Healing Humanity Confronting our Moral Crisis

Western societies today are coming unmoored in the face of an earth-shaking ethical and cultural paradigm shift. At its core is the question of what it means to be human and how we are meant to live. The old answers are no longer accepted; a dizzying array of options are offered in their stead. Underpinning this smorgasbord of lifestyles is a thicket of unquestioned assumptions, such as the separation of gender from biological sex, which not so long ago would have been universally rejected as radical notions. In the spring of 2019, a group of Orthodox Christian scholars drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines met together to offer responses to the moral crisis our generation faces, elaborating upon its various forms and facilitating a fuller understanding of some of its theological and philosophical foundations. In doing so they offer support to all those who question the claims that are so forcefully insisted upon today – a clarity that will aid them in standing up and resisting trends that have already shown to be the cause of great suffering and unhappiness. Among the contributors to this volume are NY Times bestselling author Rod Dreher, Frederica Matthewes-Green, Dr David Bradshaw, Fr Chad Hatfield, and Fr Peter Heers. Collectively, these scholars remind us that it is only through our participation in the life of Christ, God who became man, that we can find the healing of our humanity through the restoration in us of His image, in which we were formed at the beginning of time.

Dr. David C. Ford is Professor of Church History at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Seminary, in South Canaan, PA. His most recent publications include Women and Men in the Early Church: The Vision of Saint John Chrysostom, Wisdom for Today from the Early Church, and Saint Tikhon of Moscow: Instructions and Teachings for the American Orthodox Faithful (1898 - 1907). Alfred Kentigern Siewers, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English at Bucknell University, where he also co-directs the Bucknell Program for American Leadership and Citizenship. Dr. Siewers is the author of Strange Beauty: Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Landscape. His recent public writings have appeared in The Federalist, The American Conservative, and Public Discourse. Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster, Ph.D., is Dean and Professor of Moral Theology Emeritus at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, New York. A retired U.S. Army chaplain, Fr Alexander has served parishes in Clairton, PA, Falls Church, VA, and Stafford, VA as an Orthodox priest of over 37 years. Rod Dreher is a senior editor at The American Conservative. He has also written four books, most recently the NY Times Bestseller, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. His contribution to this volume builds on the themes of that book and is titled, The Benedict Option and Orthodox Anthropology. Frederica Matthewes-Green is a wide-ranging author who has published 10 books and more than 700 essays in such diverse publications as the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Smithsonian, and the Wall Street Journal. She is one of the most popular contemporary American authors on Eastern Orthodox faith and praxis.