Eastern Orthodox Christian Perspective on the “End Times”

Some time in 2007, I happened to be tuned in to a radio station and heard a discussion that struck me as highly relevant to this blog. Unfortunately, I wrote a draft but never got to the point of publishing it. So, 6 years later, here it is!

>> I was listening to the radio today and was amazed at how many of the apocalyptic points he hit on that overlapped with the site’s content. Although I’m not sure what to make of some of his theology, I do want to say that his knowledge of world affairs and evaluation of the direction the world is headed in is expansive and realistic, and stems from a strongly biblical perspective. Some major points he touches on are the compatibility of faith and reason, anthropologically-driven apocalypse, the unsustainability of modern civilization, and a few doctrinal issues.

Original link, now broken: http://www.wbez.org/Program_WV_Segment.aspx?segmentID=13012

Chicago Public Radio program description: Many in the United States are unfamiliar with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Many believe it’s just a Greek or Russian version of the Roman Catholic Church. Closer examination reveals that this ancient branch of Christianity differs from Roman Catholicism and also Protestantism in significant ways.

A Defense of Absolute Truth – revised and expanded for comprehension – part 1 of 2

If you notice on the right, taking the no. 1 spot the “Top Posts” in this blog is “A Defense of Absolute Truth”, a message originally spoken by Ravi Zacharias and annotated by the members of a now-defunct blog called “Garage Scholars”. This is my attempt to make Ravi’s argument more clear per his message, which is available here in video form: Ravi Zacharias Speaking To LDS 1 of 7  2 of 7  3 of 7  4 of 7  5 of 7  6 of 7  7 of 7 (h/t to user Reuven Goldstein). For further background, this is the first of a three-part series entitled “In Pursuit of Truth”, given on November 13, 2005 at the University of Utah Mormon Tabernacle. A DVD can also be purchased here.

[Start of post revision/summary and expansion of Ravi’s original remarks]

Sexuality, marriage, stem-cell research, genetics—these things are getting very, very complex. It’s hard to know how to address this tangled subject with meaning and coherence. In today’s modern age, there are two worldviews in conflict: relativism and absolute truth.

This is the nature of truth: we must come to conclusion that truth does matter, especially when you’re on the receiving end of a lie. For example, in a trip to courtroom with family, Ravi witnessed the trial of man accused of raping two minors. After the prosecutor finished, Ravi was certain he was guilty. But then after the defense attorney spoke, Ravi was not so sure of what the truth was. This being a criminal trial, how much more important is it that we understand the truth and the source of truth about life’s essence, meaning and destiny?

Ohmygoodness, a new post!

12/21/2012 has come and gone, a new pope has been selected, the Amazon hasn’t completely been destroyed yet and the climate is arguably more or less the same. And yet.. the EU seems to be collapsing, a massive debt threatens to bring down the world economy, people are going bankrupt and losing their jobs left and right, and droughts, earthquakes, massive tsunami’s (prayers for Japan), and the depletion of water tables continue to happen. For the Christians out there, you’ve kept the faith! I’m glad if you could use this site to gain (somewhat) in your knowledge and/or thinking. As Peter says:

³ His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

⁵ For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;⁷ and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind,forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. (2 Peter 1:3-9)

Haiti Earthquake

Hey everyone,

I know I haven’t written in awhile, I’ve been extremely busy to say the least. Lots of personal growth happening that I think will benefit the blog later on.

That issue aside, clicking through pictures of the crisis in Haiti has been eye-opening. This one in particular was just, in a word, crazy to see…

Please, by all means, help out if you can. $5, $10, fundraising, joining advocacy groups, whatever you can. Here are a couple websites you can donate to:

http://www.redcross.org/ (click “Donate Now”)
http://yele.org/ (Yele Haiti, Wyclef’s organization. Texting instructions to donate $5)
http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/ (Google: various options to donate)

Brothers and sisters, these can be formative moments in your faith if you step up to the challenge.

Food troubles are here to stay

Another dimension of Israel. It’s hard to grasp the extent to which oil is a part of our lives until the reality starts to hit us in the face and pocketbooks. And even then, some of us still don’t grasp it, or don’t care because they’re fine now.

Christians, let’s use our greatest resource – the church – to start addressing some of the problems people – whether the average American, or those in Haiti or Indonesia or Israel – are running into and try our best to raise awareness and develop plans of action, because they’re going to get worse.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980076.html

The government sends calming signals and says no dramatic shortages are expected. The Economist says do nothing, market forces will sort it all out. But as the global food-price crisis hit Israel this week, something told us we are not being told the whole story.

Around the world food prices are soaring. Since January 2006, the price of rice has risen by 217 percent. Wheat, corn and soybean prices have more than doubled, and in several countries, milk and meat prices have also doubled.

Food prices and falling wages have sparked riots in more than 30 countries from Bangladesh to Egypt to Haiti – where the prices of rice, beans, fruit and condensed milk have gone up 50 percent over a few months, while the price of fuel has tripled.

Nearly 1 in 5 troops has mental problems after war service

Hopefully most of you have been aware of the prevalence of PTSD in Iraq war veterans. Those who need the most help are most always going to be on the margins. By miracle or simply persistence, I believe Christ can help them. Let’s live the life of service and freedom together!

link

By PAULINE JELINEK – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more.

Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket

Does anyone honestly think that we’re going to engineer ourselves out of this mess? That 2012 apocalypse prediction is really not looking so out of the question after all, is it?

This blog has been repeating the same old theme: a coming apocalypse from a confluence of anthropological, economic, and natural factors, which seems interminably headed towards the direction of a die-off, global war, or any other of the major disasters mankind has faced in its short history. Christian brothers, how can we honestly sit here doing nothing? Has your church made you that out of touch, that you would ignore the suffering of those around you? Examine yourself and see if your faith is tried and true.

(CNN) — Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world’s attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.

Oil Prices Pass Record Set in ’80s, but Then Recede

The era of Cheap Oil is over. (And has been for a couple years now).

All there’s left to see is how far down and how long.

(Sorry this wasn’t longer, currently working on senior thesis paper. Right-click => View Image to see the full graph)

Happy 2008 everybody!

The decade of our doom draws closer (half kidding. And the alliteration was just by happenstance).

In the meantime, I’ve been reading a book called “The Fourth Turning” by Strauss and Howe describing the cyclical pattern of history, roughly divided into 4 “quarters”: High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis. They say with conviction that the US is approaching a Crisis in the next four years, and characterize US Turnings as roughly 70 years long. Great news, eh?

I’ll be praying for both me and all of you out there. May God be glorified through our lives in these tough times.

Financial News: Crisis soars as fraud and scandal collapse

The level of crisis in the securities and investment banking industry is at its highest since records began, according to the Financial News annual Crisis Index.

The unique Financial News family of indices measures references to collapse, crisis, fraud and scandal in articles in Financial News and on Financial News Online each year. To create each index, the frequency of mentions is rebased to 100 starting in 1998 to reflect the three-and-a-half fold increase in the number of articles published by Financial News in the past decade.

Energy Crunch Threatens South American Nations

By now the talk about global warming on this site amounts to beating a dead horse, as the granting of the Nobel prize to Al Gore should demonstrate. Clearly, because we fail to take necessary action now as well as in the immediate (as in, the next 3-5 years) future, we are headed towards some catastrophic changes in the way the ecosphere functions to support our main life support systems. There are irreversible changes occurring all around the planet due to the chain of events started by industrialization, the least of which are the opening up of the Northwest passage, the melting of the Siberian permafrost (releasing massive amounts of methane, a far more potent source of pollution than carbon dioxide), rapid melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and increases in chaotic weather (and I’m putting it mildly – like the recent 40 degree drop in temperature from 90 to 50 in the past few days here in Chicago), to name a few.