Essays like Fr. Gregory Jensen’s below, give me hope. It reveals the new thinking needed in American Orthodoxy, the kind that is thoughtful and responsibly self-critical. An excerpt is included below. You can read the full article on either the new and improved!<\/em> Orthodoxy Today<\/a>, or the AOI main page<\/a>. (Click the pic for a full view of the image too.)<\/p>\n

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The Rejection of Tradition<\/h3>\n

On a post on my blog Koinoia<\/a> (“An Editorial: Orthodoxy & the Public Square<\/a>“), I wrote that whether or not I like Frank Schaeffer’s politics or his moral theology, or whether or not his support of abortion and gay rights are compatible with the tradition of the Church, the reality is that he is well within the mainstream of current Orthodox opinion in America. According to the PEW survey, the majority of Orthodox laity agree that abortion and gay marriage should be legal.\u00a0 It may surprise you, then, that the problem isn’t Schaeffer – it’s us; specifically, it’s the clergy.\u00a0 For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, we clergy are not effectively communicating the moral tradition of the Church to the laity.\u00a0 Or, if we are, the laity aren’t listening –- which would imply that the clergy are willing to tolerate the laity ignoring the Gospel.<\/p>\n

We see the same prevalence of pro-choice, pro-gay marriage positions among Orthodox politicians.\u00a0 This kind of a consistent pattern of belief does not just happen.\u00a0 As in the Catholic Church, we see in the Orthodox Church evidence of a significant pastoral failing.\u00a0 This appears to be more than just a widespread lack of sound moral education for the faithful.\u00a0 It appears to be an embrace of, or at least resignation to, the influence of secularism in our parishes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This is a very serious problem.\u00a0 This isn’t a debate about the practices of potentially faithful followers – as can be the case when addressing, say, Old Calendar or New Calendar, or the issue of women wearing headscarves, or whether priests should have beards and wear cassocks, or whether we have pews or not, or whether to use an organ to lead the choir.\u00a0 This goes much deeper – to the heart of Christian discipleship.\u00a0 It seems that we have simply lost sight of the beauty and power of Christian virtue; perhaps worse, it seems that we have given over leadership to moral barbarians.<\/p>\n

I know that sounds like a harsh judgment, but what else can one call it?\u00a0 A barbarian isn’t a bad person. A barbarian isn’t likely to love his wife and children any less than you or I.\u00a0 He isn’t necessarily an atheist or polytheist.\u00a0 In fact, many barbarians believed –- and believe — in Christ, though for the same reason that they believed in the old gods: to secure power for their people.<\/p>\n

Read the full article on either Orthodoxy Today<\/a>, or the American Orthodox Institute main page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Essays like Fr. Gregory Jensen’s below, give me hope. It reveals the new thinking needed in American Orthodoxy, the kind that is thoughtful and responsibly self-critical. An excerpt is included below. You can read the full article on either the new and improved! Orthodoxy Today, or the AOI main page. (Click the pic for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[231,723,296],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6327"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6345,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327\/revisions\/6345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}