Second Terrace

read Jayber Crow

My whole purpose here is to get you to read a book, and that book is Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

It’s one of those rare books that when you read the last few words in the last sentence, you want to take a step back and take a new different look at things.

Recipient of the National Humanities Medal in 2010, Wendell Berry is the author of 25 books of poems, 16 volumes of essays, and 11 novels and short story collections. Since 1965 he has lived, worked, and farmed a plot of land on the Kentucky River with his wife and children. He and his family tried their utmost to subsist completely on what they harvested from their farm, going to the store only for the most necessary un-harvestable things.

As far as I know, Berry, who is all of 86 years of age, continues to till the fields with his horse and plow.

Wendell Berry’s main theme is that people change the land by living in it. And the land changes them. If the land is used well, and if other people are dealt with in a kindly fashion, then those changes will be good, or at least not so bad. He’s been a longtime critic of modern individualism, wasteful consumerism, self-aggrandizement, and conspicuous consumption.

He is a Christian writer who “tries to take the Gospel seriously,” but he makes partisans on both sides uncomfortable: no ideology can claim him. No one in the culture wars wants to hear, nowadays, words like these: “Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy” (from his essay “Economy and Pleasure” -- which is a very fine reflection on the great John Ruskin).

Rightwingers chafe at his pacifism and environmentalism. Leftwingers get hot and bothered by his lack of enthusiasm for abortion rights. Though most  contemporary conservatives (who are really libertarians) would not agree, I think Berry is very much an old-fashioned conservative -- so old that the moderns can't recognize him. But the same thing could be said of Christianity in general these days.

In this mean season of social media, techno-reality, and frenetic restlessness, Berry bucks the tide by his quiet insistence that there is no human life without community and nature. One’s life and work ought to be rooted in and responsive to one's place, and the people around him or her. 

Enter Jayber Crow, who did just that.

Wendell Berry is an acerbic critic in his essays. But in his novels, he’s a gentle artist. He portrays the citizens (or, what he calls the “membership”) of his fictional town of Port William with compassion. Even the villains, who betray human fellowship and violate land and nature, are still treated with humane-ness.

Port William is one of the most richly imagined communities in literature, certainly on par with Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County or Harper Lee’s Maycomb, Alabama. In every one of his novels and short stories (and a few of his poems to boot), Berry has populated this town with honest depictions of human nature, good and bad.

There are joys and there are sorrows. Jayber Crow, as the sole barber of Port William, has gotten to know these stories first-hand from the confessional that old-fashioned barbershops used to be. Jayber (whose name is really Jonah) was orphaned at the age of ten, and was moved to an orphanage in central Kentucky. From there he attended Bible college in Pigeonville, as he had felt, at the time, that he had received the call to become a preacher.

But in Bible college, he wrestled with too many hard questions to allow him to preach in good conscience. “You have been given questions,” his wizened NT Greek professor told him (whose nickname was “Old Grit”), “to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out -- perhaps a little at a time.” 

There’s more than a little of Berry himself here. He’s a Christian, yes, but certainly not what you’d call a “denominationalist.” He is one of many who has justifiably struggled with the organized church. Thusly, he had Jayber opine that “Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

Jayber left Bible college and wended his way to Lexington. After a few adventures and misadventures, he ended up back in his hometown of Port William, and set up shop.

He became the oral historian of the town. Oral history is the best kind of history, as it proceeds from the deep collection of community memory. “Telling a story,” Jayber reminisces much later, as he’s retired and over seventy at the time of his narration, “is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told. As almost any barber can testify, there is also more than needs to be told, and more than anybody wants to hear.”

The thing I like best about Jayber Crow is his growing -- and glowing -- recognition of his community in Port William, and what that community means, and the beautiful, poignant thing that community can be. 

Despite his honest problems with religion, Jayber comes to his clearest vision of God and his community -- ironically for him -- in church. Uncle Stanley Gibbs was the church janitor and gravedigger, but had been lately getting himself into trouble with his questionable vocabulary and his being too open about his plans for becoming a tomcat again once his old wife passed on. 

Jayber became Uncle Stanley’s successor, and cleans the church each Friday evening in anticipation of Sunday morning worship. He had avoided attending church for years, but now he sits quietly in the back. He loves the singing (“In the sweet by and by” is his favorite) despite his withering critique of most of the sermons.

One night while cleaning the church, Jayber gets sleepy and lies down on the floor. He closes his eyes and sees all the people of his cherished Port William -- people he observes and loves. The chapter concludes, “They were just there. They said nothing, and I said nothing. I seemed to love them all with a love that was mine merely because it included me. When I came to myself again, my face was wet with tears.”

Now that’s community. That’s what a town can be and should be. Jayber’s best friend, Burley Coulter, says this of what being a “member” of Port William is all about: “The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't."

The "membership" of Port William consists of any person who recognizes his or her place among -- and responsibility for the well-being of -- all the land, animals, and all the people of the place. It’s being totally pro-life as in “all life.”

Port William is, or should be, your town and my town. Your family and my family. Your church and my church. Your neighborhood and mine.

i am not a liberal

I am not a liberal. 

At least, not in the way that some people think.

Having grown up in the evangelical community, someone who was “liberal” meant that he did not believe that Jesus is God, or that He was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, or that He rose from the dead, or that His crucifixion saved humanity from sin, or that the Bible stories of miracles are true, or that Scripture is authoritative and communicates God’s Word.

I believe all these things.

In this sense, when I became Orthodox, I became even “less liberal.” In addition to the above, I also believe things that are even older than the evangelical community. I believe in the necessity of baptism for the remission of sins. I believe that the Eucharist is the bread and wine transmuted into the Body and Blood of Christ. I believe in the continuing presence of the saints, led by the greatest worshiper, pray-er, and worker of all, the Virgin Mary.

But there has been something of a “confusion of categories.” In the aftermath of the mass shooting of 19 children and 2 teachers on Tuesday (May 24th), I was called “liberal.” Why? Because I called for the minimum age for gun purchase to be raised to 21, nationwide. Because I called for universal background checks at every gun purchase – including gun shows and private sales. Because I called for the ban of the sale of military weaponry – including assault rifles – to civilians.

This, I’ve been told, is “liberal,” despite the fact that I have never once called for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Despite the fact that I support the right to civilian handguns for protection and long guns for hunting. Despite the fact that all these reasonable gun safety measures are supported by the majority of Americans.

But in the minds of many (too many), any mention of public gun safety puts me in the same category as those who cannot endorse the tenets of the Nicene Creed.

I shouldn’t be too surprised. I’ve wrestled with this difficulty for some time now. I oppose abortion, but I try to be consistently “pro-life” in my opposition to abortion, extending from before birth to after birth. Thus I support universal healthcare and safety nets of all sorts. I believe that there must be stewardship in the care of the environment and that global warming and climate change are real things. I believe in the necessity of public health policy in addressing pandemics, and that data from mainstream science takes precedence over minority conspiracy theories. I believe in socioeconomic justice (like the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Saints, and the Lord Himself), and that our three centuries of American slavery has deeply affected our past and present and needs to be taken seriously.

And I disbelieve in the “stolen election conspiracy theory.” I disbelieve in the QAnon pedophile conspiracy theory. I disbelieve in racial replacement theory. I disbelieve in male–centered domination and what is known as “complementarianism.”

And for all this, I am called a “liberal.”

I will own up to that label in that I am deeply committed to universal suffrage – i.e., one adult, one vote. I am committed to the freedom of religion and the complete severance of the church from any collusive ties with the state. I think that neo-integralism (and all theocratic theory) is not only anti-American, but that it is deeply anti-Christian. I am committed to the eradication of autocracy and oligarchy and every kind of tyranny and totalitarianism. I despise all racisms. I deeply distrust all nationalisms.

No nation is elected by God for a special purpose, neither Russia (as in the ridiculous notion of the “Third Rome”), nor America. I’m thankful for my country indeed, but I do not put my religious belief in it.

And I think there can no longer be any earthly monarchy: I have only one King, and that is the Ascended Lord, Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Historically, then, on the bases of the political opinions in the last three paragraphs, it would be correct to call me a liberal.

I would argue, though, that these particular liberal beliefs – including my arguments for commonsense gun safety – are rooted in faithfulness to the Gospel. Call it what you will, whether conservative (as in old fashioned) or radical (as in deeply rooted), I hold these truths, that “all men are created equal,” that every human wears the Face of Christ, that Creation is loved and desired by the Creator -- Who commands the tending of His garden -- just because I believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. 

Liberal democracy is rooted, fundamentally, in the personalism of the Gospel. We are persons only because the Trinity is a Unity of Three Divine Persons. We are democratic only because of the integral humanity of the Son of God. Our communion with divinity in the Body of Christ has affected and ordered all our relations – even and especially in politics.

Call me liberal, if my politics bother you. But the libertarian insistence that there can be no public imperative for safety and civility, that there should be no mandate for epidemiological measures, that there can be no restriction of military arms sales, that the reason for mass shootings is anything but guns, is grossly liberal. Libertarianism is precisely what happens when liberalism is severed from its Christian roots. Libertarianism is nihilistic as it is antagonistic to the self-denial that is necessary for the life of any community.

I do not suggest that anyone espousing libertarian doctrines (like unrestricted gun sales and use) is “not Christian.” Anyone on any day may hold to opinions that digress from the Christian faith, and no one can determine the precise boundary when one has excommunicated himself for that reason.

But I can say this. The espousal of libertarian doctrine, and the partisan support of authoritarianism, and the adherence to celebrity and personality cults, are far more modernistic beliefs than my own “liberal” notions.

My call for gun safety, in these heartbreaking days after the slaughter of children in Texas, indeed is “political.” Of course it is. Everything that has to do with community and relationships is political. Jesus' statement, 
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it also unto Me," is a profoundly political statement.

But the very accusation that I and others are “politicizing” this tragedy (a charge made by Senators Cruz and Rubio and the boisterous mayor of Uvalde) because we are trying to prevent this sort of "American carnage" from happening again and again and again -- is the most politicized (and heartless) action of all.

ideology and bullets at buffalo

The shooter in Buffalo on Saturday, 2:30 pm, did not show up at the scene of the crime by accident. He had used census data to locate his target: a grocery store in a predominantly African-American community.

He left no doubt as to his motive. In a long screed -- a "manifesto" -- he complained about the falling "white birth rate," even using demographic statistics culled from any one of a myriad of sources on grievance internet sites. He referred repeatedly to a conspiracy theory about the white race being displaced through intermarriage, immigration, and violence. It is a deeply anti-Semitic theory, as – like Tsar Nicholas II’s “Protocols of the Elders of Zion" – it fantasized that powerful and rich Jewish men were behind the conspiracy of “replacement.”

And so this 18-year-old was going to do something about it, armed with an assault rifle, body armor, even tactical headgear. His assault rifle was modified with a kit he purchased on the internet. He scrawled, with a permanent marker, racial slurs all over the gun. 

He got in his car, driving three and a half hours and over 200 miles, from Conklin New York to Buffalo. He tried live-stream his brand of “racial justice” on Twitch.

Ten people were murdered (including an 82-year-old widow) for the sake of white nationalist ideology -- an ideology that stokes itself into a frenzy about changing demographics -- that whites will no longer be dominant; that the American version of Protestantism will no longer have the influence it once had; that socialism is somehow replacing libertarian capitalism.

Ideology is not merely one "option" out of many possible opinions, a "freedom of choice." Ideology is not just intellectual laziness (which it is). Ideology supplants Christian theology -- it drives out faith and belief and charity.

Ideology rips apart community. Ideology always turns extreme.

Ideology turns human persons into inhumane agents of wrath and destruction. 

I say this because the “replacement” manifesto of a murderous 18-year-old is exactly the sort of screed I received in an email I received some years ago. The benighted author lived in the DC area and was employed somewhere in the federal government -- he told me in "intelligence," which I found hard to believe, given its oxymoronic character.

He was trying to get me -- an Orthodox priest -- and other conservative clergy to sign on to a letter to "the Bible-believing church leadership" – begging them to demand of the US government protection of "the white Christian establishment." 

This man, too, deployed statistics and was wringing his hands over the "diminishment of American white Christianity."

I replied simply and concisely. I told him there was nothing Christian about his concern about “white Christianity.” He could say this as a radical ideologue, but he could not spout “replacement theory” as a Christian.

There is no such thing as “white Christianity.” The minute these words are uttered, that language might be white but it is certainly not “Christian”: “In Christ,” St Paul said, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free” (Galatians 3.28). And, neither white nor black. Race – as demographically defined by loudmouth TV pundits today – is a modernist construct and has nothing to do with faith.

I told him that Christianity need not be so cowardly, that it had nothing to fear about any demographic change. That Christianity was robust enough to walk into any secularism, any sort of liberal democracy. I told him, too, that he hadn't a clue as to what socialism was (especially as he was conflating that with communism -- an all too common and uneducated error that too many politicians leverage). 

And lastly, I told him that his white nationalist thinking makes racist violence likely, if not certain.

Well, here we are.

If I were writing to him today, I'd say that at least one of the bullets of Buffalo yesterday had his name on it.

But years ago, when I wrote him back, I told him to never contact me again. That is, until he had repented of his wickedness in sackcloth and ashes.

Today, it is grievous that my own Orthodox community seems to attract many who hold to this "replacement theory" ideology. This is part of a larger trend in American Orthodoxy in particular, along with American Christianity in general, of a lurch toward rightwing authoritarian ideology.

It should be impossible to believe in a feetwashing and crucified Jesus in one part of the heart, and to embrace racist authoritarian ideology in another part.

To do so is to fail to discern the Body of Christ, St Paul says, and "That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 11.30).

In Orthodoxy and elsewhere in Christianity, in America and in the world, we have to work hard and bravely for the Holy Apostolic Tradition -- and thus we have to denounce replacement theory, QAnon theory, stolen election theory, and all sloppy extremist-driven conflations of socialism with communism, conservatism with rightwingism. We have to stand up for Jesus and denounce authoritarians, and their ideological fifth columns.

Why is this so? Why has ideology taken the place of theology and belief in so much of American Christianity?

Because Tucker Carlson (and his ilk) have more influence than your congregation's preacher, or your Sunday School teacher, or your neighborhood Bible Study leader.

Or, more likely, the Bible has less to do with too many preachers and Sunday School teachers and Bible Study leaders say than what they've heard on extremist TV. 

People would rather hear "do you want to get mad?" stuff on cable rather than theology from the pulpit. People would rather hear evangelists spit and crow about pedophiles in the deep state, and not the red-print of the Gospels.

While we've long complained of leftwing radical ideologues, we've closed our eyes to eyes to the steady and "nativist" march of rightwing ideology and its punditries. Perhaps these talking heads looked too much like us for us to notice.

So. Every single real Christian preacher has a sacred responsibility to resist extremism in their congregation and community.

Every single Christian leader and teacher is called by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the truly-traditional Gospel of peace, rationality, and justice. True Christology. True Trinitarian faith.

And every single Christian has heard the truth that every human face is the Face of Christ: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

Demographics and ideology hide this Face.

Because when a shooter shoots, he shoots Christ.

Pray that we don't end up being complicit.

the third sign

The Seven Signs

The Gospel of John can be read as having four parts: a Prologue, (John 1:-1:18), the Book of Signs (1:19 to 12:50), the Book of Glory (or Exaltation) (13:1 to 20:31) and an Epilogue (chapter 21).

There are Seven Signs in the second section:

1. Changing water into wine at Cana in John 2:1-11 - "the first of the signs"
2. Healing the royal official's son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54
3. Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-15
4. Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14
5. Jesus walking on water in John 6:16-24
6. Healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1-7
7. The raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45

Of course, there were many more miracles. John said as much at the end of the Book of Glory: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book” (John 20.30).

But John emphasized especially these Seven Signs for a single purpose: “… but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His Name” (John 20.31).

These Seven Signs reveal just that — that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. If you believe this, then you can have eternal life, in His Name.

In the all-important sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus says this about “life in His Name”: “I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me; and this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6.38-40).

Each of these Seven Signs is Jesus working the will of the Father. Each Sign is Jesus’ invitation as the Good Shepherd. It is a revelation so that we might see Him and believe in Him.

There is a beautiful progression in these Signs. The First Sign was Jesus changing the water into wine at the Wedding in Cana. There was a lack, a deficiency at a Feast, and the joy of the occasion was in peril. Mary the Theotokos interceded for the newlyweds and the family, and Jesus acquiesced to her request. The wine that He provided, miraculously, was of the very best vintage. “This, the first of His Signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His Glory, and His disciples believed in Him” (John 2.11).

What is real faith?

The Second Sign also occurred in Cana. And this one shared some similarities with the First. Someone comes with a request. Jesus first seems to refuse the request. The questioner persists. Jesus then grants the request. Then a new group of people believe in Him. Contrary to other miracles, after these two Cana miracles, there is no discourse. And, after the first two Signs in Cana, Jesus goes immediately to Jerusalem.

Jesus says something during this miracle that bothers a lot of readers: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe” (John 4.48). This is one of John’s emphatic points in his Gospel. Belief in Jesus — whether you call it “belief,” or “faith,” or “religion” — that is based on the spectacular is of a lower, less firm, quality.

Jesus calls for faith that is based on communing with Him. He desires us to love Him because He first loved us, in giving us His Body and His Blood. Faith that is based on witnessing signs and wonders is little better than being impressed by a magic show. That kind of faith will come and go, at the first appearance of difficulty.

Real faith is more than just being impressed by spectacle, by flash and thrill. Beware of and be skeptical of loud preachers that shout about “signs and wonders.”

Real and authentic faith is the recognition that Jesus is the Son of God, and our relationship with Him.

Real faith is life that is eternal, an eternity that is begun in the here and now.

Which is precisely the lesson of the Third Sign, the Gospel that is appointed for today, the Fourth Sunday of Pascha.

The Healing of the Paralytic

The “Feast of the Jews” most likely was Pentecost. The Jews were obliged to go to Jerusalem at the three major feasts — Pentecost was one of them, the other two were Passover and the Feast of Booths (or Tabernacles).

The Jewish Feast of Pentecost was a celebration of Moses’ receiving the Law on Mount Sinai. This is important, because Jesus’ relationship to the Law was an important subject in all four of the Gospels, and John’s Gospel emphasized the Law regarding the Sabbath.

John makes clear the Christian fact that Jesus Christ is now the new Moses, the new Lawgiver: “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another.”

It was on the Sabbath that Jesus came to the Pool of Bethesda, which in the area northeast of the Temple where the sheep were brought into Jerusalem for sacrifice.

The pool itself was large: about 200 feet wide by 315 feet long, divided by a central partition. On each side was a colonnade, or covered porch. A fifth colonnade sat atop the middle partition — hence the “five porticoes” in John 5.2.

There was an old local tradition that occasionally, an angel came and stirred up the water. The first person who got into the pool after this was healed of his maladies. So one can appreciate the crowd of the sick and the disabled waiting in the porches, alongside the pool, to get in.

The paralytic was a man with atrophied limbs who had been sick for thirty-eight years. This does not mean that he was at the pool all this time. This is a detail of the story that speaks to its concreteness and authenticity — manufactured tales do not have these kind of details. John is famous for this: at other places, he gives the precise time (3 to 6 am) that Jesus appeared to the disciples walking on the water, and he even gives the precise number of fish (153 tilapia) the disciples caught after the Risen Lord tells them to throw their nets over the other side of the boat.

So the ailment was not a temporary thing, something that one could just wait things out until things all got better. It was permanent. It was hopeless.

It didn’t help that the paralyzed man was petty and dull. When Jesus asked him “Do you want to be cured?”, the man responded with a complaint. He said that had no one to help him get down into the water. He also said that by the time he shuffled down to the end, someone always got in before him.

St John means for us to raise an eyebrow at this story. Really? He languished for thirty-eight years, going to the pool, waiting passively for a miracle, and he blames everyone else?

The paralytic was not a bad man, but really, he wasn’t all that great. The paralysis lay not only in his atrophied limbs. More seriously, it lay in his will, his desire, his belief, in his mind and heart.

The paralytic is us

That is exactly why our main hymn today wraps us all into one song: “With Your divine protection, O Lord, as You once raised the paralytic, now lift up my soul paralyzed with all kinds of sin and evil deeds of wickedness, so that, as saved, I may cry to You: ‘Glory to Your Might, O Merciful Christ!’”

That’s just what hymns do: they lift us up into poetic splendor of the one timeless moment of the Divine World, the Precinct of the Holy Trinity where the Theotokos, having passed beyond the Judgment into the Resurrection, intercedes for us always, saying to her Son and her God, “They have no wine,” and she tells us, “Do as He says.”

We are like this poor paralytic. Or maybe I should speak for myself: “You are truly the Christ,  Son of the Living God, Who came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the first.”

We should all “speak for ourselves” in the Presence of Christ. We are all the “first of sinners.”

The Rescuing Shepherd

I love John 5.6: “Jesus knew that he had been sick a long time.” Jesus knew. Jesus knew. St John, in his Gospel, underlines the beautiful fact that Jesus knew and understood humanity. Jesus is the Good Shepherd Who knows His sheep and calls them by name and leads them to abundant life (John 10.10). He is not a hired hand who runs away when the wolf comes, when the lion threatens. He leads His flock, He does not drive them: “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23/22.4).

Jesus is the Living, Risen and Rescuing Lord Who goes to every length, and descends to any depth, no matter how dark and desperate, to find the one lost lamp who strayed away from the ninety-nine. No matter the intensity of the storm. No matter how long the darkness has stretched into the night.

Even if that night has gone on for thirty-eight dull, atrophied years that’s left us a moral weakling, blaming everyone, complaining about our lot in life, in the Great Dismal Swamp of moral poverty.

“Stand up,” Jesus commanded, very much not participating in the paralytic’s self-pity. “Pick up your mat, and walk.”

Well, this was abrupt, and came as a shock to the man who had grown accustomed to his paralysis.

“And at once the man was healed.”

We are not given, in the text, any details about the process. In other places, we are told that Jesus took saliva and made a salve with mud (John 9.6, the “Sixth Sign”). Or that He took the hand of a little girl, and said “Talitha cumi” (Mark 9.41).

But here at the Pool of Bethesda, there is only Jesus’ words, and then the simple statement “the man was healed.”

When there are no details, St John means for us to pay attention to Jesus Himself, and what the Sign means — that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Lord of the Sabbath

To his credit, the man picked up his mat and began to walk.

But it was the Sabbath. The scribal and Pharisaical expansions of the Mosaic Law — which had devolved the Covenant of the Loving God into a legalistic, juridical code — framed explicit prohibitions against work on the Sabbath. Carrying things from one place to another is the last of 39 works forbidden in the Mishnaic treatise Sabbath.

The Sabbath was meant as a day of rest, because God Himself rested on the seventh day of Creation. But men had sunk the theology of divine love into the picayune do’s and dont’s of fundamentalist lawyers, Inquisitions and Puritanical theocracies that “When a convert is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Matthew 23.15).

We Orthodox Christians are particularly vulnerable to the temptation of the Pharisees. With our emphasis upon ascetical works -- like fasting, long services, prayer rules -- the perennial temptation is to frame them as "expansions" of Holy Tradition. And some of us move beyond mere legalism and juridicalism -- we go so far as to join in the Pharisaical contempt for those who break regulation. We revile those we regard as "unclean," who lay outside our definitions of "Orthodox Christian." Some have even taken the mantle of Epiphanius of Salamis upon themselves to look for heresy and denounce every supposed appearance of it.

But what if the "Sabbath-breakers" that upset us are "taking up their bed and walking" because Jesus told them to? Christians who are known by Jesus and who in turn know Him do not go in the business of determining who's in and who's out, the clean and the unclean, and drawing boundary lines that divide the acceptable faithful from the unacceptable rest.

It is clear that Jesus deliberately performed many of His miracles precisely on the Sabbath, doing the works of the Father. And why?

He did so because He Himself is the “Sabbath rest.” He is the “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2.28). It is in the Body of Christ alone, in communing with Him alone, that we have our “rest.” “Take My yoke upon you, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11.29).

The Light of the true Sabbath

When they saw the ex-paralytic walking around, carrying his mat — which was something along the lines of a bedroll, like a sleeping bag — many were offended. The poor man was breaking the letter of the Sabbath regulations. So they came down on him, and hard.

“It’s the Sabbath, and you are not allowed to be carrying that mat around! Who told you to pick it up and walk?”

What is missing here? The wonderful healing had been lost sight of. The “offended” people paid attention only to the infraction of regulations.

And something else was missing: Jesus’ Name! When asked “Who told you?”, the healed man didn’t have a clue! Jesus had slipped away into the crowd at the pool.

Later on, Jesus found the ex-paralytic, whose atrophy had been miraculously reversed, walking around in the precincts of the temple.

Once again, it is Jesus Who does the finding. It is Jesus Who knows, Jesus Who does the work of the Father.

Jesus told him, “Remember now, you have been healed. Sin no more lest something worse will happen to you” (John 5.14). It is important to remember that the Lord rejects the nasty idea that illness and disability are consequences of someone’s sin.

The sin that Jesus is warning the man — and all of us — is real sin, participation in evil. Fr Raymond Brown writes that “Jesus brings out what a man really is and the nature of his life. Jesus is a penetrating light that provokes judgment by making it apparent what a man is. The one who turns away is not an occasional sinner but one who ‘practices wickedness’; it is not that he cannot see the light, but that he hates the light … it is a question of radical evil.”

The “something worse” that Jesus warns of is the “outer darkness” of rejecting God’s Light and Love.

What happens next, as St John concludes the story, makes one shake his head (“smh” is the texting abbreviation).

Right after Jesus meets him in the temple yard, the man “went off and informed the Jesus that Jesus was the One Who had cured him” (John 5.15).

Some commentators, both ancient and modern, see this as outright treachery (Theodore of Mopsuestia, friend of St John Chrysostom, asserted this idea).

But St John indicates that this is not betrayal, but rather that the man is just naive. He’s still pretty dull, even after the miracle.

I think this confirms how real and true to life the Gospel is. Jesus, the Son of God. The miracles and the Signs of Jesus’ divinity do not exclude the humanity and the shortcomings of the people He draws into His Eternal Life.

Divine Light and Life penetrates and pushes out sin — but it takes time, and growth, and work and effort, and cooperation.

The ex-paralytic is learning something very important. He cannot be passive anymore, just waiting around for 38 years and complaining that nothing is happening.

It’s time for him — and us — to get up and walk, and sin no more. ❦

Elon Shoots the Moon

Elon Shoots the Moon

Mr Elon Musk had, by now, checked off many items in his bucket list. The creation and, more importantly, the cashing out of PayPal. The digging of big holes through six US cities by the Boring Company. The implantation of Neuralink brain chips in monkeys (though that didn’t work out too well at a 70% mortality rate). The successful launches of manned spaceflight by SpaceX.

He was particularly pleased by his acquisition of Twitter. “Imagine,” he chortled to himself, “people wanted me to pay taxes, or even,” he guffawed, “to help the poor.” It was only logical that he restored the once “permanently banned,” and opened the floodgates of the loud and alternative voices all for the cause of “freedom of speech.” And the money from all the subsequent rage-tweeting flooded his overflowing coffers.

There was only one thing left to do, one still as yet unchecked item. One thing remained in the bucket: going up himself. That is, sitting himself down in the Dragon crew capsule and taking a rocket ride atop a Falcon, even a BFD Starship.

So that is why he is elevating up the launch gantry right now, in his designer space suit, accompanied by the best pilot that money could buy. Elon couldn’t remember his real name, but the ace’s nickname was well-known: “Angel.”

Under his breath, Elon warbled his golden tune: “Money, Get back. I'm alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack. Money, It's a hit. Don't give me that do goody good …” 

Angel interrupted: “Everything is green for launch Mr Musk.”

Elon couldn’t believe how easy the launch was. It was dreamily smooth. He hardly felt the weight of G forces pressing him into the launch chair. He congratulated himself for the design of the spacecraft, and, to be perfectly honest, his own excellent physique.

Here they were in weightless outer space already, floating and not a care in the world.

“I’m outpacing Starman,” he tweeted, referencing the spacesuited dummy that was floating in the Tesla driver’s seat somewhere in the Solar System.

Then things went strange. The Moon loomed up in the dome window of the Dragon’s cupola. This was supposed to be just an orbital flight, maybe a stop off at the International Space Station. Not a trip to the moon.

“Hey, Angel, you made a wrong turn!”

“No Mr Musk, this is our destination. We’re going to the far side of the Moon.”

“I demand that you turn this thing around and take me home. And after that, you’re fired!”

“Mr Musk, I’m afraid that there’s been a change in your, errrr, eschatological position. There can be no round trip. Yours is a one-way ticket.” With that, Angel turned on some appropriate music, one of Pink Floyd’s best albums (his favorite). “Us and Them is good,” Angel said. “Money would be coming at it a bit too strong.”

Having crossed the horizon to the far side of the Moon, Elon was amazed that things were not at all what he had expected. “Everything is so green and beautiful!” he gasped.

“Why yes,” Angel replied. “We’ve crossed the sublunary sphere. No more mutation and darkness over here. You really ought to have studied your Ptolemaic astronomy better, Mr Musk.”

The craft glided down and landed softly in a green field. Angel opened the door and a warm fresh breeze wafted in. Elon stepped out onto a waving sward of verdant grass. 

As far as he could see, there were beautiful magnificent houses, gleaming white, nestled in the hills and trees. The horizon stretched much further than anything on earth – and the lawns were filled by all kinds of people. Laughter and singing echoed in the hills.

“Who are these” Elon asked, waving at the expanse.

“Everyone,” Angel said. “It wouldn’t be heaven if it weren’t.”

“Everyone? But everyone has a mansion! Even the poor? Even the deadbeats, the lazy, the undeserving?”

“Why, yes. The meek shall inherit the earth, after all.”

“This isn’t fair at all,” the unhappy billionaire twittered, and then he delivered the punchline, his life note:

“What’s the use of being rich if everyone else is?”

Angel sighed. “It’s been very hard being your guardian angel. I’d much rather be up on cloud nine strumming my harp. Ah, the music of our choir, the harmony, the joy from these heavenly inhabitants floating up into our hearts and leaping into our music. You haven’t lived until you’ve sung that singular song.”

“What rot! You’re not just a bad pilot. You’re a rotten guardian angel. You’re fired!”

Angel shook his head. “This is not The Apprentice. This is the dark side of the moon.”

“No,” the rocket man said, “This is hell.”

“You’re welcome to climb back in your spaceship. But I won’t be coming this time.”

"Justinian didn't like it either," he added, sotto voce: "Too many people. Too many of the wrong kind of people."

The owner of SpaceX climbed back aboard the Dragon and the craft took off to another horizon.

The Angel sang, softly, “Out of the way, It's a busy day. I've got things on my mind: For the want of the price, Of tea and a slice, The old man died.”

 

kirill and the iron crown

For American Orthodox Christians, it is not enough to pray for peace, and to be sad about the war.

 

It is not enough to pick a Ukrainian and a Russian to carry the Cross together on Good Friday -- which, by the way, hasn't happened yet in the Orthodox calendar. The Pope should know better: reconciliation comes only after the repentance of the abuser. Any rapprochement before real contrition is premature. And any staged attempt to bring abuser and victim together in a symbolic act is actually a contradiction of the symbol (in this case, the Holy Cross), and a continuation of abuse.

 

Every post-abuse therapist and social worker knows this. The Pope should have asked.

 

It is not enough to pray for peace.

 

What is morally required (I'm using polite language) is a denunciation of Patriarch Kirill, and whatever staff that supports this war.

 

What is required is the return of every and all donated money that came from Kirill. If he donated funds to build a building, sell the building and give the proceeds to the poor -- like suffering Ukrainians.

 

It really doesn't matter that the funds might have been received before the invasion. Even if it is a quarter-million dollars. Especially if it is a quarter-million dollars. The larger the donation, the heavier the weight of the iron crown.

 

What is required is the complete severance of ecclesial ties to this heresiarch.

 

It is not enough to just pray for peace.

 

Anyone can do that: lip service is easy.

 

One must actually build for peace.

 

Anything short of that is just make-believe.

the son of man came to serve

Who ever heard of a god who came to serve?

No one, until the Son of Man, Who alone has seen the Father, revealed the unprecedented, the unthinkable and unimaginable fact, that Name of God is Love.

In fact, the meaning of the Name of Jesus is the revelation of this truth.

The world is full of men who want to be gods. The world has always been filled with wannabe divinity's.

"You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them," Jesus said, soon after He started walking toward Jerusalem, shocking His followers as He seemed to be deliberately walking toward destruction.

Of course He was.

James and John, assuming and presuming that He was approaching the crowning achievement of a policial campaign in which He would take up the power of the State and put down all the enemies and phobias of Israel, thought that this was their opportune moment.

They wanted primacy. Perhaps a crown. Surely, glory and honor, privilege. Favor and gifts to shower upon their friends. Their own oligarchy.

They had no idea: "You do not know what you are asking," Jesus told them. "You do not understand the cup that I will be drinking and the baptism that I will undergo."

Jesus was grieved. He had heard this all along from His disciples, His friends. They never understood, or wanted to understand. They were always jockeying for position.

"How long, how long must I put up with you?" He had cried out these very words in just the chapter before, when His disciples had utterly failed at their greatest challenge of servanthood -- to drive out a terrible demon from a little boy.

Servanthood is what Jesus asked of His friends. This is what God had always asked of His people, from Adam to Abraham, from Moses to David to the Prophets.

Because Servanthood is what the Name of God means, precisely.

"Whoever would be great among must be your servant," Jesus told them, on the way to the Cross. "Whoever would be among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all."

This is a complete inversion of the metanarratives of the fallen world. This is an utter, exhaustive rejection of the primeval deception, to deify oneself at the expense of the Covenant. To seek one's advantage over the rest to seek primacy at the cost of the rest.

God's righteousness had always been intended for the fulfillment of the needs of all. God's Table was always set for every single creature. Even in the fallen world, there was never insufficiency.

People suffer and starve. People die. Only because "great men exercise power over them."

In this moment when power that exceeds the Gentiles, when demonic fascism has been let loose upon little Ukrainian boys and girls, grandfathers and grandmothers, and parents, and young men who die on the battlefield and young Ukrainian women are raped by Russian soldiers ...

... in this moment when monsters dare to carry the Cross while turning it upside down, we hear the words of the True God Who rejects the satanic religion of power and domination:

"For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10.45).

This True God "emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death upon a cross" (Philippians 2.7-8).

So when you hear of ideologies and war plans, when you hear of culture wars and authorities rationalizing invasions and justifying slaughter, ask yourself this:

Who is serving whom?

For Christ is the One Who said and demonstrated the true meaning of this verse, contrary to the recent blasphemous utterance in the darkness of an anti-cathedral.

Christ, Who is Love itself, said "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15.13).

The Cross is the Sign of the True God, Who alone bears the Name of Love.

 

 

 

this is the end

 

Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Cyril Gundyayev) preached this a few weeks ago, on Forgiveness Sunday Divine Liturgy, at the cusp of the Great Fast, in which we usually hear words of humility, repentance, forgiveness, and meekness:

 

"If we see [Ukraine] as a threat, we have the right to use force to ensure the threat is eradicated,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill recently preached to his church’s 90 million faithful followers. We have entered into a conflict which has not only physical but also metaphysical significance. We are talking about human salvation, something much more important than politics.”

 

Kirill is not alone in this opinion. Archdeacon Vladimir Vasilik, who is a professor (St Petersburg State University) and a member of the Synodal Liturgical Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate, chimes in:

 

"We can say that those who are being released from Ukraine are not very happy to be released. Of course, especially now, when they have to sit in the basement, expecting rockets and bombs, to suffer deprivation and various sufferings, the death of loved ones. It is natural for people to want peace and not think about big politics and the future. But no surgery is devoid of blood and pain. The patient may murmur before the doctor, ‘I was better off with the tumor before.’ But then he will understand that his life has been saved ...”

 

If it is not clear already, Vasilik is claiming that the butchers of Bucha, Putin and his Russian marauders, are only "saving" Ukraine. It is hard to imagine a more sycophantic corruption of churchly rhetoric: even the Sadducees are embarrassed, wherever they are.

 

I should note that Russian state TV does in fact show video of Bucha and other places, but claim that this is the work of Ukrainian Nazis who are bombing and butchering their own cities and populations.

 

This does not beggar belief: what does is the drab reality that so many Americans hop on the contrarian bus and join in with the "this is too complex and there must be two sides to every story" train.

 

But my main point is even more melancholy. The ghastly opinions of Kirill and, it appears, his entire Patriarchate present a terrifying challenge to Orthodox ecclesiology. What are we to make of the administrative structure of world Orthodoxy?

 

When the administration of the largest segment of our worldwide faith community has wrapped itself in a fascist ideology -- when a Patriarch preaches the eradication of a nation from the Amvon -- the status quo cannot remain unchanged, because it has already withered.

 

The status quo has fallen as a fait accompli.

 

To say that this is heartbreaking is an understatement.

 

What remains for us, who try to be faithful to our cherished Orthodox faith that is anti-ideological (which it must be), fully separated from the siren-deceptions of the cultural wars -- a faith that is kenotic and sophianic, Patristic and Biblical, fully Trinitarian and Christological, courageous and winsome, charged as salt and light in the world, no matter how secular and "woke" the world might be --

 

-- what remains for us is to pray and love and teach the truer and higher things, and to serve under the omophorion of a Patriarchate that remains true to the foundations and to the abiding call of the One Who will return.

the achievements of Mr Putin

Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been in charge of Russia since, arguably, 1999.

His march to restore his vision of Russkiy Mir, the "Russian Nation" of the former Soviet Union, is inexorable. He has demonstrated his willingness to inflict pain and suffering on not only Georgia, Chechnya, and Donbas, but also his own people.

It can be argued that Putin is just the most recent Russian Strong Man who has led Russia to achieve its strategic aims, at the cost of making the Russian people absorb horrific levels of pain and suffering.

It should be remembered that 20 million people lost their lives in World War II.

It is a Russian tradition for its Strong Man -- whether Tsar, or General Secretary, or Chairman, or Prime Minister -- to squander the lives and livelihood of not thousands, but millions of Russian men, women, and children.

Some would look at this pattern and call it noble. I think it is horrific, and certainly not anything to brag or sing about. To suggest that the suffering of Russia is somehow necessary to the Russian genius, the real achievements of its culture, is to propose the necessity of pain and evil for the existence of beauty in life.

I know that many hold to this idea. I do not. Beauty does not need evil to be beauty. Light does not need darkness to be light.

Evil has no essential reality, as it is only a privation of the good

But it does have its achievements in existence.

Here is a list, then, of the achievements  of Vladimir Putin in his latest march to greatness, in the latest chapter of the wastrel sacrifice of Russian young men (and older generals and colonels), and the Ukrainian people:

1. Putin has destroyed the credibility of the Moscow Patriarchate. Patriarch Kirill's partnership with Putin in extending the "Russian World" -- an ideology that he has advanced since 2000 -- has already disaffected not only the metropolis of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine but elsewhere in Europe. The Moscow Patriarchate, for it to survive at all as a real Patriarchate, will have to have a succession. And the next Patriarch will have to renounce -- clearly and firmly -- the mere mention of Russkiy Mir. The next Patriarch will have to fully and definitively embrace democracy and turn away from the ancient Russian tradition of the Strong Man.
   
   
2. Putin has unified Ukraine, and has clarified Ukraine as a nation completely distinct from Russia. He has shined a light on the bleak contrast between his Russia and Zelensky's Ukraine. The latter has shown itself to be resilient, tenacious, noble in the face of monstrous destruction and offense. Old women have berated armed Russian soldiers. Old men have stood on the road against Russian tanks. The people, unarmed, have marched in Kherson streets against columns of Russian troops. Meanwhile, over 20,000 Russian people have been detained by Putin's police for having the courage to protest the war. Thousands of Russians have left Russia because of Putin's dictatorship, and his captive State will suffer a real and irreversible "brain drain." Putin has throttled any semblance of a free press.
   
   
3. Putin has highlighted the superiority of Western democracy. Western democracy is not merely one governmental alternative among others. It is ontologically superior to authoritarian structures. Putin's invasion of Ukraine has double-underlined the irrationality of any suggestion that an authoritarian state is appropriate for one group of people, while democracy is appropriate for another. Without the proposition that military adventurism should be waged for the sake of regime change (i.e., a la American neo-conservatism), it remains true that the suggestion that democracy is not appropriate for some cultures is the height of condescension. Western democracy values the rights of the person, the free press (that is always going to tend toward the Left, and that must needs be), and opposes any sort of authoritarianism. People want to go to democracies: they want to flee autocracies. This is rational -- to suggest otherwise is irrational.
   
   
4. Putin has managed to discredit authoritarian movements in the West, particularly in America. If Putin falls, he will take Donald Trump (and the Trump movement) down with him. The American Orthodox romanticizing of Strong Men has been shown to be a sycophantic attraction toward Church-State collusion that has long been the perennial and heretical temptation of Orthodoxy. Within American Orthodoxy, certain romances are being discredited: like the Benedict Option and its constant complaints about the sexual transgression of the liberal West. Like the anti-modernist ideology of some communities in West Virginia (and elsewhere), as documented by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz in her upcoming publication, Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia. Like the constant anti-Western drumbeat of not a few American Orthodox clergy, who openly wish for the replacement of democracy with other more "Christianizing" governmental forms. Like the Neo-Integralism of Adrian Vermeule (and others). Like the dominionism of the New Apostolic Reformation's "Seven Mountains of Influence." 
   
   All of these ideological romances are naive sentimentalizations at best, and cynical exercises in realpolitik at a more likely worst. They all use the cardboard image of "traditional values" as a rallying cry against the so-called 'liberal West." But these "traditional values" do not include the Biblical and Patristic witness for social and economic justice and stewardship of the environment. 
   
   
5. Putin has revivified and unified -- and vindicated -- NATO as no Western leader ever could have. It used to be that American conservatives supported the mission of NATO in its post-World War II work to contain the expansionist aims of the Soviet Union. But since the early 1990's, some American Orthodox have begun to loudly denounce NATO for its bombing of Serbia, while relatively ignoring the outrages of Milošević. Then they complained about the US and NATO in its campaign against Assad -- and again, relatively ignoring Putin's destruction of Aleppo. 
   
   The present invasion of Ukraine has shown that NATO's mission of containing autocratic expansion -- whether communist or fascist -- has been vindicated. I'm sure there are those who suggest otherwise. And I agree with some measure of skepticism about Western militarism: I, too, agree with Eisenhower's critique of the military-industrial complex. I, too, disagreed with the Iraq war, and with the neo-conservative campaign for the protection of oil-production. 
   
   But I draw a distinction between neo-conservative imperialism (and colonialism), and the necessity of deterring and preventing totalitarian expansion. And I denounce the sham of complaining about the so-called "soft totalitarianism" of the West while shutting one's eyes to the real totalitarianism of Strong Men, whose Christian shibboleths are taken as sufficient bona fides for sophisticated cheers and adulation, and invitations to conferences and book-signings.
   
   In any case, where would Europe be without NATO? Locked up in a totalitarian State that is very real and very hard.
   
   
6. Putin has divided American Orthodoxy. Because of Patriarch Kirill's outrageous support of Putin, about 100 of the 340 clergy from ROCOR, which usually honors and commemorates the Moscow Patriarch, have moved to Orthodox jurisdictions not affiliated with Kirill. A further 145 U.S. Church Abroad parishes have so far followed suit.
   
   Still, there are many American Orthodox who remain committed to this deformed, nationalist and autocratic version of Orthodoxy. Many continue in their support of the Moscow Patriarch's refusal to commune with the Ecumenical Patriarch. Many clergy and laity openly condemn the Ecumenical Patriarch and the GOARCH Archepiscopal See of New York as "liberal," simply because of their courageous and consistent witness for social and economic justice and environmental stewardship. 
   
   I will continue to pray "For peace throughout the whole world, for the welfare of the holy churches of God and for the union of them all."
   
   But I have to acknowledge the reality of the destruction of this peace, and the schism of the Churches of God -- the destruction and schism of which Vladimir Putin has been the primary agent, who has been aided and abetted by Moscow Patriarch Kirill (and Metropolitan Hilarion and others in the Patriarchate). 
   
   And thus I grieve. But still I pray in hope. Perhaps American Orthodoxy can survive this travail and rise afterward stronger, and more faithful to real Orthodoxy, instead of its many toxic deformations.

prayer in a new key

I would rather pray for human need. I'd rather pray for those who are sick or in pain or in need. I'd rather pray "for healthful seasons, for an abundance of the fruits of the earth."

I'm far more competent in my prayers framed within all the litanies of Divine Liturgy. especially St Basil's very long pastoral prayers.

And I could participate in Grace for those needs. I could give charity in alms or work to do the Samaritan thing.

But in the face of increasing brutality of Russia toward Ukraine? I pray and pray, but feel utterly powerless: what participation is there in mitigating this evil?

A Russian tank drove up to a nursing home and fired point-blank into the building. An art school sheltering hundreds was bombed. Another Russian tank turned its turret upon a car upon which was clearly painted the word "Children" and fired, instantly killing both parents and a child. Deliberately. Consciously.

And because the resistance of Ukraine has become so costly to Russia, it is becoming more and more possible that Putin will order the detonation of tactical nuclear bombs. Or the release of chemical and biological weapons.

Russia is inflicting horror upon Mariupol, where the water has become toxified because of dead bodies.

And Putin has stepped into the despotism of Stalin (and Beria) upon his own citizens, now calling Russian opposition as "scum" and "traitors." Over 20,000 brave Russian citizens are now in detention -- the Gulag is alive and well in Putin's dictatorship.

He is doing this with the blessing, or nodding approval, from Moscow Patriarch Kyrill, who, along with Metropolitan Hilarion and others in his administration, advocate the doctrine of Russky Mir, the ideology of "the Russian world." (It is hard for me to believe that this same Metropolitan is the one who authored Christ the Conqueror of Hell and endorses murderous invasion at the same time).

If Putin wins Ukraine, Russian Orthodoxy will suffer profound damage, as this ideology will have subverted the entire structure of the Moscow Patriarchate profoundly.

It is possible that the Moscow Patriarchate has already fallen as a real spiritual structure, precisely because of Russky Mir and Putin's bloodthirsty march to Kyiv.

I've gone beyond the business of arguing against any Christian defense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Such a thing is impossible, and if it is still argued, then there is no longer any rationality or Christianity in such a defense.

But prayer remains, even if there are no physical means that remain for me (or anyone else as individuals) to meet this evil. It is likely that my country and its allies will find it necessary to engage this evil directly.

Prayer remains, though the character of that prayer has changed. It is not the prayer for reconciliation (it never was). This is not a fratricidal conflict, nor is it nationalistic expansionism. It is ideology at its most toxic and death-dealing.

Putin has moved beyond the human pale of outrage. Human nature by itself is limited in its participation with evil. When population murder and destruction and forced deportation occur, it is no longer just depravity of human nature.

It is a bodiless nature at work that wields structural power.

And thus the prayer is exorcistic.

no more time for the strong man

A friend told me, recently, that our democracy and Russia's dictatorship are "equally worthless," that God's presence is what is needed.

 

Of course God's presence, the Kingdom of God, is infinitely higher and transcendent. But, against my friend's opinion, it is not incongruous.

 

Christians can no longer believe that all the governmental forms of the world are of equal value or worthlessness. Most are worse, and horribly so. Some are better.

 

Time and the aggregate of history have made things clearer. Democracy in its various forms -- like the federal republic that is the United States -- is not only better, but it is something that Christianity should recognize as being more consistent with the theology of the Incarnation than any authoritarian form.

 

Orthodoxy, especially, should know this best of all.

 

Orthodoxy is all too familiar with authoritarianism, because it has had to endure various forms of it for centuries -- they were all bad, some less so, some more so. Despite the fact that Orthodoxy has seen fit to anoint Caesars and Tsars and Kings with holy oil, it remains true that the Church has never correctly or essentially wedded itself to earthly power.

 

It is a grievous error to long for the good old days of the monarchy -- worse, to long for such in religious haughty language draped with the glutinous veils of sentimentality is to fall from the witness of Orthodox Christology, of Christ as Friend saying "My Life for yours -- and vice versa." Perhaps our vestments from the old Byzantine imperium make us forget that fact. 

 

Earthly powers, ie the State, have only been divinely-ordained with the "short sword" (Romans 13.4), the power to wield death to restrain evil. The State now can never be used (if it ever should have been used) to advance the Kingdom of God. Its agency is only negative (ie, a restraint and corrective), never positive. The State is expected to do the minimum -- restrain evil, and evil includes starvation, homelessness, poverty, unaided sickness and disability, racial injustice,  and environmental spoliation.

 

The State cannot be used, as some want it to be, as a bulwark against the rising tide of secularization, or the transgressiveness of post-modernity. The Church responds to contemporary temptations and perils for her people in pastoral care, in catechesis, in ascesis, in humility and meekness. But to transfer this pastoral concern into partisan politics is to adopt ideology at the expense of theology and fidelity to the Orthodox witness as salt and light -- the witness of an itinerant Preacher Who was crucified as a rebellious slave.

To rise in anger and anxiety at the changing present, and lobby for a change from democracy to Church collusion with the State in coercive morality, is not only a betrayal of the American legacy, but it is apostasy from the evangel.

 

Thus Orthodoxy in the twenty-first century can only endorse democracy and condemn authoritarianism.

 

To embrace an authoritarian power is to reveal a deficiency in Christological doctrine.

 

Indeed. Christ said "I have come to serve and not to be served." Christ's power is a kenotic power, a power of self-renunciation and sacrifice.

 

Christlikeness is incongruous with state power, domination, and violence.

 

In other words, authoritarianism -- including monarchy, dominionism, neo-integralism -- is ontologically opposed to Christology.

 

It should be self-evident that Christianity—especially Orthodox Christianity—can and must only militantly denounce white nationalism and all extremist ideologies. An Orthodoxy that is concerned about changing demographics is simply no longer Orthodoxy.

 

And it is a crying shame that some American jurisdictions have prohibited their clergy from denouncing the moral failure of the Moscow Patriarchate in its craven approval of the invasion of Ukraine. Such approval is a clear failure in Christology.

 

Things have changed at the Incarnation. The Old Testament can only be interpreted allegorically* now.

 

Enemies must be loved. Nations can no longer be invaded for the sake of culture wars. Partisan politics cannot and must not be imported into the church.

 

Authoritarianism must be rejected. Times have changed.

 

There can no longer be a Christian Tsar. Or a President elected as a culture warrior. Strong Man adherents like Putin, Xi Jinping, or even putatively Christian ones like Orban, must be rejected -- theologically and prophetically. The Antichrist is not the "liberal West." The spirit of antichrist lies in exactly what we've always been told: in violence, domination, oppression and cruelty. Not in vacuous concepts like "soft totalitarianism," but in the realities of hard totalitarianism, dictatorship.

Exactly in the ways of "dear leaders" who ever attempt to make their short swords long. At the cost of the death of children, grandmothers, and of their own people.

 

* NB: I take allegory in its widest meaning, admitting poetic and even teleological interpretations. Someone suggested I was being Marcionite with this line: no, one should know that I live my life in the Psalms. Perhaps I could have used "symbolic" instead. Or just stopped with "non-literal." Or simply said, "We can no longer use Joshua or the imprecatory Psalms as license for committing violence." But that's too wordy. I'll stick with allegorical, for the necessary Christological reinterpretation of the Old Testament. And no, that re-interpretation is not anti-Semitic.