February 2025 – Paideia Review

The Inner Work of the Spiritual Life

Posted onFebruary 18, 2025June 5, 2025AuthorpaideiaLeave a comment

The inner work of the spiritual life is the real substance of being an Orthodox Christian. Salvation, eternal life, is about coming to know God. We can live a purely external religious life, go to church, read the prayers, fast a little, partake of the sacraments and be nice to people; this is good and may bring us to heaven. But there is far more. If we remain on the level of simply formal religion, and it does not transform our mind and our heart and does not lead us to a conscious communion with God and the saints, we are missing the full potential of Christianity. We can know all about God, but not know Him. This misses the mark! Read More …

Pobedonostsev Unplugged

Posted onFebruary 18, 2025September 2, 2025AuthorpaideiaLeave a comment

There is an excellent fairly recent study (2021) of the career and works of Konstantin Pobedonostsev that deserves attention from those interested in populist Christian conservatism, in Russian cultural history, and in Russian Orthodox Christianity. Read More …

Nosferatu: An Orthodox Christian Film Review?

Posted onFebruary 18, 2025February 18, 2025AuthorpaideiaLeave a comment

The reason for the question mark in the title is simple. I’m not sure that there can be an Orthodox Christian film review of the new version of Nosferatu. I don’t think it’s a good movie for Orthodox Christians to see, especially given the gratuitous sexual scenes and innuendo throughout. It’s definitely not good to see during the Nativity Fast, I confess. My older son, now a senior in college, newly returned from study in Ireland and on break at home, had wanted to see it at some point. I figured that it would be better to go with him and discuss it with him afterward, rather than him seeing it later alone or with friends. I also was curious, as an English professor in my secular job, focusing on Christian literature and film, as to what “signs of the times” might be discerned in the film. Read More …

The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God

Posted onFebruary 5, 2025February 18, 2025AuthorpaideiaLeave a comment

This is based on a transcript of a talk by the award-winning novelist and Orthodox Christian Paul Kingsnorth, made at Bucknell University in Fall 2024. It addresses the relationship between Christianity and nature, and the title specifically invokes an obscured phrase in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The late Orthodox Christian bioethicist Herman Tristram Engelhardt glossed a statement by St. Basil the Great to suggest that natural law in Orthodox Christianity is the spark of God’s love in the human heart. Kingsnorth’s talk was generously funded by the Open Discourse Coalition and co-sponsored by the Bucknell

Humanities Center’s Environmental Humanities Group and the Bucknell Orthodox Christian Fellowship. Read More …