{"id":5430,"date":"2006-10-05T11:24:42","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T11:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html"},"modified":"2006-10-05T11:24:42","modified_gmt":"2006-10-05T11:24:42","slug":"digging-for-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html","title":{"rendered":"Digging for the Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two really fascinating post over at Mike Aquilina’s. <\/a><\/p>\n

The first concerns an archaeologist who used the ruins of Syrian ghost towns to re-connect Syrian Christians to their heritage:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Dr. Loosley discovered that the local Christians knew nothing about the history of the nearby ruins. Christians are a minority in Muslim-dominated Syria, and they have grown disenchanted with the land and with their religion. In school they learn almost nothing about the role of Christianity in ancient Syria \u2014 or the importance of Syria in the ancient Church. Thus, as Syrians, they feel alienated from Christianity; yet, as Christians, they feel alienated from their own country. Dr. Loosley observed that, in Aleppo, many old men opted to play backgammon outdoors on Sunday morning rather than attend the liturgy. Many young Christians simply left the country.<\/p>\n

She suspected that their disenchantment had something to do with their historical disconnect. She wrote: \u201cthese men were alienated from the Church through ignorance and needed to be educated about their past.\u201d She decided to do something about it:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And then an extended look at Jesuit Father Robert Taft’s new book – and at his work in general.<\/a><\/p>\n

This<\/span><\/a> is a book that combines the academic rigor of the published Father Taft with the frankness of his live lectures. Indeed, the book is made up of edited transcripts of his 2005 Paul G. Manolis Distinguished Lectures at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, California.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a book by turns moving and entertaining. Father Taft sets out to give us a \u201cbottom-up\u201d view of the Byzantine liturgy, as it was experienced by the congregations of late antiquity, rather than explicated by the mystagogues. The situation was, as he points out, \u201cnot all incense and icons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing the Great Fathers, he evokes free-ranging congregations where young men and women trolled the crowd for romance. Chrysostom complained that the women at church were no different from courtesans, and the men like \u201cfrantic stallions.\u201d Chrysostom also noted that people were talking throughout the liturgy, and \u201ctheir talk is filthier than excrement.\u201d Old Golden Mouth went on to report that the rush for Communion proceeded by way of \u201ckicking, striking, filled with anger, shoving our neighbors, full of disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n

It almost makes today\u2019s American parishes look reverent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But there is a deeper point to be made about the power of liturgy…go read.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two really fascinating post over at Mike Aquilina’s. The first concerns an archaeologist who used the ruins of Syrian ghost towns to re-connect Syrian Christians to their heritage: Dr. Loosley discovered that the local Christians knew nothing about the history of the nearby ruins. Christians are a minority in Muslim-dominated Syria, and they have grown…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDigging for the Truth - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Digging for the Truth - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two really fascinating post over at Mike Aquilina’s. The first concerns an archaeologist who used the ruins of Syrian ghost towns to re-connect Syrian Christians to their heritage: Dr. Loosley discovered that the local Christians knew nothing about the history of the nearby ruins. Christians are a minority in Muslim-dominated Syria, and they have grown…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-05T11:24:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Digging for the Truth - Via Media","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\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Digging for the Truth - Via Media","og_description":"Two really fascinating post over at Mike Aquilina’s. 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Christians are a minority in Muslim-dominated Syria, and they have grown…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-10-05T11:24:42+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html","name":"Digging for the Truth - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-10-05T11:24:42+00:00","dateModified":"2006-10-05T11:24:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/digging-for-the-truth.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Digging for the Truth"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?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\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}