What The World Needs Now Is Love

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OCA “Statement on Marriage”: Orthodox Christianity and the Culture Wars

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit” (Luke 6:43-44).

Last week, the Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA)* released a communique** to all OCA parishes reaffirming the jurisdiction’s stance on marriage and why it can never accommodate “gay marriage.” The OCA hierarchy further issued a directive that parish property cannot be used for receptions for same-sex marriages. One would anticipate that the legality of denying LGBTQI persons the right to rent a parish social hall that is available for general public rental will likely be tested and decided in civil courts.

One must question the timing of the release of this communique. Could its timing be more insensitive following the recent massacre at Pulse in Orlando? Not to mention that June is PRIDE month, the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots (June 28, 1969) and the first anniversary of the Supreme Court Obergefell decision (June 26, 2015) legalizing same-sex marriage in all fifty states?

The OCA hierarchs whine that they face a culture that’s growing more and more hostile, but such insensitive and unloving actions justifiably embolden their critics. It’s no wonder the culture, especially millennials, don’t see much reason to listen to their message or seek them out when times get tough. As purveyors of judgment and condemnation, why would anyone seek their guidance when experiencing a crisis or time of trouble?

Given how obsessed the clergy are with homosexuality, one would think there must be hundreds of scripture passages on the subject. In fact, there are only six traditional (negative) passages, and none of them speaks to the situation of twenty-first century gay people who desire to live in loving relationships with the blessing of God. If all same-sex relationships were sinful, it would be readily apparent from the fruit of those relationships. But if you’re fortunate enough to know a Christ-centered gay couple, you’ll notice these relationships are bearing good fruit in abundance — love, joy, peace, patience, and all the rest.

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, young Huck’s father is thought to be dead, and a woman named Widow Douglas takes him in. Widow Douglas is portrayed as a kindly Christian who takes care of Huck out of goodness, with no thought of reimbursement. The Widow Douglas tries to “civilize” Huck, teaching him Bible stories and urging him to live a good life and pray often. She is a loving woman who studies her Bible and wants to always do the right thing. She is also a slave owner. For all her kindness and goodness, Widow Douglas reads the Bible the same way most of her friends do. She believes slavery is an institution approved by God. She sees nothing wrong with buying and selling people because her interpretation of the Bible tells her this is the proper role of those of European descent. In short, she allows her contextual prejudices to mold the way she reads the Bible. Only the most bigoted Christian today would argue today that the Bible endorses slavery, but Huck’s story illustrates how thoroughly we are creatures of our culture and how that culture can create prejudices that get in the way of what God wants to teach us.

Perhaps instead of condemning the loving relationships of LGBTQI persons and issuing hateful discriminatory communiques against them, the Church could actually start loving unconditionally and doing such remarkable things in the culture that the world would take notice of who these Orthodox Christians are and who the loving God is that they serve?

The hierarchs can cite antiquated patristic canons and debate about the meaning of this or that scriptural passage; the fact remains that I know monogamous, Christ-centered gay couples whose relationships are living proof of God’s blessing on them. Let us recall the words of our Lord Jesus: No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. It was the deciding factor for the early Christians (Acts 11:15-18), and should be the deciding factor for the contemporary Church.

*The monastery is under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America (OCCA), not the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).

**For those interested in reading the actual communique, please click here

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Eastern Orthodoxy: An Ancient Church in a Post-Modern World

“I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things . . . Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light” — C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity (excerpt, page 49).

The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church convened after celebration of the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of Pentecost (June 19^th) and will close this Sunday, the Feast of All Saints (June 26^th). Orthodox believers should be fervently praying and humbly invoking the grace and guidance of the Holy Spirit to inspire and direct the participants of the Council to “rightly divide the word of truth.”

The Orthodox Church professes there is such a thing as absolute Truth. At the same time, Orthodoxy acknowledges that traditions, customs and practices change and are expressed differently in each cultural location and epoch in which the Church finds itself. Ideally what should be important for Orthodoxy is that the essential and absolute Truth (Holy Tradition) never changes, but the way in which the gospel message is communicated and made relevant is what changes by means of theological contextualization. In other words, the Truth is everlasting, not suspect to change. What changes, based on context and progressive revelation, is how that Truth is expressed and applied within different cultures and ages. The Truth which Orthodox Christianity proclaims is Jesus Christ. Truth, no matter where it is found, belongs to Christ—not the Church, as the Church also belongs to Christ and not Christ to the Church.

An imperative of the participants of the Great and Holy Council is to reevaluate and clearly define the terms Tradition and traditions. There needs to be a more thorough clarification as to what tradition really implies, being something active and evolving rather than stagnant and passive. There are connotations in the contemporary scene that would indicate that traditions are simply followed because “that’s how things have always been done.” Holy Tradition (dogma) itself does not change; the way in which traditions are expressed and lived is what changes based on context. The point in doing theological contextualization is to discern the underlying truth(s) behind the traditions and learn to express those in new ways in light of modern science and culture.

In the discussion of theological opinion, authentic Orthodoxy allows and even encourages different views on issues which the Church has not made a doctrinal teaching. A significant difference between East and West that differentiates our theology is the understanding of sin, because this premise profoundly impacts how each views human nature and subsequently, reality, as we experience it. For the West, the legalistic notion of sin has resulted in the “what” of sin, emphasizing “do not do;” in the East, the emphasis is on the “why.” It is not simply a “do not do” this, but a “why we do not do this.” Rather than a legalistic observance of rules, the East professes that it is through loving God and neighbor that we are in communion with God and with our fellow human beings

Eastern Orthodoxy suggests that it is in living ethically in the world in pursuit of union (theosis) with God that a Christian fulfills one’s calling, as opposed to strict observance of absolutist juridical moral codes. Our salvation begins in this life, as our daily participation in the world is sacramental. Christians are considered a universal race, a universal people that do not uphold social constructs that are used to divide humanity. Unfortunately, a large segment of Orthodoxy has become trapped and frozen in a ‘fundamentalism of tradition’ and in an archaic “patristic fundamentalism.” Too much authority has been vested in “the way we have always done things,” hindering contextualized theology and praxis.

Patristic theologians contextualized theology to the cultural context and age in which they found themselves. The Church today must once again find its creative and dynamic synergy to authentically and contextually convey to the contemporary world the good news of the gospel message while being faithful to the Truth that was, the Truth that is, and the Truth that will be—the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Could Orthodoxy Be Having its Vatican II Moment?

An interview with theologian Fr. John Chryssavgis

Source: Could Orthodoxy Be Having its Vatican II Moment?

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