By Orthodox Hieromonk Fr. Alexey Young, taken from Orthodox America website: http://www.roca.org/oa/146/146a.htm
Democracy or Theocracy?
Surely it is a great blessing to live in a democratic society. We are free to choose our own livelihood, our own domicile, our own recreations and hobbies, and we can read whatever books we wish, We can vote freely on those issues and for those candidates that reflect our own values. We have the right to worship according to the dictates of our conscience. These and other benefits readily come to mind. What is less obvious, and less positive, is the impact that living in a democratic society -- a society religiously committed to "equality," "freedom," and "majority rule" -- has on our lives as Orthodox Christians.
The "Great Experiment" -- America's adoption of a democratic form of government --worked successfully insofar as it was informed by Christian principles. However, with the erosion of these principles, there is no longer any pretense to be guided by the precedents of tradition and history, or even natural law and common sense. Everything is done "democratically," which today means that everything is decided by fashion, popularity, and opinion polls, by the journalism media and the entertainment industry, and by the whim of the mob. Majority rule. Everything else yields to this brutish principle, and we end up with a society in which virtually everything and anything is allowed, no matter how coarse, vain, vulgar or immoral.
This kind of democratic mindset is wreaking similar havoc in many western Christian Churches. In these denominations, all kinds of controversial ideas are proposed--marriage between homosexuals, women clergy, pre-marital sex, etc.--and are then voted upon at church conferences and conventions where the "majority rules/' This mindset has made it possible to turn mainline historic Christian values inside out and upside down, to literally eviscerate the traditional family of its meaning and function, and to encourage flagrant disobedience of legitimate authority, both in the state and in the Church. The defiant attitude of so many American Roman Catholics towards the Vatican, their central authority, is another example of how an insistence on democratic principles can adversely impact church life.
Living in the United States, a country that is relatively peaceful and prosperous, we are accustomed to think of democracy as a good and desired form of government. It is perhaps natural, therefore, that we should expect our churches and parishes to be governed according to the same principles. Some Orthodox parishes are, in fact, democratically governed. This is, however, very wrong, for, at its heart, democracy is opposed to hierarchy and obedience, and it is hierarchy, not democracy, that is the God-revealed system by which the Holy Church is to be governed
What is even more fundamental, living in a democracy can adversely affect our spiritual lives. It fosters certain unchristian attitudes which we must identify and vigilantly guard against--in our children and in ourselves.
Since about 1800 in the West, society has been taught to believe that children are not born with a fallen human nature. Rather, they are born in a state of innocence, and they only acquire a fallen human nature as time goes by, through association with adults. Thus, in true democratic fashion, our children and youth must, we are told, be allowed to control their own lives as early and completely as possible. Thus, in many homes, children are permitted to set their own daily schedule, to eat only what they like, to dress as they please, to watch television and listen to music without guidance or censorship. We are also told, in our egalitarian society, that children should be treated as equals with adults. Many children today are in the habit of calling adults by their first names (in some homes they are even permitted to call their parents by their first names!). And because all children learn respect for God by first respecting their parents (and, in particular by being obedient to their fathers), we now see a whole generation of children who have no healthy and appropriate fear of God or fear of the consequences of sin. Nor do they have any sense of hierarchy. Children raised in such a permissive atmosphere, when they are brought to church, have no sense of reverence or respect for the house of God. They did not learn manners and politeness at home, so they have no understanding of the noble and courtly etiquette of church and Divine services. Accustomed to doing as they please, they refuse to be still or quiet, and it is a constant battle for parents to control them (and a temptation to others when the parents do not even try). As teenagers -- a difficult age in the best of circumstances -- these children tend to develop yet more serious problems: refusing to attend church or to keep the fasts, having little or no respect for the authority of the priest, disregarding the moral authority of the Church (this is, after all, a "free society"), and sometimes, tragically, falling away from the Church altogether.
As adults, are we not also affected by the spirit of democracy? We, too, tend to have a weak sense of hierarchy. We have no monarch, our president is as often held up for ridicule as for respect, we are all (theoretically) "equal," and therefore we do not have an innate sense of how to act in the presence of the King of kings, of what it means to be a "slave" of God. We accept the authority of the Church only insofar as it does not seriously impinge on our will, our desires (our pursuit of "happiness'); using "liberty for license,'' we choose those traditions we wish to uphold and dispense with those we consider "unreasonable" or "unnecessary"; we do not give due honor to our hierarchs and priests; we have difficulty in honor preferring one another (Rom. 12:10), and in acknowledging ourselves to be chief among sinners.
There are other contributing factors, of course: our fallen human nature carries its own seeds of rebellion against the law of God. Nor do we suggest campaigning for a monarchy. It is not a democratic government but a democratic "attitude" we must beware. Already it has seriously weakened the fabric of authentic Orthodox life here in America. We must recognize it and make a conscious and concerted effort to overcome its corrupting influence -- in our parishes, in our homes, and in our personal spiritual lives.
Let us not fear to contradict the mob-rule psychology of our culture; rather, in our homes and parishes, let us emphasize the special values of hierarchy, theocracy (government by the law of God), and obedience. We can cultivate true piety, reverence and devotion only by submitting ourselves -not to "majority rule," but to the All-Holy Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God. This is the authority that counts.
-- Priest Alexey Young
Monday, August 15, 2005
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Bono Makes an Explicit Confession of Faith
Not that I ever had much of a doubt, but a good confession "out of the horse's mouth" is always reassuring.
From Atonementonline.com:
Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 09:58 AM
INFLUENTIAL EVANGELIST: U2\'S BONO MAKES STRONG STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF CHRIST
NEW YORK, USA, August 3 (CNA) - For years, the exact nature of the religious beliefs of Bono, lead singer songwriter of the band U2, have eluded fans and music experts. But now, in an interview published in the new book Bono in Conversation by Michka Assayas, the Irish superstar makes some very strong statements about Christ, grace and the nature of salvation.
Although the Irish-born mega star professes to be a Christian, and although many of his song lyrics reflect it, some say Bono's actions, "rock star antics" and various statements contradict this.
The interview however, throws some new light onto the faith of a musician who grew up watching first hand the bloody battle between Catholics and Protestants which wracked northern Ireland for years. Bono grew up in Dublin with a Protestant mother and a Catholic father.
Perhaps in light of this, Assayas asks Bono if he thinks "appalling things" happen when people become religious. The singer responds by showing the deep personal relationship the Christian faith calls believers to with God, rather than the violent extremism the interviewer seems to be prodding to.
At one key point in the interview, Bono talks about the difference between Karma and Grace, a difference which he says, is a "mind blowing concept...that keeps me on my knees."
"At the center of all religions" Bono tells his skeptical interviewer, "is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics-in physical laws-every action is met by an equal or an opposite one."
"And yet," he says, "along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that. . . . Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."
Unwilling to divulge the "stuff" in question, Bono admits "I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge...It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity."
Later in the interview, the musician seems to take a page from C.S. Lewis, the famous British author and theologian, who wrote the famous "Lord, liar, or lunatic" discourse. He says, "Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius."
"But actually", he says, "Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook."
"Christ says, No," Bono continues. "I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: 'I'm the Messiah.' I'm saying: 'I am God incarnate.' . . . So what you're left with is either Christ was who He said He was-the Messiah-or a complete nutcase. . . . The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's farfetched."
Recently, just after the death of Pope John Paul II, the singer hung what has now become the tell-tale rosary which hangs around his neck--a gift from the late Pontiff, from his microphone during a concert, in a silent tribute to the great Pope.
From Atonementonline.com:
Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 09:58 AM
INFLUENTIAL EVANGELIST: U2\'S BONO MAKES STRONG STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF CHRIST
NEW YORK, USA, August 3 (CNA) - For years, the exact nature of the religious beliefs of Bono, lead singer songwriter of the band U2, have eluded fans and music experts. But now, in an interview published in the new book Bono in Conversation by Michka Assayas, the Irish superstar makes some very strong statements about Christ, grace and the nature of salvation.
Although the Irish-born mega star professes to be a Christian, and although many of his song lyrics reflect it, some say Bono's actions, "rock star antics" and various statements contradict this.
The interview however, throws some new light onto the faith of a musician who grew up watching first hand the bloody battle between Catholics and Protestants which wracked northern Ireland for years. Bono grew up in Dublin with a Protestant mother and a Catholic father.
Perhaps in light of this, Assayas asks Bono if he thinks "appalling things" happen when people become religious. The singer responds by showing the deep personal relationship the Christian faith calls believers to with God, rather than the violent extremism the interviewer seems to be prodding to.
At one key point in the interview, Bono talks about the difference between Karma and Grace, a difference which he says, is a "mind blowing concept...that keeps me on my knees."
"At the center of all religions" Bono tells his skeptical interviewer, "is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics-in physical laws-every action is met by an equal or an opposite one."
"And yet," he says, "along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that. . . . Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff."
Unwilling to divulge the "stuff" in question, Bono admits "I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge...It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity."
Later in the interview, the musician seems to take a page from C.S. Lewis, the famous British author and theologian, who wrote the famous "Lord, liar, or lunatic" discourse. He says, "Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: He was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius."
"But actually", he says, "Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook."
"Christ says, No," Bono continues. "I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: 'I'm the Messiah.' I'm saying: 'I am God incarnate.' . . . So what you're left with is either Christ was who He said He was-the Messiah-or a complete nutcase. . . . The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's farfetched."
Recently, just after the death of Pope John Paul II, the singer hung what has now become the tell-tale rosary which hangs around his neck--a gift from the late Pontiff, from his microphone during a concert, in a silent tribute to the great Pope.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Congressman Tancredo's Indecent Proposal
From foxnews.com:
Tancredo: If They Nuke Us, Bomb Mecca
Monday, July 18, 2005
DENVER — A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (search) made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.
Talk show host Pat Campbell (search) asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.
"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.
"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.
"Yeah," Tancredo responded.
The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."
Spokesman Will Adams said Sunday the four-term congressman doesn't support threatening holy Islamic sites but that Tancredo was grappling with the hypothetical situation of a terrorist strike deadlier than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"We have an enemy with no uniform, no state, who looks like you and me and only emerges right before an attack. How do we go after someone like that?" Adams said.
"What is near and dear to them? They're willing to sacrifice everything in this world for the next one. What is the pressure point that would deter them from their murderous impulses?" he said.
Tancredo is known in the House for his tough stand on immigration and had a 100 percent rating last year from the American Conservative Union (search) his votes and positions on issues.
Mohammad Noorzai, coordinator of the Colorado Muslim Council (search) and a native of Afghanistan, said Tancredo's remarks were radical and unrepresentative but that people in Tancredo's position need to watch their words when it comes to sacred religious sites and texts.
My Reflection:
Someone should tell the good Congressman to shut his yap!
Having vented my frustration at such demogoguery, now let me, calmly and reasonably, lay out the case against such a moronic proposal. The global war on terror (hereafter GWOT) relies very much on Islamic allies as it does on our martial capabilities. Believe me, there are adherents to the Islamic faith who are reasonable, law-abiding citizens who love their country (I know quite a few of them). Yes, I do believe there are "moderate" Muslims, but as my good friend and colleague, John Mark Reynolds, has written in his blog, even if we were to identify all of Islam as "radical," the best approach would still be to make common cause with reasonable people within this major faith (which happens to be a great majority of its adherents), and support their efforts at reform. Bombing the holy sites of this major world religion would needlessly radicalize a bigger portion of the Islamic world.
Congressman Tancredo is hailed a s a conservative, and yet he lacks that very essential virtue which is at the heart of conservative thought-prudence. This classical virtue has a broader meaning than being "shrewd" or "cautious," as many modern dictionaries define it. In classical Ciceronian fashion, it is linked to doing things in a wise and excellent manner. Thus prudentia is intimately linked with virtus, or excellence. This in turn is intimately tied to sapientia, wisdom. This is how Edmund Burke used the term when he spoke of "expedience" ( a good Ciceronian term), taking it out of the realm of Machiavellian amorality and restoring it to its proper sense (see Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, Washington: Regenary, p. 22). This is a good virtue for Congressman Tancredo to acquire if he is to have any credibility as a traditional conservative, and not simply a right-wing demogogue.
What would be the prudent thing to do in this GWOT? Prudence would dictate that we win the hearts and minds of our Muslim allies. Bombs and guns are not enough. See John Mark Reynolds' excellent and flawless argument: http://www.johnmarkreynolds.com/2005/07/brave-mr-hewitt.html
The Islam of science, philosophy and medicine is not our enemy, any more than the Germany of Bach and Goethe, the Japan of Haiku poetry were our enemies in the Second World War (nor, for that matter, the Russia of Tchaichovsky and Dostoyevsky during the Cold War). It is clear who our enemies are in the GWOT, and they are NOT those fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who regard Mecca as the holiest site on earth.
I am reminded of a memorable passage in Robert Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons, where Sir Thomas More rebukes his son-in-law, William Roper, for suggesting that all law should be stricken down if it stands in the way of justice. For More, this is inconceivable. He would even give the devil the benefit of law, and for good reason: " Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! "
Yes, and if those bombs were dropped on Mecca, Medina, the Dome on the Rock, et al, what will be our recourse be on that day when guns and bombs are turned against our churches, synagogues, and holy places revered by a good portion of Christendom: the Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantinople, the Vatican? Prudence would dictate that we show the same respect for their holy sites as we would have them show ours-if for nothing else, for our safety's sake!
Tancredo: If They Nuke Us, Bomb Mecca
Monday, July 18, 2005
DENVER — A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (search) made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.
Talk show host Pat Campbell (search) asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.
"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.
"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.
"Yeah," Tancredo responded.
The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."
Spokesman Will Adams said Sunday the four-term congressman doesn't support threatening holy Islamic sites but that Tancredo was grappling with the hypothetical situation of a terrorist strike deadlier than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"We have an enemy with no uniform, no state, who looks like you and me and only emerges right before an attack. How do we go after someone like that?" Adams said.
"What is near and dear to them? They're willing to sacrifice everything in this world for the next one. What is the pressure point that would deter them from their murderous impulses?" he said.
Tancredo is known in the House for his tough stand on immigration and had a 100 percent rating last year from the American Conservative Union (search) his votes and positions on issues.
Mohammad Noorzai, coordinator of the Colorado Muslim Council (search) and a native of Afghanistan, said Tancredo's remarks were radical and unrepresentative but that people in Tancredo's position need to watch their words when it comes to sacred religious sites and texts.
My Reflection:
Someone should tell the good Congressman to shut his yap!
Having vented my frustration at such demogoguery, now let me, calmly and reasonably, lay out the case against such a moronic proposal. The global war on terror (hereafter GWOT) relies very much on Islamic allies as it does on our martial capabilities. Believe me, there are adherents to the Islamic faith who are reasonable, law-abiding citizens who love their country (I know quite a few of them). Yes, I do believe there are "moderate" Muslims, but as my good friend and colleague, John Mark Reynolds, has written in his blog, even if we were to identify all of Islam as "radical," the best approach would still be to make common cause with reasonable people within this major faith (which happens to be a great majority of its adherents), and support their efforts at reform. Bombing the holy sites of this major world religion would needlessly radicalize a bigger portion of the Islamic world.
Congressman Tancredo is hailed a s a conservative, and yet he lacks that very essential virtue which is at the heart of conservative thought-prudence. This classical virtue has a broader meaning than being "shrewd" or "cautious," as many modern dictionaries define it. In classical Ciceronian fashion, it is linked to doing things in a wise and excellent manner. Thus prudentia is intimately linked with virtus, or excellence. This in turn is intimately tied to sapientia, wisdom. This is how Edmund Burke used the term when he spoke of "expedience" ( a good Ciceronian term), taking it out of the realm of Machiavellian amorality and restoring it to its proper sense (see Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, Washington: Regenary, p. 22). This is a good virtue for Congressman Tancredo to acquire if he is to have any credibility as a traditional conservative, and not simply a right-wing demogogue.
What would be the prudent thing to do in this GWOT? Prudence would dictate that we win the hearts and minds of our Muslim allies. Bombs and guns are not enough. See John Mark Reynolds' excellent and flawless argument: http://www.johnmarkreynolds.com/2005/07/brave-mr-hewitt.html
The Islam of science, philosophy and medicine is not our enemy, any more than the Germany of Bach and Goethe, the Japan of Haiku poetry were our enemies in the Second World War (nor, for that matter, the Russia of Tchaichovsky and Dostoyevsky during the Cold War). It is clear who our enemies are in the GWOT, and they are NOT those fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who regard Mecca as the holiest site on earth.
I am reminded of a memorable passage in Robert Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons, where Sir Thomas More rebukes his son-in-law, William Roper, for suggesting that all law should be stricken down if it stands in the way of justice. For More, this is inconceivable. He would even give the devil the benefit of law, and for good reason: " Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! "
Yes, and if those bombs were dropped on Mecca, Medina, the Dome on the Rock, et al, what will be our recourse be on that day when guns and bombs are turned against our churches, synagogues, and holy places revered by a good portion of Christendom: the Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantinople, the Vatican? Prudence would dictate that we show the same respect for their holy sites as we would have them show ours-if for nothing else, for our safety's sake!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Tirso de Molina's Don Juan: A Cautionary Tale for Modern Man
"Don Juan" has become a by-word for the quintessential rake, the man "without law" who seduces unsuspecting women, deflowering their honor, while beguiling them with false promises of eternal devotion. Such individuals go about their lives living on their charms, with mere lip-service to honor and piety, until the world crashes in on them.
Such is the character of Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla, ca. 1630. This Spanish monk and playwright is credited with creating this beguiling figure that has inspired a play by Moliere, Mozart's famous opera, Don Giovanni, the famous poem by Shelley, Don Juan, several symphonic pieces, and philosophic reflection. This makes the character of Don Juan take his place with Hamlet, Don Quixote, Macbeth and Faust in the western imagination. What are the sources that Molina drew upon to create this masterful work of moral and theological reflection? Several possibilities present themselves before us.
Some sources place him within the reign of King Pedro the Cruel of Castile, which is quite interesting, for the Castilian king himself provides a lot of food for moral reflection. The rule of King Pedro of Castile (1350-1369, known as "the Cruel") was characterized by civil war and unrest, and the king himself was killed by his own brother, Enrique of Trastamara. His reign began as his mother, Maria of Portugal, had her rival, Leonor of Castile (by whom Pedro's father, Alfonso XI, fathered 11 illegitimate children) imprisoned and executed. Leonor's sons (and Alfonso XI's illegitimate sons) Enrique, the Count of Trastamara, and Fadrique, master of the military order of the Knights of Santiago,* were angered by this act, but were unable to do anything about it (O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 419). Of course, Pedro would soon be emulating his father Alfonso, because shortly after his marriage to Blanche of Bourbon, he would run to the arms of his mistress, Maria de Padilla. The king never again saw his queen, Blanche, and in fact had her imprisoned in Toledo. This would anger both Blanche's father, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Papacy. It would also have severe consequences for the internal politics of the kingdom of Castile. (Ibid) His former tutor and chancellor, Juan Alfonso of Portugal, Duke of Albuquerque, returned to Portugal, seeing that Castilian politics were going to get a bit heated, and not to his favor. Leonor's sons, Enrique and Fadrique, championed the cause of Blanche of Bourbon, and soon quite a number of towns would defend her rights as wife and queen. At the Battle of Toro in 1356, Pedro crushed the opposing forces, forcing surrender, with the result that Enrique of Trastamara went into exile to Aragon (seeking refuge with Pedro of Aragon, Pedro the Cruel's chief rival), and Fadrique submitting to Pedro of Castile. Blanche also remained imprisoned, and Maria de Padilla continued to "enjoy the king's favors "(Ibid). Enrique's having found refuge in the Aragonese court moved Pedro of Castile to declare war on Pedro of Aragon ("the battle of the two Pedros"). O'Callaghan describes Pedro of Castile's martial temperament: "There was an aggressive streak in Pedro of Castile, a determination to establish his predominance in the (Iberian) peninsula and to defend his sovereignty against real or fancied challenges to it." (p. 421) This was not only true of his relations with the Aragonese crown and the Muslim Caliphate of Granada*, but also with his own nobles, especially within his own family.
Pedro's wrath fell upon his half-brother, Fadrique (Master of the Knights of Santiago), when he suspected him of treason. His other half-brother Juan was also done away with, and in an especially cruel way: believing himself to be honored with a lordship of Vizcaya, Juan walked into the king's court unarmed, only to be bludgeoned to death with Pedro's mace-wielding knights. Pedro threw his bloody corpse into an assembly of Vizcayans in the main courtyard, and he shouted "Here is the lord of Vizcaya you asked for." (p. 423)
For all his cruelty, however, King Pedro of Castile also had a reputation for throwing great pageants on major feast days, and would be seen often in the streets dancing with the locals. He also had a reputation for fairness in adjudicating laws for mercantile activity. This made him popular with merchants and traders, and even his public liaisons with Maria de Padilla did not lessen his subjects' love for him.
Nonetheless, his dealings with nobles who did not submit to him revealed a cruel streak in him, one that was less than chivalrous. His alliance with the Edward the Black Prince of Wales could not ultimately hold back Enrique of Trastamara and his Aragonese ally, and ultimately, he succumbed to the same fate he had inflicted on others, on March 23, 1369, when his brother Enrique stabbed him repeatedly. (read Lopez de Ayala's account, p. 427, as well as Chaucer's reflection on Pedro's death on same page).
Against this backdrop we first hear in later ballads of a certain unnamed knight in the service of Pedro the Cruel who carried off the daughter of the powerful Commander of the Knights of Calatrava. The Knight Commander, barring his way, was killed. For this crime and for many other acts of seduction, the monks of the of the powerful convent of San Francisco in Seville had him trapped in the monastery church, arrested, tried and executed. They let flow a rumor that demons had emerged and taken him into the nether regions for his sins. Another ballad, titled El convidado de piedra (The Stone Guest) an unnamed knight, with a bit of a reputation of a rake, insults a statue of a dead man by tweaking its beard and mockingly inviting it to dinner. The statue appears, giving the young rake a bit of a fright, but rather than dragging him to hell, in keeping with Molina's moral reflections, he is reformed, never to disrespect the dead again. In the hands of Tirso de Molina, these accounts would combine to contribute to a large morality play about the wages of sin, and the mystery of grace, predestination and the final judgement.
Tirso de Molina's play, El burlador de Sevilla (The Rogue of Seville) has inspired subsequent plays and operas on this subject. The Don Juan legend really takes off in the late 18th and 19th centuries, where he becomes the quintessential Romantic hero. But Molina's intentions are much different, for he does not see in Don Juan any kind of romantic hero, but quite the contrary: his concerns are moral and theological. Don Juan is the quintessential burlador (literally meaning jokester, but in this case it is inseparably linked to the notion of seduction). He provokes God and man in an unending series of reprehensible acts of seduction, and questions his own fate and eternal destiny. He is above the normal requirement of confession and repentance (or at least he thinks so). He lives for the moment, defying the laws of God and man.
The play is historically set in the 14th century, under the reign of King Alfonso XI (Pedro the Cruel's father) when Seville was the capital of the kingdom. Naples, then Seville and the neighboring countryside are the central locations where the adventures of Don Juan Tenorio, a gallant young knight, take place.
The first scene is set in the evening, in a palace in Naples. The Duchess Isabella is violently seduced by a stranger pretending to be her fiance, Duke Octavio. Betrayed by his victim's screams, Don Juan is arrested and taken before the Spanish Ambassador to the court of Naples, Don Diego, who, luckily for Don Juan, happens to be his uncle. Upbraiding the rake for his lack of honor, Don Diego's familial affections for his roguish nephew nonetheless get the better of him, and he decides to facilitate his escape. Don Juan takes this opportunity to flee to Seville for a while until things calm down.
During his voyage, he has a close call when a violent storm hits, leaving him stranded on the Spanish coast, where a young fisherwoman by the name of Tisbea shelters him and allows herself to be seduced by his charms. Apparently, this near-brush with death at sea does not cause him to reflect upon his dissolute life, and he uses this second chance, this extension of grace, to engage in his old shenanigans. He immediately abandons her and rushes to Seville, where the news of his Neapolitan adventure has already preceded him. The King decides to correct this outrage by arranging the marriages that will save honor on all sides. Don Juan has, in effect, turned the world upside down with his acts of dishonor.
Once in Seville, Don Juan meets his up with his friend, the Marquis de la Mota. His outward show of friendship belies his scheming soul, and in spite of the oath made to his father and the warnings of his valet Catalinon, he plots another romantic intrigue, this time with Dona Ana, who has a secret love affair with the Marquis de la Mota (apparently Molina does an interesting sleight of hand, because one can't say that the Marquis and Dona Ana are all that innocent).
The third act of the play opens as the first act does, with Don Juan using a disguise to seduce his victim, pretending to be the Marquis. The young woman discovers the ploy, but too late. Her father, Don Gonzalo d'Ulloa, the Knight Commander of the Order of Calatrava, comes to her aid and dies by the sword of Don Juan.
Things are now much too hot for Don Juan in Seville, and he retires to the country. In a village wedding he plots yet another seduction-the peasant bride Aminta. Don Juan has now used up all his "second chances," for this act of dishonor will be his last. Signs of impending judgement are looming, as all of his victims are demanding justice. The action culminates in the chapel, where the tomb of the Commander d'Ulloa is located. Engraved on his tomb is the epitaph: Aqui aguarda del Senor el mas leal caballero la venganza de un traidor (Here awaits the most faithful knight for the Lord to avenge him of a traitor). Don Juan finds insult in these words, and to demonstrate his indignation he pulls the beard of the Commander's statue and, in a scoffing and ironic tone, invites it to dinner.
During the banquet, the mood is light and cheery, and then there is an ominous knock at the door. Don Juan's valet Catalinon timidly answers the door, and, to his dismay and consternation, the statue appears. Don Juan keeps his calm, however, feigning levity. This time the statue invites Don Juan to dine with it at the church of San Francisco the next evening, which he willingly accepts.
What awaits Don Juan is a macabre feast of black crows, spiders and rancid oil and vinegar for wine awaits him. At this point the statue offers him its hand, and Don Juan requests a last confession. Repentance has come too late for this rake of Seville. This is his hour of reckoning, finally he is dragged to eternal torment in hell.
Tirso de Molina's Don Juan then becomes a cautionary tale of the limits of divine mercy, and how man's salvation is ultimately dependent on his act of repentance, which cannot be deferred indefinitely. There comes a time when that grace is withdrawn, and as Don Gonzalo's rejection of Don Juan's plea for a confessor shows, repentance is deemed an act that can be described as too little, too late.
But it's not as though he is not warned of his impending death, for when Catalinon warns him that he would pay for his crimes, he brushes it off by replying that that day of reckoning is "a long way off," which he repeats to the beguiled Tisbea when she reminds him of divine punishment if he does not keep his promises. His father Don Diego cautions him that there is a limit to God's tolerance of his impieties, and that final reckoning must some day come, to which Don Juan replies that that too is a "long way off." That day finally arrives, and just as Don Juan denied Don Gonzalo the last rites of the Church when he brutally murdered him, so now he denies Don Juan's request for a good death. That day which was "a long way off" has now visited him, and now the world is set to right. His final request for confession is more of a negotiation with God, than a real act of contrition. Molina's message is clear-you cannot, in the end, negotiate deals with God.
In later generations, however, Don Juan becomes a romantic hero, who wrestles with fate, becoming the Nietshean "ubermensch." Like Milton's Satan, Don Juan, in this interpretation, seems to get away from his author's original intent, and takes on the role of the Faustian striver for autonomy, the very thing Molina preached against. For Molina, Don Juan, like Pedro the Cruel, is an Alcibiades figure, the brilliant warrior and potential statesman who is unscrupulous, not combining his brilliance with the virtues of wisdom, temperance and justice. Molina's play, in the end, becomes a long reflection on Psalm 90:12: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
* The military orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcantara paralleled the crusading orders of the Knights Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. The Templars had a presence in Spain, but it was these three home-grown orders that would dominate. The Order of Calatrava (formally established in 1184) had ties to the Cistercians, and like other military orders, was a semi-monastic corps of knights.
* Pedro's ally, Muhammad V, was deposed by his half-brother, Ismail II, who himself was deposed by his cousin, Muhammad VI. Responding to the pleas of Muhammad V, Pedro laid waste to Granada, captured Muhammad VI, and drove a lance through him for his dealings with his arch-rival, king Pedro of Aragon. The Castilian chronicler, Pedro Lopez de Ayala, took special note of Pedro of Castile's lack of chivalry in dealing with his captive. See O'Callaghan, p. 423
Such is the character of Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla, ca. 1630. This Spanish monk and playwright is credited with creating this beguiling figure that has inspired a play by Moliere, Mozart's famous opera, Don Giovanni, the famous poem by Shelley, Don Juan, several symphonic pieces, and philosophic reflection. This makes the character of Don Juan take his place with Hamlet, Don Quixote, Macbeth and Faust in the western imagination. What are the sources that Molina drew upon to create this masterful work of moral and theological reflection? Several possibilities present themselves before us.
Some sources place him within the reign of King Pedro the Cruel of Castile, which is quite interesting, for the Castilian king himself provides a lot of food for moral reflection. The rule of King Pedro of Castile (1350-1369, known as "the Cruel") was characterized by civil war and unrest, and the king himself was killed by his own brother, Enrique of Trastamara. His reign began as his mother, Maria of Portugal, had her rival, Leonor of Castile (by whom Pedro's father, Alfonso XI, fathered 11 illegitimate children) imprisoned and executed. Leonor's sons (and Alfonso XI's illegitimate sons) Enrique, the Count of Trastamara, and Fadrique, master of the military order of the Knights of Santiago,* were angered by this act, but were unable to do anything about it (O'Callaghan, History of Medieval Spain, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 419). Of course, Pedro would soon be emulating his father Alfonso, because shortly after his marriage to Blanche of Bourbon, he would run to the arms of his mistress, Maria de Padilla. The king never again saw his queen, Blanche, and in fact had her imprisoned in Toledo. This would anger both Blanche's father, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Papacy. It would also have severe consequences for the internal politics of the kingdom of Castile. (Ibid) His former tutor and chancellor, Juan Alfonso of Portugal, Duke of Albuquerque, returned to Portugal, seeing that Castilian politics were going to get a bit heated, and not to his favor. Leonor's sons, Enrique and Fadrique, championed the cause of Blanche of Bourbon, and soon quite a number of towns would defend her rights as wife and queen. At the Battle of Toro in 1356, Pedro crushed the opposing forces, forcing surrender, with the result that Enrique of Trastamara went into exile to Aragon (seeking refuge with Pedro of Aragon, Pedro the Cruel's chief rival), and Fadrique submitting to Pedro of Castile. Blanche also remained imprisoned, and Maria de Padilla continued to "enjoy the king's favors "(Ibid). Enrique's having found refuge in the Aragonese court moved Pedro of Castile to declare war on Pedro of Aragon ("the battle of the two Pedros"). O'Callaghan describes Pedro of Castile's martial temperament: "There was an aggressive streak in Pedro of Castile, a determination to establish his predominance in the (Iberian) peninsula and to defend his sovereignty against real or fancied challenges to it." (p. 421) This was not only true of his relations with the Aragonese crown and the Muslim Caliphate of Granada*, but also with his own nobles, especially within his own family.
Pedro's wrath fell upon his half-brother, Fadrique (Master of the Knights of Santiago), when he suspected him of treason. His other half-brother Juan was also done away with, and in an especially cruel way: believing himself to be honored with a lordship of Vizcaya, Juan walked into the king's court unarmed, only to be bludgeoned to death with Pedro's mace-wielding knights. Pedro threw his bloody corpse into an assembly of Vizcayans in the main courtyard, and he shouted "Here is the lord of Vizcaya you asked for." (p. 423)
For all his cruelty, however, King Pedro of Castile also had a reputation for throwing great pageants on major feast days, and would be seen often in the streets dancing with the locals. He also had a reputation for fairness in adjudicating laws for mercantile activity. This made him popular with merchants and traders, and even his public liaisons with Maria de Padilla did not lessen his subjects' love for him.
Nonetheless, his dealings with nobles who did not submit to him revealed a cruel streak in him, one that was less than chivalrous. His alliance with the Edward the Black Prince of Wales could not ultimately hold back Enrique of Trastamara and his Aragonese ally, and ultimately, he succumbed to the same fate he had inflicted on others, on March 23, 1369, when his brother Enrique stabbed him repeatedly. (read Lopez de Ayala's account, p. 427, as well as Chaucer's reflection on Pedro's death on same page).
Against this backdrop we first hear in later ballads of a certain unnamed knight in the service of Pedro the Cruel who carried off the daughter of the powerful Commander of the Knights of Calatrava. The Knight Commander, barring his way, was killed. For this crime and for many other acts of seduction, the monks of the of the powerful convent of San Francisco in Seville had him trapped in the monastery church, arrested, tried and executed. They let flow a rumor that demons had emerged and taken him into the nether regions for his sins. Another ballad, titled El convidado de piedra (The Stone Guest) an unnamed knight, with a bit of a reputation of a rake, insults a statue of a dead man by tweaking its beard and mockingly inviting it to dinner. The statue appears, giving the young rake a bit of a fright, but rather than dragging him to hell, in keeping with Molina's moral reflections, he is reformed, never to disrespect the dead again. In the hands of Tirso de Molina, these accounts would combine to contribute to a large morality play about the wages of sin, and the mystery of grace, predestination and the final judgement.
Tirso de Molina's play, El burlador de Sevilla (The Rogue of Seville) has inspired subsequent plays and operas on this subject. The Don Juan legend really takes off in the late 18th and 19th centuries, where he becomes the quintessential Romantic hero. But Molina's intentions are much different, for he does not see in Don Juan any kind of romantic hero, but quite the contrary: his concerns are moral and theological. Don Juan is the quintessential burlador (literally meaning jokester, but in this case it is inseparably linked to the notion of seduction). He provokes God and man in an unending series of reprehensible acts of seduction, and questions his own fate and eternal destiny. He is above the normal requirement of confession and repentance (or at least he thinks so). He lives for the moment, defying the laws of God and man.
The play is historically set in the 14th century, under the reign of King Alfonso XI (Pedro the Cruel's father) when Seville was the capital of the kingdom. Naples, then Seville and the neighboring countryside are the central locations where the adventures of Don Juan Tenorio, a gallant young knight, take place.
The first scene is set in the evening, in a palace in Naples. The Duchess Isabella is violently seduced by a stranger pretending to be her fiance, Duke Octavio. Betrayed by his victim's screams, Don Juan is arrested and taken before the Spanish Ambassador to the court of Naples, Don Diego, who, luckily for Don Juan, happens to be his uncle. Upbraiding the rake for his lack of honor, Don Diego's familial affections for his roguish nephew nonetheless get the better of him, and he decides to facilitate his escape. Don Juan takes this opportunity to flee to Seville for a while until things calm down.
During his voyage, he has a close call when a violent storm hits, leaving him stranded on the Spanish coast, where a young fisherwoman by the name of Tisbea shelters him and allows herself to be seduced by his charms. Apparently, this near-brush with death at sea does not cause him to reflect upon his dissolute life, and he uses this second chance, this extension of grace, to engage in his old shenanigans. He immediately abandons her and rushes to Seville, where the news of his Neapolitan adventure has already preceded him. The King decides to correct this outrage by arranging the marriages that will save honor on all sides. Don Juan has, in effect, turned the world upside down with his acts of dishonor.
Once in Seville, Don Juan meets his up with his friend, the Marquis de la Mota. His outward show of friendship belies his scheming soul, and in spite of the oath made to his father and the warnings of his valet Catalinon, he plots another romantic intrigue, this time with Dona Ana, who has a secret love affair with the Marquis de la Mota (apparently Molina does an interesting sleight of hand, because one can't say that the Marquis and Dona Ana are all that innocent).
The third act of the play opens as the first act does, with Don Juan using a disguise to seduce his victim, pretending to be the Marquis. The young woman discovers the ploy, but too late. Her father, Don Gonzalo d'Ulloa, the Knight Commander of the Order of Calatrava, comes to her aid and dies by the sword of Don Juan.
Things are now much too hot for Don Juan in Seville, and he retires to the country. In a village wedding he plots yet another seduction-the peasant bride Aminta. Don Juan has now used up all his "second chances," for this act of dishonor will be his last. Signs of impending judgement are looming, as all of his victims are demanding justice. The action culminates in the chapel, where the tomb of the Commander d'Ulloa is located. Engraved on his tomb is the epitaph: Aqui aguarda del Senor el mas leal caballero la venganza de un traidor (Here awaits the most faithful knight for the Lord to avenge him of a traitor). Don Juan finds insult in these words, and to demonstrate his indignation he pulls the beard of the Commander's statue and, in a scoffing and ironic tone, invites it to dinner.
During the banquet, the mood is light and cheery, and then there is an ominous knock at the door. Don Juan's valet Catalinon timidly answers the door, and, to his dismay and consternation, the statue appears. Don Juan keeps his calm, however, feigning levity. This time the statue invites Don Juan to dine with it at the church of San Francisco the next evening, which he willingly accepts.
What awaits Don Juan is a macabre feast of black crows, spiders and rancid oil and vinegar for wine awaits him. At this point the statue offers him its hand, and Don Juan requests a last confession. Repentance has come too late for this rake of Seville. This is his hour of reckoning, finally he is dragged to eternal torment in hell.
Tirso de Molina's Don Juan then becomes a cautionary tale of the limits of divine mercy, and how man's salvation is ultimately dependent on his act of repentance, which cannot be deferred indefinitely. There comes a time when that grace is withdrawn, and as Don Gonzalo's rejection of Don Juan's plea for a confessor shows, repentance is deemed an act that can be described as too little, too late.
But it's not as though he is not warned of his impending death, for when Catalinon warns him that he would pay for his crimes, he brushes it off by replying that that day of reckoning is "a long way off," which he repeats to the beguiled Tisbea when she reminds him of divine punishment if he does not keep his promises. His father Don Diego cautions him that there is a limit to God's tolerance of his impieties, and that final reckoning must some day come, to which Don Juan replies that that too is a "long way off." That day finally arrives, and just as Don Juan denied Don Gonzalo the last rites of the Church when he brutally murdered him, so now he denies Don Juan's request for a good death. That day which was "a long way off" has now visited him, and now the world is set to right. His final request for confession is more of a negotiation with God, than a real act of contrition. Molina's message is clear-you cannot, in the end, negotiate deals with God.
In later generations, however, Don Juan becomes a romantic hero, who wrestles with fate, becoming the Nietshean "ubermensch." Like Milton's Satan, Don Juan, in this interpretation, seems to get away from his author's original intent, and takes on the role of the Faustian striver for autonomy, the very thing Molina preached against. For Molina, Don Juan, like Pedro the Cruel, is an Alcibiades figure, the brilliant warrior and potential statesman who is unscrupulous, not combining his brilliance with the virtues of wisdom, temperance and justice. Molina's play, in the end, becomes a long reflection on Psalm 90:12: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
* The military orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcantara paralleled the crusading orders of the Knights Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. The Templars had a presence in Spain, but it was these three home-grown orders that would dominate. The Order of Calatrava (formally established in 1184) had ties to the Cistercians, and like other military orders, was a semi-monastic corps of knights.
* Pedro's ally, Muhammad V, was deposed by his half-brother, Ismail II, who himself was deposed by his cousin, Muhammad VI. Responding to the pleas of Muhammad V, Pedro laid waste to Granada, captured Muhammad VI, and drove a lance through him for his dealings with his arch-rival, king Pedro of Aragon. The Castilian chronicler, Pedro Lopez de Ayala, took special note of Pedro of Castile's lack of chivalry in dealing with his captive. See O'Callaghan, p. 423
Monday, August 01, 2005
American Salvation, by Albert J. Raboteau
Here is a great article on the tension between the American religious consciousness and the body politic. I don't agree with everything on here, especially his call for what I consider to be an extension of a "welfare state" to deal with women with unwanted pregnancies (his unsupported claim that the number of abortions went up during the Reagan administration but down during the Clinton administration seems odd to me, especially since the latter cut funding to welfare programs at an arguably similar rate, or even higher, than Reagan did), but I think Professor Raboteau does offer a good basis for discussion on this important issue, especially as it affects a growing number of fellow Christians here in this country-Orthodox Christians. From bostonreview.net:
American Salvation
The place of Christianity in public life
Albert J. Raboteau
8 G.K. Chesterton once called America “a nation with the soul of a church.” He was referring, in part, to the habitual tendency of Americans to cast political and social events as scenes in the drama of salvation. From the start America’s story was a religious story. In the 1630s English Puritans represented their journey across the Atlantic to America as the exodus of a New Israel out of Old World slavery into a promised land of milk and honey. And through the centuries, the story of the American Israel would serve as our nation’s most powerful and long-lasting myth.
But to black Americans the nation was not a New Israel but the old Egypt, condemned to sure destruction unless she let God’s people go. The existence of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism contradicted the mythic identity of Americans as a chosen people.
African-American Christianity has continuously confronted the nation with troubling questions about American exceptionalism. Perhaps the most troubling was this: “If Christ came as the Suffering Servant, who resembled Him more, the master or the slave?” Suffering-slave Christianity stood as a prophetic condemnation of America’s obsession with power, status, and possessions. African-American Christians perceived in American exceptionalism a dangerous tendency to turn the nation into an idol and Christianity into a clan religion. Divine election brings not preeminence, elevation, and glory, but—as black Christians know all too well—humiliation, suffering, and rejection. Chosenness, as reflected in the life of Jesus, led to a cross. The lives of his disciples have been signed with that cross. To be chosen, in this perspective, means joining company not with the powerful and the rich but with those who suffer: the outcast, the poor, and the despised.
Out of this prophetic tradition the civil-rights movement emerged in the 1960s to offer one of the most powerful critiques of American society, including not only Jim Crow in the South but eventually what Martin Luther King Jr. would call the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.” King, the most eloquent spokesman of the movement, clearly drew upon the resources of black religious protest, but he also drew upon the critical thought and action of a variety of figures from other traditions, such as Thoreau, Gandhi, Rauschenbusch, and of course the Hebrew prophets. The prominent presence of such figures as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos, and Roman Catholic priests and nuns in the front lines of civil-rights marches demonstrated the deep moral resonance that moved peoples of different faiths to protest injustice, based upon the age-old call of their traditions to seek justice and show mercy. Religions throughout history have motivated some to stand on the margins of society as critics of the dominant cultural and religious values.
The American experiment offered these traditions a special role. Freedom of religion, despite the long-lasting cultural hegemony of evangelical Protestantism, gave leeway to various religious groups to fight discrimination and establish public worship and public institutions. And by so doing, they made politically viable in this nation the principle of freedom of conscience and resisted the age-old tendency of governments to absorb religion into systems of state ideology.
The principle of religious freedom provided a powerful opportunity for religious-based dissent. In addition to democracy’s inherent capacity for self-criticism and renewal, the mobilization of the prophetic role of religion in the political life of the country has served as a critique of national ambition and hubris, from the Puritan Jeremiad to the Abolitionist Movement to Lincoln’s Second InauguralSpeech to the anti–Vietnam War protests. In the current political climate of American exceptionalism, as promoted by the Bush administration, it is easy to forget that rhetorical assertions tying salvation to our nation’s destiny have a long history, and have stirred strong criticism from evangelical Protestants, past and present, for verging too close to state idolatry. Christianity, even as the dominant religion, has always had strains that cut against the mainstream, while still being rooted in and influenced by the culture and society of a particular time and place. This perennial tension is succinctly captured by the instruction in John’s Gospel that Jesus’ disciples should be in the world but “not of the world.”
* * *
In the world, but not of the world. These words capture the antinomical relationship of the Church to human society and culture. On the one hand, the incarnational character of the Church establishes her in history, in this particular time and place and culture. On the other, the sacramental character of the Church transcends time and space, making present another world, the kingdom of God, which is both here and now and yet still to come. Throughout the history of Christianity, the temptation to relax this antinomy has led Christians to represent the Church as an ethereal transcendent mystery unrelated and antithetical to human society and culture. Or, alternatively, it has prompted Christians to so identify the Church with a particular society, culture, or ethnicity as to turn Christianity into a religious ideology. Because we are “not of the world,” Christians stand against culture when the values and behaviors of the culture contradict the living tradition of the Church.
Take one early and famous example: the refusal of early Christians to honor the emperor by offering a pinch of incense before his image. Being in the world, the Christian acts within the culture as a leaven, trying to transform it by communicating to others the redemption brought by Christ. The early Christian apologists stood within culture as they attempted to explain the faith in the philosophical and cultural terms of their times and recognized within the culture foreshadowings or adumbrations of Christian truth waiting to be fulfilled. Notice the reciprocal tension between Christianity and culture as eloquently stated in a second-century document, the “Letter to Diognetus”:
Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike . . . and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land . . . They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.
It is this perennial tension of being in the world but not of the world with which Christians continue to wrestle in 21st-century America.
This tension is central to my own faith tradition, Christian Orthodoxy, familiar to most as Greek or Russian. Historically, Orthodoxy refers to the Christianity of the eastern Roman Empire, centered on Constantinople or Byzantium, as distinct from that in the West, centered on Rome, hence Roman Catholicism. The two gradually drifted apart and officially broke in the year 1054, due to changes unilaterally made to the creed by the West and the East’s rejection of the Roman pontiff’s claims of primacy. Orthodoxy first came to America with Russianmissionaries in Alaska in the 18th century and was established in the continental United States by migration in the 19th and 20th centuries from Greece, Russia, and the Balkans. I was born Roman Catholic but became Orthodox ten years ago, drawn by a series of experiences that constituted for me a spiritual renewal. I was drawn in part by a sense of profound similarity between Orthodoxy and the ethos of African-American Christianity. In both there is a quality of sad joyfulness, a sense that life in a minor key is life as it is; an emphasis on the importance of suffering as a mark of the authenticity of faith. Both African-American and Orthodox Christianity view the person as embodied spirit and inspirited body. Both understand matter and spirit to be related, not antithetical—hence the use of material and bodily gesture to reveal the presence of the spiritual to our bodily eyes. Both hold a profound trust in the healing power of ritual, which opens the door to the other world, revealing its presence within this world. Both understand the interpersonal nature of the self as shaped by a web of relationships stretching into the past and the future. Both criticize individual aggrandizement as destructive of the person. Notice that these beliefs, common to both Orthodox and African-American religious tradition, clash with dominant cultural attitudes and values.
Orthodoxy in particular offers, I believe, a distinctive view of the human person that can serve as an important critique of the definition of the core American value, freedom, the principle upon which Americans are most likely to agree.
The American idea of freedom is centered on the rights of the individual person, but with the premise—more strongly observed at some times than others—that the respect due to the individual makes possible his participation in common, public, civic life. Freedom of conscience and freedom of choice enable individuals to participate in civil institutions, which exist to serve the commonweal.
The democratic tradition defines authority as public service. It encourages participation and treasures the voice of each because you never know when it might be the voice of a prophet. This tradition is profoundly antithetical to status and power based on inherited aristocracy. (Democracy itself has something of value to say by way of criticizing clericalism, which reduces priesthood to a managerial profession. Respect for the common man may reinforce the Pauline insistence on the gifts distributed throughout the community for building up the body of Christ. The democratic definition of authority as service is certainly consonant with the gospels and is important for anyone in religious authority to constantly bring to mind.)
At its best, democracy balances the rights of the individual with the responsibility to participate in the public conversations and tasks that make civic community possible. However, the possibility of so stressing rights that we forget responsibility is a perennial threat to American liberty. The choice of privileging one over the other comes down to a simple, but profound question: “What is freedom for?” When Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence he copied from John Locke the famous list of inalienable rights endowed upon us by the Creator—with one significant difference. Jefferson substituted for Locke’s life, liberty, and property, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Tragically, Americans ever since have found it too easy to reverse Jefferson by turning the pursuit of happiness into the pursuit of property. Precisely at this juncture, Orthodox Christianity levels a powerful critique of Americans’ addiction to consumerism, the dangerous collective illusion that reduces persons to objects and turns the interpersonal relationship into one of manipulation and exploitation.
Orthodoxy offers a radically different vision of the person. We are created in the image of God. We are redeemed so that we may become more and more like the image in which we were made.In this process of theosis or divinization, we become by grace what God is by nature. A striking symbol of Orthodoxy’s opposition to the self-aggrandizement endemic to our society is our liturgical calendar, in which roughly half the year consists of days of fasting. Self-emptying, not self-fulfillment, is the purpose of Orthodox ascetical practice: “He must increase, but I must decrease,” we say with St. John the Forerunner. Or “Now I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” with St. Paul. This is a very countercultural prescription in a society that promotes getting your fill. Individual rights have been turned into self-gratification. A cycle of ever-expanding need, gratification, need, drives our consumer society.
It is easy to criticize the vulgar consumerism of mass-media advertising; religion alone does not necessarily defend us against it. Religion itself can be another form of ego gratification—a kind of spiritual consumerism that focuses on having spiritual experiences to aggrandize the self, spiritual hedonism, but hedonism nonetheless. Behind the drive for self-aggrandizement, whether material or spiritual, is a distorted sense of the person as an individualized ego—the self as the source of freedom and value. To the contrary, Orthodoxy views the person as ineluctably interpersonal. The very purpose of our being is to commune with others—to commune with the Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to commune with our fellow human persons. We stand not alone, as solitary individual selves, but in compassionate solidarity with others, the saints, who have gone before, our ancestors in the faith, whose icons surround us at church and at home—a cloud of living witnesses. And we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the present, especially with those who suffer. In the words of St. Isaac the Syrian, a 7th-century ascetic and theologian, our compassion should extend to “the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing: and by the recollection and sight of them the eyes of a compassionate man pour forth abundant tears.”
This sense of interpersonal solidarity leads Orthodoxy to reverse the privileging of rights over responsibilities. In the words of Father Zosima, the monastic staretz, or elder, in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, “the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all.” These mysterious words, echoing the offering of the Holy Gifts to God in the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, allude to Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the cross, in which “He who was without sin became sin for us.” Father Zosima is saying that Christ’s sacrificial way is ours. This same sense of responsibility “on behalf of all and for all” also illuminates the lives of the monastic elders, who in their isolation become profoundly aware of the hidden connectedness of us all. The way to true freedom and recognition of our interpersonal responsibility, they taught, is through obedience, fasting, prayer, and humility, which, with God’s help, liberate the spirit from the tyranny of habit and desire, from a slavery to a hyper-individualism that leads eventually to isolation and despair.
* * *
For Orthodox Christians, as for all people of faith, beliefs about the nature of the individual and society shape a political agenda; integrity requires that we argue not just with words, but with our lives as well. But those beliefs must make their case within the pluralistic agora of American society. The freedom of exercise clause of the First Amendment offers religion the freedom to live and express its values, and the non-establishment clause guarantees that each has to do so in the midst of supporting and conflicting claims.
If American democracy offers religion an opportunity, American pluralism offers it a challenge. Pluralism challenges us to experience religion as more than a cultural identity. Pluralism means encountering the values and attitudes and beliefs of others with respect for those who hold them. Pluralism, when taken seriously as respect for difference, rejects relativism for avoiding the hard truth that we do indeed differ. It is the difficult road we walk to achieve a mature understanding of the truth and the opportunity to share that truth with others who are seeking it. It challenges us to appropriate, internalize, and live out the religious identity passed to us by family and society. It creates an opportunity to discuss and to argue for one’s own position.
Consider the issue of abortion. When considered in the context of Orthodoxy’s holistic vision of the person within society, a whole web of moral issues emerges that does not necessarily align with any particular political party’s agenda.
Abortion is clearly a paramount issue for many Orthodox (as well as many Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants). The number of abortions performed today is horrendous. A large percentage of our fellow citizens, even those who think that too many abortions are being performed or that abortion should be to some extent restricted, have come to the conclusion that abortion is a matter of a woman’s choice. The Republican promise, implicit or explicit, is to take steps to reverse Roe v. Wade. Given the widespread division of public opinion and the even division of the Senate (which approves Supreme Court nominees), is this a credible promise? It would seem that the possibility of making abortion illegal anytime soon is remote.
Those of us who believe that human life begins with conception and that life is a sacred gift have a huge task in convincing others of our vision of the person. It will not be enough to condemn abortion. Our position needs the credibility of a Mother Teresa, who could say, “Do not kill the children; give them to us and we will raise them.” We will need the hard, long, and beautiful work of counseling pregnant women, of giving our help to those who are poor and abandoned, of offering to adopt the babies brought to term. We need to support a fabric of social welfare that will support women (particularly young and poor women) facing unwanted pregnancies. It is interesting that Holland and Belgium, countries where abortion is legal, have relatively low abortion rates (due in part to an extensive social-service network), whereas Latin America, where abortion is generally illegal and social services scant, has a relatively high rate. In the United States the abortion rate went up during the presidency of Ronald Reagan and down under Bill Clinton. The idea that a Republican presidency is going to effect a shift in national attitudes or result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade seems to me a chimera. The concept of the sacredness of life must first extend to those our society devalues: the imprisoned, the impoverished, the disabled, the mentally ill, the alien, the enemy.
I am troubled that there is no political home for my consistent ethic of life, but I also take comfort in the knowledge that electoral politics is not all there is to politics. If Chesterton’s idea of an America with the soul of a church has any validity, I believe it lies in our tradition of voluntary activity, through which faith can mobilize people to participate in the long and difficult grassroots struggle to transform our communities into a more just and peaceful society.
Orthodox voices occasionally warn us of the danger of reducing the church to a social-service agency, but that warning should not displace the tradition of compassion calling us to act for those in need. St. John Chrysostom preaching on Matthew 25:
Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. . . . Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? First, fill him when he is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn his table. . . . What is the use of providing the table with cloths woven of gold thread, and not providing Christ himself with the clothes he needs?
Or, to quote a modern Orthodox witness,
The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says “I”: “I was hungry, and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.” To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.
The same passage from St. Matthew inspired these words of Mother Maria Skobotsova; it led her to found Orthodox Action in Paris in the 1930s to carry out this Gospel imperative, and it led ultimately to her death in Ravensbruck for protecting French Jews during the Nazi occupation. Houses of hospitality, hospice care centers, communities of caring that welcome the disabled, the orphan, the mentally ill, and the abused, can be sites of sanctity in the modern desert of need, as the life of Nun Gavrilia, an “ascetic of love” who worked among the poor in India and elsewhere, testifies.
* * *
Such heroic action in the world “but not of the world” was made possible by a vision of the kingdom of God, the reign of God, in the here and now, made possible by his disciples following the precedent of Christ’s life, but never fully actualized until Heaven. It is for this kingdom that the Christian prays in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come; thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” It is for the arrival of this kingdom of peace and justice that the Christian community, as the ongoing body of Christ in time and space, continually waits and acts. In this dynamic vision Christ is the transformer of culture because he makes present among us the kingdom of God. The concept of the kingdom of God was central to the theology of Father Alexander Schmemann, a leading figure in the American Orthodox Church, as it was for H. Richard Niebuhr, the eminent Protestant theologian, who wrote the classic texts Christ and Culture and The Kingdom of God in America. According to Schmemann and Niebuhr, it is crucial for Christians to realize that the kingdom is both here and now and still to come.
The kingdom of God—announced, inaugurated, and given by and in Christ—stands at the heart of the early Christian faith, and not only as something yet to come but as that which has come, is present now, and shall come at the end. It has come in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and in the fruit of all this—the descent of the Holy Spirit on the “last and great” day of Pentecost. It comes now and is present in the Church, the “ecclesia” of those who having died through Christ in baptism can now “walk in the newness of life,” partake now of the “joy and peace of the Holy Spirit,” eat and drink at Christ’s table in his kingdom. And it shall come at the end, when, having fulfilled all his dispensation, Christ will “fill all things with Himself.”
To keep Christianity from being reduced to religion—just one more isolated compartment among the many that occupy the modern person’s life (this, for Father Schmemann, was the meaning of secularism)—it is essential to hold sight of the reality of the kingdom as present and as future. Secularism is not antireligious. It approves of religion by turning it into what Niebuhr called an “idol,” one among others suited to our self-gratification. Secularism, in this sense, robs the Church of its eschatological dimension. It is no longer the primary community for us, the source of our life and our joy, but one more activity in a busy week, competing with work, social life, and entertainment.
When the Church loses its awareness of the kingdom of God and its essential sacramentality, there develops (as Father Schmemann writes) “a peculiar divorce of the forms of the Church’s life from their content, from that reality whose presence, power and meaning they are meant to express and, as a consequence the transformation of those forms into an end in itself so that the very task of the Church is seen as the preservation of the ‘ancient,’ ‘venerable,’ and ‘beautiful’ forms, regardless of the ‘reality’ to which they refer.” The Church, in effect, becomes a museum of archaic artifacts and rituals, beautiful but inert. What is lost, and lost not through persecution but through our own inattention and inertia, is the “very deep and essentially Orthodox experience of the Church as truly an epiphany: the revelation of, the participation in, a reality which because it is not ‘of this world’ is given to us—‘in this world’—in symbols. Hence the crucial importance of symbols in which we experience the reality of the Divine presence and action.”
The primary symbol of God’s transforming action in the world is the Eucharist. We offer the gifts of bread and wine, wheat and grapes transformed by human hands, to God, who returns them to us transformed by the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of our lord Jesus Christ. Here is the sacrament of the transformation of the entire world.
Now, we are perhaps closer to understanding the meaning of the antinomy with which I began. The antinomy of Christians being in the world but not of the world is for the sake of the transformation of the world and its return as Eucharistic offering to God, the source of all. In Father Schmemann’s words,
The Church is left in this world, in its time, space and history with a specific task or mission: “To walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6). The Church is fullness and its home is in heaven. But this fullness is given to the world . . . as its salvation and redemption. The eschatological nature of the Church is not the negation of the world, but, on the contrary, its affirmation and acceptance as the object of divine love . . . the entire “other worldliness” of the Church is nothing but the sign and the reality of the love of God for this world, the very condition of the Church’s mission to the world. The Church thus is not a “self-centered” community but precisely a missionary community, whose purpose is salvation not from, but of, the world. <
Albert J. Raboteau is the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion at Princeton University and the author of Slave Religion and A Sorrowful Joy.
American Salvation
The place of Christianity in public life
Albert J. Raboteau
8 G.K. Chesterton once called America “a nation with the soul of a church.” He was referring, in part, to the habitual tendency of Americans to cast political and social events as scenes in the drama of salvation. From the start America’s story was a religious story. In the 1630s English Puritans represented their journey across the Atlantic to America as the exodus of a New Israel out of Old World slavery into a promised land of milk and honey. And through the centuries, the story of the American Israel would serve as our nation’s most powerful and long-lasting myth.
But to black Americans the nation was not a New Israel but the old Egypt, condemned to sure destruction unless she let God’s people go. The existence of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and racism contradicted the mythic identity of Americans as a chosen people.
African-American Christianity has continuously confronted the nation with troubling questions about American exceptionalism. Perhaps the most troubling was this: “If Christ came as the Suffering Servant, who resembled Him more, the master or the slave?” Suffering-slave Christianity stood as a prophetic condemnation of America’s obsession with power, status, and possessions. African-American Christians perceived in American exceptionalism a dangerous tendency to turn the nation into an idol and Christianity into a clan religion. Divine election brings not preeminence, elevation, and glory, but—as black Christians know all too well—humiliation, suffering, and rejection. Chosenness, as reflected in the life of Jesus, led to a cross. The lives of his disciples have been signed with that cross. To be chosen, in this perspective, means joining company not with the powerful and the rich but with those who suffer: the outcast, the poor, and the despised.
Out of this prophetic tradition the civil-rights movement emerged in the 1960s to offer one of the most powerful critiques of American society, including not only Jim Crow in the South but eventually what Martin Luther King Jr. would call the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.” King, the most eloquent spokesman of the movement, clearly drew upon the resources of black religious protest, but he also drew upon the critical thought and action of a variety of figures from other traditions, such as Thoreau, Gandhi, Rauschenbusch, and of course the Hebrew prophets. The prominent presence of such figures as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos, and Roman Catholic priests and nuns in the front lines of civil-rights marches demonstrated the deep moral resonance that moved peoples of different faiths to protest injustice, based upon the age-old call of their traditions to seek justice and show mercy. Religions throughout history have motivated some to stand on the margins of society as critics of the dominant cultural and religious values.
The American experiment offered these traditions a special role. Freedom of religion, despite the long-lasting cultural hegemony of evangelical Protestantism, gave leeway to various religious groups to fight discrimination and establish public worship and public institutions. And by so doing, they made politically viable in this nation the principle of freedom of conscience and resisted the age-old tendency of governments to absorb religion into systems of state ideology.
The principle of religious freedom provided a powerful opportunity for religious-based dissent. In addition to democracy’s inherent capacity for self-criticism and renewal, the mobilization of the prophetic role of religion in the political life of the country has served as a critique of national ambition and hubris, from the Puritan Jeremiad to the Abolitionist Movement to Lincoln’s Second InauguralSpeech to the anti–Vietnam War protests. In the current political climate of American exceptionalism, as promoted by the Bush administration, it is easy to forget that rhetorical assertions tying salvation to our nation’s destiny have a long history, and have stirred strong criticism from evangelical Protestants, past and present, for verging too close to state idolatry. Christianity, even as the dominant religion, has always had strains that cut against the mainstream, while still being rooted in and influenced by the culture and society of a particular time and place. This perennial tension is succinctly captured by the instruction in John’s Gospel that Jesus’ disciples should be in the world but “not of the world.”
* * *
In the world, but not of the world. These words capture the antinomical relationship of the Church to human society and culture. On the one hand, the incarnational character of the Church establishes her in history, in this particular time and place and culture. On the other, the sacramental character of the Church transcends time and space, making present another world, the kingdom of God, which is both here and now and yet still to come. Throughout the history of Christianity, the temptation to relax this antinomy has led Christians to represent the Church as an ethereal transcendent mystery unrelated and antithetical to human society and culture. Or, alternatively, it has prompted Christians to so identify the Church with a particular society, culture, or ethnicity as to turn Christianity into a religious ideology. Because we are “not of the world,” Christians stand against culture when the values and behaviors of the culture contradict the living tradition of the Church.
Take one early and famous example: the refusal of early Christians to honor the emperor by offering a pinch of incense before his image. Being in the world, the Christian acts within the culture as a leaven, trying to transform it by communicating to others the redemption brought by Christ. The early Christian apologists stood within culture as they attempted to explain the faith in the philosophical and cultural terms of their times and recognized within the culture foreshadowings or adumbrations of Christian truth waiting to be fulfilled. Notice the reciprocal tension between Christianity and culture as eloquently stated in a second-century document, the “Letter to Diognetus”:
Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike . . . and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land . . . They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.
It is this perennial tension of being in the world but not of the world with which Christians continue to wrestle in 21st-century America.
This tension is central to my own faith tradition, Christian Orthodoxy, familiar to most as Greek or Russian. Historically, Orthodoxy refers to the Christianity of the eastern Roman Empire, centered on Constantinople or Byzantium, as distinct from that in the West, centered on Rome, hence Roman Catholicism. The two gradually drifted apart and officially broke in the year 1054, due to changes unilaterally made to the creed by the West and the East’s rejection of the Roman pontiff’s claims of primacy. Orthodoxy first came to America with Russianmissionaries in Alaska in the 18th century and was established in the continental United States by migration in the 19th and 20th centuries from Greece, Russia, and the Balkans. I was born Roman Catholic but became Orthodox ten years ago, drawn by a series of experiences that constituted for me a spiritual renewal. I was drawn in part by a sense of profound similarity between Orthodoxy and the ethos of African-American Christianity. In both there is a quality of sad joyfulness, a sense that life in a minor key is life as it is; an emphasis on the importance of suffering as a mark of the authenticity of faith. Both African-American and Orthodox Christianity view the person as embodied spirit and inspirited body. Both understand matter and spirit to be related, not antithetical—hence the use of material and bodily gesture to reveal the presence of the spiritual to our bodily eyes. Both hold a profound trust in the healing power of ritual, which opens the door to the other world, revealing its presence within this world. Both understand the interpersonal nature of the self as shaped by a web of relationships stretching into the past and the future. Both criticize individual aggrandizement as destructive of the person. Notice that these beliefs, common to both Orthodox and African-American religious tradition, clash with dominant cultural attitudes and values.
Orthodoxy in particular offers, I believe, a distinctive view of the human person that can serve as an important critique of the definition of the core American value, freedom, the principle upon which Americans are most likely to agree.
The American idea of freedom is centered on the rights of the individual person, but with the premise—more strongly observed at some times than others—that the respect due to the individual makes possible his participation in common, public, civic life. Freedom of conscience and freedom of choice enable individuals to participate in civil institutions, which exist to serve the commonweal.
The democratic tradition defines authority as public service. It encourages participation and treasures the voice of each because you never know when it might be the voice of a prophet. This tradition is profoundly antithetical to status and power based on inherited aristocracy. (Democracy itself has something of value to say by way of criticizing clericalism, which reduces priesthood to a managerial profession. Respect for the common man may reinforce the Pauline insistence on the gifts distributed throughout the community for building up the body of Christ. The democratic definition of authority as service is certainly consonant with the gospels and is important for anyone in religious authority to constantly bring to mind.)
At its best, democracy balances the rights of the individual with the responsibility to participate in the public conversations and tasks that make civic community possible. However, the possibility of so stressing rights that we forget responsibility is a perennial threat to American liberty. The choice of privileging one over the other comes down to a simple, but profound question: “What is freedom for?” When Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence he copied from John Locke the famous list of inalienable rights endowed upon us by the Creator—with one significant difference. Jefferson substituted for Locke’s life, liberty, and property, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Tragically, Americans ever since have found it too easy to reverse Jefferson by turning the pursuit of happiness into the pursuit of property. Precisely at this juncture, Orthodox Christianity levels a powerful critique of Americans’ addiction to consumerism, the dangerous collective illusion that reduces persons to objects and turns the interpersonal relationship into one of manipulation and exploitation.
Orthodoxy offers a radically different vision of the person. We are created in the image of God. We are redeemed so that we may become more and more like the image in which we were made.In this process of theosis or divinization, we become by grace what God is by nature. A striking symbol of Orthodoxy’s opposition to the self-aggrandizement endemic to our society is our liturgical calendar, in which roughly half the year consists of days of fasting. Self-emptying, not self-fulfillment, is the purpose of Orthodox ascetical practice: “He must increase, but I must decrease,” we say with St. John the Forerunner. Or “Now I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” with St. Paul. This is a very countercultural prescription in a society that promotes getting your fill. Individual rights have been turned into self-gratification. A cycle of ever-expanding need, gratification, need, drives our consumer society.
It is easy to criticize the vulgar consumerism of mass-media advertising; religion alone does not necessarily defend us against it. Religion itself can be another form of ego gratification—a kind of spiritual consumerism that focuses on having spiritual experiences to aggrandize the self, spiritual hedonism, but hedonism nonetheless. Behind the drive for self-aggrandizement, whether material or spiritual, is a distorted sense of the person as an individualized ego—the self as the source of freedom and value. To the contrary, Orthodoxy views the person as ineluctably interpersonal. The very purpose of our being is to commune with others—to commune with the Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to commune with our fellow human persons. We stand not alone, as solitary individual selves, but in compassionate solidarity with others, the saints, who have gone before, our ancestors in the faith, whose icons surround us at church and at home—a cloud of living witnesses. And we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the present, especially with those who suffer. In the words of St. Isaac the Syrian, a 7th-century ascetic and theologian, our compassion should extend to “the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing: and by the recollection and sight of them the eyes of a compassionate man pour forth abundant tears.”
This sense of interpersonal solidarity leads Orthodoxy to reverse the privileging of rights over responsibilities. In the words of Father Zosima, the monastic staretz, or elder, in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, “the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all.” These mysterious words, echoing the offering of the Holy Gifts to God in the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, allude to Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the cross, in which “He who was without sin became sin for us.” Father Zosima is saying that Christ’s sacrificial way is ours. This same sense of responsibility “on behalf of all and for all” also illuminates the lives of the monastic elders, who in their isolation become profoundly aware of the hidden connectedness of us all. The way to true freedom and recognition of our interpersonal responsibility, they taught, is through obedience, fasting, prayer, and humility, which, with God’s help, liberate the spirit from the tyranny of habit and desire, from a slavery to a hyper-individualism that leads eventually to isolation and despair.
* * *
For Orthodox Christians, as for all people of faith, beliefs about the nature of the individual and society shape a political agenda; integrity requires that we argue not just with words, but with our lives as well. But those beliefs must make their case within the pluralistic agora of American society. The freedom of exercise clause of the First Amendment offers religion the freedom to live and express its values, and the non-establishment clause guarantees that each has to do so in the midst of supporting and conflicting claims.
If American democracy offers religion an opportunity, American pluralism offers it a challenge. Pluralism challenges us to experience religion as more than a cultural identity. Pluralism means encountering the values and attitudes and beliefs of others with respect for those who hold them. Pluralism, when taken seriously as respect for difference, rejects relativism for avoiding the hard truth that we do indeed differ. It is the difficult road we walk to achieve a mature understanding of the truth and the opportunity to share that truth with others who are seeking it. It challenges us to appropriate, internalize, and live out the religious identity passed to us by family and society. It creates an opportunity to discuss and to argue for one’s own position.
Consider the issue of abortion. When considered in the context of Orthodoxy’s holistic vision of the person within society, a whole web of moral issues emerges that does not necessarily align with any particular political party’s agenda.
Abortion is clearly a paramount issue for many Orthodox (as well as many Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants). The number of abortions performed today is horrendous. A large percentage of our fellow citizens, even those who think that too many abortions are being performed or that abortion should be to some extent restricted, have come to the conclusion that abortion is a matter of a woman’s choice. The Republican promise, implicit or explicit, is to take steps to reverse Roe v. Wade. Given the widespread division of public opinion and the even division of the Senate (which approves Supreme Court nominees), is this a credible promise? It would seem that the possibility of making abortion illegal anytime soon is remote.
Those of us who believe that human life begins with conception and that life is a sacred gift have a huge task in convincing others of our vision of the person. It will not be enough to condemn abortion. Our position needs the credibility of a Mother Teresa, who could say, “Do not kill the children; give them to us and we will raise them.” We will need the hard, long, and beautiful work of counseling pregnant women, of giving our help to those who are poor and abandoned, of offering to adopt the babies brought to term. We need to support a fabric of social welfare that will support women (particularly young and poor women) facing unwanted pregnancies. It is interesting that Holland and Belgium, countries where abortion is legal, have relatively low abortion rates (due in part to an extensive social-service network), whereas Latin America, where abortion is generally illegal and social services scant, has a relatively high rate. In the United States the abortion rate went up during the presidency of Ronald Reagan and down under Bill Clinton. The idea that a Republican presidency is going to effect a shift in national attitudes or result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade seems to me a chimera. The concept of the sacredness of life must first extend to those our society devalues: the imprisoned, the impoverished, the disabled, the mentally ill, the alien, the enemy.
I am troubled that there is no political home for my consistent ethic of life, but I also take comfort in the knowledge that electoral politics is not all there is to politics. If Chesterton’s idea of an America with the soul of a church has any validity, I believe it lies in our tradition of voluntary activity, through which faith can mobilize people to participate in the long and difficult grassroots struggle to transform our communities into a more just and peaceful society.
Orthodox voices occasionally warn us of the danger of reducing the church to a social-service agency, but that warning should not displace the tradition of compassion calling us to act for those in need. St. John Chrysostom preaching on Matthew 25:
Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. . . . Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? First, fill him when he is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn his table. . . . What is the use of providing the table with cloths woven of gold thread, and not providing Christ himself with the clothes he needs?
Or, to quote a modern Orthodox witness,
The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says “I”: “I was hungry, and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.” To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.
The same passage from St. Matthew inspired these words of Mother Maria Skobotsova; it led her to found Orthodox Action in Paris in the 1930s to carry out this Gospel imperative, and it led ultimately to her death in Ravensbruck for protecting French Jews during the Nazi occupation. Houses of hospitality, hospice care centers, communities of caring that welcome the disabled, the orphan, the mentally ill, and the abused, can be sites of sanctity in the modern desert of need, as the life of Nun Gavrilia, an “ascetic of love” who worked among the poor in India and elsewhere, testifies.
* * *
Such heroic action in the world “but not of the world” was made possible by a vision of the kingdom of God, the reign of God, in the here and now, made possible by his disciples following the precedent of Christ’s life, but never fully actualized until Heaven. It is for this kingdom that the Christian prays in the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come; thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” It is for the arrival of this kingdom of peace and justice that the Christian community, as the ongoing body of Christ in time and space, continually waits and acts. In this dynamic vision Christ is the transformer of culture because he makes present among us the kingdom of God. The concept of the kingdom of God was central to the theology of Father Alexander Schmemann, a leading figure in the American Orthodox Church, as it was for H. Richard Niebuhr, the eminent Protestant theologian, who wrote the classic texts Christ and Culture and The Kingdom of God in America. According to Schmemann and Niebuhr, it is crucial for Christians to realize that the kingdom is both here and now and still to come.
The kingdom of God—announced, inaugurated, and given by and in Christ—stands at the heart of the early Christian faith, and not only as something yet to come but as that which has come, is present now, and shall come at the end. It has come in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and in the fruit of all this—the descent of the Holy Spirit on the “last and great” day of Pentecost. It comes now and is present in the Church, the “ecclesia” of those who having died through Christ in baptism can now “walk in the newness of life,” partake now of the “joy and peace of the Holy Spirit,” eat and drink at Christ’s table in his kingdom. And it shall come at the end, when, having fulfilled all his dispensation, Christ will “fill all things with Himself.”
To keep Christianity from being reduced to religion—just one more isolated compartment among the many that occupy the modern person’s life (this, for Father Schmemann, was the meaning of secularism)—it is essential to hold sight of the reality of the kingdom as present and as future. Secularism is not antireligious. It approves of religion by turning it into what Niebuhr called an “idol,” one among others suited to our self-gratification. Secularism, in this sense, robs the Church of its eschatological dimension. It is no longer the primary community for us, the source of our life and our joy, but one more activity in a busy week, competing with work, social life, and entertainment.
When the Church loses its awareness of the kingdom of God and its essential sacramentality, there develops (as Father Schmemann writes) “a peculiar divorce of the forms of the Church’s life from their content, from that reality whose presence, power and meaning they are meant to express and, as a consequence the transformation of those forms into an end in itself so that the very task of the Church is seen as the preservation of the ‘ancient,’ ‘venerable,’ and ‘beautiful’ forms, regardless of the ‘reality’ to which they refer.” The Church, in effect, becomes a museum of archaic artifacts and rituals, beautiful but inert. What is lost, and lost not through persecution but through our own inattention and inertia, is the “very deep and essentially Orthodox experience of the Church as truly an epiphany: the revelation of, the participation in, a reality which because it is not ‘of this world’ is given to us—‘in this world’—in symbols. Hence the crucial importance of symbols in which we experience the reality of the Divine presence and action.”
The primary symbol of God’s transforming action in the world is the Eucharist. We offer the gifts of bread and wine, wheat and grapes transformed by human hands, to God, who returns them to us transformed by the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of our lord Jesus Christ. Here is the sacrament of the transformation of the entire world.
Now, we are perhaps closer to understanding the meaning of the antinomy with which I began. The antinomy of Christians being in the world but not of the world is for the sake of the transformation of the world and its return as Eucharistic offering to God, the source of all. In Father Schmemann’s words,
The Church is left in this world, in its time, space and history with a specific task or mission: “To walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6). The Church is fullness and its home is in heaven. But this fullness is given to the world . . . as its salvation and redemption. The eschatological nature of the Church is not the negation of the world, but, on the contrary, its affirmation and acceptance as the object of divine love . . . the entire “other worldliness” of the Church is nothing but the sign and the reality of the love of God for this world, the very condition of the Church’s mission to the world. The Church thus is not a “self-centered” community but precisely a missionary community, whose purpose is salvation not from, but of, the world. <
Albert J. Raboteau is the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion at Princeton University and the author of Slave Religion and A Sorrowful Joy.
The Historian, the Philosopher, and the Theologian
No, this is not the beginning of a bad joke (a la "a minister, a priest and a rabbi"). Rather, I serve up three pithy, sweet nuggets of wisdom by that apostle of common sense, G.K. Chesterton. These nuggets of wisdom are taken from the American Chesterton Society website, which all good and clear-thinking ladies and gentlemen should visit. Here is the link: http://www.chesterton.org/
The Historian:
The Historian“The whole object of history is to enlarge the experience by imagination. . . to make us realise that humanity could be great and glorious under conditions quite different from and even contrary to our own. It is to teach us that men could achieve most profitable labour without our own division of labour. It is to teach us that men could be industrious without being industrial. It is to make us understand that there might be a world in which there was far less improvement in the transport for visiting various places, [yet] there might still be a very great improvement in the places visited.”
G.K. ChestertonIllustrated London News February 4, 1922
The Philosopher:
“Philosophy is not the concern of those who pass though Divinity and Greats, but of those who pass through birth and death. Nearly all the more awful and abstruse statements can be put in words of one syllable, from ‘A child is born’ to ‘A soul is damned.’ If the ordinary man may not discuss existence, why should he be asked to conduct it?”
G.K. Chesterton“The Philosopher” George Bernard Shaw (1910)
The Theologian:
"You cannot evade the issue of God, whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him. Now if Christianity be. . . a fragment of metaphysical nonsense invented by a few people, then, of course, defending it will simply mean talking that metaphysical nonsense over and over. But if Christianity should happen to be true - then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true."
G.K. Chesterton Daily News December 12, 1903
The Historian:
The Historian“The whole object of history is to enlarge the experience by imagination. . . to make us realise that humanity could be great and glorious under conditions quite different from and even contrary to our own. It is to teach us that men could achieve most profitable labour without our own division of labour. It is to teach us that men could be industrious without being industrial. It is to make us understand that there might be a world in which there was far less improvement in the transport for visiting various places, [yet] there might still be a very great improvement in the places visited.”
G.K. ChestertonIllustrated London News February 4, 1922
The Philosopher:
“Philosophy is not the concern of those who pass though Divinity and Greats, but of those who pass through birth and death. Nearly all the more awful and abstruse statements can be put in words of one syllable, from ‘A child is born’ to ‘A soul is damned.’ If the ordinary man may not discuss existence, why should he be asked to conduct it?”
G.K. Chesterton“The Philosopher” George Bernard Shaw (1910)
The Theologian:
"You cannot evade the issue of God, whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him. Now if Christianity be. . . a fragment of metaphysical nonsense invented by a few people, then, of course, defending it will simply mean talking that metaphysical nonsense over and over. But if Christianity should happen to be true - then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true."
G.K. Chesterton Daily News December 12, 1903
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