What can Evangelicals and Orthodox learn from each other is the subject of the 2nd section of our interview with His Eminence.

As Great Lent begins, Illumined Heart host Kevin Allen and nutrition expert Rita Madden (MPH and RD) discuss the role of food in our Orthodox spiritual life, what the Church Fathers say about food and food quantity, and practical nutritional issues related to fasting. Can we get the protein we need from a plant-based diet? Do we need supplements? Should children fast? These and many other questions - from an Orthodox patristic perspective and Rita's expertise -are the focus of this important conversation. Be watching for Rita's new podcast on AFR about Food and Faith coming soon!!

Mother Melania, stavrophor (little schema) nun at St. Barbara Monastery, Santa Paula, California and author of the series, "The Twelve Great Feasts for Children", and the series, "The 3-Day Pascha" (for Great and Holy Friday, Great and Holy Saturday, and Pascha) discusses purity (and impurity) of heart and overcoming the passions.

Steve McMeans talks to Fr. Josiah about St. John Chrysostom and his views on the relationship between marriage and monasticism. This show will suprise you...!

Jeremy (Basil) Dannnebohm was an ardent young Catholic. What made him journey from his cradle Church to the Eastern Orthodox Church, only to return to Rome and then revert to Orthodoxy? His story is on this episode of the Illumined Heart.

In this episode, the microphone is turned as AFR General Manager and founder John Maddex interviews host Kevin Allen on the catechism module he developed (with his priest's blessing) specifically for inquirers coming from New Age and Eastern spiritual backgrounds. Is the entrance of New Age and Eastern seekers perhaps a trend the Church needs to prepare for? Are the issues, concerns, and paradigms of these seekers the same as those inquiring from Evangelical backgrounds? Must the catechist know something about New Age and Eastern religions in order to catechize effectively? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this program. You may download an attachment of the course outline here.

Kevin Allen talks with Fr. Peter Gillquist about the status of Orthodox Evangelism and the Church in America.

Kevin speaks with the ecological advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch (the "'Green' Patriarch"!) Dn.John Chryssavgis PhD, about the connection between the ancient faith of Orthodox Christianity and contemporary ecology.

Guest: His Grace Bishop JOSEPH, Bishop of the Antiochian Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the West. Feeling the mid-Lent blahs, or are the Lent "purple demons" out in force? Perhaps you are not "feeling" anything and wondering what the purpose of the Church's injunctions to pray, fast and give alms are supposed to cause in us during Great Lent and Pascha? Well you're not alone! Kevin asks H.G. JOSEPH these very questions in this encouraging and consoling interview.

Today we're going to be talking about the veneration of Mary and the Saints in the Holy Tradition. This topic is often misunderstood and can be a stumbling block for inquirers. Our guest is Father Patrick Henry Reardon, Pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, Sr. Editor of Touchstone Magazine and author of Christ in the Saints.

In this edition Kevin tackles the tricky question of which Christian tradition can authentically claim "apostolic succession," with historian, theologian, author, and Dean of St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Fr John Behr.

Rookie police officer, Orthodox deacon's son and priest's grandson, Joseph (Jobie) Braun speaks with Kevin about his job as a policeman in the infamous Los Angeles "South Central" area (e.g. the movie "Training Day") and how his Orthodox Christianity keeps him grounded.

Orthodox pro-life advocate, author, and Martha and Mary House Director/Housemother Sarah Elisabet Oftedal talks with Kevin about the impact abortion has had on our culture, the lingering trauma on women (and families) who have had them, and what Martha and Mary House—the U.S.'s only Orthodox maternity home—is doing about it.

In this edition meet post-modern John Ma'ae, who looked for truth in Theravada Buddhism and eventually found the fullness of Christ as the head and body of the Orthodox Church.

Join guest host Turbo Qualls and OCA priest, author, and president of The Brotherhood of St Moses the Black, Fr. Moses Berry, in their conversation about Orthodox Christianity and why it is a gift to African-Americans.

Fr. Hans Jacobse, editor of Orthodoxy Today and President of The American Orthodox Institute speaks with host Kevin Allen about whether Eastern Orthodox Christians need to engage in the moral and social war that is being waged in our culture. They will also talk about whether "Religious Right" leaning ex-Evangelical converts are taking over the Orthodox churches in America! Buckle your seat belts!

Fr. Ted Stlylianapolous (PhD), professor emeritus at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological Seminary, St Paul scholar and author, speaks with host Kevin Allen about justification, sanctification, the sacraments and new perrspectives on St Paul. Kevin says this is one of his best interviews because it tackles the major issues which divide the patristic and Protestant understandings of the foremost expositor of the Christian faith.

In the opening program of a new series of interviews, Dr. Bradley Nassif, theologian, author and life-long member of the Antiochian Archdiocese in North America, speaks about the "The Nature and Mission of the Bishop in the Orthodox Church". You can also read Dr Nassif's one-page piece referred to in the interview from the Antiochian website.

Fr. Alexander Rentel, Orthodox canonist and Assistant Professor of Canon Law and Byzantine Studies at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological seminary, speaks with Illumined Heart host Kevin Allen about scandals in church history, the role the canons play, and what laity can do about their resolution.

Pornography has become a social, spiritual, and physical epidemic in the world. Andrew's first podcast is part one of a series of conversations which will identify the real issues we must face in dealing with pornography from an Orthodox Christian perspective. This first episode in that series talks about pornography, iconography, and idolatry. A transcript of this episode is available HERE.

Andrew continues from the last episode about unfaithfulness being the characteristic act of immorality by exploring how pornography is a rejection of the ultimate significance of marriage. Read a transcript HERE.

In episode 4, Andrew helps us understand the transformation that takes place when we begin to see iconographically instead of pornographically. The transcript can be accessed HERE.

In episode 5, Andrew continues to explore the transformation of our desires and how that relates to addiction. Click HERE for a transcript.

Andrew reminds us that we can use our creativity in cooperation with God’s creative power or we can use it apart from God. Read the transcript HERE.

In this episode, Andrew suggests that the mask is our attempt to save and build our own lives, and yet when we put it on, our life is lost. In the same way, the mockery of intimacy in pornography shrinks and deforms us. Read the transcript HERE.

The holy icon defines for us what an image should be. But pornography is an anti-icon because it breaks the link between the image and the archetype and replaces it with a link between image and fantasy. Read the transcript HERE.

The scourge of pornography use in our society is also itself an image — an image that manifests certain unpalatable realities of our culture and relationships. Read a transcript HERE.

We live in a world of broken reality, of mere facts that exist without the truth of love and communion. The holy icon draws us into communion. Pornography cuts us off from communion. Transcript is available HERE.

How talking about anything — including violence and sexuality — can lead to consequences in others’ lives, intentionally and unintentionally. Read the transcript HERE.

Jesus said “Everyone who practices sin is the slave of sin!” (Jn. 8:34). But we know so long as we live, we live only through God’s dynamic, life-sustaining power active in us. Read the transcript HERE.

How do I deal with toxic shame that seems to close off the avenue back to God. Read the transcript HERE.

A Study of the Paralytic in Mark Chapter 2 Sometimes the world appears to be so divided and its people so alienated from one another, that it seems like it would take a miracle to fix it and bring us all together again! And yet, this is exactly what Christ came to do. Likewise, the purpose of the Church, which is His body, is to re-unite in itself the world, which has been pulled apart by sin. Drawing on the healing narratives of the Gospels, the sayings of early Church Father, St. John Chrysostom, and contemporary Orthodox thinker Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Steve and Bill examine the causes of division, and discuss how we are healed, and the fragmented cosmos is put back together again in the person of Christ.

We continue our discussion of the famous Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian and his plea for God to remove from him the "lust for power" and "idle talk". As is made clear from the sayings of the Fathers cited here, these sins are so well-rooted in our normal, everyday lives that raising our self-awareness regarding how and how often we commit them is a significant Lenten undertaking.

In this final program of the series on the Divine Liturgy we discuss the dismissal prayers after communion. These are more than just a formality as they express the summation of all that we have experienced for the past hour or more: God is the lover of mankind. But the Christian's experience of the Eucharist does not end with the final doxology or the Liturgy. In many parishes there are "post communion prayers" that are read as the people come for the closing blessing and antidoron from the priest. These express in prayer the Orthodox experience of the Eucharist and its meaning to us as we commune and "go forth in peace."

In part three on this series on the end times Steve and Bill discuss the Father's ancient wisdom of being silent on things that are difficult to interpret in the Bible then go on to discuss difficult topics about the end times. In this program they discuss the Rapture, dispensationalism and the place of the Church in God's plan of salvation, and Christian Zionism, all hinges on the door of many Protestant end time theories. They summarize how the Creed addresses all of these interpretations.

In the last program of the End Times series, Steve and Bill try to tag team wrestle "the Beast" and the "Antichrist." It was a tough match-up, and the they left some marks on them, but not the trademark "666." And just what does "666" mean anyway? Tune in and see who has been marked as the Beast and the Antichrist through history.

Steve and Bill got invited to fill in for the vacationing Andrew Tallman, the afternoon drive time talk show host on 1360 KPXQ, the Phoenix area SALEM evangelical radio station. It is a two-hour show from 5 to 7pm, so we are posting the first hour of the program this week and the second hour next week.

This is hour two of the Andrew Tallman Show that Steve and Bill hosted during Andrew's Christmas vacation.

Steve and Bill are once again invited to guest host the Andrew Tallman Show on KPXQ, a live Phoenix drive time Christian talk show. We decide to boldly go where no Evangelical talk show host has gone before. We discuss the topic of sola scriptura and during the program get a call from a suprise guest.

We continue the discussion of essence and energy and give a very broad overview of the influence of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle on Augustine and Aquinas and how philosophy has influenced the views of God in the West. We also discuss how the East and West's views of God manifest themselves in how we view creation and the human being's relationship to God.

In the sixth and final program on the series on "Relics," Steve and Bill discuss issues that face the Western theological concepts of nature, person, will and their relationships to one another before and after the fall. How one views the nature of God and the human being determines one's view of the meaning of salvation and the impact of "salvation" on the human being in this life. Relics are the evidence of the progressive nature of the human participation in the divine energies of God and a foretaste of the life to come in eternity. In the second half of the program Steve and Bill examine the New Testament and many passages that point us to the concept of "synergy," the working of the human person with God toward the goal of union with God.

Continuing with our discussion about Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology, we turn to the question of what happened to the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in the first centuries following the death of the Apostles, and specifically the relationship between the Eastern Churches and the Church at Rome. Contrasting the Petrine Doctrine and the conduct of Roman Bishops with that of the Eastern Bishops through the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the first millenium, we find that the collegial model was maintained as it had begun in Acts 15, and that Rome, despite certain attempts to exert universal authority over the Churches, was subject to the Councils and their declarations.

What accounts for the differences between the Eastern and Western churches? Many things of course, but primarily the development in the West - through those such as Anselm and Aquinas - of an emphasis on human reason and intellect in the pursuit of theological understanding. Returning briefly to our discussion of Rome and the Eastern Church, we contrast rationalism with the Eastern tradition that bows to the Mystery of the Incomprehensible, that proclaims that "theologians" are pure in heart through love of God (the eastern Church grants the title of Theologian to only three Saints in all of Church History), and we begin to see how steeped our modern culture and we ourselves are in scholastic thinking.

An interview with Fr. Chris Salamy

We finish this Lenten series discussing the virtues of patience, love, and not judging our brother. Again, the Orthodox axiom of working out the virtues in the body is true, and we learn that patience is not merely a passive state, but also requires spiritual/bodily effort to restrain evil thoughts/actions, choosing to perform God's will instead. Love for God, neighbor, enemies and the whole of creation is our aim, cultivated with our growing awareness of God's pure and captivating eros coming down from heaven. Engulfed in this love we lose interest in the world and adopt the humble mind of Christ, whose words on the Cross, "forgive them for they know not what they do," are to become our own towards all men.