Quotes from Frederica Mathewes-Green

It is what we really are, and not a legal fiction, that will encounter the Light of Christ when this life ends. It's what we have actually made of ourselves that will be "tested by fire" (1 Peter 1:7).

The reason my husband and I became Orthodox was that our mainline denomination was energetically revising its theology; church leaders were teaching that Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, he didn't do any miracles, and he didn't rise from the dead.†† After some reading, visiting churches, praying, and a whole lot of talking, we decided to join the Orthodox Church.

Our goal is to learn how to resist temptation, but desperate attempts at iron willpower can produce frustration and disappointment. What's needed is watchfulness—in Greek, nepsis. Since temptation begins with a thought, we need to start noticing the thoughts that appear in our minds, that weave around and through, seeking a weak spot. The idea is to notice them early, and shut them off. Block them before they get stronger and harder to resist.

And don't get pulled into trying to debate or refute them. Any kind of engagement with a thought can pull you into a downward slide. Just recognize them when you see them, and turn back to your constant inner prayer.

The idea of God's "kingdom" is a weak earthly analogy for the unimaginably vast authority that underlies the universe. All of Creation is his, and he governs every atom, every star. And the energy of it is love.

After I graduated from college, while traveling around Europe, hitchhiking, doing the tourist thing, I went into a church in Dublin.

Everyone wants to transform, but nobody wants to change.

My mother was an unbeliever - and still is. My father was a nominal Catholic. We would go in to church at the last minute before the gospel reading, take Communion, and walk right out again.

I know by experience that Jesus Christ is a very powerful spirit - I know by experience that he is probably the most powerful spirit in the universe. I know by experience he is not a mere human being. He is something beyond that.

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

The devil's main purpose is not to scare us, in a horror-movie way; when we're scared of him, we're alert to him, and that might undermine his plans. Instead, he wants to quietly, subtly lure us into stepping away from God.

Easter tells us of something children can't understand, because it addresses things they don't yet have to know: the weariness of life, the pain, the profound loneliness and hovering fear of meaninglessness.

People don't do theology in a vacuum but in a community with other theological thinkers, where there's jealousy, vanity, hurt pride, all those things.

There are lots of things to like about being Eastern Orthodox - incense, liturgies, all the baklava you can eat - but you know what I like best? None of that stupid 'women's ministry' stuff.

A segregated spiritual subculture does women no good, even if it does have adorable butterflies in the logo.

Somehow we just dont make the same boisterous fun of Holy Week that we do of Christmas. No one plans to have a holly, jolly Easter.

It is tragic that some Christians have been so battered with stories of a prideful, vindictive God that they have fled from Jesus' fold.