Eastern Orthodox Church - Opus Publicum

February 9, 2017 Church, Eastern Orthodox Church

Heaven Forbid

Given that every traditional argument for becoming a Catholic comes accompanied with an asterisk, I have suspended all efforts to kick-up any dirt over somebody choosing to join the Eastern Orthodox Church. What I mean is, it is difficult to expect a non-Catholic to easily embrace the “surety of Catholicism” and the “importance of the Papacy” during an unprecedented period of doctrinal chaos. Though it may be fashionable to look back into history and hold that today’s crisis “isn’t as bad” as the era of Arianism or the reign of Iconoclasm, the hard fact of the matter is that those tragic periods in Church history dealt primary with one central dogmatic issue (and then a host of peripheral theological ones). This time out, everything under the sun seems to be on the discussion table, with Catholic prelates all over the world sowing error on everything ranging from “same-sex marriage” to the historicity of the Resurrection. Maybe this could all be accounted for and endured if the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Francis, took affirmative steps to combat these problems, but he hasn’t—and nobody expects him to. Indeed, a mass of evidence has already accumulated that he knowingly contributes to the present crisis under a grossly distorted concept of “mercy.” Catholics of good will everywhere should, of course, give thanks to God that the Church still has good shepherds in her midst, but only after recognizing that those shepherds are few and far between. The hard reality today is that most Catholics are still lost in the wilderness.

As I have opined before, the Orthodox Church, by and large, has more doctrinally sound bishops, priests, and laity than contemporary Catholicism does. (I should note here that it appears that all of the Eastern Catholic churches, by and large, have more doctrinally sound bishops, priests, and laity than contemporary Latin Catholicism does.) What I have meant—and still mean—by this is that on any given Sunday, one is less likely to hear raw nonsense, if not objective heresy, preached from the pulpit in an Orthodox temple compared to a Catholic parish. Although I have witnessed many an Orthodox priest struggle to mutter an intelligible homily, what often makes it out of their mouths are simple, everyday reminders of what the Gospel message means coupled with a bit of history (depending on the liturgical day). Maybe it’s not “profound,” and certainly at times the Orthodox fall prey to clouding up basic points with useless mystical jargon and ahistorical declarations, but all of that is much easier to swallow than a cleric who begins his sermon with, “Today’s reading concerns what the author of the Gospel we attribute to John placed on the lips of Jesus . . .”

This is not to say that Orthodoxy—particularly American Orthodoxy—is not without its troubles. Just the other week, the Greek Orthodox Church presented pro-abortion, pro-homosexualist New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with the “[Patriarch] Athenagoras Human Rights Award.” Why? Because he helped the Greeks get the permits necessary to rebuild St. Nicholas Church, which was destroyed on 9/11. As most should know by now, the Greek Orthodox in America, much like their estranged Catholic brethren, have a long history of cozying up to Democratic politicians. Maybe this was all fine and well during the days when “Democrat” meant “New Deal” and “New Deal” meant social safety nets and industrial restraints intended to help laborers and the under-privileged, but those days are long behind us. No less than many average American Catholics, the Greek Orthodox seem content with the “privately opposed/publicly accepting” dichotomy on most pressing moral issues and cannot be bothered to take a stand against the rising tide of secularism in America.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those Orthodox who seem to align politically with certain traditionalist Catholics in believing Donald Trump and the alt-right will save them. Most of these poor souls are infected with “Russophilia” and believe, contrary to all available evidence, that “Holy Russia 2.0” is upon us. (If anybody needs a sobering account of why “Holy Russia 1.0” was not all that and a bag of chips, please see about purchasing a copy of the late Metropolitan Evlogy’s two-volume memoirs from St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.) For them, Kirill of Moscow is Pope, Vladimir Putin is Tsar, and the only crucial political issue of the day is, “How can we appease Russia?” Now, granted, many of these Orthodox have their instincts in the right place. There is, after all, no benefit in following Hillary Clinton’s plan of picking a war with Russia so that jihadists can control Syria, nor can any Christian be blamed for being leery of the Democratic Party after what it has done to help raze Middle Eastern Christianity over the past eight years. Still, it is unsettling how easily a noticeable segment of American Orthodoxy can have its political orientation steered by romanticism.

All of this is to say that while the choice to choose Orthodoxy over Catholicism makes sense on a certain level, particularly as far as “basic orthodoxy” is concerned, those wishing to acquire a “total package” of “pure Christianity” with an unbreakable moral compass may wish to take a few steps back. As confused as Catholic thinking is today on a great many issues, no one can seriously contend that the Catholic Church has not spoken—and spoken forcefully—on matters such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality, just war, just wages, and so on and so forth. While Orthodoxy has exhibited moral clarity in the past, its confederate-style makeup coupled with (uncanonical?) jurisdictional overlap has created something of a free-for-all when it comes to moral choices. For instance, if a couple doesn’t care for what Fr. Barsanuphius has to say about the pill and rubbers, Fr. Panteleimon down the street can put their consciences at ease.

At the political level (the lowest level?), American Orthodoxy is weak—so weak as to be almost nonexistent. And that’s fine. Those faithful bands of Catholics truly dedicated to what the Church teaches regarding the common good are also weak numerically and materially. The vast majority of Christians living today, regardless of confessional adherence, have made their peace with liberalism; they have no use for a Gospel that still speaks literally of living in the world and not being of it. Orthodoxy, for all of its apparent “other-worldliness,” is just as susceptible to secularism as Catholicism. What is still unclear is that if Orthodoxy, in its modern American iteration, has the capacity to step outside of these times, to find that horizon beyond liberalism, and then push forth with the Great Commission in hand. Or, in the end, will its seemingly most faithful adherents retreat from the moment of decision to dwell in figurative caves where they might cry out to the sky to be saved from the absolute corruption into which they have been thrown? And will the Catholics join them? Heaven forbid.

December 30, 2016 Eastern Orthodox Church

Death to Death to the World

Things slow down this time of year. If you don’t believe me, then click over to the pop-culture website The Outline which ran a story last week on Death to the World (DTW), the Orthodox zine that comically blends superficial Eastern Christian content with a hardcore-punk aesthetic. Started in 1994 in association with the then-schismatic St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina, California, the zine’s name, which in substance means detachment from “all earthly cares,” is meant to appeal to angry, disenfranchised, and largely uneducated young men for whom “death to the world” means a nihilistic disdain for all humanity. More grotesque still is the zine’s frequent use of skulls, graves, and other dark imagery not for the purposes of memento mori, but simply to look “cool.” In many ways DTW’s cheap antics are similar to numerous anarcho-punk and crust bands using pictures of war crimes and other atrocities on their 7” sleeves, ostensibly to “send a message.”

Missing from The Outline’s overview of the zine is any mention of the numerous problems associated with St. Herman’s, not the least of which being its willingness to shield its abbot Gleb “Fr. Herman” Podmoshensky from accusations of sexual impropriety. St. Herman’s and DTW are also shameless propagandists for Fr. Seraphim Rose, a homosexual Eastern spiritualist-turned-Orthodox monk who is best known for penning a series of intellectually fraudulent books on everything from UFOs to a literalist interpretation of the Book of Genesis. Rose, more than any other Orthodox crackpot writing in English, is responsible for anti-Catholic prejudices among American Orthodoxy’s convert culture and the cult of worship that surrounds him still has frustrated any sincere inquiries into his alleged holiness. It is telling that Rose’s home jurisdiction, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, has yet to canonize him despite the circulation of icons, akathists, and other pious practices in his honor.

As for DTW itself, despite failing to attract many subscribers in the 1990s, it now enjoys a second life as a web-zine while peddling clothing clearly meant to imitate the attire of black-bloc anarchists. How much of an impact DTW still has is difficult to measure. American Orthodoxy has a time-honored tradition of artificially inflating its numbers even though it is missing an entire generation of adherents due to intermarriage or apathy. While noble efforts have been made over the past several decades to turn Orthodoxy away from being a boutique religion for bored white people and/or an ethnic social club, the sad fact remains that Orthodoxy in America remains splintered along cradle/convert and nationalistic lines. As for giving Orthodoxy some intellectual gravitas in the Anglophone world, it should come as little surprise that the scholarly efforts of the late Frs. Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff are often held in contempt by those associated with DTW and its followers. For them, Orthodoxy is a pseudo-rebellious religious posture with candles and exotic pictures; nothing further need be known.

Instead of being the subject of a positive news article, DTW ought to be derided by serious Orthodox Christians who have no interest in having their religion reduced to a fad. Those who find their way to Orthodoxy through DTW and other similar resources are likely to enter with a woefully incomplete and despicably inaccurate picture of what the Orthodox Church is. This is not what Orthodoxy needs, particularly in the United States where fervent religiosity often takes the shape of barking-mad hysterics. Of course, Orthodoxy is not alone in suffering through attempts to blend its character and traditions with disposable convictions and self-important posturing. I used to listen to Pedro the Lion after all.

December 20, 2016 Eastern Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Church

Some Brief Words on the “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” Phenomenon

It’s probably not worth dwelling too much on the phenomenon known as “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” (OICWR), an initially well-intentioned reorientation of how Greek Catholics understand their relationship with Rome which has—at least in certain online forums—degenerated into a cafeteria ecclesiology. Although there are several variants of OICWR, the most extreme (and seemingly most vocal) wing takes the position that the Greek Catholic churches need not treat as ecumenical or binding any “Roman council” held between the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II) and the Second Vatican Council. Not even Florence, which transpired with the participation of the Greek Church, is seen as binding due to its eventual repudiation by the Orthodox. By radical OICWR reckoning, Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, and Papal Infallibility are not settled dogmas for the universal Church but rather Latin doctrines that amount to little more than theological opinions which can, and perhaps ought to be, critiqued in the light of the Byzantine theological tradition. Instead of seeking a shared understanding on the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith, the OICWR extremists revel in the apparent divisions that allegedly separate East from West. And, like all good ideologies, these individuals are quick to disparage their critics, including their Greek Catholic critics, as “Latinized” or “Uniates.”

Needless to say, the OICWR—moderate and extreme alike—claim to take their bearings from the Vatican II declaration Orientalium Ecclesiarum despite the fact that no less an authority on things Orthodox than Fr. Alexander Schmemann, an observer at the Council, found the document unsatisfactory in certain respects. The extremists also point to the “sister churches” ecclesiology promoted by Vatican II, albeit in splendid isolation of the 2000 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Note on the Expression Sister Churches.” Moreover, for reasons that remain vague and underdeveloped, the far reaches of the OICWR seem to believe that the perilous project of “reclaiming their tradition” (as if the historic Greek Church only had a single tradition) means imitating the theology, spirituality, and liturgy of the contemporary Orthodox Church, as if it that communion, both before and after the “Great Schism” of 1054 A.D., was monolithic and without change. The pursuit of a “magic moment” of “purity” in the fog of history often results in pick-and-choose “reconstruction” which, in the end, bears little resemblance to how things ever were.

None of this is to say that the Greek Catholic churches (Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Melkite, etc.) shouldn’t take proper and prudent steps to remove accretions from their liturgy that undermine its integrity nor ignore the rich Eastern theological patrimony in favor of Thomism. Greek Catholics have been rightly encouraged to maintain their identity in recent decades. However, there is a wide gulf between maintaining one’s identity and taking up positions that are openly hostile to the Catholic Faith. It seems that the fringes of the OICWR movement are more interested in appeasing the worst circles of Orthodoxy rather than standing firm for true catholicity, that is, particularity within universality. No one today should seriously buy into the shopworn prejudice that “to be Catholic” is “to be Latin.” Still, that is not a warrant for rank doctrinal dissent and schism mongering.

December 11, 2016 Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, World

Any Given Sunday

Somewhere in the world a Tridentine Mass was said without the servers reciting the second Confiteor and a Divine Liturgy served without the second antiphon. Millions of complacent Christians did their weekly duty of showing up to church, pretended to pray, and silently judged the proceedings with thoughts of football, fornication, or just about anything else besides Christ on their minds. And then, in the ancient city of Cairo, dozens of Coptic Christians—mainly women and children—were torn to shreds as a giant explosion ripped through St. Mark’s Cathedral.

As honest as the Western media may want to be when it comes to the state of Egyptian politics in the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring,” the religious significance of the attack is all but lost on them. The Islamists who no doubt carried out this strike are already being referred to as “extremists” and the Copts themselves defined in terms of politics rather than religion. Lost is any sincere acknowledgment that from the days of the false prophet Muhammad, whose tragic birth is celebrated this day, millions of Christians have perished under the crescent moon.

Eastern Christians are, unsurprisingly, much more sensitive to this reality than their Western brethren. For while Latin Catholics may still give passing notice to events such as Lepanto or the Battle of Vienna, Easterners are forced to recall the fall of their ancient patriarchal sees, not to mention historical defeats at Constantinople, Kosovo, and many more. Regardless of local church affiliation or rite, the Eastern liturgical year commemorates numerous incidences of grotesque Muslim violence against the Christians of the East. It is hoped that the prayers of these holy martyrs will sustain what’s left of Christianity in the Middle East, though right now those prayers must feel unanswered.

Without discounting the deleterious effect secular liberalism has had on the West for two centuries, it is difficult at times like this to take the persecution narrative of certain Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants all that seriously. The day may come when the liberal order finally seeks to violently rid itself of the last remnants of Christendom, but that still seems a long way off when compared to the more immediate and savage violence that Islam continues to perpetrate all over the world against the followers of Jesus Christ. Western political leaders will, naturally, express some condolences before returning to business-as-usual, that is, ignoring the plight of the Middle East’s dwindling Christian population.

And what will the Church say? Should we expect an outcry followed by an outpouring of prayers for the deceased and wounded or some highly qualified statements meant to ensure everyone that the attack in Cairo, like the numerous attacks which preceded it in the past few years, was the work of “extremists,” a “fringe” not representative of Muslims generally? Shall we be scolded into accepting the lie that Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Heaven help us all.

November 26, 2016 Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Politics

If He Is Not Your King…

Over the course of the past few months I have been going in chronological order through the archived sermons of Fr. Patrick Reardon over at Ancient Faith Radio (AFR). The archive, which dates back over a decade, may be the most impressive audio collection of Eastern Orthodox homilies in existence. For though some have not always seen eye-to-eye with Reardon on certain subjects (e.g. the nature of Orthodox theology, liturgics, the role of the Old Testament in the life of the Church, sexual ethics, etc.), no serious person can deny that Reardon is one of the most learned Orthodox churchmen in the West and maybe the most Scripturally sound Eastern cleric in the world.

In a brief 2005 homily, simply entitled “Melchizedek,” Fr. Patrick makes the point that just as Melchizedek’s kingship cannot be separated from his priesthood, neither can Christ’s. And if we, as Christians, will not have the Lord Jesus as our king, neither can we have him as our priest. This is an unsettling lesson for modern man, being that we are so accustomed to rejecting both the need for a mediator and authority. Today, even those of us (Orthodox and Catholic) who are willing to accept the idea of a mediator tend to do so on our own terms; that is, in a largely private and circumscribed manner. Is it any wonder then that we see this play out as well with regard to Christ’s kingship? In the privacy of our homes and the silence of the pew, we may pay private homage to Christ the King, but not in public. In public we live as the world expects. Perhaps we try to be “nicer” than others, or take the Lord’s name in vain a tad bit less, but that is not enough. God does not call men to love and worship Him on their own terms; He calls us to total obedience, even unto death. How quickly we forget that.

If we live our lives as Christians, that is, in obedience to God, we will be rejected by the world. We will not “get along,” either in the workplace or at school or even among friends. This is a a truth that Reardon stresses — a truth most of us would rather not be reminded of. Look today at how Christians, specifically Catholics, are so eager to adopt the garments of capitalism or communism in order to win worldly approval and benefits while paying no mind to the divine teachings entrusted to the Church. See how Catholics chase after secular political leaders to be their kings or queens without paying any mind to Christ. We reject His Kingship and still believe we are entitled to his priesthood. We want His Grace, but not His Law. In the end, we love to be in the world and long to be of it.

November 1, 2016 Catholic Social Thought, Eastern Orthodox Church, Politics

All Saints Day

Whenever I start to wonder why the Catholic Church in America is so bloodless, confused, and indifferent toward the deposit of faith, I quickly peruse the websites of Patheos, First Things, and the National Catholic Reporter to find my answers. This year’s “Reformation Day,” coupled with a certain notorious papal visit to Sweden, has really brought out the worst in some people, and by the “worst” I mean the worst sort of equivocating in the name of “dialogue” and “unity.” In times past, I thought one of the central problems with post-Vatican II American Catholicism is its inordinate desire to be accepted as “good liberals” in a secular democracy. It now seems to me that part of being accepted as such meant being accepted by the Protestant elites who, for all practical purposes, ran (and to some extent still run) America’s socio-political machinery. Things started to change a bit in the late 1970s when Catholics and Evangelicals became jointly concerned about abortion (and some other moral matters). Now, however, Catholics are desperate to divorce themselves from that “fever-swamp Christianity” of days gone by while looking to the collapsing mainline Protestant confessions for inspiration. Sometimes Catholics will call this “dialogue”; in truth it’s merely capitulation.

The Eastern Orthodox handle themselves a bit better, at least as far as rejecting limp-wristed ecumenism masked by vacuous terms like “encounter” and “witness” is concerned. Those with eyes to see know of course that American Orthodoxy, more than American Catholicism, struggles with “Protestant captivity,” largely due to the influx of converts into Orthodoxy’s fold during the 1990s and early 00s. While some of these converts have packed their bags and left, numerous influential Orthodox clerics (and a few laymen) continue to push for an Orthodoxy that amounts to little more than “Byzantine Rite Calvinism.” Heck, even well-meaning cradle Orthodox are often duped into believing that old-fashioned Protestant polemics against Rome, when dressed up with some Greek jargon, represents an authentic articulation of “true Orthodoxy” over-and-against “Papist errors.” This leads to all sorts of nonsense, such as fanciful distinctions between what the Orthodox have (allegedly) “always believed” and what Catholics now (allegedly) “do.” (Yes, I have been told straight up that among the (alleged) differences between Orthodox and Catholics, one can list Mary worship, statue worship, saint worship, and Communion worship.)

Perhaps it’s cliché to say that things will get worse before they get better, but let’s not forget that clichés are clichés for a reason. Regardless of what happens next Tuesday, there can be little doubt that the country will be even more politically torn apart than it already is. Christians (of whatever stripe) will have to select sides, and there will be plenty of finger pointing to go around. Those Catholics (and Protestants and Orthodox) who insist that we must vote for Donald Trump or else are going to remain at odds with those Catholics who follow the Church’s actual teachings when it comes to voting. That is to say, those Catholics who refuse to materially cooperate with evil are apt to be marginalized by both Left-wing Catholics (who, of course, have no problem materially cooperating with evil) and Right-wing Catholics, at least for a time. Remember: If Hillary Clinton prevails over Trump, it’s everyone’s fault for not violating their consciences or embracing “the lesser of two evils”; the fact that American conservative politics has degraded to the point where a buffoonish billionaire can hijack the Republican Party has nothing to do with it (or so they say).

Some harbor the hope that when the dust finally settles, a new, more diversified, politics might emerge and that Christians (specifically Catholics) will finally be able to have an unadulterated say in the direction of the Republican Party or, more likely, a new party that splinters from it. I am not so sure. If Trump-style “conservatism” is the new flavor of the decade (just as Tea-Party conservatism was briefly before), then it is likely that many conservative-to-traditional Catholics will choose remain faithful to that brand. Why? Because many are fearful of what is coming and the idea of a “strong man” savior will always be appealing, especially when the new political enemy is a woman. Also, the idea of Trump supporters openly embracing an orthodox form of Catholic politics is hard to fathom when such an embrace would mean that at the core everything they professed about the necessity of voting for someone like Trump is simply wrong. Sure, perhaps some of these well-meaning souls can be converted to the truth, but with so many traditionalist outlets doubling-down on the Donald, it is reasonable to fear that a significant contingent of their followers will never return to the light.

October 27, 2016 Catholic Social Thought, Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Politics, Roman Catholic Church

Heaven Forbid

October 7, 2016 Catholic Social Thought, Eastern Orthodox Church, Economics, Orthodox Social Thought

Perjury, Lies, Charity, and the Market

Much has already been written about David Bentley Hart’s somewhat iconoclastic Commeanweal article on wealth and the Gospels. One of Hart’s Eastern Orthodox co-religionists, Dylan Pahman, was not amused. In both pieces, passing references were made to how the Church Fathers understood certain New Testament texts on wealth and poverty, though a great deal was left uncovered. To fill this lacuna, I found myself reaching for Susan R. Holman’s collection of Patristic studies, Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society (Baker Academic 2008). I was drawn in particular to Angeliki E. Laiou’s article, “Trade, Profit, and Salvation in the Late Patristic and Byzantine Period,” which covers the thinking of the Church Fathers from roughly the 4th through the 10th centuries. According to Hart’s account, by the time of St. Clement of Alexandria (2nd/3rd Century), compromises were already being made between the rigorous demands of the Gospel and the economic realities of the late Roman Empire. This is not entirely true, or so observes Laiou. In examining the thought of Ss. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom in particular, Laiou detects open hostility toward what we today call “the profit motive” and the idea that any should gain beyond what they require to sustain themselves. Laiou highlights the negative attitude Chrysostom held toward merchants, that is, those who buy and sell for profit without interjecting their labor into the mix. Consider the following, taken from Chrysostom’s Homilies on Matthew (quoted by Laiou, pg. 246):

But even they [merchants], if they are not careful, gather much evil from this [i.e., their profession]. For they add to their rightful labor the injustice that comes from buying and selling, and often pile oaths and perjury and lies onto their greed, and they care only for earthly things. They do everything they can to gain money, while they do not try very hard to give to those in need, since what they want is constantly to increase their property. What can one say about the mocking, the insults, he interest, the exchanges that smell of trade, the shameless bargaining?

To remedy this problem, Chrysostom (and others) go on to exalt charity as a remedy for the sin of ill-gotten gains. As Laiou notes throughout her article, there is a heavy emphasis among the 4th Century Fathers that Christians should eschew any gain that goes beyond their needs. The reason the merchant is singled-out for such harsh words is both because of the perjury and lies that often accompany trade, bargaining, negotiating, etc. and because such actions are carried out in the interest of greed. Chrysostom was not the only one to call attention to the dangers of the merchant’s profession and trade. A far more rigorous condemnation can be found in the section of the Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum which deals with Matthew 21:12, that is, the account of Christ driving out of the Temple “those who bought and those who sold” (quoted by Laiou, pg. 247).

This means that the merchant can never or almost never please God. Therefore, no Christian should be a merchant. Or, if he wishes to be a merchant, let him be thrown out of the church according to the saying of the prophet, “Because I have not known bargaining I will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” . . . He who buys and sells cannot be free of lies and perjury: for it is necessary that one of the merchants swear that the thing he is buying is not worth its price, while the other swear that the thing he is selling is worth more than the sale price. Nor is the property of merchants stable. It is either destroyed while the merchant is still alive, or it is dissipated by bad heirs or it is inherited by outsiders and enemies. Nothing that is collected evilly can come to any good.

The Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, for those who are unaware, is a 5th/6th Century text thought to have been composed originally in Greek, but only extant today in Latin translation. Laiou remarks that the text had a much greater impact on Western Christian thought concerning labor and the market than Eastern thinking, and that the Byzantines distanced themselves from the declaration that “no Christian should be a merchant.” Still, further on in the Opus comes a concession towards any individual “who buys a thing not so as to sell it in the same unchanged and complete form but rather in order to work with it[.]” According to the Opus, “he is not a merchant, for he is selling not the thing itself but rather his own work he has put in it[.]” In contrast to such a just person is the usurer, for “if he who buys in order to resell is a merchant, and accursed, how much more accursed is he who gives at interest money that he has not bought but has been given to him by God?”

This rigorism, as already noted, had a much greater impact in the West than the East, a fact which becomes evident when comparing the often complex relationship between Christian thought in usury among the Latins as opposed to the Byzantines. This does not mean, however, that the Byzantines simply accepted trade as an absolute good or paid no mind to profiteering. Still, by the latter centuries of the first millennium, the hagiographic tradition in the East revealed far greater tolerance for the role of merchants and the marketplace than is evident in either Chrysostom or the Opus. In several places in her article, Laiou pinpoints how the Byzantines, in both their spiritual writings and legal codes, opened the door to what they considered to be a just accumulation of wealth while still maintaining that greed is sinful and that almsgiving and other forms of charity are important virtues which must be cultivated. The Byzantines, with mixed success, tried to frame profit as a blessing from God and praised exchange only to the extent that it is just, that is, carried out without recourse to perjury or lies.

From a historical perspective, none of this is terribly surprising. Whereas Western Christendom faced centuries of political turmoil, material privation, and overall social decline after the fall of Rome, the Byzantine East enjoyed expansion and opulence brought about in part by trade and commerce. There was, psychologically speaking, a greater need in the Christian East to justify profit in the light of the Gospel than there was in the West. This would not remain true forever, of course. Following the Reformation and the advent of capitalism, the Church of Rome lost track of her historic condemnation of usury and began to harbor a much more lackadaisical attitude toward wealth accumulation despite paying lip service to the historic witness of the saints concerning greed, trade, and usury. What remains clear, though, is that even centuries after Pentecost, the Church had not lost full sight of the radical demands of the Gospel; whether or not her vision sharpens again before the eschaton remains to be seen.

September 28, 2016 Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox Social Thought

Hart Contra Acton

I couldn’t say for sure, but were I a betting man I’d put my chips behind the possibility that David Bentley Hart doesn’t look kindly on the Acton Institute and its ongoing attempt to fuse social, political, and economic liberalism with Christianity. In a new article for Commonweal, Hart briefly reviews the fallout from his First Thing piece on Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ before going into detail why he believes capitalism and the Gospel are at odds. Here’s an excerpt:

The final stage of my work on [translating the New Testament] coincided with my involvement in a series of public debates that I initiated by writing a short column for First Things praising Pope Francis and his recent encyclical Laudato si’, and that I prolonged when I contributed another article to the same journal arguing for the essential incompatibility of Christianity and capitalist culture. My basic argument was that a capitalist culture is, of necessity, a secularist culture, no matter how long the quaint customs and intuitions of folk piety may persist among some of its citizens; that secularism simply is capitalism in its full cultural manifestation; that late capitalist “consumerism”—with its attendant ethos of voluntarism, exuberant and interminable acquisitiveness, self-absorption, “lust of the eyes,” and moral relativism—is not an accidental accretion upon an essentially benign economic system, but the inevitable result of the most fundamental capitalist values. Not everyone concurred. The most representative statements of the contrary position were two earnest articles in the Public Interest by Samuel Gregg, neither of which addressed my actual arguments, but both of which correctly identified my hostility to libertarian apologetics. And on at least one point Gregg did have me dead to rights: I did indeed say that the New Testament, alarmingly enough, condemns great personal wealth not merely as a moral danger, but as an intrinsic evil. No, he rejoined with calm certainty, it is not wealth as such that the New Testament condemns, but only a spiritually unhealthy preoccupation with it (the idolatry of riches, wealth misused, wealth immorally gained); riches in and of themselves, he insisted, are neither good not bad. This seems an eminently reasonable argument, I suppose. Certainly we have all heard it before, almost as a truism.

The Gregg pieces in question are typical Actonite rehashes of trick-down economic ideology; the glories of capitalism (and the woes of “crony capitalism”); and the compatibility of economic liberalism and Christianity. Hart — being Eastern Orthodox — is not bound to the social magisterium of the Catholic Church, though he arguably comes closer to following it than a professed Catholic like Gregg or Acton’s head-honcho, Fr. Robert Sirico. Where Hart is likely to raise some eyebrows is in his implicit suggestion that Christ’s teaching — and the witness of the Apostles — points to a form of Christian communism with wealth being condemned absolutely. Hart doesn’t have much interest in tethering himself to the development of Christian social doctrine nor, for that matter, engaging in that time-honored Orthodox practice of “appealing to the Fathers.” (He does, after all, have some brief but pointed words for St. Clement of Alexandria, who attempted to make the Gospel mesh with the conventions of his time.) Regardless, Hart’s retelling of the early Church’s admonishment of wealth is worth reflecting on, if only because it stands in such sharp contrast to the manner in which most Christians live their lives. Catholics like to speak a great deal about “avoiding the occasion of sin” but have almost nothing meaningful to say about doing so regarding riches. Instead, what we normally receive are finger-wagging reminders from men who make six figures a year about how even the poor today have it “better off” than the poor a century ago and even a man struggling to keep his family together working two jobs can also make an idol out of his earnings.

September 18, 2016 Catholic Social Thought, Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Theology

Cooperation with Non-Catholics?

Today, during one of my infrequent visits to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) on a Sunday, the priest spoke about avoiding unnecessary occasions of sin, including collaborating or fraternizing with non-Catholics. Obviously, there are times in our daily lives when we cannot avoid this, such as in the workplace. However, to the fullest extent possible, Catholics should probably avoid it, lest it imperil their faith.

I am not sure what to make of this. Despite the fact this priest was rooting himself in a once-common theological opinion, there is a growing sense among both conservative and traditional Catholics that there is a need for a “pan-Christian” coalition in the United States in order to hold back the ever-rising tides of secularism and liberalism. Those who recommend this option typically believe that such cooperation can be partitioned off from any particular faith commitments. In other words, if conservative Catholics and Lutherans form a local collation to start, say, the building of a strip club in their neighborhood or pass an ordinate limiting drinking on Sundays, that doesn’t mean Catholic participants are at risk of taking up sold fide. That’s probably right. However, it seems to me that the main concern about “pan-Christian” coalitions is that it undermines the evangelical spirit and leads to at least a light form of indifferentism. “That Gustav is a good fellow; very devout. I should let him be and not pester him about what a heretic Martin Luther was!”

There are numerous other examples that can here be given, but I suspect you get the point. The best response I have at the moment to this line of thinking is that it may be a nonissue given that there are increasingly fewer non-Catholic Christians which hold to any politically or socially relevant set of beliefs that Catholics can licitly get behind as well. Even within the Catholic Church today there is a noticeable rift between liberal and conservative Catholics, and a sizable rift as well between conservatives and traditionalists. It therefore behooves any faithful Catholic to exercise a great deal of prudence when deciding who to share common cause with and to discern which cases are in fact common.

As for concerns over indifferentism, they are well placed. Look, for example, at the Acton Institute, which is operated primarily by Catholics (including a Catholic clergyman). Catholic social principles are set the side in favor of building a coalition around liberal economic ideology which, sadly, members of other non-Catholic confessions, including Evangelicals and Eastern Orthodox, gravitate toward, too. Acton does not take as its mission to promote the Catholic Faith at the socio-political level but to deliver false baptism to liberal thought backed by tortured readings of the Church’s social magisterium. The end result is a culture of indifferentism at Acton toward any who are willing to wave the flag of free-market capitalism. All others must, of course be “evangelized” with the gospel of liberalism.

None of this is to say that Catholics should avoid all cooperation with non-Catholics. Although their numbers may be under assault, there are still Protestants and Orthodox in America who actively resist liberalism and all its works. The Orthodox in particular, who as Pope Leo XIII stated are close to Catholics the Faith, tend to be more conservative in their beliefs than most Catholics. As such, Catholics should not quickly dismiss the possibility of having closer association with the Orthodox so long as the temptation to apathy or indifferentism is resisted.