Environment

Living In God's Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2009)

As some have argued here, the Church’s witness requires her to clearly articulate her anthropological vision.  The challenges that face both the Church and the larger society flow from competing visions of what it means to be human.

The articulation of an Orthodox understanding of the human person is central to our moral witness in the public square, to our evangelical witness in the human heart and (most importantly) the effective preaching of the Gospel from the pulpit.  If we cannot present a clear and compelling vision of human life, then on matters of personal and public morality, sexuality, politics and public policy, the Church cedes the public square and the human heart to increasingly pagan and disjointed culture.

Though her immediate concern is  the environmental movement, Elizabeth Theokritoff’s Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology, offers us an Orthodox approach to natural law grounded in Scripture and the Church Fathers and embodied in Christian worship and the lives and witnesses of the saints.  Theokritoff articulates for the reader a rich cosmological and anthropological vision that has implications not only for the environment but also economics and politics and it raises themes worthy of further exploration and study.  While I do not agree with her policy suggestions, — especially what I would argue are her misguided and very dangerous flirtation with population control — I do think those here interested in an anthropological response to contemporary issues would do well to read Living in God’s Creation.

You can read the whole of my review on Acton’s PowerBlog (Review: An Orthodox Christian Natural Law Witness).

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

On the Acton Institute’s PowerBlog, John Couretas has a good post (Got a feelin’ of Eco-Justice?) response to “the cascading daily disclosures of Climategate . . . global warming alarmist operating within the progressive/liberal precincts of churches and their activist organizations” have taken to dismissing science and playing ” the theology card!” Continue reading →

The more I read what is coming out of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), the clearer it becomes that they understand the culture within the Church and outside of it. The ROC will emerge as the world leader of Orthodoxy because it comprehends that the crisis in Western culture, including Russia, is primarily moral and speak to it with clarity. Note this paragraph:

Archbishop Hilarion added that there were nominal Orthodox believers in the world who consider themselves Christians by birth or by belonging to a certain ethnic group, but they do not completely fulfill that what their religion prescribes. The archpastor expressed his regret, saying: “It is a common problem of all the religions: people identify themselves with a certain confession, but they do not shape their lives in accordance with its teaching.” He added: “This means there is such a phenomenon as a lack of serious and thoughtful consideration of the fact that they belong to the Christian Church. They even agree to perform certain religious rites, but as far as real life is concerned, they are not ready to observe the commandments of Christ.”

Compare that with the Constantinopolitan policy of building the Church on ethnic identity instead of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This policy dims moral awareness and leads to a confusion between moral and political authority. That’s why we see errors such as granting religious imprimatur to secular apocalyptic movements like global warming. If the policy continues, Constantinople will not be able to muster the interior strength and depth that is necessary to meet the challenges facing Western civilization.

Continue reading →