St. Vladimir's Seminary Trustee Authors Book that Introduces Eastern Orthodox Christianity to a Broad Audience

http://www.svots.edu/content/seminary-trustee-authors-book-about-orthodox-faith-and-practice

Seminary Trustee Authors Book about Orthodox Faith and Practice

15 January 2014 • Off-Campus • Trustees in the News

Corporate Secretary of the Board of Trustees of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, The Rev. Philip LeMasters, Ph.D., has written a new book titled, The Forgotten Faith: Ancient Insights for Contemporary Believers from Eastern Christianity (2013).  “This book has a lot to teach Western Christians about prayer, worship, fasting, marriage, sacraments, the Bible, Mary and the saints, and cultural engagement,” states the work’s publisher, Cascade Books.

Father Philip’s dual vocations as pastor of St. Luke Orthodox Orthodox Christian Church in Abilene, TX and dean of the School of Social Sciences and Religion at McMurry University presented him with the perfect opportunity to write a book about the spiritual discipline and rich liturgical worship of the Orthodox Church, as sustenance for anyone seeking growth in the Christian faith. Over the years, Father Philip had offered a series of well-received talks to groups of university students visiting his parish, and these then provided the impetus and content for The Forgotten Faith. “If this book serves to enrich the lives of readers while encouraging them to explore the Orthodox Faith, I will have achieved my goal,” the author notes in the Introduction.

In an informal rather than scholarly style, Fr. Philip describes his journey from his Texas Baptist roots to Orthodoxy, incorporating references to his personal history as well as to American popular culture. “LeMasters seeks to explain Orthodoxy to twenty-first-century American Christians,” explains Everett Ferguson in the book’s Foreword.

LINKS:

• Father Philip has authored several other books, including Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage, and Sex (2004, Light & Life) and The Goodness of God’s Creation: How to Live as an Orthodox Christian (2008, Regina Orthodox Press).
• Order The Forgotten Faith
• Read Fr. Philip’s recent presentation: "Philanthropia in Liturgy and Life: The Anaphora of Basil the Great and Eastern Orthodox Social Ethics,” offered at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics in Seattle, Washington, January 9-12, 2014.
• Listen to Fr. Philip’s presentation on Education Day, 2011: “Orthodox Perspectives on Peace, War, and Violence”