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Original sin introduced disharmony into the world on three levels. On each level, there is an effect on the relational aspects of human existence. The first level of disharmony is between the human race and God—demonstrated by Adam hiding from his Creator. On the second level, human beings are out of harmony with each other, beginning with the primary unity between husbands and wives. Adam blames Eve, and woman will now suffer male dominance that God did not intend. And finally, the human …

People living in deep sin are not always the ones who are most in need of our help, but rather the people who think they’re doing well, when in actuality the opposite is true. Before my conversion to Catholicism, I was that person—outwardly functioning but spiritually sick. I considered myself to be a “good person.” I opened doors for strangers, volunteered, gave blood, recycled bottles and cans, and limited my consumption of plastic goods. I once drove all over town in …

The Nature of Faith: Trust in Relationships In general, faith can be understood as the acceptance of something as true based on the trustworthiness of the one revealing it. Any kind of deep friendship requires a trust between friends. Otherwise, the relationship will remain superficial, without any deep intimacy and communication of what is most important to both. In true friendship, each person speaks from the heart, revealing what is of deep significance. To accept as true what a frien …

What Did the Early Christians Believe About Baptism? The Unity of the Early Church on Baptism Baptism wasn’t a controversial issue among the first Christians—it was a point of remarkable unity. Despite early theological debates on other topics, there was widespread agreement among the Church Fathers on the essential meaning and effects of baptism. Everett Ferguson, a Protestant elder, biblical scholar, and Church historian, explores this in depth in his landmark work Baptism in the …

The Rise of Gender Fluidity and the Need for Truth At my son’s large public high school it is not uncommon to see kids in various states of  “gender fluidity,” but not simply in the sense of feminine boys and tomboy girls as I saw back in my own public high school in the 1980s. No, these kids are either formally “transitioning” or experimenting with opposite-sex alter-egos, both of which have become trendy and faddish. As parents, we are often lulled by a misguided compassion that ke …