John Couretas

Russian Orthodox Bishop: Syrian Christians Facing ‘Extermination’

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Over at the Acton Institute blog, John Couretas writes about his recent interview with Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, about increasing Christian persecution around the world. One focus was the mid-east where the Western “Arab Spring” policy has in fact unleashed a torrent of persecution against Christians. Iraq’s Christian population had to leave after the American invasion in 2003. Today the same is happening in Syria, especially as we arm insurgents who we are told are freedom fighters but in fact are Islamic radicals.

Met. Hilarion is careful in his criticism…

It is possible already now to speak of an external military interference in [Syria] as thousands of extremist militants in the guise of opposition forces have unleashed a civil war in the country,” Hilarion said in the Moscow lecture. “Extremist groups, the so-called jamaates consisting of militant Wahhabites armed and trained at the expense of foreign powers are purposefully killing Christians.

…but is is clear that “external military interference” applies to the United States and other Western powers. When America arms insurgents (the policy of the Obama administration), we are arming Islamic radicals who will displace the Christian population if they succeed in overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria.

What about Assad, the favorite whipping boy of American liberals and neo-conservatives? Couretas writes:

Despite having few illusions about the nature of Assad’s autocratic rule, many Christians feared that the Islamist groups, involved in what the West initially viewed as another “Arab Spring” uprising, would eventually turn on them. Indeed this is what has happened.

The illusion informing American foreign policy is that democratic principles can be imposed on other countries by force. It can’t. First of all, representative government is a cultural impossibility in an Islamic dominated country. Secondly, America should not be in the business of “nation building.” It distorts our self-understanding and responsibility in the world. There are some places in the world were a dictatorship is the best type of government a nation can produce. America has made matters worse in Syria by removing the barriers that held the persecutors of Christians in check.

A portion of the article is reproduced below. For the complete posting go to the Acton Institute Blog.

Source: Acton Institute Blog | John Couretas

The Russian Orthodox Church has been among the most active witnesses against Christian persecution around the world, particularly in the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East. In November 2011, Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, visited Syria and Lebanon. In a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Kirill said that he shared a concern with Assad about the “spread of religious radicalism that threatens the integrity of the Arab world.”

That sentiment has been expressed widely in Christian communities in Syria — some of them dating to apostolic times — as civil war has progressively taken a heavy toll. Now almost two years on, as many as 30,000 people may have perished. Despite having few illusions about the nature of Assad’s autocratic rule, many Christians feared that the Islamist groups, involved in what the West initially viewed as another “Arab Spring” uprising, would eventually turn on them. Indeed this is what has happened. Entire Christian villages have been depopulated, churches desecrated, and many brutal killings have taken place at the hands of the “Arab Spring” insurgents. Most recently, Fr. Fadi Haddad, an Orthodox priest, was found murdered with brutal marks of torture on his remains. Car bomb attacks are now being waged against Christian neighborhoods. (See these backgrounders on the Syrian crisis from the Congressional Research Service and the Council on Foreign Relations).

In February, Hilarion delivered a lecture in Moscow titled “An Era of New Martyrdom. Discrimination of Christians in Various Parts of the World” in which he cited the work of groups such as Barnabas Fund and International Christian Concern. In his talk, he detailed the dire situation of the Coptic Christians in Egypt and in Syria, and various other nations. He noted that Muslims and Christians of various confessions – Orthodox, Roman and Syro Catholics, Maronites and Armenians – co-existed in Syria through centuries and that, until recently, “Syria was a model of wellbeing as far as interreligious co-existence was concerned.” What’s more, Syria has accepted 2 million refugees from Iraq, with several thousand of them being Christians, as they fled persecution in their homeland.

[…]

For the complete posting go to the Acton Institute Blog.

Russian Warns on Demonic Roots of Socialism

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Source: Acton Institute | By John Couretas

In Rome to address a conference sponsored by the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) on June 29, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov expressed amazement for the support that socialism gets in some quarters in the West even though it has “never worked in world history.” In an interview with the Zenit news service, Komov pointed to how this ideology had caused such great pain and suffering “all in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.” His criticism was also leveled at the “softer version of socialism” of administrations in the West led by President Barack Obama and recently José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the former prime minister of Spain.

Komov believes that if you “dig deep enough into the ideological roots of these socialist movements, you end up finding satanic roots in them.” And although only a softer version is prevalent now, “it is still very dangerous,” he says. “I would warn all those people fascinated by socialist ideas that they have never worked in human history — never worked.”

The traditional nuclear family is a particular enemy of socialism, he says, because it is the basic institution that preserves values and passes them on to the next generation. “The state, if it wants to dominate life and the individual from birth to death, needs to destroy the family, because the family is independent of the state,” he argues. “As Marx and Engels said, the family is a repressive, bourgeois institution that needs to be destroyed; they need to get rid of its patriarchal power and that of Christianity because they are the main obstacles of the social revolution.”

Komov’s witness against socialism is all the more timely because of a growing fascination with Marxism in the West. That’s especially true of young people who seem not to have heard a thing about the gulags and the oceans of blood shed by communist regimes (their parents may be willfully ignorant). Of course, few schools teach lessons about the Gulag or add writers such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to required reading lists, which should also include selections from The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. The Guardian, a UK paper, examines this new enthusiasm in an article titled, “Why Marxism is on the rise again.” The article links to the Marxism Festival 2012, now underway in London.

The Zenit article also quotes Rocco Buttiglione, recipient of the 2004 Acton Institute Faith & Freedom Award, on “the importance of truth and authentic tolerance in politics.” Buttiglione …

… noted that the meaning of tolerance has subtly changed over the years, so subtly, in fact, that it has escaped people’ s notice. “‘Don’t be judgemental,’ people say, but you can translate that as ‘Don’t think’ because to think means to pass judgement,” he said.

He said that to think means to create hierarchies, to put things in order, to make distinctions between good and bad, truth and falsehood. “If you do this, you are considered intolerant,” he said, “That’s bad, because it destroys real participation.”

Read “Dangerous Flirting: Russian Wonders Why West Is Enamored With Socialism — What Christians Should Do in the Public Square” on Zenit.

Download the AU 2012 lecture “The Unknown Solzhenitsyn” by Dr. Edward Ericson (Day two; only 99 cents).

Christian Environmentalism that ‘Costs me Nothing’

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By John Couretas

In his June 18 keynote address at the opening ceremony of the Halki Summit in Turkey, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew looked forward to the start of the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainability, June 20-22. He noted that attendees at his environmental gathering were “deeply frustrated with the stubborn resistance and reluctant advancement of earth-friendly policies and practices.” He called for greater sacrifice and personal responsibility (emphasis added in the quote below):

Permit us to propose that perhaps the reason for this hesitation and hindrance may lie in the fact that we are unwilling to accept personal responsibility and demonstrate personal sacrifice. In the Orthodox Christian tradition, we refer to this “missing dimension” as ascesis, which could be translated as abstinence and moderation, or – better still – simplicity and frugality. The truth is that we resist any demand for self-restraint and self-control.

[ … ]

Each of us is called to draw a distinction between what we want and what we need, or – more importantly – what the world needs. Greed and gratification reduce the world to a survival of the fittest; whereas generosity and gratitude transform the world into a community of sharing. We are invited to pursue a way of sacrifice – not a sacrifice that is cheap, but a sacrifice that is costly. As King David once said: “I will not offer to the Lord my God a sacrifice that costs me nothing.” (2 Samuel 24.24) We must be prepared to make sacrifices – material and financial – that are genuine and even painful. And in this regard, whether we like it or not, more is demanded from the rich than from the poor.

Speaking of cheap, this latest statement – in light of the actual environmental praxis of the Phanar and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America – is an exercise in cheap moralizing and empty Church-speak. For starters, the Halki Summit was held in the historic Halki Palace Hotel, “one of the oldest and finest hotels in the vicinity of the Princes’ Islands,” and which features satellite TV, mini-bar, laundry service and Jacuzzis in nine of the suites. So you can take a nice warm bubble bath while contemplating how “simplicity and frugality” will help avert a global environmental catastrophe. Then take a drink poolside and join in for some bracing conversation about how Summit attendees can “bring the global environmental discussion to a new and richer place.” Indeed.

At the same time, Bartholomew’s American church is preparing to gather in Phoenix for the 2012 Clergy Laity Congress, July 1-5. It is meeting at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa for five days. Yes, a luxury resort in the Sonoran desert in the middle of July. Abstinence? The Marriott features four acres of swimming pools. Can’t swim? The Spa’s steam, sauna and whirlpools might do the trick, or the facial and massage services which start at $330 and ratchet up to $481, for the “total indulgence” package which gets you the “Too Sexy for Your Shoes Pedicure.” Make your reservations now, presvyteres!

No wonder the Colorado River is drying up. Patricia Mulroy, a board member of the Water Research Foundation, which promotes the development of safe drinking water, told Smithsonian Magazine that people need a “fundamental, cultural attitude change about water supply in the Southwest. It’s not abundant, it’s not reliable, it’s not going to always be there.” Maybe the patriarch, who has held environmental cruises on major rivers such as the Danube and the Amazon, could hold his next summit on the Colorado. A raft would work better than a cruise ship there.

Speaking of “self restraint and self control,” recall that on his 2009 visit to the United States, the patriarch shuttled to and fro on a private jet. When he gathered with bishops and priests of the Ecumenical Throne at the Limani Restaurant in New York to toast Archbishop Demetrios, was that an example of the ascesis we’re being lectured about now? At Limani, you can get a nice cowboy ribeye for $48, or Canadian caught Halibut — steak-cut and charcoal grilled – for $35. Add Greek fries or horta for only $9.

Perhaps the patriarch can send a message to the Leadership 100 gathering in 2013 and remind the wealthy benefactors that “more is demanded from the rich.” They’re meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach, Fla. The Ritz-Carlton is a favorite of this group (Laguna Niguel and Naples, in recent years), but they broke the mold in 2010 when they met at The Hotel del Coronado near San Diego in 2010.

Now, everyone understands why a church gathering needs a certain basic infrastructure to do its work: central heating and air conditioning, wireless Internet, refrigeration and modern sanitation, ready access to emergency medical care. But there’s a long stretch from basic necessities to the luxury spa in the desert or on the Florida beach.

The patriarch prayed at his summit in Turkey that those gathered with him, the “exceptional assembly,” would “explore ways and means to bridge the unacceptable gap between theory and practice, between ideas and life.” May his prayer be answered.

John Couretas: Protect the Poor, Not Poverty Programs

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Source: Acton Institute | By John Couretas

One of the disturbing aspects of the liberal/progressive faith campaign known as the Circle of Protection is that its organizers have such little regard – indeed are blind to — the innate freedom of the human person.

Their campaign, which has published “A Statement on Why We Need to Protect Programs for the Poor,” equates the welfare of the “least of these” in American society to the amount of assistance they receive from the government — a bizarre view from a community that trades in spiritual verities. Circle of Protection supporters see people locked into their circumstances, stratified into masses permanently in a one-down position, thrown into a class struggle where the life saving protection of “powerful lobbies” is nowhere to be found. And while they argue that budgets are moral documents, their metrics for this fiscal morality are all in dollars and cents.

Not only does the Circle of Protection group appear to be oblivious to the power of private charity and church-based outreach to the needy, but they seem to have no hope for the poor outside of bureaucratic remedies. This is a view of the human person not as a composite of flesh and spirit, but as a case number, a statistic and a passive victim of the daily challenges and troubles that life brings.

In response to the Circle of Protection campaign, another faith group has formed with a very different outlook on the budget and debt debates that will consume the political energy of the country in the months ahead. Christians for a Sustainable Economy (CASE) argue for policies that are focused less on protecting poverty programs and more on protecting the poor (I am a supporter). In a letter to President Obama, CASE wrote:

We need to protect the poor themselves. Indeed, sometimes we need to protect them from the very programs that ostensibly serve the poor, but actually demean the poor, undermine their family structures and trap them in poverty, dependency and despair for generations. Such programs are unwise, uncompassionate, and unjust.

This is what Fr. Peter-Michael Preble was getting at when he observed that “… the present government programs do nothing but enslave the poor of this country to the programs and do nothing to break the cycle of poverty in this country.” This is not, he added, an argument to eliminate all government assistance but rather for “a safety net and not a lifestyle.”

In discussing the relative merits of the Circle of Protection and the Christians for a Sustainable Economy campaign, Michael Gerson wrote that “the Circle’s approach is more urgent.” Arguing against “disproportionate sacrifices of the most vulnerable,” he asserted that “public spending on poverty and global health programs is a sliver of discretionary spending and essentially irrelevant to America’s long-term debt.”

It’s a big and growing “sliver.” According to a Heritage Foundation study of welfare spending, of the 70-odd means-tested programs run by the federal government, “almost all of them have received generous increases in their funding since President Obama took office.” The president’s 2011 budget will increase spending on welfare programs by 42 percent over President Bush’s last year in office. Analyst Katherine Bradley observed that “total spending on the welfare state (including state spending) will rise to $953 billion in 2011.”

Instead of more billions for failed poverty programs, CASE argues that “all Americans – especially the poor – are best served by sustainable economic policies for a free and flourishing society. When creativity and entrepreneurship are rewarded, the yield is an increase of productivity and generosity.” Underlying this is a belief that the human person is able to freely and creatively anticipate what life may bring, rather than wait around for a caseworker or a Washington lobbyist to intervene.

That freedom explains why some people, even in difficult economic times, can move up the income scale despite assertions that they are among the “most vulnerable.” A U.S. Treasury study showed that “nearly 58 percent of the households that were in the lowest income quintile (the lowest 20 percent) in 1996 moved to a higher income quintile by 2005. Similarly, nearly 50 percent of the households in the second-lowest quintile in 1996 moved to a higher income quintile by 2005.” In an analysis of income inequality and social mobility, economist Thomas Sowell wrote that there is a confusion “between what is happening to statistical categories over time and what is happening to flesh-and-blood individuals over time, as they move from one statistical category to another.”

Income mobility is debated endlessly by economists, but it is the existential reality for countless Americans who have ever strived for something better — or suffered a setback in their hopes. Yet the one sure thing that will stifle this mobility is an economy in decline, with job creation slowed, and encumbered by ever higher federal budget deficits and debt. And that’s what we’ll get more of if the Circle of Protection’s prescriptions for a “moral budget” hold sway.

When economic systems break down, as they are now unraveling in some European welfare states, those who will be hurt first and hardest will be the poor, the working family living from paycheck to paycheck, the pensioner – those operating at the margins. If we fail to come to grips with the reality of our potentially ruinous fiscal trajectory, we will all learn, as other countries are now learning, what “truly vulnerable” means.

John Couretas. Greek Patriarch: No Nukes

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With the terrible human toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami catastrophe only now being comprehended, and the grave follow on crisis at the country’s nuclear power plants unfolding by the hour, the anti-nuclear power crowd has already begun issuing statements such as the one Greenpeace put out saying that “nuclear power cannot ever be safe.”

Predictably, reports Geoffrey Lean in the Telegraph, “battle lines” are being drawn:

On Saturday, some 50,000 anti-nuclear protesters formed a 27-mile human chain from Germany’s Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant to the city of Stuttgart to protest against its government’s plans to extend the life of the country’s reactors. Green politicians in pro-nuclear France urged an end to its dependence on the atom, and Ed Markey, a leading Democratic US Congressman, called for a moratorium on building new reactors in seismically active areas.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel, after holding a meeting of the German cabinet on the issue, reaffirmed her confidence in the safety of nuclear power. The leader of Silvio Berlusconi’s party said that Italy would stick with plans to build new reactors. And a spokesman for US Senator Lisa Murkowski said it would be “poor form for anyone to criticise the nuclear industry, or pronounce the end of nuclear power, because of a natural disaster that has been a national tragedy for the Japanese people”.

Poor form, indeed. Now we have an example of an unseemly statement on nuclear power at the worst possible time from a religious leader.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Orthodox hierarch based in Istanbul, Turkey, today called for nations to stop using nuclear power and to adopt “green” energy technologies:

… with regard to the explosion of the nuclear reactor and the aftermath of a nuclear adversity, there is indeed a response that we are called to make. With all due respect to the science and technology of nuclear energy and for the sake of the survival of the human race, we counter-propose the safer green forms of energy, which both moderately preserve our natural resources and mindfully serve our human needs.

Our Creator granted us the gifts of the sun, wind, water and ocean, all of which may safely and sufficiently provide energy. Ecologically-friendly science and technology has discovered ways and means of producing sustainable forms of energy for our ecosystem. Therefore, we ask: Why do we persist in adopting such dangerous sources of energy? Are we so arrogant as to compete with and exploit nature? Yet, we know that nature invariably seeks revenge.

This is magical thinking about very practical policy questions and complex technology overlaid with a spiritual gloss. The statement also attempts a clumsy preemption of what will be an inevitable and necessary policy review worldwide of nuclear power in the wake of the Japan disaster. But even as the dead are being pulled from the wreckage in Japan, we’re getting a finger-wagging lecture about Mother Nature seeking her revenge and the stupidity of our “dangerous” sources of power. Not for nothing is Bartholomew known as the Green Patriarch.

According to the Energy Information Administration, nuclear power will generate 17 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2035. That’s down only slightly from the current 20 percent. If we shut down nuclear power, what will we replace it with? As Louie today pointed out in his post, the push for renewable or clean technologies has largely been driven by government incentives. Why isn’t the technology advancing more rapidly, despite the billions poured into these projects? What would be the economic consequences of shunning fossil fuels in favor of Bartholomew’s “sun, wind, water and ocean” driven technologies? (What would a tsunami do to wave power technology?). The EIA is projecting that coal will still provide 43 percent of U.S. electricity needs in 2035. Why is that?

The patriarch could be more effective if he stuck to principles of Christian stewardship of the environment and left the practical implications to those who have some expertise in these matters. Bartholomew has extended himself outside of his competency with this statement on Fukushima and nuclear power. He, or his advisors, should read the following words from Steven Hayward’s new AEI booklet Mere Environmentalism — A Biblical Perspective on Humans and the Natural World before crafting similar statements in the future.

There is a fine line between applying biblical faith to social conditions in the service of God’s purposes, and becoming an adjunct of current secular political and social trends. A spirit of discernment is the most needful thing when considering the intersection of Christian faith and social issues, lest Christian thought become reinterpreted and subsumed as a mere component of contemporary social idealism. Indeed, the allure of compelling secular perspectives on social issues, usually and confusingly derived from the Christian heritage of Western civilization, needs to be regarded as a classic form of temptation. Often there will be overlapping aspects of Christian and secular approaches to social issues. The primary task of a Christian thinker, therefore, is to focus on what is distinctive about a Christian approach to an issue.

Full text of the patriarch’s March 14 statement follows:

Message on the nuclear explosion at Fukushima

It is with burdened and painful heart that the entire world is witnessing the drama of the tragic earthquake, which over the last days has afflicted Japan and cost numerous lives of our brothers and sisters. Moreover, it is with much anguish and sorrow that we behold the related devastation in the Land of the Rising Sun as well as in other nations of the Pacific. Every corner of the planet is offering prayers both for the repose of the departed souls and for the support of those who continue to be grieved and imperiled by the ensuing seismic tremors and ferocious tsunami. Lamentably, yet another calamitous consequence has struck the region with the explosion of the nuclear plant at Fukushima, rendering still more frightening the recent nightmare in Japan.

The disastrous ramifications of this event will become more evident over the next days. Of course, with regard to the earthquake, no human response is adequate. The causes and results eclipse human words. Nevertheless, with regard to the explosion of the nuclear reactor and the aftermath of a nuclear adversity, there is indeed a response that we are called to make. With all due respect to the science and technology of nuclear energy and for the sake of the survival of the human race, we counter-propose the safer green forms of energy, which both moderately preserve our natural resources and mindfully serve our human needs.

Our Creator granted us the gifts of the sun, wind, water and ocean, all of which may safely and sufficiently provide energy. Ecologically-friendly science and technology has discovered ways and means of producing sustainable forms of energy for our ecosystem. Therefore, we ask: Why do we persist in adopting such dangerous sources of energy? Are we so arrogant as to compete with and exploit nature? Yet, we know that nature invariably seeks revenge.

From the Ecumenical Patriarchate, we raise fervent prayers for our beloved Japanese people for the trial and tribulation it currently faces, while at the same time passionately appeal to all those responsible for a reconsideration of the nuclear policy of nations throughout the world.

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