Archbishop Lazar Puhalo:
Approaching The Educated Person in the Post Christian Era
(Paper for a conference on the Post-Christian Era)
The late Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia, Count Ignatieff always
attended divine services at the small Russian Orthodox Church in
Belgrade. His secretary told us this story. Ambassador Ignatieff once
excused himself from a reception at President Tito's residence in
order to attend the vigil on the eve of a feastday. President Tito
asked Mr. Ignatieff, "You are an intelligent man, Mr. Ignatieff. Why
do you attend church?" Mr. Ignatieff replied, "Because I am an
intelligent man."
PROLOGUE
In causal terms, the presence of oxygen is a necessary but not a
sufficient condition for fire. Oxygen plus combustibles plus the
striking of a match would illustrate a sufficient condition for fire.
(William L. Reese) (See Footnote 1)
The general subject of this conference is "The Cultured (or Educated)
Person in the Age of De-Christianisation."
The process of de-Christianisation in Western nations did not begin
just recently; nor is it the product of any single era, movement or
influence. In part, the disintegration of a unified Christian entity
in Western Europe was the result of the degeneracy and corruption of
the clergy, from the very highest levels to the lowest. This
disintegration laid the groundwork for the mistrust of the Christian
faith that slowly grew in the more educated classes of Western
society. If one could place a single incident at the root of actual
de-Christianisation, it would likely be the trial of Galileo. The
condemnation of Galileo by fundamentalist forces in the Latin Church
set off a chain reaction throughout Europe that powered the original
process of de-Christianisation. Giordano Bruno had been burned at the
stake a short while earlier for the "crime" of Copernicanism: he
asserted that the earth moves around the sun, and that the heavens
are not mobile, translucent solid rings pulled by
spiritual entities. Galileo confirmed the ideas of both Copernicus
and Bruno, and was threatened with death if he did not renounce the
truth. Since his works, banned in Italy, were nevertheless published
in Northern Europe, educated and cultured people throughout the West
would see these incidents as a Christian war against truth.
There was no immediate tidal wave of de-Christianisation, but the
glacier had begun to melt and the trickle of doubt would soon become
a torrent. Christianity was so deeply engrained in the cultures of
Europe that it would take another three centuries for something like
a general de-Christianisation to become obvious.
With the trial of Galileo, a process of deconstruction began. At
first this process was slow and related only to doubts about
cosmological doctrines. It began to pick up speed, however, and
accelerated, like the ball which Galileo had rolled down an incline
whose velocity accelerated at ft/sec (See Footnote 2). With each
century, this deconstruction increased like the squaring of the
seconds in the acceleration in Galileo's experiment.
The Protestant Reformation, which had made the dissemination of
Galileo's works possible, was the greatest process of
deconstructionism in history. For centuries since the great schism,
doubt had arisen about many of the teachings which developed in the
Western Church. These doubts were greatly increased by the avarice
and degenerate lifestyle of the clergy, especially the bishops and
the highest ranking clergy of all. The deconstruction of the Latin
Church had already begun by the thirteen hundreds. In that era, the
various Gnostic movements had gathered strength in Western Europe as
they had earlier in the East. Much of the strength of the Gnostic
movements lay in their protest against the degenerate living and the
remoteness of the clergy in both the Byzantine and Latin Churches.
After the sixteen hundreds, however, much deeper doubts arose. The
accusations which Martin Luther had nailed to the door of All Saints
Cathedral in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517 concerned only
ecclesiastical matters. The doubts which were given birth by the
burning of Giordano Bruno and the condemnation of Galileo on 21 June
1633 (both were deemed guilty of "Copernicanism") were of a more all-
encompassing nature. When Luther expressed doubts about the theology,
life and worthiness of the Latin Church, he was only giving voice to
doubts that had been arising regularly for centuries. With Luther,
the Western Church became engulfed in a flood of deconstructionism
that we call the Reformation. It was inevitable that both streams of
deconstruction should merge.
The deconstruction ushered in by the Galileo affair pertained not
only to the Western Christian Church, but to Christianity itself. The
Protestant Reformation led to the deconstruction of Christian Church
history and tradition. It would ultimately undermine the very
concepts of tradition and hierarchical structure. At first this
affected only the Church. As this deconstruction gathered force,
however, regard for all tradition and hierarchical structure in
society would be undermined. This would have enormous consequences
which are still being dealt with in the twenty-first century. The
undermining of the traditional family paradigm would be one of the
most notable casualties of Protestant deconstructionism.
That other form of deconstruction, for which we take the trial of
Galileo as being the first milestone, formed a direct challenge to
the whole of Christianity and to religion itself. It was not that the
emerging scientific revolution was in opposition to Christianity.
Science did not create this deconstruction; rather it was the
overbearing reaction of Christian leaders and intellectuals that
created this process. It was Christian leaders themselves who created
the greatest doubts in the minds of ordinary people about
Christianity. The Reformation was the beginning of liberalism and
liberal democracy. It ultimately made it possible for people to deny
all forms of authority. Not only was tradition abandoned in the
understanding of faith and of the Scripture, but now each individual
became his own personal authority in the interpretation of Scripture
and of the Christian faith itself. The nearly hysterical reaction on
the part of some Christian leaders to the writings of Charles Darwin
only fed the flames of this deconstruction of Christianity. It is
not that Darwin could not be read critically and not that one could
not disagree with his conclusion, but the panic with which the
response had been carried out has had a profoundly negative affect.
Worse still has been the clearly dishonest response on the part of
many Fundamentalist Christians, not least of which is the
fraudulent "scientific creationism," which is enough to make many
educated people leery of Christianity.
Thus we must in all honesty assert that the process of de-
Christianisation was really inaugurated by Christian leaders and
apologists. Fundamentalism, coupled with the undermining of regard
for authority and tradition, could only result in the undermining of
the institution itself. If fundamentalist Christians were confused
and led into hysteria by the truth itself, and if, as the Protestants
taught, sacred tradition and hierarchical structure are evil, then
there is essentially nothing left of the movement founded by Jesus
Christ and His apostles. There is no foundation left in a
Christianity which has no living sacred tradition or authority by
which it interprets the Scripture and symbols of the faith. Without a
foundation there is left only a structure which will collapse when
struck by a flood and an earthquake. The flood began slowly with the
trial of Galileo and reached its peak with the debates about Darwin.
The earthquake was unleashed earlier by the Protestant Reformation
which itself destroyed the foundation and caused the structure to
begin to crumble.
This is why I have chosen to speak about the manner in which many of
our contemporary clergy and Church leaders continue to undermine the
possibility of faith and loyalty to the Church in our younger and
more educated generations. We ourselves are a great part of the
movement of the deconstruction of the Christian Church and faith. I
wish to suggest that this conference will be of little value if we do
not discuss this aspect of the condition which we are calling "the
age of de-Christianisation." The term "de-Christianisation" now seems
to us in the West to be a bit obsolete. For the past fifty years, we
have been speaking of our "post-Christian era." Let me begin by
illustrating what we mean by the "post-Christian era."
The focus of this term has been on 1. the pulling back of church
institutions from direct attempts to control public life, 2. the
aspiration of those who preach the Gospel to be free to do so without
having to do it within state influenced frameworks which threaten the
political independence of the church, (See Footnote 3) the increased
recognition that the people of God are not the majority much less the
moral majority, but may always be leaven in the bread of our common
life.
Let us approach the specific subject of "de-Christianisation" from a
point of view that is all too often ignored. I would like to discuss
briefly the manner in which some Christian leaders support and
advance the process of the de-Christianisation of society.
I teach and lecture regularly at a number of universities in both
Canada and America; including two or three Protestant institutions. I
am also director of the Orthodox Christian Clubs at two universities
in Vancouver, Canada. During any given year, I will have an
opportunity to speak to thousands of students, and to actually have
conversations with hundreds of them. The doubts which are aroused in
students at civil universities are not always different than the ones
expressed by students in Christian colleges and universities. Both
will mention Christian bigotry and hypocrisy, but the anti-science
bias of fundamentalists will be mentioned more often in civil
institutions. The factors that push students in both types of
universities or colleges away from Christianity are often the same,
although Christian students are more likely to raise genuinely
theological questions. There is a tragic variation in these factors
among the Orthodox Christian young people that I speak with, but
these particular factors are not limited to the educated youth.
While we have many educated Protestants converting to Orthodox
Christianity, we also have more and more people born in the faith
failing to attend divine services. Please allow me to offer some
observations about these matters.
Educated young people are not less spiritual than previous
generations. If anything, they are more spiritually inclined, and are
seeking some spiritual foundation more than those who took religion
for granted in earlier generations. Why, then, is Christianity less
often the spiritual vehicle of choice and why are so many people who
were reared in one or another of the Christian religions opting to
find spiritual sustenance in other philosophical or religious
movements? In the brief time that I have, I would like to share some
of the conclusions of my own rather extensive experience in
confronting these very questions "on the front line," to borrow a
military expression. I would also like to aim my remarks primarily at
those of our own tradition, the leaders of the Orthodox Christian
Church. There are four particular areas that I wish to touch upon
today. Some of them may not yet be so obvious in Romania, but they
will be, and they are quite important to our subject:
(1). Foremost among the afflictions which drive people away from
Christianity is the spiritual illness called "fundamentalism." It
includes both a hyper-literalist interpretation of Scripture and a
dry, dead moralism.
(2). Clergy arrogance and remoteness. This includes the failure of
many priests and hierarchs to interact with the faithful in a
meaningful and personal way. It also includes the failure of clergy
to continue to educate themselves so that they can give meaningful
and convincing answers to the questions raised by educated and
cultured people.
Moreover, far too many priests, even those ill-equipped for it,
declare themselves "spiritual fathers" in order to exercise power and
manipulative control over their flocks, while not understanding the
real meaning of parenthood (which is the true pattern for the
spiritual father).
(3). Folk superstitions being taught as if they were doctrines of the
faith, rather than the teaching of sound theology. This is often done
by clergy who wish to manipulate and wrongfully control the faithful
through fear. This problem affects Orthodox Christians more than any
other Christian body, and occurs most frequently among monastics. It
forms the most salient distraction from a Christ-centred spiritual
life in the Orthodox Church. Often these superstitions completely
distract one from an awareness of the fullness of the grace of the
Holy Spirit.
(4). Among educated people raised in the so-called "evangelical"
denominations of Protestantism, the most common complaint I hear is
called "spiritual abuse." This is one of the more common reasons
given by converts for leaving those denominations and becoming
Orthodox Christians. This "spiritual abuse" includes the enormous
unhealed guilt complexes that are heaped on people for even the most
basic aspects of their humanity.
Evangelical fundamentalism, along with our own scholastics and
fundamentalists, are more responsible for the de-Christianisation of
society than any other force in the world.
1 -- FUNDAMENTALISM AND MORALISM
The mass rally is so valuable because it is there that people abandon
reason and accept oversimplified solutions (Adolf Hitler).
The abandonment of reason and the cruelty and evil of
oversimplification is a hallmark of the new "religious right"
movement in both Canada and America. While, on the surface, it
appears to be a restoration of Christian influence, it is in reality
a new Gnosticism fed and nourished by the New Age Movement. Not only
is it cruel, attempting to force dictatorial oversimplification on
very complex matters of human existence and social life, it is also
divisive. Each individual in this fundamentalist movement interprets
one of 100 or more conflicting translations of Scripture as he or
she "sees fit." It is an almost demonically prideful and arrogant
movement. The common thread, apart from its New Age Gnosticism is a
fear of, and war against, sound and solid modern science.
The "religious right" has come into a spiritual bondage to a
mythological understanding of the Old Testament and of the Book of
Revelation (Apocalypse). Many of its adherents are openly in favour
of provoking their
version of the "battle of Armageddon," arrogantly supposing that
they can thus hasten the return of Christ. Most of them adhere to the
internally contradictory doctrines of "rapture" and at the same time,
a purely Gnostic radical dualism in the nature of man. In the end,
this movement with its cold moral fascism, is spawning a deep and
lasting disillusionment with Christianity; perhaps with religion in
general.
The twin malignancies, as I consider them to be, of Fundamentalism
and moralism are the foremost causes of the de-Christianisation of
society in Canada and America and, I am certain, in Europe as well.
They are harboured also in elements within the Orthodox Church,
especially in the monasteries and "lay brotherhoods." For that
reason, I want to address them first.
As I mentioned before, I speak at several universities and colleges
in both Canada and America every year. Some of these institutions are
Protestant and Roman Catholic seminaries or Evangelical Protestant
universities and schools. You may be startled at what I have to say,
but I have asked literally thousands of students over the years, "How
many of you were born and raised in Christian homes, but have
rejected or turned away from Christianity?" When I have counted the
hands, it is often the majority of the students in the class or
auditorium. I ask some of the students if they will share with us the
reasons for their decisions. The overwhelming majority of the answers
are the same, and they are touched upon even in Christian
institutions where the students have not completely rejected
Christianity. Let me summarize them:
A. Dead Moralism:
Morality consists far more in how well we care for one another than
in what sort of behaviour we demand of others. (Deacon Lev Puhalo,
1973)
It turns out that the Greek iconographer and philosopher Photios
Kontaglou was correct when he said that the Western Christian concept
of God is a primary cause of atheism in the West. Perhaps more
clearly, the novel Western doctrine of redemption called "atonement"
is the real culprit. Aside from the fact that the doctrine leaves one
with the impression that God has a personality that is at best a
divine fascism, it is contrary to the doctrine and teaching of the
ancient Christian Church, and was invented only in early medieval
times. The fact that I have heard such sentiments expressed literally
thousands of times by students, and often by deeply believing
Evangelical Protestant youth, as well as those who have already given
up Christianity altogether, gives it profound meaning to our subject.
Indeed, the second American President, John Adams, raised precisely
this point in his correspondence with the third President of America,
the Masonic deist Thomas Jefferson. I do not have
time here to speak about this doctrine and how it opposes the
Orthodox Christian doctrine of redemption, except to say that the
Doctrine of Atonement really teaches us that Christ died to save us
from God. What the doctrine has done to Western Christianity has been
to reduce the Christian faith to a legal code of correct behaviour
which is void of the element of internal struggle (askesis; podvig)
for inner transformation and the transfiguration of the heart and
mind of the believer. This legal code is expressed, not in genuine
morality, but in a self-righteous and arrogant system of dead
moralism. Christianity has been reduced to an ideologically based
programme of "correct behaviour." It is lifeless and meaningless, and
has had to be shored up by turning churches into centres for shallow
entertainment, self-centred hymns that reinforce self-righteousness
and abolish the idea of struggling for the transformation of the
inner person into a living pattern of true morality. It is
clear beyond contradiction that this self-righteous moralism is used
as a weapon to persecute and harass others who might not share the
Pharisaic interpretation of external moralistic behaviour. However,
it does not provide the spiritual means of attaining to a truly moral
life in Christ. Even many Orthodox clergy in North America now
reject, either tacitly or openly, the concept of spiritual struggle
for the transformation of the heart, especially degrading the fasts
of the Orthodox Church and discouraging people from observing the
fasts.
One of the greatest forces in de-Christianising cultured and educated
society is one of the major focuses of fundamentalist political
activism. A primary thrust of this activism is a war against modern
science. This war, which has been joined by some Orthodox clergy,
undermines the Christian witness concerning authentic social
problems. Even in these valid and urgent social issues, arguments are
offered from a moralistic, ideological system rather than from some
reasonable Christian perspective. This has driven many people to
question the entire Christian message. It has helped to undermine our
objections to open abortion and our efforts to preserve marriage and
encourage young couples to make a firm commitment in marriage rather
than simply living together. In part, this is because dead moralism
speaks in terms of absolute "black and white," and fails to relate
its version of morality to the reality of life and to authentic
spiritual struggle. It is perfectly obvious to any
thoughtful observer that there is no such thing as absolute "black
and white" in the human condition; everything should be seen rather
in shades of grey. Everyone is in transit; none of us has yet arrived
at the destination to which Christ has called us. Moreover, morality
cannot successfully be taught in overly simplistic concrete terms
of "good and bad." We must give meaning to morality and teach it in
terms of its actual ramifications in the life of society and of the
individual. Constantly asserting morality in terms of "God will do
something terrible to you if you do not do as we tell you to do" is
not only ineffective, but it holds God up to derision. Moral law is
not simply some arbitrary preference on the part of God; true
morality is given to protect us from immediate negative consequences
in this present life, and to make civilised society possible. God has
given us moral instruction as an act of love and concern for our well
being, not simply as an expression of divine
fetishes and pique, as it is so often taught.
I am certain that this is a "hard saying" (John 6:60) for many, but I
respectfully ask that you open your minds and think about it
seriously and with prayer, because we have far too many scholastic
moralists in the Orthodox Church who are also destroying the
Christian faith in the minds of educated and cultured young people.
In every conversation I have had with students who are Evangelical
Protestants, both in their own institutions and in civil
universities, a number of them will always remark that the Christian
teaching they have received leaves them with nothing but a heavy
burden of guilt with no way to work it out, and that attempts are
made to cover over this darkness with shallow, light-minded
hymnology, various entertainments and trance inducing emotionalism
(which is an invitation to delusion) in place of authentic worship.
This is, as I mentioned, a common story that we hear from the
thousands of converts from Evangelicalism to Orthodoxy in both Canada
and America.
Moralism is a kind of religiosity which seeks to label and condemn
external behaviour. It demands an abandonment of what it has
labelled "bad," without a deep analysis of its roots and causes and
without offering a constructive programme of spiritual struggle. What
it almost always accomplishes is merely to drive the behaviour into
hidden fulfilment. If often hides real wickedness under a cloak of
religiosity and consistently confirms our dictum that moral outrage
is a form of involuntary confession. Just as patriotism is the last
refuge of the scoundrel, so moralism is the last refuge of the
corrupt and devious man.
This same emotionalistic, but dry and lifeless, scholastic moralism
is a cancer in many places in the Orthodox Church as well. We need to
speak about this at some length on an occasion when there is time to
do so. For the moment, let us allow St. John Chrysostom to speak to
us with a brief word of instruction. AIt is of no avail to hold right
doctrine but neglect life; nor does it contribute to our salvation to
gain virtue but neglect true doctrine."
B. Fundamentalism:
Henceforth I spread confident wings to space:
I fear no barrier of crystal or of glass:
I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite.
(Giordano Bruno, 1591)
The moralism I have just described is a part of all the
fundamentalisms in the world: Christian, Islamic, philosophical,
political: all of them have some form of dry, dead moralism that they
put forth as part of their raison d'etre. The other kind of
fundamentalism we need to address here is the bible-literalism aspect
of it. We have touched upon it briefly above. When fundamentalist
Christians insist on absolute literalism in biblical interpretation,
they make atheism inevitable among a substantial portion of educated
and cultured people. At the root of this travesty is the demand that
people must believe things that have clearly been proved false in
order to be "good Christians." fundamentalist Christians who insist
that we must believe that dinosaurs and humans existed at the same
time, or that the earth, even the universe, are no more than 10,000
years old, and that no form of evolution took place in God's plan and
direction of creation: these people and their ideology are the
real force behind the growth of atheism in our society. Indeed,
fundamentalist Christians are the foremost cause and moving force
behind the de-Christianisation of Western Society, and they will be
the primary cause for this same de-Christianisation in Orthodox
Christian societies as well. Not only do they teach that Christ died
to save us from God (rather than the Orthodox Christian doctrine of
redemption from the power of death and bondage to Satan, and
theosis), but they demand that we must choose between God and truth,
but cannot have both.
Fundamentalism can thrive only in an atmosphere and culture of
ignorance. In America today, we see the tragic spectacle of
fundamentalists forming political movements in an attempt to force
public schools to stop teaching modern science and physics because it
contradicts their religious ideology and egoistic models of reality.
Yet, I have met thousands of deeply believing and faithful highly
educated young people whose faith has not been shaken at all by the
discovery that dinosaurs were extinct millions of years before humans
appeared, that the earth is four billion years old, that the time
frame and chronology of the first few chapters in Genesis is not
literally accurate, and that there is irrefutable evidence of some
form of evolution taking place as God's eternal will and plan has
unfolded in our universe. These young people have a vital, living
faith in God and in Jesus Christ, while fundamentalists actually do
not have faith but can only take refuge in their lifeless ideology,
which is racing toward an empty cul de sac. It is a catastrophe when
people think in terms of "absolutes," especially when they think they
possess "absolute truth," or absolute reality. For one thing, if you
think that way, you become incapable of growth, development or even
of adventure. For another, you will be inclined to persecute other
people, never realising that you yourself have become an emotional,
intellectual and moral cripple.
Truth is never harmed by reality. Falsehood and error can never
substantiate the truth of the Gospel. While our fundamentalists are
busy creating conflicts where none actually exist and raising doubts
in young people where none need be found, they appear unaware that
faith is ultimately a matter of orientation rather than of
ideological indoctrination with false information. This is why so
many believing, educated people are not the least bit troubled by the
ideas of modern science, and their belief in God and their profound
faith in Jesus Christ are sure and deeply founded. This is because
they have a living faith in God, rather than a crippled dependency on
an ideology that passes for faith.
Among the other tragedies of literalist fundamentalists, is the fact
that so much of the actual meaning of the Creation Narrative in the
Bible is lost to them. They are so busy arguing for the literal,
scientific accuracy of their own interpretation of the narrative that
they completely neglect the rich and powerful spiritual meaning of
the narrative, a message and meaning which cultured and educated
people can appreciate and accept, and come to have faith in.
Just as truth is never harmed by reality, so truth can never be
served by a lie.
2 -- INTERACTION AND EDUCATION
It is of no avail to hold right doctrine but neglect life; nor does
it contribute to our salvation to gain virtue but neglect true
doctrine. (St. John Chrysostom)
This brings me to the subject of clergy interaction and Christian
education, and particularly the education of seminarians who are
going to be the priests, ministers and teachers in the Christian
world.
A. Clergy Interaction:
When I speak of the failure of many priests and bishops to engage
themselves with the people, the world and the great civil dialogue, I
am not speaking specifically about "giving answers." Later in this
paper I will address the matter of clergy continuing to educate
themselves so they can give "meaningful and convincing answers." I am
not speaking particularly about the priest as "a giver of answers,"
however, and I want to frame this part of our discussion in another
way. "Answers" are like giving sound-bits or offering what we
call "pop-ups" on the computer monitor, while "engaging" seekers in
the meaningful questions in their lives is an act of spiritually and
conversationally walking with them in this life, leading them and,
when necessary, commending them to others who can lead them into the
landscape of meaning and the sources of meaning that is the lifelong
work of Christian formation and dialogue. What I wish we could expect
from clergy is that they have a grip on the
important questions of life. Only this could enable them to open up
the conversation with their flocks, especially the youth, bringing
together the particular currents of our contemporary life
(personally, socially and culturally). Only in this way can they
frame these pressing questions and express how the landscape of the
Church Tradition provides us with context, sign-posts, sensibilities
and teaching so we can think clearly and deeply about our life and
the life of the world. Only by fully understanding this connection
between the Sacred Tradition and the real life of the world can one
become illumined and speak with wisdom about the authentic life of
people in the world C not with ideology, but with real knowledge and
wisdom. Truth opens our eyes, makes our hearts elastic and makes it
possible for us, the clergy, to speak healing words rather than
engendering emotional and moral bondage.
The lack of meaningful interaction with the faithful outside of the
liturgical services is a serious problem. It leaves people to seek
outside the faith for answers and guidance in many pressing
questions. Some will turn to superstitions, others to non-Christian
sources, most to the New Age Movement. It is true that many of our
priests have too narrow an education to be able to frame discussions
and offer guidance in ways that are meaningful and useful to the more
educated young people of our era, or to cultured older people. In
fact, this does not matter much when the priest is open, warm and
loving in his interactions with his flock, so long as he does not
attempt to answer questions that he is not equipped to answer. The
sincere care and love that the priest or bishop gives to his people
is actually more powerful than any ability he may have to dialogue
and answer broader questions.
The clergy are not called upon to be oracles, experts with all the
answers. None of us, clergy or laity, are called to be ultimate
experts. We are called to engage the world and the culture around us
without flinching, seeking what is in the heart, not just what is
said. We are called upon to learn to understand the gravity of the
enquiries placed before us and cultivate for ourselves a refined way
of asking important questions. Then we are, to the extent that we are
able, to open up the Gospel and Tradition as landscapes of meaning
that help us learn how to engage the spiritual longing coming to
greet us in the questions and enquiries we encounter. We must do this
without fear and prejudice, taking delight in the opening up of the
person with whom we are talking and his or her desire for knowledge.
However, all the love and care that a person may have by nature
cannot offset the damage that can be done by the clergyman who does
not acknowledge his own limitations and understand the necessity of
sometimes referring people to other professions.
B. Teaching and Education:
(1) An approach to teaching philosophy:
We need to carefully re-examine our seminary programmes. Let us ask
ourselves if perhaps too much time is spent teaching Western
philosophy, and too little time is spent on in depth study of the
holy fathers. It is important to examine philosophy, but actually,
most of the noted philosophers are utterly irrelevant to anything
taking place in the world around us. I understand the value of
teaching philosophy when it is taught as an engagement in the great
human dialogue, and for the purpose of a development of critical
thinking among the students. When one teaches these various
philosophers in place of contemporary studies, however, or teaches
them in the same context as the holy fathers, then we are actually
crippling these future clergy in the kind of pastoral impact they
need to have on contemporary educated and cultured people C
particularly the younger generation. Too often, when patristic
studies are tied together with philosophy, we end up corrupting the
dynamic spiritual
teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, St. Symeon the New Theologian and
other of the great holy fathers, with neo-Platonism or Aristotelian
rationalism.
The theories of epistemology, general learning, the way the brain and
mind function, etc., which have been advanced by the philosophers
have been disproved by medical and scientific research, and far more
attention needs to be paid to the more accurate discoveries of modern
science. In the end, we corrupt the grid through which theology
should be understood. We teach students how non-Orthodox thought
developed, but do not teach them the development of Orthodox
Christian thought. We teach them Hellenistic, Latin and German
rationalism, but do not teach them about the existential encounter
with mystery that constitutes the source of true Orthodox Christian
theology.
Modern Western philosophy was developed by non-Orthodox theorists,
many of them deist thinkers. Moreover, it was all done within the
grid, and the vocabulary, of medieval scholasticism, which has the
very opposite texture to Orthodox Christian theology. This has proved
to be, as Canadian philosopher David J. Goa phrases it, " a dead-end
but we must realise that it is an important dead-end that continues
to reverberate in our public culture; and thus it must be
understood." The question is how and in what context we can
understand it. When it is taught as a continuing tradition of
learning it simply continues the historic problems and errors which
permeate the Scholastic system C that is, the radical break from the
Orthodox Christian holy fathers and the living Tradition of the
faith. It informs religion with merely human rationalistic traditions
rather than the living Tradition of the faith which Apostle Paul
enjoined us to hold fast to. The tragedy of Western philosophical
theology
is not that they read Plato and Aristotle but that they did not read
the Church fathers in their own context. Certainly they have not read
Plato and Aristotle in the way that the holy fathers read
them, "turning them on their heads [giving radically different
meanings to the words and concepts which they expressed] while using
their vocabulary to make sense of the world and of the human nature."
To read these great philosophers in any other context is to advance
the cause of anti-Christian culture. I offer as a cautionary note
that one of the responses to this misreading is that philosophical
constraint was jettisoned in the development of a curious kind of
scientism, which has been ushered in to replace it. And with all
this, we still fail to read the Church fathers and fail once more to
turn the philosophers' quest for meaning around, reverse it, turn it
upside down and thus recover the life of the world.
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle did establish the groundwork for laying
superstition to rest but their disciples ushered superstition in by
the back door as we know so well from the works of Plotinus, Origen
and others.
I suggest that we need a short course included in our philosophy
classes, in Western thought that would unveil this foundational
disease and map its patterns through the Reformation thinkers,
through Kant to the present day. But here is the issue. Philosophy
must be studied but not as it is done in many seminaries where the
first academic degree is in philosophy. We must begin with the
Gospels and the fathers and, having laid this proper foundation, we
would then be able to engage the Western philosophical tradition for
what it is: an enormous lost weekend shaping the mind of the modern
world through the patterns of heretical dualism and distorted
dialectical thinking.
(2) Approaching life sciences:
What is perhaps more important to our present era is that in
seminaries, all dry, scholastic philosophy classes should be limited
and more emphasis placed on life sciences, basic physics and above
all, on the holy and God-bearing fathers. We lose credibility with
educated people when we are unable to engage in even the most basic
and simple conversations that include these subjects, or when we
respond to them with some sort of fundamentalism or condescension. In
February of this year, I was engaged with a group of university
students during the agape at St. Nicholas Parish near Vancouver. Over
the agape meal, one of them wanted to discuss the pros and cons of
cosmic string theory. The discussion lasted for over an hour and was
quite intense. Through it, these students increased in their sense of
security in the Orthodox Christian faith. Naturally, no one expects
every clergyman to be able to engage in that type of discussion, but
one should expect the clergy not to respond to it with
some kind of condescension, fear or retreat. It is far more
effective to say honestly, "I am not versed in that subject, so I
cannot discuss it adequately." Moreover, when young people in our
area raise such issues, many of the Orthodox clergy, and a few
Protestants ministers recommend that these people come to our
monastery for such discussions because we can provide someone from
among the clergy who can discuss it with them. Giving modern
seminarians a basic vocabulary in physics and life sciences is a
great help. It is also advisable that there be enough interaction
among the clergy themselves so that they know which one to refer
people to for more specialized questions. For example, we have a
Romanian priest in Vancouver who is a neurobiologist. As you all are
aware, however, sometimes petty jealousy and envy prevent this. Some
priests in our era have a feeling of "proprietorship" over their
parishioners and, as Patriarch Alexei of Moscow recently pointed out,
this sometimes
goes so far as to include cultish control and manipulation of the
people by a priest or bishop. This tragedy, too, is part of the
stream of forces that are helping to de-Christianize our society.
C. Education in General:
Teaching students "by rote" or mere memorization, simply reading to
them or lecturing at them is not education; it is sheer
indoctrination, the creating of ideologies, not the forming of sound
knowledge and vital faith. Education involves interaction and
dialogue; the formation of the ability for critical thinking and
reasoning. It sometimes involves a professor frankly and honestly
admitting that he or she is not able to give a satisfactory or
meaningful answer to a question and suggesting where a student might
go to find that answer. A professor who seeks to present himself as
an oracle rather than a human teacher is quite unconvincing and soon
loses the trust of his or her students.
We truly need to give time in our seminaries and schools to subjects
that will equip our seminarians to engage in meaningful dialogue with
the contemporary world. We can do this without puffing them up so
that they cannot also minister to less educated and simpler people.
To the extent that we do spend time in the study of the philosophers,
we need to make the subjects more vital than is usually the case. The
study of philosophy should always be viewed as participation in the
great human dialogue, the unfolding of the process of critical
thinking and the mastering of organised and systematic thought. In
this respect, we should be giving as much attention and credence to
non-Western philosophers as to Western ones.
Let us also remember that modern science developed out of the
philosophical process, and moved beyond the speculations of
philosophy to testable and provable discoveries. The speculations of
antique philosophers about the way the human brain works, the way we
learn and about knowledge (epistemology) is no substitute for
teaching the truth about these subjects. The reality about the way
the brain operates, thinks and learns is to be gained from hard
science, not from philosophers. The study of the philosophers, when
not offset by a careful study of the holy fathers also leads to
heretical thinking. For example, Plato and most of the Western
philosophers were dualists, whereas almost all of the holy fathers
make a point of refuting dualism and condemning it as heresy. Emanuel
Kant, although he was a dry, scholastic moralist, taught that true
morality is attained without resort to God, and he negated altogether
the need for a life in Christ.
I would like to add that when professors and teachers sit on a stage,
behind a table and talk down to the students, they appear like petty
bureaucrats or automated statues. One can hardly make a class an
exciting learning experience with any real relevance while teaching
in this medieval manner. It is especially crippling and empty when
the professor does not engage in dialogue with the students and
encourage their critical thinking. Before the Soviet revolution,
Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky of Russia had warned leaders in the
Russian educational system that if they did not teach the students
active critical thinking, the students would all end up as
socialists. They would not be able to think critically about the
promises and egalitarian philosophy of socialism and many would (and
did) accept it uncritically. He proved to be correct. We, in our
time, if we do not teach critical thinking and have active dialogue
with our students, will drive some students away from the Church,
and equip our seminarians to help de-Christianize our society when
they become clergymen.
Philosophy and all the most brilliant philosophers put together have
never, and could never give any real meaning to life, to the world,
to the universe. Nor have they any capacity to form a convincing goal
for life or for the world itself. The raison d'etre, the goal, the
destiny of life of mankind and of the world lies outside this world.
It can be approached through worship and prayer, but not by
philosophy and worldly knowledge. But, and I wish to stress this
strongly, this in no way negates the quest for knowledge and
understanding in this world by means outside the Church and the
faith. Our task is to participate in this quest for knowledge in the
world without condescension or condemnation, and add to it the final
conclusions, opening the door to ultimate meaning and creating a
world of meaning that ultimately fulfils the worldly knowledge gained
through science and thought. What we have to add to the knowledge
gained in the world is the knowledge of God and the pursuit of a
life in Jesus Christ.
3 -- THE DIVINE SERVICES; HYPERCLERICALISM:
"The offering of thanksgiving again is common: for neither doth he
give thanks alone, but also all the people. For having first heard
their voices, when they assent that it is `meet and right' to do so,
then he begins the Eucharist." (St John Chrysostom, Homily 18, on 2nd
Corinthians, 4th century.)
"When all make their profession of the divine faith together, they
anticipate the mystical Eucharist...In making that thanksgiving, the
worthy confirm their gratitude for God's kindness, having no other
way to reciprocate God's infinite blessings." (St Maximos the
Confessor, The Mystagogia, 34:31 7th century).
"The priest says: 'Let us give thanks unto the Lord.' The people
affirm: 'It is meet and right' to send up hymns of thanksgiving." (St
Germanos of Constantinople, Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 41. 8th
century).
"The celebrant addresses to God this act of thanksgiving: 'Let us
give thanks unto the Lord.' The faithful give their consent,
saying, 'It is meet and right'." (Nicholas Kavasilas, Commentary on
the Divine Liturgy, Ch.26. 14th century).
"Ah, the power and prejudice of custom," laments St. John Chrysostom
in his homily condemning the practice of not receiving Communion
every Sunday. It is the power of custom rather than the Sacred
Tradition of the Church that holds many of our Church leaders under
its sway. Part of this stifling custom is based in a certain elitism
and arrogance of our clergy. Whatever its basis, the power of custom
prevents us from making adjustments and changes to practices in the
Church, which are necessary in order to address and hold the faithful
in the Church in the long term. We are not talking about some sort
of "renovationism," or altering of Sacred Tradition and liturgical
integrity. We are indicating a need to re-assess various customs that
may in themselves contradict the essence of liturgical worship. The
continued exclusion of the faithful from a full participation in the
divine services is a problem that all of us must come to grips with
sooner or later. In America and Canada, this has
gone so far that we find some priests and hierarchs even
discouraging the faithful from keeping the canonical fasts of the
Church. A more immediate problem is that the faithful are not
permitted in many places to join the singing of the responses in the
divine services, when in fact, we should be encouraging them to do
so. In the Greek Church in Canada and America, the bishops have
introduced, sometimes by force, organs and pianos into the churches.
Often, the antiphons are replaced by organ recital music, but the
faithful still do not participate in singing or chanting in what is
left of the Liturgy. Apostle Peter refers to the faithful as a "royal
priesthood," and the word "laity" is an abbreviation of the
Greek "laos to theou" "the people of God." How is it that we clergy
are so enamoured of ourselves, so arrogant, that we desire to exclude
the "people of God" from participation in the services as much as
possible, primarily in order to uphold our own exaggerated high
opinion of
ourselves?
This problem includes not only the failure to encourage the faithful
to join the singing of the Divine Liturgy (and "liturgy" is
understood in the Orthodox Church as "the work of the people"), but
also our failure to encourage regular and frequent Communion of the
Holy Mysteries. Stop and think about it without the prejudice of
custom for a moment. The obnoxious and meaningless custom of opening
and closing the royal doors and curtains during the Divine Liturgy is
based on nothing else except the rank of the clergyman serving that
day. We once read in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate of a
priest in Moscow who had been given, as an award, the right to serve
the first part of the Liturgy with the curtain half open. Meanwhile,
it is likely that very few of the faithful were approaching for
Communion. The only argument I have ever heard for allowing priests
of different rank to have the doors and curtains open for different
portions of the Liturgy was that "it teaches the lower
ranking clergy humility!"
As David Goa has stated, "The Liturgy is the highest form of the
human story, and its most concrete expression."(3) The purpose of the
Divine Liturgy is to bring the faithful to Holy Communion, not to
teach some clergy humility and others pride! Whatever the origins of
the custom of some clergy opening and closing the doors and curtains
at differing times, depending upon rank and privilege, it is
distracting and forms just another way of closing the faithful out of
full participation in the Liturgy. In spite of unclever sophisms, no
one has ever proposed an explanation of this custom that has the
slightest real meaning. Meanwhile, the faithful are seldom if ever
taught the actual meaning of the actions and words which they see and
hear during the Liturgy. How, then, do we expect educated and
cultured younger generations to continue to attend the divine
services? Protestantism at least offers participation in the
services, as well as a great deal of shallow and empty entertainment;
but this shallow entertainment is a big attraction for
the "television generation."
When we cling so fervently to meaningless customs based in vanity and
self-importance, it ultimately becomes more difficult for us to hold
fast to those things which do have meaning and which are needful.
The greatest thing we can offer to the world and culture in which we
live is our common prayer with that great cloud of witnesses with
whom we pray in the Divine Liturgy. Our prayer together, our common
worship "with one heart and one mind" is our primary spiritual
offering and work for the life of the world. It is our common work,
not the work of the clergy and the choir or chanter: it is the work
of God's people together with the saints and angels.
4 -- EPILOGUE
Brethren, there would be nothing more unjust than our faith if it
were only the sum of demonstrations which are wise and intellectual
and abounding in words, for in that case simple people would remain
without the acquisition of faith. (Saint Gregory of Nyssa).
There is a danger in reading the gifts of the secular simply as the
loss of church power. While the secular is indeed a loss of religious
power (and well it ought to be), the secular is a gift from the
Christian tradition to both the life of the world and the life of the
Church. To the Church, it provides the freedom from the corruption of
worldly power so that it can regain authentic spiritual authority. To
the world, it gives the freedom necessary to claim the Gospel and
accept willingly its pathway to freedom and fullness of life.
Moreover, to the Church, the secular makes it possible for it to re-
establish it's vocation as "leaven" so that the faithful may once
more minister on all the margins present in the lives of people and
in civil life. We have nothing to fear from an emerging secular
society since "perfect love casts out fear."
What it does require of us is a deep engagement, through our faith
formation, in the suffering of the world. It does require of us that
we live out our vocation modelled by the Holy Theotokos to be birth-
givers of Divine love in the world and to do so without constraint,
particularly the constraints that arise when the Church shares power
with the State or sees itself as a power broker within society. The
Christian Church is never going to hold such a position again in
society, but we should not feel threatened by this; rather we should
feel challenged to rise to and meet the new situation head on. We
need to move into a post-Christian age with confidence, the
confidence that comes from the recovery of the holy tradition and
learning its sources and deepening the stance it gives us as the
people of God instead of the arrogant stance shaped by the idea of
being a people of the "dominant Christian culture" with all its
requirements for self-interest and institutional interests, and the
possibility of using the civil authority as a means to persecute
others. Our gift is to witness the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not to
govern the world or dictate the behaviour of others. Our gift is to
join that great cloud of witnesses that has gone before us and seek
to nurture the world, society and culture, and offer the healing of
Christ's words and presence to a world which we love and cherish, not
one which we consider to be an enemy or adversary.
If we can accomplish this, then we may glimpse the energy of creation
with an increased capacity to love God and minister in co-suffering
love to His creation. We may then be able to heal the wounds of
perception, the broken images of life which skew our regard for
creation and for each other. Reality does not consist in abstract,
disembodied ideas, but in that which we experience and the people
whom we encounter. What we ultimately experience is that creation is
good, even if man often does bad things with it, and that we, if we
pursue the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, may serve in some small way
to help in the healing of our society and of the humanity around us,
so dearly loved by God. Only then can we ever hope to turn back the
tide of the de-Christianisation of culture and society.
Let everyone remember that the destiny of mankind is incomparable.
Let him above all never forget that the divine image is in him, and
in him alone, and that he is free to disregard it, to obliterate it,
or to come closer to God by demonstrating his eagerness to work with
Him and for Him. (LeComte Du Nouy, 1947).
Footnotes:
- Commentary on Genesis, Homily 13:4.
- The expression is from a lecture of David Goa.
- In an informal symposium.
Archbishop Lazar Puhalo is a retired hierarch of the Orthodox Church
in America. He is Abbott of New Ostrog Monastery in Dewdney, British
Columbia, Canada. This paper was written for a symposium in Romania.