Standards

I'm taking a class right now at the University of Texas . I like the class and my professor, and my fellow students are just fine. However, since beginning the class, it seems like we are trying to learn about our subject (The Spanish Inquisition) without reference to any fixed standard.

As an Orthodox Christian, my fixed standard is, of course, Christ and His Church. I don't expect a university, especially a public one, to use that as a standard. Still, I find it troubling that the standard most universities seem to choose is "None of the above".

From my perspective, most secular universities have abandoned really dealing with God, thinking that God is an issue of faith and not fact. What has gone in His place is a philosophy that states, “All truth is relative,” which is basically a denial of any absolute truth or standard. Many students seem to have absorbed this philosophy, often without realizing it. Perhaps after years of not dealing directly with questions of truth, many have learned to not regard truth as important.

In the classroom, when we try to learn about something without reference to a standard, we end up learning things “about” the subject. The most interesting and meaningful questions not only go unanswered, they become unanswerable. It is no wonder that many students see college as a necessary step towards a career and little else. Education for its own sake? Does that even make sense if there is no truth?

In the classroom, the standard-less approach is just kind of annoying. If used to guide a person’s life, this approach is tragic. How can we hope for people to seek Christ, the Truth, if they are convinced that there is no truth to seek?

So, should a university adopt Orthodoxy as its standard? I wish all universities would, but I don’t think it is entirely necessary. It would be enough if they would adopt any standard at all. This way students could accept it or reject it and move on towards the truth, rather than having that process stifled before it even began.

matthew

Conversion as Immigration

As we are getting ready for Rod Dreher, I remembered something that I read on his blog several weeks ago; it's a post about whether or not it is possible to 'adopt' a tradition. Here's a portion of Rod's thoughts on the subject:

This discussion reminds me also of something Vigen Guroian, the Armenian Orthodox scholar, once said to me: that you cannot choose a tradition (this, in a conversation in which he expressed skepticism over my conversion to Orthodoxy). I don't think this is true, because if it was, the last Christian would have died on the Cross. Still, he has a good point: there is something phony about promoting tradition in the postmodern world. How can it be anything more than lifestyle advocacy? I see the point, and admit that our historical condition makes recovery doubtful, but I must ask in return: what else is there? Does the fact that I'm something of a phony with all this crunchy-con, neotraditional stuff obviate the criticism I and my fellow travelers make of our rootless society? Is the alternative to just throw up our hands and accept the world as it is, and offer no protest, or try to chart out a more humane alternative? I think not.


That post and the discussion which followed later developed into a conversation about the tensions between those born into a particular tradition and those who later choose to be a part of that tradition. Many of the people participating in the conversation were Orthodox Christians, and the exchange eventually focused on the differences and tensions that exist between ethnic Orthodox and convert Orthodox. Here's an extended quotation from a great response which was written by Richard Barrett, who is Antiochian Orthodox convert:

Hypothetical example: let's say you're a third-generation [fill in the blank] in this country. Maybe your grandfather was the first priest at the church you attend. In the Old Country, your family has been Orthodox as long as anybody can remember. You've never confessed and you've never observed a fast. You've no idea what any of the Ecumenical Councils decided. You probably come once or twice a month on Sunday, and maybe you slide into your pew halfway through the Gospel reading on a routine basis.

Nonetheless, your wife makes sure your boys serve at the altar and get there on time, and you are in a financial situation where you're able to give around $500k a year, at least. When there is a need you happily write a check. How seriously do you take converts, if you're this person? They have shelves full of St. Vlad's Popular Patristics series, they can prattle on and on about theology, they go to every service and usually show up a few minutes early, they fast (and ask you why you're not), but so what? They give maybe $1000 a year and already had to leave something else to become Orthodox (maybe multiple somethings else), so who's to say they won't leave Orthodoxy down the road? You may not go to every service, but you'd never think of leaving the religion of your fathers. You may not believe it all the time, but it's more than what you believe -- it's what you are, in a way it can never be for a person who is there because they picked up a book and on whom the chrism is barely dry. Do you really want to be told how to run your church, or what is Orthodox and what isn't, by those people?

Richard goes on to say that he doesn't believe these folks are right, but he has accurately described the attitude of many ethnic Orthodox Christians. And while I find that attitude understandable in a whole lot of ways, I also find it very, very puzzling and very, very troubling.

It's troubling because in Holy Scripture we are instructed to be kind to the sojouner and to take special care for the alien and to practice hospitality. Watching your parish or archdiocese fill up with converts--many of whom are zealous know-it-alls--may be disconcerting and uncomfortable, but our lives are not to be normed by our natural reactions but by the commandments of the Most Holy Trinity. In fact, that's the specific message of the opening chapters of the Book of Acts when the first (Jewish) Christians had to make room for all those outlandish Gentile converts from places like Caesarea and Antioch. That was a tough transition, but the Church went on to "preach the gospel to all creation".

But the reaction of many ethnic Orthodox is also really puzzling because most of these folks know, at some level, what it's like to be immigrants. They may have been in this country for several generations now, but their families still retain that living memory of what it's like to leave everything that is familiar and travel to a place where you don't understand the language, where just about everything is new, and where very few people are welcoming. That's precisely what it's like for most people who convert to Holy Orthodoxy. And just as most immigrants understand that they will never feel entirely at home in their new land, but they make that sacrifice for the sake of their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, in the very same way, Orthodox converts give up the comforts of familiar traditions and pieties for the sake of future generations.

So even if ethnic folks have a hard time coming to grips with the mandate of Holy Scripture--and who doesn't?--they should at least be able to remember what it was like for Grandpa Sergei and Aunt Hariklia. They should at least be able to welcome all of the spiritual immigrants that arriving in their communities.

fr. aidan