Orthodixie

By Dr. Peter C. Bouteneff

Americans are approaching an important election this fall. All presidential elections are important, but few have been this close or this polarized. Those of us who seek to live and act in a way that is consistent with the life and theology of the Orthodox Church do well to reflect upon how we will act on November 2. Some Orthodox I know believe that the only way an Orthodox Christian could possibly vote is Republican/Conservative. Others whom I know have exactly the opposite impression. Where do we find ourselves in the political landscape today? There may not be a single answer for all Orthodox Christians, but we can at least clarify the questions.

1. Church and State

The relationship between Church and State has always been a delicate matter. History has seen experimentation with many possibilities, and the truth is that none have really worked. There is too great a variety of religious views among the governed and the governing. Looking at our own faith, Christ never set up a system of governance, but rather acknowledged that there is Caesar and there is God, and that we owe a different kind of obedience to each.

Neither is there any one system of governance, be it monarchy, democracy, plutocracy, or theocracy, which the Church would sanction as such to be the Christian way of establishing and maintaining a state. It is also quite evident that, given history, geography, and culture, different kinds of government are appropriate in different places. The Church isn’t non-committal in this sphere; it has taken stands against forms of government, such as totalitarian dictatorship or anarchy, which are unacceptable to Christianity.

But Christians are not ipso facto socialists, capitalists, or monarchists. And much as we Americans are accustomed to the logic of democracy, democracy is neither the way in which the Church governs itself, nor is it the only or the obvious Christian kind of state government. Christians are Christians, and that makes us people who have to decide in each particular case what best meets the criteria of Christian life.

2. To Vote or Stay Home?

The canons which forbid an ordained person from holding public office indicate the Church’s ambivalent relationship to government. The Church is aware of the inevitable conflicts of interest that arise when a visible representative of the Church is asked to represent an electorate of diverse religious and moral principles. But does this ambivalence mean that we should keep out of the process entirely?

The answer to that question will not be the same for everyone. All of us are called to be “not of this world” and yet also to be “in the world,” and the way in which those two are balanced in our own lives will vary. Monastics have a particular vocation, a particular way of consecrating their lives, and a particular kind of obedience which will in most cases lead them away from voting, even if they may be very much involved in other aspects of contemporary life and society.

Some outside the monastic life opt out of the process as well, either because they feel the candidates are unacceptable, or out of principle. Whether we vote or not, our decision must be conscious and deliberate, and the result of prayerful consideration. Orthodox Christians are called to take a stand on matters that affect how people live and how they are treated, and on how the natural world is treated. We are called to care about, to arrive at, and defend principles in terms of our fundamental beliefs.

3. How to Vote?

The question of whether to vote is much easier to address than the question of how to vote. Part of our problem here is the nature of the options before us.

a. Liberal and Conservative

Politically as well as theologically, many conservatives will use “liberal” as a swear-word, and many liberals return the favor. We Orthodox Christians often consider ourselves to be a conservative church – and so we are, when we compare some of our theological and ethical principles to others. Our key doctrines about God and about Christ, as well as our positions on human life and human sexuality, are based on principles whose absolute and unchanging character are repulsive to some other Christians.

On the other hand, Orthodox theology and ethics admit a freedom that can seem downright liberal. I recall a conversation with a certain Presbyterian whose positions on matters of church and ethics alike were far more “liberal” than I as an Orthodox could accept. But when she started talking about her belief in the “total depravity” of the human person, our Orthodox voice began sounding to her like the more open, the more joyous, the more free. More generally, our approach to ethics and the canons provides a unique blending of absolute principles with particular, personal applications which can never be branded as sheer conservatism.

The terms “liberal” and “conservative” have only a limited use. Orthodox Christians should not let themselves be pigeonholed into either category, either within Orthodoxy, with regard to the wider Christian landscape, or politically. Our province is not conservatism or liberalism, but truth.

b. Republican and Democrat

This still leaves the question of how we are to position ourselves politically. And here we are placed in a serious bind for two reasons. One is that there are some questions for which Orthodox Christians are so far unable to identify a single right answer. For example, we have been divided as to how to approach the war on Iraq, and both sides have offered sound theological arguments. We do not often take two sides of the same fence, but the living character of our Church does allow it to happen.

The bigger reason for our difficulty in siding with one or another political party is that the parties today each advocate unacceptable positions alongside admirable ones. Considering the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person, it is not at all clear which party has a better platform. We must consider their positions not only on abortion, but also on capital punishment, war, and human rights. We need to look at each party’s position on education and the environment. Each party must be examined in terms of how wealth is distributed, especially in terms of what effects will be felt by the nation’s poor. We need to examine the candidates’ views on ethical and bioethical issues such as stem-cell research, euthanasia, HIV/AIDS, and same-sex marriage.

Neither party has a monopoly on life and family values: both parties are inconsistent in both areas.

The voting Orthodox Christian today is effectively stuck being either a “Reluctant Republican” or a “Reluctant Democrat.” We are, as is often the case, left with a choice between the lesser of two evils. This doesn’t take us off the hook, for we must choose. We have a compass to guide us in our choice and that compass is our understanding of Christ’s Gospel and how it is lived in the world.

Greetings from rain drenched, flood ridden, limbs a fallin’ … power’s out … Western North Carolina. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Radio says we might be without power for days. We’ll see …

Will update when able.

Prayers coveted.

This is another one to file under the Etc Column (i.e., not about Orthodoxy) …

Red stick, frayed paper, floating down the river. America’s birthday, day after. The spent rocket launcher passes by the pier as he drifts into memories.

Remembering the days of his youth, many ill spent, he realizes that when he was younger he never saw the beauty. He saw dirty water, red mud, mosquitoes, water moccasins, mom and dad. It wasn’t all bad, it just wasn’t as pretty as it seems now.

Yesterday, his six year old son had been afraid to jump off the pier even though he sported a life vest. As a help, as his dad, he’d thrown him in. Thank God it had worked. The young’un had spent the next three hours plunging in solo.

This morning his son had come to him and related a dream: “Dad, I had a bad dream. I dreamed I was in the water, at the deep end of the pier, and I couldn’t get up, and I kept saying, ‘Dad! Dad!’ and you couldn’t hear me.”

He’d told his son that his dream had probably been due to his fears from the day before. He’d tried his psycho-babble best to flesh out his fears, his dream. When quizzed later, his son’s answer was a sufficient echo of what he’d told him. He would eventually forget that stuff and probably look back in 30 years or so on red mud, dirty water, water moccasins … daddy threw him in the water.

It’s all good, sooner or later. Every now and then, in some psychological, metaphysical, mundane way, it all comes together. For brief moments, occasionally, life made sense.

When the planets aligned and he held his mouth just right, like an autobiographical decoder ring, he could see clearly into the past. The beauty of it all. With proper understanding, once in a blue moon, even bad was beautiful. Not necessarily bad stuff like divorce, drinking and drugging, friendship lost, death. Nope, those were just things that bumped into beauty yet were’t a part of. Rather, it was the memories which had been sanitized and prettified by his mind that took on a hue quite unlike ugly. What else would you call it?

Not many ripples in today’s waves. The red stick had moved only about three feet down the river over the past hour. Often, if you sat on the porch long enough, you could see a water moccasin swim past. Beautiful. Terror and beauty blended in a sidewinder.

A flutter and a splash! Two duck swam up into flight and soon disappeared. The morning sun was beginning to burn off the cool mist. A fisherman’s bass boat sped past. Soon the haze of a 93 degree day would manifest itself. For now it was birds, bugs … beauty.

Yesterday, the Fourth, as he’d sat listening to his grandmother, he was plunged thirty-eight years into the past. Having learned to water ski on two skis at the age of six, his father was determined that he was going to learn to slalom at the age of seven: that very day, the Fourth of July. There was a whole gaggle of folks down at the lake house. They were on the pier, the deck, in the yard, the water. His father was showing off his boy. Yes, today — that day — his boy would do it.

By the time he did do it, it had only been his grandmother and grandfather left on the pier. Dusk had settled in. He had literally cried a river. His angry father had lost all patience. It was going badly. He remembered his father saying, “Son, I tell you what, if you don’t get up this time, I’m going to carry you across the lake and make you swim home.” It didn’t seem factual, but at age seven anything was possible. Even coming out of the water on one foot and skiing in fear and triumph around the lake at dusk in front of your grandmother was possible. So that’s what he’d done. Thanks be to God.

His father had done him a great favor, making him slalom at the age of seven. All through adolescence he was known — in his mind and those of his friends — as one of the greatest skiers on the lake. He stared at his own son; wondered what he’d become.

His uncle’s pier was adjacent to theirs. It was his father’s habit to speed into the cove and turn the Glastron at such an angle that he, the skier, could land between both piers spraying a fifteen foot high water rooster tail. An impressive end to a solo water show.

He was fifteen years old when he’d met the water moccasin. He never skied unless there was an audience, and that day had been no different. His girlfriend was in the boat as his dad swooped into the cove. As he did his trademarked water spout, there, looking down — in an instant — he saw that he was circling a snake.

One of the truisms of water skiing, gravity being what it is and all, is: When you let go of the rope, you’re going down. God! How he’d wished he could grab the towline back! A snake!

As he’d come up from the splash, the snake was swimming — with his mouth open — right toward his head, eye level. Without thinking, he threw his right hand up through the water, connected with the belly of the serpent, and sent him up about two feet in the air. Then, turning toward his uncle’s pier, he’d tried to swim.

He’d been swimming since he was five. With a good ten years under his belt, he’d finally failed. Like a gossip rendered speechless, he’d flailed about in the water. He became a madman.

From a distance, in the boat, his dad heard his calls: “Help! Snake! Help, help! Snake! Snake!” He’d later learned that his dad had said to his sweetheart, “I wish he wouldn’t do that. One day there’s really going to be a snake.”

Unbeknownst to dear old dad, that day had arrived.

He kept slashing like a retard, gurgling screams, eyes wild with fear. He remembers even trying to swim underwater. Opening his eyes in the muddy vortex, what had he seen? Snakes! He’d entered that part of fear where anything’s possible: mad dad making you swim home, skiing on one foot, death by a thousand moccasins.

One thing was for certain: He couldn’t swim. Yet he’d somehow made it to his uncle’s pier. He climbed the ladder and — though at that moment, looking at his uncle, he’d never been so happy to see someone is all his life — he’d said: “Dammit! There’s a snake in there! Why didn’t you help me!”

Reality, oftentimes being stranger than fiction, saw his uncle laughing. It was a friendly laugh, but just before he was about to show his uncle the appreciation of a punch in the nose, he’d heard: “Look … that snake ain’t after you. You scared him off!”

He looked back toward his parents’ pier. The snake was a good swimmer. Fear had not slowed the sidewinder’s skill. He was going, going. Gone.

His eyes searched for the spent firework. The waves had picked up over the past twenty minutes. He couldn’t see it. He wondered if, by some sort of cosmic kismet, it was now between those same two piers. Nope. Being a stick, having no water skills, it had obviously sunk.

Between two trees he spotted a massive spider web, its spirals leading to its owner and creator. There’s a sinkhole by the seawall. Big water rats and snakes used those tunnels. There were bubbles at the pier’s edge. Probably a turtle.

Though it wasn’t yet hot he could see three or four small Brim under the shade of the pier. Later in the day, he was planning to swim with his kids. But now it was time to head into town to visit his father. Dying of cancer.

Red stick, frayed paper, floating down the river.

I’m reluctant to post the following link for several reasons:

1) I’ve never liked Dan Rather as a newsman. I find his speech patterns choppy and affected.

2) I’m not so sure, politics being what it is and all, that the Bush campaign didn’t plant — or at least encourage — the “forged” documents.

3) I have a general distrust of the mainstream media.

4) I don’t want this Blog to become polemical, political, agenda laden, in this election (i.e., hyper-sensational) season.

So, forgive me … I’ve disabled the Comments on this post.

But, if you want to see how Mr Rather’s been biased & deceptive (at least sloppy) before, go here: The First Rathergate