We’re all for it!
Patriotism is a good thing: loving, treasuring one’s homeland and people, a
sense of belonging, our own way of doing things, our particular gifts from God.
Americans have much
to be patriotic about. (We’re certainly not alone in this; think “Canada”
again, for another example.) We have much for which we should be grateful to
God, things we easily take for granted:
Political stability
for almost 250 years. Despite huge changes in society, threatening events
including a civil war, some major missteps and failings and also the occasional
bizarre politician, the system still stands. America’s founding fathers were
brilliant visionaries in this regard. Imagine anyone today fashioning a form of
representative government that would still be around in the year 2245.
Our freedoms –
elected government, freedom of worship, of speech, assembly, the press. We have
often been slow to apply these God-given rights, as the founders described
them, to women and minorities. It’s still a struggle, and these freedoms are
not infrequently under attack, but we’ve made progress.
Peace. In parts of
the world there is little peace for anybody. Here, despite occasional ethnic
strife brought on by rabble-rousers, or because we have mistreated minorities,
people of many sorts generally get along together. Our Milwaukee Orthodox
Churchwomen’s Association, which includes Greeks, has held luncheons at a
Turkish restaurant!
America’s capacity to provide a refuge for
people from all over the world (may we continue to do so) and incorporate them
into our society – perhaps some of you who are reading this blog. In The
Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann he wrote how he and his
wife Juliana came to America as immigrants, she not speaking a word of
English, and 25 years later she was made head of one of New York’s most
prestigious schools for girls. He wrote, “The American dream is still alive!”
Orthodoxy and the Nation
Orthodoxy has
always formed a close bond with society and culture so that the faith is
connected with life, not just with Sunday morning. Actually the modern nation
state, with its sharply defined boundaries, is a relatively new development.
Things were more flexible in ancient times. But Orthodoxy has associated itself
with modern nations too. That’s why we have the national Bulgarian Orthodox
Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church and so on.
However, patriotism
can also be dangerous. Father Schmemann wrote in his Journal that one of the
worst things that ever happened to Orthodoxy was its identification with modern
nations, so that people cannot distinguish between the two – like those who
think that to be really Orthodox you’ve got to be Greek or Russian or whatever,
or like some evangelicals who can’t seem to separate their Christianity from
Americanism (of a particular type). When my wife and I were first looking at
Orthodoxy 30 years ago a Ukrainian Orthodox woman, a good friend (memory
eternal, Helen+), asked me, “Why do you want to be Orthodox? You’re not
Ukrainian.” Someone I know was interested in Orthodoxy and visited a Greek
church, where the priest told him, “I’m glad you visited. Now go back to your
own church where you belong.”
This attitude is called
Phyletism (“tribalism”): the odd notion that Orthodoxy is limited to a
particular tribe or culture or nation. It was condemned at a pan-Orthodox
council in Constantinople in 1872. The great danger of Phyletism is that it
limits Orthodox people to one narrow national way of looking things. Orthodoxy
is multi-cultural: for all the world, all peoples. Orthodoxy is super-cultural:
wider, broader, deeper, higher, wiser than any one nation or culture.
Our Lord Jesus made
this clear regarding Jewish tribalism. How often he made foreigners the heroes:
the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan leper who alone returned to give thanks, the
Roman centurion of whom he said. “I tell you many will come from east and west
and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in kingdom of heaven, but the sons
of Kingdom [the Jews, or us if we are unfaithful] will be cast out into the
darkness”. John the Baptist warned,“If God needs sons of Abraham, he can raise
them up out of these stones.” And so it is if God needs Americans… or if he
needs Orthodox.
Orthodoxy in America
American Orthodox
are not much tempted by Phyletism. This is not an Orthodox country. Nor,
despite what we read, did the United States have a Christian foundation in the
classical sense of that word. At the time of the American revolution only about
30% of Americans had any formal religious affiliation. The conversion of
America to “believing” Christianity began in the 18th century with the
evangelical Great Awakening and continued in the 19th century with the arrival of
many Roman Catholic immigrants. However, among well-educated Protestants of the
18th century the predominant theology was deism, the belief that God like a
clockmaker created the universe, then largely left it running on its own. No
miracles, please.
I think many of
America’s founding fathers were affected by deism: they often gave God an
impersonal deist title, “Providence”. But they weren’t consistent about it:
they also spoke of his involvement in human affairs. Also, very much in the
spirit of of the times, few of them believed in the divinity of Christ. Thomas
Jefferson revised the New Testament leaving out all miracles. George
Washington, an Anglican vestryman, never received Holy Communion. John Adams
was a Unitarian. They believed in the social value of religion in general but
established no particular religion. I hate to tell you this, but in today’s
terms many of America’s founding fathers were religious liberals. I don’t mean
to disparage them or their work. Goodness, wisdom, intelligence and political
brilliance are not limited to Orthodox Christians.
As Orthodox Christians
how should we relate to a non-Orthodox America? We should incorporate what is
good here, which is a whole lot. The Orthodox Church has always moved into new
lands and has taken what is good in the culture and brought it into the Church.
Unlike Protestant missionaries who made Hawaiian natives dress like Scottish
Presbyterians, American Orthodox women do not need to dress like Russian
peasants – though they certainly may if they want to. Alaskan pagans had spirit
houses in their cemeteries where they went to commune with their dead; today
many old spirit houses have Orthodox crosses on them where the natives pray for
their dead.
Already some good
American things are being pulled into the Orthodox Church. America is in many
ways a democratic culture. Americans like to participate. This is helping
American Orthodox recover some elements of authentic ancient Orthodoxy that
have been underplayed: more frequent Communions; worship in the local language,
so people can understand and participate; more open icon screens so people
don’t feel cut off from the action in the altar; parish councils and national
conventions, so laypeople can take their proper place in the running of the
Church, and more. Some churches appropriately have services on American
Thanksgiving Day. And I think America’s emphasis on freedom fits well with
Orthodoxy’s hard-to-explain unity in the faith without external compulsion.
But Orthodoxy
rejects those things in cultures which do not conform to the faith. Here are
some things in American culture that we do not want in the Church:
1. If Americans
have loose sexual mores (as apparently many do, judging by television and the
movies and the behavior we accept in some of our political leaders), they are
to become strict when they become Orthodox.
2. Arrogance. Many
Americans both conservative and liberal take it for granted that we are right
and the rest of the world is wrong, and our job is to tell them how to do it. I
once watched a visiting American secretary of state on Greek television publicly
telling Greek leaders exactly what they must do and how they must do it, and I
could see by the Greeks’ facial expressions that whatever she said (even if she
was right, and I think she was) they were not going to do it. Arrogance (even
if it’s unintentional as hers was, for she is not by nature an arrogant person)
is destructive. Since we Orthodox believe we are the original and authentic
Church we are tempted by this kind of triumphalism. We need to reject it. It
will drive people away – or, worse, it will attract proud, arrogant people. The
Orthodox virtue is humility.
3. The confusion of
political freedom with spiritual freedom. In John 8 when Jesus said, “You shall
know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”, the Jews responded, “We are
sons of Abraham. We’re not slaves to anyone.” (“I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.”) Jesus answered, “I tell you, whoever commits
sin is a slave to sin.” If pride, greed, lust, anger, hatred, drink, drugs,
whatever, control you, you are not free. You can vote in every election and
pray in every school and still be a slave. In fact one can have no political
freedom, no religious freedom and still be truly free. Freedom from sin is the
ultimate freedom.
4. The modern
American attitude towards money. It is taken for granted in our culture that
money comes first: the purpose (for many the sole purpose) of life is to make
bigger profits, get rich, accumulate as much stuff as possible, have the
perfect kitchen. (I refer to HGTV.) The Church calls this the sin of greed.
American Orthodox are very tempted by this: to think that the measure of
success is big houses, big churches, big budgets, big money. This is not
compatible with Orthodoxy. I am glad that God has provided my church, Saint
Nicholas, Cedarburg, with the money we need (including 10% for charities) but
not much more.
The Orthodox Mission to America
Our mission here is
not to change Orthodoxy to make it American. Orthodoxy is what it is, always
has been, always will be.
1) to make
Americans Orthodox. To make authentic Orthodoxy available and accessible so
Americans can enter into it. By the grace of God this is happening, slowly. I
believe the Orthodox Church has arrived in America at just the right time, and
that Orthodox from the old countries, whether they know it or not, have come
here by the hand of God, for the purpose of God.
2) to make America
Orthodox. To contribute our Orthodox values and gifts to this society: our
strong families; our theological and moral stability; our worship with its sense
of mystery and wonder and of being “at home in heaven”, now so lacking in most
American religion and society; our ability to transcend political divisions in
a way that many American denominations cannot, and more. The Orthodox Church
has always been concerned not only with saving souls but with the conversion of
cultures, creating Orthodox societies. If God wills, we hope to convert the
nation. In the Roman empire 2000 years ago we were a small minority but growing
even despite persecution, and you know what happened. Today we are a small
minority in America but growing. In time who knows what may happen? Hang in
here for a few more centuries.
For the sake of
America and Americans I hope these things will happen. Despite all that we
Americans justifiably complain about, we are blessed to live here, now. But all
nations and empires, even the best of them, come and go – this is no secret –
while the Church, by the promise and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, will
endure forever. The gates of death will never prevail against her, and in her
and her ways are found true freedom and security for every nation and every
people.
By Fr. Bill Olnhausen
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/frbill/21-patriotism/
CONVERSATION