Some readers have had trouble subscribing to my blog via different newsreaders (primarily Yahoo). To correct this I added a RSS subscription link. You can find it on the right hand side of the front page. Sorry for any inconvience.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
A new blog site, Ethika Politika, has published my essay exploring American individualism in light of the ascetical tradition of the Orthodox Church. Here’s the conclusion:
American individualism is not intrinsically immoral nor is it an anthropological heresy. For all America’s real faults and sins, it is founded on — and until recently preserved by — an ascetical intuition that helped Americans avoid the excessive of both the radical individualism of the Enlightenment and of pre-Modern aristocratic authority. The Puritan work ethic, the US Constitution’s separation of powers, our Bourgeois virtues, and commitment to Civil Rights all reflect that aspect of the American character that takes seriously the need to correct what is worse in us so that what is best in us can shine forth. Americans are not by any stretch of the imagination monks, but we are, in our way and when we are our best selves, an ascetical people nonetheless.
For the whole essay go here.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Koinonia has a fan page on Facebook that you can access here. I’ve neglected posting on the fan page because, well, I’ve not been able to figure it out–that is until today (I hope!). Using the IFTTT site, I’ve created a link that automatically updates not only my personal Facebook page but the fan page.
So help a pious priest out and like my blog’s fan page on Facebook!
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
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The OCA Diocese of the Midwest will hold an Urban Parish Summit on July 16-17 at St Theodosius Cathedral in Cleveland OH. The summit will gather clergy and lay representatives from 17 urban parishes to discuss the possibilities for parish growth and spiritual renewal. My parish is hoping to send at least three lay representatives. I'll be attending as well and will lead a workshop on the second day of the conference. My topic will be the importance of storytelling in parish renewal.
More information about the summit is available here.
Looking at the stats, I see that Koinonia has this week broken 200 subscribers1 Thank you to all of you who take the time to read here. And a special thank you to those who have put up with the buggy comment system. God willing, that will be corrected in the next few days.
For those interested, the slides and a recording of the webinar I did yesterday (Tuesday) for the Diocese of the Chicago and the Midwest (OCA) on the psychology of leadership are now both available online. You can find them here: Diocese's Webinar Project. You can find the link to my presentations, as well as an upcoming webinar on religion in America by Fr Basil Aden, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Illinois' Rock Valley College, in the center right column.
If I may ask a small favor, if you do review the slides or listen to the webinar, would you please direct any thought you have about the presentation to Joseph Kormos who direct of the Parish Health Ministry for the diocese and to me. Joe's email address is available here: Diocesan Administration.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
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The comment section was set to not allow anonymous comments. You should now again be able to leave comments without leaving an email address. My apologizes for those who have not been able to leave comments. Please let me know if you are still having trouble commenting.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Just a reminder, I'll be leading a webinar on the psychology of leadership THIS afternoon. We'll be looking at some of the recent research on leadership as it applies to parish ministry. The seminar starts TODAY , Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 2pm CDT (3pm EDT).
This afternoon's seminar will look primarily at the theoretical foundations of leadership in general. The will be a second seminar, next Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 2pm CDT (3pm EDT) that will look at the application of the psychological research to the concrete circumstances of the parish.
Open to whomever wishes to participate, the seminars are sponsored by the OCA Diocese of the Midwest Parish Health. You do need to register however and can do that for today's presentation here.
A number of people from varied backgrounds, both clergy and laity, Orthodox Christians as well as Christians from other traditions, so it should be a very good gathering.
See you online later today!
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
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Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17th and then again on Tuesday, March 31st at 2:00 PM (CST), 3:00 PM (EST), 7:00 PM (GMT) I will be leading an online seminar on parish leadership. The first seminar, "Psychology of Leadership I: Looking at the Research," will be an overview of some of the psychological research on leadership. The second seminar on the 31st will meet at the same time and will more directly apply the findings of the psychological research on leadership to the parish. Both webinars will last approximately 45 minutes and you will be able to submit questions via instant messaging. Finally, the webinar is free.
If you are interested you can register by clicking here.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
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In the most recent US presidential election a number of Pro-Life advocates came out in support of the Senator Obama. The argument made then was typically some form of the argument made last November by Frank Schaffer in an open letter to President-elect Obama. As I argue below, while I understand why many Americans voted for Mr Obama, I believe those who argue his policies are compatible with a Pro-Life policy position are simply, tragically, wrong. While my letter is address to Frank Schaeffer, I would invite your own thoughts on the matter.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Dear Frank,
On November 12, 2008 you published an open letter to the then newly elected Barack Obama. You title the piece, "An Open Letter to President-Elect Obama About Abortion: From a Pro-Obama and Pro-Life Leader." While I do not dispute your past contributions to the Pro-Life cause, I must take objection to what seems to me to be the faulty moral analysis that underlies your advice to President Obama. To be direct, your argument is neither a Pro-Life argument nor compatible with the historical, Christian faith nor the teaching of the historical Christian Churches, East and West, Orthodox and Catholic. The Church's teaching aside, however, you cannot be, as you claim to be, "pro-life," and argue "that abortion should remain legal." Your arguments are not pro-life but pro-choice.
Let me explain.
You argue that we must reduce the number of abortions, far enough. But you also argue that there is no need for the Democratic Party (and I'm quoting here from your essay) "to give up principles about reproductive rights. In fact, it means that those principles can better be defended in the long term because you will have claimed the moral high ground." In other words, and please correct me if I am wrong here, you argue that reducing the number of abortions is in the service of defending a so called "right to abortion." I'm sorry but this is simply monstrous. In effect your advice to our new president is that he work to help some mothers bring their children to term so that other mothers can maintain the legal right to kill their children!
You agree with President Obama's own argument on the matter, when you say that abortion (and again I'm quoting) "is a moral issue upon which reasonable and honorable people can disagree." Again, this is monstrous—indeed if it were not for the moral horror of this argument it would be laughable. That people disagree over abortion is clear—but it is neither reasonable nor honorable to accept, even regretfully, the proposition that it is morally licit to take an innocent life. And such acceptance is certainly not a pro-life argument.
Let me be clear: Under no circumstance can one sanction the taking of an innocent life. Those who fail to see this, do so because of a grievous moral blindness and hardness of heart.
What I find more is disturbing than intellectual poverty of your moral analysis is your cynical willingness call yourself pro-life while expressing a willingness to sacrifice the lives of the unborn for the sake of national harmony and an end to the culture wars. You contend that, if your advice is followed, the President "will have taken a giant step towards bringing this country together." Whether this is true or not, I cannot say. What I can say is that the willingness to sacrifice innocent lives for the sake of national unity is not the words of someone I can reasonably call pro-life. Your position is morally unacceptable both in light of natural law and the biblical tradition that informs the pro-life opposition to legal abortion.
We cannot as a country simply agree to disagree about the murder of the unborn. To suggest we can is the essence of the pro-choice argument of convenience: "I am personally opposed but…" And yet this is the very argument of you advance when you assure Mr Obama, that (and again assuming he follows your advice) he "will find . . . some new and unexpected allies rooting for [him] on the issues of the economy, service and sacrifice." Specifically you have in mind "millions of Evangelical young people ready to follow your call." That more of these young Evangelical Christians have voted for Mr Obama "than for any Democratic candidate for the presidency post-Roe" is not doubt true. And that many young people, whether Evangelical Christian or not, are "already believe in your vision of service, responsibility and compassion. " Alas, should the president follow your advice, he (and you) can only betray their idealism and desire for service with a false and deceptive hope, since neither he (nor I fear you) take seriously their "moral concern on the issue of life."
Nowhere is the pro-choice character of your argument made clearer than in the parallel you would between President Nixon and President Obama.
In your view of things, abortion can be for Mr Obama his "'Nixon goes to China' moment." You argue that only "a progressive Democrat" (such as President Obama) can "defuse the situation and heal the culture wars in a way that no Republican president has been able to do." How? By using, as you suggest, the presidency as a "'bully pulpit' for life, and a substantive set of a programs to reduce abortions, while also defending Roe. You can do both!"
No, Frank, he can't. Your argument is simply wrong.
Certainly, President Obama's economic plans is something that reasonable and honorable people can disagree over. And while I am willing to entertain the possibility that Mr Obama's policies may, and I must stress MAY, reduce the number of abortions, this is not the salient moral point. But the moral problem does not lie so much with the number of abortions but with the fact that abortion is not only legal in the US but accorded the status of a right. But how can anyone have the right to kill an innocent human being?
Your willingness to accept the continuation of legalized abortion as the law of the land is not compatible with either the Tradition of the Church or natural law; it is certainly not a pro-life position.
I would go further and say that your letter is scandalous. Not only is it such in the popular sense of shocking, but in the technical, theological sense as well. You present yourself as a Christian and a self-professed pro-life leader and yet you offer a public witness that argues for the moral legitimacy of abortion. In suggesting a course of action that allows not only for the upholding of legalized abortion (or as you refer to the euphemistically, "reproductive rights") but also suggests that such a position can reflects "the moral high ground," you are not only morally wrong, but have caused grievous harm to his readers—you have left them with the false notion that a pro-choice position is consonant with the Gospel. It is not.
By all means let us as Christians support Mr Obama when he proposes policies which, to quote His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America, "extend a hand to those suffering from their sins, what ever they are." We have the confidence to do this, no matter what the personal or political cost because by faith we know and proclaim that "There is no sin that cannot be forgiven, save the one we refuse to accept forgiveness for."
At the same time however, we must remind Mr Obama that we cannot simply work to reduce the number of abortions; we must stop abortion. Why? Because as His Beatitude reminds us "Abortion not only destroys the life of the infant; it rips the soul out of the mother (and the father!)," even as our support of abortion has ripped apart the fabric of our society.
From my own pastoral experience I know that abortion is "a sin for which a woman torments herself for years, sinking deeper into despair and self-condemnation and self-hatred. But there is forgiveness, if only she will ask." Sadly your own letter seems to pass over in silence not only the Church's moral witness on this issue. In doing so you minimize the Church's teaching that in Christ those who commit abortion, those who perform abortion and those who—even passively—support abortion "need . . . to repent and accept forgiveness, so that their souls, their memories, and their lives, might be healed."
However well intentioned you might be—and please understand I do not doubt your good intentions—your willingness to support legal abortion is simply wrong.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory Jensen
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I am experimenting with a new comment recording system. From the homepage, you can leave comments have you ordinarily do by clicking on "comment" at the bottom of the post. Alternatively, if you click on the post title itself, you will open the post a new screen with the new comment box at the bottom of the post.
This new comment box does not require registration. It does, however, allow the readers to express whether or not they agree with what others have said. I rather like this feature because it allows the readers to regulate the content of the comments. In most studies of online communication, this self-regulating feature typically fosters more communication and a decrease in the infamous tendency of online conversations to degenerate into flame wars. While flame ware are not a problem here right now, but readership is growing on a regular basis (we are currently some 200 strong when I factor in rss feeds, email subscriptions and regular readers who surf in).
So, try out if you would the new comment system and let me know either in the comment box of by email what you think.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
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American Orthodox Institute (AOI) has published a short piece I wrote on the Pew Charitable Trust's US Religious Landscape Survey, "Catechesis and Evangelism are not Enough." I have included the first three paragraphs here. Please take a moment and read what I've written at AOI. While there, take a look at the many other, excellent and though provoking articles that are posted there.
In Christ,
+Fr. Gregory
In recent years, Orthodox Christians in the United States have become very mission minded. We see as a community the importance of bringing the Orthodox faith to what the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey published by the Pew Charitable Trust calls "the American religious marketplace." Ours is a religious age characterized by "constant movement."
Given the ease with which Americans change religious affiliations making new members is not the primary challenge. The real challenge, the Survey suggests, is retention, of actually keeping the members that we have. Our witness to the Gospel is undermined by the general lack of commitment to the life of the Church by a plurality of Orthodox Christians. And this is true whether we are talking about those baptized as infants or those who join the Church as adults. If anything, the empirical data highlights the pastoral importance of stressing not simply catechesis (religious education) evangelism (making new Orthodox Christians).
The survey data gives us an overview of religious life in American and the place of the Orthodox Church in this broader con text. Filled with charts, graphs, and statistics the report is not something that most of us are likely just to pick and read. In what follows, rather than a rigorous statistical analysis of the Church's life, I offer some points for reflection based on the survey. My goal is to help laity and clergy understand that catechesis and evangelism must be combined with a pastoral commitment to the personal discipleship of all members of
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Reflecting on the great number of adult converts who have over the years left the Orthodox Church (over 50%) it is clear to me that something is drastically wrong with how we catechesis, form and integrate new adult Orthodox Christians into the life of the Church. Falling back on my own training in the social and human science, I would like to understand how our pastoral practice is failing so many who join the Orthodox Church as adults. As part of my attempt to understand, I would invite those who read this blog and who have left the Orthodox Church to contact me either in the comment box of this post or by clicking the red reachby.com on the lower right side of this page. Alternative, if you know someone who has left the Church, I would ask you to direct them to this blog and encourage them to speak with me. Basically what I would ask from those who contact me is that they put written form a brief summary of what it was that lead them to leave the Orthodox Church. Let me be very clear here. Though I am an Orthodox priest, I am not asking for this to convince someone to return to the Church. Ideally I hope your comments will provide the Church with a better sense of why people leave. Eventually this might help grow into a research project to develop pastoral strategies to improve the retention rates for converts. It is even possible that, as a result of your participation in this project that you might reconsider your decision to leave the Church. But these are all secondary to my primary concern here which is to understand what has lead people who have joined the Church as adults to later leave. Finally to those who wonder if what I am proposing is in the best interest of the Church, let me leave you with an observation of G. K. Chesterton: "What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism." If anything has become clear about the life of the Orthodox Church (especially in the United States) it is that we cannot fulfill the great evangelical and pastoral work that Christ has given us without appreciative self-criticism. Everywhere the Church in America is faltering, and however it is faltering, it is because of the absence of appreciative self-criticism. What I hope to do with this invitation is to build on what the Church does well so that we can, by God's grace and our own efforts, correct ourselves where we are less than our best communal and personal selves. In Christ, +Fr. Gregory
A little over a year ago I had surgery on my left elbow for nerve damage. As result, typing can be well, rather painful for me. As a result of all the work that I've been doing here on the blog, I've had a bit more pain in my left hand. At the suggestion of one of my loyal readers, I went out today and bought Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.0. This is a marvelous speech recognition software that I will be using in the future to compose entries for this blog. While the software does an amazing job in recognizing my speech I need to get some practice in learning how to do dictation. Frankly, I'm used to just sitting down typing reviewing editing, and then posting.
Using the software requires that I learned some new skills and my hat and I learned a new way of relating to my own ideas and to the text that I compose. I think there will be a little bit of a learning curve for me. Somewhat ironically, the software is significantly "smarter" than I am; it has learned to understand me. Now I must learn to understand it and select how to use it effectively.
So posting for the next several days in possibly several weeks will be a little bit more intermittent. I ask your indulgence and your prayers. To be honest I really do not want to go back and have surgery on my arm. The last time I had surgery, had to lie on the couch for the better part of three weeks. It was painful it was miserable I do not wish to do it again. So to avoid doing further damage to myself. I'm going to shift how I do composition. For this block, ask your patience, and hopefully I will be up and running with the software very soon.
In Christ,
+ Father Gregory
Finally worked out the problems with my new url. Koinonia now has its own custom location on the web--www.palamas.info.
In coming weeks I hope to have another web page up for a project Chrys and I have been working on for quite a while: the Palamas Institute.
The PI is a private, non-profit Orthodox Christian ministry meant to facilitate the continuing pastoral education of Orthodox clergy and the training and forming lay leaders. Not only that we hope to serve as a catalyst and clearinghouse for research into the pastoral life of the Church here in America. Since the project was conceived while my wife was in law school very little has done. Now that we are settled I would hope to get the PI off the ground in the coming months.
Any suggestions you have, or offers to participate, are welcome and will be appreciated.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
There are still openings for the fifth annual iconography workshop, to be held at St George Romanian Catholic Cathedral in Canton, Ohio, August 3-10. This is an intensive class in icon painting/writing for beginners. The instructor, Daniel Nicholas, will teach, step by step, the process for creating a hand-painted icon, and supply all materials.
It is a great time; part retreat, part art class, and part summer camp.
The cost is $250, with $50 due with registration.
If you are interested, please call the instructor, Daniel Nichols: 330 837 0534.
