It’s the new millenium and multi-tasking is “in”. We can and should simultaneously oppose Both distortion and destruction of the human person (abortion/homosexuality), And consumerist rape of All Creation, because Both are symptoms of the same problem, “happiness-seeking” sickness. If you make abortion/homosexuality the primary problem in order to unite with Papist/Protestants (the lowest common denominator because there is no Theological Unity), then you make of Orthodoxy another worldly Religion and are dragged down into the level of spiritual “illness” along with Western christianity, which is no “cure”, and which ends up muddied in “moral issues” together with Judaism and Islam, and bloodied in physical battle.

Yes, the human person (abortion/homosexuality) takes primacy, because only humans are created in Divine image, but humans are Created and exist together with All Creation, not in a Vacuum. Distortion/destruction (unregenerate “falleness”) of the human person effects destruction of All Creation. That’s why the rest of Creation is transfigured only through human deification, and why it “groans” in anticipation of that event. To separate and make a dichotomy of human/non-human makes “pro-life” guilty of the same one-sidedness as “humanist” environmentalists. Opposition must be on both “fronts” in order to be truly Orthodox Christian. God loves “the world” and gives His Son for All Creation, not just humanity, so human Care of Creation is an expression of the Divine Image and Likeness, the human “person”. The rest of Creation can’t wait for complete cessation of human abortion. We have no Divine mandate to be “linear” (1, 2…) in “standing up for Jesus”. All Creation is created in and through the Logos, and is going down the tube just as fast as human fetuses.

The defense of the unborn (the most innocent and defenseless of God’s creation) is a moral absolute and must be a priority, ahead of saving the whales, the rain forests, and the polar bears. Nothing wrong with caring for all of creation and being passionate about green issues, IF and that’s a big if, we have already done everything possible to defend the innocent first!

How about caring about saving the environment in the womb? This message needs to be shouted from the rooftops and continually broadcast from the pulpit. There is something terribly wrong with our hierarchy when millions are spent on Mississippi symposiums that declare: “the fate of the Mississippi waters is more than one aspect of global warming. It is also, very acutely, an ethical crisis.” and abortion, an ethical issue 1,000,000 times more serious and morally important, is virtually ignored by the very same Orthodox leaders.

The Climate Change Climate Change
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html

If some don’t watch out the whole Green Patriarch scheme could explore in the face of the Phanar and make the successor of St. Andrew look like a bufooon.

Too late now though…. the EP’s leftist love-boat is preparing to motor down the mississippi.

The more I think about it, it’s a disgrace. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail at the GOA but they’re too used to panting after the limelight over there (and at the Phanar).

I fear all of Orthodoxy will be shamed by this spectacle. I pray I’m wrong. I’ll be glad to be wrong.

I must also admit that I am bothered by the notion that someone from somewhere else, however enlightened, could possibly care more about the impact on the Mississippi than the folks who live there and whose families and futures depend upon it. (This posture has always struck me as lacking humility, though I would NOT ascribe such a failing to His All Holiness. It is, however, the basic issue that I have with academics and politicians who DO arrogantly think that their pet policy or position has more value or is more important than the perspective of people who have skin in the game. In the military, this same problem resulted in such classic acronyms as SNAFU, etc.)

While I find myself very much at odds with the focus of his message – and certainly the other folks giving the seminar – he remains the Patriarch of my jurisdiction and he certainly has my deep respect and, if required, obedience. I will admit, though, that I wish his focus and concerns were more in line with those expressed by Met. Jonah.

Having said this, my hunch is that the EP is well meaning and that his previous symposia were done in good faith, but because the vast majority of the people are ignorant of them, that this one will likewise pass without comment in due time.

For the EP it will be an opportunity to demonstrate either that he is the “spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide,” or that he is all about the Greeks.

For the OCA and AOCA it will be an opportunity to show respect, or snipe.

Greg

Why not turn this lunacy against these folks?

as someone who never had to suffer under the Iron Curtain and its repression, I take my hat off to you. I feel that only someone who has suffered can see through the obfuscation of intellectual ideologies which may sound good in the abstract, but inevitably lead to unimaginable horrors.

Having said that, I’m afraid however that we in the West are ready for a new, softer totalitarianism, one that will nationalize our economy in ways that the old commissars never dreamed possible.

I believe that green is the new “red.” It saddens me that an Orthodox patriarch is lending his moral authority to a cause that is more faddish than scientific. This is not to say that we shouldn’t be stewards of the earth. We should. But the crisis in the world today is not financial or ecological, but moral. We have stopped believing in God and have raised other gods in His place. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Mao were the premier gods of the 20th century. Today I fear it is Gaia.

I would be very interested to know who is behind this symposium. This is going to cost a lot of money and the GOA doesn’t have this kind of bucks. Plus, the itinerary and speakers reveal a sophistication that is beyond the usual ham-fisted PR efforts put out by the Archons. For one thing, its Christianity quotient is minimal. Just a few lefties from the NCC/WCC axis, although they are degreed and ordained ministers, they are generals without armies. I honestly don’t know who the rest of these people are. They don’t come from the business world, therefore not the productive sector. Probably NGO types, trust-fund babies, etc. In other words, people who’ve never worked a day in their lives. So who’s behind it?

Metropolitan Jonah boldly stands up for truth and righteousness, and speaks with moral clarity:

“Homosexualism not only “destroys authentic masculinity, it destroys authentic womanhood.”
“Gay ideology is neither from nurture or nature… we cannot accept their lifestyle or validate their unions.”
“We must eliminate any shred of immorality in our lives,” not least because sin “kills and maims the soul… and “demoralizes our culture.”
“A culture demoralized by immorality “cannot stand up to the strict asceticism of Islam.”
“Faith… is the knowledge of the heart (that) I have died and my life is hidden in the heart of God… it is only Jesus that matters.”

While Patriarch Bartholomew further embraces the radical environmentalist-leftist agenda, with its biased and unbalanced view (borrowed from the communist propaganda machine of yesteryear) that democratic capitalistic societies continue to “abuse” and “exploit” “mother earth” and fail to respect “human rights”, with America as the chief offender. Interestingly enough, none of this criticism has been directed at the Middle East and the other communist-totalitarian regimes around the world (China, North Korea, Cuba, etc.) that are the real offenders, abusers, polluters, and persecutors we should be worried about.