As most of you know, Monomakhos has been unstinting in calling the various institutions of American Orthodoxy to account for one reason or the other. We have long feared (for instance) that the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America was either missing in action when it came to upholding Orthodox tradition or in danger of becoming an outright cheerleader for the Progressive Left (as this editorial by the then-Chancellor of the GOA shows).
Well, it appears that we were a little hasty in our generalization and for this we apologize.
Please listen to this enlightening interview produced by the always-excellent Ancient Faith Radio. In their new and live call in program Ancient Faith Today, Kevin Allen interviews Dr Philip Mamalakis and Andrew Williams from Holy Cross on the issue of Same Sex Marriage (SSM). Mamelakis is an Associate Professor in Pastoral Care and Williams has written a thesis on sexual addiction. This is heady stuff and it speaks well of Holy Cross. As usual, Mr Allen and his interviewees took on a serious subject in a serious way. If nothing else, I was relieved to not hear the same tepid, equivocal happy-talk that has become par for the course. (Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, take note.)
A few preliminary notes: their understanding that we are dealing with “passions” instead of “orientations” shows that their own spiritual formation is predicated upon traditional Christianity rather than modern, secular therapeutic-speak. This is nothing short of courageous for a modern academic to espouse, even those in a Christian setting. For that alone, they deserve our admiration. Such boldness is no small thing today given the dominant culture and its capitulation to the demands of the new Brownshirts.
Kudos to all concerned for daring to call a spade a spade. Of course a hearty thanks to Kevin Allen and Ancient Faith for daring to take on the crucial issues of the day. May AFR’s winning streak continue.
Listen here:
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I’m not nearly so enthusiastic about this interview, for reasons you can read about here.
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I’m afraid I must agree with the deacon.
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We have already lost the fight in the larger culture. The question now becomes is how much pressure will be brought to bear on the Catholics and us to approve the ‘rights’ of homosexuals to act as they please and the Church will be required to ordain active homosexuals, marry them, commune them, etc. or loose our tax status or worse.
Taking a mush-mouth psychological-theraputic approach is just one more way of undermining the teaching of the Church morally and anthropologically. Since Jesus is both fully man and fully God, any wrong statement we make about what it means to be human is also a Christological mistake.
We must be both prophetic and truly theraputic, i.e, offering repentance (life-long if necessary) as a way into the Kingdom even if full healing is not achieved in the world.
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Michael Bauman laments, “We have already lost the fight in the larger culture.”
No we haven’t. We’re just beginning to get serious.
The cultural vices in question are not nearly so prevalent in American society as they were in Mediterranean society when Paul wrote of them in Romans 1. Clearly, Paul did not believe the fight was lost with respect to the larger culture.
Romans 1 was not a shot across the bow; it was aimed below the water line.
I, for one, do not intend to fight this cultural battle defensively. I am confident that I speak for the Touchstone editors in this respect.
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Courageous words indeed Fr. Like Michael, I get rather despondent. Just having to defend common sense is tiresome. But I guess carrying a crossbeam on the way to Golgotha was tiring as well.
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Father, I hope you are correct, but we have no chance in the larger culture if the wolves in sheep’s clothing are allowed to roam unchecked.
I’m quite blessed as I have a stalwart bishop and two fine priests. Prior to being received by the Church, however, I wandered in a strange wilderness and I have seen how damaging wrong anthropology can be to people. Some never recover–physically or spiritually even if they have the opportunity
As a case in point: The post’s on this thread which are mild objections have a combined negative rating 13.
The three members of the clergy who posted have quite good credentials in both intellectual matters and matters of the faith.
Small, contentious sample size to be sure, but good grief folks, wake up! The anthropology that supports the ideas behind the normalization of the same-sex syndrome (how many sub-sets one wishes to divide it into) is not in acord with Orthodox Tradition, not even close. I don’t have to have 1000 supposedly independent studies to know that.
While I realize that the threputic insights of modern psychology can be of benefit when in the correct context, the empiricist scientistic approach is bass-ackwards at best. Empiricism will always miss the soul.
We are not in the hands of an angry God, that is the power behind Christ’s call to repent (of any and all sins and temptations) so that we might enter into His Kingdom and sup with Him.
We have the choice (each and collectively) to be whitened sepluchars or living witnesses.
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While I haven’t listened to the entire podcast yet, Fr. John and Dn. Patrick may be running the risk of, to borrow an expression from George, making the perfect the enemy of the good.
I like what I’ve heard so far. I especially like their willingness to address head-on the tired argument that because divorce and remarriage happen, we must also allow “economy” for sodomy.
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Good points Helga. Mamelakis and Williams are stand-up guys in my book.
On a tangential note, and addressed to nobody in particular, if we were really serious about child endangerment, the Church would not give so many blanket dispensations for second and third marriages. The number of children that are abused as a result of being thrown in a blended family is much, much higher than what occurs in biologically intact monomagous families.
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This is not a matter of policy, where compromise will do; it is a matter of fundamental truth, which can be successfully defended only on the basis of sound anthropological and Christological principles.
Several principles discernable in the interview are manifestly unsound: Allen’s guests blurred the difference between male and female, disparaged traditional sex roles, chastized those who would publicly condemn the sin (“Love the sinner, love the sinner”), and admitted no possibility of actual change in sexual orientation. These all indicate acceptance of key gay/feminist principles that undermine our defense of the truth, which is why we hear Michael Stankovich cheering the interview.
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Any reasonable person will listen to this interview and conclude that two well-educated, well-trained, practiced, compassionate, directive, consistent, ethical, Orthodox Christian clinicians have undertaken a “ministry” among what Deacon Mitchell described on the AIO site as “the enemy”: human beings who are scorned, despised, the focus of cruel derision, and frequently isolated and alone in the very Fountain of Healing itself. Dr Philip Mamalakis and Andrew Williams will not entertain, nor tolerate, nor obviously condone any sexual activity outside Christian Marriage between one man and one woman. They say nothing that contradicts the Scripture, Canons, Patristical Teachings, nor Traditions of the Church.
What’s not to cheer?
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You are mistaken, Michael: “The enemy” are the forces working to destroy the souls of suffering people by denying them hope and truth.
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I ended this discuscussion on the AIO site with Deacon Mitchell, telling him he is grossly unqualified to speak to this issue, and like many “Google scholars,” increasingly dangerous as he scrambles to cover his butt. You may read my numerous unanswered challenges to produce anything by way of support for his silly claims, but I do not recommend you waste your time. It already bored the living hell out of me.
Listen to Mr. Allen’s interview yourself. Do not trust my “cheering” in the least! Draw your own conclusion. If after listening, there is anyone who believes there is reason to impeach Mamalakis & Williams on merit, click “thumbs up” and I will be happy to specifically demonstrate how Deacon Mitchell is full of two types of legume. Otherwise, click “thumbs down” to move on. You cannot vote, Deacon Mitchell.
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You got mad and started calling people names, dismissing hundreds of people much more qualified than you as “charlatans” because they believe therapy can help people change their sexual orientation. That’s how you left the discussion on AOI.
And you still have not retracted your absurd and misleading assertion that same-sex attraction and same-sex sex are “mutually exclusive.”
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1) I did not “get mad,” and in fact anger is not the operative emotion at hand. Try thinking of the “metaphysical anguish” felt by Antoine Roquentin in Sartre’s Nausea
2) If by “calling names” you refer to me labeling NARTH “charlatans,” and demonstrating to you that they are considered by no reputable scientific body to be other than “charlatans,” than I suppose the burden of proof was on you to correct me.
3) They are most certainly not more qualified than me. It is you who are shameless, prideful, and dangerously unqualified to speak to these issues. You do not understand the underlying bio-genetic and medical issues at discussion; you do not understand the dynamics of research design, research protocol, and data analysis; and you rely on the “review” of disreputable sources to formulate your “learned opinion” because you could not pick up the original research (if you even knew where to find it) and interpret its conclusion and recommendations yourself. What exactly qualifies you, Deacon Mitchell, to speak to the complex bio-genetic and psychiatric dynamics of Orthodox anthropology? ничего.
You scolded Mamalakis & Williams and claimed “plenty of scholarly research and clinical experience” to impeach them. I asked for three (3) legitimate examples from among “plenty,” and you could provide none. I raised numerous issues solely of merit regarding NARTH and others you quoted – even presenting you with data from the research you quote but did not read – and you move in another direction. Never do you address an issue of substance. That is how I left the discussion on AOI. And it is with the same reasoning I will not pursue “fool’s gold” here.
Deacon Mitchell, you are the east coast distributor of Shinola.
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MS, I find myself agreeing with you here re the methods of Mamalakis and Williams. I disagree with your critique of Dn Mitchell however. The problem as I see it is one of tactics employed for case in question. Having said that, I find myself agreeing with Dn Mitchell regarding therapies involved in changing sexual orientation. Where I disagree Deacon is that there can be a difference between same-sex attraction and same-sex relations. Although the first may lead the second, it is not a prerequisite. In prison for instance.
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George, you and I don’t disagree on same-sex attraction and same-sex sexual relations. It is possible to have one and not the other, but that does not make them “mutually exclusive.” To be “mutually exclusive,” it must never be possible to find both at the same time.
Insisting emphatically, as Michael did on his website, that the two are “mutually exclusive” is absurd and misleading, and Michael STILL has not owned up to this error, which I think pretty much discredits him as any kind of authority on this issue. He is simply not thinking straight or playing straight with the relevant facts and logic.
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Dn, forgive me for the lapse in logic. My point was that SSA was not a necessary precondition for SSR. My point about prison rape for example where men have homoerotic relations with each other because there are no available females.
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Well, given the state of the culture and the level of despondency, I propose we vote on cancelling Pentecost this year. Mr. Bauman, I would hope you will volunteer to tally.
From the Aposticha of the Vespers of Pentecost:
The Holy Spirit is light and life and living, a spiritual spring.
The Spirit of wisdom, Spirit of understanding; good, right, spiritual, sovereign, cleansing faults.
God and making divine; fire and proceeding from fire, speaking, working,
distributing the gifts of grace;
through Whom all the prophets and Apostles of God with the Martyrs have been crowned.
Strange tidings, strange sight: fire divided for the proper sharing of gifts!
Who could possibly tolerate the inexpressible joy of what the Fathers describe as “fulfillment of the promise and the appointed time,” the “final feast” where “all gifts are given”? Or where the Fathers are teaching us that we are, “clothed with might from above,” and upon us the “Comforter Spirit has been poured out”; we “have been counted worthy of the divine light,” “standing before [Him], having cast away despair into the sea of [His] mercy, “asking that He, “govern my life, by the ineffable power of [His] wisdom, Who governs all creation by a word, and Who are the safe haven of the storm-tossed.” It is the Spirit that, Himself, brings us “remembrance of the saving words which Christ heard from the Father and told to the Apostles,” reconciles “creation that was estranged” to now “sing of [Him] as blessed!”
Dr Philip Mamalakis and Andrew Williams are what you would expect in clinicians: knowledgeable, respectful, firm in their practices but committed to patient dignity, and doing no harm. I am grateful to Mr. Allen for delivering the subject in a practical, straightforward manner.
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Eschatologically I am hopeful. Existentially, especially in the short term, not so much. All the more reason to celebrate actually.
Still, just because the victory has been won, doesn’t mean that a whole lot of suffering will go on that need not be.
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Well, it is St. Chrysostom who said, “No longer fear your journey through the desert, for it is not Moses who leads you, but Jesus Christ.”
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Mr. Stankovich, thank you for the correction. I appreciate it. You are quite right.
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Father Reardon is correct about Rome in Paul’s day. In fact, Paul during his lifetime lived from Augustus to Nero. Suetonius who was kind of the Procopius of his era wrote about incest, homosexuality and other scandals of the twelve Ceasars. Suetonius on Julius Caesar according to his political enemies everyone man’s women and everyone women’s husband. Claudius made popular by the BBC I Claudius series based pn the Robert Graves novels married a niece who was Nero’s mother.
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The following is a excerpt from a post over on AOI by an anonymous poster who is struggling with SSA:
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The two (so far) who gave a thumbs down on my post of the quote–I have a question–what in God’s name is objectionable?
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Those who care to read more of this person’s story: http://www.aoiusa.org/blog/reflections-ancient-faith-today-progam-understanding-samesex-desire/#comment-24139
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I am grateful to Andrew and Philip for this work. What they offer is absolutely necessary for our times. I believe there was much that could have been clarified, but it was live, had time restraints and they want to reach the people they need to. My big question was more Philips answer of a convert coming to the church still living in sin-I think it was something of that nature. I would find it misleading if anyone tried to bring a person into the church without making it perfectly clear that they were living in sin, must stop and prepare before entering. The Samaritan woman was taken into the church, but she was changed, she was repentant, never to return to her ways. There is no further story of her living her former life after she came in. This is a good example for us. But this story is often so twisted into take in the sinner right away even if they are still living in sin. This can be misleading for the sinner and those observing. It sends the wrong message and can be confussing to people who themselves are trying to deal with their own sins. Also Andrew and Philips work can only thrive if the Churches are doing their job in teaching the laity from the pulpit and in studies where the Churches boundaries are. There is much more to say, but I am out of time . . .
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