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Another story of Orthodoxy in Scotland. More on Fr. John will be forthcoming next week. One of Scotland’s most senior priests died just weeks after seeing his “life’s work” complete – as his once tiny congregation bought a huge new church. Eastern Orthodox clergyman John Maitland Moir died last week at the age of 89, [...]
Being a Protestant, I of course did not fish outside the Protestant pool. I became an Anglican, and thereafter, an Anglican priest.
Transition by Fr. John Whiteford As my doubts about Protestantism increased, I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. As an associate pastor, I had certain responsibilities, which included leading a small group on Sunday nights, and also occasionally preaching on Sunday morning. I continued to fulfill these duties, but was increasingly less convinced about [...]
by Fr. John Whiteford Around the time I began digging into Oden’s “Systematic Theology,” I received 2 books that Fr. Anthony Nelson had suggested I read if I wanted to understand more about the Orthodox Church: ”Orthodox Dogmatic Theology”, by Fr. Michael Pomazansky, and “Becoming Orthodox”, by Fr. Peter Gillquist. I was struck by many of [...]
by Fr. John Whiteford However, when I began to seriously study the writings of the Methodist theologian Thomas Oden, I realized that my new theological method wasn’t a new method at all – it was only new to me. Much of the material I was assigned to read while at SNU was a labor to [...]
Discovering Tradition by Fr. John Whiteford There were several things that I studied in depth that began to open my eyes to the fundamental flaws in Protestantism, and also to the importance of Tradition: Textual Criticism, Empiricism and its role in Protestant Biblical Scholarship, the question of the inspiration of Scripture, the works of Thomas [...]
An Associate Pastor and Pro-Life Activist by Fr. John Whiteford The new Nazarene Church, that I began attending seemed like the ideal I had been looking for. It was started by the initiative of the District Superintendent (who functions a bit like a diocesan bishop) with the intention of attracting people who were inclined to [...]
The Dead End of Non-Denominationalism by Fr. John Whiteford In the summer of 1988 my wife and I were married in the Chinese Baptist Church that she had been attending in Houston. Due to the efforts of my very frugal wife, we were able to have a nice wedding, a reception, a honeymoon, and to [...]
by Fr. John Whiteford Back to Square One Eventually, it began to dawn on me that I was where I was because I had turned away from God, and so I began to repent. I finally began to again feel a peace and a joy that eventually overcame my depression, and got me out of [...]
by Fr. John Whiteford Into the Spiritual Abyss Later in high school, I got a job in a bookstore, and because it was my job to check new books in, I acquired a number of new interests. For example, I began studying Japanese, because of a book that I ran across that explained how to [...]
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