Contemporvant

Saw this on another blog, but it sums up pretty much all the cliched, nonsense in modern "contemporary" or "praise" or "relevant" church services.



HT:  Pastoral Meanderings

Conversion and Divorce

A couple of days I got locked into an internet forum discussion (something which happens way too often and I need to stop) regarding the conversion of a spouse to Orthodoxy while the other remains in his/her confession of faith.  This does happen and I have observed it in my own parish to good and ill results.  While reading the comments, I saw a lot of responses that came off as wholly uncharitable to the person who did not convert which I thought was totally unacceptable.  The Church is to strengthen the weak and cure the ill, but the way it was being presented, it seemed that many wanted the Church to continue to make weak and make ill those who were not ready to come into the Orthodox faith. 

Before I was married I was told by a friend who has a good friend who is a divorce attorney that, in the USA, the single biggest reason for divorce is--after infidelity, abuse and financial pressures--differences in religion.  My wife is not Orthodox, something I do not and will not ever hold against her.  She is my wife and I love her and that love is not contingent upon her being a member of the Church because even the Church does not make that a contingency.  If my wife were atheist, agnostic or non-Christian in general, then there would be issues, but that's not the case. 

I have seen several instances where a non-Orthodox couple had one spouse who wanted to convert and the other didn't, for whatever reason.  Becoming Orthodox is not something that happens by signing a sheet of paper or coming to a couple hour long classes, but, in general is a whole year of catechesis, with expectations that you would come to the extra services during Great Lent (my particular parish only receives converts in on Holy Saturday; other parishes may do it whenever the need arises), and make confession to the priest along with a host of other requirements.  Becoming Orthodox is embracing a Christian dogma and practice that many, especially for those coming from a Western confession of Christianity, will and do see as quite foreign and incomprehensible.  And because of that it can leave family members estranged.  A good friend of mine told me that his in-laws will have nothing to do with their daughter anymore because she converted from Southern Baptist to Orthodoxy.  There are many examples of this.  It can be particular troubling for a spouse who is unwilling and hostile to the move.  The extreme outcome can be divorce which is hardly ideal.  If that is the way things go, then both spouses are going to have deal with a lot of pain, trauma, guilt, anger, etc.  And what of the kids?  They're going to be torn, too.  Should the plan for conversion keep going as planned?  I replied no.  And for that, I took all sorts of flack.

I counseled that in these situations, the priest--who, I assume, is well informed about the situation--would suggest patience and a longer time of discernment for the potential convert.  Perhaps, in time, the unwilling spouse will be willing to give her assent without the divorce and may even come over him/herself.  For suggesting that, I was vilified.  The responses and the tones were downright harsh.  Scripture was thrown at me like "He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me" and the counsels from St. Paul in Ephesians about how women should submit to their husbands.  So, if a spouse converted, and the other spouse threatened divorce, the conversion should still happen?  It was pretty much a unanimous "yes."  So, the person who converts is going to be received into the Church (good for them), but will also have to suffer the pains of divorce along with the spouse and if there are children, what are they to think?  I replied that if the Church exists for all and desires to bring all to the knowledge of the Truth, is the Church doing that for the estranged spouse and the kids by essentially countenancing the divorce?  No, it's not.  The Church is, again, about strengthening the weak and curing the ill and to bring them into the Una Sancta.  Does anyone really believe that the estranged spouse and children are going to be willing to come into the Church after that?  I don't think so.  That's one great way to evangelize.

I have actually witnessed several couples divorce because one spouse wanted to convert and the other wasn't ready, but it went ahead anyway.  I have to ask why priests would allow this to go forward if there was such a risk?  Why not allow for extra time?  I think I have a possible answer.  Just as doctors are pressured by their patience to prescribe for them some drug or do some procedure to cure them from an illness, so priests are pressured often by converts who are so zealous to be received into the Church that they seem to fast track the process.  Of course, people are people, too.  And no matter how much you may try to accommodate them and help them, they just don't want it.

How serious of an issue is this?  I don't know if it's a rampant issue, but I have seen it play out a few times.  Divorce happened in two instances and almost happened in another.  The result of the latter situation was that the spouse who converted went back to Roman Catholicism.  I haven't heard from him in years.  There's not a one-size-fits-all solution nor should there be.  Unbending rigidity is only going to exacerbate the issue, not solve it.  It has to be dealt with pastorally and it has to be honest.  Should a priest go ahead and counsel the potential convert to go ahead knowing full well that it could estrange the other spouse, kids even leading to divorce? I would think that if time would work things out, then give it time. The Church isn't going anywhere.  I am frequently reminded by my priest that the spiritual life is a marathon, not a sprint.  And many people are received into the Church on their deathbed.

The responses I received on this forum reeked in many ways of pride and arrogance.  If divorce happened, they said, and the conversion happened, then that was good.  None of them were of course defending divorce as anything less than a sin (however, divorce is allowed in the Orthodox Church, but a time of penance must follow), but the willingness to overlook it in favor of one more soul in the Church at the expense of harming another just struck me as uncharitable.  Situations like this require a case by case examination, but, being a married man and a father, I could not and would not anything that would risk my marriage and my kid's well-being for some immediate good.  Maybe just saying that makes me unworthy of Christ and His Church but if marriage, even in a marriage outside of the Church, is a martyrdom of the self for the glory of Christ and the Church for the salvation of both spouses, there has to be some gray.

Reflections on Father's Day

This is now my third father's day.  Being called "daddy" by my soon-to-be-three-year old is something that 15, 10 or 6 years I would have deemed highly unlikely to impossible. Whenever my son says "daddy", it is at times difficult to hold back tears.  Here is a little boy who depends upon me and his mother for basically everything in his little life.  He is starting to assert some independence, but when it comes to the basics, he still needs me and will probably need me for a few more years before it becomes "uncool" or "embarrassing."  But, for the time being, I'll take every utterance of "daddy" with great joy.

My reasons for thinking that I would never become a father, let alone married, were myriad.  Chief among them was that I thought I was pre-declined for any possible date considering that when I started (very late when compared to most people), I was consistently rejected.  Then there was the possibility that I thought I would join the monastic life.  But, like I tell my students who think that they too will never have kids, things always change.

And what changes that being married and having a kid have made.  Perhaps to people who only know me on a very limited basis, I don't appear to have changed very much.  To those who are on more intimate terms, they see the change far more profoundly.  However, in self-examination, I tend to dwell on those areas I need to change but have not, for whatever reason.  But the changes that I and others have noticed were for the better.  Here are some general things I have learned over these past few years.

Parenting does change you because it requires sacrifice of self.  It requires you to forget about your own needs and wants and put the kid first above all.  Even though my wife and I were told by my priest during our premarital counseling sessions that we should not put our kids above our marriage, I find it difficult to impossible to do that.  My wife and I do spend a lot of time together in the presence of our son.  When we do get some time to ourselves, it's mainly to recharge or rest or sleep or get caught up on things that we simply need to do.  Date nights are scarce but they do happen.  But our kid always comes first.

Parenting is tough.  Duh!  I think the only people who would say otherwise are not parents themselves or just produced the kid and didn't do anything to raise him.  No more explanation needed.

Parenting requires you to be inventive.  I've found out just about every free thing a toddler can do around this town so he's entertained and we are not scrapping by.  

Parenting can also be low tech.  Do you want to know how far a tickle session can last?  I don't know what the record is but for the past 30 minutes before he went upstairs for his nighttime routine, I chased my son around and tickled him which he kept asking me to do!  It can grow tiresome, except for him.

When you get past one hurdle, another gets in the way immediately.  Our son has made great progress in his speech and vocabulary acquisition this year.  Now, we're on to another fun chapter:  Potty training.

Kids aren't going to sit still even at church.  I have to admit that I get frustrated taking my son to church because I spend a great deal of the Divine Liturgy out of the church tending to him and chasing him down.  He wants to get around and explore and play.  Sometimes this causes groans and moans from others in the nave who, I think, have forgotten what i is like to have young children.  As much as I try to prepare him to sit still and emphasize the importance of being quiet, when we get there, nothing of the sort happens. 

The faith resonates with him.  He doesn't understand the whys, the hows, the whats and the wheres, etc.  But, at home, he honors his icons, even saying "Pray for me" before his icon of St. Eleftherios and "have mercy" before his Christ icon.  He can make his sign of the cross (though in the Roman Catholic manner; nothing wrong with that. We can change later).  And he knows to say "Amen" after prayers in the evening and at meals. 

I've learned much over these past three years.  I've still much more to learn.  There is one thing, however, that I have only started to being to think to understand. This is something I would have had a hard time of doing without being married and having kids.  That thing is compassion.  I don't think that anyone can really even define compassion before they have kids.  And I don't think we can even begin to understand just how hard John 3:16 hits home until we have kids. 

To all the fathers out there, Happy Fathers Day.  To my father, in particular, thanks for showing me what I need to do to be maybe half as good a father to my son as you were to me.

Freedom of Religion vs. Freedom of Worship

The United States Citizenship test--take by immigrants who wish to become citizens--asks the tester to name two rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.  There are five rights:  Religion, Press, Assembly, Petition and Speech.  All of these rights are listed here because the Federal Government says it has no authority to dictate how individual States or citizens exercise these rights, if at all.  However, since 2008, a change has been made which, in my opinion, is not small or insignificant.  The change is that word "religion" has been changed to "worship."  This has caused some controversy and I was reading some headlines this morning, I discovered that the junior Senator from the State of Oklahoma, Mr. James Lankford, has sent a letter to the Director of Homeland Security requesting that the word "religion" only be accepted (assuming the tester listed that at all) in place of "worship."   The article's writer said that this is a "distinction without a difference."  Au contraire!

Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I believe that the people who authored the text of the U.S. Constitution were educated persons who knew what words meant. I would daresay that they knew more English words and how to use them correctly than most high school seniors who just received their diplomas this past month.  Considering that the Founding Fathers were journeying into unknown territory as far as government was concerned, I'm sure that the right vocabulary and grammar were an absolute necessity to communicate the ideals they wanted to enshrine.  They did not choose "worship."  They chose "religion."  And there is a distinction!  Quite simply, worship is private and personal.  Religion is public and communal.

Worship is the style of religion.  Religion is the substance that can (or not) make up a person.  For instance, I am a Greek Orthodox Christian.  I worship according to the Byzantine Rite following the parameters set up in the Typikon of the Great Church of Christ (with revisions made by Violakis).  That means, on most Sundays or feast days, I worship God according to the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.  No one, especially in the federal government, may dictate to me or to my church that I should be using some Roman Rite or some contemporary style on Sunday mornings or at any time I am engaged in prayer at my home or anywhere else I choose to be.

Freedom of Religion is the inalienable right that I may practice the dictates of my Church without fear of any federal government infringement.  This means that if I choose to close by business on a Sunday to observe the Sabbath, I may do so.  This means that if I choose not to bake a cake for a bunch of racists for their annual hate-a-thon against anyone, I cannot be compelled to.  This means that if I choose to give money to a beggar in the street, I may do so, regardless of some ordinance which forbids "panhanding."  And on and on it goes.

Religion is for all seven days of the week. Worship is for that one or two or three hour or whatever amount of time a person puts in at church, synagogue, mosque, drum circle, etc.  Freedom of religion dictates who I want to be in the presence of others who are not part of that particular church community. 

Now, obviously, I do not have the right to practice a religion that would deprive someone else of their life, liberty or property.  That means, if my church commanded me to kill a person on the third day of every month and I obeyed, I would rightly be prosecuted.  But my right to practice my religion in terms of with whom I choose to associate, business or not, is sacrosanct.  I am depriving nobody of life, liberty or property by not associating with them. Only the most twisted and sophistic reading of plain text can say otherwise. 

Regardless of one's religious proclivities in this nation which is becoming a less religious nation, that does not mean that those who choose to adhere to the dicta of their respective churches should abandon them.  That's the point of the first amendment, that it is guaranteed that I may hold on to my beliefs regardless of how society has moved with them.  At one point in time, many of the original states had State Churches.   Massachusetts, whose constitution was written by the very religious John Adams, even had the Congregationalist Church set up as the State Church.  Now, in time, that went away, but not because it was ordered to by a Supreme Court of the Congress of the United States.  Because there was a state church did not mean that the Methodists, Presbyterians or Baptists were persecuted and thrown in jail.  They may not have been well liked, but that is a far cry from genuine persecution.

So, I support Mr. Lankford's letter and his aims.  We are a nation founded on the freedom of religion, on the right to practice our religion even and especially in the public sector. Changing the wording is changing the meaning and for those who wish to become citizens, they are being taught a lie.

A Triple Crown Winner and Disproving Science

Yesterday, American Pharoah defied the odds and became the first Triple Crown Winner in 37 years.  Even if horse racing isn't your thing (it's certainly not mine), one cannot help but be impressed by the accomplishment of this rare feat. 

In the lead up to the Belmont Stakes, I couldn't help but notice on Facebook, twitter and many other media outlets about how science demonstrates that American Pharoah was not going to win the Triple Crown.  Now, notice the difference between saying the "odds do not favor" versus "science does not favor."  Science, we are constantly reminded, is grounded in fact which can be observed and measured.  So, if science says that there would be no Triple Crown Winner this year, then there should have been no Triple Crown Winner this year.  Lo, and behold.  Here, we are.   After all, just becomes teams don't match up on a piece of paper doesn't mean they don't play.  If a team is supposed to win nine times out of ten, there is still that one game for an upset.  That's what make sporting events fun.

Now, I have yet to notice one single person saying that the result "disproves" science.  And I don't think they should.  Because science is the result of observation and measurement, you cannot disprove that sound travels at 340.29 m/s, unless, of course, you were just wrong.  If all of the articles and memes and other media were talking about merely the odds, then no one should give it a second thought.  However, let's say for sake of argument that  American Pharoah was deemed to win by some religious authority, the media would go out of its way to say that the actual result disproves religion.  Of course, such a thing didn't happen, but one needn't search too hard to find that there are numerous "Studies", "archaeological evidence," "textual evidence," etc. that disprove what Christians teach from morality to God.  Every year around Easter, numerous news magazines like Time and Newsweek run articles about the Jesus Seminar and how their conclusions disprove what the Church teaches about Christ and His Resurrection.  And we are ordered to buy into that without any argument whatsoever.  Because, if science says, it must be true.

I am not writing this to deride science. I love science.  Had it not been for a few bumps in the road, I would have gone into medicine.  I love chemistry and biology in particular.  But science itself is not infallible.  It has been made that way by modern society as a more plausible alternative to God and, because of this, has become a religion in of itself, though the people who actually think this way will never admit that.  But science and scientists aren't always correct either.  One famous example I can give is that the famous Alexandrian scientist Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth, but was about 2000 miles off.  Why?  He assumed that the earth was completely spherical and that the city of Cyzicus was directly south of Alexandria (which would form an arc on a circle).  He was wrong on both counts, but we can certainly excuse him for his mistakes.  Science evolves in its conclusions all the time based on the accumulation of more evidence.  But it does not explain the why of life?  Science can explain a lot of "whats" and "hows", but not "whys" especially the "why are we here" type questions.

I do not believe there is a contradiction between science and religion.  The two do work harmoniously together.  But science does require a moral component and science by itself does not have one.  That is why we have laws and religion.  We can technologically progress, but because we can doesn't always mean that we should.  Science needs responsibility to function well.  Science by itself does not guarantee a world that would resemble the planet Vulcan.  But still, even the Vulcans still had to deal with emotional and biological issues that could only be settled, at times, by fights to the death.

Science was not disproved yesterday by American Pharoah's winning of the Triple Crown.  The odds were not in the naysayers' favor.  Nor is the Resurrection of Christ disproven because one person thinks he found a tomb with an inscription on it of Jesus' name (that was later proven to be a hoax).  The only thing I want is for those people who venerate science so highly not use it as a club against those of the Christian church in particular and religion, in general.  And vice versa.

The Anti-Hero and the Vague Ambiguity of "Good"

I just finished watching the seventh and final season of the show, Sons of Anarchy.  I don't even remember why or how I got into this show in the first place, but I stuck with it throughout and waited with eager anticipation for the release of the next season on Netflix.  If you want to watch a show which really drives you into the pit of despair concerning humanity and just how screwed up it can be, this is a good show to point you in that direction.  Now that I've finished it, I had a few thoughts. (Disclaimer:  Spoiler alerts.)

The show's protagonist is Jackson "Jax" Teller who has worked through the ranks of his Motorcycle Club (MC) called the Sons of Anarchy to become president.  Though a social club, they are a wealthy organization due to the legitimate businesses they have, but mainly from the  criminal enterprises they support, e.g. drugs, gun running, prostitution, pornography, etc.  Throughout the show, Jax wants to reform his MC since the enterprises it has engaged in has not only cost them the lives of friends and family, but also their wealth and connections and also put them under the microscope of law enforcement beyond the local level. 

Jax's father's ghost haunts him throughout the series.  His father who started the MC and was its president died mysteriously when Jax was a kid.  His father left behind a manifesto which detailed how the MC lost its way and how it can be changed.  Jax made that his mission.  But, for all of Jax's good intentions, for all of his cleverness and street-smarts, things blow up in his face.  More friends are killed.  His connection to his kids becomes more tenuous.  His mother's interests start to conflict with his to the point that she even goes so far as to kill Jax's wife in a fit of rage over a misconception.  In fact, misconceptions pervade the characters in this show. They think "x" when "y" has actually occurred.  And because they think "x" they act out on it immediately without thinking.  Jax's mother tells him that a rival gang killed Tara which spurs him to set into action a number of events that only leads to a lot more killing, a lot of new alliances, more killing, patching up damages, more killing and round and round we go.

All throughout this process of bodies being stacked up, we, the audience, are told by other characters about how Jax is a good person.  This is a man guilty of numerous murders, numerous felonies, unfaithfulness and being an absentee father.  He claims he does everything for his family, but hardly ever does he ever stop to think.  His clever solutions often find him digging a bigger hole for himself which trigger more "brilliant" solutions and bigger holes.  It never seems to end.  But, we are still told he's good and/or decent.  This decent man is responsible for killing his own mother.

It seems that modern TV has little to no use for the traditional hero who does right for the sake of doing right with little to no reward.  There are no longer any shows like The Rifleman or Buck Rogers where the hero of the story did good for good's sake.  Now, granted even in older shows like The Lone Ranger and Zorro, the hero was checkered a little bit since he operated outside the law.  But today's TV and even movie heroes, we are treated to more anti-heroes.  We want them to win, but at the same time our moral compass is praying for them to get caught and get what they deserve.  We see the same Jax "anti-hero" in other shows like Breaking Bad, White Collar, Suits, Bosch, Hell on Wheels, House of Cards, etc.   In movies, even the modern incarnation of Batman becomes less the traditional hero and more of an anarchist.  Yet, they are still referred to as good.

How far we have come as a society where the descriptor "good" is applied more to intentions than to reality.  It is true that Jax wants to do well for his family and make sure they are safe and taken care of.  But the extent he goes to ensure that results in death and destruction for everyone, especially him.  Without doubt, everyone wants to think of himself as good.  But even Jesus balked when someone called Him good saying that no one is good save God alone.  Facts are we are not good.  Intending to be is not the same as being.  Still, we like to confuse the two or say that they are one and the same.

I cannot explain the explosion of anti-heroes in modern television and cinema.  Maybe it has something to do with Americans wanting to cheer for the underdog, even if the underdog is a hardened criminal. But even if we do cheer for the criminal underdog, why does that presuppose wanting to imagine him or make him into some good person in his own right?  Is good an absolute or a relative term?  I think if we are really honest with ourselves, we know the answer to that question.  When and where the individual reigns supreme, the overreaching definition of a word or concept goes with it.

I am not suggesting that the perpetuation of such shows is the result of the devaluation of what constitutes good and bad.  Nor am I suggesting that there should be some censorship to reverse the course.  For the latter, that is in the hands of our parents, our teachers, our clergy, our friends and ourselves.  But what I do see is that we are going to have a lot fewer Lone Rangers and a lot more Jax Tellers in our entertainment.  The word, "good", will continually be redefined for each character to the point that as an absolute, it will be almost entirely absent.  Good intentions will rule the day. Considering how much TV our children watch, it will take a lot of effort to deprogram them.

He hath trampled down death by His death

And bestowed life to those in the tombs.

Our waiting has been turned into joy and excitement at hearing the Gospel according to St. Mark announcing that the Lord was no longer in the tomb that He has arisen.   Death is no longer able to keep us captive.  We, too, will arise.  And after judgment, we will be enjoy alongside of Him the first fruits of a life in Christ.
  Let us go forth joyously and say "Christ is Risen."  Kalo Pascha.