I’m still reading Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics. As noted before, I’m enjoying it, but, as an Orthodox Christian, I’m struggling.

One of the most wonderful parts of the Catholicism offered by the current occupant of the Chair of St Peter is a return to the patristic pleroma: instead of quoting a couple of Latin writers as read by Aquinas, Pope Benedict XVI loves to cite as many of the fathers as possible in support of which ever theological point he’s making. In this Benedict seems to return Catholicism to a mental (at least) reunion with the rest of the Church.

Douthat seems to revert back to that older school: Augustine wrote, Aquinas Read. It is precisely this reliance on Sola Augustina that creates “the Western Problem” as defined not only by the Pious Nutcases among the Orthodox, but also the more sane ones. In addition to his Augustine over ice with a dash of Aquinas, Douthat prefers to include Protestants by adding a Calvin olive on a toothpick so that he can take it out of the mix, now and then, to be “really Catholic” again.

St Augustine of Hippo is on the Orthodox Calendar of Saints: but most of his writings, while valued for their metanoina, are not read as theologically orthodox on their own. His bizarre, nearly-gnostic ideas about the flesh and original sin are not accepted at all in the East. As an old internet hack once said: 100% of the Fathers are 85% Orthodox. Augustine less-so, when taken by himself.

And dude: the only thing Orthodox about Calvin is his first name.

Barely done with the first chapter and while I agree with the writer’s cultural points – I think Mid-Century Mayberry, RFD, was much more comfortable and blessed than the post-9/11 world crafted by Bush and Obama – I disagree with where I think he’s taking the argument: the solution is (seemingly) a Christianist Taliban that allows in the name of Christian Charity for everyone else be happy here, too.

In counterpoint to the idea of biblical literalism (which assumed the bible dropped whole-cloth from the sky) the Church has offered a typological or iconographic reading of marriage, a sacramental idea: that the marriage is an “outward and visible sign of an inward and visible grace”, but in the west we are used to assuming that “outward sign” is the wedding itself and that, somehow, the “inward grace” has to do with permission to have sex. In the East, however, that is not the case. There are no vows and, in no way, it the marriage “done” by the priest or the ceremony involved. Read the prayers: in a sense the western-style “wedding” – vowing of love, etc – is done by the couple at some point in their relationship, before or after the ceremony. The gathered community is there only to pray God’s blessing on what is being done. Why?

The ceremony creates the “little church” of the home: the constant denial and self-sacrifice, the self-emulation, the martyrdom of love that is the sacramental sign. If the meeting, the dates, the family vowing of love, etc, is the “building of the church” then this ceremony is the act of consecrating the altar and the walls into a temple of God: the wedding was “real” before the ceremony happened.

In blessing the marriage, the Church is turning this home, this family, into an icon of Christ: this sacrifice of love is the fulfillment of of the relationship of Adam and Eve, of God and Israel, the icon of Christ and the Church. The marriage is about this man and this woman, but it figures all of us: God in love with us, Christ united to us, one flesh; God-Man.

The prime argument for any marriage is not “biblical” or “traditional”: no one can argue that same-sex marriage is either of those. In fact, if the Church were limited to “biblical” she’d be screwed: as the Orthodox Church allows for divorce and remarriage, interracial marriage and even birth control. If such is the only permited argument, it is already lost. But when the question is: is this marriage iconographic, showing the love of Christ for his church and the world, then we have a scale of not only “validity” but “is it working at all?”

I have learned, in my adult life, of quite a few marriages, even in the Church, where the wife is abused, where the kids are terrified of their father, where the mother is unable to love her husband, leaving the community only with the outward form or semblance of marriage. I’ve found these among the clergy and among the laity: wives convinced that they can not leave their marriage because the husband isn’t unfaithful… or they don’t know it to be so; where the only sacrifice arising is the gradual suicide – real or virtual – of the weaker partner painting themselves into a corner. This icon is broken: this is not a real marriage. Instead of Christ, it is an icon of Tommy Lee.

In some marriages there is no sacrifice at all, where both parties are driven by lust for more (wealth, prestige, community standing, sex) where one party drags the other around the world preventing the family from putting down roots, from growing in a church or community, where work prevents all cohabitation outside of sleeping, where apart from a couple of kids, there is no evidence of physical intimacy. Both spouses run around as if the other exists for no other reason than to check some social requirement. This icon is also broken. Instead of Christ, it is an icon of Donald Draper.

There are marriages where the other party doesn’t exist at all save as a house-servant and a single parent. The sole exceptions being family events and the annual office dinner where the spouse is paraded about as an accomplishment worthy of an annual bonus or perhaps lustful envy. Sex is less like mutual self sacrifice and more like masturbation by remote control. This icon is broken as well. Instead of Christ it is an icon of Ayn Rand.

And I have known all of these icons in same-sex relationships as well.

So can there be, possibly, a same-sex relationship where the icon is Christ? If the foibles of Straight Relationships are present in the gay world, is it possible for the ideals to be manifested as well?

I’m so very used to hearing – over and over – about the HUGE difference between our Orthodox understanding of the nature of Humanity after our Fallen First Parents’ sin. Pious Orthodox prefer to refer to something called “Ancestral Sin” The OCA draws the line thusly:

With regard to original sin, the difference between Orthodox Christianity and the West may be outlined as follows:

In the Orthodox Faith, the term “original sin” refers to the “first” sin of Adam and Eve. As a result of this sin, humanity bears the “consequences” of sin, the chief of which is death. Here the word “original” may be seen as synonymous with “first.” Hence, the “original sin” refers to the “first sin” in much the same way as “original chair” refers to the “first chair.”

In the West, humanity likewise bears the “consequences” of the “original sin” of Adam and Eve. However, the West also understands that humanity is likewise “guilty” of the sin of Adam and Eve. The term “Original Sin” here refers to the condition into which humanity is born, a condition in which guilt as well as consequence is involved.

In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.

All of which is well and good… and normally when I read someone writing about the “Christian Doctrine of Original Sin” I wonder why they don’t realize that we don’t, you know, believe in it. Then I read the following from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The consequences of Adam’s sin for humanity

402 All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: “sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.”289 The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.”

403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”. Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”. By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” – a state and not an act.

405 Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin – an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence”. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529) and at the Council of Trent (1546).

Apart from Rome’s traditional Theological OCD when it comes to definitions, I think I’m reading Orthodoxy. The RCC even makes it clear, contrary to the OCA, that “original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin…” I think, particularly, that what usually gets called “Catholicism” by Converts to Orthodoxy, is actually nothing more than Calvinism (a heresy). When we look at what Catholicism teaches, however, it seems the same to me.

All I got to say is “what’s wrong with that?”

His fixation on a Calvinist (rather than Orthodox-Catholic) reading of “Original Sin” and humanity’s depravity, and the idea of a “Christian Consensus” that doesn’t include the East seems, at best, myopic.

At times he switches from a secular, political justification for Traditional Religion, to a religious justification for Conservative, Right Wing Politics. He does so willy-nilly without apology so it feels rather bait-and-switch.

Again, just the first pages of reading. I may be proved wrong…

The argument for “Biblical marriage” by those opposed to gay marriage is often subverted by supporters of the same by pointing out the ideas in the above graphic: that marriage in the Bible is a multi-faceted idea, at best. All of the Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – as well as, sundry others, engaged in Polygamy for cultural reasons, etc. So, to counteract the idea of “Biblical marriage” the response is often “Which Biblical one do you want to emulate?”

This is not, however, the best response as it is not a theologically engaged response and it draws (I think wrongly) on the prime idea of biblical fundamentalists: that the Bible, whole cloth, dropped from the sky and is equally and literally true in all cases and texts. Church history and Biblical criticism refute this claim and it is important not to buy into it as one attempts to refute it at the same time.

Contrary to Biblical literalists, the Bible presents an evolutionary view of marriage: a revelation of “What God Wants™” as one-man-one-woman and the slow weaving of that desire into the Hebrew Culture despite the fact that adjoining cultures were often polygamous. The slow and eventual acceptance by the Hebrews of this new system of monogamy is a triumph of a new morality over an older one. One cultural ideal of “what’s normal” was changed into a “new normal” and that claiming divine support.

In other words, the “Polygamy” argument is not the best way to react to the supporters of “biblical marriage” because what a good, historical read of the Bible shows is: Yes, there were some folks who were polygamous and no, they were not punished for it. But the one-man-one-woman model won out in the end, as more people came to believe and support the divine-revelation of God’s approved model. In later years, falling back into Polygamy was seen as abandoning God’s plan; backwards evolution, as it were, must be avoided. So we must continue to fight for that, even today.

If one is a believer, what we see is that God takes what we offer and uses it for our salvation – moving ever towards a higher ideal. But more on that in a later post.

Even if one is not a believer in divine revelation, what the Bible shows is a culture evolving to acceptance of a new and different morality despite serious peer-cultural pressure to hold on to a different, older morality. Eventually, the Heterosexual Mongamy of the Hebrews becomes as much a cultural hallmark of being in the tribe as circumcision: He must be Jewish, he only has one wife. The Bible and Polygamy is a red herring here. Failure to treat it as such puts supporters of different family models into an odd position of Biblical Literalism from whence the other side has already won.

So I went to the Doctor: first time since 1994, the year I had back surgery and met Ally Sheedy. I keep pushing that date back, it may be, in fact, spring of 1993 or even earlier: I was laid off in 1991, and I think I had the surgery before getting laid off. But, all that aside, I’ve not been to the Doctor since.

So I went.

Yeah, I had a lot of fear, but I kinda braced for all the possible bad news and screwed my courage to the sticking place and tried not to be sick and pale with fear.

Good thing I didn’t chicken out.

The only thing wrong is my weight – and a couple of dependent problems like pre-diabetes and moderately annoying blood pressure (which is kind of serious because my family tends to low BP). Both of these are manageable through my weight. Exercise and healthy eating. No HIV, no cancer, no long-dormant STDs or genetic bombs.

I was nearly crying when I told Fr John that I felt like I’d been given a chance to start over, do it right. It was Holy Week: he said I was being give the joy of Pascha early, but I had the same experience when I met with my Health Educator to go over my diet. He asked why now? What would make me stick to this? And I nearly sobbed as I told him how happy I was to start over and try to be healthy.

So I need to manage my weight better, well, in fact, I need to get rid of a lot of it: 50lbs or more. I’ve set a goal of 60, actually – by next March. I’ve started tracking my calories an my exercise and also moving the intake around. I was surprised to learn that I take more than half of my daily calories at suppertime. I rarely eat enough calories to, in theory, even maintain my weight: but I do so in such a very unhealthy way. So management and some exercise.

And some prayers.

But right now mostly prayers of thanksgiving.

There’s an old hymn, one of my favourites, actually:

In Christ there is no East or West,
in him no South or North,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.

In him shall true hearts everywhere
their high communion find,
his service is the golden cord
close-binding all mankind.

Join hands, disciples of the faith,
whate’er your race may be!
Who serves my Father as a son
is surely kin to me.

In Christ now meet both East and West,
in him meet South and North,
all Christly souls are one in him,
throughout the whole wide earth.

It misses the point by a longshot, however. Written at a time when there was a need for national reconciliation, it talks about the “Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man” rather than what the Orthodox would say is salvation of humanity in God.

Jesus is the vine and we are the branches and he says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” But we sure do try! It’s this trying that is the problem: it’s the definition of sin. We’re all cut flowers stuck in vases of our own design: we’re going to die. Orthodoxy says that it is this, our self-referential life, that is fated to end. In fact there are two words for life in the New Testament: the soma, the life of those cut flowers, and the Zoe, the divine life of God – and of the branches that are grafted into the vine.

All this comes up today when, in his sermon, Fr John says that as a Christian, our identity is not “in your sexuality or gender or nationality or race” but in Christ.

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 3:27-29

We sing the first part of this at every baptism but it’s the middle part I want to focus on. There are many people out there who insist that my identity is “gay male”. There are some who would say, “gay white male” and, the Marxists might add “middle class” as part of my personality. But none of these are who are I am, the source or root of my identity. They do not define me… although, at times, they do define my weaknesses and my strong points, my good and bad options. My “Me-ness” defines my options and opens up amazing doors to love and beauty, but is it who I am?

Blessed Alexander Schmemann wrote, that to be and to be in communion are the same thing. Any time communion is achieved it is a moment of the Zoe, of the Divine Life breaking in to our cut-flower world, grafting us to the eternal vine, Christ himself. It’s those moments of communion that are me; not who I am, but who we are.

But again: the me-ness does define my bad points as well, my weaknesses. There are some unhealthy stereotypes of my maleness, my gayness, my middle class-ness, my whiteness that are true: racism, sexism, misogyny, classism and a sense of entitlement. These are the things I have to struggle against to make the communion real.

This is a post from the “WayBack” machine… it includes a post (in the blockquotes) from even way-er back. This is on my mind again, so I’ve also slightly edited it to bring it up to date. I’ve posted this in SF and in Asheville, but here I am again, in SF, thinking about it. The original post is here, along with a very good discussion.

Fr. Peter was talking about Urban Monks who actually have jobs, do work in the community and get out and about doing things. This called to mind an old post of mine, posted below, where I talked about the same things.

Another friend of mine has the same idea: monks who actually work in the world, pray in the world, be the Church right there in the world. Praying at home, sharing all they have. It fits very well with Fr Alexander’s ideas about monks in America’s church.

And in the life of the city where housing prices are coming down (that’s silly “low” here still means half a million USD) I’ve been thinking about the Urban Monastery again. A house, with seven or 8 monastics who support themselves doing city sorts of monastic jobs: bookstores, bank tellers, tech support, DMV, etc, and who maintain a bookstore and a chapel on the ground level of their two story thing. Here in SF that means putting a chapel and bookstore in the garage, but in other places it might not mean that. If I win lotto or otherwise come up with a million dollars, maybe a coffee shop would be installed. We could open the doors of the garage welcoming the entire community in for coffee, books, prayer…

Do monks live in cities in a real way? Or do they only visit them for an afternoon of work? What would happen to the Tech Support industry in SF (or NYC? or WDC? or Seattle?) if there were a bunch of monks working there? And as part of their community outreach they connected poor folks to computers and technology and provided training?

Praying and working…

And reaching out in love.

Thoughts of Death bring this on: living in the world as though dead. Not caring about wars or rumors of wars; not worrying about who gets to be president or what they want to do “in my name”; not fighting over water, air, dirt… but in some cases, certainly providing others the means to do so. What would happen if you knew you could, for the cost of a long distance call, contact an MCSE certified tech support person who would, with patience and care, and no small amount of prayer and love, walk you through your confusing issue in MSWord or your Office Network?

Would the same community be able to run a religious bookstore and pray? Or would this not fit the image of Monasticism that most folks have? Would they need to collect some rent from tenants? Need to own the whole house? Freak out the neighbors? Freak out some churchy folks? I don’t know. I’m honestly not sure.

But Death to the World, you know, and all that.

I’ve not lived in the world well enough to have been a peace maker. I’ve not lived in it well enough not to have been a glutton. I’ve been greedy, too. Is such a foundation a way to give back or a way to avoid pay back?

That post was written back in April of 2003. I took the context out (death in my parish, death in my own life, etc) but the post still stands: the idea still stands.

This Urban Idea ties in well with talks about Domestic Mission and even the “Emerging Church”: not that the monks would REPLACE such a mission! Far from that! The monks would facilitate it. So many Orthodox have a near superstitious attitude towards the clergy in general and monastics in particular (everyone knows what REAL monks are, you know), that Urban Monks who wore blue jeans and fed the homeless would MAYBE cause such a root-deep earthquake in the average person’s faith that we could radicalize it.

…

Several years later I know that converts have some *seriously* spooky ideas about what monks are – especially if one is influenced by Russians or Athonites. I also know that the vast majority of eastern monastics have, most often, been “secluded” from the world. It is the Western Monastic tradition – and certain select pockets of the East – that have this mission mind of saving the world as well as themselves. I know that, for example, St Theodore’s House in Galion, OH, has long maintained a ministry of hospitality and openness (even selling art in their own shop in the local mall). But it is the monastic brotherhoods of the West that have a tradition of working in the world and being the presence of Christ among the common people. As someone commented to my first post on this topic: Friars.

Friars differ from monks in that they are called to live the evangelical counsels (vows of poverty, chastity and obedience) in service to a community, rather than through cloistered asceticism and devotion. Whereas monks live in a self-sufficient community, friars work among laypeople and are supported by donations or other charitable support. A monk or nun makes their vows and commits to a particular community in a particular place. A friar in making vows commits to a community spread across a wider geographical area known as a province, and so they will typically move around, spending time in different houses of the community within his province.
Borrowed from Wiki article on Friars

Three greatly different rules speak to this project:
1 The Rule of St Augustine
2 Rule of the (Episcopal) Brotherhood of St Gregory
3 Franciscan Friars of the Renewal

That last two may surprise some, but truth is what truth is. These rules have worked for a combined history of six decades or so. For an experimental project, I think it would be a good place to start – with modifications, of course.

This is a bleg – a blog post asking for money.

My friend Karen challenged me to celebrate birthday #50 in full style. So: I want to stay at a nice pensione for a couple of weeks. I want food. I want church services. I want gregorian chant. Three coins in the Fountain.

In short: I want Rome in August, 2014, for my 50th.

A centurian or two would be nice too, any Titus Pullo free that month?

You can contribute to the party fund using my SmartyPig account. I am 11% of the way to my goal…