Choice

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America, Atheists, Calvin, Creation from Nothing, Image and Likeness, Psalm 1, St. Hilary

Having established that the tree next to the stream is Christ, St. Hilary explains how the happy man can be like Christ the Tree of Life:

That happy man, then, will become like unto this tree when he shall be transplanted, as the thief was, into the garden and set to grow beside the rills of water: and his planting will be that happy new planting which cannot be uprooted, to which the Lord refers in the Gospels when He curses the other kind of planting and says: ‘Every planting that My Father hath not planted shall be rooted up (Matt 15:13).’ This tree, therefore, will yield its fruits. Now in all other passages where God’s Word teaches some lesson from the fruits of trees, it mentions them as making fruit rather than as yielding fruit, as when it says: ‘A good tree cannot make evil fruits (Matt 7:18),’ and when in Isaiah the complaint about the vine is: ‘I looked that it should make grapes, and it made thorns (Is 5:2).’ But this tree will yield its fruits, being supplied with free-will and understanding for the purpose. For it will yield its fruits in its own season.

It is God’s desire to see everyone be like Him. He wants nothing more than to have every human being in all of history transplanted, drinking of water that brings everlasting life — just as He did with the Thief on the Cross. Note, however, that St. Hilary acknowledges something very important about how God deals with human beings — the fact that the happy man yields his fruits rather than makes his fruits demonstrates that the exercise of free will is a necessary component to this entire process — of becoming blessed, happy and ultimately transplanted.

One of the arguments used against Christianity is in reaction to the fire and brimstone-type homilies that are part and parcel to the history of Christianity in America. This history is heavily influenced by the fatalism of Calvin, which, in turn, affects entire swaths of denominations of Protestants in the United States. The argument is usually some variation on the theme that God is coercive and that He rules by fear. If God were truly good, He would snap His fingers and all the evil in the world would go away and we could all be happy.

The problem with both this assessment and the fatalism of Calvin is rooted in the free will that St. Hilary sees being exercised in the First Psalm. God is ultimately free — His freedom is beyond our comprehension. There was nothing that coerced or compelled Him to create. There was nothing that forced Him to go to the Cross. There was nothing that obliged Him to make humanity in His image and His likeness.

If, therefore, we are truly made in that image and in that likeness, part of what makes us like God is our free will. In other words, if God were to snap His fingers and get rid of all evil in the world, He would actually destroy His creation. In ridding the world of evil, He would deny our free will to choose that evil. In denying our free will, He would deny us His image and likeness. In denying us His image and likeness, we would cease to be human beings. We would cease to be what He made us to be.

In other words, God cannot be coercive. The road to salvation — the path we must take to be transplanted to the rill of water that gives us eternal life — is a road that we must choose. Only in that way can God maintain His creation — honor and protect the image and likeness that He freely granted to us. Thus, the evil that exists in this world is not of God’s making or God’s fault. We are wholly responsible for that evil because we choose it on a daily basis. Rather, God — by allowing us that choice in the first place — is demonstrating His patience and His love for His creation.

When we made the choice to turn our back on our Creator, He had every right to erase us all from existence — to allow us to go back to the nothing from which we came. Instead, God chose not only to allow us continued existence, but to come to us, to become one of us, to suffer as we suffer, to die as we die and, ultimately, to honor and fulfill our free will to reject Him in the hope that we will see the Truth — that we will see in ourselves the ability to be like the tree by waters which never dies and yields its fruits in its own season.

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Choice

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America, Holy Spirit, St. Ambrose, St. Athanasius

Anyone who has studied the history of the Orthodox Church might be surprised by the precision of language used in dogma. For example, many of the theological arguments during the fourth century were about the word ὁμοούσιος (homoousios — of one essence) as it was used in the Nicene Creed. St. Athanasius the Great was exiled seven times because he insisted on its use. To the modern American mind, this might seem excessive, if not ridiculous. [Indeed, we live in times where language seems to be purposely imprecise. Try nailing down a definition of social justice, for example.]

This precision wasn’t necessarily what the Orthodox Church wanted to do, but it became necessary because various heretical views forced such precision. St. Athanasius did not want to use ὁμοούσιος in the Nicene Creed because it is not found in Scripture; however, the language of Scripture allowed two people who had very different understandings of who Jesus Christ is to say the Creed and appear to be of one mind when they clearly were not.

We get a glimpse of these battles over language in the eighth chapter of the second book of St. Ambrose’s treatise On the Holy Spirit:

But what wonder is it if foolish men question about words, when they do so even about syllables? For some think that a distinction should be made and that God should be praised in the Spirit, but not with the Spirit, and consider that the greatness of the Godhead is to be estimated from one syllable or some custom, arguing that if they consider that God should be glorified in the Spirit, they point to some office of the Holy Spirit, but that if they say that God receives glory or power with the Spirit, they seem to imply some association and communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In the end, though, this precision of language is an excellent thing. By providing clear-cut choices, the Orthodox Church defends and maintains human freedom. If we know precisely what is and isn’t the Orthodox Church’s understanding of Jesus Christ, then we are free to accept or reject that understanding.

To give a counter-illustration, let us take the aforementioned phrase social justice. Ask ten different people what they think social justice means, it is very likely that ten different definitions will emerge. If we do not know precisely what social justice means, then how can we know whether or not we can support or oppose it? When asked if I support social justice, I am always having to answer, “I don’t know, what do you mean by social justice?” If we don’t have a precise definition of what it is, our freedom of choice is denied because there is nothing to choose from.

Ultimately, St. Athanasius won the argument over the use of ὁμοούσιος precisely because it helped people understand whether or not they held to the faith of the Orthodox Church — it allowed them to choose.

Radical Equality

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America, Christmas, Declaration of Independence, equality, St. Gregory Palamas

5. Now since it was God’s good pleasure to annul the pretext for that pride which brought down His rational creatures, He makes everything like Himself; and because by nature He is equal to Himself and equal in honour, He makes the creation equal to itself by grace and equal in honour. And how was this done? The very Word of God from God emptied Himself in an indescribable way, came down from on high to the lowest state of man’s nature, and indissolubly linked it with Himself, and in humbling Himself and becoming poor like us, He raised on high the things below; or rather, He gathered both things into one, mingling humanity with divinity, and by so doing He taught everyone that humility is the road which leads upwards, setting forth today Himself as an example before men and holy angels alike. — St. Gregory Palamas, Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior

One might postulate that equality is an American obsession. Ever since the words “All men are created equal” were made part of the Declaration of Independence, we have strived to make or allow equality in ever part of our lives. One might even argue that our political disagreements are over which aspect of life we want to ensure equality — equal opportunity vs. equal outcome. Thus, despite the words “by their Creator” also being an essential part of the Founders understanding of equality, modern Americans often make the mistake that we human beings are capable of insuring the equality we obsess over.

Even if we do everything in our power to give every one equal opportunity, not everyone is going to be equally equipped to take advantage. If we do everything in our power to ensure equal outcome, either we must accept that a paraplegic is never going to play NFL football or we eliminate NFL football.

In other words, we are incapable of creating equality on our own. Only God can do that. In the fifth paragraph of his homily on the Nativity, St. Gregory points out that the equality made possible in and through Christ incarnate is a radical equality Americans can only dream about — unless we re-integrate Christ back into the equality equation.

Partakers of His Life

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America, Christmas, Cross, Holy Spirit, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Ireneus, Worship

I think the most significant idea to come out of the third paragraph of St. Gregory Palamas’ Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior (and, indeed, out of everything that we’ve read so far of this sermon) is an idea that may very well be alien to the modern American mind.

That is why he who beheld things in a divine manner saw and foretold that all those anointed by God were partakers of His life. For it is the property of God alone not to partake of the lives of others but to be partaken of, and to have as partakers those who rejoice in the Spirit.

Modern man is far removed from the practice of anointing. It was a mainstay in ancient cultures as a means of healing (see James 5:14-15). In other words, oil was not merely something to fry foods in, it was also seen as medicinal. This is why oil and anointing play such large roles in Baptism and Chrismation. God is healing His broken creation. The means of this healing is an actual partaking and participation in God Himself. At their chrismation (where they are anointed with myrrh), Orthodox Christians are sealed with the Holy Spirit Himself. In a literal sense, we become the tabernacle — the place where God resides. This, in turn, allows us to partake of Christ Himself in the eucharist.

In the notes of the Mount Thabor annotated edition of Gregory Palamas’ homilies, the editors cite St. Ireneus who stated in Against the Heresies V:

The Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord: who, on account of His boundless love became what we are, so that we might become what He is.

The means by which this happens is the Holy Spirit. Note how the Holy Spirit is not only present at the major events in Christ’s ministry, but leads Christ and prepares His way. Just take a look at the events surrounding the Baptism of Christ. The Spirit fills St. John the Baptist, who prepares the way for Christ (Matt 3:3). The Holy Spirit descends upon Christ in the form of a dove (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22), thus preparing Christ for His ministry. Then immediately, Christ heads out to the desert for forty days lead by the Holy Spirit (Matt 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1). In this same way, it is the Spirit that not only leads us to Christ, but is our access to Him.

In defending the divinity of the Holy Spirit in his Letter to Serapion, St. Athanasius notes the various ways the three persons of God are described throughout Scripture. The Father is called Fountain: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water” (Jer 2:13). The Son is described as flowing waters (River): “the river of God is filled with waters” (Ps 65:10). Finally we are said to Drink of the Holy Spirit: “we have all been given to drink of the Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13).

In other words, God the Father is the Fountain of Life who, out of love, sends us the river of life (the Son). We, in turn, drink of the Holy Spirit. This also means that we drink in Christ: “they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4). In so doing, we become the children of God: “You have received the Spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15) and “For those who did accept Him, He gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). As the children of God, we participate in the love of the Father.

To put it yet another way, God so loves the world that He sent us His Only-Begotten Son. Christ went to the Cross and Tomb so that we might be sealed with the Holy Spirit, who then leads us to participate in the Divine Liturgy, where we pray:

Once again we offer to You this spiritual worship without the shedding of blood, and we ask, pray, and entreat You: send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here presented.

And make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ. Amen.

And that which is in this cup the precious Blood of Your Christ. Amen.

Changing them by Your Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen. — Anaphora from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

We then partake of the Body and Blood of Christ through the Eucharist, through which we participate in the love of the Father.

Thus, God created us in His image and likeness so that we could become like God by participating in the Trinity just as He does. Christ became a babe in a manger specifically for this purpose — that we partake of His life. This becomes manifest every time we participate in the Divine Liturgy. We do not merely gather to give praise to God and give Him thanks for all that He does for us. We gather to partake in the life of the Trinity.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you. — Anaphora from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

Amen.

Anticipation & Celebration

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America, Christmas, Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, St. Gregory Palamas

1. This is the festival of the virgin birth! Our address must be exalted therefore in accordance with the greatness of the feast, and enter into the mystery, as far as this is accessible and permissible, and time allows, that something of its inner power might be revealed even to us. Please strive, brethren, to lift up your minds as well, that they may better perceive the light of divine knowledge, as though brightly illumined by a holy star. For today I see equality of honour between heaven and earth, and a way up for all those below to things above, matching the condescension of those on high. However great the heaven of heavens may be, or the upper waters which form a roof over the celestial regions, or any heavenly place, state or order, they are no more marvellous or honourable than the cave, the manger, the water sprinkled on the infant and His swaddling clothes. For nothing done by God from the beginning of time was more beneficial to all or more divine than Christ’s nativity, which we celebrate today. — St. Gregory Palamas, Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior

I must be frank, I am in awe when I read this. This one paragraph is the reason I felt that I could mine enough blog posts to fulfill the 30(40) Days of Blogging Challenge. There is so much within these few words that move me, I will be staying here for a few days to digest them all.

FIrstly, how refreshing it is to see the enthusiasm that St. Gregory has for Christmas?! Just the other day I was talking to a neighbor and friend of mine who was lamenting the coming Christmas season. He was flailing about trying to find a way in which to make Christmas meaningful again. We were trading war stories of decorating for Christmas — wrestling with stringed lights, trying to fix the ones that were burnt out and the inevitable fight that would follow from the stress and frustration that hanging lights can bring. When we focus on the worldly aspects of the Christmas season — all the materialism of the decorations, the presents, the commercials, the food, etc. — it can get oppressive.

Believe it or not, I am reminded of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Seriously. Read it again (or read it for the first time). At the core of this book is the reality that we are all Grinches at heart. We focus so much on the material aspects of Christmas that we forget the reason why we celebrate — a reason, by the way, that St. Gregory so passionately reminds us of: This is the festival of the virgin birth! When we accept this reality, as does the Grinch in the end, do we really need to spend so much time worrying about the lights, the trees, the presents, the food, the shopping, the commercials, etc.?

In this sense, the Orthodox rhythm of life becomes extremely useful. One way to understand this rhythm is to boil down the life of the Church into two basic modes of being: anticipation and celebration. This is most easily observed with Pascha (Easter). Lent is the season of anticipation. We fast and we change the mode of our prayer in anticipation of the celebration of the Resurrection, which we then celebrate for 40 days. Right now, the Church is in a mode of anticipation. We have begun our Nativity Fast, the prayers of the Church begin to anticipate the coming of Christ’s Nativity and we have the opportunity to focus our life on this reality.

This is in direct opposition to the way the American culture wants to celebrate Christmas. Instead of anticipating, it insists upon celebrating. We have Christmas parties, food, carols, decorations, commercials, etc. months out before the actual feast. The end result is disappointment and disgust by the time Christmas finally arrives.

In contrast, if we are busy denying ourselves and focusing on our spiritual life for 40 days prior to the actual feast, Christmas gets transformed. It is possible to see the exaltation and the greatness. It becomes possible for us to give God and His Nativity their due. Suddenly, we are able to truly celebrate. Amen.

Anne Rice & Secular Myths about Christianity: Life

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America, Anne Rice, prayer

I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

The above quote was posted by Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, on her Facebook account. Continuing my series of posts in reaction to this quote, today I will write about Rice’s last complaint — that Christianity is anti-life.

This is complaint is a bit of a head scratcher. With the Church being one of the last vanguards defending the sanctity of life and crying out that all human life, regardless of race, creed, language, sex, age, sexual orientation or any other artificial division you want to come up with (especially when it comes to the unborn and those on death row), it is difficult to see how Christianity is anti-life.

If, however, by “life” Anne Rice is referring to those things one might be contemplating if stating, “I need a life,” then it is quite possible to understand Christianity as “anti-life.” Long has Christianity insisted on a high moral standard that in the eyes of most Americans today might seem restrictive, draconian and even life destroying. Ironically, the Church might very well say the same things about the way many Americans go about trying to live their lives.

According to the Fathers of the Church, we are constantly assaulted by what they call the passions. These are like thoughts or ideas that lead us to sin. Life in Christ and His Church helps us combat these thoughts and ideas — it empowers us to say no and to find freedom in Christ. In contrast, the Fathers see succumbing to the passions akin to slavery.

Realizing that our former self was crucified with Him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin. — Romans 6:6

An extreme example of this path is drug or alcohol addiction. It starts out as “living” — having fun, partying with friends, etc. The passions then lead us down a road that says we can’t have fun without drugs or alcohol. Then it becomes we can’t live without drugs or alcohol. Finally, it becomes do anything in order to get our next fix. This is not freedom, it is slavery.

Those things in the life of the Church that seem to interfere with “life” — prayer, asceticism, etc. — are actually means by which we control the passions. They are the means by which we shake off the shackles of slavery and find true life and freedom in Christ.

It’s Not Christianity vs Science, It’s Christianity vs Scientism

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Abortion, America, Anne Rice, Atheists, Environmentalism, Science, Scientism, Worship

When I was doing research in order to write yesterday’s post about Anne Rice’s claim that Christianity is anti-science, I also came across this bit of wisdom from Catholic Apologist Fr. Barron:

He makes a very important distinction between science and what he calls Scientism. The former is the practice of doing science — hypothesis, observation, analysis and application. Due to its limitation of dealing with the empirical and observable, science is not suited for answering the kinds of questions philosophy and religion play around with. Scientism is the belief that science can answer these questions. In order to do that however, one must reduce the world, human experience and knowledge to the empirical and observable. This path is fraught with danger.

In the Orthodox Vespers service, we pray the following:

Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your commandments.
Blessed are you, Master, grant me understanding of your commandments.
Blessed are you, Holy One, enlighten me with your commandments.

In other words, in God there are three ways of knowing: doing, understanding and transformation. Science concerns itself almost exclusively with the second — understanding. Scientism thus radically reduces knowledge and what knowledge is and can be. When we do this, we necessarily limit what is a human person. When we limit what it means to be human, we necessarily tolerate discrimination and eventually violence against those persons who fall outside our artificial definition. There is a reason we de-humanize our opponents in war and call them derogatory names like Yankee, Bourgeoisie, Jap, Gook, etc. It allows us to remove them from our artificial definition of “human person” and thus making them more easy to kill, imprison, torture, etc. Need I remind anyone yet again that the unborn in the U.S. fall outside Scientism’s definition of “human person?” They cannot reason nor understand, therefore it is perfectly legal to kill them.

Scientism also poses a threat to science itself. Since Scientism exaggerates what kinds of questions and problems science can answer, it has a tendency to lose sight of what the purpose and methodology of science is. A good example of this is the recent Climate Gate scandal. A good number of those advocating man-made global warming are not scientists, but rather adherents  to Scientism. Having made the assumption that science can answer questions like, “what is the purpose of human kind?” these advocates of man-made global warming not only ignored empirical data, they manipulated it in order to reflect a pre-determined outcome. The purpose of science was no longer to observe and analyze, but to determine human behavior. When the data didn’t cooperate, they changed the data. This has the potential of damaging real scientific work for years to come.

Thus, the mythic dichotomy of Christianity vs Science really doesn’t exist (nor can it, as I explored yesterday); however, there is a dichotomy between Christianity and Scientism.

Farming for Christ

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America, Atheists, Cross, Gospel, Resurrection, Science, St. George

The name ‘George’ is an old Greek word meaning ‘farmer.’ It is derived from the Greek word ‘γη’ meaning ‘earth’ or ‘land.’ In English we are familiar with it as ‘geo’ as in geography and geology. Last night, I was struck by the Doxastikon for St. George, which takes advantage of this meaning:

You have lived worthily of your name, O soldier George; for taking the Cross of Christ upon your shoulders, you have cultivated the earth that had had become barren because of diabolic deception; and uprooting the thorny religion of the idols, you have planted the vine of the Orthodox Faith. Wherefore you gush forth healings for the faithful throughout the world, and have proved to be the Trinity’s righteous husbandman. Intercede, we pray, for the peace of the world and the salvation of our souls.

I just love this metaphor. The image of tilling the barren soil of our collective culture with the Cross and pulling out the weeds of those philosophies and mind-sets that take us away from God is compelling. It challenges all of us to take up our Cross, to live the Christian life full of love and to shine forth the light of Christ in a dark world. We must not allow atheism, secularism or synchretism to stand unchallenged.

When we till the soil of our lives with the Cross, we plant seeds. The Gospel of Christ — Christ is risen from the dead, by death He has tramped death and to those in the tombs He has granted life — has a way of growing within the hearts of everyone who hears it. When we challenge the conventional wisdom that those who believe must be ignorant, or that religion is inferior in every way to science or that one cannot be rational and religious, we soften the soil of the heart and make it easier for the seed to find root.

So, on this, the Feast of St. George the Great Martyr, let us all become farmers for Christ. Amen.

How to be an American Saint

Tags

America, Christmas, Greece, St. Herman of Alaska, St. Leo, St. Peter the Aleut

Over the weekend I got into a conversation about how different it is being Orthodox in America versus being Orthodox in Greece. Here in the U.S. we are a vast minority split into several different jurisdictions with a sprinkling of communities that still leave many believers hundreds of miles away from the nearest church. The prevailing culture has very little concept of Orthodoxy, and many aren’t even aware that it exists.

In contrast, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox. Its culture is replete with Orthodox traditions. Orthodox churches are everywhere and ever present. In most major cities, a church is five minutes away. In places like Thessaloniki, it seems that you trip over the relics of saints because there are so many. There are places where you can stand and walk where St. Paul preached and went about his missionary work to the Gentiles. Here in America, we tend to associate Greece with the Illiad, the Odyssey, the gods of Mt. Olympus and philosophy. We forget that Greece is a holy place that we can read about in the Bible.

The conversation had an undercurrent in it that wanted to say that Greece being different than America meant it was better. I must emphatically disagree. Being Orthodox anywhere in the world is being Orthodox. It is no more difficult here than in Greece, we just face different challenges and have different tools to work with.

In his Sermon XXIII On the Nativity, St. Leo the Great reminds us that “our fundamentally corrupt origin had to be re-born afresh.” Christ came for everyone, no matter the race, the nationality or the culture. In fact, Orthodoxy has a long tradition of baptizing the cultures that it is in — transforming elements of a culture from their secular or pagan origins into a Christian understanding of the world. We see St. Paul doing this with the altar to the Unknown God in Acts 17. We decorate Christmas trees because we have transformed this pagan symbol of life in the middle of winter into a symbol of the everlasting life Christ gives us through His Nativity.

One of the biggest challenges that we face as Orthodox Christians in America is taking the American culture and transforming it so that it speaks to the Orthodox world-view. This work has already begun. Lest we forget, America also has its saints. We celebrated three of them this weekend — St. Herman of Alaska, St. Peter the Aleut and St. Juvenal of Alaska the Hieromartyr.

Shown forth in this icon of the Synaxis of North American Saints are:

• St. Alexander the Hieromartyr
• St. Alexis the Defender of Orthodoxy
• St. Herman of Alaska
• St. Innocent of Alaska
• St. Jacob the Enlightener of Alaska
• St. John of Chicago, Protomartyr of the Bolshevik Revolution
• St. Juvenal of Alaska the Hieromartyr
• St. Tikhon of Moscow
• St. Peter the Aleut
• St. Raphael of Brooklyn

We are tasked with continuing the work of these great saints — to take our re-birth in Christ and share it with the culture around us, to enable a re-birth of America.

By grace you transformed the northern wilderness into a Paradise flowering with faith in Christ, and you choked the prince of darkness with your unceasing labors. O Herman, you were sent forth an Apostle to Kodiak, raising to the life in God those once dead in idolatry. Hence, joining choir, O peer of Apostles, we hymn your all-honoured feast with praise. — Kathisma from the Orthros for the Feast of St. Herman of Alaska

Amen.