Another City: An Early Christmas Present

Finally, some good news to report on the Orthodox front!

Another City, a new Orthodox journal was just launched and in my humble opinion, may very well prove to be one of the better internet journals we’ve seen in a while. I’m very excited at its prospects, believing as I do that it will be a bracing antidote to what we find in non-traditionalist media such as Public Orthodoxy and The Wheel. Now is not the time for Orthodoxy to conform itself to the world but to shine the light of Truth instead.

It is edited by Fr Hans Jacobse and Orthodox philosophy professor Bruce Seraphim Foltz and has some notable contributing editors, some of whom you might recognize.

Fr Hans tells me the site has been in the works for the past year and while he hopes to avoid polemics, it’s clear Another City intends to dig deeper into the issues that perplex the Orthodox (and others) than what is usually found elsewhere. Although it boasts many academics on its editorial board, it won’t be an academic journal but will engage the culture in a straightforward manner. “We’ll be republishing some articles from the past, highlighting lesser known thinkers in America like Fr Pavel Florensky, and publishing modern authors as well,” he said.

I hope that you all will bookmark this site. It promises to be exciting and a worthwhile resource. You wont be dissappointed.

From the Another City website:

Seeking to retrieve the divine ordering that underlies our everyday life, an ordering that is by no means a “social construct,” Another City will present articles that illumine present-day issues with the light of traditional Orthodoxy; promulgate the insights of hesychast spirituality; commemorate the lives of the saints; exploring both the historical and global dimensions of the living Church; consider and celebrate virtues no longer fashionable; critically examine works and topics of contemporary thought; and present original translations of texts, both patristic and recent, alongside reviews of contemporary books, music, and film. While aspiring to the highest standards of intellectual excellence, our articles will at the same time strive for accessibility to a broad, non-specialist audience.

(Click the image to go to Another City.)
Click image to visit Another City

Meanwhile, you might want to listen to a talk Fr Hans gave at the OCL conference recently in Chicago.
 

 
 
 

Comments

  1. Fr. David Hovik says

    Another Christmas Present option: The new book entitled Following the Holy Fathers (Timeless Guides of Authentic Christianity) by Protopresbyter Theodore Zisis [Newrome Press]

    • I just started reading this and I can’t put it down. This book is a “must-have” for all Orthodox Christians. Fr Theodoros gives us a glimpse of the patristic phronema of the Holy Orthodox Church.

  2. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, it looks interesting and has varied content. If nothing else, scroll down to the end to see the Optina Monastery cats join the daily monastery procession. What a wonderful way to start a day!

  3. Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

    Ever-memorable Pavel (Paul) Florensky! Great! He was always fascinated by astrology and used to cast horoscopes for his friends! Nothing like solid research on which to base a new periodical, right? Talk about “auspicious beginnings!”

    • fr Chris Moody says

      Your Grace,
      As I peruse the articles Fr has on the new site, I wonder what is it You find objectionable? It is all solidly orthodox and balanced. It avoids much of the politicking that can be found on this site. I think it is best to rejoice “whether in pretense or in truth Christ is preached” The site is a welcome departure from the morass and sordid stuff circulating these days.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        Priest Christopher! Please provide evidence of your charge that I have found ” the articles Fr has on the new site” objectionable.
        You rejoice ““whether in pretense or in truth Christ is preached” ! Please cite a reference for that strange pronouncement on pretense.

        • Always the provocateur, your Grace. Surely you know that the reference for this is Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Church at Philippi.

          “…and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.”

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            Hi, Brian!
            I’m waiting to hear Priest Christopher’s replies to my two questions, I agree that the preaching of Christ in e.g., the Qor’an is something to rejoice about. [But I’d like to hear some examples of PRETENCE in preaching Christ.]

            • Your Grace,

              Fr. Christopher can reply if he likes, but I can think of quite a few examples of pretense in preaching Christ.

              – Faith healers
              – Many television and radio evangelists
              – Some bishops and priests from some Mainline Protestant groups
              – Even, I suspect, some bishops and priests who use their Orthodox “brand” for personal advantage

              Interestingly, many of these lead people to the truth of Christ in spite of themselves.

              Speaking of waiting to hear replies, I believe Fr. Hans also awaits one from you.

  4. For some more excellent reading and a bit of entertainment

    I recommend for a stocking stuffer the suspense thriller novel:

    House
    By Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker

    My woman got it for me and it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read

    • George Michalopulos says

      BJS, I like this tradition.

      To all: if you have any Xmas ideas for gifts, please feel free to mention them.

      • George,

        The welcome change in tone here is gift enough for me. It hasn’t gone unnoticed or unappreciated.

  5. Gail Sheppard says

    Regarding Christmas gifts: If you have a daughter with long hair who wears a hair tie around her wrist so she can pull up her hair up into a messy bun when the mood strikes her, buy her this: https://tinyurl.com/y8e6c9ca My daughter accidentally opened her gift early and LOVED it! (What, George?! You said “Christmas gifts, right? You didn’t say “Orthodox.”)

  6. Cautiously optimistic. I personally know Dr. David Bradshaw, one of the authors. I started to suggest the site was headed in the right direction, but I’m not completely sure of that. I think the difference I and many traditionalists have with relatively conservative modernists can be explained by commenting on the following quotes from Fr. Johannes Jacobse’s article Orthodox Leadership in a Brave New World:

    “The culture war is fundamentally a conflict about anthropology—how we value the human being, how we ought to define him, the purpose for his existence, what social arrangements society deems suitable for men and women, and so forth. And politics emerged as the prominent battlefield for the conflict.”

    * * *

    “If Orthodox Christians should understand anything, it is this: Salvation is a concrete, existential encounter with the living God. Moreover, this Lord gives gifts, including wisdom, knowledge, insight, and courage—all the elements needed to confront the maelstrom of confusion in which our culture finds itself, and all meant to be applied in the work of daily life, whether as mother, researcher, mechanic, priest—whatever our vocation may be.”

    “Salvation is not understanding the correct theological concepts; it is not nostalgia for civilizations past; it is not formal membership in a long-standing parish; it is not social activism; it is not morally appropriate behavior; it is not mastery of the moral vocabulary. Further, it is not enough to recall the certainty of the past. Nostalgic impulses, as comforting as they may be (including the Orthodox variants, such as the longings for Hellenistic Greece or Holy Russia), simply won’t meet the challenge.”

    * * *

    The cultural wars are not fundamentally about anthropology but theology and morality. Our opponents are atheists. It is no more complicated than that, really. Atheism, to be sure, has implications for anthropology. But let us not put the cart before the horse. They do not believe that there is “Some Guy” up there Who has revealed Himself in Christ and Who is taking names. Whatever theism they might claim, they simply do not believe in a real, objective Supreme Being to Whom they will be answerable.

    The poo-pooing of “correct theology” and “nostalgia for civilizations past” is Schmemannism, not Orthodoxy. We read about the Divine Essence and Divine Energies for a reason, as we also read about the lives of the saints in the Byzantine Empire and Holy Russia. It is also why hesychasm is dangerous in the hands of non-Orthodox, because they have no grounding upon which to understand their experiences.

    And so ultimately it is about a correct understanding and acceptance of theology and morality, in search of or expectation of an “existential encounter”. Theosis, to be sure, is an encounter with the living God. But either one literally believes or one does not. That is most certainly the difference between the sides in the culture war and often the difference between modernists and traditionalists. Modernists seek a controlled, refined Sacred Tradition subject to modern scholarship and the mediation of a sort of religious intelligentsia. That is certainly the case of the folks at Public Orthodoxy. They do so because they do not believe in the Sacred Tradition nor in the Supreme Being whose life in the Church that Tradition constitutes.

  7. Menas Moralotos says

    Dumquafles, of Public Orthodoxy, is Bart’s Didactor Tou Gennous (Doctor of the Generation), successor to Yale’s Deno Geanakoplos.

  8. Joseph Lipper says

    Fr. Johannes Jacobse says:

    “The culture war is fundamentally a conflict about anthropology—how we value the human being, how we ought to define him, the purpose for his existence, what social arrangements society deems suitable for men and women, and so forth. And politics emerged as the prominent battlefield for the conflict.”

    The conflict of anthropology has always been about sin. We have Adam without sin, living in paradise with God. We also have Adam separated from God by sin and living outside of paradise. Christ comes to meet Adam outside of paradise, coming down even to the very depths of hell to defeat sin and to restore Adam to his original state.

    While the battlefield of politics no doubt exists in the very depths of hell, and certainly the oppressed people that Christ encountered on earth were political people, was Christ Himself political when He came to earth?

    The Nativity of Christ we celebrate indissolubly combines theology with anthropology: Christ as fully God assumes the fullness of humanity. God and man are now inseparable in Christ We can’t discuss a true anthropology then without also discussing Christ as God.

    So what does Christ tell us about the true political nature of man? When Christ came on earth, was He political?

  9. Michael Bauman says

    Christ is Born,!

  10. Thank you for sharing about this new blog!