LENTEN MEDITATION - Day XXXIX — 'Phono Sapiens'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

People who grew up with phones—and even many older people who didn’t—can’t read a novel anymore, sit through a film without looking at their phones, sit through a TV show without pausing it to check their emails, finish an article online—in short, can’t really do anything without multitasking. There’s no moment of rapture in reading the first page of a book because the mind no longer expects to reach the end. The old tools of storytelling are obsolete; distraction supersedes even entertainment, let alone art. And because we can’t narrate our lives, “we can’t construct narratives connected to our own inner truth.” Truth simply falls out of the human vocabulary, replaced by big data: charts, memes, viral clips. Phono sapiens is “lost” in a “forest of information,” without passion or purpose.

—Matthew Gasda

____

Not exactly the usual "lenten" fare that I have been sending out this Great Lent. But no less challenging than what we have read thus far from a Church Father, or our more contemporary voices: Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Frs. Alexander Schmemann, Thomas Hopko, and Lev Gillet, to mention a few. My contribution is not to add what you just read above, but to admit - confess! - that I, too, have found myself doing the same mindless and meaningless "stuff" with my phone. I am glad to be a member of homo sapiens, but distressed to even think that unless I am vigilant, I may be degraded to the ranks of Phono sapiens! In fact to curtail some of the above in my own life has been one of my focused "lenten projects" this year. Yet, I do continue to read long novels (and watch films) with great joy and attention, I am glad to further share. A suggestion: Choose a good, long novel for the summer and commit to reading it from start to finish.

 

'What can we do to best serve the Gospel of peace and righteousness? '

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

Paschal Meditation - Day Twenty Seven

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

"Serbian citizens have handed over nearly 6,000 unregistered weapons in the first three days of a month-long amnesty period that is part of an anti-gun crackdown following two mass shootings last week, police said on Thursday."

"Police also have received nearly 300,000 rounds of ammunition and about 470 explosive devices during the same period, the Serbian interior Ministry said on Instagram."

"The effort to rid Serbia of excessive guns was launched after 17 people were killed in two mass shootings last week and 21 were wounded, many them children. One of the shootings took place in a school for the first time in Serbia."

The above are not exactly the usual types of passages chosen to deepen our appreciation of the paschal mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. These are quotations that I have taken from a recent Associated Press article (May 11) about the reaction in Serbia over the two horrible mass shootings that had occurred there just last week. (Serbians have a high per capita rate of gun ownership dating back to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s). The Serbians are not used to what we, as Americans, are accustomed to on an almost daily basis: gun violence that claims the lives even of our children. It is my impression that a kind of collective shock, horror and dismay have overcome much of the population in Serbia, and thus the cooperation on the part of a wide range of its citizenry to oppose these mass shootings, by (voluntarily?) turning in their weapons following a government mandate to that effect. 

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of mass shootings in our country, we no longer seem that horrified over such killing sprees. Hence, the entrenched reluctance to take any significant action in controlling the ownership of the urban equivalent of "weapons of mass destruction:" high-powered rifles such as the A-15, apparently the new weapon of choice among mass shooters. But perhaps we need to first transform our "gun culture" before we can meaningfully pass "gun laws." Whatever the solution may be, the Serbian people (primarily Orthodox Christians) have provided an example of civic responsibility and humane care for their fellow citizens - beginning with their children. I just heard a fellow Orthodox priest publicly say that "the Church must do something about gun violence."

Perhaps the questions posed for Christians should be something like: What do we need to do to best protect our children? What can we do to best serve the Gospel of peace and righteousness? 

 

'Unsettling Times' - A Contemporary Commentary

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

 

Another Grim Milestone - Watching the news yesterday evening, I learned that we have now surpassed 500,000 American COVID-19 deaths in about one year's time. This is the largest number of deaths in the world by far. This staggering figure surpasses the number of deaths among American soldiers in World Wars I & II and the Vietnam war combined. The news channel I was watching had a moving tribute to a handful of representative citizens who lost their lives. Some of them were quite young. This has been an ongoing American tragedy, and perhaps all we can do is pray with deep respect and conviction: Memory Eternal! And let us all continue to remain vigilant and follow the prescribed guidelines meant for our collective protection.

Domestic Concerns and International Horror - The news flowed into the latest edition of 60 Minutes. The first segment covered the alarming increase of threats of violence toward many American federal judges. They clearly need and deserve more protection.

The second segment covered the murderous and even genocidal reign of Assad in Syria. Some brave Syrian journalists and photographers have chronicled these horrendous crimes and shared them with the Western world. The thousands of saved photographs of tortured victims smuggled out of Syria (and verified by American intelligence as to their authenticity) are a grim record of just how horrible this has been for thousands of Syrians. Whole towns and villages have been ravaged and women and children are among these victims, with many tortured beyond recognition. The goal is to bring Assad to justice "one day" on an international level. The evidence is overwhelming, but the path to that justice will prove to be difficult. 

The Future of QAnon - The third segment of 60 Minutes dealt with the conspiracy theory known as QAnon, discussing its future following its many unfulfilled expectations. It is a troubling movement and since we live in unsettling times it could very well be a potent combination of fear, paranoia, and manipulation that draws people into such a world of fantasy and unreality. Is it too naive to think that practicing Orthodox Christians cannot be susceptible to such conspiracy theories? Probably so, but we have the "tools" on hand that protect us from such delusion. In the Church's spiritual tradition, the Fathers teach us about the virtue of diakrasis. This is usually translated as "discernment," the capacity to discern - and then choose - between good and evil; truth and falsehood; reality and fantasy. Archbishop Kallistos Ware has called diakrasis a "spiritual sense of good taste." The saints claim that the gift of discernment is essential to the spiritual life. Otherwise, we can fall into what is called plani in our spiritual tradition. And this means delusion and fantasy.

Keeping our gaze on the crucified and risen Christ remains absolutely essential. Following the precepts of the Gospel and looking to the saints as icons of sanity and holiness. Confessing our sins and seeking spiritual guidance, reading the Scriptures and receiving the Eucharist. Cultivating the virtues of humility, patience and love. These are the wonderful gifts granted to us in the Church so as to liberate ourselves from the fear, paranoia, and manipulation that threatens us and our children in what are, indeed, unsettling times. I often like to recall the words of Fr. Thomas Hopko: In the Church you can keep your sanity.

Watching the news post-dinner is hardly an opportunity for relaxation in today's deeply troubled world. It reinforces Fr. Roman Braga's urgent plea: "Stay in the boat!"

 

A Review of the Documentary 'True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality'

This powerful documentary shows how "Stevenson and his colleagues have been able to free and overturn the wrongful convictions of about one hundred and fifty death row and other socially-marginalized inmates..." 

"One has a lively sense of the Gospel at work in his endeavors on behalf of the outcast neighbor..."

 

 

At the beginning of 2020 - in the pre-pandemic era! - I wrote and posted a film review based on the strong impression that the film 'Just Mercy' made on both Presvytera Deborah and me. The film was a  cinematic dramatization of an actual case that occurred in Alabama in 1987. In this case, which took years to bring to a just conclusion ("just mercy"), the Harvard-trained African American lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, was able to help free Walter McMillan, an African American man who was wrongfully convicted of murdering a young white woman, and who spent many years on death row before his exoneration and release in 1993. The deep sense of satisfaction the film created for the viewer when the reversal of a wrongful conviction and thus the victory of justice was achieved, left an indelible impression. Here is a link to that review if anyone would be interested in reading it.

 

I bring this up eight months later because Presvytera Deborah and I recently watched the powerful documentary, 'True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight For Equality'. Narrated by the celebrated attorney, and covering his long career fighting against a broken system in order to provide legal counsel to death-row inmates in order that they too may be granted the justice that they failed to receive earlier in their lives, this documentary also left an indelible impression. It was stated that Stevenson and his colleagues have been able to free and overturn the wrongful convictions of about one hundred and fifty such death row and other socially-marginalized inmates over the years. So, this current reflection and commentary is something of a "follow up" on the film, as the documentary is an even more direct presentation of what Bryan Stevenson has been able to achieve; while his narrative is in many ways a piercing indictment of the racism that has plagued the United States now for centuries. This legacy cannot be ignored if you want to understand the present-day tensions that continue to trouble our society. If you take the time to watch this documentary, you will come to what may be the uncomfortable conclusion that his argument is essentially unassailable. Of this I am certain – especially for a Christian conscience, I would add.   

This indictment travels all the way to the Supreme Court, because for many years this highest judicial branch of  the United States supplied legal justification and credence to a two-tiered society that maintained the morally-bankrupt ideologies of white supremacy and black inferiority. This is one of the reasons that leads Stevenson to say: "The North won the (Civil) war, but the South won the narrative." As the documentary unfolds, it continually comes back to a shot of the Supreme Court building and the motto etched in stone high above the entrance: "Equal Justice Under the Law." The striking and ironic juxtaposition of the facts presented in the documentary with the hollow ring of these words in the light of those facts has its effect upon the viewer. Equal justice under the law did not exist for millions of black Americans who were treated as undeserving of that very justice even though a bloody Civil War was fought to win for them both freedom and justice. This gloomy picture finds relief and light as Stevenson also narrates the more recent cases (beginning with Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954) that begins to tilt the scales of justice in a more equitable direction. Brian Stevenson is directly responsible — as he argued the cases — for five pivotal Supreme Court decisions that redress the legal and moral failings of the Supreme Court in the past. The verdict is in: the Supreme Court failed to uphold the proposition of the Constitution that "all men are created equal" in many decisions from the era of Jim Crow segregation.

 

There is about a ten-fifteen minute segment in "True Justice" in which Bryan Stevenson offers a deeply-troubling historical overview of the legacy of lynching that plagued the black community of the South for decades. There are endless photographs of distorted bodies hanging from trees (some victims were burnt alive) surrounded by huge crowds of onlookers who are thus morally culpable for these atrocities. There were probably around five thousand such lynching from 1890-1950 in the South. And the black community had no recourse to justice, because it was the legal authorities who were often direct participants in these crimes. (There was a fluidity of movement between the KKK and the legal authorities wherein it is difficult to distinguish between the two). This was nothing short of home-grown terrorism. This led to the great migration of black people to the major urban centers of the North in the twentieth century - a desperate desire to escape from this intimidation and domestic terrorism. This segment is narrated with a certain sobriety and lack of sensationalism, and perhaps that makes it all the more chilling. The devastation that this lynching brought to the black community was horrific and can bring tears to your eyes. But the open brutality, callousness, and moral degradation so evident in the white participants, combined with the racism that was rampant within a seemingly large segment of the white community, can either leave the viewer enraged or chilled to the core of one's being. There were not only white men present at these barbarous crimes, but also women and smiling children standing underneath a hanging corpse. Think for the moment of the moral corruption of such children. And this is then perpetuated for generations. Watching this I thought that this is not only about ignorance and prejudice, but something altogether "demonic" at work. Can human beings really be this evil? And these very people may have went to church on Sunday morning with an untroubled conscience!

In another segment, Stevenson makes a good case for his claim that at a certain point in time, when an uninvited notoriety was finally surrounding the widespread lynching, that the "outdoor lynching" became the "indoor lynching" of the courtroom. White judges, white prosecuting attorneys, white court-appointed attorneys, white law enforcement officers and all-white juries created an atmosphere for the black defendant that did not leave much room at all for justice to be served. Harper Lee's wonderful novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, gave us a fictional, yet devastatingly realistic recreation, of this harsh environment. Today is the anniversary (1955) of the brutal murder of Emmett Till, the young teenager who was tortured and mutilated beyond recognition for the "crime" of disrespecting a white woman. The film of his trial shows the defendants in the front row smirking and laughing throughout the charade being enacted in the courtroom. When the segregated black community returned to the courtroom after lunch, the local sheriff greeted them with these words: "Hello, n-----s!" To this day, no one was ever found guilty of this horrific crime. Justice was not served. 

Yet, Bryan Stevenson seems to be a hopeful person, and this is conveyed in his over-arching theme that embraces this shameful history into a higher and promising narrative. He is a modest man for all of his really extraordinary accomplishments. His outward demeanor is calm and collected, a character trait that is probably essential when arguing cases often enough to an either indifferent, skeptical or hostile (all-white) audience. Yet, the "fire within" is clearly right below the surface and just as evident. It is clear that his Christian formation is an integral part of his professional career. He was brought up in an AMA church [African Methodist Episcopal Church] in Delaware and he returns to this church setting a couple of times during the documentary. His grandmother was a woman of strong moral fiber, and he includes her in his narrative. His language also reveals his Christian upbringing - he spoke of mercy and grace before a senate committee, a scene included in the film as a kind of summation of his legal work on behalf of others. And at the end of the documentary, when speaking to a gathering of folks at a newly-constructed memorial center that keeps alive the memory of the victims of racial injustice, he offers a prayer before the gathered assembly. Although so difficult for anyone to perceive it, it is Christ who stands with these victims as the lover of the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalized and the outcasts.

 

This memorial  center is deeply impressive. Established in 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama, it was initially called The National Lynching Memorial, but has been renamed as The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. To my embarrassment, I have only recently become aware of this new structure and its purpose. Through careful and painstaking research the names of thousands of the victims of lynching have been recovered, and soil from the actual sites of these crimes has been gathered in large glass bottles and stored in row after row on wooden shelves that seem to reach to the ceiling. There are also stone slabs that have the name of the counties where this lynching occurred. Every county is able to retrieve the stone slab with its name as a memorial to the victims if it so chooses. It is an impressive sight and the message seems to be: We will not forget. For to forget the past is a betrayal to the memory of these innocent people whose "crime" was to be born with dark skin. 

 

 

He also follows the camera as it sweeps through the South, focusing on one romanticized and mythologized  monument after another of Civil War generals, Confederate statesmen, and other figures of that bygone era. Let’s just say that this glorification of the past leaves an uneasy feeling after the ravages of slavery, a failed Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow laws of segregation and the lynchings discussed above are reviewed in the cool light of historical recovery and analysis. 

 

I would like to share an anecdote with which Bryan Stevenson begins his documentary. As a young boy, he and his sister were given the present of going to the then newly-constructed Disney World. This must have been in the mid-60s. Either there or on the road they stopped at a hotel that had a large swimming pool. In their excitement they changed their clothes and raced to the pool and jumped in. Immediately, all of the other (white) children were frantically taken out of the pool as if an emergency situation had occurred. Finally, there was one last boy jerked out of the pool by an adult man. In his confusion, the young Bryan Stevenson asked the man just what was the problem. The man looked at him and said: You, n-----, you are the problem."  It was as if the black skin of those innocent children had somehow made the water in that pool toxic by mere contact. When he told his mother what had happened, she told him to not be afraid and to go back into the pool. He did so obediently, but found himself in a corner of the pool crying. Obviously, this memory has stayed with him throughout his life. But Stevenson then wonders aloud with the question: "Do any of those white children possibly remember that day in the swimming pool?" And memory remains a key theme that runs through the entire documentary. 

 

Memory, reconciliation and grace are the key themes that Bryan Stevenson leaves us with in the end, again attesting to the Christian inspiration that impels him forward in his pursuit of “true justice.” Another sub-theme of the documentary is the case of Anthony Roy Hinton, another wrongfully-convicted African American who served time together with Walter McMillian on Alabama’s death row. (He is also portrayed in the film version, 'Just Mercy'.) Bryan Stevenson eventually took up his case and appealed his wrongful conviction. After nearly thirty years in prison, Anthony Roy Hinton was released in 2015. The footage of him walking out of prison and into the light of day to be embraced by family members is deeply moving, to say the least. Mr. Hinton is determined to forgive everything that was done to him. He will not allow bitterness and rage to “enslave” him yet again. But the point is made that not one representative of the State of Alabama – not a judge, prosecuting attorney, law enforcement official, no one – ever said as much as “we are sorry.” Stevenson’s commentary on this was to state that those in power think it a sign of weakness to ever apologize. He further comments that a lengthy marriage can only be a fruitful one if mutual forgiveness is practiced among the spouses. To simply say "I am sorry" is a sign of a strong, not a weak character. After spending thirty years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Mr. Hinton deserved that apology.

 

This leads Stevenson to argue that true reconciliation between white and black people  can only be meaningful when full recognition of the darker aspects of this past are acknowledged as criminal and immoral. He points to the painful act of reconciliation that occurred in South Africa after the dismantling of apartheid. Also to Germany’s public recognition of the horrors and crimes of the Holocaust. Such humility is a strength that heals – not a sign of weakness. And again, the Christian dimension of reconciliation, grace and truth becomes all too apparent within such a narrative. He raises the issue of the Supreme Court. Would it be too much to hear an apology from the highest court of the land one day so as to acknowledge what terrible consequences their rulings from of old had on the black community for decades? What an effect on the healing process such an apology would have!

 

Bryan Stevenson embodies heroism and courage, combined with humility and modesty. He has accomplished great things in the name of “peace and justice.” One has a lively sense of the Gospel at work in his endeavors on behalf of the outcast neighbor. He is leading a life worth living. His legacy will remain as surely as the tarnished legacies of the unjust perpetrators of these heinous crimes will continue to fade into oblivion. Perhaps he has afforded us a glimpse of a contemporary saint?

 

The documentary 'True Justice' can be found on HBO through amazon prime. It has also been made available to view for free on YouTube by the producers (HBO Documentary Films and Kunhardt Film Foundation). As with the film, 'Just Mercy', it is available for rental and purchase through AppleTV and other online outlets, and is out on DVD. It is about two hours in length. Highly recommended!

 

Film Review: 'Just Mercy'

Dear Parish Faithful,

Earlier this week, Presvytera Deborah and I saw a deeply affecting film that explored themes as important as justice and mercy within the wider context of racism and the systemic injustice and deplorable inhumanity that racism can generate. 

Just Mercy Show Times

The film we saw is called Just Mercy. This was a cinematic dramatization of a notorious murder case that takes us back to the world of the 1980's- 1990's in the state of Alabama. The setting is actually in the small town where Harper Lee lived, and where she set her American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. 

In the film, an African-American man by the name of Walter McMillan (played by Jamie Foxx) is arrested and convicted of brutally murdering a young white woman, though there was no real evidence to convict him other than an unreliable witness who was pressured to testify against him. Mr. McMillan was sentenced to death for this crime and spent about eight years on death row. His case was eventually taken up by an idealistic Harvard-trained lawyer, an African American by the name of Bryan Stevenson (played by Michael Jordan). 

Stevenson has devoted his life to defending convicted criminals on death row who either did not receive a fair trial, or did not have competent legal representation. A credit at the end of the film informed us that he has helped spare the lives of 85 men wrongfully convicted of murder and eventually spared the death sentence through his legal intervention. That is an accomplishment of heroic dimensions.  

Just Mercy was based on Stevenson's memoirs of the case that he published in the past. From what I have been able to read about the case, the film appears to be a reliable presentation of the case as it unfolded over time, though again in an engaging dramatized form. The case gained some real notoriety when it was the subject of investigation on the popular 60 Minutes series. Both presvytera and I would highly recommend it. 

In a film market flooded with either excessive action, sex, or just plain inanity, this is a good example of a film with genuine moral content that will make your "blood boil" over such crass injustice; and will also make you think out the implications of such themes as justice and mercy captured by the film's title. Such a film can have a good impact on our "young adults" and both broaden and deepen their own emerging moral sensitivity. Whenever justice and mercy are the subject of a work of art, one can justifiably reflect upon it theologically. There are deep Christian themes embedded within this film that are easily discernible and worthy of reflection and discussion. Issues of sin and redemption, the workings of the conscience, guilt and forgiveness, are some of the more obvious ones that come readily to mind and which receive thoughtful consideration throughout the film.

What is sobering about Walter McMillan's case is that it occurs about a quarter of a century after the passage of Civil Rights legislation in the 60's. Racism - either systemic or personal - can be so ingrained within any society that it becomes "natural" and something of a "way of life." Legislation will combat racism but cannot eradicate it. Ultimately, it is about a change of mind and heart. Then again, any attempt to combat it is met with mistrust, or simply contempt and hostility. In the racially polarized society that continued to exist in rural Alabama at the time of the film - again the 1980's - 1990's - we see how this led to the arrest and conviction of Walter McMillan. In the film this is all the more egregious as it is painfully clear that Walter McMillan was not even remotely involved in this tragic murder case.

What is equally troubling was the fierce opposition that any attempt to reopen this case was met with. And this opposition was organized from the top down, so to speak: law enforcement, the legal community, the judiciary, etc. This was further intensified by the not-so-hidden threat of violence that persons involved with seeking justice in this case were threatened with, beginning with Bryan Stevenson himself. 

At the same time, there were other decent (white) people who had moved far beyond such ingrained racism, and who also worked with the black community to seek justice in this case. At one point, a disheartening legal judgment, after a well-crafted appeal, had placed Mr.McMillan back on death row. But this decision was overturned by the higher State Court of Alabama, so that here you sensed the gains of the Civil Rights movement that served the cause of equal justice. And, of course, Walter McMillan is eventually given his freedom without even needing a new trial. This is not meant to be a "spoiler" because this was a very high-profile case that received national attention and one that can be studied from a variety of sources. Even though one may know the outcome of the case ahead of time, the tension and uncertainty that the film maintains, is dramatically very convincing.

The film itself is well done. One of the challenges of a film that is portraying actual people, many of whom are still alive, is that of being one more "bio-pic." At least for me, bio-pics often just don't succeed in being that attractive. These can be either overly-dramatized or overly-sentimentalized. I believe that the director of Just Mercy, Destin Daniel Cretton, maintains a good balance between both of those tendencies. 

With the story line being what it is, the film is intense and it is heartfelt, but never really overblown or maudlin. Of course, we have fine and nuanced dramatic performances by both Michael Jordan and Jamie Foxx, as well as the cast of other supporting actors. And they are both given some scenes filled with drama and good dialogue. There was a wonderful scene in which Jamie Foxx, playing Walter McMillan, says - after years of being considered and called a murderer, and after he finally was defended in a convincing manner - that "I have got my truth back." And Michael Jordan, playing Bryan Stevenson, is given some fine speeches that attain a level of genuine rhetorical flourish. Hard to say just how true-to-life all of that may be. (Though I recently heard an interview with the "real" Bryan Stevenson and he is very articulate). 

One hopes that the essence of each of the persons they were portraying is not distorted in the process of bringing them to the screen. Yet, how fitting that Walter McMillan, a victim of racism and acute prejudice, accused of a murder he did not commit, and suffering through years of this together with his family, is the subject of a film that captures his dignified suffering in an honorable fashion. (Sadly, he died in 2013 of acute dementia thought to have been the result of the trauma of spending years on death row). 

Finally, the film appeals to our own sense of right and wrong and of justice properly served. As I said earlier, it makes your "blood boil" while remaining simultaneously satisfying on the moral plane when people of goodwill and deep conviction work toward the service of "justice, mercy and unmerited grace." That meaningful expression belongs to Bryan Stevenson, spoken before a United States senate investigative committee. A sense of "unmerited grace" is a fine way to conclude a film concerning justice and mercy.

Again, I would accord Just Mercy a hearty endorsement/recommendation - as would Presvytera Deborah.

As something of an addendum to my review, I would like to briefly explore the very open allusions to Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird that are found throughout the film. 

The setting of the film is in the small Alabama town in which she lived for many years. What was the significance of that great novel in relation to the content of the film? Presvytera Deborah and I had a "lively discussion" over its possible meaning. One of us thought that perhaps the director is telling us that now a black man is a lawyer standing where Atticus Finch once stood, and successfully defending another black man; whereas Tom Robinson in the novel, endured no such redemption and was even tragically killed in the end. Were we being told that as a society, we have "progressed" to this point, where justice can be so served? Or, as one of us thought, is the background presence of To Kill a Mockingbird a painful reminder that racism within the judicial system continues to linger on a full half century - including the era of the Civil Rights Movement - later? A rather troubling question. 

Books to Deepen our Faith

Dear Parish Faithful,

At the Liturgy yesterday, the homily focused on one of the great Church Fathers, St, Ignatius of Antioch (+ c. 110). My purpose was to remind everyone of a homily preached back in July about the Church Fathers and my challenge then to everyone to choose the work of one of the Church Fathers and read it before the end of the year. I brought up St. Ignatius as one example among many together with his famous Seven Epistles. And during the post-liturgy discussion, I promoted the Popular Patristic Series from SVS Press. This series has now reached 50 volumes and counting. This is an outstanding resource that would give you an excellent collection to choose from. Therefore, I have provided a link to the Popular Patristic Series on the SVS Press website. 

https://svspress.com/categories/Popular-Patristics-Series/

I further promoted two more books, both dealing with the crucial and very contemporary issue of how science and religion can coexist and mutually support each other. Of course, there is a "dark side" to this relationship in which mutual and bitter conflict seem to be inescapable. Militant atheists have nothing but disdain for God and "religion" and they do not hesitate to "preach" this to a broad reading public ad nauseam. This is more scientism than science. On the other hand, defensive positions by "religious" people who do not trust the scientific community find strength in what is now being called "fundamentalism," a more-or-less literal interpretation of Scriptures. These both seem like close-minded systems of thought.

The two books I promoted present an open attitude to theology and science and understand them to be compatible within their spheres of competence and investigation. Their respective authors are Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Fr. John Breck, two of the most prominent Orthodox theologians writing today.

I was surrounded by a large group of parishioners yesterday following the post-Liturgy discussion who were eager to get more information  of the two books I briefly presented. Many got out their phones are were taking pictures of the respective book covers  presumably in order to do some potential purchasing and reading. I further discovered this morning email requests from other parishioners for more information about these books.I have therefore provided two more links for your convenience. 

The first book is Met. Kallistos' Religion, Science & Technology - An Eastern Orthodox Perspective. The content of this short book is very accessible:

https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Science-Technology-Orthodox-Perspective/dp/1741282632/

Fr. John Breck's book Beyond These Horizons - Quantum Theory and Christian Faith is quite challenging on the level of content. But a careful and patient reading (and perhaps multiple re-readings)  can be deeply enlightening and rewarding. If you want to find a "lay" introduction to Fermions and Quarks and how they can possibly relate to God, then this book will do precisely that:

http://www.sebastianpress.org/product-p/sp-bk-ca-2019-002.htm

Nothing Like a Good Book, Part 1 - The Idol of Our Age

Dear Parish Faithful,

I would like to share with everyone some brief reviews of the last three books that I have recently read. These books are:

• The Idol of Our Age - How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity  by Daniel J. Mahoney; 
• Political Orthodoxies - The Unorthodoxies  of the Church Coerced by Fr. Cyril Hovorun; 
• and, Fossils and Faith - The Bible, Creation & Evolution by Lester L. Grabbe. 

All three are quite different, yet each in its own way deals with very contemporary issues that are the source of some fierce debates, to understate the issue. The first book is concerned generally with political philosophy; the second with contemporary challenges that our own Orthodox Church is facing; and the third with the relationship between religion and science. Inevitably, all three address the issue of how theology can either impact or interact with contemporary issues, with the implied claim that without a theological perspective, the subjects raised in these books are missing the "big picture."

From within the Church we realize that a theological perspective on any issue - including social, political and cultural issues - provides depth and a wider scope. We are thus able to grasp these themes sub specie aeternitatis  (under the aspect of eternity).

I am not really providing a detailed critical book review, but more of a summary/synopsis that hopefully encapsulates the primary intention and content of the book under consideration. All books have flaws, but my intention is to simply share some of those themes that provided me with new and insightful perspectives, or which made we think in new ways about the given subject, thus making the effort of reading these books more than a little worthwhile.

The first book I would like to cover is The Idol of Our Age - How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity by Daniel J. Mahoney. According to the book jacket blurb, the author "holds the Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship at Assumption College. He is a specialist in French political philosophy, anti-totalitarian thought, and the intersection of religion and politics."

The author offers a trenchant critique of what he calls "the religion of humanity," a term he claims was initially coined by the 19th century positivist philosopher Auguste Comte. This humanitarian can mimic genuine Christianity and even seem to improve upon it, but Mahoney is determined to prove that to be misleading and misguided. The author's approach is quite interesting, because he engages with, and summarizes the thought of other Christian thinkers and how they almost prophetically addressed the issue of the perils of a humanism devoid of God, and thus of a transcendent basis.

The first thinker is someone I have never heard of, and he is Orestes Browning (1803-1876), a 19th century American who converted to Catholicism and who then tried to provide a meaningful political philosophy for America that was deeply informed by his newly-found faith. Mahoney then surveys the deep insights into these issues offered by two Orthodox thinkers: the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) and the great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918 - 2008). Here I am on more familiar ground, and these two respective chapters did justice to the thought of these seminal Russian thinkers.

The chapter on Vladimir Solovyov really caught my attention, for Mahoney summarized and analyzed Solovyov's fascinating work A Short Story of the Antichrist, a work both prophetic and even phantasmagoric and one that I would highly recommend. A further chapter offers a respectful, but critical reading of some of Pope Francis' recent political statements. And there is also an appended chapter that reprints a very prescient essay written in 1944 by another thinker that I never heard of before, a Hungarian political philosopher by the name of Aurel Kolnai. 

Each thinker in his own way discerned that humanism without God is susceptible to degenerating into an inhuman form of totalitarianism, both from the "left" and from the "right." The twentieth century proved them all correct in their prognoses. Communism and Nazism are the two dreadful devolutions of "the religion of humanity" into a barbaric caricature of a political philosophy theoretically claiming to elevate and liberate humanity. (Although I do not recall any high-minded claims being made by the Nazis, whose thirst for naked power, based on blood and soil, was there from its inception). Such is totalitarianism. As Solzhenitsyn reminded us: Humanity has forgotten God - and the consequences can be horrific. Basically, then, though a secular humanism may appear benign on the surface - just one more choice other than a theistic humanism - the problem proves to be within humanity itself when unleashed from a divine source. As Mahoney writes:

"'Humanity', understood as the very best in human beings, becomes the Grand-Etre to be worshipped by limited and fallible men. Comte has forgotten that what is highest in man finds its ultimate source in what is higher than man. Without deference to the Beings, Forms, and Limits that inform and elevate the human will, man risks becoming a monster to himself, enslaved by his own self-deification." (p. 9)

In his concluding chapter, Mahoney writes the following:

"The totalitarian lie radicalized the subjectivism and relativism at the heart of liberal modernity. It did not so much re-enchant the world as empty it of all the resources of faith and reason. Comprehensive relativism, the denial of God and a natural order of things, and not some alleged moral absolutism is at the source of the worst tragedies of the twentieth century." (p. 124)

So, just to offer the slightest "taste" about - or by - some of the insights from these thinkers, I will include a typical passage from some of them or from the author himself.

In the very Introduction to the book, Mahoney addresses one of the central tenets of the religious of humanity's "creed" - free choice - and finds it wanting in moral and ethical seriousness. He writes: 

"The taking of an unborn life is merely a "choice," which is, one assumes, completely beyond good and evil. ... Free choice, autonomous choice, trumps any respect for the directness of human freedom toward natural ends and purposes. A kind of juvenile existentialism, marked more by farce than angst, has become the default position of our age."  (p. 2)

Orestes Browning, in claiming that the Church can only offer "moral authority" to an existing government - for he resisted any form of "clerocracy" or clerical government - stated a very positive form of that idea in the following manner:

"The only influence on the political or governmental actions of the people which we seek from Catholicity, is that which it exerts on the minds, hearts, and the conscience - an influence it exerts by enlightening the mind to see the true end of man, the relative value of all worldly pursuits, by moderating passions, by weaning the affections from the world, inflaming the heart with true charity, and by making each act in all things seriously, honestly, conscientiously." (p. 30)

Summarizing the thought of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, Mahoney writes:

"True Christianity affirms the truth of pagan nature, the Jewish Covenant, and political reason and political civilization. All are allies in the common struggle against ideology or the demonic falsification of the good." (p. 64)

"Humanitarianism subverts human dignity when it identifies our highest aspirations with a peace and prosperity, a godless philanthropy, shorn of any concern for that which transcends humanity and which ultimately grounds our dignity as spiritual beings." (p. 65)

An underlying thesis in Mahoney's critique of the "religion of humanity" is its blindness toward the power of evil. He explores this theme throughout the book, and very much so in his chapter on Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He informs us that Solzhenitsyn, in resisting what he regarded as Tolstoy's naïve pacifism, argued that evil may at times have to be resisted by war. Thus, one of the characters in his sprawling novel, August 1914, the priest Fr. Severyan, argued that there are five evils even worst than war:

"An unjust trial, for instance, that scalds the outraged heart, is viler. Or murder for gain, when the solitary murderer fully understands the implications of what he means to do and all that the victim will suffer at the moment of the crime. Or the ordeal at the hands of a torturer. When you can neither cry out nor fight back nor attempt to defend yourself. Or treachery on the part of someone you trusted. Or mistreatment of widows or orphans. All these things are spiritually dirtier and more terrible than war."

Whatever one's attitude to war - sometimes or never justified - this is a moving passage indeed on the power of evil and the horrible consequences that occur when unleashed and perhaps, we can add, when not resisted.

This is a very rich book, but perhaps that might be sufficient to at least outline some of the main directions of The Idol of Our Age. Daniel Mahoney has thought this through with a refreshing thoroughness in an age in which we encounter "ideas" in various social media forums or on internet sites in such truncated forms as to render them meaningless; or with a desire no greater than to echo the surrounding popular culture which seems impatient with careful and responsible thinking.

As I said above, all books have their flaws, as this book surely has, and one can find areas of disagreement, with some lingering questions or concerns unanswered, but I found this to be an impressive approach to a very timely and essential issue: Will theism in its Christian expression retain its capacity to shape our moral, ethical and spiritual landscape; or will it be subverted by a "religion of humanity" and the moral, ethical and spiritual uncertainties of where that would lead us?

Daniel Mahoney is an unapologetic Christian thinker and he presents a cogent case - supported by other deep Christian thinkers and writers - for our need to remain vigilant about maintaining a Christian identity and corresponding worldview that places us firmly and humbly under the sovereignty and providence of God.

Next Review: Political Orthodoxies by Fr. Cyril Hovorun