Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Stray thoughts on Christian Nationalism - C.E.W. Green

CEW Green

1. Whatever else “Christian nationalism” is in theory, in practice, it turns out to be a way of talking about Jesus so that no one, including him, can keep us from doing the evils we think we need to do to save our way of life. So far as I can see, that means, by definition, that such a thing can’t be meaningfully Christian.

 

2. I agree, almost, with Daniélou: “Christians ought to be trying to change the shape and pattern of society so as to make possible a Christian life for the whole of mankind.” (I say I almost agree because a lot is riding on what is meant by “a Christian life for the whole of mankind.”) But we can do right by our neighbors only by doing what Jesus, the living, risen Lord, tells us to do. And he is always saying the same thing. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good…” “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” “Blessed are those who are persecuted…”

 

3. If you think about it, Christian nationalism, like Christendom proper, just cannot end well. At some point, the damage done to people in Jesus’ name fills up its allotted measure and suddenly we’re living in a world where there are more people with complaints against the church, laments God has promised to hear, than there are people who have reasons to give thanks to God because of us. And that, as they say, is that.

 

4. Christendoms or Christian —isms of whatever type are bargains made with the Devil. First, we use our powers to turn stones to bread to feed the masses. Then, for a moment, we rule over the kingdoms of the well-fed. But in the end, driven mad by the Devil, driven to test our limits, to prove our superiority, we throw ourselves down from the heights and are broken at the feet of the poor.

5. The Scriptures—the Gospels, in particular—tell us what we need to know about this. But reading Dostoyevsky and some history wouldn’t hurt. See also: the testimony of the martyrs.

 

6. Speaking of the Devil—as opposed as I am to nationalism, and especially any so-called Christian versions thereof, that’s not the greatest danger we’re facing right now.

 

7. What is the greatest danger? We cannot know what battles are truly worth fighting until we know how to fight as we should; and that requires a return to what in fact matters most for us as followers of Christ— something that can only be learned at the feet of the poor. Let the reader understand.

The Mystic & the Lawyer - the Nature of Redemption - Lazar Puhalo

The Orthodox concept of redemption may be briefly epitomized as follows: the meaning of "atonement" is really "to remove (or overcome) the cause of separation." In other words, man is alienated from God by sin (by his constant "missing of the mark"), and so he is in bondage to death.

Since man sins continually due to the power of death (which is held by Satan), sin alienates man from God, and death perpetuates the separation (and vice versa). By death, we fall short (again, by "missing the mark"—sin) of our original destiny, which is to live through unity with the Creator. We are ransomed by Christ from the power of death so that we can become partakers of the divine essence and share in immortality, which belongs to God alone. Being ransomed from the power and fear of death, we are thus redeemed from bondage to the Evil One, a bondage that has been affected and strengthened by our own sinful passions. Christ did not die to save us from God, as the neo-pagan doctrine of “substitutionary sacrifice atonement” teaches.

The following summary of the Orthodox teaching about redemption is drawn from various works by Fr John Romanides:

Christ saves men who have fallen through their own fault into the power of the devil by breaking that power. He became Man for this purpose; He lived and died and rose again so that He might break the chains by which men were bound. It is not His death alone but the entire Incarnation, of which His death was a necessary part, that freed men from their captivity to Satan.

By becoming Man, living a sinless life, and rising from the dead (which He could not have done unless He had first died), He introduced a new power into human nature. This power is bestowed on all men who are willing to receive it, through the Holy Spirit. Those who receive it are united with Christ in His Mystical Body, the Church; the corrupted human nature (the bad habits and evil desires, which St Paul calls "the old man": Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) is driven out by degrees until at last it is expelled altogether, and the redeemed person becomes entirely obedient to the will of God, as our Lord Himself was when on earth. The prisoner is set free from the inside; both his mind and body are changed; he comes to know what freedom is, to desire it, and, by the Holy Spirit working within him, to break his chains, turn the key and leave the dungeon.

Thus he is freed from the power of sin. God forgives him as an act of pure love, but the condition of his forgiveness is that he must sin no more. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8-9). but if we wilfully continue to be sinners, Christ's death for us will have been in vain. We are made capable of ceasing to be sinners by the power of Christ's Resurrection, which has given us the power to struggle against sinfulness toward moral perfection.

The advantage of this Orthodox teaching is that it is firmly based on the New Testament. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19); the act of reconciliation is effected by God in the Person of His Son, for it is man that needs to be reconciled to God, not God that needs to be reconciled to man.

Throughout the New Testament, we find the proclamation that Christ has broken the power of the devil, to which mankind was subject (see Lk. 10:17-18); 11:22; 1 Cor. 15:25; Gal.1:4; Col. 2:15; 2 Tm.1:10; Hb.2:14; Jn.10:11; 12:31; 16:11; 1Jn.3:8; and frequently in Revelation).

Moreover, this teaching of the atonement requires no "legal fiction" and attributes no immoral or unrighteous action to God. Man is not made suddenly good or treated as good when he is not good; he is forgiven not because he deserves to be forgiven but because God loves him, and he is made fit for union with God by God's own power, his own will cooperating. He is saved from the power of sin by the risen life of Christ within him, and from the guilt of sin by God's forgiveness, of which his own repentance is a condition.

Thus, salvation consists in the union of the faithful with the life of God in the Body of Christ (the Holy Church), where the Evil One is being progressively and really destroyed in the life of co-suffering love. This union is effected by Baptism (the Grace of regeneration) and fulfilled in the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and in the mutual, cooperative struggle of Orthodox Christians against the power and influence of the Evil- One. This is precisely why the last words of the "Lord's Prayer" are, "deliver us from the Evil-One," and not "deliver us from evil."

 

 

The World's True Story Told Well - Kenneth Tanner

Icon: Copyright Oleksandr Antoniuk - UPB to KT

When we tell the story of the world well, it is converting, not condemning. The world’s true story gives life.

And we cannot tell the world’s story well—we cannot tell our story well—if we do not tell God’s story well.

After all, God’s story is our story, and our story is God’s story—in Jesus Christ, in whom all things—humanity among them—are brought to perfection.

So it is vital to tell the story of the human God as well as we can because it is the story of Jesus that makes sense of God, humanity, and existence.

The person of Jesus is the great lantern that lights our path on the way to dying as he dies so that we might be human as God is human, to live as he lives, from age to age.

When the story of Jesus is told poorly or badly—on occasion, diabolically—we call that heresy.

Heresy harms humans because it distorts our portrait of God’s character and darkens our understanding of ourselves as humans because we are all made in the image of God.

The first thing to say about heresy is that it is an expensive word. It should almost never be used.

We know this because no one has an infinite grip on the mysteries of God and the world. The best Christian teachers confess they only get glimpses of the glory of God.

We also know this because history shows that the word has been employed egregiously. One of the first Christians, arguably the best reader of our Scriptures, and one of our wisest pastors, was condemned by the church as a heretic: Origen of Alexandria.

There is such a thing as heresy. It is a choice to ignore the story that the Creeds tell, the consensus story that emerges from storytelling and sacraments down the centuries, and across languages and cultures, the story of our best hymns and icons, a story that has always had good teachers and wonderful actors, a story that is still told and enacted well today.

The best way to avoid heresy is to immerse oneself in the great conversation about Jesus that has gone on in the church since Pentecost and in Israel since Abraham and Moses, to enter the spaces of prayer and adoration of Jesus across the body of Christ that the Spirit is bringing into all truth.

Be cautious and sparing with the word heresy, even as our Lord pardons our misunderstandings and failures. Christ is all and in all, and he will perfect everything that concerns us and the world. His life and death, resurrection, and ascension bring the world’s story to a very good end.

Icon: Oleksandr Antoniuk

Deconstructing Deconstruction – Felicia Murrell (w/ Bradley Jersak)

Deconstructing Deconstruction – Felicia Murrell (w/Brad Jersak)

Editor’s Note: The following interview is a partial transcript of one for four forthcoming podcast interviews on “deconstruction” at Stephen Backhouse’s Tent Theology Podcast. Bradley Jersak will be serving as co-host in interviews with Brian Zahnd, David Hayward, Felicia Murrell, and Judith Moses (recorded in that order).  

 

Bradley

Definition: First, the word “deconstruction,” popularly used today, has become a catchphrase for a range of experiences from voluntary to involuntary, from liberating to traumatic, from personal to social, that involve a dismantling or restructuring of one’s belief systems (religious or ideological). Understood this way, one may experience a process of disorientation and reorientation that holds its own perils and possibilities.

In your world and your story, what other words or metaphors might best describe this phenomenon? What might that look like in the communities you work with? Examples of both the pitfalls and breakthroughs are most welcome. 

 

Felicia

My work is largely one-on-one spiritual companioning and it’s the work of accompanying, of listening, of sharing and bearing witness, being human in the presence of one another with all of our eff ups and complexities and beauties and joys.

In carrot on a stick religion that uses your imperfections to keep you chasing healing, chasing wholeness, chasing blessings, too often we hand our power over to something outside ourselves. We are always looking for external validation, external permission. Led by the opinions of others — what others think, what others say is true and right…how others say we should live, dress, talk…who we should love or sleep with…what we should read, what movie we can watch…what we are to believe— it feels natural to “let someone else control us,” to unconsciously hand over the reins and allow someone else guide us externally. Honestly, it’s not something we often question because most of our lives, whether our parents, our religious leaders, our coaches, or our bosses, someone outside of ourselves has told us what to do and how to be. So, it feels natural …until it doesn’t. Sometimes this rupture, this process of deconstructing, happens naturally and sometimes unnaturally, sometimes by way of invitation, sometimes by way of force.

But I’m struck by the portion of Psalm 32:8, “…I’ll guide you with my eye.” And for me, it seems like an invitation to be led from the inside out instead of the outside in. So the process of deconstruction becomes something like allowing the pillars of certainty and arrogance to collapse so we can join Love in a dance of unknowing that requires humility and trust. This in itself is its own homecoming, moving from an external guide to internal guide, the eye of Love.

Ron Dart - Myth and Meaning and the Inklings

Ron Dart - Scrutinizing Scruton: Canadian High Toryism & Scrutonia

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