Okay, that’s a cheap shot. But I’m enjoying the Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) spectacle. I suppose as a Christian, I should be sad at his self-destruction. Okay, I’m sad too.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, WHAT WAS HE THINKING!? I suppose Weiner-like crash and burns are inevitable when instant gratification meets social media and the high and mighty engage in juvenile banter with pretty but unknown girls. Or maybe Weiner has weirder hangups. If he was a down-and-out loner instead of a high-profile congressman he’d be plying his trade the old-fashioned way, by exposing himself to unsuspecting women in a public park.
Is that it or is there more? Weiner is also a charter member of The Ruling Class; an arrogant, pompous, blowhard who thinks he is exempt from the rules just like Al Gore, Dominique Strass-Kahn, John Edwards and others thought they were. A wink and nod here, a buried story over there. It’s all part of the game, right? The elite even close ranks to defend their own. Take Roman Polanski. He raped and sodomized a thirteen-year-old girl. The Hollywood glitterati exhorts us that Polanski should be forgiven, that “art matters” as Woody Allen put it. Sorry, I’m not buying it.
This train wreck was set into motion decades ago when the Democratic Left came to the defense of Ted Kennedy after Chappaquiddick. He should have been ejected from the Senate the day after his long-distance swim left a young girl gasping for life in the back seat of his Oldsmobile. They wouldn’t do that. The Myth of Camelot was too important to be shattered by pedestrian concerns like manslaughter. Chappaquiddick taught Edward the Unsinkable an important lesson: no matter what he did, no matter how many waitresses he rutted or how drunk he got in Palm Beach, The Ruling Class would protect him.
This lesson was internalized by others on the Left. It’s become almost impossible to escape from this moral rot that pervades our political culture.
Bill Clinton should have resigned after his adulteries with Monica Lewinsky. Instead, he hung on to his damaged presidency and forced all his supporters into a kind of collective moral culpability. “It’s just about sex” became the mantra. “Just”? Barney Frank should have been ejected from the House when it was revealed that his boyfriend used his home to run a homosexual brothel. Instead he got a slap on the hand. How far have we really fallen?
Sure, immorality doesn’t afflict only the Left. Plenty of conservatives have got caught with their pants down. But they resign. You just don’t see the tortured justifications or the flippant dismissals that you see on the Left. And if you think conservatives wink at Gingrich’s or Guilliani’s infidelities, you haven’t been reading the conservative press.
Does anybody honestly believe that character doesn’t matter? Weiner is a chief architect of Obamacare, a boondoggle that has added a trillion dollars of debt to our economy. Frank was a chief architect of the present mortgage meltdown, an economic crisis second only to the Great Depression. Ever notice that people who won’t impose basic discipline on themselves always impose more onerous burdens on others?
Just a wee tweak on the title of your piece: Weinergate: Erections Have Congress-quences
Let us not forget senator David Vitter. Another fine example of Beltway morality.
Mr. Michalopulos,
Didn’t this begin long before Chappaquiddick? The perpetuation of civilization depends on the attenuation of the male will in each succeeding generation. Even well-ordered pagan societies knew this. Attenuation of the will was accomplished in the secular context through some combination of marriage, military service, and the vicissitudes of agrarian life. (The timing of harvest and planting, to say nothing of hail and locusts, is indifferent to what a man wants.) In the ecclesiastical context, the spiritual warfare of monasticism took the place of the physical combat of military service. (That’s why authentic monastic formation is generally indispensable to a worthy hierarchy.) In the post-modern West, all of these attenuating institutions have been rendered impotent by no-fault divorce, the abolition of conscription, and an economy that confers unfathomable rewards on the manipulation of electrons. (Making a living in front of a computer screen is the furthest thing from farming: As long as the programmer expresses his intent accurately, the computer obeys his will precisely. This bears no resemblance to nature and does not conduce to humility.) The problem, therefore, is not that the ruling class is privileged. Ruling classes have always been privileged. The problem is that the civilizing institutions of society have utterly failed to turn boys into men–and by “men” I mean males who habitually choose to fulfill their obligations rather than their desires. This failure is not confined to the ruling class; it’s merely more obvious in the ruling class, because of their prominence and because they enjoy fewer external economic and social constraints than the rest of us. Anthony Weiner isn’t different from his constituents: He is what the median voter in his district would be, given Weiner’s privileges–as evidenced by the fact that the majority of his constituents want him to stay in office. Chappaquiddick underscores this point: Massachusetts voters reelected Ted Kennedy seven times after Chappaquiddick. He was what they would have been, given his privileges. The sad, horrifying truth is that Congress is a mirror.
Except for the military, I can’t think of a civilizing institution that has adapted successfully to the post-agrarian context. That’s not a class problem: It’s an existential one for Western civilization. I know how corruption gets purged from the Church: through persecution. How does it get purged from all of Euro-American society? I don’t know that it does. God never promised its survival. Any successful purge, however, will have to go a lot deeper than a class distinction between us and the people we elect.
Nomad, you are very much correct. I’m not trying to say that I’m better than Weiner just because I’m poorer than him, but that the Ruling Class encourages such behavior. If I were part of it, I might possibly be worse than this pervert.
George,
I would suggest removing partisan politics-related items from your blog. There are many Orthodox who need to feel comfortable expressng their opinions and quite frankly need to hear your opinions related to the Church – but the politics are a turn off, expecially to Democrats. As you know, there are a large percentage of Orthodox who vote Democratic (for the record, I am not one of them).
In my opinion, the fires of partisan politics are fanned purposely to keep the people divided. In this way, the elite polical establishment will never have their power challenged – and if you are perceptive enough and set aside the politics you’ll see that both parties are working for the same monied powers. The division serves them well, but severly hurts us Orthodox – especially today when we desparately need to come together! Putting articles on Weiner and Coulter do not serve to unite in any way.
Thanks
Does not the holocaust of the unborn alone make that a non-sequitur? No need to sanitize this blog…
Gene, your comment leaves me almost speechless. IF George were to removed ‘partisan politics’ from his sight in order not to offend the Democrats, he could not mention, among other things: abortion, euthanasia, the propganda of climate change, any thing about so called ‘hate-crimes’, the attempt to normalize homosexual behavior, the continuing attempts by politicians to keep traditional relgious voices from the public square. The list goes on and on. Just about every imporatant cultural and moral issue we face as a country either is or could be considered a ‘partisan’ political one.
The is exactly what the liberal/progressive whatevers want to happen. Stop debate because they are soooooooooo offended at just about everything.
Personally, the intellecutal and spiritual incongruity of a committed Orthodox voting for democrats boggles my mind. But I have a couple of really good friends who do it. The abortion stance alone ought to be enough not to vote for the Deomcrat party.
Still think that the Orthodox-ECUSA will be a bi-costal phenomenon largely while the the south and those between the Mississippi River and the Rockies will tend to the more traditional Orthodox belief and practice.
Democracy in the Church; official homosexual toleration/justice; women’s diaconate; “social justice” issues will be the stalking horses of those who want to bring ‘that hopey changey’ thing to the Church don’t you know.
I mean it is so repressive to change to follow the teachings of the Church. So much better to change the Church to fit our needs today, isn’t it?
“women’s diaconate” – What would be wrong with this?
Anon. Women’s diaconate: Sounds harmless, no? Just, equitable. Trouble is, the diaconate is Holy Orders, has a liturgical function at the altar, serves communion and preaches from time to time. It is one step, literally and figuratively to the priesthood.
If women are ordained deacons, women will be ordained to the priesthood. That way leads to apostasy.
BS! Fact is the Church has women deacon’s today and there is probably no point in history when the office was totally vacant. The Russian, Japanese, Romanian, and Bulgarian churches have women deacon’s serving in monasteries TODAY! The office is officially revived in Greece, but I don’t know if it has serving deaconesses today. Our non-Calcedonian friends in Egypt make great use of women deacons.
The real question is should we let them out of the monasteries? And should American jurisdictions like the OCA lift their ban on women deacons?
BTW, a nun visited my parish once and gave the sermon. Was that wrong?
The problem with “women deacons” is that the office is sometimes taken out of historical context, and its responsibilities exaggerated, in order to support women’s ordination. I think that’s what was meant when they were brought up as problematic.
It is abundantly clear from the evidence we have that women never took the liturgical role of a deacon. Deaconesses had a lot of the social roles that deacons had in terms of charitable activity, but their liturgical function was limited to helping the priest take care of the women among the catechumens and faithful, assisting in baptisms and anointings, in order to avoid the scandal that might be caused by men performing those. And nowadays we still have women serving altars in women’s communities, helping the priest. But I have never, ever, seen or heard of one taking the liturgical function of a deacon, only assisting as would a regular altar server or subdeacon.
Helga, right on and extremely correct.
Peter
JD I challenged you to debate this fallacy and you never took me up on my offer. I humbly make the offer again, and am ready willing and able to prove the fallacy of a female deaconate. Do you care to enter the ring with me? The gauntlet is thrown are you willing to pick it up?
Peter
I have been educating myself and do not consider it wise to debate at this time. It is actually, in my limited research, quite a complex issue. The role of a deacon has changed considerably over the centuries and I have found a need to study that as well. The role of the deaconess over time has also changed and is harder to trace because the office has been vacant or near vacant in many parts of the church. Still on learning that the office of deaconess is alive in well in the monasteries of Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Japan I find that I would like to research what role they play in these countries. For example in Romania the second in charge in a women’s monastery is usually a deaconess and she has a special garb. The question I am seeking a definitive answer to is: does a deaconess assist the the priest during a divine liturgy at one of these monasteries in the same way the deacon at my OCA parish assists the priest? For example does she stand at the royal doors and call out Master Bless? Cense the icons? And assist at the altar? The answer appears to be yes!
I’m not so sure. In fact, I would be very surprised if a woman had a liturgical role in any sacramental service at all. I don’t see how this is at all possible because it crosses the sex divide which still holds even in women monstaries.
Women could have reader’s services, in fact any kind of service at all as long as no sacrament is performed. They can read, chant, whatever, but they could not function at the altar the same way a male could, which is to say as priest or deacon. It simply cannot happen anywhere in the Orthodox world so why would it happen in an Orthdox women’s monastery?
I’m not so sure either. But the Orthodox world is bigger than what I have been exposed to I am sure. I do not know exactly what constitutes a “liturgical role in a sacramental service” but I suspect that you might be surprised to learn what Presvytera and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou has to say on the role of women. Starting with the following podcast she continues with about 3 more on the role of women in Orthodoxy. She also reveals that she knows a woman who serves behind the iconstatsis with her bishops blessing and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou defends this. Dr. Jeannie Constantinou has credibility as a GOA priests wife, and a professor of New Testament. She’s also a lawyer and a fiesty presenter!
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/searchthescriptures/leviticus_-_part_five
JDWatton,
I listened to the podcast. It was good too.
By “liturgical role in a sacramental service” I meant any service where a sacrament takes place (Eucharist, Holy Unction, etc.). On reflection I think it was not restrictive enough. Probably the restriction would be any service in which the priest wears his vestments.
Nothing Pres. Constantinou said could be construed as support for a women’s diaconate. In fact, I would not be surprised if she did not support it although I have no real way of knowing.
JD Wattson stated:
“Presvytera and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou has to say on the role of women. Starting with the following podcast she continues with about 3 more on the role of women in Orthodoxy. She also reveals that she knows a woman who serves behind the iconstatsis with her bishops blessing and Dr. Jeannie Constantinou defends this. Dr. Jeannie Constantinou has credibility as a GOA priests wife, and a professor of New Testament. She’s also a lawyer and a fiesty presenter.”
OK so what is your point? I know of her and would still disagree with her on a Woman serving in a sacramental function in the altar. Bishop Kallistos Ware is a highly reknowned Orthodox clergyman and Theologian, but he is 100% wrong in his “Perceived” views on his inclusion of Women in the Priesthood.
How about this. List the people you think support “Woman Deacons” and I will respond one at a time. Sounds fair?
Also, Orthodox practice and belief on this issue is uniformed across jurisdictional and national lines. Many things are said or percieved way out of context. The forces of modernism/neo-paganism are attempting to make in roads in the OIrthodox Church. You can have as many letters by the end of you name as you want, but if it contradicts the Gospel and the Apostolic Tradition it must be confronted and if false put down immediately.
I am willing to conform to any debate rules as you wish. Like I said I have debated this issue, and the so-called “Orthodox Sacrament of Gay Marriage” for several years and will continue to do so in service of our church. I am a nobody, I have no academic credentials, and I am not a fiesty presenter, but I am stubborn. Very stubborn!
Like the quote in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood movie says: “Rise, Rise and Rise again, until lambs become lions.” my voice and words may be soft, and not carrying much weight, but I do not stop, and I make my small voice heard for the good of our church.
I will not allow the rot that has destroyed all the other Christian Churches touch our Church as long as I have a voice, and I still have fight in me. All out of love and compassion, but I will not bend on this or any other issue that is against the Gospel.
Peter
The gloves come off in part six, the follow up podcast, (about 30 minutes into it) and Pres. Constantinou speaks about women deacons, past tense only, and the presence today of women assisting in the sanctuary (altar area):
http://audio.ancientfaith.com/searchthescriptures/sts_2009-12-29.mp3
Here are some choice quotes that I have transcribed, excuse the spelling errors:
“women in fact do enter the sanctuary, have you ever been to a convent? and seen the Divine Liturgy in the church of the convent? nuns enter the sanctuary”
“a deaconess was one of the higher clergy, she was not lower clergy, she was ordained, she wasn’t tonsured”
“there are women who do serve in the sanctuary even today. I’ve known some. they’re very pious. they’re very discrete, they have the blessing of the bishop. we had a woman when Fr. Gosta was 1st ordained in Sacramento which was our first parish. there was a woman who helped in the sanctuary and she was about 50 years old and she had been doing that for a very long time. she was the one who lite the charcoal, who gave the censor to the priest during the Divine Liturgy. she was there during the liturgy. she was very discreet. she did not come out for the processions … and she had the permission of our bishop at the time who was Bp. Melekeous, who was a conservative bishop .. she was married. this was a big traditional Greek parish.”
“In Canada I know a woman, she’s a young woman .. unmarried…she has the blessing of the bishop … so it is not impossible for women to assist in the sanctuary if they have the permission of the bishop.”
Peter it would be a sad “debate”. Since I have no credentials in the church or academia (except irrelevant degrees in mechanical engineering) I would be reduced to quoting from those with credentials: Fr. Hopko, Bp. Ware, Pres. Constantinou and then you would reply with WRONG! or So What? Followed by a quote from moviemaker Ridley Scott. (Was he or Robin Hood even Orthodox?)
I am seeking information on a topic of some interest to me. It is not an obsession. And I see no threats or needs to link the female deaconate to female priesthood or the gay agenda. The historical reality of the deaconess is becoming clearer to me and what I am really curious about is the role of the little known modern (and monastic) Orthodox deaconess in some foreign lands. Peter when I find the utube video of a Romanian deaconess busily assisting the priest at the altar I’ll let you know.
As for Robin Hood being Orthodox I would direct you to the “Orthodox England” website of my friend Mr. Asser who is the Translator of the Psalms of David According to the Septuagint. England and the English were Orthodox for a very long time.
JD, as much as I want to believe that there could be a place for female deacons behind the icon-screen, the danger of apostasy remains too great. ECUSA did not become the laughing-stock it is because it has openly homosexual priests; the horse of apostasy broke out of the barn thirty years earlier when priestesses were ordained.
Being a close observer (and admirer) of Anglicanism and all things British, I watched this descent into madness accelerate after 1976. Heresy became inevitable once it incarned itself into women donning priestly robes. ECUSA was a joke long before the ordination of Gene Robinson, and that poor, deluded fool, Dr Rowan Williams is only accelerating the madness with his desperate efforts to prevent schism within Anglicanism at all costs.
Why do I say this? Because the 97% of the Anglican Communion that is not apostate will eventually be corrupted by North American Episcopalians who will insinuate themselves into their provinces. Decadence always wins out over orthodoxy the same reason that lethargy always wins out over resoluteness. Order never proceeds from chaos without divine intervention.
Peter, which version of Robin Hood do you think had more conservative values? The more recent one or the Kevin Costner one? I’m rather torn in that I think both had classically liberal tropes in them but both were marred by modern politically correct sensibilities intruding in them. Especially the gratuitous Islamophilia that was very much anachronistic.
I listened to part 6 and I still don’t hear a call for women deacons. In fact, I find myself agreeing with almost all Pres. Constantinou said, especially about the sanctity of the altar.
Still, I really want to see this historical evidence for deaconesses. I just don’t think we will find that women filled a liturgical role that we see deacons filling to day. I could be wrong here, but I just don’t see how it could be so.
Further, what’s the need for liturgical deaconesses? Women monasteries never have liturgies without a priest, and priests the world over perform liturgies without deacons all the time.
Hi George:
The more recent one is much more conservative that the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie back in the 90″. You are correct that both movies have a liberal slant to them. If movies want to have this or that slants that’s fine. I’m a grown boy and can figure it out. However, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and Kingdom of Heaven are based on actual historical facts, and both movies interjected a liberal/leftist slant that distorted the underlying history.
So I will say the current Robin Hood with Russel Crow was more conservative of the two, but remember the very story of Robin Hood is just a distribution of wealth story based on class warfare that does lend itself to a more liberal bent. I would have just liked historical accurace with dramatic license added to make the movie fun to watch.
But I do not think Hollywood works that way.
Oh well.
Peter
JD I will pray for you so you do not slip into error. You debate me without debating me. Its very clever, but I see your mind is made up. You unfortunately do not see the agenda that is being pushed and you are a unfortunately going along with it. If you are so interested please read the other side of the story, the real story to help you gain some perspective. Go with God, and may you find the truth you so desperately seek. Debate done.
Yours In Christ
Peter
Deconesses are still alive and well in Russia????? If that were so, why haven’t I seen any pictures? They’re so conservative that simply talking about using modern Russian instead of Church Slavonic will provoke a huge furor. So I find this really hard to believe.
Here is a link for your education. There is a picture. Is she a deaconess and Russian. Don’t know. Lots of icons of sainted deaconesses though:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/deaconess/
And here is the webpage that linked to a Russian page (the Russian page is now dead, unfortunately). But still here is the claim that Russia had and still has deaconesses:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Deaconess
Pretty poor evidence, JD. In fact, no evidence at all. The Ortho-wiki article is unsourced, tendentious, and inconsistent with quite a lot of scholarly research on the subject. Just propoganda, really.
I’ve been reading some of that scholarly research. Lot’s of references to pre-communist deaconesses in Russia but the claim to current status was the 2006 link that is now dead. Of course, to some 2006 would not be current. Anyone looking to me for definitive scholarly information is bound to be disappointed but the angelfire site: http://www.angelfire.com/pa/deaconess/ and this one http://www.orthodoxwomensnetwork.org/ have extensive scholarly bibliographies that I am using. But let’s give the Orthodox Wiki site some credit as it too has references and bibliography that lead to interesting information, some of it even online. I admit that scholarly information is hard to come by online in almost any field. I think that I have been careful to use words like “claims” and “evidence” rather than offer information as scholarly and definitive. This is the internet afterall. Some people even use movie quotes to make an argument.
I read this article The third way and it makes a lot of sense. In fact, I’ve tried to get women organized in my former parish to visit the sick on a regular basis but the truth was most were unwilling to do that and it never took off. Women can be particularly effective with dealing with the sick if you find the right women.
The role of deaconess as it is understood in the article is different however than the way we perceive it. It has more to do with active social service by women. I know in Greece that is already happening. The monastery of Olympia for example has a lot of professionals and provides health care for their entire valley.
Sill, if the term deaconess connotes ordination and service on the altar, then no, don’t do it. If the term means something different, then change the term. I notice the article used the term consecration, not ordination, in describing how the deaconesses were differentiated from other nuns. There is no sense of sharing the liturgical role and responsibilities of male deacons.
Fr, picking up on what the women in Olympia are doing, I think if we are to have a mature Orthodox Church in America, the concept of the ministry should be expanded so that the Laity are much more involved and held to account. This would mean more than just volunteering but active ministry. I think the diaconate should be reinvisioned in such a way, less liturgical and far more ministerial.
Russian Orthodox deaconess alive and well in the Moscow area: http://www.orthodox.org.ph/content/view/466/50/ As in Romania and Bulgaria it appears to be a title for the second in command at a women’s monastery. This is a copy of what was at the original Russian Holy Synod link (now dead) from 2006.
If the visiting nun was blessed to speak and did not speak at the time when the homily is normally given (as an integral part of the Divine Liturgy), I’m sure it was fine. Technically that is not the sermon or homily. If, on the other had, she assumed the role of the celebrant during the course of her offering and spoke from the Royal Doors, yeah, I’d say it was not in accord with the practice of the Church as I understand it.
If memory serves it was at the usual time of the sermon after the gospel reading but she did not speak from the royal doors. She stood at the floor level off to one side. She was also the abbess or became so sometime afterwards.
To think, I was confused a mntiue ago.
Just because the visiting nun gave a speech doesn’t mean that this is evidence for woman’s diaconate. When the nuns were in residence at my parish, if they had a few words to say (especially when they thanked us for hosting them), this only happened AFTER the service was finished and the presiding priest made announcements about parish events, etc.
Just for the record, I’ve seen an abbess give a homily during a Divine Liturgy. It was within her own monastery, and the priest presiding at the Liturgy gave her a blessing to speak, so as far as I know it was all in good order.
I hate the way dots get connected. My aside, prefaced with a BTW, did not connect a woman preaching with the diaconate. It was a reaction to Bauman’s apparent dislike for a woman preaching. I’ve seen a woman preaching in an Orthodox service and I have no issue with it. I don’t see it as a slippery slope to anything.
Michael Bauman writes:
“If women are ordained deacons, women will be ordained to the priesthood.”
This is a correct historical expectation, I believe, and should be taken seriously.
I question even the premise, however: I don’t care who lays hands on a woman’s head. She cannot receive Holy Orders. The attempt itself is invalid.
That is to say, this is not a canonical question; it pertains to the theological structure of Holy Orders.
I would say Father that it is exactly the theological structure of Holy Orders that is under attack by those who fervently press the issue of a female diaconate in the context of the Church’s life here in the United States.
Michael: Wow! That was a big leap from a title to a job description, which I – for one – did not envision. The Deacon does the work you described, but it does not follow that a Deaconess would ever even want access to the Royal Doors, nor that this would be appropriate in any way. There is a historic role for a Deaconess, and I would not advise it expanding any more than I would for a Deacon’s role becoming a mere mirror for a Priest. I am daily astonished to read the comments following my simple question by the participants of this expression space George provides. (Some of the commenters seem to be self-winding – to say nothing of fear-filled.)
In women’s monasteries there is no Deacon, so the nun who works in the alter does assist the Priest, but only in the monastery. Any nun performing this work outside of her monastery would do it only on the request of a Priest – if no Deacon were present, and because she is a tonsured monastic. (A monastic being no longer man nor woman, but of the Angelic rank.) I cannot speak for individule nuns or monks, and likely should not speak at all, but I do believe one-off examples of extraordinary behavior should not cloud this discussion. My own impression is that the reactivation of the Deaconess role is not a slippery slope to a female priesthood.
Here’s the problem Anon. The term “deaconess” is still a deacon. If a female deacon functions as a male deacon only within a monastery, the ordination of deacon is still in effect and the only circumscription is geographical, not ecclesioloigcal. Ordaining a deaconess, even for a female monastery, represents a sea-change in Orthodox practice, IOW.
Nuns working in the altar are an entirely different thing altogether. (I saw this often in Greece.) Never did they assume the role or responsibilities a male deacon would.
One more thing. Be careful about statements like “A monastic being no longer man nor woman, but of the Angelic rank.” The is a strain of romantic idealism in Orthodoxy that just does not square with reality. A human being always retains both his created human nature and sex. Men and women don’t join the ranks of the angels. This is a true of monks as it is for everyone else.
In fact, if you read scripture correctly, men and women are created to be above the angels since angels, as bodiless spirits, cannot partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. But this elevation does not obliterate our created nature or sexual differentiation.
Anon:
Perhaps in a culture that valued the ontological distinctions between men and women it would be clear and easy to define the role and function of women deacons without it being a problem in the sacramental life of the Church. We don’t live in such a culture, in fact we live in a culture that actively seeks to destroy any ontological difference between men and women.
I view the push for the female diaconate as largely coming from the place of wishing to collapse the ontology and from a view that sees the priesthood as merely a position of power, not an office of sacrifice.
Women are certainly capable of proclaiming the word, i.e. preaching but once again the context and the intent are critical.
Some adjustments can and should be made, but it needs to be approached very carefully and very slowly. Shoot, we can’t even figure out what a bishop is and what authority he has in the Church here in the U.S.
Not only does it seem as if they can’t get along with one another, they are afraid of one another.
Michael,
I think there’s a vast difference between partisanship and moral issues.
George’s post reflects partisanship when he writes this “
That’s factually incorrect. What’s more, even if it were true it is an observation that is unrelated to any discussion of morality or values and therefore failing to make such a point does nothing to prevent one from speaking clearly about our moral values and witness. Indeed, making this point simply muddies the waters with an irrelevant and incorrect observation.
And this kind of partisanship bothers me for a simple reason: The GOP and “the Right” is not Orthodox in any sense of the term. They are as secular and serving of Mammon as Democrats and “the Left.” We do ourselves great disservice when we align Christ with corrupt political parties or movements. One does not find “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in any Orthodox teaching, and one does not find “no enemies to the Right” among the Fathers.
Beyond that, Michael, this line
strikes me as a rather poor demonstration of “traditional Orthodox belief and practice.”
+Jonah discovered and came to Orthodoxy in the West, he became a monk in the West, he was on the Diocesan Council in the West right up until 2008 when he became an auxiliary in the South. Clearly those in the South recognized a solidly Orthodox person when they met him.
Out here in the West Orthodoxy is just as alive, thriving and growing in Christ and in our commitment to Orthodox belief, practice and Tradition as it was when +Jonah was nurtured here, thanks very much, and we are not in any sense deserving of your judgement or predictions to the contrary.
Chris, I stand by what I said about conservative politicians resigning (often immediately) after being caught with their pants down: Mark Foley, the other guy who sent his shirtless photo of himself to CraigsList, Gingrich who resigned the Speakership in 99, etc. Do all resign? No, but the overwhelming majority do. On the other hand, we have perverts like Frank who are still in power and Wiener who is doing all he can to hang on for dear life.
As for my demographic analysis, it is painted with a broad brush and is over-general. Certainly wonderful things are going on the West Coast evangelism-wise, but the growth (and maintenance) of Christian sensibilities in the South is still preponderant. (Notice I never said that it would be everlasting –I am merely drawing a picture of what most people see.)
George,
Read your post several times.
To me it boils down to these claims: “Our immoral guys are better than their immoral guys” and “our heretics are better than their neo-pagans.”
Ok. So what? Where’s Christ in all that chest thumping?
Chris, I think you are missing George’s point.
Weinergate is less about Weiner’s private sins than the disgrace he brings to his office. Because he won’t let go of his position, all sorts of justifications have to be concocted that blur the relationship between private character and public life.
This started with former President Clinton and you see it a lot more on the liberal side of the aisle. Overall, conservatives resign faster and avoid the long and drawn out debates because they still have a sense of public honor and trust.
George’s point is about the public culture, not about scoring the private infidelities of either liberals or conservatives. I think George is right. Clinton debased the office of the presidency by refusing to resign, which would have been the honorable thing to do. Weiner is operating by Clinton’s playbook.
Dennis Prager lays this out well in Worse than an Affair.
Not missing anything, Fr. Hans, and not defending Weiner at all.
But when it comes to comparisons, Mark Foley and Weiner have followed exactly the same playbook. It is a matter of time to see if Weiner will eventually resign, as Foley eventually resigned, or if he’ll gut it out like Henry Hyde and go on to a long and illustrious career leading the pro-life movement and dismissing his “youthful indiscretion.” You might remember Henry Hyde, he committed adultery when he was 40 before and during his first term in office, was found out and got re-elected anyhow, and went on to lead the prosecution of Clinton. These guys are all the same, you see?
For whatever it’s worth, however, I found this article to be pretty spot-on:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/nudging-narcissus-toward-the-door/?scp=1&sq=narcissus&st=cse
Hyde’s affair was exposed years after the fact, by the pornographer Larry Flynt as I recall. Flynt funded some opposition research that uncovered it. That doesn’t justify his adultery, but here at least you see some redemption, much like the Vittner case. Sometimes these things are better handled privately.
Nevertheless, given the moral and political climate today, if Hyde and Vittner’s infidelities had been exposed as they happened, then they too would have to resign as a matter of public trust. Yet, it was a good thing they were kept private because it enabled the healing of the fractures they created in their personal lives. These are hard won victories given the damage adultery causes. One can call it hypocrisy I guess, but hypocrisy still tips the hat to virtue. That’s what gives the charge its sting.
I am aware that my defense of Hyde and Vittner reveals a contradiction between public and private but that bifurcation exists because Clinton partisans demanded that his supporters collapse all distinctions between private behavior and public responsibility. It profaned the public culture.
To show how deep the public culture has been corrupted, consider the John Profumo – Christian Keeler scandal in England in 1963 (history here). This is the difference between then and now: Profumo resigned and spent the remaining 40 years of his life helping the poor. Peter Hitchens writes:
That’s when honor still meant something and redemption did too. Profumo, despite his betrayal of the public trust redeemed himself in the end. And in redeeming himself, he affirmed why the trust he betrayed is necessary as well.
I’m not sure what the article you cited has to do with the argument except to posit that Weiner may be a narcissist. That strikes me as self-evident considering the repetitive behaviors coming to light. But there is a qualitative difference between a man who commits adultery singularly and, say, a serial adulterer even though the statement makes it seem I am defending adultery (I’m not). Nevertheless, a single case of adultery and repetitive sexual acting out have different pathologies, that much is clear.
I still think you are missing George’s point. It is not that you are defending Weiner, it’s that demanding sinlessness from every member of Congress on the one hand or painting all infidelities with the same broad brush on the other prohibits making some elementary and necessary distinctions either way. One of those distinctions concerns private virtue and public trust that George made.
Frankly, I think that some sins should remain private. I do not believe the private failings of public figures should be made public. On the other hand, with the rise of narcissistic disorders as well as ever increasing access to the private lives of public figures, it’s inevitable that some of this information gets out. Narcissists can be dangerous and narcissism is almost impossible to cure so maybe the exposure functions as a warning to people who have to deal with them.
So no, I don’t see that “These guys are all the same, you see?”. If I am forced to judge all men the same because all are sinners, then I suppose you have a point. But I already know they are sinners. What counts is what one does despite our common malady, how one deals with their fall and gets up, how one tries to build even though he has fallen. I am more inclined to trust the man who understands that his sin is indeed sin and works to repair the damage he caused over the man who argues his private sin has no bearing on his public responsibilities.
Kind David was an adulterer who repented. Most people don’t rise to his depth of repentance, but the distinction between fallen and redeemed is nevertheless preserved. This distinction is what allows virtues like public honor and integrity to emerge as cultural entities, albeit imperfectly. I’m not as willing to jettison them as you seem to be.
Fr. Hans,
I’m going to try to deal quickly with the specifics so we don’t get lost in the trees.
Hyde’s affair was exposed during his first re-election campaign. He won anyhow, and the aggrieved husband spent more than 30 years trying to get anyone to pay attention to his story. The GOP leadership and media declared it a non-story because Hyde won, and “everyone loves a winner.” (In a way Barney Frank walked the Henry Hyde path.) That you only learned about it decades later does not mean that was not a matter of public record for a long time, it just means you weren’t paying attention until Clinton’s defenders brought it up.
Weiner’s fall and resignation matches Foley’s pretty exactly. First denial, then “it’s a personal failing but doesn’t effect my work,” then “I need rehab” then resignation. Same beats, same old song. In fact this is the most common response sequence for leaders caught doing wrong.
Now to the forest:
I think we must hold our leaders accountable for their actions, just as we hold ourselves accountable for our actions. Our leaders should reflect and encourage the best in us, not the worst in us.
So what do I find problematic here? This: The notion that the immorality of the right is somehow less dangerous and damaging than the immorality of the left, the notion that the failings of Republicans are handled less badly than those of Democrats, and the notion that the South is better at nurturing and protecting Orthodox moral values than rest of the nation.
In short, I disagree with presenting Southern conservative exceptionalism as Orthodoxy.
To me the teachings of Orthodoxy are no harder on the sexual licentiousness promoted by the left than they are on the economic licentiousness promoted by the right. Both destroy communities and families, the one from the bottom and the other from the top.
To me the teachings of Orthodoxy do not distinguish by party affiliation or political philosophy. Liberation theology and the culture war share the same core problem of a smallness of understanding of God. Not coincidentally, both grow from the same roots.
And to me the Orthodox measure of good and evil is God, not man. When we promote “what most people see” as the measure, we’ve replaced God with ourselves. Had you read the article I linked to above, you’d see how making ourselves the measure of things is also Weiner’s problem.
My point is that the left’s record of diminishing the seriousness of the infidelities for political gain has harmed the larger culture. The moral serious of infidelity is not in question. It’s what gives this conversation its meaning. Closing the conversation however, is what Clinton partisans tried to do when they came out with “It’s just about sex” and other justifications in defense of Clinton years back.
It’s a mistake to assume that drawing a distinction about the left’s handling of Clinton’s infidelity somehow justifies infidelity on the right. It’s also a mistake to dilute the very real damage the Clinton partisans inflicted by pointing to infidelity on the right. My observation is cultural, not partisan, even though in this case the critique falls harder on the left harder than the right.
If you are arguing that my reading of the historical record is inaccurate, I leave it to the readers to make the judgment. It doesn’t impact the point either way.
Digging deeper, you also mention that you are uncomfortable that some distinctions are drawn at all. You write:
The only way that Liberation Theology and the culture war can be said to be similar is if all differences between them are collapsed. I think what you really mean however, that there is no real difference between liberal and conservative. You seem to saying that Orthodox Christianity provides a better understanding of culture and thus transcends liberal and conservative; that it offers a kind of third way. This third way is so compelling that the differences between Liberation Theology and culture war (liberalism and conservatism) are dissolved. Do I have it right?
Even if this were true (I don’t think it is), the problem is that your assertion is still a statement about culture. And since it is, distinctions still need to be drawn. You will find that as soon as you move from the abstract to the concrete, distinctions become necessary. Your real objection then, is that you don’t like some distinctions over others. As least that’s how I read your apologetic.
On the other hand, if your purpose is to posit a pure Orthodoxy unsullied by concrete distinctions, you essentially offer an Orthodoxy that can’t inform the real decisions people have to make everyday that involve the moral question playing out within the culture — where to send their children to school, how to monitor the media, how to make ends meet with rising taxation, how to pay a mortgage on house that lost 30% of its value, how to talk to a teen whose friends are sexually active, how to talk to with a friend who has a defiant child, how to monitor the health care of an elderly parent, and so forth. Here the distinctions are very real and matter greatly.
I’m always cautious of statements like this because they are so vague and so abstract that they are functionally meaningless. Anyone can fill it with any content they see fit. Just substitute, say, Mormonism, Liberation Theology, American Nativism, Evangelical Fundamentalism, whatever for Orthodoxy and you will see what I mean.
I’m not asserting any ill will on your part. I’m saying that the justification for your critique is too abstract — there’s nothing to hang my hat on. The terms and phrases (good, evil, God, we’ve replaced God with ourselves, measure of all things, etc.) have a echo of moral power and authority but what do they really mean? How are they applied? What do they express beyond your disapproval?
Yes, I read the article on Weiner and it still strikes me as narcissism. Here’s another take from a Jewish conservative: Weiner’s Rise and Fall: A Jewish Perspective. Makes good sense actually.
Fr. Hans,
It’s interesting that i see greater distinction where you see less, and greater clarity where you see meaningless abstraction.
To me Orthodoxy presents a far more comprehensive and distinct understanding of virtue and vice than either liberation theology or the culture war. The common problem with those two (and all -isms) is not that they are wrong, but that they are woefully incomplete.
Orthodoxy encompasses the social criticism of both those movements within a larger and more coherent framework. It provides the context that allows for the discernment necessary to be more than “a clanging gong, a sounding cymbal.” And if there is one criticism of the culture war that rings true it is that it tends toward the shallow and shrill.
I think +Jonah and +Hilarion, on the other hand, address the same issues raised by the culture warriors with a fullness that transcends that movement. And I think shoehorning our hierarchs’ teaching into the small box of the culture war reduces it to sound bytes. We turn our Bishops into such caricatures at our own risk.
No-one comes to the light by shunning the darkness, we shun the darkness by directing our attention to the light. This is not a cute semantic turn of phrase, if we turn to face the darkness our back is to our beacon, and we no longer can orient ourselves properly. There’s nothing abstract about encouraging each other to living virtuously and, in that context, rejecting the vice that surrounds us.
Reading through this again I realize I gave the Americans short shrift. Some examples of serious work in moral theology includes Fr. Stanley Harakas’ 3-volume series on moral theology (beginning with Toward Transfigured Life) and Fr. Alexander Webster’s four books on anti-Semitism in Romania betweent the world wars, public moral witness during the Soviet era and in the U.S., and pacifism and justifiable war.
I’m trying to get through the vagaries to understand what you really mean. For example,
Do you really believe Orthodoxy has a developed social critique? Where? If you mean to say instead that Orthodoxy has the foundation to develop social criticism, I would agree although the only Orthodox I see developing a substantive critique are the Russians.
If you are saying Orthodoxy is a third way, I think that’s a flight into abstraction. In fact, the “third way” option usually consists of obliterating concrete distinctions (your dismissal of Harry Coin’s point about the cultural aggression of the gay rights lobby by comparing it to Chippendale dancers in another thread, for example). That’s also why I think your thesis is unduly abstract.
As for the claim that the culture war tends towards the shallow and shrill, well, yes and no. If MSNBC or Mother Jones or Democratic Underground are the standard, then, yes, shrill self-justification is the norm. On the other hand, ever read City Journal, the New Atlantis, Leon Kass, the Acton Institute, Manhattan Institute, Heritage Foundation, AEI, and scores of other publications and think-tanks that tackle these vexing cultural issues head on?
The intellectual quality on the conservative side is usually very good, often excellent, and sometimes stellar because the engagement with the issues is morally substantive. It shows that the difference between left and right is not merely the moral posturing that your phrase “shallow and shrill” (and your addition “clanging gong, a sounding cymbal”) suggests. Ideas have consequences and the right, which is to say the moral conservatives (not the same thing as Republicans), deals with real ideas much better than the left.
It would be more accurate to say then that the term “culture war” describes the ideological conflict between moral liberal and moral conservative. “Liberation theology” is really just a subset of the liberal side of this conflict given its dependence on Marxist categories. Maybe you could juxtapose “liberation theology” with, say, libertarianism. It’s not a perfect fit but at least we avoid the devolution of concrete moral dimensions of the debate into moralistic cant and the specious conclusion that it doesn’t rise above the “shallow and shrill.” (The obliteration of concrete distinctions is a necessary precondition for the devolution into moralistic cant.)
You are right I think in your assertion that “Orthodoxy presents a far more comprehensive and distinct understanding of virtue and vice.” Put more concretely, it is true that Orthodoxy has a developed anthropology, probably more so than any other Christian communion or Judaism. It is not true that this wisdom has been developed in any comprehensive way that applies to modern life. That has yet to be done (again, the Russians are starting this, so are some Americans on a more popular level).
The “liberation theology — culture wars” category doesn’t work. It can’t capture the moral dimension of the culture wars conflict. It attempts to neutralizes the morally conservative critique — again, much like your attempt to neutralize Harry Coin’s critique of gay cultural aggression by comparing it to the rise of the Chippendale dancers. Well, yes, I suppose you have a point. Gay cultural aggression is the result of earlier moral breakdown. No question there. But then, the Chippendale dancers are merely your run of the mill decadents, not cultural aggressors — a distinction that does matter and the one that Harry Coin was making.
Responding to only one issue, because I think it cuts to the root of our misunderstanding each other.
I totally agree with what you wrote here:
And could not disagree more with your next line:
40 years ago I had a Jesuit classics professor whose mantra was: “See? Nothing new under the sun.” 20 years ago I stumbled into Orthodoxy and found teachings that were not mired in the gobbledygook smokescreen of “modern life.” The difference between “modern life” and the ancients is limited to our technologies; human beings have not changed.
The challenge to this age is not to reinvent or redevelop the wisdom of the ages, but to remember it. clearly Remembering is always our challenge. The Gospel says of the Prodigal “And when he came to himself…” not “…and when he developed a comprehensive system that applied to his (at that time) modern life…”
Virtue and vice are always the results of the human heart, not our technologies. It is a sign of our western cultural narcissism that we confuse our technological prowess with ourselves. That’s a point echoed by modern critics as disparate as McLuhan and Ellul.
I hear a more complete and coherent social criticism every Sunday from the Ambo than I’ve read from any think tank or philosopher or columnist, or heard from any blabbering head in the media, left or right or “third way.” This is not a tribute to any one priest or parish, but rather to the strength of Orthodoxy.
And so I don’t see that developing a new social criticism does anything but risk leaving essential parts of Orthodoxy behind. What I think +Jonah and +Hilarion do quite well is to remember and remind this age of what has always been true. Others, seeking to “speak to this age,” get mired in irrelevancies and dead-ends from which they then must extricate themselves with intellectual gymnastics, during which they often enough fall into error.
Better to stand on the Rock than go for that swim. To paraprhase a line from the Riders in the Sky http://ridersinthesky.com/, “It’s not the easy way, it’s the Orthodox Way.” 😉
Chris, I agree with you. I don’t understand your criticism of Fr Hans however. I don’t think he (or any other Orthodox conservative) has ever posited that we believe our technology has pioneered new sin. It’s all the old sin, just made more readily available.
If I’m misrepresnting your’s or Fr Hans’ points, then please forgive me.
I think you’ve misread, George.
Fr. Hans expressed his lack of understanding of my views, and I have endeavored to clarity them. Nothing more, nothing less. In so doing we’ve found some places where we appear to disagree. But even in those disagreements I think there’s less than meets the eye.
And you sum my point perfectly:
So perhaps you’re reading too much into what I actually wrote?
I have no disagreement with the assertion that the tradition should not be changed. I question the assertion that the application of the tradition can be transposed on the culture without any mediating work being done. That’s why I contend your thesis is vague. The only attempt at mediation was your idea that “Liberation Theology” and “culture war” described –what? –broad categories in which the debates about the culture fall into? It’s hard to know because the categories don’t really work for the reasons I explained above.
Do you mean the scripture reading or the sermon? And what is it about either that makes its complete or coherent? How is it actualized in the real lives of real people? Frankly, the good sermons I have heard always accomplish this (which mirrors what Chrysostom used to do actually). As for social criticism, a lot that I hear (when I hear it) isn’t that good. It’s usually not well informed.
Secondly, there is a lot learn a lot from good scholars. Why write them off? I think David Bentley Hart’s “Atheist Delusions” is brilliant, for example. Bentley is a philosopher.
I can same the same about “Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom,” a book I reviewed for the Acton Institute. It’s a great book. Leithart is a historian.
One of the best books on Genesis I have ever read was by the Lutheran scholar Claus Westermann. He opened my eyes to the differences between the pagan and Christian notions of time, and how radical the notion that time was created actually is. Westermann is a historian/theologian.
These books (and others) helped me grasp how powerful the Gospel was (and thus can be) in the transformation of culture.
How do you understand your phrase “transposed on the culture?” I came up with nearly 1/2 dozen different possibilities…
I write off no-one, and I read voraciously. One of the things I learned early on is to read the original sources and not rely on someone else’s characterization of them. And there’s so much available that is really great, especially in the Patristics.
I must say that “Atheist Delusions” was just as intellectually sloppy as Dawkins’ “The God Delusion.” Were I in a position to do so, I’d assign both as examples of what happens when people are so cocksure they’re right that they don’t have to bother doing the hard work of actually knowing what they claim to know all about.
The most cutting insult I ever heard was “That one reads the book review and thinks he’s an expert.” That’s my take on Hart and Dawkins equally. They may or may not be experts in their fields, but they’re worse than rank amateurs outside of them.
That said, when I look at what I highlighted in Hart’s book, what I find is precisely what I expected to find. How did Christians change Roman culture? By walking the walk laid out in the Scriptures.
Here’s pretty much all I highlighted from Hart, talking about Julian the Apostate’s frustration with trying to re-establish paganism in the Empire:
There’s a stark lesson to be learned here….
Well, I’m glad you write off no one. Your previous answer indicated that you did.
As for Hart, I’ll leave the question of his scholarship aside, but the point you draw out is precisely the one I found compelling as well. But here the discussion about Christ and culture is already being mediated; understood and comprehended through a structure (historical analysis) by which conclusions about how to engage the present culture are made.
Regarding transposed on culture, the only analysis you have given so far was the “Liberation theology – culture war” idea which doesn’t really work. If I am missing something explain it to me.
Chris, I must take issue with you regarding Hart’s scholarship. His understanding of history is impeccable except in this one instance: he accepts the modern, Reformed, quasi-pacifist understanding of Constantine the Great. He even goes so far as to call him a “brute.”
This is illogical as it is a type of anachronistic thinking; that is applying the mores of a later time to the realities of an earlier time. In this sense, I would agree with you and call Hart “sloppy” but only in this instance. His knowledge of the minutiae of history, especially scientific history (epicycles, Paracelsus, Alexandria, etc.) is simply astounding.
More important to me however, is that his book was not merely a book of history, but a testimony of a Christian understanding of history and how it radically changed the world. In that sense, it’s a worthy successor to Jaroslav Pelikan’s Jesus through the Centuries. Another fine example of how significant the man Jesus was to all of human civilization.
George,
Talking after liturgy today with a friend and professor at Pepperdine who attended a talk by Hart just yesterday. When I told him what I thought of “Atheist Delusions” he said “That came up in the questions, and his answer was that he felt it appropriate to respond at the same level as the person to whom he was responding.”
Fr. Hans,
I gave no analysis of “mediated” anything. I gave an observation of two movements, one of the left and one of the right, that seem to me fundamentally misleading.
I asked your understanding of your phrase, which you haven’t provided. I’m unwilling to project one or more of the many meanings I can put to it, and so if we’re to continue you’re going to have to tell me what you mean by it.
I don’t know how many ways I can say this so let me try again. “Liberation theology” is a philosophical structure based on Marxist categories. it has coherence. It is a way of analyzing culture. It’s bone-headed in my opinion, but it is still coherent.
“Culture wars” is a very broad label that only roughly and generally describes the conflicts in culture that often are moral in nature (abortion, euthanasia, welfare reform, poverty and so forth). It is not a philosophy or coherent structure.
So yes, you have indeed said that these terms are fundamentally misleading. But you have never explained why you think they are. And no, it is not accurate to say that you have “not mediated anything” since your response to several culture wars discussions has been to counter points in ways that neutralize (relativize) them. Countering Harry Coin’s point about the cultural aggression of the gay lobby by pointing to the Chippendale dancers is one example. These counterpoints draw from some structure, some way of seeing, but you exempt yourself from explaining what they are.
Taking a closer look at your statement, you also say that these terms were “one of the left and one of the right,” Well, that implicitly affirms a continuum of left and right. Yet no one would say that “Liberation Theology” is a philosophy of the right because it is self-evidently not true. “Culture Wars” used by both left and right but since it functions only as a label, its value is limited. It doesn’t really stand in juxtaposition to “Liberation Theology” even though you keep using it that way — a point I made upstream.
Thus, you don’t really offer any analysis here, just an assertion. The assertion masquerades as an analysis that ostensibly explains something about the culture. But it really doesn’t. That’s what I mean by “transposed.” It’s an overlay. You expect people to respond to your points as if an analysis is being offered, yet when they do you respond by making another assertion. There is never any clarification of what you really mean.
What really is compelling about your point that “Liberation Theology” and “culture wars” is “fundamentally misleading”? You never really say. Even when I laid out my reasons challenging the assertion, you responded by asserting that I don’t understand you. I think I do. So if I am wrong, show me where I am. Don’t merely repeat the assertion.
Fr. Hans,
I asked you to tell me how you understand a phrase you used, “transposed on the culture.” I still ask you for that clarification.
Rather than answer my question you chose to write this:
I have not sought to neutralize anything, and have sought to “relativize” things only in the sense of seeing how they are related, but not in the sense of diminishing anything due to that relationship.
The sickness in American culture today is like a hydra. Knock off one head and two grow in its place. If we’re unwilling to see how all those heads are really expressions of one thing, and if we’re unwilling to take a rigorous look at the common traits of them all, then we’re not going to be successful. If, on the other hand, we are not afraid to think deeply and clearly about what makes this hydra so attractive to our society and how to counter that, then we can witness Christ to the world in a way that will transform it.
Seeking that wisdom is not “neutralizing” or “relativizing” in the sense of minimizing. In fact its exactly the opposite of what you allege.
But again, what do you understand by the phrase “transposed on the culture?”
I’ve already explained this. If “Liberation Theology” and “culture wars” represent two common errors, one the left and the other on the right as you contend, then an analysis is being offered that, well, doesn’t make any sense. Something is being transposed, an overlay is offered, that doesn’t really work.
Here’s the explanation I provided:
Here’s another example of an assertion that doesn’t explain anything:
Tell us why you compared the Chippendale dancers to gay lobby activism. Explain how they are related. So what is your point? That moral decadence precedes the political efforts to normalize homosexuality? That there is no difference between run of the mill decadence and gay activism? You never really say.
I’ve asked you to clarify your statement about “Liberation Theology” and “culture wars” and even offered a response explaining why I think your formulation is flawed. Yet you refuse to discuss that as well.
Now you write:
Maybe, maybe not. Before anyone can make any reasoned judgment about your assertion, you have to explain what you mean by the “sickness in American culture,” especially given the moral exhortation that follows it.
You can understand my reticence. Christians make claims all the time that their “witness” conforms to the scripture and Christ. The National Council of Churches is sure its coddling of Castro (and was sure that coddling of the Soviet Communists before him) conformed to scripture and Christ. The Episcopalian Church is sure that ordaining active homosexuals conforms in the same way. Lots of people make the claim and most are convinced they are on the side of the angels.
So, again, what do you mean by “Liberation theology” and “culture wars” represent twin errors of the left and the right? Why would a reference to the Chippendale dancers hold equal weight and authority against Harry Coin’s point that the cultural aggressiveness of the gay lobby poses a threat? What do you mean by “sickness in American culture”? Define it. Give examples. Let’s take that “rigorous look” you exhort us to follow.
So am I reading you correctly that when you write
what you mean is
If so, then does your sentence
…mean that you question an assertion that Orthodoxy can transform culture without someone’s doing the work to resolve the conflicts between the two?
That’s an interesting view, if it’s yours. But I’ll wait for your confirmation or clarification before commenting further.
===
With regards to liberation theology and the culture wars:
Your inferences of my points are consistently incorrect, both overstated and overwrought, and I take no responsibility for them. You do seem to delight in pointing out how I might be incorrect if I thought what I don’t think, however, and “reticent” to acknowledge that any portion of anything I write might be Orthodox. It’s pretty much the opposite of how I was taught to approach differences of opinion within the Church.
Here’s an example of what I mean by “inferring” and trying to find as un-orhtodox a reading as possible on what should not be a problem:
I did not make that comparison, you made it for me.
.
I noted that Chippendale’s became a national phenomena (complete with touring companies for small towns!) before gay marriage was a whisper campaign.
In a word: Yes.
Now that’s just dumb. There are myriad differences, not the least of which is that “run of the mill decadence” is otherwise known as “immoral” while gay activism, while it may lead to immorality, is not necessarily in and of itself immoral.
I thought I was having a dialogue with rational adults.
Okay, let’s work through this.
If inference is a “problem,” it’s only because your assertions are vague. Inference is all that remains when assertions are not clarified. When I push for clarification, and on the rare occasion that you provide it, it turns out that my inference is correct. For example:
What’s so difficult about making this point straight up?
Also, you wrote:
My question was based on an inference, but I was asking if the inference was correct, not asserting it was true (notice the question mark?). You just need to be more clear Chris. It helps the discussion.
I’m starting to think (infer?) however, that I may be taking you where you might not want to go. That may be the reason you prefer vagueness over clarity.
I still want to know what you mean by the assertion that “Liberation theology” and “culture war” are an error of both the left and the right. I’ve made at least five possible inferences about your meaning and none of them make sense.
How about explaining what you mean straight up?
does your sentence
…mean that you question an assertion that Orthodoxy can transform culture without someone’s doing the work to resolve the conflicts between the two?
Chris, you asked:
This is why I ask myself if you view Orthodoxy as a “third way.” I know you say you don’t, but your assertions seem to require it a-priori — at least if they are to make any sense. I see it here too. You framed your question as if Orthodoxy is one pole and the culture is another (the term “conflict” implies it).
You also tend to give any moral question that is raised here the same relative value. That’s what comparing the Chippendale dancers to gay lobby cultural activism implies (and why I infer it). I could be wrong of course, hence my questions. However, if I am not wrong then, again, the “third way” paradigm is the only underlying structure that gives your assertions any coherence.
Again, I am not asserting that my inferences are true. I am only asking if they are correct. That’s why I am pressing you to explain yourself. Give us some clarity.
So to answer your question, I don’t view the engagement of culture exclusively as a conflict. That’s why I insist on proper distinctions. There are many things in culture that conflicts with the Orthodox moral tradition. There are others that the tradition affirms and can strengthen. This process is what I call mediating the tradition, and every generation has to learn how to do this in their particular cultural context.
However, if Orthodoxy is seen as a “third way” drawing those distinctions would be impossible. From my point of view, the “third way” paradigm would reduce the Orthodox faith to ideology. We’d go the way of the National Council of Churches or the Episcopalian Church.
HERE is an example of why this is proving so difficult.
I framed my question as I did because you used the term “mediate” which means:
I read your term in its most common usage, which is in part why I kept wondering which of the many readings of your statement you actually intended.
And we now see you use that verb in a different manner.
We’re in agreement on this.
The issue, then, is not “what” but “how.”
My experience is process determines content , that one cannot sing a photo, for example. So “how” we do things is a critically important question.
I’d say that NCC and ECUSA got where they are precisely because their “how” was created in order to allow them to affirm multiple Christs, it was created to blur boundaries, and so they wound up lost in the fog. Even now there’s the notion that those who affirm and those who reject any number of proposals can still co-exist in the Anglican communion. How crazy is that?
Orthodoxy has a very different “how,” one which starts with an understanding that the Apostles should be able to walk into any Orthodox assembly in any land and age and recognize its worship and its teachings as their own. Our “how” is created to maintain clarity. From Acts through Seven Ecumenical Councils to today the work of Orthodoxy has been maintaining clear boundaries and therefore giving clear witness to our faith.
We good so far?
Self-censorship? No.
Gene, please understand that I am not trying to be partisan. I have only a tenuous connection to the GOP at present. The larger point I am trying to make is that the vast majority of these scandals seem to arise on the Left for whatever reason. Ultimately, I’m just following the story to wherever it goes. If there was a GOP Congressman acting this way, I’d call him to account as well.
I think the larger point is that immorality and thus criminality is preponderant on the Left simply because all constructs of right and wrong have been obliterated. Once you can cheat on your wife with impunity then why not embezzle money? If you embezzle money, why not get the public fisc to subsidize dependancy? Blame sloth and indolence on “racism.” Etc.
George writes:
“I have only a tenuous connection to the GOP at present.”
For my part, I have not found a trace of partisan politics on this blog page.
For the record, I am a registered Democrat.
Thank you Fr. Your opinion and erudition mean a lot.
Kinda like the arrogance of a bishop who thinks he has license to steal because the rules don’t apply to him!
Small comment Just Say’n but certainly true. And not only +Benjamin but also Stokoe, the guy who published the stolen goods. They trash others with brazen, arrogant, impunity.
Why haven’t both men been charged with ethics violations? Does +Mark sit on the Synod? Why are the MC and the Bishops mute about Stokoe? Where is the accountability?
And why would anyone trust Stokoe with anything after stealing and publishing private emails and other material? This man thinks he’s not only above the rules, but that he should make them for others. Bad stuff.
I think ethics violations are the least of it. Regardless, Stokoe should be booted from the MC. It’s a travesty that he’s even on it (and it’s not because of his private life, which I don’t give a rat’s ass about).
Ian,
I was speaking about Maymon, the stealer of emails, who still thinks that the folks in the South are stupid enough to want him as their bishop and is being protected by Nikon (and the OCA Synod) and now Marcus Burch the new chancellor of the DOS. Face it, the OCA is on a path to irrelevance.
Fr. Marcus Burch is a priest, so it would be nice if you used his proper title.
Also, as far as I know, he is a wonderful priest. I can’t conceive of him doing anything even remotely nefarious without evidence to that effect.
I would have to agree with you Helga. The most recent meeting of all the deans left little doubt that Bp Maymon probably doesn’t have a future in the DoS.
As my father says, “Saint Mary Jo Kopechne”, as she kept him out of the white house.
He did far worse in the Senate than he would have as president IMHO. The only good thing he did? Taking on Jimmy Carter in 1980 thereby possibly softening him up for The Gipper.
If he had beomce President, we would have been rid of him in 8 years (or less). Instead he was inflicted upon body politic as a supperating boil for far longer.
His legislative crimes are far worse than anything he could have done as President.
“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” So I totally agree with what Gene wrote, in the sense of what happened with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) goes beyond the two political parties and has to do with power and the arrogant entitlement that it falsely gives. In my opinion, to vote for a party that on one hand waves the anti-abortion flag but at the same time takes away food stamps from children is at least hypocritical and as Gene quite rightly wrote “both parties are working for the same monied powers”. Worse than that is when the so called “Christians” listen to a right-wing lunatic like Glenn Beck who urges “Christians” to leave any Church that preaches social and economic justice by helping the poor and the downcast. How deluded and lost Christianity has become and in part Nomad explained it well “The problem is that the civilizing institutions of society have utterly failed to turn boys into men–and by “men” I mean males who habitually choose to fulfill their obligations rather than their desires”, I am assuming you are including Family in the civilizing institutions that failed to turn boys and girls into mature responsible adults.
awakened: that is a carichature you paint about waiving the anti-abortion flag while taking away food stamps. It was Cllnton who “ended Welfare as we know it.” Besides, ending an evil is its own reward. One doesn’t have to have a solution for the consequences. Think of slavery: people who were pro-slavery or anti-abolition rightly raised the question of what we would do with the newly-emancipated slaves, many of whom had no marketable skills, were illiterated, etc. Many Democrats in the North said that an exodus of new freedmen to the North would depress the wages of the white working class. All of these concerns were true. So, should we have kept slavery in place?
awakened,
you assume that the government supplying food stamps in the first place is a lawful and righteous use of the power only the government has–the power to compel, even against our will. It is an assumption that is debatable. It is not debateable that children shold be fed, but by whom, the cost and the mechanism are acceptable for discussion.
My assumption is that the statist answer is almost always wrong because local problems are best dealt with locally and if we weren’t force to pay so much to the federal government, there would be more local resources, both private and public. Where a public approach is appropriate and needful, the more local it is the easier it becomes to monitor fraud, abuse and waste. Something that is functionally impossible on the Federal level. Not to mention there is simply no authority in the Constitution for the Federal government to run most of the programs it does.
Your response appears to me to be the knee-jerk response of one pre-conditioned to accept the statist ideology as the only correct way of dealing with problems.
Glen Beck is a Morman who knows nothing of traditional Christianity and isn’t interested it it. However, all too often the phrase ‘social justice’ is used as a stalking horse for those who promote an equally non-traditional approach to the poor–one that is founded not in Chrisitanity, but in Marxism. Marxism exploits everyone, the poor most of all.
That is the source of Mr. Beck’s concern and it has some justification. Tryanny is not Christian. Marxism is always tryannical and actively seeks to kill the souls of human beings.
Representative government is a flawed form of government, highly subject to demogogery and corruption. The kind of emotionalism you demonstrate and is also present in those calling themselves ‘conservative’ is just an example of how easy it is to come under that sway.
Since we are sinful, we both need government to hold the worst of the sinfulness at bay and are assured that it will be corrupt. Its power, the power to compel at the point of a gun, cannot create or compel virtue, because virtue is never compelled, but freely chosen out of love (or rejected out of self-love and hardness of heart).
Government can set standards of behavior that is precisely what it is doing by allowing such moral repbrobtes as Anthony Weiner and others to gain and hold office. The corrupting influence of the power in Washington has become so great, it is doubtful in my mind that even the most virtuous of men could not long stand against the temptations. The best argument for term limits I can think of. It is unfortunate that those who seek election and are often elected have little virtue in their lives, being rather narrcisistic and corrupt to begin with. We elect them because they appeal to the narcisistic corruption in our own souls.
Awakend by Christ,
Read this article by Kay Hymowitz, “How Welfare Reform Worked“, and “Atlanta’s Public-Housing Revolution” by Howard Husock in the past issues of City Journal magazine. City Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute, a New York City think tank that developed the “Broken Windows Theory” that became the framework behind Rudolf Gulliani’s revitalization of New York. (I lived near New York City first under Dinkens and then later under Gulliani and went into the city often. The change between the two mayors was like night and day.)
Look at what Heather MacDonald writes about welfare reform in New York City:
I’m not a fan of Glen Beck but some things he gets right, particularly his claim that the term “social justice” is left-speak for an ever deepening dependency on the government. These dependencies rob people of their character. They can easily turn into a kind of slavery. F.A. Hayek warned as much in “The Road to Serfdom“, a book that should to be required reading for anyone who comments on the role and responsibility of government in the care of families.
Christians often confuse the Gospel imperative to care for the poor with the arguments that the left uses to foster an ever increasing statism in American society. The left justifies their policies through benevolent language (abortion is compassionate for the mother, euthanasia is compassionate for the suffering, and so forth). A closer look at the claims reveals that in almost all cases the opposite is true but Christians remain confused nonetheless. The “social justice” of Christians like Jim Wallis, the National Council of Churches, and others merely rehash old ideas that have already failed, often catastrophically.
I agree 100%. However I may also add that the “Prosperity” Gospel of the Christian Right is just as wrong and heretical. Whether Social Gospel (Protestant) or Liberation Theology (Catholic) or Prosperity Gospel (Evangelical) no one seems to interested in just following and living The One True Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe a very thorough reading of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians is in order.
Peter
Peter, i agree with you about the bogus-ness of the Prosperity Gospel. Having been exposed to it first-hand, I can tell you that it makes me cringe to see Pastor Cleotus Whatshisname wearing his $2,000 Hugo Baas suit and $800 Gucci loafers expositing on TV.
The only thing that makes it less evil than Liberation Theology or the Social Gospel is that it’s destructiveness is contained to the individual who believes in it. The other “gospels” are totalitarian and compulsory. Liberation theology for example justifies terrorism.
I agree as to to their manifestations being worse on the Left, but if you combine the Prosperty Gospel with unregulated Capitalism then you do end up with a totalitarian state based on a Plutachracy. Instead of a dirty dingy cage you are in a gilted cage. However, its still a cage and you are still controlled.
Peter
“Personally, if the communists weren’t atheist, if they didn’t hunt Christ, I would agree with them. It’s good for the plots of land, the factories, to belong to everyone…not for one to be hungry while some else is throwing away food. If material goods are not distributed with the Gospel, in the end they will be distributed with the knife.”
– Elder Paisios, quoted from p. 83 of ‘Talks with Father Paisios ‘ by Athanasios Rakovalis.
Yianni, the sentiments of Elder Paissios are noble in the abstract but abominable in the execution. True communalism, as practiced by the early Church, quickly degenerated into corruption. St Paul had to put a stop to it because lazy, no-good malingerers were mooching off of the productive using the excuse that since Jesus was going to return at any time, there was no need to work (2 Thessalonians). This was egregious.
In the early American colonial period, John Smith put a stop to idleness when the local gentry thought that they didn’t have to work because they were “better” than the yeomen farmers. He quoted St Paul: “let those who don’t work, not eat.”
The problem is that man is fallen and we all have the propensity to let our passions take us to excess.
Well, George I will stick up for both Constantine even if their is some criticism on my part. Constantine has been brought thru the mud since he put to death one of his political rivals, killed his 2nd wife and son for adultery. Most westerners don’t understand that Constantine probably helped Christianity to become a force in the world granted it was now open to secular influence which caused comprises more with the world.
Cynthia, most modern rationalists (i.e. Protestants and other liberals) don’t understand that timeliness and context mean much in understanding history. Constantine did not begin his life as a Christian, wasn’t raised as a Christian, didn’t live as a Christian. He came to the Faith late in life. One simply can’t put aside his past or embrace “tolerance” in such a brutish time as Constantine lived.
How may people in the western part of the US heard of Orthodoxy and know it came out of the Roman Empire. Most of the Orthodox in the west are immirgants a lot of immirgants from the middle east or still third of fourth generation Greeks. Take La Ca, about several people there know of Evangelical Rick Warren but they don’t know the existence of Orthodox Church but only the Roman Catholic and several protestantant churches they don’t. A lot of it is related to historical ignored. Granted, knowing who Constantine or Justinian and so forth doesn’t mean you know anything about Orthodoxy but people who do sometimes learn more about it. In school, there is an emphasis on Catholic history in the middle ages even if it doesn’t really cover the religious aspects and the Reformation but little on the Eastern Empire and nothing on the Russian Empire, so a lot of Roman Catholics or Protestants are unaware of Orthodoxy-period.