God-Pleasing Evangelism

For Christians it is certainly easier, and frankly more comforting, to assume that people do not accept the Gospel because of their own pride, indifference, or lack of faith. And while in some cases this may be true, it is an explanation which too easily allows those of us who are Christians to avoid our own responsibility for how we present the Gospel.

This incomprehensible divine respect for human freedom lies at the center of the Gospel. Think for a moment about the Christ's conception. God doesn't manipulate the Virgin Mary or (worse still to imagine) force himself on her. No, God sends the Archangel Gabriel, his best man if you will, to invite Mary to receive Christ into her life, into her body. And once the invitation has been extended, God waits for her consent. It is as if God, the angels and the whole creation hold their collective breath and wait in silent expectation for the consent of this young girl. Then, from the depth of her heart, freely and without reservations, Mary consents to God's invitation and sings out: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word.” (Luke 1:38) There was on God's part no force, no manipulation or coercion, He simply made an offer with respect and consideration for Mary's freedom and dignity.

God-pleasing, to say nothing of effective, evangelism begins with an imitation of the respect God extends to each human person. If we are to be faithful imitators of Christ, we must avoid any violation of human freedom and dignity. “We must avoid,” as Evdokimov tells us, “any compelling proof (that) violates human conscience (and) changes faith into mere knowledge.”

Even as I write these words I can hear the objections: Christ proclaimed the Kingdom of God with power and authority, with signs and wonders, with miraculous cures and deliverance from demons! While not wishing to deny God's miracles, or the need for Christian preaching, I think we too easily forget that, relative to what he could have done as God, the All-Powerful Creator of Heaven and Earth, Christ did very little. As Evdokimov reminds us: “God limits his almighty power, encloses himself in the silence of his suffering love, withdraws all signs, suspends every miracle, casts a shadow over the brightness of his face.”

Sometimes we forget, or maybe we've never really heard or understood, that God redeems us not by being God Almighty in Heaven, but becoming a man in Galilee.

n Christ, God enters into human experience and transforms it from within. If we take seriously the Incarnation, we understand that we are redeemed by an act of divine empathy by our great high priest, who has "compassion on our infirmities as one tempted in all things as we are, but without sin." (see Hebrews 4:15)

In Jesus Christ, God sees as we see, he lives as we live, and, to quote Evdokimov again, “it is to the humility and empathy of God, of God emptying himself (on the cross) that faith essentially responds. God can do anything -- except compel us to love him. Often Christians, in our zeal to proclaim the Gospel, forget that God doesn't force us, but woos us.” It is our humble and sincere love that draws people, through us, to Christ Jesus our Lord. Christians must proclaim the Gospel; evangelism is essential to our commitment to Jesus Christ. But if we wish to be faithful to Christ's command to us, if we wish to proclaim the Gospel with power and authority, it might be better if we do so softly, gently and with regard for human freedom and dignity.

Creation, Creativity and Humility

An interesting observation from Finnish theologian Patrik Hagman's blog God in a Shrinking Universe. In his reflection on the systematic theological work of Panneberg, Hagman writes:

It is my firm belief that to be a Christian involves cultivating one's creativity. We believe in a God who created heaven and earth out of the ouk on. Divine creativity, according to Christian doctrine, is not about systemizing pre-existent ideas, it is bringing into being that which previously was not.

Obviously, as creations we cannot create ex nihilo, but we are still called to be the likeness of God. Creativity is what we are called to.

The gnostic notion of creation is stable. It is perfect (and thus evil, even the gnostic recognized that). This is not the case of the Christian notion. Even when God creates the result is not perfect, but it is good. God's creation has this element of insecurity in it, something that makes it alive. Maybe this is a way of understanding evil - it has to be to make creation able to move. (I know, this is metaphysics, don't use this in counseling...) Anyway, this, too is the case of human creativity - its goal is not to make something perfect, it is to make something that is alive.

What immediately comes to mind for me in Hagman's comments is that theological creativity is not a matter so much of doing something new for newness sake. Instead we are called to bringing life to something that is dead. Or maybe I should say we are called by Christ to enliven modes of speaking about the Christian faith that have grown stale and dull. How much, for example, of today passes for theology and theological scholarship is not only intellectually rigorous and challenging, but able to lift the heart and mind to God in prayer and contemplation?

A lively theology, because it aims at being "good" and even "beautiful" rather than "perfect," is "easy to criticize." This is inescapably the case if, in imitation of God, our theological scholarship--and really any scholarship worthy of the name Christian--has the same open-end quality that God gives to His creation. Again, Hagman's point is well taken, creation is not "perfect," but "good," and even "very good." As a result "God's creation has this element of insecurity in it." But it is creations' " very insecurity that makes it alive."

As creatures we cannot be alive without also being dynamic. God has created us to be ever changing, ever growing not only relative to the creation and ourselves and , but above all in our relationship with Him. If there is one word that does not describe a healthy relationship with Christ it is static. While Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, today, and forever," I am not. To dismiss the changeability of the human as a defect, or worse a consequence of sin, shows a profound lack of gratitude to my Creator.

We are not God, but human beings; we are not Infinite, but finite; we are not Eternal, but temporal. And it is the latter qualities (qualities that a gnostic theology would dismiss) that make it possible for us to grow in holiness, to grow in love, and the knowledge of the truth.

Christian scholarship rightly understood is dynamic and life-giving. Yes this means a certain degree of insecurity, but it is the insecurity that is our lot as sinners in rebellion from our Creator. To flee that insecurity and take refugee in a static theological system--no matter how doctrinally orthodox--is no solution.

We should rather take up in faith the task of reflecting on reality. If this is done in a faith-filled manner it will demand of us the humility of a creature in the face of his Creator. Humility, as G.K. Chesterton reminds us, is a matter of "holding. . . ourselves lightly and yet ready for an infinity of unmerited triumphs." The world, and this includes "Christian" scholars, holds humility in contempt. For all its sophistication and valuing of success and practicality, the world (and "Christian" scholarship) cannot understand that

Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice. Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride. It is mistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. Humility will always, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold; pride is that which refuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please it too much. In a word, the failure of this virtue actually lies in its success; it is too successful as an investment to be believed in as a virtue. Humility is not merely too good for this world; it is too practical for this world; I had almost said it is too worldly for this world.

The lively scholarship that Christians are called to engage in is nothing more or less than a life of intellectual humility. Again Chesterton:

It will indeed be difficult, in the present condition of current thought about such things as pride and humility, to answer the query of how a man can be humble who does such big things and such bold things. For the only answer is the answer which I gave at the beginning of this essay. It is the humble man who does the big things. It is the humble man who does the bold things. It is the humble man who has the sensational sights vouchsafed to him, and this for three obvious reasons: first, that he strains his eyes more than any other men to see them; second, that he is more overwhelmed and uplifted with them when they come; third, that he records them more exactly and sincerely and with less adulteration from his more commonplace and more conceited everyday self. Adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected--that is, most romantic. Adventures are to the shy: in this sense adventures are to the unadventurous.

Life is so much more than we deserve. But again as Chesterton observes, the "truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy." After all there "never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strained every nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. And there never was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not to have it. The whole secret of the practical success of Christendom lies in the Christian humility, however imperfectly fulfilled."

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Is this Your Jesus?

With much thanks to Andy at Think Christian:



For too many of us Jesus comes and brings not a word of liberation and new life, but petty condemnation. While the video does a good job of poking fun at some typical Evangelical Christian misconceptions about Jesus the insight is just as applicable to Orthodox Christians.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Faith that Overcomes the World

In a speech given in London (June 2, 2005) Fr. Raniero Cantalamess, OFM Cap, Preacher to the Papal Household said that Christianity is first and foremost about the Person of Jesus Christ. If we forget this, if he says we make doctrine and moral obligations primary and Jesus secondary, we distort the Gospel. He continues by observing that :

In connection with this [tendency to make tradition primary and Jesus secondary], a serious pastoral problem now exists. Churches with a strong dogmatic and theological tradition (as the traditional Churches and especially the Catholic Church are) sometimes find themselves at a disadvantage, owing to their very wealth and complexity of doctrine and institutions, when dealing with a society that has in large degree lost its Christian faith and that consequently needs to start again at the beginning, that is to say, by rediscovering Jesus Christ.

Friar Raniero's observation is as applicable to the situation of the Orthodox Church as they are to his own Roman Catholic Church. For too many Orthodox Christians, the Gospel is not about a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, but (at best) a matter of being faithful to the tradition or of being faithful to one own cultural inheritance. In the worse cases, the Gospel in met with indifference and even hostility, as something that gets in the way of life instead of the Gospel being the Way of Life.

Commenting on Fr Raniero's words, Fr Mike Fones O.P., in his blog Intentional Discipleship writes that:

In the preaching, catechesis, sacramental preparation, service projects, and community-building events that take place in our parishes, perhaps we've forgotten or obscured the 'primordial nucleus' of the Gospel message that awakens faith. It is the transforming power of a personal relationship with Jesus, made possible by his grace and the hearing of the basic message of the Gospel, that sets hearts on fire with faith and love. It is intentional discipleship that compels people to desire to encounter Christ in the Mass and other sacraments and to rely on that encounter to continue as his disciples. It is intentional discipleship kept alive by a daily reliance on grace that fuels the Catholic Christian's desire to learn more about Christ in the Scriptures, and to seek the teaching of the Church as a guide for daily life. Dare I say it - it is intentional discipleship in our clergy that leads to inspiring, challenging, creative, passionate, orthodox homilies.

While the tradition of the Orthodox Church is profoundly rich, the sad fact is that for the majority of Orthodox Christians here in the U.S. at least, that tradition doesn't make a bit of difference. And while the clergy are often more knowledgeable about the tradition, the tradition, if not a dead letter, is a tool that they often don't know how to use because, like the laity the serve, they have never really been formed as disciples of Jesus Christ.

As I have had the opportunity over the last 10 years, first in the Pacific Northwest and now in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, to get to know more and more people, Orthodox Christians or not, I have become more convinced then every that there is power in the tradition of the Orthodox Church. This power is a power to transform lives, to lift people out of the effects of sin--both their own and other people's. This power is there for the taking--the grace is there, it isn't lack. What is lack, however, is our freedom.

We rather worry about jurisdictional, hierarchical and clerical prerogatives then the Gospel. We are more concerned with fund raising to build buildings, than evangelism and spiritual direction to build the Church. This has to come to an end now.

Rightly, I think, Fr Mike observes that new programs are not going to work. What is needed is "preaching the heart of the Gospel and inviting people into a lived relationship with Christ." He continues that "Unless we identify our intentional disciples in our midst, support them, hold them up as the norm for Christian living, and give them tools with which to evangelize others, we will continue to see the seed of faith planted in the hearts of baptized Catholics bloom in Evangelical churches."

But for this to work, we must foster trust in all levels of the Church. Trust is the psychological foundation of faith--without a trusting relationship faith simply will not grow. If anything the lack of committed Orthodox Christians (and committed Roman Catholics for that matter) suggests that--for all our rich patrimony--there is a painful absence of trust in the Orthodox (and Catholic) Church (-es).

I have seen the faith of the Orthodox Church overcome the world--what we must now do is allow that same faith to overcome the Church.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Catholic/Orthodox Relations

From my comment at Amy Welborn's blog, "Open Book":

First, I thank everyone for their kind responses.

Yes there are serious theological disagreements that separate Catholics and Orthodox, but (as the posters all suggest) there is also a rather serious lack of grass roots sympathy between the two communities as well. And this lack of sympathy while it my often take the form of Catholic vs. Orthodox is probably at least as much a result of a lack of understanding between Eastern and Western Christians.

Having followed these discussions for a while now (20+ years), I find that unless we can avoid the temptation to point out the injustices one side has committed against the other we get no where.

Fr Elijah's comments are quite sobering. If we continue we continue as we have, we will very soon have lived most of our lives apart from one another and this is not only a sad commentary, it is an offense against Christ.

Speaking only for myself, I do not see much hope of grass roots movement towards reconciliation of Catholics and Orthodox happening in Europe. Humanly speaking, I believe that the best hope for this type of reconciliation is in the United States where Catholics and Orthodox, as well as Eastern and Western Christians, share a common language and culture.

This is not to suggest theological dialog in the US or in Europe shouldn't continue--it certainly should.

As a practical matter though I think that the personal and pastoral relations we need to build are best built in America. Don't underestimate the importance, as TM Lutas's words suggest, that in the US we are physically safe in our pursuit of reconciliation with each other.

I am sorry for the harshness that Catholics have reported in their encounters with Orthodox clergy and laity. Alas we have our bullies. For what it might be worth, I've encounter my own share of Orthodox bullies as well.

After such encounters I find myself tempted to dwell on the offense. But, at least in my more lucid moments, I avoid that temptation (thank God). If for no other reason then my own peace of soul, I find it best to seek out those with whom I can be friends and go from there.

Catholic (Latin or Eastern) and Orthodox who can, and want, to work together are I think in the majority. Speaking for the Orthodox side of the conversation, we are often insecure and have not learned how to keep our bullies in check. Maybe it is because are communities are often still very much immigrant communities, but we need help and encouragement in learning how to stand up to the bullies in our midst.

Sadly,we have people who would (for their own self-aggrandizement) stop the work of reconciliation and we need help in respectfully, but effectively, calling these people to repentance or (failing their willingness to repent) moving forward regardless of their complaints.

Finally, as reluctant penitent points out, recent encounters are miraculous. That being the case, I think it is good to be on guard least we fall prey to our old, bad habits of hostility, suspicion and contempt for each other (and thereby Christ and the Gospel).

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

p.s., I have also posted this on my own blog Koinonia (http://palamas.blogspot.com)

Objections: We Can All Do Better

At Amy Welborn on her blog "Open Book," posted a brief new report about the objects form monks on Mount Athos to the warming relationship between the Churches of Greece and Roman. Click on the link in the title of this post to read the original post as well as the comments that it generated.

While not all of the comments about the Orthodox Church are negative, many are and so I posted the following as a general response to Catholic/Orthodox ecumenical relations on the "grass roots" level:

Yes, to repeat what I said before, there is certainly a less then conciliar attitude among many Orthodox (Greek and otherwise toward Roman Catholics). At the same time, it is easy to overlook the fact that the Roman Church--until very recently--had Latin Rite patriarchs (titular to be sure) for Orthodox Sees such as Constantinople and Antioch. There is still the rather unfriendly gesture of a LATIN patriarch in Jerusalem and the duplication of Eastern rite Patriarchs in such places as Antioch.

So there are some reasons for the hostile attitude on the Greek side of the fence.

Add to this, as TM Lutes alluded to, the hostility that Roman Catholics (clergy and laity) have directed towards Eastern Catholics. Often Eastern Catholics find their traditions either disregarded by Roman Catholics or actively suppressed. For example, the suppression of married clergy here in the US, the innovation of First Holy Communion, the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, the dismantling of icon screens, the re-confirmation by Latin bishops of Eastern Catholic children chrismated as infants . With this as the example of what reconciliation with Rome has meant, is it any wonder that there is hostility and suspicion of Roman Catholic good intentions among the Orthodox?

In addition, and here I will level some rather direct criticism of the Roman Church, the virtual disappearance of traditional asceticism among Roman Catholics, an impoverished celebration of not only the Eucharist, but of the entire daily cycle (i.e., the Liturgy of the Hours), Holy Communion being passed out like Nico wafers (ever Orthodox priest I know has had at least one encounter with a Catholic eucharistic minister giving, or attempting to give, Holy Communion to an Orthodox Christian hospital patient), the abandonment of the monastic habit, especially by women, in favor of secular attire, and the almost wholesale abandonment of the Catholic tradition by Catholic theology departments, to say nothing of what has happened more generally to higher education especially here in the US. Is it any wonder that many Orthodox Christians do not take Roman Catholicism seriously?

Yes, the monks on Mount Athos have behaved poorly and their criticism reflect an abysmal ignorance of Roman Catholic theology. But I have found the same poverty of theological understand of Eastern theology all too common among Roman Catholic apologists and theologians, to say nothing of bishops and priests.

It is, as one commentator pointed out, a bit of surprise for Roman Catholics to discover that the Orthodox consider them schismatics and heretics. At the same time these same Roman Catholics don't find it at all disturbing to think of the consider of the Orthodox as schismatics and, in refusing to accept the infallibility of the pope, no doubt even heretics.

Yes we are very close--and as we all know, the best fights are with family. But given at least a significant percentage of what I have read here, I do really see much more openness to the East by Roman Catholics then I see among the Orthodox for the Roman Catholics.

At some point, both sides need to stop compare their best to the other side's worst. Until then, until then we are simply wasting our time and (worse) pushing ourselves further and further apart.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory Jensen

What American accent do you have?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast   Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
Boston
The Inland North
North Central
The South
The West
The Midland
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Which Superhero am I?

Given a lifelong love of comic book superheroes, it was hard to resist!

+Fr Gregory

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 95% Green Lantern 80% Spider-Man 75% The Flash 60% Batman 55% Robin 52% Supergirl 52% Hulk 50% Wonder Woman 32% Catwoman 25% Iron Man 25%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Leadership Burnout in the Orthodox Church (Part II)

In a previous posting (Leadership Burnout in the Orthodox Church, Part I) I discussed what I saw as three central causes of burnout among Orthodox Christian clergy and lay leadership. These are:

(1) An institutional lack of recognition of personal and professional achievement.

(2) Unhealthy limiting of personal and professional autonomy.

(3) A systemic neglect of the work of fostering justice relationships among ourselves.

While the term “burnout” is somewhat overused and admits to a variety of definitions, I think the best description of the experience is offered by Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig in his book Power in the Helping Professions. He writes about a therapist, late in his career and well respected in his profession, who nevertheless (for all his technical proficiency) has become closed to the mystery of being. For this man, all his relationships are at their foundation, professional relationship—everything he does and every conversation he has is a professional in nature.

Something very much like this can, and often does, happen to those who take on leadership roles in the Church. There is the parish council member who is busy with “council business” during Sunday Liturgy. Or, there is the man or woman on the “Welcoming Committee” or “Hospitality and Outreach Committee” who is so busy welcoming Christ in the guise of visitors that he or she neglects to welcome Him in the Scriptures or Holy Communion.

There is likewise the priest who runs from one pastoral obligation to another and yet fails to spend anytime in quiet prayer and who never seems to have time to read the Scriptures or do the studying that is essential for his own personal and pastoral development. Ironically, it is often this same man who is so busy caring for other people that he fails not only to care for his own non-negotiable physical needs for proper food, adequate rest and exercise. And the circle of failure will even extend beyond his spiritual and physical health and erode his other relationships so that he neglects his wife and children and friends.

In there own way, bishops are as prone to the same aberrations that we see among the laity and the clergy. Many (I dare say most) bishops simply neglect their own monastic profession, living less as monks and more a bachelors or (worse) princes or middle level executives. Often they view his brother clergy not as fellow workers, but (at best) as employees or worse competitors.

As I mentioned in another post, especially dangerous here is the bishop or priest or lay leader for that matter who adopts a remote style of leadership that actively works to obstruct anything that resembles a collaborative style of leadership. As Guggenbuhl-Craig work suggests this happens as a result of a narrow for vision. As the article summarizing Ramarajan and Barsade’s research puts it, burnout is most likely when we fail to see the broader context of our work.

It is important that “Employers can also highlight to their employees how important their work is to society as a whole, Barsade adds. ‘Very often, caretaking work is not all that valued, but if employees in a daycare center, for example, understand that they are involved in early childhood education,’ this puts their work in a broader context. In addition, she suggests that for people in jobs that don't pay very well (and won't in the future), managers can at least compliment employees, hold awards dinners and so forth, ‘just so long as these shows of respect are authentic.’" For many Orthodox Christian leaders what is missing is a healthy, more biblically and anthropologically sound broader context of ministry.

In the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese the Greek ethnic community often provides this broader context. With converts, especially in the Antiochian Archdiocese and the Orthodox Church in America, this broader context is the rejection of the “West.” In both cases however the broader context is often more imaginary then it is empirical. We too often situation the ministry of the Church with a context that is really only a sentimental longing for Byzantium or Holy Russia or the “Old Country” or (what is underneath in all) a rarefied “Eastern mindset."

Orthodox Christians certainly cannot divorce ourselves from our own past, theological or ethnic. We have obviously come from somewhere. But, the only way to be faithful to our past is to faithful to our current situation. What we fail to do, and what we must do, is actively engage in a creative and appreciative critical dialogue with not only the culture around us, but also our own past.

At the heart of this dialogue is not a mechanical preservation of the past, but a willingness (like the wise steward) to draw from the treasury house of tradition those riches that make it possible for us to be “yeast in the dough” of the contemporary world. Our goal, in other words, is not so much preservation of the past as transformation of the present.

In answering the charge that Christians were harmful to the health of the Roman Empire, St Augustine argued that that as the soul is to the body, so the Christian is to the world. Jesus tells us that we “are the light of the world.” If we see the world around us as shrouded in darkness or trapped by the powers of sin and death, then we are called by Christ to respond by proclaiming the Gospel to the fallen world.

The burnout, the unjust practices, and the just plain sloppiness in the Church’s life reflect I think the lost of an evangelical vision for the Church’s life. We have become more concerned with preservation—cultural, theological, and liturgical—then transformation. But it is precisely working for transformation, our own and the world’s, which is at the heart of the Church’s vocation and (in a practical fashion) the way out of the narrowing of vision that afflicts us.

In neglecting the evangelical vocation of the Church we have fallen back on ourselves and brought about an increasingly narrow vision of the Church's life. It is not, and I cannot emphasizes this enough, a narrowness of vision that cause us to neglect evangelism, but our neglect of evangelism that narrows our hearts. Or maybe more accurately, evangelism is part and parcel of how God in Jesus Christ heals our constricted heart. We learn to love by loving, we learn what is really essential in the Christian life by introducing others to Christ and taking seriously their struggles.

I know in my own life, having to respond to those who do not believe has taught me what is of primary and what is of secondary importance in the Christian life. Add to that the undeniable limitations that mission work imposes which has the delightful effect of bring about and a certain clarity of vision, often whether I want that clarity or not.

"Let us," as we sing in the Cherubic Hymn, "lay aside all earthly cares and welcome the King of All, invisibly escorted by angelic hosts." This is the heart of the evangelic life and it is the key to the transformation and revival of the Church.

The effectiveness of self-imposed deadlines on procrastination

This just in from our eclectic social scientific friends at Tasty Research:

I often hear of graduate students postponing their research to do other things: play Tetris, read comments on Slashdot, or write a blog. We defer doing something “more important” to do something else and feel guilty and pleased at the same time.

How sweet is it not to do work? Apparently, sweet enough to abate the heavy and bitter costs of procrastinating. Late fines and extra work for missing a deadline seem distant when you can chat online for another 20 minutes right now.

Why do people procrastinate? This is an effect psychologists attribute to “hyperbolic time discounting”: the immediate rewards are disproportionally more compelling than the greater delayed costs. In other words, Procrastination itself is the reward.

However, the eventual cost of neglecting a task has such an impact on people that they learn to impose deadlines on themselves to restrict their own behavior. At what lengths do people do this? This article looks at three questions:

1. Do people self-impose costly deadlines on tasks in which procrastination may impede performance?
2. Are self-imposed deadlines effective in improving task performance?
3. Do people set their deadlines optimally, for maximum performance enhancement?

A few studies are reported in this paper, where students had the opportunity to choose their own deadlines for three tasks they needed to do (write or proofread papers). They were allowed to set separate deadlines for each paper, but they would be binded to the deadlines and be assessed penalties if the papers were submitted late. Logically, the best solution would be to set all the deadlines to be the last day, which would give them the most flexibility and time to work on the three tasks.

However, only 27% of the students chose to submit all three papers on the last day of class. This answers the first question — people are aware of their own procrastination and give themselves earlier deadlines to counter it. The studies show that these deadlines do improve performance over only having deadlines at the very end. Unfortunately, they are still suboptimal because the subjects who were given equally spaced deadlines performed better, thus supporting question two but rejecting question three.

But hey, I’ll push myself to start my taxes earlier, but after a round or two of Winterbells.

Ariely, D. & Wertenbroch, K. Procrastination, deadlines, and performance: Self-control by precommitment. Psychological Science, 13(3), 219-224. [PDF]

Two Creativity Killers

From churchrelevance.com:

Seth Godin states that there are two things that kill marketing creativity.

1. Fear
2. Lack of Imagination

Fear is nothing more than hyped-up worry. So stop worrying about failure or criticism and start focusing on the things of God and what He wants you to do as Matthew 6:25-34 teaches. Of course, there will be times when things do not work or go as planned, but learn from your mistakes. It will only strengthen your creativity.

Lack of imagination is simply poor stewardship of the brain God gave you. Learn to imagine like you did like as a child. Most importantly, don’t instantly kill the ideas you imagine because you think they are impossible. It could be you just don’t know yet how to make it possible or entertaining the idea could be the link and inspiration you need for an even better idea.

So stop fearing and start imagining, and you will find yourself reaching a new level of creativity.

But What's The Reason For Jesus?

At this time of year the "Christmas Wars" are again being fought.

People--that is Christians--will say that we must put "Christ back in Christmas! No more X-mas!" But my personal favorite remains the bold proclamation: "Jesus is the Reason for the Season!"

But what is the reason for Jesus?

The man in black, Johnny Cash, in his video God's Gonna Cut You Down offers us a sober reminder of the reason for Jesus and His birth. Jesus has come to save us from our sinfulness and to spare us the harsh judgment that Cash sing about in his song.

This is not to say that God will not cut us down--but it does mean that in Christ the cutting is therapeutic, a pruning away of our sinfulness rather than a cutting that is a casting away.

So yes, God in Jesus is "gonna cut you down" but from the cross of your own making. And 33 years from His birth, this new born child will ascend the cross in your place.

(A thoughtful reflection on Cash's video is offered by Russell Moore on Mere Comments. You can read Moore's essay here: "Cash Refund.")

Leadership Burnout in the Orthodox Church (Part I)

As the glorious disciples, in the washing of the feet, were enlightened, the profane Judas, ravaged by greed, as benighted. And to the lawless judges he surrenders You the just judge. Consider, you who love money, the one who hanged himself for the sake of it. Shun the insatiate heart that could dare such a deed against the Teacher. Lord, benevolent above all humans, glory to You.

Apolytikion, Holy Thursday

Back in November, a summary appeared of a research project undertaken at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. The study conducted by Lakshmi Ramarajan (a doctoral student in the Wharton’s management department) and Sigal Barsade (management professor at Wharton) is titled “What Makes the Job Tough? The Influence of Organizational Respect of Burnout in Human Services.” The summary of the research can be found online in an article entitled “More than Job Demands or Personality, Lack of Organizational Respect Fuels Employee Burnout.” While the whole article and the study it references are both worth reading, there are two points that I think are important for understanding the practical challenges of fostering a healthy style of leadership in the Orthodox Church: (1) the importance of mutual respect in the Church’s life and (2) the need for a vision for Church life that transcends the parish. In this essay I will address the first of these points

Based on their research “on the health care industry—specifically on certified nursing assistants (CNAs) in a large, long-term care facility,” Professor Barsade argues that "One of the biggest complaints employees have is they are not sufficiently recognized by their organizations for the work that they do. Respect is a component of recognition. When employees don't feel that the organization respects and values them, they tend to experience higher levels of burnout."

After discussing different aspects of institutional respect, the authors identify the autonomy of the employee as key to job satisfaction for both professional and hourly workers. The conclusion that Ramarajan and Barsade reach is that “The impact of organizational respect on burnout is felt most strongly when job autonomy is low. This finding confirms the researchers' hypothesis going into the study about the importance of autonomy, which they define as ‘the discretion that one has to determine the processes and schedules involved in completing a task.’ Autonomy, the researchers note, can act as a buffer on stress—and actually decrease job burnout—if autonomy is high, but not if it is low.”

In a recent essay posted on OrthodoxyToday.com (“Understanding Clergy Stress: A Psychospiritual Response”) priest-psychologist Fr. George Morelli describes for us a pastoral situation that suggests that clergy leaders at least have relatively little autonomy in their professional life. Clergy find themselves responsible canonically to their bishops and economically to their parishes. Even assuming that they are not trapped between conflicting episcopal and lay demands or that there is not a collusion between episcopal and lay that works against the priest’s best interest, the priest serving “two masters” has the practical effect of limiting the areas of his autonomy not only professionally but also personally.

Ironically, this limiting of personal and professional autonomy is not limited to the parish priest. Rather it reflects an overall unhealthy relational structure in the Church. For better or worse, each order of the Church tends to find its own legitimate freedom either inappropriately limited or (what amounts to the same thing) neglected by one, and some times both, of the other orders. In other words, the life situation of the parish priest that Fr. George is not unique to the priest. Rather each order in the Church will find itself at times in an adversarial relation with one or both of the other two.

Largely I think this lack of institutional respect reflects a lack of appreciation for justice in the Church. Justice in the Church is not primarily procedural but relational. We do not see that our own personal good is only possible to the degree that we place the good of the other—spiritual, material, professional and personal—before our own. Even if relationships are not adversarial, this lack of concern for the wellness of others reflects poorly on the Church’s commitment to justice and I would suggest undermines the abilitu of episcopal, clerical and lay leadership to function effectively.

We have as Orthodox Christians neglected the work of justice among ourselves, I would suggest, because we have embraced a view of ecclesiastical relations that value above all the absence of conflict. Wrongly we equated the absence of conflict with peace we pray for in the Great Litany.

But this peace that we pray for, and upon which the life of the Church depends, is shalom. The peace that we need is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of right relationship among ourselves and with the world around us. And peace in this sense is the fruit of justice. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in his 1984 Nobel Prize lecture: “God's Shalom, peace, involves inevitably righteousness, justice, wholeness, fullness of life, participation in decision-making, goodness, laughter, joy, compassion, sharing and reconciliation.”

At the top of these essay is an icon of Christ washing the feet of His disciples. The hymn for Holy Thursday suggest that either we serve one another in fidelity to the example of Christ or, like Judas, we will be "ravaged by greed," betray Christ and destroy ourselves.

In my next essay, I will again return to the study by Ramarajan and Barsade to suggest what might be done to correct the current situation in the Orthodox Church.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

History of Religion in 90 seconds!

I thought this was clever and worth posting.

On Prophets and Quislings

David Mills discusses the sociology of academic writing in his post on Mere Comments this morning. One of the points he makes is that academic writing is writing by academics for academics. The practical result of this is that academic writing has relatively little to do with the advancement of truth. This is especially the case in the humanities and so theology.

This raises for me an interesting question for Orthodox/Catholic ecumenical relations. The vast majority of our clergy and theologians are trained in an academic setting by academics who have themselves adapted to the ethos of the modern research university.

In other words, we form intellectually and spiritually the people who will be the teachers and guardians of our respective traditions in an environment that often does not value clarity much less the truth. Quoting approvingly C. Wright Mills' book The Sociological Imagination, David Mills explains why this sad state of affairs has come to pass in the university: "Desire for status is one reason why academic men slip so readily into unintelligibility."

Unintelligibility in the service of status (and not infrequently, power and control) is not a norm that I find suitable for the next generation of priests, deacons and theologians. Sadly though, this is exactly the social norm of the university and by extension the seminary whose faculties have often drank deeply of the academic ethos.

David Mills offers me much food for thought as I reflect on the need for East & West to re-establish full communion with one another. The proclamation of the Gospel in general, and reconciliation of divided Christians in particular, is an act of prophetic boldness that demands moral and physical courage. But the academy does not value this courage, but rather ambiguity, vainglory, pride, and pettiness in expression and ambition. It is it seems to me an environment better suited for forming quislings then leaders.

To read the whole of David Mills's reflections: C. Wright Mills on why academics write the way they do

More Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (IV)

The latest installment of the essay on Orthodox/Catholic relations by Archbishop Anthony (Bashir):

By Anthony Bashir, Archbishop-Metropolitan, Syrian Archdiocese of North America

From Orthodoxy* (10:4, Autumn 1964)

Let me review [Patriarch Maximos'] conclusions. Christ is, he says, the only head of the Church. The Pope, a successor of St Peter, is head of the episcopal college. The Pope as the head of the bishops governs them but is not distinct from them. The bishops are the true heads of their dioceses. The Orthodox Church is the result of a living apostolic tradition in which Rome intervenes only by way of exception. The primatial power of the Pope is personal and pastoral. It cannot be delegated, and is only to be understood in the light of the Pope's position as head of the episcopal college. The Patriarch assumes that these conclusions are possible even after the First Vatican Council of 1870 in which it was solemnly proclaimed that the Pope is infallible in himself, and without the consensus of the Church. If Patriarch Maximos is correct, then we Orthodox may hope that the First Vatican Council did not shut the door forever on a reconciliation with the Latin Church.

Read more: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (IV)

Zenit News Agency - Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue as Witness

In giving Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholic Church, God has also given a great gift to the Orthodox Church. Already in his short reign, His Holiness Pope Benedict has greatly advanced the cause of Orthodox/Catholic reunion. While some Orthodox would disagree, I think that a reconciliation of East and West would be of great advantage to both Churches.

While the Orthodox Church has profound spiritual riches to offer, we are parochial in our outlook and internally divided. Yes, certainly we have the same faith, the same liturgical tradition, but existentially we remain divided. The situation here in Pittsburgh, PA where I live is illustrative, we have separate celebrations of the Sunday of Orthodoxy. Some serve Vespers on Sunday evening, others an ecumenical doxology. Two services, at the same time, in different churches.

Any way, I recommend the interview with Bishop Agathangelos of the Church of Greece.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Interview With Bishop Agathangelos of Fanarion

ROME, DEC. 17, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The theological dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches "can give witness of Christ," says a Greek Orthodox prelate.

Bishop Agathangelos of Fanarion is director general of the Apostoliki Diaconia, which in the Greek Orthodox Church is in charge of the missions, the formation of seminarians and publishing.

Last spring Bishop Agathangelos came to visit Rome with a Greek-Orthodox delegation, to get to know better the tradition and culture of the Catholic Church.

According to the bishop, it is important to discover everything that united the two Churches in the first millennium, when they were not yet divided, to get to know and listen to each other. He shared his views in this interview.

Read More: Zenit News Agency - The World Seen From Rome

OCCIDENTALIS: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (III)

There is another point at which I differ from some Orthodox in seeing positive ground for hope where they see only added obstacles for understanding. That is in your Uniates. I do not deceive myself about the Uniates, the so-called Greek Catholics. They were organized as a result of some of the worst deceptive proselytizing ever engaged in by Christians. Commercial privilege and civil and military pressure brought them into being, and in many instances simple laymen were deliberately deceived. This is why there has been no Orthodox protest when, in the Ukraine and Rumania, they have been recently reunited to the Church, sometimes by forceful removal of their hierarchs. Even now Uniate propagandists willingly exploit local Orthodox difficulties to pervert our people. There are not enough Latin clergy to hold traditionally Roman Catholic Latin America, but there are enough to staff the missions working among the Orthodox in the Middle East. All of this I deplore, but I do understand and respect the ideal of your Unia – your belief that Rome is the one true Church of Christ to which all must belong and in which all may worship according to their particular ancient rites. While I cannot respect the "Rice Christians", I admire any faith that acts consistently with its conviction that it is the unique Christian Church.

Read more: OCCIDENTALIS: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (III)

OCCIDENTALIS: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (II)

Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (II)

By Anthony Bashir, Archbishop-Metropolitan, Syrian Archdiocese of North America

From Orthodoxy* (10:4, Autumn 1964)

In conclusion, and to avoid misunderstanding or exploitation by the popular press, I insist that these proposals are made as a loyal representative of the Orthodox Church who holds it to be the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of the creed, outside of which there is no salvation. I am not glossing over the schism or heresy of the west, and by no means suggesting any other solution to division than the reunion of all Christians with the same Orthodox Church. If reunion cannot be accomplished by a restatement of the two positions, however, I do not see it as possible in any other way.

Read more: OCCIDENTALIS: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (II)

OCCIDENTALIS: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (I)

Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (I)

By Anthony Bashir, Archbishop-Metropolitan, Syrian Archdiocese of North America

From Orthodoxy* (10:4, Autumn 1964)

We all share the privilege of living in a most exciting, even exhilarating time for Christian believers. The age of mutual recrimination and proliferating schisms appears to be drawing to a close and all who profess loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ now feel the challenge of His will that 'all may be one.' However Christians differ from each other in their understanding of their heritage, they seem to be laying hold upon the vision of a united Christendom. Orthodox and Catholics can turn from the frustration engendered by the observation of the bewildering variety of sectarian creeds and customs, and contemplate with satisfaction the truly vast area of agreement which they have in common. They can draw comfort further from the significant fact that while orthodoxy (with a small 'o') does not depend on the counting of noses, as St Athanasius well knew, the great general agreement that includes Orthodox and Catholics in an almost unanimous tradition places the onus on Christians outside of these two bodies to justify their minority witness.

Read more: OCCIDENTALIS: Thoughts on Orthodox-Roman Relations (I)