FrGregACCA,

If I may, I think Chrys and Fr Hans are correct–you are reading your own theological concerns into Colson’s essay. His only point is that crime is the fruit of sin. I would disagree with you that deprivation plays a role in crime, it doesn’t. In the final analysis the VAST majority of people in even the most extreme poverty DO NOT engage in criminal acts.

While I think it is praiseworthy to ease human suffering, we ought not to fool ourselves into thinking that this will lower the crime rate. It may but if I’ve understood Colson properly, his argument is that economic depression, and so a higher rate of poverty, does not result in an increase in crime. In fact he’s arguing the opposite, that crime rates seem to go down in times of relative economic hardship and up in times of relative prosperity.

Finally, and forgive me for pointing this out, but your community, the Antiochian Catholic Church in America, is not part of the Orthodox Church and I think it is inappropriate for you to present yourself as an Orthodox Christian priest. I welcome your contributions but please do not misrepresent your relationship to the Orthodox Church.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

By all accounts, he has lived according to his convictions and eschewed the kind of marketing that is common enough for someone like him in Evangelical circles.

As for stats – I wonder what kind of stats Elder Paisios had? I could only wish that the Church – and I – could claim some semblance to such saints. The stats that matter are the stats that “stick.”

Well said Chris. You response must have popped up as I was crafting mine.

You can argue whether Colson’s use of the term “depravity” means the Calvinist definition or something else. Colson never says. His point is that religion and public life are inseparable — a point the Orthodox would have no trouble making. That is as far as he goes with it.

Mr. Colson’s argument is to focus on the necessity of taking responsibility by looking at a variety of data that challenge the raft of prevailing notions that are invariably used to allay responsibility. (Not surprisingly that same shift away from individual responsibility is often promoted by that part of the spectrum that also seeks to avoid sexual responsibility as well.) It is interesting to note that an addict – of any kind – invariably blames his circumstances. By making the external (others, circumstances, etc.) responsible for him, he not only abdicates the responsibility he does have, but can (or rather will) then readily use it to justify every manner of indulgence. Recovery (and conversion, as well) begins with rejecting that dodge for the self-serving and self-defeating trap that it is and recognizing his very real responsibility for his circumstances – often at a point where the addiction has created some very adverse circumstances indeed.

Do we still need to foster more supportive, positive or helpful circumstances? Always. But making others responsible for one’s own behavior is rightly described as “crazy making.” This same deformative tendency can also also be found among the entitled (whether rich or poor or adolescent), often with the same destructive consequences. By contrast, the saint often takes on responsibility for things which are beyond his direct control, such as the sins of others.

It is easy to get lost – as many do – in the various influences that affect us. Though we may be able to actually control very little in life, we invariably destroy ourselves when we refuse to exercise the full measure of the responsibility we do have.

FrGregACCA, the article is being run because, like it or not, we don’t live in either a vacume or a predominantly Orthodox culture. We live, even in our largely secular age, in a culture whose ears are tuned to Protestant theological language. We need to be aware what Protesants are saying and how they talk and how to communicate with them. Any self-respecting Orthodox believer can translate if their priest has taught them.

My question to you, is crime really a Gordian Knot of such multi-layered causation that we have to apply a far reaching anaylsis which in turn requires all sorts of governmental and non-governmental programs to ‘solve’ or does it still come down to the personal moral choice regardless of the situtation in which one finds oneself. See Joseph and the steward’s wife.

There is a common meaning of the word depravity as well.

You ought to listen to the song “Officer Krumpke” from West Side Story which gives an amusing overview of the various approaches to crime that has only been added to since the song was written

Obviously, from an Orthodox perspective, we have inherited a corrupted human nature and death as a result of the Fall, but “depravity” implies the Augustinian/Calvinist notion of “original guilt”, the notion that not only do we suffer the consequences of the fall (consequences which, in fact, incline us toward sin), but that we are also “guilty” of the fall ourselves: “In Adam’s fall sinned we all.” As we know, Orthodoxy rejects the latter completely.

Personally, I think that both bad choices AND deprivation (as well as a host of other negative socioeconomic factors) contribute to crime. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us, insofar as it is possible, to take responsibility for ourselves and to call upon others to do the same while at the same time doing all we can, both personally and politically, to alleviate the socioeconomic problems in question.

And since when do we Orthodox believe in “depravity” anyway? That is a western, Augustinian concept, one that Orthodoxy rejects. Given that, why is an Orthodox website running an article by Chuck Colson?