It is
time for Orthodox Christians to be realistic and not panic about life in an
increasingly post-Christian culture. We
are a tiny minority in the West and have never had much direct impact in
shaping how the larger society in which we live has addressed any issue,
controversial or otherwise. It would be
strange for a miniscule Orthodox minority to expect a privileged position in
our time and place. If current trends
have opened our eyes to points of tension between God’s Kingdom and the present
order, we should be thankful for the wake-up call.
Our
calling is surely not to become yet another interest group that competes with
others through conventional political means, or even to think of success in
those terms. Instead of pursuing what
the world recognizes as power or affirmation, our vocation is basically the
same that Christians have always had: to
be a distinctive, holy community with a way of life that shines in brilliant
contrast to the ways of the world and draws others to the life of the Kingdom. But in order to have any hope of becoming
such an icon of salvation, we must actually live out what we say we
believe. Ethnic food bazaars and
mouthing slogans about the culture wars will not suffice.
As hard
as it is do so, we must actually embrace the spiritual disciplines of our faith
in ways that are very much in tension with the dominant trends of the larger
culture. We must live our lives in stark
contrast to the current societal celebrations of violence, hatred, gluttony,
vanity, greed, sexual immorality, and pornography—just to name a few examples
of the challenges that we face. The
greater the distance between what we say we believe and how we actually live,
the more ammunition we will give to “the cultured despisers of religion.” The more coherence others see between our
creeds and our deeds, the more seriously they will take our way of life as a
realistic alternative to the darkened patterns of the world.
Even as
athletes must take their disciplines seriously and follow the guidance of those
more skilled in their sport in order to play well, we must embrace prayer,
asceticism, generosity to the poor, forgiveness, self-denial, and other
spiritual disciplines according to the teaching and example of the Saints and
our spiritual fathers and mothers. Through the catechism of converts and ongoing education in the parish,
all Orthodox must be taught about the challenges of living faithfully in our
culture. We must model faithfulness for
one another and provide accountability and support to our brothers and
sisters. The larger society supports
athletics and education (usually in that order and often not very well), but we
cannot expect it to help us in forming people whose character and actions
should be so different from those celebrated by the dominant ethos. To say the
least, it will appear increasingly odd in our culture: to see Christ in the
unborn child, the terminally ill patient, the refugee, and the immigrant; to
deny ourselves in order to be outrageously generous with the poor and needy; to
refuse to let race, class, politics, ethnicity, or any other human division
blind us to the humanity of our neighbors; to love even our fiercest critics;
to pursue chastity in the relationship between man and woman; to see marriage
as a sign of the complementarity of the opposite sexes in God’s image and
likeness; and generally not to make the world into a false god.
If we
bear witness in these and other ways, we should not be surprised at charges of
bigotry and fanaticism for being so out of step. Perhaps such charges are simply reflections of
a truth that we have too often refused to see.
Despite the very positive dimensions of American culture, both
historically and in the present day, it is not and has never been the Kingdom
of God. Like all societies, it presents
temptations and tends to serve its own interests rather than the Lord. It would certainly be a clearer path to
immediate popularity simply to go along with social trends at all costs, but to
do so would require worshiping a false god, namely, the world. Here we must remember the Lord’s
warning: “Woe unto you, when all men
shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Luke
6:26) Of course, harmony is not always a bad thing. If it is the result of spiritually healthy
beliefs and practices permeating the larger society, then there is cause for
rejoicing. If, however, that harmony is
the result of Christians accommodating their beliefs and practices to those of
the larger society in an effort to gain power or simply make life easier for
themselves, then it is time to mourn.
Too much American Christianity fits—and, as best I can tell, always has
fit– into the latter category, regardless of whether it passes for “liberal” or
“conservative,” for “mainline,” “evangelical,” or anything else. This is an equal opportunity temptation, and
all the more subtle and dangerous for that very reason.
Amidst
our current challenges, we must remember that Christ’s Kingdom is not of this
world, as the example of the martyrs from the origins of the faith to today
makes quite clear. Nonetheless,
faithfulness is not the same as abandoning the world or those who live in
it. There is no need to fall into a
Manichean-like dualism that would see everything outside the visible boundaries
of the Christian community as simply evil.
There is no need to fall into a Gnostic escapism that would flee the
broken realities of life in the world as we know it for an illusory realm of
spiritual perfection. There is a great
need, however, for Orthodox Christians soberly to remain faithful amidst the
strong points of tension between our way of life and dominant trends in
contemporary culture.
As
mentioned earlier, that should not be surprising because Orthodoxy has had no
direct impact on the West for centuries.
And at least since the Enlightenment, a grave temptation of western
culture has been to make the world its god with, at best, a watered-down
“religion within the limits of reason alone.”
Our culture increasingly knows no higher standard than recognizing the
rights of isolated individuals to pursue well-being however they may define
it. Freedom is a good thing, and I
personally would much rather live in the current cultural climate than in one
characterized by crusades, pogroms, and witch hunts; the present order
certainly provides far more religious liberty than life under Communism or
ISIS. We should want as much religious
liberty as reasonably possible so that people may believe, worship, and live in
accordance with their faith, whatever that may be.
Nonetheless,
many temptations lurk beneath the surface of the increasingly popular
assumption that questions of religion and moral decency are necessarily matters
of arbitrary personal preference that have no place in the public sphere and
nothing to contribute to conversations about the common good of a social
order. There is grave danger in
societies privileging an anemic civil religion that completely relaxes the
tension between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of the world. That is true of
both right and left-wing versions of political idolatry.
Granted,
there is great variety across the US in how these matters are handled in
practice. Where I live In West Texas,
Christianity is certainly not in hiding.
Indeed, some versions of the faith are so public that some feel that
they need to hide from them—and perhaps sometimes for good reason. Such Christianity is often a domesticated
civil religion that serves agendas that have more to do with preserving
idealized manners and morals than with enabling people actually to grow in
holiness as they take up their crosses.
Too often in my region, what passes for Christianity merely provides a
thin veneer of spiritual or moral respectability to political and social
projects that have little direct connection to the salvation of the world and
which obscure vital dimensions of Christian belief and witness. As such, increasing numbers of people
recognize that such versions of the faith require nothing of substance from
them and offer even less in return. As a
result, they do not take religion seriously at all, for it seems like a matter
of irrelevant personal preference often associated with hypocrisy. Or they reject Christianity because they
disagree with whatever political or social agenda has been uncritically
identified with it.
In our
current cultural context, the true witness of Orthodox Christianity has an
opportunity to become more clear, distinctive, and compelling. There are advantages in not bearing the
burden of sustaining a religious ethos for an increasingly irreligious and
decadent society. No one is asking us to
guide the legislative process, propose policies, or otherwise take on the
responsibility of articulating an ethic for a deeply fragmented and confused
social order. Consequently, we are able
to focus our energies on being salt and light.
Our witness is not to pretend that the Church or the larger culture is
something that it is not; instead, it is to be deliberately and intentionally
faithful as Orthodox Christians in the areas of our lives that are up to us and
to discern prayerfully how to navigate the challenges posed by areas that are
not. The rest we leave in God’s hands.
By Fr. Philip LeMasters
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/easternchristianinsights/2016/06/09/orthodox-witness-post-christian-culture/
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