Author: readerjohn

I am a retired lawyer and an Orthodox Christian, living in a collapsing civilization, the modern West. There are things I'll miss when it's gone. There are others I won't. I tend to write about both.

Stay off the Roof

Rachel Held Evans committed the kind of painfully protracted performance art that happens when Evangelicalism has utterly lost its sense – of decorum and of how to read scripture – and its publishing houses have become a commercial racket:

Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year. Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4).​
It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period.

Evans’ schtick incited Deborah Cruz at The Stir, reportedly secular herself, to indict her for making a mockery of the Bible:

Here’s my issue — isn’t it better to just be honest about your beliefs in the first place? I may not be living biblically, but I am living honestly. I’m not so sure the same can be said for Evans. She appears to be poking fun with her book, though she vehemently denies that she is. But you don’t make a spectacle, write a book, and make videos in a “poking fun” manner if you are taking a challenge seriously.

But Cruz, while right about Evans making a mockery of the Bible, may have inadvertently become a bedfellow (if that term isn’t too evocative) with Evans, says Strange Herring:

Interesting that that’s how the book is being read by some, although Cruz is making the same mistake Evans is. Which is to say, by trying to follow Old Testament precepts only to show them up as unrealistic in 2012, Evans has succeeded in proving absolutely nothing. Like the people who demand that Christians endorse “X” because we no longer stone adulterers or forbid the eating of shellfish — and those things are in the Bible! So it’s all relative!
As if the “New” in “New Testament” really meant “Same Old.”
…
If you have to “assume” roles — whether you believe them to be biblically based or culturally normative for a 21st century couple — you sure as hell aren’t being you, something is being buried or ignored, and your marriage is doomed, I don’t care what you call it.
…
Say the Creed, say your prayers, go to work, feed your face, and try and actually enjoy your life together.
Flip the bird to the rest of it.
And stay off the roof.

Is Evans really crazy enough to think that her mocking (or is it merely “playful”?) treatment – of the Bible, of marriage, of sex roles – builds up marriage, which as a married, albeit “feminist” Christian, she presumably supports?

Maybe I should add Judaizing to my list of blows by the 98% to traditional marriage.

(For the record, I’d have seen none of these trendy young websites were I not following the Tweets of MZHemingway.)

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Modern Ironies

Two of the ironies of our era:

  • Newspapers unmistakably designed for people who can’t or don’t want to read.
  • Churches unmistakably designed for people who can’t or don’t want to worship.

(H/T Terry Mattingly in a talk from several years ago.)

It’s thus no coincidence that 20% of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated. If worship is merely a second-rate rock or smooth jazz show with a moralistic therapeutic deist “be nice now” admonition (or political exhortation) thrown in, then to hell with it. Homo adorans needs more.

That 20% unaffiliation makes us, by the ironic way, more irreligious that our old atheist nemesis Russia, where believers of one sort or another are 88%. Might it have something to do with the dominant religion there being famous for the profundity and beauty of its worship?

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Fear of Flying

“Do you know what that means?” he asks. “That feeling at takeoff?”

“Transformation,” I say. “It’s a leap of faith, perhaps a leap into faith. It’s your mind telling your body to relax. the physics and the math work pretty well.”

“Some people never get over that fear, though,” he says. “Some people can never make that leap. Just like some people sometimes in the religious life never get over certain fears, they build up regulations and walls and rules. They do things that keep them from flying.. And it seems to me that the spiritual life is about letting go, is about being free and trusting. There is a sense of mystery about it. There is always a sense of mystery ….”

Thin Places & Thick Time, Saint Katherine Review, Volume 2, Number 3.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

The Fontainebleau Manifesto

The Fontainebleau Manifesto

WE RENOUNCE THE FUTURE.
WE DON’T CARE FOR VICTORIES.
WE DON’T WANT TO RULE OTHER MEN.
WE DON’T WANT TO CONQUER NATURE.
WE KNOW THAT DEATH DEFEATS US.
WE WANT TO RECONQUER THE PAST,
LIVE FOR THE PRESENT, AND RULE ONLY OURSELVES.

OUR PRIDE IS THAT WE REMAIN SANE AND WILLING TO LOVE
DESPITE THE HORRORS OF THE WORLD, BUT IT IS DIFFICULT.
WE CAN’T LIVE ON BREAD SOURED BY SQUALOR.
WE CAN’T BREATHE AIR POISONED BY DEATH FACTORIES.

WE DON’T NEED MISSILES, CARS, COMPUTERS, ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSHES.
WE CAN DO WITHOUT ALL THE JUNK GREAT KINGS COULD DO WITHOUT,
BUT WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT AIR, THE FORESTS, THE FIELDS AND THE RIVERS,
GREAT SQUARES AND GARDENS AND YES, OUR PALACES.
IT IS A LIE THAT THE WORLD CANNOT AFFORD SPLENDOR FOR EVERYONE-
WE RENOUNCE REAL-ESTATE VALUES.

WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT BEAUTY;
MANY OF US SEEK IT IN DRUGS
AND ALCOHOL AND HATE.
WE TRY NOT TO SUCCUMB TO SUBSTITUTES
BUT IT IS DIFFICULT.
THE WORLD NEEDS A ROYAL REVOLUTION
SO THAT ALL MEN MAY LIVE LIKE KINGS.

Stephen Vizinczey via Michael J. Sauter. I assume there’s some reason it came to me in all capital letters, so I left that undisturbed.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Rearranging the mosaic

Just in case you’ve never encountered St. Irenaeus’ timeless simile, here’s Fr. George Florovsky’s telling:

Denouncing the Gnostic mishandling of Scriptures, St. Irenaeus introduced a picturesque simile. A skillful artist has made a beautiful image of a king, composed of many precious jewels. Now, another man takes this mosaic image apart, re-arranges the stones in another pattern so as to produce the image of a dog or of a fox. Then he starts claiming that this was the original picture, by the first master, under the pretext that the gems (the ψηφιδες) were authentic. In fact, however, the original design had been destroyed — λυσας την υποκειμενην του ανθρωπου ιδεαν. This is precisely what the heretics do with the Scripture. They disregard and disrupt “the order and connection” of the Holy Writ and “dismember the truth” — λυοντες τα μελη της αληθειας. Words, expressions, and images —ρηματα, λεξεις παραβολαι —are genuine, indeed, but the design, the υποθεσις (ipothesis), is arbitrary and false (adv. haeres., 1. 8. 1).

Another reason why I cherish every accusation that Orthodoxy is stagnant and hasn’t kept up with the times.

* * * * *

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.