Greetings! My name is Josh. I have no presumptions about this site. My only published writings are about the Dallas Mavericks and appear in the archives of a somewhat obscure NBA blog I stopped writing for in 2013. So what is a marginally experienced sports blogger doing creating a site dedicated to Eastern Orthodoxy? It started in 2010. Though happily raised a devout evangelical, I became acquainted with "capital O" Orthodoxy and have not been the same since. My journey began with a video in my Facebook feed, took off when I stumbled across Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Way, reached a point of no return during a lengthy email interaction with Fr Patrick Henry Reardon of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, and was finally consummated on April 4th, 2015 when my wife and children and I were formally received at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Dallas, TX. I may have skipped over a detail or two in that chronology, so if you're curious for the broader picture, I'm happy to respond to emails.
My primary reason for creating Evangelical Expatriate is because during my own meandering journey, finding reliable Orthodox content on the internet was often a challenge. The Orthodox Church as presently constituted in the U.S., thanks to its development through primarily immigration over the last century, is an organizational spaghetti. One of the consequences of that is that putting an accessible foot forward on the internet has largely fallen to the laity, who have even fewer resources to organize than the various archdioceses do. As such, the uninitiated inquirer is left to navigate a treacherous webscape of outdated archdiocese websites, weirdo independent blogs, and message boards crawling with all manner of street corner oddballs peddling their own ideas as "the teaching of the Orthodox Church." What I hope to have created here is an unobtrusive catch-all of some of the most dependable, unsensational, non-triumphalist, Christ-honoring, English language Orthodox content available on the web.
Why "Evangelical Expatriate?" If an expatriate is someone uprooted from one place and living in another, this well describes me as an Evangelical-turned-Orthodox Christian. While I continue to develop an Orthodox mind, my heart remains evangelical. I'll be posting a variety of spiritual, theological and autobiographical reflections here, and on no particular schedule. I'm not a prolific writer, so it may very well be that this site's most significant service becomes its ancillary content. If you're an inquirer into Orthodoxy, be sure to check out the Topics, Books, and Videos pages for some better content than my own. Also, don't miss the Orthodox resource links on the right hand side of the blog. And of course, don't hesitate to use the email form if you have a question. No matter who you are, be a friend and answer the poll question on the home page. Thanks and God bless!
Χριστός Ανέστη!
My primary reason for creating Evangelical Expatriate is because during my own meandering journey, finding reliable Orthodox content on the internet was often a challenge. The Orthodox Church as presently constituted in the U.S., thanks to its development through primarily immigration over the last century, is an organizational spaghetti. One of the consequences of that is that putting an accessible foot forward on the internet has largely fallen to the laity, who have even fewer resources to organize than the various archdioceses do. As such, the uninitiated inquirer is left to navigate a treacherous webscape of outdated archdiocese websites, weirdo independent blogs, and message boards crawling with all manner of street corner oddballs peddling their own ideas as "the teaching of the Orthodox Church." What I hope to have created here is an unobtrusive catch-all of some of the most dependable, unsensational, non-triumphalist, Christ-honoring, English language Orthodox content available on the web.
Why "Evangelical Expatriate?" If an expatriate is someone uprooted from one place and living in another, this well describes me as an Evangelical-turned-Orthodox Christian. While I continue to develop an Orthodox mind, my heart remains evangelical. I'll be posting a variety of spiritual, theological and autobiographical reflections here, and on no particular schedule. I'm not a prolific writer, so it may very well be that this site's most significant service becomes its ancillary content. If you're an inquirer into Orthodoxy, be sure to check out the Topics, Books, and Videos pages for some better content than my own. Also, don't miss the Orthodox resource links on the right hand side of the blog. And of course, don't hesitate to use the email form if you have a question. No matter who you are, be a friend and answer the poll question on the home page. Thanks and God bless!
Χριστός Ανέστη!