Comments Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse
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Basil, the increase in violence is the change in culture and all the talk about restricting guns is dealing with symptoms, not causes.
Life became expendable many years ago and the shootings at Sandy Hook and elsewhere (the streets of Chicago for example) reflect a deep moral sickness that isn’t caused by lax gun laws.
Peggy Noonan has it right back in 1999:
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 28, 2012 @ 7:47 am
It may not be intransigence but a recognition that gun control laws won’t curb the violence. The violence may be due to other cultural factors. Take England for example:
Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 27, 2012 @ 9:42 pm
Lola, yes, that is one of the reasons that contributed to the crisis. Local pressure against locating the homes in neighborhoods was so great that it was very difficult to relocate the mentally ill. This should have been examined before the Carter legislation was passed but it never was. As a result many of the mentally ill ended up homeless.
I’m not as cynical about the neighborhood reluctance as you are though. Neighborhood culture requires discipline and resolve to maintain safety especially for families with young children. If I were single it would not be much of a concern. As a father with a younger daughter however, I want to know who the neighbors are.
The real failure in my view was that the legislation did not anticipate this.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 22, 2012 @ 9:32 am
Why is it we as a people can’t look at policy failures and just review and adjust for the sake of humanity
Policy failures are not reversed when intentions rather than results are used to promote and justify them.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 22, 2012 @ 9:13 am
Amos, incorrect. Deinstitutionalization began under Carter with the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 where federal money would set up local centers to help people with mental illness. It never happened.
See:
Pres. Jimmy Carter: Mental Health Systems Act Remarks on Signing S. 1177 Into Law
October 7, 1980Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric Titanic
This was the start of America’s homeless problem as well.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 22, 2012 @ 9:11 am
This was a federal mandate under Carter. The idea was to open up community homes in neighborhoods. Never happened.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 19, 2012 @ 8:52 pm
More from Russia, Not with Love
Peter, very well said.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 12, 2012 @ 9:35 pm
Moral equivalency occurs when moral distinctions between two views are collapsed in order to posit a third way. It deals with politics only to the extent that political programs draw from a deeper view of human nature, culture, and so forth. It is not restricted only to political questions however.
Your exposition of the ostensible weaknesses of both OCANews are vague, imprecise, and calculated more to create an appearance of moral coherence of the third way rather than offering any substantive critique of either venue.
When you depart from that approach however and offer factual critiques your points are strong. That is the approach that George endorses and he has corrected himself when the facts prove him wrong. That too is a critical and crucial difference between OCANews and Monomakhos.
And yes, Artie the Great is definitely o’ δεσπότης.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On January 5, 2013 @ 1:20 pm
Here are two examples of what moral equivalency looks like:
In reality both ocanews and monomakhos often have eerily resembled a serialized soap opera, to which the viewer tunes in daily to have his emotions engaged, confirmed and manipulated according to expectations, thereby escaping from the banal or troubling realities of what really ails us.
Why bother to quibble about this, other than sheer cussedeness on a rainy Saturday? 1. Because these blog proprietors, and we saw it over and over with Mark Stokoe, have a serious tendency to try to pull the wool over our eyes when axe grinding or imposing their fantasies on the attempt to have serious discussion about the life of the Church…
You are positing that there is no functional difference between OCANews and Monomakhos. I don’t agree for this reason: George’s forum is unrestricted.
For example, look at your words in your short paragraph I quoted above. You accuse George of:
1. trying to pull the wool over your eyes,
2. axe grinding,
3. imposing his fantasies on you,
4. impeding serious discussion.Those are real charges, all false in my opinion but real nonetheless.
Has George ever stopped you from posting your opinions? Never. So how can he be guilty of the charges you lay against him? Further, if you really believe the charges are true, where is the evidence and reasoning that they are? George won’t stop you from making your case.
We also see the readership differently. You write (quoted above) that OCANews and Monomakhos readers like to “have his(sic) emotions engaged, confirmed and manipulated according to expectations…” in order to relieve an otherwise “banal or troubling” life.
I find that characterization both wrong and disrespectful. I see the contributors engaged in Church and culture including those with whom I have differences of opinion.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On January 4, 2013 @ 9:47 am
Fr. George,
I think the attempt the attempt to create a moral equivalence between Monomachos and OCA News is flawed.
I think the attempt to infantilize the readership of both sites is disrespectful to the readers.
I think the concept of “drama creation” is pulled out of thin air and your employment of the Orthodox moral vocabulary to grant it an air of legitimacy is irresponsible.
I listen to Orwell (see: Politics and the English Language) and I apply his lessons to ecclesiastical discourse as much as I do political and cultural discourse.
So when I hear statements like “renewing the mind” or “…the problem of illusion, prelest, logismoi, is recognized by Orthodoxy as deadly” bandied about, I don’t assume they are properly applied just because they are drawn from the moral tradition. Ecclesiastical language is as easily abused as any other kind and often is.
I’m a free speech guy. I believe the give and take of open discourse is a safeguard against tyranny, especially the tyranny of political correctness which is always a precursor to the tyranny of states and other authorities.
George is a free speech guy too. That’s why he allows unmoderated criticism of his views. OCANews did no such thing.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On January 3, 2013 @ 8:36 am
In reality both ocanews and monomakhos often have eerily resembled a serialized soap opera, to which the viewer tunes in daily to have his emotions engaged, confirmed and manipulated according to expectations, thereby escaping from the banal or troubling realities of what really ails us.
I am going to deconstruct this sentence by taking out the editorialized language in order to find the proposition informing it. Here goes:
OCANews and Monomakhos are like a soap opera that offers readers emotional stimulation and both confirms and manipulates their biases, and thereby masks the real problems facing them.
Does that cover it?
If so, then the sentence is not really about OCANews or Monomakhos. It’s about their readership. But if the readers are really as ignorant as you say they are, then why are you commenting? Or do you exempt yourself from the charge?
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On January 2, 2013 @ 2:05 pm
You tell us Michael. Is it better for the self-deceived to believe what they write … or not? And please explain.
I am trying to figure out what the question means.
If a “self-deceived” person doesn’t really believe what he writes, then he is not self-deceived. He is instead a liar.
If a person really is self-deceived, then who can he not write what he believes?
To explain?
What you are asking doesn’t make any sense.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 24, 2012 @ 6:36 am
Just simply explain why it was necessary to read aloud the churches stance on homosexuality. . .
Why was it necessary? Simple. To show that the Church does not swim with the cultural tide that seeks to normalize homosexual behavior. It’s the same reason why the Church is clear about the immorality of abortion and other hot button topics.
. . . and what exorcised our leaders to do it unless you expect me to be like a lemur and call it disobedience if I don’t jump.
I think you meant ‘exercised’ and ‘lemming.’ Nonetheless, there is no need to jump. It’s clear that you heard the teaching which was the intent of the letter. If there was no attempt to normalize homosexual behavior in some Orthodox quarters, then no pastoral letter would have been necessary.
Don’t confuse episcopal directives that make clear the teachings of the Orthodox moral tradition with pastoral practices one on one. They are similar in moral substance but differ in tone, approach, and application.
Take abortion for example. The prohibitions against abortion are clear. Yet the Church does not shame or humiliate a man or woman involved with it. Instead it seeks their healing. If a pro-abortion activist started teaching that abortion was moral however, then a directive is needed in order to keep the teachings of the moral tradition clear.
It’s the same with homosexuality. The Church does not shame or humiliate anyone dealing with same-sex attraction. But if someone was to rise up and say the moral tradition grants moral parity to same-sex couplings as it does heterosexual marriage, then he would have to be corrected and the proper teaching brought forward.
Of course it’s the Bishop’s call whether or not to issue a directive. We might not like that, but we don’t have much say in the matter. If you think the Bishop is wrong you are free to disagree but don’t expect him to give you a call before he issues the next one.
If you feel the bishop is teaching error, that’s another matter entirely and a challenge might be needful, perhaps even blessed. However, the letter explaining that homosexual behavior is intrinsically immoral is squarely in line with the moral tradition. Not much to disagree with there unless one wants to change the tradition and follow, say, the liberal Episcopalian track. In that case it is probably better to become Episcopalian rather than drag the culture war into the Church.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 18, 2012 @ 4:49 pm
The Apostolic Mission of Bishops: A Short Reflection
As Francis of Assissi said “Preach the Gospel. Everywhere. At all times. To Everyone. In every circumstance. And if absolutely necessary, use words!” Perhaps this is what Dr.Nassis is saying– and this time we will use St. Paul– A bishop must be apt to teach…..when necessary, using words if all else fails.
St. Francis never said this.
The truth is the Gospel cannot be comprehended unless it is first spoken. How shall they hear without a preacher? So, no, it’s not “if all else fails.” It begins with the preaching. Peter preached, and then the Lord added to the Church those that would be saved.
And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Then those who gladly[a] received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them (Acts 2: 40-41),
The Gospel constituted the Church in the beginning and it constitutes it anew in every generation. That’s why it must be preached.
Even our liturgical forms affirm this. The Gospel is read and taught (preached) before the antimension is unfolded.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 30, 2012 @ 2:35 pm
Someone who comprehends the natural lyricism of English.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 30, 2012 @ 2:13 pm
Ron Paul’s Valedictory: Good-bye to Liberty
Put that way I see what you are driving at.
I rarely agree with Ralph Nader but on Obama’s foreign policy he is dead on:
“He’s gone beyond George W. Bush in drones, for example. He thinks the world is his plate, that national sovereignties mean nothing, drones can go anywhere.”
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 2, 2012 @ 10:52 pm
Dear Sinner,
Michael Bauman is right. Each baby is born into a family. It comes from another human being and derives its identity from those who raise it. The notion of an “individual” is a false construct, a fiction really. No man is an island – that sort of thing.
Consequently, there is no such thing as an individual Christian either. All people require community. It is written into the very fabric of creation. Anyone who isolates himself from community loses his sense of self. Individual particularity is a function of community because no one person is self-sufficient of the needful things.
When the gospel is preached to all nations, it means the gospel is to be preached to all people the world over. The believers constitute a new nation that is in effect trans-national.
If a nation has people who seek righteousness, that nation is favored by God the scriptures tell us. But this is a function of concrete communion with the Risen Christ that manifests itself as obedience to Him. Dynamic life in Christ then can renew a nation, but to preach the gospel to the nations means to preach to the people who comprise it.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 30, 2012 @ 2:56 pm
Logan, read the article again, then read this:
Be careful of unexamined assumptions.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On December 2, 2012 @ 10:39 pm
Lex, the deep south (red) states are in the bottom quartile on just about any metric measuring health of the population, education, and economic well-being.
You sure about that?
Blue State Schools: The Shame of a Nation
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 30, 2012 @ 1:41 pm
Midwest Clergy Wives to Synod: Keep Matthias Out
Yes Harry, you are on the wrong side of this. If my bishop did that, I would demand his resignation too. (I have a bishop who would not do something like Matthias did fortunately. And he would not stand for it with his priests either.)
Every time something like this happens, all priests are affected. It makes us all look bad and raises doubts among the faithful about our own faithfulness.
Words really matter. Language shapes relationships. Bp. Matthias was constructing a relationship wholly inappropriate for a priest and parishioner.
What I find most offensive is that he used the authority of his office to manipulate the woman. In my eyes that is a very grave infraction, perhaps even a deep sin. Priests do indeed have an authority, and it is given to us by God to bring people into the concrete and tangible presence of our Risen Savior Jesus Christ. That’s what priests do, the good ones anyway. And when you do that, the encounter with Christ that the person experiences becomes a well spring of healing and strength for him. Lives really are transformed.
I’m embarrassed, even angry, that a man of his authority and standing in the Church would do that especially to a young person seeking out Christ. The world is descending into the deepest moral confusion and we see a young person turning to Christ in the midst of it. Then a man who ostensibly represents Christ takes that trust and turns it toward himself instead. That is something I just cannot reconcile because it is flat out wrong.
When you see someone misusing his priestly authority for private gain he needs immediate reproof and correction. When you see a Bishop using his authority for private gain, he needs to be removed. Yes, I know it sounds harsh but bishops are the ones who are supposed to be teaching this and not the ones who are still in need of being taught. If he doesn’t know this or can’t extend the discipline or self-control necessary to walk in the Spirit of God as St. Paul says, then he never should have been made a bishop in the first place.
I don’t wish the man ill and every man is more than his sin. But I am more concerned with protecting the integrity of the priesthood which has taken a lot of hits over the last few years. My hunch is that a lot of the good OCA priests would agree with me.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 11, 2012 @ 11:42 pm
Have We Reached The Tipping Point?
If this happens nationwide and the Catholic Church starts to pull out of the medical or hospital service industry the drain of the State and Feds would be so hugh an exemption would be had.
What makes you think so Peter? The state will 1) institute rationing, and 2) borrow more. If the moral or religious liberty arguments are not compelling to the liberal wing, then economic arguments certainly wont be, especially given the Democratic penchant for borrowing.
I think the HHS mandates are a deliberate attempt to weaken the moral authority of the Catholic Church in the culture. If it was anything else, then “political cover” would not be necessary and Obama could reverse the decision and bask in the praises of his magnanimity. Heck, I’d throw him a bouquet or two.
No, this is culture wars stuff, like forcing Catholic Charities to perform gay adoptions in New York State. An exception could have been made there just as easily but state authorities refused. It was more important to normalize homosexuality.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 20, 2012 @ 12:33 am
Peter, you arguments are a counter-point to the Christian Right’s ideas of the founding of America. As a result, your arguments suffer from the same flaw that theirs does: if the founders were not “bible-believing Christians” that is, if their faith was not a personal expression of being born again and so forth, they were not really Christian.
But it doesn’t work that way. Freedom depends on virtue, and a non or even marginal believer can be virtuous. In a society where the cultural consensus is Christian, this is relatively easy since the culture (individually, institutionally, legally, etc.) by and large affirms the Christian moral virtues. (Ironically, it is probably harder for a Christian to be virtuous today than a non-believer in the earlier centuries.)
So it doesn’t matter if a Founder was a Universalist or even in Jefferson’s case, an outright skeptic. The virtues were still there.
This is reflected in the Enlightenment ideals as well. While the revolt against the Church would cause great damage down the road (Rousseau and the Jacobin Terror for example), freedom as principle was still drawn from Christian wells. That man is created to be free is virtually exclusive to Christianity even though longings for it can be seen in almost all religions and mythologies. Of course the Enlightenment revolt, as least among the radical philosophes was really a revolt against Christian metaphysics even though the virtues justifying it were drawn from Christianity. A son cannot change his father, even if he hates him.
Of course the Founders were not radical overthrowers of Christian metaphysics. In fact, Jefferson, when he saw the effects of the Revolution first hand, soundly repudiated it. That’s what makes the American experiment unique and why the comparisons between the Enlightenment on the European Continent the America ideals have to be drawn with exceptional care.
The genius of the American founders was the recognition that liberty and virtue work hand in hand. And virtue was grounded in the transcendent — in nature’s God who revealed “self-evident truths” — as they penned it. This transcendent claim was asserted by all the Founders, even those who might fail the test of a Christian fundamentalist living today, but it should not fail our test — or yours.
Solzhenitsyn made the same point in his Harvard Address. I wrote an essay that expanded it a while back called Orthodox Leadership in a Brave New World.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 17, 2012 @ 10:42 am
Peter, Rousseau’s ideas fueled and justified the French Revolution, the West’s first experiment with totalitarianism. Rousseau placed the locus of Adam’s fall in his socialization rather then the Garden, thus opening the conceptual ground for the retooling of society by the State to restore Eden by creating the New Jerusalem on earth. He saw heaven (which he conceived as a just and perfect society) as a temporal possibility and set about to build it. In other words, if the socialization was the cause of the Fall, then resocialization could reverse its effects. The State was the agent of change in this scheme.
You are reading Christian notions of virtue into Rosseau’s ideology. Rosseau was dependent on a Christian world view (as were the American founders), but he had no room for the transcendent. The State was the source, judge, and guarantor of human rights which led in his time to the Jacobin Terror, just as it led to the Marxist terrors in our time.
Rousseau’s philosophical ideas are expressed theologically as Calvin’s descramentalized universe. Mix these two and you end up with radical secularism, exactly where we are today.
If there is no reference to the transcendent (secularism reduces faith to private mythology), then here too the State becomes the agent of change. We see this most clearly in, say, gay marriage for example. Gay marriage is against nature (same sex couples are naturally infertile; they cannot produce children). Yet the State, in decreeing gay marriage as morally legitimate, separates morality from nature and thereby arrogates unto itself an authority over nature. It has effectively become the source and judge of human morality and relationships. This was inconceivable even under the most radically secularist regimes like Soviet Russia.
Rousseau had five children. He refused to raise them and put them all in an orphanage which in France during his time was a virtual death sentence. He, like so many egalitarians, loved humanity. It was real people he had trouble with.
This book is a must read:
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 17, 2012 @ 9:39 am
Why are you defending Obama? When it comes to war, Obama is Bush on steroids.
New Stanford/NYU study documents the civilian terror from Obama’s drones
New research shows the terrorizing impact of drones in Pakistan, false statements from US officials, and how it increases the terror threat
From the article:
…Obama is claiming the power to decide who should be killed without a shred of transparency, oversight, or due process – a power that is being continuously used to kill civilians, including children – and many of these same progressives now actually cheer for that.
This man is dangerous, as we see with illusions surrounding the “Arab Spring”, particularly with progressives. There is no real difference between neo-con and liberal foreign policy except the the liberals tend to be more hawkish.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 15, 2012 @ 9:12 pm
Babies don’t survive abortions? Sure they do. That why Congress passed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
Obama not effectively pro-abortion? Of course he is.
Top Obama officials can’t think of any abortion restriction Obama supports
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 11, 2012 @ 10:17 pm
George, just a clarification.
It’s a conceptual impossibility for a post-Christian culture to return to paganism if by the term you mean polytheism. Only a monotheistic culture can produce secularism and its offshoot atheism since both presuppose only one God.
I think what you meant was that the breakdown within the culture of the Christian consensus results in moral breakdown as well. That’s true and it is also true that our breakdown increasingly resembles the society of, say, ancient Rome. But it won’t become pagan.
The future of Western Culture absent of any restoration of its Christian foundation can only lead to nihilism (the elevation and celebration of death). This will be very difficult to bear so post-Christian man will chose the tyrant or perhaps even Islam.
Somebody told me last week that St. John Maximovitch said shortly before he died that what was happening in Russian (Soviet Communism at the time) would happen in America but worse. I don’t know if the quote is accurate or not but I would like to find out.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 10, 2012 @ 11:57 am
loh,
The reasons vere varied and they built up over the years. The straw the broke the camels back was when the NCC homosexual contingent became more radical and Bob Edgar went along with it.
This is from another article I wrote (The United Churches of Castro) that explains it:
Most informed Orthodox have always been uneasy of the relationship with the NCC but reasoned that an imperfect relationship might be better than none at all. However, when word got out that NCC President Rev. Bob Edgar was actively courting George Soros and other like-minded benefactors, the Antiochian Orthodox Church took notice and began to ask questions.
Then Edgar signed a declaration against gay marriage along with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the National Association of Evangelicals, causing outrage in his Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender delegation. They demanded he change his tune, and Edgar dutifully complied. He apologized, removed his signature, and assured the delegation that the NCC stands behind gay marriage. The proved the last straw for the Antiochian Orthodox.
(Soros is an atheist but he funds the Christian left. Jim Wallis of Sojourners was exposed a few years back for taking Soros money.)
The Greeks and OCA stay in it because the NCC Orthodox participants are by and large hard left. Keep in mind that most of the laity have no idea what the NCC is so the participants get a free pass for their involvement. I think a big part is that it makes them feel part of something bigger. You get some perks and freebies too like trips, and so forth. Trips are always good when someone else picks up the tab.
The NCC has always displayed an exaggerated sense of self-importance but the people involved with it never saw that. They had a good share of critics, including me. I’ve written a number of critical essays that were published here and there. Now I ignore them. They have descended into functional irrelevance, where they belong.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 5, 2012 @ 6:02 pm
I wrote an article on the Antiochian withdrawal from the NCC for Touchstone a while back:
It outlines what the NCC has done in recent years and why the Antiochians left it.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On November 1, 2012 @ 12:55 pm
This looks like the seepage of the OCA’s affiliation with the National Council of Churches (NCC). The NCC fancied itself as the apostles of cultural leftism in American theological circles for nearly fifty years, fusing together Marx and Christianity. The old timers can’t let it go.
The NCC is teetering on the verge of insolvency and will soon be swept into the dustbin of history. No tears shed there. They were loud apologists for Communism during the Cold War, a real disgrace to free thinking people. They always sided with the totalitarian oppressor.
You would think that the OCA would have repudiated these American apologists for totalitarian oppression given its Russian background. It never did. Only the Antiochians saw the moral and intellectual bankruptcy and pulled out.
Once someone fuses Marx and Christ, it captures his mind like a drug. “Radical social and economic changes” has that Boomer echo to it; old men who spent a lifetime searching for the secular savior that enthralled them when they were young. Ever notice that the “radical nuns” in the Catholic Church are always old women? Same dynamic.
You can’t resuscitate a corpse. Time to bury these failed ideas.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On October 30, 2012 @ 12:46 am
The Man from Flyover Country: A Debate Post-Mortem
«« Back To Stats PageYes, they would have Harry. The neo-con establishment was all behind it (The Weekly Standard and so forth). When liberals go to war, you can be sure the neo-cons are right behind them. The only war a liberal does not like is one started by a neo-con, although that changes as soon as the Republican neo-con is replaced by a Democrat. That’s what we saw with Obama’s election. There was not a peep of objection from the liberal side about the expansive interference into Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
Neo-con’s are waking up to the Egypt-Libya-Syria debacle though. I heard Fred Barnes speak when I was in Washington a few weeks ago and he is expressing doubts about the entire “Arab Spring” ideology. I challenged the ideology with some movers and shakers about eight months earlier and thought I was going to get thrown out of the room the tension was so thick. Fortunately there was one person there whose specialty was Christian persecution around the world and confirmed my point that the Orthodox Christians were suffering because of American policy. This time around they were a lot closer to reality. It was good to see.
The big question is of course which way will Romney go. We’ll know as soon as we see his picks for his Cabinet. We already know which way Obama will go – quagmire. If it is true that Obama held back protection for Americans in the Libya attack last month, my view is that he should be impeached if he wins reelection.
» Posted By Fr. Hans Jacobse On October 28, 2012 @ 7:16 pm
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