Our country is deeply polarized. Even people on the Left admit as much. We are in fact more polarized than the time before the War Between the States.
Consider that in his Second Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln made these comments about the two sides: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” And this was after four bloody years of warfare which consumed at least two percent of the American population. (In present terms, that would come to almost 7 million people.)
Today, we can no longer say we read the same Bible and pray to the same God. Far from it. We have few, if any, beliefs in common. Agreeing on things like when life begins or whether there are only two sexes (or thirty) escape us. We don’t even hold to the same interpretation of the Bill of Rights. Or the Constitution. Let’s face it. Red and Blue agree on nothing. Not even if God exists.
And both sides positively hate the other.
Don’t believe me? The other day in Boulder, Colorado, a gunman shot and killed ten people in cold blood. Their bodies weren’t even cold before the Twittersphere erupted in glee; not because ten people were dead (at least I hope not), but because the shooter was clearly a “white supremacist”. One Twitterer lamented that she was “tired” of the fact that she has to worry about whether some “white man with an AR-15 is having a bad day”. There were many more comments along these lines.
And this was before the shooter was identified. He could have been white, black, yellow, or polka-dot. It didn’t matter because we have been primed to believe that all mass-murderers are white and predisposed to killing people. This is the go-to narrative and accepted as fact. Unfortunately, it’s not true.
According to the FBI, Asians and blacks make up higher percentage of the ranks of mass shooters out of proportion to their share of the American population (about 1/4 percent higher actually). Whites on the other hand make up a lesser percentage of mass shooters, ironically about 1/4 percentage less. Don’t believe me? Read this: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/10/what-the-white-mass-shooter-myth-gets-right-and-wrong-about-killers-demographics.html If you’re interested in looking at interracial crime in the United States, please go to https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls
The problem is that like all leftist narratives, the whole “tighty-whitie” (read: white supremacy) thing is built on tissues of lies. At this late date, how many of us are really all that white? Or what “white” means? Hasn’t the elastic worn out on this one? That is unless we want to believe white supremacy is real and not a polemic to be used against those of us of the Caucasian persuasion. (Eventually, the Left is going to have to come down on one side or the other of this issue.) No sooner than the last body was taken to the morgue, the shooter was identified as a certain Ahmad Al-Aliwi Al-Issa, a Syrian refugee. And all the victims were white. (One of the victims, Neven Stanisic, 23, was a Serbian Orthodox, whose family emigrated from Yugoslavia shortly before he was born. May his memory be eternal.)
Memory eternal, Neven.
This complicated narrative threw a massive spanner in the works regarding the whole “white supremacy” thing. You see, according to our elites, all people who come from Europe are evil, especially northern Europeans. The farther north, the eviler. That’s ultimately what “white privilege” means in their sick, distorted little minds. On the other hand, “people of color” from everywhere else are nothing but angelic beings. (Except for Asians, the Left can’t tell presently whether they’re VictimsTM or have a double dose of “white privilege. Stay tuned.)
This particular shooting raises uncomfortable questions. Like, are Arabs white? What about Greeks? Two of Trump’s cabinet members (Alex Azar and Mark Esper) are Lebanese. They certainly look white to me. Same with Donna Shalala (who served in Clinton’s cabinet) and hundreds of thousands of other Americans who claim Levantine and/or Arab descent.
And did I mention that all of the victims were white? (Yes, I believe I did.) These facts more than complicate the narrative. They utterly destroy it.
I’d like to welcome all Arabs to our club! The upside is that you’ll have tons of privilege; the downside is that you’ll be blamed for everything else.
Just a few days before this atrocity, a young man shot up three Atlanta massage parlors, killing eight of the “workers” there. The murderer was a self-described sex addict. Six of the victims were Asian. The Rahm Emanuels of the Left immediately went into overdrive, accusing the shooter of being (drumroll, please) a “white supremacist”. Even though he wasn’t and two of the eight victims were themselves white.
Still, not being in the mood to allow a good crisis to go to waste, the Biden Administration and the Corporate Media went into full hysteria, warning us that because of Trump and “white supremacy”, Asians were being singled out for victimization. The plague of “anti-Asian hatred” caused Hologram Joe to order all flags lowered to half-staff. We were also treated to endless commentary about how our vice president was herself “Asian”. Just a few days before, we were told that she was African-American. (Am I missing something here?)
If memory serves, not all that long ago, I commented that this supposed “anti-Asian” hysteria was a rabbit-hole that the grievance mongers do not want to crawl into. They will regret it. Big time. Because you see, the overwhelming majority of anti-Asian hate crimes that are occurring are not being perpetrated by whites. Not by a long shot.
So where does that leave us? Only here: that the whole identity politics thing that we have been subjected to over the last decade or so, is exploding in the faces of the Left and their flying monkeys in the Corporate Media.
And the egg exploding on the faces of these professional victimologists forces me to experience a little schadenfreude. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of people.
Folks, here’s a dirty little secret: we all have an identity. If we’re speaking in strictly secular terms, that identity should be “American”. For those of us who identify with the majority religion of this country, that identity would be Christian. In a sane society, those would –should–be our identities. Period. Regardless of whether we are religious or not, you don’t want to stray from either of those identities. Not even a little bit. Because if you do, it will blow up in your face big time. It will also blow up in untold violence if we’re not careful.
Why? Because anarcho-tyranny doesn’t work. “Diversity” (read: divide and conquer) has been the modus operandi of our ruling elite for decades. Unfortunately for them, all things come to an end. And when this thing finally blows up, it ain’t gonna be pretty. All of the academic rationalizations and appeal to liberalism won’t mean a damn thing.
My advice to our kakistocracy? Stop this sh!t now. Immediately. Because at some point, the various tribes which you’ve corralled us into will come for you. You wanna know why? Because people wake up. Eventually.
In the meantime, it’d be a good idea to stop demonizing Wypepo. Look around you: the armed forces are overwhelmingly white, especially the “tooth” part of the “tooth and tail”. One day, this demographic is going to start asking questions. Questions like “why should I go fight the Russkies?” or, “why do we need to nation-build West Crapistan?” And all such questions will be asked against the backdrop of our nation crumbling before our eyes.
Capiche?
It may take away from your story, George,
but I’m glad the garment was washed before it was photographed… 🙂
White supremacists don’t exist. They’re like klansmen and neo-Nazis and Voldemort. Some goblin hiding in the woods you tell children (or adults with the emotional development of children) about so that they’ll behave.
What does the term white supremacy even mean? That all whites are objectively better than all blacks, or does it mean that whites should rule over blacks in a caste system? Is it prescriptive or descriptive? Are they supreme in every metric or just in a few? If the whites aren’t supreme, then what race is number one? Are we implying that all races have the exact same genome? Is it saying that whites should be better than blacks, or is it starting an objective fact, such as that the crime rate is lower among whites than blacks? If you can prove that one race has a higher score than the others, does that make it a sin to point it out? Are Greeks white? Is white merely a skin tone — like most Jews and Arabs have — or is it genetic, like Obama?
What do any of these words mean?
In fact, Hitler himself said that the Chinese and Japanese are superior to the Germans. So even Hitler wasn’t a white supremacist.
And of course our hierarchy propogates this. Every time the pan-Orthodox episcopal assembly accomplishes something, it’s a policy paper denouncing these gibberish words. Then you have The Brotherhood of St Moses the Black, which is just allowed to make up new liturgics with no formal approval based on Jesuit theology.
This isn’t the Orthodoxy I signed up for. If I were an inquirer today, I probably wouldn’t have finished my catechism.
Why is it a sin for white people to want to rule and retain their majority over the country their ancestors founded? Why is it a sin for white people to point out their governments run by whites function better than governments run by blacks and Arabs? No one claims it’s “Greek supremacy” for Greeks to rule Greece, but Americans who have been here since colonial times are obligated to give up their country to a hoarde of Aztecs? What even is this?
This is the quote you mention:
I don’t think anyone can really disagree with that.
What are these Jesuitical liturgical innovations you speak of?
No one should be able to disagree with that, but currently it’s hate speech to say “all lives matter” or “it’s okay to be white”.
Liberation theology is a Jesuit invention. I’m specifically referring to the “Canon of Racial Reconciliation”, which one OCA mission parish I know of began doing on Thursday nights instead of vespers after a meth addict died of an overdose on Minneapolis. Liberation theology is entirely worldly and entirely focused on material gain, and therefore it is entirely antichrist.
While liberation theology sounds nice –in places–it is satanic in its inception.
It’s just communism with a clerical collar.
Yes, it literally came out of the Jesuits. Amd look who is the current pope.
Martin Luther King was a communist and was educated at the Highland Folk School, which was eventually shut down by the government for being a Soviet subversion cell.
I feel deeply relieved to hear that I am not the only one whose theological instincts scream in protest at the “St. Moses the Black” group innovations. I am relatively new “around here” and question my own judgment or more accurately right to judge. I am also very touchy and jumpy about anything that reminds me of the disaster I fled from in leftist-infected mainline Protestantism. It all makes me wary.
The sheep know the voice of the shepherd and will not follow another. John 10 talks at length about this. If you know Christ, then these false gospels will be inherently repulsive to you, even if you can’t articulate why.
I disagree totally. The achievements mentioned are human achievements the “race” makes no difference. Racial variety is a gift from God. Loving a thing, such as race, is a form of idolatry. Idolatry always leads to death and destruction.
The love of God values the variety but denigrates no one. That is the message of Fellowship of St. Moses the Black. A message which is throughly Orthodox as George’s post on Monk Madai back in February shows as well.
I was raised to celebrate the beauty of each as was Fr. Moses. Maybe why we have always gotten on so well with each other.
BTW when Fr. Moses had his museum in a physical location, there was a very large icon of St Raphael of Brooklyn that dominated the entry way.
What unites us all is that we are all sinners in need of repentance and the mercy of Jesus Christ.
Anything else is part of our fallenness.
“Hitler himself said that the Chinese and Japanese are superior
to the Germans. So even Hitler wasn’t a white supremacist.”
Reference please.
“No one claims it’s “Greek supremacy” for Greeks to rule Greece…”
Angela Merkel gets off the plane in Athens and goes to the Customs desk…
Customs Officer: ‘Name?’
She: ‘Merkel, Angela.’
He: ‘Nationality?’
She: ‘German.’
He: ‘Occupation?’
She: ‘No, just visiting.’
LOL
That’s a good one!
Austin Martin-
I agree with you. I’m in a facebook group called Ex-Pats in Greece. Some of these idiots want to remake Greece into their native country’s image. There is no such thing as privelege when you reap the benefits of the society created by your ancestors for themselves and their offspring. It was created by them and for them and everyone else should just be grateful they can reap of the fruits and only if they allow you to. All my relatives are immigrants and I can’t tell you most immigrants are a$$holes who want their cake and to eat it too. They want one standard in their adopted country but would never want that same standard applied in their native country.
People are always conservative about what they love most. You’re only liberal about things you hate.
The Declaration of Independence literally says that it’s for “our posterity”. That is quite literally me. I am that posterity. I love my Greek friends, and I’m glad they’re here, but they are not part of that posterity. This mythos of “give me your tired and poor” was invented in the 1800s to import hoardes of Irishmen and Germans who would work cheap. It was never part of the original vision. No one fought in the Revolution with the intention that the Catholics would take over Boston.
Imagine a white American going to Mexico and being offended at being called a gringo all the time. It would never happen. The immigrants act the way they do because they know white people are stupid enough to feel guilty about it. Or as one man once said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.”
This anti-racism guilt complex is just a white people thing — no other race is dumb enough to believe in it. It doesn’t exist in other cultures. When you go to China, people look at you like a zoo animal.
Austin, what specifically is your problem with The Brotherhood(now Fellowship) of St. Moses the Black? I know the founders quite well and seen quiet a bit of their material. I have seen nothing that is a liturgical innovation and nothing Jesuit. To what, specifically are you referring?
If you are open to the truth of the matter I will be happy to check it out for you. . .
Certainly what you posted here does not resemble anything close to what I have seen and experienced.
I would love it if you could check this out, Michael.
Austin, if you could provide your reasons for making the statement, I’d appreciate that, too.
We could then reach a meeting of the minds.
I’m not sure if even Michael knows this but I, too, have strong attachments here. I have known Father Turbo for many years and the entire time, I prayed that he would become a priest.
But I believe you believe it is true, Austin, and if we can, I would like to leave you with a different impression.
That being said, I love that you brought it up. Because if you’re thinking this, no doubt hundreds of others have the same opinion and I appreciate you giving us the opportunity to change your mind if we can.
For my part, I can say that Metropolitan Joseph (Antiochian Archdiocese) was my bishop for many years. He is very persnickety about liturgics and formed the basis of Fr. Turbo’s early instruction. Michael will undoubtedly be able to share more.
Gail, I did not know of your connection to Father Turbo. Good to know.
Likewise, didn’t know you knew Fr. Turbo. I had the opportunity to meet him last March on a cross country road trip. I stopped in KC and got to meet him. He was a breath of fresh air when all this Covid mess started.
Not surprised.
Fr Turbo is indeed a breath of fresh air.
Normally I write my comments on my phone because I’m too cheap to pay for internet, but I actually have a wifi connection right now, so here is a more full treatment on the topic.
When we were discussing it in the comments a few weeks ago, I had something written on it, but it didn’t pass the moderator’s approval, and so I dropped the topic.
The short answer is that they are teaching liberation theology, which is entirely worldly and carnal, as though it were Orthodox Tradition. In one of the articles, they even make this claim themselves, quoting a black protestant theologian. Looking now, I cannot find this article [linked below], but it took the death of George Floyd for granted as proof of systemic racism. It also decried that most black converts take Saint Moses, as though this is the fault of white people stigmatizing them.
I’ve watched some of Fr Moses Berry’s videos, and he is entirely obsessed with race. Everything he says is about how black he is. His first visit to an Orthodox Church was framed by how they had African saints on the wall. Most people think I’m a “racist”, and many people have accused me of being a Nazi or a Klansman, but I am not half as obsessed with race as Fr Moses.
Liberation theology has its roots in 1700s Latin America, and probably every single black pastor of any denomination in America believes in it. It is dangerous, because it is focused on how other people have wronged you. Even if all of their complaints are completely legitimate, it is still self-focused.
The reason that anger is a sin, or if not a sin, then strongly cautioned against, is because it’s focusing on yourself. Even if you are entirely correct about how the other person has wronged you, the problem is that you are focusing on yourself. And anger is the opposite of happiness, so angry people will never be at peace. If you acquire true humility, then you will not even notice when someone else does something wrong to you. Anger always comes from a place of pride.
This is ultimately the fault of any kind of Marxism, including all waves of feminism, that it takes greed, anger and pride and calls them virtues. It quite literally exchanges good for evil and light for darkness (Isaiah 5:20).
In addition to all that, there is nothing in the Tradition or the Bible condemning slavery beyond a single passage in St Gregory of Nyssa against slave-holding. But even then it is not encouraging abolitionism. This is not to say that the Church has encouraged slavery (like Islam does) — only that it always worked around it. The Church has never tried to make radical changes in the political or social order. These changes have always come about through the people becoming sanctified, not through forming coalitions to lobby the government.
One of the many councils ratified by the Council in Trullo was the 4th century Council of Gangra, which as a lot of interesting things to say that are relevant to our times. I will only point out canon 3,
“If any one shall teach a slave, under pretext of piety, to despise his master and to run away from his service, and not to serve his own master with good-will and all honour, let him be anathema.”
That’s not saying, “Slavery is good.” It’s just saying that the actual Tradition of the Church is to not upend social disorder. Slavery is icky, and we should have never gotten involved in it on this continent, but it is not an absolute sin. And in fact, within a decade of emancipation, a quarter of the former slaves had died from disease or starvation. You cannot just free all the slaves at once through scorched-earth warfare and then tell them “good luck”. Before the war there were a lot of talk in the Upper South about transitioning out of it, and it had mostly worked in Delaware. Many people like Lee knew that it was going to end relatively soon anyway and even believed that it should end, but all discussion of diplomatically moving towards complete manumission were derailed by the radical abolitionists who wanted things their way immediately. (Interestingly, one of the Unitarian financiers of John Brown founded an institution which later reformed into another institution that educated Barack Obama.)
Anyway, this was the problem with Catholicism, that it became entirely comfortable in the world, so in addition to all the humanism, you have all of the social justice. Catholicism is entirely carnal, which is why their celibacy is a mere bureaucratic requirement and the pope teaches evolution. But we aren’t supposed to focus on social justice on earth. We are supposed to focus on repentance to prepare for heaven. We have many saints who were slaves, and none of them ever ran away from their masters. I challenge you to find me a single saint who believed in something akin to 1800s abolitionism.
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
As for the Canon of Racial Reconciliation, our liturgical tradition comes through saints. Our prayers are not determined by committee like in the Catholic Church. They are written by inspired individuals and passed on through centuries. The Canon of Racial Reconciliation — which as far as I know has never had formal approval by any bishop — is taken from an endearing statement his grandmother made and formulated by a married priest. I am not at all disparaging marriage, but very rarely have married people achieved sainthood without martyrdom, because when you are sexually active you are tied to the earthly and carnal (1 Peter 2:11). Married clergy have never written the prayers of our Church, because that’s just not their vocation. In fact, very few people have written the prayers of our Church. You don’t just get to decide to give people the words to pray.
The reason people pay attention to people like Fr Moses is because of tokenism. If he were another race, no one would care about what he was saying. He says nothing unique or insightful. There is no great theological epiphany. No Bible exegesis. All he does is talk about race, and because he is black, people pay attention. This isn’t so much a criticism of Fr Moses as it is of the liberals who believe in tokenism.
The archetypal liberal loves his black and gay friends because they are his salvation. They redeem him from the sin of whiteness. By listening to Fr Moses, no matter what he may say, they overcome the sins of their ancestors. The liberal’s black and gay friends sanctify him, and when he hangs out with them and listens to their pity stories, he takes the Eucharist. It is for this reason that they get so angry when people like me point out, for example, that all male homoerotic cultures are pedophilic, because I am blaspheming their Jesus.
It’s entirely antichrist. Being a Christian is about our own personal repentance, not doing the math over how much historical wrongs are which party’s fault.
I see on the website that Fr Stephen Freeman spoke at their conference. I’m from his part of Tennessee, so I have my own emotional opinions on him. That aside, he has written before that the Confederacy is worse than the Nazis. Really? Slavery is worse than death camps? And many of these Confederate generals were Christians, whereas the North was more secularist, so people like him are slandering their own brothers in Christ. Whatever you think about the Confederacy, you cannot read about Thomas Jackson’s expression of his faith and not feel ashamed at your own sloth and gluttony. But for these people, they are just evil because of a social issue that we take for granted a century and a half later. Unitarians like John Brown and outright secularists like Abraham Lincoln, these are the good people who were inspired by God and had it right. That’s the worldview of the white guilt Christian.
I’ve written before about how words like “racism” and “gender” are new words that didn’t exist a hundred years ago, at least in the definitions they have now, so I’m just going to move on from that point beyond merely stating that it exists.
And on that note, I found the article:
https://mosestheblack.org/2020/05/the-glorified-black-body-of-jesus/
It takes for granted that various black people were murdered and for racist reasons before the trial had been done. It refernces a protestant pastor James Cone, thereby equating protestantism with Orthodoxy. And it says that Jesus was essentially black because he spoke up for the oppressed Jews. But that’s just not true! Jesus was not at all interested in uplifting the position of the Jews in Roman society. In fact, he called them the children of Satan! Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” How then was he interested in changing Roman social order? At the most he merely called Herod a fox.
In fact, Jesus was so “racist” that when a woman of a different race came to him and asked for help, he called her a dog. Jesus called a woman a bitch merely because she was a different race than him. In any other context we would call this racism, but this has nothing to do with our fantasies about justice. Jesus was making a broader point about his mission on earth, and he was testing her faith, and our modern morality was not a category anyone thought in at the time.
St Paul, who said “there is no Jew or Greek in Christ”, also said, “One of themselves, [even] a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians [are] alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. (Titus 1:12-13a)
Where did we get this idea that it’s always wrong to notice racial differences? Not from the Bible. And I’m not saying that we should go around pointing out racial differences. I’m saying that the pro-racism/anti-racism dichotomy is a false category. It’s entirely artificial, and the word “racism” was only invented in the 1930s. It isn’t a universal moral. It’s secular and worldly, and therefore it is of Satan.
Read that article and tell me if that sounds like Orthodox Christianity. If you’re a convert, and that’s the first thing you had read about Orthodoxy, would you have converted, or would you have thought we were a bunch of Episcopalians? The Jesus he talks about is not the Jesus that I know.
2 John {1:8} Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. {1:9} Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. {1:10} If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into [your] house, neither bid him God speed: {1:11} For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
If you read this far, thank you for bearing with me.
I would agree they are focused on race. But liturgically, I suspect they are on the mark.
I agree with that assessment, Gail.
If I may add something: we ethnic Orthodox who have placed a great emphasis on our ethnicity, are in no position to criticize our black brethren who have ascribed a mistaken persona onto the figure of St Moses. We (especially those of us who are of Greek descent) are the last people who should thrown stones as our house is definitely made of glass.
Instead of criticizing these new converts to Orthodoxy, we should openly, publicly, and with great humility acknowledge our own sins. And having done that, go forward and make a truly American Orthodox Church. Otherwise, we will continue to fail, to bury our light under bushel.
Let this nonsense stop now.
I was taught years ago that at a certain point in the liturgy, when the priest tells us to lift up our hearts, that means that we give God our hearts. This means our whole heart. All the brokenness, the hurt, the shame and yes, whatever good might be residing there are handed over to Him. Then we turn to God and concentrate on what He has done for us and are thankful. We forget ourselves and glory in Him.
Our past and our future are given over and we are His. Unless we hold back.
That was my understanding, as well.
Austin, you are totally off base. Fr. Moses Berry has given his life to Christ’s Church in a way that none of us will ever even come close. From your words I can tell you have never been in a room with him and listened to him preach the Gospel and how there is only one family of God and we are not Jew or Gentile, bond nor free, black nor white. My prayer is that you will set aside your foolish criticisms caused by assumptions of the most egregious kind, and come to a place of repentance for writing these words. You simply do not know what you’re talking about. We are truly lost when we start tearing down the few good priests we have still standing tall on the rock of Christ’s Church. Austin, I hope you reach out to Fr. Moses on email or Zoom so you can share with him what you just wrote, and let him share with you his story and his perspective. I will be praying for you, brother.
We have to remember Austin is not talking about them as people. I don’t think it’s his intent to tear them down. He’s concerned about their mission.
I, too, have heard of the “Canon of Racial Reconciliation.” They do it in quite a few Orthodox Churches (Greek & Serbian among them.) The OCA mission parish Austin mentioned may have been part of their outreach. http://mosestheblack.org/resources/canon/
So I would argue race DOES make a difference: certainly to them. They feel something is broken and needs to be fixed. If it will bring people to Christ and to the Church, I’m all in.
If they’re doing something unOrthodox that would be cause for concern but to me, it looks like this fellowship is outside the Church.
I can’t say I believe what they believe about other liberal causes, but there are many in the Church who do. That’s just a fact.
Michael, Austin is making a statement based on his knowledge of a particular subject. His knowledge base and your knowledge base are entirely different but that doesn’t make either of you wrong.
Please read their statement below. Their work is about race. Certainly not all their work, but if it were “about all people” as you have suggested, they would not make special reference to African people or their descendants. This is unusual in the Orthodox Church. However, that doesn’t make anything they say wrong. But neither is Austin wrong.
We’re not judging their hearts here. We are expressly told not to judge the hearts of other people and this is true even in those cases where we find people particularly worthy. Let’s put aside our judgments about their hearts and take what they say at face value.
Position Statement of the Executive Board
Since the much politicized murder of Mr. George Floyd, the Fellowship of St. Moses the Black has been a sought-out resource for Orthodox Christian people to process, understand, and bring grace to what is happening in our nation today. As the Fellowship now has a much broader sphere of interactions, the Executive Board thought it timely to state, more definitively, who we are, what we stand for, and what we do.
The Fellowship is a pan-Orthodox body made up of Orthodox Christians in good standing. As such, we embrace and re-echo the timeless teaching of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
In our faith we are traditional; we transcend politics, being neither conservative nor progressive. We embrace the teaching that life is a gift from our merciful Creator, to be reverenced and protected “from conception to resurrection.” In upholding this truth, however, we do not focus on political strategies for the saving of life and lives.
We proclaim the roles that Africa, and African saints and righteous ones, have played in the unfolding history of the Church from Old Testament times until today. We share the lived experiences of Africans and their descendants in the Americas both in suffering and oppression, and in the resultant spirituality that has drawn nigh to the spirit of the suffering Orthodox Church.
We are aware that in the world, and among many Christians, upholding the value of Black lives often goes hand in hand with upholding modern, secular views of human sexuality, and advocacy for new gender roles and political philosophies; the Fellowship is not a platform for those discussions or initiatives. That said, the Fellowship has always had men and women working collaboratively in leadership. Moreover in 2020, to emphasize that women are included, we have changed our name from Brotherhood to Fellowship.
In its August 18, 2017 Response to Charlottesville, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the U.S.A. reminded us that “promotion of racial or national supremacy and ethnic bias or dissension in the Church of Christ is to be censured as contrary to the sacred teachings of the Christian Gospel and the holy canons of the Church. It is formally condemned as heresy, the strongest category of false teaching.” Knowing that heresy separates a believer from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, we want to combat racial heresy for our souls’ salvation and to help others in this striving. The antidote is to work towards Racial Reconciliation.
We understand Racial Reconciliation as having three pillars: education, dialogue, and “unseen warfare.” We have various activities to foster education and a common understanding of the history and lived experiences of people across racial boundaries, in the light of the Orthodox Faith. We host conferences; we host or participate in panels, classes, and video presentations; and we produce books. To foster dialogue, we create skillfully moderated places for relationships, sharing, and processing across racial boundaries. These spaces include conferences and local chapters of the Fellowship.
We recognize that Americans are enculturated into a society where race significantly weights the scales of power, wealth, health, education, representation, and justice. No matter how much they may wish to be free of racial or ethnic bias, they are constantly bombarded with stereotypes and negativity; therefore we propose that weeding out this enculturation needs to be an ongoing process. We view “unseen warfare” as the spiritual answer to what some call “anti-racist” work. The four tenets of unseen warfare, from the book of the same name, are:
a) Never rely on yourself in anything;
b) Bear always in your heart a perfect and all-daring trust in God alone;
c) Strive without ceasing;
d) Remain constantly in prayer.
Here are four tenets of unseen warfare for racial healing:
a) We realize that no matter how well-intentioned, we have blind spots about race and will unwittingly hurt people or situations—thus we welcome feedback;
b) As Orthodox Christians we know that we all stand in need of repentance and we rely on God to help us grow in humility, non-covetousness, freedom from anger, and in all the virtues;
c) We embrace this striving for our whole lives, knowing that the work of racial healing is ongoing;
d) We pray for this without despair or giving up hope.
In Conclusion, we of the Fellowship welcome people and outside organizations who are inspired by our Vision and Mission. To those organizations, and also to individuals, we offer one caution: As long as race weights the scales in America, Black people and people of color will “bear their reproach outside the gate”: They will be the targets of scapegoating; their competence and motives will regularly be questioned. Fair-minded friends and allies need to appreciate this aspect of American society. While you may be able to embrace controversial positions without damage to your reputations or your effectiveness in the world, an organization with Black people in leadership walks a very fine line. We ask you to bear this in mind as we collaborate in the work; with open communication on sensitive topics we can succeed in our joint endeavors.
And to individuals we extend this invitation: Orthodox Christians may join us as dues-paying members at the national level. Orthodox and non-Orthodox are also welcome to affiliate as friends of the Fellowship. Orthodox faithful may also wish to join a local chapter or inquire about starting one if there is none nearby. Our annual conferences are open to all and recordings of past conferences are available on our website and social media pages. And to everyone we say, join us in prayer for this Godly work.
I’m at a loss. Where are these values coming from? I read the Old Testament and see God and His Chosen People, the Hebrews. In the New Testament, I see that St. Paul makes a practice of going to the synagogues first inasmuch as salvation is from the Jews and Christ was sent to the Jews first, then the gentiles. And when the Syro-Phoenician woman caught the edge of His garment, Christ Himself remarked that table food was not meant for dogs.
Moreover, in the Law of Moses, there were two distinct types of servitude ordained by God: one for the Hebrew, one for the non-Hebrew. This came from God directly and was the basis for the distinction between indentured servitude of whites and slavery of blacks in the US. Not only this, but God Himself in the Law of Moses did not allow any convert to ascend to the priesthood up until his blood had been diluted for ten generations in the Hebrew community.
“Phyletism” is not a heresy. Only a local council of the Church, itself racist, condemned it as such in a self serving decree in 1872 which would leave few if any Orthodox jurisdictions within the Church if it were taken literally.
This utter bs must be confronted and end.
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
2 Corinthians:11:14-15
Nice guys don’t impress me. In fact, the more popular someone is, the more I know not to trust him. People who speak unpopular truths impress me. At Paul was pelted with stones and beaten with sticks. These celebrity priests just mill about on the internet.
Thank you. Many years ago I came to the conclusion that it was the job of the Church to make disciples and then to send them out into the world to be his ambassadors in whatever situation God called them to be in. We were to be the salt of the earth. It was not the job of the Church to be a social service club. A great many Christians are simply not educated in what it means to be a Christian. We are no different than non-believers.
Austin, a lot to chew on here but I will instead concentrate on your comment regarding the issue of slavery (read: servitude).
This is a problem that is still not solved today. In fact, it is upheld. By the liberals. What do people think about this whole “open borders” nonsense is about? Strictly speaking, the opening of our borders to any and all fits the agenda of the Oligarchy, which is to create a new servile class in America. One reason is to depress the wages of all native Americans (whether black, white or Amerindian).
It is an abomination to use Christ-like platitudes to enable a greater sin, which is the maintenance of helotry especially when the creation of a servile class is to enrich the very same Oligarchy which profits from such policies.
Helotry.
The exact word.
I strongly agree. The Central Americans are being imported to replace the blacks as the menial labor caste. The stereotype of the Mexican housecleaner used to the the black housecleaner.
You are right, George, re the elite desire to replenish the underclass. The racism meme is more insidious. It is an attempt to weaponize (misplaced) guilt for political gain.
Whites should feel no guilt at all, nor bear any, for slavery. Setting aside the fact that no white living today was part of the slave system, even if we were, there should be no guilt attached.
This is because slavery, in and of itself, is no sin. It was the legal and cultural norm.
The fact that a social construct can be abused is no reason for it not to exist. Parents and husbands can also be abusive. This is no reason to abolish parenthood or marriage. Yes, there were terrible abuses under slavery. And those were sins against the law of love.
Chrysostom even tells us that slavery can be mutually beneficial to both masters and slaves.
Yet it is not just slavery on the table but Jim Crow and the history of anti-black violence in America, particularly the South. But that is a direct result of the anomaly of the multicultural mess left in the wake of the War, abolition and Reconstruction.
During Reconstruction, there was a real punitive effort on the part of Radical Republicans to impose Black Supremacy in the South. The KKK (the original version, I mean) commitment to White Supremacy was a defensive action, as was their terrorist activity. Blacks who had formerly been field slaves were being put in charge of Southern state governments.
Ever since, there has been an animus regarding black empowerment in the South. Yet the presence of two distinct races and cultures ensures perpetual power struggle. Color blind is a fine ideal, but cannot satisfy black aspirations. “Reverse discrimination” is perceived as necessary to “right historical wrongs”.
But at whose expense? Most of those who discriminated are long dead. However, the fact is that blacks, for whatever reasons, do not perform well on average against whites intellectually and therefore without such compensatory discrimination white dominance will endure.
So now we have “systemic racism”. A conscious or unconscious conspiracy against black advancement. But if you want to identify the real barrier to black advancement, look to the research done in The Bell Curve and to the decadence of black culture under the welfare system. Yet all that is taboo or politically incorrect so we don’t go there but are treated to BLM and some fool’s liberation theology.
No. Morals morphed dramatically in America during the twentieth century. We simply cannot accept the new morality as a constant, blame our ancestors or ourselves for newly minted sins and make believe we are not being played.
I will look any black in the eye and reject any attempt to shame me on the basis of my race. They do not deserve anything more than what they have earned or what is given to them in the normal course of charity – just like everyone else.
As to the Confederacy, save your Confederate money, for the South . . .
Misha, although I cannot agree with your assessment in toto, lot of what you say is well-reasoned. If you had to ask me, the worst, possible thing that accounts for the current black pathology is the Great Society programs created by LBJ. While discrimination against blacks existed in the US from the end of Reconstruction (1876) onwards, all one has to do is read Moynihan’s magisterial thesis (published in 1964) to note that black achievement vis-a-vis white was almost parallel in the pre-Civil Rights era. By all metrics blacks were better off. Frankly speaking, it was Welfare that enabled the destruction of the black family.
And no, I’m not being “ray-ciss” in pointing this out. Welfare is destroying the white family as well. Charles Murray (also the author of The Bell Curve) came out with another book two years ago in which he wrote extensively about the destruction of white society.
When Moynihan wrote his monograph, black illegitimacy was 26%. Ten years earlier, it was 15%. Now compare white illegitimacy during that same time: 5% in the 50s. 36% now. This means that the point of no return as far as social stability (pace Moynihan) was an illegitimacy rate of ~20%.
George,
Exactly, agreed. “Racism” is at best a distraction from the real game.
The question is how long blacks can be deceived by the Left. There is a certain tragedy to it. Basically good people of a foreign race have their culture decimated by welfare and are stoked with racial resentment to the point that we have a summer full of riots and increasing political instability.
They, along with Antifa, are being used as the shock troops for the emerging Leftist police state. At the street level, the personal level, I would much rather fight an anti-communist war against Antifa than a race war. It seems they need racial oppression as a rallying cry for the movement to attain critical mass.
Steve Turley describes this a a civil war among the Left,
between the Radical Left and the traditional Left;
as evidenced in the Antifa/BLM storming of the Salem, Oregon Capitol.
It resembles nothing so much as the Kerenskyists v the Leninists.
And that should be instructional inasmuch as the Russian Provisional Government armed the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1917 in order to help them defend against the possible attack of a revanchist general which never transpired. The Bolsheviks never returned the weapons and turned them on the PG a few months later.
A very good lesson regarding the right to keep and bear arms, I’d say.
Christ was angered. (Righteous anger) To deny “feeling anger” creates emotional illness. Neither black nor white nor up or down or East alone or West alone. Life has endless shades of grey.
The anger of God is not at all the same as human anger. God’s anger is dispassionate and patient.
Anger is not an absolute sin, and pretending you don’t have anger just makes it worse, but it’s always a sin to let emotions control you.
Thank you
Great effort post. I appreciate such a detailed response to my query and find much of interest in what you have written.
Well I had something long and thoughtful typed out, but when I clicked “send” it just disappeared without the normal option to edit or delete, so I think there’s a glitch.
The short answer is to read this and decide if it sounds like something Chrysostom or Brianchaninov would say.
https://mosestheblack.org/2020/05/the-glorified-black-body-of-jesus/
I recovered it. You did a great job.
Thank you so much!
Sometimes it seems like us trying to hold back the left is like Cap trying to hold back Thanos in Infinity War. Valiant, but ultimately doomed to fail.
One of the things I picked up from Tolkien’s letters was “the heroic ethic of the Norse” (paraphrase).
In the eschatology of the Norse (Ragnarok), the Aesir (gods) know that they will lose against the Frost Giants, yet they go into battle anyway.
The moral? It is the fight that is all.
We Christians should remember that and thus emulate them. And unlike the Norse, we have the consolation that whether we live or die, our side will be victorious.
It’s not just the Norse that had this ethic
(as Tolkien well knew). One of its finest expressions is
found in the Old English poem of the Battle of Maldon.
Picture the scene:
The English Earl Byrhtnoth had allowed the Norse army, led by one Olaf (probably that Olaf Tryggvason who later became the first Christian King of Norway), passage over the river to the field of battle. After the initial shock, the fyrd (the local levy) had fled and the English shieldwall began slowly to diminish under the onslaught.
When Earl Byrhtnoth fell, his housecarles tightened their ranks and fought on.
As the end approached, one Byrhtwold (an old soldier) cried out in sheer utter defiance:
“Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. ”
A modern English translation reads:
“Thought must be the harder, heart the keener,
Spirit shall be more – as our might lessens.”
However, I think Scots can render it more accurately:
“Heid maun be harder, hairt the keener,
mood be the mair, thoch our micht maun fail.“
PS: There is an excellent discussion of Tolkien’s
attitude to the heroic ethic in:
Maldon and Moria: on Byrhtnoth, Gandalf,
and heroism in The Lord of the Rings
https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1229&context=mythlore
Byrhtnoth at Maldon is compared to Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad Dum,
while the old soldier Byrhtwold is likened to Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom.
Byrhtnoth is critcised for his ofermod (hubris), for his failure as a lord to protect his people; which failing Gandalf does not display – sacrificing himself that the fellowship might live – whereas both Byrhtwold and Sam are honoured for their true heroic spirit in their grim determination to continue, though all hope had gone.
PPS: Let us not forget, precisely the same spirit of duty
in extremis was displayed by the 300 at Thermopylae.
Indeed. According to one source, the Persian emissary told King Leonidas: “Our arrows shall darken the sky, so many of us there are.”
Leonidas replied: “Then we shall fight in the shade”.
Brendan, if you don’t mind, can you tell me which font (or alt+key) use use to get the “thorn” letter to appear in script?
I’d appreciate it.
George, I don’t use Windows and I don’t use Word.
My operating system is openSUSE Linux
and I write with LibreOffice Writer.
There are many fonts which have the ash æ, eth ð and thorn Þ letters.
To type these letters in LibreOffice, I may use Times New Roman,
or Liberation or whatever as the font, but the first step is to open a document and click on the ‘Insert’ menu and choose ‘Special Character’.
I am then presented with a table displaying
lots of letters with 3 boxes at the top.
The first is ‘Search’. Ignore.
The second names the font (say Times New Roman). Ignore.
The third ‘Subset’ box will usually say ‘Basic Latin’.
Click on the box to open a sub-menu with various options.
Select ‘Latin-1’ (on LibreOffice, it’s the one below ‘Basic Latin’) and the main panel will display ash, eth and thorn and a whole lot of stuff besides.
Now, Microsoft Word may not use the exact ‘Insert’, ‘Special Character’ options as LibreOffice does – but it will be something very similar.
You just have to work what it is.
But the ‘Subset’ will almost certainly be ‘Latin-1’
Click on the letter of your choice to select it.
Lastly click on ‘insert’ and you are done.
Generally, I would just type what I want to say in the Writer (Word) document, then cut and paste into the browser at (for example) Monomakhos.
Thanks! I’ll run this by the boss as she’s way more tech-savvy than me.
George’s brain refuses to remember how to cut and paste. What I do is Goggle the phrase “greek word for it’s easy,” as an example, and then copy it and paste it here. Είναι εύκολο
I see. You have a division of labour.
Where George is the strategic thinker, you are the tactical operator.
Where George says: “Make it so”, you make it so.
Hagar the Horrible (my hero) and Helga (Hannah’s heroine)
have a similar relationship. 🙂
I am not so sure. My best friend is a black professional convert to Orthodoxy. We were brought together by God in the middle of Eighth Day Books when I gave him a copy of an Albert J. Raboteau book on Slave Religion. It is a deep friendship but one neither of us quite understands. He has told me he is surprised how this white Kansas boy understands his experience as I do. I am shocked that that surprises him. Still I have run into areas of deep sensitivity that do surprise me. He was shocked that I was a Trump supporter. It was a major strain on our friendship that did not last long, but still…
He has not been to Liturgy for several years because one of or idiot teens called my friend’s grandson a racial slur in the drive through of our Lebanese dinner.
He had completed and passed the Antiochian House of Studies program before that. No small feat.
Michael, that is extremely sad what happened to your friend’s grandson. Shame on the person who did this.
George, I gave up trying to find the person who did it. As a solid fellow parishioner said at the time: “I thought we were past that.”
We weren’t and what my friend has yet to realize is that we will not be until he shows up and becomes a part of the community again.
God forgive me, a sinner
If one’s faith is based on how others treat you, then you never had any faith at all. Faith is not contingent on other humans.
I don’t disagree at all. Having said that, why would anyone want to join a church in which some of the people disregard St Paul’s admonition to be kind to strangers? “Lest ye be entertaining angels unawares”?
Well that’s the common convert complaint about the Greek Church, and I was sort of that way as a new convert, and I came to terms with the reality that it doesn’t matter what old, ornery Greeks think. One old man even told me, “I don’t like converts.” That’s his problem. I came to Orthodoxy because that’s where Christ is, and the judgments of the old established caste in the parish are not my concern.
So yes, I’ve experienced “racial harassment” in the Orthodox Church, and I don’t care at all.
But for the record, yes, I agree, we shouldn’t insult people because of ethnicity, and we should be nice to parishioners who are different than us.
Another thing was the convert sentiment that “oh isn’t it unfair that the Greeks have their language and the word “Greek” on the sign and they play their terrible pop music at the Agape luncheon”, and while that may be true, I realized that “fairness” is a modernist concept that isn’t Orthodox and that almost none of this directly affects me. I don’t like Greek Festival, so I just don’t go. Problem solved. There’s no reason to get offended at the “racism” of Greek Fest.
‘ One old man even told me, “I don’t like converts.” ‘
I wonder, does that include his ancestors?
If not, why not?
Yes, we are called to be kind to all. But when you read the Ladder of Divine Ascent, it’s mentioned about a million times, that we’re also to overlook, and even rejoice, when we’re maligned by others.
Austin, it is not God or even the Church that is the problem, it is the local community. No doubt he is scared. Truth be told I have a similar reaction to the Greeks. The ethnic Arabs in my first parish were no picnic either. Had to leave there it was so toxic.
Forgive me Austin while technically correct, you do not have a clue.
I know in my life there is a big gulf between what is and what should be.
Forgive me, a simner
True. In these matters, the thickness of your skin is more important than the color.
I had a friend back in the 1960s who is black, and a convert to Orthodoxy, in the OCA, who told me he once went to the Holy Trinity Greek Archdiocese Cathedral in New York to attend liturgy. He got in line to receive Holy Communion. There were two lines. He noticed people in line behind him switched to the other line. It was easy to figure out why.
If I were the priest I would have motioned for these people to come back into the line they started in. If they refused, I would refuse to serve them.
Bless you for this, Gail.
Indeed. This kind of activity is an abomination.
Instead of focusing on receiving the Lord, your friend was looking around the church. Amen.
Yes, and another thing should at least be discussed openly, though it never really is. America has always, in terms of power distribution, been White Supremacist. Even at present, the majority of Americans are white. Thus there is no injustice in this state of affairs.
Now, we no longer exclude ethnic minorities from power. But as to what race is supreme here, that naturally would be the white race due to demography. So when people accuse others of being “White Supremacists”, what they are really saying, necessarily, is that such people are resisting Black and Latino ascension to majority status and supremacy. Yet it is perfectly natural for an ethnic group to desire self rule, whatever their color.
And that brings us to the point, which George alluded to above: Multi-kulti doesn’t work. Likes will align and vie for power. Any such situation like America’s melting pot or Europe (with Muslim immigration) is doomed to conflict and polarization.
This, of course, is exploited by the political class to everyone’s detriment but theirs. Perhaps it is better to live in a country where the elite have secured a large degree of homogeneity.
Everyone commenting:
1. Nike Corporation has joined hands with a rap artist. Nike will produce 666 pairs of Satan’s shoes. A pentagram will be on the front of the each shoe. The bottom of each shoe will have 1 cc of human blood in it. The shoes will be sold for $1000. The black rap artist involved in the contractual agreement with Nike bends over in his video and Satan does you know what. Just research Nike Satan Shoes and the black rap artist.
2. Two black teens hijacked an Uber driver’s car. They sped down the block with the driver hanging in the door. They crashed the car and the driver was killed because of their actions. According to the news, one of the girls complained her cell phone was left in the car when the police arrested her. She was “concerned” about her cell phone and cared not that her actions killed a 66 year old Middle Eastern man.
3. Read about this poor white man.
https://www.unz.com/sbpdl/his-name-is-steven-amenhauser-53-year-old-white-male-dies-after-being-set-on-fire-by-two-black-teens-ages-16-and-14/
3. Corruption rules the churches, schools, universities. Marriage is a “thing of the past,” and God’s creation of a man and woman is mocked. We have a satanic government snd news media. Abortions are rampant, and lying snd cheating is accepted. The Empire is eating itself alive. Spit on Satan. Bless yourself. Say your prayers. Avoid evil churches. Read your Bible. Time is short.
News update on the Satan Shoes
w
Nike is suing the rapper. Nike said they never gave permission for their shoes to be modified and sold as Satan shoes with human blood inside the heel etc. https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/nike-sues-mschf-for-copyright-infringement-over-satan-shoes-collaboration-with-rapper-lil-nas-x
I feel there is something deeper to this story going on. Time will tell
Pray for the soul of Steven. May his memory be eternal!
We are a violent country. We are a violent society. Forget race, religion and politics. Start with that.
“We are a violent country. We are a violent society. Forget race, religion and politics. Start with that.”
We’re actually not, if you subtract the crime by blacks and illegals, both of which are directly the result of Democrats and not “society” as a whole.
Well, it wasn’t blacks and illegals who massacred thousands of Native
Americans. And it was white boys in those gowns and conical hats that lynched blacks as late as the 1950s. Then there were the Irish gangs of NYC, the Italian mafia, the Russian mob, who were all white and had few illegals among them. Etc.
Define illegals.
The Natives truly massacred each other before the “whites arrived” (after St. Brendan the Navigator, the Vikings, the Chinese, etc. arrived).
South Africans are killing “whites” in purposefully unreported raids right now.
Have you heard of the UK grooming gangs, where thousands of white girls were repeatedly gang raped, unreported because they are white?
The Celts (France, Spain, N. Italy, etc.) burned widows and children settee-style on funeral pyres when husbands/fathers died. IMO, witch hunts / burning women were a recurrence of this as Orthodoxy fell.
Concurrently, ritual cannibalism was a common bonding practice among Natives in the NE. Lest we mention life in Mexico.
We are violent because of the Fall. If anything, things are getting “better” (though I am not sure for how long). It has nothing to do with race.
Yannaro, what you say is correct. However it’s totally out of context. For that context, please read Michelle’s comment.
So, I was born in Libya on a US Air Force base. Both my parents are Greek, or should I say Hellenic?
I am an American citizen (AA) since birth. By race I am Hellenic. By birthplace I can also be considered African-American (not AA). Does being born on a US Air Force base make me an American by proxy ? How about Hellenic-African-American ? do I get any special benefits ? any preferential entitlements ?
None of the above. It all depends on how you look to others rather than how you feel.
(Today, I feel Italian lets have some calzone! Tomorrow I will feel Chinese, lets have dim sum….after all – you are what you eat 🙂 )
You should see the look on peoples faces when I tell them I am African-American, especially blacks when I explain to them my birth background – but, but! you’re not Black !
Oh but I have a beautiful Greek God tan. Oh! the irony! the hypocrisy!
This whole thing is silly and stupid. Imagine if the Good Lord made us all the same race and color, it would make life very boring, and less to fight over.
Personally in my heart, soul and mind I am born and will die a Greek. If others judge me by the color of my skin – on their heads may it be. I pray that I should never consider anyone by anything other than their character, heart and actions. Amen.
Interesting article: https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/2019/5/30/racial-type-of-the-ancient-hellenes-a-racial-analysis-of-the-ancient-greeks
Molon, one of the most profound things I ever heard was Fr Moses Berry speaking in my (then) GOA parish. He said, upon entering a church (can’t remember if it was Orthodox or not) but seeing all the saints, asking “Where are all the flowers in God’s garden?”
Moral: the world should be multi-racial and cultural. It should therefore have nations. QED: nations should be as homogeneous as possible.
Very well said, Gus.
In the interest of historical fairness, our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution for the new nation for “…our posterity”.
While I am not their “posterity”, my immigrant maternal grandparents and father moved heaven and earth to assimilate in the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture. We wouldn’t have expected anything less of ourselves.
Me, I am a Kansan. I take life from the soil here, life from the largely still unbroken vistas, the winds, the seasons, everything. I have lived at each point of the compass from here but no where else was home. My Father and late wife are buried here, my mother lies all over the bottom of the Arkansas River (pronounced R Kansas). My living wife already has her plot bought and paid for next to her late husband. All I know is that I will be buried either next to her or near my late wife and Father. Either is fine. All bones have fundamentally the same color. Shape is different. We all have the same organs in basically the same place.
I have loved, disliked and tolerated folks of all colors, many nationalities (even a Greek or two).
At my parish we have many different types, colors and sizes just not enough indigenous folk or American Blacks. I was married to my living wife in the United Methodist American Indian Mission and received a Native sealing which is similar to our Chrismation after the official ceremony was over.
So if you are a fellow Kansan, I do not care what else you are if you love God. Better if you are Orthodox, but if you love God you will be at some point. No other choice is real despite our many, many failings.
May Our Lord’s mercy heal us all.
Beautiful, Michael. A true poet. And spoken as a true son of the Heartland.
https://www.helleniscope.com/2021/03/26/karloutsos-announces-his-retirement-on-greek-independence-day/
More shuffling around at the Phanar it would seem. This comment on the post caught my eye:
The “vicar’s retirement announcement coming on the heals of the Archbishop’s recent visit to the Phanar suggests that something nefarious is going on. Or does Elpidophoros finally recognize a liability when he sees one? What’s the real story here? Does Karloutsos’s retirement from active ministry on May 3, 2021 include severing his relationship with the Southampton parish? Stay tuned. There’s more to come.
Petros, you might want to take a look-see at the latest post that Gail just composed.
Meanwhile, in other news:
https://uncoverdc.com/2021/03/31/w-i-m-p-proof-the-election-was-stolen/
It is one thing to steal an election. It is another thing entirely to pretend indefinitely that it wasn’t stolen while leaving mountains of evidence behind you to the contrary. In a free society, it has to come out. So either you close society or eventually you lose.
It’s important to keep this fire burning because it will a) inspire the Left to irresponsible actions/policies and b) destroy them in the end unless they are successful in establishing a police state. If they are destroyed, the race meme is moot. If they succeed, the race meme is law.
Another “Oopsie, looks like this doesn’t fit the narrative!”
https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-prager/2021/04/13/why-the-left-ignores-the-killing-of-a-pakistani-immigrant-uber-driver-n1439476
Regardless, another example of “lying by structure”.