The moment I learned of her true condition, I was in a hospital waiting room on the phone with a nurse who had earlier told me that my mother had been in a minor car accident and was recovering in the ER. It sounded like she was okay, to the point that I asked the…
Hello to all those who are subscribed to Eric Hyde’s Blog. If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you might have thought that I fell off the planet from my inactivity. The truth is that I have been planning a switch over to Substack for several months and have only just now…
Recently, a reader of my blog challenged me to give the best evidence I could of Jesus’ life, outside of Christian sources. I will take this as a writing prompt, as I have been unusually silent on my blog over the last few months. However, I will modify the question slightly. Asking a Christian to…
In the Diary, Dostoevsky claims: “If faith in immortality is so necessary to the human being (that without it he comes to the point of killing himself), it must therefore be the normal state of humanity. Since this is the case, the immortality of the human soul exists without doubt.” This is a bold claim,…
Is it possible to summarize the difference between Orthodox Christianity and the Western tradition in a single word? Orthodox author and philosopher David Bradshaw in his book “Aristotle East and West” claims we can. It’s a massive claim that concludes Bradshaw’s lengthy analysis of the Greek term energeia (energy) and its use in the early…
This year marks my fifteenth year as a convert from Evangelicalism to the Holy Orthodox Church. That might seem like a long time but I still feel quite young in the faith. Due to its vast history and refinement, there is much to know and practice, so much so that it can be tough to…
George Carlin once said, “Have you ever noticed that everyone driving faster than you is a lunatic, and everyone driving slower than you is a moron?” I always loved this joke because it relates to much of human psychology. When it comes to politics, people are bound to judge others who vote differently as crazy…
I’ve been reading, with unusual obsession, from the writings of St. Gregory of Nazianzus in a book entitled “On the Trinity and the Knowledge of God.” This line leaped out at me: “God treads on our darkness and makes darkness his hiding place [referring to God’s presence in the cloud of Sinai] so that we…
Greetings to my readers (if any are left after so long a hiatus). Looking back over the years of writing this blog, I have realized something: it used to be about something, and now it’s about everything. I began writing just after my conversion to the Orthodox Christian Church as a way of processing my own…
Looking at Christianity from the outside, with its diverse denominations and theological divergent paths, it seems God has a communication problem. If the Bible is unmistakably clear on matters of doctrine and theology—as many Christians like to imagine—why are there hundreds, if not thousands, of different churches, all preaching very different ideas about God and…
“What about all the people who never heard of Jesus?” I said to my unexpecting Mormon grandmother, busy trying to teach me, her 7-year-old grandson, the family faith. As early as I can remember, I’ve been wonderstruck by existence and the diversity of life, thought, language, and culture throughout the world. When my grandmother attempted…
“The assailants of Christianity being as noisy as its adherents were mute, the latter began to fear that they were singular in their opinions, and, dreading singularity more than error, they joined the crowd without sharing its creed.” Without immediately revealing the source of this quote, would you believe that it was written last Tuesday…
Why would any Christian want to use icons in worship? Isn’t it unwise to have an image in your mind during worship? Shouldn’t one completely rid oneself of mental conceptions for worship to have its perfect work? This mindset is certainly represented in many Protestant churches. In near-Islamic fashion, many of these church buildings are…
As a former Evangelical Christian, I understand the basic Protestant abhorrence of icons. As an Orthodox Christian convert, I can’t imagine Christianity without them. This change of perspective represents an extreme makeover. Evangelicals and Orthodox are on opposite ends of the Christian religious spectrum, yet both sides pride themselves on being the foremost representatives of…
At the time of this writing, Christmas is a mere 10 days away. One of my favorite things about the holiday is that Protestant Christians worldwide allow themselves to display their baby Jesus, Mary, angels, and saints in their homes and churches, falling back in with the tradition of the ancient Church in displaying icons…
Growing up in the United States and learning history in public school, I believed America was on a mission from God to save the planet. If you grew up in the States and are over the age of 40, you probably had the same impression. Stories of the early European settlers fleeing religious oppression, seeking…
Once again, since I can’t seem to write an article to save my life these days, I present to you, my reader (now watcher), another Failed Christian podcast episode featuring me and the host, Joey Papa. This episode speaks mostly to the historic Orthodox Christian treatment of hell. Enjoy, and please let me know your…
This is my first time publishing a podcast rather than a written blog. I don’t intend to make it a regular thing, but we’ll see. Clearly, I have struggled to write on this blog for a while (it’s been nearly 4 months), but I hope to emerge soon from various other projects and resume. In…
“Just eight centuries ago, we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar, and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth…” (Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov) The true homeland on this…
A new article from Christianity Today hit my news feed last week, and it blew me away. The title was: “Top 5 Heresies Among American Evangelicals”. The article is based on a recent survey which found (among other disasters) that 73% of American Evangelicals believe Jesus is a created being. Yes, a full three-quarters of…
Albert Camus, the famed author of philosophical absurdism, was certainly not the first to propose that life is absurd. The author of Ecclesiastes beat him to it by several centuries. “Vanity of vanities, everything under the sun is vanity,” goes the famous repeated line. I remember the shock I felt reading Ecclesiastes for the first…
"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced" -Kierkegaard
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