Dr. Zachary Porcu

Now available at Ancient Faith Publishing and Amazon!

(if you're not in a rush or are purchasing in bulk, please consider purchasing through Ancient Faith instead of Amazon)

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Praise for Journey to Reality:

"The catechist is a teacher of Christian neophytes. It might seem a straightforward task to teach basics to new Christians, but in our time when all narratives are being contested, none can be taken for granted. Thus, especially now, part of the task of the catechist is to take as little for granted as possible. For some, this time of contest means an almost hopeless future lies ahead, with Christendom declining around us. But for Dr. Zachary Porcu in Journey to Reality, taking nothing for granted means the possibility of presenting a clear, hopeful framework for the core of thinking and behaving as Christians. Both catechists and new (or renewed) Christians will want this accessible book to help guide their way."
— Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick

"Dr. Zac Porcu...has immersed himself both in the Holy Fathers and in the humanist Zeitgeist. As such, he is able to competently assist God-seekers in bridging the gap from the emptiness of post-Christian culture to the mind of the Church."
— Fr. Josiah Trenham

"An inquirer into Christianity could read a dozen works on the faith and still not encounter the insights found in this genial gem of a book."
— Dn. Nicholas Dujmovic

"...a refrershing and accessible style of writing...remarkably concise... The book will open new vistas on Orthodoxy for those already experienced with the faith, and it will help inquirers appreciate the heavenly riches that await them in the Church."
— Fr. John Strickland

"...an Orthodox version of Mere Christianity—concise, clear and profound. An instant classic."
— David Hanegraaff

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About

Who are you and what do you do?

I'm an Orthodox Christian, a professor, and a writer.I teach history and theology at the University of St. Katherine in San Marcos and I'm a catechist at St. Andrew parish in Riverside.

What's your background?

I did my PhD in church history at The Catholic University of America, but I also have degrees in philosophy, interdisciplinary humanities, and classics (Greek and Latin).

What are the kinds of things you write and lecture on?

I focus on the intersection of two issues: Eastern Orthodox theology and the intellectual history of Western civilization.The modern Western world is in a crisis of meaning, and while it's easy to condemn modernity and its secular values, we need to understand the historical context for how these values developed so that we can better address the issues we face today as Orthodox Christians.You can read and watch some of my content here, and I'm also one of the main writers at Holy Ground, a brand-new Christian answer site written by PhDs but for a general audience.

How can I get in touch?

I don't have social media, but if you'd like to email me, you can do that at the form below. I work hard to read everything I receive, but because I practice Digital Minimalism, it may take me longer to respond.

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Journey to Reality:
Sacramental Life in a Secular Age

Introduction

When St. Patrick evangelized Ireland it wasn’t uncommon for the Irish converts to continue some of their pagan practices even though they had converted to Christianity. This wasn’t because they didn’t believe in Christianity, but because it’s difficult to change how you think about the world all at once.

Up until that point, the Irish had been pagan for their entire existence. Paganism was so deep in their culture that their ideas and attitudes towards the world remained pagan even after they converted. You might say that they had been pagan so long that they didn’t really know how to think about the world in any other way, even when they sincerely wanted to be Christian. As a consequence, they frequently misunderstood the fundamentals of Christianity while at the same time were unable to recognize their error. This is why they could think of themselves as pious Christians while still (for example) praying to the god of the ocean when they went sailing.To modern people this may seem like an obvious, even a silly, contradiction. But when it comes to understanding sacramental Christianity, we Americans are more similar to those early pagan converts than we might think.Because Americans tend to think of themselves as very religious – especially as very Christian – it’s easy to imagine that we already understand something that we may not. In fact, we may be in even more danger of misunderstanding sacramental Christianity than the converts of ages past – precisely because we think of ourselves as already knowing what Christianity is.It’s important to understand that America was shaped by the particular spiritual culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a time in which there was a great deal of religious confusion. Many people claimed to be Christian but believed very different things: that wealth and prosperity was a sign of God’s blessing, or that God predestined people to hell, or that God made the universe but didn’t interact with it, that Jesus was merely a great moral teacher, or that Christianity was inseparable from certain political movements, to name a few. But these ideas – like many other American religious ideas – would have been completely foreign to the earliest Christians.This is why it’s easy for modern Americans to be confused about religion. Even the most well-meaning of people who investigate sacramental Christianity are inevitably influenced by assumptions and attitudes that are actually incompatible with a sacramental way of viewing the world.This is just as true for those who are critical of Christianity. Many skeptics, ex-Christians, and atheists have, factually speaking, never heard the gospel as it was authentically believed by the earliest Christians. They have only heard various American religions that, while claiming to be Christianity, in fact bear almost no resemblance to the religion of the apostles, and often contradict it outright.This is why the church cannot simply present itself in a vacuum. It must speak to a particular people with particular cultural backgrounds, tendencies, and attitudes. We must acknowledge that we as Americans have a very specific heritage that’s been shaped by the religious movements of modernity rather than one grounded in historic Christianity. This isn’t to say there is nothing good in American culture – just as we can’t say there was nothing good in Irish paganism. But whatever good there was in either, both need the gospel.To receive the gospel, however, does not mean to agree with something called “the teachings of Jesus.” The ancient Church did not understand the gospel as a matter of agreement but as a particular way of interacting with reality. You might even say that their whole religious life was about trying to participate in reality itself.This kind of language is not exactly clear to modern Westerners. It sounds vague or abstract, and to some people it might even sound un-Christian. But that is exactly the issue: we have a hard time understanding—or even recognizing—ideas that would have been immediately understandable to the earliest Christians.If we wish to engage the culture, therefore, we have to speak directly to its issues. We must rediscover the sacramental under- standing of ancient Christianity in light of—and clearly distinguished from—the religious culture in which we find ourselves, rather than assuming the two are compatible. Otherwise, we run the risk of believing in Christ but praying to Zeus—and not knowing any better.

Available at Ancient Faith Publishing and Amazon