Ronda

1. I have no problem with saying there are no Socialists, Fascists, etc. in a certain sense. However, certain ideologies automatically make their adherents enemies of the Church. It’s nice to be able to identify them.

2. An example of the emotional logic in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy would be his denigration of self-assurance or confidence saying that those in the lunatic asylums are full of self-confidence. It’s true, but it is also meaningless since that’s not what people are talking about when they say they value self confidence and Chesterton new it. Great rhetoric, logically bankrupt. Confidence is invaluable.

3. We, as in “I, as well” raise money for a center for pregnant women in the area. Truthfully, the Greeks (my jurisdiction) aren’t real big on abortion clinic protests, nor is Kentucky, my state, big on abortion clinics.

4. Yes, I think political involvement in this society is utterly futile for the reasons I’ve expressed above. The system is intrinsically evil and anti-Christian.

“. . . and then you launched into a morose exposition of how Orthodox parishes should clamp down on some of the people you have noticed standing in the nave during the Liturgy who aren’t behaving themselves the way that Orthodox people should.”

No, I suggested something much more radical that that. I suggested that we return to what Orthodox practice was for its first 1900 years. The gall of me! We’re so much wiser and more successful now at instilling piety in our people.

“You did say that we have to proclaim the Gospel and that you’re in favor of evangelism — does that mean you’re engaged in it?”

Yes, I don’t knock on doors like the Mormons or Bible Baptists. Everyone considers them obnoxious. The best evangelism is to do projects, whether it’s prison visits, public service projects sponsored by the church, etc. People value the source of the help they get and become curious. Yes, I engage in these type of things and advocate that all Orthodox do them.

But unless we revive our allegiance to traditional worship and attitudes, we are only bringing people into a semi-Orthodox, semi-pagan church.

So forget the politics. There was a Protestant Evangelical revival of sorts that arose in the mid to late 80’s. That was 20 years ago and while it expanded the number of evangelicals it did absolutely nothing to turn around the culture. The cultural decline has proceeded at full pace regardless.

Convert others to Old World style Orthodoxy. Teach them that feminism is evil and the the patriarchy is intrinsic to Christianity. Provide a genuine clear alternative to the decadent culture, not a Byzantine (or Syrian, or Slavic) Americanism. Then we might have some positive effect on the culture. Not directly through politics but by virtue of the fact that more people will not only be nominally Orthodox (like Paul Sarbanes or Michael Dukakis), but pious Orthodox. Politics just diverts our efforts regarding this important work down a rat hole inhabited by crazy liberals and slightly less crazy “moderate conservatives”. The orchestrate a shell game for us and always end up implimenting policies that are more “centrist” than either of the true believers in either party would like. But notice, over time, morally, it always and infallibly gets worse.

Wake up.

The point I was trying to make by quoting Chesterton was that the Church is THE bank and capital of the ages; that SHE is our source of moral imagination; that we have a narrative in the Church that is the ultimate in revelation, authority, and historical experience.

Couretas challenged us to provide a counter-narrative in our culture on questions where there is a fundamental clash. Don’t you think we can tap into that bank and capital? As Orthodox Christians, we have a “common story” that trumps anything Barack Obama has, regardless of his brilliance. Each one of us has a smaller narrative that ties into the larger One, and it is from that One that we draw “our values, morals, purpose, resolve, and all the constituents that direct the individual, and bind communities and societies together”.

I do have a problem with your tone, Mr. Pennington. From the gitgo you responded to Couretas’ Clarion call by stating gloomily that we have lost the culture war; that we should no longer participate in the political process, that we have a duty to proclaim “Christian morality”, that we need a revival, and then you launched into a morose exposition of how Orthodox parishes should clamp down on some of the people you have noticed standing in the nave during the Liturgy who aren’t behaving themselves the way that Orthodox people should.

You said that “In a free society, since we could, if we wished, prevent a slide into darkness, our moral accountability is even greater.” Regardless of the form of government we have or the politics that hold sway in our society at any given point in time, it seems to me that we have at our disposal a wealth of something to draw from that should give us a vision that is more than just sticking a finger in the dike or shaking it at people who have succumbed to the flood of immorality that is overtaking our culture. Although these discussions have to be entered into and hashed out and all of this ideology needs to be sifted and parsed, I find myself wondering when we get to the part where we put feet to this narrative that Couretas has challenged us to write?

You did say that we have to proclaim the Gospel and that you’re in favor of evangelism — does that mean you’re engaged in it? When we’ve exhausted ourselves in discussing this, do we eventually get to the part where we clear out some time each week to visit someone in prison, or in a nursing home or hospital? When did you last find yourself in front of an abortion clinic offering help to abortion-bound women — when do we get to the part where we rescue those being led to the slaughter?

Christ called us to love our neighbor. Is that not the larger narrative that we have immersed ourselves in; the source that we have tapped into by becoming Orthodox Christians? Is that not the heat that will boil all of modern society to rags?

Of course I believe there are Fascists, Socialists, Liberals, and feminists, and Calvinists, and capitalists, etc. etc. etc. But when you read St. Paul’s assertion that in Christ there is no male or female, Jew nor Greek, you surely don’t begin to opine about whether you are a male or a progressive male — that’s not the point.

You wrote that “What Chesterton perhaps couldn’t foresee was the fact that democracy is also the enemy of the Church, much like fascism or communism.” But that is exactly what Chesterton is saying — you’re just having trouble seeing the forest for the trees. The labels don’t matter — that’s what he means when he writes that “there are no Fascists; there are no Socialists; there are no Liberals; there are no Parliamentarians…” — Chesterton is saying that either you are an enemy of the Church, or you are not, and that is what matters; the comment he made at the end of the passage that he had chosen well was a reference to his conversion.

I admit I assumed that in reading Chesterton we would pass over his mistake of converting to Roman Catholicism and not Orthodoxy. In this quote as well as in his book ORTHODOXY, although he thought he was speaking of the Roman Catholic Church, he was really speaking of the Orthodox Church and just didn’t know it yet. I don’t hold that against him, and I wager he most vehemently knows it now. ;D

Most people who read Chesterton don’t dismiss his logic; I hope that isn’t a bit of Orthodox snobbishness on your part — it seems as uncharitable as dismissing Mother Teresa’s compassion because she didn’t happen to be Orthodox.

Perhaps I should have just quoted Chesterton when he wrote that “Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags…”.

That, sir, is the point.

Your listed several quotes. I’m not sure what you believe they “point” to.

Just taking the last one, which I might take to be your point:

“. . . there are no Fascists; there are no Socialists; there are no Liberals; there are no Parliamentarians. There is the one supremely inspiring and irritating institution in the world; and there are its enemies. Its enemies are ready to be for violence or against violence, for liberty or against liberty, for representation or against representation; and even for peace or against peace. (This) gave me an entirely new certainty, even in the practical and political sense, that I had chosen well.”

If you sincerely don’t believe that there are Fascists, Socialists, Liberals, etc., then I don’t know what to tell you. If you are saying that these labels are unimportant in the face of the higher truth that, “There is the one supremely inspiring and irritating institution in the world; and there are its enemies.” Then, guardedly, I agree with you. Although, of course, unlike Chesterton, I believe that that “one supremely inspiring and irritating institution” is the Orthodox Church, not the Roman Catholic Church.

When Communism in Romania fell, the story goes, a priest went to one of the Orthodox bishops and announced joyfully that there had been a revolution. The bishop replied something to the effect that there has only been one revolution, the Empty Tomb. That lofty point being valid, it should be said that Communism, and the Communists, were enemies of Christ.

I took my point from these words of Chesterton:

“Compared with this [fascism], despotism and democracy are legitimate. I mean there is no doubt about who is the King’s eldest son or about who has most votes in the most mechanical election.”

What Chesterton perhaps couldn’t foresee was the fact that democracy is also the enemy of the Church, much like fascism or communism. So . . . Eis polla eti Dhespota!

I remember reading Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy and thinking two things: 1) he was quite entertaining and 2) some of his points were much more emotionally persuasive than logically so.

Very well put.

Ronda,

I too was a liberal in a sense. Never a progressive liberal. I certainly would not fall into Chesterton’s category of Fascists because the Fascists did not base their policy on religion, it was merely another statism. I am grateful for your post if for no other reason than it does point out that there is a distinction between legitimate “despots” (a term which I take it Chesterton used to embrace all monarchies) and Fascism (which I think is what everyone believes you advocate if you reject democracy). There is another way, unless you consider all the monarchies, empires and oligarchies of ages past to be Fascist.

There has to be some organizing principal. In representative governments the principal is, as Scott points out, majority rule with some restraints. Scott is also quite right with his point that moral and cultural decline is co-incident with the expansion of the suffrage.

Christian freedom is our voluntary submission to the loving will of God in community. That is not something one ‘values’, it is something one does.

Worldly freedom is simply the freedom to choose evil with as few restraints as possible. That is the freedom we ‘value’ and is the point of all politics in a representative system.
Virtuous people cannot long survive in such a system.

Democracy stems not from traditional Christianity, but from heretical Western Christian humanism—man is the measure of all things. The anthropological principal: “I think, therefore I am” that originally defined it has degraded to the tri-partite anthropology of materialist humanism: I control, therefore I am; I consume/accumulate, therefore I am; I rut, therefore I am. The populace votes on such principals and the politicians seek to inflame the passions that surround such blasphemous ideas.

The exercise of Christian freedom is always costly from a worldly point of view. The more anti-Christian the culture becomes, the more costly the exercise of our real freedom becomes in terms of life, liberty and property, but the more rewarded we are by God.

The Church, as Met. Jonah proclaimed, needs to lift up her prophetic voice and live the Gospel even though the immediate consequences will be distain, persecution and probably the falling away of many who now call themselves Christian or Orthodox.

However, Gospel freedom is the only freedom that matters. I’m afraid Fr. Hans that your hope for the re-vitalization of the culture is attempting to put new wine in old wineskins when the old wineskins have already burst.

“…There is a paradox in every story of conversion; which is perhaps the reason why the records of it are never ideally satisfactory. It is in its very nature the extinction of egoism; and yet every account of it must sound egoistic. It means, at least in the case of the Religion in question, a recognition of reality which has nothing to do with relativity. …It is the recognition that the truth is true, apart from the truth-seeker; and yet the description must be the autobiography of a truth-seeker; generally a rather depressing sort of person.

“It will therefore sound egotistical if I preface these remarks by saying that I was for a long time Liberal in the sense of belonging to the Liberal Party. I am still a Liberal; it is only the Liberal Party that has disappeared. I understood its ideal to be that of equal citizenship and personal freedom; and they are my own political ideals to this day. The point here, however, is that I worked for a long time with the practical organization of Liberalism; I wrote for a great part of my life for the old Daily News, and I knew of course that it identified political liberty, rightly or wrongly, with representative government.

“Then came the breach, on which I need not insist; except by saying that I became quite convinced of two facts. First, that representative government had ceased to be representative. Second, that Parliament was in fact gravely menaced by political corruption. Politicians did not represent the populace, even the most noisy and vulgar of the populace. Politicians did not deserve the dignified name of demagogues. They deserved no name except perhaps the name of bagmen; they were travelling for private firms. If they represented anything, it was vested interests, vulgar but not even popular.

“For this reason, when the Fascists’ revolt appeared in Italy, I could not be entirely hostile to it; for I knew the hypocritical plutocracy against which it rebelled. But neither could I be entirely friendly to it; for I believed in the civic equality in which the politicians pretended to believe. For the present purpose, the problem can be put very briefly. The whole of the real case for Fascism can be put in two words never printed in our newspapers: secret societies. The whole case against Fascism could be put in one word now never used and almost forgotten: legitimacy. For the first, the Fascist was justified in smashing the politicians; for their contract with the people was secretly contradicted by their secret contracts with gangs and conspiracies. For the second, Fascism could never be quite satisfactory’ for it did not rest on authority but only on power; which is the weakest thing in the world. The Fascists said in effect, “We may not be the majority, but we are the most vigorous and intelligent minority.” Which is simply challenging any other intelligent minority to show that it is more vigorous. It may well end in the very anarchy it attempted to avoid. Compared with this despotism and democracy are legitimate. I mean there is no doubt about who is the King’s eldest son or about who has most votes in the most mechanical election. But a mere competition of intelligent minorities is a rather dreadful prospect. That, it seems to me, is a fair statement of the case for and against the Fascist movement…

“…(I)t must be remembered that the Church is always in advance of the world. That is why it is said to be behind the times. It discussed everything so long ago that people have forgotten the discussion…

“…(Q)uite clearly the fundamental truth of the modern world… is this; there are no Fascists; there are no Socialists; there are no Liberals; there are no Parliamentarians. There is the one supremely inspiring and irritating institution in the world; and there are its enemies. Its enemies are ready to be for violence or against violence, for liberty or against liberty, for representation or against representation; and even for peace or against peace. (This) gave me an entirely new certainty, even in the practical and political sense, that I had chosen well.”

The Well and the Shallows, by G.K. Chesterton

One more thing: I clicked on your link to the story on the Proposition 8 appeal. Consider the fact that when the same proposition was passed earlier (and then recently struck down), it was passed by a considerably wider margin.

Proposition 22 (2000):
61.4 – 38.6

Proposition 8 (2008):

52.3 – 47.7

So when you write:

“What happens if Prop 8 is overturned? My worry is that it signals the end of our constitutional republic.”

I have to observe that overturning it would just delay the process slightly. Give them 4 more years and the majority of the public will support gay marriage regardless of whether the P8 is overturned.

I wouldn’t worry about an activist court in California. They’re fairly predictable. Worry that the people are becoming increasingly evil and, to tie it up with a nice little bow, that this evil is the driving force in our representative form of government.

It most certainly is. In California, the danger is that liberal justices will invalidate the proposition. If the public had consistently voted for candidates who promised to appoint originalists, there would be no danger of this. It is precisely that easy – – for a decent public. But for those who have become lost in their passions because they value their “freedom” it gets much more complicated. They feel a thing to be unfair and therefore unconstitutional. Unfortunately, in a democracy there is no such thing as a decent public.

“Implicit in you argument is the idea that government is the primary caretaker of social virtue and thus culture.”

You have me somewhat distorted. I do not think that government, whether it is a monarchy, an oligarchy, etc. or a democracy is the primary caretaker of society. What I think is that democracy, unique among these systems, is by its very structure actively antithetical to virtue – – democracy deranges the public’s perception of what is and is not moral because it provides a false basis for morality, the will of the people. It is, just as it has become, an enemy of the Church. The reason is that it is much more desirable to vote oneself rights than responsibilities. This is a poison unique to representative government. Of course, moral turpitude may be encouraged or demanded by a king or council. But there have been righteous kings and righteous councils which were encouraging to public virtue. Democracy is not such a system. In America, the cultural decline has proceeded hand in hand with the extension of the franchise. Democracy may be neutral for some period of time, but in the end, it wages war on virtue. Always.

“My problem with your approach is that while it might differ in detail, it’s essentially the same claim that the materialists (cultural Marxists, atheists, Progressives, etc.) make. I don’t see much difference between your view and a secularist view frankly, not in substance anyway.”

I’m suggesting that any government which has its basis in anything other than Christian morality is suspect, if not anti-Christian. It could be the former Soviet government which based itself on the principles of Marx and Lenin. It could be America which bases itself on the propostion that majority rule, tempered by certain propositions that require a supermajority (Constitutional law), should be the law regardless of any other consideration. In that sense, regardless of how many founding fathers were Christians, America is just another unchristian system.

“I said that the respect of freedom within democracy is a value instrinsic to Christian anthropology.”

Then I guess I have to disagree with you again. You know that excommunication has been the normal price for belief and practice outside of Orthodox teaching. Democracy certainly does not posit a moral or theological teaching which is unchallengable, dissension from which is punishable by ostracism. “Let’s all vote on God’s nature and whether infanticide is a right.” Doesn’t sound Christian to me. But it does sound utterly democratic. No, the concept of freedom in a democracy is definitely not Christian at all.

“The freedom that democracy seeks to protect, however, is conditionally given. It relies on a virtuous citizenry. Lose the virtue, the freedom goes and tyranny ensues (although it occurs in the name of freedom; the non-vigilant won’t see it coming).”

Were it conditionally given, you might have a point. The fact that you believe it to be conditionally given is meaningless because you are not king. By democracy’s rules, it is not conditionally given. No legal proposition stands outside the reach of the masses, or errant judges.

“It’s not an accident that all the refugee movements of the last century were directed to American shores.”

That’s certainly true. But consider what the 20th century was like. Wars in Europe devastated everything. America, more than anything, represented a prosperous place safe from warfare. I’m sure there were idealists who came too. But looking back at the 19th century, you get a clearer picture of what has drawn people to America. Many of them would be suprised to hear that it was democracy that attracted them or caused them to remain (judging by the reception that many, say the Irish for instance, received at these shores). I think economic opportunity here and economic collapses in their countries of origin had much more to do with it. I don’t think the Mexicans crossing the border each day come here because they want to vote for Obama. Wages are higher.

American was a noble experiment which has ended in failure. It is very hard to face. I’ve only recently faced it. The proposition that you can’t swallow is that human beings are incapable of virtuous (or even decent) self-government. Show me a democracy – – anywhere in the world – – whose citizens have retained the morality of a traditional religion (I won’t even specify Christianity) substantially as the law of the land. Human beings, unguided by some form of government tied to religion, are utterly incapable of maintaining any traditional sense of virtue as the norm in their society. Period.

In effect, what you a really arguing, is that you like the liberty you still retain here in the United States and, given your view of political history, you are afraid to tamper with it or reject this system because you are afraid to lose what you have.

America is a good place to make money. It’s not a bad place to live, materially, if you survive your own gestation. Morally, however, it is reprehensible in any number of ways. Many of them stemming from feminism. The destruction of family life, promiscuity, abortion, etc.

If that’s your choice so be it. However, I’m reminded of a joke I heard about the decline of my former church, the Episcopal Church: There are two old men sitting in the back of the sanctuary when the Goddess Gaia is carried in on a bier and Buddhist chanting begins. One says to the other, “That’s it! If they change just one more thing . . .”

If the people wished to overturn any or all of the above decisions, they could through a) constitutional amendments or b) voting only for candidates who pledged to appoint originalist justices. They have not so they are as culpable as the justices who voted for these decisions.

It’s not as easy at that Scott. Look at what is happening in California regarding Proposition 8: Arguments in place as Prop. 8 hearing nears. What happens if Prop 8 is overturned? My worry is that it signals the end of our constitutional republic.

Yes, it is indeed that democracy “inevitably protends a devolution into an ‘aggregate will of unbridled passions’”. I do not suggest that other non-democratic forms of government cannot sink into a similar mire, just that, inevitably, democracy will and, therefore, that it is not compatible with Christianity.

It is not so much that “democracy is compatible with Christianity” but that democracy, planted on the bedrock of Christian virtue, ensures liberty. That’s what makes democracy worth preserving, and why the threat to democracy is not intrinsic to the system itself, but comes from the culture that increasingly eschews virtue.

Implicit in you argument is the idea that government is the primary caretaker of social virtue and thus culture. My problem with your approach is that while it might differ in detail, it’s essentially the same claim that the materialists (cultural Marxists, atheists, Progressives, etc.) make. I don’t see much difference between your view and a secularist view frankly, not in substance anyway.

If political democracy were a value intrinsic to Christian anthropology it would have emerged in Christian civilization long before the age when traditional Christianity was losing its moral and cosmological allegiance among the people.

You lost a critical distinction in the rewrite. I did not say that “democracy” was a value intrinsic to Christian anthropology. I said that the respect of freedom within democracy is a value instrinsic to Christian anthropology. The freedom that democracy seeks to protect) however, is conditionally given. It relies on a virtuous citizenry. Lose the virtue, the freedom goes and tyranny ensues (although it occurs in the name of freedom; the non-vigilant won’t see it coming).

My, you are quite the prophet. You provide no proof or reasoning for this opinion. I am getting the feeling that you are more attached to democracy than to Christianity. Sooner or later, probably much later, Christians will have to face the manifest reality of social development in democratic societies.

No, not really a prophet. I am not predicting it will happen, only speculating on the form it will take if it does. It’s not that difficult. Just project the cultural universals forward and the shape the decline will take is not that hard to discern.

No, I am attached to the gospel, but I know the American experiment with liberty is noble — and fragile. (It’s not an accident that all the refugee movements of the last century were directed to American shores.) I also know that Christian ideals formed and shaped this great experiment — something I willingly affirm because I also am convinced that Orthodoxy can have an important role in the renewal of culture.

Will this happen? I don’t know. But I value my freedom, and I worry about the forced imposition of a new morality, that, in the name of freedom, implicitly threatens to constrict our ability to preach and teach.

If the people wished to overturn any or all of the above decisions, they could through a) constitutional amendments or b) voting only for candidates who pledged to appoint originalist justices. They have not so they are as culpable as the justices who voted for these decisions.

“It is not that democracy inevitably portends a devolution into an “aggregate will of unbridled passions.” That has happened plenty of times in non-democratic societies as well.”

Yes, it is indeed that democracy “inevitably protends a devolution into an ‘aggregate will of unbridled passions'”. I do not suggest that other non-democratic forms of government cannot sink into a similar mire, just that, inevitably, democracy will and, therefore, that it is not compatible with Christianity.

“Because democracy, like free markets, respects freedom, a value intrinsic in Christian anthropology.”

If political democracy were a value intrinsic to Christian anthropology it would have emerged in Christian civilization long before the age when traditional Christianity was losing its moral and cosmological allegiance among the people.

“If — God forbid — a figure does emerge who promises the restoration of order through the enforcement of particular virtues, the virtues will be the inversion of Christian social mores, . . . In short, the only figure who could arise in the present cultural context must necessarily be an anti-Christ figure. It can’t be any other way.”

My, you are quite the prophet. You provide no proof or reasoning for this opinion. I am getting the feeling that you are more attached to democracy than to Christianity. Sooner or later, probably much later, Christians will have to face the manifest reality of social development in democratic societies.