The Gospel, Secularism and the American Experiment-part II

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?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Gospel, Secularism and the American Experiment-part I

So, based on the number and quality of the comments, it seems that there is great interest (here at least) in the social teaching of the Church. Thank you all for your comments and observations. I find them very helpful in clarifying my own thinking on the issue we are addressing. Let me offer some reflections

A common thread in most discussion about the relationship between church and state is the tacit--and at times not so tacit--assumption that the American experiment is a secular, anti-religious, and even anti-Christian movement. While certainly this was, and in many ways still is, the case in the French system of government it is not the case in America.

Yes, there is a strong strain of secularism in American culture—but an argument could be made that this represents a deviation from the founding principles. No, America was not founded on the Gospel—and certainly we are not an "Orthodox" nation—but strictly speak no government is, or for that matter needs to be so founded. Nations are called Orthodox or Christian only by analogy or as a reflection of an openness to the Gospel or (most crudely) because of the majority (or at least a plurality) of its citizens are Christian of one sort or another.

For Orthodox, the idea of America and American culture as secular (in a pejorative sense), that it is anti-Christian and harmful to our Christian faith, is something popularized but Fr Alexander Schmemann. He argues, quite eloquently and convincingly, that secularism "is above all a negation of worship. I stress: --not of God's existence, not of some kind of transcendence and therefore some kind of religion. If secularism in theological terms in a heresy, it is primarily a heresy about man. It is a negation of man as a worshiping being, as homo adorans: the one for whom worship is the essential act which both 'posits' his humanity and fulfills it. It is the rejection as ontologically and epistemologically 'decisive,' of the words which 'always, everywhere and for all' were the true 'epiphany' of man's relation to God, to the world and to himself." (For the Life of the World, p. 118)

For Schmemann, secularism an anthropological heresy (remembering that heresy always implies a choice). At its core it denies that the worship of the Triune God is the act that both reveals and fulfills human nature (i.e., worship is both an act of ontological & epistemological self-revelation and self-realization). Further, it is a rejection of the idea that worship is the privileged means (again both ontological and epistemological) by which the communion of God, creation and humanity are realized. Implicit within this view of secularism is a rejection of the position of those, "quite numerous today, who consciously or unconsciously reduce Christianity to either intellectual ('future of belief') or socio-ethical ('Christian service to the world') categories and who therefore think it must be possible to find not only some kind of accommodation, but even a deeper harmony between our 'secular age' on the one hand and worship in the other hand." (pp. 118-119)

While his description of secularism is insightful, as often happens with his work, his use of the concept as a lens through which to see American culture is heavy handed. Yes, secularism is a central theme in American culture but, as the work of Fr John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition, suggests secularism as Schmemann uses the term is not an inherent part of that ensemble of founding truths that "command the structure and the courses of the political-economic system of the United State." (p. 106) Commenting on Murray's work in the forward to We Hold These Truths, Walter J Burghardt, S.J., writes that "Reduced to its skeleton," the American model affirms as foundational the importance of "a free people under a limited government, guided by law and ultimately under the sovereignty of God." (pp. vii-viii)

If, as Schmemann and Murray each in his own way suggests, we have become fragmented as a society, it is because (as Murray points out) it is because we have lost that founding consensus. So, to take but one example, "the American university [has] long since bade a quiet goodbye to the whole notion of an American consensus, as implying that there are truths that we hold in common, and a natural law that makes known to all of us the structure of the moral universe in such wise that all of us are bound by it to a common obedience." (p. 40) In this, I fear, many Orthodox Christian—having read, but misunderstood—not only Schmemann's criticisms of America, but also the Father and indeed the Scriptures themselves, argue rather on the side of disintegration.

What do I mean?

I will in my next post, return to Schmemann's For the Life of the World to answer the question I've just posed.

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Do You Have Healthy Relationships

Gotta love a quiz right?

Try one on relationships.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

You Have Very Healthy Relationships

You are an amazing friend, partner, and family member. You always take other people's feelings into account, and you're never selfish. Your relationships are based on mutual respect. You respect the people you love, and you only love people who respect you in return.

Do You Have Healthy Relationships?

New URL (Again!) and the Palamas Institute

Finally worked out the problems with my new url. Koinonia now has its own custom location on the web--www.palamas.info.

In coming weeks I hope to have another web page up for a project Chrys and I have been working on for quite a while: the Palamas Institute.

The PI is a private, non-profit Orthodox Christian ministry meant to facilitate the continuing pastoral education of Orthodox clergy and the training and forming lay leaders. Not only that we hope to serve as a catalyst and clearinghouse for research into the pastoral life of the Church here in America. Since the project was conceived while my wife was in law school very little has done. Now that we are settled I would hope to get the PI off the ground in the coming months.

Any suggestions you have, or offers to participate, are welcome and will be appreciated.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

"Throne and Altar" Making a Comeback in Russia? (and not just there?)

From Sophocles at the Eastern Christian award winning blog "a . . . sinner" comes the following observations that are in line with the discussion here about politics and the Orthodox Church.

Sophocles raises a similar question about the attraction to authoritarianism of at least some Orthodox Christians has been raised on this blog as well. I confess without shame, I find this tendency worrisome. More than that, I find that--at least potentially--the willingness of some to cozy up to bully boys and the rich and powerful at the expense of the peace loving, the poor and weak may very well undermine the confidence of many in the Church.

I hasten to add, that while it is more extreme in the case of the Church in Russia, I can't help but wonder how much the Church here in America hasn't identified almost wholly with the middle and upper middle classes at the expense of the poor. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting that there is anything necessarily wrong with being middle class or even wealth. The question is less what I have and more how do I make use of what I have. As I read through the Pew Charitable Trust Survey, the thought grows in me that a significant number of Orthodox Christians, however, center their lives not on the Gospel but on the mere acquisition of wealth and the comfort and security wealth brings them personally.

Any way, do take a look at "a ... sinner" and his blog post below, "'Throne and Altar' Comeback in Russia." If you have a moment, why not leave a comment here and there?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

One has to wonder whether there's something in the Russian 'blood' that yearns for authoritarian rule. From the Tsar to the Communists to Putin. Here a Putin version of an old Soviet joke

Stalin appears to Putin in a dream, says: "Valdimir Vladimirovich, I have two pieces of advice for you. One: Kill all your enemies, without fear or favor. Two: Paint the Kremlin blue."

Putin: "Why blue?"

The Russian Orthodox Church, pals of the Tsars, got left out in the cold by the Communists. Putin has invited it back in, and the embrace between state and church is firm.

From Time:

Indeed, rather than first give thanks to God in his speech, the head of the ROC, Patriarch Alexy, paid homage to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Patriarch emphasized that the reunification could happen only because the ROCOR saw in Putin "a genuine Russian Orthodox human being." Putin responded in his speech that the reunification was a major event for the entire nation.

Nationalism, based on the Orthodox faith, has been emerging as the Putin regime's major ideological resource. Thursday's rite sealed the four-year long effort by Putin, beginning in September 2003, to have the Moscow Patriarchate take over its rival American-based cousin and launch a new globalized Church as his state's main ideological arm and a vital foreign policy instrument. In February press conference, Putin equated Russia's "traditional confessions" to its nuclear shield, both, he said, being "components that strengthen Russian statehood and create necessary preconditions for internal and external security of the country." Professor Sergei Filatov, a top authority on Russian religious affairs notes that "traditional confessions" is the state's shorthand for the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Church's assertiveness and presence is growing — with little separation from the State. The Moscow City Court and the Prosecutor General's Office maintain Orthodox chapels on their premises. Only the Orthodox clergy are entitled to give ecclesiastic guidance to the military. Some provinces have included Russian Orthodox Culture classes in school curricula with students doing church chores. When Orthodox fundamentalists vandalized an art exhibition at the Moscow Andrei Sakharov Center as "an insult to the main religion of our country," the Moscow Court found the Center managers guilty of insulting the faith, and fined them $3,500 each. The ROC had an opera, based on a famous fairy tale by the poet Alexander Pushkin, censored to the point of cutting out the priest, who is the tale's main protagonist. "Of course, we have a separation of State and Church," Putin said during a visit to a Russian Orthodox monastery in January 2004. "But in the people's soul they're together." The resurgence of a Church in open disdain of the secular Constitution is only likely to exacerbate divisions in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Russia.

From the Telegraph (Feb 08):

The president, a proud adherent, has allowed the Orthodox Church to regain much of its Tsarist-era lustre and has won the enthusiastic support of religious leaders in return.

With his hand-picked successor almost guaranteed victory in the March 2 poll, Mr Putin is determined to maintain the arrangement by holding on to the reins of power as prime minister.
The relationship might seem odd. It was the KGB, after all, that led persecution of the Church in Soviet times, when priests were regularly jailed, tortured and executed. Neither this nor accusations that Mr Putin is restoring many of the attributes of Soviet rule seem to bother Alexei.

Although he has never confirmed it, the patriarch, like the president, is a former KGB agent codenamed Drozdov, according to Soviet archives opened to experts in the 1990s.

Many in the Orthodox hierarchy are also accused of working as KGB informers, a fact that critics say the Church has never fully acknowledged.

"Essentially, the Orthodox Church is one of the only Soviet institutions that has never been reformed," said one priest, who declined to be identified for fear that he could be defrocked. That fate already befell another colleague, Gleb Yakunin, in the 1990s when he called on Church leaders with KGB links to repent.

Yet it is not just the KGB that binds the Church and the Kremlin. In the Tsarist era, the Church was a committed supporter of the imperial rallying cry "orthodoxy, autocracy and nationhood."
Critics say that Mr Putin, who draws as much of inspiration from imperial Russia as he does from the Soviet Union, has adopted the same mantra - making the president and the Church ideal bedfellows.

Both have blossomed from the relationship. The number of Russians who identify themselves as Orthodox has doubled in the past decade, with two-thirds of the 140 million population proclaiming the faith - quite a feat after seven decades of official atheism.

Yet most Russians say they follow Orthodoxy for national rather than moral reasons. Deeply patriotic and with a declared intention of making Russia great again, the Church has milked the sentiment.

Priests are regularly seen on television sprinkling holy water on bombers and even nuclear missiles, a blessing that reinforces Mr Putin's own militaristic philosophy.

The Church has even supported Mr Putin's repression of democracy, with a senior bishop last year comparing human rights activists to traitors.

When a prison chaplain suggested that the jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a personal enemy of the president, was a political prisoner, he was promptly defrocked.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

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The Worst and the Best, the Highest and the Lowest

One commentator offers an interesting thought in response to an earlier post here based on Fr Jonah's thoughts on leadership in the Church. The comments, by AMM, address what I would see as the irony that Western theological anthropologies, with what Orthodox Christians see as very negative view of the human, has given birth to democracy. AMM notes that the East, on the other hand, with a very positive theological anthropology have tended to favor (and still favor) more autocratic and even authoritarian modes of governance. You can read all of his comment here, but let me quote the writer's central point:

As I said, the church champions freedom, but usually seems most comfortable conforming itself to authority that suppresses it. One of the ironies to me are the convert oriented polemics surrounding sin and the nature of man. Specifically the idea that the Eastern view represents a paradigm of the goodness of man in the wake of the fall as counterposed against the wickedness of man in the Augustininian/western view. Absolutism and political authoritarianism (the preference of the East) of course assumes the worst in man, and is a mechanism to keep humans in check. It is in the west, the home of the dreaded doctrine of Original Sin, that true freedom (enlighten by faith as outlined by Acton) has been allowed to flourish; and it is among the western confessions that you see the greatest emphasis on the service of man that as you said seems to be lacking in Orthodoxy.

What makes this even more interesting to me is a post by Thomas Berg on the blog Mirror of Justice. Berg argues for the centrality of Augustinian model of original sin for political theory and practice. He quotes from the Christianity Today review of Jason Byasseeof Original Sin: A Cultural History, a recently published book by Wheaton College English professor Alan Jacobs. Byassee writes that

Original sin is a good word to the poor, bad news to tyrants, and a prescription for a politics more radical than any we've seen: a genuinely Christian democracy, inclusive of all the living and the dead, each equally bound up in a plight we cannot solve ourselves.

Jacobs thinks original sin does this leveling work in a way that other points of Christian anthropology do not. God's good Creation, humanity's crafting in the image of God, the charge to tend the Garden and to multiply: such prelapsarian pronouncements don't lift the luggage politically. They "should do so, but usually" do not, he writes. Somehow it works better for us to "condescend" than to try and lift up others to our level.

There is something seductive about the popular understanding of Orthodox theological anthropology. Yes, certainly, we emphasize the human as created in the image of God. And yes, we understand the Incarnation in terms of recapitulation and salvation in terms of participation in the divine nature (deification). But, to simply, as many do, appeal to these and related doctrines, is to risk heresy, both Christological and anthropological.Balancing the sunny view of the human, to address my immediate concern, is the wealth of more negative anthropological teaching embodied both in the Church's liturgical and ascetical tradition. For example, in the funeral service we sing the Canon of St John Damascene:

What pleasure in life remains without its share of sorrow? What glory stands on earth unchanged? All things are feebler than a shadow, all things are more deceptive than dreams; one instant, and death supplants them all. But, O Christ, give rest to him You have chosen in the light of your countenance and the sweetness of your beauty, as You love mankind.

As a flower withers and as a dream passes, so every human being is dissolved. But once again, at the sound of the trumpet, all the dead will arise as by an earthquake to go to meet you, Christ God. Then, Christ our Master, establish in the tents of your Saints the spirit of your servant whom you have taken over from us.

Alas, what an ordeal the soul endures once separated from the body! Alas, what tears then, and there is none to pity her! She turns towards the Angels, her entreaty is without effect; she stretches out her hands to men, she has none to help. Therefore my dear brethren, thinking on the shortness of our life, let us ask of Christ rest for him who has passed over, and for ourselves his great mercy.

Everything human which does not survive death is vanity; wealth does not last, glory does not travel with us; for at death's approach all of them disappear; and so let cry out to Christ the Immortal one: Give rest to him who has passed from us, in the dwelling of all those who rejoice.

Truly most fearful is the mystery of death, how the soul is forcibly parted from the body, from its frame, and how that most natural bond of union is cut off by the will of God. Therefore we entreat you: Give rest in the tents of your just ones, him/her who has passed over, O Giver of life, Lover of mankind.

Where is the attraction of the world? Where the delusion of the temporary? Where is gold, where silver? Where the throng and hubbub of servants? All dust, all ashes, all shadow. But come, let us cry out to the immortal King: O Lord, grant your eternal good things to him who has passed from us, giving him rest in the happiness which does not age.

I remembered how the Prophet cried out: I am earth and ashes; and I looked again into the tombs and saw the naked bones, and I said: Who then is a king or a soldier, a rich man or a beggar, a just man or a sinner? But give rest, O Lord, with the just to your servant.

Your command which fashioned me was my beginning and my substance; for wishing to compose me as a living creature from visible and invisible nature, you moulded my body from the earth, but gave me a soul by your divine and life-giving breath. Therefore, O Christ, give rest to your servant in the land of the living, in the tents of the just.

Give rest, our Saviour, to our brother/sister, whom you have taken over from transient things, as he/she cries, 'Glory to you!'

Having fashioned man in the beginning in your image and likeness, you placed him in Paradise to govern your creatures; but led astray by the envy of the devil he tasted the food and became a transgressor of your commandments; and so you condemned him, O Lord, to return again to the earth from which he had been taken, and to beg for rest.

I grieve and lament when I contemplate death, and see the beauty fashioned for us in God's image lying in the graves, without form, without glory, without shape. O the wonder! What is this mystery which has happened to us? How have we been handed over to corruption, and yoked with death? Truly it is at God's command, as it is written, God who grants rest to him who has passed over.

Lest any think these are simply words sung in grief, look at what is sung in the Canon of St Andrew during Great Lent. It begins:

Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation? But in Thy compassion grant me release from my falls.

Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In future refrain from your former brutishness, and offer to God tears in repentance.

Having rivaled the first-created Adam by my transgression, I realize that I am stripped naked of God and of the everlasting kingdom and bliss through my sins. (Genesis 3)

Alas, wretched soul! Why are you like the first Eve? For you have wickedly looked and been bitterly wounded, and you have touched the tree and rashly tasted the forbidden food.

The place of bodily Eve has been taken for me by the Eve of my mind in the shape of a passionate thought in the flesh, showing me sweet things, yet ever making me taste and swallow bitter things.

Adam was rightly exiled from Eden for not keeping Thy one commandment, O Savior. But what shall I suffer who am always rejecting Thy living words? (Hebrews 12:25; Genesis 3:23)

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

Superessential Trinity, adored in Unity, take from me the heavy yoke of sin, and in Thy compassion grant me tears of compunction.

Now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Mother of God, hope and intercessor of those who sing of thee, take from me the heavy yoke of sin, and as thou art our pure Lady, accept me who repent.

Again, there is nothing particularly upbeat to be found here. It is this sober appreciation of human sinfulness that undergirds, I would suggest, the Church's ascetical tradition. The expectation of rigorous ascetical life is there not only monastic, but also clergy and lay people (You can read a brief overview of fasting in the Orthodox Church here). While Orthodox theological anthropology tends to be positive, it is not sentimental. Thinking about our vision of the human person, it is not one that is necessarily incompatible with more democratic modes of government. Indeed, at its best, Orthodox polity allows for the election of bishops and the active participation of the laity in the selection of lower clergy. Returning now to Jacobs, it seems that a noble vision of the human person is insufficient. It must be balanced by a practical awareness of human sinfulness. I wonder, and here especially I invite your thoughts, if democracy in the political realm isn't analogous to asceticism in the personal realm and a formal liturgical tradition in the Church's worship. All three seem to serve the realization of my best self by the restraint and re-direction of my worst self. Further, democracy, asceticism and liturgy, cannot be understood, much less rightly practiced, apart from the willingness of the human person to freely decide NOT to act on the passions—in all three I must be willing to be, however briefly, my better self.As always, your thoughts are appreciated and actively sought. In Christ, +Fr Gregory

The Benefits of a Familial/Cultural Basis of Faith

As I argued in an earlier post, we need to exercise caution in our interpretation and application of the statistical findings of the Pew Charitable Trust, The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. What the findings suggest to me is that for many, and indeed most, the locus of one's identity as an Orthodox Christian is found more in family and culture than in one's participation in the liturgical life of the Church. This is not, I hesitant to add, to invalidate, much less reject, a familial/cultural rather than a liturgical basis and expression of the faith. To do so is not only to go beyond the empirical evidence, it also I think fails to appreciate the unique strengths of a familial/cultural basis and expression of the faith. It also fails to recognize the weaknesses inherent in a more liturgically based and expressed faith. Finally, it causes us to overlook the paradox that often what we assume is a liturgical faith is markedly individualistic in nature contrary to what those who stress the primacy of liturgy would have us believe, and what in fact they believe about their own praxis. In this post, however, I will focus primarily on the strengths and weakness of a familial/cultural basis and expression of faith.

Reflecting on his own initial experience of the uniquely American approach to Christianity that the PCT suggests is now very much the approach of American Orthodox Christians, Berger writes "I encountered this world of the mainline almost immediately upon coming to America not long after World War II. I was young, very poor, European and Lutheran, and wartime desperations had shaped my social and religious sensibilities. America constituted an immense liberation from all this, a deeply satisfying experience of normality. The Protestant world I met fully represented the same normality. It was thoroughly identified with American culture, sensible, tolerant, far removed from the Kierkegaardian extremism that had up to then defined Christianity for me." But for all his relief, nevertheless, he concludes, "It is hardly surprising that I had difficulties coming to terms with it."

For Americans—and this includes Orthodox Christians—their religious life is characterized by pragmaticism and tolerance on the one hand, and a suspicion of extremisms of any sort. So we see in the survey that as with the majority of Americans (68%) the majority of Orthodox Christians (68%) would say that there is MORE than one true way to interpret the teachings of the Orthodox faith. Likewise, and again like most Americans (70%), the majority of Orthodox Christians (72%) believe that many religions, and not just the Orthodox faith, can lead to eternal life. For all that Orthodox Christian argue among ourselves about the Americanization of the Church, statistically it would seem that this has already happened. In our beliefs and practices, Orthodox Christians are as American as any other religious group.

Adaption to American culture has not only been in the general adoption of tolerance for other religions. Educationally and economically, Orthodoxy has also done quite well in America. For example, the Orthodox Church is a young church in terms of the age of faithful. The majority of the Church (54%) is under 50 (17% are between 18-29 years old, 38% are between 30-49, 27% are between 50-64 and 17% are over 65 years old). Educational, most of the Orthodox Church have gone to college (Some college: 28%; College graduate: 18%; Post-graduate: 18%). In fact on average. Orthodox Christians graduate college and go on to post-graduate education in greater numbers than most of those surveyed (Some college: 23%; College graduate: 16%; Post-graduate: 11% ). Unsurprisingly given our relative educational accomplishments, we do as well, if not better economically than most of those surveyed:

Income Distribution
	Orthodox Christian	National Average
Less than $30,000	20%	31%
$30,000-$49,999	24%	22%
$50,000-$74,999	16%	17%
$75,000-$99,000	13%	13%
100,000+	28%	18%

By a number of measures, the Orthodox Church has successfully adapted to the American context. In large part, I would suggest, that success reflects the familial/cultural basis and expression of the faith. That said it is important to remember that successful adaption is always only relative. Adaption is never absolute and so Orthodox success in an American context means that—as with mainline Protestants—this success carries with it risks as well as rewards.

Again Berger: "America, despite its many faults, has been a remarkable moral experiment in human history; but America is not and never can be the kingdom of God. In other words, the key issue here is the transcendence of Christian faith: the kingdom of God is not of this world, and any attempt to make it so undermines the very foundation of the gospel." He continues:

What has changed is not the symbiotic church-society relationship of mainline Protestantism; rather, what has changed is the character of the society, more specifically of the middle-class society and culture that is the natural habitat of the Protestant churches. This change is, more or less accurately, formulated by the so-called New Class hypothesis. In America (and, incidentally, in all other advanced capitalist societies) the middle class has split. Whereas previously there was one (though internally stratified) middle class, there now are two middle classes (also internally stratified). There is the old middle class, the traditional bourgeoisie, centered in the business community and the old professions. But there is also a new middle class, based on the production and distribution of symbolic knowledge, whose members are the increasingly large number of people occupied with education, the media of mass communication; therapy in all its forms, the advocacy and administration of well-being, social justice and personal lifestyles. Many of these people are on the public payroll, employed in all the bureaucracies of the modern welfare, redistributive and regulatory state; many others, while working in private-sector institutions, are heavily dependent on state subsidies. This new middle class, inevitably, has strong, vested interests; equally inevitably, it has developed its own subculture. In. other words, as is the case with every rising class (Marx has taught this well), what is at work here is a combination of class interest and class culture.

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Concerning an inaccurate article for the relations with the Greek-Catholics (Uniates)

PRESS RELEASE

With respect to the recently published articles reporting that allegedly His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew believes that it is possible for the Greek Catholics (Uniates) to have a "double union", in other words, full communion with Rome as well as with Constantinople, the Ecumenical Patriarchate refutes this inaccurate statement and affirms it was never made.  The Ecumenical Patriarchate repeats its position that full union in faith is a prerequisite for sacramental communion.

At the Patriarchate, the 5th of July 2008
From the Chief Secretariat of the Holy Synod

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

Trust in God and In His Created Gifts to Us

Sunday, July 6, 2008: 3rd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. Today's commemorated feasts and saints: Ven. Sisoës the Great (429). Ven. Sisoës, Schema-monk, of the Kiev Caves (Far Caves—13th c.). Uncovering of the Relics of Holy Princess Juliana Ol'shánskaya (16th c.). Martyrs Marinus and Martha, and their child

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

(Mt 6:22-33)

Whenever we turn to the Scriptures we need to be cautious least, even with the best of intentions, we read back our own experience into the text. This is certainly the temptation that we face when we are confronted with Jesus' very direct words in this morning's reading from the Gospel of St Matthew. For the time being let me leave aside the first verses of the passage. Though I'll come back to them, I am mindful of St John Chrysostom's comment on the words, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" Chrysostom (The Gospel of St Matthew, Homily 20) says that this verse is obscure, hard to understand.

In his own homily, rather than dealing with these words directly, John follows the example of Jesus Who teaches about those "things which are more within the reach of our senses." Where a moment ago, "He had spoken of the mind as enslaved and brought into captivity," now he speaks about "things outward . . . lying before men's eyes, that by these the others also might reach their understanding." So, for example, "just as when the eyes are blinded, most of the energy of the other members is gone, their light being quenched; so also when the mind is depraved, your life will be filled with countless evils . . . . For as he that destroys the fountain, dries up also the river, so he who has quenched the understanding has confounded all his doings in this life. Wherefore He says, 'If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is the darkness?' For when . . . the general is taken prisoner what sort of hope will there be, . . . , for those that are under command?"

The old gods have been driven out of our awareness. But this exorcism was not performed in the Name of Jesus Christ but by in our own name. We no longer believe in the old gods not because we are Christians who trust in Christ, but because we have an almost childlike confidence in our own scientific knowledge. It is easy for us to forget, if we ever even knew, that the various "masters" to whom Jesus refers were in the ancient world all associated with the old gods that we no longer acknowledge. Mammon (money), biological life, food, drink, all had their own gods who were responsible for them. And so Jesus referring back to the many masters that compete for human attention He says that "after all these things the Gentiles seek."

The counsel being offered by Jesus is not a hostility to the body or the legitimate needs of the body. Nor is He condemning wealth as such. Think for example there is the Parable of the Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-15) who was praised for knowing how to use money. In that parable, where by the way Jesus reminds us we cannot serve two masters (v. 13 ). And it is here that we get a sense of what we are being told about our relationship with not only money but the good things of creation. Jesus tells us:

"And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?" (vv. 9-12)

It is not that we ought not to have money, or that we ought not to take pleasure and enjoyment from the creation. It is rather that our use of money and the creation should be "faithful." What we have needs to be at service first of our relationship with the Most Holy Trinity. Creation and our use of the creation, is meant to draw us ever closer to God. Think here of the experience of a sunset, the ocean, or the smile on a new born child face. All of these can inspire in us a sense of awe at the beauty of creation. And it is that experience of awe that opens us up to a deeper faith in God.

Creation is, in its own way, a sacrament of God's love for us. To borrow from St Isaac the Syrian, "In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised." What else does the Incarnation tell us, but that creation is taken up, "swallowed up" in Isaac's phrase, by the unbounded love of God?

For the Gentiles of Jesus time, if they had any relationship with the material world at all, it was either exploitation or terror. Absent from their relationship was any sense of love and mercy. In the ancient world, one sacrifices to the gods not out of love, but in the hope of bending the gods to human will. And so we are told we cannot serve "two masters." To do so invariable we lead to "hate the one and love the other, or else . . . be loyal to the one and despise the other." And how can it be otherwise? Apart from the heart that knows creation as a divine gift "swallowed up in the great mystery" of divine love and mercy, the material world—for all its delights—is a journey to death that travels along the path of decay and disappointment. It is only the echo of the biblical witness that keeps alive for many in our culture any warm feelings for the material world. But if creation is not a gift what else is it but that which binds and limits me? What else is it but a source of frustration and disappointment?

We can now return to the initial verses of the this morning's Gospel: 'The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"

Generally in the fathers the word we translate as "mind," nous, is literally the "eye of the heart." For simplicity we probably would do better to translate nous as "heart." But not heart in the emotional sense, but the biblical sense—the center of the human person and out of which all of our thoughts, feelings and actions arise.

So, returning to the Gospel, the darkness that Jesus refers to is to a darkened heart, a heart that does not trust in God or the gift of His creation. If my heart is dark, if there is nothing of the divine light in my heart, how deep is that darkness. But if your heart is filled with light, then (like the saints), you will shine with divine light. Jesus is setting up a contrast between a heart darkened by sin, on the one hand, and of a heart filled with divine light on the other. This really is the common human struggle, between a heart filled with light and a heart not simply shrouded in darkness, but that has become all darkness. And it is in terms of this struggle, one that we can recognize in ourselves, that we read the rest of the Gospel.

To rise out of the darkness we need to avoid two extremes. We must, on the one hand, not worship the creation as if it were our god. This is the sin of the Gentiles St Paul says in Romans (1.18-25):

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

But, on the other hand, we cannot in our desire to cling to God alone dishonor Him by denying not only our place in creation, but the delights and joys that He give us in creation. The creation is, after all, God's gift to us from the beginning.

If I am to trust God, if I am have faith and confidence in Him and stand in right relationship to Him and the creation, I need to have not only a sense of thankfulness to God for all that He has given me but also a sense of my own place in that creation. Finding the right balance in this is a lifelong task since as I change and grow that balance will necessarily change with me. I think though the right tone is expressed in the Akathist "Glory to God for All Things."

Composed by Protopresbyter Gregory Petrov shortly before his death in a Nazis prison camp in 1940 it is a meditation on the words of St John Chrysostom as he was dying in exile. Taking its title from Chrysostom's meditation it is a song of praise from amidst the most terrible sufferings. It is also an extended praise of God for the mercy and love He pours out on us in creation.

The Akthaist begins and ends with these words:

Everlasting King, Thy will for our salvation is full of power. Thy right arm controls the whole course of human life. We give Thee thanks for all Thy mercies, seen and unseen. For eternal life, for the heavenly joys of the Kingdom which is to be. Grant mercy to us who sing Thy praise, both now and in the time to come. Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age.

I was born a weak, defenceless child, but Thine angel spread his wings over my cradle to defend me. From birth until now Thy love has illumined my path, and has wondrously guided me towards the light of eternity; from birth until now the generous gifts of Thy providence have been marvelously showered upon me. I give Thee thanks, with all who have come to know Thee, who call upon Thy name.

Glory to Thee for calling me into being

Glory to Thee, showing me the beauty of the universe

Glory to Thee, spreading out before me heaven and earth

Like the pages in a book of eternal wisdom

Glory to Thee for Thine eternity in this fleeting world

Glory to Thee for Thy mercies, seen and unseen

Glory to Thee through every sigh of my sorrow

Glory to Thee for every step of my life's journey

For every moment of glory

Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age.

The challenge that the Gospel puts before us is to thank God for all things—to never allow our hearts to become darkened by a lack of trust in God. Part and parcel of that trust in God, is a trust in Him of His creation. To meet this challenge let us give glory to God for things, for to God belongs all glory, honor and worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and forever and ever. Amen.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Leadership in the Church

Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con has an interesting post about leadership in the Orthodox Church. His post is based on a talk that Abbot Jonah of St. John of San Francisco Orthodox Monastery in California. Dreher publishes comments Fr Jonah, gave recently at St. Vladimir's Seminary, on the subject of the right role of bishops. In the talk Father begins "by quoting an Orthodox theologian who said recently that bishops have become 'useless'—a judgment Jonah does not dispute." Let me re-post some of Fr Jonah's comments and offer my own thoughts (I apologize in advance for the length).

After tracing out the way in which the episcopate has become modeled after secular (imperial) authority. And so "the patriarch is made analogous to an emperor, a bishop to a prince of the church, etc. They even dress up in church like Byzantine civil officials." As a result, the "real nature of ministry, of archpastorship, and of Christian leadership, is lost." Fr Jonah then asks rhetorically "What is the structure of leadership within the Church?"

On all levels, it is a structure of obedience. The presbyters are in a relationship of obedience to their bishop. The bishops are in a relationship of obedience to their primate. The primate is in the relationship of spiritual father to his bishops. Jurisdiction is about a relationship of obedience, which is precisely responsibility and accountability.

"Spiritual obedience" as Fr Jonah understands the term is a structure of mutual care. As he says, it "is not subjection and compliance. Rather, it is a hierarchy of love and shared responsibility, a hierarchy of discipleship." Such a relationship is characterized by accountability in a spirit of trust and cooperation, in mutual love and respect."As such it is necessarily, "a complex of very personal relationships." But none of this is possible when "these relationships become simply institutional and the personal becomes relativized." This has significant ecclesiological and soteriological implications since. The reduction of the life of the Church to the merely institutional, or I would say bureaucratic means that "the very nature of the church, which in its very essence is about the actualization of authentic personhood, is distorted."

This is all rooted in the "breakdown" in the "Church's structure" in "the centuries of imperial subjugation, by the corruption of authority into power, by the reduction of church leadership to an institutional model, and the reduction of membership in the church to civic duty." We find ourselves now in a situation in which suffer a distortion in how we live the Gospel.

The Faith itself was degraded from a personal commitment to Christ to a socio-political ideology. Nominal church membership and nominal orthodox identity are the foundations of secularization. This kind of corruption began in the fourth century. When the church was subjected to the Roman, then Ottoman, and then Russian Empires, then to the status of state church, it was effectively reduced to a department of state. The bishops and administration of the church assumed imperial roles, insignia, and rituals; and with them, the Christian vision of the leader as servant became a hypocritical parody. Of course, there have been notable exceptions.

Viewed theologically, this socio-historical situation has fostered a "separation of charismatic and institutional authority within the Church." In a manner that should give the anti-Catholic polemicists in the Orthodox Church pause, we find ourselves now facing a ecclesial environment in which we suffer from "the bureaucratization of church leadership: the reduction of the episcopacy to institutional administration, and the virtual elimination of its pastoral role."

If historically, "Charismatic authority within the church was tolerated among monastic elders,"
such authority and witness "had little . . . influence in the life of the Church from the late Byzantine period through the Turkokratia and the suppressions of monasticism in the Russian Empire."

All this bring us to our current circumstances in which we see "the suppression of creativity and initiative, theologically and organizationally, for fear of being disciplined and rejected." It is without a certain irony that this spirit suppression has now infected not only the Church generally, but even the very monastic witness that in an earlier age preserved the charismatic freedom that Fr Jonah highlights. In many areas of the Church's life, including I am afraid even monastic life "personal ambition and competition for position [have] became dominant." And what has happened to "charismatic leadership arising from spiritual vision, the fruit of asceticism?" Sadly, it seem to have little context to express itself, even being regarded as dangerous" not only "in the state-controlled institution of the Church," but even (I would argue) in our parishes and
dioceses.

This has lead us to a point where the bishops have come

to wield power over the lives of their clergy, and instead of being chief pastors, they became distant administrators feared by their clergy. Obedience became confused with compliance and submission. Authority came to be identified with power, humility with subjection, and respect with adulation and sycophancy.

We have lost the sense that accountability is mutual, that obedience means not simply my obedience to the authority above me, but the obedience of that authority to my good. This mutuality of obedience is impossible if we imagine that we are obedient to anything other than the will of Christ. Having lost the living sense of the charismatic nature of the Church in which each of us has access to the will of God and the responsibility to bear witness to that will, we instead re-enact the dysfunctional vision of an earlier age in which

Accountability was always referred "upwards:" the bishops to the patriarch and emperor or sultan; the priests to the bishops; while the people simply ignored the hierarchy. Even the monasteries, where the ancient vision of the apostolic church was most clearly maintained, were subjected to this secularization of power and office.

All of this is, Fr Jonah says, the "corrupting fruit of secularization is fear and the lack of trust." The consequence of this is "isolation, autonomy, self-will and the breakdown of the real authority of the episcopacy. . . [that] destroys souls and the institution of the Church." Why? Because "Secularization reduces the Body of Christ to a religious organization; it is the form of religion, deprived of its power."

While I am in fundamentally agreement with Fr Jonah's conclusion I think we need to keep in mind that, even given the historical circumstances he outlines, it is still concrete human beings by their lack of resistance, succumb to the "corrupting fruit of secularization."

The situation Fr Jonah outlines is not uncommon even in parishes composed exclusively of Americans who as adults joined Orthodox Church. While I don't dispute his analysis in any way, I would add to it the almost universal indifference, and at times active hostility, among Orthodox Christian for what in the Catholic Church is called "human formation." In my next post, I will explain more fully what I mean by human formation.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Divine Liturgy Wordle!!!!

Time for another Wrodle. This time based on the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

H/T: Mark Olson.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6.6)

With this post, I am bringing to an end my thoughts on the psychology of polemics. You can find the other posts in this series here, here, here, here, here , here, here, and (finally!) here. As I mentioned, in these reflections I am writing as much, if not more, to myself than to anyone else. What little self-knowledge I have rather clear tells me that reconciliation and forgiveness are not necessarily what I desire. Power, authority, prestige, yes certainly. But humility and a life of being merciful and compassionate—being myself not simply an agent of reconciliation but a man of forgiveness—well this I don't desire nearly as I should.

In my last post, I suggested that hidden within our polemics is a desire for reconciliation. That desire is obscured, however, because we often live not by desire (as Levinas uses the term) but by need and need is grounded in our physical nature. David Joplin in his essay "Levinas on Desire, Dialogue and the Other" writes that because "needs are satiable, they mark out a kind of 'restricted economy,' or system seeking a homeostatic balance." While we always seek to satisfy our needs, our desires have a different focus, for desire "is an aspiration that the Desirable--the absolutely Other—animates." Need tends to be self-referential, desire, transcendent. Likewise, polemics tend to be restrictive, reconciliation expansive.

Bishop Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate in an insightful paper, "The Patristic Heritage and Modernity," asks "But why should faith be 'patristic'?" And having asked he proceeds to answer his own question. "Might this imply that Orthodoxy must be necessarily styled as in the 'patriarchal days of old'? Or is it that, as Christians, we should always be turned towards the past instead of living in the present or working for the future? Should perhaps some "golden age" in which the great Fathers of the church lived, the 4th century for instance, be our ideal, a bearing to guide us? Or, finally, could this imply that the formation of our theological and ecclesial tradition has been completed during the "patristic era", and that, subsequently, nothing new may take place in Orthodox theology and Orthodox church life in general?"

He continues by saying that "If this were so – there are many who think exactly this - it would mean that our principal task is to watch over what remains of the Byzantine and Russian heritage, and vigilantly guard Orthodoxy against the infectious trends of modern times. Some act in precisely this way: fearfully rejecting the challenges of modernity, they dedicate all their time to preserving what they perceive as the traditional teaching of the Orthodox Church, explaining that in the present times of 'universal apostasy' no creative understanding of Tradition is needed, since everything already has been understood and demonstrated by the fathers centuries earlier. Such supporters of "protective Orthodoxy" like, as a rule, to refer to the 'teachings of the holy fathers'. Yet in reality they do not know patristic doctrine: they make use of isolated patristic notions to justify their own theories and ideas without studying patristic theology in all its pluriformity and totality."

While his Grace argues for the need to preserve the inheritance of the fathers, he also argues for the need to "invest the talent of the patristic heritage." If we seek to invest the treasures of the fathers, "we find ourselves confronted by a tremendous task indeed, comprising not only the study of the works of the Fathers, but also their interpretation in the light of contemporary experience; it similarly requires an interpretation of our contemporary experience in the light of the teaching of the Fathers. This not only means studying the Fathers; the task before us is also to think patristically and to live patristically. For we will not be able to understand the fathers, if we have not shared their experience and endeavours, at least to a certain degree."

As a theological matter, at best polemics tend to be concerned with preservation, reconciliation (or so I would assert) with investment—in drawing new, as yet undisclosed, riches from our tradition. But as his Grace suggests, this is not an easy task and given the risk requires not only faith in God but also a fair amount of courage.

Where might we find that courage?

Earlier I argued that the intellect serves the heart as its guardian—the intellect is essential in helping keep from the heart images that would corrupt us from within. While guarding the heart is essential, it is insufficient, the heart must be purified by prayer and fasting so that, purified by grace and our own efforts, we can see God. Under no circumstances, however, can we allow the intellect to lead the heart.

Guarded by the intellect, and purified by pray and fasting, mercy emerges in the heart. Though I am far from it, my thinking on the psychology of polemics has reminded me that I need to have a merciful heart. As St Isaac the Syrian says.

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person's heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

What so concerns me about polemics is the ease with which even the very best of intentions are used to justify an indifference, and even hostility, to mercy.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Christianity and the History of Freedom - The Acton Institute

Our 4th of July message comes this year from the Acton Institute and Kevin E. Schmiesing, Ph.D., "Christianity and the History of Freedom" (Acton Commentary, July 2, 2008):

For Americans the Fourth of July marks national independence, but the holiday has become symbolic of a more universal cause: human liberty. The development of human freedom, in theory and in practice, is in large measure the story of Christianity.

How we understand the past influences how we live in the present, which is why debates about history can be so rancorous. Whether Christianity is a vehicle of oppression or a force for liberation is a question whose answer has remained contentious for two millennia.

For many, Christianity is oppressive. For them, the Christian religion is associated with the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Puritanical moralism. It conjures images of witch hunts, the scarlet letter, and “Hitler’s pope.”

Contemporary Christians cannot ignore these associations. What truth they contain must be acknowledged. But the critics of Christianity cannot have it both ways. If evil done in the name of Christ is to be highlighted, then so must the good. Antislavery crusades, orphanages and hospitals, protection of the weak and innocent—these too have marked the historical record of Christianity.

Christianity’s impact on civilization has occupied some of history’s greatest minds, who have both reflected and influenced their respective zeitgeists. Augustine defended the followers of Christ against the accusation that they were to blame for the decline of the Roman Empire; fourteen centuries later British historian Edward Gibbon revived the charge, giving voice to his age’s skepticism toward revealed religion.

Another and better informed English historian, Lord Acton, addressed the problem in the late nineteenth century. The result, The History of Freedom in Christianity, was a masterpiece of historical summary, distilling almost two thousand years into a single story of the gradual unfolding of human liberty. Acton reversed the Enlightenment narrative that he had inherited. The rise of Christianity did not smother the flame of liberty burning brightly in Greece and Rome only to be rekindled as medieval superstition gave way to the benevolent reason of Voltaire, Hume, and Kant. Instead, Christianity took the embers of freedom, flickering dimly in an ancient world characterized by the domination of the weak by the strong, and—slowly and haltingly—fanned it into a blaze that emancipated humanity from its bonds, internal and external.

Christianity’s confrontation with culture was not a matter of the truth about God and man transported whole into civilization via religion. Beginning in sources prior to Christianity—Judaism and classical Greece—and continuing in secular political, economic, and social movements, Christianity interacted with the world and honed its own understanding of human nature and God’s will for mankind on this earth.

Christianity’s signal achievement, as Acton recognized, was the creation of space for human freedom vis-à-vis the institution that has, in fact, been the gravest threat to liberty throughout history: the state. The story is admittedly complicated by Church officials’ sometime collaboration with state oppression. Yet a fair reading of history must credit the ideas as well as the institutions of the Christian faith with the leading role in curtailing the totalitarian tendency—government’s inclination to usurp ever greater power over an ever larger swath of human existence.

In our own day, we find the Church again serving in this capacity. It is the foremost voice defending those whose rights are threatened by neglect or direct attack: religious minorities, vulnerable women and children trapped in slavery, the infirm and the unborn. In education, health care, and family life, religious individuals and organizations resist the tyranny of state aggrandizement.

The twenty-first century’s version of Enlightenment distortion has manifested itself in the tendentious arguments of the New Atheist movement, whose avatars Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins have declared Christianity to be, among other things, the enemy of human liberty. As is too often the case, these purported champions of freedom are the opposite of what they claim. Harris, for one, says religious beliefs of certain kinds should be capital crimes: “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them” (The End of Faith). Harris’s focus is on belief that promotes violence, but his concept of justice is itself dangerous, neglecting the conventional distinction between thought and act (the latter being punishable). It is not altogether clear, moreover, that in Harris’s reading of history and theology, orthodox Christianity does not qualify as “dangerous.”

New challenges to an accurate understanding of faith and freedom require new rejoinders. The Acton Institute’s striking film, The Birth of Freedom, is such a response. Like Lord Acton, it sweeps through history, revealing the contours of humanity’s struggle for freedom. “Christian Europe got rid of slavery,” says one of the documentary’s featured commentators, sociologist Rodney Stark. “That’s a story that’s seldom told, and it’s a shame.”

Christ came to set captives free, the scriptures say. The work is not yet complete, but the record of accomplishment is impressive.

Hat tip: Dr. Philip Blosser, at The Pertinacious Papist Musing on Catholicism.

An Anthropology of Reconciliation

In an earlier post ("Toward & Away; Against & With") I argued that, psychological, the reason I might find intolerable even insignificant theological differences with others is that I have come to identify my faith tradition ( be that as an Orthodox Christian or as a Roman Catholic) with my own preferred style of coping conflict. On this Horney is helpful because she points out to us that all of this my is ultimately ground in my own self-image. Given this, it is not unreasonable that often theological polemics become personal. Given the affirmation of self I find in my religious tradition I am likely to take any disagreement or divergence from my tradition as a personal attack and respond aggressively. While the movements toward, against and away are valuable they are insufficient. What is need is that we learn not simply to move toward, away and against, but also move with each other. It is this, I would suggest, is really the goal of any ecumenical dialog. The "movement with" is the movement of reconciliation and communion. It is also the movement that the one that is most often neglected. In what follows I seek to offer a possible explanation for this.

Psychoanalysis and patristic anthropologies agree at least on this: The lines of conflict runs not so much between people and traditions as it does within each human persons. Our conflicts, as Horney argues so convincingly, are in the final analysis "inner conflicts." Before "we" are in conflict with each other, "I" am in conflict with myself. "We" are not in communion with each other, because "I" am not in communion with myself. Whatever else they may have gotten wrong, what the late Pope John Paul II called the "philosophies of suspicion" got at least this much right, conflict arise out of the human quest for power and authority over others—and we will use economics, politics and even the Gospel as a means to acquire that power.

Practically speaking what does this mean? Well, it means this, while I think I've been writing to others—or more probably some imagined polemicist be he Catholic or Orthodox—I'm really writing to myself. Or maybe, I should say, while writing to "you" I had better also apply my observations and admonitions to "me." Because the problem isn't in "you" it is not "out there" or in Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church. The problem isn't even in me. I am the problem because the only thing I know for certain is that I am a sinner.

None of this is to suggest that argumentation, withdrawal, or the seeking of common ground is to be rejected. Far from it. But it is to suggest that, while not unrelated to these, reconciliation represents its own, unique movement and means of social encounter. Further because we are created in the image of the Triune God Who is Himself a community of persons, implicit within the three movements of from, toward and against, is a desire to move and be with—that is a desire for communion.

St Augustine makes an analogous point in a brief discussion on the psychology of suicide. He writes that "Every willful desire for death is directed toward peace, not toward nonexistence. Although a man erroneously believes that he will not exist after death, nevertheless by nature, he desires to be at peace; that is, he desires to be in a higher degree." In like fashion, polemics embody not simply a person's desire to form his/her life apart from others. Polemics reflect is not simply a desire "not to be" with others or "to cease to be" with others. Rather, this desire to be alone is also a search for a deeper and more profound way of being-with-others. This aspiration to be in a different way is a movement toward communion.

Ironically, when the heart's aspiration toward reconciliation is only given form as movements "toward," "away from" and "against," it remains wedded to the dissonance of the starting point. Only when it is given form "with" others does the movement toward communion become liberated from the conflict of the heart's starting point.

In his book Existence and Existents, Emmanuel Levinas offers a phenomenological analysis of fatigue that can help us understand this paradox. Of singular importance is the description of fatigue as a letting go that is also a holding on. For Levinas, "Fatigue is not just the case of this letting go, it is the slackening itself. It is so inasmuch as it does not occur simply in a hand that is letting slip the weight it finds tiring to lift, but in one that is holding on to what it is letting slip, even when it has let it drop it remains taut with effort. For there is fatigue only in effort and labor."

The is in our polemics a certain sense of fatigue as Levinas describes it. This fatigue "a peculiar form of forsakeness . . . of being forsaken by the world with which one is no longer in step." The person is no longer in step with the world because s/he is no longer in step with him/herself.

I would suggest that each of the three movements of the human heart (toward, from and against) can be understood as a mode of fatigue, of a "letting go" that is also a means of "holding on." Freedom from the dissonance of the starting point, of the inner conflict or passion that fuels our polemical engagement of each other, demands that we change our way of relating to God, humanity and the cosmos, that we move beyond fatigue and to a "movement with" (i.e., conformity) God, humanity and the cosmos. In his philosophical anthropology, Levinas offers us some insight into how it is that we can move beyond this initial dissonance to a life of consonance (of what van Kaam might call our "movement with" others). This insight is found in a recurring theme in Levinas's work: the distinction between "need" and "desire." And it is this distinction that I will take up in my next post.

To be continued…

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

John Couretas of AOI: Independence Day

From American Orthodox Institute:

From the beginning the Creator allowed human beings their freedom and a free will; they were bound only by the law of his commandment. St. Gregory the Theologian (Orations 14.25 ["On Caring for the Poor"], PG 35:892A)

Freedom means being one's own master and ruling oneself; this is the gift that God granted to us from the beginning. St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Soul and Resurrection, PG 46:101CD) Man is made in the image of God, Who is humble but at the same time free. Therefore it is normal and natural that he should be after the likeness of his Creator — that he should recoil from exercising control over others while himself being free and independent by virtue of the presence of the Holy Spirit within him. Those who are possessed by the lust for power cloud the image of God in themselves. Archimandrite Sophrony (His Life is Mine, Chapter 9; St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 73) The idea of freedom is one of the leading ideas of Christianity. Without it the creation of the world, the Fall, and Redemption are incomprehensible, and the phenomenon of faith remains inexplicable. Without freedom there can be no theodicy and the whole world-process becomes nonsense. Nicholas Berdyaev, Freedom and the Spirit (Russian title Dukh i realnost, 1927), 9th ed. (London, 1948), 119.

Unless noted otherwise, everything posted here is © 2008 Gregory R Jensen.

Orthodoxy: A Fertile Faith?

Image via WikipediaJohn Couretas at the American Orthodox Institute blog (a most excellent blog, might I add--do take a look at it!) raises the question of Orthodox Christian witness in the political realm:

When a recent coffee hour conversation turned, unexpectedly, to politics and what if anything the Church has to say about public issues and then all of the “God talk” in the current presidential contest, a friend said, “Oh, that’s politics. The Orthodox Church shouldn’t get involved in politics. Nothing good can come of it.”

Well, yes and no.

He continues by explaining that "If we’re talking about partisan politics then yes, of course, the Church must stay out of it. The Church was not founded to endorse candidates for office or advance a political ideology. But if we’re talking about the political dimensions of important moral issues, then yes, of course, the Church may quite properly speak to these."While I agree with the basic thrust behind his comments, I think the example he offers, the 2003 "Statement on Moral Crisis on Our Nation" issued by Standing Conference Orthodox Bishops of America is an unfortunate one.I read the statement by SCOBA, both when it came out and again in response to the post on AOI. Both the first time and now again, I found it lacking in how well in responded to the actual argument made by the proponents of same sex marriage.Yes certainly, "Moral Crisis," accurately summarized the Orthodox understanding of marriage but it fails to address the central question: Should the state sanction same sex marriages or not? As written the statement is not even clear as to the answer to this most fundamental question.

Yes the bishops express their "deep concern over recent developments." And yes, they tell us that they "pray fervently that the traditional form of marriage, as an enduring and committed union only between a man and a woman, will be honored." But they fail to say what the state should do in response to the desire for some to extend marriage to same sex couples. Given that the recent Pew Charitable Trust survey suggest, many Orthodox Christians do not think with the Church on this question, it becomes not only politically, but pastorally imperative, that the Church respond more clearly to those who would challenge and even reject, the "divine purpose" of marriage.

The statement also fails in my reading of it to respond to the fact that in the eyes of many, the "normalize, legalize and even sanctify same-sex unions" is no way a betrayal of marriage as either a religious or civil institution. The rhetoric is quite the opposite; for those who advocate same sex marriage,extending marriage to a new class of citizens through its legalization is presented as a strengthening of marriage as a cultural, and indeed religious and specifically Christian, institution.Appealing to the Constitutional separation of church and state, advocates of smae-sex marriage argue that (as with abortion rights) changes in the law will in no way infringe on either the rights of those who oppose same-sex marriage or represents an assault on the traditional understanding of marriage. They simply wish to extend a legal right to the disenfranchised. The bishops' statement, appealing as it does simply to Orthodox faith and practice, fails to respond to the actually argument that the legalization of same-sex marriage is matter of social justice.In failing to respond, the statement concedes the issue and leaves the reader with the impression that the Church has nothing to contribute to the debate past that which pertains to our own narrowly defined interests.The bishops' statement leaves a number of issues unaddressed, it is in it conclusion that it fails most. By not engaging the arguments made by the advocates of same-sex, the statement does nothing to change the terms of the debate.While there is a laudable attempt to reach out pastorally to homosexuals ("persons with a homosexual orientation are to be cared for with the same mercy and love that is bestowed by our Lord Jesus Christ upon all of humanity. All persons are called by God to grow spiritually and morally toward holiness.) it does so in language that it could used, and in fact is often used, by any advocate of same sex marriage.I agree with your thesis that Orthodox social witness is lacking.

But when, as with the SOCBA statement you referenced, we do make a statement it is hard for me to shake the thought that (however inadvertently) we are presenting ourselves as merely one pressure among others. While there is nothing dogmatically or ethically unsound in the statement, as a whole it reads (to me at least) more as a pro forma sectarian statement then a prophetic witness to the Gospel.Save for the fact that I am an Orthodox Christian who takes his faith and the teaching office of the bishops seriously–the statement offers me no reason to take seriously the teaching it is putting forward.If we are to speak to the ethical concerns of the day, we must learn to do so in a idiom that can touch the hearts and minds of men and women of good will. Truth be told, we probably would do well to begin with making sure that our own faithful, and especially our lay leaders and clergy are themselves committed to the Church's moral witness. We have not done the former, and I suspect we have also left undone the latter.In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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