Religion Writing Versus Voyeuristic Schadenfreude
Once again, I'm slowly shaking my head.
I was really excited to read about Abp. Naumann taking Governor Sebelius out to the ol' Kansas woodshed over her pro-abortion stance. You can always count on Dr. Jeff Mirus, a great religion writer, to cover big stories, and this one is big.
Of course, Amy Welborn beat him to it. I'd call her a religion writer, too. Blogger Mark Shea blogged it also. Hey, what do you know? All the religion writers are covering this!
I thought to myself "Wait! I wonder what the Crunchy Conservative said about the Gov and the Arch-B? He's been covering religious stuff AND politics for years! He even referred to himself as a Religion Writer at least once. Plus he really likes the topic of Bishops. I guess he used to even be Catholic." So I wandered over to his blog and did a search on "Sebelius". Nothing. "Naumann?" Zilch.
Oh, but wait. He did do some writing about Catholic stuff today. More searches confirmed that Mr. Shea, Ms. Welborn and Dr. Mirus all missed that incredibly gripping story.
Now I'm pretty sure that Rod Dreher will get around to covering the Naumann smack-down at some point. Sebelius is being talked about as a running mate for Obama who supposedly has a "Catholic problem". But if she's damaged as a Catholic would she help him? Maybe -- if she looks like a martyr persecuted by the male hierarchy to all the po wittle pwo-choice Catholics, I wouldn't know. Regardless, the story seems difficult to ignore for a political blogger who dabbles with religion writing and is obsessed with Catholic Bishops. The only problematic thing about it is that it makes the Arch-B look good, don't you think? The man is standing on principle! Perhaps Dreher is waiting for a "not-so-fast" piece on the Archbishop's remarks from Ross Douthat or he's possibly still vetting the rumor which surfaced about how Naumann's niece's dog pooped on the tree-lawn ten years ago.
BTW, Dreher's rhetorical question about how someone who was involved in SSA could possibly become a spiritual leader has a simple answer: St. Paul.
ReplyDeleteNot that this should be assumed, but to conclude that somebody once in sin can never revover is contrary to the basic story of Chirstianity.
Of course, the story of St. Paul, (like anything else) doesn't pass the, "tell that to the parents of the child who was molested" test, so it's not valid, and is a slap in the face to victims of sexual abuse and their families.
ReplyDeleteWe should call this: "tell that to the parents of the child who was molested" the Kevlar Sentence. 'Cause once it's on you're bullet-proof. No one can say anything about anything because when they do they are showing apathy toward all victims of abuse who ever lived.
ReplyDeletethat comment shoudl be left on every post of dreher's blog. lol.
ReplyDeletee.g.
post: "i love me's a bottle of champagne at night cuz i's a grown up"
comment: "tell that to the parents of a child who was molested."
Kathleen--ROTFL!!!
ReplyDeleteI think Bishop Naumann's niece's dog also may have been gay.
ReplyDeleteWhat else should we expect from a Liberal Elitist like Dreher?
ReplyDeleteCatholics have the freedom to express the truth as they see it, but preaching the truth is not the same as coercing the truth.
ReplyDeleteIs it prudent for Catholic leaders and teachers to choose one issue above all others and approve without discrimination any person or law that labels itself pro and condemn any person or law that can be labeled anti?
Why not just simplify things and say, "Democrats are bad and Republicans are good? Catholics may not in good conscience vote for a Democrat or hold office as a Democrat!"
This seems to be far from the way Benedict XVI would teach and act. Benedict presents the Truth in a way that reveals its beauty and proportion and, as a good shepherd, he invites us to follow.
Personally I am against abortion because it is killing. I am also against killing in war and in capital punishment. Catholic teaching is very clear about these issues but it is not coercive.
If American Catholics really followed Catholic teaching they would have stood with the Pope and the U.S. Bishops rather than following President Bush into an unjust war.
John, I don't think we as Catholics can expect dogs to be celibate, be they male or female, gay or straight.
ReplyDeleteYes, but how could a someone with such close ties to homosexuality serve as an effective bishop? Does Benedict know about this? I can't believe he does.
ReplyDeleteDon't make me post a letter from an abused victim's family.
LOL, John! ;)
ReplyDeleteBTW, I asked an Eastern Catholic guy, "Hmmm, I wonder if Dreher's Gandalfian archbishop would ever take a strong public stand like Bp. Naumann's?"
His response: "Who would listen? His vast flock?"
LOL!
Diane
P.S.
Actually, that touches on a point you made in another recent post. Rod is all about "small is beautiful," except when it comes to blog hits. Then it's he who goes for the numbers--by posting porn and sleaze and trash. Verrrrry interesting.
Burton: "Is it prudent for Catholic leaders and teachers to choose one issue above all others...."
ReplyDeleteIf that issue is the most important, yes. I especially like your choice of the word "prudent". The massacre of innocent human life is the most glaring example of injustice in our country and prudence would dictate that we deal with that before tackling the death penalty issue. If you feel called by God to push for elimination of capital punishment then, hey, go for it. But if you don't see a qualitative difference between the sin of abortion and capital punishment, maybe you should revisit the words of St. Dismas, the "good thief", who was crucified with Jesus and accepted his punishment as just while he was graced with the insight that Christ, like a pre-born child, had done no wrong.
Burton: "Why not just simplify things and say, 'Democrats are bad and Republicans are good?'"
ReplyDeleteIf your characterization were correct then obviously Cardinal Egan did not "get the memo" as they say. Or possibly he doesn't care to which political party Rudy Giuliani happens to belong. Could it be that neither Naumann nor Egan are motivated by partisan concerns? What a concept.
I also should point out that your attempt to paint the requests by bishops that people not receive communion as coercive is just plain silly. During the papal mass, Cardinal Egan didn't lock Rudy in a room in the rectory guarded by other rough-looking characters who, like Giuliani, have lots of vowels in their last names. Egan is taking his mandate from Christ (i.e., Almighty God) as someone who can "bind and loose" very seriously and I would compare his and Abp. Naumann's very pastoral actions more to taking your friend's heroin or crack and flushing it down the toilet. I'd rather my friend go to rehab then die in a ditch even if he curses me out and thinks I'm denying him his "right" to a drug fix, and likewise a bishop would rather see a repentant soul than a damned one even when he has to bear the ridicule of liberals and people who mistakenly think every Catholic has the "right" to commit sacrilege so they may appear to be a Catholic in good standing.
Paul. I appreciate your comments.
ReplyDeleteIf you think the word coercive is silly, so be it.
I do think prudence is one of the virtues and certainly is a legitimate consideration as we discuss strategies for stopping killing. I think we all agree on the evil of killing, but our disagreements are about strategies.
Since our disagreement is about strategies aginst abortion, it should not matter to you whether or not I "equate" abortion killing with war killing or matricide or capital punishment.
However, I do think you and I have to be true to the Church's teaching on just war precisely because it is the Church's teaching not because war is higher or lower on some presumed hierarchy of atrocities.
Catholics can disagree based on their view of the facts whether or not the current Iraq war is just or not. I've heard the case for it being just and I think it has the most merit. JohnMcG and you think otherwise. I respectfully disagree. The church agrees that this is a prudential matter. The matter of deliberately aborting and unborn child is different because the case is settled.
ReplyDeleteIn choosing actions to combat evils in the world we always presuppose a certain hierarchy of wickedness. This is true whether we are in politics or church leadership or are just laymen and citizens. I could get up in arms about the loitering that goes on at the mall, but I'm more concerned about the 3,700 abortions performed in the US per day.
BTW, not too worried about matricide becoming legal, so I'm not too up-in-arms about it. I know, I know... tell that to the men whose kids plotted to kill his wife. I'm sure I'm being uncompassionate toward the victims of matricide.
Another example of Dreher's bias you can mention is his lack of coverage of the arrest of Joe Barron for soliciting sex online with a 13 year-old girl. http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080516_wz_pastorsexsting.107ba86d4.html
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this unique is Mr. Barron was the minister to married couples at Plano's Prestonwood Baptist church. Where are the calls for a database of Protestant ministers who do this? Like the DMN created of Bishops who enable Priests to molest kids. Where are the calls for investigations of other churches or public institutions like Mr. Eggerton did on the Catholic Church? I do not know either? It is easier to make believe that this is only a Catholic problem than it is for Dreher et. al. to look at the bigger picture.
No "deep pockets", Jonathan. That would be a great article: "Billy Graham has let us down".
ReplyDeleteDreher posted on the Barron story last night. Of course he used it as a backhanded slap at Catholics.
ReplyDeleteBut of course, Patrick. ;-) Our Working Boy never disappoints.
ReplyDeleteSo transparent. He might as well headlined it "Protestants Yet Again Shown To Be Better Christians Than Catholics".
ReplyDeleteBTW, check out this perceptive comment at the wonderful Midwest Conservative Journal. It's by a Ken Somebody, a Catholic regular there, and it absolutely nails our Working Boy. Ken is quoting from Bonhoeffer's Life Together:
ReplyDeleteEvery human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves this dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians which his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first the accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.
Ken goes on to say: "Personally, I think that fits Rod Dreher to a 'T'."
Yep. ;)
http://mcj.bloghorn.com/3807#Comments
Diane
BTW, I think Ken meant to type "with" rather than "which" in the following sentence:
ReplyDeleteHe enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly.
You know, it's tempting to dismiss this stuff, and tell myself it doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteThen in this thrad I see a comment from someone who has contemplated conversion to Catholicism saying:
The stories that Rod tells lead me to believe that I would be abusing that trust to submit my family to an institution that demands my exclusive allegiance without a credible reciprocal commitment (1) that my family will not be exposed to false teaching within the church and (2) that my family - and especially my kids - will not have the authority of the institution used to coerce them into acquiescing in their own abuse or to shield the perpetrators of such abuse from spiritual discipline and temporal punishment in the event that it does occur. If this consigns me to hell, at least I will go with a clean conscience.
Dreher has managed to convince a reader that being forced to assist in the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse is a regular feature of Catholic life, and this reader would rather lead his family into hell than do that.
This is real damage, and must be confronted.
John, I am livid about this.
ReplyDeleteAnd Eric Weiss's sycophantic aiding and abetting of Dreher's dishonest tactics has me completely disgusted. (I know Eric via cyber-space from a while back.)
Ever since Eric doxxed, he has apparently thrown his interity out the window. Last time I checked in at the Dreherrhea Blog, Eric was making fun of a poster's name -- a poster who dared to disagree with the Rod-Man, that is.
How low can you go?
Here's my new word for Dreher's problem: Pridealism.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing new under the sun, but one can re-invent the wheel.
ReplyDeleteThe sex scandal in the Catholic Church involoving >1% of the clergy of the past 6 decades is Dreher's own personal Sack of Constantinople.
Talk to any milk-fed Greek and tears well up in their eyes as they almost spit out the word "Latins" talking about the Venetian pillage of what has long since become Isntabul some 42+ generations ago. You would think it was their grandmother, and my grandpa did the defiling.
Well he has managed to latch on to something that has gained great currency in polemic - a notable scandal. But nothing new being under the sun, let's talk about the modern Massacre of the Latins... Something no one talks about but in the 1180s likely 2-3x as many "Latins" living in constantinople were killed by Greek rioters as they emptied the contents of the "Azymite's" tabernacles to be trampled under foot.
If the sex scandal is the new sack of Constantinople, the utter decimation of the Christian East in America through grandkids disinterested in their Babba's ethnic club, and the useless and wasteful jurisdictional splitting and rivalry (up to and including decades of playin on disaffected Greek Catholics, encouraging schisms and offering a home to celibate priests who leave to get married)... Well, friends, that is the new Massacre of the Venetians - the new scandal that is never talked about, examined, or mentioned during the gleeful regailing of "what's wrong with Christendom." That chapter never gets talked about.
The roosters are coming home to roost.
If Dreher is impressed with just how holy his microscopic denomination is, he should start asking "Where are the grandkids?" If you want to compare the OCA to the Catholic Church, close your eyes and imagine the only members of the Catholic Church left were the folks who are in the Knights of Columbus. Whittle away "everybody else" and the core group you still have that self-identifies as Orthodox are only the most committed.
I will bet dollars to donuts that Orthodox grandparents have move Catholic (and Protestant) grandchildren than they do Orthodox. They intermarry, we have schools, we welcome all ethnic varieties, we are everywhere.
If the Crunch Con-Man wants to wallow in his own crapulence for joining such a gem of a pristine church (roundly ignoring the financial scandals, the sex scandals, the rivalry with ROCOR and to a lesser extent ACROD) bully for him.
There is no ignoring however that his choice reflects his own self reliance and his modern Whole Foods™ lifestyle. Not happy to get his valencia oranges and Folger's coffee beans from Mega Store like all the rest of us, he has moved on to a boutique to get exotic citrust fruits and gourmet roasted fair trade beans. We should all be so smart and special to shop at the boutique yuppy store, eh?
If he and his ilk want to try to justify their elitism and fantasies of "discovering the ancient east" (one wonders why they didn't become Assyrians Church of the East members!) let them. But know this, the baseless and pedantic BS about "we did it because our kids would get molested by those lecherous priests" is as tiresome and baseless as it is stupid.
Instead what he has now offered his children is membership in a shrinking church and a chance to become a lapsed member (like so many children of converts I know) who describe themselves as "nothing" or identify their affiliation with Orthodoxy by saying "My grandmother was Orthodox!"
So if he wants to make an argument that the Orthodox church - a snapshot of the midieval Byzantine church colourized by Slavic ascendency in later generations - represents best the "early church" and is more pristine as a counciliar church without councils or even a dicennial meeting of patriarchs... Let him do so. Let him talk up his new "girlfriend" on her own virtues and quit this pedantic and poor form "praising of the new girlfriend" by pointing out how she is not like "that old bitch he used to date who was a two-timin', drug-usin', street-walkin' tramp."
It is obnoxious enough that he is a font of Orthodoxy and so damned sanctimonious in his presentation of his take on "Holy Orthodoxy" less than one year before the chrism oils (re-confirmation) have dried on his forehead. Would it be too much to ask for him to leave his past behind and after, I dunno, after two full years of life in the OCA has gone by before he becomes the Know-It-All of the East?
LOL, Simple. There are so many rich nuggets in that post I don't even know where to begin. :-)
ReplyDeleteI increasingly think of Dreher--lurid sensationalism and all--as the Maria Monk of our age. I sure hope he doesn't have her influence!
Diane, posting under hubby's name
Orthodoxy outside of your convert parish - in its ethnic enclave glory, a la P-purgh, the church is largely aging, largely women, and has as often as not seen their progeny abandon the faith, go RC after their daughter married that handsome Italian boy, or join the mega-church seeker-congregation, or has moved just far enough out into the subburbs to not have their non-attendance of the parish in the old neighborhood questioned.
ReplyDeleteLook at the baptism records and old parish photographs -our parishes used to be MUCH bigger. Read The Hopko Letter - he laments that nowadays a parish of 200 is considered large, and some OCA diocese have fewer members throughtout as the old cathedrals did.
Estimates on OCA membership are tricky to be sure. If there is anyone that still believes it is 1M+, I have this great ocean-front property in Arizona I need to get rid of for rock bottom prices, please call me...
The last OCA yearbook lists 1026 clergy - 180 some deacons, the rest priests...
Using the Hartford Institute's estimated membership of 39,000 for the OCA...
(per: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/tab2.pdf)
You get -
ratio of clergy to laity: 38.01
ratio of priests to laity: 47.04
39,000 / 456 parishes = 85.52 members per parish
Using Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff's estimated membership of 27,196
You get -
ratio of clergy to laity: 26.50
ratio of priests to laity: 32.85
27,196 / 456 parishes = 59.64 members per parish
If some sources are correct, that the OCA active membership is closer to 15,000 you are getting to a point where 1 in 15 members of the OCA is a deacon, priest or bishop. Not great any way you slice it.
The projected worldwide Orthodox growth rate is a tough proposition - the current numbers seem to presuppose a much higher rate of active membership in the Russian Church than I am willing to accept. Depending on who and how you count, active membership among folks who attend 2+ times per month is probably somewhere in the 15-20% range of folks who would be guestimated to be Orthodox (that is to say, members of the population that do NOT self-identify as Muslim, Jewish, Buddist, etc.) Some take it as an insult and affront when someone is blunt about this, but I am going to be blunt about this: "Holy Russia" did not re-blossom over-night in the ex-USSR to the point where it is accurate or honest to pretty much throw in the entire Russian population with the a world-Orthodox head count. 12-20 Million active self-identified members would be most likely. In the face of Russian de-population and Islamic growth Russia will be a Muslim majority nation in 22 years, and Yemen will be bigger.
Who is going to stand up and speak as boldly against the death of the West and the spread of Islam then? The Pope of Rome, the Patriarch of Constantinople (who is likely to be leaving Istanbul in the next decade if things don't change), or the Patriarch of Moscow?
Orthodoxy may be orthodox (lower case "o") but it will never be catholic (lower case "c"). Dreher is about 20 years past the boomlet of folks who went Orthodox from Evangelicalism. Go looking for that boomlet now and see where those folks ended up, what schisms occured, and how many of their Cali born and bred children had their parents' enthusiasm for the prayer life of the Greco-Slavonic world.
The other dance that kind of cheeses me is that he and his sycophants will give every indication that the RC Church is still crawling with pedophiles, and that staying away is really the only choice a responsible parent can make.
ReplyDeleteThis is sufficient for most readers.
Then someone like me will call them on that, that kids have a better chance of being struck by lighning than being abused by a priest, and the they will fall back to the vague, "no, I meant it's impossible to raise kids with orthodox belief" stuff that's impossible to refute, because everybody has their horror stories of Sister Stretchpants, etc.
"The other dance that kind of cheeses me is that he and his sycophants will give every indication that the RC Church is still crawling with pedophiles, and that staying away is really the only choice a responsible parent can make."
ReplyDeleteAll such pedantic polemicists had better be prepared to put their money where their mouth is, pull their children out of the public schools and homeschool. In some school districts as many as 1 in 10 or more students report some form of abuse - from molestation, indecent proposals, faculty or staff that ignore sexual harassment. In some school districts resignations are quietly accepted when allegations are made and school boards write recommendation letters for the offending faculty and staff to get the hell out of Dodge and take it to the next school.
Sr. Crewcut and Fr. Feelgood stories you can't argue with, of course. What can you say? Interestingly, no one talks about the parochial princes that lord over the chalice in some small parishes and demand you confess to them immediately before the Divine Liturgy if you want to recieve communion.
No one presents that sort of horror story or the endemic problem of congregational schisms that lead to "bishop shopping" where, for example, an OCA parish disaffected with their priest splits off to go ROCOR or AOA or ACROD...
As to the notion that we are crawling with sycophants and pedophiles... Has he been to a seminary lately? The offending priests were largely products of the melee of the 1950s (the s*** was hitting the fan BEFORE the council) and the 1960s. I haven't heard of a young priest even so much as accused, and frankly the microscope these guys are under may even be a case of going too far.
Can it be said that his (Dreher's) church has these sorts of protections and psychological screening systems in place today? Anyone aware of the fact that the OCA has implimented correspondance school style formation programs for older men who live in towns they cannot transfer married bi-vocational priests (paid a pittance if not volunteers) to?
God forgive me and have mercy on me for saying it, but the day is going to come when the OCA regrets taking in the ex-Greek Catholic monks from Holy Cross monastery in Miami (one of the members raped and killed a nun) who got the hell out of Florida and headed up to North Carolina one step ahead of their Greek Catholic bishop's investigation. Some of the "monastics" in American Orthodoxy I would not trust to walk a badger. Who is screening them?
The Drehers and Evangelicals filling up the Orthodox seminaries (80% of the US born seminarians are converts) are yesterday's converts to Episcopalianism. All of the sacraments, none of the Pope. As PECUSA has gone off the rails the AOA and OCA have gone "native enough" (speak English) to become the new Episcopal option. All of the sacraments, none of the Pope, and not only can they bring their anti-Roman clothes in their anti-Roman baggage with them... when they arrive in Byzantium they discover the Greeks and Russians have a whole walk in closet of anti-Catholic courture to ADD to their wardrobe. It is such a relief!
I am a Greek Catholic who came within two steps of joining the OCA a decade ago when the east still seemed so much "more authentic" "more ancient" and fabulously mysterious and unified.
I have been disabused of those notions and now see the disunity and real problems that converts like Dreher and his ilk REFUSE to see. They only want to talk about how much better they think they have it. Which even that, if you think about it, isn't that impressive. Given what a low opinion they have of Rome, being better than that ain't that big a feat!
Arturo Vasquez rants well when he writes about Western "Eastern Orthodoxy" as Boutique Religion.
Whole Foods™ with an onion dome.
I don't mean to be so vitriolic or triumphal sounding, but I have watched the online rhetoric play out for years where Catholics - thinking of the Orthodox as such exotic and fabulous creatures who scream Opa! at weddings and break plates... Whose bishops are bearded and vested in robes of gold with crowns that are gorgeous... Well we were told to play nice and "breathe with both lungs" and do our best to be inclusive, generous, and respectful... And small subsets of Drehers and company mostly knock the olive branches out of our hands and spit on them. On the world scene, ayatollahs, Dali Lamas, Muslim princes all stopped in to visit JP2, and welcomed him to their countries. JP2 managed a trip to Tunisia for crying out loud (where muslim fundamentalists have decapitated women sunbathers on women-only beaches!)... And Moscow and Patriarch Alexy II? Basically at every turn he told the old Pole to go "push a rope." Real reciprocity there.
So all the talk of the superiority and the willingness to jump all over how bad we evil Catholics are, freely pointing it out and dispensing their advice...
Well, I kept my mouth shut for a decade. Now I am just tired of it.
"Whole Foods with an onion dome" is hysterical.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Marshall Fightlin's wonderful characterization of Messianic Judaism: "Baptist fundamentalism with a knish."
BTW--Arturo is one of my favorite bloggers ever. His insights are so, well, insightful. I even shared one of his posts at our pastoral council meeting last nigtht, LOL. (The one about Hisoanic Catholics' attraction to botanicas because they feel so alienated from sterilized, de-sacralized churches.) Our parish is about half Hispanic, so everyone understood.
ReplyDeleteArturon Rules!
Diane
That would be "Hispanic" and "Arturo." Sorry about typos!
ReplyDeleteSimple Sinner, you are the BIG DAWG. That is a compliment in these parts.
ReplyDeleteWoof!
ReplyDeleteI like dogs, I will role with that one.
Diane:
I was talking with Fr. J. the other night and a pregnant thought popped into my head that I was having a hard time really articulating... After a few minutes of hashing it out it came to me. As obvious as the wheel, but understand the Mayan calendar was more accurate than any European calendar and they had amazing architecture still standing today... and no one ever thought of the wheel!
At any rate, the days of "discrete" or "pristine" traditions being argued for in polemics have mostly disappeared. That is to say except among your most steadfast die-hard Lutherans, you would be hard pressed to find a Lutheran who believes only Lutheranism represents the fullness of the faith. The days of Evangelical scholars feeling ambivalent about ever citing Catholic authors in the past. (They all love themselves some JP2!)... It would be unheard of in more academic theological courses and studies to use exclusively Protestant scholarship. The days of treating Rome like the 1.3B pound gorilla in a mitre no one will talk about are OVER.
At a real level folks are coming to realize that even if they aren't on board with Rome, Rome is the leader, and Rome alone has the balls, integrity and freedom to speak up and be heard. If you think otherwise, tell me how much press the Dali Lama got on his visit that occurred at the same time Pope Benedict was here. Hell, did you know the Prime Minister of the UK was in the US when B16 was here and even went to the White House? If not for the blogosphere (and even with it) would you know about when the Patriarch of Constantinople came to the US? (I was in Pittsburgh 13 years ago when he came... I was aware because he was down the block. Do you remember even hearing about those visits?)
Dreher and his ilk in the culture war remind me of a line out of "A Few Good Men" delivered masterfully by Jack Nicholson:
"You have the luxury of not knowing what I know... And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall... I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it!"
Bold and not wholly analogous to be sure. But inasmuch as Evangelicals like to be nominally pro-life, and the Orthodox need someone to highlight what they supposedly are sooooo not, if Rome fell off the face of the Earth, who has the voice to speak? What other body has so spread to the four corners throughout time and space and has scholars and saints in all these spiritualities and fields of thought?
A Greek Catholic pastor of mine once put it well: PROTESTants protest whom? The Eastern Orthodox are East of where? Just a coincidence that Rome - the largest most widespread church on earth - remains a center of gravity for darn near all the baptized even if it is just to serve as an example of contradistinction?
Are you going to go to Wheaton College (once described as the "Harvard of Evangelicalism") for all of your Biblical exegesis? Southern Baptist Seminary? What about stem cell issues? Are you going to go to St. Vladimir's seminary in Crestwood? Holy Cross Hellenic College in Boston? Diane, they don't even agree on what date it is or who has jurisdiction over parishes here in the US!
So long as Dreher stays without a need to have real answers to fetal stem cell research, I suppose he will be doing fine in his Whole Foods™ boutique "ancient Christianity" parish.
Deep down in places none of them like to talk about, after they make jokes at their dinner parties or going out to dinner with their Gandolf-looking bishop who lives in a cabin.... They want us to do what we are doing and need us to be who we are.
To paraphraseThey need the Pope in Rome, they want the Pope in Rome.
Where would they otherwise be?
And if that doesn't say it all, nothing does!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Simple Sinner. That's a keeper.
Diane