Posted on 10/14/2006 5:16:50 PM PDT by NYer
Rod Dreher's recent defection to the Eastern Orthodox reminds all of us of the need to see the Church upside down in order to see it the way it really is.
We converts from Protestantism find it difficult to shake the idea that the church should be what we expect it to be: a congregation of good people just like us. We have religious utopianism running in our Puritan veins. We expect the church to be made up of saints who are already perfect...just like us.
Oh yes, in theory we say that we are all 'redeemed sinners'. We love to repeat those words and in doing so, we feel even more righteous. We say we are sinners, but deep down though, we still feel that the church is going to be all that we expect it to be, with beautiful worship, harmonious fellowship and saintly leadership. When our expectations are not met we are so bitterly disappointed.
The disappointment soon turns to discontent and blaming others, and that soon leads to back to the old Protestant past time: church shopping.
If only we could stand on our head, and see that all the other people in the church are not just redeemed sinners, they are sinners who are still struggling now...still failing...and yep...still covering up their sins. In other words, they're just like we are, and if we don't think we're like that, then we're even worse because we're self righteous and blind to our own spiritual situation.
Every Sunday (beneath the pious faces and holy postures) the church is full of messed up people twisted up into a complex and intricate puzzle of sin, fear and self deception, and guess what, it's messy. It's murderous, it's dark and fetid and hot and smelly.
For those who are simple minded this is a cause to reject the church--"How can you go there with all those people who are pretending to be so holy when we all know how rotten they all are?"
But for my money, this is what is most interesting and maddening and wonderful about the church. What nerve we all have in carrying on with this farce! What an exciting and bizarre contradiction it all is! What a curious form of behavior that we all gather together to sing like angels, then go out to behave like demons. The strangeness and absurdity and curiosity of it all must cause anyone to examine it further.
And when you examine it further it is the absurdity which makes it ring most true. When you look at it all upside down you realize that the sects and cults with their grinning devotees and artificial perfection are the ones who are mad, and anyone who falls for a church that seems wonderful and beautiful (no matter how reasonable it seems) is falling for an illusion. Furthermore, anyone who falls for any kind of ideology, political system, philosophy that promises a perfect world or a perfect community is entertaining madness unawares.
The Church with all its human perfections and seeming contradictions, is actually the only community in the midst of the madness that shows us both the harsh reality and what to do about it. Week in and week out the Church says right up front: "We're sinners. Don't be misled by the incense, the hymns, the stained glass windows, the fine words, the warm fellowship, the middle class manners, the pancake suppers or anything else. Repent. Forward progress can only be made on your knees."
As usual, G.K.Chesterton summed it up. He said he knew the Catholic Church was for him because when he left his umbrella at the back of the Methodist Church it was still there, but when he left it at the back of the Catholic Church it was stolen."
Great quote from GK Chesterton!
My husband went to mass with me today. We received a sign.
St. Anthony of Padua is a saint my husband has been impressed with (due to a story on EWTN). Unbeknownst to me my husband had been asking St. Anthony for help. We received some wonderful financial news this weekend, and then when we were at mass we found out the priest from the parish in New Orleans that our church helped was visiting. The church is St. Anthony of Padua!
"He said he knew the Catholic Church was for him because when he left his umbrella at the back of the Methodist Church it was still there, but when he left it at the back of the Catholic Church it was stolen."
One of the Fathers said that The Church is a hospital for sick souls. And its important to remember that the Evil One is most active where holiness is found.
Now, all the foregoing notwithstanding, why is it that Roman Catholics seem so inflamed that a convert would leave and become Orthodox? You know, NYer, everyday in Lebanon there is movement of the faithful among the Maronites, the Melkites and the Orthodox and no one gives it a second thought. Are the Romans so assured of their premier position in The Church that the idea that anyone would leave for another particular church within The Church, especially one which refuses to accept the immediate, universal jurisdiction of the pope or which rejects, as the Melkites do, both that notion and that of papal infallibility, is such a blow to their overweening pride that they feel the need to lash out? Is this the same pride and arrogance which lead to the destruction of the ancient Maronite liturgical and theological texts? I'll tell you, NYer, everytime I read stuff like this I have more and more respect for the humility of the Maronites and Melkites of the past and the theological and ecclesiastical courage they demonstrate today.
As an Orthodox Christian, whose family has been Orthodox Christian for 1800 years or more, I find it laughable that some clown who goes to guitar "masses" and receives communion in his hands from a "Eucharistic Minister" assisted by female "altar servers", or alternatively, pines for the days when he could mumble his beads throughout the liturgy rather than be so distracted as to participate with the angels and saints in singing worship to Almighty God, would have the nerve to look down his nose at a fellow Christian who, doubtless after a struggle in the "inner forum" chose to practice The Faith and receive the Holy Myusteries somewhere other than the turmoil filled American Latin Church!
This reaction of so many Roman commentators to this one move to Orthodoxy puts a real ugly face on the Latin Church, Nyer.
There are a lot of issues in this one paragraph. Aside from the issues, why do you care? If you possess the truth, in the fullness of the faith, why do you care (except to pray for them) if others are immature, and uncharitable?
I don't hear your faith shining through your words. Only bitterness. Keep your eyes on Christ, my dear fellow Christian!
"If you possess the truth, in the fullness of the faith, why do you care (except to pray for them) if others are immature, and uncharitable?"
Because we are told that the future may hold a reunion with these people and unfortunately, though it is hardly the attitude over the overwhelming majority of Latin Rite Catholics on this website, comments like these are all too common an experience for Orthodox Christians dealing with "serious" Roman Catholics. Our hierarchs may be able to work something out...both hierarchies for both good an bad reasons seem quite intent on it, but right now, for millions of Orthodox Christians, this blogger and his ilk represent the face of the Roman Church. And that means that no matter what our crowned heads do, the laity will never accept a reunion, no more than we did when our hierarchs came home from Florence and we jeered them.
As for Dreher, I've spoken to thousands of lapsed and fallen away Catholics over the years and their reasons for leaving can usually be put into several neat pigeon holes. That is, the proximal reasons. The overarching reason is usually a loss of belief that God founded a Church and still offers salvation through it.
One of those pigeon holes is "scandal". The clergy abuse scandal is an extreme example but more commonly it goes something along the lines of something that a priest or religious did which upset or offended the person in question. A harsh word, a refusal to accomodate some request, a sermon which was not well received, a severe beating from a nun in grade school, constant demands for money ........something along those lines.
Because they have taken offense, they use this as an excuse to abandon the Church. The reality is that they were already distanced from the Church in spirit and the unfortunate event is simply the trigger which makes that interior disunion become formal and external.
I've never heard of any of this before, and I am so sorry that you have been subjected to it.
I'm a New Yorker (Latin Rite Catholic), and I've been exposed to an Eastern Rite, namely Ukrainian Catholic, and there are Orthodox churches in this area. I've known both Greek and Russian Orthodox people, so Orthodox Christianity is not so foreign to me. I would welcome a reunion with open arms, seeing in it part of an answer to Christ's prayer "that they may be one."
There is really so little that separates us. You have Apostolic Succession, and the true Sacraments. That there are those who wound you, so as to prevent the gathering of Christ's flock, is truly a scandal. I am horrified by it.
...but right now, for millions of Orthodox Christians, this blogger and his ilk represent the face of the Roman Church.
The only thing we can do is to pray, and educate those who would be a hindrance.
And that means that no matter what our crowned heads do, the laity will never accept a reunion, no more than we did when our hierarchs came home from Florence and we jeered them.
I understand the emotions, but if the laity did not accept reunion, they would be in a state of disobedience. The implications of this would be tragic.
"I understand the emotions, but if the laity did not accept reunion, they would be in a state of disobedience."
In the Orthodox Church, the "Laos tou Theou". the laity, are the guardians of Orthodoxy, not the hierarchy. +John Chrysostomos tells us that the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.
On July 5, 1439, our hierarchs signed what has become known as the False Union of Florence, which provided in part:
""We decree that the Holy Apostolic Throne and Roman Pontiff possess a primacy over the whole earth, and that this Roman Pontiff is the Successor of the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and is the true Vicar of Christ, the Head of the whole Church, Pastor and Teacher of all Christians; and that our Lord Jesus Christ in the person of St. Peter has given him full authority to shepherd, direct and rule the whole Church, as is likewise contained in the acts of the Ecumenical Councils and in the holy canons."
One hierarch alone refused to sign, +Mark of Ephesus. Upon his return to Constantinople, he gathered around himself the monks of The Holy Mountain, and the lower clergy and laity from around what was left of the Empire and went to work preaching against the union. Within 2 years all the Patriarchs of Orthodoxy, because their clergy, monastics and laity demanded it, had condemned the Union except Constantinople. A few years after +Mark's death, a new Emperor, Constantine, convoked a local Council and Constantinople did what the rest of Orthodoxy already had, revoke the union.
If ever our hierarchs come home with another false union, the same thing will happen. Its our role to see to exactly that. It wasn't the people who were disobedient, LB, it was the hierarchs.
Great story! It's amazing how certain saints wend into our lives, becoming beacons of spiritual light. Your husband has, in a sense, been 'adopted' by a great saint of humility.
That's quite a run on sentence; MS Word would have flagged it ;-) (just kidding).
Roman Catholics LOVE their Holy Father, because, like the Eastern Churches, he is also their Patriarch (okay, I know the title has been dropped but he guides the Church). The Eastern Churches, Maronite, Melkite, etc., view their Patriarch in this role of leadership.
Please don't mistake Latin fidelity to the Pope for arrogance. It isn't. We just love him and expect everyone else feels the same way. And, hey, you've got to admit that BXVI's has even aroused some admiration from the Orthodox Churches ;-)
Speaking of the Maronites, I've got to get ready for Church. 5th Sunday of the Glorious Cross!
"That's quite a run on sentence; MS Word would have flagged it ;-)"
Yeah, well I was a Classics major and I sincerely doubt the creators of MS Word could construct anything beyond a simple "subject verb object" sentence. :)
"And, hey, you've got to admit that BXVI's has even aroused some admiration from the Orthodox Churches ;-)"
You got that right; I'm one of the cheerleaders, as you know.
"Speaking of the Maronites, I've got to get ready for Church. 5th Sunday of the Glorious Cross!"
Me too; Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council!
Yeah, Mark of Ephesus did what he did...and the Byzantine Empire and almost all of the Eastern Orthodox world was overwhelmed by Islam just a few years later.
Yes, there are obnoxious Catholics. Do you think the Eastern Orthodox don't come across often as obnoxious? I remember attending a session on the Byzantine Empire at a history conference more than a decade ago. I will forever have frozen in my mind the image of a dozen Eastern Orthodox railing against the Catholic Church, Catholic West, Crusaders, etc. until they were red in the face, could barely speak, all the while gesticulating wildly. Now looking back at it, they remind me of how many Muslims act when confronted by something they don’t like.
I am not particularly upset that Rod Dreher has left the Church for the ROC. I won’t lose sleep over it. His reasons seem specious, but his conscience was obviously conflicted so he had to do something. Your ranting seems to be much ado about nothing. Yes, there are obnoxious Catholics. Why not start posting about that when you’ve run out of obnoxious Eastern Orthodox? Care to cast the first stone after shutting the door to your glass house?
"Your ranting seems to be much ado about nothing."
Unless and until Roman Catholics come to understand the role of the laity in Orthodoxy, and the fact that what we say DOES count, in fact that a reunion will ultimately be up to us, this sort of "rant" will be absolutely necessary. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter what your dictatorial hierarchs might impose on you, or for that matter what our own crowned heads might want, there will be no reunion with people whose church is identified with the mentality expressed by bloggers such as this fellow. And I assure you, that mentality is what we Orthodox have come to expect from Roman Catholics.
Our hierarchs can't order us to do anything. They need to persuade us. You Romans will do whatever you are told by your hierarchs. Perhaps they ought to tell you all to lay off the attacks on Orthodoxy and the Orthodox...otherwise all these dialogs will go absolutely nowhere.
I wonder that, myself.
I think it's possible that it makes some of the former Protestants feel just a little uneasy about their own conversion. (The loudest writers I've seen have been ex-Protestants.) "There are so many different options in Christianity ... maybe I made a mistake?!?" Perhaps we all feel slightly unstable when we feel very strongly that our course of action is right ... and others do something different and think they're right.
This reminds me a bit of the "mommy wars" - women who stay home with their children vs. those with jobs and day-care. But at least it's not as howlingly hostile as the Great Breastfeeding Battle. Yet.
You wrote:
"Unless and until Roman Catholics come to understand the role of the laity in Orthodoxy, and the fact that what we say DOES count, in fact that a reunion will ultimately be up to us, this sort of "rant" will be absolutely necessary."
Your ranting will never be necessary on this issue. First of all, the Church knows that the laity plays a role in all of this. Second, knowing the laity plays a role essentially means nothing, however, because the Church cannot meet and talk to every layperson. Third, this is essentially YOUR problem. Not ours. If you oppose unity then tell your bishop. Telling us achieves nothing. Your bishops is the one who has the responsibility of sortuing things out with you, not us. Fourth, until you get your house in order, if that ever happens, our bishops will continue to talk to yours. They don't need your permission to do so.
"The simple fact of the matter is that no matter what your dictatorial hierarchs might impose on you, or for that matter what our own crowned heads might want, there will be no reunion with people whose church is identified with the mentality expressed by bloggers such as this fellow. And I assure you, that mentality is what we Orthodox have come to expect from Roman Catholics."
What you have come to expect is of no importance to me. Does that sound high handed? Too bad. I care more about the truth than your whining like a little girl. Also, Dwight Longnecker's article is not problematic (except perhaps for you). What "mentality" exactly did Longneckar express that so offends you? This is what he wrote:
“Rod Dreher's recent defection to the Eastern Orthodox reminds all of us of the need to see the Church upside down in order to see it the way it really is.”
Nothing wrong with that. Much of Longneckar’s article here reminds me of the lessons about the Church that can be gained by reading CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.
“We converts from Protestantism find it difficult to shake the idea that the church should be what we expect it to be: a congregation of good people just like us. We have religious utopianism running in our Puritan veins. We expect the church to be made up of saints who are already perfect...just like us.”
True enough.
“Oh yes, in theory we say that we are all 'redeemed sinners'. We love to repeat those words and in doing so, we feel even more righteous. We say we are sinners, but deep down though, we still feel that the church is going to be all that we expect it to be, with beautiful worship, harmonious fellowship and saintly leadership. When our expectations are not met we are so bitterly disappointed.”
I’ve seen that in converts before.
“The disappointment soon turns to discontent and blaming others, and that soon leads to back to the old Protestant past time: church shopping.”
Yep.
“If only we could stand on our head, and see that all the other people in the church are not just redeemed sinners, they are sinners who are still struggling now...still failing...and yep...still covering up their sins. In other words, they're just like we are, and if we don't think we're like that, then we're even worse because we're self righteous and blind to our own spiritual situation.”
True.
“Every Sunday (beneath the pious faces and holy postures) the church is full of messed up people twisted up into a complex and intricate puzzle of sin, fear and self deception, and guess what, it's messy. It's murderous, it's dark and fetid and hot and smelly.”
Does anyone doubt that for a single second?
“For those who are simple minded this is a cause to reject the church--"How can you go there with all those people who are pretending to be so holy when we all know how rotten they all are?" “
Perfectly logical statement.
“But for my money, this is what is most interesting and maddening and wonderful about the church. What nerve we all have in carrying on with this farce! What an exciting and bizarre contradiction it all is! What a curious form of behavior that we all gather together to sing like angels, then go out to behave like demons. The strangeness and absurdity and curiosity of it all must cause anyone to examine it further.”
Again, who can doubt that this is true?
“And when you examine it further it is the absurdity which makes it ring most true. When you look at it all upside down you realize that the sects and cults with their grinning devotees and artificial perfection are the ones who are mad, and anyone who falls for a church that seems wonderful and beautiful (no matter how reasonable it seems) is falling for an illusion. Furthermore, anyone who falls for any kind of ideology, political system, philosophy that promises a perfect world or a perfect community is entertaining madness unawares.”
Again, who can doubt this? Utopia does not exist on this earth.
“The Church with all its human perfections and seeming contradictions, is actually the only community in the midst of the madness that shows us both the harsh reality and what to do about it. Week in and week out the Church says right up front: "We're sinners. Don't be misled by the incense, the hymns, the stained glass windows, the fine words, the warm fellowship, the middle class manners, the pancake suppers or anything else. Repent. Forward progress can only be made on your knees." “
Do I even need to ask if this is true?
“As usual, G.K.Chesterton summed it up. He said he knew the Catholic Church was for him because when he left his umbrella at the back of the Methodist Church it was still there, but when he left it at the back of the Catholic Church it was stolen."”
True also.
Was there any criticism of the Eastern Orthodox in this article? None whatsoever. The only criticism was indirectly made toward Dreher’s utopianism. Dreher was mentioned but once. Longneckar’s article is actually quite good, and there is no logical reason for you to complain about let alone rant.
“Our hierarchs can't order us to do anything.”
Really? So you’re saying your bishops have no authority whatsoever over their faithful? They cannot excommunicate you under any circumstance? I rather doubt that.
“They need to persuade us. You Romans will do whatever you are told by your hierarchs.”
I’m not Roman. I have visited Rome once, and may go back again soon, but I am not Roman. I'm just Catholic. Also, we will do whatever we are told by the bishops as long as it is moral. Christ appointed shepherds to lead us. We are faithful. Why shouldn’t we obey our bishops? We serve. It is Satan who refused to be led. Why side with him?
“Perhaps they ought to tell you all to lay off the attacks on Orthodoxy and the Orthodox...otherwise all these dialogs will go absolutely nowhere.”
Perhaps you should stop living in fantasy land and realize we aren’t attacking the Eastern Orthodox or Orthodoxy. I also am not worried about the dialogues not going anywhere. Only God can work miracles.
I also, on further reflection, think that the reaction is not to just any convert (or any Catholic in general) deciding to join the Orthodox Church, but this particular convert, because of the way he's presented himself and his ... er ... "faith journey," as they'd say in my slightly goofball RC parish. (I hope we have the fiddler at Mass this evening!)
First he was the most fervid of Evangelicals, then "Oh-so-much-more-Catholic than the average putz in the pews," and, one may imagine, soon to be so Russianly Orthodox that he's got icons of the late Tsar et al on his walls and drinks hot tea from a glass.
Not that there's anything *wrong* with all that ... but it does put people off to be looked down on, for one thing after another, by a guy who can't make up his mind why he looks down on you right now. I have sometimes been quite impressed by Mr. Dreher's writing, but I don't recall ever being impressed by his thinking, and I'm still not.
This is not, as you know, K., any problem on my part with the Orthodox Church(es), which I think are really cool, even without a fiddler. It's just Mr. Dreher, and the figure he cuts in his writing. (Never met him personally.)
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other writers commenting on the situation also simply don't like him, but, not being redneck-housecleaner-with-babies types, they can't just come out and say so.
"First he was the most fervid of Evangelicals, then "Oh-so-much-more-Catholic than the average putz in the pews," and, one may imagine, soon to be so Russianly Orthodox that he's got icons of the late Tsar et al on his walls and drinks hot tea from a glass."
Ha! Boy do I know that crowd! Some even dress like Russian peasants from the 19th century. Some years back we were plagued with a group of these people. They were oh so much more holy than the rest of us poor slobs. It got to the point that we began calling them "The Holy People of God" (and we didn't mean it as a compliment either)! Just before the ring leaders left us for "real Orthodoxy" in ROCOR, one said to me that "Just as the Holy Apostles, we are persecuted for our faith!" WOW! Funny thing though, after five or so years in ROCOR (a particularly weird parish which is not at all reflective of ROCOR in general)they came back and have been completely normal ever since. Anyway, maybe Dreher is prone to what we call crazy convert disease. If so I feel for his new parish! But if the attacks on him are because of the way he acted before this move, I suggest it would have been better to say that rather than couch the attacks in terms of schism or heresy or theology.
"wouldn't be surprised if some of the other writers commenting on the situation also simply don't like him, but, not being redneck-housecleaner-with-babies types, they can't just come out and say so."
Some people are so, well, more evolved than the rest of us, dontcha know! :)
"Perhaps you should stop living in fantasy land and realize we aren’t attacking the Eastern Orthodox or Orthodoxy."
Oh that's rich! The multi degreed "professional Church historian", hierarch worshipping Roman Catholic tells the Orthodox fellow to stop living in a fantasy land!? You know, V, ever since you showed up on these threads your purpose has been to spread bile about Orthodoxy. You have done nothing BUT attack Orthodoxy here.
You say that any problems we Orthodox have with the idea of a reunion is our, not Rome's, problem. Well, indeed it is our problem and one which we are more than capable of dealing with. But I assure you without Orthodoxy, the future of the Latin Church, at least in Europe, is dark indeed. That's why the last two popes, quite rightly in my opinion, have been so intent on effectuating a reunion. This is not to say that there will not be advantages to all of Christianity by such a reunion. Clearly there will be, but unless the Latin Church is willing to return to the understanding which the other four Patriarchates (and your Melkites too for that matter) have of Petrine Primacy, then none of the other issues, theological in nature, will ever be resolved. Your hierarchs know that. +BXVI has said as much. But in the meantime, a continuing "Dictatus Papae" mentality on the part of outspoken Latin Catholics will only assure that no reunion will ever occur.
"I think it's possible that it makes some of the former Protestants feel just a little uneasy about their own conversion. (The loudest writers I've seen have been ex-Protestants.)"
We have the same experience. Some years back, during the "Spyridon Wars" a group of ex Protestants launched some pretty scathing attacks on the anti-Spyridon, anti-EP forces here in America which were mostly made up of cradle Orthodox (while at the same time attacking Roman Catholicism and any form of Protestantism, especially the latter, in the most vicious terms). I often wondered what motivated them and can only conclude it was a combination of a deep seated need to unthinkingly obey hierarchs (something which is not at all Orthodox) coupled with a high degree of insecurity. Not really understanding Orthodoxy, I suppose their reaction was at least explainable. From the outside Orthodoxy can look very serene and contemplative, presided over by guys in crowns. But I'll tell you, on the inside there's all kinds of tusseling going on and there always has been, right down to the level of the people in the pews. The results of the Spyridon fight demonstrates just how well our system really works. But the ex-Protestants didn't know that.
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