Category: Soteriology

No Repentance After Death: Facing Hard Questions about Salvation

· David Bradshaw
When one turns to the Church Fathers with these questions in mind, one thing that becomes apparent is that the Fathers did not find them pressing in the same way as we do today. Just as they took for granted that some will be eternally damned, so they assumed that there can be no repentance after death, at least of the thoroughgoing, “deep” kind that is essential to Christian life.

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy 2.0 is now here. Here’s an excerpt.

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Update: New episodes are now available at this link. As I’ve announced on social media and elsewhere, I’m in the process of producing an updated, revised, and expanded version of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy—both the podcast and the book. New episodes of the podcast begin airing on Ancient Faith Radio on November 22. This new podcast series (and book!) represents a full revision,…

Why Would a Calvinist or a Baptist do Confession?

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A friend shared this article today, in which one of the writers at The Gospel Coalition (a generally Reformed bunch of Evangelicals) laments the lack of confession in (his?) church: It is puzzling to see one of the defining marks of a Christian’s identity quietly disappear from a church’s worship. I’m speaking, of course, about confession – a time when the church…

The Rejection of Universalism in the Triodion

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
One of the big problems with an Orthodox Christian embracing universalism is that he has to reject a large portion of the liturgical tradition of the Church in order to do so. The eternality of the punishment of the wicked is ubiquitous in the services of the Church. This may be less apparent if one does not have access to frequent church…

Grace and Wrath in the Orthodox Tradition

· Dylan Pahman
Eric Jobe’s recent series on justification (Part I, Part II, Part III) has spurred some discussion regarding the role of divine wrath in Orthodoxy. To simplify: Some readers seemed to believe that there was no place in Orthodoxy to speak of the wrath of God at all. Our salvation, to them, has nothing to do with deliverance from God’s wrath. Rather than…

The Moral Christian: A Response to Fr. Stephen Freeman

· Dylan Pahman
In a recent post at Glory to God for All Things, “The Un-Moral Christian,” Fr. Stephen Freeman critiques what he sees as common conceptions of Christianity as moral, defined as “the rules and standards by which we guide ourselves.” These, he writes, are external and can be described and discussed. They are the rules by which we choose how to behave and…

Is Orthodoxy the Same Everywhere?: Understanding Theological Controversy Within the Church

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
What do we mean when we say that Orthodoxy is the same everywhere? One of the “features” of Orthodoxy that is commonly put forward especially by converts as proof of the truth of the Orthodox Christian faith is that Orthodoxy is the same everywhere. They may point to the unanimity of liturgical practice, that all Orthodox look to the same councils and…

Did Pope Francis say everyone will be saved by doing good?

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Enormous theological ignorance and bad reading exploded onto the scene this week: Pope Francis Says Atheists Who Do Good Are Redeemed, Not Just Catholics (An earlier version had this headline: “Pope Francis Says All Who Do Good Are Redeemed – Atheists included.”) (Huffington Post) Pope Francis rocked some religious and atheist minds today when he declared that everyone was redeemed through Jesus,…