By JF Solís
The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.
In November 2017, The Distributist read and commented upon an article by Felix Miller, "The Right Needs Joy". Discussing the possibility that the left has finally gone off the deep end, Distributist comments, "[I]f we are in the terminal phase of progressivism, the opposition to that dying force cannot be purely negative; it can't be a group of people who stand against nut jobs.... We need a reason to carry on civilization. We need reasons for joy." This series argues that the reasons for joy and for carrying on civilization are to be found in the reclamation of Christendom. In this episode, I begin discussing the problem of division among Christians, asking, first, if a Christian rapprochement is possible. In future episodes I will discuss divisions between Protestants, Roman Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox.
Eutychianism diagram link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutyches#/media/File:Monophysite.svg
"Reflections on the Need for Optimism" : https://youtu.be/qaxKWCrcpuM
"The Right Needs Joy", read by The Distributist: https://youtu.be/SfYyfaaPXIw
Original article by Felix Miller: https://jacobitemag.com/2017/09/03/the-right-needs-joy/
G. Florovsky, Faith and Culture
The third and final installment of my treatment of theonomy, in which I discuss the philosophy of law which a reclaimed Christendom should adopt, an approach to law which is intended to repair and restore, rather than primarily to punish.
Link mentioned in the episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Federal_Regulations#/media/File:Code_of_Federal_Regulations.jpg
Finding time and place for recording still a problem now due to family health matters. But here is the second installment of my treatment of theonomy. In this installment, I discuss the sexual ethics of the Law, particular as the punishments are concerned. This discussion raises the question of jurisprudence in a reclaimed Christendom, which will be the topic of the next and final installment on the subject of theonomy.
I continue to struggle finding time and place for recording, due to the loss of my "studio" thanks to COVID precautions. But here, at long last, is the first installment of my treatment of theonomy. In this installment, the first of three, I deal with the doctrine of our being freed from the law, a topic which always comes up in discussions of theonomy, raised, understandably, by most critics of theonomy. The text for this installment is a passage in Galatians chapter five.
Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, political activist, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, including Night, which is based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
Yes, I am continuing Reclaiming Christendom. But several family health issues have imposed time constraints which have hindered my preparation of the script.
In this installment, I explain the distinction between Christendom "as a civilization, with a supporting culture, influenced by traditional Christianity and orienting its members toward the kingdom of heaven," as a means of explaining why Christendom cannot be confused with the Kingdom.
In this episode, I read the text of a lecture I delivered as a follow-up to the previous episode. (The original recording left a bit to be desired in terms of quality.) As with the previous episode, I delivered this lecture a few years ago, long before I started thinking along the lines I am outlining and describing in this series. However, together with the previous, it served such a seminal role in my thinking that I doubt I would ever have conceived of the idea of reclaiming Christendom if I had not started thinking along the lines I outlined in these lecture.
The episode on the Great Commission is here: https://anchor.fm/jf-sols/episodes/Reclaiming-Christendom-Part-II---Christendom-and-the-Great-Commission-epp69l
This is actually a recording of a lecture a few years ago, long before I started thinking along the lines I am outlining and describing in this series. However, it served such a seminal role in my thinking that I doubt I would ever have conceived of the idea of reclaiming Christendom if I had not started thinking along the lines I outline in this lecture. And although, chronologically, the lecture precedes my work here, I believe this is where it logically belongs in the series. There is a follow-up lecture, which will soon follow.
This is a postscript to the previous episode.
As I was preparing and organizing material for the previous episode, I received an update from the Barna Group, titled “Perceptions of Sin and Salvation.”
I thought about trying to include some discussion of the Barna update, but that would have made the episode much longer and also, strictly speaking, off topic. But it is still relevant to the topic of the relation between original sin and political solutions, just in a different way. It still demonstrates the importance of understanding the relation of original sin to political solutions; however, it also makes the connection between treating the problem of original sin and healing our civilization.
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Link to complete Beth Moore talk: https://youtu.be/KwyUdQFf-rk
Link to Barna’s AWVI 2020 Results, Release #8, “Perceptions of Sin and Salvation": https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AWVI-2020-Release-08-Perceptions-of-Sin-and-Salvation.pdf
Link to Met. Jonah’s talk on national repentance: https://youtu.be/MDVvEfr_pFc
Link to the PCA statistics: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-denomination/presbyterian-church-in-america/
In June of 2020, Elliot, the proprietor of the YouTube channel, Mauritian Struggle, posted a video in which he critiqued the last half-hour or so of a video by Steve Franssen. I think anyone would benefit from watching Elliot's video, but I was intrigued enough to consider Franssen's video from my own Augustinian-Calvinist perspective.
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Link to Franssen's video: https://youtu.be/lQn1zrl1nAk
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Link to Eliot's video: https://youtu.be/dRELYRy9RY8
Eliot's Recommendations (to be the sort of politically-involved Christian who can confront power, for example Moses, Elijah):
1. Going to church
2. Being men and women of prayer, especially saying, chanting or singing the psalms.
3. Praying the Rosary
4. Meditative/Spiritual Reading, the Scriptures, daily, of course, but also:
- The Preparation For Death by St Alphonsus Ligouri, which is intense but really puts life into perspective
- The Philokalia, or Love of beauty. This'll teach you the way the earliest monks struggled to fight against this themselves. Volume I is particularly good
- The Sayings of The Desert Fathers, which are a set of short stories about these monks
Scriptural Order:
- Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Maccabees, Luke, and Acts.
His recommended reading list:
- The Preparation For Death by St Alphonsus Ligouri, which is intense but really puts life into perspective
- The Philokalia, or Love of beauty. This'll teach you the way the earliest monks struggled to fight against this themselves. Volume I is particularly good
- The Sayings of The Desert Fathers, which are a set of short stories about these monks
Scriptural Order:
- Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Maccabees, Luke, and Acts. This is the story
- John, Ecclesiastes, Job and The Song of Songs
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My suggestions:
-Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity
-John Murray’s, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied
-John Owens, The Mortification of Sin in Believers
-Matthew Henry, A Church in the House
- Nathanael Ranew’s Solitude Improved
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Link to Anglican BCP (1979): https://www.bcponline.org/
Link to Anglican BCP (1928): http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/BCP_1928.htm
Link to the Office of Compline: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1892/Compline_1892.htm
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Link to instructions for the Lutheran Rosary: http://www.giftsofaith.com/Files/lutheranrosary.pdf
The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.