Since I spend a lot of time trying to afflict the comfortable myself, and since nobody is more comfortably smug and insular that a schoolmarmish western do-gooder, I greatly appreciate this pointed but gracious rebuke, from Georgian intelligentsia to the special representative of the European Union to Georgia. Thomas Hammarberg apparently impugned Georgian treatment of national and religious minorities and, incommensurably … well, you read it:
Batono Thomas!
We have read your report on human rights in Georgia and want to answer to the part in which you speak of our national and religious minorities, and, for some reason in the same context, you speak of the rights to propaganda of sexual depravity.
First of all: our society has such great respect and tolerance towards representatives of our national and religious minorities, and so entirely considers them equal, that it would never even occur to us to equate them with sodomites and promoters of other forms of sexual depravity.
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In Georgia, those who follow after depravity and know that they are sinning are not persecuted, for according to our traditions every person should make his own decisions about his conscience and morality. But this does not at all mean that the many centuries of our society’s traditions allow for the right to public promotion of depravity and disgraceful behavior.
Your employer sent you to us, to work in a traditional society. The norms of diplomacy require you to respect the traditions of the country where you are located.
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You say, “The Georgian Orthodox Church should clearly proclaim that it is against any such violence toward representatives of the LGBT.” We are surprised that you are forcing us to remind you: the Primate of the Georgian Church, His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilya II announced that very day that the Church distances itself from violence. Such an unfair and false representation of the role of our Church, built upon an intentional television collage of rare shots showing the excesses of a pair of clergymen, just amazes us. In general, any attempt by the West to put pressure on our Church is absolutely unacceptable to us, the laity. Marxism, which also came to us from the West, has already tried to do this in the last century.
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Georgia is historically one of the most tolerant and humane societies in the world, and our society is glad and proud of this. In our country, churches, synagogues, and mosques have stood for centuries within a hundred meter radius of each other. Those in Georgia have known how to respect other religions, not to mention respect for guests. The example of the Jews alone is enough—this ancient nation has suffered persecution of one form or another even in recent history, including in European countries. The only country where this did not happen is Georgia ….
Tip’o’the’hat to Toma Mallet, who sojourned briefly in my town and parish and now seems content to live in Georgia as an ESL teacher forever. His rapturous postings on Facebook make me a little envious.
His is a very decisive way to exercise Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option,” whether or not he’s ever heard of that.
I only know about this because the New York Times considered it (digital) “front page news” that MSNBC Suspends Alec Baldwin and His Talk Show.
Before he finally admitted losing it verbally with a paparazzo, impugning said paparazzo’s sexual orientation, Alec Baldwin denied, threatened, fulminated, and, yes, tweeted that “right wing liars” were making things up:
Anti-gay slurs are wrong. They not only offend, but threaten hard fought tolerance of LGBT rights …
But right wing liars want those words to come out of liberals mouths. They need them to.
Oops! (Huffpost Gay Voices)
I’m sure a profane “g*d d*mn,” “J*s*s Chr*st,” or even just a “f@ck you” would have been just fine. But there are pieties to be observed.
If you work for left media today,
be scruplous about what you say;
scatalogical references
to sexual preferences
will get you sent on your way.
Schadenfreude aside, I think there out to be a “bright line rule” that anything anybody says to a paparazzi stalking him and his family should be absolutely privileged against lawsuits and social stigma. If I could draw a bright line between paparazzi and real journalists, I’d extend that to battery (with one’s own two hands and feet for a period not to exceed ten seconds) as well.
The paparazzi/paparazzo distinction reminds me of my early efforts at Spanish, when one day the word señorito instead of señorita inadvertently passed my lips. My prof doubled over with mirth and eventually explained why, between giggles: apparently that term would be enough to get one fired from Spanish MSNBC today.
Our worship is rooted not just in the New Testament, it’s rooted in the Old Testament, it’s fulfilled in the New Testament. And when you just discard what’s in the Old Testament, anybody who wants to come up with a cohesive, completely foolproof – or whatever – way to figure out what we ought to be doing when we get together on Sunday morning, it can’t be done. It simply can’t be done.
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In many ways, many Church services in America today, rather than being rooted in the patterns of the Old Testament, I say sadly, are rooted more in late-night talk shows or the Letterman Show or something. You have the opening dialogue … It is completely unrelated to the worship of the living God.
(Father Wilbur Ellsworth, formerly Pastor of First Baptist Church, Wheaton, IL)
I need to echo Father Wibur in another regard.
Despite the frequent snarkiness about Evangelicalism, it’s significant, I think, that I mark the beginning of my “Christian life” as about, oh, 42 years or more before I entered Orthodoxy, during a religiously sane Evangelical home life.
Two other “epiphanies” that remain spiritual landmarks took place 20-30 years before I entered Orthodoxy, one at a third-tier Evangelical college that had lots of late-60s sort of problems, the other a transitional epiphany as I went from fully-Evangelical to to semi-Evangelical (convinced Calvinist).
Orthodoxy for me, 16 years into it, continues to hold me as the fulfillment of my longings to be in the truly historic (and remarkably stable) Church and, as an unexpected bonus, actually to worship God (a longing that essentially went unfulfilled for about 30 years, from the time I first became aware that it was missing). Something in Evangelicalism either planted those longings in me or at least didn’t kill them when they arose spontaneously.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 