<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A Little Cheesey, but Not Bad!
Review: I never really have understood the Filique question and personally I don't really care. Supposedly the Father, the Son & the Spirit are all One so maybe I will care to ask that question after I die and maybe I won't care. They are a bit biting on it, but then it DID separate the Catholics and us during the Great Schism and continues to divide us as other things come into play.These women tell of their personal journies and in accepting Orthodoxy also take on a culture. Being a former Fundamentalist then Athiest then Orthodox chic, I identify with them. In accepting Orthodoxy, you accept it as the One and Only Faith. We have documents in existence that prove our heritage and customs and since we feel that it is right, we live it. It's not Hell & Damnation, just personal accounts of women who live the Faith. I wouldn't reccommend it as a "must read" because there are so many more books that I find more stimulating, books that deal with cooking during Lent with the 15 products that we are allowed to eat (an exaggeration, but if you are Orthodox you will understand!) to understanding our history. Look at the cover of this book-- the little heart and the feminine colours-- you can tell a book by it's cover and it won't apeal to the scholar in most people. It is a "lite read" that I enjoyed while convelescing during an illness and if you have time on your hands and a few dollars, it is not a bad choice.
Rating: 
Summary: inspiring, informative
Review: One walks through these pages on solid (not rigid) ground. Feeling close kinship with people of the past 2000 years of history, people who have suffered in ways we pampered Americans can only imagine, gives one hope -- for surely our utopia cannot last. I was particularly blessed by realizing that the majority of churches of today, with their health/wealth doctrines, and glaring, frantic self-promotions, are not the sole choices in the American supermarket of Christian religions.
Rating:
Summary: An anthology of inspirational stories
Review: Our Hearts' True Home is an anthology of inspirational stories written by fourteen different women who learned to embrace the Orthodox Christian faith. Each woman's struggle has been uniquely different, yet all share a common experience with God's love and mercy. Black-and-white photographs of the authors intersperse this heartfelt, passionate, and devoted anthology, which awakens compassion and spiritual empathy in the reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Not warm at all, but rather chilling
Review: Quick! Where do you stand on the filioque question? (That is, does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son, or just the Father?) If you get it wrong, this book brands you a heretic. In fact, the contributors brand a lot of things heretic: Catholicism, the Episcopal church, Protestantism, confirmation separate from baptism, not fasting properly, and so on. According to this book, if you dare to say women are equal to men, you are a "purveyor of immorality." One woman talks about feeling superior to everyone in other churches; another excoriates anyone who uses the term "sacraments" instead of "holy mysteries." It is a pity that a denomination as old and honorable as the Orthodox Church should be represented by this kind of hostile and unloving rhetoric. I seem to remember that the Samaritans (a different sect from the Jews of Galilee) fared a lot better in Christ's estimation than the Pharisees. For myself, I believe I'll go back to "purveying immorality" and leave these ladies to their self-appointed holiness.
<< 1 >>
| 
