Month: June 2010

In our continuing effort to keep you informed about the recent and on going work of our Hierarchs to bring about administrative unity, we present an extensive interview with Fr. Mark Arey. The discussion centers on the first Episcopal Assembly meeting in New York on May 26-28, 2010. You will hear first hand what took place behind the closed doors of the Assembly and how it impacts all of us for the future. Fr. Mark is the current General Secretary of SCOBA (the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America) and was the initial Secretary of the Assembly in New York. He was one of very few non-Bishops in the meetings.

Listen here:

It’s too bad that Constantinople won’t dispense with the Progressive rhetoric (first paragraph) because it creates the impression that Orthodoxy endorses the shabby thinking behind the ideology. (On the other hand, perhaps Constantinople does buy into the Progressive world view given that we were told global warming is established fact and were exhorted to work for passage of the Geneva Protocols.) Greed is certainly a factor in spoiling the natural world, but to attribute all despoiling to the greed of developed countries is, well, misinformed. Deprivation, ignorance, economic insecurity factor into it as well. In fact, environmental care is largely the province of the developed countries while underdeveloped countries (China, India, etc.) are the world’s worst polluters.

Finally, the exhortations taken from scripture and the fathers that complete the exhortation are worth heeding. They don’t, however, justify in any compelling way the unfocused exhortation of the opening paragraph.

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June 5, 2010 | Source: The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

Inasmuch as, at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, we have long been concerned about problems related to the preservation of the natural environment, we have ascertained that the fundamental cause of the abuse and destruction of the world’s natural resources is greed and the constant tendency toward unrestrained wealth by citizens in so-called “developed” nations.

The holy Fathers of our Church have taught and lived the words of St. Paul, according to which “if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these” (1 Tim. 6.8), adhering at the same time to the prayer of Solomon: “Grant me neither wealth nor poverty, but simply provide for me what is necessary for sufficiency.” (Prov. 30:8) Everything beyond this, as St. Basil the Great instructs, “borders on forbidden ostentation.”
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From First Thoughts by Wesley J. Smith:

Peter Singer Sympathetic to Human Extinction as Way of Avoiding Suffering

Wesley J. Smith

Peter Singer blogs at the New York Times about a new book (Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence, by David Benetar) that apparently advocates human extinction as a way of preventing human suffering. Singer doesn’t agree, but is clearly sympathetic. From Singer’s post:

I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. But justifying that choice forces us to reconsider the deep issues with which I began. Is life worth living? Are the interests of a future child a reason for bringing that child into existence? And is the continuance of our species justifiable in the face of our knowledge that it will certainly bring suffering to innocent future human beings?

We have to “justify” continuing the species? Good grief. Under the influence of anti-human advocates like Peter Singer, we have gone in the West from seeking to “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity,” to seriously questioning whether there should be any posterity at all. This is not healthy. But it is the natural consequence of rejecting human exceptionalism.

If you are interested, I have a more detailed analysis over at Secondhand Smoke.

George Michalopulos, prolific contributor to the Orthodox blog, essayist, and keen critic of Orthodox culture and politics wrote an essay challenging some of the conclusions offered by Matthew Namee at the Symposium on Orthodox Unity held at St. Vladimir Seminary on June, 20, 2009. Read his abstract below. The full article can be found on Orthodoxy Today. Read it, then return here for discussion.

By George Michalopulos

ABSTRACT: Last year, a symposium entitled The Council and the Tomos: 20th Century Landmarks Towards a 21st Century Church, was held at St Vladimir’s Seminary (Crestwood, June 18-20, 2009). One of the speakers, Matthew Namee, presented an expanded version of a paper he delivered the previous year at the Orthodox Theological Society in America. His paper was titled, “The Myth of Unity and the Origins of Jurisdictional Pluralism in North America.” Namee expanded an earlier thesis to argue that the story of the Russian Mission and the implicit unity it fostered in the early years of the Orthodox presence in America was largely mythical. Rather, the history is one of jurisdictional rivalry and division from which we can draw little or no guidance for our present situation or the future. Namee implicitly issued a challenge: Which historical narrative that describes the Orthodoxy presence in America is correct? Is it the Russian Mission narrative which prescribes a Church guided by the Orthodox missionary imperative? Or is it the narrative of ethnic protection that has little interest in engaging American society and culture? The resolution of this question will impact the future of Orthodoxy in America. Will American Orthodoxy become a local church in the canonical tradition of mission-minded Orthodoxy, or will it remain divided by ethnic interests, essentially a Balkanized entity subject to overseas leadership and political interests? What follows is my response.

Read the entire essay on OrthodoxyToday.org.

We’re in trouble.