Recent blog activity has been caught up in a discussion over the Manhattan Declaration. This is a statement coming from Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelicals concerning three major points about our current culture in America. The debate is over whether this is just some right wing political move or it’s legitimate.

Some of the disagreement comes down to theology. How can an evangelical stand alongside a Catholic? Some objections (like from John MacArthur) raise up old lines of division that show the Body of Christ really has a hard time standing together for just about ANYTHING without an argument breaking out. (There’s a reason it’s called the “family” of God, I suppose.)

Some objections raised would be Catholics and Orthodox theology. Perhaps it’s also the veneration of saints and icons. There are fundamentalists and Evangelicals who have a serious problem with the saints and icons of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

This stirred my thoughts. In my own sordid sense of humor, I would present the idea that while we don’t have “icons” in the sense of the Orthodox Church, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Reformed and other Protestants do have our own versions. We take the “high” road and say it’s not worship. But I would argue there are times we fall into celebrity cults in the Church.

It’s a serious issue I’ve seen raised since the days of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Now, it’s even hit the Reformed movement. The likes of Mark Driscoll and others raise serious questions about our tendency to celebrate certain people. I am NOT saying Driscoll and others seek worship! I am saying we tend to set these guys up in places they do not belong.

I would offer (in a sense of humor kind of way) some of our Protestant “icons” through the centuries.

Luther

Calvin

Graham

Hinn

Driscoll

Piper

Christ’s Easter (Lyudmila Ivanova, 2009)

Courtesy of Orthodoxy Foto.

There are places in the world so serene that even the most clouded mind can sense it’s divinity. Below is a place I visited this summer. A Church built in a cave about a kilometer up stone-steps carefully caressing the mountain. A greek orthodox wonder you couldn’t imagine being there. An experience worth the climb in every sense. How can you not feel small and at the same time be filled with hope? As you walk around and imagine how they built this place and how they visited it to pray, how can you not pause and feel humble? My imagination flew me away to something upliftingly real and pure.

Just as I thought that this place couldn’t be more beautiful or magical I looked up above as I was leaving and in this mountain there were great eagle nests and the eagles soared and cried out and pierced right into my heart.

The view is from inside the cave overlooking the never-ending olive groves of Crete.

]]> http://frbkirk.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/paradigm-shift/ Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:59:52 +0000 Fr. Orthohippo http://frbkirk.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/paradigm-shift/

I had been thinking about a post describing the difference between Eastern and Western thinking.  So far, I’ve only managed to touch on it in earlier posts.  Today, after arriving back home I discovered the following post by Fr. Ernesto.  It covers just about everything I thought necessary on the subject. This is a most helpful explanation, and I recommend you share it with others.  Orthocuban is his site and found on my blogroll.

Yesterday I received a note from someone thinking about Orthodoxy. In the note he asked about what it means when so many of us say that in order to become Orthodox you have to be willing to “shift gears” or to “change the way you think” in order to become Orthodox. I must admit that we are often unclear when we speak that way. But, in part, that is because most of us cannot put into words what we mean. No, it is not a mystical concept, but rather that it has to do with the fact that the explanation can get a little technical.

It has to do with an old concept called “worldview.” I suspect that by now many of you are saying, “Oh, no, not another person talking about worldview.” But, this is one of the few times in which it is totally legitimate to invoke “worldview.” What do I mean by that? Frankly, both the terms “worldview” and “paradigm shift” became the catch phrases to explain anything and everything. So, every time someone had a difference with someone else, they simply invoked “worldview” rather than simply trying to logically resolve their differences. Throw in a little post-modernist patter, and one could simply ignore any dissonance from the other person.

But, in the case of conversion to Orthodoxy, there really is a difference. Look at your European/Middle East/Russian history. The East and the West sides of Christianity separated over a thousand years ago. The West had begun to change 600 years before the formal split. Rome fell in the 400’s. The Roman Empire was but old history in the West by the late 700’s. History was oriented towards Peppin, Charlemagne, and the beginning of nation states. In the East, nation states never developed until rather late. Meanwhile, in the East, the 700’s saw the Muslim advance that took over all of North Africa, the Middle East, heading out towards India, and up towards Europe in a horned advance, both through Spain and up through Constantinople. Spain fell (except the northwest corner) and the Muslims were turned back in France, beginning 700 years of war to drive them out of Spain. In the East, the Empire was under attack until it finally fell in the 1400’s, but it actually continued to exist until the 1400’s. That is 1800 years of Imperial history in the East by the 1400’s.

Even more important, philosophically there is also a difference in the way the East and the West think. The West, descendants of the Roman Empire, is oriented towards the law. One catches that all the time in the arguments over the atonement. With the law orientation of the West, the whole point is about doing what is legal. For the West, the canons are the law of the Church. But, in the East, canon is one of two words, and it is closer to “principles” than it is to “law.” The East is oriented much less towards the law and much more towards principles of life. Again, one catches this in many of the current political arguments over the “rule of law.” That is a concept that is more Western than Eastern. The East talks about “economia,” the concept that people’s needs need to be considered in apposition to the law.

But, more than that, there is a reason why it is called the Middle East and the “East.” The Eastern part of the empire was always more mystical. The places you catch that in the West are in Spain, which was under Muslim rule for several hundred years, and in Celtic areas. Though many of the Early Church Fathers in the East can write in very detailed philosophical and logical fashion, they do not dwell in logic but their “life” is found in mysticism. It is mysticism that fuel the East. Logical and philosophical argumentation simply helps them to set boundaries against heresy.

Finally, one cannot change worldviews simply by intellectual study. Intellectual study is the solution of the Enlightenment. But, talk to any anthropologist or any missiologist. It takes years to begin to be able to fully understand a different worldview than the one in which you were raised. For some people, it is fully impossible. And, one has to live in the culture in order to change one’s worldview.

So, here is the odd part. One can only become Orthodox by way of an initial decision reached by Western means of analysis. But, to fully become Orthodox, one must learn how to synthesize one’s background with the Eastern worldview found in Orthodoxy. Anything short of that will lead to a truncated Orthodoxy.

“A person is never entirely bad. Each person has his good and bad points. When you remember his good points, you pray for him, you are moved, your soul feels for him, and you entreat God for him. And as for his bad side, he is not to blame, but our enemy the devil is. Therefore, don’t be sad, my child, and don’t remember the past. For those things have passed.” Elder Joseph the Hesychast

“Christ our Lord conquers the world, and the victory, is ours also. The Holy Apostles conquered the world, and that victory is ours also. Both the saints and the holy martyrs of our church have conquered the world, and the victory is again ours. There is nothing greater power in the world, then the Christian faith, the Holy Orthodox Faith we all love. The swords that cut off this faith are blunted and broken, but the Faith has remained. We know well from the history of our Church that many have tempted themselves to suffocate our Faith in Christ and His Church, however this Faith has again remained the victory is ours!

When the world rushes upon us, with illusions; especially with the temptations of its exterior beauty, the illusion of riches, of pleasure, and of transitory glory, with what shall we resist and by what shall we be victors but by this Faith? Truly, by nothing but this invincible Faith, which knows nothing better than any of the good things of this world?

We should be never spiritually interested in the face that the world offers us, but only to spiritually behold the face of our Lord God, and to behold Him, and in all His Glory, honor, and worship. Truly, nothing is so important for all Christians then to apply our Faith, which only teaches us endurance, and unchanging values in the Kingdom of God. What a great spiritual victory, as again this victory is ours!

We all can be victorious by faith in our Lord God! Do not ever be shameful about having faith, and being God loving Christians! We must spiritually resist that which is unholy, and see that which is truly holy, as we all know that our Gracious Lord Jesus Christ is the “Conqueror” of the world, who helps us also to conquer the world by faith in Him. Our purpose on this earth as Christians is to seek the Kingdom of our Lord God, therefore let us humbly, as well as piously seek it in faith and with faith. Our Lord God shall reward us, as we truly become victorious, as we have found the true Faith! The victory is ours!

Never for one moment believe that God does not hear you when you pray to Him. Pray with all your mind, heart, and soul, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening, as well as when our loving Church calls us to pray. Go to Church to pray and in faith be victorious! Think about attending Church with your family and be victorious!

Our Church is waiting for you and loves you when you gather in prayer! Our faith in Christ our Lord brings victory; let our faith in Him begin

Peace to your soul!

Humbly in Christ our Lord,

+Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
Who prays for you and with you!”

Οι άνθρωποι του κόσμου τούτου πιστεύουν πως ο περισπασμός είναι κάτι ασήμαντο, αθώο. Οι άγιοι πατέρες όμως τον περισπασμό τον λογαριάζουν ως ρίζα όλων σχεδόν των κακών. Εκείνος που επηρεάζεται και υποκύπτει εύκολα στον περισπασμό έχει κάποια πολύ επιπόλαιη και επιφανειακή γνώση για όλα τα θέματα, ακόμα και για τα πιο σπουδαία και σοβαρά. Εκείνος του οποίου ο νους περισπάται συχνά και περιφέρεται από δω και από κει είναι κατά κανόνα ασυνεπής. Τα συναισθήματα του δεν έχουν ούτε βάθος ούτε σταθερότητα. Πετάει σαν την πεταλούδα από λουλούδι σε λουλούδι και περνάει τον καιρό του από διασκέδαση σε διασκέδαση, η μια ματαιότητα διαδέχεται την άλλη.

Ο άνθρωπος που περισπάται συχνά δεν μπορεί να αγαπήσει το συνάνθρωπό του εύκολα. Τις δυστυχίες των άλλων τις αντιπαρέρχεται μ’ αδιαφορία και συνήθως φορτώνει τους άλλους με βάρη που δεν μπορούν να σηκώσουν. Οι θλίψεις τον επηρεάζουν πολύ, επειδή ακριβώς δεν τις περιμένει. Το μόνο που επιθυμεί κι επιδιώκει είναι οι χαρές. Αν η θλίψη είναι πολύ σοβαρή αλλά παροδική, τότε την ξεχνάει εύκολα, αμέσως μόλις παραδοθεί στο θόρυβο κάποιας διασκέδασης. Όταν η θλίψη αυτή όμως διαρκέσει πολύ, τότε τον καταρρακώνει, τον οδηγεί στην απόγνωση.

Ο περισπασμός τιμωρεί από μόνος του εκείνον που έχει παραδοθεί σ’ αυτόν. Όσο περνάει ο καιρός όλα τον ενοχλούν. Μοιάζει μ’ αυτόν που δεν απόκτησε ποτέ υγιή γνώση και γερά θεμέλια. Παραδίδεται σε μια ατέλειωτη και βασανιστική απελπισία. Ο περισπασμός γενικά είναι κακός. Ιδιαίτερα επιβλαβής όμως γίνεται στο έργο του Θεού και της σωτηρίας μας, που απαιτεί διαρκή εγρήγορση και προσοχή. «Γρηγορείτε και προσεύχεσθε, ίνα μη εισέλθητε εις πειρασμόν»(Ματθ. 26, 41) είπε ο Σωτήρας μας στους μαθητές του. «Λέγω πάσι: γρηγορείτε»(Μαρκ. 13,47). Ο Κύριος και Σωτήρας μας απευθύνεται με τα λόγια αυτά σ’ όλους τους χριστιανούς κι επομένως και σε μας, τους ανθρώπους του καιρού μας.

Όποιος ζει τη ζωή του δοσμένος σε διαφόρους περισπασμούς παραβαίνει άμεσα με τον τρόπο ζωής του τις εντολές του Κυρίου Ιησού Χριστού. Όλοι οι άγιοι αγωνίστηκαν με κάθε τρόπο ν’ απαλλαγούν από τους περισπασμούς. Προσπαθούσαν ν’ αυτοσυγκεντρώνονται διαρκώς ή τουλάχιστον όσο πιο πολύ μπορούσαν. Όλη τους την προσοχή την έδιναν στο νου, στις κινήσεις του, καθώς και στην καρδιά. Μέριμνά τους ήταν να καθοδηγήσουν και τα δυο, νου και καρδιά, σύμφωνα με τις ευαγγελικές εντολές. Όταν κάποιος συνηθίζει ν’ αυτοσυγκεντρώνεται, προφυλλάσσεται από τον περισπασμό, ακόμα κι αν οι πειρασμοί τον περιτριγυρίζουν απ’ όλες τις πλευρές κι είναι ενοχλητικοί. Ο άνθρωπος που νήφει και γρηγορεί είναι σαν να κατοικεί στην έρημο, ακόμα κι αν ζεί ανάμεσα σε πλήθος ανθρώπων.

Κάποιος μεγάλος πατέρας που είχε μάθει εμπειρικά την ωφέλεια που προκύπτει από την αυτοσυγκέντρωση και την περισυλλογή, καθώς και τη βλάβη που προκαλεί ο περισπασμός, έλεγε πως χωρίς έντονη εγρήγορση και προσοχή στον εαυτό μας είναι αδύνατο να προκόψουμε έστω και σε μια αρετή.
Η σύντομη επίγεια ζωή μας δόθηκε ως χρόνος προετοιμασίας για την αιωνιότητα. Και είναι κρίμα να την ξοδεύουμε μόνο στις γήινες φροντίδες, στην ικανοποίηση μικροαπολαύσεων κι αθέμιτων επιθυμιών. Γινόμαστε έτσι σαν τον άνεμο που φυσάει πρός όλες τις κατευθύνσεις, τρέχουμε από τη μια αισθησιακή απόλαυση στην άλλη. Ξεχνάμε ή σπάνια θυμόμαστε, και τότε επιφανειακά κι επιπόλαια τον τελικό προορισμό μας, την αναπόφευκτη κρίση, την αιωνιότητα που αναπόδραστα μας περιμένει…

Ο άνθρωπος που παραδίδεται στους περισπασμούς είναι σαν το σπίτι χωρίς πόρτες και παράθυρα. Σ’ ένα τέτοιο σπίτι δεν μπορείς να φυλάξεις κανένα θησαυρό. Είναι ευάλωτο κι ανοιχτό σε ληστές, κλέφτες και πόρνες. Η ταραγμένη ζωή που είναι γεμάτη περισπασμούς κι εγκόσμιες μέριμνες βαρύνει τον άνθρωπο όπως η λαιμαργία κι η πολυφαγία. Και τότε ο άνθρωπος είναι προσκολλημένος στη γη. Το μόνο που τον απασχολεί είναι η πρόσκαιρη ζωή, η ματαιότητα. Η υπηρεσία του Θεού του είναι αδιάφορη, άσχετη…

Η αυτοσυγκεντρωμένη ζωή εξασθενεί τις συνέπειες των σωματικών αισθήσεων, ενώ οξύνει, ενισχύει και θερμαίνει τα αισθητήρια της ψυχής. Ο περισπασμός αντίθετα αμβλύνει τα ψυχικά αισθητήρια.
Ο περισπασμός συντηρείται από τη συνεχή επίδραση των σωματικών αισθήσεων. Εκείνοι που είναι ευάλωτοι στους περισπασμούς μάταια δικαιολογούν και αποδίδουν αθωότητα στην ταραγμένη ζωή τους. Μ’ αυτό δεν κατορθώνουν τίποτ’ άλλο παρά να καλύπτουν την κακιά αρρώστια που τους έχει αιχμαλωτίσει. Η αρρώστια αυτή είναι τόσο πολύ μεγάλη κι έχει τόσο πολύ αμβλύνει τα ψυχικά αισθητήρια, ώστε η ψυχή που έχει προσβληθεί απ’ αυτήν δεν μπορεί ούτε να διανοηθεί την οδυνηρή της κατάσταση.

Εκείνοι που θέλουν να ζήσουν με εγρήγορση πρέπει πρώτα ν’ απαγορέψουν στον εαυτό τους ν’ ασχολείται με μάταια πράγματα. Το να εκπληρώνει κάποιος τις προσωπικές και κοινωνικές υποχρεώσεις του δε σημαίνει πως μπαίνει αναγκαστικά σ’ ένα στάδιο περισπασμών. Ο περισπασμός συνδέεται πάντα με την οκνηρία ή με απασχολήσεις που είναι τόσο κενές, ώστε αναμφίβολα προσεγγίζουν την οκνηρία. Μια ωφέλιμη απασχόληση, όπως για παράδειγμα το να προσφέρει κανείς την υπηρεσία του με υπευθυνότητα, δεν τον εμποδίζει από το να διατηρεί την εγρήγορσή του. Ίσα ίσα που τον βοηθάει να την αποκτήσει ή να την συντηρήσει. Τα διακονήματα βοηθούν τον άνθρωπο ν’ αποκτήσει εγρήγορση όταν γίνονται συνειδητά, με συνέπεια.

Η ενεργητική και δραστήρια ζωή είναι ο ουσιαστικός δρόμος που οδηγεί στην εγρήγορση. Τον δρόμο αυτόν τον περιγράφουν και τον συνιστούν οι άγιοι πατέρες σε κάθε άνθρωπο που θέλει να ζήσει με αυτοσυγκέντρωση…Στην καθημερινή ζωή τον άνθρωπο τον βοηθούν και άλλοι για ν’ αποκτήσει εγρήγορση. Όταν βρίσκεται κάποιος σε μια κατώτερη θέση μαθαίνει πολύ καλύτερα να προσέχει. Κανένας δάσκαλος δε διδάσκει καλύτερα στον άνθρωπο την αυτοσυγκέντρωση, όσο ο αυστηρός και συνετός προϊστάμενος. Όταν εργάζεσαι μαζί με άλλους ανθρώπους μη χάνεις το χρόνο σου σε άσκοπες συζητήσεις μαζί τους και σε ανόητα χαριτολογήματα. Κι όταν δουλεύεις μόνος σου μην επιτρέψεις στον εαυτό σου ρεμβασμούς και ονειροπολήματα. Έτσι η συνείδησή σου σύντομα θα καθαριστεί και θα οξυνθεί. Κι αργότερα θα σου επισημάνει πως κάθε κίνηση πρός τον περισπασμό είναι αθέτηση των ευαγγελικών εντολών αλλά και απόκλιση από την κοινή λογική.
( Οσίου Ιγνατίου Μπριαντσανίνωφ, Η Βασιλεία του Θεού και ο Αντίχρηστος σ. 29-34 ( αποσπάσματα), Αθήνα 2008).

St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

The sons of the world consider distraction to be something innocent, but the holy fathers recognize it to be the origin of all evils. The person who has given up to distraction has, concerning all subjects and even the most important ones, a very light most superficial understanding. One who is distracted is usually inconstant. The feelings of his heart usually lack depth and strength; and therefore, they are not solid but transitory. As a butterfly flits from flower to flower so also a distracted person passes from one earthly satisfaction to another, from one vain care to another.

In Greek – Στα Ελληνικά

St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

The sons of the world consider distraction to be something innocent, but the holy fathers recognize it to be the origin of all evils. The person who has given up to distraction has, concerning all subjects and even the most important ones, a very light most superficial understanding. One who is distracted is usually inconstant. The feelings of his heart usually lack depth and strength; and therefore, they are not solid but transitory. As a butterfly flits from flower to flower so also a distracted person passes from one earthly satisfaction to another, from one vain care to another.

Meeting the Guest of Honour (Anonymous, 2009)

This was an incident during the visit of Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev to Solovki in August 2009. It was on a Live Journal site, http://nixette.livejournal.com/ Apparently, it was scanned from the November/December 2009 issue of Russian Life (which is available at Barnes & Noble in the north-eastern USA, I can’t speak for other regions), which is still on sale, I’ll warrant.

The clergy lined up in anticipation of the patriarch’s arrival, then, a mutt strolled out of the crowd, moved amongst the priests, sniffing the air happily. It caused smiles all around, but, no one moved. After sowing such cheery confusion, the dog sauntered leisurely back into the crowd.

Christ with the Crown of Thorns (Mikhail Walusko, undated)

I have let this site lie fallow for some time as I healed completely from a spot of physical crankiness.  Now, it’s time to get some art back up, and I’ll be posting regularly from now on (I can’t guarantee that it shall be daily, though).

It’s good to back at the art beat… it keeps me from going stale.

Cheers,

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Thursday 26 November 2009

Albany NY

Icon of the Saviour Not Made by Hands (Mikhail Walusko, undated)

Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation.

Fr Alexander Schmemann

Rod Dreher makes several salient points about converts to Rome and Orthodoxy:

Yes, but in my personal experience, the Catholic Church in America has only a facade of unity. Every Catholic parish I’ve been a part of has been basically Protestant, insofar as most of the people seemed to believe that they had a right to believe whatever they wanted. The unity was fairly superficial. Mind you, I’m in no position to say to what extent the Orthodox Church in this country is any different, because my experience is relatively short and limited almost entirely to my own parish. But I would be surprised to learn that we Orthodox on the whole were much different in that regard.

I’ve said the same thing myself: Catholicism in the USA is just Protestantism with a different name. You have gay Jesuits, hardcore Trad Opus Dei types, the First Things crowd, EWTN, liberals like the Kennedys, and on and on. There is no unified, glorious Church. It’s an illusion in the mind of the convert who lives in the world of ideas. Dreher continues:

I keep telling Protestants I know who want to convert to Catholicism that I don’t want to get in the way of their decision — though I would like them to consider Orthodoxy — but that they should realize that they’re probably not going to find an escape from modernism in their local parish. The church of Pope Benedict and First Things magazine, and your favorite conservative Catholic bloggers, is not the church you’re likely to encounter down the street. If you’re convinced of the case for Catholicism, then you almost certainly have to become Catholic — but go in with your eyes open. Similarly with Orthodoxy, we have, like Catholicism, the institutional and historical tools for resisting modernism, but if the pastors and the people remain indifferent or hostile to them, Protestants searching for solid ground to stand on may be unpleasantly surprised.

Again, this is not an argument against becoming Catholic or Orthodox. But it is a warning that it’s impossible to escape modernity and its challenges to tradition and traditional faith. When Father Dwight says that the fissiparous nature of individualist modernist faith will eventually give way to disbelief, because it’s not anchored in communal experience, I agree with him in principle, but would ask him what his prediction is for Catholic parishes that are populated by individualists in religion? (N.B., Father Dwight recognizes in his post that modernist Catholic priests shouldn’t be surprised when people quit coming to mass.) Similarly, I am aware of several Protestant congregations who are far, far more unified in belief than any Catholic parish I’ve been a part of, no doubt because those Protestants who don’t share the core convictions of that congregation found another congregation to attend. Mind you, without a Magisterium (Catholic) or a high view of the authority of Tradition (Orthodox) to hold on to, I don’t know how those congregations over time will remain grounded in their particular judgments. But having the theological mechanism for stability, as the Catholics and the Orthodox do, is no guarantee either.

This makes lots of sense. Because Protestant churches in our day are usually based on shared convictions such as worship style or theology, we have much more unity (at the micro level) than Catholics do.

I have a friend who left the Greek Orthodox church to which he belonged, because he was desperate for a spiritual encounter with the living God, as opposed to the empty formalism of his home parish, which, as he puts it, was more interested in worshiping Greekness than in worshiping God. He became a born-again Evangelical. Despite all the legitimate criticism that can be leveled at American Evangelicalism re: its lack of stability and susceptibility to cultural trends, is it really the case that children raised in a traditional church that has valid sacraments but is spiritually dead are going to have a better chance of living as Christians there than they would in an Evangelical church that has all the trappings of modernity, and an essentially modernist, individualist theology, but that for whatever reason has chosen a theologically traditional set of principles around which to organize, and lives it out in a vigorous, vibrant way?

This is the rub. Tradition and liturgy are life to me and those like me who seek to escape the modern church wasteland, but they were death to my Mom who wanted relationship with God and wasn’t taught that in the Lutheran Church of her day (though she could have had it, had they rightly understood their own past). We can’t re-pristinate the past and create some perfect model that never existed. We can meld the best liturgy and tradition with our modern condition, all the while being bathed in the Scripture as the ultimate norm.

Christians are hearing about the Manhattan Declaration with great excitement.  It is a tremendous document with tremendous support from some tremendous Christian figures.

The actual declaration (linked to above) is some 4,000 plus words long, and is available to read at the link above.  But here is the nutshell version:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I hope you stand with me – and with (at last count as of November 24, 2009) 106,738 other believers – and sign this declaration.

It reminds me of another time, and another declaration: the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which was a point-by-point denunciation of the fascist and racist ideological doctrines of Nazism and a positive expression of true Christian faith against a government and a culture that had become evil.

Adolf Hitler attempted to redefine – or “Nazify” – the Church and transform it into a component of his ideological agenda.  At one point in its history Germany had been the seat of the Protestant Reformation, and while Germany had since become the most secular humanist nation in Europe, there was still a vestige of Christianity remaining.  And Hitler wanted to harness that still-influential vestige toward his own ends.  The government thus passed resolutions to limit the influence or dictate the agenda of the church.  One demanded the purging of all pastors who rejected “the spirit of National Socialism.”  Another resolution categorically rejected the very foundations of Judeo-Christian transcendent morality even as it tried to conflate “being a German” with “being a Christian”:

“We expect that our nation’s church as a German People’s Church should free itself from all things not German in its services and confession, especially from the Old Testament with its Jewish system of quid pro quo morality.”

The German Confessing Movement was a reaction against the German government’s attempt to impose its agenda upon the Christian Church in Germany.  As Gene Edward Veith put it in his book Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview:

The Barmen Declaration thus sets itself against not only the German Christian aberration but against the whole tradition of modernist syncretism that made it possible.

[Article 1 affirmed Christ as the transcendent authority and source of values (as opposed to the German race, the Nazi revolution, or the person of Adolf Hitler)].  Article 2 asserts the sovereignty of Christ over all of life.  Article 3 asserts Christ’s lordship over the church and rejects “the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political conventions.”  That is to say, the world does not set the agenda for the church.  Article 4 teaches that church offices are for mutual service and ministry, not for the exercise of raw power.  Article 5 acknowledges the divine appointment of the state, but rejects the pretensions of the state to “become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well.”  Article 6 affirms the church’s commission to proclaim the free grace of God to everyone by means of the Word and the sacraments.  “We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans [pp. 60-61].

One article, entitled “Hitler’s Theologians: The Genesis of Genocide,” takes time to describe how various key German liberal theologians systematically tore apart the Bible and orthodox Christianity – and in so doing systematically undermined the ethics and morality of the German people in preparation for the hell to come.  The author begins with Friedrich Schleiermacher, called “the founder of Liberal Protestantism,” and profiles the “contributions” of Friedrich Nietzsche, Julius Wellhausen, and Adolf von Harnack.

Georg Lukacs has observed that tracing the path to Hitler involved the name of nearly every major German philosopher since Hegel: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Dilthy, Simmel, Scheler, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Weber [page 5, The Destruction of Reason].  And Max Weinreich produced an exhaustive study detailing the complicity of German intellectuals with the Nazi regime entitled Hitler’s Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany’s Crimes Against the Jewish People.  Ideas have consequences, and it was the ideas of these liberal theologians, philosophers and scholars who provided the intellectual justification and conceptual framework for the Holocaust.  Thus Nazism did not merely emerge from a liberal theological system, but from a distinguished secular humanist intellectual tradition as well — a distinguished intellectual tradition that had repudiated all the moral and spiritual values inherent to the orthodox Christianity of the Confessing Church.

Josef Hromadka wrote that:

“The liberal theology in Germany and in her orbit utterly failed.  It was willing to compromise on the essential points of divine law and of “the law of nature”; to dispose of the Old Testament and to accept the law of the Nordic race instead; and to replace the “Jewish” law of the Old Testament by the autonomous law of each race and nation, respectively.  It had made all the necessary preparation for the “Germanization of Christianity” and for a racial Church.”

Veith subsequently says, “in deciding whether or not to sign the Barmen Declaration … the dividing line was clear.”  And he states, “The German Christian theologians predictably denounced the confessional movement as being ‘narrow’ and ‘fundamentalist.’”  He rightly described the opponents of the Barmen Declaration as being “modernists,” “existentialists,” and “dialectical” in their thinking.  The theologians who rejected Barmen were men like Emanuel Hirsch, who taught that the resurrection of Christ was only a spiritual vision, and that the idea of a physical resurrection distorted Christianity by focusing attention to the hereafter rather than to the culture and community of the present.

In short, it was Christians who thought like the evangelicals and fundamentalists of today who signed the Barmen Declaration and openly opposed Nazism, and it was “Christians” who thought like the mainline liberals of today who stood for the German Christian Nazification of Christianity and for the resulting Nazification of German ethics and morality.

Confessing Church pastors and priests who resisted this Nazification of the church paid dearly.  Thousands of clergymen were hauled away to the concentration camps.  According to the Niemoller archives, 2,579 clergymen were sent to Dachau alone – and 1,034 of them died in the camp.  And that only refers to the priests and pastors – not the untold thousands of devout Christians such as the Ten Booms who perished in the death camps for their opposition to Nazism.

An article entitled “Asking ‘Why Nazism?’” reviewing a book by Dr. Karla Poewe has this:

“One of the dangers of liberal Christianity, where all sorts of interpretations are permitted, is that it can easily slip into becoming a new religion,” Poewe says. “This is what happened. In a bid to rid Germany of what it saw as Jewish Christianity, several home-grown practices sprang up, including some that incorporated Icelandic and pre-Christian sagas, as well as ideas from German Idealism.”

Although initially these new religions were separate and disorganized entities, they eventually came under the umbrella of what was known as the German Faith Movement. Hitler saw in it a mechanism for transmitting and reinforcing the National Socialist worldview. “He shaped its followers into a disciplined political force but dismissed its leaders later when they were no longer needed,” Poewe says.

We’re clearly not to the point where Jews, or Christians, or anyone else are being gathered by the thousands and placed in death camps.  But we’re beginning to see a trend that is frightening, as government, with the assistance of liberal “Christian” churches and organizations, are trying to impose their will upon the church and its agenda.

We’ve had a “hate crimes” law imposed upon us that makes homosexuality a protected behavior.  And one evangelical expresses the Confessing Church position in a nutshell:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said in a written statement the bill “is part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality.”

In another recent case, a Christian mother who has homeschooled her child is being forced to put her ten-year old child in public school, not to improve her academic education, but to limit her exposure to Christianity and forcibly expose her to a government-approved “public” point of view:

According to the court order, the guardian concluded that Amanda’s “interests, and particularly her intellectual and emotional development, would be best served by exposure to a public school setting in which she would be challenged to solve problems presented by a group learning situation and…Amanda would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior.”

This is a shocking case, in which the government is usurping both parental and religious freedoms.  And there are many similar usurpations today, in which our government is actively opposing Christian values.

Nearly fifty million babies have been killed in this country by a government-sanctioned “pro-choice” system.  Gene Edward Veith addresses the “pro-choice” movement and its philosophical underpinnings:

Existential ethics brackets the objective issues on abortion entirely.  At issue is not some transcendent moral law, nor medical evidence, nor a logical analysis.  The content of that choice makes no difference.  If the mother chooses to have the baby, her action is moral.  If she chooses not to have the baby, her action is still moral.  If she bears a child against her will or aborts a child against her will — then and only then is the action evil.  Those who believe that abortion should be legal do not consider themselves “pro-abortion.”  They are “pro-choice.”  The term is not only a rhetorical euphemism but a precise definition of existential ethics.

Existentialism is also reflected in those who are “pro-choice” but personally oppose abortion.  They do not believe in abortion for themselves, but refuse to impose their beliefs on others.  In this view, a belief has no validity outside the private, personal realm of each individual.  Moral and religious beliefs are no more than personal constructions, important in giving meaning to an individual’s life, but not universally valid.  Or, to use another commonly accepted axiom, “what’s true for you may not be true for me.”

Such a view of truth flies in the face of all classical metaphysics, which sees truth as objective, universal, and applicable to all” (page 96, Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview).

We can return to the historical analysis of Nazism presented by Karla Poewe, and what happened when such “anything goes” belief systems were allowed to rule.  [I am writing an article describing how existentialism became a primary component of Nazism, and will link to it here when I am finished writing it].

Before we leave the issue of abortion as a vile violation of Christian ethics and morality, let us consider one more voice:

“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child – a direct killing of the innocent child – murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” — Mother Teresa

Christians should fight for life.  And allowing a human being to live should not be a “choice,” but a duty.

In 2003 one David Allen Black wrote an article bearing the question, “Do We Need A New Barmen Declaration?“  No Christian with a knowledge of history can answer any other way than, “YES!“

The Barmen Declaration was written in 1934, but in many ways it was already too late: The Nazis were already in power.  Hitler was in his second year of power; and the ideas of the liberal theologians, the existentialist philosophers, and the amoral intellectuals were already firmly in place.

It is my fervent hope that we finally have that “New Barmen Declaration” to answer the evils of our own day.  If we already should have written one, then every day that passes is one more day wasted; if we are acting pro-actively, then let us thank God that we acting before it is too late.

From the UK Telegraph:

At last, Christians draw a line in the sand against their PC secularist persecutors

By Gerald Warner UK Last updated: November 24th, 2009

At long last, Christian leaders have faced up to their persecutors in the secularist, socialist, One-World, PC, UN-promoted axis of evil and said: No more. In the popular metaphor, they have drawn a line in the sand. For harassed, demoralised faithful in the pews it will come as the long-awaited call to resistance and an earnest that their leaders are no longer willing to lie down supinely to be run over by the anti-Christian juggernaut. This statement of principle and intent is called The Manhattan Declaration, published last Friday in Washington DC.

It is difficult to believe that so firm an assertion of Christian intransigence in the face of persecution will not have some beneficial effects even here. For this Declaration is no minor affirmation by a few committed activists: on the contrary, it is signed by the most important leaders of three mainstream Christian traditions – the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and Evangelical Protestants. For an ecumenical document it is heroically devoid of fudge, euphemism and compromise.

The Manhattan Declaration states that “the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions”.

For Barack Obama, the PC lobby, the “hate crime” fascists and, by implication, their opposite numbers in Britain, the signatories have an uncompromising message: “We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.” That is plain speaking, in the face of anti-Christian aggression by governments. The signatories spelled it out even more unequivocally: “We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but we will under no circumstances render to Caesar what is God’s.”

In a world where a Swedish pastor has been jailed for preaching that sodomy is sinful, similar prosecutions have taken place in Canada, the European Court of Human Rights (sic) has tried to ban crucifixes in Italian classrooms, Brazil has passed totalitarian legislation imposing heavy prison sentences for criticism of homosexual lifestyles, Amnesty International is championing abortion, David Cameron has voted for the enforced closure of Catholic adoption agencies, and Gordon Brown’s government has just been defeated in its fourth attempt to abolish the Waddington Clause guaranteeing free speech – this robust defiance is more than timely.

The signatories are unambiguously expressing their willingness to go to prison rather than deny any part of their religious beliefs. Those signatories are heavyweight. On the Catholic side they include Justin Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia; Adam Cardinal Maida, Archbishop Emeritus of Detroit; the Archbishops of Denver, New York, Washington DC, Newark, Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Louisville; and other Bishops. The Orthodox include the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America and the Archpriest of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. There are also the Anglican Primates of America and Nigeria, as well as a host of senior Evangelical Protestants.

In terms of influence on votes and public opinion, this is a formidable coalition. It has served notice on the US government that further anti-Christian legislation will provoke cultural trench warfare and even civil disobedience. As regards the sudden stiffening of resistance among the usually spineless Catholic leadership, it is impossible not to detect the influence of Benedict XVI.

We need more declarations like this, on a global scale, and the requisite confrontational follow-up. This is Clint Eastwood, make-my-day Christianity – and not before time. From now on, any governments that are planning further persecution of Christians had better make sure they have a large pride of lions available for mastication duties. The worm has turned.

As a young Christian, I was inspired by the music, lyrics, and album cover of Keith Green’s album, No Compromise.  The cover says it all:

The Manhattan Declaration – like the Barmen Declaration – calls for Christians who are willing to stand up and be singled out even in the face of persecution or punishment.

I hope you are willing to be one of those Christians.

Με τις ευλογίες του σεπτού Πατριάρχη Αλεξανδρείας και πάσης Αφρικής Θεοδώρου Β΄, και τη χάρη του Θεού, πραγματοποιήθηκε επίσκεψη του Σεβασμιωτάτου Μητροπολίτου Ζάμπιας και Μαλάουι, κ.κ. Ιωακείμ, στο Μαλάουι, από τις 8 Νοεμβρίου μέχρι τις 11 Νοεμβρίου 2009.

Αυτή ήταν η πρώτη επίσκεψη του νέου μας Αρχιεπισκόπου στη χώρα, αφού η επίσημη ενθρόνισή του αναμένεται σύντομα. Η αγάπη και η έγνοια του νέου μας ποιμένα δεν μπορούσε να τον κρατήσει μακριά από την Ιερά Πανήγυρη του Ιερού Ναού του Αγίου Νεκταρίου, όπου έσπευσε να παρευρεθεί και να συνεορτάσει μαζί με όλο τον ελληνισμό του Μαλάουι στον Μεγάλο Πανηγυρικό Εσπερινό στις 8 Νοεμβρίου και στην Αρχιερατική Θεία Λειτουργία με Λιτανεία, ανήμερα στην εορτή του Αγίου μας Νεκταρίου, στις 9 Νοεμβρίου.

Την επόμενη ημέρα εορτασμού, ο Σεβασμιώτατος, την αφιέρωσε στην Ιεραποστολή. Έτσι, την Τρίτη 10 Νοεμβρίου πραγματοποιήθηκε επίσκεψη στο Ιεραποστολικό Κέντρο Αγίου Γεωγίου στο Καμπότζι, όπου ο Σεβασμιώτατος ενημερώθηκε από τον ιθαγενή ιερέα π. Νεκτάριο για το έργο που επιτελείται εκεί. Ο Σεβασμιώτατος μοίρασε δώρα στα παιδιά του Νηπιαγωγείου και καλαμποκάλευρο στους ενήλικες ιθαγενείς, που σε ένδειξη ευγνωμοσύνης τραγούδησαν και χόρεψαν στους παραδοσιακούς τους ρυθμούς.

Μετά τη λήξη της επισκέψεως, όλο το Ορθόδοξο ποίμνιο, Έλληνες και ιθαγενείς του Μαλάουι, αναμένουμε να υποδεχτούμε και επισήμως τον νέο μας πατέρα στην ενθρόνισή του στον Ορθόδοξο Αρχιερατικό θρόνο της Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας στο Μαλάουι.

Από το γραφείο στο Μαλάουι της Ιεράς Μητροπόλεως Ζάμπιας και Μαλάουι

( http://www.iersyn.gr/news56.html )

ΠΑΤΡΙΑΡΧΕΙΟ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΣΗΣ ΑΦΡΙΚΗΣ ΙΕΡΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΙΚΟ ΚΕΝΤΡΟ ΜΑΛΑΟΥΙ

Μπλαντάιρ, 13 Οκτωβρίου 2009

Αγαπητοί εν Χριστώ αδελφοί και εκλεκτά μέλη του συλλόγου «Άγιος Κοσμάς ο Αιτωλός» χαίρετε εν Κυρίω πάντοτε.

Σας γράφουμε και σας ενημερώνουμε για το έργο που χρηματοδοτείτε. Με τη χάρη του Θεού οι εργασίες προχωρούν πολύ καλά. Ο Ιερός Ναός της Αγίας Άννας των 250 τ.μ. στην περιοχή του Μουλάνζι υπολογίζεται να μας παραδοθεί ολοκληρωμένος τους επόμενους 2 με 3 μήνες. Οι Ορθόδοξοι Χριστιανοί της περιοχής παρακολουθούν με χαρά την εξέλιξη του μεγάλου έργου για την περιοχή τους. Είναι καλοί και ευλαβείς και πολύ ευγνώμονες προς τον Σύνδεσμό σας που ανέλαβε αυτή τη μεγάλη δωρεά προς την περιοχή τους.

Ήδη συνεχίζονται οι κατηχήσεις και σε λίγο καιρό θα γίνουν περισσότερες βαπτίσεις σε αυtη την περιοχή. Τα καλά νέα δεν τελειώνουν εδώ! Από καιρό είχαμε πόθο να βοηθήσουμε τους κατοίκους αυτής της περιοχής και σε μια άλλη τους ανάγκη σχετικά με το πρόβλημα που αντιμετωπίζουν. Το πιο κοντινό τους νοσοκομείο είναι αρκετά μακριά και οι άνθρωποι πραγματικά υποφέρουν. Πόθος μας είναι να χτίσουμε μια κλινική δίπλα στον Ι. Ναό της Αγίας Άννας.

Στις επαφές μας με τις υπεύθυνες κρατικές υπηρεσίες για την περιοχή, οι υπεύθυνοι μας υποσχέθηκαν ότι εάν εμείς χτίσουμε το κτίριο, δίπλα στο Ναό, αυτοί θα το επανδρώσουν με το κατάλληλο ιατρικό προσωπικό και θα το εξοπλίσουν με ανάλογο φαρμακευτικό υλικό. Εάν η Εκκλησία μας προχωρήσει σ’ αυτό το έργο, οι ιθαγενείς θα είναι πολύ ευγνώμονες, διότι, όπως μαθαίνουμε δεν υπάρχει τόσο μεγάλη έλλειψη ιατρών ή φαρμάκων, όσο έλλειψη κτιρίων. Τα κτίρια στοιχίζουν ακριβά και η Κυβέρνηση δεν μπορεί να ανταποκριθεί και σαν αποτέλεσμα οι άνθρωποι υποφέρουν.

Σύμφωνα με την έρευνά μας μια κλινική σύμφωνα με το σχέδιο που μας δίνει το κράτος, κοστίζει 25.000 ευρώ.

Σας παρακαλούμε πολύ και προσευχόμαστε να βρεθεί ένας δωρητής από εσάς που θα καλύψει αυτό το ποσό. Με αυτό το έργο καταλαβαίνετε πόση αξία θα πάρει η ενορία της Αγίας Άννας, η οποία σιγά-σιγά θα εξελιχθεί σε ιεραποστολικό κέντρο που θα βοηθάει στην ψυχή και στο σώμα εκατοντάδες γηγενείς.

Περιμένουμε με ανυπομονησία νέα σας. Σας στέλνουμε την αγάπη μας και ζητούμε τις προσευχές σας.

Μέ αγάπη Χριστού

π. Ερμόλαος Ιατρού

( http://www.iersyn.gr/letters.html#km )

Στείλτε την αγάπη σας στο ιεραποστολικό κλιμάκιο του Μαλάουι μέσω του Ιεραποστολικού Συνδέσμου Άγιος Κοσμάς ο Αιτωλός Θεσσαλονίκης. Πληροφορίες ΕΔΩ και ΕΔΩ.

Ευχόμαστε και προσευχόμαστε να ευλογήσει ο Θεός τον νέο Μητροπολίτη Ζάμπιας και Μαλάουι και να του χαρίσει πλούσιες πνευματικές και ιεραποστολικές ευλογίες.

I am not cursed with cable or satellite television. However, I do have a television, and I sometimes watch movies (oh dear!). I don’t like the way it sits in the livingroom. I don’t like the way furniture is gathered around it. And I am liking less and less the way I and others gather around it when we decide to watch a movie. In a house of three people is used probably once every week. But it still remains dominant over everything else that happens in the room. If I’m sitting on the couch reading a book, I look up and there it is. When I walk in the front door, everything in the room points in some unholy way to the television. It is big. It is ugly.

Fortunately it was a gift, so I’ve escaped the guilt of directly giving money to Sonyo (I think. I can’t rightly remember what kind of machine it is). Yet even with that in mind, and with the fact that it is a failing machine (The screen turns increasingly greener every week; it takes three full minutes to turn on; and the sound mechanisms are moody at best, being loud or quiet at arbitrary times.), the gray machine never sits as the exception to any liturgical cycle of my life. Maybe I say my prayers in the morning, maybe I read a little bit of the Scriptures, perhaps I eat three highly regimented meals within even stricter regiments of time, but through it all the television remains there like Vietnam. In the 60s, people related to me that there were many things to do and think of: your thoughts might run the way of considering your wife, your job, Vietnam, some schoolwork, mowing the grass, building the shed, Vietnam, your kids, Vietnam, etc… So it is with the television. I eat, I read, I look up and see it, I make a phone call, I finish some schoolwork, I walk past it and think of renting a movie.

Long gone are the days when a television was a thought, an option. Now it is an entity that owns us. One can say of most appliances that this is the case. But of all the imposers of ungodly wisdom–the internet, television, newspaper, magazines, books, phones, self-proclaimed tragedians, Osteens, Palinites, the Obama nation, etc–the internet and television maintain a stronger hold than any. Except, of course, for the most depraved of us, who–and I am not talking about marriage here–are directed by a much more sinister fiend in that we have willingly submitted ourselves to evil people, or we have submitted ourselves unto ourselves, both offering ourselves as a sacrifice and receiving it. Having elevated ourselves to the role of the high priest, and having placed our own minds on the altar, we commit the ultimate act of treason. For in trusting in ourselves to save ourselves, we murder ourselves, because the only path to freedom, the only way, is the way of death, the way of the Cross.

It would behoove us that I should repeat most of what he says, and follow it with what he says. At least we ought to represent what they say with austerity and respect. But regarding Berry I’ll say nothing more than this: that when porn and television shows (name your favorite here; I don’t know any titles) have dictated romance, when Fox News has emulsified entertainment and politico-jargon, when leisure is only found in pot-culture, or when learning, work, love, and health have been relegated to be addressed in one particular setting, there is chaos, and in fact, Chesterton would say that this “liberalism,” this “progressivism,” this free-thinkingness constrains us. Freedom to do everything is freedom to do nothing, because humans naturally gravitate towards depravity if there is no redeeming Liturgy to give a greater context to our actions.

I am out of state right now–in Florida. And jokingly, as I poured myself some mead that my father had bought, my younger brother said that I was an alcoholic. I smiled and said, “No. I am and alcoholist. The Scriptures say (of the Bishop) that he is not to be given to strong drink, they do not say that strong drink is not to be given to him.” We laughed because it was funny, and then we laughed harder because I was right. But this is the case: the television is not given to us, we are given to it. We do not own our possessions, they own us. This is by now common knowledge, and I’m repeating most people, but in Orthodoxy we repeat everything three times anyway, and I’m nearly deaf, so repetition is helpful. Since visiting my family in Florida I have watched about 13,000% more television than I do in KY (this equals 30 minutes of television every day whilst in FL), but cannot evade the mental images of a crowbar and my face, both in violent contact with the gray machine. My face, of course, is stuck to the machine, and the crowbar is the iron rod of grace, prying me loose from it’s ownership. But I’m still owned. I sit at the kitchen table on my MacBook, containing a gagillion speeded processor, a 4,000 megapixeled screen, and plush keys so that my overtyping doesn’t give me arthritis in my old age, all the while my younger brother plays a war game on the X-Box (hereby named the faux-box), and my ears hear the screams and cries from dying men (fake men, so it’s OK), the thumps as their bodies fall limp to the ground, and the dialogue containing intensity and immediacy. In the two hours of television I have watched in the last three or four days, I cannot rid myself of one question: is there one channel, one program, one moment in which the gray god is not telling me what I need or want?

Christianity is warfare. But machinists have taken it upon themselves to tell us what that means, and we have believed them. As all bad things exist, they are in part good. Communication is good, but over-communication is a perversion and breeds falsity. When two people cannot sit in silence, they do not share love, they share a lack of communication that was founded upon many things, one of them is the excess and superfluity of words. I encounter violence every day, and it is done in the deepness of my bowels as the Psalmist would say. That is, it is inside of me. God save me from the day when I nod to the illusion that there is no longer an enemy in my passions or flesh, and that the enemy has become portrayable on the glass face of the gray god.

We are spread out. We do not own much, but much owns us. It is not only our attention (an undervalued and superior grace) that we submit to others, it is our ideals, feelings, our own daily liturgy. Entertainment is not longer a category, but a feeling. Adam Lambert kissed another man, made some sexual references on stage, and the audience was entertained. Nirvana (the band) made a song with the words, “here we are now. Entertain us.” And they were known for walking into parties, saying those very words. They understood media, but not enough to escape it. They were still owned.

While in the airport on Monday I saw, a few feet away , a young girl walk up to her friend. She had a meal and she sat down across from her and said a most peculiar thing; “I don’t know why I’m eating this. I’m not even hungry.” There she was. Owned. She was not owned by the natural laws that govern our insides and tell us, in unfancy auditory gesticulations, that we are hungry. No. She was owned by something unnatural, something that says it is good to look upon food with distaste, to be unsatisfied with our bodies, something unEucharistic. She is owned by some ominous (I say odious) voice that has created a mass or a throng who assent to one or more particular concepts or actions. If we could hear it clearly, it would say “you are supposed to feel, think, act this way.” A significant and sad portion of artwork has followed this trend, this trend of the masses. Books have followed this voice. Youngsters involved in politics have followed this trend. Relationships have followed this point. And to this last point I will add what has been related to me. That is this: apparently people who date move (i.e. progress) towards the more serious portion of their relationship. A kiss, sex, and then living together. This is how it is done, not because it makes sense. In fact, statistically it has failed, but that’s besides the point. It is done because it is done. And if this is perplexing, then know that all sin is this way. Sin has no existence apart from God, and all its activities are mere mimicry of a portion of the Good is has perversed. It is in no way self-sustaining, and therefore contains no discernible reason for its presence. There is no reason for it. “Everyone else does _____” becomes a reason to follow suit in doing _____.

Language is good; too much is not; not enough is just as harmful; bad language (cursing your brother) is bad. In fact an excess of it makes it worthless. Such is the case with a man who has too many friends. Such is the case with romance. Religionists have been wrongly emphasizing the value of abstinence over the value of and sacredness of virginity and the sexual act. Abstinence alone is not virtuous, but there was a time when virginity was. Fortunately, it still is. An excess of abstinence (in marriage) is bad, just as an excess of the act betrays its meaning. When it is rent apart from marriage altogether and made into an experience in itself, it becomes an end in itself, and does not satisfy. This is when excess is born. There is a foretaste of the divine life in all sin, because all sin contains a touch of reality. In many words, I can still sometimes recognize the beauty of a liturgical phrase that happens to have slipped into someones vocabulary. A (hopefully) nascent “Lord have mercy,” for example. But the twisting of the thing that is good, the making of a anything into an end in itself (aside from Christ) results in idolatry.

It is not only marriage to these under-acted or over-acted symbols that blinds us. Paradoxically, moderation is not virtuous. Moderation is clarity, but it is not contextual. It is not only the obeisance in consenting to the “I’m supposed to _____” culture (I’m supposed to have naked art above my couch, have light colored carpet with off-white furniture, etc) that blinds us. In Orthodoxy there is very much the possibility that we exchange one form of “I’m supposed to _____” for another, one that might say “I’m supposed to prostrate here because everyone else is,” or that I must say the Jesus Prayer X amount during the day because such-and-such a saint did. Or worse, I will kiss this icon because it has been proven to me that Christians are to kiss icons. The greater reality has not been made known to us if we think this way. The examples explode into an exponential plethora. Orthodoxy is not a garb with which we are cloaked, it is a reconstitution of our grabs. As we pray in our prayers for preparation, “Let this Eucharist be to me for healing of soul and body,” and in the thanksgiving prayers, “Enter into my bones, my joints,” so we believe that Christ changes us.

But with the love-affair most have with the television, there is an illusion that one can sit down, watch it, and arise unscathed. One who thinks this thinks the same way as a man who visits a prostitute. This is not the case. You have been told what to believe. Every kiss between two people in the gray machine cannot present to you what romance is. Every handshake between to people in the gray machine cannot show you what an “agreement” is.

These things are only found in Christ. The television an easy way out of reality. The vision of the Church centers our eyes on the Altar while the livingroom directs us to that secular altar. We, as Ivan Karamazov aptly said that we seek to give our freedom away, and have given it to many words, unchecked concupiscence, half-told truths, we have taken the easy way out. We have believed that knowledge comes easily, and that new, more superior knowledge trumps repentance. We believe about politics, friendship, society what the television shows us. And when everyone is watching it, with what can we compare this presentation?

What I love of Wendell Berry is that romance, in his books, is natural. I do not feel entertained when I read his words, I feel natural, or reconstituted. But still, the reality of this is found in the Liturgy. No agreement between to people is like the agreement and proclamation “Christ is in our midst!” which is followed by the kiss of peace: true union when Christ is indeed there. What we need that the Television cannot offer us is a place to give thanks; what we need is the Eucharist. What we need is to stop playing games like we are killing people; we need to actually kill someone: the old man. What we need is to suffer for what is good, not to be told by Joyce Meyer and T.D. Jakes via a cheap-ass metaphor. What we need are Saints, not politicians. What we need is a crucifixion, not of someone else, but of ourselves. What we need is a sacred dance, or the “Great Dance,” as C.S. Lewis coined it, found in the Liturgy, not in our morning coffee and newspaper. What we need is Tradition, not mindless routines.

Last week, a masked gunman entered a church in Moscow and gunned down the priest.  In the process, he also shot the choirmaster.  As I learn more about this event, especially today as my friend pointed out his martyrdom and his life, I realize he is a New Martyr.

Father Daniel preached for Christ in the arena of Islamic culture and religion.  Himself a Tartar (a traditionally Muslim people), he embraced the Lord Jesus in his life and in his death.  The threats against him never checked his unwavering voice and witness, and for it he became a True Witness, a Martyr.  (The Greek word for Martyr is Witness).

He is married and has a daughter, who I hope will be alright.  I will remember them in my prayers for their sorrow.

Father Daniel himself, however, should be no case for sorrow.  He knew he would soon mystically encounter the Lord in a profound meeting.  Now, he joins the choir of Paradise as one of the millions of faithful Witnesses to our Lord.

Holy New Hieromartyr Daniel, pray to God for us!

Святейший Патриарх Кирилл совершил литию у гроба священника Даниила Сысоева