It’s my 75th birthday and my “Name Day.”
The coincidence of birthday and name day isn’t universal in Orthodoxy, but I chose St. John the Merciful (or Almsgiver) by looking at Saints commemorated on my birthday after a futile search for inspiring lawyer-saints (the jokes almost write themselves). I do find his open-handedness admirable, and I presumably was underwhelmed by Bl. John “the Hairy”, Fool-for-Christ, at Rostov, also commemorated today.
A timely Psalm
In the midst of our domestic political chaos, the wars and threats of war in the world, and three-quarters of a century on this earth, this Psalm hit a sweet spot:
If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say—
if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us,
then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;
then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us;
then over us would have gone the raging waters.
Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth!
We have escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken, and we have escaped!
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 123/124, Revised Standard Version, via Bible Gateway (reformatted)
“Religion”
Religion has played such a large part in the lives of human beings throughout human history. In some ways, I wish we could outgrow it; I think at this point it does a lot of harm. But then, I’m fairly sure that if we do outgrow it, we’ll find other reasons to kill and persecute each other. I wish we were able to depend on ethical systems that did not involve the Big Policeman in the sky.
Octavia Butler via Maria Popova
I’m not sure what religion she has in mind — nor, I suspect, is she.
“Religion” is, in the grand scheme of things, a neologism invented in the Western world. It obscures as much or more than it reveals. I’m reminded of a cartoon I saw more than 50 years ago:
Speaker 1: All religions are alike. Just name any two and I’ll prove it.
Speaker 2: Christian Science and Melanesian Frog Worship.
Despite all that, “religion” seems to have become an indispensable word, and I confess to using it even without scare quotes. But it worries me that discussion about religion may be a diversion from growing closer to God.
A possible example of where the term “religion” might be indispensable:
False religions, perpetuate the great divide between flesh and spirit, rather than between good and evil where Christianity says it lies.
Thomas Howard, Evangelical Is Not Enough.
Speaking of Tom Howard …
Tom Howard’s book, just quoted, cleared away some of my mental rubble and spiritual biases on my road to Orthodoxy (though Howard himself “swam the Tiber” to Catholicism).
Unlike many people from backgrounds roughly like mine, I found his approach more persuasive then Peter Gillquist’s Becoming Orthodox, written about a clique of Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) staffers who entered Orthodoxy en masse. Suffice that Howard’s evangelical millieu was more aligned with my temperament than Gillquist’s.
I would do well to emulate Howard, who wrote sincere appreciation for all he gained through his evangelical childhood before reaching his eponymous conclusion. My own evangelical childhood was not dissimilar, but then in adolescence I encountered a fuller evangelical culture, and that’s what I (too often) excoriate. And I won’t even get started on the devolution of “evangelical” to a political label, which is beyond the control of sober evangelicals to remedy.
More Howard:
The evangelicalism of my childhood church taught me true doctrine about the incarnation. It taught me about creation and about Eden and about the Fall. But somehow it never, at least in its piety, put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. … A whole array of pickets had been thrown up between us and civilizations, lovely diversions, such as ballet, theater, cinema, and wine, and each point had its rationale, certainly. But the net effect was the plant in our imaginations the notion that spirituality was more a matter of excision than of transfiguration.
Speaking of God …
Although one must think of God constantly, he said, one must not speak of God quickly or readily. One acquires knowledge of God through the mind, but only with the aid of prayer and ascetic discipline. Gregory taught that theology is not for all people or for all occasions. Knowledge of theological matters is not necessary for salvation; only simple faith is needed. Speaking of God is a great task, but spiritual purification is far more important.
Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, Thinking Orthodox
Who finds the Orthodox Church?
This is kind of the culture that we’re up against. The only people who are finding the Orthodox Church, essentially right now, are people who are discontented in a current Christian experience and who have read widely enough, or are theologically savvy enough, to at least have a intellectual connection to the existence of the Orthodox Church.
Steve Robinson (at 42:00)
Of the late Francis Schaeffer …
… a theory advanced by his son:
My father’s theology was formed in a particularly bitter moment and never evolved along with the rest of his thinking. The theological battles of the 1920s and 1930s shaped Dad in the same way that political battles would shape the Vietnam generation in the 1960s. Passions forged in those battles became part of a personal identity that was difficult for people who did not share the passionate and polarizing experiences to understand.
Frank Schaeffer, Crazy for God
It has been a long time since I mentioned or quoted from Frank(y) Schaeffer. Suffice that I’ve read most of his books and do not recommend that you do so. But this theory joins one other quote from him as worth sharing.
The most dangerous foe, as seen from Mercerburg
The most dangerous foe with which we are called to contend, is again not the Church of Rome but the sect plague in our own midst; not the single pope of the city of seven hills, but the numberless popes—German, English, and American—who would fain enslave Protestants once more to … mere private judgment and private will. … the deceived multitude, having no power to discern spirits, is converted not to Christ and his truth, but to the arbitrary fancies and baseless opinion of an individual, who is only of yesterday.
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity, quoting “Mercerburg Theologians” Philip Schaff and John W. Nevin.
I did not know of Mercerburg Theology until after I’d become Orthodox, though Philip Schaff compiled a collection of patristic writings that’s still popular, perhaps because it’s free on the internet.
Mercerburg is a fascinating “so near yet so far” moment in Protestantism.
Straight answers, true answers
We often avoid giving a straight answer because the nature of true answers [is] often not straight.
Fr. Stephen Freeman, Lost and Found: Playing Hide n Seek with God Session 1
The human voice: That we can sing seems basis for conjecture that, despite our stupidities and our sinfulness, we might be the reason the universe exists.
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 