Dark Night Question

We have received the following question as an email.

Dear Orthodox Monk,

I got your email off your blog site and I just had a question. I noticed in one of your entries you mention St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul. It sounds like you've read it before. I'm just curious, as an Orthodox Christian, what is your opinion of this work? I have been unable to find any Orthodox critique of this work. Thank you.

SR

It’s been a very long time since we read St John of the Cross. To give a full answer, we probably would have to consult with a member of the Carmelite Order. So our response is really off the cuff.

As near as we have been able to determine from our reading, as haphazard as it has been, the basic structure of the mystical ascent in St John of the Cross is three stages punctuated by two dark nights—between the first and second, and the second and third stages.

It seems clear to us that the three stages of the mystical ascent that St John of the Cross is using are those defined by Evagrius Ponticus and introduced into the West by St John Cassian. These are the purgative, illuminative and unitive stages. St John introduces the dark night of the senses—wherein the senses are purified so that the monk or nun might begin to contemplate intelligible (non-sensible) realities—between the purgative and illuminative stages; and the dark night of the soul between the illuminative and the unitive stages. The dark night of the soul appears to be a further purification of the soul so that the created spirit of man might be able to enter into habitual mystical union with God.

The breakdown of the mystical journey into these three stages, we understand from our reading, took hold all across Christendom from Spain to Mesopotamia (St Isaac the Syrian). So there would be no problem with it from an Orthodox point of view.

There is no record, however, in the Orthodox Hesychast tradition, of formal dark nights between the purgative and illuminative, and illuminative and unitive stages of the mystical ascent. This is not to say that St John of the Cross is to be dismissed out of hand as a heretic and deluder of others. It is not necessary—unless we have solid evidence for it—to take such a rigid approach to other Christians. St John obviously wrote on the basis of his own experience. We can exercise a tolerant attitude that preserves our own Orthodox identity, including the identity of the Orthodox Church as the true Church and Ark of Salvation, without anathematizing in our first breath everyone who believes differently. That way, we might be able to conduct a dialogue with others. Otherwise, it’s each to his bunker.

We understand that Staretz Sophrony (Sakharov) had an interest in St John of the Cross arising out of his own experience. Here we must point out that there is a tradition in Orthodoxy, again dating all the way back to Evagrius, of periods of abandonment by God. Hence, it might be thought that St John has formalized these periods of abandonment into dark nights and that that is why Staretz Sophrony found him interesting. But Staretz Sophrony’s immediate disciples might be able to explain this much better than we.

We would raise the following issues from our meager reading.

Putting the dark night of the senses between purgative and illuminative stages actually violates the Evagrian system as interpreted by St Isaac the Syrian. For St Isaac places the transition from the use of the senses to the exclusive contemplation of intelligible (non-sensible) realities in the middle of the illuminative stage, at the point that the mystic passes from contemplating the essences of created objects to the contemplation of angels. Of course, it may be that St John of the Cross either sees the point at which the purgative stage ends a little differently from the classic exposition in Evagrius, or understands the extent of the dark night of the senses a little differently than we ourselves do. This is the sort of thing that learned scholars debate.

There is something in Evagrius that would correspond to the dark night of the soul—the soul puts off the spiritual contemplation so as to approach God without images or concepts of any kind—but to us in our meager reading it did not seem to be so formalized as in St John of the Cross. Moreover, such a dark night does not seem to be present in St Isaac the Syrian.

Part of the problem is that while St John in our estimation is basing himself on the Evagrius that he received through St John Cassian, Roman Catholic spiritual theology took a different philosophical route, especially in the Middle Ages, from Orthodox spiritual theology. For example, in Roman Catholic theology grace is created, whereas the Orthodox have always taught that it is uncreated. This means that St John is obliged to explain his mystical experiences in ways which diverge considerably from the Orthodox tradition because he has to adhere to different theological concepts. Moreover, it might be possible that St John was obliged by the distortions of Western Scholastic theology to endure dark nights of the senses and soul in the manner he describes while this might not be necessary in the sounder Orthodox theological tradition. We don’t know. We don’t even know how anyone would demonstrate such a proposition. However, Orthodox Hesychast literature is much more a literature of light than Carmelite spirituality even though it certainly recognizes periods when the soul is tested by abandonment.

In general, we would think that an Orthodox Professor of Spiritual Theology would want to read St John of the Cross and consider how St John’s system is similar to and differs from the Hesychast systems of various Orthodox mystics, for example St Gregory of Sinai, but we would also think that St John’s books might confuse the Orthodox layman who didn’t understand the intricacies of both Orthodox and Roman Catholic spiritual theology.

Hope that helps.

–Orthodox Monk

The Orthodox Monk and the Law

We would like briefly to review the position of the Orthodox monk—any Orthodox monk—and the law.

Here we are interested in the Orthodox monk and the secular law. We assume for the sake of discussion that the Orthodox monk has no issues with his Orthodox ecclesiastical identity, for example with his status under Orthodox canon law.

Every Orthodox monk is somewhere. He is physically located somewhere. That somewhere has various laws.

Is the Orthodox monk above these laws?

He may think so. His abbot might think so.

The policeman might not think so. The judge might not think so. The local medical association might not think so. The various agencies of the government might not think so. The tax collector certainly will not think so. The lawyer for the other aggrieved party might know that the Orthodox monk is not above the law and might happily run up his fees as he prepares to file papers against the Orthodox monk and his monastery asking for damages and costs in the local court.

What is the situation?

This post was prompted by a comment on Sarah Palin 3 which went in part like this:

Wow. Lot's of big words and legal stipulations in the guise of being a thoughtful orthodox Christian. You should have been a lawyer. …

We have the impression that these words were directed towards our caveats in our posts to young Theodor, a Romanian who contacted us under the pseudonym Yahnony Mouse. Well the curious thing is, Rolandtione, Theodor the Romanian reappeared with a new pseudonym just at the time you made your comment. In fact he has newly trolled us under a variety of pseudonyms. He quoted Kierkegaard. We are proud to be a blogger trolled by people quoting Kierkegaard: we have a very tony blog.

But more seriously the upshot is that we have two problems: what to do about Theodor and what about the Orthodox monk and the law?

We would like to explain about all our big words and legal stipulations in small words that even Rolandtione can understand. Theodor understands the big words, as is evidenced by his reading Kierkegaard.

The Orthodox monk is not above the law.

He must obey the criminal laws of his country and local jurisdiction. He might think that the criminal laws are wrong but if he chooses to break them, he is going to pay the price prescribed by law—even the law of God. We all know the scandals that have ensued when someone has put on the habit and then done whatever he felt like— perhaps ending in suicide, perhaps ending in the penitentiary. If you can’t pay the time, then don’t do the crime. It also might be serious sin. The human criminal law is not necessarily the same as the law of God but there obviously is considerable overlap in Judæo-Christian cultures.

In this regard, it might be pointed out that obedience is not a defence against a criminal action: ‘I cooked the books out of obedience, Your Honour,’ is not going to cut it in a human court.

Next, suppose that someone comes to the Orthodox monk’s monastery as a visitor and slips and falls. Breaks his ankle. The Orthodox monk is now about to find out about the law of negligence. It might be an expensive lesson.

Next, suppose that we, ‘Orthodox Monk’ counsel Theodor, whom we have never met and with whom we have only have had contact over the Internet, what to do. We might be wrong. Theodor might, however, listen to us. Let’s suppose he does. Let’s suppose he gets into serious trouble listening to us, perhaps even because he really didn’t understand what we said. So what? ‘Orthodox Monk’ shot his mouth off over the Internet. Everybody does it. Theodor should have listened to his father and mother.

It’s not that simple. ‘Orthodox Monk’ can find himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit. He might even be exposed to a criminal action for practising medicine without a license. Now Rolandtione might think that these things are trivial—after all talk is cheap on the Internet—but Orthodox Monk might not want legal and moral (Christian) responsibility for damaging Theodor. He might not want to go to jail for practising medicine without a license or to be liable for damages for what happens to Theodor when Theodor puts into practice what ‘Orthodox Monk’ says, as Theodor understands it.

But ‘Orthodox Monk’ is an anonymous blogger! How is anyone going to find him? “Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.” He will be found.

That’s why we haven’t replied to your latest emails and comments, Melvin Udall, Liam Foreal and so on. We told you all we could way back when and we don’t know a thing. If you have problems, see a professional.

Let’s suppose that the Orthodox monk’s monastery runs a business. Then the monastery is going to be subject to the laws governing the running of businesses, from employment law to labour law to commercial law to tax law to the law of warranty. If the Orthodox monk is in charge of the monastery business, he is going to have to keep the records prescribed by law, both accounting records and others. He also can’t shoot his mouth off on the Internet or to visitors to the monastery about the products he is selling without regard to the law and the truth. It will catch up to him, either civilly or administratively (e.g. the FDA).

Let’s suppose that the Orthodox monk has a monastery located in a United States jurisdiction. He applies for and gets 501(c)3 non-profit status. But that brings with it obligations as to what the Orthodox monk’s monastery can and cannot do. It imposes certain requirements for record keeping. Similarly in other jurisdictions.

Next, let’s suppose that the Orthodox monk is an abbot and people come to him. They decide to become his monks or nuns. It behoves the abbot to know the relevant laws and to learn the facts about the postulant made relevant by those laws. Is the person of age? Is he legally competent? Is he a citizen? Does he have the legal right of residence? Does he have debts? Does he owe taxes? Is he married? What does his wife think? What about the children? Is he wanted for anything? Is he on parole? Is he the subject of any court orders? Is he subject to an obligation for military service? Does he have any health issues that might create a legal liability for the monastery? Does he habitually break the law in ways that are going to affect the monastery? And so on and so forth. Due diligence.

Let’s suppose that in a burst of enthusiasm the wealthy novice gives all his possessions to the poor abbot. Let’s suppose that the abbot accepts. After a few years, the ardour cools and the novice who has since become a rasophore leaves. What then? The Abbot says, ‘You gave your goods to God.’ The monk says, ‘Where’s my lawyer?’ and goes to court.

For precisely this reason, in his Rule the 6^th Century saint, Benedict of Nursia, counsels the abbot not to accept estates from postulants—the matter ends up in court, ‘as we have learned from experience’.

It also seems clear that in the Rule of Benedict the profession had a legal element; it wasn’t merely a promise to God but a contract legally binding for life in the context of the legal world of St Benedict. The abbot today must learn just what status monastic vows have in the jurisdiction in which his monastery is located. He has to understand the laws that govern such matters in his jurisdiction. The law may forbid him to take the monk or nun’s estate, preserving untouchable the monk or nun’s right to private property. It might not recognize the legal validity of a vow—i.e. it might enshrine the right of the monk or nun to leave the monastery any time they want for any reason they want, even for no reason at all. The law might even create a right for the monk or nun to seek fair compensation once they leave for the work they have provided to the monastery—you never know about such things until you check the relevant laws. The law might require special articles of incorporation of the monastery for it to have a proper legal identity.

Next, an Orthodox monastery normally has a cemetery. That might not be a straightforward matter in the local jurisdiction. Before founding the monastery, the founder would want to find out how the local planning authorities look at such a matter. There are also laws concerning how people are to be buried. Various elaborate embalming methods might be prescribed by law.

Additionally, the monastery site, including the buildings on it that the founder finds, might be subject to all kinds of zoning or even archæological regulations. The founder has to find out.

Finally, let us suppose that the Orthodox monk still hasn’t figured out that he is subject to the human law. He goes off into the bush to a place where a saint once lived and sets up shop. He doesn’t bother about things like title to the land. The saint has appeared to him in a dream and called him.

So what happens? Someone comes around, sees the Orthodox monk deep in his devotions and calls the police. The police come. They have pistols slung on their hips. They say, ‘Sorry, the man to whom this land belongs has got an eviction order from the court and we’re obliged to evict you. Get your things together and get going.’ ‘But I had a vision that the saint called me here.’ ‘Get your things and get going before there’s trouble.’

In a few words, however spiritual you might be, don’t mess with the law. And however spiritual you are, it behoves you to find out which laws apply to you. If you’re really sensible and exposed—for example you have a large monastery—you will want to retain counsel to advise you in a continuing relationship as the monastery’s counsel. And we would also hazard the remark that obeying the law is also an aspect of Christian love.

Repentance 2

In Repentance 1, we looked at repentance from the point of view of the non-Orthodox Christian considering conversion to Orthodoxy. We suggested that in such a case the proper repentance was much more than is now sometimes thought to be appropriate. Now we take the argument one step further and look at the case of the Pentecostalist—the case of the Protestant who thinks he or she has an intimate personal spiritual experience of the Holy Spirit and is seeking merely to complete that experience with the Jesus Prayer or some other element of Orthodoxy, perhaps even by joining the Orthodox confession.

In a situation where someone wishes to begin a spiritual life in the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church, the normal sequence is spiritual preparation for Baptism followed by Baptism. This is a movement of conversion and repentance.

However, repentance is even more complicated in the case of Pentecostalists than it is in the case of ‘garden-variety’ Protestants. The Pentecostalist thinks that he has personal experience of various charisms of the Holy Spirit.

In some cases these supposed charisms seem, at least on the superficial level, to be accompanied by fruits which would be recognizably Christian. In other cases—we are thinking in particular of the Toronto Blessing—people get ‘drunk’ on the ‘Holy Spirit’: they tap-dance; they bark like dogs; they laugh on and on for days. Moreover, as we ourselves have noted, the supposed charisms are not always accompanied by what we would understand to be fruits of the Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Holy Spirit are those elements of our personal behaviour which distinguish the Christian as living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The supposed charisms are also sometimes accompanied by very odd interpretations of the Gospel—the so-called Prosperity Gospel; the Rapturist End-Times doctrine—and they are often mixed up with what are very clearly personal psychological elements (we are thinking here of a prophetess who prophesied to young man that he would marry her daughter).

Here we would like to remark on something that happened in the life of a Roman Catholic saint, John of the Cross. St John was approached by certain clerics and his counsel sought concerning a nun who thought she was experiencing rather advanced manifestations of the Holy Spirit. He advised that she be tested, and not a little. He remarked: Even a demon will put up with a certain amount of humiliation in order to keep up the pretence of holiness; let her be tested severely.

Essentially what we want to say is this: the Elders of the Pentecostalist churches have never accepted Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church has never accepted Pentecostalism. Moreover, the rock services that accompany Pentecostalist outpourings are foreign to the mind of the Elders of the Orthodox Church, who see such music as demonic.

So what we would counsel in such a case of a Pentecostalist conversion to Orthodoxy is very deep conversion. What we have to go through is a very deep repentance. We have to empty ourselves completely, even from the supposed charisms of the Holy Spirit that we have experienced.

This is a very difficult matter. The person thinks that as a Pentecostalist he is experiencing something genuine. What can the Orthodox monk be on about saying that he has to give it all up to become Orthodox—and in the depths of his or her soul?

The problem in these cases is what the Orthodox call delusion (Gr: plani; Ru: prelest). This word has a spiritual denotation, not a psychological one. It means that the person is experiencing a spirit of error, not the Holy Spirit. In this case it should be understood that a spirit of spiritual error may sometimes tell the truth in order to deceive.

In such cases, the person usually doesn’t bother to go by to look at the new wine on offer at the Orthodox Church down the road. The old wine is good. After all, they’ve been drunk on the Holy Spirit.

What we are saying is this: an extra problem occurs with Evangelicals and Pentecostalists interested in Orthodoxy when there enters in a dimension of plani or prelest—spiritual delusion.

One of the characteristics of spiritual delusion is the persuasion that the deluded person has that he has experienced the Holy Spirit of the Living God in utter truth. In those rare cases that such a person develops an interest in Orthodoxy—say, via the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm—then it is merely to pick up a few pointers. In these cases, a change of heart is impossible without the mercy of saints of the Orthodox Church who will pray for the person’s salvation.

But it is not impossible.

How can we know whether we are experiencing a spirit of truth or a spirit of error? In the particular case of the Pentecostalist, the thing to do is to examine in ourselves whether we are proud. Do we think we know it all? That we have experienced Truth? Can anyone talk to us in anything more than a superficial way or do we know everything? Do we get angry when we are contradicted? This is something for us to consider not in conversation with therapists and clerics—where we can fake it—but alone in the depths of our hearts. Repentance is a change of heart.

May God have mercy on the soul of every man and woman and bring them to knowledge of the truth in his Son Jesus Christ.

For those of us who celebrate Christmas with the new calendar, may God who in the Incarnation of his Son blessed all Mankind with the possibility of eternal life—the knowledge of the one true God and the Son whom he has sent—grant us to repent and come to new life in the Holy Spirit of the Living God.

–Orthodox Monk

Jus ad Bellum

We received a comment on our Sarah Palin 3 post on which we would like to make a few remarks.

The comment goes like this, slightly edited (for the original comment, see the post):

I have an idea for another post, perhaps only indirectly related but no less relevant. The post I have in mind would tackle the topic of jus ad bellum (a.k.a. ‘Just War Theory’).

A few questions which might be worth answering are:

1) Is there such thing as Just War Theory in Orthodoxy? I.e. do the Orthodox historically define preconditions wherein war may be engaged without commission of evil?

2) Related to #1, is there such a thing as “necessary evil” in Orthodoxy? I.e. is there a scenario where going to war will be evil, but not going to war is also evil, but the former is adjudged a lesser, but necessary evil?

We have never studied the law or theology of war systematically. Our comments are really informal.

The theory of the just war arose in the West as part of Scholastic theology. It left its Scholastic context behind in the work of certain secular legal scholars of the Renaissance who based themselves on the Scholastic tradition. The very systematic nature of the theory is peculiar to the Western Scholastic tradition as modified in the Renaissance. The separation of the law of war into jus ad bellum and jus in bello is, despite the Latin, a very recent innovation in the law of war.

Jus ad bellum deals with when going to war is justified. Jus in bello is the proper conduct of a belligerent once he is in a war. As we recall, there are 5 conditions for a just going to war, including such things as just cause and the possibility of winning. As we recall, killing your opponent’s civilians indiscriminately is contrary to the proper conduct of war.

In the little time we have been an Orthodox monk, we have never encountered the issue of the law of war in an Orthodox context. We have not seen the matter discussed in any patristic texts—although we have never searched to find out. The lives of saints, even of martial saints or saints who were soldiers before becoming monks, do not address the issue in any obviously recognizable way that we recall. We are thinking here of the lives of St Ioannikios the Great and St Peter the Athonite. There is one Byzantine saint who became a monk after deserting from the Byzantine army and who despite the fact that he had become a monk was obliged under the law to serve in the army for something like 10 years once he was caught. The Life records the events without commenting on the justice or not of the penalty. The modern Elders we are aware of never addressed the issue in the way it is being posed.

In general, our experience has been that there is an informal sense of justice on the part of the saints, and a recognition that some wars are just and some are not, and some rulers just and some not, but that there is not a developed legal or theological analysis of when a war is just or not, or when a ruler is just or not. The discernment is more informal, or spiritual, as you prefer.

Elder Paisios (1924 – 1994) served in the Greek army during the Greek Civil War and never regretted it. He never shot his rifle in anger (he was in communications) but he risked his life under fire to save a fellow soldier who had fallen. He has remarks in the books that are published of his sayings about the proper conduct of a soldier in war, but as far as we know he doesn’t address the issue of jus in bello in the way it is being posed.

The canons of the Orthodox Church do address the issue of when a soldier who has fought in a war can be ordained a priest.

With regard to the second question posed by our reader, we imagine that all Orthodox saints, not being militarists, would treat war as an evil. That being said, they would take it as given that there are some cases in which going to war is necessary—we are not aware of Orthodox saints who were what would today be described as pacifists. We do not think that they would accept any decision to go to war as justified just because a ruler made it, but it might depend on the particular saint how he handled the issue.

In this matter, we suspect that an Orthodox saint would direct you to the Old Testament, where there is considerable treatment of both jus ad bellum and jus in bello, although not according to modern ideas.

In general, we think that the whole law of war or theory of war apparatus is an artefact of the Western intellectual tradition. As such, it has no genuine Orthodox counterpart since the Orthodox tradition did not go through a similar development.

Sorry that’s the best we can do.

–Orthodox Monk

Can a Divorced Man Become an Orthodox Monk?

We have received an email from someone which goes as follows:

Hello,

I was just wondering if you could give me your opinion on a question about entering into the monastic life.

If one was married in the past and had a child, and now the two are divorced and she re-married and he has not can he enter the monastic life? Become a monk?

Thanks for you time!!!

God Bless you!!

Here is our understanding of the matter.

We assume that you live in the United States. You are subject to U.S. civil and criminal law as a citizen of the state in which you live. Hence, whatever you do religiously, you are subject to the civil and criminal laws of your jurisdiction. The matter is the same, with the necessary changes, for whatever legal jurisdiction you live in.

Assuming that there is no impediment in regard to civil or criminal law—for example a court order concerning child support or some other matter—then according to the tradition of the Orthodox Church and Orthodox canon law (as far as we know; we are not an expert in Orthodox canon law), there is no impediment to your becoming a monk having been once married, having fathered a child and then having been divorced.

However, the question would arise of the status of your marriage in the eyes of the Orthodox Church. This is especially true if you originally married in the Orthodox Church but obtained a civil divorce. Historically, the Orthodox Church has treated the monastic tonsure as dissolving an existent marriage, and without the consent of the spouse, but it is doubtful whether today any Orthodox jurisdiction would apply this principle without an investigation of the particular situation. This is a matter you would have to discuss with the senior members of the Orthodox jurisdiction to which you presently belong.

There is also the question of the welfare of the child—whether you have any legal or spiritual responsibility that would interfere with your becoming a monk in a particular monastery. This is again something you would have to discuss with the senior members of your Orthodox jurisdiction.

The next problem is that to become a monk in the Orthodox Church, you have to become a monk in a specific monastery--there is no such thing as an Orthodox monk of nowhere in particular. But that means that the superior of the monastery and possibly the council of senior monks of the monastery would have to be satisfied with your bona fides. They would make their own assessment of you and your marital history. Normally, a monastery is not obliged to accept any particular postulant so this will be an assessment independent of whatever the senior members of your jurisdiction decide. However, if the senior members of your jurisdiction have decided that you have an impediment then the monastery would normally acquiesce and refuse you. This phase of personal assessment will vary from monastery to monastery and jurisdiction to jurisdiction and country to country. We could only suggest that you discuss the matter with the superior of the monastery which you are interested in entering.

Finally, both the senior members of your Orthodox jurisdiction and the monastic superior together with the senior members of the monastery will want to assess the significance of your marital history for your personal psychological and spiritual condition with regard to the possibility of your entering the monastic life and of remaining in that state until death. There is no dispensation from vows in the Orthodox Church.

Hence, there is no theoretical impediment to your becoming a monk per se, but both the ruling bishop and the monastic superior would have to judge the merits of your particular case before you could receive permission.

–Orthodox Monk

Repentance 1

We are sure that everyone knows that the English word repentance corresponds to the Greek word metanoia, μετάνοια, and that the Greek word means a ‘change of mind’. However, if we look at what the word nous, νοῦς, really means, it might be more accurate to say that repentance means a ‘change of spirit’. We might go even further and say: a ‘change of heart’.

In the next few posts, we would like to discuss how we think people should repent. We want to take ‘spiritual snapshots’ from many different vantage points so that the reader might get some idea of the spiritual lay of the land. This is difficult and why we have delayed.

In a discussion with a young Romanian-American reader (Orthodox Monasticism 15D – Our Response Part 1 and Orthodox Monasticism 15D – Our Response Part 2) we discussed the Parable of the Prodigal Son. There we asserted that every soul had to reach the stage of the Jew in the parable herding pigs before it could truly repent. That is one snapshot of repentance.

Let us however turn to something closer to the ‘political posts’ we have made recently. How does a non-Orthodox, especially an Evangelical or Pentecostalist Protestant involved in right-wing Christianity, repent?

We received an email about a month ago:

I am discerning becoming Orthodox and would like to learn more about Orthodoxy and the worship services. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

We replied in part:

[We] wish you well in your search for Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy is a matter of transformation: not of solving theological issues but of becoming a new creation. This is often a problem for Protestants with an Evangelical background because they think they have already been transformed and are merely seeking to bring the transformation to completion. In general it is even true for those who have made a personal conversion to Catholicism: in all these cases the person cannot comprehend that what is involved is a new creation, not an adjustment of what was previously there.

To put this into context, consider this saying of Our Lord:

And no one puts new wine into old wine-skins. Otherwise, the new wine will split the wine-skins and it will be spilled and the wine-skins are lost. But new wine must be put into new wine-skins. And no one drinking old wants new. For he says: ‘The old is good.’

(Luke 5, 37 – 9)

Essentially what we are saying, then, is that Orthodoxy is new wine. ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good.’ Persons with a previous religious commitment have drunk the old wine. They do not want the new wine that is the Holy Spirit found in the Orthodox Church. They encounter some deficiencies in the old wine of their previous religious commitment—a lack of a sense of completeness, say—and they think to complete the old wine with the new wine of the Orthodox Church, without however making a complete conversion to Orthodoxy, without undergoing a change of spirit or change of heart from their old religious commitment. They merely supplement their old wine with a dollop of the new, and this even if they make a formal conversion to the Orthodox Church.

We do not think that those Orthodox jurisdictions that facilitate this sort of conversion are doing these persons a favour: these persons make a ‘half-conversion’ to Orthodoxy while retaining the mind-set (nous) of their previous religious commitment.

This leads to two problems. On the one hand, these persons bring into Orthodoxy points of view that are historically foreign to the Orthodox Church, causing problems for the others around them. This is especially true when the persons have been involved in right-wing Christianity. On the other hand these persons have themselves been short-changed: they have not received the spiritual regeneration that is the heart of Orthodoxy.

Sarah Palin 3

So can’t Orthodox Monk go back to talking about something really spiritual without going on and on about Palin? We will get back to the more spiritual things but we feel obliged to conduct one last discussion of the spiritual aspects of the politics of the day. What concerns us is the intersection of the religious with the political or, put another way, the intersection of the commitment to a religious life (in the ordinary sense, not in the Roman Catholic sense of a life lived under monastic vows) with right-wing politics. In other words, is it necessarily true that to be a good Orthodox Christian and a good Orthodox monk, politically you have to be a right-wing fanatic?

As a starting point, what concerns us is the atmosphere that Sarah Palin was condoning and encouraging at her rallies—especially the Obama ‘pals around with terrorists’ line, of which we managed to see a video clip.

Some salient facts:

They say that Palin was going ‘rogue’—that she was not ‘following the orders of senior McCain staff’ in proceeding in this way. We think that this is not merely a self-serving distancing from Palin by the people around McCain but reflects the facts, although you never know.

Second, Palin professes herself to be Christian.

Third she has documented connections to the Alaska Independence Party both personally, according to the claims of Mr Chryson, the former leader of the AIP, and according to her documented appearances either personally or by video at AIP conventions; and through her husband who was a card-carrying member of the AIP. Mr. Chryson is quoted to the effect that he worked with Sarah Palin to pass an amendment to the Alaska State Constitution that makes it easier to raise private militias; he is quoted as saying he has enough weapons in his basement for a small army. The founder of the AIP was murdered during the course of a private transaction involving plastic explosives. He was buried in Canada to honour his wish not to be buried under the American flag. At the time of his murder, for which his assailant is doing time, he was scheduled to address the United Nations under the sponsorship of Iran. Topic? Independence for Alaska. The present leader of the AIP seems to think that the AIP’s founder was assassinated so that he couldn’t embarrass the United States by delivering his speech at the UN. It seems to us that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Sarah.

Fourth, our take on the video we saw of Palin delivering the line was that she was quite consciously manipulating her crowd.

Fifth, it is reported that the Secret Service gave a report to Obama that there was a spike in threats against his life that coincided with the period of more intense rallies where the crowds were being whipped up and shouts were heard that might be viewed as hateful if not downright dangerous (‘terrorist’, ‘kill him’ etc.).

Sixth, Obama gave his victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago protected by bullet-proof glass.

Seventh, the Secret Service was on the surrounding skyscrapers shining lasers down on to the stage to define lines of fire.

Eighth, when President-Elect Obama’s motorcade goes from his gym to his home in Chicago, the Secret Service agents scan the surrounding skyscrapers with binoculars—evidently for snipers.

Is Christianity the religion of hate? No. The Gospel is clear that we should love our enemies and pray for them.

Palin dismissed criticism of her behaviour saying that it was just the way party politics is done in America. The best line we have read concerning Palin’s attitude was by George Packer, in the New Yorker magazine—that Palin is too shallow to understand the forces she is playing with and that she is merely enthralled by the semi-erotic adulation of the crowds.

We would add that her primary political motivation seems to be personal narcissism.

When seen as an expression of narcissism, her several hundred thousands of dollars spent on clothing—including silk underwear for her husband—makes sense. While she claims to have had nothing to do with the purchases and that the clothing was merely stage props to be returned to the Republican National Committee after the election, custom-made underwear was being delivered to her up to the time that she appeared on Saturday Night Live. Underwear doesn’t get custom made for you unless you actively cooperate with the lingerie maker. Silk underwear for hubby as a stage prop? Well it is true that the great director Fritz Lang once had all his actors who were playing aristocrats, even the extras, wear silk underwear under their costumes so that they would get into the proper aristocratic mood. However, surely the Republican National Committee would rather cultivate the Republican cloth coat mood.

After the election, Sarah Palin offered her services to the Obama administration to help out on energy policy and special needs kids. If it seems odd that someone who thinks that the President-elect ‘pals around with terrorists’ would want to go to work with him, consider the possibility that the motivation is narcissism—getting into the limelight and staying there.

President-elect Obama showed remarkable magnanimity in offering Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton. He quickly arranged a private, personal meeting with John McCain and then stated that he would work with him. We wonder if his generosity of spirit is great enough for him to offer something to Sarah.

Now what we are interested in is this: at what point does a personal religious commitment as a Christian become a worldly commitment to a political faction or party? At what point does religion leave the Holy Spirit behind and become politics?

What we have in mind is this. Most if not all of the persons at the Palin rallies were of the ‘Christian right’. Yet there was an atmosphere at the rallies of hatred for the political opponent. Is this hatred something given by the Holy Spirit so that it would be consistent with these people’s professed Christian vocation? Now we are not prophets to know when the Holy Spirit is acting but our understanding is that Scripture says ‘party spirit’ is a work of the flesh and not of the Spirit. In other words, although the persons present at the rallies thought of themselves as Christians—committed Christians—their behaviour in shouting hateful slogans against Obama and threatening Obama’s supporters with violence does not commend itself as evangelical. These persons were not being moved by the Holy Spirit. They were being moved by another spirit. Anger and hatred are associated with the demons. They are not associated, ever, with the Holy Spirit.

Let us clarify certain things. We, Orthodox Monk, have for many years believed, in accordance with the dogmas of the Orthodox Church, that the fœtus is a person from the moment of conception just as St Basil the Great writes concerning the Incarnation of Our Saviour; and that abortion is wrong, a serious sin. Moreover, we also accept the social teachings of the Fathers of the Church. We would therefore be defined as a social conservative on a variety ‘hot-button’ social issues. However, we have no interest in right-wing politics. The Fathers were remarkably liberal on issues such as distributive social justice (see St Basil writing on the hoarding by the wealthy of wheat during famines so as to exploit the poor; see him writing on forcing the poor to take oaths concerning the veracity of their tax declarations; read St John Chrysostom).

To give our readers some idea of our attitude, when we read right-wing blogs and right-wing comments on news stories and other right-wing material, we have the eerie feeling that we have entered a parallel universe that resembles the one we ourselves live in but that has things arranged completely differently. It is not a universe that attracts us. We think that some of the people writing could well do with psychiatric medication—unless we ourselves are utterly mad and they sane.

Lest it be thought we are not being even-handed, let us add the following: When we read left-wing material we are struck that the authors are generally quite better educated than writers on the right. Even when the writers on the right, even name writers, are formally well educated, we have the feeling that their education is only skin-deep: their relation to ideas is superficial, surface, lacking in real intellectual and spiritual depth. However, we are often struck by the hatred, anger and paranoia on the left.

Neither the left nor the right appeals to us.

To return to the issue at hand, we have the feeling that we are being manipulated both by rather naïve clerics who think that one must necessarily support any politician who is against abortion whatever his or her other positions might be; and by political operatives who use Christian social conservatism as a springboard to political power, perhaps to implement a political agenda that has nothing whatever to do with Christianity or Christian social conservatism.

It is not at all clear to us that the Gospel teaches monetarism, Reaganomics or deregulation to allow the free market to run amok. It is not even clear to us that the Gospel forbids these things. It seems to us that a devout Christian might still be a devout Christian and hold either pro or con views on a variety of such political issues—although there is a certain point at which Christian social justice does enter into the discussion.

Moreover, we are extremely uneasy with the shading of right-wing Christianity into what strikes us as eerily close to fascism.

In other words, although we believe that abortion is wrong, and that assisted suicide and euthanasia are wrong and so on and so forth, we have the feeling that we are being manipulated by persons who want to mobilize that sentiment to gain political power so as to accomplish an agenda that has ulterior purposes having nothing whatever to do with Christianity as we know it as a member of the Orthodox Church. Moreover, we get the feeling that there is a very grey area where persons who self-identify as conservative Christians are in fact being moved by a worldly spirit closer to fascism than to Christ.

There is a further problem. In the West today, Christianity is a minority religion.

In the United States, the matter is somewhat more complicated. Most people in the United States go to church. In the United States on Sunday there are traffic jams outside the churches. However, it is not entirely clear to us if all the people going to church in America actually understand the Gospel in a way that the Fathers of the Church would recognize.

Moreover, less than 25% of the American people are Roman Catholic and only 20% of these go to church at least once a week—for the Roman Catholic the essential indicator of a personal commitment to Catholicism. That means that less than 5% of the American people are committed Roman Catholics.[1] Of those, however, how many actually follow the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion? Surveys indicate that Roman Catholics receive abortions at the same rate as other members of society.

Moreover, every time abortion has been put to a public vote in the United States, the voters have voted to keep abortion on demand with very few if any restrictions. Hence, a politician in the United States, whatever his personal persuasion, has to take into account the fact that a majority of the American people, however religious they might consider themselves, want the right to abort an unwanted child. The politician has to take into account that the people want abortion on demand whatever his personal beliefs might be about its morality. He simply cannot ignore what the people want even if they are wrong.

Let us suppose that Orthodox Monk and all the conservative evangelical Christians and all the Roman Catholic hierarchy are correct and abortion is a serious evil. Still, we are in a minority position in a pluralist democracy.

Moreover, Obama has made an interesting observation concerning use of the courts to force a particular line on what are essentially political issues. He follows the school of constitutional law that sees the Supreme Court of the United States as essentially following public opinion, not defining or leading it. Hence, it is his position that using the courts is not the right way to attain, for example, redistribution of wealth. Similarly, one has to wonder about persons who want to pack the Supreme Court with conservative Justices who just might, perhaps, overturn Roe vs. Wade. This is not a democratic orientation given the fate of anti-abortion measures at the ballot box—even if one is to argue that Roe vs. Wade was never originally democratic either. Moreover, when you get a Justice who wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade, with that Justice you also get on other matters of serious import a number of very right-wing positions that are not intrinsically Christian and perhaps even contrary to Christian justice and charity. We do not feel that Americans should be blackmailed into supporting politicians and justices whatever their other positions just because those politicians and justices are against abortion.

What we are saying is that, yes abortion is wrong but the political situation concerning it is very complicated in a democracy like the United States. On the one hand, a majority of the people want abortion on demand. On the other hand, being against abortion is packaged with a number of right-wing political positions that are not intrinsically Christian and might even be anti-Christian. A true Christian would take these factors into account. He would not take the fanatical position that anyone opposed to criminalizing abortion was an arrant sinner, that under pain of going to hell every citizen had to vote for the anti-abortion candidate even if the candidate’s other political positions were wacky or dangerous, or even if the candidate were plainly unsuitable for high office.

This also applies to the hierarchy of the various Christian denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church. In the West, including the United States, the Roman Catholic Church clearly has a problem with its own internal evangelization. Nominal Roman Catholics just aren’t going to church; they just aren’t accepting the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrines concerning the matters under discussion. The Roman Catholic hierarchy simply cannot ignore these facts. If it wishes to change society to bring it more into line with Christian morality as understood by the Roman Catholic Church, it is going to have to think very hard about the Roman Catholic Church’s actual position in society. It cannot merely permit a priest to say that anyone who voted for Obama should stop receiving communion until he or she does penance because Obama is pro-choice. The Roman Catholic Church runs the risk of rendering itself irrelevant even to its nominal adherents with such naïveté. People will simply stop going to the Roman Catholic Church and go elsewhere.

This is also true, although to a lesser extent, of the Orthodox Church.

There has to be a much deeper, spiritual approach to the matter, one that recognizes that persons of good will might have opinions opposed to ours. There has to be an attitude of true Christian love for one’s neighbour that recognizes that the issues are not cut and dried, not the natural campaign material of right-wing demagogues. There has to be an orientation that recognizes that society has to be evangelized in a loving, gentle way so that it comes to understand in love that the fœtus is a person from conception. Once this is achieved, then society itself will get the politicians and the judges to do its will. Moreover, an honest approach to educating society on the matter of abortion would also take into account elementary matters of Christian social justice so that the people understand that right-wing fanatics who clothe themselves in the garb of Christian anti-abortion righteousness might in fact be promoting values that are otherwise quite non-Christian or even contrary to the teachings of the Gospel.

Today the opponents of abortion are not always distinguished by the depth of their Christian spiritual life and are sometimes distinguished by their fanaticism, anger, hatred and violence. This is not the way to evangelize society. This is an indication that something is quite amiss in the anti-abortion movement.

We would like to return to the issue of right-wing Christianity and far right politics. As we pointed out, there seems to be a worldly partisan spirit among some of these people, a spirit that erupts into hatred, an emotion not associated with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Part of the problem is that these people are often divorced from the Mysteries of the Orthodox Church, where the Body and Blood of Christ, according to Christ’s word, makes Christ to abide in the believer and the believer in Christ—and often in a way that is consciously evident to the believer who receives the Mysteries worthily.

We are told, further, that the Christian right places more emphasis on the Old Testament than the New (in terms of actual values if not formal belief structure), something that to us shows the Christian right’s roots in New England Puritanism, itself descended from Calvinism. One characteristic of such a form of Christianity is a harsh sense of retributive justice, especially for deviant members of the group. Another is its emphasis on salvation by personal election and corresponding de-emphasis on the necessity for salvation of personal purification from the passions (i.e. repentance, or conversion of the interior man to put off the old man and put on the new). In such a case it is quite easy for the faith to become reified, so that the faith, to use Martin Buber’s terminology, becomes an I-it rather than an I-Thou relationship.

Let us explain what we mean. A woman goes into an Orthodox Church. There is an icon on the icon stand from Mt Athos. One of the famous miracle-working icons of Athos. The woman piously approaches the icon to venerate it invoking the prayers and protection of the saint depicted on the icon. This is an I-thou relationship.

Someone else comes in who is a Professor of Art History. He takes some pictures of the icon on the sly (photographs are banned); he studies the iconographer’s technique and assesses the degree of movement in the composition, a key to distinguishing the Macedonian School of iconography from the Cretan School. He considers whether the icon needs cleaning and restoration work, whether the wood needs preservatives to protect it from insects. He could care less about praying. He has his career to consider. This is an I-it relationship.

Another fellow comes in. He’s an investor. He’s wondering whether investing in icons is a good hedge against the current economic crisis or whether he’s just going to lose his shirt. He discusses with the Professor of Art History the value of the icon on the market, assuming that the Athonites could be persuaded to sell it. The investor doesn’t see God; he sees dollar signs in front of his eyes. This is an I-it relationship.

Someone else comes in. She starts shrieking that venerating icons is idolatry and that everybody has to destroy all their icons. She’s obviously disturbed. The pious Orthodox woman, the Professor and the investor all restrain her from destroying the priceless icon from Mt Athos. Outside, right-wing evangelicals, some of them former members of the very same Orthodox Church, picket and shout loudly and hatefully that all icons are idolatry and must be destroyed. This is an I-it relationship that is merging into a fanatical political movement.

In the context of the Calvinist Christian right it is quite easy for a personal faith commitment to turn into a commitment to a political ideology. That is, from being a loving commitment to the person of Jesus Christ, and through Christ a union with the Father by the insufflation of the Holy Spirit received in the Mysteries of the Orthodox Church, the Christian commitment becomes an ideology, a matter of social solidarity with like-minded members of the sub-group. There is no longer a shared aspiration for union with God in Jesus Christ and for the expression of charity to all, but rather a cementing of a sense of personal identity through membership in a minority social group that wishes to impose its values on the larger society, perhaps so as to validate the group members’ sense of identity. The Holy Spirit leaves to be replaced by a spirit of fanaticism. In the final stage, the faith becomes a political ideology. At that point, the person’s orientation is toward social issues that only tangentially have anything to do with Christianity. This is the intersection of religion with far-right politics.

A key point is that at which the doctrines of dominionism take hold. These are the doctrines that the United States was founded as an evangelical Christian country and that it is the will of God for evangelical Christians to take political power in the United States, perhaps by subterfuge, so to impose evangelical Christian values on the United States, perhaps against the will of the majority. However, as we have pointed out, these supposedly Christian values contain not only the anti-abortion stance that we have been discussing but also far-right political stances such as a completely free-market economy and so on, issues where it is not at all clear that the dominionist is following the Gospel of Christ. In other words, the dominionist agenda is not purely Christian; it is an alloy of Gospel values as seen through a Calvinist prism that emphasizes the Old Testament; and of far-right political positions independent of the Gospel.

It is at this point that we think Sarah Palin’s views need to be clarified.

To continue, add to these factors anger and hatred, an attraction for guns, a taste for private far-right militias and a sense of entitlement and dispossession—and you have trouble. It is here that the car can easily swerve off the road of acceptable discourse and land in the ditch of fascist action.

At this point it is fruitless to expect the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has long since left, leaving the members of the group to whatever spirit or demon wants to take them on.

Moreover, as we have pointed out, mixed up with all of this is an interpretation of the Revelation to John and of Christ’s words in Gospel and of Paul’s words in the Epistles that posits the quite imminent return of Christ and the unfolding in very short order of an End-Times scenario that involves the physical rapture of the evangelical believers into Heaven followed by a nuclear war among those left behind. We doubt that the interpretation of Scripture being purveyed is correct and we would be very worried if anyone holding such views were to be put into a position where he or she could launch a nuclear war. Moreover, these eschatological views seem to reflect a quite reified (I-it) relationship with the Christian faith, so that these views can very easily be converted into a political ideology divorced from a true relationship of faith with God through Jesus Christ that expresses itself in love for neighbour.

Clearly, people holding such views are exercising very strong pressure, in cooperation with citizens of the State of Israel, to set the direction of American foreign policy. For the Israelis, this is something of a Faustian bargain, as the Israelis themselves are well aware, since the ideology involves as part of the unfolding of the End-Times the conversion of most Jews to evangelical Christianity followed by the destruction of the remaining Jews in the subsequent End-Times war. Riding the tiger is a dangerous sport. The tiger might turn and devour you. For the rest of the world, if these people’s interpretation of Scripture is wrong their ideology is extremely dangerous.

What we see is a sort of Christianity that is not centred on the Gospel as a personal engagement with God together with personal purification from the passions as understood by the Fathers of the Orthodox Church but a Christianity that is mixed up with worldly values and fuelled by anger and hatred—we might even say angry and arrogant self-righteousness—together with a concern for the preservation of group or class power and privilege.

In the case of the End-Times, even though the believer is ostensibly concerned with a basic aspect of the Gospel—and the End-Times is a basic aspect of the Gospel—the orientation has shifted from a personal engagement with God and virtue to the advancement of a politicized agenda.

At this point the believer has ceased to be a Christian in any sense that a member of the Orthodox Church steeped in Orthodox Tradition would understand and has become a member of a far-right political grouping that makes use of Christian rhetoric.

This phenomenon of the transformation of religious faith into fanatical right-wing political commitment has been observed in a number of countries with an Orthodox presence—we Orthodox are not immune from this disease—and in those countries it has sometimes led to very serious crimes being committed against people who are not members of the group.

We think that Sarah Palin’s base is perilously close to such a condition, although we are certainly not aware of any crimes being planned by her, by any of her supporters or by any of her associates.

It is at this point that the devout Christian has to speak up and say: ‘These people are not speaking for me.’

These people are not speaking for me.

–Orthodox Monk

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[1] Consider these data taken from

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0945928720080410

FACTBOX: America's Roman Catholic population

Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:59am EDT

(Reuters) - …

- According to a recent nationwide survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 23.9 percent of the adult U.S. population identifies itself as Catholic. This tallies with estimates by the U.S. Catholic Church itself.

- Since the early 1970s the percentage of the population counting itself as Catholic has remained stable at around 25 percent. But according to Pew, no other major faith has experienced greater net losses with 31.4 percent of U.S. adults saying they were raised Catholic and about one in 10 describing themselves as former Catholics.

…

- One indicator of the resiliency of Catholicism in any country is the Mass attendance rate among the flock. According to a 2007 survey by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, about one fifth of U.S. Catholics attend Mass at least once a week while 11 percent go almost every week.

(Sources: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Reuters; Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate)