I will continue apace. Or, rather: faster.

McNeill says in the first paragraph that there are two questions we have to deal with: the first is the place of scripture in moral theology and the second is the place of the human sciences.

…[A] Christian ethics as such reflects on human reality within the context of Christian revelation, it is obvious that scriptural sources have a role to play…

However there are two limitations to the use of scripture, citing Father Charles Curran:

First, the Scriptures are “historically and culturally limited,” so that one cannot merely transpose a text of Scripture to the contemporary circumstances of life. Second, no thesis would be acceptable which would develop its argument only in terms of individual texts taken out of their context.

McNeill follows Curran in citing the traditional foci of scripture-based condemnations – the Sodom story (Gen 19:4-11), the Holiness Code (Lev 18:22, 20:13) and three passages in Paul’s letters (1 Cor 6:9-10, 1 Tim 1:9-10, Rom 1:26-27) but enters into a very important area asking, “Can one merely accept what is referred to in English translations of the Bible as homosexuality as representing in the mind of the biblical authors what we refer to today by the same term?”

There is now an excursus entitled “The Need for a Definition of Homosexuality”. The essential argument is that what we, today, refer to as Homosexuality is not the same thing discussed by the biblical authors. There is no connection between what we recognise as “same sex attraction” today (although McNeill would not have heard that term) and same-sex sexual activity. It is possible to be a heterosexual indulging in homosexual activity (or being forced to engage in it) by circumstances or by choice. There is then discussion of various psychological definitions of homosexuality – with or without sexual activity – but it ends with this true statement from Christopher Isherwood: “You first know you are a homosexual when you wall in love with another man.”

That’s the point: when Paul, the Yahwist recorder of the Sodom story and the Priestly writer of Leviticus where writing, were they simply as hung up on anal sex as they seem to be, or were they talking about falling in love with another person of the same gender?

McNeill continues in rather clinical language for a while, speaking of “the homosexual condition” and even “inversion”. Then a definition of “pervert” as a heterosexual person who chooses to engage in homosexual activity. McNeill asks us to distinguish between the invert and the pervert. “This distinction between the condition of inversion and the behaviour of perversion is indispensable for a correct interpretation of biblical and traditional sources.

“The real moral problem of homosexuality has to do with judging the moral value of sexual activity between genuine homosexual who seek to express their love for one another in a sexual gesture.”

The crucial point follows, “Scripture can be understood as clearly and explicitly condemning true homosexual activity only if it can be interpreted as condemning the activity of a true invert.”

Apart from the fact that his continual use of the clinical terms makes me want to pull my hair out (where I’m not already bald) Fr McNeill is totally right, but I think in a rather revolutionary way. Let me digress for a moment:

The “conservative” side of this argument often accuses the “liberal” side of reading modern culture backwards into the Bible. The point of fact is that the conservative side is doing so at least as much. If one side says the Bible is culturally limited and therefore should be disregarded in this respect. The other side assumes but does not say that the Bible is culturally limited and tries to make up for it by reading our cultural understandings backwards in time.

McNeill then touches on each of the cited scriptures and addresses them. The Sodom store is discussed as having to deal with hospitality rather than sex. This is, in fact, the traditional Jewish understanding of this passages as well (although the author seems unaware of this). He also cites the other scriptural references to Sodom (OT and NT) and all have to do with elements of hospitality or pride.

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.
Ezekiel 16:49 – 50

McNeill ends the section on Sodom noting this twist of history: if the sin of Sodom is the prideful exclusion and mistreatment of “the other”, it is a painful irony that the church’s reading has lead exactly to the prideful exclusion and mistreatment of “the other”.

Next comes the discussion of the Greek terms used in St Paul. For all the McNeill tries to find the real meanings of the terms malakoi and arsenokoitai, for me the crucial statement is that we do not, in fact, know what they mean. All our attempts at translation result in a “best possible guess”. We don’t have to know what, exactly, they mean: we have to know that they do not, exactly, mean “gay”.

In discussing Paul’s other phrase, para physin or “against nature”, the author notes that Paul’s seeming bias is that what Jewish law proscribes or prescribes in the limit of “normal” human nature. Anything beyond those limits of “normal” is para physin. But what if one’s nature is same-sex attracted? To force such a one to pretend to be opposite-sex attracted is against nature.

This chapter ends with a discussion of the OT cultural context and tries to point out that even our own assumptions about this culture are based on our modern cultural assumptions being read backwards rather than on any understanding of the Jewish context. As an example of this he traces the discussion of the Eunuch in the Bible from the Pentateuch where the Eunuch is not welcomed, to the Prophets where he is, to Jesus where the Eunuch is a positive role-model in the kingdom. McNeill says the NT Ethiopian Eunuch is a sign of welcoming the outcast into the kingdom and we should be doing the same thing.

I found this portion equally painful. I’ve no idea if Fr McNeill is gay or not. Even if he is, I’m certain he was not out of the closet when this book was being written. Every time McNeill turns a passage on its head for a more liberating reading based on scholarship, his own biases – personal or cultural – come to the fore and make my toes curl. It’s amazing how much we’ve grown in our understanding in just the 25 years since this books publication.

Not to put too much of a negative spin on it, I remember this chapter being incredibly earth-shaking for me in the spring of 1983, sitting in daily Chapel at the King’s College. Like many other students I was using the daily three hymns and 30 minute sermon to catch up on my reading. Having been an evangelical for much of my life at this point hearing that there were other ways to read the bible was astounding. Despite its datedness today, these revolutionary contexts are still needed.

Much of modern “liberal” thought simply tosses out the se biblical passages, assuming them to be meaningless. This scholarship shows that there is meaning there: it’s just not what we thought it was. Sodom is about hospitality to the stranger. Paul is about finding – and not rejecting – our true human nature. Leviticus, Paul and Sodom take us to defending the weak and not destorying the oppressed.

Indeed, we have turned these passages on their heads if we take them to mean “God hates fags” (or some variation on that).

As the framework for this chapter, McNeill points us to Fr Charles Curran’s Catholic Moral Theology in Dialogue. “Father Curran’s position merits serious consideration… in order to discern both the advanced understanding of (the LGTB) situation that it manifests and the limits of that understanding, and especially the value of the reasoning Father Curran advances in defense of those limits.”

Fr Curran is holding forth what is, essentially, “love the sinner but hate the sin” couched in the very legalistic language of a Roman theologian. He (Curran) is advocating a “theory of compromise”

In the theory of compromise, the particular action [homosexual] in one sense is not objectively wrong because in the presence of sin it remains the only viable alternative for the individual. However, in another sense the action is wrong and manifests the power of sin. If possible, man must try to overcome sin, but the Christian knows that the struggle against sin is never totally successful in this world.

He continues, “one can still love and respect the person even though one believes his homosexual behaviour falls short of the full meaning of human sexuality. In many other areas of life I can judge a person’s behaviour as being wrong or less than ideal and still respect him as a person.”

Curran allows that, given the sinfulness of, well, everything, really, we might as well welcome the homosexual in a committed relationship that provides people “a satisfying degree of humanity in their lives” because the committed relationship represents a far less evil option than promiscuity.

McNeill admits he disagrees with Curran but wants to note the “substantial advance over the traditional position in Catholic moral theology, which tended in the past to see all homosexual relations as subjectively and objectively mortally sinful and thus left the Catholic homosexual no morally acceptable alternative except a life of total abstinence from sexual activity.” Suddenly, there may be some situations in which a homosexual may express his love in a Catholic manner.

Fr McNeill critiques Fr Curran for accepting the idea that homosexuality results from a dysfunction in the family – this Fr Curran redirects to homosexuality as the result of human sin. But Fr McNeill cites one psychologist’s response to pinning the blame on dysfunction:

For instance, it is just as tenable to assume that the father of a pre-homosexual son becomes detached or hostile because he does not understand his son, is disappointed in him, or threatened by him, as it is to assume that the son becomes homosexual because of the father’s reaction.

This “blame the parents” or “blame the home” tradition is totally rejected by Fr McNeill. He says the “unproven burden of guilt” thrown on the parents is “particularly reprehensible” and that it places an additional bump in the road for the kids’ ability to communicate their problems with their family. “the real moral problem that exists in for the parents of a homosexual child is one of loving openness and acceptance. Whenever, in counselling, one has the good fortune to encounter psychologically healthy homosexuals, sure of their own dignity and their power to love and to be loved, one can be almost certain that their parents, whoever their disappointment over their children’s condition, have responded to them with true acceptance and love. Parents of a homosexual have no reason to assume guilt for their child’s condition; but parents of a psychologically healthy homosexual have good reason to believe that they have done their difficult task well.”

(Emphasis mine – DHR)

McNeill wants to place a ethic that supports same-sex relations based on love rather than on them being “the lesser of two evils”. He wants to discuss the possibility of ethically responsible homosexual relationships. Fr McNeill ends this chapter stating his argument that “this form of sexual expression could be morally justified if it could be expressive of genuinely constructive human love.” To get there, however, he must disprove the traditional arguments against such an understanding. He must remove the supports for Fr Curran’s tentative half-acceptance beginning with the scriptures.

This he will begin to do in the next chapter.

Preface & Introduction

The preface begins with noting the book had originally been granted an imprimatur by the Church. This was later retracted. Then the author was silenced by the Church, and then expelled from his order. This current edition of the book comes from that place of sadness and loss of the church.

The Preface to the fourth edition (1993) includes some dated issues. Cardinal Ratzinger is still Cardinal Ratzinger, John Paul is still Pope, etc. The Vatican has just – again – referred to gayness as “objectively disordered”. Fr McNeill posits this as the reason for the 4th ed.

The preface notes the drift from pastoral care and forbidding discrimination, through “objectively disordered”, to supporting discrimination and even blaming gay people for violence against themselves. Fr John notes that the American Bishops and the heads of religious orders stood up against the Vatican’s actions and homophobic words.

[I am reasonably certain the current crop - all men of B16's ilk - would recant the positions of their predecessors. I'm guessing the right-ward drift of the Romans on this topic will only continue. While we are only too happy to blame a certain type of American Convert for the right-ward drift, truth is the people at the top were drifting first. - DHR]

The preface to the fourth edition was written in 1993 and the body of the book is (minus a few edits) nearly 20 years older. It is at once an historical document of the Roman faith in the 1970s and a sort of fond remembrance to read it again (I first read it in 1983). There were a lot of possibilities in the Roman world (and among those who ape her) just after Vatican II.

—

The purpose of the introduction is stated clearly: “to indicate both the scope and the limits of this moral and pastoral study.”

The first reason to be raised:

“What is the need of a moral reappraisal of the position of traditional moral theology on the question of homosexuality within the Roman Catholic community at this time?”

The author then documents several articles that had recently (early-mid 1970s) appeared within Roman theological publications that called the RCC’s mediaeval doctrines and positions into question based on more then-current science and pastoral experience. This list of publications includes a reasonably-official document on pastoral care from a national gathering of parochial clergy. Fr John also documents the reaction of “the hierarchy” to such documents – including the NCCB/USA’s very traditional “Principles to Guide Confessors in Questions of Homosexuality”

The second reason raised is the “homosexual community itself has evolved a new self-awareness and a new militancy.”

He sees both of these inside and outside the walls of the church, ranging from protest marches and public advocacy organisations to church groups like Axios, Dignity and Integrity.

McNeill realises in the introduction that the Roman teaching on human sexuality is not arbitrary but rather based on “the Church’s understanding of the sources of revelation, both Scripture and tradition”. He realises the Church cannot “change its pastoral position in such a way that its practice would be in violation of its understanding of both revelation and theology.”

He sites a document promulgated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 15 January 1976, Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, as the source of a distinction between those who indulge in homosexual activities and those who “share in a permanent homosexual condition”. The author sees this distinction as crucial to his argument going forward. This document is, I think, the first to label homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered”.

McNeill says he wishes to show in this book that the pastoral limitations placed by the Declaration – when drawn to their conclusions – deny the stated theological goals of the declaration. In other words, attempting to live by the teachings it puts forth results in a loss of personhood and humanity that it purports to defend.

That document also sets forth the guidelines for any attempted change in the teaching and pastoral practice of the church. This leads directly to his point:

Consequently, the Declaration makes quite clear that before there can be any authentic change in pastoral practice, there must first be a critical reappraisal of the sources of traditional practice both in moral philosophy and moral theology. Such a critical reappraisal becomes even more necessary and urgent in the light of the new methodologies in both biblical studies and moral theology and new data arising especially from the human sciences such as psychology and sociology. By applying the new methodologies and talking into consideration the new data, many moral theologians have come to the conclusion that many of the basic certitudes of the past which served as the foundation and justification of pastoral practice regarding homosexuality can and should be open to critical reexamination.

McNeill then describes briefly his sources for Biblical scholarship in this study. Then he moves into a wider description of his own scholastic and philosophical background. He describes himself as a disciple of Maurice Blondel.

Here I must break off my “book report” to offer a very personal reaction: I was struck painfully with the reality of difference here between theological scholasticism and Evagrius of Pontus’ understanding that “the theologian is one who prays”. It is tempting to read this as an “East/West” thing, but that is not the case. There are some painfully scholarly/philosophical writers from the east (St Simeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas come to mind). My eyes glaze over listening to their words just as easily as when reading Aquinas’ Suma. On the other hand some of the writings of the Christian West are filled with with blessings of prayer – I’ve read it in the words of Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, and even Matthew Fox, as much as in Schmemann, Gregory of Nyssa or Origen. Sometimes the same writer can wax scholarly in one chapter and prayerful in the next. When McNeill started out about Blondel etc, I was strongly reminded that the writer was never a parish priest, never a preacher and never more than a therapist as a priest. My memory of a well-treated and respectful dealing with the Tradition will be tempered by the rash raised by scholastic and non-praying philosophy confused with “doing” theology.

McNeill concludes this portion of the book with a brief outline of the coming work.
Part 1 – summarising the various grounds for a theological reappraisal of homosexuality.
Part 2 – exploring the positive contribution the homosexual community can make to humanity.
Part 3 – explore in outline the implications of pastoral practice both in individual counselling and institutional policy.

I will be taking us through each portion as we move through Lent.

The problem is that explaining away a couple of passages in Paul and Leviticus doesn’t do it for me: the Bible is only part of what Christians have to deal with. It is only the written part of a Tradition that includes liturgy, hagiography, the 7 Ecumenical Councils, Iconography, commentary, preaching… The Christian Tradition sees, in one way or another, all of these as Inspired by the Holy Spirit. And all of them must be involved in the discussion.

So, for Lent, I’m going to be reading Fr John McNeill’s The Church and the Homosexual. At a friend’s request I will follow it up with Fr Thomas Hopko’s Christian Faith And Same Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections. If anyone wants to follow along, both books are available from Amazon.

This series won’t be a “book discussion” format, but rather a series of posts, book reports as it were, one on each chapter, summarising the material and presenting it for discussion.

I shall start the week after Meatfare Sunday, the week of Ash Wednesday. I hope to carry us all the way through to (Western) Palm Sunday, the week before Pascha.

I’m looking forward to our conversation!

N SOME Very shallow ways, these are the chapters that a liberal will love the most. Olivier Clement draws on the deepest, mystical teachings of the Church to give the Gospel the most inclusive, the most Universalist readings possible. When I was at St Gregory’s Church, these chapters can make a heretic smile.

That’s because you’ve not been reading all along: for these chapters to be true, the earlier chapters must also be true. The Church is preparation for warfare against darkness. The battleground is the human flesh and the human spirit – the same battleground in which we puny mortals have been mystically joined by God in the Flesh, born of a virgin, dead, buried and risen and with us continually in the sacraments of the altar and of the church, present in our neighbours, dancing in our streets and in our sheets, speaking in our scriptures, living in our saints and calling us to an ever-greater holiness.

Ergo: Universalism.

And worse: if you read this chapter and – and follow the rest of the chapters – you have to be willing to admit what no liberal, and no conservative, either worth their salt, will be willing to admit. “I might be wrong”.

The secret to Christian Universalism is in the following math:

Love God with all your heart, soul and strength.
+ Love your neighbour as yourself
+ Forgive my sins as I forgive the sins of others.
(or retain my sins as I retain the sins of others)
+ Judge not lest ye be judged
= I’m the only sinner I know, every one else is Christ to me.

Another way to put it (perhaps more negatively) is “If God’s going to save me, he must be so good as to save everyone else.”

And this final way of expressing it came to me this AM: If God’s love can get through to me, then everyone else must be ok.

This plays out with some serious implications.

First, as I’ve noted elsewhere in these pages, ratting out the sexual offenders amongst us directly to the police and the press is as much the wrong answer as denying they exist. Covering up Fr X or School Teacher Y by simply posting them to another location where they can re-commit their sins is not the answer. But equally, neither is sending them to jail. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. “As you cover up the sins of others, so God will cover up your sins…” Or, to phrase it in the reverse light, “As you uncover and hand over to judgement your sisters and brothers, so God will uncover and hand you over…”

In a world where simply getting angry and calling your brother a “fool” can warrant eternal hell fire, what do you think calling them a heretic is worth?

In a world where simply getting angry and calling your sister a “fool” can warrant eternal hell fire, what do you think calling them regressives is worth?

I point my finger at myself when I ask this…

In a world where simply getting angry and calling your brother a “fool” can warrant eternal hell fire, what do you think calling them homophobes is worth?

We have become quite used to looking for perfection. And while the Gospel is clear that we should work for perfection in ourselves, it is equally clear that we’ll not find it save by serving Christ and that Christ is he whom we’re condemning not in here but rather over there. How can we dare to call Christ into our midst (as we do at every Liturgy) if we dare to condemn him at every turn? We will not find a perfect (or infallible) church, community or pastor: we will not find an infallible self, either. What we will find is Christ when we open our eyes to see him.

How can I ask God to make me whole (the meaning of “salvation”) if I continue to tear down everyone and everything around me?

I’ve said this message can not make sense without the rest of it. It sounds radically liberal (it is) but it is predicated on a radically conservative message: God is Trinity (communion) we are not (eg out of communion) but we should be. God became a specific man, at one time, in one place (Jesus) to restore that communion to us (the Church) and we imperil ourselves if we fail to remember that everyone else is there first.

The most liberal reading, the most conservative reading, both boil down to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I’ve heard that, even, from the lips of atheists and Jesus – which isn’t so bad at all.

—–

This concludes the series on Olivier Clement’s Roots of Christian Mysticism. I’ll try another book club later – perhaps we can get some readers who will also post! Christians have such a problem with long-distance commitment. Thanks for following along!

By the 14th Century this sort of chapter becomes enshrined in the dogmatic understanding of the Eastern church, although there are hints of it in the words of the earlier fathers. Some (but not all) Orthodox bishops have to take an oath containing some of the later language expressing what we’re talking about here. And, like I said, it’s important… but I think it needs to go into the background.

What we’re talking about.

In Clement’s book the words are “nature” and “energy”. In the later language this is divided up into “Essence” and “Energy”. The point being that we can know God in his energy, but not in his essence. At once I agree and disagree with this, although I rather like the “Nature” translation better than “essence”.

If God is a person (or, in fact, three persons) then the claim that we can know God in his energy – but not his nature – makes perfect sense. In fact all persons are thus. You can know me through my words, you can know me through my actions, you can even dance with me, participating in my actions. All my energies are there for your experience and interactions. But you can never get into my personhood. You might come to a scientific understanding of why I do what I do, of what motivates me even to the point of being able to predict something about my actions. But even my most intimate lover will never know me fully for, in fact, I do not know me fully.

God’s personhood or, better, God’s tri-personhood is subject to the same parameters with two caveats: 1) God does know himself fully; and 2) God’s nature is not the same as mine. I am human, finite, mortal, corruptible and God is none of these things. So, on top of the indissoluble boundaries that run between God and me – as between all persons – God is also of a different order from me – infinitely beyond my knowing. So I still might know God through his words, you can know God through his actions, we can even dance with God, participating in his actions. All God’s energies are there for our experience and interactions. But we can never get into his personhood.

There are two reasons why this must quickly be relegated to our theological background:

1) As I noted this is the case with all persons.
2) God wants us to be in communion with him.

As it is the case with all persons: God is also Person. God is as knowable as any person. This claim is important: God is not some vast unknowable “Isness” that is simply “over there” beyond all of us.

God wants us to be one – with him and with each other – as the Father and the Son are one. As Clement makes clear – and as any of us will experience in any interaction with another person, from a chance encounter during the day on to an intimate friend, a confessor or a lover – the reality of the relationship is give and take. We enter into what we think is deepest God, only to find there is so much more it is as if we know nothing now. Then we enter deeper, only to find once again that what we know is as nothing compared to the infinite possibility of it all.

The problem arises when this language is used to deny things that are possible – that knowing God is possible, that union with God is possible only in one way but not others (I’ve seen this language used to poo-poo other Christian theologies and Christian mystical writers out of hand). And the answer is that God has, in fact, become one of us in the incarnation. To the exact same degree that I might reveal myself to you – in words, in companionship, in emotion, in sex or love – God may reveal himself to us now, because he has crossed that infinite barrier of type between things human and things divine.

This is why it is possible for – in Clement’s words – for the martyrs to become Eucharist, become Christ; and for humans to be Divinised, en-God-ed.

This last – the struggle to Theosis – is the most crucial call of the Eastern Church: it is what salvation is. God became like us that we might become as he is.

This is what we are called to be: full persons. Full personhood is only possible in God.

I feel like I don’t pray enough. Most of the stuff that I do (MP, EP, Compline, devotions, chanting, Jesus prayer, Mass, sundry church services, whatever…) are all simply preparation for that moment of Zen silence when I’m finally open to God and, for a brief moment, can shut up and let the communication be two ways.

I don’t make it at Church because there is no silence – and while it’s easy to paint this as a “traditional” vrs “Modern” thing: it’s not.

There are different styles of prayer and ideally we should see them all in liturgy: silence, action, singing, listening and speaking. The last should be least. In fact, it’s been deemed so unnecessary that for hundreds of years, east and west, the vast majority of people never spoke, rather they stood (and later they kneeled) in silence; in silence while the priest spoke and the deacon replied and the choir sang. Some times the people sang this is also prayer. The new fascination with simply speaking is, exactly a fascination. It’s a limiting of my prayer – and of the Church’s prayer.

But, again: this isn’t a traditional vrs modern thing. The liturgy at St Gregory’s Church has much silence woven in. Most places do liturgy as if it’s some sort of old style melodrama – with music swelling underneath and off to the sides. Silence is when prayer happens. And, although this is a problem with my current parish – it is a problem with nearly every place I’ve worshipped in the western Tradition. Even the most – chatty and verbose and musical parishes of the East have silence built in to the tradition.

And it’s in silence that prayer happens.

And prayer is never about us: but always about God. The true theologian is the one who prayers. It’s about God. It’s not about me, us or we. Yes, we interceed, but it is before God that we do that. Yes, we raise our own concerns – but God knows them. Again: this isn’t an issue of Modern vers Traditional, this isn’t an East vrs West thing. It just is. Modern and Traditional both have these problems.

I’ve heard many a priest blame the congregation for the lack of silence. That’s the priest’s fault: the people are poorly trained in the ways of prayer – and that is his or her fault. Some clergy say their people want to get out of liturgy on time, home to their families: again – that’s the priest’s fault. If we raise several generations of spiritually immature people, we’ve no right to complain when they do exactly what we’ve raised them up to do.

And then comes the chapter on the Universe.

And if the universe is not sitting in silence contemplating God, I don’t know what is.

And we keep talking.

“Words, words words,” sings Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. “I’m so sick of words! I get words all day through, first from him now from you! Is that all you blighters can do?”

Silence.

The Holy Mysteries of Gods love call out for silence.

Would you go to your Lover that way? Yacking a mile a minute, playing loud music over which you can barely think and juggling scripts and and books and whatall?

No.

You smile.
You kiss.
You enter each other.
You whisper.
You caress.

Why is the worship of God any less?

Prayer is lovemaking in the highest order.

And we’re sloppy lovers.

Amy Grant sings this song. “I’m gonna live like a believer: being Good is just a fable, I can’t cuz I’m not able, I’m gonna leave it to the Lord.”

Well: there’s the problem. Jesus left it to us.

Ascesis is the greek work from whence we get exercise. And it’s appalling to think that our Christianity requires exercises. This is one place where Protestantism – and liberal Protestantism at that – can get into the way. We get all wrapped up in the (rather conservative – but not traditional) idea that we just have to think the right things and we can get on with life. I can run a checklist down the Nicene Creed and lo, I’m saved. “I’m gonna leave it to the Lord”.

Christianity, however, is not an intellectual exercise: although you’d think otherwise from this series, or from these pages (and many on the the net). Christianity is, essentially, only about the reformation of the heart: it is about the gradual conforming of the human life to Christ. Philosophy is nice, but if it takes an education to get there, we’re missing something. All the theology (and liturgy) in the world is meaningless without love.

And love is all you need.

But it’s so hard to get there that our spiritual ancestors came up with exercises. This is one place where Eastern Christianity is a lot like the other Eastern religions. There is a place where we’re going – and we have to do some things to get there. The Jihad – the struggle – for personal holiness is not accomplished by “doing holy things” but rather by training the entire life of a person to flow towards the holy.

One of the most common exercise is fasting: Clement cites many saints on fasting. But it’s important to remember that in the Eastern Church what is called “Fasting” is, in the West, called “abstinence.” During the Great Fast of Lent, the Eastern Christian abstains from meat, dairy products, fish, eggs, wine (alcohol) and (olive) oil. The West used to have such a practice although it’s modified and modernised now. We don’t ask you to give it all up except for one meal on Fridays during Lent. (And Western Lent is shorter than in the East.) In the east “lent” happens, to one degree or another, 4 times a year, plus every Wednesday and Friday.

Even as I’m describing it, I’m falling into the trap: I’m making it sound like this strenuous, nearly legalistic system is better than what’s in the west. In reality, despite all the extra rules, neither east nor west are better. The important think is that it gets done and that the human will gets bent – ever so slightly – in another direction besides towards the human will: and both east and west can do that or there’d not be saints in both schools.

The problem is we forget that the exercise must the constructed for the person – not the other way around.

And we forget – most importantly – that there are different levels.

If you look in a gym you will see everyone from body-builders, to hobbyists, to people who need to lose a few pounds for a wedding this summer. You’ll see people who want to “get back in shape” for the High School Reunion and people who need to get in shape to avoid another heart attack. Everyone may do different exercises – and to differing degrees – but everyone is on the same road towards the same end.

So it is with our Christianity: Monks and Nuns are the body builders. They have time to pull out the full arsenal of tools – fasting, prayers, offices, mass. Parish clergy are more like gym teachers: they don’t have other duties, but they are as fit as they can be. Me, I’m basically a guy who has had several heart attacks already. I’m just trying to avoid another one. People walk. Sit. Mediate, whatever. But we’re all on the same journey.

Today many traditionalists seek to, essentially, make all Christians into monastics: Orthodox Converts turn their homes into near-monasteries, filled with icons and soy milk; Anglican Conservatives talk about foisting the BCP Daily Office cycle on the laity; Roman Catholics pic up “Liturgy of the Hours” or even the Breviary, as if everyone should have the time to devote hours a day to what is essentially a monastic devotional practice. Others set out to educate everyone into being a great lecturer on obscure theology forgetting that clergy (mostly monastics) are the ones who need to be bothered with such things. The rest of us need to seek our salvation in doing our jobs, feeding our families, paying our bills.

This is our ascesis.

The main thing to avoid is the idea that this is all an intellectual exercise. “Leaving it to the Lord” is not an option. No matter what your practice is – tech support, not yelling on the highway – it’s all a choice we make to refine our lives more in keeping with the image of Jesus.

There is a story told of one of the saints (Anthony, I think) that wondered if he had reached the pinnacle of prayer. He was told in a vision that a certain shoemaker in town had much to teach him. In the vision he was taken to the shoemaker who told him that during his labours he was mindful of his sins and prayed for his family. This was his spiritual practice. The saint hugged him. So also for us: we need to remember the fast majority of our spiritual ancestors – and spiritual betters – were unwashed, illiterate persons who managed to save their souls without benefit of books or internet and while in the care of clergy who were little better off.

So there is some hope for us – but not much.

Ascesis, Jihad, is not a good idea that might help some people: it is Christianity. It’s not one-size-fits-all, nor even one-size-fits-most. It must be applied to each life as a therapist applies all the tools of her trade to each client: differently.

(Actually, I know people are reading. Where are the postings?)