Orthodox Reflections

There is no hope for Haiti in either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, with their materialistic, crusader-conqueror ethos driven by their beliefs in an angry, vengeful God, predestination, and infallibilities of various sorts (not that all Protestants and Roman Catholics are terrible people; but it is their erroneous beliefs and the general trajectory of those institutions that is problematic). Neither can voodoo lift her out of her hardships.

https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-best-help-for-haiti/

Do we Orthodox really try to “earn our way” into Heaven via our own self-righteousness and “‘doing enough”?

Let’s look at how we might answer that. To prove that this is simply not the case, I’m going to use quotes from the Liturgy of St. Tikhon. I could use excerpts from any Orthodox Liturgy, but this one has good quotes for illustration purposes. Why am I using quotes from a liturgy as opposed to the Church Fathers, Church Councils, any number of writings from Orthodox Theologians, or an official catechism? Those are all good sources, but Protestants often accuse Orthodox of lying / misrepresenting our beliefs in discussions with them.

Liturgies are the prayers of the Church. Liturgies are not written for the benefit of outsiders, but for the edification of Orthodox Christians. The words of the Liturgies are what we tell ourselves, and God, about what we truly believe. If we actually believed in earning salvation through good works and our own righteousness, then we would say so in our liturgies. https://orthodoxreflections.com/does-orthodox-christianity-teach-works-based-salvation/

The last few decades have seen a dramatic turn away from Christianity in the West. And yet Christlike figures (those who lay down their lives for others that they would not die; St John’s Gospel 10:11) continue to show up as heroes in the stories of her popular arts. There are three such productions in particular that we will look at below: the video games Chrono Trigger (1995) and Sea of Stars (2023) and the television show Travelers (2016-18). https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-persistence-of-christlike-figures-in-pop-culture/

Ecumenism is not the only front on which attempts are being made to change Orthodoxy. There is a serious drive afoot to “revive” the office of Deaconess. The newly re-envisioned office of Deaconess is expected to have a liturgical role, unlike the historic office which most definitely did not. But a liturgical role for women brings up a problem. Orthodox Christians are not used to seeing women at the Altar. Suddenly putting women there would cause an uproar, and might even bring about a schism. It is necessary to go slowly in a way that gets the laity accustomed to seeing women functioning in liturgical roles. https://orthodoxreflections.com/for-orthodox-subversion-a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words/

Mr. Gonzalez places the problem mainly in the economic sphere, but by his raising the issue of eudaimonia/happiness, he has shown that it is actually in the spiritual dimension where the problem mainly lies.

To give an adequate answer to the issues he raises, we must begin by trying to understand the world in which we live. We do not live in Paradise. We do not live in utopia. We do not live in fantasy fairie land. We do not live in the political philosophers’ state of nature. We do not live in a rationalistic, scientistic, non-theistic neutral ground called the saeculum (the secular).

We live in Babylon. https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-answer-to-the-riddle-of-modern-despair-we-live-in-babylon/

India is not atheistic, but the Hindu religion does not improve the moral condition of the people. Bhandri notes, “Lacking virtues and spirituality, people visited temples to get material favors from their favorite deities.” A common misconception of atheists is that people created religions to establish codes of morality and to give them hope of an afterlife. That is not true, as most religions are far less concerned about those things than they are about gaining blessings in this world. In addition, atheists like to frame the essential argument as religion (in general) versus atheism. That is way too simplistic. The world around us makes clear that many religions produce absolutely awful cultures. All religions are not the same. All “gods” are not like the Christian God. All cultures are not like the West. https://orthodoxreflections.com/is-christian-morality-anything-special/

As Locke foresaw, the unchallenged monism of state power that is at the essence of Liberty would be insured by a multiplicity of Christian sects. . . . in the Essay Concerning Toleration, Locke advised that when any sect is “grown, or growing so numerous as to appear dangerous to the magistrate” the magistrate “may and ought to use all ways, either policy or power, that shall be convenient, to lessen, break and suppress the party, and so prevent the mischief”—the “mischief” being the mere existence of a dominant religious faction capable of posing a challenge to the State. Both Jefferson and Madison expressly recognized the division of Christianity into sects as a primary safeguard of Liberty.



https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-first-amendment-has-got-to-go/

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church appointed international lawyer Robert Amsterdam in 2023 to represent the interests of the canonical Orthodox Church against illegal persecution by the Ukrainian Government. Since that time, Amsterdam has provided resources we highly recommend, including ways to assist in the defense of Orthodoxy in Ukraine.

https://orthodoxreflections.com/help-robert-amsterdam-save-the-ukrainian-orthodox-church/

For many potential Orthodox Christians, the physical beauty of Orthodoxy (even in humble, local parish temples) is extremely important. But other potential converts, particularly from Evangelical backgrounds, frequently misunderstand our dedication to glorifying God in physical structures as being, somehow, superficial. As not being in keeping with the Early Church. As being indicative of a Christian Faith that is material and lacking in spiritual depth. We sometimes reinforce these mistaken impressions by being too quick to immediately defend our gorgeous temples, while not being clear enough that Orthodox Christianity is for everyone, everywhere, and at all times – for the life of the world. Let us never apologize for the beauty of our magnificent temples. But let us also not make them a stumbling block to those who have been fed nothing but lies about Christ’s Church. Whether the Orthodox are gathered in a gorgeous cathedral or a snow-covered field, the Holy Spirit is the same. Christ is the same. The Father is the same. The Orthodox Faith is the same. Amen. https://orthodoxreflections.com/does-orthodox-christianity-really-need-fancy-buildings/

Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.

To determine the size of the Roman economy and the distribution of income, historians Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen pored over papyri ledgers, previous scholarly estimates, imperial edicts, and Biblical passages. Their target was the state of the economy when the empire was at its population zenith, around 150 C.E. Schiedel and Friesen estimate that the top 1 percent of Roman society controlled 16 percent of the wealth, less than half of what America’s top 1 percent control.

With the transfer of trillions of dollars to the world’s richest people because of covid, this inequality in the US has likely gotten even worse. This wouldn’t be quite so bad if the super wealthy were using their money for good purposes. In the Roman Empire, the richest class made good enough use of their money that we still admire their works today. From the same 2011 study: ‘But buried at the end, they make a point that’s difficult to parse, yet provocative. They point out that the majority of extant Roman ruins resulted from the economic activities of the top 10 percent.’ In other words, the Roman upper class was responsible for the aqueducts, theaters, temples, baths, etc., before which people stand in awe when they visit former Roman lands. https://orthodoxreflections.com/what-would-make-us-billionaires-more-generous/

Rather than “antisemitism” being the biggest threat to the survival of the Jewish people, it actually appears that assimilation into the dominant culture is a much bigger concern. Jewish American lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, in his book The Vanishing American Jew explored the “threat” to Jewish life posed by being warmly welcomed into societies such as America and Australia:

American Jewish life is in danger of disappearing, just as most American Jews have achieved everything we ever wanted: acceptance, influence, affluence, equality. As the result of skyrocketing rates of intermarriage and assimilation, as well as “the lowest birth rate of any religious or ethnic community in the United States,” the era of enormous Jewish influence on American life may soon be coming to an end.



But today’s most serious threats come not from those who would persecute us, but from those who would, without any malice, kill us with kindness–by assimilating us, marrying us, and merging with us out of respect, admiration, and even love. The continuity of the most influential Jewish community in history is at imminent risk, unless we do something dramatic now to confront the quickly changing dangers.

Imagine a situation in which the primary “threat” to your survival as a religious community is….kindness in various forms. The problem, from the perspective of Jewish survival, has not been that the dominant American culture hated and excluded Jews. On the contrary, the challenge for the survival of Rabbinic Judaism has been that the dominant American culture was so enticing, so attractive, so welcoming that too many Jews have chosen to assimilate to it. https://orthodoxreflections.com/does-rabbinic-judaism-need-enemies-to-survive/

The Church’s episcopal reaction to the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) epidemic assumed two basic and related concepts of Church life: the nature of obedience to bishops’ mandates, and the acceptance of penances for spiritual health. The mandates to restrict Church life predicated on subordination to public-civil health authority (Titus 3:1; e.g., lockdowns, social distancing, contact tracing, masking, virtual services, etc.) simultaneously suspended the faithful from normal gathering for Holy Communion and participation in the mysteries (sacraments) of the Church. Must the people of God unconditionally obey the mandates of bishops, especially when these mandates penalize the otherwise faithful for fulfilling the very norms of their calling? The nature of obedience to bishops does not restrict the ability of the Church to practice its essential activities; rather, obedience to bishops should encourage that activity. https://orthodoxreflections.com/obedience-to-bishops-and-imposition-of-penance-during-the-2020-covid-19-pandemic/

New Orthodox missions are springing up all over that are almost entirely comprised of adult converts with their children. However, the majority of Orthodox parishes are still mixed between adult converts, immigrants, “ethnic cradles”, and the maturing group of “non-ethnic” cradles (a group that not too long ago didn’t really exist). In such mixed settings, some conflicts between groups exist that are troubling enough that we are wise to spend time understanding where all sides are coming from. It is particularly important to understand how things have changed over the course of just a few decades for those raised in the Orthodox Faith. https://orthodoxreflections.com/cradle-orthodox-life-has-changed-dramatically-in-just-a-few-decades/

There seems to be quite a fair amount of cultural tone-deafness and historical ignorance amidst the episcopacy of the various Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States. Abp. Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese of America epitomizes this in his 2023 Thanksgiving Encyclical. A mistake is made right in the opening line:

‘Our National Day of Thanksgiving arrives in a time when the world is in turmoil, and “wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6) cast a pall over the global community.’

The encyclical is clearly based on the ignorant assumption that all 50 American States, spread across more than an entire continent and belonging to unique regional cultures, are somehow ‘one’ and, thus, our ‘national day’ is one. Closely tied to that concept of ‘oneness’ is the concept of ‘indivisibility’. Anyone who has read more than the simplified comic book version of U.S. history (to use Dr. Clyde Wilson’s words) will understand that the United States are not now, and have never been, ‘one nation indivisible’. https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-orthodox-bishops-in-the-united-states-act-culturally-illiterate/

It’s the holidays again. Time for family, friends, parties, eating too much, presents, decorations, sappy TV specials, and much, much more! But most of all, it is time for many Orthodox Christians in America to indulge in one of our favorite past times – complaining about “American” culture. Or, to be honest, the lack thereof. https://orthodoxreflections.com/do-orthodox-want-to-complain-about-shallow-american-culture-or-transform-it/

The generic, consumeristic American culture is childish and unserious at best and demonic at worst. A look at what passes for holy days/holidays gives solid confirmation to this claim.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-holiest-days-on-americanisms-calendar/

Rabbinic Judaism is an explicit denial of Christ as the promised Messiah. It is incompatible with Christianity on that basis alone. Rabbinic Jews still await their messiah, whom Christians assert not only has already come, but Who is God Incarnate. While we could stop there, there is much more to consider such as the impact of Zionism.

Rabbinic Judaism, founded after Orthodox Christianity, is not even the same religion as it was a mere 100 years ago. Since its founding in 1897, the Zionist movement within Judaism has gone from a fringe idea, heavily opposed by rabbis as being a repudiation of God (who alone could re-found Israel, perhaps via the coming of the Messiah), to practically taking over the religion. The current War in Gaza has exposed the depths of religious fervor that Zionism now commands among what appears to be the vast majority of global Jews. (There are still Anti-Zionist Jews, more on that later.) https://orthodoxreflections.com/orthodox-christianity-and-zionism-are-morally-incompatible/

Shooting up a hospital full of sick patients as an individual is morally wrong. Putting on a uniform and obeying an order to drop a bomb on that same hospital is equally morally wrong. Distance and the use of technology do not magically change murder into warfare. If we want to live as Christians, die as Christians, and enjoy eternal life with Christ, then we must wage war as Christians. We must demand that same moral behavior out of any nation we support in any conflict. To do otherwise is to immeasurably harm our own souls.

We can gain some further insight into the Orthodox teaching on war from the War and Peace section of document The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church https://orthodoxreflections.com/can-christians-support-the-intentional-murder-of-civilians-in-war/

MAGA Mike Johnson won’t be able to ‘save America’ from his new perch in Congress. For the America they are trying to save was doomed from the beginning. Any people that places the freedom of the individual as the cornerstone of their societal foundation is doomed to failure, as the centrifugal forces such a principle unleashes tear apart all meaningful ties between people and generations.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/america-isnt-dying-its-already-dead/