Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Christian Nationalism after Christ - Abp Lazar Puhalo

I am offering an opinion that will be controversial but which I want to ask people to think about seriously before they respond. It is possible that the movement of Christian nationalism is led by people who no longer accept Christian apocalypticism and do not believe in the return of Jesus Christ but who wish to utilise these beliefs for both financial gain and political power.

Perhaps they have lost their faith altogether. In such cases, and one will find this in political Christianity, including the Evangelicalism within the Orthodox Church, a “Christianity” that has been repurposed as the basis for a political and social ideology. This is why the essence of Christ's teachings has essentially evaporated in these movements and are no longer the essential dynamic of them. The mantras and ritual expressions remain, but they are manifested as cognitive dissonance. This form of political Christianity is generally manipulated by charismatic leaders who show no real signs of the belief that they profess so violently and emotionally. As a political/social movement, this form of political Christianity is both financially profitable to the unscrupulous pastors, preachers and leaders who utilise it as a "religion business" and a gateway to political power and influence.

A genuine religion industry has developed, primarily but not only in the United States. The repurposing of the gospel for primarily political purposes, essentially the underpinning of a political ideology, has been quite successful in the United States, as has the industrialisation and corporatisation of Christianity. It is questionable whether the leaders of this political religion actually believe in Jesus Christ and his promises.

To be sure, they use the proper mantras and catchphrases, the appropriate ritual language, but there is nothing in their fear and hate sermons, which are simply propaganda speeches, to indicate that they adhere to the person and teachings of Jesus Christ. We find a few elements of this in the Orthodox Church. We will find that political religion eschews the elements of the Sermon on the Mount and in practice, generally oppose the teachings in the 25th chapter of Matthew's gospel. They are far more likely to be advocates of the worst elements and interpretations of Old Testament law, often even trying to justify slavery. Moreover, this brand of Christianity and Christian leader incessantly utilise conspiracy theories, most of which are ungrounded. When such baseless conspiracy fantasies they are presented by such leaders, they take on an aura of substance that they actually simply do not have. This political Christianity also utilizes a contrived "culture wars" much to its economic and the power base advantage.

While the above might be controversial, it most certainly bears more scrutiny and serious-minded contemplation and study. This fear and hate-based political religion does depend on enhancing the cognitive dissonance of its followers, and easily morphs into a dangerous political movement with clearly defined "target enemies." The excesses, the fear and the hate are also primary drivers in the deconstruction of Christianity, which is feeding the growth of atheism and agnosticism, particularly in the United States. Those who wish to follow Jesus Christ and His gospel are being steadily disenfranchised from this politicized Christianity that is dominating America and, to a lesser degree, other countries. Political Christianity ultimately pushes serious-minded and sincere people away from Christ as it undermines and discredits the Gospel itself.

The Trees of Paradise - Abp Lazar Puhalo

THE TREES OF PARADISE, a prologue for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

"Meaning" is so often the missing dimension in religious teaching and deliberations. When religious people debate about the creation narrative in Genesis, they leave a certain emptiness. In discussing the Covenant and the Old Testament in general, they so often lapse into moralism without meaning. Their discourses about the creation narrative are almost always concerned with arguing that the story is literally and scientifically accurate. Seldom, if ever, does one hear an exposition of meaning in such discussions. One does not expect to hear much about meaning from atheists who argue about it, but those who profess to be believers have a responsibility to offer it, and they hardly ever do. Nevertheless, this "meaning" speaks of an existential freedom and an existential responsibility on the part of each human person.

The story of the trees of Paradise presents us with a profound existential metaphor — or, if you prefer, a revelation. Let me present this mystery in the form of an excerpt from one of my own Paschal sermons:

"....I would like to call upon you to reflect on the trees of Paradise. By grace, God bestowed life upon mankind, but the life He gave to our ancestors was not the life of puppets or robots. He bestowed upon mankind an authentic life. Authenticity of life requires freedom. God created mankind from pure love, but love without freedom is mere fiction. Love entails trust and respect. This is the awesome mystery of God's love. The all-powerful author of the universe actually respects the freedom of His creatures. He asks in return for our love, our trust, and our respect.

"Just as there can be no love without freedom, there can be no freedom without choice. When God placed Adam and Eve in Paradise, He placed before them the image of two trees. The first tree is referred to as "the knowledge of good and evil," and the second as the "tree of life." The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was withheld from mankind until such time as God knew that Adam and Eve were mature enough to cope with such knowledge. Why was the tree visibly placed before them if they were not to partake of it? Our forebears had the free choice of choosing to respect and trust God, or to mistrust Him and partake of the tree.

"It is obvious that the Tree of Life was also intended for humanity in that this, too, would be given to them in the fullness of time.

The Trees of Paradise - Abp Lazar Puhalo

THE TREES OF PARADISE, a prologue for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

"Meaning" is so often the missing dimension in religious teaching and deliberations. When religious people debate about the creation narrative in Genesis, they leave a certain emptiness. In discussing the Covenant and the Old Testament in general, they so often lapse into moralism without meaning. Their discourses about the creation narrative are almost always concerned with arguing that the story is literally and scientifically accurate. Seldom, if ever, does one hear an exposition of meaning in such discussions. One does not expect to hear much about meaning from atheists who argue about it, but those who profess to be believers have a responsibility to offer it, and they hardly ever do. Nevertheless, this "meaning" speaks of an existential freedom and an existential responsibility on the part of each human person.

The story of the trees of Paradise presents us with a profound existential metaphor — or, if you prefer, a revelation. Let me present this mystery in the form of an excerpt from one of my own Paschal sermons:

"....I would like to call upon you to reflect on the trees of Paradise. By grace, God bestowed life upon mankind, but the life He gave to our ancestors was not the life of puppets or robots. He bestowed upon mankind an authentic life. Authenticity of life requires freedom. God created mankind from pure love, but love without freedom is mere fiction. Love entails trust and respect. This is the awesome mystery of God's love. The all-powerful author of the universe actually respects the freedom of His creatures. He asks in return for our love, our trust, and our respect.

"Just as there can be no love without freedom, there can be no freedom without choice. When God placed Adam and Eve in Paradise, He placed before them the image of two trees. The first tree is referred to as "the knowledge of good and evil," and the second as the "tree of life." The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was withheld from mankind until such time as God knew that Adam and Eve were mature enough to cope with such knowledge. Why was the tree visibly placed before them if they were not to partake of it? Our forebears had the free choice of choosing to respect and trust God, or to mistrust Him and partake of the tree.

"It is obvious that the Tree of Life was also intended for humanity in that this, too, would be given to them in the fullness of time.

Female Prophets: Types of the Fallen and Fruitful Church - Lazar Puhalo

The Twelve Great Feast Days:
A Verbal Iconography

When we enter an Orthodox Church, we do not encounter images of the 12 stations of the Cross but the icons of the 12 great feast days. This is because we understand that the entire life of Christ, from his incarnation to his resurrection and ascension, are intimately a part of our redemption and salvation. There is a concept that we consider heretical that understands our redemption and salvation as a juridical execution demanded by God.

However, our redemption and salvation are something completely different than this. The Incarnation of Christ is the beginning of our redemption since he took on fully and completely our human nature in order to redeem his human nature from its alienation from the Divine nature. In Himself, Christ, having the Divine Nature, took on our human nature and, in Himself, reunited the human and the divine, a unity symbolized by the “garden of Eden,” which was lost with the fall of mankind.

We had already discussed the icon as Scripture and demonstrated how to read the canonical icon in such a way that it gives us a deeper insight into the Scripture. There is another form of iconography, one that is presented to us by the Church. The events revealed in the 12 great feast days are a form of verbal iconography. The stories of the events presented in these feast days are really presented in an iconographic form, a verbal iconography. Examining the details of the stories presented in the 12 great feast days presents us with this verbal iconography that, like the visual icons, gives us a deeper insight into the mystery of redemption and salvation. The 12 great feasts also help us to maintain the understanding that it is the entire life of Christ and not simply an hour on the cross that is an integral part of the process of our redemption.

The Birth of the Virgin

The birth of the Virgin is really the beginning of the cycle of the 12 great feast days. There is an ancient symbol we use frequently in illustrations called the “Etimasia,” the “preparation of the throne.” The birth of the Theotokos is precisely the preparation of the throne for the incarnation of God. Christ, being divine by nature, took on our human nature literally. It was not a fiction, an image or likeness of our nature, but our complete human nature in all its fullness. He took on our flesh and blood, our human body, and not a mere likeness or image of our humanity.

This necessitated taking on our flesh and the natural way in the womb of a mother, whence we all receive our flesh and blood.

Female Prophets:
Images & Revelations of the Church

There is a further revelation in this. The Cappadocian fathers and the "Shepherd of Hermas” all understand the Old Testament female prophets as images and revelations about the Church. The Church came into existence with the creation of Eve and Adam and was symbolised as “the Garden of Eden.” With the story of the fall of Adam and Eve from Paradise, we understand that the Church fell into barrenness and fruitlessness. An alienation between the Divine and the human nature took place.

The Old Testament female prophets foretold the redemption of the Church and its renewal.
When God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a holy nation, the fulfillment of this promise could only take place through his lawful wife, Sarah. In this, she became a prophetess and the mother of the holy nation. The promise could not be carried out through Hagar and her offspring but only through the lawful wife of Abraham, the prophetess Sarah, for, the promise was equally given to her.

Hannah

When the priests who served in the Tabernacle, the sons of the judge and prophet Eli, fell into corruption and debauchery, the elderly Hannah, an old and barren woman unable to bear a child, but by a miracle of God, gave birth to the prophet Samuel who would become the replacement for the corrupted and degenerate priests. Hannah was a prophetess who, like the others, revealed the barrenness of the fallen Church but, through her miraculous birth-giving, revealed the coming of the true high priest, Jesus Christ, who would perfect and fulfill the priesthood.

Anna 

Anna was the last of these great prophetesses who would be a type of the fallen Church. Barren, unable to produce the fruit of the womb, she would also be touched by a miracle of God. Being unable to produce a child was an especially heavy burden for Anna and her husband Joakim because they belonged to the priestly caste, so it was considered more shameful for them not to have a child.

As a barren old woman, Anna was also a type of the fallen Church. With her miraculous birth-giving, the revelation and prophecy suddenly pass from a barren old women to a young virgin – Mary, the mother of Christ.

Mary

As a fruitful, childbearing young woman, Mary is a type of the Church and, therefore also a holy prophetess. She is a type of the redeemed and restored Church of the living God. She is the one chosen out of all ages and generations to be the "mother of God" in the saving incarnation. It is from her that Christ will take on his flesh and blood and his human nature. She is the "throne prepared from all generations" for God the Word.

It is fitting in the ekonomia of God that humanity should fully participate in its own redemption, and Mary the Virgin becomes the forerunner of humanity’s participation in the redemption of humanity. Christ has presented to us, through his Church, which is called the "body of Christ," the redemption of humanity from its alienation from God.

We are not forced to accept this redemption, but we are called to enter into it freely. Mary exemplifies this when she freely chooses to be the obedient servant of God in the saving incarnation. She is the initial participation of humanity and the work of our salvation. All that follows in the life of Christ begins on this foundation, and every step in the life of Christ is the process of the working of our redemption and salvation.

The incarnation, the birth of Christ, is the foundation of our redemption. The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are central but not isolated. The incarnation of Christ in the womb of the Virgin is the manifestation of God's co-suffering love for mankind. This is why the feast day of the "Nativity of the Virgin Mary" is the beginning of the cycle of the 12 great feast days. She is the throne prepared in the will of God from the beginning of the ages for the saving Incarnation. We should celebrate the feast in this context.

Beyond Alienation: The Theology of the Octoechos - Lazar Puhalo

THE THEOLOGY OF THE OCTOECHOS
Vladika Lazar

    The hymnology of the "Octoechos” [the “Eight Tones”] continuously focuses us on the alienation of man that occurred in paradise. Satan tempted Adam and Eve, not merely to eat the fruit of the tree, but to lose their trust in God and break the bond of love that united them with their Creator. Although they had been created in the image and likeness of God, they were led into temptation by the promise that they could become "like God." When they accepted this temptation and this false promise, they accepted a counterfeit in place of the gift that God had given them. This incident marks the birth of egoism, which became the root of alienation and all human conflicts and experiences of alienation, not only from the Creator but from other human beings as well.

    Man is a created being, and only God is immortal by Nature. Man can have an immortal soul only by grace. When we became alienated and out of communion with the only Source of life, our mortality took hold. Death is not a punishment given by God. When God told Eve and Adam that if they ate of the tree before he gave them permission, they would “surely die,” He was not prescribing death but describing what would happen if they alienated themselves from the only source of life. The knowledge allegorically ascribed to the tree was intended for mankind “in the fulness of time.

    In this hymnology, we are reminded of the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection as solutions to our alienation, as a deliverance from the power of the fear of death with which Satan holds us in bondage. We also confess Christ to be our true God, one of the Holy Trinity, born of the Father eternally, before the ages. We also proclaim the Virgin Mary to be the “Theotókos,” the one who gave birth to God in the flesh, the one from whom he took upon Himself our human nature, in Himself breaking down the wall of alienation between the human nature and the Divine nature. Christ redeemed us, first of all, from our alienation, conquering the power of death, which was the foremost mark of that alienation. Ransoming us from the power of death, Christ redeemed us from bondage to Satan.

 This Sunday, the 13th Sunday of Pentecost, we sing the hymns of the fourth tone. Although there are several translations from the Greek of these hymns, they all contain the same thoughts and teachings. Let us look at the verses in the hymnology of the fourth tone.

TONE 4

THE VERSES THAT FOLLOW THE CHANTING OF THE PSALM "LORD I HAVE CRIED OUT TO THEE”

 (1)We ceaselessly worship Your life-bearing Cross, O Christ our God, and we glorify Your third-day resurrection; for by this, You have renewed our corrupted nature and revealed to us the way to heaven. You alone are good and the friend of mankind [or, “the lover of mankind.]

 (2)When You were willingly nailed upon the cross, O Saviour, You healed the wound inflicted by the tree of disobedience. When You descended into Hades, You trampled down the bonds of death, as You Are the all-mighty God. Wherefore we worship Your resurrection from the dead, crying out for joy ' glory to You, the Almighty Lord.

 (3)By your death, O Lord, You demolished the gates of Hades and dissolved the realm of death, liberating humanity from corruption, granting the world life and incorruptibility, and great mercy.

 [In these three verses, we are given the key to understanding the mystery of redemption. It begins with the incarnation, in which Christ brings the human nature back into communion with the Divine nature, redeeming it from its alienation. The mark of that alienation is death, and on the cross, Christ ransomed us from the fear and power of death through which Satan held us in bondage. Ransomed from death, we are redeemed from the power of the Evil One. The gates of Hades are demolished and the gates of Paradise are reopened. The cross has become both the weapon against Hades and the key that unlocks the gates of Paradise.]

 (4)Come, all nations and peoples, and let us praise and glorify the third-day resurrection of our Saviour through which we are set free of the bonds of death and by which we have received life and incorruption. Let us cry out, 'O Lord who was crucified, buried and rose again, save us by Your resurrection, O only Friend of mankind’ [or, Lover of mankind].

 (5)Truly, both angels and men glorify Your third-day resurrection, which has illumined the whole universe and redeemed us from bondage to the enemy. Wherefore we cry out, 'O all-powerful Bestower of life, save us by your resurrection, O only friend of mankind. [or, Lover of mankind.]

 (6)You have demolished the brazen gates, O Christ, and shattered the bars [of death], raising up our fallen human nature. Wherefore, we cry out with one voice, 'Glory to Your Resurrection, O Lord.'

 [Let us proclaim again that Christ is one of the Holy Trinity, begotten by the Father before the Universe and time, and incarnate, taking on our human nature through the womb of the Virgin, bringing it into communion with His Divine Nature, rescuing our human nature from bondage to death and alienation from God]

 (7)Your timeless and pre-eternal birth from the Father and Your incarnation through the Virgin is ineffable and beyond understanding; Your descent into Hades is overwhelming to Satan and his angels. You trampled down death and arose on the third day, granting incorruptibility and great mercy to mankind.

 [Confessing Christ's fleshly descent from David the prophet in His incarnation, we see that he calls upon mankind to participate in his own salvation, first of all through the holy Virgin Mary, his assumption of our nature and our call to fulfil the will of God in our own lives. We acknowledge that he is restoring all creation, as Apostle Paul says (Rm.8-19-21 ). We will later learn that at His coming again, He will not destroy His creation but transfigure it, recapitulating it along with our human nature. He has come, first of all, to find us lost sheep, rescue us and bring us back out of our alienation into communion with God. We proclaim in song the dispensation (ekonomia) of God, Who sent his only begotten Son into the world to rescue and redeem those who have been lost. In the words of Saint Athanasios the Great, “He became man so that man could become God,” that is, so that the alienation of our human nature from the Divine nature could be healed and, as Apostle Peter tells us, we have “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4)]

 (8)Through you, O Theotókos, David the prophet has become the ancestor of God in the incarnation. In prophecy and in prayers, he sang to Him who works miracles through you, prophetically proclaiming, 'the Queen stood at your right hand." For God has shown you to be the mother of life as He willed to be incarnate from you, renewing the creation, created in his likeness, corrupt and suffering, seeking and finding the sheep that was lost, bearing it on his shoulders to present it to be Father, numbering it among the heavenly hosts and saving the whole world, for he is Christ Who reigns and bestows great and abundant mercy.

 THE APOSTIKHA

 

A Response to Deconstruction - Lazar Puhalo

Many Christian theorists believe that humanity is a collection of Karl Capek's Robots, or mechanical robots, empty and waiting for the right programmer. The inner strength that man finds within himself is there because he is created in the image and likeness of God.

Part of a response to deconstruction is not to see weakness in the person but to recognise an inner strength in the one who has the courage to undertake the deconstruction, and surmise that they have the same strength to rebuild. They do not need reprogramming but someone to walk with them with integrity, respecting their integrity, not seeing them as yielding to inner weakness but giving them credit with having the inner strength to rebuild a more certain and firm structure on the foundation of Christ without having pressure to include the rejected building material (which would compromise the integrity of the rebuilding) and hinder an honest rediscovery of Christ.

A recognition that if Jesus is not Christ, he may be only an emotional affectation. "Jesus" by itself is an emotional slogan, Jesus has meaning because he is Christ. The Incarnation can be an emotional slogan without a meaningful non-juridical reason for it. The juridical understanding is one driver of deconstruction. Redemption from alienation rather than saving man from the Father's wrath is a necessary understanding. Man is the prodigal son to whom God lovingly sent a rescuer rather than passively (and angrily) waiting for our return and penance. Walking with one who is going through the often traumatic process of “deconstruction” with self-recognition rather than some maudlin and often condescending “compassion” is appropriate.  

Contemplation: Theoria & Theosis, Epiphany & Theophany - Lazar Puhalo

The deliberations and debates of the holy fathers with heresies are of no small moment. Why, for example, was it of such great necessity to refute Arius at Nicaea, Evtikios at Chalcedon, and Nestorius at Ephesus?

They were defending the very nature of redemption in all these cases, the purpose and nature of the Incarnation itself. When Athanasios says that "God became man so that man may become God," this is no trite statement. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ would have very little meaning without the Incarnation.

The purpose of the incarnation was to bring to an end the alienation between the divine nature and the human nature and make Theosis the destiny of man. This could be accomplished only if Christ had taken on the fullness of the human nature, and not a portion of it only. In Himself, he brought the human nature – the fullness of the human nature –  into unity, into participation in the divine nature so that, as apostle Peter says in his epistle, we might receive the great and glorious, “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4)
     

This is why we say in the prayer, "he took our human nature upon his shoulders and bore it to the cross." Without this understanding, one could still centuries later the wondering and questioning, "Cur deus homo” and come to the monstrous conclusion that the purpose of the incarnation was to constitute a fit human sacrifice capable of assuaging God and fulfilling His "justice."

Ransoming our human nature from bondage to the fear of death, or in the words of Saint Basil the Great in his great Eucharistic prayer, "he ransomed us from the grave." Since man was held in bondage through the fear of death to the one who had the power of death, namely Satan, being ransomed from the fear of death was at the same time redemption from servitude to Satan. Christ took on the fullness of our human nature, ended its alienation from the Divine nature, and bore our human nature to the cross, ransoming it from death, thus redeeming us from bondage to Satan; a bondage into which we had fallen, being sold through sin into that bondage.

One of the problems appears to be thinking that sin is the problem rather than a symptom of the problem. The problem is our alienation from God since the mark or goal which we fall short of (`amartia) is participation in the divine nature – it isTheosis.

The holy fathers, perhaps none more than Gregory of Nyssa, call us to Christian theoria; to a new contemplation, not of the world or even just of life, but a contemplation of “being” itself. The theoria of the philosophers could result in epiphanies, but Christian theoria leads to theophany, not a mere epiphany.

Einstein relates that when he was trying to think of a way to formulate relativity while hiking alone in the mountains. He had an "epiphany" about how to formulate it. When Archimedes lept naked from the bathtub and ran shouting “Eureka,” he had experienced an epiphany. Christian theoria leads, not to an epiphany, but to theophany. Saint Gregory calls us to Christian theoria - a new contemplation of "being." And Saint Maximos would agree: we have "received" only when we have "contemplated."

The Road to Theocratic Authoritarianism - Lazar Puhalo

We are in a transitional stage in which much of the popular certainty of the postwar era is slowly fading. In such an era, and when politics is no longer an elitist enterprise but a more populist one, the politician who can rouse the passions of the crowd will gain a larger following than the politician who appeals to reason. Once a person becomes a member of the crowd which is being mesmerized by a populist politician, that person ceases to think completely for himself and absorbs the passion of the mesmerized crowd. Cognitive dissonance easily becomes epidemic.

Mussolini

This was certainly true of Mussolini, the father of fascism. It was an example that every dictator, no matter how immoral and irrational he may be, has followed with some success. In such a transitional era, reason is easily abandoned to the passion of the moment.

In many ways, Mussolini was an idiot, but one who understood crowd mentality and how to manipulate a crowd through its fear and passions and the abandonment of reason and even deeply cherished ideals. This can also happen in the politics of religion, and religion is easily contorted into a fear-based moralistic political ideology. This has happened in our midst in the most recent time.
Once such a populist dictator gains power, it is almost impossible to remove him without assassination. A populist dictator is narcissistic and sociopathic. He can be concerned only with his own power and can thrive on crowd-power as long as he can keep a substantial portion of the populace mesmerized by fear and immune to reason and reality. He will instinctively manipulate the sense of abandonment that traumatises a significant segment of the population in social/cultural transition periods.

On the Nature of Sin - Abp Lazar Puhalo

Faith is an orientation of the soul, not an accord with a collection of facts. If sin ultimately means alienation from God, then its cure, true repentance, must consist in a re-orientation of one's mind, soul and life toward Jesus Christ and His great moral imperatives.

WHAT DOES "SIN" MEAN?

The term in Greek ('amartia) means "to fall short of the goal, miss the mark, fall short of one's proper vocation.”

This term is rendered in Latin as "sons," "sontis," which means "guilt; guilty," and has a forensic significance. We can see already that there is an important difference here. The terms used in Holy Scripture ('amartia, etc.) refer to something far greater than the Latin term used to translate them. The Latin term (and the understanding usually given to the word in English) is legalistic and juridical and understood in a forensic sense.

Perhaps, also, the absence of an awareness of the meaning of the concept of “energies,” both as Paul uses the word, as the holy fathers have expressed the word, and as we understand it in a more “human” context. Sin is the misuse of our energies, and vice or addiction is a habitual misuse of our energies. Repentance is the re-orientation of the soul toward God through Jesus Christ. It has to do with the struggle to discover and use our energies in a proper manner our energies. “Energy” concerns relationships. We know God through His uncreated energy, which we call Grace. Our relationships with other human beings involve the proper use of our created energies. Perhaps this is the underlying meaning of Christ's two great commandments, which, He said, are the foundation of all the law and the prophets, “love the Lord your God with your whole being, and your neighbour as yourself.”

This can be accomplished only through the proper use of our energies. Ironically, the juridical concept of sin also lowers and degrades the concept of morality. If sin is only a violation of the law, then morality consists only in obeying the law. Such morality could not contribute to one's salvation but could only render one as hypocritical as the Pharisees and as alienated from Christ as the rich young ruler (Mt.16:19- 12).

It was, and is, in fact, perfectly lawful for righteous and moral “pharisees” to throw a poverty-stricken widow out of her house if she owed them money or they held a lien on the house (see Mt.23:14). In the same way modern "prosperity gospel" moral evangelicals could foreclose on a poor widow's mortgage or lien without violating a law so that it would be a perfectly moral act from a juridical, forensic point of view.

"Sin" does not refer simply to a "violation of the law" which is "punished by God's justice." “Sin” can be any act, physical or mental, that creates an alienation of one from God. God is not alienated from us; we become estranged from Him.

CLICK HERE to download Lazar Puhalo's complete PDF "ON THE NATURE OF SIN"

The Feast of the Conscience – Abp Lazar Puhalo

The Feast of the Conscience – Lazar Puhalo

Let us think of today as the feast of the conscience, because our conscience is our judge.

The holy fathers tell us that even on Judgment Day when the Lord is present, our conscience will be our judge. When we behold the glory and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, healing all things, our conscience will tell us whether we’re sheep or goats, to the right or to the left. Our conscience stands forth, either excusing or accusing us, on the day when the secrets of man's heart are revealed.

If you think a little bit about it—how often our conscience challenges our thoughts and our actions, and how often we, with our free will decide to override our conscience—or how often we’re tempted to do something, and our conscience tells us that one we dearly love is going to be hurt if we take that action. So, both our love and the work of conscience turns us back, and we do not commit that sin.

We know that if we override our conscience too often—when it warns us about a certain deed— we can develop an addiction. For an addiction is really when our will and desire overrules our conscience. Once we do it a few times, then we will do it continuously so that becomes an addiction. In this life and through the great fast, the Great Lent, this is when we struggle to give our conscience the highest voice, the loudest voice. We’re struggling through Great Lent toward the purification of our conscience—to bring the heart and our conscience and the community in accord with one another.

Remember that your conscience is your judge when you depart this life.

Sometimes we call it "the partial judgment." It simply means that your conscience informs you of how you stand in the face of the love and glory of Jesus Christ.

The minute you depart this life, your conscience rehearses before you all the negative things all the positive things and lets you know what judgment you face on the day of the Resurrection. And on that day, when there's nothing to be seen except the love and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, like a river of fire that flows in our midst, your conscience will tell you, “You are on the left side of the river of fire or over on the right side of the river of fire.”

Will the river of fire be joy, light, and rejoicing in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ? Or will the river of fire burn your conscience like everlasting flames, that the passions you try to retain in this life will be like the worm and that never dies, that nags at your conscience forever,…until the suffering of your conscience becomes a redeeming suffering and moves us from one side of the river across to the other.

Just use this time of Lent to struggle, to strengthen your will, to abide by your conscience and strengthen yourself so you can hear your conscience more loudly, so you can hear it more clearly.

And we cannot fear because God never harms his creatures, he never harms his creation, and he not going to harm you either, neither in this life nor the life to come. He has nothing but mercy and love for his poor, benighted creatures.

Our conscience will be the scourge, so let us try to live in peace and harmony with our own conscience. Don’t make it an adversary and don't be an adversary to our conscience. But listen to the words of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ and try your best to abide by it, knowing that however you fall short, our Lord Jesus Christ picks you up and he makes up the difference for you.

If we believe God, it will be accounted to us for righteousness from generation to generation, as Abraham believed God and it was accounted for him for righteousness.

Brothers and sisters, try to make this fast meaningful. Try to grow spiritually through it and you’ll notice the benefits of the peace and reconciliation that come with striving. Let the fast help you to purify your conscience, purify your will, purify your soul. Make it pure for the heavenly Kingdom. The gates of the Heavenly Kingdom will open before you and our Lord Jesus Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit will receive you.

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."

 

 

Corporatism, Commonweal, and Just Society - Lazar Puhalo

INTENT AND CONCEPT

Since we are going to be discussing corporatism and commonweal in various contexts, we should say something about these two concepts. Corporatism is a basic principle of fascism. It seeks to curtail individualism, not in the context of commonweal – the common good – but in the sense of top-down control and order in society. It seeks to organise society into a hierarchy of corporate [not to be confused with capitalist corporations] structures that require conformity, severely limiting or even curtailing altogether individualistic liberties and actions.

This structured hierarchy corporatises behavioural norms according to a given ideology. Every aspect of society can be corporatised in order to produce a culture conforming to a given ideology. Education, religion, morality, and every external form of behaviour must be regulated in order to impose this ideological concept in a matrix interpretation of the "norm." This corporate structure is imposed and enforced by an arbitrary system of law.

Such a system falls under a general ideology known as “fascism.” It can be a secular civil construct or a heavily moralistic religious arbitrary “theocratic” construct.

There are other understandings and levels of corporatism, but we are using the ideological concept outlined above, which is the general form used to create a fascist society, usually with a deformed and corrupted variation of crony capitalism which curtails individualism and individual creativity of a new form which might interfere with the centrally controlled structure of social order and economic structures.

While Canada was originally shaped with the "Red Tory" idea of commonweal as opposed to a radical, self-centred individualism, commonweal is understood as "the common good expressed within a political system of democracy and individual liberties." In this system, capitalism is regulated only to the degree that is necessary for stability, justice, and fairness. Civil society is also regulated as little as possible while ensuring such things as equal healthcare for everyone and a regulated social safety net that provides for the commonweal, the common good, for the whole of society without impinging upon civil liberties but ensuring the greatest scope of civil liberties that are permitted in a peaceful and cohesive society. This presupposes freedom in such realms as religion and reasonable concepts of morality, a variety of political parties within a cohesive and democratic nationhood. The operational ideology in such a society is "democracy and the greatest scope of civil liberties as can be afforded in a united and orderly culture." In Canada, this is well expressed in The Canadian Charter. We will be mainly interested in discussing the idolatry of corporatising religion and morality, the idolatry and blasphemy of an ideological, arbitrary authoritarian “theocracy.”

Within these concepts, there are variations, of course, but these are the concept within which we are writing. Having established this framework, let us continue.

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Abp Lazar Puhalo - Social & Economic Trinity, Essence & Energies

Supplement by Abp. Lazar

Perhaps at the root of the problem is a misunderstanding about ekonomia.

The concept is that when "akrivia" [the strict application of a canon or doctrine] might actually hinder someone's salvation–or even emotional and mental health– we apply economy, which is really the opposite of akrivia [strictness].

Allowing remarriage after a divorce is a clear example, and is especially necessary for young people who are not able to tightly control their sex drive.

Another example is when we receive people and to the Orthodox Church through chrismation if they have been baptized in a trinitarian church. Reception by chrismation does not become the "principle" but rather is an exercise in economy. The Chrismation would be seen as a form of ordination into the Royal priesthood. We do not thereby declare that the baptism was complete, but we exercise economy for the sake of someone's salvation.

I am not clear about what some people are trying to make of ekonomia.

The economy of our Saviour is really this: we could not on our own recover paradise, in the alienation between man and God, so strictness was set aside, and Christ, in himself, abolished the alienation. Men could not rise up to heaven, so Heaven descended to men.

I don't know what convoluted twist some people are trying to make of this. Our Christian social programme should be the Beatitudes and the moral imperatives given by Jesus Christ.

We are far off the track when we understand "justice" in a juridical sense and do not understand it as "balancing matters," restoring the balance in nature and the balance in the relationship between God and Man.

Ekonomia simply means "relinquishing strictness in order to facilitate salvation."

We also have to extend that to matters where strictness would mentally and emotionally damage a person. That has to be the only real definition of "social economy." Ekonomia can only be understood in the context of soteriology.

"Jesus Christ is going to touch you today" - Abp. Lazar Puhalo

"Jesus Christ is going to touch you today"
A Pre-Communion Exhortation by Abp. Lazar Puhalo
All Saints of North America Monastery - October 23, 2022

Transcript below video

Luke 7:11-16

At that time, Jesus went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her.

And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother.

Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!"

Preparation for Communion

Brothers and sisters, today, as we approach communion, it is well that you believe in Jesus Christ. But do you believe Jesus Christ? Do you understand what the Law was about? Today, Jesus Christ gave us a revelation about what the Law was truly about. In the Old Testament, a dead body was unclean. If you would touch that body, you couldn't even enter the Temple because you were rendered unclean.

But how did God define the Law? If you were the High Priest and you were heading for the Temple to serve the liturgy—even to enter the Holy of Holies—according to the Law of Moses, you were unclean if you touched a dead body and entered the Temple.

But according to the explanation of the Law that was given, if you were the High Priest, vested to go to the Temple to serve, and you came upon a dead body but there was no one to bury them, then you should take the body yourself, carry it, and bury it properly. because the law of Mercy is greater than the law of cleanliness [or purity].

But today as we approach Holy Communion, we come near to the body of Jesus Christ. And we understand that this time, it is a life-giving body—that this time, the touch of Jesus Christ raises our souls from spiritual deadness and fills us with life again. When we approach Holy Communion, the only thing that should be in our mind is that our Lord Jesus Christ is offering himself to us—that he is actually reaching out to touch what is considered unclean. To touch our dead souls—to touch the deadness in our hearts and give us life—to quicken our spirits and raise us up from the dead works of the world around us

The Law came from Moses but grace and peace through Jesus Christ, who manifested God in his true nature to us. He is the very Image of the Creator, the very image and likeness of the Godhead, bodily. And he reveals the true nature of God to us, whereas before, we had only an idolatrous idea about God.

So today, as you approach for Holy Communion, bear it in your mind that Jesus Christ is reaching out and touching us, who might be, according to the Law, unclean—and raising us to life—to new life—to spiritual life—to everlasting life. Today, we receive that grace and peace of Jesus Christ in the Holy Mysteries of the communion of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.

And why did he establish this ritual to give us his body and blood at every liturgy, except to call us back out of the deadness of the world into the life of the kingdom of God. When we receive Holy Communion, we manifest the fact that we're citizens of the kingdom of God, that we a royal priesthood, that we are a kingdom of priests.

So today, as you approach Holy Communion, contemplate in your mind as you prepare what it actually means—what it means that Jesus Christ is going to touch you today and enter into your being today and raise you from the deadness of the world around you, and the dead works of the world around you, and the vanities of the world around us.  And for this moment, to raise you, as it were, from spiritual death and bestow upon you that life that comes only from God and only from union with God. For God is life, and to be separated from God is death. To be United with God Is life.

Today, Jesus Christ will unite us with God through his own precious body and blood, and remind us again that what the world might consider unclean in its own folly, Jesus Christ considers clean and makes clean through his touch.

The only thing that can render you unclean, according to Saint John Chrysostom, is an evil disposition or a heart turned against God and turned against neighbour. Today, Jesus Christ invites us to turn toward God and toward neighbour—to receive him, to receive his touch, to receive the touch of life that makes us worthy, no matter how unclean, to enter into the Temple and receive the things of the altar—to receive the things from the Holy of Holies, because the Law of Mercy is greater than the Law of purity.

The Law of love and mercy is greater than every kind of Law because love is greater than law. As you prepare yourself to approach for Holy Communion in these few minutes, try to contemplate what it means that you're about to do—to partake of the Holy Mysteries. So you can truly rejoice in heart, having been touched with the gift of life from our Lord and God.

For the Unity of One Church - David Goa, Abp Lazar Puhalo, Dr. Petros Vassiliados

In launching the new book, For the Unity of One Church, David Goa hosts a conversation with the editors, Abp Lazar Puhalo and Dr. Petros Vassiliados. They discuss key issues around church unity, the female diaconate, and the impact of the war in Ukraine. The video conversation is sponsored by Saint Macrina Orthodox Centre, based at the All Saints of North America Monastery in Dewdney, BC Canada. 

The book is an anthology of theology papers composed by theologians, clerics, and professors from across North America and Europe.  

For the Unity of One Church can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle:

https://www.amazon.ca/UNITY-ONE-CHURCH-CHRIST/dp/B0B7QRGXCP

https://www.amazon.com/UNITY-ONE-CHURCH-CHRIST/dp/B0B7QRGXCP

 

Mystical Theology - Lazar Puhalo

Mystical theology deals with the inner person, with his spiritual development and growth toward the ultimate goal of theosis. It cannot deal with the natural world. The natural world is its own mystery, but the spiritual development and transformation of the "inner person," must ultimately be dealt with and mystical theology, in the meaning of spiritual struggle and the chosen will to make this inner evolution take place, toward a transformation of the spiritual man, without ever making a sharp divide between the spiritual and the physical in mankind. Being religious in itself will not accomplish this. We see highly religious people doing incredibly wicked things and justifying them on the basis of their religion.

Orthodox Christian mystical theology deals precisely with that problem, and it deals with it in a personal, person-by-person, manner. At the same time, it calls upon Orthodox Christians as a community, nor its collections of communities, to strive toward that inner transformation. The inner transformation of communities is powered by the liturgical cycle, preeminently the Divine Liturgy, but matins, Vespers, and all the other liturgical services. First and foremost, it calls upon us to strive to acquire unselfish love and to move from there to Co-suffering love. We must be led away from the common and sometimes meaningless use of the word "love." Sometimes we use the word "love" as an excuse for hating people or declaring them outcasts and subhuman.

When we talk about the transformation of the inner human person, we are not talking about mystified moralism. Rather they struggle to become truly moral persons by nature. This does not mean becoming "as miserable as possible" as is often presented. This takes place in the spiritual realm but should be directly manifested in our outer relations with the humanity around us and the world in general.

Other forms of theology, our anthropology and understanding of the way culture and society actually work, and our understanding of the natural world must be on a different plane and cannot always be informed directly by our mystical theology. A theology of anthropology and of the natural world that does not take the principle of evolution into account is really not worth very much, but rather serves only to obfuscate reality. The evolution of the species is a fact which, in the words of the late Archbishop Vitaly (Ustinov) "can be denied, but not successfully."

Any cosmological or anthropological theology which denies evolution is simply false and likely ideological. A theology that does not recognise the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis as allegorical and revealing about the human nature but not the origins of the cosmos, cannot be taken seriously any longer. Perhaps 1500 years ago, it could be seen as historical, but now a presentation of it as factual and historical is simply mythological, and those who try to perpetuate it as literal are simply the ones who are mythologising it.

We need to approach our theology of the cosmos and our anthropology free of ideology – and religious doctrines can quite easily become ideology – and in the context of what is not known for certain through science, otherwise, we are doing the Faith itself a great disservice and doing a great disservice to the faithful.

Any cosmological or anthropological theology which denies evolution is simply false and likely ideological. A theology that does not recognise the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis as allegorical and revealing about the human nature but not its origins, cannot be taken seriously any longer. Perhaps 1500 years ago, it could be seen as historical, but now a presentation of it as factual and historical is simply mythological, and those who try to perpetuate it as literal are simply the ones who are mythologising it.

We need to approach our theology of the cosmos and our anthropology free of ideology – and religious doctrines can quite easily become ideology – and in the context of what is not known for certain through science, otherwise, we are doing the Faith itself a great disservice and doing a great disservice to the faithful.

Homily on The Feast of the Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos - Apb. Lazar Puhalo

Symposium I: Morality vs. Moralism - Lazar Puhalo with David Goa & Bradley Jersak

Overcoming Alienation through Narcotics Anonymous - Abp. Lazar Puhalo

Lazar Puhalo

Overcoming Alienation through Narcotics Anonymous

 

One thing I look forward to during the week is our Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the monastery.

 

The longer I participate in it, the more I realise that sin is not our problem – alienation is the problem and sins are only some symptoms of it. That we are alienated from God – that is the correct understanding of the story of Adam and Eve and of the fall. This is so essential to understand, and we must put away from our hearts all thoughts of the juridical heresy of “Original Sin.”

 

Because of our alienation from God, we can also become alienated from each other, and from our own selves. Understanding this latter fact – alienation from one's own self – is of the utmost importance if one wishes to actually help anyone or support them in their struggle.

We may have 50 people in our Narcotics Anonymous group at any one time, but when we are gathered together, no one is alienated from the rest of the group. Everyone there is gathered with a people who understand them and know the meaning of their pain and suffering, of their trauma. No one is being made to feel that they are in alienation because of their race, past, colour, or sexual orientation. This is starkly unlike most religions –from so much of Christianity and Islam in particular. Everyone at N.A. is open to each other, to support them in their struggle, and to assure them that they are not alienated from those around them. That is one of the main healing features, and it is also one of the reasons why religion fails so often when it tries to help people who are addicted: our moralisation. Our penchant for trying to moralise everything often makes it impossible for us to help people who are truly traumatized, suffering, and in need.

 

One thing we are trying to do in our N.A. group is to help people discover an inner strength that they themselves have but did not know that they had. So far, I have never met anyone in the group who was truly an atheist.

 

We too often look for some "hypothetical moral issue" when dealing with people who have these traumas, when we should be looking at understanding their inner suffering and the source of their various alienations. Instead of "convicting them of their sin" (as the sectarians like to say), we help them to overcome their alienations.

This is the greatest value that I see in the Narcotics Anonymous movement.

Lazar Puhalo - "Born of Water and Spirit" - Baptism in the Womb of the Virgin Bride