Bobby Maddex interviews Dr. Philip Mamalakis, the author of the new AFP book Parenting Toward the Kingdom: Orthodox Christian Principles of Child-Rearing.

Wesley discusses the concept of human dignity.

Two items in the news lately have captured Wesley's attention.

Yesterday's views of depredation have become today's banal norms.

If you think it is respectable to consider babies, whether born or unborn, to be an inferior stage of human life, you can easily come to think that they have few rights that fully developed persons are bound to respect.

Even if we came about through purely materialistic and Darwinian means, it is self-evident that something happened to make us so remarkably distinct from every other known life form.

Will healthcare providers who hold to the sanctity of human life be allowed work in the emerging secular society?

Should aspects of nature be given the same kind of rights as human beings?

Apple and art house film company A24 are in early development on a film about convicted crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried with a script written by Lena Dunham, Variety reported. The project will be based on the Michael Lewis book Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon that many critics found overly deferential to Bankman-Fried. 

The book describes the dizzying rise and equally vertiginous fall of Bankman-Fried and his FTX crypto exchange and Alameda hedge fund. However, it paints the FTX founder as a benevolent prodigy and glosses over the fact that he embezzled billions of dollars from customers and spent it on things like celebrity endorsements, political donations and high-end real-estate purchases.  

FTX was worth billions at its peak, but the exchange eventually collapsed and Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Most FTX customers will get their original investments back, plus interest, but that's based on a bitcoin price of around $17,000 — and the current price is nearly five times that.

Basing the film on Lewis's fawning hagiography isn't a promising start. Hopefully, Dunham or other writers will also draw on far better books (like Numbers Go Up by Zeke Faux) that show the dark, scammy side of crypto promoters like Bankman-Fried and the entire industry in general.

Apple Original Films and A24 have announced other collaborations recently, including the Spike Lee and Denzel Washington film High and Low. Other scripted FTX projects are also in the works, including a limited Amazon Prime series from the Russo brothers based on the 2022 FTX collapse. 

Dr. Rossi's guest is Rev. Dr. Sarah Fogg, Director of Pastoral Care at St. John's Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, New York. Dr. Fogg has long been an instructor in pastoral care for the seminary students at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. She also gave the commencement address at St. Vladimir's.

Dr. Rossi interviews Dr. Dan Hinshaw, a surgeon who wrote the book Suffering and the Nature of Healing, published by SVS Press.

Today Dr. Rossi reflects on the town of Nazareth in the New Testament and specifically on the life of Christ in that town.

Dr. Albert Rossi has a follow up interview with Fr. Sergius Halvorsen on the topic of "The Homily and the Hearer." Rev. Dr. J. Sergius Halvorsen is the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, NY.

Dr. Albert Rossi has a conversation with Fr. Nikodhim, pastor of St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church in Queens, New York, on the topic of transparency and accountability in the development of trust of others in dangerous situations.