Source: Touchstone Magazine
Reprinted with permission of the author.
By Fr. Alexander F.C. Webster
The benighted Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete in June 2016 reminded Orthodox Christians that the rock of Orthodox faith and practice has been splitting for decades. The fissures are particularly evident among the approximately one million Orthodox Christians in the United States.
What is unconventional about the tone of the conflict is the aggressive ad hominem rhetoric of the avant-garde toward those who insist on unwavering fidelity to Orthodox Tradition. In a community widely known for its conservative approach to religious doctrine, morality, and liturgical rites, innovators would normally maintain a low profile, avoiding unwanted attention and charges of “heresy,” while gradually trying to effect “change.” Ironically, the Orthodox traditionalists are under assault and on the defensive in America and in a few autocephalous (“self-headed”) Churches around the globe.
The Orthodox “left” is waging their offensive on three fronts. Since the vast majority of the Orthodox faithful in this country are unaware of such machinations by the few but determined intellectual elites—clergy and laity—engaged in this spiritual warfare, I shall borrow Orthodox columnist Rod Dreher’s use of Homer’s “Trojan Horse” as an apt metaphor for the primary tactic of those elites.1 In fact, I intend to triple-down on that metaphor. Like the celebrated tactical ploy of the ancient Greeks, the contemporary Orthodox Trojan Horses appear to be gifts but are, instead, full of clandestine theological warriors poised to sack the Church.
Dismissal of Orthodox “Deplorables”
The first Trojan Horse is the increasing tendency of Orthodox leftists to mimic Hilary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” insult of September 9, 2016, against half of her opponent’s supporters. In this case the epithets are born of theological instead of political enmity.
Some of these neologisms seem a bit forced. For example, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture and Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center (OCSC) at Fordham University, has dusted off an ancient Christological heresy. He perceives what he calls “political Nestorianism”—defined as “a politics of dualism, a politics of us vs. them, a politics of demonization”—among American “Christians, including Orthodox, who cannot but see certain political issues as driven by a godless, politically liberal, humanistic agenda.”2 That is rhetorical overkill directed at fellow Christians who are, shall we say, more Tradition-minded than himself.
The expletive of choice among the Orthodox left appears to be “fundamentalist.” Never mind that term’s Evangelical Protestant provenance, dating from 1922, when Curtis Lee Laws took a cue from the publication of The Fundamentals tractates in the previous decade. Never mind that the term began as a badge of honor. Never mind the weird misapplication of it since the 1980s to large swaths of Islam and reactionary elements in other religious communities. The Orthodox left is simply echoing the anti-Evangelical hyperbole of the mainstream liberal Protestant denominations in the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches with whom they have shared brie and Chablis for so many years.
No less an ecclesial dignitary than Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus (senior bishop of an ancient autocephalous Orthodox Church) fired a shotgun blast indiscriminately on the first day of the recent Pan-Orthodox Council at unspecified anti-ecumenical “groups” whom he blamed for the absence of four entire Churches from the council: “The fundamentalist and fanatic groups, among which are theologians and hierarchs, which to a greater or lesser extent today are active throughout the whole Orthodox world, are a serious reason why a real threat of not only postponing, but even of canceling the Holy and Great Council loomed over it.” The archbishop identified the targets of his ire simplistically as those who oppose “any idea of drawing nearer to other Christians.”3
Back in the United States, a growing cadre of Orthodox scholars, mostly lay theologians, have, with increasing abandon, dismissed many of their co-religionists as “fundamentalists”—perhaps none more often and harshly than George Demacopoulos, Fr. John Meyendorff and Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Co-Director of the OCSC at Fordham University. In a blog post in January 2015 on an official website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Demacopoulos depicted his unnamed theological opponents in overwrought ad hominem smearsas “extremists” and “radical opportunists” who pose an “insidious danger” motivated by “self-promotion.” Demacopoulos averred that their “key theological error” is “the presupposition that the Church Fathers agreed on all theological and ethical matters”—a patently nonsensical claim to anyone who has delved into the rich variety of extant patristic texts. Other dangerous trends that Demacopoulos perceives, falsely, include a preposterous insistence “that the Fathers were anti-intellectual”; “the slavish adherence to a fossilized set of propositions,” a mere “subset of theological axioms” derived from a “reductionist reading of the Church Fathers” and used as “a political weapon”; and an inevitable “idolatry” in lieu of an “earnest and soul-wrenching quest to seek God and to share Him with the world.” Demacopoulos’ phrase “soul-wrenching quest” is, on the contrary, a weird post-modern existentialist -distortion of the Church Fathers. Cartoonish does not begin to capture that kind of bizarre, emotive diatribe.4
But what is really behind all the heated rhetoric? A clue appeared in a brief post-council assessment in September 2016 in the mainline Protestant journal The Christian Century by Peter C. Bouteneff, Professor of Systematic Theology at St. Vladimir Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. He referred to the Orthodox Church as “lagging in its responsiveness to modern demographic realities and to modernity in general.”5
Embrace of “Secularization”
That moderns-versus-ancients meme also undergirds the second Trojan Horse: a full embrace of “secularization,” while ostensibly rejecting “secularism.”
In an essay “sponsored” by the Orthodox Theological Society of America (OTSA) and published in May 2016 with the stated purpose of influencing the Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete the next month, six Orthodox scholars, including Fordham’s Aristotle Papanikolaou, proclaimed the virtues of secularization:
[S]ecular political spaces are not defined by a high wall between religion and politics, but a differentiated public and legal order that maximizes pluralism. In secular societies, the differentiation of spheres (political, legal, economic, religious, etc.) has become an essential tool for the restraint of state power and the protection of human liberty. Thus, while it is right to reject secularism as an anti-religious ideology, the Church should discerningly approve of secularization, in order to ensure that her life is not restricted to certain precarious political spaces, but made available to all people. Secularization liberates the Church from political confinement, enabling the Gospel to be freely chosen as a way of life.6
There is some merit in that distinction. Not all attempts at secularization have been coupled with “an anti-religious ideology”—at least not yet. But the connection is unmistakably evident in every country that has succumbed to communism, beginning with Orthodox Russia in 1917 and continuing today under the godless regimes in North Korea and Cuba. Nor is the secularization of Western Europe and the United States immune to what appears to be an inexorable degeneration into prohibitions of “public” religious activity that may yet result in full-blown persecution. The OTSA group’s attempt at intellectual nuance may be more naïve and quixotic than wise and realistic.
A more subtle, expansive argument in favor of secularization appears in Aristotle Papanikolaou’s 2014 book, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy. His project attempts to bridge the secular and sacred realms by extolling the former at the expense of the latter. One key theological presupposition is this: “I do not think the transcendent referent need be to the divine, but can take the form of a common good.” In an earlier version of that argument in 2003 under the title “Byzantium, Orthodoxy, and Democracy,” Papanikolaou proceeds to circumscribe the most essential of the Church’s divine purposes:
In relation to a democratic form of the common good, the church must accept its own limits and recognize that the goal is not the formation of a eucharistic community through persuasion but, rather, the construction of a community in which diversity and multiculturalism are affirmed and protected and in which the recognition of such diversity and multiculturalism must be enforced if they are not voluntarily accepted.7
By 2014, Papanikolaou had replaced “multicuralism” with “cultural difference.”
But that mild change did not conciliate Vigen Guroian, Armenian Apostolic professor emeritus at the University of Virginia. In a devastating review of The Mystical as Political in First Things, Guroian revealed the Trojan Horse in Papanikolaou’s argument:
In the place of this ecclesial vision of transformation, we are served the claptrap of diversity and political correctness. . . . Enforced? Does this not imply that the liberal state has a responsibility and right to coerce the Church when the Church does not affirm “diversity and cultural difference”? Surely, Papanikolaou knows that these terms are the property of the progressive left that insists on same-sex marriage, among other things Orthodoxy refuses to “recognize.”8
In “The Secular Pilgrimage of Orthodoxy in America,” a subsequent paper given at the annual OTSA conference on June 23, 2016, Guroian questions why the religious pluralism that defines America in the twenty-first century “is interpreted as the norm of religious life, much as a separation of church and state is interpreted as a divine mandate, almost as if it is an eleventh divine commandment.” Why should the Orthodox Churches embrace a more aggressive secularization that would put them back into their previous religious and ethnic ghettos apart somehow from the common good?
The road to secularization ought to be for Orthodox Christians—indeed, all traditional Christians—as in Robert Frost’s memorable poem, “the one less traveled by.”
Sexual Potpourri
The third Trojan Horse may be the most spiritually dangerous of all.
The emergent Zeitgeist of sexual disorder, confusion, and libertinism that first appeared in America in the 1960s has become the dominant social ethical ideology. Who could have imagined that any Orthodox clergyman or theologian would enlist in such a movement? Alas, the ranks are growing, it seems, with each passing year.
Prominent Orthodox clergy and theologians have advocated for various avant-garde causes of non-Orthodox provenance, ranging from women clergy (first, the “restoration” of the obsolete order of “deaconess” and, for some, even the radical innovation of female “priests”) to a soft-sell of the ancient proscriptions against abortion to the latest trend, “transgenderism.” But the granddaddy of them all is a mounting obsession with all things LGBT.Concerning the latter, the leftist elites are surprisingly not so far ahead of a majority of the regular church-going faithful. The 2016 Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Center disclosed that 64 percent of Orthodox Americans surveyed in 2014 thought that homosexuality “should be accepted,” while only 31 percent thought it “should be discouraged.” Similarly, 54 percent strongly favored or favored “same-sex marriage,” while only 41 percent strongly opposed or opposed it. The “same-sex marriage” percentages comport with those of Mainline Protestants and Catholics, but are inverted compared to Evangelical Protestants and Mormons.9
Still, three Orthodox scholars (two of them ordained priests) constitute an elite vanguard pushing hard for this deeply disturbing movement.
First, Fordham’s Aristotle Papanikolaou recently signaled his sentiments in his post-election op-ed titled, “Being Christian during a Trump Presidency”: “[I]f Christians do not prophetically demand of Trump that he publicly disavow white supremacist support, then Christians are complicit in extending and empowering racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia.”10 Struck, in particular, by the last term in that Clintonesque litany of deplorables, I asked Papanikolaou in a telephone conversation to specify what he would deem an unreasonable fear of homosexuals (for that is what the politically correct term “homophobia” means literally) among Orthodox Christians. He replied that violence, of course, would be reprehensible, and on that we would agree. But he also proffered that “discrimination” against active homosexuals in hiring also ought to be prohibited as an offense against decency and common humanity—even in Orthodox parishes and parochial schools!
Second, a respected senior archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), Fr. Alexis Vinogradov of Wappingers Falls, New York, threw down a gauntlet on this issue in July 2011. For a now-defunct Orthodox blog, he wrote an article titled, “New Beginnings in Community: Gender Issues and the Church.”11 He hoped “to start a conversation . . . because among the Orthodox churches, at least, we do not yet have a common platform for respectful discourse on the complex social issues of our day.”
But “respectful discourse” quickly evaporated when he began to rail against the “growing appeal and reliance on simplistic and formulaic answers” among many of his fellow Orthodox. “Such a religiosity cannot,” he continued, “tolerate ambiguities, for it attributes the modern moral and spiritual crisis entirely to the disdain for absolutes and certainties. . . . So, we are told that the debate on sexuality must stop, because the indisputable norm is the choice of heterosexual marriage or celibate life in society or in monasticism.” Alert traditional Christians could already spot the Trojan Horse that Fr. Alexis was trotting out, as he subtly began to call for a new, third “norm.”
Fr. Alexis elaborated in such a way as to remove all doubt concerning his vision:
Homosexual persons did not decide to become homosexual. It was not the fruit of their supposed depravity or sin. That much we know today. There can only be a continuing conversation if we can cross that hurdle of blatant intransigence by those who refuse to acknowledge this fact. But homosexual persons, just as much as heterosexual ones, need to feel the warmth and love and nurture of other persons. God created them for that love, that love is the substance of our humanity; it is what constitutes all of us in bearing his image within us. For any member of the human race when that love is not forthcoming openly and easily, when community taboos and fears isolate them away from the family, it is inevitable that their legitimate searching and need will appear as an anomaly to those who have safely passed through the invisible selective screen. The selective culture, society in general or church, will have pushed them to extremes.
That appeal is all too familiar to Protestants and Roman Catholics in America, but it is still novel to most faithful Orthodox Christians: we must accept homosexuals, who are born that way, and not drive them away by calling them to repentance and celibacy—the only traditional moral “norm” besides “heterosexual” marriage. Later in his article Fr. Alexis had the chutzpah to warn that it is “our callousness, judgment, and self-assurance,” not sexual perversion, that “can injure” the Bride of Christ, the Church.
Fr. Alexis afforded us a sobering glimpse of the way the spirit of the world has captured those who would take it upon themselves to lecture and even scold us (fill in the blank: simplistic, frightened, totalitarian, intolerant, superficial, intransigent, self-centered, unrestrained, callous, spiritually weak—Fr. Alexis hurled all of those epithets our way in his brief for affirmation of the “other”) Orthodox and other Christians who reject the tiresome notion that the times are a-changin’ and we must change with them.
Third, Archpriest Robert Arida, longtime pastor of the OCA Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Boston, has played the role of Odysseus for this modern Trojan Horse. In June 2011, shortly after New York passed the Marriage Equality Act, which legalized marriage between two men or two women, Fr. Robert posted on his parish website a short essay titled, “Response to Myself.” Weighing the implications of the new legal trend, he explored the Church’s checkered history tolerating slavery and concluded by proposing an intriguing hypothetical:
If the Church is going to respond to the legalization of same sex marriage/union it seems that it should begin by considering how to minister to those same sex couples who being legally married come with their children and knock on the doors of our parishes seeking Christ. Do we ignore them? Do we, prima facie, turn them away? Do we, under the rubric of repentance, encourage them to divorce and dismantle their family? Or, do we offer them, as we offer anyone desiring Christ, pastoral care, love and a spiritual home?12
Although that scenario may seem, prima facie, to require pastoral nuance and sensitivity, Fr. Robert’s use of “or” in the final sentence betrayed a subtle questioning, and perhaps rejection, of a universal requirement for the Holy Mystery of Matrimony in Orthodoxy—namely, one man and one woman. He clearly implied that anything less than a full embrace of the “family” as is in his hypothetical would be unpastoral, intolerant, and unloving.
Another essay on Fr. Robert’s parish website three years later, “Never Changing Gospel; Ever Changing Culture,”13 caused a firestorm when it was also carried on the Wonder blog, an online publication of the Department of Youth, Young Adults and Campus Ministries of the OCA. Fr. Robert purported to “raise questions,” lest we turn the past into “an oppressive tyrant.” While affirming, in the spirit of Hebrews 13:8, “the unchanging Gospel who is Jesus Christ,” Fr. Robert insisted that the Church must “come to terms with postmodern culture”—that is, by demonstrating “a desire on the part of all the faithful—bishops, priests and laity—to allow the mind and the heart to change and expand.”
That, in turn, entailed this oxymoron, which Fr. Robert put in both italics and boldface for effect: “To preach the never changing Christ requires us to be ever changing“—not only spiritually through struggle against sinful passions, personal repentance, and cultivation of the virtues, but also theologically by “no longer ignor[ing] or condemn[ing] questions and issues that are presumed to contradict or challenge its living Tradition.” On the one hand, he berated “Orthodox Christians who misuse the never changing Christ to promote a particular political agenda and ideology or as license to verbally and physically assault those they perceive as immoral.” Translation: traditional Christians who “bully” homosexuals. On the other hand, he did not specify how Orthodox Christians ought to “expand” their minds and hearts on the “issues” he enumerated.
But Metropolitan Tikhon (Mollard), primatial bishop of the OCA, was able to read between the lines. He removed Fr. Robert’s essay from the OCA’s Wonder blog and substituted his own response. The bishop offered a brief clarification of the OCA’s long-standing teaching on marriage, the family, and human sexuality and explained why discussion of such profound theological and moral issues “would benefit from a more in-depth analysis than can be provided on a blog.”14
However, Metropolitan Tikhon’s intervention came too late. Fr. Robert’s essays, and the initial official approval of one of them, reveal that this Trojan Horse is already inside the gates of the Orthodox Church in America. Soon to appear in print through the auspices of the so-called European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups is a new volume of essays under the title, “For I Am Wonderfully Made”: Texts of Eastern Orthodoxy and LGBT Inclusion. Among the contributors are Archpriests Robert Arida and Alexis Vinogradov, Mark Stokoe (a layman in the OCA), Dr. Bryce R. Rich (an OCA lay theologian and author of a chapter titled, “A Queer Personhood: Freedom from Essentialism”), and Maria McDowell (an erstwhile OCA scholar who left the Orthodox Church and was joined in “marriage” to a woman by a female Episcopal minister).
A Familiar But Daunting Task Ahead
What we behold in the appeals of the trailblazing Orthodox scholars discussed herein is a subtle, erudite, but disingenuous public challenge to abandon ancient Christian verities under the guise of a “conversation” or “discussion.” That should sound an alarm to refugees from mainline Protestant denominations and radical Roman Catholic parishes who witnessed the naive embrace of their own Trojan Horses beginning in the 1960s. The pattern is unmistakable: first, a call to “transcend” narrow, rigid, archaic dogmas, coupled with an invitation to a “conversation” to share viewpoints based primarily on personal experience and “new” knowledge instead of immersion in the Tradition; followed by a summons for mutual forbearance, tolerance, and, ultimately, full acceptance of diverse moralities. Soon enough, the orthodox frog in the gradually boiling pot is fully cooked and no longer a living frog.
One of the scholars quoted above, who regularly teaches a Sunday school class for Orthodox high-school students, told me that he never includes sexual morality in his curriculum and dreads whenever a student even so much as asks a question about any sexual issue. So captive to contemporary sexual mores are those high-schoolers that he is convinced that any attempt to present traditional Orthodox teaching might be, at best, futile but would, in fact, drive every one of his students from the Church altogether. Such pedagogical timidity constitutes, in my estimation, ecclesial malpractice, a preemptive surrender to the Zeitgeist and a guarantee that those Orthodox teenagers will eschew prophetic moral witness to society lest it disrupt their comfortable accommodation to the surrounding culture.
Perhaps this essay will sound a clarion call to all of the Orthodox bishops in America, as well as clergy and laity, to engage with love and justice those who would distort our venerable moral tradition.
REFERENCES
1. theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-orthodox-trojan-horse.
2. https://publicorthodoxy.org/2015/10/12 and https://publicorthodoxy.org/2016/11/11.
3. pravoslavie.ru/english/94598.htm.
4. blogs.goarch.org/blog/-/blogs/orthodox-fundamentalism.
5. christiancentury.org/article/2016-09/great-and-holy-council.
6. https://publicorthodoxy.org/2016/04/05.
7. academia.edu/4292579/Byzantium_Orthodoxy_and_Democracy
8. firstthings.com/article/2014/04/godless-theosis.
9. pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/orthodox-christian.
10. https://publicorthodoxy.org/2016/11/11.
11. ocanews.org/news/Vinogradov7.12.11.html.
12. http://holytrinityorthodox.org/articles_and_talks/Response.pdf.
13. holytrinityorthodox.org/articles_and_talks/Never%20Changing%20Gospel.pdf.
14. http://wonder.oca.org/2014/11/01/never-changing-gospel-ever-changing-culture.
Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster , Ph.D., is a retired U.S. Army chaplain (Colonel) and parish priest of St. Herman of Alaska Russian Orthodox Church (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia), Stafford, Virginia.
Christ is Risen!
I have reached the point where I think trying to correct such Trojans is futile. A simple direct statement “You are wrong!” made without rancor or defensiveness is the best recourse.
That and emulating Gandolf in the mines of Moria when facing the Balrog: “You shall not pass!”. There are plenty of other groups with whom they can ride into hell with if they desire.
The time for politeness, courtesy and dialog has passed. They are making the Temple of the Lord a den of thieves. Robbing people of their salvation. Changing the incorruptible glory of God into corrupt ideologies of men. Anathema!
Those who wish to ordain women to any rank of the priesthood or have done so are no longer Christian. Unless there is repentance, no dialog is possible.
Those who deny the reality of creation and the Kingdom embodied in marriage and wish to obscenely use it for those of the same sex are not Christian. Without repentance, no dialog is possible.
Any attempt at dialog gives them strength and creedance.
Any priest or bishop who advocates for such things should be stripped of their office and laicized with a long period of penance where they cannot approach the cup to follow. Same with abortion. Any lay person who believes such things should not approach the cup without a change of heart.
That is the truly pastoral approach. If they have abandoned Christianity they need to know it.
If action is not taken, schism will occur.
In any case, we are likely to grow smaller. That should not be feared.
Glory to God.
“The time for politeness, courtesy and dialog has passed…If action is not taken, schism will occur….In any case, we are likely to grow smaller. That should not be feared.”
Well said.
However these truths are being furiously denied at the “leadership” level (i.e. Bishops, seminary’s and the professionals who work there, lay leadership groups, etc.).
When you abjure courtesy, you fall into your own condemnation. You, sir, are on the side of the Balrog and cannot see it – or, perhaps, you emulate some stray Dwarf. Do consider that the Creed and Sacraments are the, um, touchstone of who is and who is not a Christian. And perhaps a change of heart for you will return you to courtesy and obscurity, those traditional virtues that so well suit your revealed mindset. But I do thank you for the strength and credence you lend, out of your poverty. Girls being ordained, and boys marrying one another, will not harm the Glory of God, nor steal anyone’s salvation, nor rise to the level of heresy. You may thank God, yourself, that you are not great enough to be a Heretic through your errors and public indulgences in the Passions, malice, and monkey-with-a-parasol prose. .
I can’t even tell what Cyrano is saying here…is this sarcasm?
typical fundamentalist hate rhetoric for the choir. He doesn’t provide any substantiation for any of his claims other than that he thinks that people who disagree with him are not “Traditionalists.”
He wonders what fundamentalism is, and seems to think it isn’t real because it was originally regarded as an honor. But I would suggest this article portrays fundamentalism in a nutshell. Fundamentalists distort Tradition through fear, then claim their distortion, which inevitably becomes authoritarian and restrictive, IS Tradition and everything else is wrong. Jacobse, who seems to think nothing of writing for the conservative press while deriding “leftists” (the conflation between tradition and political ideology is obvious), doesn’t even have the self-awareness to see how ironical an article this really is.
Oh good – when the term “fundamentalist” gets used and abused it is always a sign that the light does not have communion with the darkness – and it is time for the Faithful to shake the dust off their feet.
We have entered the age of Human Iconoclasm!
Apparently there are many impostors in our midst. Thanks be to God for faithful Orthodox priests who are challenging these heretical teachings and standing for Truth and righteousness.
Thank God also for the Internet since it’s shining the light of truth and exposing the darkened and confused “preaching” of these hirelings. The rational and faithful flock must be warned of the hyenas hiding in their midst scheming to lead astray and devour the innocent sheep.
“For the rejection of God’s order of male and female is a strike at the heart of creation itself, Satan’s endgame evisceration of the imageness of God.” ~ Andrée Seu Peterson
The duty of true and faithful shepherds is to preserve and defend the Christian faith. “We are to defend Christianity itself–the faith preached by the Apostles, attested by the Martyrs, embodied in the Creeds, expounded by the Fathers.” wrote C.S. Lewis. We cannot add or subtract from the teachings of Christianity based on individual opinions regarding God or man or other timeless tenets of the faith that we may consider difficult or objectionable.
There are certain lines that Christians, especially priests and Christian leaders, cannot cross and still remain a Christian. In his book, God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis cautioned that clear boundaries of Christian doctrines must be established and maintained by all who preach Christianity. If such limits are forsaken by pastors, the only honorable solution is for them to change their professions.
“But I insist that wherever you draw the lines, bounding lines must exist, beyond which your doctrine will cease to be Anglican or to be Christian: and I suggest also that the lines come a great deal sooner than many modern priest think. I think it is your duty to fix the lines clearly in your own minds: and if you wish to go beyond them you must change your profession.”
Time for these impostors and hirelings to repent and renounce their heretical teachings, change their professions, or leave the Orthodox Church!
Chris, you and I agree, thank God. Your identification of the sin/heresy as iconoclasm is most apt.
Lord, have mercy.
Currently, I am the Orthodox chaplain for the OCF at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before that, I was chaplain at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. At all three secular, research institutions, I have found that if I patiently explain the Orthodox understanding of human sexuality–including homosexuality–students aren’t just respectful but often enthusiastic in their appreciation and support of the Church’s tradition.
The pastoral problem isn’t so much that young adults (whether Orthodox or not) are opposed to the traditional Christian moral teaching on sexuality but that they have rarely, if ever, HEARD this teaching. Most young people, thankfully, no particular onus against their LGBTQ classmates. If anything, their response is one of live and let live.
Because WE haven’t explained the tradition to them, others have. Or rather, others (whether through ignorance or malice) have distorted the tradition. Most of our young people, in other words, have only heard distorted versions of what the Church teaches on homosexuality. Given this starting point, their support of homosexuality is not surprising. They’ve been told, and WE’VE never challenged, that Christians hate homosexuals.
To quote Pogo, the St John Chrysostom of the Okefenokee Swamp, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
Fr. Gregory,
Your experiences and wisdom about this issue are attested by and confirmed by many others!
I agree with Fr. Gregory Jensen’s observations. Let’s never waver in preaching the truth in love, and those who have ears to hear will hear!!
Fr. Gregory,
You speak to those “outside” the Tradition as it were (for how many of those standing next to us in Church have not been “explained” the Tradition).
However, Fr. Alexander is speaking to something else. Namely, those who have had the Tradition “explained” many times (Bishops, clergy seminary professionals, and lay leadership) and have rejected it for a steaming hot cup of secularism…
Chris Banescu says “Time for these impostors and hirelings to repent and renounce their heretical teachings, change their professions, or leave the Orthodox Church!”
FR Gregory says “To quote Pogo, the St John Chrysostom of the Okefenokee Swamp, “We have met the enemy and he is us!””
I agree with both of these sentiments. Yes, you have met the enemy in your mirror. Like Caiaphas, you speak the truth in despite of your intentions.
Fr. Gregory, we do need to preach the Christian anthropology with love. But to be fair in my 30 years in the Church it has not hard to find if you give a damn about what the Church says. Often it is ignorance born of apathy. There is an assumption that there is no difference so why open ones ears. Other times it is antipathy born of a basic rejection of the reality of Christ as anything other than an idea, I.e. idolitry-loving the created thing more than the creator.
Neither is it difficult to see the nihilism inherent in what is laughingly called our culture and the “Christians” who proclaim the way of death instead of repentance and life.
What is difficult is putting what the Church has always taught ahead of the passions of the world and acting on what the Church teaches rather than on where the passions lead us and the lies the world proclaims. Those who struggle in Christ, no matter how fallen they are have my respect and honor for I am the least of these.
Those that support abortion, perverted sexuality of any type(which includes most of what is called heterosexual behavior) or women priests are no longer Christian. They have abandoned the struggle. I not going to pretend that they are Christian whether they are bishop, priest, monastic or laity in the world.
You who believe such lies stop pretending you have not left the faith to which Christ’s death on the Cross and Resurection leads us all to.
That pretence is the greatest of your lies.
To become Christian again and remain Christian requires repentance. That is the same criteria for us all. You who object to the faith are not special in fact you are depressingly common and utterly boring. In life there is infinite diversity and creativity. In death there is nothing.
There is neither novelty, wisdom, compassion or truth in anything you say. That is why there can be no dialog.
Michael,
I assume your are referring to something in the past and not simply these two posts of Fr. Gregory? You have never quite lost me like this as far as I can remember. Do you have a link perhaps?
Nothing from the past. Sorry to confuse you. Do you have specifics I can clarify?
The Orthodox Church’s teaching on anthropology and human sexuality is neither complicated or hidden. Anyone who wants to learn it can. All they have to do is look. It needs to be reinforced. But there is a responsibility to seek as well.
Those people who support abortion, sexual perversion of any kind and ordaining women as priests have left the faith. It is that simple. They are beyond heretics, they are apostate and have nothing of value to offer the Church.
To treat them as if they are still Christian is neither honest nor helpful.
Thanks Michael. I have a fairly fine tuned secular crap detector, and yet I don’t see quite what you see in Fr. Gregory’s words. This is not to say you are incorrect, but I don’t know…ah well, the important thing is that we stick to the main theme. Mistakes will be made, but we work past them.
Christopher, I was not being critical of what Father Gregory said. I was trying only to point out that there is a responsibility on our part to actively seek the truth and not just passively accept the way of the world.
Doing that is what Jesus used to bring me the Church. Seek, find, hear,obey.
Then shall our hearts be made new.
Restored to the saving knowledge of the living Christ.
Ah I see Michael. I wanted to tell you I got to have a couple of discussions with the owner of Eight Day Books (Warren is the name right?) at St. Michael’s (Louisville) Lenten retreat last month. I enjoyed our conversations. I mentioned that I “know” you through the internet as you and I haunt many of the same blogs.
I also got to briefly introduce myself to you Fr. Johannes – wish I had taken more time to talk with you. I was there with family and old friends (I lived in Louisville for a number of years) and was spread thin I am afraid…
There is no scientific explanation for homosexuality. In fact, there isn’t even an agreed definition of what psychologists do, and don’t, mean by sexual orientation. Where the Church and the American Psychological Association disagree is on the morality of sexual behavior between members of the same sex.
For a summary of the scientific data see http://dailysignal.com/2016/08/22/almost-everything-the-media-tells-you-about-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-is-wrong/.
I take great exception to your confusing statements regarding “scientific data,” homosexuality, and sexual orientation. It is quite obvious that either you did not read the original article cited in your reference for a “summary of the scientific data,” in its entirety – or you do not understand the original article – before endorsing a “summary of scientific data” offered by the Heritage Foundation, an entity known not only to misrepresent data, but are demonstrably deceivers. I would note to you several points:
1) The principle author of this article, Paul McHugh, is a renowned researcher and scientist (and I might add, a devout Roman Catholic who has openly & vocally professed his faith throughout his lengthy career) and is a medical doctor, a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, and his views are those of a medical doctor, not a social scientist. Co-author Lawrence Mayer, Ph.D. is a biostatistician; this is significant for the fact that this article is not “original scholarship” based upon the authors’ own research, but a statistical meta-analysis of an aggregate of accumulated studies that already existed. Why is this significant? You seem to be arguing that, because there is no [apparently singular] “scientific explanation for homosexuality,” we may not objectively reach any reasonable scientific conclusions as to the nature of homosexuality. This is contradictory to the fundamental premise of the article by McHugh & Mayer to which you refer us for “scientific data”; McHugh & Mayer continuously argue the abundance of reliable data from which we may draw reasonable conclusions. Their meta-analysis is based on more than 200 qualifying publications! Acknowledging this fact, then, makes your observation that, among psychologists, “there isn’t even an agreed definition” of sexual orientation – again, suggesting a “fatal impediment” to any reasonable conclusions based on the research data – entirely moot.
2) I have had interesting correspondence with the authors over numerous issues related to the inherent dangers of meta-analysis (beyond the scope of this comment), and several conclusions they have reached. Nevertheless, I am most troubled by their ultimate conclusion:
While biogenetic & medical data is undoubtedly “emergent,” particularly in regard to human behaviour in this fallen world, and in describing our corrupted & fallen human nature, and psychologists may be unable to agree on a “common” definition & understanding of sexual orientation, such ambiguity does not exist in the Church. We are guided and directed by the “immutable” and “innate” teachings of the Holy Scripture, the Patristical writings of the Holy Fathers, contained within the body of the Sacred Canons, and ultimately in our Holy Tradition, summed up in the simplest of terms, “at the Right Hand of the Creator,” and “as it was in the beginning.” Our God fashioned us with a “fixed” biological & psychological constitution and a sexual orientation intended to “live happy and flourishing lives [expressed] through a particular pattern of sexual behavior [and] a particular life trajectory.” And He saw that it was “very good.”
My thought is that, if we intend to refer to external sources as authoritative, we make the necessary “next step” to, in fact, assure that it actually promotes what we intend. McHugh & Mayer make many reasonable assessments, but ultimately reach an unacceptable conclusion.
It appears that Papanikolaou (mentioned above) has co-edited a recently published book touching upon the above-referenced theme of secularization. See https://lawandreligionforum.org/2017/04/18/political-theologies-in-orthodox-christianity-stoeckl-et-al-eds/ . For your convenience, the text of what is at that link follows: “In June, Bloomsbury Publishing will release Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges – Diverse Positions edited by Kristina Stoeckl (University of Innsbruck), Ingeborg Gabriel (University of Vienna), and Aristotle Papanikolaou (Fordham University). The publisher’s description follows:
“‘This book gathers a wide range of theological perspectives from Orthodox European countries, Russia and the United States in order to demonstrate how divergent the positions are within Orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy is often considered to be out-of-sync with contemporary society, set apart in a world of its own where the church intertwines with the state, in order to claim power over the populace and ignore the individual voices of modern societies.
“‘As a collective, these essays present a different understanding of the relationship of Orthodoxy to secular politics; comprehensive, up-to-date and highly relevant to politically understanding today’s world. The contributors present their views and arguments by drawing lessons from the past, and by elaborating visions for how Orthodox Christianity can find its place in the contemporary liberal democratic order, while also drawing on the experience of the Western Churches and denominations. Touching upon aspects such as anarchism, economy and political theology, these contributions examine how Orthodox Christianity reacts to liberal democracy, and explore the ways that this branch of religion can be rendered more compatible with political modernity.'”
Typical fundamentalist hate rhetoric for the choir. He doesn’t provide any substantiation for any of his claims other than that he thinks that people who disagree with him are not “Traditionalists.”
He wonders what fundamentalism is, and seems to think it isn’t real because it was originally regarded as an honor. But I would suggest this article portrays fundamentalism in a nutshell. Fundamentalists distort Tradition through fear, then claim their distortion, which inevitably becomes authoritarian and restrictive, IS Tradition and everything else is wrong. The author seems to think nothing of writing for the conservative press while deriding “leftists” (the conflation between tradition and political ideology is obvious), doesn’t even have the self-awareness to see how ironical an article this really is.
AMEN! Well said Eric. I also found this article distorting and fearful. This author seems sloppy and jaded and it just seems like a sad position to take, I feel bad for the author…
Fr. needs to make two small corrections to his article. Bryce’s middle initial is E., not R. Maria’s wedding service was conducted by a gay, male, Episcopal priest, not a woman. Neither of these facts touch on the substance of the article, which is excellent, but it makes him look sloppy in his research.
Thanks Teena. I am married to Maria and I can attest that it was a gay male priest who performed our wedding ceremony. When Maria is ordained, she will assumedly perform many wedding ceremonies as a female Episcopal priest. And I concur; the author is not only sloppy in his research but also in his assumptions.
Well, we disagree that he is sloppy in his assumptions. Only in a couple of minor details. What Maria does when she is “ordained” in the Episcopal church is none of my business. Her continued meddling in Orthodoxy is. It is not enough that she has a church that recognizes your marriage, and will ordain her (even though you are a divorced woman, which would disqualify her even if she was a man, even before we get to the issue of homosexuality), but she continues to push the same agenda in a church she left because she could not get her way. I suppose those of us who cannot see clear to bless such things are to have no place to go. You will have approval, or else. Well, you aren’t going to get it. Not here. If the two of you just went on with being Episcopalians, I don’t think anyone in the Orthodox communion would give you the time of day. And, that’s the point, isn’t it? What would be Maria’s claim to fame if she stopped riding on her victim train, because the mean old Orthodox church wouldn’t let her be a priest, and marry her lesbian lover, herself the ex-wife of an Orthodox priest? It wouldn’t be a story worth telling in the Episcopal church. Who would care? I know I sound nasty, because I am beyond frustrated. You left the Church. What it does is none of your business. You have no dog in the fight. What you do in your new communion is nothing to us, as long as you leave us alone.
Well stated Teena. I wanted to speak to this:
“What you do in your new communion is nothing to us, as long as you leave us alone.”
Secularism is many things, but it is important to remember that it is a *moralistic* crusade – it believes not only in its own God-of-Self revelations, but also that it is commanded to “go and make disciples of all nations” (its roots being in Christian heresy). They will never leave us alone, for to do so would be betrayal of their deepest selves. There is nothing more dangerous, more destructive than a moral person/people.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” C.S. Lewis
Christopher, you make some very good points. I would only tweek it a bit in reminding us that it’s really the Adversary pulling the strings, for, as the Apostle Paul clarifies in Ephesians 6:12 “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood…”. For Satan, the game now is the popular opinion of the wider culture vs. true believers—with the endgame being the destruction of both. Things are moving at such a rate that secularism may morph into nihilism before our very eyes. Your C.S.Lewis quote is fitting: for those outside the safety of the church have the appearance of independent thinking, but it’s all just mindless lock-stepping. People need our prayers; agendas need to be met by a more vocal defiance from Christ’s True Church.
Thank you Ms. Blackburn for highlighting the typographical error in my listing of Bryce E. Rich along with others in that, shall we say, rather un-Orthodox book, “For I Am Wonderfully Made”: Texts of Eastern Orthodoxy and LGBT Inclusion. That affords me an opportunity to cite Rich’s own self-description on his personal blog.
I presume you will agree that the public support of Bryce E. Rich, an active communicant in an OCA church in Chicago, for certain non-celibate “same-sex relationships” is more pertinent to our discussion than my erroneous citing of his middle initial.
Similarly, I must fall on my sword for identifying the officiant at Dr. Maria McDowell’s “wedding” as a “female Episcopal minister.” I gladly yield to Elizabeth Schroeder’s correction that “it was a gay male priest who performed our wedding ceremony” and apologize for underestimating the moral enormity of the event: a so-called “gay male priest” is more avant-garde and contra-Traditionem that a mere priestess.
I also wish to thank you, Ms. Blackburn, for your spirited but respectful rebuttal to Elizabeth Schroeder’s comments on my article. That inspired me to do a little “neat” research of her role in the Trojan Horse phenomenon. And, lo, I discovered this little gem published last September: Dr. Michael Plekon (editor), Maria Gwyn McDowell and Elizabeth Schroeder (series editors), The Church Has Left the Building: Faith, Parish, and Ministry in the Twenty-First Century (Foreword by John McGuckin). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016. http://wipfandstock.com/the-church-has-left-the-building.html. Archpriest Michael Plekon is a professor of sociology at Baruch College, City University of New York, and an OCA priest. Archpriest John McGurkin is Professor of Early Church History at Columbia University and Nielsen Professor in Ancient and Byzantine Church History at Union Theological Seminary, as well as “pastor of St. Gregory’s Chaplaincy, a community within the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America and Canada meeting at Union Theological Seminary.” The blurb for that book on amazon.com includes this telling sentence: “Not only does the church change for its own existence, it also does so for the life of the world”—in other words, yet another serving of “sexual potpourri.” Why would either of those distinguished Orthodox priest-scholars collaborate on such a book with a “married” lesbian couple?
I don’t know Father. Perhaps you could ask Fr. Plekon why he exclaimed, “Axia,” in response to Maria’s post on being ordained to the diaconate. Or, perhaps you could ask Fr. McGuckin why Dr. McDowell has referred to his parish, in the past, as “gay friendly.” I would respectfully suggest our main problem isn’t this married lesbian couple, who, even as they continue to agitate, have left the Church. The problem is well known, well placed, Orthodoxy clergy, who apparently think they have nothing to worry about when publicly supporting them.
On another blog Fr. Hans wrote:
Fr. Hans is correct and this is exactly what awaits the Orthodox Church if we allow these Trojan horse progressive-liberal changes in. This is only the beginning. The end-game is exactly what Fr. Hans pointed out and it’s borne out by what has happened to the Episcopal Church and all those other “Christian Churches” that have apostatized.
Is it no coincidence that virtually all the progressive-liberal-leftist propagandists –who attack the Church teachings and conservative and traditional Orthodox priests, bishops and Christian apologists– either ignore or defy the Moral Tradition, the Church Canons and Gospel teachings, and also advance a radical feminist agenda, support same-sex marriage and promote pro-LGBT ideas and ideals. Many are silent about abortion, and almost never speak of concepts such as repentance, morality, sin, virtues, faithfulness and chastity.
Some even already commune “married” homosexuals at the chalice and want and have begun to speak openly about sacramental inclusion of same-sex couples and active and militant homosexuals into the life and communities of the Orthodox Church.
It doesn’t seem that his problem is with homosexuality at all as much as he feels threatened by women. His worry is not that the church will become corrupt or immoral or heretical. His worry from the first sentence is that it will become “feminized.”
Feeling threatened by women indeed! So, Fr. Hans, when women are called to the priesthood it shows a neo-pagan return to the fertility cults, but when men serve as priests it is because they are following a holy calling from God? Please explain how this works. No, save your breath. I already know the kind of self-delusion involved here.
Let’s put aside the “holy calling” qualifier concerning a male priesthood for the moment. It doesn’t stand as a valid counterpoint to “fertility cult” and female priesthood.
A female priesthood leads to a conflation between the creative energy of the Uncreated God and the creative prowess of the female. God created the world by speaking it into existence. The creates ontological distance where the Creator is absolutely distinct (“completely other”) from His creation. A woman creates out of her body. A child is the stuff and substance of its mother. There is no ontological separation.
On a symbolic level (using the Greek meaning of the term; the level of the sacramental ) confusion occurs because the two manners of creation are conflated. Think of the Eucharistic here. New life comes through the chalice. But new life also comes through the female body. Which life then is actually represented when the priestess offers Holy Communion? The confusion does not occur overnight, give it a few years. Further, since the confusion deals with human ontology, it is no accident that the communions that ordained women priests are also the ones where natural law concerning sexual differentiation (and the moral tradition regarding sexuality) were abandoned in less than a decade.
We see the confusion in the breakdown in language as well. Father is a patriarchal term, yet feminism hates patriarchy so we must call God our “Mother” we are told. The problem is that the analogue for a birth by woman is only found in the creation. When the term is applied to God (and the feminized churches insist on this application), it implies that God somehow gave birth to the creation. As a result the ontological distance between Creator and created collapses. God is brought into time, and the elemental forces of creation are perceived as coming out of the stuff of and substance of God/gods. We arrive back at paganism.
Having said that however, a return true paganism is a conceptual impossibility even in a decadent Christendom. That God is monotheist has so permeated the deep structure of the cultural memory that the only real option open to it is nihilism. You won’t like this but I will say it anyway, sodomy is deeply nihilistic act (the Fathers teach it destroys the soul). Depositing the life seed in the waste canal of another person is a revolt against nature and thus God and exalts death over life. Yet this is precisely what the Progressives (such as yourself) demand that we ‘celebrate.’
This isn’t “self-delusion.” It is actually quite clear once you think about it. It’s not even about politics, social justice, or any other value that secularists hold dear. It’s about the self-revelation of God to man.
Well sure, “feminized” points to a secular grounding and understanding of who and what we are (anthropology), and who/what Christ is (Christology). In the secular religion/worldview, our createdness is to be overcome by the self and the will – the God of Self. It is essentially a nominalistic and Cartesian worldview. Such a religion does not need Christ, and it of course effects its own Eschaton.
Christianity is of course something entirely different. Women, men, etc. are not their own – and thus we know that the secular Sacred Quest for Equality and Justice is really neither here nor there. Sure, equality and justice around our created male/femaleness can be a relative good in a political sense, but the Church is not a political society – and when it becomes that it no longer has the Spirit of God with it (such as what has happened to the mainline protestants who have replaced Christianity with secularism).
I say all this Constantine and Elizabeth, not to call you out as “pagan” (something actually not all that far from Christianity) but to say your philosophy does not even rise to that level. Pagans know they need the gods – you don’t even know that…
Constantine, your default to armchair psychology is a function of lazy thinking. There is a difference between the terms “feminized” and “feminine.” I’ve written elsewhere that the purpose of feminism is the destruction of the feminine (this happens on the level of language and ontology, not politics).
As a New Yorker who patronizes the arts, and I happy to learn that the avant garde is not simply a group of socially isolated artists on the fringes of society making work that is far too abstract and self referential to be understood or relevant to the general public but is in fact at the vanguard of public threats to traditional Orthodoxy.
Art – the mask of vanity (St. Nikolai Velimirovic)
Odd article. Snobby writing style. Uninformed comments posted. Irrelevant points. Jaded Author.
What a fitting article to be published after lent. We have been praying the prayer of St. Ephraim, “Give me not the spirit of idle talk.” That is exactly what this article is. Weak writing, weak points, weak author, and “idle talk.” Sounds like you need some real problems. Sad that such a peaceful church can have such rot growing from the inside. Next time you think about writing another article Fr. Alexander, you should stop, pray the prayer of St. Ephraim, put down your computer, and think about whether what you are about to say is christo-centric or just your bloviated opinion. Seems like ignorant views are becoming more bold in the church. You cant go a day without reading about some archaic, out of touch argument being spewed all over the web by bored priest. They need to get a second job, how do they have so much time to come up with stuff like this. Sometimes it seems like the bads ( Seraphim Rose, Fr. Weldon Hardenbrook, Fr. Josiah Trehnam) out weigh the goods. But then I remember that this is the CHURCh of ALEXANDER SCHMEMANN, THOMAS HOPKO, MET. WARE, and many, many more wonderful people!! They are bright, real, honest, hopeful people who all love Christ. Im with them and Im with Christ!
Francis, moralistic finger wagging and clucking of the tongue doesn’t count as clear thinking. There are no ideas expressed in your reply, just disapproval and name dropping.
Fr. Schmemann wrote articles against women’s ordination. Fr. Hopko did talks against the same. Fr. Hopko wrote a book on the issue of same sex attraction. It basically said sexually active, unrepentant, homosexuals, should not commune. I doubt very seriously Fr. Alexander would approve of homosexuality. Who exactly are you presenting as representing the “other side”?
(*tapping fingers*)…Just waiting for the Zeitgeist pendulum to swing back to the priority of seeking Holiness, rather than the current fad of justifying serving God at our own Kumbaya-ish convenience…To Francis: With all due respect, you’re off the mark in shooting the messenger just because you don’t like the message…yes, it’s the trendy thing to do, but as St. John Chrysostom points out “nothing is worse than to commit spiritual things to argument”. You see, at its root, homosexuality is a spiritual problem/deception—had you read Fr. Hopko’s book Teena mentioned (“Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections), this would be clear. In the interest of time, I would refer you back to the above comments of Chris Banescu and the links he has provided. I would hope your goal is seeking Christ, as you say, but sometimes we don’t realize that we are the 100th sheep gone astray until, after much prayer in truly seeking to be objective, we get rid of the smoke-screen-and-mirrors (misconceptions like “it’s about love”, “it’s natural”, “patriarchy-blah-blah-blah”) and truly listen for the Good Shepherd’s voice. Within the Church we have Holy Scripture, Tradition and the uniformity of the Fathers on this issue, whereas your tone and words mirror the culture at large. Praying for you as well as for the clergy mentioned in the article. I’m a firm believer in repentance and restoration. And to Father Johannes: I sure hope you don’t get that “second job”! Write on!, and keep on doing 1 Timothy 6:12 ! 🙂
Progressive morality (the moral law of secularism) resembles an inverted Puritanism including the use of public shaming as its enforcement mechanism.
Speaking of Trojan Horses…
Fr. Michael Courey: Orthodox Church Must be More Inclusive, Welcome Same-Sex Couples
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2017/04/fr-michael-courey-orthodox-church-must-be-more-inclusive-welcome-same-sex-couples/
Chris, I sent a very irenically composed E-mail to Fr. Michael expressing my concern for him and gentling reminding him of what the Church teaches. I do not expect a reply.
No dialog.
Michael,
They cannot dialogue, because at heart, the progressive/homosexualist side makes no sense and is irreconcilable with natural law and thus, with God. God never acts against natural law, i.e., the “nature” that he created. Dialogue kills them and their arguments, thus no dialogue. Same thing with the college SJWs — they can’t handle dialogue!
Anytime I mention to a progressivist friend or acquaintance that, with respect to male homosexuality for example, the rectum was not designed to receive a penis, they get upset with me for being “graphic.” The theology of the body is irreconcilable with progressivist thinking.
I’m sure they realize it, but Elizabeth Schroeder and her priestess/priestitute friends’ lineage will die out. They won’t reproduce (well, duh), and sorry, but most people are simply not attracted to liberal/progressive theology on a Sunday morning. Just see how the demographics of the ECUSA are playing out. The grand gothic ECUSA churches of the Northeast with huge endowments and no parishioners are a thing; the latest is for them to become “community centers.” Most people would rather play golf or hang out at a coffee shop on a Sunday morning rather than listen to progressivist garbage from a priestitute claiming to be “Christian.” The only place this sort of thing gains traction is in academia. And look what’s happening in academia — the fascist SJW’s have taken over, which is no surprise, since most people won’t willingly give them the time of day.
What will happen is that, in time, Islam will of course conquer the West (you can’t counter demographics — liberal Westerners are not reproducing themselves; faithful Muslims are), and Ms Schroeder and her descendents will probably be lamenting the good old days of peace among us “backward and archaic Orthodox Christians,” compared with how the Muslims will treat them. (The modern progressives’ infatuation with Islam is bizarre, is it not? They seem to hate traditional Christianity so much that they are willing to look anywhere else.) As Islam grows, faithful Christians will grow more and more a minority and will probably settle and thrive around monastic communities, rebuilding Christian life from the ashes after Western liberal society collapses (hat tip to Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option”).
So, while Ms Schroeder revels in her apparent “righteous indignation” — “Feeling threatened by women indeed!” (um, no, we really aren’t threatened and couldn’t care less what you do; how irrelevant you are to those of us trying to live a Christian life) — the writing is on the wall for the future of her form of progressivism that masquerades as “Christian.” It will die out, and no one will remember it.
The only “progress” ever made by humanity was the progress of the Most Holy Theotokos in saying “yes” to God, to counter Adam and Eve’s saying “no” to Him. This was humanity’s only “progress,” nothing else is progress, history is completed, the only thing left for man to do is to go to church, worship God, and have babies. Modern man may continue to find countless ways to otherwise amuse and distract himself, but really it’s not progress. God and his natural law, in the end, always reign. Those skyscrapers in Los Angeles are progress? The nuclear reactors built near fault lines are progress? Well, wait till the next massive earthquake and we will see how much these have benefited mankind. Your iPhone is progress? How many human relationships have suffered because of handheld device and internet addiction? We have cleverer and cleverer ways of manipulating the world around us, but that’s hardly progress.
Christ is risen!
Yeah, Hulu is doing the Handmaiden Tale by Atwood, who hates Christianity of any form. There are people on the left that believe Handmaiden Tale is actually happening.
T.N. No heresy dies out. They are like deadly viruses. When they kill there hosts they either mutate or go dormant.
As Chris Banescu pointed out this particular virus is a varient of iconoclasm.
Iconoclasm explains the affinity shown for Islam. Both hate mankind so much precisely because we are all made in the image and likeness of God.
Where else could such hatred come from except from the evil one.
The Truth is the antivirus. We have to clearly and simply make it public inviting all to repentance. At the same time we have to inculcate a desire for truth in ourselves and our children.
Dialog won’t happen, it should not happen except in pteparing for confession.
Unfortunately the new iconclasts have removed everything from their hearts that allows such humility. Still, He knocks on the shut door.
The “threatened by women” remark is projection and reveals much more than she thought.
Natural Law is useful put not sufficient and can become a form of dualism quite easily. It does not nor cannot replace the encounter with the living, incarnate Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Noticeably absent in Fr. Michael Courey’s presentation is the word REPENTANCE (as a necessary precondition of following Christ and participating in the sacramental life of the Church), whether talking about the faithful in the pews or retelling the Gospel’s accounts of Christ’s interactions with sinners.
He also fails to mention Christ’s admonishment to “Go and sin NO more!” at the end of His encounter with the adulteress whom Jesus saved from stoning.
Exactly Chris. That is why we need to be clear the iconoclastic beliefs of any sort are not Christian beliefs and in no way compatible with Christianity.
Fr. Arida, Fr. Courey and the others are in a deep state of denial of their priesthood and their state of communion with Christ.
May God forgive!
Dr. Aristotle Papanikolaou is doing yeoman’s work witnessing Orthodoxy to millennials – I’ve seen it myself. He offers a hermeneutic that beautifully translates Orthodox theology and practice to their lives – offering real meaning to a generation that is starving for it – the idea of confession as humble truth telling that helps form community – a community of sinners all in need of redemption and grace -is an excellent example of this –
His approach is one that engages the culture, attempts to understand it and respond to it as Christ would – in Truth and Love – rather than in derision and judgment.
God bless him for his work –
You mean when the blog he helps run at Fordham publishes stuff like this:
https://publicorthodoxy.org/2017/05/02/conjugal-friendship/
I read that article –
One of the questions it raises is whether two men can be connected deeply without being homosexual – which leads to a deeper point of why our culture is so hypersexualized – which is a pretty good question.
In Greece and Albania – there still is a tradition in some small cities and towns – of strolling down the boulevard – women walk arm in arm – or holding hands – no one thinks twice about it – I bet you that many in this country would immediately interpret that in a sexualized light – that’s our problem – not theirs – and our religious discourse has the potential to exacerbate that hypersexualized orientation –
I think that you can a deeply open honest, vulnerable and platonic relationship with anyone – it’s been proven historically – and we’ve lost sight of that – and that’s sad.
The man who wrote that article is gay, and he has other articles that make it plainly obvious he wants Orthodoxy to normalize gay sexual behavior. A deeply caring, platonic relationship, is not the issue here.
Just found that out – I disagree with him utterly – Fr. Hans response below regarding intimacy and bonding – sums up what I was trying to say.
Yes, we have lost sight of that and to a large measure the propaganda of Gay INC contributes to it, as does the writings of those who want to Episcopalianize the Orthodox Church. Here’s a response I wrote to Sanfilippo’s article on a closed Facebook group for clergy:
Giacomo Sanfilippo is Peter J. SanFilippo = a defrocked Orthodox priest, an actively gay man, and homosexual advocate working to attack the Orthodox Church and change the clear and unchanging teaching on the sin and dangers of homosexuality and sodomy.
The author of the Conjugal Friendship article on the Public “orthodoxy” website is Giacomo Sanfilippo who also goes by the name Peter J. SanFilippo.
Peter J. SanFilippo (Giacomo Sanfilippo) wrote an article back in 2008 that clearly outlined his radical pro-homosexual views:
Peter J. SanFilippo (Giacomo Sanfilippo) also wrote his thesis in 2015 and further laid out his heretical pro-homosexual agenda:
Dr. Aristotle is doing “yeoman’s work” in the mixing of light and darkness, something has been popular since the Garden and will be popular until the Eschaton.
His synthesis of modernity with Christianity is the very essence of what it means to be “secularized”. Yes, the Gospel needs “translation” but if the meaning does not come through then the translation is a false one – and yes, we are to judge these efforts: “…Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” (1 Corinthians 6:13)
Do you know Dr. Papanikolaou? Have you ever listened to him lecture or take his class? You sound like you do – if you haven’t or haven’t spoken to him for clarity – why not?
I do not know him but I have read his work and know several folks who know him well (through their association with him in the OTSA). Perhaps you are a current or formal student of his?
I think it is important to keep in mind that we (or at least I) am not attacking the man himself. I have assurances from people I trust that Dr. Papanikolaou is a “good man”, and I believe it to be so. However I also know that he has “a vision” as one seminary professor who I have studied under put it and that this vision is an explicit reconciliation or detente with modernity in a comprehensive way that is parallels (though is not exactly the same) as the Vatican II effort within RCism. This vision is summed up well enough in the Amazon.com blurb for his book here:
https://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Political-Democracy-Non-Radical-Orthodoxy/dp/0268038961/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Unfortunately, this vision is a false one. In the end it rests on confusion and compromise with “the world” and on the secular understanding of man and his destiny (though not God – secularism is careful not to confront God directly). It confuses the relative good of technological and apparent (but often not real) moral “progress” of western civilization with the Kingdom. Heck, it is not even a good mash-up of Christianinity with modernity as the RC and Anglicans are much more experienced and clever in this area. “Clarity” can not rescue his philosophy from being (yet another) expression of the spirit of the age…
I have not read his book – and – if I have time – I certainly will – but I think the context that he is writing within an assessing of a sort of uber-nationalized orientation to the Faith and its effect on the ability of the Church to act as a prophetic voice, to act as a check on the state, as it were – most likely pervades it –
Have you read the book? or talked to him – He’s easy to talk to – There – amongst many of the posts – seems to be a demonization of authors, their education, without much dialogue – and that, I think, is a concern.
I have no question of Dr. Papanikolaou’s “Orthodoxy” – perhaps a good conversation with him would be useful –
Our mainline Orthodox Churches haves tolerated so much innovation and departure from Tradition that it is hard to see how they will now hold the line on the GBLT issues. Repentance needs to come from the Orthodox Churches themselves for turning the holy Tradition into a menu. Because of the smorgasbord approach to Tradition our Orthodox Churches are disgraced with the “new” (actually Roman Catholic) calendar that abuses the worship cycle; young people slouching in chairs; in dress the women look like they are trying to hook-up and the men look like they wish they were fishing; the Divine Liturgy is whittled down to avoid interfering with attendees’ secular lives, while services like Vespers are omitted altogether; confession prior to communion is eliminated; all manner of anathematized behavior by hierarchs (such as communion with non-orthodox) is hidden; the bishops are chosen not from the ranks of experienced monastics, but from graduates of liberal seminaries who have a brief stint (maybe) in a monastery; and on and on.
We Orthodox need to stop accepting liberal terms such as “Living Tradition” (i.e., we can change it as we wish) and start being truthful about Orthodoxy. It is not a religion of comfortably sitting on your tush waiting for the service to finally be over. Tradition makes Orthodoxy hard at times–standing a lot, dressing modestly/respectfully, prayer rule, confession, reading to acquire the mind of the Fathers–but it creates the conditions the Saints found necessary for Theosis. The dumbed-down version of Orthodoxy knows nothing of Theosis, but acts as though this is our version of the Papist/Protestant/Pagan mission to create one’s own religion with one’s comfort and preferences being the supreme good.
As long as rank and file Orthodox are this ignorant of Orthodoxy, the fight against GBLT is just another battle about which Traditions the double-minded clergy can get rid of next.
I know your comment in this thread is two years old, Isidora, but I just had to say that I think it is spot-on! I wish you lived next door so we could speak regularly over coffee. I can’t say with certainty what has or has not happened in other countries, but I think the laxity we find so frequently in the US within the Orthodox Church (excepting ROCOR, in my personal experience) is largely uniquely American. Our entire culture is so informal – we don’t have 1000 years of heritage of more formal society upon which to draw as in countries such as Russia, so I think we tend to dumb down everything into informality, including faith, including even Orthodoxy. Just as we as a country should be on our knees begging for forgiveness and mercy from God, we as Orthodox and we as Orthodox churches should be asking forgiveness of God and recommitting ourselves to what is holy and leaving the rest behind. If we do not, we are risking our own – and others’ – very salvation.
Please forgive the mixing of equine metaphor; but this horse has left the gate, and will certainly be leaving you all behind.
It’s too bad I came across this article belatedly; I was doing a search for a related topic and, by chance, stumbled upon this masterpiece of Orthodox apologetics. Love the tenor of this writer. May God bless Fr. Alexander.
Globohomo agenda at work. The perverts are coming for your kids. Those 3 people should be immediately kicked out of the church. They are a cancer and it will only get worse keeping them around. If not then get rid of the weak leaders who keep them.