George, that’s all true but I’m much more concerned about Christians who profess belief in God but really don’t believe at all. They harbor a
hatred of God in their hearts. I think that is found amongst many of
those who support the tragedy of abortion and/or homosexual unions, etc.

Michael my point is that those who call themselves atheists –if they are to take their argument to its logical conclusion–must become nihilists. Just as Darwinists have to give up the pretense of humanity and decorum. There is no evolutionary advantage in reasoned debate, civil discourse, courtesy, and so forth. If Darwinism were literally true, then we humans would be acting as the rest of the biosphere –red in tooth and claw. But we don’t, even in war we strive to abide by rules.

Think of it: when did you last hear that your neighbor killed his neighbor, drove off his children away, then raped his wife so that she could bear his children? If Darwinism/atheism were true, we would be behaving this way constantly.

I guess my point is that even most atheists aren’t really atheists in that they don’t live by the logical consequences of their belief system which by necessity leads to nihilism.

George, simple non-belief (a theism) does not compel one to the destructive tryanny of mind and body that nihilist ideology does. Nihilism is that active attempt to replace God with iconoclastic humanity. It is anti-incarnational and full of satanic hatred.

Of course they are related in spirit, but there is such a thing as “Christian” nihilism that is not atheistic at all. Satan after all knows the reakity of God more surely than we do.

The present social-political conditions are awfully complicated and did not occur over night. There should be an Orthodox Christian response… What can be done? How can we be effective? I really do not know. I did sign the Manhattan declaration …

In such debates there is the ‘enlightened’ side and the ‘idiotic’ side (the religious).
I used to be on the first one for quite a while. If anyone would express anything in opposition to my aspirations and ideals I would have regarded it as an intrusion into personal matters. I would remain polite but look at him/her with some disdain. Now I am totally on the other side and I do not consider it ‘idiotic’ anymore. The problem is with the other side but blaming won’t solve anything, on the contrary.

My transition happened when I decided not to commit anymore a certain sin no matter what the cost is. The attack of the devil was frightening and I survived only through prayer. It takes strong determination to renounce old ways of living, worldly aspirations, etc. I am on this side, I was on the other side, and still I do not know how to convince anyone that we are correct. I do not know how to help someone to get over the “I don’t like what you say” or I am too lazy or to ignorant to pay proper attention to this matter. I would say it takes God’s mercy to turn a soul to Him in repentance.

Michael, I have no essential quarrell with your assessment. In my view, Atheism is the other side of the same coin as Nihilism. If there is no God (a theos) then there is nothing, because God fills all things, the unseen and the seen.

Scott, IMO those who really want to participate in the Holy Tradition rather than just reading about it will gravitate toward particular bishops across jurisdictional lines. Those bishops will be despised within their own jurisdictions more than likely or at least have tremendous pressures placed upon them to conform to the way of the world.

Whether this will result in a schism of some sort or not I don’t know, but it could.

If overt persecution comes, those who are are CINOs (Christians in name only) which I hope I am not, will have a decision to make.

The more the secular elites take control and exercise power, the more likely a split between an official Church and an underground Church is.

I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing BTW, just not pleasant.

The question we Orthodox have to ask ourselves is “Who are we?” and “What are we to do now?”

“Who are we?” – If we are a communion of undisciplined hedonists with a thin veneer of Orthodox ethnicities with icons overlayed, then we are done. By and large that is what we are now in North America. If we follow the Church’s traditional teachings on morality and theology and there is a serious price to pay if we do not, to be exacted by those charged with oversight of the flocks (the bishops), then we have a future. I won’t mince words here, if there is no drift toward liberal attitudes in the Church (as measured by pre-20th century norms), then it would be impossible for our people (the Orthodox) to rationalize their bad behavior or remain in good standing with the Church. This will not happen in all of our jurisdictions at the same rate, if ever. Some will take this necessity more seriously than others. Those that do will gather the Spirit more quickly. Those that don’t will stagger sideways or lose ground or expire.

“What are we to do now?” – Pray. Without ceasing.

I have believed for some time now that the only way for the Orthodox to have a beneficial effect on ourselves (with God’s help) and the culture we live in is through focusing on personal and parish holiness. Without the grace of God in our personal lives and in our parish lives all our fussing and moaning about the decline of society amounts to pounding sand. Without a clear communal vision of where we need to go and to lead others, there is no real witness, just noise.

Hopefully, as it has in the past, this movement will begin (I believe it already has) in the monasteries and among those committed to restoring a traditional Orthodox way of life. There will be much criticism of this. In fact, it will not be the non-Orthodox that are the most vocal opponents, it will be liberals and modernists within the Church. They simply do not want the Church to become what it once was. That vision is too “regressive” for them because they live with one foot or both feet in the spirit of the world. If you think about it for a moment though, and you have some appreciation of history, the difference between pre-twentieth century Christian values and the values that have taken hold in the Western world could not be more dramatic.

Each of us faces a personal challege to focus on our own demons and weaknesses. The communal challenge, and it’s a tall order which enjoys nothing like majority support in the Church here yet, is to make our communal life traditional (in terms of orthopraxis) so that those who wish to be of the world simply can’t survive within it and those who wish to be of the spirit would not dream of trying to survive without it.

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

Unfortunatly, there is going to have to be a battle within the Church over who we are and what we are to do.

I simply do not see it possible to compete with the power centers of atheism/nihilism : news media, the entertainment industry, and academia. There are “one-sided debates” such as “minorities rights”, “abortion rights”, global warming, the origin of life, and so on. The worlds of politics, science and academia not only crush debates on certain subjects but also crush the careers and reputations of people/professors who dare to question some theories.

The real victory has already been won. What is left for us is to particpate in the witness to that victory despite what the satanic influence is. In the fallen world that does often mean oppression, persecution and even death. That is nothing new, and in fact exactly what Jesus promised would happen to those who follow Him.

Fr. Stephen Freeman has a relevant comment on his blog today

When our leaders eschew the Cross and seek worldly power in its place we are all betrayed. When we do the same we do likewise. The Orthodox Church has not lived up to her calling to witness to the truth in this society. Certainly the blood and prayers of the Russian martyrs and the New martyrs are there strengthening us if we allow them to. That is Holy Tradition, not how many metanias we do or how often we say the Jesus Prayer. A holy life prepared to witness as Christ calls will include the Jesus Prayer and metanias to be sure, but not as a substitute for refusing to enter into the real stuggle in our own heart against the self-will and nilhism that infects each of us.

Withdrawal from the world and the Christian struggle in the world is not what we are called to. It can become a hatred of humanity ever bit as virulent as the humanistic nihilism of the west.

I simply do not see it possible to compete with the power centers of atheism/nihilism : news media, the entertainment industry, and academia. There are “one-sided debates” such as “minorities rights”, “abortion rights”, global warming, the origin of life, and so on. The worlds of politics, science and academia not only crush debates on certain subjects but also crush the careers and reputations of people/professors who dare to question some theories.

If not, it becomes a kind of gentle despondency ruled by a false vision of a golden age of Orthodoxy that never existed.

I believe that we are at the point when only miracle-workers can influence and change people’s minds and hearts St.Seraphim of Sarov advised many: “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.”

The Church […] equivocated during this entire time primarily because of the desire of the human leaders of the Church to curry political favor, worldly power and wealth. (RC’s, Orthodox and Protestants are all equally convicted here IMO)

I don’t think that RC’s, Orthodox and Protestants are all equally convicted. You probably meant the Western(ized) Orthodoxy. If we look at the history of Christianity there is an obvious difference between Orthodoxy and rest:
The devil always attacks what is best and tries to destroy it, therefore his greatest enemy is Orthodoxy.

1. Atheism did not lead to nihilism. The ascendence of ‘Christian’ humanism within the western confessions which includes various strains of deism led to nihilism. Nihilism is not a denial of God it is a hatred of God, i.e. the desire to kill God and replace Him with man. In the U.S. Ralph Waldo Emerson provided the intellectual force that came to permeate much of American letters. He sounds distrubingly like Nietzche did several decades later.

2. Ultimately, such hatred of God leads to a self-hatred as well and the desire for self-destruction which we see all around us.

3. The intial impluse of many the Darwinists was not relgion but to free the white male from the strictures of Christian sexual morality as well as to provide a base for keeping the ‘herd’ (women and non-whites) down.

4. Such diminuation of humanity also fueled the excesses of the industrial revolution and the twisting of the stucture and purpose of the family. Politically it lead to statism particularly various strains of Fascism.

5. Atheism was used as a prop, a means to the end. It is a symptom of a far deeper even more demonic destructiveness.

6. The Church (however we define her) has, in her human incarnation, equivocated during this entire time primarily because of the desire of the human leaders of the Church to curry political favor, worldly power and wealth. (RC’s, Orthodox and Protestants are all equally convicted here IMO)

7. We are the cause, our lack of dedication to Jesus Christ and our own unwillingness to engage in the struggle for holiness. We have all been AWOL. Except for a few examples who were largely unable to raise the rest of us to any consistent genuinely Christian effort in the public sphere, we have been derelict.

8. The RCC’s dedication to public action stems, IMO, largely from the vestiages of its tremendous political and social authority as the inheritors of the Roman state in the midst of the barbarian invavsions and medieval feudalism. Their efforts are quite a mixed bag reflecting the confused anthroplogy bequeathed to them by the Augustinians and the Scholastics.

9. The Protestant dedication to iconclasm and the individual relationship with Jesus Christ led to similar results

10. Our experience of centuries of oppression by the Turks and the Soviets as well as by the humanism of the west drove us into what I feel is a false understanding of being not of this world and a concomitant over-emphasis on what are preceived to be monastic virtues. Withdrawal from the world and the Christian struggle in the world is not what we are called to. It can become a hatred of humanity ever bit as virulent as the humanistic nihilism of the west. If not, it becomes a kind of gentle despondency ruled by a false vision of a golden age of Orthodoxy that never existed.

Darwinism is the “magic bullet” which made it possible to be “an intellectually fulfilled atheist,” otherwise, atheism refutes itself if one is talking about biogenesis. Darwin supposedly found the magic bullet which reconciled atheism with biogenesis. It’s all coming apart now however.

Nor can I Kevin, nor can I.

Eliot,

I’m not connecting your dots at all. Sorry! I see no connection between your comment and my disappointment with the fact that we Orthodox are unengaged and AWOL on issues of the day, especially on healthcare, while claiming (rightly) to be “the one, holy…” etc. We have been making all sorts of excuses for our lack of engagement and leadership and moral courage and (no offense) yours is but one more of them. The facts you point to have no relevance I can see to my point. Blessed journey to Holy Pascha, though!