Just yesterday I was thinking about how volatile the Internet is. Have you ever thought about collecting the best of your posts, maybe with some of the best comments, in a book?
I do hope he keeps an archive. Everything on the internet is subject to disappearance soon enough. And more than our current print media, this is where important things are happening. Imagine losing all the crucial pieces that have appeared on Substack over the past five years.
But Rod mainly uses his blogging for trying out and developing ideas. He should keep an archive of everything in a hard drive, but if he were to print out all his blogging on TAC, then here, he'd have like two-hundred copies of War and Peace to lug around.
At the very least our host here deserves a.) someone besides himself to handle the archiving and curating; and b.) the conservative equivalent of a Pulitzer for online writing.
When I first became a Christian, it was an entirely new world for me -- my conversion stemmed from a debilitating battle with Lyme Disease and fibromyalgia syndrome that took my wealth as well as my health. I had to close my hard-won law practice because I could barely walk. I was raised without faith, and near suicide, when I prayed in utter despair and surrender.... and the pain evaporated. That was the beginning of a journey that led my to baptism on my 40th birthday -- my true day of birth.
But scriptures about the End Times terrified me. I often felt horrified by what I saw ahead for America (I had been a PriceWaterhouseCoopers tax attorney for several years and understand money supply and inflation, and what a Mark of the Beast electronic currency would be.) But as I have matured in Christ, I see now that His End Times servants were literally created for exactly this time, and as much as the potential horrors looming above us (total Kissingerian food control, for one), I have come to see it as a "center of the universe" opportunity to harvest souls for Him. The End Times are not about judgement, but bout reaping humans OUT of the clutches of secular Hell. You are a powerful reaper, Rod -- not at all grim. The coming Great Awakening is about joy, hope, and salvation for eternity. Sharpen your swords -- iron sharpens iron!
In re: Ross Douthat's new book. I got my signed copy at his talk in Chicago about a week ago, but haven't had time to start it yet. Ross sees signs of renewal and believes we're in a moment where people are open to belief ('enchantment', if you will) in a way that "they weren't in 2011".
Had a chance to speak with him. Came across as unpretentious and thoughtful, with a dry, subtle humor. It was clear during the Q & A afterwards that one topic you can't peaceably broach in a room full of Catholics is this papacy. "We'll take one more non-pope related question...". *laughter ensues*
I was there too (wish I had known a fellow Dreher traveler was there). It was the second time I have heard Ross speak and he comes across a truly decent and fair person. The Q&A got quite contentious there at the end. I was sitting up front and Ross appeared genuinely pained by it all. I also have only just started the book, but I am excited that it is reaching so many people already.
Whenever Rod writes about the Orrs, I feel an intense joy. The love and devotion of these disciples of Christ comes out in Rod's words. I marvel about what they have done in creating their place.
Rod, do we know why the three Judge Advocate Generals for the military departments were relieved? No. DEI may have had nothing to do with it. Mr. Hegseth is on record with an animus toward legal constraints on soldiers in operations and toward judge advocates (military lawyers) “tout court”. This is much more serious, I believe, than you seem to credit. Online discussions are virtually exploding over it. Yes, I have a personal, somewhat emotional stake in this matter - a quarter century’s service as a legal officer.
Re: The Moorings, if only more of the truly monied people on the right started recognizing the role cultural capture played in the West’s destruction, the Orrs would get more help expanding their vision. Many of us here have spent our lives watching so-called conservatives who live and legislate by the mantra that Everything Follows Tax Cuts.
Is this changing? Perhaps it will start to. It’s not Trump’s ethos, or Elon’s either, but one can see hints of cultural *noblesse oblige* in Elon’s purchase of Twitter. Yes, one can. The guy knowingly paid double what it was worth because he realized free speech was necessary and was willing to put his money and reputation on the line. That’s not exactly funding a Benedict Option retreat for Christian scholars and students, but it’s a step that will help protect such projects, going forward, from direct state suppression. And I think we were getting *very* close.
We’re lucky that Musk is willing to take risks. Consider his main business, Tesla, and the typical Tesla buyer. With his political convictions, he is directly pissing off his go-to customers.
Musk's purchase of Twitter probably saved America. Without that disruption of the media monopoly, Harris would have likely won; and after four years of her, there might not have been much of an America left to save. I'm not sure how many people realize just how serious of a bullet we just dodged.
Re: Musk's purchase of Twitter probably saved America. Without that disruption of the media monopoly, Harris would have likely won
Disagreeing with both claims here. Twitter is, I think, the eleventh most used social media platform, behind Facebook, Tik-Tok and others. Most Americans never use it. Don't mistake the engaged political ethos of people here (or on Twitter) for the median voter. And the Biden-Harris administration was never wildly popular: approval ratings+ were already sinking in the summer of 2021. Before Musk's purchase, Twitter was a leftwing cesspit. Now it's a rightwing cesspit. The stink however is much the same. That's not why Harris lost and Trump won.
It's about control over the narrative, which filters down to the general population. Most Americans don't need to use it in order to be significantly affected by it.
Also, the stats suggest that X is now about equally right-wing and left-wing. It's just that the left is so used to media dominance that they see a more equal balance as an intolerable bias against them.
I can accept your claim that Twitter is more balanced. I don't accept your claim that it's influential beyond its user base or maybe the techoratti more generally. If anything doomed Harris it wasn't online propaganda, it was her own ineptness and her too-close association with an unpopular administration and things widely seen (and experienced in daily life) as failures-- inflation most prominently.
X is plainly influential beyond that circle, given that journalists and other opinion-shapers spend time there. You can even see how many TV and online channels treat what happens on X as actual news. Lament that if you want, but that's the reality of the media environment today.
There is a *reason* that the wokists and the MSM were livid about Musk buying Twitter; they fully understood what a threat this was to them.
Nothing was stopping them from expressing their opinions on other platforms even if they whined about being censored by Musk on X. And indeed my Facebook feed daily has people posting and reposting assorted anti-Trump and anti-Musk memes. I would say that Facebook, as "old school" as it is, is more influential among the hoi polloi, and Tik-Tok among the young.
Disagree. Twitter set the table; set the agenda, and the media reported on the reaction of Twitter as if it were the reaction of America as a whole - and that conveyed a message to decision-makers. It's where the left went to virtue-signal. It was "their" platform and they leveraged it effectively. Now they've lost control and they'll never get it back again, and it's changed politics.
Again this may be true for the sorts of plugged-in and tuned-in people who wait with baited breath for the latest pronouncements from influencers. It's not true for everyone else-- people who spend rather little time online or do not live, eat and breathe politics.
Just because some people don;t have college degrees and are super-duper tech-savvy doesn't mean they are jackasses who can be led around by the nose by the elite (whether right or leftwing elite). I would think that Trump's 2016 presidential victory in the face of nearly unanimous elite disapproval from both the right and the left would be proof enough of that
"Musk's purchase of Twitter probably saved America"
I've thought this for months. Twitter was a very effective rhetorical echo chamber dominated by the left; it's how they set the agenda, the media would report on the reaction of people on Twitter as if it were the same thing as a genuine litmus test of what the public at large thinks. Conservative opinions were increasingly edged out if not cancelled outright.
Then Musk buys it, opens it up and lo and behold, the left's grip on this very influential corner of the Internet - itself contributing to the left's grip on power and on policy - is broken.
And the rats all deserted the ship and went to BlueSky, but they can never re-create what they had with Twitter. By doing that one thing, buying Twitter, Musk utterly changed the course of history.
I think you overestimate digital media. I doubt very much that the ownership of Twitter would change one vote. From what people who now love X say, I sense they have found an echo chamber of confirmation bias, and enjoy it, but it wouldn't sway the undecided. Harris was just an entirely unqualified and uninspiring candidate. Trump would never have won a single term if the Democrats had an ear to the ground and a bit of sense in choosing candidates.
Narrative control is multi-plex, and has its weaknesses. Sometimes a few billionaires flood the airwaves with major media buys, and mesmerize enough voters to sway an election. Sometimes that falls completely flat, either because people get so sick of the massive repeating message that they vote the other way, or because they know the incumbent or challenger and dismiss the ads. It also depends on how clueless the opposing campaign is -- I've seen Democrats lose campaigns with reactive counter ads that they would have won if I'd been writing their scripts. When it comes to Twitter, its a big question whether the truly undecided voters are being reached and swayed, or whether it a dual matter of preaching to the choir and showing off to the confirmed adversaries. It can happen, but when two candidates are so unpopular and unpalatable, it comes down to intangibles that no media buy can settle. I recall in 2004 one of the passengers on my bus talked about how her parents were still debating the morning of the election who they would vote for. I'm convinced Bush won by a margin of people who were literally still making up their minds on their way to the polls, having been knocked back and forth by the obvious deficiencies of both candidates.
I think you're basically making an axiomatic argument that people aren't persuaded through social media (or secondary news based on social media), which I think is simply a false assumption, not congruent with today's media dynamics. Also, you're not accounting for the factor of morale, which can affect even people who have already made up their minds.
I think you are indulging in rank speculation, and trying to pose one of multiple factors as THE reason an election turned out as it did. It reminds me of the news analysis that "the Latino vote" delivered Indiana for Obama in 2008. That all depends on how you stack up the voting blocs. You could put "the Latino vote" at the bottom of the stack, then put the "black vote" next, and the "white vote" on top of that, and say "the white vote" is what delivered Indiana for Obama. Its a fools game at best.
Oh yes, Musk - a lap dog for the CCP and his business interests in China - is a man of great conviction. Clearly, he's a firm believer in reversing demographic decline...
Sethu's right - Musk buying Twitter was ultimately a big win for a freer discourse on social media. But the end of the day, this guy is just a tech bro, who has impulses to curb speech that is critical of him and whose ultimate philosophy is rabid materialism.
The other day, he referred to himself as Trump's tech support, which I thought sounded pretty good. Overall, I don't trust Musk or his transhumanist worldview and ambitions, but I can still appreciate some of his specific *functions* at this time.
I don't trust some of his tech ambitions. But as for billionaires with one or another social vision, compare him to Bill Gates. Musk has proven he believes in free speech. To do what he's done was a major risk for him.
Bill Gates is someone who almost makes me wonder about the wisdom of banning the bill of attainder. He's sort of a walking crime; it feels like it should be a criminal offense to just *be* that guy.
And yes: I mean that what I don't trust is his overall worldview. I do think that he can be trusted as an advocate for free speech, since he has indeed defended it at real personal risk, as you say.
Not strange that we don’t trust Musk’s overall worldview. But it’s not going to lead me to wish he weren’t around. I was mostly referring to Vince’s comments.
As for Gates, he’s an ongoing menace. All we can do is wait, and hope his pals don’t figure out how to reverse ageing.
Maybe we should get some garlic and wooden stakes ready, just in case, and also dig up a Transylvanian grimoire with some reliable instructions pertaining to enchanted circles.
And yet if some Thanos snapped his fingers and 95% of the population vanished in an instant, civilization would collapse.
It's not the puffed up poppinjays at the top of the pyramid calling themselves Master of the Universe that make the world function. It's all the little people doing their unexciting crappy jobs that keep it humming, down to the folks who bring in the harvests, pick up the garbage and care for the sick and disabled.
I get that people have lots of complaints about Microsoft-- I have them too. But what in the world makes Gates such a bete noir, compared with other billionaires.
Well, if you don't know yet, then I probably can't explain it to you. And wow, you think people's issue with Bill Gates is primarily about Microsoft? That is funny.
If one administration can issue a bill of attainder against Bill Gates, some other administration can issue one against you, or someone you admire. That's why they are prohibited. The government had to produce evidence in court to get a conviction.
The way I've come to see it is that societies will always be dominated by the rich and powerful. What matters ultimately is whether the people at the top share at least some of the values of the majority of society. I may not like Musk all that much or support everything he says or does, but the fact that he bought Twitter freed it from being a complete echo chamber. Also I applaud his willingness to speak out against the trans lunacy.
I'm not a particular Musk fan, but I wonder how you know his ultimate philosophy is rabid materialism. I think it probably is, my suspicion being based on his belief that we must colonize Mars, but Rod writes all the time about the widespread certainty among the techbros that AI will be the Mt Sinai on which God reveals Itself to humanity.
Years ago, when the guys at Babylon Bee were getting censored on this and than social media forum, Musk went out of his way to offer them a sit down interview. The guy is not a Christian, but he is willing to defend Christians when they're in the crosshairs.
The atomic bomb. The gatling gun. The birth control pill. The medieval longbow. Strip mining. Mustard gas. The leaf blower. The smartphone. Glyphosate. High fructose corn syrup.
Can it make a choice? If it can what will it choose? Because if it is truly intelligent it will discover that choices must be made and those choices will have consequences. Is it a machine, or is it something else?
I trust in the fact he's seen what a malevolent force the left has become and is committed to doing his part to break the left's grip on the country. If he accomplishes that, I'll grant him a hell of a lot of leeway on everything else.
He's been shutting down or depopulating every government department that regulates or had investigations going into companies he owns. The motive is obvious.
When Christ reaffirmed the second great commandment, He sanctified politics that were based on love of God and love of all mankind. If there really is free will (and there is) then we must have give and take in human relationships that is properly called politics.
However, politics can never take the place of direct personal actions. We are called to charity not just as a society (or as a Church)-- a tax-funded safety net may be necessary for a modern society to be virtuous and churches have a proper mission to help the poor and afflicted-- but individual charity is also called for.
I admit that this challenges me at times. Just this morning a panhandler begged money from me. Should we give to such people, who may well use the money for bad purposes (booze/drugs)? Especially at Lent I fret about this dilemma. Not wanting to threadjack this, but I would like to hear how others deal with that problem.
Following the lead of one of my professors, my usual tact for that is to ask what they need money for (food, ticket, water, etc.) and then offer to get the object for them directly. When I make the offer, it turns away about 80% of people asking for money, so I take it to mean that for the remaining 20%, they really did need that particular item to survive for the day.
Perhaps a little cold and calculating, but if they truly do need food/water/bus fare, I can make the time to help.
Trevor, think about this: being homeless is as crushing a condition as one can be in. It really does feel as if God has turned against you once and for all.
There is an inherent patronization in taking the approach to panhandlers which you write about. It casts them in the role of permanent children who lack the maturity to figure things out for themselves. It's insulting, though you don't mean it to be.
I acknowledge that it's tricky. I know that I have been taken for hundreds of dollars by a couple who weren't homeless but were on the verge of becoming so because of her disability and his inability to hold a job. It turned out that he couldn't hold a job because both of them were opiate addicts.
My advice is to give the money because you can't afford not to, but maybe to try to engage them in some conversation about their lives first. It shouldn't take long for you to discern what the real problem is.
Bobby, you strike closer at the heart of the issue than you realize.
Indeed, it is a patronizing stance to take, but years of being ground down by panhandlers has left me more jaded than most. I do automatically assume that most homeless are those dealing with drug addictions, which makes me very skeptical and cautious of them.
I understand Jesus's commandments, but 1) He could cast out demons, so he could probably handle a drug-addled zombie, and 2) His poverty was a chosen one, so He didn't have to worry about people asking him for money.
I fully accept this as my own shortcoming, but for now, I am far too cautious and leery when someone comes up asking for a handout.
Jesus Himself asked the question, "What do you want?" when a local blind guy raised a ruckus by shouting, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" When Jesus stopped and Bartimaeus-- ragged and OBVIOUSLY blind was brought to him--Jesus STILL asked, "What do you want?" It's not patronizing if Jesus set an example of compassion and shrewdness thereby. (Bartimaeus was not the only person of whom Jesus asked this question; there may be a little lesson for us in His strategy.)
I am an Orthodox Christian. Some time ago I went to a meeting about tithing. The speaker introduced us to a book Money and Salvation by Andrew Geleris,M.D. I recommend it to everyone.
It was made clear to me that giving is not about the receiver but about the action of the giver; where his heart is.
I have a few friends who drive into Manhattan for work and see the same panhandlers while in traffic approaching the West Side Drive. Two of my friends apparently try to give a few bucks to "the blonde girl on the approach ramp" because she seems particularly distressed. They both locked on to the same poor soul.
I try to go by my instinct.....which has a high enough fail rate. Like you, I try to step it up during Lent. Last year a very sad looking man asked me for a few bucks. I gave him 10$ and he skipped away giggling. Was he happy to get the money or happy to have enough for a hit? I just go with my gut. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. This is an area of being "street smart" that has changed for me as I age. When I was living paycheck to paycheck it would have made my blood boil. If I'm a sucker, so be it.
A somewhat oblique comment. Was to NYC recently and had some interactions with homeless and panhandlers. One guy who stood out to me was sleeping on a bench, and I noticed a festering sore on his ankle. He needed multiple kinds of help. Allowing people to live this way in not compassionate. A degree of coercion is appropriate here.
Glad you asked, Jon. If it's a sweltering day, I'll get the person a cold bottle of water. If it's a cold day, a hot coffee. Otherwise, I hand out a holy card (with a lovely picture of Christ, Mary, or a saint) that I've previously wrapped a few dollars around (I never open my wallet in a public place) so he or she can choose what suits. And I always, always use their names and chat (they tend to congregate around the Safeway and the Target I walk to a few times a week). I've learned a lot from them, and always leave more grateful than when I arrived. I'm sure you would too, because you already have the impulse to reach out.
I have given money to panhandlers when I thought they might use it for food. Never for obvious drunks. We had a homeless woman who came to our church for years. I'd slip her a twenty occasionally. Wealthier members of our parish would put her up in hotels when it was freezing cold. She certainly wasn't a drunk but had something go wrong with her life many years before and was a paranoid. Margaret is the only person I know who died of Covid. A parishioner realized that she was of age to receive Social Security and Medicare and has her put in a retirement home. And that's where she died.
My husband often will drive a panhandler to get him food. Along with some others in our church, we provided work and back up for a man who had been on "down on us luck". We both grew from that relationship.
Back in the early 2000s, a friend did a graduate ethnography of a band of homeless people living beneath the 101 and 280 interchange. Everyday they'd fan out to various freeway on and off ramps tp panhandle. In the afternoon, the cash was counted and used to buy drugs & booze for the nightly party. In this town, the homeless are rarely hungry, as the City's do-gooders love distributing free food. Rest assured, when you give $$$ to these people, it's used to buy crystal meth and not veggie burritos.
A couple of sundays ago, my parish priest told the congregation not to give money to beggars, since in Milan there is an excess of food and shelter for the poor, and those panhandlers mostly use the money for booze. I used to give out some money occasionally, but after that I stopped.
Rejoicing! You know that I knew by faith you would have a home, such a home as pilgrims here may have. - - Is this it? Of course I know not. You will know it God's time. But still, rejoicing.
I know someone who will have read this I hope. Tell you later :)
"Assuming you beach at last / Near Atlantis"
(But if this is the beaching, the terrible trek part may be near done. Nor do I think you will keel over before finding The Atlantis of this life.)
I always had something against Cleese, even though I enjoyed his comedy. I saw him on a talk show with Malcolm Muggeridge where he taunted the old man and his views about Christianity and missionaries in an arrogant way. Maybe he changed his tune.
Well I hope so. Atkinson has publicly spoken out in support of free speech in the past. I don't know where he is religiously, but politically I suspect he is a fellow traveler.
The Orr’s sound like great people but I do wonder about the conservatism of a woman priest. The danger of feminism is already in the door there and as you say unless something is explicitly conservative it will eventually become liberal. To be a true conservative institution she has to resign
I agree as well. However, it is the case that WO has had a withering effect on all denominations that have embraced it (excerpt, I am told, among denominations in the "Holiness" tradition, such as the Church of the Nazarene and some Pentecostal groups - perhaps because these are not particularly sacramental in their outlook) - and certainly among those that are more or less sacramental and liturgical (such as Anglicans and Lutherans).
I’m an Orthodox Christian woman who had the same thought re: female clergy in the Church of England. Helen Orr sounds like an amazing, wonderful Christian. I saw an interview with her in which she said her father had been a priest in the C of E. I suppose the way to wrap our heads around her ordination is to think, well, according to the theology and ecclesiology of their church, she is within their understanding of the Christian faith.
So, as a gentleman and a friend, I imagine something like that thought governs Rod’s interactions with the Orrs.
I would have great difficulty attending a Bible study or prayer service led by an ordained woman. A lay female leader, I would have less issue with, depending on her qualifications, spiritual gifts, and obedience to and receiving blessing from her priest or bishop. I would draw a hard line at attending a Eucharistic service, unless it were solely as a guest.
The Orr’s gifts as friends and hosts is extremely generous and admirable. I would be very worried myself that I might offend a generous and sincere lady like Helen Orr because of my Orthodox Christian beliefs.
I would be very interested if Rod were to discuss how he navigates the theological differences with the Orrs. Perhaps they just don’t discuss them, out of charity?
It would be hard. As much as I love Morning Prayer I could not attend if she presides. As for the compound they are visiting it sounds like my kind of place and would love to be a part of
Her father was Simon Barrington-Ward, one of the great bishops of the C of E, I'm told. He was close to St. Sophrony. Helen wears the prayer rope that St. Sophrony gave to her father.
Interesting story but that does not change the fact that she is not validly ordained and she can’t confer the sacraments. My fear is not her per se. The Orrs sound wonderful but as you yourself have noted something that is not explicitly conservative will eventually go liberal. Women’s ordination is explicitly liberal. How do you hold the conservatism of something founded on an explicitly liberal position? I love what they are doing and support it 100% but this does worry me about the long term of it
Because the world is full of contradictions. Isn't the fact that we spend so much time online a contradiction wrt our conservative (or reactionary, in my case) beliefs?
"according to the theology and ecclesiology of their church, she is within their understanding of the Christian faith"
I suppose one can say that - but what if their ecclesiology and understanding of the Christian faith has undergone changes amounting to reversals in order to justify WO, as the Church of England and its offshoots have had to do? When the first Anglican woman was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Hong Kong in 1944 it met with almost universal censure among Anglicans. And would you take the same attitude about a homosexually partnered Priest or Priestess?
Magdalene was the first witness to the Resurrection, which seems . . . meaningful. And a lot of women seem to have been in the role of at least what we would describe as deacon.
Now seems like a really bad time to revisit the role of women in the Church, though, since of course that conversation would get hijacked by the woke feminists. So first put wokism to rest, and then *maybe* we can talk about it, is what I think.
I went to Angry Nun U, so I know what they're feeling cause they took it out on me. White Man, get 'im. I'd like to say that I've never encountered people who were more thouroughly misdirected, but it seems rather common to mistake me for the Oppresor. The world is chock full of nutters.
I don’t really want to get into this, but Mary Magdalene’s first witness was probably due to the grace given her because she loved Jesus with such devotion, not as a sign that an eventual “dialogue” about women’s ordination was providential. As to Phoebe and the other early deaconesses, yes, they were of great assistance in the early house churches, as messengers/carriers of the letters sent between fledgling Christian communities, etc. Disputes about rank-formal ordination in the churches-are already talked about. The Orthodox Church in Alexandria, in Africa, has already ordained a woman as a deacon with full liturgical duties. She can serve ALL the diaconal functions, per Alexandria.
I am saying that this is already beyond “talked about.”
No, it certainly hasn’t! In the long run and even medium run, should we have them, it’s going to tear at Orthodoxy and Catholicism as it has torn the Protestant churches.
Re: She can serve ALL the diaconal functions, per Alexandria.
That's an ahistorical innovation: the roles of deaconesses were never the same as the roles of deacons. Though both were ordained and both would be in the altar during the Liturgy and take communion there (we have accounts of that from Hagia Sophia itself).
I think that a lot of St. Paul's words need to be understood as occasional remarks meant to address specific problems among specific people at specific times, not necessarily once-and-for-all ultimate pronouncements about the nature of reality and truth. This is congruent with the Catholic practice of reading the Bible according to the genre of the material under consideration.
I don't know about that: he may have been speaking to people for whom the notion of a "priestess" was associated with temple prostitutes. But I'm not an expert on the specifics of the history.
Generally deaconesses served as pastoral ministers to women in an era when a man, not the woman's husband, being closeted with a woman would have been scandalous, even if the man were clergy.. They did not take on a liturgical role, but were welcomed into the sanctuary during the Liturgy and communed there.
Unfortunately your links require payment and I'm going to pass (it's the beginning of the month and bills are due)
I did note that No, deaconesses did not have anything like liturgical role male deacons gained early on. They remained in a "service" role, which is what the diaconate was originally created for as we read in Acts. But they did go through a rite of ordination (even the minor orders go through a rite, called a tonsuring) and they were in the sanctuary during the Liturgy (we have records from Hagia Sophia on that).
On the related issue of women in the sanctuary, that's often misunderstood. Even today in the Orthodox Church it's not wholly true that women are excluded from the sanctuary. If you visit a woman's monastery there may be a nun who is detailed to assist the priest there. The original rule was that only those ordained or tonsured or vowed to monasticism could enter the sanctuary. With the decline of the minor orders priests began to invite non-clerics to help, giving a special blessing to whoever they invited each time, including younger boys.
What David Brooks refuses to accept is that virtually all big institutions in America have been captured by the left. There is little that Trump can do to reform the universities, Hollywood, big corporations and the rest but he can reform the government of which he is the executive. Trump is rooting out the left in government wherever he can find it. And he has found it in the military. Obama fired nearly 200 military officers as president. I hope Trump fires 1000 or more leftist officers, especially the generals. And his reforms of the military should extend to West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs(which I would close but that's another argument). The entire History, English and Political Science Departments should be fired because they are steeped in leftist woke dogma. New professors that believe in America and Western Civilization should be hired to take their places.
Firing all those professors is of course impossible. But I do think the Trump administration, if they ever get round to it, could apply some serious pressure toward "viewpoint diversity" in academia. The Department of Education is a nightmare, but how about basically gutting it and turning it mainly into a bureau charged with standards? One mandate would be ensuring all schools receiving government money defend free speech on campus and do not discriminate against conservative voices in the faculty. Another would be enforcing standards for entrance.
Yeah, I know, there *are* no conservative voices in most of those faculties at present. But applying pressure like this is something the federal government could do.
What really must happen is the creation of new universities from scratch, set up according to previous norms of academic excellence and open debate.
One thing DoE could do is put metrics in place for the proportion of actual teachers to administrators at schools receiving a dime of federal money, which is all of them besides Hillsdale and St. John's, right?
I'm actually on board with disbanding the Department of Education and transferring any important functions to some other department-- maybe a return to a Department of Health, Education and Welfare which is what we had before.
I don't think the proliferation of cabinet departments has been a good thing.
And I prefer that, as much as possible, education policy be left to the states and to local districts.
Just yesterday I was thinking about how volatile the Internet is. Have you ever thought about collecting the best of your posts, maybe with some of the best comments, in a book?
Rod is so prolific (and so are many commenters here) I think that would be a Herculean labor.
Yes, it's not something he can do on his own, he would need help.
I do hope he keeps an archive. Everything on the internet is subject to disappearance soon enough. And more than our current print media, this is where important things are happening. Imagine losing all the crucial pieces that have appeared on Substack over the past five years.
But Rod mainly uses his blogging for trying out and developing ideas. He should keep an archive of everything in a hard drive, but if he were to print out all his blogging on TAC, then here, he'd have like two-hundred copies of War and Peace to lug around.
The ink cartridges alone would cost what?
At the very least our host here deserves a.) someone besides himself to handle the archiving and curating; and b.) the conservative equivalent of a Pulitzer for online writing.
When I first became a Christian, it was an entirely new world for me -- my conversion stemmed from a debilitating battle with Lyme Disease and fibromyalgia syndrome that took my wealth as well as my health. I had to close my hard-won law practice because I could barely walk. I was raised without faith, and near suicide, when I prayed in utter despair and surrender.... and the pain evaporated. That was the beginning of a journey that led my to baptism on my 40th birthday -- my true day of birth.
But scriptures about the End Times terrified me. I often felt horrified by what I saw ahead for America (I had been a PriceWaterhouseCoopers tax attorney for several years and understand money supply and inflation, and what a Mark of the Beast electronic currency would be.) But as I have matured in Christ, I see now that His End Times servants were literally created for exactly this time, and as much as the potential horrors looming above us (total Kissingerian food control, for one), I have come to see it as a "center of the universe" opportunity to harvest souls for Him. The End Times are not about judgement, but bout reaping humans OUT of the clutches of secular Hell. You are a powerful reaper, Rod -- not at all grim. The coming Great Awakening is about joy, hope, and salvation for eternity. Sharpen your swords -- iron sharpens iron!
What a thoughtful and well-written comment and quite a personal journey...
What a fantastic night that must have been, Rod! The Moorings sounds like a wonderful place. May God speed the Orrs' efforts!
In re: Ross Douthat's new book. I got my signed copy at his talk in Chicago about a week ago, but haven't had time to start it yet. Ross sees signs of renewal and believes we're in a moment where people are open to belief ('enchantment', if you will) in a way that "they weren't in 2011".
Had a chance to speak with him. Came across as unpretentious and thoughtful, with a dry, subtle humor. It was clear during the Q & A afterwards that one topic you can't peaceably broach in a room full of Catholics is this papacy. "We'll take one more non-pope related question...". *laughter ensues*
I was there too (wish I had known a fellow Dreher traveler was there). It was the second time I have heard Ross speak and he comes across a truly decent and fair person. The Q&A got quite contentious there at the end. I was sitting up front and Ross appeared genuinely pained by it all. I also have only just started the book, but I am excited that it is reaching so many people already.
He really is that.
Whenever Rod writes about the Orrs, I feel an intense joy. The love and devotion of these disciples of Christ comes out in Rod's words. I marvel about what they have done in creating their place.
Rod, do we know why the three Judge Advocate Generals for the military departments were relieved? No. DEI may have had nothing to do with it. Mr. Hegseth is on record with an animus toward legal constraints on soldiers in operations and toward judge advocates (military lawyers) “tout court”. This is much more serious, I believe, than you seem to credit. Online discussions are virtually exploding over it. Yes, I have a personal, somewhat emotional stake in this matter - a quarter century’s service as a legal officer.
It's easy to see why this issue needs more discussion. Thanks for bringing it up.
What is your concern of where this may lead?
Well, seeing that Hegseth was a big defender of war criminals like Eddie Gallagher, there seems to already be an indicator where this will lead.
Re: The Moorings, if only more of the truly monied people on the right started recognizing the role cultural capture played in the West’s destruction, the Orrs would get more help expanding their vision. Many of us here have spent our lives watching so-called conservatives who live and legislate by the mantra that Everything Follows Tax Cuts.
Is this changing? Perhaps it will start to. It’s not Trump’s ethos, or Elon’s either, but one can see hints of cultural *noblesse oblige* in Elon’s purchase of Twitter. Yes, one can. The guy knowingly paid double what it was worth because he realized free speech was necessary and was willing to put his money and reputation on the line. That’s not exactly funding a Benedict Option retreat for Christian scholars and students, but it’s a step that will help protect such projects, going forward, from direct state suppression. And I think we were getting *very* close.
We’re lucky that Musk is willing to take risks. Consider his main business, Tesla, and the typical Tesla buyer. With his political convictions, he is directly pissing off his go-to customers.
Musk's purchase of Twitter probably saved America. Without that disruption of the media monopoly, Harris would have likely won; and after four years of her, there might not have been much of an America left to save. I'm not sure how many people realize just how serious of a bullet we just dodged.
I was told that Musk bought Twitter in order to propagate disinformation, misinformation, and Nazis.
"Was told." Hahaha. I see what you did there. You have to know whom to, and whom not to, listen to!
Must bought Twitter because he could, because he had the money and wanted a new toy to play with.
Re: Musk's purchase of Twitter probably saved America. Without that disruption of the media monopoly, Harris would have likely won
Disagreeing with both claims here. Twitter is, I think, the eleventh most used social media platform, behind Facebook, Tik-Tok and others. Most Americans never use it. Don't mistake the engaged political ethos of people here (or on Twitter) for the median voter. And the Biden-Harris administration was never wildly popular: approval ratings+ were already sinking in the summer of 2021. Before Musk's purchase, Twitter was a leftwing cesspit. Now it's a rightwing cesspit. The stink however is much the same. That's not why Harris lost and Trump won.
It's about control over the narrative, which filters down to the general population. Most Americans don't need to use it in order to be significantly affected by it.
Also, the stats suggest that X is now about equally right-wing and left-wing. It's just that the left is so used to media dominance that they see a more equal balance as an intolerable bias against them.
I can accept your claim that Twitter is more balanced. I don't accept your claim that it's influential beyond its user base or maybe the techoratti more generally. If anything doomed Harris it wasn't online propaganda, it was her own ineptness and her too-close association with an unpopular administration and things widely seen (and experienced in daily life) as failures-- inflation most prominently.
X is plainly influential beyond that circle, given that journalists and other opinion-shapers spend time there. You can even see how many TV and online channels treat what happens on X as actual news. Lament that if you want, but that's the reality of the media environment today.
There is a *reason* that the wokists and the MSM were livid about Musk buying Twitter; they fully understood what a threat this was to them.
Nothing was stopping them from expressing their opinions on other platforms even if they whined about being censored by Musk on X. And indeed my Facebook feed daily has people posting and reposting assorted anti-Trump and anti-Musk memes. I would say that Facebook, as "old school" as it is, is more influential among the hoi polloi, and Tik-Tok among the young.
Disagree. Twitter set the table; set the agenda, and the media reported on the reaction of Twitter as if it were the reaction of America as a whole - and that conveyed a message to decision-makers. It's where the left went to virtue-signal. It was "their" platform and they leveraged it effectively. Now they've lost control and they'll never get it back again, and it's changed politics.
Again this may be true for the sorts of plugged-in and tuned-in people who wait with baited breath for the latest pronouncements from influencers. It's not true for everyone else-- people who spend rather little time online or do not live, eat and breathe politics.
Just because some people don;t have college degrees and are super-duper tech-savvy doesn't mean they are jackasses who can be led around by the nose by the elite (whether right or leftwing elite). I would think that Trump's 2016 presidential victory in the face of nearly unanimous elite disapproval from both the right and the left would be proof enough of that
"Musk's purchase of Twitter probably saved America"
I've thought this for months. Twitter was a very effective rhetorical echo chamber dominated by the left; it's how they set the agenda, the media would report on the reaction of people on Twitter as if it were the same thing as a genuine litmus test of what the public at large thinks. Conservative opinions were increasingly edged out if not cancelled outright.
Then Musk buys it, opens it up and lo and behold, the left's grip on this very influential corner of the Internet - itself contributing to the left's grip on power and on policy - is broken.
And the rats all deserted the ship and went to BlueSky, but they can never re-create what they had with Twitter. By doing that one thing, buying Twitter, Musk utterly changed the course of history.
I think you overestimate digital media. I doubt very much that the ownership of Twitter would change one vote. From what people who now love X say, I sense they have found an echo chamber of confirmation bias, and enjoy it, but it wouldn't sway the undecided. Harris was just an entirely unqualified and uninspiring candidate. Trump would never have won a single term if the Democrats had an ear to the ground and a bit of sense in choosing candidates.
And I think you’re out of touch with the importance of narrative control, and the role of digital media in establishing such control.
Narrative control is multi-plex, and has its weaknesses. Sometimes a few billionaires flood the airwaves with major media buys, and mesmerize enough voters to sway an election. Sometimes that falls completely flat, either because people get so sick of the massive repeating message that they vote the other way, or because they know the incumbent or challenger and dismiss the ads. It also depends on how clueless the opposing campaign is -- I've seen Democrats lose campaigns with reactive counter ads that they would have won if I'd been writing their scripts. When it comes to Twitter, its a big question whether the truly undecided voters are being reached and swayed, or whether it a dual matter of preaching to the choir and showing off to the confirmed adversaries. It can happen, but when two candidates are so unpopular and unpalatable, it comes down to intangibles that no media buy can settle. I recall in 2004 one of the passengers on my bus talked about how her parents were still debating the morning of the election who they would vote for. I'm convinced Bush won by a margin of people who were literally still making up their minds on their way to the polls, having been knocked back and forth by the obvious deficiencies of both candidates.
I think you're basically making an axiomatic argument that people aren't persuaded through social media (or secondary news based on social media), which I think is simply a false assumption, not congruent with today's media dynamics. Also, you're not accounting for the factor of morale, which can affect even people who have already made up their minds.
I think you are indulging in rank speculation, and trying to pose one of multiple factors as THE reason an election turned out as it did. It reminds me of the news analysis that "the Latino vote" delivered Indiana for Obama in 2008. That all depends on how you stack up the voting blocs. You could put "the Latino vote" at the bottom of the stack, then put the "black vote" next, and the "white vote" on top of that, and say "the white vote" is what delivered Indiana for Obama. Its a fools game at best.
Oh yes, Musk - a lap dog for the CCP and his business interests in China - is a man of great conviction. Clearly, he's a firm believer in reversing demographic decline...
Sethu's right - Musk buying Twitter was ultimately a big win for a freer discourse on social media. But the end of the day, this guy is just a tech bro, who has impulses to curb speech that is critical of him and whose ultimate philosophy is rabid materialism.
The other day, he referred to himself as Trump's tech support, which I thought sounded pretty good. Overall, I don't trust Musk or his transhumanist worldview and ambitions, but I can still appreciate some of his specific *functions* at this time.
I don't trust some of his tech ambitions. But as for billionaires with one or another social vision, compare him to Bill Gates. Musk has proven he believes in free speech. To do what he's done was a major risk for him.
Bill Gates is someone who almost makes me wonder about the wisdom of banning the bill of attainder. He's sort of a walking crime; it feels like it should be a criminal offense to just *be* that guy.
And yes: I mean that what I don't trust is his overall worldview. I do think that he can be trusted as an advocate for free speech, since he has indeed defended it at real personal risk, as you say.
Not strange that we don’t trust Musk’s overall worldview. But it’s not going to lead me to wish he weren’t around. I was mostly referring to Vince’s comments.
As for Gates, he’s an ongoing menace. All we can do is wait, and hope his pals don’t figure out how to reverse ageing.
Maybe we should get some garlic and wooden stakes ready, just in case, and also dig up a Transylvanian grimoire with some reliable instructions pertaining to enchanted circles.
95 % of us are useless eaters.
And yet if some Thanos snapped his fingers and 95% of the population vanished in an instant, civilization would collapse.
It's not the puffed up poppinjays at the top of the pyramid calling themselves Master of the Universe that make the world function. It's all the little people doing their unexciting crappy jobs that keep it humming, down to the folks who bring in the harvests, pick up the garbage and care for the sick and disabled.
I get that people have lots of complaints about Microsoft-- I have them too. But what in the world makes Gates such a bete noir, compared with other billionaires.
Well, if you don't know yet, then I probably can't explain it to you. And wow, you think people's issue with Bill Gates is primarily about Microsoft? That is funny.
If one administration can issue a bill of attainder against Bill Gates, some other administration can issue one against you, or someone you admire. That's why they are prohibited. The government had to produce evidence in court to get a conviction.
I did say "almost."
The way I've come to see it is that societies will always be dominated by the rich and powerful. What matters ultimately is whether the people at the top share at least some of the values of the majority of society. I may not like Musk all that much or support everything he says or does, but the fact that he bought Twitter freed it from being a complete echo chamber. Also I applaud his willingness to speak out against the trans lunacy.
A pox on all their houses.
I'm not a particular Musk fan, but I wonder how you know his ultimate philosophy is rabid materialism. I think it probably is, my suspicion being based on his belief that we must colonize Mars, but Rod writes all the time about the widespread certainty among the techbros that AI will be the Mt Sinai on which God reveals Itself to humanity.
Years ago, when the guys at Babylon Bee were getting censored on this and than social media forum, Musk went out of his way to offer them a sit down interview. The guy is not a Christian, but he is willing to defend Christians when they're in the crosshairs.
"that AI will be the Mt Sinai on which God reveals Itself to humanity."
Thought God Already did that? :-)
The thing about AI (and all technology) is it is neither Good nor Evil. It simply IS.
This is a common statement but it's simply not true. Some technology lends itself to true human flourishing, some does not. It's not all neutral.
Examples?
The atomic bomb. The gatling gun. The birth control pill. The medieval longbow. Strip mining. Mustard gas. The leaf blower. The smartphone. Glyphosate. High fructose corn syrup.
Can it make a choice? If it can what will it choose? Because if it is truly intelligent it will discover that choices must be made and those choices will have consequences. Is it a machine, or is it something else?
I trust in the fact he's seen what a malevolent force the left has become and is committed to doing his part to break the left's grip on the country. If he accomplishes that, I'll grant him a hell of a lot of leeway on everything else.
He's been shutting down or depopulating every government department that regulates or had investigations going into companies he owns. The motive is obvious.
When Christ reaffirmed the second great commandment, He sanctified politics that were based on love of God and love of all mankind. If there really is free will (and there is) then we must have give and take in human relationships that is properly called politics.
However, politics can never take the place of direct personal actions. We are called to charity not just as a society (or as a Church)-- a tax-funded safety net may be necessary for a modern society to be virtuous and churches have a proper mission to help the poor and afflicted-- but individual charity is also called for.
I admit that this challenges me at times. Just this morning a panhandler begged money from me. Should we give to such people, who may well use the money for bad purposes (booze/drugs)? Especially at Lent I fret about this dilemma. Not wanting to threadjack this, but I would like to hear how others deal with that problem.
Direct personal actions are a form of politics--the most genuine form. Subsidiarity at its highest.
NO. That is the road to politicization of all of life. It's how we got to where we are today.
I think we have different definitions of politics. Mine might be a bit more encompassing.
More pity for you.
This is where you end when all life is political:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ozpct8zUA_U&pp=ygUjZHIgemhpdmFnbyB0aGUgcHJpdmF0ZSBsaWZlIGlzIGRlYWQ%3D
Following the lead of one of my professors, my usual tact for that is to ask what they need money for (food, ticket, water, etc.) and then offer to get the object for them directly. When I make the offer, it turns away about 80% of people asking for money, so I take it to mean that for the remaining 20%, they really did need that particular item to survive for the day.
Perhaps a little cold and calculating, but if they truly do need food/water/bus fare, I can make the time to help.
Trevor, think about this: being homeless is as crushing a condition as one can be in. It really does feel as if God has turned against you once and for all.
There is an inherent patronization in taking the approach to panhandlers which you write about. It casts them in the role of permanent children who lack the maturity to figure things out for themselves. It's insulting, though you don't mean it to be.
I acknowledge that it's tricky. I know that I have been taken for hundreds of dollars by a couple who weren't homeless but were on the verge of becoming so because of her disability and his inability to hold a job. It turned out that he couldn't hold a job because both of them were opiate addicts.
My advice is to give the money because you can't afford not to, but maybe to try to engage them in some conversation about their lives first. It shouldn't take long for you to discern what the real problem is.
Bobby, you strike closer at the heart of the issue than you realize.
Indeed, it is a patronizing stance to take, but years of being ground down by panhandlers has left me more jaded than most. I do automatically assume that most homeless are those dealing with drug addictions, which makes me very skeptical and cautious of them.
I understand Jesus's commandments, but 1) He could cast out demons, so he could probably handle a drug-addled zombie, and 2) His poverty was a chosen one, so He didn't have to worry about people asking him for money.
I fully accept this as my own shortcoming, but for now, I am far too cautious and leery when someone comes up asking for a handout.
Jesus Himself asked the question, "What do you want?" when a local blind guy raised a ruckus by shouting, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" When Jesus stopped and Bartimaeus-- ragged and OBVIOUSLY blind was brought to him--Jesus STILL asked, "What do you want?" It's not patronizing if Jesus set an example of compassion and shrewdness thereby. (Bartimaeus was not the only person of whom Jesus asked this question; there may be a little lesson for us in His strategy.)
Benevolent incarceration.
I am an Orthodox Christian. Some time ago I went to a meeting about tithing. The speaker introduced us to a book Money and Salvation by Andrew Geleris,M.D. I recommend it to everyone.
It was made clear to me that giving is not about the receiver but about the action of the giver; where his heart is.
St. Teresa of Avila once said or wrote: "Charity sees the need and not the cause," but I don't remember the source.
I have a few friends who drive into Manhattan for work and see the same panhandlers while in traffic approaching the West Side Drive. Two of my friends apparently try to give a few bucks to "the blonde girl on the approach ramp" because she seems particularly distressed. They both locked on to the same poor soul.
I try to go by my instinct.....which has a high enough fail rate. Like you, I try to step it up during Lent. Last year a very sad looking man asked me for a few bucks. I gave him 10$ and he skipped away giggling. Was he happy to get the money or happy to have enough for a hit? I just go with my gut. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. This is an area of being "street smart" that has changed for me as I age. When I was living paycheck to paycheck it would have made my blood boil. If I'm a sucker, so be it.
A somewhat oblique comment. Was to NYC recently and had some interactions with homeless and panhandlers. One guy who stood out to me was sleeping on a bench, and I noticed a festering sore on his ankle. He needed multiple kinds of help. Allowing people to live this way in not compassionate. A degree of coercion is appropriate here.
Glad you asked, Jon. If it's a sweltering day, I'll get the person a cold bottle of water. If it's a cold day, a hot coffee. Otherwise, I hand out a holy card (with a lovely picture of Christ, Mary, or a saint) that I've previously wrapped a few dollars around (I never open my wallet in a public place) so he or she can choose what suits. And I always, always use their names and chat (they tend to congregate around the Safeway and the Target I walk to a few times a week). I've learned a lot from them, and always leave more grateful than when I arrived. I'm sure you would too, because you already have the impulse to reach out.
I have given money to panhandlers when I thought they might use it for food. Never for obvious drunks. We had a homeless woman who came to our church for years. I'd slip her a twenty occasionally. Wealthier members of our parish would put her up in hotels when it was freezing cold. She certainly wasn't a drunk but had something go wrong with her life many years before and was a paranoid. Margaret is the only person I know who died of Covid. A parishioner realized that she was of age to receive Social Security and Medicare and has her put in a retirement home. And that's where she died.
My husband often will drive a panhandler to get him food. Along with some others in our church, we provided work and back up for a man who had been on "down on us luck". We both grew from that relationship.
Back in the early 2000s, a friend did a graduate ethnography of a band of homeless people living beneath the 101 and 280 interchange. Everyday they'd fan out to various freeway on and off ramps tp panhandle. In the afternoon, the cash was counted and used to buy drugs & booze for the nightly party. In this town, the homeless are rarely hungry, as the City's do-gooders love distributing free food. Rest assured, when you give $$$ to these people, it's used to buy crystal meth and not veggie burritos.
A couple of sundays ago, my parish priest told the congregation not to give money to beggars, since in Milan there is an excess of food and shelter for the poor, and those panhandlers mostly use the money for booze. I used to give out some money occasionally, but after that I stopped.
Rejoicing! You know that I knew by faith you would have a home, such a home as pilgrims here may have. - - Is this it? Of course I know not. You will know it God's time. But still, rejoicing.
I know someone who will have read this I hope. Tell you later :)
"Assuming you beach at last / Near Atlantis"
(But if this is the beaching, the terrible trek part may be near done. Nor do I think you will keel over before finding The Atlantis of this life.)
If the Orrs have hosted John Cleese they need to invite Rowan Atkinson over.
I always had something against Cleese, even though I enjoyed his comedy. I saw him on a talk show with Malcolm Muggeridge where he taunted the old man and his views about Christianity and missionaries in an arrogant way. Maybe he changed his tune.
He has mellowed a bit with age.
Well I hope so. Atkinson has publicly spoken out in support of free speech in the past. I don't know where he is religiously, but politically I suspect he is a fellow traveler.
With such superb writing on fascinating topics, I just became a paid subscriber. The Moorings sounds like a special place indeed.
Welcome! :)
Thank you!
Rod's writings in recent days have been exceptionally rich and interesting.
Good to have you aboard.
The Orr’s sound like great people but I do wonder about the conservatism of a woman priest. The danger of feminism is already in the door there and as you say unless something is explicitly conservative it will eventually become liberal. To be a true conservative institution she has to resign
It's their Church, friend. Peter Hitchens, an Anglican, says he doesn't what sex the vicar is.
Women’s ordination has been the canary in the coal mine for churches. To save the church it has to go
I'm going under the assumption that you're, like me, Roman Catholic. What you say may be true or untrue; it's none of our business.
I am actually an Anglican of the traditional sort that does not have WO
Anytime I see a woman of the cloth, I brace myself for what's to come. I want to be wrong.
Well, then, you're perfectly within your rights.
Speaking as a former Episcopalian I agree with what you've said here.
I agree as well. However, it is the case that WO has had a withering effect on all denominations that have embraced it (excerpt, I am told, among denominations in the "Holiness" tradition, such as the Church of the Nazarene and some Pentecostal groups - perhaps because these are not particularly sacramental in their outlook) - and certainly among those that are more or less sacramental and liturgical (such as Anglicans and Lutherans).
I’m an Orthodox Christian woman who had the same thought re: female clergy in the Church of England. Helen Orr sounds like an amazing, wonderful Christian. I saw an interview with her in which she said her father had been a priest in the C of E. I suppose the way to wrap our heads around her ordination is to think, well, according to the theology and ecclesiology of their church, she is within their understanding of the Christian faith.
So, as a gentleman and a friend, I imagine something like that thought governs Rod’s interactions with the Orrs.
I would have great difficulty attending a Bible study or prayer service led by an ordained woman. A lay female leader, I would have less issue with, depending on her qualifications, spiritual gifts, and obedience to and receiving blessing from her priest or bishop. I would draw a hard line at attending a Eucharistic service, unless it were solely as a guest.
The Orr’s gifts as friends and hosts is extremely generous and admirable. I would be very worried myself that I might offend a generous and sincere lady like Helen Orr because of my Orthodox Christian beliefs.
I would be very interested if Rod were to discuss how he navigates the theological differences with the Orrs. Perhaps they just don’t discuss them, out of charity?
It would be hard. As much as I love Morning Prayer I could not attend if she presides. As for the compound they are visiting it sounds like my kind of place and would love to be a part of
Her father was Simon Barrington-Ward, one of the great bishops of the C of E, I'm told. He was close to St. Sophrony. Helen wears the prayer rope that St. Sophrony gave to her father.
That doesn’t address the question, though.
Interesting story but that does not change the fact that she is not validly ordained and she can’t confer the sacraments. My fear is not her per se. The Orrs sound wonderful but as you yourself have noted something that is not explicitly conservative will eventually go liberal. Women’s ordination is explicitly liberal. How do you hold the conservatism of something founded on an explicitly liberal position? I love what they are doing and support it 100% but this does worry me about the long term of it
Because the world is full of contradictions. Isn't the fact that we spend so much time online a contradiction wrt our conservative (or reactionary, in my case) beliefs?
"according to the theology and ecclesiology of their church, she is within their understanding of the Christian faith"
I suppose one can say that - but what if their ecclesiology and understanding of the Christian faith has undergone changes amounting to reversals in order to justify WO, as the Church of England and its offshoots have had to do? When the first Anglican woman was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Hong Kong in 1944 it met with almost universal censure among Anglicans. And would you take the same attitude about a homosexually partnered Priest or Priestess?
Well, she is one of the few right-wing female priests in the C of E. Not my church -- they can do what they wanna.
It was my church once, so I guess I feel differently
Wasn't it different for women in the early church, pre Christian christianity?
Magdalene was the first witness to the Resurrection, which seems . . . meaningful. And a lot of women seem to have been in the role of at least what we would describe as deacon.
Now seems like a really bad time to revisit the role of women in the Church, though, since of course that conversation would get hijacked by the woke feminists. So first put wokism to rest, and then *maybe* we can talk about it, is what I think.
I went to Angry Nun U, so I know what they're feeling cause they took it out on me. White Man, get 'im. I'd like to say that I've never encountered people who were more thouroughly misdirected, but it seems rather common to mistake me for the Oppresor. The world is chock full of nutters.
I don’t really want to get into this, but Mary Magdalene’s first witness was probably due to the grace given her because she loved Jesus with such devotion, not as a sign that an eventual “dialogue” about women’s ordination was providential. As to Phoebe and the other early deaconesses, yes, they were of great assistance in the early house churches, as messengers/carriers of the letters sent between fledgling Christian communities, etc. Disputes about rank-formal ordination in the churches-are already talked about. The Orthodox Church in Alexandria, in Africa, has already ordained a woman as a deacon with full liturgical duties. She can serve ALL the diaconal functions, per Alexandria.
I am saying that this is already beyond “talked about.”
Well, sounds like we’re still talking about it, then. Clearly it hasn’t been laid to rest.
No, it certainly hasn’t! In the long run and even medium run, should we have them, it’s going to tear at Orthodoxy and Catholicism as it has torn the Protestant churches.
Re: She can serve ALL the diaconal functions, per Alexandria.
That's an ahistorical innovation: the roles of deaconesses were never the same as the roles of deacons. Though both were ordained and both would be in the altar during the Liturgy and take communion there (we have accounts of that from Hagia Sophia itself).
Yes. It is an innovation.
St. Paul was clear enough about that. As a Catholic, I abide to his words.
I think that a lot of St. Paul's words need to be understood as occasional remarks meant to address specific problems among specific people at specific times, not necessarily once-and-for-all ultimate pronouncements about the nature of reality and truth. This is congruent with the Catholic practice of reading the Bible according to the genre of the material under consideration.
True, but in this specific case, his remarks appear to me to be quite general.
I don't know about that: he may have been speaking to people for whom the notion of a "priestess" was associated with temple prostitutes. But I'm not an expert on the specifics of the history.
See:
https://www.amazon.com/Rule-Faith-Journal-Orthodox-Thought/dp/B0D597W6W1/134-3535908-2396915?pd_rd_w=Zf01K&content-id=amzn1.sym.156274ff-6322-443d-8bbf-ab3ed87e382f&pf_rd_p=156274ff-6322-443d-8bbf-ab3ed87e382f&pf_rd_r=ZWJ8BDYZXXKCRNHE05RR&pd_rd_wg=5mir7&pd_rd_r=9e3134c8-99a0-48ab-8786-6268babb9997&pd_rd_i=B0D597W6W1&psc=1
Even after Constantine there was women deacons in some sort of role. What that was is beyond my knowledge.
Generally deaconesses served as pastoral ministers to women in an era when a man, not the woman's husband, being closeted with a woman would have been scandalous, even if the man were clergy.. They did not take on a liturgical role, but were welcomed into the sanctuary during the Liturgy and communed there.
This is my understanding, also.
"Deaconesses" never were the same thing as "woman deacons." For the historical evidence, read:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=martimort+deaconesses&crid=2LE67HOA8A75P&sprefix=martimort+deaconesses%2Caps%2C126
Unfortunately your links require payment and I'm going to pass (it's the beginning of the month and bills are due)
I did note that No, deaconesses did not have anything like liturgical role male deacons gained early on. They remained in a "service" role, which is what the diaconate was originally created for as we read in Acts. But they did go through a rite of ordination (even the minor orders go through a rite, called a tonsuring) and they were in the sanctuary during the Liturgy (we have records from Hagia Sophia on that).
On the related issue of women in the sanctuary, that's often misunderstood. Even today in the Orthodox Church it's not wholly true that women are excluded from the sanctuary. If you visit a woman's monastery there may be a nun who is detailed to assist the priest there. The original rule was that only those ordained or tonsured or vowed to monasticism could enter the sanctuary. With the decline of the minor orders priests began to invite non-clerics to help, giving a special blessing to whoever they invited each time, including younger boys.
You might wish to glance at this issue of an Orthodox journal:
https://www.amazon.com/Rule-Faith-Journal-Orthodox-Thought/dp/B0D597W6W1/134-3535908-2396915?pd_rd_w=Zf01K&content-id=amzn1.sym.156274ff-6322-443d-8bbf-ab3ed87e382f&pf_rd_p=156274ff-6322-443d-8bbf-ab3ed87e382f&pf_rd_r=ZWJ8BDYZXXKCRNHE05RR&pd_rd_wg=5mir7&pd_rd_r=9e3134c8-99a0-48ab-8786-6268babb9997&pd_rd_i=B0D597W6W1&psc=1&asin=B0D597W6W1&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
What an idyll! Thank you for that elevating reverie.
What David Brooks refuses to accept is that virtually all big institutions in America have been captured by the left. There is little that Trump can do to reform the universities, Hollywood, big corporations and the rest but he can reform the government of which he is the executive. Trump is rooting out the left in government wherever he can find it. And he has found it in the military. Obama fired nearly 200 military officers as president. I hope Trump fires 1000 or more leftist officers, especially the generals. And his reforms of the military should extend to West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs(which I would close but that's another argument). The entire History, English and Political Science Departments should be fired because they are steeped in leftist woke dogma. New professors that believe in America and Western Civilization should be hired to take their places.
Firing all those professors is of course impossible. But I do think the Trump administration, if they ever get round to it, could apply some serious pressure toward "viewpoint diversity" in academia. The Department of Education is a nightmare, but how about basically gutting it and turning it mainly into a bureau charged with standards? One mandate would be ensuring all schools receiving government money defend free speech on campus and do not discriminate against conservative voices in the faculty. Another would be enforcing standards for entrance.
Yeah, I know, there *are* no conservative voices in most of those faculties at present. But applying pressure like this is something the federal government could do.
What really must happen is the creation of new universities from scratch, set up according to previous norms of academic excellence and open debate.
I was talking only about West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs. I believe each is funded out of the Department of Defense.
Got it.
One thing DoE could do is put metrics in place for the proportion of actual teachers to administrators at schools receiving a dime of federal money, which is all of them besides Hillsdale and St. John's, right?
Exactly. I've argued the same. This would be most of the battle right here.
"You have three administrators for one faculty member. You're not a university. You're a leftist boot camp run by midwit babysitters."
I'm actually on board with disbanding the Department of Education and transferring any important functions to some other department-- maybe a return to a Department of Health, Education and Welfare which is what we had before.
I don't think the proliferation of cabinet departments has been a good thing.
And I prefer that, as much as possible, education policy be left to the states and to local districts.
I agree. Local control.
And Grove City College, which is an excellent school.
The Moorings sounds wonderful. It reminds me of the Russell Kirk Center in Mecosta, Michigan.
I was about to say the same.
A modern-day Clapham Sect! May their tribe increase!