In a comment on the Monomakhos blog, I offered this prediction:

The romance with homosexualism can only last for so long — five years tops and we are in year one. In another two years public doubts will start to surface. In year four those doubts will start shaping into a consensus. In year five the waters of this tsunami will start to recede.

Why do I say this? Because nothing in the life-style is life affirming. All the energy of homosexuality comes from and is directed toward a void, an absence in the person that is also being projected into the social and institutional structures that are being formulated around it but remain to be built.

More simply, “Modern Family” is an illusion plain and simple. It cannot and will not be built. This is a personal and cultural impossibility.

One reader asked me to clarify the point:

I am not clear if when you say “homosexualism might weaken”, if you mean in the general cultural or in the as a movement in the Orthodox Church (or both). In any case it made me think of Rod Dreher post from a few days ago:

The Stone Butch Communist

It is a difficult post because of it’s subject matter, but about half way down he talks about “The Nations” prediction for homosexualism in our country 21 years ago, and RC Fr. Richard Neuhaus’ response. Like Dreher says, the Nation was more right than Neuhaus was. I have to say that it is my belief that homosexualism as a movement has more staying power in either the Orthodox Church or the general cultural than what you seem to imply here. This is simply due to the sentimental nature of our culturals morality, and I don’t see any force that is changing that. Indeed, I don’t think it has even peaked as a way of life let alone “run it’s course”. Perhaps I am not seeing certain counter forces that you are seeing?

Below is my clarification.

Christopher,

Sorry for this late reply.

Regarding the dominant culture: Since homosexuality has been effectively normalized, the fact that it has a hollow center will become apparent I think, largely through the social harm it will cause (homosexual couplings are not stable, abuse and addictions rates among homosexuals, pedophilia is predominantly homosexual, etc.). The illusions surrounding it will shatter.

Dreher is right (Nation yes, Neuhaus no) but those ideas were in play when homosexuality was still a Fire Island – Key West – San Francisco phenomena. (See: Midge Dector, The Boys on the Beach.)

Homosexual “culture” is a misnomer. It doesn’t exist except as a parody of the natural order. It can only mimic what it sees but it won’t be able to reproduce it. This is not merely an observation about biology (homosexual couplings are sterile). Biology also models deeper structures, and at the center of the deep structure of homosexuality is a vacuum (the absence of structure). The vacuum however contains an energy that is *always* deconstructive.

Homosexuality is directed toward extinction and it must deconstruct the culture built on the natural order for it to get there.

Homosexuals, in order to maintain a viable self-identity as homosexual, need a vigorous natural culture surrounding them. If the dominant culture begins to see homosexuality as a morally viable ‘second way’ within the natural order, it shows the dominant culture is weakening but it will also reveal the vacuum (the ‘nothingness’) at the center of homosexuality and the deconstructive energy it contains.

Gay INC has achieved a remarkable propaganda victory in the last decade. It consisted of convincing the elites that homosexual pairings are indeed a morally viable ‘second way’ but the idea of viable culture structures built around those pairings is still only a promise. The propaganda war is relentless (“Modern Family,” “Will and Grace,” Andrew Sullivan, etc.) and has been largely won. However, the attempt to subjugate the conquered ground will fail, I think. Again, the illusions (the ideas about normative family and culture structures projected into homosexual populations) will be revealed for what they are — illusions. The worst thing for Gay INC may be normalization.

So my prediction is based on the belief that the natural order will prevail in the end. This remains to be seen of course. If I am wrong, then it means we must prepare for cultural collapse.

Regarding the the efforts to normalize homosexuality in some parts of the Church, again the Episcopal Church experience is all we really need to know. Liberal Christians have been trailing the dominant culture by at least a decade for the last forty years. They call their lagging statements “prophetic” and other sorts of self-congratulatory nonsense, but only to quell their unease about not being taken seriously. They are being used to provide a religious imprimatur to Gay INC — a vestige of their former authority that still exists as part of the cultural memory but will disappear in short order — because they prefer the intoxication of acclaim over the sobriety of truth.

The language I hear by the enablers of Fr. Arida (as well as his own) is nothing more than the tired polemics of the last four decades that has been retooled for an Orthodox audience. There is no need to put up with it. Surreptitious attempts to subvert the moral tradition need to be exposed and stopped. On the other hand, if Fr. Arida’s ideas prevail, then the OCA will collapse.

The ideas that shape Fr. Robert Arida’s argument that the Orthodox Church should offer moral parity to homosexual pairings did not arise with him.

He draws from a well that has been dug by others even though he does not acknowledge (or might not be aware) of it.

To understand more fully why Fr. Arida and his supporters think the way they do, and why their ideas sound so reasonable and even compelling to modern ears, listen to Dr. Clark Carlton’s three lectures below. Dr. Carlton explains the philosophical origins of why we moderns see the world in the way that we do.

Understanding the Modern and Post Modern Mind, Part I

Clark provides a brief overview of modern philosophy and identifies what he considers to be the fundamental philosophical error of modernity.

Understanding the Modern and Post-Modern Mind, Part II

Clark further contrasts the modern and premodern ways of thinking about the world and our place within it.

Understanding the Modern and Post Modern Mind, Part III

Clark reflects on scientific rationalism.

Dr. Clark Carlton is assistant professor of philosophy at Tennessee Tech University, where he teaches the history of philosophy as well as philosophy of religion and logic. He writes on a number of subjects and has had articles published in the Journal of Christian Bioethics, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, and the Journal of Early Christian Studies.

Podcasts courtesy of Ancient Faith Radio.

Published on Monomakhos

Source: Orthodox Houston

In response to Fr. Robert Arida’s recent article, which was posted on the OCA’s Wonder blog, there have been many eloquent rebuttals. We do not wish to attempt to reproduce those critiques here, but we do wish to underscore some of the more important points that have been made, and to speak out publically on this controversy.

We find it unacceptable for Orthodox Clergy, who have been given the charge to instruct and guide the laity, to suggest that the moral Tradition of the Orthodox Church needs to change with the times or with the prevalent culture. St. Paul admonishes us to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (Romans 12:2). And it should be noted that the word translated “world” is not “kosmos” (the material world, world order, or people of the world), but “tō aiōni” which refers to the age (or generation, or time) in which we live. And we have no better guide as to what the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God than we find in the Scriptures and Tradition of the Church.

It is also contrary to our Tradition to write about matters of faith or piety in ways that are intentionally ambiguous – this is rather the approach of liberal Protestantism. As Sergey Khudiev wrote, in response to a previous statement by Fr. Robert Arida, which was likewise replete with studied ambiguity, liberal Protestants have “a particularity which entails a tendency to explain themselves with rhetorical questions, vague allusions and highly mysterious phrases from which you can with more or less justification guess at their positions, but are unable to explain clearly.”1

We are all the more concerned that members of Fr. Robert Arida’s parish who identify themselves as homosexuals, report that though they make no secret of their ongoing homosexual relationships, they are freely communed. One such person, wrote, on an open Facebook group (named oxymoronically “Pro-Gay Orthodox Christians”):

I am gay… I was married to my husband in a civil ceremony in 2005. When I began attending Holy Trinity later that year I was completely up front with the priest. My husband, Martin, began attending liturgies regularly about two years ago. He was chrismated Holy Saturday earlier this year. Our relationship is not a secret; I have had no negative interactions with either clergy or laity in this parish. Martin and I are not the only gay people in the parish, though after Martin became Orthodox, we are the only Orthodox gay *couple* as far as I know. I don’t think this constitutes “don’t ask don’t tell.” More like “ask or tell whatever you like… we don’t care.” Just saying.2

Fr. Robert Arida’s recent and past statements on the issue of homosexuality are a scandal to the faithful. They also present those who are sincerely struggling against homosexual temptations with additional temptations, and misdirection. As a pan Orthodox organization, we are also concerned that such blatant disregard for the Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church present further obstacles to Orthodox unity in America. We can only unite around a common fidelity to the authentic faith and piety of our Tradition. If we are not united in that, then authentic unity is impossible.

This is not a matter that can be swept under the rug of “theologoumenon.” A theologoumenon is an opinion that may or may not be correct, but which is neither an authoritative teaching of the Church, nor is it outside of the bounds of acceptable Orthodox opinion. Suggesting that homosexual sex may not really be a sin is not within the bounds of acceptable Orthodox opinion, but on the contrary, the consistent teaching of the Scriptures, canons, and the fathers and saints of the Church that homosexual sex is inherently sinful is clear and unambiguous.

We recognize that those who are struggling against homosexual temptations should be treated with pastoral patience, mercy, and love… as should sinners of any kind that are repenting of their sin, and seeking spiritual healing. However, suggesting to any sinner that their sin is not really a sin, and that they need not repent of it in order to worthily receive the Mysteries of the Church is pastoral malpractice, and cannot be tolerated.

We pray that the Bishops of the OCA will deal with this matter with the seriousness and urgency that it warrants, and put an end to these abuses.

Notes:

1. Sergey Khudiev, “Let Your Yea Be Yea and Your Nay Be Nay”, July 5, 2011 < http://www.pravmir.com/let-your-yea-be-yea-and-your-nay-be-nay/>

2. October 19, 2014