This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Restoration Movement Church History Revisionism

Here, in succinct form, is the understanding of Church history I grew up with.

The church of Christ (that is Christ's church, not a name for the church) technically began at the death of Jesus in about 29-31 AD. The commonly given date for the beginning of the church is the Shavuot (Pentecost) of the same year, when the apostles preached the first gospel sermon and about 3,000 souls were added to the church (Acts 2). This church spread from Jerusalem throughout the area, and after about 15 years the members of the church were given the designation "Christians" (Acts 11:26). Each congregation of the church was independent of all others although they shared a common belief, assembled on the first day of the week (and often on other days), regularly participated in "the Lord's Supper" (possibly weekly), and sometimes shared preachers. They were most notable for a missionary spirit and a willingness to die for their beliefs.

This is all well and good . . . except for this: "Each congregation of the church was independent of all others . . ." This is only half-true. Each congregation, though it clearly handled matters unique to itself, was connected to all the others through the Apostles and their representatives. Paul sent Timothy, Titus, Epaphroditus, and others to various congregations to straighten out matters. In fact, Paul had never been to Rome, but exercised authority over them, as he did over the churches he, himself, had founded.

During the reign of Constantine as Roman Emperor Christianity was officially recognized and shortly thereafter was made the "official" religion of the empire. By this time the governmental plan of the empire had crept into the church, with some bishops (elders) claiming authority over several congregations. There soon developed three, and later five, "sees" (governmental areas) centered around the largest cities of the empire (Rome, Antioch, Byzantium, Alexandria) and Jerusalem. None had authority over the others. The development of this hierarchical system and the ecumenical councils to make decisions for all the church can fairly be said to be the beginning of the Roman and Orthodox Catholic churches.

The problem here? "By this time the governmental plan of the empire had crept into the church, with some bishops (elders) claiming authority over several congregations." This state of affairs did not arise from Rome, but was part of the Church from the beginning. Read the pastoral epistles, the epistles of St. Ignatios of Antioch, St. Clement of Rome. (I engage this idea in an essay I wrote.) In other words, an episcopal hierarchy in the Church goes back to the Apostles and does not originate in the Roman Empire.

Also, the author misunderstands history: Rome and Orthodoxy as separate entities became a reality much later, nearer the eleventh century.

Over a period of years the Bishop of Rome claimed supreme authority over the other bishops. Other doctrinal issues were involved as well, but in 1054 the Bishop of Rome "excommunicated" the Bishop of Constantinople (Byzantium). Most people give this date as the start of the Eastern Orthodox Church, although it is really a date for the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church being separate from the scriptural government, and therefore the true body, of the church. The Eastern Orthodox faith has remained essentially independent of the western church from that time.

Except for the statement "Most people give this date as the start of the Eastern Orthodox Church, although it is really a date for the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church being separate from the scriptural government, and therefore the true body, of the church" everything here seems upfront. As is typical in the Restoration Movement, as a Protestant body, it trains its guns on Rome, and pretty much ignores Orthodoxy, since it doesn't know much about it.

The Catholic Church maintained its supremacy in western Europe for several centuries. Then came what is commonly called the "Protestant Reformation." The commonly given date for the beginning of the Reformation is 1517, when Martin Luther sought to debate certain errors he saw in Catholic doctrine. The historical, philosophical, and cultural setting was ripe for a number of groups to splinter off the Catholic church. The next 300 years found the beginnings of a number of denominations of the Protestant movement. This would include the Anglicans (as a result of Henry VIII's disputes with the Popes in Rome), the Calvinists (including Presbyterians, Baptists, and others), the Methodists (in a reaction to the Anglicans much like Luther's reaction to Roman abuses), the Quakers, the Deists, and many smaller, sometimes short-lived groups.

The next major developments in Christian denominations came in America in the 1800's. Due, in part, to America's "freedom of religion" and the rise of philosophers like Emerson and Thoreau, several diverse groups appeared in upstate New York and neighboring New England. These were the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), the Church of Jesus Christ Scientist (Christian Science), the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Seventh Day Adventists. Since that time America has spawned numerous other denominations. The most recent would include the Church of Scientology (based on the science fiction writings of L. Ron Hubbard), the New Age movement, and the "non-denominational" movement (many of whom espouse a variation of Baptist doctrine without the Calvinism).

Also in America in the early 1800's a group of men, primarily in "the West" (Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee) independently developed what has been called the "Restoration Movement." Men like Thomas and Alexander Campbell, "Raccoon" John Smith, and Barton W. Stone questioned certain doctrines and wondered why men should "reform" the Catholic Church instead of just "restore" New Testament Christianity. They proposed to "speak where the Bible speaks, and remain silent where the Bible is silent." Men in different areas independently chose to study the Bible and decided that it taught such things as baptism (immersion) to take away sin, that infants were not subjects for such baptism, the possibility of falling away after one had been saved, and congregational autonomy. Thus they sought to go back not to the original Catholic Church but to the original, first-century church.

The rest, aside from the editorial comments, is pretty unremarkable. The last paragraph refers to an internal dispute in the RM as to whether the RM is another reform movement or a complete restoration. Once again, Orthodoxy is ignored. And note the quintessential Protestant characteristic: "Men in different areas independently chose to study the Bible and decided that it taught such things as baptism (immersion) to take away sin, that infants were not subjects for such baptism, the possibility of falling away after one had been saved, and congregational autonomy" (emphasis mine). In the mercies of God, they got half of the items right.

Faith, Reason, Knowledge IV

Knowledge, the Product of Faith and Reason

I have already noted how faith and reason are united in the heart. I want to dwell further on this and to reflect on the heart as the instrument of knowing in the human person. As you may have guessed from the outset, what I will eventually come to is an assertion that faith, indeed, is productive of knowledge, though knowledge of a different quality than that of reason.

As I have noted previously, since Plato, knowledge has generally been understood to be "justified true belief" (though again, I note that even in the Theaetetus, where this definition is discussed, it is problematic). That is to say, knowledge is belief with some foundation or guarantee of its truth, that guarantee being one which satisfies reason's demands. So, for example, a body of knowledge must be internally consistent, must not violate the strictures of logic, must conform to generally recognized principles that themselves have been tested by reason and have been taken to be authoritative. But note that what this particular body of knowledge must satisfy is reason's searching investigation. If a body of knowledge in any way fails to fulfill the demands of reason, then it can be little better than an established opinion, but it cannot be knowledge.

But this assumes that the only measure of knowledge is reason, and that reason is, in this way, the only real source of knowledge. Knowledge is not grounded in or derived from the gods, religion, human feelings, or mythology. The intellect is that from which knowledge flows.

But this is, I assert, a grave mistake.

For there is, in human experience, a sort of knowing that is not attributable to reason. It is a knowing that derives from koinonia, from personal communion. The Christian Scriptures speak of sexual intercourse in terms of "knowing." "And Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived a son." More than just a euphemistic metaphor, a polite obscurantism chastely drawing a veil over the intimate, it is, I would assert, descriptive of a general reality. But this sort of knowing, while not exclusive of rationality, is primarily a knowing of another sort. It is a knowing of faith, of covenant.

Personal relationships, grounded in a love involving the whole person, are a different sort of knowing than that of reason. Indeed, the knowing of faith is hardly circumscribable by reason. We know our beloved, but we cannot be said to always understand them. We each of us act in ways that are "illogical," yet in ways that are perfectly familiar, known, by our beloved. Personal relationships are built, not on reason, but on faith, on trust. Personal relationships are not intellectual databases, conglomerations of factoids united by an overarching rational principle. Rather they are matters of faith, based in covenant, and ways of living.

It is in this way, then, that faith is productive of knowledge. We can be said to know God, though we cannot rationally prove his existence, or logically demonstrate the unity of his Trinitarian essence. For neither can we rationally prove the existence of our beloved, but we do not doubt that existence for all that. We cannot rationally prove that our beloved is who indeed they claim they are. But we know it, despite all that, through the communion of personal covenant. And the accumulation of this faithful knowing, is, indeed, a body of knowledge. It is a way of life, a tradition handed down through the personal communion of Christ's Body. A body of knowledge not memorized through the intellect alone (though certainly not apart from it), but retained through the faithful living of what and whom we know. This body of knowledge is not so much theology as it is prayer. Or if it is theology, then it is the theology that is prayer.

God is known, then, not primarily by the mind, but by faith, and in the heart. Do we bring to bear our rational capacities on this personal relationship? Of course. But the final arbiter of the relationship's realities is not the mind, though the mind is not excluded from this relationship based in faith.

And because the heart is the primary instrument in the human being for knowing, both of faith and of reason, it is in the heart that we have the greatest capacity for the union of rational knowing and of faithful knowing. It is in the heart that we can have a personal relationship with the rational facts of the universe. That is to say, we can, in one way, know the creation in its measurable and demonstrable instances. We can note the red shift in the background radiation of the cosmos. We can articulate the atomic weight of the air we breathe. But more than that, we can know the light of the universe as a Person. We can relate to the wind which animates our lungs as the Spirit. We can unify our mind with our emotions, our intuition with our will, the formula for the conservation of energy and mass with the warmth of the skin of our beloved, all in the inner recesses of our heart.

I remember in my undergraduate days in Bible college the strong warnings I got from some well-intended brothers in the faith about going on to seminary education (and post-graduate degrees). There was a deep concern that I would lose my fervor of faith under the onslaught of the rational. And given the deep mind-body dualist split in Western academia and philosophy, this was not a vain and idle fear.

But the fear need not paralyze. Certainly not if one remembers that the call of Christ is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Faith produces knowledge, as does reason. And while the bodies of knowledge that each human capacity produces is distinguishable, they are not divided, nor opposed. I need not lose my faith in Christ through the exercise of my mind. But neither need I lose my mind through the exercise of my faith. What is called for is to unify my faith and my reason in my heart, so that the knowing I engage is reflective of the whole of who I am, and of those facts and persons whom I claim to know. It is the faithful knowing that creates meaning, love, from the mere facts of reason. It is the rational knowing that grounds personal communion in the reality that is suffused by the Godhead, in whom we both live and move and have our being, and in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Next, I would like to explore how it is one may unify the knowing of faith and reason in the heart.

Why It's Essential to Know Your Church History

Word to the wise: This will be a longish post. I want to make the case that a) we modern Christians--and non-Christians for that matter--are huge failures at remembering our family history, b) that this leaves us susceptible to being taken in by false histories paraded as scholarship, and c) the remedy for this failure is to connect with this family history (which, in my view, can only be done in one way).

First, let's talk about our willful and woeful amnesia.

There has been a lot of flash and fire over Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code. The book is a good formula-thriller. It will keep you turning pages. I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it on the level of the equivalent of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It ain't great literature--it's not meant to be. And it's atrocious history. In fact, there's very little history in it. When it purports to give history, what it gives is fiction.

The sceptical agnostic media have had a field day with the Christian reaction to the book. "Look at them poor saps," they seem to say. "Don't they know it's just fiction!" And then much sniggering takes place behind manicured hands. But the fact of the matter is, some Christians do know it's fiction. What the problem is is that Mr. Brown and others parade his book around as serious history, or at least serious speculative history.

And more to the point, some Christians, perhaps even most, sadly, don't know it's just fiction through and through. Having forgotten their family history, they're taken in by hucksters touting the "newest thing." And when Brown's book gets so much media hype--even an entire hour-long ABC paid advertisement parading as a documentary--it simply cloaks the deception in an aura of all-the-more-real authenticity.

So it is important for Christians--and the rest of the world--to be set straight on the facts of history. Helpfully there are many resources available for that, among them several books available at your local bookstore.

One of the most oft-asserted points about early Christianity is that there was no consensus on Scripture and correlatively no consensus on orthodox belief. But in an article entitled, Why the 'Lost Gospels' Lost Out (props to the newly-illumined Jim ), Asbury Theological Seminary New Testament professor Ben Witherington III notes that:

First, there is no strong evidence to suggest that gnostic Christians vied with the orthodox from the beginning. Even what is probably the earliest gnostic document, the Gospel of Thomas, seems to have come from a period after the New Testament books were already recognized as authoritative and widely circulated.

The Gospel of Thomas, in fact, draws on most of these documents, adding some new ideas about Jesus and about the faith. All other major gnostic texts--like the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of Mary, and so on--are clearly written in the second and third centuries.

Church Fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian addressed Gnosticism in the second century in works titled Against Heresies and The Prescription Against Heretics. And the Muratorian Canon (a list of New Testament writings from late second century) says this: "There is current also an epistle to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, both forged in Paul's name to further the heresy of Marcion, and several others which cannot be received into the catholic Church. For it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey." In other words, it is historically false to say that the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries invented or first defined "heresy."

No core belief system? So say the "scholars." But Witherington notes some important facts:

Revisionist historians like Pagels also argue that there was no core belief system, later called "orthodoxy," in the first century. This is a strange claim, because anyone who has read the letters of John, for example, knows that discussions about orthodoxy and heresy were heating up in the New Testament period. Paul's letters, too, show distinctions being made between truth and error. By the time we get to the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus), there is a strong sense of what is and is not sound doctrine, particularly in terms of salvation and the person of Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, the early church viewed the Old Testament as both authoritative and inspired, as 2 Timothy 3:16 shows. This is an important point in regard to Gnosticism. The earliest churches had already recognized the Hebrew Scriptures as canon, a set of authoritative and divinely inspired texts. Notice how much of the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament books—all written to edify churches across the ancient world. Gnosticism fundamentally rejected Jewish theology about the goodness of creation, and especially the idea that all the nations could be blessed through Abraham and his faith. When the church accepted the Hebrew Scriptures, it implicitly rejected Gnosticism before it had a chance to get started. Thus we are already at a watershed moment in the development of early Christianity, one that could not allow Gnosticism to ever be regarded as a legitimate development of the Christian faith.

The formation of authoritative apostolic texts, moreover, was already occurring in the New Testament period. We see this in 2 Peter 3:16, which says of Paul: "He writes this same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures … " Even if this text was written in the earliest years of the second century (as some New Testament scholars think), it makes plain that there was already a collection of Paul's letters that were considered authoritative and on a par with "Scriptures."

In other words, by the New Testament period, there was already a core of documents and ideas by which Christians could evaluate other documents. The New Testament documents already manifest a concept of "orthodoxy," or at least criteria by which truth and error could be distinguished. Among the second-century lists of authoritative Scriptures, never are gnostic texts listed—not even by the unorthodox Marcion in about 140. There was never a time when a wide selection of books, including gnostic ones, were widely deemed acceptable. . . .

It is no accident that, in about 180, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, could already speak clearly and definitively about the fourfold Gospel, specifically citing those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He does so as he is opposing things he deems heretical. Thus, already in the second century, he has a strong sense of what amounts to orthodoxy when it comes to the story of Jesus.

Even before Irenaeus, from the middle of the second century, we have the witness of Justin Martyr, the great opponent of Marcion and his aberrations. In his Dialogue with Trypho (160), he calls the canonical Gospels "the reminiscences" of the apostles and says they were read and used in worship in his day. Nothing comparable is said about any other gospels, not even the Gospel of Thomas.

We can say without hesitation that various books that were to become part of the New Testament were already seen and used as authoritative and acceptable in the second century in various parts of the church, both Eastern and Western—and that their listing as authoritative in the early fourth century was without serious debate.

The sad thing is that all of the sources cited by Dr. Witherington are available to us, many online. Because we don't take in these writings as part of our formation in the Faith, and because we are ignorant generally about the history of the Church, we easily get taken in by such blatantly false assertions that somehow the Council of Nicea voted on the divinity of Jesus and on what books should be Scripture--as though both these matters had been unsettled for the first three centuries of the Church.

It's not simply a matter of forgetting our history, it's a matter of taking in that which is not history, not real, not true at all. What difference does it make? All the difference in the world. What if the Church hadn't believed in the divinity of Jesus for three centuries, and then, out of the blue, decided at council to make that doctrinal point official? What would that do to your understanding of the dogma of the divinity of Jesus? Wouldn't it be the case that one could reason, if Jesus' divinity wasn't all that important to the Christians of the first three centuries of the Church, why should it be important to us? And if we let go the claims of Jesus himself to be God in the flesh, then we let go the Gospel and we are left in our sins.

The remedy then is that we must connect again with the history of the Church. We must take it in as the very religious air we breathe. We must let the Church's lifestory permeate our thinking. Because only then will we be able to understand the Church's Scriptures, and only then will we be able to contend for the true Faith. And it follows that only then will we know the kind of Life that Christians down through the ages before us have known.

Part of the insidious nature of this historical amnesia is that it denigrates and devalues the Incarnation. Christianity, disconnected from the past, ceases to be a way of life and becomes merely a set of intellectual assents. And in the world of competitive ideas, any intellectual assent is as good as any other, so long as it's persuasive. But when Christian Faith is connected with the historic life and witness of the Church, then the Faith is not merely mental assent, but is full of blood, bread, sweat, struggle, tears and healing. The Faith permeates our entire existence and is not relegated to mere gnostic secrets.

Some of our present-day brothers and sisters, like Tom Oden and the Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scriptues are getting this. We cannot lay claim to Christianity unless we lay claim to the Incarnation. And we cannot lay claim to the Incarnation if we do not also claim for ourselves the Church which Christ himself founded, the Church of the Apostles.

Indeed, in fact, it's not that we claim for ourselves this historic Church, but that we are claimed by it. I'm still moved by this question. Not "Is the historic Church part of our church?" but "Is our church part of the historic Church?"

I know the answer to the question. Now it's time to move from intellect to life. From assent to an idea, to the struggle of Faith.

The Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council (of Nicea)

Father Patrick made some remarks in his sermon today, reflecting on the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea, that I want to wrap some of my own thoughts around. I echo some of his thoughts, but my comments should only be construed as my responsibility, and not in any way attributable to him (especially if I in any way err from the Faith of the Church).

Two characteristics in particular were noted about the Nicene Fathers: that they were preoccupied with the past and with precision, and that they were unflinchingly critical of other Christian groups when those groups in any way diverged from the Gospel which once for all had been delivered to the saints.

Needless to say, neither of these characteristics are touted in our own day. Indeed, they are disparaged, to the point of being labelled as distinctly un-Christian.

The Nicene Fathers were acutely aware of the historic deposit of the faith. They were quintessentially concerned to continue in the Apostle's teaching. So much so that though Arius' interpretation purported to be more faithful to Scripture, the Nicene Fathers emphasized the apostolic teaching regarding the Person of Christ. (The Arians, of course, also claimed apostolic precedent, but it is interesting to note the dynamic: the heretics claimed the most literal, authentic biblical interpretation. The orthodox claimed fidelity to the Tradition.)

However, modern day U. S. Christianity is particularly a-historical, even anti-historical--though this antagonism to history is thankfully changing. Protestants have always been interested in the proper interpretation of Scripture, but severed from the historic Faith of the Church, all such interpretations end up being little more than the justifications of their proponents. Or, to state it more bluntly, all heresies begin with an interpretation of Scripture that, though purporting to be more faithful to the Gospel, is divorced from the Church's Tradition, and ultimately leads one astray.

Though U. S. Christians are far from agreement on whether some things are or are not heresy, we can note two difficult cases in point: the ordination of women to Eucharistic ministry and the legitimation of homosexual behavior and same-sex marriages. Note the dynamic here for the proponents of each matter: what is most important is a new interpretation, purportedly more faithful to the Scriptures, yet in opposition to the historic Faith and practice of the Church, which are dubbed "patriarchal" and "oppressive."

Furthermore, modern church groups have little respect for clarity of thought and doctrine. Whereas the Nicene Fathers quibbled over a single iota (homoousias vs. homoiousias), we in modern U. S. Christianity are far more generous. We hesitate to label anything a heresy, lest we elevate the "lifeless letter" over the "living spirit." And after all, isn't love more important? Who needs all this quibbling over jots and tittles? We don't want "dead doctrine." We want living fellowship. But it's only through dogma that we can have fellowship. For fellowship only comes through the reality that the dogma points us to. If we believe a different dogma, we are oriented toward different realities, and have no koinonia.

But the Nicene Fathers knew that a single iota would spell the undoing of the Gospel of Christ. They knew that quibbling over an iota was a matter of life and death; our eternal salvation depended on getting it right. Words do signify reality, and the realities indicated by an iota or its absence made the difference between still being lost in sin, or being delivered from death.

But perhaps the most difficult characteristic of the Nicene Fathers--at least for us--was their willingness to stand up and say that certain of those who called themselves Christians weren't, because the "gospel" (so-called) that they preached did not lead to Christ and communion with Him, but severed one from Christ and led to death and damnation.

The list is not a short one. Think of the fourth and fifth century Fathers in general. St. Athanasius took on the Arians. St. Basil took on the Sabellians. St. Gregory of Nyssa took on the Eunomians. St. Gregory the Theologian condemned the Apollonarians. St. Augustine chastised the Donatists. St. Epiphanius took on everybody.

And lest we think this is a later aberration, we need only to go back to St. Paul himself and the Galatian letter (the Judaizers) and St. John and his first Epistle (those who denied the Incarnation). Nicene Christianity, indeed, biblical and apostolic Christianity, did not hesitate to say of fellow Christians: "You're teaching heresy." Eternal destinies were at stake. Ultimate life and death issues were in the balance.

But us? We're too nice. We'd rather not risk offense--at the expense of the damnation of another's soul, of course.

Father Patrick had an important question. In examining these characteristics, we modern day Christians in the U. S. flinch. We find these traits uncomfortable, and even unworthy of emulation. But we should ask ourselves not, "Are the Fathers part of our church?" but rather, "Are we part of their Church?" Perhaps if we do not exhibit the same character traits as the Nicene Fathers we may well one day answer the question in the negative.

Special Sense: I see stupid people

You've seen the T-shirt, I'm sure, but here's a "rewrite" of the official script (scroll about halfway down):

COLE
I want to tell you my secret now.

Malcolm blinks very slowly.

MALCOLM
Okay.

Cole takes an eternal pause. A silent tension engulfs them both.

COLE
...I see people.

Malcolm just gazes quietly.

COLE
I see stupid people... Some of them scare me.

Beat.

MALCOLM
In your dreams?

Cole shakes his head, "No."

MALCOLM
When you're awake?

Cole nods, "Yes."

MALCOLM
Stupid people, like in TV and movies?

COLE
No, walking around, like regular people... They can't see each other. Some of them don't know they're stupid.

MALCOLM
They don't know they're stupid?

Beat.

COLE
I see morons.

Malcolm becomes completely motionless. Works to hide his shock. He and Cole stare at each other a long time.

COLE
They tell me stories... Things that happened to them... Things that happened to people they know.

Beat. Malcolm's words are extra-controlled. Revealing nothing.

MALCOLM
How often do you see them?

COLE
All the time. They're everywhere. (beat) You won't tell anyone my secret, right?

Beat.

MALCOLM
...No.

Great Sovereign and Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and His Mother Helena

No doubt about it, for modern Protestant Christians the designation of the Emperor Constantine as isapostolos ("equal-to-the-apostles") is about as welcome as a monstrance in the midst of a praise band song. The controversy doesn't have only to do with Constantine's scandalous conduct--murder, treachery, death-bed baptism--but the whole dynamic set in motion by first his Edict of Toleration and then his making of Christianity the official religion of the Empire. This decrying of the "Constantinization" of Christianity has been taken in with Protestants' mother's milk, and fuels our own present-day battles (and really, they're hardly dialogues) on the separation of Church and State.

But maybe we should pause this day, the feast day of Sts. Constantine and Helen, and look again at what they've wrought by their lives and prayers.

First, let's admit that when Christianity is the persecuted religion, conversions tend to be both serious and numerous. And when that same Christianity is no longer persecuted, but even linked to the Empire, Christian life becomes less countercultural and its moral witness is often compromised. Not for nothing did St. Anthony escape to the desert and become the father of monasticism. Not for nothing did St. John Golden-mouth chide his churches for their lack of distinction from the pagan society around them. Even in our own day, the churches in Soviet Russia and in Germany often failed to distinguish themselves from the evil regimes that despised the Church's Lord. But then again, I'm not one to judge--pampered and un-persecuted as I am, would I have lived any different of a Christian witness? What would I have done seeing thousands upon thousands of my brothers and sisters tortured, imprisoned and executed? Would I have compromised my beliefs--even to save the lifes of my fellow Christians?

Still and all, despite the criticisms we can level against the abuses and weaknesses of the Constantinian Church, we should hesitate to pick up yet another stone before we consider some of the following points.

Constantine's mother Helena (or Helen) was the driving force behind the Emperor when it came to considerations regarding the Church. Herself a Christian and frequently in danger prior to her son's rise to the throne, it was largely her prayers and witness that moved Constantine to end the persecution of Christians and make our Faith one of the licit religions of the Empire. St. Helen, of course, is also well-known for discovering the True Cross. She joins the ranks of St. Monica, St. Augustine's mother, Hannah, mother of Samuel the prophet, Sts. Lois and Eunice, mother and grandmother of St. Timothy, and all the countless mothers throughout history who lived a life of faith that changed lives, including that of their own offspring. So any criticism we may have of the Constantinian Church should take note of what impact a godly mother can have on an entire conglomeraiton of nations and of the history of the world.

Consider also that through Constantine's imperial invitation to the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea we Christians today have a Faith that connects back to the Apostles. More than that, we have a Faith that truly saves. For if Arius had finally accomplished his ends, Christianity and the true Gospel would have disappeared from the face of the earth. We would all be Jehovah's Witnesses or United Pentecostals. But if we were, we would not have a Gospel that would save. We would still be lost in our sins. Thanks to Constantine, the bishops and clergy of the Church could meet and the Faith of the Apostles be confirmed--despite that a majority of Christians at the time held to an heretical view of Jesus and the Trinity.

Due to the cessation of the persecution against Christians, Christianity of the fourth century could flower into such full expression that this era is often called the "Golden Age" of the Church (though technically that only applies to the Church Triumphant--but I digress). Think of it, post-toleration we have such giants of the Faith as St. Athanasius, St. Nicholas of Myra, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Macrina, St. John Chrysostom, St. Anthony, and on and on. Men and women whose writings and work for the Church may well never have come into existence, or may have been lost to the flames, had not Constantine given Christianity room to rest and flourish.

Finally, despite obvious and well-discussed problems with imperial Christianity, it is the case that when a Christian ruler sat on the throne, whether of Byzantium or of pre-Revolutionary Russia, the restraining hand of government held back the onslaught of evil. Whether or not this is what Paul refers to in his Thessalonian letter, when secular powers ascended to authority in the nations of history, the abuses and lack of moral restraint were far worse. Would we really think revolutionary France and tsarist Russia morally equivalent? Would a series of Christian Presidents enable enough legislation and set a national tone for moral character such that our slide into chaos and baccanalia would at least slow if not halt altogether? Who among us thinks that Clinton's moral character was good for this nation? Do we really believe the recent phenomenon of the growth of teens saying that oral sex isn't sex is completely unconnected with the shenanigans in the Clinton Oval Office? (Bush's war-time actions have yet to be measured in cultural impact.)

Sadly, yes, Christian rulers have violated their Lord's commands and killed and oppressed. But when secular rulers reign, the odds are more against a just and moral government than for.

Still and all, let's today recognize the gifts we now possess because of the lives of Constantine and Helena. And thank God we live when and where we do.

Troparion of Ss Constantine and Helena Tone 8
O Lord, thy disciple Emperor Constantine, who saw in the sky the Sign of Thy Cross,/ Accepted the call that came straight from Thee, as it happened to Paul, and not from any man./ He built his capital and entrusted it to Thy care./ Preserve our country in everlasting peace, through the intercession of the Mother of God,/ for Thou art the Lover of mankind.

Kontakion of Ss Constantine and Helena Tone 3
Today Constantine and Helena his mother expose to our veneration the Cross,/ the awesome Cross of Christ,/ a sign of salvation to the Jews/ and a standard of victory:/ a great symbol of conquest and triumph.

The Fatherhood Chronicles XXXVIII

It occurred to me this week that our daughter Sofie has only been to one parish in all her life (she did go to my step-grandfather's funeral at his Southern Baptist Church, but that wasn't a typical Baptist worship service). The only church she has known is the Orthodox Church (specifically All Saints in Chicago). She is being raised in a faith that has remained stable and unchanged for 2000 years.

Each week the saints depicted in the icons ringing her in from all four walls look down on her as she worships by crawling, standing, clapping, fussing, nursing, and sleeping. Each week she opens her arms wide as Fr. Patrick censes her--as though she readily accepts the prayers of the Church that rise as incense. Each week she is twice blessed: once when the chalice is placed over her head and Father asks that the Lord remember her in His Kingdom, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages; and again during the Holy Communion when the Church pronounces that the handmaiden of God, Sofie, receives the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each week she is greeted by the parishioners with the peace of Christ. Each week she hears--though she doesn't yet understand--the 2000-year-old faith summarized and confessed in the Nicene Creed. Each week she sits and stands and crawls in a place where heaven and earth meet, and sleeps with all the hosts of heaven watching over her.

She is nine months old. This is all she knows.

Her father is not so lucky. His life has been the accumulation and discarding of various contradictions, fads, and gnostic secrets that serve only to make the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all a thing of confusion and murkiness. He lacks the simplicity of heart to take it all in whole, arms wide open, in ready acceptance. For him it is the constant wrestling of thought and feeling and desire, the struggle to quell all that which rises up in opposition to God. It is a task made all the more difficult for his sojourn in several church bodies, and amidst a Christian world torn by heresies and schisms.

I envy my daughter her faith. But I am more grateful than I can express that God has seen fit to allow me the time for repentance, and the grace to know the Truth and His Church. Mine is an imperfect example, a headship much too unworthy of emulation. But for all that it is an effort at faithful discipleship, God being my helper.

May Sofie's path be direct and sure. May she soon be brought to the laver of regeneration, and our whole household be saved on that Day.

The Intercessions of St. John the Wonderworker

First, a little background. I first learned of St. John (Maximovitch) the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco from the first edition of the Seraphim Rose biography, Not of This World, and from the hagiographical book put out by the St. Herman Brotherhood, Blessed John the Wonderworker. St. John reposed on July 2 (June 19 Old Calendar), 1966, and was canonized June 19 (Old Calendar), 1994. (An account of the examination of the incorrupt remains of St. John can be found in the appendix to the volume Man of God [Nikodemos Orthodox Publication Society, 1994], excerpts of which can be found here.)

Recently (that is to say, since March), I have been reading the accounts of the life of St. John in the aforementioned Blessed John the Wonderworker, Man of God, and a small pamphlet entitled St. John the Wonderworker. Moved by the accounts of the sanctity of St. John's life, and of the efficacy of his intercessions, in the last few weeks I decided to ask St. John's intercessions that I would be able to secure an income adequate to provide for my family's needs. Being a graduate student in philosophy and the sole source of income for our home, this has weighed heavily on me.

I am convinced that through St. John's intercessions I became aware of no less than three job possibilities since I first started to ask his prayers: assisting another graduate student in the completion of a rough draft for a research project (and the initial editing of that project); a second part-time job through the university library where I work; and teaching a summer class. That last (teaching a summer class) I had completely given up on prior to asking St. John's prayers. Then, through a chance call to ask a professor for letter of reference I was asked if I were still available to teach. I said yes, and after some waiting was given confirmation this past week, that I do have a summer class to teach (an ethics course).

But perhaps the most timely answer to my prayer requests is exemplified by the events that happened yesterday. I was really sweating our financial situation. I figured that our tax refund (a helpfully sizable amount) would arrive near the first of June, since we had sent it on tax day and not before. But I was hopeful that if I got the second part-time job at the university library I would start by mid-May. However, at my interview last week, it was clear that even if I were offered the job (not a done deal, I shouldn't have to note), the offer would not come before the first week of June. This left the last half of May without any additional income. I just got my last check for teaching at Loyola, and this week will be my last check for teaching at Oakton. The only other income would be the few hundred dollars I get bi-weekly at my current part-time job. And there was rent, bills, groceries . . .

I was sweating it. So, with a much stronger sense of desperation, I again today asked St. John's intercessions. I didn't ask for money to fall out of the sky, nor did I buy a lottery ticket. I simply asked for wisdom, discernment, and ready hands. I thought maybe the parish could have some odd jobs I might be able to do. Maybe the research project writing job would come through. But there was nothing definite. So I just prayed and tried to be attentive to what God was doing, and willing to follow him wherever the path lay.

Yesterday afternoon, not twelve hours after I'd asked St. John's prayers, I opened the mailbox to find therein our much-anticipated tax refund. My first response was only, "Praise the Lord."

I still don't know what I will do if I don't get the other part-time job. And if the research project writing job comes through that will help a lot. Then there's the whole question of income for the fall semester. But God has been faithful thus far, and St. John's intercessions have been both timely and efficacious. My faith is being strengthened, and these things are a witness to my wife and daughter. (In fact, when we got the check, one of the first things I blurted out to Sofie and Anna was, "See! The saints do pray for us!")

Glory be to God! And may his saints, especially St. John, be honored among us!

Troparion (Tone 5)
Thy care for thy flock in its sojourn has prefigured the supplications which thou didst ever offer up for the whole world. Thus do we believe, having come to know thy love, O holy hierarch and wonder-worker John. Wholly sanctified by God through the ministry of the all-pure Mysteries, and thyself strengthened thereby, thou didst hasten unto suffering, O most gladsome healer--hasten now also to the aid of us who honor thee with all our heart.

Kontakion (Tone 4)
Thy heart hath gone out to all who entreat thee with love, O holy hierarch John, and who remember the struggle of thy whole industrious life, and thy painless and easy repose, O faithful servant of the all-pure Directress.

Troparion (Tone 6)
Glorious apostle to an age of coldness and unbelief, invested with the grace-filled power of the saints of old, divinely-illumined seer of heavenly mysteries, , feeder of orphans, hope of the hopeless, thou didst enkindle on earth the fire of love for Christ upon the dark eve of the day of judgment; pray now that this sacred flame may also rise from our hearts.

The Sunday of the Blind Man

Sunday was a different sort of day. Welcome to late spring/academic summer.

Sofie has learned to stand up on her own. Although she has frequently pulled herself up--using mom and dad, various items of furniture--and then let go, balancing precariously for a few seconds--she has only once or twice actually stood up on her own, and that only in her mom's presence. Sunday, daddy and daughter went to church together, leaving momma at home to rest. Within only a few moments from the start of the service, Sofie, on all fours, planted her feet on the carpet, hiked her fanny in the air, squatted a bit, raised her hands . . . and stood right up. She wobbled like boiled spaghetti, arms akimbo, then, fell. Within moments, she was doing it again. By the end of service, having done this now more than a dozen times, she was grabbing toys in one hand, standing up and waving the toy around. (She was also clapping and cheering herself, which she's learned from mommy and daddy when they applaud her for doing cute things--like standing up on her own.)

During the afternoon, I continued doing some of the honey-do items from Saturday's first annual "Healy Work Day"--namely anchoring bookshelves to the wall, so the now-standing-on-her-own Sofie won't pull them over on herself. The three of us went outside for a little bit in the late afternoon to play with the neighbor kids, and I caught up some more on my St. Theophan Group reading.

Finally, at the men's St. Theophan Group, where we've been reading through St. Theophan the Recluse's The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It, we discussed the passions. It's a struggle that is part and parcel of the Christian life for all of this earthly life. We discussed how easily we give up in the struggle, and I opined that sometimes it's not a matter of self-pity so much as one of despair. Well, one gentlemen noted that when it comes to the struggle, he keeps in mind that God is more than worth the struggle. Ouch. That stung so much it almost brought tears to my eyes.

Later, one of the group moderators and I spoke. In relation to the gifts Orthodox can take advantage of with regard to the struggle with the passions--Holy Eucharist and Confession, for example, I mentioned to him that I was the only non-Orthodox in the group, and it seemed to me that the struggle was that much harder. He understood what I was getting at, but pooh-poohed the statement. "You're Orthodox," he said. "You just haven't been chrismated yet." He also noted that God is not bound by the formal necessities surrouding Holy Eucharist and the other Mysteries. He can provide me the strength I need in the current state I find myself in.

I was much encouraged.

Paganism, an Influence for Women's Ordination?

That question is sure to offend, but so suggests Donald Miller, executive director for the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC, in the first part of a four part series of audio reports from NPR on new trends in religion. (The comments are made about mark 7:32.)

Donald Miller: "A lot of the innovation that is occurring on the margins finds its way back into the mainstream."

Reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty: "For example, he [Donald Miller] says, paganism, with its reverence for the goddess, has affected the way people think about women's role in religion. And even how some feminist Christians think about God."

(Props to JamesOTN)

CSL: On Meaning

From today's Touchstone Magazine's Mere Comments:

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning--just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know that it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

--C. S. Lewis

Peter Kreeft: Pillars of Unbelief

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. In Jan.-Feb. 1988, he published a series of articles on important Western thinkers for the National Catholic Register.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Friedrich Nietzsce

Karl Marx

Immanuel Kant

Sigmund Freud

Jean-Paul Sartre

The Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

I'm more and more discovering the loneliness that is Orthodoxy. Orthodox are cut off from modern U. S. culture by the very nature of their Faith. U. S. culture offers all-you-can-eat buffets, and the ritual of Thanksgiving engorgement. Orthodoxy offers fasting--at every opportunity: twice weekly, prior to Christmas and Easter, for a variable period of weeks toward the end of June, for two weeks in August, and on other seasonal occasions. U. S. culture offers sex on demand, whether with others, or in one's mind. Orthodoxy constrains sex to the heterosexual union of marriage and condemns lustful thoughts. U. S. culture offers the American dream through incurred debt. Orthodoxy offers tithing; I mean, literally, ten percent of one's income. U. S. culture offers the cult of conscience, of following one's own convictions. Orthodoxy offers the submission of one's convictions to the authority of Christ revealed in Scripture, the Liturgy, the canons, the lives of the Saints, Tradition--in short, the Church.

So, no matter how winsome are the non-Orthodox, non-Christian friends we know, at every meeting there will be the barrier of the Faith. There may be a meeting of the intellect. There may be an emotional bond. But there can never be the oneness of spirit in the phronema of Christ.

But the loneliness of Orthodoxy also extends to my Christian friends.

It became clear to me within the last couple of days that things I now take for granted, my non-Orthodox Christian friends consider either up-for-grabs, or feel they must parse. Some of those things are such things I noted above: issues surrounding ascetical discipline, sexuality and specific doctrines. I have changed. Some of the jokes and asides I once "got" I'm no longer in on. And some of the humor--gallows humor as it may be for those of my Christian friends suffering as faithful within their own churches--no longer strikes me as humorous but tragic.

I know that all of the above makes me come off as some stuffed, self-righteous prig. And, if truth be told, I probably am. I've been accused of much more than that.

But I mention these things not to elevate myself, or denigrate my friends, but only to highlight the reality of adherence to Orthodoxy as it makes headway in my life.

I'm very fortunate. It could be--it has been--worse. Though Anna is integrating into the parish here at All Saints, I think it safe to say that it is primarily (though not only) right now on the social level. But a year ago, she was actively resistant to even going to All Saints or any Orthodox Church. The rest of my family bemusedly just doesn't get it. I'm as accepted and as loved as ever, but the reactions to my move toward Orthodoxy range from incurious indifference to mild incomprehension and some irritation.

But we have no family here. All we have here in Chicago are friends. And as an Orthodox wannabe, as wonderful as are the friends I have--mercifully putting up with me as they do--I am distant from them. Some, by many rows of fences. A few by only a step or two, but just enough out of one another's reach that the brotherly embrace is a distant handshake rather than the bear hug of koinonia.

The Fatherhood Chronicles XXXVII

This week, I found myself grabbing up my laughing daughter, Sofie, in a joyful embrace, and saying to her, "Aww, I love you so much, I could just eat you up!" For good measure, I gave her some whisker-scratchy daddy kisses.

It occurred to me on break at work today that this is a wholly Christian thing to say.

I long deeply for the day when I will be able to approach the Chalice and say those very words to God. And to be rent and remade.

Grandpa Healy's Legacy

I had a great time reminiscing with Grandma this past week. (If you remember, Grandma lost her second husband, Wilbur, last month.) She spoke quite a bit about my late grandfather, Clifton F. Healy.

I am, as far as we know, the fifth Clifton in an unbroken line on the Healy side of the family. We know that the tradition of naming the first male Clifton began with Clifton Dwight Healy. His son was Clifton Arthur, whose son, my grandfather, was Clifton Fitzroy. And my father is Clifton Howard. Should God bless Anna and me with a son, he will be Clifton Delane.

My grandparents met at a barn dance. Grandma was, if I recall correctly, nineteen. Grandpa would have been twenty-six. (Which age difference is a whole phenomenon in itself. It seems that Grandpa's brothers also married wives with a seven-year age difference. And my own parents were seven years apart.) The hay loft was cleared of hay--having been given to the livestock for food--and the music would play, and the young unmarrieds would dance. After a year and a half of dating, Grandma and Grandpa wed, and within the year their first child, my aunt Lavaun, was born.

I'd asked Grandma when visiting with her this weekend if the Healy's had always been Southern Baptists, since that's the church I'd always known them to have attended, and dad and my aunt and uncle were Southern Baptists. Grandma mentioned that she and her sisters actually were raised outside a regular church home. Her dad had been a Sunday School superintendent prior to marrying her mom, but for some reason by the time they had gotten married, the Christie patriarch had stopped attending church altogether. The family often sang church hymns, and Scripture was a mainstay in the home. The Christie girls could go to church whenever they wanted, and frequently went with friends to different severices, but the family never attended anywhere. So Grandma took in several different churches, including a Quaker service, which made enough of an impression on her that it was the one thing she remember to tell me about decades later.

Grandpa, it seems, had belonged to what was then--as I understand it--the Northern Baptist church (later the American Baptist denomination). He'd been saved at thirteen, but later, when he met my Grandmother, expressed some doubt as to whether he'd really been saved or not. This was something I could readily identify with. I was baptized at seven, but spent much of my teens and early twenties questioning my own salvation--even to the point of a conditional baptism at twenty-three.

At the time my grandparents met and married, my grandfather was working for Skelly Refinery in Eldorado, Kansas. He hadn't finished high school, since, living so far from the school house--and this was the Depression era thirties--he was frequently late. He got tired of that, so he dropped out and went to work. But, and here's the interesting side to Grandpa I'd never known before, he wanted to make sure his two younger siblings didn't suffer the same fate as he did. So, with his salary, he rented an apartment in town where the three of them could live, and where the two younger Healy's could make it to school. When Grandpa and Grandma wed, it was the two of them and Grandpa's siblings all in the one apartment.

My grandfather could be both pragmatic and quite stubborn. There came a point when Grandpa's dad, my great-grandfather, had gotten to where he couldn't keep up the farm. So the Healy children, my grandfather's siblings, all decided that the Healy parents should sell the farm and move to a house in town. But the elder Healy's had no other means of income. Grandpa stood alone against his siblings and insisted that their parents keep the farm. He, himself, would come out around his own work responsibilities and help them keep it going. He also insisted that his parents sign up for the then-new social security benefits the government had begun. After some time, his parents were able to sell the farm, retire to town--and had a small income to live on.

Shortly after the birth of their first child, Grandpa left the refinery and began farming. For the next couple of decades, he rented various stretches of farmland, and raised a family of five (one of which was my own father). But all his life Grandpa had wanted tp own his own farm. As he neared his fifties, there just wasn't any available farmland in Butler county or nearby. But there did come available a farm south of Hamilton, Kansas (about twenty minutes east of Eureka), and in 1972, in his fifties, Grandpa finally realized his dream. He bought the farm, and farmed it himself for the next decade and a little more. He left the farm in the mid-eighties, and died on 10 February 1991.

My grandfather was, by these lights, a very pragmatic, forward-thinking man. He was also very disciplined, and willing to sacrifice of himself. He made it possible for his siblings to finish high school, for his parents to keep their farm and retire on an income. He spent many long years renting land, until finally he could own his own. Grandpa wasn't a perfect man. He stubbornness could be very frustrating. But given he'd lost his right arm in a farming accident when my dad was about eight or nine, and spent the next few decades farming one-handed, stubbornness was often a virtue. And sometimes stubbornness is just another name for faithfulness.

Grandpa left a legacy. One worth pondering.