Category Archives: Church

A Larger Hope

05 Tuesday Jul 2022

Posted by in All, Church, Heaven and Hell, Journey, Love

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You have heard, perhaps, a horrible scream in the dead of night. You may have heard the last shriek of a drowning man before he went down into his watery grave. You may have been shocked in passing a madhouse, to hear the wild shout of a madman…But listen now—listen to the tremendous, the horrible uproar of millions and millions and millions of tormented creatures mad with the fury of hell. Oh, the screams of fear, the groanings of horror, the yells of rage, the cries of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair of millions on millions…Little child, it is better to cry one tear of repentance now than to cry millions of tears in hell. But what is that dreadful sickening smell?
—Rev. John Furniss1

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about eternal damnation: the fires of Hell.  Why?  Two reasons, really.  First, for 2,000 years the Christian Orthodox Church (“Eastern Orthodoxy”) has not believed in “once saved always saved.”  While we believe in the grace and mercy of God, we do not presume to know our eternal destination or that of any other; rather, we are encouraged to focus on working out our own salvation with God’s help.  Second, and relatedly, we are encouraged to think of the “consequences” given in the Bible as only applying to ourselves…to me.  After all, I am the chief of sinners.  We witness to the world and pray for all; however, the eternal destiny of me and all others is ultimately up to God.

So, from that context, I’ve been thinking about the various images of Hell.  The one above is obviously terrifying.  Others express the terror in other ways, such as “people will be tied back-to-back, never seeing the face of another.”  But that, it seems to me, is just a slow descent into eternal madness.

Here is a thought I recently had: Certainly anyone who actually believes in eternal torment—eon upon eon of unending agony and screaming that is beyond anything we can conceive—also doesn’t believe they might actually be there one day.  How could one live in such fear of what may come?

To manage my own fear, I have tried a couple of things that may sound familiar: I have assured myself that having said the “sinner’s prayer” I am no longer under threat of eternal agony; I have also worked to tip the moral scale in my favor just in case God judges like America’s Lady Justice; and, I have compared myself with that “other guy” to find assurance that I’m not so bad…a “nice” guy.  Still…

But, really, though, if I seriously believe that God may indeed pour out His eternal wrath on me, then I should be doing more, working frenetically(!), in fact, to ensure I don’t end up in screaming torment while the clock never moves.

And more, if I really love you, my neighbor, as Jesus says, then I should be willing to do anything for you…or to you…to ensure you don’t end up there.  In the name of my true love for you, then, I should be willing to do anything , including horribly torturing you now, if necessary, until you accept Jesus, rather than allow you to experience eternal torture.

Imagine with me that we have “made it” and are in Heaven.  What about those we love who didn’t make it?  Jesus knew His friends upon His resurrection.  Besides, it is the people we have known who make us who we are.  So, it seems unlikely that God will perform a “blessed lobotomy” on us so that we forget those we love.  Won’t that spoil our bliss?

Continuing, then, imagine we are in Heaven, and somehow looking over the railing at those suffering in Hell.  Perhaps we can satisfy ourselves that “they” had their chance and that “they” are getting what they deserve (I pray I don’t get what I so rightly deserve!).  One way that this has been defended over the centuries is exampled by this quote from Puritan preacher Johnathon Edwards:

The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardor of the love and gratitude in heaven.
—Jonathan Edwards2

Edwards, and others before and since, have believed that seeing the agony of those who “chose poorly” or were “predestined for God’s wrath” would actually increase the joy of those in Paradise with God.

Approaching it differently, however, George MacDonald wrote this:

Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that one of his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men were taught to love their neighbor as themselves , was howling unheeded far below in the vaults of creation, who, I say, would not feel the need that he must arise, that he had no choice, that, as awful as it was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke and darkness and the fire, traveling the weary and fearful road into the far country to find his brother?—who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father?3

Perhaps you can see why this has been on my mind.  In light of God Who “so loved the world” as to send His Son, Jesus, to be born, live, and die for the sake of the world so that death and sin might be defeated, it is hard for me to reconcile this with the belief that most of humanity (Matt 7:13-14) will spend eternity screaming in tortured agony.  MacDonald’s version, not Edwards’ seems Christ-like.

I am in no way suggesting that someone, say a Hitler, be given a “free pass to Paradise” after death.  Life comes with consequences.  However, to imagine that the consequence for turning from God in this “short” life is an eternal existence of agony seems counter to the love of God.  Perhaps there may well be some age of unknown length for the resurrected unrepentant to have a change of heart.  After all, God is infinite, not evil.  God, we read in the Scriptures, will destroy sin, not relegate it to a corner of creation.

Of course I can see from my own life and my life’s experience that the threat of “consequences” is necessary to correct me and restore me to the right path.  However, the threat of eternal punishment sounds like retributive punishment, since there is no possibility of restoration for the one punished.  In fact, the idea of eternal, retributive punishment may do more harm than good.  This, from a priest who has heard a lifetime of confessions:

The dogma of hell, except in the rarest of cases, did no moral good.  It never affected the right persons.  It tortured innocent young women and virtuous boys.  It appealed to the lowest motives and the lowest characters.  It never, except in the rarest instances, deterred from the commission of sin.  It caused unceasing mental and moral difficulties…It always influenced the wrong people, and in the wrong way.  It caused infidelity to some, temptation to others, and misery without virtue to most.
—Rev Rudolph Suffield (1873)4

I may well be wrong in my thinking.  One day I may find that God’s love for all mankind does include some kind of eternal existence in the darkness with teeth gnashing–Satan and the unrepentant continuing to exist in some corner of creation.  I pray not because I am the chief of all sinners and my repentance is so poor.  Please don’t wish eternal punishment on anyone, even your worst enemy.  Don’t say, “I hope there’s a special place in Hell for that person” as I once used to say. Rather, pray for everyone, forgive everyone for everything.  Repent for everything and everyone.  To hope another goes to “Hell” is to risk your own salvation; after all, we only love God as much as we love others. (1John 2:8-11)

The possibility of an alternate view of life after death–a larger hope–has been around a very, very long time.  Summarizing the Orthodox Church’s general doctrine, Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev writes:

The [Orthodox Church’s] teaching on [Christ’s] descent into Hades, as set forth in 1 Peter 3:18-21, however, brings an entirely new perspective into our understanding of the mystery of salvation.  The death sentence passed by God does not mean that human beings are deprived of hopeful salvation because, failing to turn to God during their lifetimes, people could turn to Him in the afterlife, having heard Christ’s preaching in hell.5

Whether or not all followed Christ out of Hades is not held doctrinally by the Orthodox Church.6

If you are interested in reading more on a hopeful view of life after death, you can start with this list—click here.  In light of the fact that there is good reason—argued for by many saints and scholars over the centuries—to have hope for the eventual salvation of all after death, why would anybody fight for the view of eternal punishment even for a single human?

We should have but one thought: that all should be saved.
—St. Silouan the Athonite

I’ll close with this story I recently read (paraphrased, as I cannot remember the source):

Imagine all of the “saved”—either by God’s election or man’s freewill choice, whichever you prefer—gathered expectantly before the gates of Heaven, all eagerly awaiting admittance.  Amid the joy, the singing, the fist-bumping, the congratulations, and the tears, a rumor begins to spread, slowly at first, but quickly gathering speed.  “Hey, I just heard that everyone who ever lived will be admitted!”  Song turns to shouting: “No way would God allow that!”…“Not fair!”…”I worked hard for this!”…”Who do they think they are!”…”Where are their years of sacrifice like I had to endure!”…”Keep ‘em out, this is our place; we love God!”  The joyous gathering becomes an angry mob at the injustice of it.  And, in an instant, the mob finds itself in hellfire.  And that was the Last Judgment of God.

———————————————————————————————————————————

1  Furniss, John.  The Sight of Hell.  Ch XI-X.  A book written for young children.  Published 1874.

2 Quoted in Allin, Thomas.  Christ Triumphant.  45.  From Edwards’ 1739 sermon entitled, “The Eternity of Hell Torments.”

3 MacDonald, George.  Unspoken Sermons, Series I: “Love Thy Neighbor.”  Quoted in Hart, David Bentley, That All Shall Be Saved.  156.

4 Allin, Thomas.  Christ Triumphant.  7.

5 Alfeyev, Hilerion.  Christ the Conquerer of Hell.  212.

6 Christ the Conquerer of Hell. Epilogue.

Never Forget—In Two Acts

02 Saturday Oct 2021

Posted by in All, Church, Culture

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Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.
—Moses, Deuteronomy 4:9
Act I
Scene 1
It was a beautiful Tuesday morning.  The sky was clear blue, Colorado blue, if you know what I mean.  At 8:46 am the first airplane appeared.  It was flying low and fast.  It hit the North Tower (1 WTC) at 8:46:40 am.  Explosions, fire, and chaos ensued.  Then, a second plane hit the South Tower.  A third plane hit the Pentagon.  A fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.  By 10:03:11 am the attack was over.  There was death and there was heroism.  2,977 people lost their lives in the attack known as 9/11, September 11, 2001.

President Bush swore that the U.S. would hit back and never forget.

Memorials were erected at the site of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and in the field in Pennsylvania.
A few weeks ago was the 20th anniversary of 9/11.  There were public and private events around the country where many gathered.  The slogan for the gatherings was, “Never Forget.”  In fact, most of us went about our daily lives.
Scene 2
It was early Sunday morning.  The sky was blue with only low, scattered clouds, a typically beautiful day in the Hawaiian Islands.  Just before 8 am the first airplanes appeared.  They were flying low and fast.  Explosions, fire, and chaos ensued.  By 9:50 am the attack was over.  There was death and and there was heroism.  2,403 military and civilian personnel lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

President Roosevelt called it “a date that will live in infamy.”  He swore the U.S. would hit back and never forget.

In Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona remains as a memorial to the many dead from that infamous day.  It reminds us, Never Forget.

I remember the 20th anniversary events held in 1961.  The attack was still fresh in the collective memory of the country.  On December 7th of this year, there will be an 80th anniversary event.  I suspect it will be muted, attended only by history buffs and those few remaining whose lives were directly effected by the attack.

Scene 3
It was a Wednesday when British troops marched to Washington D.C.  That night, they set fire to the White House and Capitol building.  August 24th, 2021 marked the 207th anniversary of the “burning of Washington D.C., an important event in the War of 1812–the only theme in history a foreign army has occupied the capitol of the U.S.

There are numerous memorial plaques scattered around the country commemorating various battles of this War.  They quietly exhort us, Never Forget.

207 years ago…does anyone remember?

Intermission

On September 11, 2081, what will the 80th anniversary of the 9/11 attack be like?  Will it become as muted as will be the next Pearl Harbor anniversary?  And, September 11, 2208 will be the 207th anniversary of the 9/11 attack.  Will it be long forgotten as is the burning of Washington D.C.?

There are hundreds of monuments, memorials, and plaques commemorating important people and events in Washington D.C.  Many thousands more are in parks and on buildings across the U.S.  If you are attentive when you drive the roads, you will often see a sign pointing you to a historical marker, usually in an obscure location and hard to find.  “Never Forget,” they whisper.  Why do we still forget?
Act II
Scene 1
It is sometime in the 1,400s BCE, about 3,500 years ago.  For 400 years, God had been creating a new nation for Himself, incubating them as slaves in Egypt.  They were to be set apart to worship Him, to be His people.
On a mountain top in a nearby country, God approached an old man, a has been.  The man was once a Prince of Egypt, the greatest nation on Earth.  He had it all.  Now, he tended sheep in obscurity.  Moses was his name.  You may have heard of him.  God gave Moses and his brother Aaron a job to do: lead God’s new people, Israel, out of Egypt.  With God doing the heavy lifting to convince the most powerful man in the world, Egypt’s Pharaoh, to let His people go, Moses led Israel out of Egypt.
Over the next 40 years, God sustained them in the desert while He formed this wandering band of hundreds of thousands into a nation.  He gave them an annual celebration to commemorate His work in freeing them from Egypt—it is called Passover.  He showed them how to cleanse themselves from their sins so as to be able to be in His presence without harm to them.  He gave them the plans for a worship tent (they were nomadic, after all), and taught the priests how to dress.  He taught them how to worship Him.
In his farewell address to Israel and as they stood at the edge of the land promised to them by God, Moses reminded them of all God had done for them over the past 40 years.  And, he warned them of the danger of prosperity.  “Never Forget,” he said.  "He delivered you out of slavery; you are His people." Then he died.

Scene 2 Israel entered the land promised to them by God. Over the next 1,400 years, Israel struggled to remember. There were 400 years of oppression and peace, then “three generations of the united monarchy (Saul, David, Solomon), nineteen kings of Israel (up to 722 bc) and twenty kings of Judah (up to 587 bc), [and a] hosts of the prophets and priests.” Israel conquered, was conquered and exiled, then restored to their land. They build a permanent building, a Temple, in which to worship God…and then it was destroyed…and then rebuilt…and then destroyed.

At one point during those 1,400 years, the number of those who remembered God and that they were His people dwindled to a mere remnant: only 7,000.  The ritual acts continued.  They never forgot.

Scene 3
It was night when the angels announced the birth of a baby boy to small group of shepherds huddled in a field.  Jesus, the Son of God, was born in a small town in a country on the edge of the Roman Empire.  Few noticed.  For 30 years He lived in obscurity.  During His last three years, He was…well…God incarnate walking the Earth.  He didn’t come, He said, to change the rituals that had gone on before; rather, He said, He came to fulfill them.  Then He was killed.  Then resurrected.  Then He ascended into heaven.
After His ascent into heaven, those who had known and followed Him remained His people, now known as His Church; they continued the ancient Jewish rituals, but in a changed way, a way that recognized and celebrated His death and resurrection.  For 2,000 years, ancient Church has continued to participate in the 3,500 year old ritual of the Passover—we call it Easter, or Pascha (in Greek).  Too, the Sunday worship (Divine Liturgy) continues the 3,500 year old worship of the ancient Church as given by God to the Israeli’s and fulfilled by Jesus.
Epilogue
How have the people of God remembered the events of the past for more than 3,500 years when we barely remember horrific events of only 80 years ago.  Why do the people of God still identify themselves as such after more than 3,500 years when individual nations come and go?
Monuments and memorials seem to be important to help us remember a person or an event date.  But there is more than just remembering famous people or events.  To truly remember, we need to know who we are as a people.  To Never Forget we cannot, as individuals, only gaze at a monument to know who we are.  Each of us must find our individual identity in community with others.  For that, we need traditions, sometimes called rituals.  We have many: weddings, funerals, school graduations, tail-gate parties, thanksgiving dinners…each tradition helps us find our identity in a community of others and with those who came before us and will come after us.  In the rituals we find ourselves and remember who we are as a “people.”
To truly remember God and to join Him in His life we need a communal practice that connects us together, that reminds us of who we each are and of our joined humanity, and that joins us to reality and to God.  Ritual is required  God saves us together.  Alone we may perish.

Ritual.  The ancient path.  We cannot invent new, exciting ways to worship God.  We need the 3,500 years of unbroken ritual given to us by God.  Changed but unchanging.  It is why we “Never Forget.”  It is why we remember who we are in Christ.

This is what the Lord says:
“Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find a resting place for your souls.”
—Prophet Jeremiah

What If…

28 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by in Church, Death, Healing, Life, Uncategorized

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In the beginning of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series (Fellowship of the Ring), we read of the Hobbits living their everyday lives in a way we would consider normal: there is juicy gossip, a party with fireworks, mischievous kids…the things of normal life we all would recognize.  However, we are soon introduced to an enchanted world with Elves and other beings, and the Dark Lord Sauron.  Tolkien opens our eyes to a larger reality: against the background of the normalcy of the Hobbit’s lives, there is a battle underway for all of Middle-earth.

What if this were true for us.  Like Hobbits, we go about our daily lives concerned about our families, our jobs, our personal finances, the stuff we own or desire to own, politics, sports, the weather, etc.  What if, as in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, our world is actually enchanted, good and sinister beings exist, and there is a battle, of which we are largely unaware, underway.

To switch stories, in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the wicked White Witch introduces Edmund to the addictive treat, Turkish Delight.  With it, she is able to distract Edmund from her true intentions to rule over Narnia as a cold and snowy land and to entice him to join with her.

What if this were true for us.  In the United States and the Western world we are easily distracted: our high standard of living, the internet, social media, the entertainment industry, sports, the never-ending news cycle, toys we have or want, computers, phones, tablets…it is a long list.  What if, as in Narnia,these things are given to us as Turkish Delight, used by an enemy to distract us and to entice us to acquiesce to or outright join the dark forces in the battle.

In the Bible’s New Testament, St Paul says this:
…we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

There is a indeed a battle raging.  However, it is not a battle for a geographical kingdom, such as Middle-earth or Narnia.  Rather, it is a battle for the Kingdom of God that exists within us.  In this battle, we are both the battleground and the prize!  The battle is for our very being and the battleground is raging right now around us and within us.

In Tolkien’s and Lewis’ fictional fights beings suffer wounds or delusion as a result of the battle.  It is true for us in our battle.  But what if each of us is born into our enchanted world with a wound, an illness that darkens our soul and blinds us to our enchanted reality and the battle around us and within us.

Each of us has a part of our being called a Nous.  Nous is an uncommon word to us modern people.  In classical philosophy, nous “is a term for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real” (Wikipedia).  It is often believed to be the center of “reason.”  However, centuries ago, Orthodox Christianity re-purposed the word to mean “the eye of the soul, which some Church Fathers also call the heart, [it] is the center of man and is where true (spiritual) knowledge is validated” (Orthodoxwiki).  It is much more than “reason,” it is the faculty that allows us access to the immaterial world around us and to know things that are beyond our reason.  Most importantly, our nous allows us to know God.  (“The Limits of Human Reason” podcast)

Each and every one of us was born with and suffers from an illness of our nous.  This part of our being, originally given to us to know God, to “see” the enchanted reality all around us, and to recognize good and evil, has been darkened and blinded; we were born with this condition.  Consequently, we go through life focused on ourselves, we engage in survival of the fittest, just like all of the plants and animals of nature.

But God doesn’t leave us in this wounded state, He reaches out to each person to awaken us to the battle around us and within us.  And how He tries to awaken us is unique to each of us.  To one He speaks directly, to another He sends a messenger, to yet another He speaks through the circumstances of our lives.

Once awakened to the reality of the battle, we may choose to ignore it and try to live in a safe world of our own making, continuing to gather and feast on Turkish Delight.  Or perhaps we will choose to join the  rulers of darkness who are continually at work around us and within us to win us as their prize.  After all, joining the dark powers may bring us power, prosperity, and sensual pleasure, albeit only in this life on Earth; however, the price is the continued darkening of our nous.  

God longs for us to choose Him.  He longs to heal our wounded nous.  God has a hospital and a cure for us.  It is the Church.

You may strongly disagree.  Perhaps you have been to a church and found no help; rather, you have found only judgement because you don’t meet some standard of behavior.  That is like waking up one morning realizing you are very sick.  You go to the hospital only to be told you cannot enter until you are well.  That is not the true Church.

All too often a church focuses only on the “rules” for our spiritual life.  When the goal of a church is only on the “formulation” of man’s character, his ethical propriety, and his becoming a ‘good’ person and a ‘good’ citizen” then it is acting like a courtroom rather than a hospital.  In the Church-courtroom we experience only “empty moralism…a superficiality” rather than finding the love of God and His healing.  Sadly, many have experienced this Church-courtroom and revolted against God; but, who can blame them?  Why would anyone want to worship a God like that.

Sick people don’t need a courtroom.  Sick people don’t need to be told they aren’t acting like healed people.  Sick people need a hospital.  And, sick people need a cure.

The true Church has always been a hospital that exists to offer a cure for our illness, our woundedness, our spiritual blindness—our darkened nous.  The goal of Christianity has never been about making us into “good” people.  The world is full of “good” people who are still dead people.  The goal of Christianity has always been to make dead people alive!  The path to life is the path of the healing for our nous so that we can see God and join Him in His life.

In God’s Church-hospital, all are welcome.  The Church is filled with people who range from those who do not yet know the extent of their sickness and seriousness of their wounds to those who are well along the path to being healed.

What if you actually believed in the reality that an epic battle is raging, that your very being is both the battleground and the prize.  What if you believe that you can choose which side to be on in the battle.  What if you believe there is a hospital offering you both care and cure for your wounds.  And, most importantly, what if you believethis hospital’s Physician loves you more than you can ever imagine.

What if you believed all of these things…would it change your life?

Healing of Soul and Body

11 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in All, Church, Death, Healing, Journey

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Remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom not unto judgment or condemnation be my partaking of Thy holy mysteries, O Lord, but unto healing of soul and body.

From the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

20130207-013139.jpgWe are a country at war.  We have been at war many years now, fighting terrorism overseas.   Before this war on terrorism, there was a war on communism, a war on fascism, a war over territory, a war over slavery, a war against “Indians,” and a war for independence.  These are just some of the “big” wars in the history of our country.  But is not a blog about war, you can find many of those elsewhere written by others much more qualified than I.

Rather, this is my thinking about moral injury: the mostly hidden wound of war on combatants and the similarity to our own moral injury as sinful humans.

Many of us old enough to remember Vietnam can recall the soldiers returning to a society hostile to them.  For some number of them, it was a devastating re-entry.  We are tempted to blame it on their participation in a “bad” war.

Compare Vietnam to today’s “good” war where recruits enlist with fanfare and return as heroes (“Thank you for your service”).  Nowadays, veterans (I was in the Air Force years ago) are asked to stand to applause on Veterans Day.

And yet…

In his book, Killing From the Inside Out, in which he effectively dismantles Augustine’s/Aquines’ Just War Doctrine, Meagher cites Pentagon statistics indicating a “runaway suicide rate in the military, averaging thirty-three suicides per month in 2012, roughly one every seventeen hours.”  One every seventeen hours.  This is not unique to our current war.  Grossmann (On Killing: The Psychology Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society) notes that there were periods during the “Good War,” (WWII) where US soldiers were being discharged (“shellshocked” was the old term) at a rate equal to that of incoming recruits.

But, aren’t these, WWII and the war on terrorism, the “good wars,” the Just Wars?  If so, why the devastating effect on so many soldiers?

In his interview in the magazine Road to Emmaus, (“The Opposite of War is Not Peace”), Dr Timothy Patitsas refers to post World War II research that indicated eighty-five percent (85%!!) of US combatants in combat would either not fire their weapons or they would aim to miss.  Similar, albeit limited, research conducted on our opposing armies yielded the same result.  After the release of these findings, the US Military devised a new way to train soldiers by having them shoot at human-like shapes.  Patitsas notes that after this change, “the post-traumatic stress in Vietnam skyrocketed and hasn’t stopped yet.”

I an not expert in treating combatants, but I’d like to bring out some important points by some who are.

Many of those specializing in the treatment of combat veterans have made some important discoveries.  It seems that despite our best theological and moral efforts to differentiate between murder and killing, a human being who takes a life makes no such distinction in the depths of their soul.  Taking a life of another kills something within many who take that life.  Meagher refers to this a “moral injury.”  Labeling a returning soldier as a “hero” only deepens the moral injury, causing the soldier to retreat within themselves and further from community.  It seems, according to these authors, that many, upon returning from war, view themselves as criminals unfit for society and undeserving of a hero’s welcome.

Here is the image in my mind that has sparked my thinking on this: the juxtaposition of a hero’s welcome parade thrown in honor of someone who views one’s self as a criminal, the one who feels they have committed the crime of killing another human being celebrated by society.  Imagine what must be going through this person’s mind, the energy it must take to play the role of the returning hero.  This is an image I’ll return to shortly.

Cognitive therapy, “talking it out” only seems to make the isolation worse for returning combatants.    Suicide can be a final escape from this hidden, moral injury, the dissonance between being society’s hero, yet feeling irredeemable.  Therapists are looking for another way to help.  Shay, in Achilles in Vietnam, believes that help for soldiers can be found in the ancient past.  His assertion, now widely accepted, is that Homer’s Iliad was written to help Greek soldiers, morally injured by war, cope with this hidden injury and to eventually re-enter society.  As I understand it, there is a new form of therapy, based on Shay’s work, emerging to help soldiers returning from combat.

As I said above, the point of my thinking here is not to focus on war.  I hope I’ve said enough to now turn to what is really on my mind.  And I hope you are still with me.

In reading some of the above material, the idea of a soldier feeling like a criminal and suffering moral injury due to his or her actions resonated deeply within me.  Not because I was in combat—I was enlisted during one of the short periods of time our country was not at war—rather, the idea of suffering moral injury, receiving a hero’s welcome, and the typical therapies that have been employed for healing brought to my mind my experience in the churches I have attended and the Christian books I have read as I battled my own sin.

Meagher notes that “moral injury,” doing something we know is wrong, has an older name, one with which we are much less familiar with in today’s society: sin.  Our modern society has tried to do away with sin by redefining right and wrong.  It seems almost everything can be justified.  If I cut off someone in traffic, they deserved it for driving like an idiot or because my needs exceed theirs. If I’m angry at another, they are keeping me from what I want and my worth is justified.  We now use nature, nurture, rights, genes, parenting, lineage…on and on it goes, to justify almost any action that fits the social norm (which is ever changing, but that’s a different blog).

The idea of feeling like a criminal, feeling separated from other humanity, and feeling unworthy of a hero’s accolade has also caught my attention.  It is more than feeling guilt over a wrong action, over sin, to use the old word.  As described, it is a realization of the kind of person I am: I am someone who can actually perform such sinful acts.  This realization also goes by another, old fashioned name: shame.  Like sin, shame is a concept mostly foreign to modern society (at least as attributed to one’s self; however, we have weaponized shame against others who disagree with us).  If sin is reasoned away in my own life, then there can be no shame; my actions are acceptable and I am acceptable.

Finally, I get to the point of this blog.

I have encountered Christian messages wherein I was encouraged to rejoice in God’s forgiveness of me, to be filled with the joy of being saved as the result of praying a certain prayer.  I was told I had victory over sin.  I was told that if I acted more morally or performed some philanthropic act, I should be happy that God was acting in me; I should be joy-filled.  After saying the “sinner’s prayer,” I was given something akin to a “hero’s welcome” given to the returning combatant.  When facing continued sin, I was told, “Just stop it.  You are a child of God.”  Perhaps you have had the same experience.

But this sense of victory never squared with my own inner certainty of my sinfulness and shame, that while I repented of my past sins and God did forgive me, I did not feel victorious, nor did I experience any sort of self-satisfaction from being saved.  Fr Alexander Schmemann gives voice to my sense of moral injury better than I:

Baptism is the forgiveness of sins, not their removal.  It introduces the sword of Christ into our life and makes it the real conflict, the inescapable pain and suffering of growth.  It is indeed after baptism and because of it, that the reality of sin can be recognized in all of its sadness…

So, back to the image I described above: the combat veteran returning to a hero’s welcome while feeling like a criminal.  All around me were Christians rejoicing and telling me my salvation was a certainty while inside I felt like a pretender.  I was (am) overwhelmed by the anguish of my own shame that I am the kind of person who still most often desires things other than God; I am filled with self love, not love for God and neighbor.  Consequently, rather than experiencing healing, I experienced a deepening separation from these other Christians.

But, the Church has, throughout her history, been a “hospital for the broken,” a place for healing.  How does this healing take place?  In very simplistic terms, the Enlightenment gave us a focus on intellectual truth.  Therapeutic healing, in the light of Enlightenment thinking, is that I learn Truth, and from there I find Goodness in me (or at least rationalize my behavior) and move past my moral injury.  Focus on the intellect, learn truth, and healing follows, I was told.  Like the soldier told that killing in war is okay, that the war is Just, this way of approaching healing did not work for me either.  It only deepened my sense of separation, of isolation.

But this way of using intellect first is a relatively new idea in Christianity; it forsakes Beauty, the third of the classical virtues and the one most neglected in Western thought.

The Eastern Church has always held that to be healed I should seek Beauty first: the Beauty of God.  By dwelling on God I dwell on Beauty; I fall in love with God. In time, loving the Beauty allows me to find the Goodness in the Cross of Christ, and thereby find the goodness in my own cross: my own moral injury.  Finally, the knowledge of the Truth of God, which is intertwined with Beauty and Goodness, begins to emerge.

Sin and the resulting shame (moral injury) drives us from beauty and toward ugliness.  It teaches us lies.  It separates us from others.  Beauty, on the other hand, heals by replacing the ugliness of our moral injury with Beauty.  Beauty brings us into re-entry with community.  Beauty allows us begin to see Goodness, to “embrace Goodness and to become good.”  Then Truth comes, the truth of the Cross; and we can see the humiliation of our being—our shame—in the Light of God and rejoice in His love of us.

Of course healing is not this neatly linear, but it must begin with contemplating Beauty.  Perhaps healing begins with someone who is filled with Christ (a friend, pastor, therapist, etc.) who crosses my path and “absorbs some of my moral injury,” and I see God’s beauty in them.  Eventually, I am able to begin to find the goodness in my shame, for my suffering marks me—they are the marks of the suffering of Christ upon my body.

Healing is a long process.

No one can put together what has crumbled into dust, but You can restore a conscience turned to ashes; You can restore to its former beauty a soul lost and without hope. With You, there is nothing that cannot be redeemed. You are Love; You are Creator and Redeemer. We praise You, singing: Alleluia!

Akathist to the Glory of God, Ode 10

The Role of Tradition

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Church, Journey, Uncategorized

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My job recently had me in a hotel at the location of “the big game” of the college football weekend.  Both schools have a long tradition in college football.  Both schools are ranked in the Top 10. Both schools are undefeated.  This game has implications for the images-1eventual college national championship.

The town is full of supporters from both schools and there is quite a palpable energy in everyone I meet who is associated with either school.  In each camp there is a shared experience among alumni that transcends age, gender, race, and ethnicity.  Strangers become friends as they share in something bigger than they each are.

My Dad attended one of the schools, so I have a favorite in the game; however, I am not really vested in the game.  In fact, I’m quite outside of the experience of those around me, unable to really connect even were I to wear the team logo.  I am outside the experience because I never shared the experience of the traditions of my Dad’s school; I am not part of its history and its history is not in me.  I am not a continuation of the stories of the people who attended, the heroes and anti-heroes and just plain folk.  It is the shared experience of the tradition makes the community and the community passes on the traditions.

Every strong culture has its long-held traditions.  These cultures can be as diverse as ethnic groups, religious groups, colleges, military branches or units, and even gangs…each, if it is a strong community, has traditions that are kept by the community and passed on to willing participants by the community. One’s participation in the established cultural tradition is the way one becomes part of the community.

In 1943, C.S.Lewis published a book entitled The Abolition of Man in which he critiqued the English educational system breaking from passing on tradition.  He said:

[Previous generations of educators] did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly.

Lewis’ point: without the educators “handing on what they had received,” our understanding of what it is to be human would diminish to the point abolishment.

In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and tried to remake the Cambodian culture with mass killings.  They instituted Zero Year in which they determined to destroy or discard all Cambodian tradition and begin anew (beginning with year zero) from scratch.  Like the communist re-education camps, their aim was to remake culture by abolishing the old.

The central pole in the Christian tent is that of our becoming.  We are to partake of God’s divine nature, to become one with Him as the Three, Father, Son and Spirit, are one.  An early saying of the Church was that we are becoming by Grace what God is by nature.  To be a Christian is not just to have a “personal relationship with Christ” but to become part of the body of Christ, which is the Church.  The Church must be a faithful keeper and transmitter of the tradition of the community.  To be part of this community and to experience its fullness, you must experience life within the community.  There is no other way to “become” like Christ.  From within our engagement with the Church, the Way, the Truth, and the Life is transmitted to us.

In western Protestant Christianity, tradition has gotten a bad rap.  I grew up in a small Midwestern town.  There was one “parochial” school, a Catholic elementary school.  Some of my friends had to eat fish on Fridays (this was in the days prior to Vatican II).  In my Protestant Church I learned about the heroes of the Reformation and how they rescued the faith from “those Catholics” who, among other things, held to tradition.

And yet, Protestant Churches have their own traditions.  Alter calls, the “sinners prayer,” Sunday worship as a song followed by a time of greeting then two more songs then a forty minute sermon and a closing song…all tradition.   We simply cannot “become” without tradition even if we have to reform them.

Now, imagine following Jesus around during His time of ministry.  Think of what you would have seen, learned, and experienced about what it was to live as a Christian.  Imagine seeing Jesus’ mother, Mary, to observe up close the day-to-day life of the one “highly favored” and chosen by God.  “Arghhh,” we might says we looked at our own lives, “that is what it looks like to live as a highly favored one of God!”  Imagine following Peter or Paul…wouldn’t you be immersed so much more in the ways of living a life of Christ than had they simply tossed you a book to read!

The cry of the Reformers was Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone.  And yet from Scripture alone the reformers, Luther, Zwingli, then Calvin, could not agree on a central dogma of Christianity: the Eucharist.  Something more than Scripture must be needed.

Scripture itself is a product of tradition and is foremost among the traditions.  Scripture we have today was finally determined because the Churches of the 300s were all generally reading the same writings.  In other words, the canon of Scripture we now have simply came from the Church leaders recognition that these were the traditional books being read.  And, the Church members agreed to keep reading them.

Now some will argue that Jesus was angered by tradition.  He is sometimes referred to as a rebel because He was no fan of some of the Jewish tradition of His day.  “Woe to you…hypocrites…” were His words to those who had created tradition in the name of religion that they might enhance their own power and stature.  But He also followed tradition, engaging in the manner of worship common during His time.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  His life is the way of Christian life in as much as we are able to follow Him in our fallenness.  The Apostles received this life of the Father from Christ through the Spirit.  They who succeeded the Apostles passed on this way of life to the next generation (Paul: “I give to you what I received by tradition…”), and they to the next, to the next, to the next…down to us.  We inherit a way of life from within the Church: a community formed by Tradition, that keeps the Tradition, and passes on the Tradition.

Andrew Louth, in his book, Discerning the Mystery, suggest this:

…ultimately the tradition of the Church is the Spirit, that what is passed on from age to age in the bosom of the Church is the Spirit, making us sons in the Son, enabling us to call on the Father, and thus share in the communion of the Trinity.

By distancing ourselves from Tradition we have lost our way.  There are tens of thousands of Christian denominations in the world, each claiming to have the right interpretation of Scripture.  We are not the “one, holy, apostolic church” of our early creed and I don’t think we can reformulate the meaning into a spiritual oneness rather than a physical oneness.  I believe Jesus meant what He said when He told us we were one.  Paul, too, said we were to be one Church, one body of Christ.  How can we hope to show others the truth of God if we cannot settle on it ourselves.

From Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof):

But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask ‘Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?’ Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition! 

Tens of thousands of denominations, the Church is indeed losing her balance.  What is the path forward?  Tevye says it: Holy Tradition.  That which was received by the Apostles and passed on is still in practice today.  Come home and see.

If you want to read more, you might enjoy these articles:

Scripture and Tradition

Teaching the Tradition