Month: June 2010

On Christian Obedience

From Father Gregory Jensen at the Koinonia blog, a Homily on today’s Gospel (with a comment of my own at the end):

Romans 6:18-23 (Epistle)
Matthew 8:5-13 (Gospel)

Especially given the events of the 20th century, the rise of Communism, Fascism, world and regional wars and the persecution and slaughter or men, women and children because of religious or ideological differences, the virtue of obedience has–understandably–fallen into disrepute not only among non-Christians but Christians as well.  It is as if we have said, personally and collectively, “I have been betrayed by those in authority and so I will no longer trust anyone but myself.”  While not universally the case, many of us–again whether Christian or not–live not so much in willful disobedience but in helpless fear.  At its core our not wholly unreasonable suspicion of obedience reflects the scars left by love and trust abused.

The Gospel this morning, however, places obedience at the center of our attention. And it is not simply a generic obedience but the kind of obedience we have come as a culture to dread and fear I think more than any other.  It is a soldier’s obedience to his commander; a commander’s expectation of obedience from his troops.  “…I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (v. 9).

Hearing this, the Gospel says that Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, He Who is God from All-Eternity become Man, the Creator become a Creature, “marvels.”  At this moment, it is not a man who stands in awe of God, but God Who stands in awe of a man. Jesus then turns to His disciples, to His friends and those to whom He is closest and says

Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (vv. 10-12).

Neither the man’s race–he was a Gentile–nor his profession–he was a Roman solider and so responsible for enforcing the Emperor’s will–keeps him from being an exemplary, an icon if you will, of faith.  If anything, a life time of military service had taught him what it means to entrust not only his own life, but the lives of those he loved, to someone else.

When we think about obedience and its place in Christian life, we often unconsciously adopt the narrow and frankly deformed notion of obedience that is current in our culture.  As a Christian virtue, obedience is not mechanical, it does not deform or obscure what is unique in the person.  Much less does Christian obedience require that we sacrifice our freedom.

What it does require from me, however, is that I sacrifice my willful self-centeredness, my pretense, my myriad affectations and all the little ways in which I pursue the good opinions of others rather than the will of God.

So what do we mean, in a positive sense, by the Christian virtue of obedience?

First and foremost, before it is anything else, obedience is entrusting myself to the care of God.  We see this in the Gospel; the centurion has absolute confidence that Christ can heal his servant.  He say to Jesus, “only speak a word, and my servant will be healed” (v. 8).

We should linger momentarily on this verse because it contains a second characteristic of Christian obedience.  The centurion doesn’t simply trust Jesus in a general sense.  Nor is his trust limited to his own life.  No, the centurion trusts Jesus on behalf of his servant.

We see this again and again in the Gospels.  Jesus heals, for example, the paralytic let down through the roof not because of his faith, but in response to the faith of his friends (Matthew 9:1–8; Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17–26).  Or, to take another example (John 2:1-11), Jesus changes water into wine not at the request of the steward of the feast or of the bridegroom.  No what He does for them He does in response to the faith of His Mother the Most Holy Theotokos who is herself a model of obedience (see Luke 11:28).

Christian obedience to God is always an mutual obedience.  It isn’t simply your obedience or my obedience; it is rather always our obedience.  We are obedient to God together because Christian obedience is both a personal and a communal virtue.

Intuitively we know this.  Think how easily someone’s bad example can infect us.  My obedience is never simply mine alone.  It is dependent on yours, even as yours depends upon mine.

So what do we see?  While ultimately, obedience is always obedience to God, somewhat closer to our everyday life my obedience to God embraces the willingness of those around me to entrust themselves to God as well.  Again, we see this in the Gospel.

We also see something else in today’s Gospel and in the other passages to which I alluded.  The obedient Christian is sensitive not only to God’s will for his own life but also to the will of God for his neighbor.  Especially in an American context, this is one of the most neglected aspects of obedience.

Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov’s  in The Arena (p. 45) we are reminded that it is only “Faith in the truth saves.”   But faith in what is untrue, faith “in a lie” is the fruit of “diabolic delusion” and “is ruinous, according to the teaching of the Apostle” (see, 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). We need to be discerning about how we live out obedience on a day to day basis.  Precisely because obedience is always shared, we ought not to be obedient to those who do not demonstrate by their own lives that (1) they are themselves obedient to God and (2) that they are obedient to God’s will for our lives.

This is not meant to be a writ for self-will.  Rather it is to remind us that to “At the heart of leadership within the Church is the care of souls.”  For this reason, those to whom we are asked to be obedient must themselves be willing to be held “accountable for the lives and faith of those with whom [they have] been entrusted.”  A leader–a bishop, a priest, a spiritual father or a husband, a wife or parent–cannot expect obedience from others unless he or she unless “the model” of their “own life” is a clear example of “integrity of … faith and conduct” and their “oversight of others” gives to them an ever greater share of “responsibility to … fulfill” their own vocation (see, Metropolitan Jonah, “Episcopacy, Primacy, and the Mother Churches: A Monastic Perspective“).

While this is a lofty standard, it is not one alien to common sense.  We are free in Christ and real obedience in Christ is therefore freeing.  True obedience doesn’t cripple us, but liberates us from anxiety and worry and all the myriad little and great sins that hold us captive to sin and death.  But obedience is not magic but is the right exercise of my freedom in relationship to both God and my neighbor.  That I must grow in freedom, that my understanding and acceptance of freedom will (hopefully) grow and mature over time doesn’t change this.  If anything, it highlights that Christian obedience is only possible where divine grace and human freedom converge.

This brings us back, in a positive way I think, to our culture’s suspicion of obedience.  The recent history I outlined a moment ago, to say nothing our own own personal histories, provide us with ample evidence for while a mechanical and undiscerning submission to the will of another human being is unwise.  And this is just as true, maybe even more true, when the other person’s claims to speak for God.

Just as a solider must disobey an unlawful order, we must disobey those who counsel or command immorality or rebellion against God.  But, and again like the solider, when we do this we must also be willing to bear the consequences for our disobedience.  As I said a moment ago, authority and accountability travel together and I ought not to imagine that I can resist immorality without cost.

Thank God at least within the Church these situations are relatively rare (though even one instance is one too many).  In the main when conflict arises in the Church it does because we disagree on the practical, everyday details of life.  The first to realize when this happens is that honest disagreement is not the same as disobedience.  A difference of vision shouldn’t be equated with rebellion or a lack of faith.

All this being true, I think it is important that when I find myself in these kinds of practical conflicts I defer to authority.  Deference is I think the everyday form that Christian obedience takes.  In a funny way, it is easier for me to practice obedience in “big things.”  Much harder is deference in the little things of life.  And yet, what does Jesus tell us? “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10).

What makes Christian obedience so difficult is that it almost always demands of me fidelity in what is least.  This is hard because what I want from God is the grand vision, the master plan.  And I want this because, to be honest, it makes me feel important.

But what I get from God is typically only the next step or two down the road.  My willingness to take that step or two is, in the final analysis, the true test of my obedience.

(I particularly like that characteristic Orthodox inversion: “At this moment, it is not a man who stands in awe of God, but God Who stands in awe of a man.”)

I suspect it’s not coincidental the the epistle today (see link above) invites us to “slavery” to righteousness — a virtue that ranks right down there with obedience, in the cellar of our modern values. But the stakes couldn’t be higher: the gift of eternal life.

For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

… But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I’m not sure I’m fit to sermonize even that much, so I’ll shut up now.

Diluting the pro-life message

I think I appreciate the interconnectedness of things as much as anyone. People’s commitments (or values, or whatever you want to call them) tend to come in clusters or constellations if only because people try to live by coherent philosophies (or ideologies, if you prefer).

I long puzzled that the pro-life position was predominately “conservative,” while conservatives simultaneously tended to favor capital punishment and imperial wars. I’m not trying to make a hackneyed point about hypocrisy; I really found it puzzling, because, in the immortal words of Sesame Street, “one of these things was (at least superficially) not like the others.” I had some trouble discerning the coherent philosophy behind such a mixed bag of views. I now suspect that it involved credulity about (a) the guilt of all convicts on death row and (b) the legitimacy of some pretty flimsy causa belli.

And why couldn’t liberals, with their vaunted care for justice, see the injustice of abortion? I’m still not positive, but I think it’s because they have made celebration of the sexual revolution so central a part of their ideology (or philosophy, if you prefer).

I long for the day when abortion will not be a partisan issue because both parties will be pro-life.

And because I long for that day, I resent it when an entire conservative agenda, including some of the dumber talking points, is crammed into an ostensibly pro-life publication — resenting it if only because it is a conversation stopper and increases the likelihood that abortion will remain highly partisan. The GOP has been trying to make the pro-life cause its wholly-owned subsidiary, giving darned little in return, for a good 30 year now, and I hate to see the cause succumbing.

Exhibit A: a recent mailer from Indiana Right to Life. James Bopp, Jr., GOP activist (with a long and distinguished pro-life record as well) editorialized in a “Freedom Manifesto” that occupied one quarter of the mailer. Examples:

  • “President Obama is pursuing a socialist agenda based on … equality of outcomes.”
  • “Mr. Obama’s vision of radical equality … transform[s] our country into a socialist state, where all life’s decisions are subject to control …..”
  • “Taking over the auto and banking industries was only the start of the country’s most audacious power grab.”
  • “Gun control … is about equating law-abiding gun owners with criminals.”
  • “Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is based on moral equivalence and multiculturalism, denying American exceptionalism.”
  • And finally, “This fight is between freedom and a new evil empire of tyranny – previously the Soviet Union, but now it is our own government.”

Forget for a moment how shrill and “on script” some of this is. Why is it in an Indiana Right to Life publication?

I’ll give Bopp credit for not giving the GOP a free pass. He didn’t. He said they were “on probation.”

But why probation? Because Orrin Hatch and others folded on stem-cell research? No. Because it tolerated pro-abortion Republicans like Arlen Specter? No (unless “liberal” is now code for “pro-abortion”). Rather:

[T]he party compromised its position as the champion of conservative values when its “no-new-tax” pledge was abandoned; when elected Republicans failed to stop excessive government spending, earmarks and deficits, and then proposed bailouts; when the party spent millions supporting liberal Republicans in primary and general elections who then switched parties and or endorsed Democrats; and finally when the party nominated for president the media’s favorite Republican, who then voted for a trillion-dollar government bailout. [Bopp supported, by the way, Mitt Romney — a vehement position I never figured out.]

And how can the GOP get off probation?

The Republican Party can reclaim its leadership by recognizing that it is – the party of conservative principles and policies and thus the party of freedom, prosperity and security. But deeds must match words.
A united congressional Republican opposition to Mr. Obama’s socialist agenda is a critical step.
Also key is putting the Republican Party’s money where its mouth is, by engaging in aggressive lobbying against Mr. Obama’s entire socialist agenda, and by making available the party’s financial support to only bona-fide conservative candidates.
And finally, the party should never again remain silent when Republican public officials betray the trust of the American people by abandoning their conservative principles or engaging in unethical conduct. The Republican Party must recognize that it, too, will be held accountable.

Only one brief mention of abortion in the whole Manifesto. No mention of euthanasia. No mention of stem-cell research. Just lots of “power grab” and “socialist” and sundry other horribles.

Did I mention that this was an Indiana Right to Life publication? Doesn’t this kind of ideology dilute the pro-life message as surely as incorporating it into the “seamless web” so beloved of Catholic “social justice” folks? Or even more?

Exhibit B: Indiana Right To Life Political Action Committee announced a few months ago a blanket policy of endorsing no Democrats because, in essence, party pressure makes pro-life Democrats fold. I can defend that decision on its own, but then a few months later we get this “Freedom Manifesto.”

Virtually every Sunday, we sing from the Psalms “Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day his plans perish.” I’m not very trustful of interest groups, either, and nothing about this newsletter raised my trust in the judgment of IRTL.

Am I nuts to say this? Am I just being petulant? No, this sort of thing is a pretty settled conviction with me these days. See here and here.

Quote of the day

I think it’s still permitted in most conservative circles to say that Sarah Palin is no Margaret Thatcher in the same sense that Dan Quayle was “no Jack Kennedy.” If it’s not? Tough.

Claire Berlinski, author of “There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters,” writing in Britain’s The Guardian:

Visiting Margaret Thatcher is a traditional rite among Republican presidential aspirants—Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney all pitched up on her doorstep in 2008. But Sarah Palin, who announced on her Facebook site this week that she hopes to secure a meeting with ‘one of my political heroines, the “Iron Lady”,’ has a more obvious claim to be Thatcher’s heir. She’s an attractive woman from Nowhere Fancy, just as Thatcher was, and snobs deplore her for it, just as they deplored Thatcher. That said, if Palin hopes to style herself as the second coming she has a few things to learn. She might wish to study Thatcher’s disciplined command of arguments, facts and statistics, for instance. . . . Palin has neither said nor written a line so far that would allow anyone reasonably to conclude that her opinions about economic and foreign policy are as cogent and informed as Thatcher’s. No one (not me, anyway) can argue with her conservative instincts, but to compare her ability to express them with Thatcher’s would be ludicrous.

HT: Wall Street Journal Opinion page 6/17/10.

I’m almost 62, and I’m going to say what I think …

I was at a small party tonite for a young friend who’s (1) turning a year older and (2) soon going away for more schooling. The host, a bright not-so-young man (though he’s younger than me) and I enjoy each other’s company quite a lot, and our lives are intertwined in multiple ways, including that he’s my grandson’s godfather.

On some political cultural issues, we found ourselves not only agreeing on the substance, but mutually marveling, after he brought it up, at how widespread is the virtual ban on uttering our opinions aloud. In some of the more or less conservative circles we travel in (we did not discuss all these; some were his list, some mine):

  • You can’t talk about caring for God’s good creation without being thought a left-wing environmentalist (especially if you call it “the environment,” which I try not to).
  • You can’t say that capitalism has its limits.
  • You can’t say that “creative destruction” is profoundly un-conservative in a very important sense.
  • You can’t question “American Exceptionalism” or you’ll be accused of something like “moral equivalence.”
  • You can’t suggest that America isn’t omnipotent and can’t do any stupid thing it chooses with impunity.
  • You can’t suggest that we’re not going to grow our way out of this malaise – or that if we do, there nevertheless will come some day, probably soon, a malaise we cannot outgrow, and that our mountains of debt have a lot to do with that.
  • You can’t say that our economic system is not fundamentally different than the state capitalism David Brooks was trying to distinguish from our system a few days ago.
  • You can’t suggest that we’re running out of oil and that the days of the automobile as so central a feature of life are numbered.
  • I’m not even sure you can safely say “the sexual revolution was at best a mixed blessing, and I think it was a net setback for humanity.” Not even in “conservative” circles as “conservative” mags like National Review now have writers who are shacking up without (or at least before) wedlock. (Wanna know why same-sex marriage has valence? Look at what heteros have done to marriage.)

To his observation, and after running down a quick mental list of my own, I found myself saying “I’m almost 62 years old and I’m going to say what I believe — if only so I can say ‘I told you so’ some day.”

I’m wondering if that should be the new subheading on the blog instead of my beloved Latin maxim. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing in this blog. But I am pretty eclectic, and it’s not all negative or adulatory. Some of it’s just my sense of intrigue on a topic that I want to share.

Anyway, all those things you can’t say? I just said ’em. And I’m stickin’ to it.

Quote of the day

No, don’t expect one every day, but for now, try this:

It’s funny that we require more proof of a person’s need to become eligible to receive welfare than we require of these billionaire sports team owners when they ask for tens of millions more annually in public assistance.

HT: Advance Indiana blog.

Note, by the way, how I’ve added a new category since “corporatism” and “state capitalism,” while apt, seemed too tame.

A tacky icon meets its end

As Jason Peters puts it at Front Porch Republic, Zeus has been avenged for offenses against statuary.

“I guess it takes a divine sense of irony to destroy a fiberglass and foam statue outside a place called Solid Rock Church,” said Monroe assistant fire chief Connie Flagration. “You want irony in a god, but this might be going a bit too far.”

Details here and here.

I don’t understand why I don’t hear weeping in heaven. Or maybe I do.

The Biggest Earmark is Empire

Second of two links this morning, posted this time because I totally agree with the point of this video. Maybe I should make that “totally agree with what I (perhaps) deconstruct this video to intend.”

What this video means to me (he wrote, self-mockingly) is that Empire must be “on the table.” Our efforts to police the world are hugely expensive, and the rationales uttered publicly are so hubristic that one must question the sanity of the utterers. I strongly suspect something that the video didn’t seem to suggest: the world might hate us less if we weren’t so full our vaunted exceptionalism and indispensability.

Clarence Thomas for President?

I don’t know these guys, but I suspect them of disingenuous mischief.

Still, the times are fearful and polarized. The “left” (scare quotes because who really knows what the labels mean these days?) fears theocracy, and I increasingly see why they would fear it. The “right,” or at least “the religious right,” fears (whether they can name it or not) French-style glorious revolution secularization, with concommitant marginalization, persecution or even martyrdom of Christian believers. I have never had trouble seeing why that fear should arise, even though those of the “left” find it risible, since they perceive Christianity as dominant to the point of oppressiveness. (The phenomenon of multiple flavors of Christianity, however, is one to which I have often alluded, and they differ at a deep spiritual level, not just in their political valence. The same, I believe, is true of Islam — and for analogous reasons.)

We have dug ourselves a very deep hole economically, and if that plays out as I suspect it will, I see no sign that people are ready to repent of economic nonsense and start building something sustainable, since what’s sustainable won’t be as giddily distracting as the faux prosperity we currently experience — and which, truth be told, we enjoy if only as guilty pleasure.

And I’ve not really touched on “the culture” in a sense broader than politics, religion, and their respective discontents.

In such a millieu, some rough beast may well be slouching toward Bethlehem. I doubt that it’s Clarence Thomas (who I don’t find a rough beast at all). A political Peter Singer, with the rhetorical gifts of a Barack Obama, seems likelier to me. He (she?) must be seductive enough with nostrums to seduce — what is it? — 218 Electoral College Votes (assuming, contrary to the “Bible prophecy” wankers, that he’ll be American).

On that bright note, I close the computer and prepare to go sing the praises of The One whose incarnation in the flesh, with its Bethlehem nexus, makes me hopeful even in the most troubled of times.

Welcome to the oligarchy

John Médaille in Doing God’s Work at Goldman’s notes that Greece’s banking problem — Crony Capitalism that privatized profits and socialized losses, leading to certain collapse — is, by the lights of an IMF economist, is the same as ours, and as we busted up the banking offenders in Greece, so should we here.

But of course we won’t. We have quasi-religious rationales for letting the bastards do as they wish, but in the end, we’re just making a virtue of necessity. We’re trapped.

[T]he country is formally an oligarchy, with a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. Partisan fights are beside the point. As Obama amply demonstrates, “change” means more of the same, for the same people fund both sides. As entertaining as our political process is, it is meaningless, full of the sound and the fury, no doubt, but signifying nothing. The real power lay elsewhere. The president and the congress seek office to run the country, only to find that the country runs them. Or rather that part of the country in and around Wall Street.

Not much I can add to that.