Posted on 12/09/2014 4:05:28 PM PST by bad company
In any sustained discussion regarding the progress of liberal theology in the Orthodox Church, one sooner or later encounters magical thinking. Magical thinking is defined by Wikipedia (that modern oracle) as “the attribution of causal relationships between actions and events which cannot be justified by reason and observation”. In my experience, it often begins like this: someone (often a convert from a liberal Christian denomination, like the Episcopalians) warns that North American Orthodoxy is exhibiting the same signs of creeping liberalism as did their former liberal denomination, and suggests that this should be a source of concern for those who do not wish Orthodoxy to become similarly liberal.
For example, Orthodox in the west today are reproducing the same patterns of behaviour as did Anglicanism in the 1960s regarding women’s ordination. Some of our theologians are solemnly declaring the issue a very complex one and the question an open one; denunciations are made of those decrying the ordination of women as people who are narrow, stupid, retrogressive, and (of course) fundamentalist; groups are being formed under the dubious patronage of women saints such as St. Catherine or St. Nina for the purpose of advancing the feminist agenda; and the push is made to ordain deaconesses. When one calls attention to the historical fact that these are all symptoms of creeping liberalism in the Church and that this is precisely the road trod by the liberal Protestants a generation ago, one is shouted down as a convert who has no right to speak. One is diagnosed with Post Episcopalian Stress Syndrome, and more or less ordered to bed. One is told that the Orthodox Church in North America was getting on very well on its own without us and our kind, thank you very much. Your warnings are not appreciated or welcome. Please take a pill or something, and chill out.
This means that the Orthodox Church in North America could be the one institution which considers that years of experience of certain events actually disqualifies one from speaking about them. In every other outfit, experience is considering as qualifying one to speak authoritatively, not as a disqualification. It is very strange. It is also a form of bullying and of attempted ideological intimidation. In fact one’s long experience of Anglican liberalism does not mean that that person is afflicted with some sort of nervous disorder, or that their hands begin to shake if a copy of the revised Book of Common Prayer is somewhere in the room. It just means that said person has personal experience of how creeping liberalism works over a generation and can speak from the authority of that experience. That the warnings and words are not welcome does not at all alter the fact that they come from experience.
It is just here that magical thinking comes in. All of these regrettable changes occurred in Anglicanism and Lutheranism and Methodism and God knows where else, but they could never happen here, with us. Orthodoxy is somehow immune to the liberalism and worldliness that afflicts everyone else in North America. I call this conviction “magical thinking” because (to quote Wikipedia again) the supposed stability and sanctity of individual Orthodox in North America “cannot be justified by reason and observation”. Perusing blogs and their comment sections, and Facebook, and reading journals and scholarly books, and listening to Orthodox lectures on Youtube provide abundant evidence that Orthodox people can be just as thick and worldly as anyone else, and that we have by no means cornered the market on wisdom and holiness. We have many good and wise people, and many worldly ones—just like every other group. Saying that our status as the true Church bestows upon us an immunity from worldliness is triumphalistic nonsense. It is also lousy history: the Church in the fourth century was also “the true Church” and yet it was greatly afflicted by Arianism which spread like a wildfire for many years. Indeed, at one point, as St. Jerome once wrote, the “whole world groaned to find itself Arian”. The Church as a whole survived, but not without pain, and schism, and the loss of many souls to heresy. We have no justification that we are now somehow immune to heresy simply because we are “the true Church”.
It is undoubtedly true, however, that we are unlike our Protestant friends in one important respect: we define ourselves by the Fathers, and at least pay them lip service, even when we veer off in directions which cause them to spin in their patristic graves. We have to at least pretend we are faithful to the Fathers, even when we aren’t. (Part of the trick here is to denounce fidelity to the Fathers as “patristic fundamentalism”, or as a simplistic reading of the Fathers.) This means that even if parts of the Orthodox Church did ordain women, or marry gays, or conform to whatever the canons of modernity will demand in the future, large parts of the Church would not follow. In other words, such capitulation to the world would result in a schism. No one really doubts this, even if modern liberals like Behr-Sigel might plead for a “disciplinary pluralism”—i.e. a tolerance of heresy. For the issue here is not simply one of discipline, but of the Faith. What would St. Athanasius have thought of a “disciplinary pluralism” which tolerated Arianism? Count on it: if parts of the Orthodox Church ordain women or marry homosexuals, there will be schism.
I often am tempted to think that the certainty of such a schism is the real reason why many bishops would never take such action (though whether their inaction springs from courage to resist heresy or fear of schism is perhaps an open question). As always, the Faith, though defined by the bishops, is guarded by the faithful, as the Patriarchs themselves insisted in their letter to Pope Pius IX in 1848. Our episcopal leaders are smart enough men, and know that such changes would not be countenanced by many of their North American faithful. The liberal proponents of change of course suggest that if the Church were to “modernize” by making these changes, multitudes of secular people would come piling into the Church to fill its empty pews, and this would more than offset those lost to schism. Again, this is magical thinking. The experience of Anglicanism shows that such a happy stampede will never occur. If the Orthodox Church becomes secular in its faith and praxis, the secular world will praise us for our enlightened approach and then go back to ignoring us. We may, it is true, be applauded periodically in the Huffington Post and on the CBC, but this is, to my mind, a thin reward for scrapping two millennia of Tradition and provoking a schism.
What remains certain is that we must live in the real world, and look at our selves as reflected in the mirror or blogs, organizations, and Facebook. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest North American Orthodoxy is immune to the worldliness and liberalism affecting everyone around us. Magical thinking must give place to thinking, and to realistic appraisal regarding our current state.
I did get to debate him over coffee one night. Great fun. I am an old school LCMS Lutheran, and read theology and history for fun.
Started with the 7 Councils (which he thought were not binding) and gave up around Gregory the Great if I remember. The priest is convinced he is right, and more compassionate than “fundamentalists”.
My bride thought it was very funny.
She now attends a church in the Peoria diocese. The priest there isn't a bit of an odd fish, but very orthodox and caring (he likes to restore late 70’s Jaguar's).
“The issue that my bride ran into (and I think it is common on Catholicism) is that the laity have very limited recourse in situations like this.”
That is one of the main, let us say practical, differences between Orthodox and Latin ecclesiology.
Sacred Meal is pretty far down on the list of things the Catholic Mass is. Aren’t you forgetting Somebody?
One of the things that has always fascinated me is the split of ecclesiology that happened after the Western Empire fell apart and my ancestors wandered in to pick up the pieces.
The East had a strong Empire during this time frame, though the Church was present outside its borders as well. The West had no real Empire till Charlamange decided to play lets pretend, so the Pope could consolidate power easily.
I often wonder what might have happened has Belisarus been successful in retaking and then holding the Roman West. The germanic tribes coming in were not all opposed to the Empire, many had served in it and quite a few had risen in the ranks to positions of respect and power.
Would the West’s ecclesiology gone the path similar to Russian Orthodox? Was a form of Papal supremacy going to happen because of the language barrier no matter what? Just things of which I amuse myself with.
Kolokotronis: The author is a convert priest from Anglicanism. They are an odd bunch, so many of these convert priests. They carry terrible baggage into Orthodoxy with them. They know all the rules, or what they think are rules, but sadly and even after many years, never come to understand Orthodoxy or our Orthodox phronema. It’s not magical thinking, it’s our mindset, our particular worldview.
[sarcasm]The heretic! Interpreting the church fathers "literally" when the ordinary laymen of the world know that they were just espousing the mistaken science of their time!
This idiot should never have been allowed to convert. He may not even believe in evolution! He must be excommunicated!!![/sarcasm]
HIS Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity ARE the the Sacred Meal, the "Somebody." If you were Catholic you would know that.
God bless you.
Convert disease.
Convert disease? Interesting phrase which I have not previously heard, but from your post it seems to refer to a concept I come across quite often in the Catholic Church. Cradle believers very often see converts as being somehow less tuned into the proper way of thinking. I have never found this to be so personally. Though I did work for a time with a born and raised Italian Catholic woman who once told me that we, meaning Catholics, definitely do not believe that Jesus is God. She seemed pretty tuned in for certain. It has always struck me as a rather comforting thought that cradle believers are somehow a little better than those who have often given up so much in the world to be in the Church, but it must be short lived. After all, at some point it is likely to occur to people that the apostles were all converts.
You seem to think the Mass is all about you. You’re wrong.
The Mass is a Holy Sacrifice — a word missing from your post, I believe — offered to the Father. It’s the Mass even if no one is there but the priest.
You've decided to interpret what I wrote in the worst possible way. I've obviously not going to get anywhere with you. So be it. I won't bother you any more.
God bless you and yours.
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