"Lots of Orthodox go to church every Sunday but don't know much about the faith. Yet they know that t..." — Frederica Mathewes-Green

The Bible, that powerful book, has many effects: it comforts, counsels, instructs, and brings us into the presence of God. But trying to erase offense as one of its functions is a fundamentally misguided task.

What's wrong with us isn't a rap sheet of bad deeds, but a damaged heart, a soul-sickness, that plunges us into fearful self-protection, alienation from God and others.

God's presence is not just Light, and Life, but Love. And Love invites, but does not compel.

Temptation coaxes us toward sin, and sin leads to sickness and death, and ultimately confinement in the realm of the evil one.