MosNews
The Moscow Patriarchate has suspended relations with the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden after it decided to establish an official ceremony to bless homosexual couples, the Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday.
“We have received with great disappointment and grief the news that not only does the Lutheran Church of Sweden not oppose so-called homosexual marriages, but has even ruled to establish an official blessing ceremony,” the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church said in a statement at a session in Moscow.
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The Orthodox Church is not “against gay marriage” at all. Such a thing as “gay marriage” does not exist in free mankind, mankind in its natural state. The Orthodox Church is for sanctification. It is our boat to Salvation, back to Heaven where we really belong but chose to abandon. One of the paths to salvation for many people is through Holy Matrimony that gives opportunities everyday for self-sacrificial love.
So the Orthodox Church is very much for marriage. Nothing more to say. Not for â??heterosexual marriageâ?? as that only states the obvious. The definition of marriage is not a concept that can change according to what society deems right in one era or the other. The word “marriage” always means the Sacrament that unites a woman and a man into a mystical unity of spirit and body blessed by God.
The Love that can develop from such a close bond is unlimited. It can overflow so that children can be born from it and rejoice in it, family, friends and the rest of society benefit greatly by a good marriage. The husband and wife are called by our wonderful loving Church to serve each other in love, putting each other first denying their own will and desires to serve each other! What a high calling! Iâ??d say what a heroic act, a terrible promise! We can all imagine how hard this is but also what strong bonds it creates.
Now for our poor brothers and sisters that have fallen so deeply in habitual sin that they are bonded by it, they try to persuade those who are not yet as wounded that their wounds are sweet, we have to stand our ground so at least we can be there to help them come to their senses if they so try.
Lets know those basic things.
It is immense foolishness for 2 men or 2 women to try and become a unity. This cannot be for the simple reason that God created mankind in His image. But please pay attention, he did not just create Adam in His image. Mankind consists immediately of 2 sexes the male and female which together are in the image of God!!! This truth is lost in our everyday limited language, but it is so clear and our holy Fathers teach us so.
Please do take a look at our Bibleâ??s very first chapter and see what it clearly states in: Genesis 1
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let THEM rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
MALE AND FEMALE he created them.
Pretty clear. Mankind has two sexes that in a mystical unity are created in Godâ??s image. That is why couples refer to each other as â??my other halfâ??. Because their natural state is their unity. They are inseparable not because of superficial emotions but because of a blessed mystical unity. This has been established right from our very existence and happens throughout the ages even to non-Christians because that is mankindâ??s natural state. (Of course monks and nuns live the life of the Angels on earth and are wedded to Chris Himself. This is not contradictory to our topic).
I say “gay marriage” does not exist and I do not mean that it simply does not exist because state law or Church canons don’t allow it, but because it is a concept that very perverted minds have come up with, THEY put the idea together. It is not an idea that preexists in nature and waits for us to discover it like scientific knowledge.
All it is is the perversion of our natural state. Just like all abuse. To eat is healthy and mandatory, to overeat brings disease and death. To marry is the blessed state of mankind, to pervert those relationships is to destruct the concept of our very existence, to destruct LOVE itself.
They have decided to shove their perversion down our throats in recent times.To make it “socially acceptable” just like with many other things. They are very successful despite the utter nonsense they support, because WE ARE LAZY and do not even know what we stand for. In free (free thinking, holy blessed) humankind many things do not exist, such as “innocent extra-marital affairs”, “choice to kill” a baby, “choice to euthanize” those annoying older parents but perverse minds talk about it over and over and we who do not lead a devout spiritual life but are only Christians by name, grow so accustomed to such lies that we have no reaction! We have a responsibility to at least let those people know that the path they have chosen is certainly not as rosy as they may be deceived by their blindness to think.
Knowledge of Truth does not really come to us by deep theological study. Studying our Faith certainly is helpful, but living the Sacramental life is what brings us the knowledge of Truth. That is because Thruth is not a system of ideas like the Enlightment proponents would have us believe. Christ Himself is THE TRUTH. He brings us understanding of very important and difficult things by getting closer to Him through the sacraments of our Holy Church. He said:
“I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
Pretty simple really for us to gain eternal life. We are given the map, the tools and even guides and fellow Christians. Even a designated Angel! Here’s everything:
Go to confession, prepare and receive communion, have a prayer rule, read the Holy Scriptures and Orthodox books and have humility so we’ll guard ourselves from heresies and other temptations.
Lets fight in the battle. It is very real, it is right hear right now against the spiritual powers of this world and against our own fallen nature. We are on the winning side though! Christ is Risen! All we need to do is be awake in the battle field!
The spiritual battle field, not the “social wars”. Those are transient, always will exist as they always have and bring no salvation.
Forgive my tone if it has come off strong. These things though should have us outraged, not confused!
I will be glad to hear other comments!
Lets cheer each other along in the battle sister!
In Christ,
Dia
My initial greeting unfortunately got deleted last night during my copying and pasting.
so:
Dear Olympiada,
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Thank you for raising such a topic. I could not pass it up despite being dead tired!
So, of course for conception to take place it only takes a sperm and an egg. Who said otherwise?
But what blessing it is when the conception is a product of love!
Note that when love overflows children can be born because of it and rejoice in it. I didn’t say that this is the only condition where a child can be born 😉
If this belief (of love producing children) is strong amongst traditional Orthodox couples it is because it is unthinkable to have sexual relations with someone you do not love!
Also there are couples that love each other but cannot have children. No contradiction.
Some Orthodox may be very humble in Church sometimes, they may have come from other lands so their accent or vocabulary are not perfect, but there are many highly educated members amongst us.
If they have views contrary to american main streem it may be that indeed they know better. Such immense differences in attitude and worldviews can seem mistaken or naive to those who do not have the same mindset, or historical and philosophical perspective but there may be some wisdom to learn from rather than quickly criticize.
In any case, noone understands Orthodoxy by critically examining it. It is not a set of philosophical ideas to contemplate. It is an experiential revelation. You understand it by doing it.
I also realized that I did not directly address your main point:
“what relevance gay marriage has to me as a straight Orthodox woman? ”
I think it is good to see that Truth is defended within the Church (and the Orthodox Church is the Church, all others are “churches”)
We should be very upset if someone in the Orthodox Church thought to push such an anticanonical but also unatural idea such as trying to create a unity from people of the same sex. We also should glorify God that evidently our Church firmly defends the Truth and does not become game to whatever modern ideas of each era dictate.
So as Orthodox women we can be thankful for knowing the Truth and praying for our clergy to “rightfully preach the word” of God’s Truth.
Well I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to step on your personal belief system. I based my response in your self-description as an “Orthodox” woman. If you just mean that you’ve been baptized and frequent Church then yeah, my response is addressing someone different.
Also in conversations that have such a different point of view as a base unfortunately it often comes off that each other is dictating a thought process to the other party.
You are too in case you haven’t noticed.
Thank you for noticing my bubble though! It is very nice in here, and I do not find any reason to abandon it. I have worked very hard to built my part inside the bubble and it is not done yet. It has and is taking me time, reading, praying, loving, hurting and tears to create my little space in it. It also wasn’t my idea to enter into it. I am glad I was called to joing though. There’s a lot of space waiting to be occupied by others too.
I have also fought very hard to protect it. Mainly from my own self when I see the grass greener on the other side. You know, my Master allows me to do that. Every now and then I run away or just walk away it depends, so that I can be closer to something luring in the outside.
Somehow though, even if everything seems right out there, I am not happy. I am “fine” but not fullfilled.
Then I realize how I miss my little space in the bubble. But I cannot enter it again as I am. I have become a little sticky, a little mudy and need to wash first before I can enter again because otherwise anything I touch will become sticky too. My joy will not come back unless I clean myself first.
We are pieces of shining gold, but often get covered up in mud. Thank goodness there’s a way to cleanse oneself and even work on becoming shinier.
Oh, and you know, the world of “the living” is very transient over here. I bet “over there” where you are also. They are living until they aren’t anymore. 100 years, and then end of story. Who cares about their opinions, their work, their contributions. All there’s left is the love they’ve lived, the sucrifices they may have made.
Back to the topic you raised, uh…I don’t really get the “who cares about love” comment. As far as what? As far as gay marriage? As far as procreation? As far as putting up with a spouse?
(It is amazing you seem to think that I (or other Orthodox) do not have exactly the same issues in my life as you probably do!)
Sure there’s millions of couples not living in love. (they also usually are very strongly oppinionated people too)
Point is, we are created with imense capacity to love and that’s when we are the happiest.
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
We cannot really call ouselves Orthodox until we have submitted our hearts, minds, and souls to the love of Jesus Christ in the Church. Faith in the Church is one of the requirements. That faith is not and should not be a blind faith. We cannot however develop the mind and soul of the critic especially if we use the standards of the world to be critical of the Church. The critic is sarcastic, cynical and filled with doubt.
As regards ordination. There is far too much emphsis on achievement of rank through ordination. The emphasis should be on serving Christ in the situation of our daily lives, whatever those may be. If our eye be single on Christ in all that we do, we will be living a sacramental life that transforms and transfigures many around us by the Grace of God. That is the full Eucharist, and that is where our priesthood lies.
How often do we enter our inner sancuary and offer the sacrifice of praise, repentence, and obediance? How often do we pay attention to the hurts and stuggles of those closest to us, inviting them into our bubble of Light not by words, but by deeds?
Several people have commented that the arguments for a male only priesthood are archaic and illogical. Well, I find that the arguments for females in the priesthood are narcisistic, power oriented ideology. I think it would be a mistake to attempt to develop a specific teaching on male priesthood against women. That is not what the Church is about and to do so only gives victory to those who wish to radically and unnecessarily change the whole fabric and substance of the Church. Instead we must forcefully teach and live the full tradition of the Church that demonstrates the nature of sacrament, Theosis, and salvation.
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
Note 8, Well said, Michael
Michael writes: “We cannot really call ouselves Orthodox until we have submitted our hearts, minds, and souls to the love of Jesus Christ in the Church. Faith in the Church is one of the requirements. That faith is not and should not be a blind faith. We cannot however develop the mind and soul of the critic especially if we use the standards of the world to be critical of the Church. The critic is sarcastic, cynical and filled with doubt.”
Thomas Merton made a distinction between intellectual difficulties and theological doubt. In my observation, many people equate intellectual difficulty with theological doubt. But I think there is an important difference.
In my view — perhaps yours too — theology is something that is experienced, not derived from rational propositions. But even rationality can lead one to theology. As Protestant theologian Albert Schweitzer noted in his _Philosophy of Civilization_, rational thought taken to its end leads to mysticism. Many people see rationality as the same as secularism, but it doesn’t have to be.
It seems to me that the job of the church is to meet people where they are, not where they would have been 2,000 years ago. The church needs to show people that the truths of faith are not excluded by rationality — that rationality and theology need not be incompatible. In other words, the church needs to show people that having a rational worldview does not exclude the truths of theology. Which is to say that mystery and rationality can exist together.
Jim said,
“It seems to me that the job of the church is to meet people where they are, not where they would have been 2,000 years ago.”
Jim, What does this mean? Could you give an example or two please? Thanks.
Augie writes: “Jim, What does this mean? Could you give an example or two please?”
What I mean is that what people are willing to believe now is completely different from what they were willing to believe centuries ago. To the extent that the church (any church, not just Orthodox) expects people today to adopt the belief practices of previous centuries, to that extent they will no longer speak in any significant way to most people of today.
Here’s a couple of concrete examples. There is another web site where people who are interested in Orthodoxy ask questions. One question came up about St. George and the Dragon. Apparently there icons on which the dragon is depicted. So some people were arguing that an Orthodox believer must believe in the literal existence of the dragon.
Another time the discussion turned to Mary living in the Jewish temple for three years. I think most people today would understand this as a charming story that utterly contradicts everything we know about how the temple operated. But again, several people were arguing for the literal historicity of the story.
Now, if the idea is that people have to believe in such things in order to join a church, all I can say is that the number of potential converts is going to be very small.
I often hear “secularism” denounced as the reason for the decline in Christianity. But to be completely blunt, the reason for the decline in Christianity is because people no longer believe in the stories as literal stories. They don’t think there was a literal virgin birth. They don’t think Jesus walked on the water. They don’t think that demons inhabit people. And so on.
And really, it’s more than just that. It’s not that they don’t believe in these things, but that these things mean nothing to them. They are of no significance. I mean, even if you could somehow prove that Jesus walked on the water, the response would be, “dude, that’s cool, I want shoes like that!” This isn’t because people don’t believe in the miraculous, but because the miraculous is so far distant from them that they do not even associate it with anything religious or spiritual.
In ancient times people expected the miraculous. They expected signs and wonders. They expected prophecies and oracles. They expected to hear about strange and marvelous creatures. These things were simply part of the landscape. But they aren’t any more.
If you doubt that, look at the discussions in this venue. Does anyone ever mention a miracle? No. Does anyone ever mention a prophecy? No. If OrthodoxyToday existed 2,000 years ago, people would argue for Christianity based on the presence of miracles, and based on the fulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament. Today they argue for Christianity based on certain considerations related to social conditions and intellectual or moral principles. Arguments such as that would have fallen flat 2,000 years ago, in the same way that the miraculous falls flat today.
So we come to the “R” word — “relevance.” The issue is how to make Christianity relevant to people today. Such a suggestion usualy brings howls of protest, but before the protest consider this: Christianity was relevant to people 2,000 years ago, and it spread like wildfire. Today it’s not relevant, and it is decreasing, especially in the westernized countries. Keeping Christianity irrelevant to people in the West is great way to ensure the increasing marginalization of Christianity in the West.
Rationality founded on materialism is false. Rationality founded on the existence of a loving God who incarnated and gave himself up for the life of the world is what the Church has always taught. In the heart of the the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom the priest offers thanks for the rational and bloodless sacrifice.
Demons are real, they do inhabit and influence people all the time. Angels also exist too. I know this, I have experienced it.
The miraculous happens all the time. Just read the documented lives of recent saints such as St. John Maxomovitch, Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco who reposed in 1966. A little further back, St. John of Kronstadt who reposed in 1907.
I’ll give you an even more immediate example that I found out about just today: four years ago a close friend of mine lost one of her twin girls in the womb. She has been, by her own account, inconsolable ever since–her grief driving her into dispair. This summer, she went to Romania and had a brief private meeting with a monk there who suffered under the Communists. He lifted the debilitating part of her grief from her. He just did it. She says, he saved her life, in fact her life and the life of her family is completely changed for the better.
Such everyday miracles of life in the Church are not talked about much because they are quite common, but rationally inacessable until one has first accepted Jesus Christ as one of the Holy Trinity who incarnated for us and for our salvation, went to the cross, resurrected and ascended plus all of the other foundational beliefs of Christianity embodied in the orginal Nicean Creed which includes the Virginity of Mary.
So many people cry out for proof, the proof has been given thousands of times over, but if you don’t have eyes to see, you will not see.
I like your example Jim, the response:”dude, that’s cool, I want shoes like that!”
I think it is true for many people. In our culture we take too many things lightly so we would ridicule with such light comments even something we believe as true.
In fact it feels like apart from career topics, everything else is regarded as having entertainment value and is therefore sold easily, whilst defiled and undermined in the process.
I do think though that many people can still catch a glimpse of the divine inside them. Many wonder, many object many search. To make Orthodoxy more relevant doesn’t mean to stop regarding miracles as true because contemporary culture has difficulty accepting them (and I don’t think that’s what you are supporting), but rather have charismatic teachers who can explain to us the significance of such events and the harmony between our material and spiritual natures.
Then again though those things are not necessarily grasped with logic. I am not saying they are incompatible with logic, but Faith relies on wanting to believe and find Truth, not wanting to explain and draw a logical conclusion. That is because our logic is human and thus finite. How can we explain and understand with our own limited meens and in our very limited language the divine wisdom of God?
It may be that in our culture the word “God” has lost its meaning. If God is God, that’s it. God means allpowerful, allwise, infinite, terrible, awsome etc. He is not just an idea we’ve come up with and therefore can fully comprehend and explain.
Come on, laws of physics change all the time, as we learn more about our micro and macrocosm, how can we be so arrogant to think we can explain or negate the divine?
So to make the message of the Gospel more relevant I think we need action. As Michael said, when Christians live as Christians, their example and life are a huge witness in the midst of our stress, routine, problems and agony. When we partake of the Sacraments, putting the appropriate emphasis on the divine, and know our Faith we can relate it immediately to practical terms of our life.
In everything we do we can include our Faith as a measure and make it immediately relevant, because God is very concerned with our slightest decision.
Every one of our investment or spending decisions, whom we are angry at or whom we are trying to forgive, what we do with our free time, and what movies we allow ourselves and our children to watch. What we wear, what we buy, what we eat, what we give, how and when we smile, are strict, give love, mercy forgiveness or when we have to stand up for truth, keep ourselvese or close friends accountable, ask for forgiveness, admit mistakes, guard from pride, help fellow students with homework even if they’ll end up with higher grades than us.
God has something to say about all these and infinite more circumstances. The Bible gives us a rule to follow, our Christian ethic (of forgiveness and mercy) do too, our Spiritual Father can focus our attention or guide us if asked, our conciense, the Holy Spirit enlighting us. We have many sources that tell us what’s right what’s wrong, and how to approach the grey or the difficult.
So to make Christianity relevant, lets learn to relate it to our everyday lives, lets seek those good Spiritual Fathers that can do so, lets read St. John Chrysostom and other Fathers of the Church and lets be ready through our individual and corporal actions to witness and teach by example primarily.
Christianity is very relevant for “those who have ears”. The Church sure needs to use all means of visibility but should not defile the Faith to make it sound more relevant.
Happy New Year!
Olympiada,
I don’t really see our disagreement :-S
When did I say that love is required for conception?
I did not.
However love should not be irrelevant to procreation. It is meant to be the harbor in which conception takes place. We are in our fallen state though, so as with everything good we can defile that too. We defile eating (a necessary task and enjoyable blessing) with overeating (corrupting the essence of food), intelligence (a blessing that reflects our being created in God’s image) with using it to deceive (and serving the great deceiver), kind words with playing politics why not reducing love to just having sex (and by chance creating a baby too)?
God allows us to defile all those good things he created or the talents he gave us and within our powers we cause the outcomes too. We become fat, we loose trust, we loose our integrity and bring to the world children without love (how SAD!) Not to mention that in the process we defile the Temple of the Holy Spirit and cause another person to sin too.
So no disagreement about the bioogical process of conception.The point I am making (and you just somehow disregard it) is that conception is meant to take place when a married couple communes of their love in the most intimate and immediate of ways. That’s when God intended it to happen. It still is though within the power of our free will to allow it to happen in any other environment too.
(I am sorry, I try not to get offended but I am very weak too. Please don’t give me another biology lecture! I am not from Mars, just from my little space in the bubble)
Dia writes: “Christianity is very relevant for ‘those who have ears’. The Church sure needs to use all means of visibility but should not defile the Faith to make it sound more relevant.”
It’s my argument that the miraculous was what was used to make Christianity relevant 2,000 years ago. At that time people *expected* the miraculous. They *expected* prophecies and oracles. This was part of the worldview.
Here’s an example from the third century. Some of the writings of Celsus, an opponent of Christianity, were preserved in the comments of Origen. Here’s a couple of criticisms of Christianity by Celsus:
” . . . she [Mary] disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.”
Note that Celsus does not criticize the idea that Jesus performed miracles. To Celsus, having miraculous powers is no big thing — it’s something that you learn. Celsus again:
” . . . if God, like Jupiter in the comedy, should, on awaking from a lengthened slumber, desire to rescue the human race from evil, why did He send this Spirit of which you speak into one corner (of the earth)? He ought to have breathed it alike into many bodies, and have sent them out into all the world.”
Here, Celsus criticizes the incarnation. But note that he’s not opposed to God sending his spirit into the world. He criticizes the idea that God would send his spirit to some obscure corner of the world. Celsus again:
” . . . If these idols are nothing, what harm will there be in taking part in the feast? On the other hand, if they are demons, it is certain that they too are God’s creatures, and that we must believe in them, sacrifice to them according to the laws, and pray to them that they may be propitious.”
Celsus has no problem with the idea that an idol might represent a supernatural being. Celsus again, on these supernatural beings:
“We must either not live, and indeed not come into this life at all, or we must do so on condition that we give thanks and first-fruits and prayers to demons, who have been set over the things of this world: and that we must do as long as we live, that they may prove good and kind.”
Celsus sees the supernatural as just part of how things are.
Now please note that Celsus was an ancient ENEMY of Christianity. But note how he accepts the miraculous, supernatural spirits, gods dealing with humankind, and so on. This is because that’s simply how people saw things back then.
Look at the arguments by Justin Marytr in his _Apology_. He accepts the whole magical worldview even for things outside of Christianity. In one of his arguments Justin says “There was a Samaritan, Simon, a native of the village called Gitto, who in the reign of Claudius Caesar, and in your royal city of Rome, did mighty acts of magic, by virtue of the art of the devils operating in him.”
Clement uses the example of the phoenix bird as a proof of the resurrection: “Let us consider that wonderful sign [of the resurrection] which takes place in Eastern lands, that is, in Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years,” etc. But the phoenix was also spoken of by ancient Greek and Roman historians.
What I’m saying that that it’s not just that early Christians believed in Christian miracles. It’s that they perceived the world as a miraculous place, in which miracles, and magic, signs and wonders — Christian and non-Christian — were commonplace.
My argument is that the miraculous is how Christianity was made relevant to people 2,000 years ago. It’s not that miracles were “faked” or “invented” or that the early Christians “lied.” It’s that they expressed their faith in a way that was consistent with the worldview of the time.
For those who denounce “secularism” because it denies miracles — I can only say that if you want to get back to the early Christian worlview, you’re not only going to have to accept Christian miracles. You’re going to have to see the world as a place inhabited by various spirits, demons, fantastical creatures, and other supernatural beings, in which real magic and real miracles are part of the fabric of everyday life. This was the early Christian worlview. And if being a Christian today requires adopting that worldview, all I can say is good luck finding converts.
Jim concerning your views about miracles, what then is your belief about the Eucharist?
Jerry writes: “Jim concerning your views about miracles, what then is your belief about the Eucharist?”
I don’t really have a belief, per se. Like most things in Christianity, I see the Eucharist as something to be experienced rather than explained. Personally, I have no problem with the miraculous, especially if we’re talking about the kind of “everyday miracle” described earlier by Michael. I don’t even rule out the possibility of actual physical miracles.
My main point is that people in the West increasingly do not conceive of life and the world in terms of the miraculous. To insist that people today must believe in specific miracles is like showing up in Japan with Mexican pesos instead of yen. There’s nothing wrong with pesos, but they are just incomprehensible pieces of paper to most people in Japan. In my view, making Christianity “relevant” to people of today is little more than going to Japan with yen instead of pesos.
Note 18: I’m not sure early peoples accepted the miraculous as commonplace. It seems that the miracles attributed to Christ were often treated with skepticism if not outright scorn, even though the things he did were a bit more “showy” than the everyday banalities I often hear Christians today label as “miracles”. The attitude seems to be, even after walking on water or raising someone from the dead, something like “That was pretty cool … but can you do anything else?” or “Eh … maybe there’s some other explanation for it”. I’d actually be more suspicious of the Gospels if there were no doubters, but there seemed to be plenty.
As far as making Christianity “relevant”, I don’t think Christianity really offered what people were looking for, even in the time of Christ. They wanted some sort of warrior or king, and what they got certainly seemed to defy their desires, needs and expectations. I’m not sure that we’re not going to feel the same sense of disappointment, if you will, today. I hesitate to use that word, but Christianity (at least for me) does not offer the nice explanations, guarantees and assurances that I personally would like to have.
JamesK writes: “I’m not sure early peoples accepted the miraculous as commonplace. It seems that the miracles attributed to Christ were often treated with skepticism if not outright scorn . . .”
Unbelievers may have have doubted the miracles attributed to Jesus, but they didn’t doubt the idea of miracles — as one can see with the early Christian critic Celsus.
JamesK: “As far as making Christianity “relevant”, I don’t think Christianity really offered what people were looking for, even in the time of Christ.”
Well . . . then you have to explain how Christians became so numerous is a relatively short amount of time, and in an era without printing press or mass media. Studies have been done on the many factors related to the spread of Christianity, but surely one of them was that Christianity was relevant to the potential converts.
JamesK: “They wanted some sort of warrior or king, and what they got certainly seemed to defy their desires, needs and expectations.”
Certainly Jesus would not have fulfilled the expectations of the Jewish leadership in Israel. But Christianity did spread among the hellenized Jews and among the gentiles who went to Jewish synagoges throughout the region, in addition to those who had no Jewish affiliation.
Olympiada,
Thanks for clarifying. We really are not in disagreement at all. We both agree that our own will can lead to selfish actions. All I added to the point is that God intends us to live our life unselfishly but allows us to do as we please.
Jim,
I think I got your point. Which I think is:
In early Christian times all people were accustomed to the idea of miraculous interventions and everyone believed in all sorts of spirits occupying the earth and interfering with human life. Nowadays people just do not really believe in the supernatural.
As Orthodox though we do fully believe in the existence of the Holy Trinity as the one God and creator of everything else material and immaterial. Part of that creation are also the Angels and the fallen angels, the demons. Our own souls are also never dead, they never cease to exist but only enter eternity after the short life on this earth. We also believe in miracles big and smaller and have a pretty significant mystical component intertwined in our Faith and everyday life practices.
So all this would probably be too much for a Western raised person to accept. Too much “supernatural nonsense” that cannot be proven or even worse perhaps, observed, studied and experimented with in controlled environments.
But this is where the comment on those â??who have earsâ?? goes.
You cannot approach Faith with the rational tools used for the study of the seen (and created) world. Of course we can theologize, explain many things, do comparative studies, determine if something agrees with our dogmatic thesis or not, study the history of Christianity and all these good things with our intellect.
However we understand Faith with faith. We have the desire to understand, so we humbly practice what weâ??ve been taught, and learn more in the process. Living by the principles our Tradition and Church canons teach we grow. We sometimes do things without understanding the reason or their significance, but slowly as we go along we learn something new and understand larger pieces of the puzzle.
We believe in attracting the Holy Spirit by living a godly life. The more we clean out our hearts to make room for Christ, the more He abides in us. It is through the Holy Spirit that we gain understanding, not through our intellectual endeavors. That is why we pray and must pray more and more. Pray and ask for spiritual gifts too. Ask for reverence, humility, patience, obedience, trust. We attract the Holy Spirit with a holy lifestyle though, not just by agreeing with a system of beliefs. Orthodoxy is not some philosophical set of ideas to agree with, but a certain direction to adopt in life. â??I believeâ?? means I think it is so, and I do according to this. It does not mean that I simply accept some principles as true, but that I also change my life and see that my actions befit the principles I hold true. So we attract the Holy Spirit by abiding in Christ, leading an Orthodox lifestyle (with the Sacraments as the center) and the more â??illuminedâ?? we become the more we understand as we read, ask and contemplate.
Even in the way we read the Holy Scriptures we see that we do not use the tools of analysis that are used to examine literary pieces. We read the same Scripture to adults, children, intelligent and less intelligent people the same. The living Word of God first enters the heart of a person and helps their faith grow, and then sets on the intellect to give understanding and teach.
That does not mean we negate the benefits of education. On the contrary, we are urged to study the Scriptures and not be lazy but use and further all the talents God has entrusted us with, to multiply them and benefit ourselves and others for His glory. Wisdom in the divine things, and the understanding of life though is not gained by being an expert in many fields but by carefully guarding the heart and increasing the spiritual life.
So if we are having difficulty persuading people of the existence of angels and demons, that is ok. Most of us do not understand all there is to it, but we can always grow. People in my experience are attracted to true worship and theology in their hearts when they find it. Attending services can speak very loudly sometimes, whilst trying to evangelize by trying to describe those things is much more difficult. Understanding and faith come to those that earnestly seek it. I find a certain passage very consoling and strengthening: Mark 9:24 â??Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!â??
I have seen spiritual fathers behave in different ways when an enquirer approaches them. An example that comes to mind is when a very nice and very evangelical protestant friend approached one of our good priests and started asking questions in a manner that was rather trying to attack Orthodoxy instead of understanding it. The priest showed little patience in informing him that his belief system is just a plain corruption of the Truth though he did try to explain briefly the meaning of Tradition. I initially was surprised by the harshness. I have seen the same priest though getting into wonderful long discussions with other enquirers and saw that it does matter for a persons heart to be clean of pride when seeking understanding.
If we are thinking we can approach our Holy Orthodox Faith and understand it with our limited means and even criticize it, then pride will certainly lead us astray. If we eagerly truly seek understanding with humility and trust we can probably ask, read and discuss all we want.
Now as far as evangelizing though we still need to do work. Surely it is strange to keep Orthodoxy out of the public sight, letting others know of our presence is probably a good thing. Iâ??m thinking that making Orthodox books more widely available, participating in other political, religious or whatever other forums where we actually talk about our Faith (as it hopefully informs our views) and having commentaries by Orthodox people published are all good tools. Inviting friends to celebrate a nameday or Slava and explaining what that is, explaining our Icons at home and the office desk, fasting and crossing ourselves are all personal witness tools that sometimes fall on good soil. I also like the existence of the radio program receive.org playing in secular radio stations, as it makes our Faith part of our daily life, just like music is for many of us. Welcoming committees in Churches, a bulletin distributed to anyone who signs up whether they are a member or not and information on good websources and listings in search engines all seem good ideas.
I do not mean to undermine Michaelâ??s point, that visiting the sick, suffering, tending to the needs of those around us are a powerful way of showing our Christianity. We do need though to also show where we get the direction, inspiration and strength from.
Dia writes: “Nowadays people just do not really believe in the supernatural.”
I think it’s more than that. It’s that for most people the supernatural is meaningless, except as a form of entertainment at the movies. They simply do not relate to life that way. Telling someone about a miracle is like giving him a handful of horseshoe nails — “what am I supposed to do with this?” — would be the response.
Dia: “We also believe in miracles big and smaller and have a pretty significant mystical component intertwined in our Faith and everyday life practices.”
See, here’s where I part ways with the Orthodox. I don’t have any problem with the idea of mystery, or with the idea that spiritual and moral truths can be communicated through miracles and doctrines. But I don’t necessarily “believe” in them. For example, I find the concept of the Trinity to be very inspiring and meaningful, as well as mysterious. But I’m happy to leave it at that. I would have a hard time saying that I “believe” in the Trinity. “Belief” to me is something that is the result of a rational process of evaluating evidence. So for me it is simply incompatible to say that I “believe” in something that is fundamentally mysterious and inexplicable. I think there is an important difference between faith and belief.
For me, many of the Christian doctrines are attempts to comprehend something that is incomprehensible. To require “belief” in them kills something. It’s like the difference between seeing a beautiful butterfly in the wild, vs. killing it and pinning it to a board. In the first case you experience the beauty and mystery of the creature. In the second case you have a dead bug in a collection.
# So Jim if you don’t believe Christian doctrine to be “believable” truths on their merit, do you then find them to be truths through your own understanding?
Hopefully to clarify for understanding, do you only considered them believable truths through your own personal rational acceptance of them?
And in a similar theme is the Eucharist only valid because you have rationalized its understanding within your own thought? It’s valid only because you accept its validity?
Jim,
The hopeful thing is that we do not have horseshoes but we do have an eternal soul. So even if most people are not ready at any given time to “understand” or logically accept the significance of miracles or divine presence and spiritual powers, many people wonder about eternity, afterlife spirits and their soul from time to time. We do that because we somehow “know” or feel there’s something to understand or find. That is why cults and religions develop all over the place throughout the ages. This is why yoga, wicca and paganism are back in fashion. Many people feel there is “something” there and are trying to get in touch with it willing to try whatever.
“Belief” to me is something that is the result of a rational process of evaluating evidence.
How unfortunate it is that we have to communicate in English!
Well, no! “Belief” in matters of Faith is something you hold true without necessarily “knowing” it to be true because of scientific proof or other evidence.
“For me, many of the Christian doctrines are attempts to comprehend something that is incomprehensible.”
That is also not so. Orthodoxy is the one that sais for the Dogmas that (in my own words): “we know this is so because of God’s revelations. We do not understand/comprehend it as human beings with our limited powers, so we cannot explain it in human-logic terms. However God said so (or showed so) and this is enough for us. We hold it true and indisputable”
The belief in the Trinity as an example is one of the Dogmas of the Orthodox Church. We do not comprehend the union and individuality but proclaim it. We have a lot of reverence for the Holy Trinity as well as a lot of humility because of the fact that we are not the ones that came up with the idea.
This prayer, offered by the priest I believe before he asks for the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts during Pentecost give a god although not complete description of who God is:
“O most pure, undefiled, unoriginate, invisible, incomprehensible, inscrutable, immutable, invincible, immeasurable, gentle Lord, Who alone dost possess immortality, Who dwellest in light unapproachable…”
Orthodoxy has many words to describe what God is not, as cannot really describe wholly what He is. So here is the “apophatic” approach of proclaiming that He is not visible, not comprehensible, not measurable. We do know though that He is gentle, philanthropic, Love (and that Christ is the Truth)
I am certainly not the one to give more detail on this, but I hope I’ve made the point that NO! Orthodoxy does not try to comprehend the incomprehensible, but calls it “mystery” and believes in it because His Church cannot do anything but trust her groom.
Jerry writes: “So Jim if you don’t believe Christian doctrine to be ‘believable’ truths on their merit, do you then find them to be truths through your own understanding?”
I’m not sure what you mean by “on their own merit” here, unless you mean that they are intrinsically meaningful and inspiring. In that sense I would say that they are true, in the sense that they express moral and spiritual truths. But it does not follow from that that they are literally true.
Let me give you an example. Atomic theory explains many phenomena. It is a very powerful theory. But the way we typically understand the theory, and the way it is usually presented, is that there are these little balls rotating around each other, and other balls that are glued to each other. More complex compounds are held together by these little sticks representing forces.
Now I know that matter isn’t made up of little balls and sticks. But it’s the only way I can conceive of it. Looked at literally, scientists say that particles exist in two different places at once, that there are eleven different dimensions, and so on. But none of that means anything to me. So I go with the balls and sticks.
So is the “ball and stick” version of atomic theory true in the strongest sense of the word? Of course not. It’s obviously false. But is it true in the sense that it helps us to understand something about the universe that otherwise would be impossible to grasp, even partially? In that sense it certainly is true.
Here’s a theological example. We talk about the “persons” of the Trinity. We use this and other anthropological concepts in talking about God, because this is the only way we can conceive of God. It doesn’t mean that our concepts have some kind of isomorphic relationship to the deity, or that the concepts are “true” in a factual sense. In other words, I see a “mystery” as not only something that cannot be grasped rationally, but also something that by its very nature is quite beyond any concept.
Jerry: “And in a similar theme is the Eucharist only valid because you have rationalized its understanding within your own thought? It’s valid only because you accept its validity?”
Here I am not sure what you mean by “valid.”