Orthodox Mardi Gras
I’ve never been a fan of Mardis Gras, which I took to be “let’s sin a lot on the eve of Lent.” That just never sat right.
On the other hand, looking at my scale last Monday morning, I’d say we Orthodox (Americans at least) have something analogous: last weekend’s “Meatfare Sunday,” the last day meat is allowed before entering full Lent a week later (tomorrow). My attitude was “Whoopee! Let’s eat a lot of meat today!”
Forgiveness Sunday
Later today begins full Lent for Orthodox Christians:
This Sunday is the last day before the beginning of Great Lent, our 7-week journey to Pascha on April 12 … Lent begins at Sunday evening Vespers, followed by the ancient rite of forgiveness.
That’s when we line up and stand face-to-face with every member of the church in turn. We bow to them, honoring the presence of Christ in them, and say “Forgive me, my brother (or sister), for all my sins against you.” You put it in your own words, however you want to say it. That person says “I forgive you,” then goes on to say, “And forgive me for all the ways I have sinned against you” (phrasing it however they like.)
Even if there was no deliberate sin aimed against this person, you still ask forgiveness for contributing to the world’s burden of sin. A friend of mine says, “Forgive me for the way my sins pollute the world you have to live in.”
I found this helpful, because it has always seemed odd to ask forgiveness of someone I barely know. This idea of needing forgiven for the sort of cosmic effects of sin makes sense of it.
Yes, this implies that there are no “victimless crimes.”
A felicitous pairing
To see ourselves as a smart atheist sees us …
Christianity is a highly adaptable collection of faiths … It can be liberal or conservative or apolitical. It can be hellfire and brimstone or love and forgiveness. It can be whatever it needs to be to survive, [and] it will.
T.J. Kirk a YouTuber for twenty years as “The Amazing Atheist”, via Nick Pompella.
Christianity as a “collection of faiths” ought to jar those of us who are serious Christians, but I can certainly see how an outsider could reach that conclusion. Ecumenical bonhomie and back-slapping do nothing to throw a wet blanket over it.
“It can be whatever it needs to be to survive” also is an understandable conclusion for an atheist who watches the seven sisters jettisoning historic Christian dogmas and sexual morals.
… and as a smart Catholic sees us.
The religious mistake has been to fret over the threat posed by explicitly anti-Christian forces, while ignoring or minimizing the influence that the apostles of pseudo-Christianity exercise over the American soul.
Ross Douthat, Prologue: A Nation of Heretics, in Bad Religion.
Fairly nondescript warehouse-looking buildings
A couple of years ago, my wife and I were driving from our home in rural Illinois to St. Louis. The drive begins with corn fields, but after an hour gives way to the outer ring suburbs commonplace in any major metropolitan area. As we passed an area known mostly for the shopping centers, strip malls, and chain restaurants endemic to suburban sprawl, my wife pointed out a fairly nondescript warehouse-looking building off the highway. It had been freshly painted, and the parking lot had a new coating of asphalt.
The only thing that made this building stand out was a sign with a generic-looking logo — maybe a tree, maybe hands in prayer — and a single word, “Ascend.” “Is it a church?” my wife asked. We googled it. It wasn’t, as we expected, an upstart, non-denominational church. It was a marijuana dispensary, one of a number of stores cropping up on the Illinois side of the Mississippi as a result of the state’s legalization of recreational weed. We laughed about that for the rest of the drive into the city, sure that we couldn’t be the only ones unable to tell the difference between a new church or a dispensary.
Ryan Burge, The Demons of Non-Denoms
Spoiler alert:
| Aspect | Traditional Religion | Non-Denominational / New Model |
|---|---|---|
| Growth Trend | Declining membership and attendance | Rapid growth, especially since the 1990s |
| Organizational Structure | Hierarchical, denominational | Loosely organized or disorganized |
| Leadership | Credentialed clergy, seminary-trained | Charismatic entrepreneurs, minimal formal training |
| Trust in Institution | Historically higher | Initially low but increasing as they institutionalize |
| Accountability | Institutional oversight | Often centered on individuals, risk of abuse |
| Cultural Impact | Cohesive groups like Religious Right | Fragmented evangelical fiefdoms |
Is the Church obsolete?
A church that holds up secularized Christian values as the point of the Christian faith is not a church worth attending—let alone giving money to. So I have great sympathy for those who have stopped going to church or who haven’t bothered to try it. Theologically, I am one of those people who believes that every person needs Jesus—that a person lacks true life without him. But the evidence is in: the people have stopped going, and at the risk of saying the obvious, they have concluded they don’t need to go. They’re not getting anything out of church that they don’t already have. Who can blame them for quitting?
Matthew Burdette, Is the Church Obsolete?
I believe Burdette’s target may have been the mainstream Protestant denominations, but that phrase “secularized Christian values” could be applied to churches that are are unconsciously striving for political power as if it were more important than the Gospel:
A lot of covering up of the churches problems it’s motivated by the idea of that if the world knows the problems, we won’t achieve our real objective, which is political power.
David French on the Russell Moore Show.
Real presence?
It’s been decades since I heard it, but I still can’t shake it. The “it” I heard was a story from the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, which says it believes in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. I am reasonably sure that some other Protestant groups make the same claim, but as they say, “it’s complicated.”
In any event, the LCMS apparently follows the common Protestant practice of serving the blood of Christ (wine) in single-serv plastic cups. A convert to the Orthodox faith from the LCMS recounted what happens after the service.
- The remaining single-serv cups’ contents are casually poured back into the bottle in the Church kitchen.
- The cups themselves, with some wine residue still present, are thrown in the trash.
I have trouble seeing how this doesn’t mean throwing the blood of Christ into the trash — which surely vitiates the claim that the Church believes Christ is really present.
Your periodic reminder
The shift from church power to state power is not the victory of peaceable reason over irrational religious violence. The more we tell ourselves it is, the more we are capable of ignoring the violence we do in the name of reason and freedom.
William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence
Orthodox Theology
Theology is offered to the glory of God, not ourselves. Since it is divine, it can never be based on human reasoning, ideas, speculation, or clever argumentation. Orthodox theology can never be disconnected from the spiritual life of the theologian or from the life of the Church. Authentic Orthodox theology is “liturgical, doxological and mystical.”
Dr. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou , Thinking Orthodox
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 