{"id":303,"date":"2009-04-07T12:06:26","date_gmt":"2009-04-07T12:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html"},"modified":"2009-04-07T12:06:26","modified_gmt":"2009-04-07T12:06:26","slug":"a-reader-writes-about-orthodox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html","title":{"rendered":"A Reader Writes about Orthodoxy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Claudia, AKA Ragamuffin Diva<\/a>, read my post in which I proposed that Rod’s opposition to SSM is related to his conversion to Orthodoxy<\/a> — actually, that certain persons are attracted to EO…  Here’s what she wrote:<\/p>\n

Dear Tony,<\/p>\n

I was interested to read what you said on Beliefnet
\nabout Rod and Frederica<\/a>. I’m not sure if you know this, but oddly, you
\nwere a huge part of why I converted to Orthodoxy. I cherished your book
\nThe Sacred Way<\/i><\/a>, which pointing me to ancient Christianity. Having
\nbraved the wild fires of the black Pentecostal Church, I craved
\nsomething solid and sure. The disciplines you laid out in your work
\nwere a feast to me. I dove in head first, welcoming all the smells and
\nbells.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The Orthodox Church was not what I expected. I had a
\nterrible time connecting to the writers (I related to Catholic writers
\nso much more) and couldn’t shake the distinctly cultural elements that
\nwere absolutely not my own culture. I felt like I needed to be
\nRomanian, or Russian to experience it like others were. Or married to a
\npriest to even begin to understand. I wrote a book review of Ron
\nHansen’s lovely novel Mariette in Ecstasy<\/i><\/a> in an Orthodox women’s
\nmagazine, and was horrified that I was asked to apologize for writing
\nabout a Catholic book. Can you imagine. And (gasp) it was a novel! They
\nso raked me over the coals! My Orthodox days were numbered.<\/p>\n

Not
\nso much because of the one incident. Many things affected my decision
\nto leave that communion. I’m now happily Catholic. I find it a much
\nbetter fit. I can relate to what you’re saying about the Holy Spirit
\nmoving. My Pentecostal roots help me to understand that dynamic. I love
\nthat, despite its many problems, the Catholic Church does make an
\neffort to clarify and enhance matters of doctrine and such. Of course,
\nI’m a ragamuffin, so you’ll have to excuse my clumsiness as I talk
\nabout these things. I just wanted to tell you that in the end I wanted
\nright teaching, sure, but more than that I wanted the Eucharist, as
\nmuch Jesus as I could get. I’m glad you pointed me in the direction of
\nwhere I could find that satisfying meal.<\/p>\n

I pray that we, His Church, become One. Thank you so much, Tony, for your part in my journey to my soul’s home.<\/p>\n

peace,
\nclaudia mair burney, aka ragamuffin diva<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Claudia and I are planning to have an extended conversation about this in this space in coming days…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claudia, AKA Ragamuffin Diva, read my post in which I proposed that Rod’s opposition to SSM is related to his conversion to Orthodoxy — actually, that certain persons are attracted to EO…  Here’s what she wrote: Dear Tony, I was interested to read what you said on Beliefnet about Rod and Frederica. I’m not sure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"yoast_head":"\nA Reader Writes about Orthodoxy - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Reader Writes about Orthodoxy - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Claudia, AKA Ragamuffin Diva, read my post in which I proposed that Rod’s opposition to SSM is related to his conversion to Orthodoxy — actually, that certain persons are attracted to EO…  Here’s what she wrote: Dear Tony, I was interested to read what you said on Beliefnet about Rod and Frederica. I’m not sure…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-07T12:06:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Reader Writes about Orthodoxy - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Reader Writes about Orthodoxy - The New Christians","og_description":"Claudia, AKA Ragamuffin Diva, read my post in which I proposed that Rod’s opposition to SSM is related to his conversion to Orthodoxy — actually, that certain persons are attracted to EO…  Here’s what she wrote: Dear Tony, I was interested to read what you said on Beliefnet about Rod and Frederica. I’m not sure…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2009-04-07T12:06:26+00:00","author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html","name":"A Reader Writes about Orthodoxy - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-07T12:06:26+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-07T12:06:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/a-reader-writes-about-orthodox.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Reader Writes about Orthodoxy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}