Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Fundamentalist. A study in contronyms.

Recently the heads of the OCA and Antiochian Archdiocese came together to issue a joint declaration. In it they spoke against fundamentalism.

"We strongly condemn extremism and fundamentalism, whether in the Church or society, and call to repentance those who would perpetrate acts of violence or hatred against any of our brothers and sisters in our communities or in society.​"

And it reminded me of a debate between Fr. John Whiteford and Dr. Demacopolous (available here) hosted by Kevin Allen (of blessed memory) on that very topic. It's worth listening to because not a lot has changed in the years since it was released.

By all appearances the word has taken on two very different meanings.

On the one side it seems to mean: Taking everything to extremes. A punctilious and observably slavish devotion to the letter of the law without any visible deference to the spirit of the Christian ethos of mercy. An almost childlike affinity for proof-texting topics without understanding of the historical or situational exigencies that made such canonical pronouncements necessary.

On the other side it seems to mean: A convenient and often baseless throw-away word used to demean people who actually believe what the Church teaches and expect the laity (and especially the clergy) to act as if they do too. An appeal to the sophistry of scholarship to ensconce heretical ideas inside orthodoxy by claiming that the opposition is either ignorant or hateful or possibly both.

I am also reminded of Met. Philip (Saliba) speaking in an AFR interview about how all canons were not to be treated equally. Specifically, when he received assistance from a Jewish heart surgeon that a canon exists that precludes a Christian from being treated by a non-Christian. Obviously such a rule had its reason in the time it was written, but has no resonance today. I am further reminded of the discussion at the Crete event where much was made of looking at fasting again in light of modern food options and the subsequent discussions afterward about whether efforts to "update" fasting rules were anything short of a convenient path to abrogation. Is fundamentalism the responsible act of a Christian in protecting the remnant? Is being a fundamentalist just another way of wanting all of Orthodoxy to be frozen in amber?

We are talking past one another, and until we quit picking up the word fundamentalist only to bash each other over the head with it, we need to put down the phrase for a bit. One group thinks it is a clear declaration of myopic thinking and the other thinks it is a slur used by people advocating dissolute living. 

What is interesting is that those people who come from outside the Church often choose Orthodoxy specifically for this steadfast adherence to these ancient precepts of the faith. They see what a constant acceding to modernity has done to their previous affiliations and are fleeing to what they perceive to be the safe shores of our unchanging dogma and discipline. That's the very reason why most converts are the least likely to value any change or see it as any form of improvement on what is already written. To them, if the world simply followed what was already written, the fundamentals of life for a great many very lost and despondent people would already be improved.

And the academics see a very different thing. Our hierarchs are not responding to things. They aren't seeking ways to revivify what is measurably unwell. Where are our youth going? What do we say to the barren mothers seeking options in having children? How do we speak to same-sex attracted people in a way that doesn't shout them out of the church entirely? To them the Church must respond and when it does it needs to be open to changing things up a bit. And yet just down the street from that academic is a  little parish peopled by laity that see modern formulations as the entire problem in the first place. There's a disconnect here and a lot of mistrust which confounds fruitful discussion.

So for my part, I'm putting "fundamentalism" in time-out. And I think anyone who uses it should expect to be like the man who takes the lid off a beehive without a protective suit on. Very little honey will be gathered and a lot of frantic, stinging swarming will follow.

15 comments:

  1. Good essay, Father.

    I like the term "realism." I oppose the Old Calendar, for example, because it doesn't reflect the reality of the celestial bodies. Orthodoxy is an anti-gnostic, not a gnostic, Faith. The world is revealed as it was always meant to be, not an idealized Byzantium using the Julian calendar before the astronomers arrive to tell us what's actually happening.

    So I like +Philip's approach.

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  2. Interesting. The very spirit that is attracting new people to the Holy Orthodox Church, is being derided as fundamentalist extremism...by the bishops! We live in an upside down world.

    By the way...I love the Julian calendar. All Orthodox Christians should be on it. :)

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  3. To be clear: The canon Met. PHILLIP+ was referencing does not "prohibit a Christian from being treated by a non-Christian" generally; rather, it prohibits Christians from being treated by _Jews_ specifically.

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    1. The context of this particular canon is the religious milieu in which it was written. In an age when physician was often a shamanistic pseudo-religious "faith healer", and "eating jewish unleavened bread" was in the context of a crossover jewish-christian tendency in cultic worship, this canon was the wise economic separation.

      Today we will tend to read this canon context with a (largely unconscious) frame of reference, namely the history/morality of religious, ethnic, and racial categorical "discrimination". It should be obvious that this is a mistake.

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  4. Excellent essay Father. You should try to get it published elsewhere - seems like it would be a good fit for the "Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy" blog over at ancientfaith.com

    Link for those who would rather read Fr. John Whiteford's perspective:

    http://fatherjohn.blogspot.com/2015/02/response-to-orthodox-fundamentalists-by.html

    http://fatherjohn.blogspot.com/2015/02/response-to-orthodox-fundamentalists-by.html

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  6. On the contrast between the 'pietistic convert/believer' and the 'academic', most of us are well acquainted with the typical errors of fact and logic/judgement of the former. The 'academic' because of his truth seeking methodology has and will continue to make us aware of these errors no matter his or her personal piety, beliefs and character as a 'progressive' or 'traditionalist'.

    My experience however is that the Orthodox 'academic' is too unaware of the weakness of his methodology, as well as the biases that naturally (to choose a word) flow from the metaphysical commitments of said methodology and the culture of the academic/intellectual worlds. This is obviously true in the case of agenda driven pit bulls like Demacopolous, but is less obvious in the case of the more typical Orthodox academic who is otherwise a fully committed and faithful believer.

    Until Orthodox academics are able to locate and examine how their entire project assumes (almost always unintentionally, or at least unconsciously) non-Orthdox anthropology, they will not be able to coherently address same sex attraction, modern canonical/ecclesiological circumstance, or any other significant aspect of modernity and the Church in it...

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  7. Jake, the only Orthodox academics is with Anthony Gythiel of blessed memory. A former RC monk who witnessed some of his brothers killed the Mao-Mao in Kenya. He inveighed against the anthropology of Augustine which gave rise to our modern mess.

    Prof. Gythiel came to the Church by reading early Church documents maintained in a Benedictine monastery here in Kansas. He was able to read them in the original language. He became a translator because of that.

    http://ww1.antiochian.org/category/article-topics/anthony-gythiel

    All to many "academics" seem to forget the roots and tend to replace the wisdom of the Church which is ageless with their own sense of modernity. A battle we all fight.

    It is a shame that the word "academic" has come to mean Pharisee instead of guardian as they should be.


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  8. Boy that was messed up. First sentence should read: The only Orthodox academic I have known personally is Professor Anthony Gythiel of blessed memory.

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  9. The "frantic, stinging swarming" is the definition of fundamentalism you missed. And yes, it can be found on the left and the right, modernists and conservatives, from converts and cradle, Americans and non-Americans.

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    1. Fundamentalism is a meaningless modern word that is applied to what ever ideas or set of ideas or behavior one does not like to discredit the ideas or people without actually having to engage, listen and respond to the people or ideas in any meaningful way.

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  10. Regarding the new people being attracted, they are a very small number of converts to a very small religious tradition in the U.S., and most any "cradle" you meet on the street here or in the old country is not religious at all. The real question is why multitudes more have left and are leaving the church, and religion more generally, around the world.

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    1. 123,
      People are leaving for the most part because they think they know better. It took me 35 years to begin to realize I didn't. Been better since the night I woke up in 3 AM in pain and really began to pray the Jesus Prayer. Now I am beginning to see that despite my hubris, Jesus mercy is actually a real.

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  11. Perhaps we have taught and been taught for so long that religion is best in small doses,that reality is to be discovered only in the world that we can see. Not my thoughts but of a physician who grew up Orthodox, and now has nothing to do with the church

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