Father, very helpful and insightful. I think identified the key aspect of my own frustration with the EP focusing on a particular policy agenda. The downstream/upstream analysis says it all. Focusing on a specific policy leaves completely unaddressed the sin that IS the root cause of all pollution (environmental, personal, social, spiritual, etc.), and consequently leaves unaddressed the spiritual capacities that will be needed to address all crises, not just this one.

I love the Black Swan citation. (Taleb became something of an oracle to the financial services industry – of which he was himself once a part – last September when we had the equivalent of a run on the financial system.) His work notes that once we have identified and comprehended the current unanticipated events, we are invariably lulled back into unwarranted complacency, once again blind to our own limited understanding. Even though the financial industry has focused on the book’s examination of statistical “fat tails,” it’s really a book about “the science of human hubris.” Addressing the problem of hubris and its attendant blindness, however is something for which our Tradition is ideally suited. Yet rather than focusing on the Big Picture – the hubris, sin, selfishness, spiritual impairment and other upstream issues that are foundational to each crisis du jour – the focus expressed in most of the publicized efforts seems to be on the current “bus.” It’s a mistake expressed well in the distinction between the urgent and the important. Yet what is the unique mandate of the Church but to call people’s attention to and cultivate our capacities in regard to the Eternally Important? (Again, by ALL accounts, cultivating these capacities properly is an incredibly demanding effort.) If the Church leadership fails to focus on the Important, but instead focuses its efforts on the urgent, then we both abdicate what we alone are uniquely called to do and at the same time do poorly what others are better equipped and called to do.
And you are right, there will be a new crisis “tomorrow.” There always is.

Chrys,

I think you and Michael are on to something–and it helps me understand my disappointment with the EP’s focus on the environment.

Let us assume that climate change is a problem and it is a problem we can solve (to big IF’s to be sure). The solution the RP and others are lobbying for are “downstream” solutions–they seek to address the immediate problem but do so at the expense of more “upstream” factors. Put another way, the BEST we can hope for a governmental solution is to solve this problem even as we set ourselves up for the next one. What that next one will be is not something we can predict–read The Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Taleb–but THAT it will come is certain. And because we are so focused on the immediate when the next problem comes we will be unequipped to respond in much the same way, and for much the same reason, generals are always prepared to fit the last war not the current one.

But if, as Michael asks, our leaders challenged us to holiness, or at least did not undermine our attempts (and yes, I can testify that this happens) we develop the virtues–spiritual, intellectual and social–that makes a creative and effective response to not only our current problems but the next ones down the road more likely.

The problem is not the environment, or the economy, it is me. It is my lack of virtue, my lack of holiness and indifference to the Gospel.

Finally, and as I emailed Chrys, I think here in American, we have oversold Orthodoxy. Yes the tradition is AMAZING and even a mediocre celebration of the Divine Liturgy with only an iffy sermon is usually better than what many American Christians get on Sunday morning. But so what? I mean really, where’s the trick of outrunning the lame?

ANway, well said gentlemen.

In Christ,

+FrG

Michael: Wow. You’ve put your finger on some pretty foundational issues that account for the relative anemia of the Church in America. While it is important to address the various jurisdictional issues that separate us, organizational unity – as Fr. Hans has pointed out elsewhere – will have little value if it is not informed by the Spirit of God. (Babel, after all was organized, but to no good purpose.)

It is hard to disagree with much of what you have written. I think you are right that we are in a very similar situation to that of the Russian Church, if for different reasons. While their individualism reflects the consequences of decades-long terror which severed that trust that is essential to community, ours is the consequence of a consumerist approach to life in which everything and everyone is reduced to a commodity to serve “my” particular need or purpose. (Or, as has been said about public policy: we are doing “retail” what the Soviets did “wholesale.”) In the end – by choice or by force – the Church membership is deeply infected by the fractured and self-enclosed existence of fallen humanity (of which I am one). The solution, as always, depends on cultivating a powerful spiritual life to that is able to transform us – as both individuals and as communities.

This gets to the critical and heart-wrenching point you made: “no one has ever challenged me to a higher level of spiritual obedience other than to remind me of the rules of the fasts. I’m on my own.” Unless and until we begin to address this central issue, all the other issues will remain merely academic exercises, for they depend on this. I have been fortunate to know some true Spiritual Fathers, who have – at least in general terms – offered that kind of challenge. Yet, when it comes to specifically personal direction, like you, I often feel that I am too much on my own for my own good. (Unlike you, this is probably my own fault.) What I think we need is the equivalent of a spiritual “coach”: someone who is willing to work closely with folks like us to help us go beyond where we are, “push” through points of resistance and address challenges. Unfortunately, most priests are neither formed for this nor “allowed” to serve in this capacity. They seem to have an implicit job description that either exhausts and depletes them (meeting every need of every “squeaky wheel” or “faction leader” in the parish), or reduces them to a mere liturgical functionary. As a result, we do get the priests we deserve – though it may not be what we, or the priests, really wanted.

What is needed, in the short-term, is to find someone who (near or far) is willing and reasonably well-suited to serve as a spiritual coach in the relatively intimate manner required. But the long-term solution, as I and some others see it, may require a somewhat different understanding of the priest’s functional role, a more spiritually-focused formation process, and a suitable support system that would allow priests to do what is needed to serve as a spiritual “coach” for their community. Fr. Gregory has long recognized this need and has examined many of the underlying issues that need to be addressed in order to begin to move in this direction. (For two very recent examples, see here and here.)

As your insightful comments make clear, nothing meaningful will happen – in us, our Church or our country – until we ourselves begin to be transformed. (And everything I have read indicates that this is always a rigorous, demanding process.) This is one of the reasons for the Church’s very existence and until it begins to focus on that mission, we are doing little more than going through the motions. If, however, we are content to just continue “playing around” with this most important part of life, God have mercy on us.

Thank you both for your comments–we shouldn’t deny the truth, any truth theological or empirical. My point though is that when we offer criticism, we need to be mindful of the unintended consequences of our speech. Wrongly I think to be sure, there are those who think AOI is anti-EP. It isn’t but we need to be careful that we don’t only criticize him.

I think George has put it well, while we can’t be silent in the face of error, insofar as we are able, we must express our opposition in a way that does not embitter other. Will some take offense anyway? Yes, certainly, but if they do, that’s their sin. My sin is to be indifferent to the “little one’s of faith.”

As I alluded to my original post, it is hard to escape the fact that the overall spiritual health and level of theological education in the Church–and not just the GOA–is rather low. Of the two, I am more concerned about our spiritual than intellectual health though both be improved. If people don’t know that they are loved by Jesus Christ–and many of our faithful and clergy do not know–they will put their faith in other gods–money, ethnicity, political power, or “being right” to name only a few.

WE must criticize but as far as possible I think our criticism should be done in a way that doesn’t simply point out error but offers the Gospel. While the latter will always accomplish the former, we can do the first without necessarily doing the second.

In Christ,

+FrG

I’m in the Orthodox Church because I was called to be here. I’ve partken of the Holy Mysteries, listened to the preaching of my priests and bishop, read, studied, debated and prayed. However, in over twenty years, no one has ever challenged me to a higher level of spiritual obedience other than to remind me of the rules of the fasts. I’m on my own.

In general we resist the temptation to actually talk about the life of the Church lived in the modern world out of fear of offending. Equivocation is the rule it seems. So, we each set up our own little Orthodox Church, or so we call it, and hope our “leaders” don’t get too far out of hand and steal and misdirect so much money the Feds start applying RICO and the Patriot Act. Of course these same ‘leaders’ could simply bankrupt the Church financially by continuing to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse and other forms of corruption.

We are not much different than the Russian situation described in https://www.aoiusa.org/2009/11/russian-monasticism-and-the-legacy-of-communism/

We don’t know community, nor do we particularly want to because we have been raised on and follow individualism as formed in us by the secularized Protestant mind and the hedonism of the 60’s. We interpret the life of the Church from a worldly point of view rather than the other way around.

We don’t have the faith to do what George M calls for, ‘baptize a country'(In any case countries don’t get baptised, persons do). We don’t even have the faith to say anything coherent to the modern mind. Until we free ourselves from both the dhimmi mindset of the past and the indvidualism of the present, we cannot do much more that accept the folks whom Christ has called to sup with us. I don’t think that there will be an Orthodox Church in this country until all of the current ‘jusrisdictions’ fail because of our hubris and apathy. The few who are left will pick up the pieces and start bringing folks together in love and humility based on genuine obedience (not blind legalism) to Holy Tradition. With no money, the old world Patriarchs would cease to have any interest in us any way.
We will contract before we actually grow–we must die before we can receive the life of the Holy Spirit.

Despite all of that there is a life so much different from the world that graces our parishes. Unfortunately we are mostly blind to that life as we are too busy ‘doing our own thing, man’; ‘making a difference’; appearing on Charlie Rose; building our careers and families; having ‘unity conferences’ that mean little.

While I appreciate (and share) the criticism offered here, what I worry about is the effect of our criticisms on others. What I mean is this, while the EP has evidently said and done things that he ought not have, merely pointing this pointing this out is insufficient. What we must have, and forgive me if I’m wrong here, is a clear, positive alternative to what John calls “Eastern rite Episcoplianism.”

The power of a positive message as both the message and the context of criticism is seen in Metropolitan JONAH’s ministry. More than that, however, I worry that if those of us who criticize the EP are not careful, we may drive people away from the Church or at least give them reason to ignore what we say.

The temptation is always to prefer power to service. This is especially the case when we are responding to those who already desire power for themselves.

In Christ,

+FrG

George,

The last paragraph in your observation is completely accurate and should be repeated over and over. Tragically I think we have not only seen the transformation of the EP into the Green Patriarch but we are also seeing the slow transformation of the GOA from a Church into just another denomination that looks alot like the Episcopal Church with a three-bar cross.

Simply put, man cannot be a seamless garment with creation if at the very same time we –and only we–“…are created in the image and likeness of God.” This is a logical fallacy pure and simple. If man is an icon of God (duh–Christianity 101), then unless Genesis says that the rest of Creation is as well (and it doesn’t), then nothing else is. This is oxymoronic, one cannot believe both things at once.

Again, this is not to say that because only man is a person (like God) and thus the apex of creation (as explicitly stated in Scripture and the writings of the Fathers), that he has the right to despoil the rest of creation. Certainly the case can be made that man does have that right but it does not logically follow that he must have that right or that the Bible gives him that right. In fact, I totally agree with His Holiness that the Bible does no such thing. Man is the steward of Creation, not its consumer.

From a practical point of view, the implications of this novel interpretation of Orthodox cosmology as explicated by the EP leads me to make the following indictment as well: that because a problem exists (not proven, but assume so for the sake of argument), we must entrust even more power to man in order to “correct” it. This is pace Andrew, a horrible prospect. This fallacy has never resulted in anything good happening. The hyperinflation and immorality of Wiemar Germany led to the National Socialists taking over. The ineptness of the Czarist regime during the Great War led to the Bolshevik revolution. The ancien regime led to the Jacobin Terror which led to the Napoleonic autocracy. Etc. Fr Greg is right: we need to recover the writings of St Augustine, at least in the realm of our relationship with the secular world. As +Hilarion Alfeyev states, Orthodoxy must “be the religion of the nation, not of the state.” (We Orthodox must radically rethink our relationship with and dependence upon, the state.)

He is right in that if we lived more Orthodox lives (i.e. ascetic struggle) things would be better for the world, but we aren’t serious in this regard. As Fr Greg states, we Orthodox are certainly not leading the way. Leaving aside the Godzilla-sized carbon prints left all over America during this journey, Fr Greg’s indictment about the lack of sacramental participation gives the lie to our propaganda.

All of this in retrospect reinforces more earlier belief that this entire enterprise was not well-thought out by his handlers. Cetainly not the speeches. The question remains, cui bono? (who benefits?). I think this was not only a desperate effort to remain relevant on the world stage and thereby augment the see of Constantinople’s crumbling status vis-a-vis Orthodoxy, but it was a last-ditch effort to derail American Orthodox unity and autocephaly. (What tipped me off to this was his speech before the Archons in which he totally ignored the primacy of the Russian mission in America.) Completely gratuitous and graceless.

There is no way at present of knowing whether the GOA will be able to leverage this visit against the other jurisdictions in the ongoing tussle of “who’s on first.” I have a feeling that once the EP leaves for Istanbul, whatever excitement was ginned up by the GOA will dissipate. That said, it will be interesting to compare the lack of media coverage on this “apostolic journey” with the upcoming visit of +Kirill. I for one, don’t imagine that either one would receive the same amount of media interest that the Pope’s visit would receive, but if the MP receives any TV coverage at all, then it would be a significant coup on his part. Of course, the MP has his own designs on America so this could prove to be very interesting in the upcoming Episcopal Assembly.

BTW, this just popped into my head: Is the entire premise of the GOA from this point on going to be concern for the environment and Left-wing activism? I’m not being snarky here, but an unwitting side effect of this visit has been to pain the GOA into another mainstream liberal denomination. To the extent that this received any political coverage at all (lunches, banquets at Congress, reception at the White House, etc.) This opens up several cans of worms with potential converts, the other jurisdictions, and the culture in general. In fact, it may be the worst possible thing that could happen to Orthodoxy in America since the massacre at Ligonier. Is Orthodoxy a Christian faith or is it just another ecclesial body that prides itself on its tolerance and concern for the cultural fads of the moment? I wouldn’t be surprised if conversions decrease because of this. I hope that the other jurisdictions will not take up this cause as it will likewise diminish us as serious participants in the socio-cultural dialogue. Especially now that global warming has seemed to have lost its social cache and scientific underpinnnings.

Time will tell.

Thank you for your kind words.

I have not read enough of the EP’s public statements to say definitively whether or not he has hitched his wagon to progressive politics. But I also would be hard press to deny your claim that he has.

Whatever the man’s politics, however, I do think you are correct. We have no need as Orthodox Christians to agree with his views on climate change or to pass over in silence the policies he advocates.

Where I agree with you most is I too would like to see HAH lend “his pastoral authority to a pro-life or pro-family cause.” That he has not is a scandal and undermines (in my eyes at least) the integrity of his witness and leadership.

In Christ,

+FrG

Progressive Politics is the medium that shapes the message of the EP and the GOA and for this reason I think you can make the case that re-branding of the EP into the Green Patriarch is a fashionable fundamentalism. More and more, I get the impression that the EP is a weather-vane who points in the direction where the political winds are blowing. Very rarely does he turn and challenge the winds of modern culture and say NO.

One thing that we must all remember is that the EP buys into the theory of man made climate change and the partisan solutions being proposed by progressives. On this visit he endorsed them and promoted them. This is unquestionable and for this reason Orthodox Christians of good will can say NO to the Green Patriarch and his support of policies that will trap millions in a vicious cycle of Poverty.