Game Theory and Trust

Besides the beginning of the Great Fast, my time these last two weeks have been has been taken up preparing for several presentations I'll be making between now and the beginning of April.

Currently, I am finishing the research for a two part online seminar on parish leadership (a webinar). In addition to reviewing the psychological literature on leadership, I've had the chance to look at some VERY introductory material in game theory (Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life, by Len Fisher and Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions), by Ken Binmore)

"Game theory?" you ask, "what is game theory?"

Glad you asked. I'll tell you.

Game theory, according to the Wikipedia (that online repository of everything) article on the subject, is a branch of applied mathematics that "attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others." In addition to its application in the social sciences (especially economics), the theory and insights of game theory have be applied to disciples as diverse as "biology, engineering, political science, international relations, computer science (mainly for artificial intelligence), and philosophy."

While there's a great in game theory that I find interest—and useful—one of the things that has caught my attention as a I prepare for my parish leadership seminar is what game theory says about fostering trust in interpersonal relationship.

When trust is lost, when I offend or hurt you, if I'm a descent person, my natural inclination is to apologize and try and win back your trust. While the first half of my response—the apology—is a good thing, my second step, my attempt to win your trust, is (assuming I've understood what I've read) is likely to have a result opposite that for which I hope (that you trust me). So the question now becomes why? Why do I so often fail when I try and win back your trust?

Game theory is concerned with "strategic situations." In somewhat simplistic terms, strategy is about acting to achieve a particular goal. A strategic situation is one in which the participants are each trying to accomplish a goal relative to each other. They might, for example, be in competition with each other, or they might cooperate with each other. The riding on a seesaw is an example of the later, game of chess is an example of the former.

"But what about restoring trust Father Gregory?! How do I do that?" I'll tell you.

The best way to foster trust or cooperation, or so some game theorists argue, is not to ask for it, but to offer it. That's why apologizing when I've caused you harm is a good thing and often brings a good response from you. And it is also why asking (or trying) to win your trust often fails. Let me explain.

When I, or anyone for that matter, apologizes I'm making myself vulnerable to you. My vulnerability, my willingness to be rejected or in some way hurt by you, demonstrates my trust in you to treat me with respect and to not take advantage of me. When, however, I follow my apology up with the request, "How can I earn your trust back," I am asking you to be vulnerable to me—to let your guard down by asking you to reveal to me (a self-acknowledge untrustworthy person) the ways in which I can hurt you.

Let me try and explain this a bit better.

My wife and I have begun house hunting in anticipation of our upcoming move to Madison, WI. Like most home buyers, we will apply for a mortgage to help us purchase our new house. Now in addition to a credit check (i.e., our character in financial matters) and a check on our income (i.e., how much money we've got), the bank will also require from us two things: a deposit on the house (that is, that we pay them a percentage of the house's cost) and collateral (in our case, the house itself).

Why does bank wants a deposit and collateral from borrows? The deposit isn't to lower the amount that they will borrow; nor is putting the house up as collateral meant to give the bank something to sell if the borrowers default on the loan. It is rather to raise the cost for the borrowers of their defaulting on the loan. In effect, the bank is willing to trust us (or any borrowers) only to the degree that we have something to lose if we fail to repay the loan.

Trust is won by my willingness to suffer loss if I am untrustworthy in our relationship. If dishonesty or untrustworthy behavior doesn't cost me anything, you are unwise to trust me.

At first this might sound a harsh and judgmental standard—it certainly did to me. But as I thought about it, I began to ask, what is it that I mean by trust? Is it simply a warm feeling or is it my ability to predict your future behavior? While forgiveness need not be mutual, trust must be. Trust requires that we walk together as it were. It isn't necessarily bad or sinful if we don't walk together—but if we don't walk together our relationship is not trustworthy for the simple reason that we aren't together on this or that issue.

What has all this to do with pastoral leadership?

I think were often pastors go wrong is that we are not clear as to the cost of failure to us if we fail in a pastoral relationship. Or maybe it is more accurate to say, the cost we bear for failure is not relevant to those we fail. Often clergy and laity deal in rather different "currency" from each other. Most priests I know that failure very personally, but this deep, personal sense of failure while sincere, is often not seen (or necessarily valued) by those that we fail.

I will, in my next post, come back to what might be a more meaningful pledge by clergy to those we serve. I suspect that much of the tension we see in the Church today reflects the fact that we do not have a shared standard of valuing the cost of behavior (whether perpetrated by clergy or lay leaders) that violates the bond of trust that holds us together.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Upcoming Webinar on Parish Leadership

Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17th and then again on Tuesday, March 31st at 2:00 PM (CST), 3:00 PM (EST), 7:00 PM (GMT) I will be leading an online seminar on parish leadership. The first seminar, "Psychology of Leadership I: Looking at the Research," will be an overview of some of the psychological research on leadership. The second seminar on the 31st will meet at the same time and will more directly apply the findings of the psychological research on leadership to the parish. Both webinars will last approximately 45 minutes and you will be able to submit questions via instant messaging. Finally, the webinar is free.

If you are interested you can register by clicking here.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Art of Living | Front Porch Republic

Stewart K Lundy of the blog Front Porch Republic does a very good job of what I was trying less successfully to say about the need for the Orthodox Church to articulate a vision of natural law. Here's a snippet of his post.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

p.s., More posts later--Lent's keeping me busy.

+FrG

According to Okakura Kakuzo’s short work, The Book of Tea, this conservative impulse is the “art of being in the world.” Isn’t this “art of life” precisely the virtue Alasdair MacIntyre claims we have lost in his After Virtue? Humility, gratitude, and the pursuit of virtue affirm nature as normative not because it dictates morality but because it is a gift. Nature surely does not mean to us what it did to the Scholastics, but I wish we could rediscover the earth as our home. The loss of a normative sense of nature has set up the world against the earth in a destructive manner. We can thank the likes of William of Occam, Francis Bacon, and Descartes for the loss of nature and the birth of modern science. It used to be that nature was seen as the artwork of God, as an acheiropoieta (an icon “not made by human hands”). But no longer do we see nature as an icon, giving glimpses of God; instead, we see nature as blocking us from God. Instead of seeing truth through the physical world, fideism sees truth in spite of the physical world and its natural counterpart, atheism, limits truth to the physical world. Speaking of the spiritual realm as “supernatural” is only a step away from speaking of the “unnatural” realm. The natural-supernatural divide has cut off access to God. The death of God followed the death of nature. Before, creation was seen as the art of God; now, creation is dead and so is its Creator.

H/T: Rod Dreher: The Zen of conservatism

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A More Than Moral Life

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: "How long will you speak these things, and the words of your mouth be like a strong wind? Does God subvert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice?

(Job 8:1-3, NKJV)

Writing in FIRST THINGS: On the Square, R. R. Reno offers an interesting observation. In his review of "Jacques Barzun's searching analysis of modern education, The House of Intellect," in which Barzun explores "the triumph of the Bohemian ideal, and the end of what John Lukacs has called the Bourgeois Era," Reno comments briefly on what he terms the "Bohemian project," which

retails itself as the royal road to self-discovery through the alchemy of self-expression. It promises a more "real," more authentic, and more individual existence. As Barzun suggests, the claims are hollow. The emerging Bohemian Era will be anti-intellectual: characterized by an externalized and collective sense of purpose (politics über alles) and an undifferentiated, amorphous inner life (the empire of desire).

As I read this, I began to think about the difference in character between Job and his friends. For all that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar might present themselves as champions of religious orthodoxy in the face of Job's (seeming) dishonesty and self-deception, these men embody in their words to Job the very anti-intellectualism and "externalized and collective sense of purpose . . . and an undifferentiated, amorphous inner life" that Reno argues has taken hold of contemporary Western culture.

Precisely however because of the historical and cultural distance between Job's time and our own, it seems to me that these men typify not only cultural decadence, but a collapse, and even a rejection, of the human possibility of transcendence. Rather than undergo the deep, inner struggle as does Job, his friends flee to mere moralism a way of life that is not only the opposite of a life of transcendence, but the sign that we have refused the possibilities open to us in the spiritual life.

This is not to suggest by any means that we can dispense with the moral law. Indeed, reading through the patristic commentary on Job, it becomes clear that the fathers generally agree with the anthropology that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar articulate. Even when a particular father disagrees with the applicability to Job's situation of the words spoken, they nevertheless see the general applicability of statement. Just to offer one example, in his own reflection on the Bildad's comment to Job that I quoted above, St John Chrysostom writes:

[E]ven though Bildad's words are not entirely applicable to Job, let us see what he means. Do you not perceive the profound justice that reigns in the creation and its profound order? And how everything is well regulated and settled? Therefore could He Who maintains justice and order among the senseless creatures overturns the rules in your case?

Instead of answering his own question, Chrysostom asks more questions, the asking of which reveals (as we say earlier) the convergence of cosmology and anthropology in the life of the particular person:

Further why did God create everything? Is it not because of you . . .? And so He Who has created so many things, did He not give you what was right to share? He Who has created you out of love, if He has shown His benevolence toward the universe, this also is proof of His power.

This then is the crux of the matter: We are created in the image and likeness of the God Who creates "out of love" and Who, again "out of love," has ordered and regulated the whole creation in justice. Creation makes manifest the goodness of God precisely because of its own inner harmony, its own internal integrity on both the microscopic and macroscopic levels. Or, in a word, the justice of creation "declares the glory of God." (Ps 18/19.1)

And what of us?

Again, while he may have missed the mark in his estimation of Job, in Chrysostom's view Bildad has nevertheless grasped something profoundly true about humanity in general: "We often overturn justice because of our powerlessness, but "He has created everything" he says. Will He, Who is so wise, so just, so powerful, be unjust?" ("Commentary on Job," 8.2A-3B, ACCS, vol VI, p. 44)

Here then is the difference between the spiritual life, the life of the inward man, and life of mere moralism, of merely external conformity and pseudo-self-expression. This difference turns on my response to my own powerlessness.

As Job says of himself in his retort to Eliphaz, "My life is lighter than speech and perishes with an empty hope." (7.6, LXX) He continues:

Remember then, my life is a breath, and my eye will no longer return to see good. The eye of him who sees me will not see me again; your eyes are on me, I am no more. I am like the cloud that cleared away from the sky. (7.7-9, LXX)

Job and his friends all acknowledge the powerlessness of the human. Each in, his own way, offers us a meditation on the often converging themes of human contingency and sinfulness. But for the critics of Job, there is (I think) some comfort to be found in the possibility that Job suffers because of some secret on his part that makes him qualitatively different from them. The reason I say this is because even though Eliphaz cannot convince Job that this is so, it is still worth his effort to make the argument if only to convince himself that he is safe from the affliction that has visited Job. In this Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar reveal themselves to be men of pure externality in response to their own inner poverty.

Job, for his part, does not, and will not, take this route. He will not use the occasion of meeting a friend, even a friend who has betrayed him, as the opportunity to comfort himself at the expense of the truth of the human condition. For Job, there is no denial of his own powerlessness; he denies neither his contingency nor his sinfulness. At the same time, he sees himself and his condition in others, even as he sees others in himself.

Commenting on Job's words, St Gregory the Great says that "this mortal life passes day by day; . . . . Just as we said before, while the time in our hands passes, the time before us is shortened. Moreover, of the whole length of our lives, the days to come are proportionally fewer to those days that have gone." ("Morals on the Book of Job," 8.26, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 41) It is the pain of human morality, of their own contingency, that Job's friends fight against. And it is just this, the fragility of all humanity, that, verse by verse, Job grows to more and more accept in his own flesh.

None of this is to suggest that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are bad men. They aren't. But they are weak men and so seek safety and security in the merely moral. Like Job, they have learned "to restrain the flesh by continence." Unlike Job, however, each man suffers because his "mind has not been taught to expand itself through compassion" for his neighbor. (Gregory the Great, "Morals on the Book of Job," 6.53, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 32) Later in his reflections on the book of Job, St Gregory reflects on the condition of those in the Church who are like the friends of Job. He says that they are the one "who certainly keep from the gratification of the flesh, yet grovel with all their heart in earthly practices."

Gregory continues his mediation by imagining the Church saying of these "earthly" and "dusty" Christians that

are members of me in faith, yet . . . are not sound or pure members in practice. For they either are mastered by foul desires and run to and fro in corruption's rottenness, or, being devoted to earthly practices, they are soiled with dust. For in those whom I have to endure, people filled with wantonness, I do plainly lament for the flesh turned corrupt. And in those from whom I suffer, those who are seeking the earth, what else is this but the defilement of dust that I must bear? ("Morals on the Book of Job," 8.23, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 41)

Even while he says that his life "is a breath," Job shows himself to be a man of substance. He sees the fragility of his own life but there is no hint of narcissism in his complaints nor does his own suffering become the excuse for a lack of compassion for his neighbor.

And now we see the real struggle of the spiritual life: To embrace the whole truth of our situation, the good and the ill. But as Job's own situation also makes clear, to live this way will—necessarily it seems—put us at odds with those who, like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, have yet themselves to turn inward.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Mystery of Purification

Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. For He bruises, but He binds up; He wounds, but His hands make whole.

(Job 5.17-18, NKJV)

Eliphaz's response to Job highlights the struggles that are inherent in the first moment of my inward turn. Let me explain.

He argues that if Job is truly an innocent of any wrong doing he would not suffer. As he says to Job (4.12, LXX), "if there had been any truth in your words, none of these evil would have befallen you." In other words: Those innocent of sin do not suffer (4.7, LXX), since Job is suffering he must be guilty of sin.

St Gregory the Great rejects this line of reasoning. He sees in Eliphaz and the other "friends of blessed Job," the image of the "heretics," of those "the evil ones" who "are as much to blame in their admonitions as they are immoderate in their condemnations." For the Pope of Old Rome both experience and Scripture testify to the fact that the innocent and the righteous do suffer and suffer often. He goes further and says that

They, then, are genuinely righteous who produce the love of the heavenly country to meet all the ills of the present life. For all who fear enduring ills in this life are clearly not righteous people. They have forgotten they suffer for the sake of eternal blessings.

Turning explicitly to Eliphaz, Gregory explores why it is that this friend of Job "does not take into account [why it is that] either the righteous are cut off or that the innocent perish here." The saint argues that this memory lapses reflects an even more profound lapse: "For people often serve God not in the hope of heavenly glory but an earthly recompense." He continues that as does Eliphaz, many "make a fiction in their own head of that which they are seeking. Thinking themselves to be instructors in preaching earthly immunity, they show by all their pains what is the thing they love." ("Morals on Job," 5.34, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 22)

Reading through Job, I am struck that—for the second time—Eliphaz is overwhelmed by Job's situation. Just as at the end of chapter 2, he and his friends are struck dumb in the face of Job's suffer (2.18), so too Eliphaz begins his admonish by acknowledging his poverty in the face of Job's sorrow: "Have you been often spoken to in distress? But who can endure the force if your words?" Though Job's circumstances are more than he can endure, Eliphaz nevertheless takes it upon himself to lecture his friend.

St John Chrysostom helps us see the irony here of Eliphaz's intervention. Chrysostom observes that Eliphaz is hesitant and uncertain in his response to Job not from "moderation," but because he knows he "cannot convince Job about an evident fault on his [Job's] part." Instead Eliphaz is undone by Job's insistence of his own innocence AND his willingness to share "the same fate as the impious." ("Commentary on Job," 4.2 quoted in ACCS, vol VI, 21)

Having begun now to detach himself from his inordinate loves, Job finds within himself the possibility of identifying with the unrighteous and the sinful to such a degree that—in anticipation of Christ—he is willing to share with them the consequences of their sin. This is beyond what Eliphaz and the other friends of Job can imagine for themselves—or indeed for anyone—because they have not yet taken that inward turn. They are still very much attached to their own egocentric desires.

They can reprove Job—but they can have no compassion for him. To do so, to be willing to suffer along with Job—which is to say, to imitate his own imitation of Christ and bear innocently the consequences of human sinfulness—is impossible as long as they are attached to their own egoic desires. Job is a provocation to Eliphaz and to all who structure their lives according to the desires of their own will.

My inordinate attachment to the created does not reflect the intrinsic value of the things themselves. Rather my attachment to the created order reflects the egocentric value I posit of creation. My desires are inordinate because they are arbitrary; they reflect my momentary, transitory whims. I do not desire the goodness of creation as is given by God. Rather what I desire is the self-referential utility to which I can bend creation, my neighbor and even God Himself. What I value in God and creation is their value for my own plans and projects.

More tragically, reflecting as it does the desires of my ego, the life I live life is one ever decreasing appreciation for the goodness of God and His creation. Even the images of the self that I catch in the fleeting reflections from the world around me are ones I select and arranged according to my own egoic desires. And so my attachment to my desires leads to a similar, personal, downward spiral in which I come to see ever less of my own goodness.

A moment ago, I said that Job embodies a provocation to Eliphaz. The provocation, I think is this. I can no more choose the path of purification than I can choose my own birth (or death for that matter). Just as birth is the condition of possibility for my freedom, and so prior to freedom itself, purification is what makes me free, but it is not something I am free to choose. In fact, if my analysis of the diminishing sense of my own goodness is true, I am not free either to reject purification since this merely ratifies the work of sin and death in me (if I may borrow from the Apostle Paul).

Finally, let me conclude with what I see as the fundamental difference between Job and Eliphaz and for each man represents for the spiritual life.

For Job, unlike for Eliphaz, the truth of cosmology, the truth of anthropology, are not merely abstract facts to be manipulated by me as I seek to make a point or win an argument. Yes, Job can say with Eliphaz, "blesses is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not reject the chastening of the Almighty." (5.17). Unlike Eliphaz, however, Job would not stop there. He would confess his gratitude to the God Who "causes a man to be in pain, but He restores him again. He smites, but His hands heal again." (v. 18) For Eliphaz this is simply a truth about God and about humanity's relationship with God. While Eliphaz gives voices to what is true for all and is willing to apply this to Job, he (curiously) does not apply this truth to himself. And again, this is not how it is for Job. Like Christ, Job lives in his own flesh the mystery of God's wounding and healing love for every human person. And, needless to say, it is to this way of life, to Job's way of life, that we who are in Christ are also called.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Facing the Danger of Looking Inward

The inward journey is not, as the text of Job illustrates, without its own dangers.

For Job, at the end of the second chapter, the first such danger that he encounters is this: Even as he comes to see himself more clearly, he becomes increasingly unrecognizable to those who are closest to him. Soon after Satan strikes "Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head," (v. 7) his wife comes to him and says "'Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!'" (v. 9) Job, however, remains faithful to the journey he has begun: "'You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips." (v. 10)

Writing in about the fifth century, the Christian priest, Hesychius of Jerusalem, in one of his homilies on Job offers the following reflection on the brief exchange between Job and his wife:

Now, since the betrayer [i.e., Satan] had been defeated in every battle, had failed in all his attempts, had been hindered in all his hunts, had been deprived of all his schemes, and all his traps had been broken, after destroying Job's wreath, after the death of his numerous children, after ripping Job's body with his blows, at last, and in the betrayer's opinion, most compelling resource, he leads his wife against Job. ("Homilies on Job," 4.2.9, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 13)

The more I make the inward journey, the more I allow myself to feel the grief that is symptomatic of my love of the gift over the Giver, the more I realize that I have confused myself with my possessions, my accomplishments, and ultimately my own egocentric desires.

I cannot judge Job's wife harshly. As with his friends (vv. 11-13), Job's wife does "not recognize him." (v. 12) Just as he is becoming clear to himself, Job becomes a cipher to those closest to him. And why not? They know only the mask, the false self, which Job projected to the world. Having themselves not yet turned inward, they see only Job's loss, his suffering, but not his purification, not his gain in self-knowledge and peace. Truth be told, even though he does "not sin with his lips," at this point Job is still a cipher to himself.

One of the great dangers of turning inward is the temptation is to abandon our journey rather than face the rejection of those closest to us. Abandoning the journey means that, like Job's wife and friends, giving I instead give myself over to a despair born of untransformed grief. Seeing but not understanding her husband's transformation, Job's wife can only say, "Curse God and die." Job's friends, "Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite," are all likewise undone by their grief. The appearance of Job in the first moments of his new birth strikes them dumb; all they can do is weep with grief at the loss of the man they knew. And Job must face the temptation to join in their untransformed grief and forgo a life of compassion and forgiveness.

In the first moments of my inward turn, the burden of grief that can so overwhelm me that I simply give up. The sign that I have given up is that I see my suffering is purely external. Forsaking the inward journey mean that I see my grief not as it is, rooted not an inordinate attachment to my own ego, but rather to the circumstances in which I find myself. "If only," I tell myself, "my life had been different."

Job faces this temptation in chapter three. Mindful of all that he has lost, mindful of his alienation from his wife and friends, "Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth." (v. 1) Quickly, Job's curse takes on a life of its own as it passes from personal to cosmological (vv. 4-9). Nevertheless, he is still able to again considers himself:

"Why did I not die at birth?

Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

Why did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? (vv. 11-12)

Thinking about his own life in light of these larger, cosmological issues, inspires Job to think more deeply about his life. But now cosmology must become anthropology and he realizes that his is the lot of all humanity, "kings and counselors" (v. 14), "princes" (v. 15), "infants" (v. 16), the "wicked" (v. 17), "prisoners" (v. 18), the "small and the great . . . and the slave." (v. 19) It is at this moment that we see the beginning of the real fruit in Job's (and our own) inward turn— compassion and forgiveness.

Job understands (as I still must) the terrible mystery of creation. Nothing and no one is ontologically necessary. That all is a gift is true enough. But to the one who would control life rather than receive it thankful as a gift from the Divine Giver, this realization is a frightening. The choice is clear; I succeed on God's terms or fail on my own. Or, as St Gregory the Great has it,

Those who are endued with might in love of their Maker are those who are strengthened in the love of God as the object of their desire. Yet they become in the same degree powerless in their own strength. The more strongly they long for the things eternal, the more they are disenchanted with earthly objects. The failure of their self-assertive strength is wholesome. ("Morals on the Book of Job," quoted in ACCS¸ vol VI, p. 18)

Job's struggle, the struggle of his friends and family with him, is that they do not—at least in the first moments of his revelation—recognize the real Job. They failed to do so because they were attached to the facsimile of the true man within. Like Job I must first face my own inordinate attachments if my grief and despair are to be transformed.

Job struggle is part and parcel of the journey of not only the Great Fast, but the whole of the Christian life. Like Job I must confront the gratuitous, but not capricious, character of all creation including my own life. Again this is an inward journey and it is only by turning first turning inward that, by God's grace and my own effort, I am able to "transform . . . very evil habits into virtue." (Gregory the Great, "Morals on the Book of Job," quoted in ACCS¸ vol VI, p. 14)

As I said above, this transformation, should it come at all, bears the fruit of a life of compassion and forgiveness. Why do I say this? It is only when I am mindful of my own weakness, I can have compassion for my neighbor in his weakness and so extend forgiveness to him. This neither Job's wife nor friends were able to do for him—they could not forgive his weakness because they had no compassion having not accepted their own poverty before God.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Transforming Life’s ‘Little’ Ironies

Naked I came from my mother's womb,

And naked shall I return there.

The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;

Blessed be the name of the LORD.

(Job 1.21)

One of life's bitterest and most tragic ironies is that which symbolizes the great gift of my life has been corrupted by sin. Instead of being a source of great joy, this symbol has become instead the symbol of my deepest shame. I am speaking here of nakedness.

In the beginning, we are told in Genesis, the man and the woman are created naked. And naked they stand before each other in gratitude to God an purity of heart, with neither lust nor shame to mar their lives for God or each other. It is only after their transgression, only after their eyes are "opened" that each becomes a stranger to the other. And underneath this hostility toward the other, there is as well a self-loathing, a shame and self-alienation ground in an even deeper estrangement from God.

Compare this to the naked Job.

There is, so St Ephrem the Syrian tells us, no hint of this bitterness in Job's words quoted above. Rather for the longsuffering patriarch and despite all the pain that has come upon him, Job, unlike Adam, has not "covered [his own nakedness] with crimes and evil deeds." Instead, and again unlike Adam who hides from God, Job is "firm in his holy frankness" before God and man. Easily we can "imagine [that] he had never turned aside from righteousness nor would [he pass] from virtue to vice in the future" ("Commentary on Job," 1.21, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 7).

Job's steadfastness in the midst of his suffering highlights for me my own lack of gratitude before God for the gift of my own life. Reflecting on my own, rather ordinary suffering and my own rather pedestrian smallness of heart, I am struck by the words of Clement of Alexandria.

Clement in his commentary on Job focuses his attention on the anthropologically rich fact of human nakedness. Unlike all other creatures, the human being "alone is born in all aspects naked, without weapon or clothing." He continues by telling me that "This does not mean that you are inferior to other animals." Our nakedness is given to us by God "to produce thought." It is because of our original physical, even ontological, poverty that "in turn, we [are able to] bring out dexterity, expel sloth, introduce the arts for the supply of our needs, and beget a variety of ingenuity."

Reflecting on the practical consequences of our nakedness Clement continues by observing that "naked human beings are full of contrivances, being pricked by their necessity, as by a goad, to figure out how to escape rains, how to elude cold, how to fend off blows, how to till the earth, how to terrify beasts" and even "how to subdue the more powerful" of our own kind. Because of our nakedness, because of our poverty, we are "wetted with rain" and so "conceive of a roof." Because we have "suffered from cold" we "invent clothing." He says of poor humanity that being "struck," we "construct a breastplate" to guard ourselves. Our "hands bleeding with the thorns in tilling the ground," cause us to "avail [ourselves] of the help of tools. Because our "naked state[makes us] liable to become prey to wild beasts," we have "discovered from [our] fear an art which frightened the very thing that [frightens us]."

And so, he concludes, there is a certain irony to our poverty. "Nakedness begets one accomplishment after another." Going further he say that "even [our] nakedness" the sign of our poverty and our weakness must be seen as "a gift of benevolence." For his part, having understood and accepted as a gift his own physical and ontological poverty, "Job [though] being made naked of wealth, possessions, of the blessing of children, of a numerous offspring, and having lost everything in a short time" is able to utter "this grateful explanation: 'Naked came I out of the womb, naked also I shall depart thither,' to God and the that blessed lot and rest" ("Catena," Fragment, 1, ACCS, vol VI, p. 8).

The book of Job presents me with a standard that is well beyond me—and which I suspect will always be well beyond me. If I am honest, while I may regret the former, I am just ever so slightly relived by the latter. is frankly so much easier to cultivate in myself a sense of gratitude when, unlike Job, I get to pick and choose the parts of my life for which I am grateful. But it is for this reason, because I am so willing to limit my gratitude to what confirms to my own ego, that each year during the season of the Great Fast I am brought again to sit in the place of Job.

As he always does, St Augustine goes right to heart of the matter. With his usual eloquence, he highlights one of the bitter ironies of my spiritual life. It is hard not to recognize myself as one of "those feebler souls who, though they cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, still hang on to them with a somewhat modest attachment." How am I able to recognize myself here? Because, as with all feeble souls, I discover "by the pain of losing . . . things how much [I was] sinning in loving them." Like all feeble souls, my "grief is of [my] own making." (City of God, 1.10, quoted ACCS, vol VI, p. 9).

If we are not careful, we can look at the season of the Great Fast as purely negative event. There is, to be sure, a negative quality to this time of year, but is it the negativity of the catharsis (purification) that leads to theoria (illumination) and eventually theosis (divinization). It is during the season of the Great Fast that I am lead each year to discover evermore fully not only what Augustine might call my inordinate attachments to created goods, but also, to paraphrase Clement, the ingenious variety of my own, and my neighbor's, creativity and intelligence. And all this I must come to see in thanksgiving as God's gift to us.

But again, I can only discover the benevolence of the latter if I am willing to suffer the grief cause by the slow and steady purification of my "somewhat modest attachments." As I said yesterday, this purification only happens if I willing, like Job and with the Church as my guide, turn inward, dive deep beneath the surface of life's bitter and tragic ironies, and rise on the Third Day with Christ our True God.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Heart’s Hidden Depth

So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed[a] God in their hearts." Thus Job did regularly.

(Job 1.5)

For Great Lent, I have encouraged my catechumens to read the book of Job. Since I generally follow the counsel I give, I began today to read Job.

For my first reading, I am using the new Orthodox Study Bible's (OSB) English translation of the Septuagint (LXX). Afterwards, I go back over the text a second time, but this time using the volume dedicated to Job in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS) series. This series allows me to get a bit of the flavor of patristic commentary on the book. While I am of two minds about both texts, I think it is good now and then to look at a familiar text of Scripture from a different perspective. But, this is really neither here nor there.

Reading through the commentary of chapter 1, my attention was drawn to the words of Didymus the Blind (ca. 313 – ca.398) Reflecting on the verse at the top of this post, Didymus says that, "the text stresses the great purity of Job's children." He then something interesting, while Job "did not perceive any sin" in his son, he nevertheless offered sacrifices because of the sons' "disposition." The explanation for this is straightforward: "Job was aware that the human weakness and sluggishness that mark young persons often escalates. This is also what St. Paul said, 'I am not aware of anything against myself.' (1 Cor 4.4) And the psalmist, 'Forgive my hidden faults.' (Ps 19.12/18.13 LXX)"

Thinking about this, two thoughts came to mind.

First, I am aware that I often do not have any sense of my own sinfulness. Or rather, my awareness is often limited to only my surface sinfulness. Yes, I know that I am a sinner, but I do not know this in depth. This why I think that not only the season of the Great fast, but all the penitential periods and disciplines of the Church can be beneficial. They can help me come to know a bit more of the depths of my own sinfulness. In words of the Great Canon of St Andrew that the Orthodox Church celebrates during Lent (9^th Ode):

The mind is wounded, the body is feeble, the spirit is sick, the word has lost its power, life is ebbing, the end is at the doors. What then will you do, wretched soul, when the Judge comes to try your case?

I have reviewed Moses' account of the creation of the world, my soul, and then all canonical Scripture which tells you the story of the righteous and the unrighteous. But you, my soul, have copied the latter and not the former, and have sinned against God.

The Law has grown weak, the Gospel is unpractised, the whole of the Scripture is ignored by you; the Prophets and every word of the Just have lost their power. Your wounds, my soul, have multiplied, and there is no physician to heal you.

For many, including man Orthodox Christians, these words are hard to say. And they are even harder to apply to oneself.

But they don't exhaust the hidden depths of the human heart. Yes, there is in my heart profound sin but not only sin. Again, in the words of tonight's service:

I am bringing before you examples from the New Scripture, my soul, to lead you to compunction. So emulate the righteous and avoid following the sinners, and regain Christ's grace by prayers, fasts, purity and reverence.

Christ became man and called to repentance robbers and harlots. Repent, my soul! The door of the Kingdom is already open, and the transformed Pharisees, publicans and adulterers are seizing it ahead of you. (Matthew 21:31; 11:12)

Christ became a babe and conversed in the flesh with me, and he voluntarily experienced all that pertains to our nature, apart from sin; and He showed you, my soul, an example and image of His own condescension. (Matthew 1:25)

Christ saved wise men, called shepherds, made crowds of infants martyrs, glorified old men and aged widows, whose deeds and life, my soul, you have not emulated. But woe unto you when you are judged! (Matthew 2:12; Luke 2:9-12; Matthew 2:16; Luke 2:25-38)

When the Lord had fasted for forty days in the wilderness, He at last became hungry, showing His human nature. Do not be despondent, my soul, if the enemy attacks you, but let him be beaten off by prayer and fasting. (Matthew 4:1-11; 17:21; Mark 9:29)

The human heart, my heart conceals within itself not only sin and death, but also the possibility of repentance and renewal in response to God's grace. If I may speak this way, not only sin but also repentance is a possibility for me. I suspect that, to the degree people turn inward at all, most of us remain on the surface.

But if I go deeper and see the sinfulness that is right underneath the surface of my respectable life, I am tempted to turn away from the ugliness with me and retreat once more into a life of mere respectability. Or else, if I avoid flight, I can find myself mired in the reality of my own sinfulness, my own pettiness and shortcomings.

The real anthropological genius of the Church's liturgical tradition is that it takes me even deeper into myself and shows me the image of God that is obscured by my sinfulness. It is at that point, when I see my life as it has come to me from the Hand of God that I can begin, by God's grace, the upward climb that is the life of repentance and theosis.

The great paradox though is that I cannot ascend unless I first descend into the "weakness and sluggishness" that characterizes not only the life of young people, but my own life as well.

A blessed Lent and a glorious celebration of Christ's Resurrection.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Office Supplies Challenge; Liquid Fuel Rocket

It Just for Fun Saturday. And so, while I haven't built my own Office Supplies Rocket, nor can I encourage anyone to do so, for your amusement, let me offer the following set of instructions. File it away under, "Wow! ain't that cool!" Or, as one of the mothers in a parish I served once said, "We don't do EVERYTHING Fr Gregory says!"

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

H/T: Lifehacker:

We donned our mind-reading helmet here at Lifehacker and have divined the perfect thing for a little Friday Fun: a high altitude rocket made from office supplies.

An inventive user at DIY site Instructables details how to turn a few common office supplies into an impressive rocket. If you can get your hands on a sharpie, a can of compressed air, and an assortment of other office items like tape, rubber bands, and bottle caps, then you're on your way to winning the Office MacGyver award. The parts list has a Leather Multi-Tool as an item but as you'll see in the video below all you actually need are needle nose pliers.

We can't promise you it will achieve low earth orbit or even break low lying cloud cover, but we can promise you'll put your eye out if you're not careful, so unless you want to live out your career known as the One Eyed Pirate of Cubicle Farm Four, we recommend exercising extreme care with your homemade projectiles. (Or just, you know, get your vicarious fix through the video. It's what we're doing.)

Office Supplies Challenge; Liquid Fuel Rocket - More DIY How To Projects

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• Turn a Sharpie into a Liquid Fueled Rocket [Friday Fun] (lifehacker.com)
• Rockets from office supplies! (makezine.com)

Natural Law and the Kerygma

Natural law, I would argue, is an important, and much neglected, element of the kerygmatic ministry of the Church. To come back around to Fr George's essay—and the Orthodox resistance to natural law—I think one valuable contribution Orthodox theology might make to natural law theory is helping to deepen the evangelical character of the natural law tradition. Such a work is, after all, certainly compatible with the example of St Paul who offers us an archetypal expression of the kerygmatic or evangelical function of natural law in the opening chapter of his letter to the Church of Rome (1.18-32).

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, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (vv. 18-23)

The Apostle offers us a biblical sound basis upon which to offer a natural law theory that is anthropologically sound, evangelically relevant and compatible with the patristic understanding of natural contemplation (theoria).

Let me conclude by offering a pastoral, intra-Orthodox, observation. I cannot help but wonder if many of the scandals that have plagued the Orthodox Church in recent years are not the consequence of our theoretical, and more importantly, practical/pastoral, rejection of a Pauline theory of natural law. The Apostle is rather clear that a refusal to be obedient to God as He manifests Himself in the created order brings with it just the kind of division we see in many quarters of the Orthodox Church.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (vv. 24-32)

If every element of what Paul describes is not seen in our recent scandals, there is enough of a "family" resemblance to make me wonder if we have not failed in at least this one area of our pastoral obligation to "rightly discern" the Word of Truth.

As always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

You've Got the Time (To Listen to the New Testament During Lent)

Sherry W from Intentional Disciples has posted information about what she describes (rightly I think) "a most encouraging ecumenical Lenten initiative in Houston." What is it you ask? Well, I let Sherry explain:

Cardinal DiNardo, Archbishop of Houston is encouraging parishes to participate in You've Got the Time, a city wide, inter-denominational campaign to listen to audio recordings of the New Testament during Lent.

Sherry continues,

This is part of the Archdiocese' year long campaign, The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.

So far more than 50 parishes have signed up to listen to the whole New Testament in the New American version.

You've Got the Time is a project of Faith Comes by Hearing, a evangelical group that is committed to offering the Bible in a format that will connect with the world's 50% illiterate population. Looking for an audio New Testament in Tiv or Kinyakyusa? (And I knew you were!) This is the place.

What is called "Orality" is a big issue in missions circles these days as the heirs of the Word-driven Reformation wrestle with the reality that 18% (over 1 billion) of the world's population cannot read and write.

But it is estimated that 65% of the American public have never read the new Testament. 60% don't know Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. So what better time than Lent to remedy that situation?

There are, sadly, similar levels of biblical illiteracy among Orthodox Christians.

As we prepare to enter next week into the season of the Great Fast (or for my Roman Catholic and Protestant readers as you prepare to start Lent tomorrow), would you please consider going over to the site, You've Got The Time Houston, and listen this Lent to the New Testament? Alternative, you can click on the banner that will sit on the top of this blog until Pascha.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Criticizing the Critics

Where I would disagree, however, with Orthodox critics of natural law is the tendency to assume—as does Fr George in his essay—that natural law is (1) derived from empirical, scientific observation alone and that (2) the tendency to assume that the use of reason is somehow opposed or harmful to the life of faith.

Yes, certainly, there are those who have advanced an understanding of natural law that is divorced from Christian faith. And yes, some who have done so are themselves Christians. But I think the Orthodox rejection of natural law is (as I alluded to above) a rejection of a particular understanding of natural law that admittedly has deviated from the biblical and patristic tradition. Again, as so often seems to be the case, it is easy to reject a position if I compare my best to your worst. This I think is what has been done with Orthodox critics of natural law.

Pope John Paul II encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (Latin for "The Splendor of Truth"), offers Orthodox critics a biblically and philosophically sound defense of natural law and its relationship to conscience that would serve as a better touchstone for Orthodox critics of natural law. For example, in his reflection on Matthew 19:17 ("If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments"), John Paul writes:

Only God can answer the question about the good, because he is the Good. But God has already given an answer to this question: he did so by creating man and ordering him with wisdom and love to his final end, through the law which is inscribed in his heart (cf. Rom 2:15), the "natural law". The latter "is nothing other than the light of understanding infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done and what must be avoided. God gave this light and this law to man at creation". He also did so in the history of Israel, particularly in the "ten words", the commandments of Sinai, whereby he brought into existence the people of the Covenant (cf. Ex 24) and called them to be his "own possession among all peoples", "a holy nation" (Ex 19:5-6), which would radiate his holiness to all peoples (cf. Wis 18:4; Ez 20:41). The gift of the Decalogue was a promise and sign of the New Covenant, in which the law would be written in a new and definitive way upon the human heart (cf. Jer 31:31-34), replacing the law of sin which had disfigured that heart (cf. Jer 17:1). In those days, "a new heart" would be given, for in it would dwell "a new spirit", the Spirit of God (cf. Ez 36:24-28).

At least as articulated by the late pontiff, natural law is not the fruit of human reason operating in isolation, much less opposition, to divine grace. Rather, it is the product of the mysterious interplay of faith and reason. Natural law is born from the convergence of human freedom and creativity, one the one hand, and divine revelation and grace on the other. If the categories used are not immediately familiar to those trained in Orthodox theology, we nevertheless would do well to follow St Basil's observation: "Dogma is one thing, kerygma another; the first is observed in silence, while the latter is proclaimed to the world." (On the Holy Spirit ch. 27(66))

In my next post, I will try and fill in a bit of what I think is the biblical and evangelical character of Christian understanding of natural law.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Orthodox Criticism of Natural Law

One of the most valuable things, for me at least, about keeping a blog is the questions and criticisms that people offer in response to what I've posted.

Certainly this has been the case with my recent series of posts on the psychology of pastoral leadership. One commentator in particular, David, has offered a number of penetrating observations. (Unfortunately, my shift from Holscan to JSKit for my comments means that David's comments and questions have not shown up here—I suspect I need to go back to Haloscan or possibly move my blog over to Wordpress, but this is for another day.) You can read David's comments here, here and here. (I hope!)

As a recent article in The Tablet suggests (thank you Sr Macrina), one of the difficulties in a discussion drawn from the catholic moral tradition is that most of us are unfamiliar with the philosophical presuppositions that frame the discussion. That is certainly true with my own thoughts on subsidiarity. As I allude to in an earlier post (which can be read in its entirety here), subsidiarity presupposes at least a basic understanding of natural law. But this of course raises another question: Which view of natural law?

Natural law theory has had a much greater influence, I think, in Western Christian theology than in the Eastern Christian theology. Indeed, two contemporary Orthodox theologians—Fr Alexander Schmemann and Vladimir Lossky—seem to reject the idea that natural law has any application in Christian theology since (following ironically enough, an argument which St Augustine, that paragon of Western theology, would have embraced) what is "natural" for human is our state before Adam's transgression. Now what we know about humanity is profoundly unnatural.

In an essay that appeared several years ago in The Word, "Pastoral Considerations on Current Problems: Sex, Natural Law and Orthodoxy,"
Fr. George Morelli, a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist and Coordinator of the Chaplaincy and Pastoral Counseling Ministry of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, offers what seems to be a typical criticism of natural law. In response to the idea that extra-marital sexual relations are not contrary to "natural law" Fr George writes:

Extra-marital sex is not against the natural law. In science, when we speak of natural we mean what is in nature. In nature, many types of behaviors exist. There are many varieties that we see in our own culture and even more varieties that we can see in cross cultural comparisons. Sociological and anthropological studies lead the way here. Thus monogamy, polygamy, war, murder, chastity, and homosexuality, etc., are all equally lawful in nature because they all exist. For example, we may observe that in a certain culture, homosexual behavior occurs and thereby deviates from what the average individual does. But that neither makes it unnatural nor immoral. The fact that it exists means it is natural, as natural as a sunrise or an earthquake, a flower or a flood.

Fr George argues that we cannot basis Christian moral norms of empirical science, but only on the Gospel. He goes so on to argue in the above essay that whenever the Church "has based its faith, dogma or morals on science, she has been terribly embarrassed." Precisely because the primary concern for the Orthodox Church is evangelical, Fr George argues that as Christians "We do not obey a proscription, sexual or otherwise, because it adheres to some so-called "pseudo" natural law."

Rather Christian obedience is of a different kind.

We obey according to the measure of our faith. The measure of our faith will be based on the depth of heart and sincerity of our prayer. It would be well to keep in mind what our holy fathers have taught us - obedience leads to faith and prayer, and in turn, faith and prayer lead to obedience. Being excellent psychologists, the fathers tell us that the main pitfalls to prayer and obedience to God's will are forgetfulness, ignorance and laziness. Possibly we could sum up these three categories into two: knowledge and perseverance (or persistence). Real knowledge of the Christian spiritual-moral life can only come from the light of faith in accordance with the Gospels and the guidance of the Church. Persistence in seeking the will of God and obedience to His commandments also comes through faith. Obedience itself makes for even greater love, faith and obedience.

As I said, I think that the above argument is a good, popular expression of the rejection of natural law by many Orthodox theologians. In which the Orthodox criticism asserts, that our knowledge of the spiritual and moral life comes "from the light of faith in accordance with the Gospels and the guidance of the Church," I would heartily concur, as I suspect would most Catholic thinkers.

I will, in my next post, offer a response to the Orthodox rejection of natural law.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

What Doesn’t Work

Fidelity to the personal and communal vocation of the human person requires from those in authority that they are restrained in the exercise of power even as God's is Himself restrained in His relationship with His creation. (While I think this restraint must certainly be personal, i.e., ascetical, reflecting on my own experience as an American, I also think the restraint must also be systemic, i.e., by wise laws and procedures overseen by wise and ascetically self-limiting leaders. But a fuller explication must, alas, wait for another day.) Though not without significant differences, reflecting as they do the relationship of Persons in the Triune God, parish leaders (or really, any human leaders) must as we've seen be characterized by trust. As God trust His creatures so the human leader must trust those he leads.

Practically, this means that as a pastor, my relationship with the parish should largely be "hands off." Just as I ask deference (that is to say, trust) for decisions I make, I should also defer to lay people as they go about their own personal and family lives. While this is relatively simple in personal, one-on-one, relationships, trust becomes more difficult when we speak about the day to day, week to week, year and year out, governance of the parish.

The model that largely structured the life of the parish throughout most of the 20^th century is some form of lay trusteeship. Occasionally this model made possible a collaborative and cooperative working relationship between priest and parish. In the main, however, it has taken the form of the priest being responsible for "upstairs" (i.e., the liturgical and sacramental life of the parish) and the laity for "down stairs" (i.e., everything else).

Under this lay trustee model it was not (and in some places still is not) uncommon for the priest to use the sacramental lives of the Church as a means of exercising control over what he saw as a rebellious the laity. And the laity, for their part, were not shy (and still at times, are still not shy) about using the power of the purse to force compliance of what they say to be a stubborn priest. (In both cases, I should add, there was often some justice for the complaints. But just as frequently the matter was (is) simply a desire for power.)

While this approach has the virtue of simplicity, it in fact is grounded in a system of dysfunctional relationships that do not embody or reflect a respectful openness to the uniqueness of others. Much less is it grounded in an imitation of the relationship of Persons in the Holy Trinity. Rather it is a model in which priest and laity seeing each other as competitors who must zealously guard their respective areas of authority from encroachment by the other. Worse, still are those situations where priest and lay leaders collude with each other to maintain a monopoly on power in the parish.

Whether the life of the parish is marked by power struggles (the competitive mode of leadership) or the tight fisted control of the many by the few (i.e., collusion) the life of the Spirit is quenched and the parish dies a slow spiritual death that often takes root years before its numerical death.

In the Tradition of the Orthodox Church the principle of subsidiarity finds its counterpart in terms such as synergia, (i.e., the working together of wills human and divine) syndiakonia (i.e., a co-service of clergy and laity) and symphonia (the working together of Church and State). All of these, I would stress, are grounded in the mutual obedience of all parties involved to the will of God as manifested not only in Holy Scripture and the writings of the Fathers, but also natural law.

While synergia, syndiakonia,
symphonia are all rich terms, where I think Orthodox thought would profit most from Catholic Social Teaching is in the grounding of our understanding subsidiarity not simply Holy Tradition but also natural law. I will in my next post try and offer a bit of an apology for natural law as a useful adjunct to Orthodox theological reflection on Church leadership.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Subsidiarity & the Respectful Life

We saw in an earlier post, the more about the practical virtue of respect for an effective leader. To help us now understand more about the character of the respectful leader, I want to borrow a concept from Catholic Social Teaching. Specifically, I have in mind mere the principle of subsidiarity.

The entry on subsidiarity in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) begins by pointing out that participate in society and social groups fulfills an essential aspect of human nature even as it "presents dangers." Thinking of the political realm the authors of the CCC identify as the chief danger the "Excessive intervention by the state." Such intervention is deemed excessive when it, or has the possibility to, undermine the "personal freedom and initiative" of its citizens. The Catholic Church "has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity" specifically with an eye to offering a response to the intrusive state. Central to this articulation is the idea that "'a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.'" (#1883)

Moving swiftly from anthropology to theology, the CCC argues that subsidiarity in human society is a reflection of how God relates to His creation:

God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence. (#1884)

Stressing as it does the primacy of human freedom and initiative (what I would call simply, wisdom) in the structuring of our shared life, the "principle of subsidiarity" leads the Christian (and person of good will, since while grounded theologically, subsidiarity is a principle of natural law) to oppose "all forms of collectivism." Continuing, we read that subsidiarity as a principle of social organization necessarily "sets limits for state intervention" and instead leads us to work for a way of a life in which we are able to harmonize "the relationships between individuals and societies." (#1885)

While offered within the context of "establishment of true international order." (#1885), what strikes me as important for parish leadership is the argument that leaders (i.e., the "higher order") should "not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order." Instead the task, dare I say, vocation, of leadership is to serve the "common good." This service, if I've understood what I have read both in the Catechism and more generally in Catholic Social Teaching, is directed not toward the collective, but the person and what Pope John Paul II calls the "community of persons" (i.e., the family, the school, the state, the Church, etc.)

I will, in my next post, contrast the principle of subsidiarity to what I see as the more typical patterns of parochial clerical and lay leadership. Let me add, these patterns are often dysfunction, but they are also (thank God) changing.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

A Response to the American Gnostic (NOT!)

This past week I was in Chicago for our annual clergy conference for the Diocese of the Mid West. Our presenter was Fr Jonathan Tobias, pastor of St John the Baptist Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church in East Pittsburgh, PA.

Fr Jonathan gave three talks on what he called American gnosticism. While I though the talks were interesting, I do have my points of disagreement with his presentation. My primarily disagree is that, like many Orthodox Christians in America, Father uses Evangelical Christianity as his touchstone for an Orthodox understanding of American Christianity. While an argument can be made for this position, I think our focus on Evangelical Christianity means that we are always responding to what is least substantial in American religious experience. My own view is that while we must be mindful of Evangelical Christianity, we would also do well to attend to the influence of Catholicism, and especially the effect of the Aritotlean-Thomistic natural law tradition in American political philosophy and culture.

But I digress.

You can find Fr Jonathan's talks,

Prospects, part 1: Ebb Tide
Prospects, part 2: Bad News before the Good
Pospects, part 3: the American Genius
Prospects, part 4: the American Gospel -- Orthodoxy at the End of the Sawdust Trail


on his most excellent blog "Second Terrace."

But, since it is Saturday, the day I try and post something fun, I have for your consideration the Bad Vicar Sketch from from episode 3 of the BBC series That Mitchell and Webb Look. (Warning, harsh language.)

I'll be back to regular postings on Monday.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

More on Respect

Previously, I outlined what I would call the anthropological imperative for respect (which I described as "contemplative openness" to the work of God in self and others) as the foundational virtue of leadership. What I will do in this post is sketch out the broad outline of a respectful relationship.

With my own parishioners I am clear (well, I think I'm clear, they are the better judge of my clarity on this issue than am I), I do not want, nor do I deserve, their obedience. What I ask for—and I've discussed this in an earlier post, to read it click here—is deference. By deference I mean that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I want the benefit of the doubt for my views about the direction the parish should take. Of course, in phrasing the matter the way I have, I am also inviting criticism and debate of my views. And why not? I can be—and often am—wrong.

My asking for deference is another way of saying that I wish my parishioners to respect my position as the parish priest. As the pastor, I often have access to information that others in the parish do not. Beyond this, however, even if it is more specialized than is the case with most priests, like most Orthodox priest, I also have a very specialized graduate training that (I think) gives me a particular expertise that most of my parishioners simply do not have.

All that said though, as I think about my own role in the parish, I am mindful of the advice I often give people with critically ill children: Your child's doctor is an expert in all children; you are an expert in your child.

Thought of in this way, pastor and parishioners bring different, and usually complimentary, knowledge sets and skills. While I may be expert in this or that aspect of parish life, I do not have the kind of expertise or depth of knowledge as does someone who has lived his or her whole adult life in the parish. One form of expertise is not necessarily better than another, they are simply different.

What should be clear is that respect cannot simply be a one way street. Clergy must not simply ask for respect, we must also offer it to the laity (and to one another, but that is a topic for another day). But this is difficult if the priest (just to look at one side of the relationship, but what I say is equally applicable to the laity and bishops for that matter) if his relationship with others is not proximately ground a self-respect that finds its more remote ground in appreciative, but critical, self-knowledge that it itself ground in a trust in God and His work in the life of the priest.

More often than not the absence of a healthy sense of self-respect reflects not so much the presence of a psychopathology, but a developmental lack. Self-respect is not spontaneous or natural, but rather learned. Since this learning process necessarily includes moments of failure, it is difficult to grow in a healthy regard for self in a social context that (as I've pointed out earlier) equates leadership with a relatively arbitrary collection of skills.

And again, this doesn't mean the skills are not important, just not primary. And again, no list of skills are exhaustive and any attempt to create one is more likely to foster anxiety and a nagging, but nevertheless debilitating, sense of insufficiency.

How then might we foster respect in self and others?

Developmentally, we come to a sense of our own competency through the twin socialization mechanism of conformity to the expectations of our tradition as mediated by our parents AND the willingness of our parents to affirm us even when our behavior fails to measure up the standards of our tradition.

Between children and parents, this largely happens spontaneously. Where things often go wrong is when the relationship between parent and child grows in complexity and so the possibility of real, substantive, but nevertheless legitimate divergence and disagreements. At this point, the natural, more biologically based relationship, needs to be itself re-oriented through critical reflection.

Put another way, we need to think about why it is acceptable to continue to be affirming and respectful of others even when the exercise of their freedom is an challenge to what was once our undisputed authority in their lives.

Using early childhood development as our model, what we see is just as the parents must continually limit themselves in the face of their child's growing sense of self-mastery and freedom, so too the parish priest needs to see his relationship with his parishioners as an act of kenosis as they become ever more capable of directing their own personal and communal spiritual lives.

At this point I need to introduce the concept of subsidiarity, an idea I am borrowing from Roman Catholic social teaching. I find in subsidiarity a helpful insight in coming to value the different expertise that are brought to the parish. Or as St John the Baptist says of himself relative to Christ, "He must increase, but I must decrease." (Jn 3.30)

While such a program of leadership is personally challenging, I would like turn my attention to a more theoretical justification of such an approach. For this reason I will in my next post try and offer a bit of an apology for the principle of subsidiarity as a useful adjunct to Orthodox theological reflection on Church leadership.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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• More Thoughts on Trust and Obedience (palamas.info)

An Open Letter to Frank Schaeffer

In the most recent US presidential election a number of Pro-Life advocates came out in support of the Senator Obama. The argument made then was typically some form of the argument made last November by Frank Schaffer in an open letter to President-elect Obama. As I argue below, while I understand why many Americans voted for Mr Obama, I believe those who argue his policies are compatible with a Pro-Life policy position are simply, tragically, wrong. While my letter is address to Frank Schaeffer, I would invite your own thoughts on the matter.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Dear Frank,

On November 12, 2008 you published an open letter to the then newly elected Barack Obama. You title the piece, "An Open Letter to President-Elect Obama About Abortion: From a Pro-Obama and Pro-Life Leader." While I do not dispute your past contributions to the Pro-Life cause, I must take objection to what seems to me to be the faulty moral analysis that underlies your advice to President Obama. To be direct, your argument is neither a Pro-Life argument nor compatible with the historical, Christian faith nor the teaching of the historical Christian Churches, East and West, Orthodox and Catholic. The Church's teaching aside, however, you cannot be, as you claim to be, "pro-life," and argue "that abortion should remain legal." Your arguments are not pro-life but pro-choice.

Let me explain.

You argue that we must reduce the number of abortions, far enough. But you also argue that there is no need for the Democratic Party (and I'm quoting here from your essay) "to give up principles about reproductive rights. In fact, it means that those principles can better be defended in the long term because you will have claimed the moral high ground." In other words, and please correct me if I am wrong here, you argue that reducing the number of abortions is in the service of defending a so called "right to abortion." I'm sorry but this is simply monstrous. In effect your advice to our new president is that he work to help some mothers bring their children to term so that other mothers can maintain the legal right to kill their children!

You agree with President Obama's own argument on the matter, when you say that abortion (and again I'm quoting) "is a moral issue upon which reasonable and honorable people can disagree." Again, this is monstrous—indeed if it were not for the moral horror of this argument it would be laughable. That people disagree over abortion is clear—but it is neither reasonable nor honorable to accept, even regretfully, the proposition that it is morally licit to take an innocent life. And such acceptance is certainly not a pro-life argument.

Let me be clear: Under no circumstance can one sanction the taking of an innocent life. Those who fail to see this, do so because of a grievous moral blindness and hardness of heart.

What I find more is disturbing than intellectual poverty of your moral analysis is your cynical willingness call yourself pro-life while expressing a willingness to sacrifice the lives of the unborn for the sake of national harmony and an end to the culture wars. You contend that, if your advice is followed, the President "will have taken a giant step towards bringing this country together." Whether this is true or not, I cannot say. What I can say is that the willingness to sacrifice innocent lives for the sake of national unity is not the words of someone I can reasonably call pro-life. Your position is morally unacceptable both in light of natural law and the biblical tradition that informs the pro-life opposition to legal abortion.

We cannot as a country simply agree to disagree about the murder of the unborn. To suggest we can is the essence of the pro-choice argument of convenience: "I am personally opposed but…" And yet this is the very argument of you advance when you assure Mr Obama, that (and again assuming he follows your advice) he "will find . . . some new and unexpected allies rooting for [him] on the issues of the economy, service and sacrifice." Specifically you have in mind "millions of Evangelical young people ready to follow your call." That more of these young Evangelical Christians have voted for Mr Obama "than for any Democratic candidate for the presidency post-Roe" is not doubt true. And that many young people, whether Evangelical Christian or not, are "already believe in your vision of service, responsibility and compassion. " Alas, should the president follow your advice, he (and you) can only betray their idealism and desire for service with a false and deceptive hope, since neither he (nor I fear you) take seriously their "moral concern on the issue of life."

Nowhere is the pro-choice character of your argument made clearer than in the parallel you would between President Nixon and President Obama.

In your view of things, abortion can be for Mr Obama his "'Nixon goes to China' moment." You argue that only "a progressive Democrat" (such as President Obama) can "defuse the situation and heal the culture wars in a way that no Republican president has been able to do." How? By using, as you suggest, the presidency as a "'bully pulpit' for life, and a substantive set of a programs to reduce abortions, while also defending Roe. You can do both!"

No, Frank, he can't. Your argument is simply wrong.

Certainly, President Obama's economic plans is something that reasonable and honorable people can disagree over. And while I am willing to entertain the possibility that Mr Obama's policies may, and I must stress MAY, reduce the number of abortions, this is not the salient moral point. But the moral problem does not lie so much with the number of abortions but with the fact that abortion is not only legal in the US but accorded the status of a right. But how can anyone have the right to kill an innocent human being?

Your willingness to accept the continuation of legalized abortion as the law of the land is not compatible with either the Tradition of the Church or natural law; it is certainly not a pro-life position.

I would go further and say that your letter is scandalous. Not only is it such in the popular sense of shocking, but in the technical, theological sense as well. You present yourself as a Christian and a self-professed pro-life leader and yet you offer a public witness that argues for the moral legitimacy of abortion. In suggesting a course of action that allows not only for the upholding of legalized abortion (or as you refer to the euphemistically, "reproductive rights") but also suggests that such a position can reflects "the moral high ground," you are not only morally wrong, but have caused grievous harm to his readers—you have left them with the false notion that a pro-choice position is consonant with the Gospel. It is not.

By all means let us as Christians support Mr Obama when he proposes policies which, to quote His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America, "extend a hand to those suffering from their sins, what ever they are." We have the confidence to do this, no matter what the personal or political cost because by faith we know and proclaim that "There is no sin that cannot be forgiven, save the one we refuse to accept forgiveness for."

At the same time however, we must remind Mr Obama that we cannot simply work to reduce the number of abortions; we must stop abortion. Why? Because as His Beatitude reminds us "Abortion not only destroys the life of the infant; it rips the soul out of the mother (and the father!)," even as our support of abortion has ripped apart the fabric of our society.

From my own pastoral experience I know that abortion is "a sin for which a woman torments herself for years, sinking deeper into despair and self-condemnation and self-hatred. But there is forgiveness, if only she will ask." Sadly your own letter seems to pass over in silence not only the Church's moral witness on this issue. In doing so you minimize the Church's teaching that in Christ those who commit abortion, those who perform abortion and those who—even passively—support abortion "need . . . to repent and accept forgiveness, so that their souls, their memories, and their lives, might be healed."

However well intentioned you might be—and please understand I do not doubt your good intentions—your willingness to support legal abortion is simply wrong.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory Jensen