"Blame me not," said the scorpion, in a supplicatory tone, "it is not my fault; it is that of my nature; it is a constitutional habit I have of stinging."
(Fordham) - Together with the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center has been awarded a research grant from the British Council in the USA to examine LGBTQ rights alongside Eastern Orthodox identity.
As part of the British Council’s Bridging Voices project, the grant will bring together diverging voices from both sides of the Atlantic to Fordham for a seminar in June 2019 titled, “Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Identity and the Challenges of Pluralism and Sexual Diversity in a Secular Age.”
The seminar, research, and resulting papers, will facilitate discussion on issues related to sexual diversity within Eastern Orthodoxy and how policymakers in Europe and the U.S. can respond in a measured manner, said Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture and co-director of the Center.
Papanikolaou and co-director George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., will be working on the project with Brandon Gallaher, Ph.D., and Edward Skidelsky Ph.D., from the University of Exeter.
“Eastern Orthodoxy has many challenges that it needs to face in the contemporary world including sexual diversity, the role of women in the church in a democratic and secular age,” said Gallaher. “I see this project as part of a larger cooperation of Fordham and Exeter to study the place and role of the pre-modern Eastern Orthodox Church in the modern West.” Problems if you don't like tradition. Not so much if you value the deposit of faith handed down to us, the canons, or the words of the Fathers.
“We’d like a public discussion about religion and LGBTQ rights where there’s not a standoff,” said Papanikolaou, adding that, all too often, dialogues delving into sexual ideologies and religious traditions leave participants “butting heads.”
“We hope this discussion will help educate public policy and open conversation to more nuanced ways to address the issue in the wider public sphere, rather than there being a reactionary approach from both sides,” he said.
This is not the first time that the Center has delved into touchy subjects often avoided in Orthodox ecclesiastical circles. For their part, Exeter brings expertise in LGBTQ Studies, as well as Eastern Christianity, said Gallaher.
“We are one of the only—if not the only—place where these issues can be addressed and that’s sort of our MO,” said Papanikolaou. “Most of these issues can’t be addressed in a parish setting the way they can be in an academic environment.” Read: completely without episcopal oversight and out of earshot at the choruses screaming "Anaxioi!"
Posts
Arrrrrrg!
ReplyDeleteSorry, dear--I'll try to be gentle. Just bend over and think of Russia.
DeleteThis is a problem that if the bishops were to address it now, and firmly, they could prevent a full blown schism from developing, but if they continue with this fan dance of indifference to what people like this are really up to, it will end very badly, and the damage will be huge.
ReplyDeleteFr. John,
DeleteI am of course in full sympathy with what you say here. However, that ship has already sailed as they say in my opinion. The "schism" is all too real, and it runs down the middle of every jurisdiction, every parish, every individual. The modern form "of the world", which is secularism, has already infected ALL of our parishes to such a point that if we were being honest, at least half (probably more) of our regular communicates IN FACT have Arian Christology and a Cartesian anthropology - both of which are necessary for a worldview that privileges "identity" over the normative moral/anthropological Tradition. Aristotle is simply being honest in expressing what at least half of all believers (at least those in western Europe, America, etc.) actually believe.
The bishops have long ago accepted the terms and conditions of the western educational, academic model and culture. All of them have been through it to some extant, and all of them require a man (and soon women) to be in-cultured in it for ordination. These same bishops are, like their flock, keenly interested in Orthodoxy "facing the modern world". The fact that this has led to very little besides what Fr. Florovsky called a "pseudomorphosis" of Orthodoxy itself is wholly lost on ALL of them.
I do mean ALL of them, so I got to ask what would be the lines, the boundaries, of this "full blown schism"? You don't mean between ROCOR/Moscow and the Greeks (EP and allies) do you? Recently, Pat. Theodore who is at the pointy tip of the reform effort to ordain women, led a hierarchical liturgy in Moscow.
My point is that ALL of "canonical Orthodoxy" is both too infected and too weak for even a schism. A schism would indicate a healthy immune response by the Body but I see a patient who is already in the ICU and is too far gone for such a robust and healthy response. In other words, it is not that the "damage will be huge", it is already past tense - the damage is already done...
"Canonical Orthodoxy" means whatever people want it to mean. Have you considered the possibility that the Holy Spirit may be behind the pro-LGBTQ movement? You'll laugh,but then, other people will laugh at the opposite suggestion.
DeleteWhy,you just said God doesn't exist. But the Holy Spirit does exist? Please, Father, get this troll off your blog.
DeleteJake, well there will likely be a schism, it will just be with the believers at the short end of the stick, just as it played out everywhere else, save the LCMS.
DeleteAmen,Fr. John, Amen.
ReplyDeleteAre the bishops like going to be bishops or are we all on our own?
ReplyDeleteECUSA circa 1965
All of you are now popes, with the power to excommunicate everybody.
DeleteThink whatever you like. It is quite clear that you openly represent a non-Christian viewpoint. To that extent your trolling here is irrelevant and hopefully will be moderated.
DeleteLife would be easier and holier -- which is what the late Fr. Hopko recommended == if LGBTQers stayed in the closet instead of acting out.
ReplyDelete"One of the only" is redundant; it means "one of the one." Perhaps the writer, who presumes to question 2,000 years of reality, might first question his own usage of language.
ReplyDeleteIt's more than 2000 years, unless we are to believe that God didn't speak to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
ReplyDeleteMoses is a character from religious myth, not history. (So is God.)
DeleteThen you, sir, are outside of the Grace necessary for salvation.
DeleteZla'od, may the Lord have mercy on you and open your eyes to see the spiritual delusion in your embrace of such a Dionysian embrace of the abyss shown to you by the father of lies before you pass from this life and repentance is no longer possible. I urge you humbly to repent.
DeleteAristotle and George are still exploring the rabbit hole. This is a continuing venture of the Fordham quest to dismantle the phronema of the Holy Orthodox Church. May God protect us.
ReplyDelete"Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it! Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."
Matthew 7:13-15
All of these academics are best summed up in the character of Religious Studies adjunct facilitator Mr. Stanford Nutting:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmHzYWO6b0k
As well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwMIiWnu8nI
DeleteThanks Tom B, I got a hearty laugh out of that!
DeleteIt would be good to remember that Fordham is a Catholic university with all that entails ("post modern" morality, "academic freedom" being more important than the Gospel and Church teaching, the concept of "development of doctrine, LGBT advocacy on an institutional level). That's only a few of the problems involving most Catholic Universities today. I would hope the Orthodox hierarchs will speak out against the seminar. (Maybe this is naive.) Hopefully, someone will make it known to the bishops what is being advocated or at least encouraged by the seminar.
ReplyDeleteNot just Catholic, Jesuit. Why , they even have an Eastern Rite Chapel. Why don't these modernists just become Eastern Rite Catholics and leave us Orthodox alone?
DeleteI'd love to see one of these academics include on a panel an Orthodox Christian who has been wounded by his/her involvement in the gay lifestyle (I know several) and now embrace Orthodox Christian teaching and the narrow path of salvation. The people I've met were not "born this way" but were involuntarily led into it: some by their experience of sexual abuse while young children, others by a lack of a strong relationship with the same sex parent, others by a deep sense of rejection by same sex peers and seeking affirmation and acceptance in same sex relationships.
ReplyDeleteEdward, that's the right idea! I'm sure on one hand it might feel shameful to "out" their former lifestyle, but I am sure that God can give them the courage to do so.
DeleteEdward: In my work as well. In this country all of us have our various crossed wires, idols and addictions In need of Christ’s healing and all of us find true peace only in Christ’s love and way of life.
ReplyDeleteThe British Council is funded by the British taxpayers as the UK Government's "soft-power" project aboard. One big current theme is promoting the "civil rights" of LGBTQI+ people worldwide.
ReplyDeleteThey will however soon find that they will get nowhere with the Orthodox Church, which will maintain Her fidelity to the Holy Tradition. The British Council probably thinks that Orthodoxy is "the Byzantine Rite tendency of worldwide Anglicanism". They will soon learn!
As for Dr. Gallaher, he was at Crete in 2016 as one of the accredited "scholars" in the anteroom; somehow I doubt if he will now get any more invitations from the Phanar.