That is demonstrably false. If you poll the American people, the vast majority consistently profess a belief in God. Communism decimated the Church in the countries in which it was imposed. Christianity was totally wiped out in Albania, for example. I will of course admit that the theism of many Americans is not to deep or disciplined, but it is there.

“A pious priest is far more successful than a priest
with an education plan.”

And this is really my point, beyond the whole semantics of “ideology” thing, it is vital that priests be pious; however, education is as vital. In fact, educating the faithful as well as the catechumens and the world at large is a part of piety. If people are not presented with the faith, and sometimes confronted with it, especially its moral aspects, they will feel free to marginalize it in their lives. That’s what we have now and no matter how pious a priest is in his own personal habits, if he is not actively taking the faith to his congregation, in opposition to the culture, he is not doing his job.

The most effective way to do that, in my opinion, is systematically, with educational and evangelical outreach programs with an organized system, easily graspable by the laity, to convey the faith. That, together with eucharistic discipline and the expectations of the church membership of one and other, would at least start to bring the ship back to its rightful course.

Some Orthodox churches are doing this to some degree. Hopeufully it will catch on.

2. Both communist and capitalist systems created the “modern” atheist people. In communism people gave up faith mainly because were forced and later were misinformed on religious matters. Once the communism fell, the resistance, dignity, bravery and martyrdom of those who kept their faith inspired some of the misinformed ones to become faithful.

In the capitalist countries people gave up faith freely, without a fight and adopted mainly the “have fun religion”. There are no heroes (a few maybe) to inspire them to return to faith. The capitalist system was far more successful in bringing about atheism.

It is difficult to change someone’s mind and heart. Often, the only way to change is a break down. The pain ultimately leads to a break through. The Church prays for all people, but each one of us has to make the decision to give up sin and get closer to God. Faith is not a matter of being educated it is mainly living the faith.
A pious priest is far more successful than a priest
with an education plan.

Yes, but lying and murdering is part of their ideology. Part of Marxist-Leninist ideology teaches that propaganda need not be based on fact, just conform to the model of Marxist economics and politics. Moreover, since the needs of the whole society (defined ideologically) outweigh any right to individual conscience, thinking and doing outside the ideology can be punished severely, by re-education or execution.

But none of this is part of the ideology of Christianity. I suppose there are those who associate “ideology” with something necessarily negative, much like the label “cult” is largely a question of how you feel about the particular group.

Nonetheless, I admire the zeal of some ideologues and wish that the Church educated its laity in a systematic, ideological way and harnessed that power for good.

That’s it for me on this subject.

I lay the current deranged morality of our culture at the feet of the American Christian establishment …

… the leadership of the Christian churches has failed miserably, almost unforgiveably, to resist and overcome the cultural trends that led us to this point.

It seemed to me that you have a clear idea about what is happening. Your comment shows the contrary.
I found very interesting what you said on Nov 24th (note 7):

Politics is the question of whose morality (and economics, etc.) prevail in society.

Michael,

I believe I have made it clear that I do believe that pagan thinking dominates our politics and sometimes the actions of our hierarchs and people. I am not satisfied with this situation. I wholeheartedly agree that before kingdoms can change, men must change. However, kingdoms do need to change.

Also, I lay the current deranged morality of our culture at the feet of the American Christian establishment. Democracy has no place in a revealed religion and the leadership of the Christian churches has failed miserably, almost unforgiveably, to resist and overcome the cultural trends that led us to this point.

Now, how we engage the culture is a matter of good faith opinion. We may need to work in the world, but we can minimize our participation in its culture and create an alternative Orthodox culture to replace for our people “Dancing with the Stars” with vigils or bible studies, etc. (just as an example).

All of this is really theoretical and piecemeal though until we see some real leadership on the part of the bishops. Many of them would label what we’re discussing here as “fundamentalist” or “extreme”. That is a serious problem.

And, to come full circle. The rigor with which ideologues practice their ideology may be just what we need a strong dose of in the Church.

I guess we just have to disagree about this one. Marx believed in the historical inevitability of what he discovered about the dialectic and trajectory of human history. Out of what he considered his insight developed a relatively closed system of thought (although there are different flavors of Marxists).

Holy Tradition seems to me very much to fit as the type of closed system of thought to which you refer. True, it has God as it’s fountain, but unless we’re open to the “Holy Spirit leading us to do a New Thing” as are the Episcopalians, etc., I fail to see a meaningful distinction there. A thing is not true simply because noted personalities say so, even with eloquence, but because it has some objective support. It may be offensive to some to consider Christianity an ideology, but nonetheless, apart from lofty language about the immanence and transcendence of God, I’m not sure there is a meaningful distinction.

I will make one last observation before relagating this one to the realm of beating a dead horse:

You seem to place much emphasis on the source of Christianity being the Living God, transcendent and immanent, and that the religion does not self reference but always refers back to this God.

I would say the same exact thing about radical Islam, which generally is characterized as an ideology. Moreover, although in the web of thought known as Holy Tradition there is constant reference made to God, what we know about God comes to us through Holy Tradition, from revelation, et al., and we acknowledge that in the direct sense God is unknowable.

I suppose I would have to say that if there can be such a thing as a religious ideology, in the philisophical sense, that I don’t know why Christianity, for any reason other than willful choice of the observant, could not be characterized as such an ideology.

You are not using the term in this sense of course. You are using it as a catch-all to describe concrete, intellectually-based, engagement with the culture, including theology, apologetics, preaching, etc.

In a philosophical sense however, the term implies that all these elements still function within a “closed system.” Clearly they do not. You know this, Michael knows this, I know this. Yet if we don’t use the language carefully, these points get lost and we don’t understand each other.

(When Christianity becomes “ideological”, it ceases to be Christian, even though it retains the language and forms of the Christian faith — white washed sepulchers and all that. Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote eloquently on these themes.)

Christianity flows from the person of God Incarnate. In the sense that all Christian ideas, structure and indeed our own being refer back to and flow from the infinite and eternal God, it is not a closed, self-referencing system.
That does not make it either illogical or irrational but rather supra-rational, i.e. other worldly.

The ideologies that dominate our politics have no such foundation, they are solely rational attempts to deal with a reality that is not solely rational, thus they are based on a deformed anthropology at inception. It is the same old Western dualism that bifurcates human beings and denies our ability to commune with God and each other. It doesn’t work. After a 2000 yearss of trying to make it work, you’d think we’d get point.

What makes you think pagans, apostates and heretics are not already making the decisions. What makes you think that really Christian ideas and principals have any traction with the body politic?

It is my stance that the political system has become so much a creature of nihilism that only by refusing to participate in it as much as possible can we have any impact. That is by no means a withdrawal, in fact just the opposite.

In case you have not read it, I refer you to Fr. Seraphim Rose’s little book, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age.

Michael,

Is there some authoritative book to which you are privy that sets out exactly what separates a “religious ideology” from a religion so I could verify that statement? No doubt that any “religious ideology” which contradicts the Orthodox Faith is a heresy.

-from Webster’s free online dictionary

I’m not sure what you mean by “strict definition of the term”. However, I would make one remark about Christianity as an ideology, regardless of the sense in which ideology is meant:

Christianity, to be sure, is God in our midst. Nothing I have said should be taken as contradicting that. Nonetheless, just because our fountain is God does not mean that we do not possess a “systematic body of concepts” or a socio-political program. It’s both/and, not either/or.

Holy tradition sound very much to me to be a “closed (internally referencing) set of ideas that construct a world view.” That worldview is actually an accurate reflection of reality, unlike Marxism and the other -isms.

And there is strength in viewing Christianity as an ideology. It is the strength of putting ideals into practice. If we are not to do that, then it is tantamount to sayiing we are not to practice Christianity.

No doubt there is a danger with christening a particular political program as being “the Christian one”. But I don’t think there is any danger whatsoever in a general fight for traditional Christian attitudes to prevail in society and in the law.

The alternative is that we seek out persecution. For that is what will come if we admit some secular sphere. If it is not Christians making political decisions on the basis of Christian principles, it will be pagans making political decisions on the basis of God knows what. It really is that simple. And pagan gods, like our God, are quite jealous and not likely to tolerate us too well.

You use the term in its popular sense, in this context as credible, intellectual, engagement in theological matters, correct? Ideology functions more descriptively in your usage I think.

I really do not understand why you exclude the possibility of a religious ideology. You posit a construct that ideology is inherently godless and then just assume the universal validity of that perspective. That is what I mean by semantics, not an actual theological difference like “same essence” vs. “like essence”.

“The life of the Church is about uniting with Christ, submitting to his love. Such an act is neither an idea nor can it be systematized into a fixed structure because it is an organic ecology of inter-relationships and communion crowned by the un-knowable essence of God, inter-penetrated by His grace.”

It is an idea and you expressed it in words. It is, of course, more than an idea.

Perhaps we should be more adamant in practicing Christianity as an ideology. It seems that instead of the lukewarm smarmy evangelical-like Orthodox Christianity that we see so much of, alongside the “happen to be” Orthodox club mentality, there might be room for an Orthodox Christianity that is actually compelled to gain ground, not lose it, in its context. An Orthodoxy straight out of Christendom, not post-Christendom. Just a thought.

Even at best, an ideology is a systematic structure of ideas about worldly things. The life of the Church is about uniting with Christ, submitting to his love. Such an act is neither an idea nor can it be systematized into a fixed structure because it is an organic ecology of inter-relationships and communion crowned by the un-knowable essence of God, inter-penetrated by His grace.

That is one of the reasons that St. Paul said that the Law brings death. It’s like disecting a living creature and saying its alive–Dr. Frankenstein. Ideologies codify the fallen choice between good and evil.

We human beings are capable of making an ideology out of almost anything because we like binary thinking, but ideologies are fundamentally dead. Quite a different thing and principals and actions dervied from love of a person.