AOI - The American Orthodox Institute - USA

What’s left of the Boy Scouts of America (now operating as Scouts BSA) is on the brink of declaring bankruptcy, according to recent news reports. With estimated assets of more than $1 billion, Scouting’s problems go beyond the financial, deep into the problems with America’;s civil culture today.

What used to be an organization designed to help boys become men has now been re-fashioned in line with the new gnosticism of American culture, accepting LGTBQIA ideology, while abandoning its traditional ascetic position about sex and its opposition to atheism.

This three-day conference focuses on the application of Orthodox teachings on anthropology and morality to contemporary challenges posed by secular American culture (even within the Church).

Sexual identities, in contrast to sexual practices or passions, are a relatively new concept. Only recently were passions taken to define people, i.e. seen as constituting an identity or essence, such as homosexual or heterosexual—an understanding that even many secular circles now scorn as untenable. It is, then, discouraging to see a highly respected Orthodox hierarch dare to breach the unwavering moral tradition of the Church based upon such an “essentialist” notion of “sexual orientation.” Siewers argues that this step undermines Orthodox anthropology by turning the body into a thing (reification) and alienating humanity from the incarnation of the God-man Christ.

An organized ball game is to faux-play baseball what marital sex is to sex as it is currently being promoted. Sexual activity severed from both marriage and family formation is like baseball activity without a real game in view: the physical sensations may be the same, but they lack purpose other than a quick feel-good. It’s the difference between the meaning of a hook-up or one-night stand and the meaning of intercourse between a chaste man and wife who are deeply in love and open to having a family. One is merely orgasmic, the other romantic and marital. One is recreational, the other pro-creational.