… what about America? When has faith entered the public square in this country? Did you know that it was serious Christians who started the abolitionist movement in this country? Yes! Just watch Steven Spielberg’s movie Amistad. Did you know that devout Christians led the Civil Rights movement in this country? Some would have you think it was secular liberals who led it, but it was a church-based faith-based movement from beginning to end. Did you know that Rosa Parks was a devout Christian? That she was chosen to kickoff the bus boycott because of her faith? Did you know that Jackie Robinson was a serious Christian? And that Branch Rickey who picked him to be the one to break the color barrier in baseball did so because of Robinson’s faith, and that Rickey was himself a bible-thumping Christian who did what he did in part because he believe God wanted him to do it? There’s a movie coming out about Jackie Robinson this month and I’ll bet they don’t even mention that. I do mention it in my next book SEVEN MEN, because everyone should know that it was Jackie Robinson’s faith that was behind what he did. If you push the voices of faith out of the mainstream and replace them with a secular orthodoxy, you take away the most important check the Founders put in place against unbridled statism. Eric Metaxas, CPAC 2013 Speech on Religious Freedom.
According to the Becket Fund, there are currently 44 active cases against the Obama administration’s HHS mandate requiring employers to include abortion, sterilization and abortifacients as “health care”. There have been 14 for-profit companies that have filed suit; 11 of those have received temporary injunctions against implementing the mandate.
…if the social engineers are thinking about fewer births, they must also be thinking about more deaths. What better way to avoid costs than for the aging people to depart? How can they not be thinking about that too? At least they’re sensitive enough not to spit it in our faces the way they celebrate the savings inherent in fewer births. Read the rest here.
Both on the AOI blog and my own, my post, “Pentecost, Lincoln and the American Experiment,” brought some very interesting and thought provoking comments. Your thoughts have helped me think a bit more deeply about the relationship between the Tradition of the Orthodox Church and the American Experiment. For this I thank you all.
And even more importantly, your words were very much in mind as I read Michael Baxter recent review of American Babylon: Notes of A Christian in Exile, by the late Fr Richard John Neuhaus.
As is no doubt clear from what I wrote, I do not see Orthodoxy and the American Experiment as necessarily in opposition to each other. Or maybe it might be more accurate to say, that the differences between Orthodoxy and America are certainly no wider or deeper than what one would expect between that between God and Caesar, between the City of God which is to come and the City of Man which is here and now. Be that as it may, however, my interest in political philosophy is motivated by the intuition that—for better and worse—the City of Man conditions the pastoral situation of the Church until the Kingdom which is to come.
I have not yet had the opportunity to read Neuhaus's last book. Having been a faithful reader of First Things and a follower of the work of its parent organization, The Institute for Religion in Public Life, I have good sense of the argument that he is likely to make and so I was interested to read Baxter's review in the National Catholic Reporter (a publication together with others which, as Baxter puts it, has “bore the brunt of [Neuhaus's] sardonic, scathing, at times unfair attacks”). Together with the work of John Courtney Murray, Neuhaus (and again this probably does not come as much of a surprise) has always served as a touchstone for my own thinking about the inter-relationship and inter-dependence of Church and State in the American context. Far from being merely my own idiosyncratic view, I would argue that this inter-dependence of Church and State is part of the teaching of the Orthodox Church. We can see this, for example, in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
In and through the Liturgy we join ourselves to Christ Who offers Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father. And we do so not with but also on behalf of the “forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics, and for every righteous spirit made perfect in faith,” the Most Holy Theotokos, “Saint John the prophet, forerunner, and baptist; . . . the holy glorious and most honorable Apostles . . . ; and for all Your saints, through whose supplications,” we ask God to bless us.
And just as in the Liturgy we intercede on behalf of “all Orthodox bishops who rightly teach the word of Your truth, all presbyters, all deacons in the service of Christ, and every one in holy orders” and acknowledge our dependence on their faith, holy prayers and service, we likewise stand before God and intercede on behalf of “all those in public service.” We ask God to “permit them, . . . to serve and govern in peace” so that “through the faithful conduct of their duties” in the civil realm, “we [the Church] may live peaceful and serene lives in all piety and holiness.”
Owning to her conciliar nature, the different orders in the Church each have their own areas of authority and concomitant competency. Modeled on the Most Holy Trinity, in the Church authority and competency are intrinsically personal and reflect not only the unique role of the different orders of the Church but also the personal vocation of each Christian. As such these differences ought not be opposed to each other; nor can one order advance at the expense of the others anymore than one person can (or should) advance at the unjust expense of another. It is rather the case that each progresses only with and through the other orders of the Church. To borrow from Benjamin Franklin in a not wholly different context, “We all hang together or we all hang separately.”
In like fashion while the authority of Church and State are different, difference need not mean opposition even if (I would argue) the State is not a Christian state but (as in the case of America) a secular one. Back now to Baxter's review. Nuehaus's American Babylon, writes Baxter, “is about being Christian in the United States. The title is an allusion to the Babylonian exile after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.” While in exile “God, through the prophet, called upon the Israelites there to build houses and plant gardens, to make families and multiply.” I imagine that to an exiled people who understandable viewed their overlords, as well, their overloads and enemy, God command “to 'seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare' (Jeremiah 29:4-8)” came as something of a surprise. God counsels captives not simply to forgive but to actively cooperation, support and even enrich their captors. According to Neuhaus both the “New Testament and patristic authors” understood this to mean two different, but related things.
First, “Christians, in whatever land they live, await their return from exile, not an exile from the earthly Jerusalem however, but from the heavenly Jerusalem.” As a result (and I must confess, Orthodox Christians have not always been faithful on this point), for those who follow Jesus Christ “every nation is Babylon.” Second, just as every land is Babylon, it is our duty in every land “to go along with the customs and seek the welfare of the city.” We must not simply suffer America, we must enrich her as I said earlier.
But, as Neuhaus reminds us, “there is a limit to . . . going along.” Again in Baxter's summary: “Like the Old Testament heroes, Christians are not to worship false gods or accommodate themselves to the ways of the city when it involves betraying their faith. Thus there is a tension or dialectic for Christians between their ultimate allegiance to God and their political allegiances, which are “penultimate.”
Acknowledging and honoring this tension is often easier in theory than practice but for that it is important not only for Christians but also all men and women of good will that we take on the ascesis of doing so practically and not only theoretically. If we don't then we are prone to two extremes that must be undermine the proper function of the State (and for that matter the Church). We must not succumb to either to “the twin dangers of direct governmental control of religion, as in a theocracy, and of privatizing religion, as in the militant secularism of many European governments since the French Revolution.” And again, as Orthodox Christians we have (I think) inadvertently helped set the stage for the latter by our unwise embrace of (or in America, nostalgia for) the former.
In like manner, much of the tension we see in the American Orthodox Church reflects I think our heretofore unwillingness, or at least inability, to grapple with the interdependence of Church and the American Experiment in a way that avoids on the one hand our nostalgia for a lost theocracy and our dread of oppression under a militantly secular (or Islamic) state on the other. Digging deeper I think part of the lesson we might draw from the Church's new American context is that just as our “allegiance to America is [as Neuhaus argues] provisional, not eschatological, limited yet substantial and real,” so too our allegiance to the other cultural and social settings and forms of government in which the Church found herself must be also “provisional, not eschatological, limited yet substantial and real.”
No matter how much these other cultural and social settings or forms of government might be rooted in Holy Tradition, and indeed even served to structure public life (for example) around the liturgical tradition of the Church they are not as such Christian. Yes, as I said in my earlier post, they have become carriers of the Eternal but they do so in a way that does not undo their character as limited and limiting. And how could they not remain finite? Their ontological and historical contingency is part and parcel of their character as human artifacts and we dishonor the past not only when we make it less than it is, but also more.
There are to be sure weaknesses in the American Experiment. Too easily does liberty become license; freedom of religion become indifference (and even hostility) to religion; and for more and more Americans, the pursuit of happiness become the mere search for pleasure and profit rather than the cultivation of the virtues essential for personal and civic excellence. Yes the media and secular forms of education have their role to play in all this. But first and foremost the cultural excesses that plague us reflect the failure of the Church to take seriously our responsibilities. As Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, (1990) in their book Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, put the matter, “All Christian ethics are social ethics because all our ethics presuppose a social, communal, political starting point—the church.” And is is through her “teaching, support, sacrifice, worship and commitment of the church, utterly ordinary people are enabled to do some rather extraordinary, even heroic acts, not on the basis of their own gifts and abilities, but rather by having a community capable of sustaining Christian virtue. The church enables us to be better people than we could have been if left to our own devices.” (p. 81)
We have, I fear, too often contented ourselves (as Orthodox Christians and American) to be anything but women and men of extraordinary and heroic virtue. And we have not simply settled for leaders (religious and political) who are themselves be no better than we, we have actively pursued this goal and punished them when they dared to see their service as requiring of them that they “be better people” than they would “have been if left” to themselves.
There is no question in my mind that in planting the Church here in America God has challenged us to a kenosis and martyrdom as real, if less bloody, as any the Church faced under Caesar, Islam or Communism. What we now face is the terrible temptation of our own freedom. Who will I become if I can become anyone I want to be? Who do I want to be?
One of the things that interests me a great deal is the relationship between the Tradition of the Orthodox Church and the founding political philosophy of the American experiment. At the risk of appearing overly critical, or even dismissive, I think the failure of Orthodoxy in America is our not having engaged theologically and critically the American experiment on its own terms. Instead we have been willing to useAmerica without necessarily seeing ourselves as obligated to contribute anything to her.
In this the Church has allowed herself to become merely one interest group among others. The Orthodox Church has not engaged the American experiment as yeast in the dough. We have contented ourselves instead merely to fit within the broad, and decadent, framework of modern identify politics.
This failure is more than simply a matter of our presenting ourselves as an ethnic, albeit religiously themed community. Even when the religious character of the Church is focal, it is often the religion of mere morality. Not without cause have some complained that some in the Orthodox Church seem to want to put the Church's patrimony at the service of the political and social agenda of the Religious Right.
These criticism I think are rather beside the point however.
The moral tradition of the Church is, in the main, no different then the classical moral teaching of Western Christianity. I suspect the attraction of some Orthodox Christians to the Religious Right reflects more a love of this shared tradition and a real concern for the moral health of American society than a grab for power as such. Further I suspect that those Orthodox who criticize their brethren's involvement in conservative politics do so from a desire to see the Church support (if only passively) their own more left leaning politics. But whether from the moral, cultural or political, right or left these criticism are, to repeat myself, are different then my own concern.
The American experiment is I think best expressed by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address. Reflecting on the horror of the war tearing at the fabric of the country, President Lincoln looks back to the historical and philosophical founding of the Nation: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The challenge facing the United States in Lincoln's time (and ours) was not war per se, but whether the American "nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Reading over the years the work of the late Catholic theologian and political philosopher John Courtney Murray, I have come more and more to appreciate the wisdom of Lincoln's words at Gettysburg. Unlike other countries that are united by land or blood, a shared culture or language, America and Americans are, or should be anyway, united by an idea, the fundamental equality of all human beings.
While it has not always done so well, or even at all, at its best what the American political experiment asks of us is not to surrender our language or culture. Rather as a nation of immigrants, we ask each other to put the riches of our respective cultural and ethnic heritages at the service of the common social good. Granted in our short history there are times when we have honored this idea more in words than deeds. But even when honored in the breech, if there is a unique American culture or mindset it is that enduring faith in the equality of all human beings and the centrality of committing ourselves to the common good of all.
Contrary to her critics harsh words our failure to be faithful to our own ideals is to be expected. It is to be expected not simply because we are sinners, but and again as Lincoln points out at Gettysburg, because the American experiment is always an unfinished work. Whether in times or war or peace, it remains for each generation to answer in the affirmative Lincoln's challenge to his listeners on that not so long ago battlefield:
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
So what does this have to do with the Orthodox Church? Two things I think.
First, internally, if the Church is to be a real, indigent Orthodox Church and not simply a pale copy of the Church in Greece or Russia, we need to take seriously the challenge of America that in the neither the City of Man nor the City of God do we have to lay aside language or (to the degree it does not contradict the Gospel anyway) our culture. Let me go further.
On Pentecost Sunday I reminded my own community that the work of salvation while it is directed at human beings certainly. Salvation also, however, results in the deification of culture. Just as Greek culture was Christianized and became the carrier of Eternal truth without lossin of its own character as either Greek (or so ontologically and historically contingent) so too American culture can be Christianized, become itself a means of communicating what is Eternal in and through the contingent and limited structures of culture and language.
The Holy Spirit gives all things: makes prophecies flow, perfects priests, taught the unlettered wisdom, revealed fishermen to be theologians, welds together the whole institution of the Church. Consubstantial and equal in majesty with the Father and the Son, our Advocate, glory to you.
The Church is a pneumatic community of unity and diversity not in opposition but harmony. So too while at it best it falls short of this, this is what America aspires to be. The Church offers America a glimpse not only of her own biblical foundations but the Eucharist which is both a reminder of that towards which America aspires and the standard against which she must also evaluate her own actions, domestic and foreign.
The American Experiment is for me as an Orthodox Christian a real, if imperfect, icon of the Eucharist. Or to borrow from Hebrews, if the Eucharist is an image of the Kingdom which is to come then American Experiment, seen in light of the Eucharist image, is a shadow of the image. And it is as a shadow, as something which points beyond itself to the image, even as the image points beyond itself to the Reality which is to come (see Hebrews 10.1) that Orthodox Christians can and should not only engage but wholehearted love and support the American Experiment.
If we have as Orthodox Christians have been seduced by the identity politics that has come to so mark contemporary American political discourse on both the left and the right, this doesn't mean that we have to remain bound by our shared failure. Rather we can, if we only decide to do so, return not only to ourselves but return in a way that we can serve the common good of both the City of God and the City of Man.
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.
Whatever else may be said in favor of the new administration, the willingness to embrace eugenics is an unspeakable evil. But this is where I think we have come to--we now propose abortion as a means of cutting the budget.
Gary Graham in a recent post on Big Hollywood has this to say:
Nancy Pelosi tells us yesterday that ‘family planning’ is now a fiscal responsibility to ‘reduce costs.’ Her defenders will say that NO, she’s talking about condoms and sex education. But anyone with a mind who’s been around for a while knows that ‘family planning’ is code for abortion. She is asking for 200 million dollars for Family Planning Services to ‘expand the economy.’ These are taxpayer dollars, dontcha know. Your money. She says states are in terrible fiscal crisis and it’s ‘part of what we do for childrens’ health and education’…” I’m trying to figure out how ripping an unborn child from it’s womb is aiding in it’s health or education, but maybe I’m missing something here.
How have we found ourselve here?
Speaking about his own youth and support of liberal abortion laws, Graham says that "I was only concerned about my selfish convenience of the day. But I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want to think about it. It was inconvenient to think about it."
He concludes by observing the irony "that the ‘Love’ Generation should spawn such a culturally accepted abomination as abortion."
Compare this with the words of His Beatitude Metropolitan at the recent Life for March in Washington, DC:
A new web site, Moralaccountability.com has been started. In their own words, the mission of the site is as follows:
In the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, a small group of Catholic and Evangelical Protestant intellectuals and activists, while saying that they personally support legal protection for the unborn and oppose the redefinition of marriage, promoted the candidacy of Barack Obama, who made no secret of his intention to wipe out the entire range of laws restricting or discouraging abortion and embryo-destructive research, or of his opposition to all state and federal initiatives (such as California Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act) to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman. These men and women assured their fellow Christians and other social conservatives that Obama's economic policies would reduce the incidence of abortion, and they promised that Obama was being honest when he said that he was opposed to "same-sex marriage."
To the list of Catholic and Evangelical supporters of Mr Obama, we must add any number of Orthodox Christians who expressed their support for his election bid. While I do not doubt they sincerity of those who supported then candidate Obama, I am grieved at the outcome of their support.
While as a citizen and a social scientist I have my doubts about President Obama's economic policies, those are prudential matter over which we can disagree. They are also matters that are (strictly speaking) outside my area of responsibility as a priest since they do not touch directly on the moral teaching of the Church.
But public policy that favors abortion and same-sex marriage run contrary not only to the Gospel but also natural law and human nature and on this matter the Orthodox Christians and the Church as a whole cannot remain silent. It is my hope that those in the Church who supported Mr Obama would use some of the good will that support earned them to encourage policies more in keeping with the moral law.
Here’s some unhappy post-Thanksgiving news: Wal-Mart Store Employee Trampled to Death by Black Friday Shoppers. It’s a grim story. Not only did frenzied shoppers trample an employee, but they just kept on stepping over his body once he fell. They pushed fellow employees who were trying to help him out of the way. And then they got angry when the store closed, in the wake of the poor man’s death.
Do we need any more proof that the American Dream has collapsed into a commercial nightmare?
My friends, we who believe that life ought to be organized around contemplation rather then consumption have a large and difficult task ahead of us. First of all, I think we must be clear that traditional forms of religion, or even currently popular forms of spirituality, appear to be powerless to fight against the forces of mammon. I’m afraid that we can expect little or no help from the various institutional churches, since the liberal churches appear to be stuck in a quagmire of declining membership while the conservative churches come across as ignoring pretty much all issues except those involving the regulation of middle-class sexuality. And we most assuredly cannot expect any help from the panoply of new age or post-religious spiritualities, since they are so mesmerized by the ‘law of attraction’ and so forth that they are more part of the problem than part of the needed cure.
If you’re a conservative Christian and you’re worried about sex, then do something about human trafficking. If you’re a liberal Christian and you’re worried about the ongoing relevance of your faith, then take a stand against excessive consumerism. If you’re a non-Christian but interested in Christian contemplation, then at least recognize that contemplative spirituality demands that people come before either things or money or ideology. Regardless of your political or theological persuasion, we all need to address the question of how our faith should inform our relationship to the earth, to natural resources, and to sustainable living. And in any case, I believe this kind of activism will only make a difference if it begins with a life of deep, sustained, daily prayer.
The Rolling Stones once sang, “I shouted out, ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’ When after all, it was you and me.” LIkewise, my friends, it was you and me who trampled to death that Wal-Mart employee in the midst of a Black Friday rush. We must avoid the temptation of seeing our culture as divided into consumerist goats and non-consumerist sheep. That just introduces another dualism into our lives, and solves nothing. We are all mad shoppers, we are all air and water polluters, we are all eagerly hypnotized by our baubles and trinkets while the world around us gasps in a fever.
The question is, what are we going to do about it? And I think the answer must begin in silence, sustained silence. From there, we must remove the beams in our own eyes. And I’m not sure what comes next, because I’m still working on those first two steps for myself. But I believe the Spirit will lead us. We just have to snap out of the reverie long about to be lead-able.
What I do believe is that the Spirit’s leading must involve a combination of contemplation and action. We who hear the call to silence do not have the luxury to recite our Jesus Prayer ad nauseum while everyone else goes to hell. At that point, our contemplation becomes infernal. No, we bask in the silence in order to be empowered to live Christlike lives. We must be prepared to cast the money-changers out of the temple. And we must begin by dealing with the money-changers who are our own selves.
John Couretas over at that most excellent blog of the American Orthodox Institute has a post this morning on recent comments by Bishop Savas of Troas (GOA) on His Grace's blog "Sava on a Rolla." Let me let John speak for himself:
Did God ordain an Obama victory? You get that impression from Sava on a Rolla, the blog of Bishop Savas of Troas. In a post titled, "This is the Day that the Lord has made!," the chancellor of the Greek Archdiocese celebrates the victory of President-elect Barack Obama in terms that can only be described as divine:
Do I expect miracles from the President-Elect? Am I confusing the man with the Messiah? Of course not. But neither is he the Antichrist, as some of his opponents would have you believe. Americans did a good thing yesterday, an inspired thing. They didn't voice their opinion, they shouted it. A new day has dawned, a day that the Lord has most emphatically made. Are you as delighted as I am? Send up thanks to the Lord our God! Are you for any reason unhappy? Pray to the same God for our President-Elect's enlightenment.
I don't know. It's almost like reading the Genesis account of Creation. OK, the Bishop's guy won, and he has every right to celebrate. Then he goes — to put it nicely — really over the top.
Below for your thoughts are my comments posted on AOI:
John,
Thank you for your post and comments on Bishop Sava's blog.
The election of Sen Obama as the 44th president of the United States is, I think, a mixed good. Certainly, it is noteworthy that within Mr Obama's lifetime we have traveled as a society from the shame of Selma (a shame I should add was not limited to the South) to the election of an African-American as president. In addition to this, I think his election will have a generally positive effect on how we are viewed throughout the world, especially (though not exclusively) in Europe.
I agree with His Grace that "The Body Politic is another body altogether" from the Church. I agree as well that the "only way the [Body Politic] can approximate the [Body of Christ] is if the goal of government were to fulfill the law of Christ, which is to 'bear one another's burdens' (Gal 6:2). 'Have you seen your neighbor?' asks one of the Desert Fathers of the Church, and continues, 'You have seen your God.' Blasphemy? Reread St John's 1st Epistle."
Where I disagree with him, and agree with John, is his contention that "The goal of government ought not to be to protect us from one another, to teach us to treat the other as competition or nuisance or threat, but to help us to help one another." Here His Grace conflates a number of points in a manner that obscures rather illumines an Orthodox Christian response to government–secular or ecclesiastical.
To dismiss out of hand the policing function of the government is simply not biblical. St Paul is clear, the government is entrusted with the sword not only to punish wrong doers but also for the common good (see Rm 13.1-7).
Immediately after discussing the God-ordained authority of the government (a government hostile to Christians in general and Paul in particular) and the obligation of the Church to submit to that authority, the Apostle then begins to delineate in verses 8-10 the obligation of Christians to love their neighbor. Government, rightly ordered, I would argue, allow us the freedom and affluence to care for one another. While not perfect, there is no better example of this the US government.
While governments can and do have a role in the care of especially the weak, they do this first and foremost through the establishment of an society in which its citizens are (relatively) free from the predators among us (which I why abortion cannot be legalized–it is a threat to the life of one of the weakest among us).
This first step is admittedly a negative one–but the policing powers of the State or no less essential for being protective and preventative.
Following on its police powers, the State much ensure the equal treatment under the law of all it citizens. This means not only passing and enforcing laws against criminal conduct, but also contract law and the somewhat more mundane concern of government for commerce, weights and measures.
None of this of course will make us virtuous. But the American systems does not aim at cultivating virtue it the citizenry. Rather the US Constitution presuppose virtuous citizens and strives (however imperfectly at times) to provide them with the political freedoms need to exercise virtue without fear.
Where the American experiment seems to be breaking down is our transfer of virtue from the private realm to the governmental. We have come to expect the State to be virtuous so that we don't have to be.
The genius, and weakness, of the American experiment it that the government presuppose strong, healthy private (as distinct from governmental) mediating structures –the family, the church, newspapers and businesses–that stand between the person and the government and serve to foster virtue it the citizenry.
But these smaller, mediating structures, have more and more abdicated their responsibilities as corporate citizens–what does the Orthodox Church do for example to counter the range of social ills in her midst–unwed mothers, divorce and dead beat dads to name only three–that plague society as a whole?
I agree with those who say that Pro-Life Christians are sometime narrow in our focus. But that narrowness of vision is not the exclusive property of the religious right. The religious left also seem disinclined to foster virtue as well.
(For example, what percentage of the Orthodox Church's resources go to care for the poor? What percentage of the GOA's budget is given to the poor? What do we say to men who abandon their children and the mother of their children?)
There is much in Bishop Sava's words to reflect on. But I am worried that his post reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the American experiment and the Church's obligation as a corporate citizen in the Republic.
Gael, left a comment on my brief post asking God's blessing on President-elect Obama. You can read the comment here.
I'm assuming his comments above are meant to be humorous. Though given the heat of the recently finished presidential election campaign, it is understandable that they are not.
If they are not, I should point out that praying for the President as the servant of God is taken from the Orthodox Christian invocation asking God to bless someone that is used at the end of the Divine Liturgy.
Whether one agrees with his policies or not, whether his policies are compatible with the Gospel or not, Orthodox Christians--indeed Christians of any tradition--are required by God to pray for civil authorities.
And yes, President-elect Obama is God's servant. He may or may not understand himself as such and if he does he may or may not understand rightly, much less act rightly upon, what is required of him--but he is still God's servant as our we all.
That said, some of his policies (I'm thinking particularly about his support of abortion and stem cell research) are evil and within the realm of what I can do I will oppose them. Let me go further, I would hope that all Orthodox Christians--indeed all Christians--would oppose Mr Obama's policies on abortion and stem cell research.
Are there other policies with which I disagree? As a priest, I feel myself obligated by my office to limit my public political comments to only those things about which the Orthodox Church has spoken clearly. This means that in the realm of what is often called prudential matters--economics, or the general range of domestic or foreign policy matters--though I have my own view, but I remain silent about them.
Senator Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States. Insofar as I or any of us can do so in good conscience and without violating the teaching of the Church, we should support the new administration at the very least with our prayers. Are there policy areas in which Orthodox Christians are bound to oppose the new administration? Yes certainly (particularly in matters of abortion and stem cell research) and again at a minimum with our prayers.
Finally, as for some of the rhetoric used by Mr Obama and his support--yes it often sounds messianic, but then American political rhetoric often does. And why are we suprised? Americans are, fundamentally, a religious people. Our nation was founded on an ideal drawn as much or more from Christianity as from any Enlightenment philosophical speculations.
Where I think the fault line lies in American politics is not between those who use and those who do not use religious rhetoric--but between those whose use of it I agree with and those whose use of it I find objectionable.
Let me go further, I do not object to the use of religious rhetoric by Mr Obama and his supporters--I welcome it as I did when it was used to such good effect by President Reagan. For all that it has become unfashionable, even among Christians, to do so it is important to remember that we are all of us called by God to fulfill certain roles in life. No the objection I have is not to the use of religious rhetoric by either the left or the right. It is rather to our unwillingness as a nation to take seriously the implications of that rhetoric--and again this is a problem I see on both the left and the right.
So God grant His servant President-elect Obama many years and may He also grant him, the wisdom need to govern and through his administration peace and prosperty to the people of the United States so that we may excel in every good work.
By John Baden, Chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT.
In response to my recent column, "What Went Wrong," several people emailed me this question: What's next? The answer is easy; America will attempt to emulate Europe's welfare state. Our perceived crisis is inimical to sound policy and provides a good seedbed for political opportunism.
First, though, a positive note. America can congratulate itself on successfully overcoming racial prejudice. Consider Obama's enthusiastic reception at the University of Mississippi, a school where, in 1962, federal marshals were required to protect James Meredith when he was admitted to the Law School. Riots followed, and it took several regiments of U.S. Army troops to restore order and protect Meredith from harm. This election is a benchmark, genuine progress to celebrate. It's as though we cured or, at the least, arrested a debilitating if not quite lethal cancer.
However significant this progress, and progress it surely is, 2008 may also mark the end of the great American experiment in individual liberty and responsibility. Attempts to activate the European welfare state in America will dominate politics for the foreseeable future. Here's why.
Those who created the American experiment recognized the problem of constraining two kinds of bandits: the stationary and the mobile. Mobile bandits include highwaymen, pirates, common thieves, and muggers. These are conceptually easy to constrain; enlist honest police.
Stationary bandits are more difficult, and were a focus of America's founders. Their challenge was to create a constitution to generate and maintain laws that foster progress-while constraining those making the laws.
How might those in power be kept from rigging the game to the advantage of themselves and their most politically powerful constituents?
Over the long run this may be impossible in a large democracy comprised of numerous factions, interest groups, and ethnic and racial identities. No such nation has successfully dealt with this challenge. It is easier in a small, relatively homogenous country, not one like ours.
The current worldwide financial crisis gives license to our stationary bandits to advantage themselves and powerful constituents. Franklin Raines, White House Budget Director under Clinton, became CEO of Fannie Mae and received $90 million in salary and bonuses. Of course Fannie Mae had made large and strategic concessions and donations to politicians. That's how politics works.
America's automakers, protected for years by tariffs from foreign competitors, are but one of numerous corporate examples of powerful firms, and unions, shaping the rules and seeking to loot taxpayers. Such pleading is bound to increase; the political tide is with those who see and seize opportunities for advantage, always, of course, in the "public interest." The results are ominous and the causes clear.
First, there is diminishing support for institutions that generate wealth rather than redistribute it. Who still advocates small government, low taxes, private property, and the market process? It's not a null, but surely a small, set of citizens-and few are among America's opinion leaders and political decision makers. We elect those who promise us our share. This does not augur well for the survival of a wholesome America.
A second factor is the huge increase in the disparity in income between the top one-tenth of one percent of the population and the remainder. While Americans have been more tolerant of substantial wage and salary differences than Europeans, there is a cultural threshold that we've long since passed.
Who thinks a CEO is really worth $25 or $50 million or more per year? Few voters do and resentment builds. And consider our reactions to $10 million dollar vacation homes.
Third, both positive and negative values increasingly converge and agglutinate. This promotes substantial class differences. If one is blessed with responsible parents, intelligence, favorable genetics, health, presentable appearance, and the ability to defer gratification, she is exceeding likely to prosper-and to marry one with similar characteristics.
However, everyone has one vote. The political calculus is obvious and on bold display; promising voters public largess brings victory and dependency.
What's next? A new and different America, one that will increasingly resemble the European welfare state. Some friends celebrate this anticipated change. Few however heed ecologists' admonition and ask: "And then what?
What are predictable consequences of the proposed changes?" That's a future column.
As I have thought about the current economic world situation as well as some of the struggles facing the Orthodox Church in the United States, I have begun to wonder if there are not certain parallels. Specifically, a shared lack of awareness of, or maybe indifference to, the human vocation to be wise stewards of the gifts we have been given by a loving and merciful God.
One thing that has helped me understand somewhat the struggles I see in the Church are the findings of a relatively new branch of the social sciences, the economic study of religion. Applying economic theory, scholars in this discipline work to understand the different choices made in the area religion.
Now one of the different groups I am associated with is Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT and chaired by the author of the essay I have posted here today, John Baden.
In some John's earlier scholarship, he looked at how different religious political groups manage the stewardship of shared goods (the "tragedy of the commons"). I thought I word re-post some of Dr Baden's columns here to stimulate some conversation especially on the life of the Church.
As always, your comments, thoughts, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
This column was prompted by the question: "Doesn¹t today's economic distress demolish the case for capitalism and free markets?"
Some, who inquired gleefully, anticipated my discomfort; others were genuinely curious and concerned. All were confused about the complex causes of our economic chaos.
I hope this helps clarify their thinking, but first a disclaimer: I'm not a general economist who knows macroeconomics, money and banking, and international trade. Rather, I'm a retired professor and farmer who has studied and written academic articles and books on political economy for 40 years. I focus on the ways in which institutions, that is culture, ethical norms, and law, influence wealth, opportunities, and strategic behavior.
Let's dismiss the claim that the greed of Wall Street and investment bankers caused our distress. Greed is ubiquitous, perhaps for evolutionary reasons. Jewish theologians have wrestled with this character flaw for three thousand years. Yet, Israeli politics remain plagued with pathological greed.
Blaming greed is like condemning gravity; both endure. Responsible people recognize and utilize these forces rather than deny them. It's most constructive to design institutions that contain and direct greed into productive channels, just as engineers put gravity to use in building arches. Obviously, our institutions are flawed, greed has run amuck, and innocent as well as complicit folks are hurt.
Let's first consider the basic function of capitalism. Its success lies in efficiently allocating capital toward profit, the difference between costs and returns. When the system works, market prices provide the information and the incentives to invest where legal returns are greatest.
But this is perhaps not capitalism's greatest asset. In addition to being an engine of prosperity, only free markets spontaneously and peacefully organize the daily, voluntary interactions of millions of primarily self-interested individuals.
Socialism works poorly because it is unable to efficiently coordinate and allocate resources. Hence, it never generates wealth for the masses but socialist elites enjoy privilege and plenty. Their greed rigs the game to their advantage. Likewise, America's investment bankers have rented and bribed politicians to rig the game to socialize risks and privatize profits. Fannie and Freddie's failures and rich rewards to former managers, $100 million to one, are prime examples.
Our current problems flow largely from Wall Street bankers' financial innovations. They discovered ways to profit by misallocating capital, and in the process they decoupled risk from their returns. Under legislation for which they lobbied, they were rewarded for pumping evermore capital into overvalued housing. Viewing their houses as ATMs, people bought consumer goods far beyond their means. (Expect massive credit card default next.)
Investment bankers arranged highly arcane financial instruments covering their loans with understated risks. Loans were bundled, sold internationally, and insured by American International Group (just bailed out with nearly $125 billion from the federal government) among others. This process endured as poor risk management was fostered by profits from capital misallocation.
Further, Wall Street adults who should have been in charge and responsible, didn't understand the complex, mathematical models directing investment decisions. Senior management ignored the admonition to loan money only to those likely to pay it back.
While some bankers knew better, the net result of bad loans is the erosion of capital. Assuming recovery, we need institutional reforms that inhibit capital misallocation. For example, removing legal requirements to make loans when risks are not reflected in interest rates. This generates loss while stressing people, especially the poor.
When politicians allocate capital, we can't expect efficiency, but corruption by special interests is certain. Investment banks benefited from this political arrangement. With the Bush Administration encouraging sub-prime lending (the "Ownership Society"), these home loans grew from 2 percent in 2002 to 30 percent in 2006. In October of 2004, President Bush said, "We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property."
Sub-prime loans were bundled into Collateralized Debt Obligations and rated AAA. With this high rating, investment-banking firms neglected due diligence and sold the bundles worldwide. Defaults and massive write-offs naturally followed, banks collapsed, and we suffer.
That's what went wrong.
John Baden is Chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT.
Image via WikipediaLet me conclude by suggestion that the right use of authority, our willingness to be ruled by law and our commitment both to fulfill and transcend the demands of justice are all essential to the effective outcome of our evangelical witness. When we fail to exercise authority rightly (that is according to the standards of this world or not at all) we abandon the Gospel. Again, as Paul writes:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Cor 1.19-25)
So for example, when we minimize or ignore misconduct within the Church we not only fail to win the favor of the world, we simply compound their disdainful view of us. It is a mystery to me, but it seems that the world can "bless" any vice except hypocrisy, and especially when it is motivated by piety. So strong is the association of hypocrisy and piety that Ambrose Bierce calls hypocrisy "prejudice with a halo."
Even those who do not love us, expect better of us than they do of themselves, and even more at times than we do of ourselves. The right understanding and exercise of authority within the Church and by the Church is not optional. Once upon a time, the Church's use of authority in the service the good of the human family, converted an empire. Granted this conversion was imperfect, but then what conversion isn't? If this were true during the patristic era, how can it be any less true in our own?
Speaking on the exercise of divine authority in Christ, St John Chrysostom says that "God wants for nothing and has need for nothing. Yet, when He humbled Himself, He produced such great good, increased His household, and extended His Kingdom." The saint then turns his attention from Christ to the Church, to us and himself: "Why, then, are you afraid that will become less if you humbled yourself?"
The exercise of authority, the upholding of the rule of law, the fulfilling and transcending of the demands of justice requires from us--from me--a humility that we--I--often lack. But this lack reflects fear and a lack of the love that drives out fear. Looking into my own heart I know that I often fail to exercise the authority I have been given because of my own fear and lack of gratitude for what I have been given in baptism and ordination--I wonder is it any different for any of us?
In the Christian understanding, exercise of authority is always mutual. Authority is given within the body, for the body, but it can never supplant the authority of the members of the body either in their own areas of responsibility OR for the responsibility of the one for the whole:
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free-and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. (1 Cor 12.15-31)
Returning to my initial concern, that of misconduct in the Church. Based on the above, I would suggest that the enforcing of laws, even punishment and requiring (where possible) restitution for harm done, are not only NOT contrary to the exercise of authority within the Church, but in fact consonant with its exercise and even necessity.
When, as AK and Mark allude to, we minimize sexual misconduct by clergy, and/or ignore or minimize the needs of victims, we have failed to exercise authority in a Christ pleasing manner. The problem, as I see it, is less that a monastery offers hospitality to a defrocked priest but more if no one in the Church offers hospitality to those who suffered the consequences of the misconduct that lead to the priest's removal from the ranks of the clergy.
Likewise, we must be critical of the exercise of authority that has as its goal the "reputation" of the Church if good opinion of others comes at the expense of those who were harmed. Paul is not indifferent to how those of good heart outside the Church view the Church. Indeed, this is part of why he dismisses from fellowship the incestuous couple and requires that the use of tongues be limited within the assembly.
I will conclude these reflects tomorrow by arguing that, paradoxical thought it may seem, in the Church we must exercise authority is such a way that we bear the contempt of the world precisely for the life of the world.
While there have been some good responses, in main the Church's response to misconduct in the Church, has suggests to me a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of public authority as given for the common good. Paul, ever the clear eyed commentator of all things human and divine, puts the matter directly: authority is "appointed by God" (Rms 12.1) not as a terror "to good works, but to evil." (v. 3) Granted Paul is speaking in this passage of civil authority, but even within the Church the Apostle to the Gentiles was willing to exercise a terrible authority in the face of evil.
The same man who writes the hymn of the primacy of love among the spiritual gifts (1 Cor 13), soundly condemns the divisions in the Church (1.10-17; 3.1-3; 6.1-11), sexual immorality (5.9-12; 6.12-20), the indifference of some to the spiritual and physical needs of others in the community (8.1-9; 11.21-22), and even (implicitly to be sure) criticize his brother apostles (9.1-18). Without a hint of the embarrassment that has come to characterize the contemporary use of authority (when it is not exercised in a heavy handed manner), Paul lays down rules for worship (11.1-16; 14.6-19, 26-40) and sexual morality (7.10-40).
And when there are those among the faithful who would sacrifice the common good in the pursuit of their own self-desires?
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named[a] among the Gentiles-that a man has his father's wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (5.1-5)
After excommunicating (to speak anachronistically) the offending couple, Paul then goes on the chastise the Church for its failures. The Church was willing to sacrifice its shared responsibility to preserve the common good rather than offend (given the general tenor of the community) wealthy members. Again Paul:
Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (vv. 6-8)
This brings us back full circle. Authority, the rule, the fulfillment and transcendence of the demands of justice is in the service of the common good. But the common good is served only through an attention of those in authority to the particular good of those who are members of the community. Granted as the community grows numerically, this service of the common good by attending to the particular good of individuals becomes increasingly complicated, but the principle is nevertheless consistent. As human reason serves the good of whole physical and spiritual good of the person through reason's thankful obedience to Christ, so too in marriage the father serves the good of the family through his thankful obedience to Christ. Likewise, for the priest in the parish, the bishop in the diocese and the civil authority in the state, are all called to serve the good of all by serving the unique good of each.
BUT, as we will see tomorrow, the visible authority within the body does not invalidate the shared responsibility, and thus authority, of all members of the community to work for the common good of all by serving the particular good of others.
Building what I said yesterday, I would argue that the right exercise of authority, the rule of law and the respectful transcendence of justice, are what makes it possible for us by grace to be "renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created [us], where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all" (vv. 10-11) and,
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (vv. 11-16)
Classical Christian political philosophy (which is grounded in the experiences as the sacramental presence of City of God in the midst of the City of Man) draws from the parallel Paul sketches between the human body and the body of human society. In the human body, it belongs to reason (broadly understood to include what we call emotion and desire) to rule the whole body. We get a sense of what reason's rule means in the prayer at tonsure in the baptismal service:
Master, Lord our God, who honoured mortals with your image, furnishing them with a rational soul and a comely body, so that the body might serve the rational soul, you placed the head at the very top and in it you planted the majority of the senses, which do not interfere with one another, while you covered the head with hair so as not to be harmed by the changes of the weather, and you fitted all the limbs most suitably to each one, so that through them all they might give thanks to you, the master craftsman.
The human person is seen as a harmonious whole. The head (i.e., reason) has the first place in the body, but is submissive to the rational soul. I would suggest that we see in the rational soul not the faculty of reason, but the source of human reason AND an image of Christ. Reason governs the body, but is not only not separate from the body, but dependent on it. And, together, reason and the body are submissive to Christ. It is only through a thankful obedience the human person can be him or herself. Reason, emotions, desires, senses, and physical needs--can function properly, that is, without interfering with one another, in obedience to Christ and with a reason being exercised with concern and respect for the proper role of all the faculties of the body.
This is what Paul tells us in Romans when, writing about the different spiritual gifts given to each member of the Body of Christ, he writes:
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. (Rm 12.3-8)
Authority is given for the service of all. This service is not passive, a benign neglect if you will, but rather (I would suggest) a matter of actively fostering the common good by serving the particular good in Christ of each member of the Body. Again, Paul:
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. (vv. 9-13)
Tomorrow, I want to reflect briefly with you on what we can learn about authority from those times when we fail to exercise authority "on behalf of all and for all" but only for some and ourselves.
Recent comments offered by AKand Mark Partalis raise for me important questions that are of both great theoretical and practical interest. Specifically, the comments they, and others, offer cause me to reflect on the nature of authority generally and in the life of the Church.
In classical Christian thought, authority--whether personal, secular or religious--is not an end in itself, but given for the common good. So for example we have Jesus reminding the disciples that in imitation of his example, they are given authority not to lord it over others, but for service:
Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Mk 10: 42-45)
The Apostle Paul builds on this idea when he argues that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to each on behalf of all:
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ- from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Eph 4:12-16)
It is worth noting, that for Paul (as with Jesus) authority to rule, and by implication, the rule of law and the demands of justice, are not opposed to love. Rather, authority, law, justice are all in the service of joining and knitting together of the whole Body of Christ. Seen in this light, authority takes on a decidedly eschatological character--it points beyond itself to that time in the life to come when it will be revealed that " Christ is all and in all." (see, Col 3:11)
Authority, the rule of law and the fulfillment and transcendence of the demands of justice is what makes it possible for us, personally and communally, to put to "death" that in us which is of "the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." (Col 3:5) These vices bring down upon us as Paul says, "the wrath of God . . . upon the sons of disobedience (v. 6) and bred in the human heart "anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, [and] filthy language." (v. 8) And not only that, but between us, in the social realm grounded not in truth spoken in love (see Eph 4:15), but rather a "lie . . . since [we] have [not yet] put off the old man with his deeds." (Col 3.9).
In For the Life of the World Even Schmemann argues that when looked from the point of view phenomenology of religion (Religionswissenschaft), the world is sacramental in character—a means not simply of knowledge about God, but the place of a real encounter with God. For Schmemann, as for the Fathers and the Scriptures, the world points beyond itself to God Who is both the Creator and Goal of creation (including human beings). For this reason, even understood broadly, worship, to the degree that it is true worship, reveals to us God, creation and humanity. The key here is the adjective true in true worship. It is not simply any worship, but only worship that is—whatever its other differences—in fundamental agreement with Christian worship's "the intuition and experience of the world as an 'epiphany' of God." (p. 120) And so, a few pages later he writes: "It is indeed extremely important for us to remember that the uniqueness, the newness of Christian worship is not that it has no continuity with worship 'in general,' . . . but that in Christ this very continuity is fulfilled, receives its ultimate and truly new significance so as to truly bring all 'natural' worship to an end." (p. 122)
There is then for Schmemann (as there is for the Fathers and the Scriptures) a notion of "natural law." Not a natural law that is divorced from faith—a law known by naked reason divorced from faith—but one which can nevertheless be grasped (to return to Murray) by "the careful inquires" those men and women who, even if they are not Christians, are people of good will and who live lives that are "wise and honest." (p. 118) The argument that Schmemann makes against secularism is very much a "natural law" argument. Secularism, to repeat what I quoted in the previous post, "emphatically negates . . . the sacramentality" of humanity and the world and substitutes in place of the givenness of a sacramentality world, a view of the Christian worship that sees worship as an expression of human desire/need and as such subject to human manipulation.
Returning to the question of government, as part of the creation, there is a sacramental character to the human person. The tripartite character of the American experiment, "a free people under a limited government, guided by law and ultimately under the sovereignty of God," is I think a humble acknowledgement of the sacramentality of the human person. This is not to suggest that democracy is the only form of government that respects the inherent dignity of the human. Indeed, it is not to suggest that democracy in general, or American democracy in particular, does so flawlessly. Returning to Murray: " The American Proposition ["that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights"] is at once doctrinal and practical, a theorem and a problem. It is an affirmation and also an intention. It presents itself as a coherent structure of thought that lays claim to intellectual assent; it also present itself as an organized political project that aims at historical success. Our Fathers asserted it and most ably argued it; they also undertook to "work it out," and they signally succeeded." (p. xi)
That being said, Murray reminds us that the practical, "historical success" of the tripartite character of the American experiment "is never to be taken for granted, nor can it come to some absolute term; and any given measure of success demands enlargement of penalty of instant decline." (p. xi) Giving Orthodox critics here and abroad their due, does America seems to be flirting with the penalty of instant decline. American failure does not invalidate the truthfulness of the tripartite anthropology at the heart of the American experiment.
I would go further. There is a fundamental computability ("continuity" to use Schmemman's term) between Orthodox theological anthropology and American political anthropology. I would argue that it is the vocation of Orthodox Christians in America to articulate a critical and appreciative response to American political anthropology. Part of this means developing practically a style of Church governance and pastoral care that reflects the providential convergence of our theological vision of the person and the American experiment.
For example, I trust people to live their lives. I trust the people in my parish live their lives and administer the parish with minimal interference or direction from me. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, or their invitation, I trust people not only in "in fear and trembling" but also mutual love, respect and affection, to meet the demands made on them by of their vocations. Unless there is some compelling reason—a clear indication that someone has rejected the sovereignty of God or they ask me a question—I stay out of their lives.
The genius of the American experiment is practical. its offers us a balanced, humble vision for the use of authority. Yes, in its inception, that vision of authority's use was political; it just as applicable to the exercise of pastoral and administrative authority in the Church.
The question is not monarchy or democracy, but between the humble service and protection of human freedom and dignity, on the one hand, or the exploitation and degradation of the human on the other. As a theoretical matter, I can imagine a king or tsar defending the inherent dignity of all people, even as I can imagine a democracy, a priest, a bishop or a parish council failing to do so. In all cases it seems to me the key is the theoretical, practical and joyful acceptance the freedom of all men and women. Further this must be embodied by the willingness on those in authority to exercise self-restraint in the authority of their office and to submit themselves to the demands of natural law.
The question now becomes for me as an Orthodox Christian, am I willing to take up the challenge laid at my feet by the American experiment?
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