Beautiful sentiments that are balm for a weary heart. The “brotherhood of the broken” has so many members, yet as my pastor frequently reminds us, we are all equal at the foot of the cross. I hope your heart is lighter in the days ahead. I received a lovely 90 day devotional from a caring friend on her own health-related journey, “The Healing Power of the Holy Communion,” by Joseph Prince. I’m 34 days in, and feel a shift. Perhaps returning to the Sacrament will be transformative for you, as well.
The woman with the issue of blood (although St. Matthew’s account rather than St. Luke’s) is also the Gospel pericope in our lectionary today. Lovely reflections on this miracle from you and Met. Hilarion. It is astonishing to consider that in the Eucharist the Lord offers us not merely the hem of His garment but His whole and very Self. May He grant you healing and peace, brother. I will remember you particularly at the altar this day.
Re: this sounded like she became a Christian because it “works
That not that unusual. Conversion stories from antiquity and the Middle ages often included people being converted by miracles, which is a strong form of "it works". I became Orthodox by going to the Divine Liturgy and finding myself remarkably at peace the rest of the day. Few people convert because of theological apologetics.
That's right. Again and again I go back to Card. Ratzinger's line about the best "arguments" for the truth of Christianity are the art the church produces, and the saints. His point is that people who encounter the truth of Christ in material form -- aesthetic beauty, or what you might call "moral beauty" in the lives of the saints -- open their minds to the deeper truths, and may convert. That's how it happened to me.
The ancient Greeks called it kalokagathia (καλοκἀγαθία), the beauty of good conduct, of just dealing. Obviously there is a lot that could go wrong for this with a Christian (Aristotle's description of the great-souled man will not do) but that's another issue. As for Ratzinger's remark about the tribute artists have made to the Church's truth, that's why it's impossible to apologize for disgust with what EVERY Pope since Paul VI has done with that heritage. Replacing Raphael with Rupnik and Mozart with Dan Schutte really tells you all you need to know.
I had an evangelical Anglican friend who, after the Anglican Church of Canada had pushed the Book of Common Prayer aside in favour of the Book of Alternative Services - commonly known by its acronym, “BAS” - remarked, “Ah, yes, the BAS - the first three letters of the word, “bastard”!
Yep, there is a reason the Holy Spirit produces such beauty, both in various artforms as well as the lives of the saints then and now, all around. "Ye shall know them by their works."
Father of Zoomers, I removed your comment because of its profanity. You should also refrain from offering your unwelcome remarks about my children and my relationship with them. You don't know what's going on. Those who read this newsletter who are close to me do know what's going on, and they know that I am not willingly separated from my kids.
Also, good call on taking the prayer book to the Divine Liturgy. Although I find sung, especially chanted, Latin among the most lovely sounds a human voice can make, it wasn't until I bought a 1962 Latin-English missal that I really dove into the depth of worship in a Traditional Latin Mass – and moved beyond aesthetic appreciation.
Speaking of Divine Liturgy and Mass, this line caught my eye “Protestants and others may mistakenly think we are praying to Mary as a goddess.” I've pondered why this is so and I think it's because Protestants did not retain liturgical worship in the sense of Catholics, Orthodox and adjacent (e.g. Oriental Orthodox/Church of the East) churches.
The Mass and Divine Liturgy are 'latria' as theologians say, that worship which is due to God alone. As opposed to 'dulia', the veneration – not worship - that is paid to Mary and the saints. This distinction does not exist in the Protestantism of which I am aware and may explain why any prayer/devotion to Mary and the saints appears to be pre-empting God.
Any genuine devotion to Mary or the saints ultimately points to Christ; they are guideposts to the destination.
my thinking is that we pray to God alone. Those that have gone before are worshipping the Lamb and I think are not peering into our lives or listening to our prayers. This Protestants (kinda hate that word as it isn't what was intended by the reformers) thoughts anyway. It is ok to ascribe to the saints their faithfulness and example they give as that great cloud of witnesses.
If those on the other side of death can't hear our prayers or are indifferent, then I'd agree.
In the Catholic view, the one I can best address, the Mystical Body of Christ incorporates living believers (so-called 'Church Militant') and the faithful departed, whether in purgatory ('Church Suffering') or heaven ('Church Triumphant'). As they are one body in Christ, the living pray may pray for those in purgatory and the saved dead may pray to God for the living.
I'd think that the saved on the other side of the death are more alive than we living, in that their souls see more of ultimate realities. I suspect we agree on that part. Cheers!
We may disagree on this purgatory, but yes our spirits in the presence of our Lord and Savior we will be more alive. But we will be most alive when our spirits are reunited to the raised incorruptible bodies and we are whole beings as intended at creation in the presence of Christ and one another with no sin or curse of sin between us.
The "Communion of Saints" is no empty phrase. We may not be able to see and hear them directly, trapped in deep Time and this present darkness, but why should those who have gone to glory be similarly blind and deaf?
Indifference to the sorrows and needs of others is certainly not something I would associate with the saints.
"Protestants did not retain liturgical worship in the sense of Catholics, Orthodox and adjacent (e.g. Oriental Orthodox/Church of the East) churches."
It is important to remember that this is not true of (most) Lutherans.
(I had to insert "most" for historical accuracy. Those territorial and city churches of SW Germany that followed Martin Bucer's attempt to find - much as Bucer's colleague and disciple, John Calvin later tried - a "middle way" between Luther and Zwingli, an attempt that eventuated in these churches signing on to Lutheranism, abandoned anything like traditional liturgical worship in favor of services reconstructed along the same lines as the Swiss Reformed and later Calvinist churches. Since other Lutheran churches have always accepted these SW German churches as fully Lutheran, it therefore follows that a historical form of liturgical worship must ultimately be an adiaphoron among Lutherans - just as the fact that there are a number of Missouri Synod "megachurches" that have jettisoned liturgical worship altogether also underlines this point. Calvin, by the way, threw his lot in with the Reformed in 1549, which resulted in the attenuation (i.e., movement toward Zwingli's or Bullinger's views) in the longer run of some of his distinctive ideas, especially in the realm of sacramentology.)
Not explicitly, I think - but if you accept as genuine the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 100/110 AD) and the Epistle of the Roman Church to the Corinthian Church ascribed - I think rightly - to Clement and commonly dated ca. 96 (by many) or 69 (by some) then it becomes plausible and even likely.
As to the "Anglican Apostolic Succession," belief in such a thing, its existence and importance, formed no part of the Edwardian Reformation (1547 to 1553) nor of the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, but was rather developed at the very end of Elizabeth I's reign and the beginning of James I's in the period between ca. 1595 and ca. 1605 by Richard Hooker and (especially) Lancelot Andrewes and their followers, and was long the view of a minority coterie within the Church of England. (a minority which came to dominate the episcopate of the Church of England in the 1630s, thanks to Charles I's enthusiastic patronage of their views). Rather, these bishops were the equivalent of Hungarian Reformed "bishops" (the equivalents of Presbyterian "moderators") or Danish Lutheran bishops (at the Danish Reformation in 1537 all the Catholic bishops were removed and imprisoned, and replaced by Lutheran "superintendents" with the "succession" of bishops deliberately broken to mark a new beginning). And those late Elizabethan theologians who argued in favor of jure divino episcopalianism as opposed to jure divinno presbyterianism were contending about church structure rather than for any necessary succession through episcopal laying-on of hands from "popish and antichristian" bishops to their godly successors.. Ordination of bishops by bishops was a legal requirement of English law in 1559, which is why Elizabeth I's officials went to some length to secure it in 1559, and not because of any belief in "apostolic succession of bishops." For more on the Elizabethan Settlement (and the private dislike of that settlement by many of Elizabeth's bishops as a "mingle-mangle" of Popery and Protestantism) see:
And I would add, that there is a distinct difference between subsequent Lutheran history and Anglican history. Lutheran churches (for the most part) retained a great deal of Catholic practices and customs, in such areas as ritual practices, liturgical rites, church vestments, popular piety, and the like, in part as an expression of the idea that Lutheranism was a type of "Reformed Catholicism," in part as an expression of folk Christian practices and preferences and how Lutheran churches were prepared to tolerate and practice them so long as they did not contradict Lutheran confessional beliefs, and in part as a gesture of defiance of and disdain for Reformed/Calvinist ideas about the proper nature of "Reformation" and purging the church from anything smacking of "popish superstition." It was only in the very late 17th and throughout the 18th centuries that many of these Lutheran practices were removed by rulers intent on promoting a sort of rationalistic Christianity in their territories, and their attempted recovery and restoration in the last century has caused controversy among Lutherans in general.
The Anglicanism of the 1559 Settlement looked rather towards Reformed Switzerland, than to Lutheran Germany. Many of Elizabeth I's bishops hoped that those semi-Catholic features of the Elizabethan settlement (much fewer in number and significance than those retained in Lutheran churches) would soon be removed or be permitted gradually to disappear. The quarrels between reform-minded Protestants intent on "purifying" the Church of England of those "relics of popery" (hence "Puritans") and proceeding onwards to a "purely Reformed church," and those who were content with retaining them (if that's what the monarch wanted) came eventually to focus on the office of bishop, and hence, on the structure of the church, disputed between "presbyterians" and "episcopalians" - such disputes were virtually non-existent among Lutherans, for whom church polity was a matter convenience or "adiaphora." Eventually, in the 17th century, this took many Anglicans off into the direction of the Church Fathers and towards the belief that bishops-in-the-apostolic-succession were an important, and perhaps necessary, feature of "a true Catholic church." The growth of a party in Anglican churches practicing a full, and at least partially medievalizing, form of liturgical worship, was a 19th Century phenomenon, and one without any real precedents in Anglican practice after 1559, and there are more than a few Anglican Evangelicals who regard all forms of "Anglo-Catholicism" as a deplorable corruption of "Gospel Truth."
Those wishing to read further on this subjects might wish to consult these writings of Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch:
Yes, when I've read Anglican writings from before about 1800, I've been surprised how Calvinist they sound.
The C. of E. used to be described as having a Calvinist confession, a Popish liturgy, an Arminian clergy, and a Pelagian laity!
For non-English people, it's a bit difficult to explain the C. of E., as it was even in my grandparents' generation (young in the 30s and 40s). It didn't really require religious belief, but was a symbol of respectability. Even when I was young, we used the word "Nonconformist" to mean non-Anglican Protestant, although the Act of Uniformity had stopped being enforced in about 1870 or something. There was always a tendency for enthusiastically religious people to hive off into the Nonconformists or Catholics, and "C. of E." to sort of mean "normal".
Incidentally, do you know much about the non-jurors? I've come across them as footnotes, and it seems fascinating how they set up a rival hierarchy, and the last of them eventually joined the Greek Orthodox Church.
Thje Non-Jurors are a fascinating lot. They were, some of them, very "Eastern-minded" in their liturgical and ecclesiological outlook. They neveer recovered from the split between "Usagers" and "Non-Usagers" in 1719, and later broke into further splinters, one of them, the Orthodox British Church, centered in Manchester, repudiating the Reformation altogether.
Nearly 30 years ago I was strongly drawn to Orthodoxy, but while I had reservations, on Biblical grounds, about some other matters, the thing that closed Orthodoxy to me was prayers that I could never pray. For example, from a book of morning and evening prayers --
"Release me, bound with bonds of sin, O Bride of God, by thy prayers. ...Deliver me from eternal fire, from wicked war and from hell. ...Grant me torrents of tears, O most pure one, to cleanse my soul from impurity. .... direct the grace of the Spirit in me. ...quench the flame of my passions, for I am poor and wretched, and deliver me from my many cruel memories and deeds ...deliver us from harm, only pure, only blessed one," etc.
A proper reverence for the Theotokos is completely appropriate. But what I quoted directs the Christian who is praying to ask of Our Lady what she cannot give and to do what she could not do, but the Persons of the Godhead.
Such prayers seem pretty obviously inappropriate at face value. I wonder too about their antiquity; although Roman Catholic and Orthodox polemicists like to assume the high ground as regards antiquity, they are both susceptible to criticism for features thereof being less ancient than people may assume. (Jurgens's anthology The Faith of the Early Fathers is helpful on such matters.) From my study of Orthodoxy about 30 years ago, it came to appear to me that Orthodoxy kind of added a third group to prophets and apostles as sources of Christian doctrine, namely monks. It seemed that monks were often the earliest known proponents of certain prayers that have no evident derivation from Holy Scripture.
In writing these remarks I'm not meaning to provoke bad feelings. I was responding to Alcuin and like-minded fellow Christians.
Some of the Marian prayers seems to have developed from Byzantine court ritual: the Emperor's mother (or sometimes his wife or sister) was often a person of considerable influence in the Empire and florid praises and entreaties would be addressed to her. The panegyrics of the Virgin can easily grate on modern American sensibilities, both culturally (we simply do not like hierarchies in this country) and linguistically as the delicately phrased Greek may require an annoying verbosity to express in English.
Jon, speaking for myself, if I thought the kind of prayers I excerpted were an authentic, wholesome element in the life of Holy Church, I wouldn't, I think, be troubled by "hierarchy."
The hymn with which I frequently start the day is "Rejoice, the Lord Is King" -- five verses, omitting the sixth which seems to me to envision a questionable eschatology. I've posted those verses here probably more than once. It is great to keep in mind that the Lord Jesus is King. American Christians need to become comfortable with the traditional idea that the king could be the one you beseeched when the judges, mayors, bureaucrats, gaolers, and so on were unfair. A good king listened to his people. Our Jesus listens to His people. See the Epistles to the Hebrews on this. He is accessible.
Thank you for this post this morning, Rod. God bless you and your family, and all of us on each of
our painful journeys through this life.
My favourite icon of Mary is Our Lady of Perpetual Help (here is a link if it works, curiously on a water bottle! https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Our-Lady-of-Perpetual-Help-Russian-orthodox-icon-Madonna-and-Child-Virgin-Mary-by-tanabe/20348066.EJUG5) The Christ child sits in her lap, with his hands draped through hers, but looking over his shoulder he sees an angel in the air who is bearing a cross--the symbol of his suffering. I know that as a mother/parent I will probably get that sword peirced through my soul, but at the same time I must console and protect my child from his oncoming suffering. A tough brief, but an inspriring one.
Rod, I see more of Christ in you in your suffering. This is the dynamic, I believe:
“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you” (2 Corinthians 4:6-12).
When our lives are generally peaceful, and not in regular tumult and persecution as was the Apostle Paul, this “death that works in us” may be relational, or illness, or fasting, etc. Our need for Him for comfort – indeed for life and strength! – draws us, and as we communicate our faith to others, He is seen thereby.
I recently had a man, who I only know superficially tell me about how his wife left him and he feels society is encouraging her to do it. I could tell he does not want to be divorced from her but she thinks it will make her happy. I feel sorry for all going through these hard times. I do have a general question. How does one go to confession if the priest does not understand English?
My question was more general curiosity. Glad he knows English. I spent two days in the hospital this summer. I felt that Jesus was holding me at my worst. My priest anointed me for the healing of the sick in a Eucharist service that was just him, my wife, and I. I know that has helped me heal. I could not imagine being away from the sacraments.
Even here in the US, there are language issues. At my church, which is Serbian, the priest speaks almost no English. For the sake of the small group of English-speakers who have stayed in the parish, he will read the Gospel in English, and his pronunciation is so bad, it's hard to know it's English. As a result, there's a priest from another church in the area who is willing to hear my confessions. I'm glad that there's a priest there who can hear your confessions in English. Strictly speaking, the priest doesn't have to understand a word, and his prayer of absolution does the same as if he did. However, with the way that the Orthodox do confession, the back-and-forth and feedback are important.
I was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany. My priest spoke Russian and German, and I speak German as well as English, so I spoke German in confession. When another priest would hear confessions, it was iffy if he spoke German or not; I usually wouldn't know until I got up there, and he realized I didn't speak enough Russian for Confession, and at that point, I never got turned away, but the prayer of absolution would be read over my head, and it was considered done.
That being said, finding English-speaking Orthodox priests in Germany was unusual, but not impossible!
Here in Japan, we have a largely Coptic liturgy, but we then try to run everything trilingually - Japanese, English and Arabic. Hardly anyone speaks all three (or four) languages, so it gets complicated!
Actually, I can imagine a confession without language. So much of human communication (70%?) is inferred from tonality and body language, i.e. non-verbal, that I can envision a priest watching a penitent and absolving him or her based on these other forms of human communication. The details would be lost, but the judgment of a sincere confession might not be. Interesting...
I will include you in my prayers, Rod. I think you’re a very tough cookie, and that toughness is partly innate, but it’s clear that it’s mainly your faith that’s keeping you going through this struggle, your faith plus your understanding of what His accompaniment means. You articulate it very well here.
Still, to possibly have mono now weighing you down too--you need to take care of yourself, get the necessary rest, don’t feel you have to put so much into this blog, save yourself for writing later on. We readers who’ve benefited from your precision-timed books over the years, we will need them going forward. We can do more praying in the meantime.
You mention another tough cookie here, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Not sure if you saw her interview at Unherd, in which she elaborates on her conversion. I’ve been really taken by her story. I hadn’t bought the argument that she was “instrumentalizing” Christianity, and her remarks in this interview convince me even more. Here’s the link if you missed it:
I'd say her critics are getting it backward. I commented over at Unherd:
---Hirsi Ali’s bravery and intellectual honesty win the day. And not just vis a vis the public, but vis a vis herself. She can’t avoid recognizing that what is most precious in the western liberal tradition has arisen from that Judeo-Christian ground, and so the question faces her: “What is there in that ground?”
This is why those who criticize her conversion as being “instrumental” are missing the point. They’re partly getting it backward. She’s not instrumentalizing Christianity as a tool to wield in defense of some community, but recognizing it as key to the mystery of why that community is worth defending to begin with. She’s undertaking an encounter with that mystery, as both an intellectual and spiritual quest.
Anyone with eyes to see can see our present left sawing off the branch it sits on. If that is true, and it is, the question is Why. What are the elements that make up the picture: 1) the branch, 2) the sawing, and 3) the evident void into which our left risks plunging, bringing the West down with them?
Hirsi Ali sees the picture and is going to follow the hunches she has in pursuit of an answer.---
Again: Take care of yourself, Rod! Save your writing energy more for finishing this next book.
I think that's only one way of putting it. And it's a rather modern way--no?--since in the New Testament the idea is *to be saved*. Not "your soul", but "you". We are a soul and a body, and if we are saved, both are saved.
I think it matters because a very common, and oddly Gnostic, notion about Christianity is that it teaches: "When you die, your soul goes to heaven, and your body just rots here." A sloughing off of the body. But of course that's not what orthodox Christianity teaches. Resurrection is the ultimate meaning of salvation.
And still that's only one way people convert. Some convert because they desire to be part of the truth, and they hope salvation is a result of being part of the truth.
In any case, when people accused Hirsi Ali of "instrumentalizing", it was in the sense of: "You don't really believe Christianity. You are only *using* Christianity as a banner to defend your idea of western liberalism." And obviously that's a serious charge. But I don't think it describes what she's doing.
John Gray has a new book on this very subject, 'The New Leviathans.' Gray is, of course, an atheist, but a thoughtful one, in some ways like Scruton was when he was an agnostic. A review I read says that he sees the future as not so much a return to paganism, but as a move towards a Godless Puritanism run amok. Greatly looking forward to this one.
One of the things that strikes me about the Woke, especially the younger ones, is their inability to forgive, coupled with their crazy-eyed desire for vengeance/retribution. They seldom if ever allow for mitigating circumstances, at least among those they consider oppressors, and they do not allow for putting oneself in another man's shoes. This does in fact sound like a hyper-puritanism run amok.
Yes. One cannot put oneself in another's shoes because one's identity is fixed. You have your role in the drama they are directing, and they look at you with those gleaming eyes, obviously itching for Act 5. I think Godless Puritanism Run Amok is right.
I think Gray is fascinating too. I'm guessing in this new book he'll also address questions of the digital inflection of this Puritanism. In *The Soul of the Marionette*, last thing I read, his pessimism ranges into the post-human silicon landscape, machine species, etc. He's a good essayist, I find, but not all that rigorous. Writes about too many things, and if you find him delving into something you know well, you see him kind of winging it.
Going back to Girard, I've looked into *Battling Towards the End* and have put it on my list. It seems the place where he most clearly lays out his political considerations, in the vein of the apocalyptic. Also would like to read Gil Bailie, a collaborator of his.
'Battling to the End' is not an easy book, mainly because it deals with a lot of unfamiliar (at least to me) European history that Girard sort of takes for granted that one knows. But his thoughts about the present and future are pretty insightful.
Rob, please, the Puritans don't deserve the rap they've gotten. Their eschatology was wrong, and some of their weirdnesses, such as the prohibition of theatre because it's lying, are just goofy, but read Edwards' sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and come back and tell me they longed for the condemnation of non - Christians instead of their redemption.
The Woke maniacs are the Pharisees of a post Christian era, not its Puritans.
But my point is that soteriologically, the Puritans were not legalistic. They insisted that a Christian society would proceed along certain lines, but their major mistake was, as I more or less said, eschatological.
Some aspects of Puritanism do survive in Presbyterian/Reformed churches, the main one being the insistence that barring illness or occupational necessity, church attendance is mandatory. But is this even legalistic?
The New Testament admonishes Christians not to forsake the assembly, doesn't it?
The Roman Catholic church insists there is no salvation outside it, and so, if I'm not mistaken, does Eastern Orthodoxy. The Catholics have conjured up the idea of "invincible ignorance" ( the smugness and arrogance are incensing ) so that renegades like me can be brought in to the family of God. That's really nice of them, though it had been my presumption that I'd been brought into the family of God by The Holy Spirit when I believed in Jesus Christ. I am not sure what Eastern Orthodoxy thinks about people like me, and would rather invest the time it would take for me to find out to work on my guitar playing.
And then there all the little rules: no communion without confession to a priest, no communion if one has eaten that day, are two which come to mind. The problem is that neither of these is stipulated in Scripture.
Protestants agree that one should have no unconfessed sin before communion, but although the New Testament does tell us to confess our faults to each other, it's a stretch to argue that this means confession of sins, let alone to a priest. It's much likelier that that verse is referring to a Christian's necessary humbling of himself, as, for example, I've done here several times when I've lost patience with other commenters, and been rude to them. I do a fair amount of groveling in apology in my non Substack life, too, because I need to.
The insistence on fasting before communion has no Scriptural foundation that I know of, and therefore can reasonably be said to be legalistic.
Bobby, confession before communion is a ROCOR rule- Rod once attended a small ROCOR mission. More generally confession must be done annually during Lent, and anytime one has committed a serious sin.
We Prots take 1John 1:9 as seriously as we take everything else in the Bible, but we understand The Holy Spirit to be saying that we have the privilege of confessing our sins to The Father, anywhere, at any time.
"the New Testament does tell us to confess our faults to each other, it's a stretch to argue that this means confession of sins"
That's the way the early Church read it. Confession to a priest became common only after the Church grew and the logistics of public confession became a problem.
"The insistence on fasting before communion has no Scriptural foundation that I know of, and therefore can reasonably be said to be legalistic."
Your B doesn't follow from your A. And your A presumes sola scriptura. This is for the Orthodox something of a non-starter.
And invincible ignorance, correctly understood, has nothing wrong with it at all. No idea why you're so het up about it. Even Protestants believe in something like it except for those who accept some sort of "total depravity."
My B wasn't intended to follow from my A. I just noted the two because they're about the same topic.
It's the condescending nature of the idea of invincible ignorance which I find so offensive. That may be a matter of personal temperament. Other Prots may just roll their eyeballs and smirk.
Sola Scriptura may be a nonstarter with the Orthodox, but Protestants think it's very much a starter with God. No one denies that The New Testament didn't just drop down as one thing. The Church had to discern which books were canonical and which were not. And as you probably know, because Luther didn't understand how James could be reconciled with Galatians, he called James "an Epistle of straw."
At the ecumenical councils there was, I understand, virtually no dissent. Christians have The Holy Spirit, and if they're at all well taught, can discern the genuine from the counterfeit.
But as a pastor of mine fifty years ago would put it, once the canon had been assembled, it was the Church's job to get out of its way and let it speak for itself.
Quite a few scholars and historians have written about the idea that Progressivism is an heir of Puritanism, but without all the God stuff. I haven't read Gray's book yet, so I'll wait and see what he says about it in relation to wokeness.
That is a fascinating idea, but I don't think it's valid. To me, the psychology of Pharaisism and of Wokeness are remarkable in the resemblance each bears to the other.
The insistence on perfectly correct protocol, the offendedness taken at any dissent, and yes, the homicidal instincts. I don't think the Puritans killed anyone but the twenty witches at Salem.
That, to me, is one of the most fascinating things in the history of continental America. It also is very dark comedy at its most sublime.
The Puritans banished people too-- an early form of canceling. And in the context of the time that could be tantamount to a death sentence. Have you heard of Anne Hutchinson?
I am unfamiliar with any degree of homicidal behavior among the woke who generally just shout people down and seek to shame them and trash their reputations. Not unlike the scarlet letter.
Yes, it's funny you should mention Anne. I was just thinking of her. And Roger Williams.
I'm a huge Hawthorne fan. You may know that one of the Salem judges, Judge Hathorne ( the "w" was added later ), was an uncle of some degree of greatness of Hawthorne's. Did the Puritans actually do things like award scarlet letters? I don't know. I'll ask my Presbyterian pastor, who has a Ph.D in American history from Notre Dame, when I have Thanksgiving dinner with him on Thursday.
Presbyterians, and sure, Presbyterianism descends theologically and in sensibility from Puritanism, are as far as I know the only Prots who still take church discipline seriously. And I am referring to conservative Presbyterians, not to the liberals, from whom you'll get the same sort of consomme diet of teaching you'll get from Episcopalians and ELCA Lutherans.
An example is shunning. It's quite Biblical, you know. Believers are not to keep company with believers who are rebellious and unapologetic about it. The purpose isn't to hurt or to shame, but to keep the Church free of corruption and to put pressure on the backslider to COME HOME!!!!
This is different, but similar: I know of a case in which a pastor had to announce from the pulpit the excommunication of his firstborn child, a young woman who appears to have announced that she is non - binary and does not believe in Jesus Christ. The pastor cannot talk about this without choking up. He has taken anything but pleasure in her expulsion, which she requested. This was an ecclesial formality. Her family has certainly not ostracized her.
I've mentioned here several times that in my own fellowship, several young people have gone Woke and left us. I know the parents of all but one, and know they are heartbroken.
You're right about the lack of homicidalism among the Woke, at least so far, or is that true? Who murdered the 69 year old Jewish man in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago? That's yet to be determined. And if the murderer was a Palestinian sympathizer and not Woke, per se, you cannot gauge the intensity of the hatred in the Woke and think it's anything other than just a matter of time.
Many people are drawn to Christianity and other Biblical religions because for them they offer a deeper, more meaningful, and more accurate understanding of themselves and the human condition than any secular or agnostic alternative. Such a stance should be celebrated and not deprecated as “instrumental.”
A good example of this is the late John Halowell, who taught political theory for many years at Duke University (I had the honor as an undergraduate to take three of his courses). In an autobiographical sketch published in the volume MODERN CANTERBURY PILGRIMS he tells how he was drawn to Christian belief as a graduate student at Princeton after hearing a talk in the campus chapel by Reinhold Niebuhr. Halowell was writing his doctoral dissertation on the growth of fascism and communism in 1930s era Germany and the corresponding decline in liberalism. Niebuhr’s neo-Augustinian understanding of human nature seemed to offer a better understanding of what was going on in Nazi Germany, Halowell felt, than the understanding offered by the secular political scientist he was reading.
Here is a small selection from his autobiographical essay:
It is sometimes said that there is no such thing as an intellectual conversation to Christianity. Yet as I look back upon my own “conversion “ It appears, at first, to have been motivated by intellectual considerations. I hesitate to use the word conversion to describe my own experience, for my return to Christianity was marked by no great incidents, and as I am coming more and more to recognize, the process of conversion is a matter at least of a lifetime. There is no precise time moreover where I can point and say,“At that time I was converted.” My return to Christianity was the result of a long, maturing conviction that Christianity explained the meaning of life better than any other religion or philosophy.
It was in the 1930s that I went away to college (Harvard undergrad) and like many college students then and now I drifted further and further away from Christianity. …
Four years of graduate study in political science (at Princeton) gave me little time or inclination to think about religion … But the existence of fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany did trouble the liberal conscience with which I had emerged from college. …
While I was writing my dissertation (on the decline of liberalism in Nazi Germany) I happened to attend a church service in the Princeton University Chapel. The speaker was Reinhold Niebuhr. I had not been to church service for years and I had come out of curiosity to hear the man who some of my friends said was an unusual preacher. He was indeed. He discussed with great profundity and intellectual clarity problems that I had encountered in writing about the decline of liberalism. Indeed, he seemed to have a greater grasp of the reasons for the decline of liberalism than I had. If these insights were the product of his Christianity, then Christianity was certainly relevant to what I was attempting to do. I cannot say that I immediately appropriated them as my own, but I did begin yo think of Christianity in a serious way.
It would be difficult to list all the books that I read during this period, but among contemporary writers those who have exerted the strongest influence upon my thinking have been C.S. Lewis, A.E. Taylor, Reinhold Niebuhr, Etienne Gilson, Emile Brunner, Jacques Maritain and William Temple.
From my reading of them I have been encouraged to turn back to the Christian classics themselves, to the writings of St. Augustine, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Thomas Aquila’s, Luther, Calvin, Richard Hooker, and others. From there I have gone back to reading the Bible with a new interest and a new understanding.
Much that I read was confusing and upsetting (and still is) but more and more I was convinced that Christianity, despite the paradoxes one encountered and despite the lack of agreement among the authorities, revealed the truth about life as I encountered it nowhere else.
I have returned to Christianity because it Is the only thing that makes sense out of life because if life is not a drama of salvation it is nothing. The evidence that the world is in need of some kind of salvation is abundant, and I have only to examine myself to find evidence there for the kind of evil from which men must be redeemed if the world is to find the salvation which it needs.
Many thanks for this. It’s helpful on various fronts. First, his statement that conversion is a matter of a lifetime. Second, the truth that Christianity, aside from being a path to salvation for the faithful, is also a lens through which to make sense of the human world. An amazingly revelatory lens.
No guarantee we will not suffer, only a guarantee we will not suffer alone. Such an important truth about the faith. Amen. Great read for a Sunday morning, prior to church. Thank you, Rod.
That was lovely bit of writing, Rod; a poignant reflection on divorce. From my own experience, coping with divorce is difficult because of the ambiguity of the grief involved. "Getting divorced" can cover a lot of ground; trying to discern what it is exactly that you're grieving over can be hard. There's grief over the loss of the intimate relationship and the friendship with the spouse. And obviously there's the miserable grief of betrayal if infidelity was involved. But there's other things like the loss of the image of the family, your image as a father in an intact home - basically your self-image. Sorting all that out takes time and won't be rushed. You'll get there.
Thanks Chris. It kind of blows my mind that in the decade from 2012 to 2022, I lost my Louisiana family, and my own marriage and family. I sometimes wonder how different everything would be if they had just welcomed us back like normal people would have done.
Forget it. Expecting family who have hurt you to act "normal" is like arguing with a dead man in your head (a very bad habit I have striven to give up). If they were normal it wouldn't have happened. They're not normal, and it did. This is a place where counterfactuals are counter productive.
Dealing with the "what ifs" is part of the grieving process, but you'll hit a point where you realize it's not worth the time or energy anymore. God abruptly closed a door on you but another one is opening whether you know it or not. Although I wouldn't recommend divorce as the vehicle, divorce does contain in it a way to know and understand yourself better (if you're willing to honestly do the self-analysis).
I don't mean to be judgemental because it's not mine to judge. But what you're saying illustrates the Orthodox view of sin (even the "first sin" if you will). That is, that sin isn't ontologically a part of us but rather creates rippling effects in our lives and our environment. We have to cope with the results and fallout. And the best way to do that is through prayer and seeking God's way to handle it. The Akathistos is amazing. Mary, in my experience with the saint and her compassion, seems to feel for me what I can't let myself feel. God bless, keep up the good spiritual fight. This was one of your more positive missives, to my way of thinking.
And I listened to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's interview and I can't see a single thing in any way to criticize and so much I applaud her for. Faith is a journey, not a one time arrival. Her reasons and process are no different in that sense from millions, and I think she spoke with great sensitivity about her spiritual condition. I don't think people are being perceptive or spiritually knowing to criticize her.
There have been any number of chest-beating "believers" who have been revealed as at least hypocrites (that pompous old fool Paul Johnson, e.g., funny they're both Brits), or non-believing righties who want Christianity to survive because it's good for les autres (John Derbyshire's line of religion as good for the goobers comes to mind). That's I think what people were sniffing (wrongly) in Ali's remarks. If you want to know what "conservatism" ungrounded in belief sounds like, try Jesse Watters.
Theodore, thank you for reply. But there are two things, personal to me, I have to reply. First I am a resident of San Francisco, and our homeless crisis, contrary to the programs of our governor and proposed solutions, is really a problem of addiction. That's what it all comes down to, Watters' brusque and unsympathetic expression notwithstanding.
My second problem is with TYT, unapologetically named after a genocidal polical group that exterminated millions of Christians of the Ottoman Empire, which inspired Hitler to try his own. (People have long complained to him about this. He doesn't care.) My grandparents were survivors. Other than those things, your point is taken.
No right thinking person has anything but contempt for The Young Turks and what they did. It's just where I grabbed the clip from. Sorry. I'll be more careful next time. You know of course that Hitler asked his circle, "Who remembers the Armenians?" I'm sorry your family suffered from their cruelty.
As to your first point, Watters's major point is true, but he went on to say some really unconscionable things. That a country as rich as this one can't find help for people like those in San Francisco is a shame and a disgrace. As for "failed in life", lecturing basement-dwellers on politics is one way to fail, no matter how much he gets paid.
You're right. We need much better solutions. I agree with you about the tone and the approach. Many people have suggested we need a return to mandating treatment which was once upon a time an approach that worked at least for some. A lot of addiction is bound up with mental illness, and voluntary treatment programs leading to yet more addiction and homelessness. The open border is another disaster contributing to the problem as swarms of dealers are sent in by the cartels that plague the same streets.
No need to apologize about the clip. But thank you just the same. I just don't like or trust Cenk with his own abrasive style.
I came to the realization long ago that homeless advocates aren't really serious about solving the problem. They want the homeless on the streets as permanent reminders that the socialist utopia is just around the corner -- as long as you go with the program.
I have found this amazingly helpful: "This was from Me: The Spiritual Testament of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa, Russia" available from Ancient Faith. 9 Amazing pages, the first is here:
Do you find yourself in difficult circumstances, among those who do not understand you, who have no consideration for what is pleasing to you, and push you aside ?
This was from Me.
I am your God
the One Who arranges circumstances, and it was not by accident
that you find yourself
in the place where you are;
this is precisely the place
I have appointed for you.
Weren't you asking Me
to teach you humility?
Well, then, look: I have placed you precisely in that place, in the very school where this lesson si learned.
Your surroundings and those near you are only fulfilling My will.
Other questions are:
Do you find yourself in financial difficulty? Is it hard for you to make ends meet?
.
Have you been let down by your friend, by one to whom you opened your heart?
Have your plans been ruined; are you downtrodden in soul and exhausted?
Have unexpected obstacles in life come upon you and despondency seized your heart?
Have you for a long time not heard from persons near and dear to you; and in your faint-heartedness and meager faith, are you falling into despair and grumbling?
Has serious illness,whether temporary or incurable overtaken you, an nailed you to your bed?
Did you dream of doing something for Me, and instead of that, found yourself fallen onto a bed of pain and weakness?
Have you unexpectedly been called to occupy a difficult and responsible position?
I've been reading that book by Maria Simma you referenced in one of your posts. Near the end of the book she says: "Suffering always heals something, and we must trust in God that is is always for our good and for His glory." I add my prayers for you today, Mr Dreher.
About Aayan, I can only say that I returned to Catholicism after 40+ years because I came to the point where I saw the complete meaningless of my life. I had entered a despairing blackness without hope, and I could understand why people commit suicide. Aayan in her essay touches on this thought as well. I had reached the point of no return. Either I continue my slow arrogant slide into hell or I reach for the invisible Hand that had somehow pierced my darkness. I had to humble myself to reach for It.
A few years ago, I encountered the concept that our capacity for love increases as we process suffering and sorrow. I still ponder that, but I know that Our Lord has turned my personal sorrows into something far greater as I have turned to Him.
We are all broken. So true!
Light afflictions, but they don't seem light, do they? And God understands. No Christian should feel badly about feeling badly.
Beautiful sentiments that are balm for a weary heart. The “brotherhood of the broken” has so many members, yet as my pastor frequently reminds us, we are all equal at the foot of the cross. I hope your heart is lighter in the days ahead. I received a lovely 90 day devotional from a caring friend on her own health-related journey, “The Healing Power of the Holy Communion,” by Joseph Prince. I’m 34 days in, and feel a shift. Perhaps returning to the Sacrament will be transformative for you, as well.
The woman with the issue of blood (although St. Matthew’s account rather than St. Luke’s) is also the Gospel pericope in our lectionary today. Lovely reflections on this miracle from you and Met. Hilarion. It is astonishing to consider that in the Eucharist the Lord offers us not merely the hem of His garment but His whole and very Self. May He grant you healing and peace, brother. I will remember you particularly at the altar this day.
Re: this sounded like she became a Christian because it “works
That not that unusual. Conversion stories from antiquity and the Middle ages often included people being converted by miracles, which is a strong form of "it works". I became Orthodox by going to the Divine Liturgy and finding myself remarkably at peace the rest of the day. Few people convert because of theological apologetics.
That's right. Again and again I go back to Card. Ratzinger's line about the best "arguments" for the truth of Christianity are the art the church produces, and the saints. His point is that people who encounter the truth of Christ in material form -- aesthetic beauty, or what you might call "moral beauty" in the lives of the saints -- open their minds to the deeper truths, and may convert. That's how it happened to me.
The ancient Greeks called it kalokagathia (καλοκἀγαθία), the beauty of good conduct, of just dealing. Obviously there is a lot that could go wrong for this with a Christian (Aristotle's description of the great-souled man will not do) but that's another issue. As for Ratzinger's remark about the tribute artists have made to the Church's truth, that's why it's impossible to apologize for disgust with what EVERY Pope since Paul VI has done with that heritage. Replacing Raphael with Rupnik and Mozart with Dan Schutte really tells you all you need to know.
Don’t forget Marty Haugen!
I had an evangelical Anglican friend who, after the Anglican Church of Canada had pushed the Book of Common Prayer aside in favour of the Book of Alternative Services - commonly known by its acronym, “BAS” - remarked, “Ah, yes, the BAS - the first three letters of the word, “bastard”!
Yep, there is a reason the Holy Spirit produces such beauty, both in various artforms as well as the lives of the saints then and now, all around. "Ye shall know them by their works."
Father of Zoomers, I removed your comment because of its profanity. You should also refrain from offering your unwelcome remarks about my children and my relationship with them. You don't know what's going on. Those who read this newsletter who are close to me do know what's going on, and they know that I am not willingly separated from my kids.
Beautiful cri de coeur, Rod.
Also, good call on taking the prayer book to the Divine Liturgy. Although I find sung, especially chanted, Latin among the most lovely sounds a human voice can make, it wasn't until I bought a 1962 Latin-English missal that I really dove into the depth of worship in a Traditional Latin Mass – and moved beyond aesthetic appreciation.
Speaking of Divine Liturgy and Mass, this line caught my eye “Protestants and others may mistakenly think we are praying to Mary as a goddess.” I've pondered why this is so and I think it's because Protestants did not retain liturgical worship in the sense of Catholics, Orthodox and adjacent (e.g. Oriental Orthodox/Church of the East) churches.
The Mass and Divine Liturgy are 'latria' as theologians say, that worship which is due to God alone. As opposed to 'dulia', the veneration – not worship - that is paid to Mary and the saints. This distinction does not exist in the Protestantism of which I am aware and may explain why any prayer/devotion to Mary and the saints appears to be pre-empting God.
Any genuine devotion to Mary or the saints ultimately points to Christ; they are guideposts to the destination.
Thanks for that clarification. You're no doubt correct: they don't have the sense that there are different kinds of prayer (latria, dulia).
my thinking is that we pray to God alone. Those that have gone before are worshipping the Lamb and I think are not peering into our lives or listening to our prayers. This Protestants (kinda hate that word as it isn't what was intended by the reformers) thoughts anyway. It is ok to ascribe to the saints their faithfulness and example they give as that great cloud of witnesses.
If those on the other side of death can't hear our prayers or are indifferent, then I'd agree.
In the Catholic view, the one I can best address, the Mystical Body of Christ incorporates living believers (so-called 'Church Militant') and the faithful departed, whether in purgatory ('Church Suffering') or heaven ('Church Triumphant'). As they are one body in Christ, the living pray may pray for those in purgatory and the saved dead may pray to God for the living.
I'd think that the saved on the other side of the death are more alive than we living, in that their souls see more of ultimate realities. I suspect we agree on that part. Cheers!
We may disagree on this purgatory, but yes our spirits in the presence of our Lord and Savior we will be more alive. But we will be most alive when our spirits are reunited to the raised incorruptible bodies and we are whole beings as intended at creation in the presence of Christ and one another with no sin or curse of sin between us.
Nicely said!
The "Communion of Saints" is no empty phrase. We may not be able to see and hear them directly, trapped in deep Time and this present darkness, but why should those who have gone to glory be similarly blind and deaf?
Indifference to the sorrows and needs of others is certainly not something I would associate with the saints.
"Protestants did not retain liturgical worship in the sense of Catholics, Orthodox and adjacent (e.g. Oriental Orthodox/Church of the East) churches."
It is important to remember that this is not true of (most) Lutherans.
(I had to insert "most" for historical accuracy. Those territorial and city churches of SW Germany that followed Martin Bucer's attempt to find - much as Bucer's colleague and disciple, John Calvin later tried - a "middle way" between Luther and Zwingli, an attempt that eventuated in these churches signing on to Lutheranism, abandoned anything like traditional liturgical worship in favor of services reconstructed along the same lines as the Swiss Reformed and later Calvinist churches. Since other Lutheran churches have always accepted these SW German churches as fully Lutheran, it therefore follows that a historical form of liturgical worship must ultimately be an adiaphoron among Lutherans - just as the fact that there are a number of Missouri Synod "megachurches" that have jettisoned liturgical worship altogether also underlines this point. Calvin, by the way, threw his lot in with the Reformed in 1549, which resulted in the attenuation (i.e., movement toward Zwingli's or Bullinger's views) in the longer run of some of his distinctive ideas, especially in the realm of sacramentology.)
Don't forget the Anglicans. We just might have the most beautiful English language liturgy and we have Apostolic Succession
I have my doubts about the last ...
Don't see how. There is an unbroken chain of succession from the Apostles. Don't conflate the rest of the Anglican world with the TEC and the CoE
I agree about the former, Thomas, but the latter has always seemed doubtful to me, too. Is there anything in the Bible which supports it?
Which part?
Not explicitly, I think - but if you accept as genuine the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 100/110 AD) and the Epistle of the Roman Church to the Corinthian Church ascribed - I think rightly - to Clement and commonly dated ca. 96 (by many) or 69 (by some) then it becomes plausible and even likely.
As to the "Anglican Apostolic Succession," belief in such a thing, its existence and importance, formed no part of the Edwardian Reformation (1547 to 1553) nor of the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, but was rather developed at the very end of Elizabeth I's reign and the beginning of James I's in the period between ca. 1595 and ca. 1605 by Richard Hooker and (especially) Lancelot Andrewes and their followers, and was long the view of a minority coterie within the Church of England. (a minority which came to dominate the episcopate of the Church of England in the 1630s, thanks to Charles I's enthusiastic patronage of their views). Rather, these bishops were the equivalent of Hungarian Reformed "bishops" (the equivalents of Presbyterian "moderators") or Danish Lutheran bishops (at the Danish Reformation in 1537 all the Catholic bishops were removed and imprisoned, and replaced by Lutheran "superintendents" with the "succession" of bishops deliberately broken to mark a new beginning). And those late Elizabethan theologians who argued in favor of jure divino episcopalianism as opposed to jure divinno presbyterianism were contending about church structure rather than for any necessary succession through episcopal laying-on of hands from "popish and antichristian" bishops to their godly successors.. Ordination of bishops by bishops was a legal requirement of English law in 1559, which is why Elizabeth I's officials went to some length to secure it in 1559, and not because of any belief in "apostolic succession of bishops." For more on the Elizabethan Settlement (and the private dislike of that settlement by many of Elizabeth's bishops as a "mingle-mangle" of Popery and Protestantism) see:
https://www.routledge.com/John-Jewel-and-the-English-National-Church-The-Dilemmas-of-an-Erastian/Jenkins/p/book/9780754635857
And I would add, that there is a distinct difference between subsequent Lutheran history and Anglican history. Lutheran churches (for the most part) retained a great deal of Catholic practices and customs, in such areas as ritual practices, liturgical rites, church vestments, popular piety, and the like, in part as an expression of the idea that Lutheranism was a type of "Reformed Catholicism," in part as an expression of folk Christian practices and preferences and how Lutheran churches were prepared to tolerate and practice them so long as they did not contradict Lutheran confessional beliefs, and in part as a gesture of defiance of and disdain for Reformed/Calvinist ideas about the proper nature of "Reformation" and purging the church from anything smacking of "popish superstition." It was only in the very late 17th and throughout the 18th centuries that many of these Lutheran practices were removed by rulers intent on promoting a sort of rationalistic Christianity in their territories, and their attempted recovery and restoration in the last century has caused controversy among Lutherans in general.
The Anglicanism of the 1559 Settlement looked rather towards Reformed Switzerland, than to Lutheran Germany. Many of Elizabeth I's bishops hoped that those semi-Catholic features of the Elizabethan settlement (much fewer in number and significance than those retained in Lutheran churches) would soon be removed or be permitted gradually to disappear. The quarrels between reform-minded Protestants intent on "purifying" the Church of England of those "relics of popery" (hence "Puritans") and proceeding onwards to a "purely Reformed church," and those who were content with retaining them (if that's what the monarch wanted) came eventually to focus on the office of bishop, and hence, on the structure of the church, disputed between "presbyterians" and "episcopalians" - such disputes were virtually non-existent among Lutherans, for whom church polity was a matter convenience or "adiaphora." Eventually, in the 17th century, this took many Anglicans off into the direction of the Church Fathers and towards the belief that bishops-in-the-apostolic-succession were an important, and perhaps necessary, feature of "a true Catholic church." The growth of a party in Anglican churches practicing a full, and at least partially medievalizing, form of liturgical worship, was a 19th Century phenomenon, and one without any real precedents in Anglican practice after 1559, and there are more than a few Anglican Evangelicals who regard all forms of "Anglo-Catholicism" as a deplorable corruption of "Gospel Truth."
Those wishing to read further on this subjects might wish to consult these writings of Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch:
https://anglicanism.org/putting-the-english-reformation-on-the-map
https://anglicanism.org/the-latitude-of-the-church-of-england
Yes, when I've read Anglican writings from before about 1800, I've been surprised how Calvinist they sound.
The C. of E. used to be described as having a Calvinist confession, a Popish liturgy, an Arminian clergy, and a Pelagian laity!
For non-English people, it's a bit difficult to explain the C. of E., as it was even in my grandparents' generation (young in the 30s and 40s). It didn't really require religious belief, but was a symbol of respectability. Even when I was young, we used the word "Nonconformist" to mean non-Anglican Protestant, although the Act of Uniformity had stopped being enforced in about 1870 or something. There was always a tendency for enthusiastically religious people to hive off into the Nonconformists or Catholics, and "C. of E." to sort of mean "normal".
Incidentally, do you know much about the non-jurors? I've come across them as footnotes, and it seems fascinating how they set up a rival hierarchy, and the last of them eventually joined the Greek Orthodox Church.
Thje Non-Jurors are a fascinating lot. They were, some of them, very "Eastern-minded" in their liturgical and ecclesiological outlook. They neveer recovered from the split between "Usagers" and "Non-Usagers" in 1719, and later broke into further splinters, one of them, the Orthodox British Church, centered in Manchester, repudiating the Reformation altogether.
For more information, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonjuring_schism
http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2022/09/non-jurors.html
This book contains much detail concerning their liturgical creations:
https://www.amazon.com/Liturgies-Seventeenth-Eighteenth-Centuries-Collections/dp/B0007IVPCM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3Q7TB0BN2OR22&keywords=grisbrooke+anglican+liturgies&qid=1700527555&sprefix=grisbrooke+anglican+liturgies%2Caps%2C81&sr=8-1
Nearly 30 years ago I was strongly drawn to Orthodoxy, but while I had reservations, on Biblical grounds, about some other matters, the thing that closed Orthodoxy to me was prayers that I could never pray. For example, from a book of morning and evening prayers --
"Release me, bound with bonds of sin, O Bride of God, by thy prayers. ...Deliver me from eternal fire, from wicked war and from hell. ...Grant me torrents of tears, O most pure one, to cleanse my soul from impurity. .... direct the grace of the Spirit in me. ...quench the flame of my passions, for I am poor and wretched, and deliver me from my many cruel memories and deeds ...deliver us from harm, only pure, only blessed one," etc.
Yes, I, as well. They say that they don't revere Mary, but the words they speak, the prayers they pray...
A proper reverence for the Theotokos is completely appropriate. But what I quoted directs the Christian who is praying to ask of Our Lady what she cannot give and to do what she could not do, but the Persons of the Godhead.
Such prayers seem pretty obviously inappropriate at face value. I wonder too about their antiquity; although Roman Catholic and Orthodox polemicists like to assume the high ground as regards antiquity, they are both susceptible to criticism for features thereof being less ancient than people may assume. (Jurgens's anthology The Faith of the Early Fathers is helpful on such matters.) From my study of Orthodoxy about 30 years ago, it came to appear to me that Orthodoxy kind of added a third group to prophets and apostles as sources of Christian doctrine, namely monks. It seemed that monks were often the earliest known proponents of certain prayers that have no evident derivation from Holy Scripture.
In writing these remarks I'm not meaning to provoke bad feelings. I was responding to Alcuin and like-minded fellow Christians.
Dale, your tone, unlike mine, is never less than irenic. I'm this comments section's Celtic maniac.
Thank you for mentioning that book. My Amazon Save for Later list is already densely populated, and this only makes it worse.
Some of the Marian prayers seems to have developed from Byzantine court ritual: the Emperor's mother (or sometimes his wife or sister) was often a person of considerable influence in the Empire and florid praises and entreaties would be addressed to her. The panegyrics of the Virgin can easily grate on modern American sensibilities, both culturally (we simply do not like hierarchies in this country) and linguistically as the delicately phrased Greek may require an annoying verbosity to express in English.
Jon, speaking for myself, if I thought the kind of prayers I excerpted were an authentic, wholesome element in the life of Holy Church, I wouldn't, I think, be troubled by "hierarchy."
The hymn with which I frequently start the day is "Rejoice, the Lord Is King" -- five verses, omitting the sixth which seems to me to envision a questionable eschatology. I've posted those verses here probably more than once. It is great to keep in mind that the Lord Jesus is King. American Christians need to become comfortable with the traditional idea that the king could be the one you beseeched when the judges, mayors, bureaucrats, gaolers, and so on were unfair. A good king listened to his people. Our Jesus listens to His people. See the Epistles to the Hebrews on this. He is accessible.
Thank you for this post this morning, Rod. God bless you and your family, and all of us on each of
our painful journeys through this life.
My favourite icon of Mary is Our Lady of Perpetual Help (here is a link if it works, curiously on a water bottle! https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Our-Lady-of-Perpetual-Help-Russian-orthodox-icon-Madonna-and-Child-Virgin-Mary-by-tanabe/20348066.EJUG5) The Christ child sits in her lap, with his hands draped through hers, but looking over his shoulder he sees an angel in the air who is bearing a cross--the symbol of his suffering. I know that as a mother/parent I will probably get that sword peirced through my soul, but at the same time I must console and protect my child from his oncoming suffering. A tough brief, but an inspriring one.
Hang in there.
Rod, I see more of Christ in you in your suffering. This is the dynamic, I believe:
“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you” (2 Corinthians 4:6-12).
When our lives are generally peaceful, and not in regular tumult and persecution as was the Apostle Paul, this “death that works in us” may be relational, or illness, or fasting, etc. Our need for Him for comfort – indeed for life and strength! – draws us, and as we communicate our faith to others, He is seen thereby.
I like your phrase, “brotherhood of the broken”!
I recently had a man, who I only know superficially tell me about how his wife left him and he feels society is encouraging her to do it. I could tell he does not want to be divorced from her but she thinks it will make her happy. I feel sorry for all going through these hard times. I do have a general question. How does one go to confession if the priest does not understand English?
My confessor does understand English. I don't know how anyone could go to confession otherwise.
Charades?
My question was more general curiosity. Glad he knows English. I spent two days in the hospital this summer. I felt that Jesus was holding me at my worst. My priest anointed me for the healing of the sick in a Eucharist service that was just him, my wife, and I. I know that has helped me heal. I could not imagine being away from the sacraments.
Even here in the US, there are language issues. At my church, which is Serbian, the priest speaks almost no English. For the sake of the small group of English-speakers who have stayed in the parish, he will read the Gospel in English, and his pronunciation is so bad, it's hard to know it's English. As a result, there's a priest from another church in the area who is willing to hear my confessions. I'm glad that there's a priest there who can hear your confessions in English. Strictly speaking, the priest doesn't have to understand a word, and his prayer of absolution does the same as if he did. However, with the way that the Orthodox do confession, the back-and-forth and feedback are important.
I was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany. My priest spoke Russian and German, and I speak German as well as English, so I spoke German in confession. When another priest would hear confessions, it was iffy if he spoke German or not; I usually wouldn't know until I got up there, and he realized I didn't speak enough Russian for Confession, and at that point, I never got turned away, but the prayer of absolution would be read over my head, and it was considered done.
That being said, finding English-speaking Orthodox priests in Germany was unusual, but not impossible!
Here in Japan, we have a largely Coptic liturgy, but we then try to run everything trilingually - Japanese, English and Arabic. Hardly anyone speaks all three (or four) languages, so it gets complicated!
Actually, I can imagine a confession without language. So much of human communication (70%?) is inferred from tonality and body language, i.e. non-verbal, that I can envision a priest watching a penitent and absolving him or her based on these other forms of human communication. The details would be lost, but the judgment of a sincere confession might not be. Interesting...
I will include you in my prayers, Rod. I think you’re a very tough cookie, and that toughness is partly innate, but it’s clear that it’s mainly your faith that’s keeping you going through this struggle, your faith plus your understanding of what His accompaniment means. You articulate it very well here.
Still, to possibly have mono now weighing you down too--you need to take care of yourself, get the necessary rest, don’t feel you have to put so much into this blog, save yourself for writing later on. We readers who’ve benefited from your precision-timed books over the years, we will need them going forward. We can do more praying in the meantime.
You mention another tough cookie here, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Not sure if you saw her interview at Unherd, in which she elaborates on her conversion. I’ve been really taken by her story. I hadn’t bought the argument that she was “instrumentalizing” Christianity, and her remarks in this interview convince me even more. Here’s the link if you missed it:
https://unherd.com/2023/11/ayaan-hirsi-ali-answers-her-critics/
I'd say her critics are getting it backward. I commented over at Unherd:
---Hirsi Ali’s bravery and intellectual honesty win the day. And not just vis a vis the public, but vis a vis herself. She can’t avoid recognizing that what is most precious in the western liberal tradition has arisen from that Judeo-Christian ground, and so the question faces her: “What is there in that ground?”
This is why those who criticize her conversion as being “instrumental” are missing the point. They’re partly getting it backward. She’s not instrumentalizing Christianity as a tool to wield in defense of some community, but recognizing it as key to the mystery of why that community is worth defending to begin with. She’s undertaking an encounter with that mystery, as both an intellectual and spiritual quest.
Anyone with eyes to see can see our present left sawing off the branch it sits on. If that is true, and it is, the question is Why. What are the elements that make up the picture: 1) the branch, 2) the sawing, and 3) the evident void into which our left risks plunging, bringing the West down with them?
Hirsi Ali sees the picture and is going to follow the hunches she has in pursuit of an answer.---
Again: Take care of yourself, Rod! Save your writing energy more for finishing this next book.
All conversions are "instrumental". The idea is to save your soul.
I think that's only one way of putting it. And it's a rather modern way--no?--since in the New Testament the idea is *to be saved*. Not "your soul", but "you". We are a soul and a body, and if we are saved, both are saved.
I think it matters because a very common, and oddly Gnostic, notion about Christianity is that it teaches: "When you die, your soul goes to heaven, and your body just rots here." A sloughing off of the body. But of course that's not what orthodox Christianity teaches. Resurrection is the ultimate meaning of salvation.
And still that's only one way people convert. Some convert because they desire to be part of the truth, and they hope salvation is a result of being part of the truth.
In any case, when people accused Hirsi Ali of "instrumentalizing", it was in the sense of: "You don't really believe Christianity. You are only *using* Christianity as a banner to defend your idea of western liberalism." And obviously that's a serious charge. But I don't think it describes what she's doing.
Me neither.
"What are the elements that make up the picture"
John Gray has a new book on this very subject, 'The New Leviathans.' Gray is, of course, an atheist, but a thoughtful one, in some ways like Scruton was when he was an agnostic. A review I read says that he sees the future as not so much a return to paganism, but as a move towards a Godless Puritanism run amok. Greatly looking forward to this one.
One of the things that strikes me about the Woke, especially the younger ones, is their inability to forgive, coupled with their crazy-eyed desire for vengeance/retribution. They seldom if ever allow for mitigating circumstances, at least among those they consider oppressors, and they do not allow for putting oneself in another man's shoes. This does in fact sound like a hyper-puritanism run amok.
Yes. One cannot put oneself in another's shoes because one's identity is fixed. You have your role in the drama they are directing, and they look at you with those gleaming eyes, obviously itching for Act 5. I think Godless Puritanism Run Amok is right.
I think Gray is fascinating too. I'm guessing in this new book he'll also address questions of the digital inflection of this Puritanism. In *The Soul of the Marionette*, last thing I read, his pessimism ranges into the post-human silicon landscape, machine species, etc. He's a good essayist, I find, but not all that rigorous. Writes about too many things, and if you find him delving into something you know well, you see him kind of winging it.
Going back to Girard, I've looked into *Battling Towards the End* and have put it on my list. It seems the place where he most clearly lays out his political considerations, in the vein of the apocalyptic. Also would like to read Gil Bailie, a collaborator of his.
I need to have a look at Baillie too. Also Dupuy.
'Battling to the End' is not an easy book, mainly because it deals with a lot of unfamiliar (at least to me) European history that Girard sort of takes for granted that one knows. But his thoughts about the present and future are pretty insightful.
Rob, please, the Puritans don't deserve the rap they've gotten. Their eschatology was wrong, and some of their weirdnesses, such as the prohibition of theatre because it's lying, are just goofy, but read Edwards' sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," and come back and tell me they longed for the condemnation of non - Christians instead of their redemption.
The Woke maniacs are the Pharisees of a post Christian era, not its Puritans.
The Pharisees were in many ways the Puritans of ancient Judaism, insisting on a narrow and very elaborate legalism as the path to God.
But my point is that soteriologically, the Puritans were not legalistic. They insisted that a Christian society would proceed along certain lines, but their major mistake was, as I more or less said, eschatological.
Some aspects of Puritanism do survive in Presbyterian/Reformed churches, the main one being the insistence that barring illness or occupational necessity, church attendance is mandatory. But is this even legalistic?
The New Testament admonishes Christians not to forsake the assembly, doesn't it?
The Roman Catholic church insists there is no salvation outside it, and so, if I'm not mistaken, does Eastern Orthodoxy. The Catholics have conjured up the idea of "invincible ignorance" ( the smugness and arrogance are incensing ) so that renegades like me can be brought in to the family of God. That's really nice of them, though it had been my presumption that I'd been brought into the family of God by The Holy Spirit when I believed in Jesus Christ. I am not sure what Eastern Orthodoxy thinks about people like me, and would rather invest the time it would take for me to find out to work on my guitar playing.
And then there all the little rules: no communion without confession to a priest, no communion if one has eaten that day, are two which come to mind. The problem is that neither of these is stipulated in Scripture.
Protestants agree that one should have no unconfessed sin before communion, but although the New Testament does tell us to confess our faults to each other, it's a stretch to argue that this means confession of sins, let alone to a priest. It's much likelier that that verse is referring to a Christian's necessary humbling of himself, as, for example, I've done here several times when I've lost patience with other commenters, and been rude to them. I do a fair amount of groveling in apology in my non Substack life, too, because I need to.
The insistence on fasting before communion has no Scriptural foundation that I know of, and therefore can reasonably be said to be legalistic.
Bobby, confession before communion is a ROCOR rule- Rod once attended a small ROCOR mission. More generally confession must be done annually during Lent, and anytime one has committed a serious sin.
We Prots take 1John 1:9 as seriously as we take everything else in the Bible, but we understand The Holy Spirit to be saying that we have the privilege of confessing our sins to The Father, anywhere, at any time.
"the New Testament does tell us to confess our faults to each other, it's a stretch to argue that this means confession of sins"
That's the way the early Church read it. Confession to a priest became common only after the Church grew and the logistics of public confession became a problem.
"The insistence on fasting before communion has no Scriptural foundation that I know of, and therefore can reasonably be said to be legalistic."
Your B doesn't follow from your A. And your A presumes sola scriptura. This is for the Orthodox something of a non-starter.
And invincible ignorance, correctly understood, has nothing wrong with it at all. No idea why you're so het up about it. Even Protestants believe in something like it except for those who accept some sort of "total depravity."
My B wasn't intended to follow from my A. I just noted the two because they're about the same topic.
It's the condescending nature of the idea of invincible ignorance which I find so offensive. That may be a matter of personal temperament. Other Prots may just roll their eyeballs and smirk.
Sola Scriptura may be a nonstarter with the Orthodox, but Protestants think it's very much a starter with God. No one denies that The New Testament didn't just drop down as one thing. The Church had to discern which books were canonical and which were not. And as you probably know, because Luther didn't understand how James could be reconciled with Galatians, he called James "an Epistle of straw."
At the ecumenical councils there was, I understand, virtually no dissent. Christians have The Holy Spirit, and if they're at all well taught, can discern the genuine from the counterfeit.
But as a pastor of mine fifty years ago would put it, once the canon had been assembled, it was the Church's job to get out of its way and let it speak for itself.
Quite a few scholars and historians have written about the idea that Progressivism is an heir of Puritanism, but without all the God stuff. I haven't read Gray's book yet, so I'll wait and see what he says about it in relation to wokeness.
That is a fascinating idea, but I don't think it's valid. To me, the psychology of Pharaisism and of Wokeness are remarkable in the resemblance each bears to the other.
The insistence on perfectly correct protocol, the offendedness taken at any dissent, and yes, the homicidal instincts. I don't think the Puritans killed anyone but the twenty witches at Salem.
That, to me, is one of the most fascinating things in the history of continental America. It also is very dark comedy at its most sublime.
The Puritans banished people too-- an early form of canceling. And in the context of the time that could be tantamount to a death sentence. Have you heard of Anne Hutchinson?
I am unfamiliar with any degree of homicidal behavior among the woke who generally just shout people down and seek to shame them and trash their reputations. Not unlike the scarlet letter.
Yes, it's funny you should mention Anne. I was just thinking of her. And Roger Williams.
I'm a huge Hawthorne fan. You may know that one of the Salem judges, Judge Hathorne ( the "w" was added later ), was an uncle of some degree of greatness of Hawthorne's. Did the Puritans actually do things like award scarlet letters? I don't know. I'll ask my Presbyterian pastor, who has a Ph.D in American history from Notre Dame, when I have Thanksgiving dinner with him on Thursday.
Presbyterians, and sure, Presbyterianism descends theologically and in sensibility from Puritanism, are as far as I know the only Prots who still take church discipline seriously. And I am referring to conservative Presbyterians, not to the liberals, from whom you'll get the same sort of consomme diet of teaching you'll get from Episcopalians and ELCA Lutherans.
An example is shunning. It's quite Biblical, you know. Believers are not to keep company with believers who are rebellious and unapologetic about it. The purpose isn't to hurt or to shame, but to keep the Church free of corruption and to put pressure on the backslider to COME HOME!!!!
This is different, but similar: I know of a case in which a pastor had to announce from the pulpit the excommunication of his firstborn child, a young woman who appears to have announced that she is non - binary and does not believe in Jesus Christ. The pastor cannot talk about this without choking up. He has taken anything but pleasure in her expulsion, which she requested. This was an ecclesial formality. Her family has certainly not ostracized her.
I've mentioned here several times that in my own fellowship, several young people have gone Woke and left us. I know the parents of all but one, and know they are heartbroken.
You're right about the lack of homicidalism among the Woke, at least so far, or is that true? Who murdered the 69 year old Jewish man in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago? That's yet to be determined. And if the murderer was a Palestinian sympathizer and not Woke, per se, you cannot gauge the intensity of the hatred in the Woke and think it's anything other than just a matter of time.
Many people are drawn to Christianity and other Biblical religions because for them they offer a deeper, more meaningful, and more accurate understanding of themselves and the human condition than any secular or agnostic alternative. Such a stance should be celebrated and not deprecated as “instrumental.”
A good example of this is the late John Halowell, who taught political theory for many years at Duke University (I had the honor as an undergraduate to take three of his courses). In an autobiographical sketch published in the volume MODERN CANTERBURY PILGRIMS he tells how he was drawn to Christian belief as a graduate student at Princeton after hearing a talk in the campus chapel by Reinhold Niebuhr. Halowell was writing his doctoral dissertation on the growth of fascism and communism in 1930s era Germany and the corresponding decline in liberalism. Niebuhr’s neo-Augustinian understanding of human nature seemed to offer a better understanding of what was going on in Nazi Germany, Halowell felt, than the understanding offered by the secular political scientist he was reading.
Here is a small selection from his autobiographical essay:
It is sometimes said that there is no such thing as an intellectual conversation to Christianity. Yet as I look back upon my own “conversion “ It appears, at first, to have been motivated by intellectual considerations. I hesitate to use the word conversion to describe my own experience, for my return to Christianity was marked by no great incidents, and as I am coming more and more to recognize, the process of conversion is a matter at least of a lifetime. There is no precise time moreover where I can point and say,“At that time I was converted.” My return to Christianity was the result of a long, maturing conviction that Christianity explained the meaning of life better than any other religion or philosophy.
It was in the 1930s that I went away to college (Harvard undergrad) and like many college students then and now I drifted further and further away from Christianity. …
Four years of graduate study in political science (at Princeton) gave me little time or inclination to think about religion … But the existence of fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany did trouble the liberal conscience with which I had emerged from college. …
While I was writing my dissertation (on the decline of liberalism in Nazi Germany) I happened to attend a church service in the Princeton University Chapel. The speaker was Reinhold Niebuhr. I had not been to church service for years and I had come out of curiosity to hear the man who some of my friends said was an unusual preacher. He was indeed. He discussed with great profundity and intellectual clarity problems that I had encountered in writing about the decline of liberalism. Indeed, he seemed to have a greater grasp of the reasons for the decline of liberalism than I had. If these insights were the product of his Christianity, then Christianity was certainly relevant to what I was attempting to do. I cannot say that I immediately appropriated them as my own, but I did begin yo think of Christianity in a serious way.
It would be difficult to list all the books that I read during this period, but among contemporary writers those who have exerted the strongest influence upon my thinking have been C.S. Lewis, A.E. Taylor, Reinhold Niebuhr, Etienne Gilson, Emile Brunner, Jacques Maritain and William Temple.
From my reading of them I have been encouraged to turn back to the Christian classics themselves, to the writings of St. Augustine, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Thomas Aquila’s, Luther, Calvin, Richard Hooker, and others. From there I have gone back to reading the Bible with a new interest and a new understanding.
Much that I read was confusing and upsetting (and still is) but more and more I was convinced that Christianity, despite the paradoxes one encountered and despite the lack of agreement among the authorities, revealed the truth about life as I encountered it nowhere else.
I have returned to Christianity because it Is the only thing that makes sense out of life because if life is not a drama of salvation it is nothing. The evidence that the world is in need of some kind of salvation is abundant, and I have only to examine myself to find evidence there for the kind of evil from which men must be redeemed if the world is to find the salvation which it needs.
Many thanks for this. It’s helpful on various fronts. First, his statement that conversion is a matter of a lifetime. Second, the truth that Christianity, aside from being a path to salvation for the faithful, is also a lens through which to make sense of the human world. An amazingly revelatory lens.
No guarantee we will not suffer, only a guarantee we will not suffer alone. Such an important truth about the faith. Amen. Great read for a Sunday morning, prior to church. Thank you, Rod.
Jesus, keep me near the cross,
There a precious fountain—
Free to all, a healing stream—
Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain.
Refrain:
In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever;
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and Mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Sheds its beams around me.
Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day,
With its shadows o’er me.
Near the cross I’ll watch and wait
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand,
Just beyond the river.
That was lovely bit of writing, Rod; a poignant reflection on divorce. From my own experience, coping with divorce is difficult because of the ambiguity of the grief involved. "Getting divorced" can cover a lot of ground; trying to discern what it is exactly that you're grieving over can be hard. There's grief over the loss of the intimate relationship and the friendship with the spouse. And obviously there's the miserable grief of betrayal if infidelity was involved. But there's other things like the loss of the image of the family, your image as a father in an intact home - basically your self-image. Sorting all that out takes time and won't be rushed. You'll get there.
Thanks Chris. It kind of blows my mind that in the decade from 2012 to 2022, I lost my Louisiana family, and my own marriage and family. I sometimes wonder how different everything would be if they had just welcomed us back like normal people would have done.
Forget it. Expecting family who have hurt you to act "normal" is like arguing with a dead man in your head (a very bad habit I have striven to give up). If they were normal it wouldn't have happened. They're not normal, and it did. This is a place where counterfactuals are counter productive.
Dealing with the "what ifs" is part of the grieving process, but you'll hit a point where you realize it's not worth the time or energy anymore. God abruptly closed a door on you but another one is opening whether you know it or not. Although I wouldn't recommend divorce as the vehicle, divorce does contain in it a way to know and understand yourself better (if you're willing to honestly do the self-analysis).
And understanding helps you get closer to God.
I don't mean to be judgemental because it's not mine to judge. But what you're saying illustrates the Orthodox view of sin (even the "first sin" if you will). That is, that sin isn't ontologically a part of us but rather creates rippling effects in our lives and our environment. We have to cope with the results and fallout. And the best way to do that is through prayer and seeking God's way to handle it. The Akathistos is amazing. Mary, in my experience with the saint and her compassion, seems to feel for me what I can't let myself feel. God bless, keep up the good spiritual fight. This was one of your more positive missives, to my way of thinking.
And I listened to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's interview and I can't see a single thing in any way to criticize and so much I applaud her for. Faith is a journey, not a one time arrival. Her reasons and process are no different in that sense from millions, and I think she spoke with great sensitivity about her spiritual condition. I don't think people are being perceptive or spiritually knowing to criticize her.
There have been any number of chest-beating "believers" who have been revealed as at least hypocrites (that pompous old fool Paul Johnson, e.g., funny they're both Brits), or non-believing righties who want Christianity to survive because it's good for les autres (John Derbyshire's line of religion as good for the goobers comes to mind). That's I think what people were sniffing (wrongly) in Ali's remarks. If you want to know what "conservatism" ungrounded in belief sounds like, try Jesse Watters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9fQbkT4Djc
Now, he gets paid to say crap like that, just as much as Joy Behar does, but that doesn't make it any less poisonous.
Theodore, thank you for reply. But there are two things, personal to me, I have to reply. First I am a resident of San Francisco, and our homeless crisis, contrary to the programs of our governor and proposed solutions, is really a problem of addiction. That's what it all comes down to, Watters' brusque and unsympathetic expression notwithstanding.
My second problem is with TYT, unapologetically named after a genocidal polical group that exterminated millions of Christians of the Ottoman Empire, which inspired Hitler to try his own. (People have long complained to him about this. He doesn't care.) My grandparents were survivors. Other than those things, your point is taken.
Forgive my ignorance, but I can’t figure out TYT
It's a program called The Young Turks, named after the political movement responsible for the first genocide of the 20th century during WW1
No right thinking person has anything but contempt for The Young Turks and what they did. It's just where I grabbed the clip from. Sorry. I'll be more careful next time. You know of course that Hitler asked his circle, "Who remembers the Armenians?" I'm sorry your family suffered from their cruelty.
As to your first point, Watters's major point is true, but he went on to say some really unconscionable things. That a country as rich as this one can't find help for people like those in San Francisco is a shame and a disgrace. As for "failed in life", lecturing basement-dwellers on politics is one way to fail, no matter how much he gets paid.
You're right. We need much better solutions. I agree with you about the tone and the approach. Many people have suggested we need a return to mandating treatment which was once upon a time an approach that worked at least for some. A lot of addiction is bound up with mental illness, and voluntary treatment programs leading to yet more addiction and homelessness. The open border is another disaster contributing to the problem as swarms of dealers are sent in by the cartels that plague the same streets.
No need to apologize about the clip. But thank you just the same. I just don't like or trust Cenk with his own abrasive style.
I came to the realization long ago that homeless advocates aren't really serious about solving the problem. They want the homeless on the streets as permanent reminders that the socialist utopia is just around the corner -- as long as you go with the program.
I have found this amazingly helpful: "This was from Me: The Spiritual Testament of St. Seraphim of Vyritsa, Russia" available from Ancient Faith. 9 Amazing pages, the first is here:
Do you find yourself in difficult circumstances, among those who do not understand you, who have no consideration for what is pleasing to you, and push you aside ?
This was from Me.
I am your God
the One Who arranges circumstances, and it was not by accident
that you find yourself
in the place where you are;
this is precisely the place
I have appointed for you.
Weren't you asking Me
to teach you humility?
Well, then, look: I have placed you precisely in that place, in the very school where this lesson si learned.
Your surroundings and those near you are only fulfilling My will.
Other questions are:
Do you find yourself in financial difficulty? Is it hard for you to make ends meet?
.
Have you been let down by your friend, by one to whom you opened your heart?
Have your plans been ruined; are you downtrodden in soul and exhausted?
Have unexpected obstacles in life come upon you and despondency seized your heart?
Have you for a long time not heard from persons near and dear to you; and in your faint-heartedness and meager faith, are you falling into despair and grumbling?
Has serious illness,whether temporary or incurable overtaken you, an nailed you to your bed?
Did you dream of doing something for Me, and instead of that, found yourself fallen onto a bed of pain and weakness?
Have you unexpectedly been called to occupy a difficult and responsible position?
Praying for you....
.
Many of us are lifting you up in prayer, brother.
I've been reading that book by Maria Simma you referenced in one of your posts. Near the end of the book she says: "Suffering always heals something, and we must trust in God that is is always for our good and for His glory." I add my prayers for you today, Mr Dreher.
About Aayan, I can only say that I returned to Catholicism after 40+ years because I came to the point where I saw the complete meaningless of my life. I had entered a despairing blackness without hope, and I could understand why people commit suicide. Aayan in her essay touches on this thought as well. I had reached the point of no return. Either I continue my slow arrogant slide into hell or I reach for the invisible Hand that had somehow pierced my darkness. I had to humble myself to reach for It.
A few years ago, I encountered the concept that our capacity for love increases as we process suffering and sorrow. I still ponder that, but I know that Our Lord has turned my personal sorrows into something far greater as I have turned to Him.