“What I have written I have written.”

It was all that was needed to be said. I addressed the weight of your position and elucidated its problematic character. I went further to link what you have said to its antecedents of which you still plead no full appreciation.

Thus, I have no more for you. I stand with what I have written. Be well.

The re-assertion fact of the standing by what you have written is not a reply.

A joyous Sunday of the Holy Fathers.

Yes, a simple enough rebuttal to any atheist or leftist is to start reading from Father Arseny or any of the myriad lives of the New Martyrs of the Soviet Atheist (Leftist) yoke.

HNM Benjamin of Petrograd is one of my favorites.

You are quite welcome.

I stand by what I have written. Be well.

You’re most welcome! Thank you for bearing witness to the truth and boldly speaking out against the evil and corruption that is endangering the Orthodox Christian faithful and the whole world. Too many have still not learned the lessons of history or heeded the warnings of Christ and the prophets, martyrs, preachers, and teachers.

Dear Mr. Rostislav,

Thank you for acknowledging that you were not responding to me but to “the developed points that you alluded to from their perspective”. I do not have a Christian Socialist perspective therefore it is unlikely I was alluding to that perspective.

I confess that I am flabbergasted by what seems to be your technique of ascribing positions to me that I do not hold and then commenting on which of them you have ascribed to me is the “greatest misunderstanding”. A bit of epistemic modesty would be courteous. I am sure you meant no disrespect. But as I do not ascribe positions to you that you do not hold and then elucidate how they are wrong, make it an effort to not ascribe them to me.

Best regards and well wishes for your joint venture with Atty. Banescu.

“Rostislav” is fine enough of a name, and if you find what I have written worth sharing, please feel free to do so.

Thank you for your kindness.

Rostislav,

May I compile some of your excellent comments and observations about the Left vs the Right and re-publish them on the OrthodoxNet Blog? I believe others needs to see them. What should I use for the author “Rostislav” or something else?

I can only allude to what I have written, where I have stated my case of Right vs. Left. I believe it was elucidated to a degree which allows one to get what I am saying.

As far as Christian Socialism, social justice and the “religious Left” are concerned, if you are unfamiliar with how their postures and your own coincide, I would suggest you consider the various “papers” and “statements” available on the net to acquaint yourself, for in actuality, my response was an answer to the developed points that you alluded to from their perspective.

I think the greatest misunderstanding here may be an assumption on your part of the moral equivalence of these ideological orientations and a lack of recognition of their very real differences vis a vis religious liberty and witness in culture. There is a chasm between Left and Right. Thus, for an Orthodox Christian, even secular Right regimes provide the necessary freedom and superstructure to practice ones Faith while even Christian Leftist regimes end up nominalizing the practice of ones Faith and subjecting it to “the times” and the “needs of the state” of “politically correct multiculturalism”, culminating in a nominalist outlook with an implied self criticism which leads to religious persecution. That is a best case scenario of the “Christian Left”.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Dear Mr. Rostislav,

I am not sure why you are insisting on labeling/dismissing my point as “Christian Socialist”. I used the straw man metaphor differently than how you are reflecting it back. Again, those political labels add nothing to living the Gospel, distort Christian witness more than illumine anything, and seem to serve primarily in this context to allow you to return to a script of “right” v. “left”. I must be having a particularly difficult day expressing myself clearly as your response is to nothing I recognize as being my point, so I will give it a rest.

I am grateful for your time and effort in responding.

In another post, I addressed some of Fr. Schmemann’s political work. The very fact you are commenting on a topic which details his disdain for socialism says alot about what his ideological predispositions were, at least topically.

There were neither strawmen nor presumption in my treatment of Left vs. Right, but restatement of the positions accompanying both ideological postures which show how one is compatible with Orthodox Christianity (Christianity and religion in general) and the other is a catalyst for nominalism, secularism, atheist repression and oppression, totalitarian evil. I addressed what you said and challenged it and then went on to state the pitfalls of the Left which aren’t present on the Right. Your initial post did indeed have the “gist” of the “social justice” position of what is considered “Christian Socialism” or in our day, the “religious Left”. Thus, there was no presumption. You were taken at what you had written while the “strawman” was no such thing, but, rather, the ideological positions of certain orientations which promote the views you shared.

I spoke of the “teleology of the Left” which has a historical witness in our time and my assessment was true to the Left’s sorry history.

Yes, it is safe to say that I endorse the Right and not the unreliable Center and certainly never the godless Left, for I am Christian and the tenets of my Orthodox Faith do not allow me to promote godlessness or nominalism. Thus, I find the environment of personal liberty and self responsibility and traditional values that which promotes Orthodox Christian witness and life. These things are persecuted on the Left and become nominal, secular “religiosities” in the Center where Faith is not active but constantly nominalized/secularized.

I have more respect for my Faith (and my integrity) than to be what is understood today as a “Centrist”, and I have an understanding of the danger and thorough incompatibility of the Left (and its incompetence and brutality and totalitarian character) as to ever continence the Left which has historically stood for genocide and religious persecution.

If I had to label my political orientation, I would call myself a “Traditionalist Libertarian” with a Straussian outlook and Classical as well as Thomist (political not theological) tendencies.

Thank you for your reply. I hope in reading what I have written on this topic and on others, you find the answer you might be looking for to your queries of myself.

Dear Mr. Rostislav,

Thank you for taking the time to correct my typing error. Thank you for your presumption of no disrespect. I certainly did not intend any with my typing error and I will strive to proof read more thoroughly in the future. If you prefer me to not use your name at all, I am, of course, happy to accede to your preference.

I am not sure there was a “gist” to what I was saying as I made a fairly specific observation. Perhaps it was false or deficient, however, that was not really addressed. Rather, the straw man of my being a proponent of socialism was soundly discredited with the approbation of attorney Banescu.

It appears that you are something of a proponent of the “right” from your posts on this topic. It appears you may be committed proponent of the “right”. Do you think a Christian can really be a proponent of either “right” or “left”? Given the vast difference in anthropologies proposed by Christians versus the post-enlightenment political theorists, it seems to me that political support of any candidate is an ad hoc balancing of “lesser evils” so to speak. I am not sure that Christians should be in the business of being proponents of either “right” or “left”.

By way of example, as you are clearly very knowledgeable of Fr. Schmemann’s writings, are you aware of Fr. Schmemann’s proclivities with regard to the American political spectrum or to being a proponent of “right” or “left”?

I believe I once read a statistic that had Lenin and Stalin not have come to power, the population of the USSR in 1960 would have been over 300 million while it was recorded at roughly 200 million. Just a thought.

I totally agree with you. The Left is fundamentally motivated toward the overthrow of humanity: it is the enemy of all the hopes, dreams, aspirations, faith, prosperity, liberty of all of us.

Well, the RIGHT promotes the family and traditional observance and supports religion. The Left promotes atheism, immorality, the collective, the party, secularism, and Leftist political philosophy simply degenerates into socialism once it has starved a nation of wealth creation. Thus, the RIGHT supports communities which want to “preach and live by the Gospel” while the Left acts to repress them and destroy them.

The Right in the West supports the liberty to reep the fruits of ones labor, the family, church going and traditional morality. The Left in the West supports relativism, non traditional families, secularization to “combat fanaticism”, gay rights, sexual liberty, the village, the “communal good” expressed at first in the welfare state leading to the soviet, the commune, the collective.

Let’s remember that the Communist states of the Pre Berlin Wall era held that they were “socialist”, for “true Communism could only be attained when mankind had profoundly been changed by the party and been delivered from its ‘greed, superstitions, bourgeois tendencies and sentimental modes of thinking, when the true homo sovieticus would emerge”. Thus, left of center philosophies have a teleology: they may begin with “New Deals” but they end with militant atheism, genocides, gulags and collectivization, the execution of “counter revolutionary, religious agitators”.

If I misunderstood you it wasn’t me addressing you personally. It was me addressing the gist of what you were saying. Thank you for your corrective and clarification. Since this topic is Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s view of socialism, it rightfully includes discussion of Right vs. Left and the political process.

My name is R-o-s-t-i-s-l-a-v: I am sure you meant no disrespect. But as I do not misspell your name, make it an effort to not misspell mine or simply not to use it at all.