If the never changing Gospel who is Jesus Christ is to have a credible presence and role in our culture, then the Church can no longer ignore or condemn questions and issues that are presumed to contradict or challenge its living Tradition. Among the most controversial of these issues are those related to human sexuality, the configuration of the family, the beginning and ending of human life, the economy and the care and utilization of the environment including the care, dignity and quality of all human life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These words sound so smooth and so reasonable. No wonder. Sentimental thinking produces brews that are easy to swallow. But how reasonable are they?<\/p>\n

Not long ago the Episcopalian Church faced the dilemma that Arida wants to introduce into the Orthodox Church: Should moral legitimacy be granted to homosexual pairings that was previously reserved only for heterosexual, monogamous marriage? <\/p>\n

Episcopalians fought each other for several decades over the question and the traditionalists lost. But why did they lose? How could a position so clearly outlined in the Christian moral tradition be jettisoned so quickly? How could the language of the tradition be so successfully manipulated to overturn what that same tradition disallowed? <\/p>\n

To understand how this occurred we have to understand something about the Episcopalian Church. Episcopalian society is a polite society. Polite societies are civil. Those who wanted moral parity for homosexual pairings argued under the rubric of basic human fairness and decency. All discussion was reduced to the personal and Episcopalian traditionalists found it hard to rebut the liberal ideas without violating the rules of polite discourse. <\/p>\n

Liberalism and reductionism work hand in hand. The reasoning goes like this: When the personal becomes political the more difficult questions are left unasked because asking them is offensive to homosexuals. These questions reach deep into religious and cultural assumptions, some that reach back over two millennia. <\/p>\n

The unasked questions include: How do we address the shift in human anthropology that is at the center of the homosexual question (\u201cI am what I feel\u201d), the cultural ramification of homosexual adoptions, the redefinition of marriage from family to romantic unit, the legal ramifications of sexual orientation as a protected right, and more.<\/p>\n

Orthodox culture is different. Unlike the Episcopalians, Orthodox liberals prefer appearances of gravitas over politeness. When the liberals have a point to make, they draw out the big guns like theologian Fr. Georges Florovsky, offer allusions to recent thinkers like Fr. Alexander Schmemann, provide the obligatory criticism or two of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, cite a relevant quote from the Fathers — all the elements necessary to enforce civility through presumptions of authority and erudition.<\/p>\n

Episcopalian liberals won the debates but they lost their church. In their rush to become relevant they became a byword for irrelevancy. The same will happen to the Orthodox Church if it trades the teachings of the moral tradition for acceptance by the dominant culture. Appearances of gravitas are just that \u2013 appearances. Esau lost the inheritance for a bowl of pottage. So can the Orthodox.<\/p>\n

Sentimentalism never replaces clear thinking. It merely seeks to shut down debate. Arida reveals as much when he writes:<\/p>\n