George C. Michalopulos

George Michalopulos answers the “Orthodox Priest” (name withheld) whose critical comments about the Manhattan Declaration were posted on The Observer (here) by Harry Katopodis:

A Response to an Orthodox Priest Regarding the Manhattan Declaration

Dec 21, 2009

Reverend Father, bless! Christ is in our midst!

As you can tell by my name, I am a layman, not a clergyman. Neither am I a theologian, therefore what follows must be viewed with that in mind. Be that as it may, I am at a loss to understand how the Manhattan Declaration is a document whose “…theology is not Orthodox” (as you state). This is a bold assertion. Therefore I am forced to ask which heretical and/or heterodox teachings were promulgated within the Declaration. As two Orthodox bishops and several Orthodox priests were involved in its creation, I need to know if they were wrong in any way.

You then go on to state that the Declarations “approach to pastoral ministry…is not Orthodox.” Unless I am mistaken, this document makes no mention at all of pastoral responsibilities as its intent is simply a declaration of first principles as commonly understood within the light of 2,000 years of Christian tradition. Usually pastoral issues are the province of a pastor and his parishioner. Continue reading →

(HT: Orthodoxy Today)

The State of Kansas vs Frank Schaeffer in the Murder of Dr. George Tiller

By George C. Michalopulos

Recently, the notorious abortionist Dr George Tiller was gunned down in his church in Wichita, Kansas. The killer was a man who appears to be a dysfunctional loner with grave psychological problems. Nobody in the pro-life movement has stepped forward to applaud him or his actions; routine condemnation has been the order of the day.

One man however, has bravely stepped forward to take responsibility for this act. Frank Schaeffer, a self-described former member of the “Republican Party hate machine,” a group that included his father Francis Schaeffer, Jerry Falwell, and Ronald Reagan among many others, recently offered a mea-culpa in the left-wing journal The Huffington Post. Schaeffer believes that his life’s work as a young man in the Evangelical movement directly led to this incident because he helped create a “climate of fear” with his documentary (Whatever Happened to the Human Race?) and other work that made such atrocities like Tiller’s murder inevitable. As such, he puts himself in the pantheon artists like J. D. Salinger and Jodie Foster, whose ouvre inspired the murder of John Lennon and the attempted assassination of President Reagan.

On closer reading however, Schaeffer’s credibility is suspect from his first paragraph. He states that he “got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) and repented of [his] former hate-filled rhetoric.” Actually, he did no such thing. Sure, he may have abandoned the Evangelical Right, but as a new convert to Orthodoxy, he helped create an “Orthodox Right.” As for his abandonment of “hate-filled rhetoric,” one can read his various books and writings or view any of the numerous books and DVDs he produced since that time. There is more than enough venom against the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and secular humanism in the Schaeffer canon to choke a horse.

To be fair, it is possible that Schaeffer’s recollection of the “mid-1980s” extends to the years 2000-2002, in which he traveled the country barnstorming Orthodox Churches, telling them that America was going to hell in a hand-basket. One of his bugbears was abortion and the degradation of man. The other was the threat of Islamo-fascism. I first heard the term “Islamo-facism” in 2002 and it was from his lips. Schaeffer’s grave disappointment in President Bush actually started then, when he rightly saw Bush’s phrase that Islam was as a “religion of peace” as a sham. I got the impression sitting in the pews at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma that in Schaeffer’s mind, Bush should have taken up the Cross instead of placating the Islamic masses who were “an implacable enemy” of our civilization. Continue reading →

George Michalopulos, frequent contributor to the AOI blog and author of several articles on the AOI website, is this week’s guest on The Illumined Heart, a program on Ancient Faith Radio.

In June 2009 leaders of all autocephalous Orthodox Churches – excluding the OCA or any representatives from North America – meet in Cyprus or Geneva (undetermined at the date of this posting), at a meeting convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholemew I. This meeting is being called to discuss “the so-called Orthodox Diaspora, with a view to overcoming every possible influence that is foreign to Orthodox ecclesiology.” The American Orthodox situation and its disunity is at the top of the agenda. In this edition of The Illumined Heart, host Kevin Allen and author George C. Michalopulos discuss this meeting, the history and state of Orthodoxy in North America and possible outcomes of this potentially pivotal convocation.

Listen to Part 1

Listen to Part 2