towards us in creation, sustenance,

providence and self-revelation. So, there is something to describe.

Our words about God will never be adequate to who and what God is, but

they can be appropriate to who and what God is, reflecting what can be

known, and reflecting properly the direction in which we don't know.

Do they orient us toward the truth of God, who surpasses our

formulations, or do they mislead? To point at a mountain from miles

away is a hopeless gesture when you think of it. No matter how far you

extend your finger, it will never touch the mountain. Nonetheless,

there is a right way to point at the mountain (one which

directs someone's attention to the mountain itself), and a wrong way

(one which directs one's attention to something other than the

mountain, or, in some cases, to the finger itself). Our words can

never touch God, but they are far from arbitrary for that reason. They have all the seriousness of our salvation in them.

Further, Orthodoxy understands that the use of these inadequate but

appropriate words is unavoidable, necessary and beneficial. Silence

isn't holy if it isn't the trailing off of exhausted holy words. Holy

silence begins only where words have done all their work and can't do

any more. To entertain silence before this is to risk contemplating,

silently, something that is infinitely less than God.

If we give the Quakers who wrote this wordy, nonverbal creed the benefit of the doubt, they are Christians if they do what they are pretending they are not saying. We will spare them the critique that they are not doing what they say they do, which is to not say what they are doing.

It seems that some Christian groups are positivist, believing that their words really define what God is. Their definitions are very rigorous, because they feel they are simply objectively relating the facts. They lack all sense of poetry, because they have no sense of mystery. Others do the opposite, figuring that words never hold a candle to God, so therefore words are abritrary, and it doesn't matter whether you compare God to sunrise or a shoehorn, or say nothing at all, because it's all equally non-sensical. Orthodoxy speaks, because it is appropriate that words go as far as they can in orienting us toward the One who is ultimately beyond words. I suspect that at the root of Quakerism is this fundamental Christian understanding. Today, though, and especially in places like the one where I live, we can't be sure people know what the words are that they are surpassing by being silent. Quite often, it's probably an attempt to get in touch with Buddhist nothingness, and not an attempt to explore further the mystery of God in Jesus Christ.

This is one of the more insightful comments I've found lately, and resonate with it completely:

"I later came to learn that the theology of the Wesleys was heavily influenced by the Greek fathers - in fact, it is possible to understand Wesleyan theology as little more than a translation of Greek theology into Western terms" http://www.likelierthings.com/?p=247.

It sources also a very interesting article:

http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyan_theology/theojrnl/26-30/26-3.htm

For the record, I was also raised Methodist, and am now an Orthodox priest.