Anglican Church to Consider Letting Vicars Divest

The implosion of the Anglican Communion continues unabated.  With the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate, the soon-to-be-expected ordination of women bishops, blessing of gay "marriages' , not protecting or being even a willing voice for the ongoing persecution of the Christians in the Middle East, and a theology more concerned with oil and bankers and corporations than with that which actually is a catholic message of salvation, the only question Anglicans should ask now is not "when the Anglican Church will cease to exist," but "How fast can we get there?"  Every new and novel policy and action the Anglicans  now adopt will only hasten their own destruction. 

The Anglican Church's newest move towards self-destructiveness:  allowing clergy to wear whatever they wish.  The justification?  Flexibility and the need to relate to the modern man because modern Christians and those outside the church are "offended" or "turned off" by such vestments.  Here is another instance of the praxis and doctrine of the church being dictated by those "outside" of the Church or those who are only nominally churchgoers.  It should be emphasized that the Church exists first and foremost for those who have been received and called to worship the Lord who is the Church's head.  It is not a business and should not adopt business practices to increase a customer base.  Nevertheless, that is precisely what the Anglicans have been doing as well as the Protestants in general and even the Catholics have started down this road.  How long before it really starts to affect the Orthodox?

Vestments are often looked at as being gaudy and ostentatious and, thus, wholly unnecessary.  The standard argument goes like this:  Christ Himself never wore vestments when he was teaching His apostles or feeding the hungry or healing the sick, therefore, His priests shouldn't need to dress up like that.  If not then, Jesus preached against the temple and its abuses and so the vestments also need to go.

First of all, it is important here to distinguish between Christ the teacher and Christ the high priest.  Christ was outside of the temple when he taught, fed and healed.  He was not acting as a priest and was not in the priestly order.  He never once spoke against the worship in the temple but spoke against the hypocrites who abused their positions in the temple and its worship.  Christ never failed to go to the Temple; his parents certainly didn't.  So, the argument that Christ wanted to start a new worship or temple against the established order is bunk.

Now, with regards to the priest, it is important to remember that the theology of icons pervades the overall theology of the Church.  Now, even if most Christian confessions do not accept the theology of icons as it is practiced in the Orthodox Church, they adopt the ideas of image and likeness to a certain extent, especially Catholics, Anglicans and some Lutherans.  The priest stands in persona Christi.  He, in a manner, in a mystery, becomes Christ and celebrates the Divine Liturgy accordingly.  This is all laid out in the Epistle to the Hebrews which focuses on Christ as the bodily fulfillment of the priesthood according to Melchizidek (see Psalm 109).  The priest may well teach, but that is not his primary function during the Divine Liturgy. His main function is to worship and bring all creation to worship God alongside Himself and to dispense of the gifts of God to His creation.  The vestments are a poor reflection of the glory that the Lord clothes Himself with.  Such is why the vestments are often elaborate.  Also, in the Orthodox Church building, you may find one icon of Christ the teacher, but the icons of Christ that dominate are the Christ the judge (on the iconostasis to the right of the Royal Doors) and Christ the archpriest often placed on the bishop's throne.  Christ is vested the same way the bishops are.

Outside of the church building, the priest and clergy still adopt a certain dress.  This is to identify them as priests.  Why would we want our priests to blend in with the people?  Don't we want people to know the priests as they walk among them?  If a person should collapse in the midst of a crowd and suffering and wants a priest, wouldn't it be easier to grab a person wearing a cassock or collar than it would be to trust some random person wearing blue jeans and a polo shirt that he is?

The wearing of vestments also reinforces humility.  I am  a tonsured reader and chanter and though this is a very minor clergy rank, I still wear a black cassock while performing my duties.  This is to suppress our own personal tastes in clothing and attire and instead to reinforce that our dress is not in service to our friends and fashion critics out among the laity.  Those who complain about the elaborate nature of the priests' vestments probably do not give any thought to the expensive suits and the time it takes Joel Osteen or Rick Warren to get ready before they "preach."  There is no way that Joel Osteen goes out on stage without an extensive visit to hair and make up first and there is no way he is wearing a suit off of the rack at JC Penny's rather than something from Giorgio Armani.

The vestments during the Liturgy are but one way to connect us to the heavens.  Too much has been made of Liturgical worship into merely a mental activity.  True heavenly worship lifts up the entire person in his whole bodily form which must include the senses.  Even in the description of the worship of God in the heavens, as vividly described by the Apocalypse of St. John, there is no lack of incense, icons, hymns, etc.--all things to draw the created to the Creator. 

Anglicans and Lutherans would do well to remember that.

Pastristic Quote of the Day

We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for teh first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-name Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.--St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 1.1

The Cross above all shows God's love for His creation

Today, September 14 (Revised Julian), the Holy Orthodox Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross. We began to celebrate this feast starting this past Sunday with the very familiar Gospel reading of John 3:16 and continues for the next week. In all the hymns sung at the Vesperal Liturgy last night (which I grant I am not a fan of), one theme permeated everything: God's Love for His Creation. Yes, there are other themes there such as the Cross being the weapon which deceived the great deceiver, i.e. Satan and how that Cross trampled down death and how it lifts us from the curse and the wages of our sins. But those lessons are only given weight from the foundation of God's love.

When Orthodox Christians make the sign of the Cross is not the same as why Orthodox Christians make the sign of the Cross? Yes, we do it when the Holy Trinity is invoked but it also confesses St. Cyril's very famous Theopaschite formula, that "God died on the Cross." The actions on the cross were not just completed by Christ but was an act of love within the Trinity and given to the cosmos, the Trinity's creation. The Trinity is unified as an act of love and actions that spring from the Trinity are realities of that love which binds. We make the sign of the cross because we know and confess that God loves us. We also wear crosses around our necks to proclaim that very same message.

Also, look at the iconography of the crucifixion. Notice how Christ is not hanging as if he lacks the strength as is common in Roman Catholic and Protestant art. In Eastern iconography, it appears that Christ is holding up the Cross, that it can only stand because he allows it to stand. Also notice how Christ's arms are stretched across the beam as if he is trying to embrace us or that He loves us this much.

But when the cross is reduced to a mere weapon of torture or the cross is only examined through the lens of penal satisfaction and atonement, then the focus ceases to be on God's love for man, but on man's guilt over his own sins. Yes, each man needs to be repentant of his own sins but not to the point where man fails to see any worth in himself. God certainly found worth in us or else he would not have saved us through Crucifixion and death, let alone even created us! I wonder sometimes that those who are in the various Western traditions only wear the cross around their neck for the same reason the mariner from Coleridge's poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" wore the dead albatross around his neck: to remind them of their crimes and guilt? Such an anthropocentric mindset has no room for the compassion and mercy of God.

There are those who say, mainly Lutherans, that the Orthodox do not follow the Way of the Cross. I'm not going to get into how utterly nonsensical that charge is, but if the Way of the Cross or the Theology of the Cross is to be forever focused on ourselves, our shortcomings, our guilt and not as what God has done for us, then that's the Way of Man.

So, let us cast off our despondency and rejoice in the Cross and rejoice in our God's mercy and compassion for His Creation. For He did not will that His Creation should perish and is not pleased in the perdition of men but that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. Will all be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth? Sadly, no, but our Lord still desires it and did so with the very sacrifice of Himself on that hill in Jerusalem in 33 A.D.

O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance, granting to Thy rulers (people) victory against the barbarians (enemies) and by the power of Thy Cross, preserving Thine estate.

A trip to the Zoo

I'm very fortunate to have a great girlfriend. Undeserving as I am of her, she still sticks with me. Anyway, last week was my birthday. As a present to me, she took me to the Henry Doorly Zoo here in Omaha. Now, I've lived in Omaha for over six years now and I've only been to this world famous zoo once before, but I was unable to see much because it was early March and most of the exhibits were not open yet. It is widely regarded as one of the best zoos in the nation, coming in second only to the San Diego Zoo. Regardless of where it falls in the stats, this was a great trip. It was very hot and very humid and we walked the entire day sweating in the heat only to be cooled by random misters placed round the park.

Within this small enclosed area, I got to see the Lord's creation up close. From all corners of the world, from the depths of the sea to the ethereal regions, there was such a great diversity of life, a testimony to the wonders and majesty of creation which we cannot begin even to fathom, since we are created beings ourselves, though endowed with gifts that the rest of the animal kingdom lacks.

Having seen all this, I could only say "In wisdom, Thou hast made them all." Though I do sometimes wonder at the "reasoning" behind creations of such creatures like bats, snakes and even jellyfish, they are still our Lord's creation. (Side note: I saw a marquee of a church that asked "Why didn't Moses swat those two flies?" Humorous it may be and as much a I hate insects, I think that is a cavalier attitude towards creation). Now, you may ask, where I am going with this?

I was reminded of an instance in St. Augustine's Confessions where he traveled around North Africa in his search for God. He asked all the plants, animals and even mountains if they were God and they all responded "no." He then asked what they could tell him about God. And as if they spoke like an angelic choir, they responded "He made us." As I walked through the zoo and saw the diversity of creation, I asked myself, "Why isn't it simply enough to know, like those plants and animals and mountains of Augustine's vision that God created? Why must so many Christian people be obsessed with the "how" of creation?" I am speaking of evolution and related issues. Why must some Christians dogmatize fervently that God created every individual creature in 6 days and then go into the science of how such was done? I have no problem with people who believe such a thing. I also have no problem with those Christians who maybe believe that there was some sort of evolution that took place. However, I DO have a problem with those Christians who believe that creation and evolution happened independent of God. This is modern day deism, that belief that God is a clock maker who lets his creation go after He's done with it.

Why are so many Christians obsessed with the how that they even denigrate other Christians as being somehow less because of this one issue? (Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting for a moment that such can be used for Christian proponents of abortion or homosexual relations as equal to heterosexual quite simply because the Church HAS dogmatized on such issues, very clearly and articulately from the beginning). An issue such as this should be left to individual conscience. I find that whatever the viewpoint is regarding Christianity, those who most fervently condemn the opposing side really do not understand the underlying "science" they cling to.

As for me, I really don't have an opinion on this one way or the other. I don't think that if Adam and Eve were descended from an ape-like ancestor does not in any way denigrate or lessen the importance of Christ's Incarnation. Adam and Eve are still the ancestors of the human race and Christ's humanity is still preserved intact. I probably also don't have an opinion on this issue because I really don't believe it changes my perspective on creation. Again, the issue is that God created. And why did God create? For the simple reason that He loves. Creation is the natural result of the love which is shared between the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

Modern Orthodox Wisdom

In spite of the fact that creation is of God and essentially good, the devil at the same time has parasitically transformed this same creation of God into a temporary kingdom for himself. The devil, death and sin are reigning in this world and not in another. Both the kingdom of darkness and kingdom of light are battling hand to hand in the same place. For this reason, the only true victory over the devil is the resurrection of the dead.--Fr. John Romanides "Original Sin according to St. Paul," St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly 2:1.