Where to Go? What to Do? And I Don't Have a Thing to Wear!

"I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."

- Jesus, speaking to Peter, John 21.19



The world says, "When you were young you were dependent and could not go where you wanted, but when you grow old you will be able to make your own decisions, go your own way, and control your own desitny." But Jesus has a different vision of maturity: It is the ability and willngness to be led where you would rather not go.

- Henri Nouwen, "In the Name of Jesus," p.81

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In a recent post, I quoted Thomas Hopko, who said, "The freer a person is, the less they choose. Thus a person who would be perfectly free by God's grace would never 'choose' anything at all. They would see, know, and will what is good, true, and beautiful, and do it." But in the Nouwen quote above, the suggestion is that we need to be willing to be led where we do not prefer to go. Do these paradoxical thoughts go together? I think they do.

It seems to me that a fully Christlike person will automatically do what pleases God, and will want to do it. But we are not yet fully Christlike. Therefore, there will still be times - many times, I fear - when we must force ourselves to do what is right simply because we know it is right. As we continue to develop Godly character through the disciplines of grace, we will increasingly desire to do what pleases Him.

I believe the Orthodox Hopko's statement, but I still often inhabit the Catholic Nouwen's reality. As a Protestant prayer book suggests, if I only do what I feel like doing, I will regularly "leave undone those things which I ought to have done, and do those things which I ought not to have done." I will "follow too much the devices and desires of my own heart." (After the Episcopal/Anglican Book of Common Prayer)

The Paradox of Freedom

I came across this quote from Thomas Hopko, the Orthodox theologian I've been referring to a fair bit. In this paragraph he endorses freedom but distinguishes it from choice:

In [the Orthodox] understanding of things, unlike our modern American view, the freer a person is, the less they choose. Thus a person who would be perfectly free by God's grace would never "choose" anything at all. They would see, know, and will what is good, true, and beautiful, and do it.

In other words, Hopko seems to be saying that the more we become like God, the more we will (super)naturally desire what God desires. As we walk in tune with the Spirit, we will desire the things of the Spirit. Therefore, no "choice" is necessary. What do you think?

This reminds me of a favorite verse, Psalm 119.32:

I run in the path of your commands,
for you have set my heart free.

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There Are No Atheists

I continue to keep up with some of the leading atheist blogs, but over time a few things have become apparent:

• Atheism, by its very name, is defined by what it opposes. It's very hard to build a coherent life and philosophy based primarily on what you oppose, because in so doing, you are letting your opponent determine your thoughts and actions. If you're a person of faith, therefore, you can take satisfaction in having full control over the atheist agenda.


• The atheist blogs become rather one-note and boring after a while. Mockery wears thin. Of course there are stupid Christians. But how does that prove the stupidity of religion? A stupid carpenter may install a cabinet door upside down, but that hardly proves carpentry is bogus.


• Many atheist writers like to point out what they see as inconsistencies and illogic in the Christian worldview, but their own logic begs pity more often than awe. Thinking you're clever and insightful is not the same as actually being clever and insightful. Historically-informed criticism based on knowledge goes much further than criticism based on received wisdom and caricature.

Atheists claim that God doesn't exist. The Orthodox writer Thomas Hopko questions whether atheists themselves can exist:

According to the Bible, humanity's basic sin is not atheism. It is idolatry. In this perspective, all people have their god. It is either a god (or gods) that they have made or others have inflicted upon them, which they command and control; or it is the God who made them, whom they are commanded to worship and obey for their own good. In this view, there are no atheists, but only idolaters.

ITP

ITP: Inside the Perimeter, noun, adj., adv.: an abbreviation for "Inside the Perimeter," relating to the area inside Atlanta's I-285 loop highway. Contrasted with OTP, "Outside the Perimeter, which is all the area of Atlanta outside of I-285.

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ITP and OTP are much more than geographic descriptions. They divide states of mind and ways of being. ITP is urban and Democratic; OTP is suburban and Republican. Old money lives ITP; new money lives OTP. Gays and lawyers reside ITP; straights and corporate people will be found OTP. All the cool restaurants and coffee shops are ITP; it's hard to find anything other than chain restaurants and corporate coffee shops OTP. People ITP drive Smart cars or ride bikes or walk; people OTP drive SUVs or SUVs or SUVs. ITP couture is funky-cool; OTP couture is Polo-Macys.

Before attending my Emory class last night ("Wednesdays at Atlanta's Microbreweries"), I stopped by an ITP coffeehouse for some caffeine fortification, grabbed a table outside, and overheard a conversation that could only happen ITP. A youngish man (30?) talking with a similarly youngish woman, who seemed to be his counselor or therapist or life coach or Scientology leader or something. I only picked up snippets over the traffic noise of the busy intersection, but it went something like this:

He: "Yes, my parents . . . family . . . frustrated . . . Do I really want to start a relationship with a pot-smoking graduate student? But I do like him . . . he doesn't smoke that much . . . my dissertation . . . watching pornography and measuring . . . "

She: "An unusual dissertation . . . a bunch of guys jacking off . . . "

Somehow, I found it difficult to concentrate on my book of Orthodox theology.

In Our Call Lies Our Destiny

I read something yesterday from Thomas Hopko, the Orthodox theologian. He says this about Christians:

Their calling and destiny is to become by God's grace all that God is by nature.

Try reading that three times, slowly. Meditate on it a bit. It's much deeper and richer than it first appears to be.

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I could write for an hour about the thoughts - and hope - this unleashes in me, . . . but I don't have an hour right now. And your thoughts might be better, anyway.

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In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1.4-6)
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May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians
5.23-24)

Benedict on Friday

It was a bit jarring, I admit, to see Pat Robertson sitting in the audience at the Pope’s ecumenical meeting, yesterday – and he was sitting next to what appeared to be an Orthodox priest, no less. Not his usual homeboys! I guess Pat must not be one who considers the Pope to be the antichrist.

Nor are many other Protestants, it would appear. When I think of the history of the Reformation and its aftermath, it was astonishing and heartening to see the leaders who were introduced to the Pope at the end of this service. The head of one of the Lutheran “denominations” in the U.S., the head of the Presbyterian Church in the US, the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, … these are people who would have been branded as heretics a few hundred years ago (if not even more recently than that), and people who would rather have wrung the Pope’s neck than shaken his hand. Obviously, much has changed on both sides.

Following are selected portions of the Pope’s Friday speech to the UN and the ecumenical gathering. Click on the titles if you’d like to read the entire texts. It’s been said often this week that the Pope speaks in paragraphs, not soundbites. That’s for sure.

Speech to the United Nations General Assembly

The principle of "responsibility to protect" was considered by the ancient ius gentium as the foundation of every action taken by those in government with regard to the governed: at the time when the concept of national sovereign States was first developing, the Dominican Friar Francisco de Vitoria, rightly considered as a precursor of the idea of the United Nations, described this responsibility as an aspect of natural reason shared by all nations, and the result of an international order whose task it was to regulate relations between peoples. Now, as then, this principle has to invoke the idea of the person as image of the Creator, the desire for the absolute and the essence of freedom. The founding of the United Nations, we all know, coincided with earth-shaking upheavals that humanity suffered when the reference to the meaning of transcendence and natural reason was abandoned, and in consequence, freedom and human dignity were grossly violated. When this happens, it threatens the objective foundations of the values inspiring and governing the international order and it undermines the cogent and inviolable principles formulated and consolidated by the United Nations. In the face of new and insistent challenges, it would be a mistake to fall back on a pragmatic approach, limited to determining "common ground," minimal in content and weak in its effect.

This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are specifically focusing upon this year, which marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document was the fruit of a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the world of culture, religion and science. Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. Just like their universality, the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity. It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights.
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Since rights and the resulting duties follow naturally from human interaction, it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members of society, and hence valid at all times and for all peoples. This intuition was expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of Hippo, one of the masters of our intellectual heritage. He taught that the saying: Do not do to others what you would not want done to you "cannot in any way vary according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world" (De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must be respected as an expression of justice, and not merely because they are enforceable through the will of the legislators.
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Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian — a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer. The activity of the United Nations in recent years has ensured that public debate gives space to viewpoints inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions, including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of information and the freedom to profess and choose religion. It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves -- their faith -- in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one’s rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature. The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order. Indeed, they actually do so, for example through their influential and generous involvement in a vast network of initiatives which extend from Universities, scientific institutions and schools to health care agencies and charitable organizations in the service of the poorest and most marginalized. Refusal to recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension and in the quest for the Absolute -- by its nature, expressing communion between persons -- would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would fragment the unity of the person.
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In my recent Encyclical, Spe Salvi, I indicated that "every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs" (No. 25). For Christians, this task is motivated by the hope drawn from the saving work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Church is happy to be associated with the activity of this distinguished Organization, charged with the responsibility of promoting peace and good will throughout the earth. Dear friends, I thank you for this opportunity to address you today, and I promise you of the support of my prayers as you pursue your noble task.


Address to Ecumenical Meeting at St. Joseph's Church, New York

My dear friends, the power of the kerygma [proclamation of salvation through Jesus] has lost none of its internal dynamism. Yet we must ask ourselves whether its full force has not been attenuated by a relativistic approach to Christian doctrine similar to that found in secular ideologies, which, in alleging that science alone is "objective", relegate religion entirely to the subjective sphere of individual feeling. Scientific discoveries, and their application through human ingenuity, undoubtedly offer new possibilities for the betterment of humankind. This does not mean, however, that the "knowable" is limited to the empirically verifiable, nor religion restricted to the shifting realm of "personal experience".

For Christians to accept this faulty line of reasoning would lead to the notion that there is little need to emphasize objective truth in the presentation of the Christian faith, for one need but follow his or her own conscience and choose a community that best suits his or her individual tastes. The result is seen in the continual proliferation of communities which often eschew institutional structures and minimize the importance of doctrinal content for Christian living.

Even within the ecumenical movement, Christians may be reluctant to assert the role of doctrine for fear that it would only exacerbate rather than heal the wounds of division. Yet a clear, convincing testimony to the salvation wrought for us in Christ Jesus has to be based upon the notion of normative apostolic teaching: a teaching which indeed underlies the inspired word of God and sustains the sacramental life of Christians today.

Only by "holding fast" to sound teaching (2 Thess 2:15; cf. Rev 2:12-29) will we be able to respond to the challenges that confront us in an evolving world. Only in this way will we give unambiguous testimony to the truth of the Gospel and its moral teaching. This is the message which the world is waiting to hear from us. Like the early Christians, we have a responsibility to give transparent witness to the "reasons for our hope", so that the eyes of all men and women of goodwill may be opened to see that God has shown us his face (cf. 2 Cor 3:12-18) and granted us access to his divine life through Jesus Christ. He alone is our hope! God has revealed his love for all peoples through the mystery of his Son's passion and death, and has called us to proclaim that he is indeed risen, has taken his place at the right hand of the Father, and "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead" (Nicene Creed).

Hopko, Part 3

The final excerpt from Thomas Hopko's commencement address, with some excellent thoughts about discipleship and community:

And so, once again, if we have learned anything at all in our theological education, spiritual formation and pastoral service, we have learned to beware, and to be wary, of all contentment, consolation and comfort before our co-crucifixion in love with Christ. We have learned that though we can know about God through formal theological education, we can only come to know God by taking up our daily crosses with patient endurance in love with Jesus. And we can only do this by faith and grace through the Holy Spirit's abiding power.

When we speak about "taking up our crosses" and "bearing our burdens" in imitation of Christ, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, we also learn by painful experience that the crosses we take up and the burdens we bear must be those that God gives us, and not those that we ourselves choose and desire. Thus we become convinced that when our burdens are unbearable and our crosses crush us in joyless misery -- and we become dark, depressed, despondent and desperate -- the reasons are evident. Either we are choosing our own crosses and burdens, and rejecting those sent to us by our merciful God whose thoughts and ways are not ours; or we are attempting to carry our crosses and bear our burdens by our own powers, and not by God's grace and strength given to us by Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church.

And so we come to another conviction: The Church -- the communion of faith and love (as St. Ignatius of Antioch defined it: henosis agapis kai pisteos), the community of saints who are Christ's own very "members" as his body and bride - is essential to our human being and life. We cannot be human beings - still less, Christians and saints - by ourselves.

Read the entire commencement address here.

Hopko, Part 2

More from Thomas Hopko's commencement address in May 2007:

We come to know by experience that the Word of God (ho logos tou theou) is always and necessarily the word of the Cross (ho logos tou stavrou). And -- in language befitting a commencement ceremony at an Orthodox graduate school of theology -- we come to see that true theologia is always stavrologia. And real orthodoxia is always paradoxia. And that there is no theosis without kenosis.

Theology is stavrology and Orthodoxy is paradoxy: the almighty God reveals Himself as an infinitely humble, totally self-emptying and absolutely ruthless and relentless lover of sinners. And men and women made in His image and likeness must be the same. Thus we come to see that as there is no resurrection without crucifixion, there is also no sanctification without suffering, no glorification without humiliation; no deification without degradation; and no life without death.

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The address in its entirety is here.

Hopko, Part 1

I recently came across a commencement address by an Orthodox priest and was impressed both by his thoughts and by his way of expressing them. I'd like to share some excerpts with you, but will break them up into perhaps three posts in order to make his meaty thoughts easier to process.

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko is Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York and gave this address at the school's commencement ceremony in May 2007.

First excerpt:

I can tell you that being loved by God, and loving Him in return, is the greatest joy given to creatures, and that without it there is no real and lasting happiness for humanity.

And I can also tell you, alas, that such loving is always a violent, brutal and bloody affair.

The God who is merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, who gives us his divine life and peace and joy forever, is first of all the Divine Lover who wounds His beloved, and then hides from her, hoping to be sought and found. He is the Father who chastens and disciplines His children. He is the Vinekeeper who cuts and prunes His vines so that they bear much fruit. He is the Jeweler who burns His gold in His divine fire so that it would be purged of all impurities. And He is the Potter who continually smashes and refashions and re-bakes His muddy clay so that it can be the earthen vessel that He wants it to be, capable of bearing His own transcendent grace and power and glory and peace.

If you can't wait to read more, this address can be found in its entirety here.