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Dear Parish Faithful,
We have concluded the six sessions of this year's Fall Adult Education Class. Participation was excellent (one of our parish "young adults" joined us as well as some non-Orthodox visitors) and the discussions quite lively. Our book of choice was For the Life of the World - Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church. The two main editors are David Bentley Hart and Archdeacon John Chryssavgis, both very prominent Orthodox theologians today. This title, in addition to echoing the words of Christ, is clearly a tribute to Fr. Alexander Schmemann's now classic study with the same title, written back in 1963. The centrality of the Eucharist, so much a part of our Church life today, but something that was like a new revelation when uncovered by Fr. Alexander more than half a century ago, permeates this new book and is at the heart of the Church's moral and ethical vision for a genuine Orthodox social ethos:
"The Eucharist, in being celebrated and shared by the faithful, ever and again constitutes the true Christian polity, and shines out as an icon of God's Kingdom as it will be realized in a redeemed, transfigured, and glorious creation. As such the Eucharist is a prophetic sign as well, at once a critique of all political regimes insofar as they fall short of divine love and an invitation to all peoples to seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. [Matt. 6:33]" (p. 9)
This allows for a further key affirmation:
“The Kingdom of God alone is the Christian’s first and and last loyalty, and all other allegiances are at most provisional, transient, partial, and incidental.” (p. 11)
Although referring to For the Life of the World as a "book," it is actually better described as a "document," because there is a chosen group of distinguished Orthodox scholars who were behind the final text. They are all listed in the front of the book. This book/document was conceived and written in response to the directive of His All-holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who blessed this theological commission to articulate a sustained and theologically-informed response to the pressing social issues of today's complex and, at times, chaotic world. But a world that is loved by God and saved by the advent of Christ, and which is still spiritually hungry for that gift of salvation, though tragically unaware of God's gift and desire "that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." (I Tim. 2:4 )
The strength of the book is in its fidelity to the Tradition of the Church, expressed in the Preface as follows:
"No claim is advanced in these pages that was not arrived at through a scrupulous contemplation of the biblical, patristic, dogmatic, and theolgical sources of the tradition as a whole." (Preface, p. xviii)
Discussing the complexities of life in a (post)modern world will inevitably lead to a real difference of opinions as to how to approach and try to solve some of our more pressing social issues. The authors of the book were aware of this and humbly acknowledged it in the text itself, by writing of the document's purpose in the Conclusion:
"It is offered, therefore, with the caution and the humble acknowledgment that it is in many respects quite inadequate as a comprehensive statement of the social ethos of the Church. In that sense, it is at most an invitation to further and deeper reflection on the parts of the faithful." (p. 107)
Nevertheless, this document is so impressive precisely because it is so theologically literate, and its uncompromising adherence to the Gospel so imbues every position articulated in the document's content, that it is nearly impossible to dismiss out-of-hand any of the general principles that it elucidates as something taught, believed and promoted by the Orthodox Church. As the reader may challenge some of the claims of the document; so the document, in turn, will challenge even some of our most strongly-held positions on social issues. The document invites us to think theologically not politically. I am deeply thankful that through such a document as this one we, as Orthodox Christians, are fearlessly engaging in a meaningful dialogue with the twenty-first century world - the world we live in! Here are a few choice examples, somewhat randomly chosen, but passages that generated some of our more lively discussions in our class sessions:
“There is only one human race, to which all persons belong, and all are called as one to become a single people of God in the creator. … And yet, sadly, the rise of new forms of political and nationalist extremism has even resulted in the infiltration of various Orthodox communities by individuals committed to race-theory.”
“Already in the womb each of us is a spiritual creature, a person formed in God’s image and created to rejoice in God’s presence. From the first generation of Christians, therefore, the Church has abhorred the practice of elective abortion." (p. 32)
"In the late capitalist world, old age - once recognized as something venerable - is often treated as something of an embarrassment, and the elderly as something of a burden and nuisance." (p. 39)
“The pursuit of social justice and civil equity – provision for the poor and shelter for the homeless, protection for the weak, welcome for the displaced, and assistance for the disabled – is not merely an ethos the Church recommends for the sake of a comfortable conscience, but is a necessary means of salvation, the indispensable path to union with God in Christ, and to fail in these responsibilities is to invite condemnation before the judgment seat of God.” (p. 43)
“Nothing is more contrary to God’s will for creatures fashioned in his image and likeness than violence one against another, and nothing more sacrilegious than the organized practice of mass killing.” (p. 58)
“Minucius Felix, St. Cyprian, and Tertullian all took it for granted that, for Christians, the innocent may never slay the guilty … The prevailing view among the Fathers was essentially that the Sermon on the Mount’s prohibition of retaliation sets the standard for Christians in both the private and the public spheres, for on the cross Christ at once perfected the refusal of violence and exhausted the law’s wrath.” (p. 67)
"Orthodox Christians, then, may and should happily adopt the language of human rights when seeking to promote justice and peace among peoples and nations, and when seeking to defend the weak against the powerful, the oppressed against their oppressors, and the indigent against those who seek to exploit them." (p. 80)
"A society that protects freedom of religion is one that recognizes that it is only through the preservation of a sphere of spiritual concern, transcendent even of the interest of the state, that a People,e can sustain the moral foundations of real civil and social unity." (p. 85)
"The invention of medicines, antibiotics, vaccines, therapies for even the gravest of illnesses, and so forth, are especially glorious achievements of human creativity, and are thus also particularly precious gifts from God." (p. 94)
"The disembodied, curiously impersonal, and abstracted quality of virtual communication seems to prompt the kind of amoral and self-absorbed behavior that the real, immediate presence of another person would discourage." (p. 96)
"The desire for scientific knowledge flows from the same wellspring as faith's longing to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of God." (p. 98)
"While a modest secular order that does not impose a religion on its citizens is a perfectly good and honorable ideal, a government that restricts even ordinary expressions of religious identity and belief all too easily becomes a soft tyranny that will, in the end, create more division than unity." (p. 119)
I have argued for the document's capacity to sustain a very high quality of moral, ethical and theological integrity from start to finish, but I would like to choose one particular passage that to me, at least, rises near to the level of "prophetic pathos." Biblical prophets will initially sound a voice of (righteous) indignation over against unrighteousness and injustice, before they provide the voice of insight and a positive call to a renewed vision. Although expressed in the same style as the rest of the document - a language fitting for the twenty-first century - I detect a certain element of that in this passage that denounces both the ideological and then the actual dehumanization of a particular group of people in today's world who are actually deserving of our compassion:
"We have seen nativist panic encouraged in Europe, in Australia, in the Americas. In the United States, the most powerful and wealthiest nation in history - one, in fact, born out of mighty floods of immigrants from around the world - we have seen political leaders not only encouraging fear and hatred of asylum-seekers and impoverished immigrants, but even employing terror against them: abducting children from their parents, shattering families, tormenting parents and children alike, interning all of them indefinitely; denying due process to asylum-seekers, slandering and lying about those seeking refuge, deploying the military at southern borders to terrify and threaten unarmed immigrants, employing racist and nativist rhetoric against asylum-seekers for the sake of political advantage, and so forth. All such actions are assaults upon the image of God in those who seek our mercy. They are offenses against the Holy Spirit. In the name of Christ, the Orthodox Church denounces these practices, and implores those who are guilty of them to repent and to seek instead to become servants of justice and charity." (p. 91)
For the Life of the World - Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church begins with the magnificent affirmation so dear to all Orthodox Christians, that:
"... the human person as having been created in the image and likeness of God. To be made in God's image is to be made for free and and conscious communion and union with God in Jesus Christ, inasmuch as we are formed in, through, and for him." (p. 1)
This document is one long affirmation of this truth as it applies to all human beings throughout the world - from the most ancient times and pressing forward to as yet an unknown future - and then implies that we must embrace this truth in order to best create and cultivate an Orthodox ethos for the world in which we live.
If you have yet to read through this inspiring document carefully, here is the link from our parish website of a free PDF copy of the full text, plus additional links for further study:
