You Can't Change the World

"I can't believe you said that. It's so defeatist. What are you going to do, just hide under your bed?"

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let's all take a deep breath. And #sorrynotsorry but I mean it, sincerely, you can't change the world. One of the paradoxes of Christianity is that we are called on to change the world without expecting it to change. Christ Himself promised us that the world would not accept us, just as it did not accept Him (John 15:18-21), which kind of makes no sense when He later tells us to "be of good cheer" because He "has overcome the world" (John 16:33). What gives?

Before we even talk about changing the world, let us first admit that we can't even change ourselves. The person in the world that you have the most control over is yourself, and if you are anything like me, it is just as hard (if not harder) to change yourself as it is to change anyone else around you. Think about it. Even St. Paul himself struggled with this problem in Romans 7, where his confession comforts me in my burden that I am not the only one who feels like a captive to Sin. Against my will, I find myself to be falling short of a standard. This feeling of perpetual imperfection is normal, but the key is that we must have the self-awareness to readily confess that the power to change comes not from the self but from God, the physician of our souls.

So then let me get this straight. You can't fix yourself, but you want to change the world? Why? How? As the metaphoric athletes spoken of by St. Paul, we are exhorted to worry more about ourselves than our preaching, lest we become disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27). If I were the one on the cross and the chief priests mocked me and said "he saved others, himself he cannot save," they would be completely correct (Matthew 27:42). Why do I say that? Because my response to the cross is not the same as Christ's. He stayed on the cross and saved us by accepting His call to suffer.

If the injustice we see around us is the suffering, if that is our cross, then how do we respond to that injustice? Do we respond as Christ did? Do we stay on the cross? Do we stick it out and witness to the Truth? Or, rather, do we see the cross as an affront to our ego? Do we see the humiliation of our failures as servants as something that we cannot accept? I feel like sometimes I decide that "enough is enough and this needs to get better," so I get down from the cross to save the world. Is that what Christ did?

If anyone reading this knows me, they are thinking to themselves "what a hypocrite!" Yes, I am a hypocrite and much worse. I get down from my cross on a daily basis. I can't take the suffering. I can't take the tension. I want it gone. I want it to go away. I'm tired. I want things to get better so we can all take a break. Christ felt the same way. He felt the same stress. He felt the same temptation to escape. The difference is that He stayed on the cross. He endured the shame and the suffering, not just as an atonement but as an example. May God help us to keep our eyes on His cross, that He may help us do our best not to get down from our cross, and change the world.

Personhood and Free Will

What is our interpretation of the human person? Are we just a body? If so, then books like The Illusion of Conscious Will make perfect sense in explaining the world around us and our consciousness in deterministic terms, using physical and biological processes as the explanation for everything, making free will an illusion.

As a thought experiment, let us ask that, if we are just a body and we could "make a human" with a 3D atomic printer - is that a product considered a person?

YES ABSOLUTELY! For someone who believes that the universe is fundamentally a physical place with no such thing as a spiritual world, then I would understand completely if they said "yes, that is a person made up of the same atoms as you and me and is, therefore, a person." In that case, the reductionism of the person to their physical and biological processes makes perfect sense. In that case, free will is on shaky ground because if everything is a physical process then there is some credibility to the idea that "I know your brain, so I know you." The advent of biological processes being subject to the uncertainty paradigms of quantum physics will call much of this physical determinism into question even within the purely scientific realm.

I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE? The next layer is someone who doesn't believe in God but believes, for any reason, that there is something "more" to the universe than the four dimensions of space and time. They may believe in "a spiritual interpretation of string theory," they may believe in non-physical human elements, they may believe that they are "not religious but spiritual," or any other belief that questions the premise that "if you know the physical state of a brain then you know the brain." For this person, who doesn't necessarily ascribe to Christian anthropology, it would still not make sense that just by knowing where all the atoms are in my brain right now, you could theoretically tell me what I will choose to do tomorrow.

ONLY GOD KNOWS - Our opinion should be framed by a Christian anthropological world view that teaches us that the person is made up of not just a body, but also a soul and the spirit. Without getting into the far-reaching implications of this definition of personhood, we can just say here that a human body printed on a 3D printer needs to be more than just a body to be a person. The obvious next question is - "well, does that printed body get a soul and spirit from God?" This is a similar question to "if we clone a human, are they a person?" In both cases, it is beyond the scope of my understanding, but I welcome your thoughts in the comments section, below.

The conclusion I want to make is that our anthropology will have a direct effect on our interpretation of free will. If we see a person as just a physical body, then free will is questionable. If we see a person as an image of God, then free will is an essential part of our nature as physical, emotional and spiritual beings.

Why Share?

When I first started writing this blog, I asked myself why I wanted to write anything in the public domain. There was a natural resistance in thinking about this question because of the concern that there was just an underlying ego problem that was looking for an outlet through which it could rear its ugly head. This is still likely to be the case, at least in part. That being said, I think all of us are entitled to an opinion, and in having any opinion there is by definition some ego in saying "this is what I believe." This is not pathologic or even problematic as long as we keep the ego in check and recognize that others are entitled to their opinions, as well, and that our opinion should not get in the way of our unity. So why share anything at all, if there is a risk that our opinion may offend someone? I see three reasons:

1) It is not until we share an opinion that it becomes "real." There have been many times when I have been thinking about something and other people are talking about it around me and as they are talking I am processing the idea in my head, but it is still swimming around in a primordial soup phase of ideas. It is not until I start speaking or writing something about it that ithe idea really starts to take its form and substance. It comes out of my mouth or gets down on paper and it is then "out in the open" for criticism from both myself and others. I may immediately correct myself, realizing that what I said sounds really dumb when I say it out loud. The point is that until the opinion is shared, even if only with yourself, it is still not quite fully grown.

2) It allows others to know what we think. We are social beings that benefit emotionally, psychologically and spiritually from positive interactions with each other. While we can restrict ourselves to interacting on a purely superficial level, this results in equally superficial relationships. In order to deepen our relationships we must run the risk of sharing something that is left in the open to be rejected. Ultimately, I believe that our deepest desire is to be known and accepted by others. This is why in his epic treatise on love, St. Paul says that for now "I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." We look forward to the day when we are in heaven with God, where we know each other and we know God, as intimately as God knows each one of us. For now, we selectively parcel out pieces of ourselves that we carefully screen on the basis of whether or not we think they will be well received. This is where the notion of the false self originates, in that we want to protect our true self out of the fear that it will not be accepted.

3) It allows others to disagree with us. For me, this is the most important reason that I write anything because I am looking for others to sharpen my opinion like iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). If I don't share my opinion, I can go on thinking something is 100% correct when it is 100% wrong. Even if what I am thinking or saying is "mostly correct," I do not think that I have a perfect understanding of anything, and any opportunity to be corrected is an opportunity to grow in understanding. When my friends read my posts, they can use what I wrote as a reason to share with me their dissenting viewpoint. If I don't share, they don't know what I think so that they can disagree, and I wouldn't learn from them so that I can change my opinion. For the record, I don't go back and change what I posted, so if you see something today from a previous post that you disagree with, don't be surprised if I also disagree with myself. 

In this day and age where we have the propensity to "overshare" with too many people saying too many things in public media that really should be kept private, I don't really need to advocate for people speaking their minds. However, it is important to recognize that what one says in a public forum will be open to scrutiny, and this is not a bad thing. If I say something in a public forum and it inspires vehement opposition, I should not automatically dismiss the opposing view as ignorant, but rather take a step back and ask myself if I should reconsider my view. If I am not ready to reconsider my opinion, then the only reason I am sharing is for other people to change their mind or see how smart I am. This is a dangerous position. The only person who gets to have the last word and be unequivocally correct is God. The rest of us are just trying to compare notes with each other in a measly effort to understand a little more today than we did yesterday.

The Antifragility of Radical Unity

Open letter to anyone who uses the words "us" or "them":

Please know that I am first addressing this letter to myself. I am guilty of saying "us" and "them" as much as anyone else - and it is toxic. This sort of mentality is everything that is wrong with the world today. It doesn't have to be in an overt "we hate everyone else, we are ISIS" kind of way. It can be in a #blacklivesmatter kind of way that is intended to create awareness of the disenfranchisement of a specific group but, unfortunately, results in a backlash of misunderstanding that argues that #everylifematters. It can be in a #lovewins kind of way when you don't really mean "everyone deserves to be loved," and you actually mean "screw you, we got what we wanted." It can be in a "the church loves everyone" kind of way when you are just setting up for the "but we don't approve of what you do" judgment that follows.

Just so you don't think I am paying lip service to being a major offender of this "us" and "them" phenomenon, let me share with you the extent of my dissociation with both parties of the ugliness that has transpired over the last few weeks:
"THEM #1" To the Ultraconservative who says gay marriage is an abomination - I think gay marriage should be legal. The "sanctity of marriage" argument (a.k.a. "the Church defines marriage argument") went out the window when there was no outrage over the divorce rate or people getting "illegally" remarried outside the church, and we chose gay marriage as the time to send letters and protest and post on Facebook and overall lose our minds over something that does not affect us in any way. The "what if they make us do it in the church" fear mongering has no foundation or legal precedent. We will be required to marry gay people no sooner than we will be required to marry a Jewish couple, who has the same constitutional right to marry. Which brings me to ...
"THEM #2" To the Ultraliberal who says that gay marriage is exactly the same as the Sacramental Union between a man and a woman - I have wrestled with this question for years, and for the sake of love and inclusivity, I want to say "yeah, ok, why not? Let them get married. It's no big deal." I can't do it. I'm sorry. You can get married in a court. You can have the same legal rights in the eye of the government. I still love you the same, as a person. I still respect you the same, as a couple. Unfortunately, from a theological standpoint, and from a Christian anthropological standpoint, I cannot see any precedent in the Bible or Church Tradition that supports same sex marriage. "Things change." Yes, some things do. Biology does not. Two men and two women still can't reproduce naturally. This is not a matter of fairness, it's a matter of fact. I understand that the Episcopal Church has already accepted gay marriage and there is a request that the Roman Catholic Church do the same. I would love to hear more discussion on this, but ultimately I cannot see this being flexible.

"So where do you get off saying 'don't say us or them' when you are the worst offender?" That is why I am first asking you to please forgive me. Forgive me for judging the culturally driven homophobia we suffer from in the Coptic Church and wanting to leave and pray somewhere else. Forgive me for being so embarrassed at the posts of some people that I want to publicly apologize on their behalf (not in a really apologetic way but in a judgy "sorry my three year old is throwing a tantrum" kind of way). Forgive me for your perception that I don't love you because I am saying that you can't marry your same sex partner in my church. Forgive me that my fallen intellect keeps me from fully understanding what God intends or desires in a way that allows wisdom to shine through and be justified by all her children (Luke 7:35). Forgive me that my broken heart is not healed enough to unconditionally love those whom I disagree with as much as God loves them. Forgive me as I forgive you.

Forgiving each other is the start of unity. Saying "I don't agree with you but I love you and respect you" is a prerequisite for progress. Forgiveness is the seed. The fruitful tree is Radical Unity, which will come with many years of ongoing forgiveness and after much discomfort in being unified with "them." People prefer the "mirage of unity," which has all the comforts of general anesthesia, over the extreme initial discomfort of waking up from surgery in severe pain, but is really the start of the road to recovery towards Radical Unity. For example, people want feel "unified" with their fellow members of the Coptic Church by brushing aside major internal theological disagreements on Theosis, Original Sin, etc. rather than come to grips with the fact that we have within our ranks people that are "kind of sort of Eastern Orthodox" in full communion with people that are "kind of sort of Catholic" in full communion with people that are "kind of sort of Evangelical Protestant." Rather than enter into the uncomfortable discussion of "what do we really believe?" we dismiss everyone that disagrees with us, whether they are in or out of the church, as a heretic. This kind of approach didn't work in 451, it didn't work in 1054, and it will not work in 2015. We must embrace Radical Unity as a way of saying "I disagree with you on some things but we agree on something things that are really meaningful and 'whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—[let us] meditate on these things'" (Phil 4:8).

How can that be possible and how does that make any sense?! How can we be in communion with another faith with which we disagree on major dogmatic issues?! Like I said, we disagree more internally than we do externally. To say it differently, one individual member of the church (laity or clergy, novice or theologian, take your pick) is equally likely to agree with someone outside of the church, as with someone inside the church. Should we stop all liturgies until this is sorted out? Maybe we should, if you think dogma is more important than unity. I suggest that we keep praying liturgies, we keep taking communion, and we keep working toward Radical Unity. Ultimately, I do not think we will unify with the other apostolic churches based on unification of theology or dogma. We will unify based on our commitment to unity for its own sake and work out the details later. The theological and dogmatic disagreements will continue to exist in the Unified Church in the same way they do in the current Coptic Church, and the Holy Spirit will continue to guide the Mind of the Church as it has for two thousand years.

Ok so that means we just let everyone in off the street and anyone can take communion?! No, I didn't say that. Why would someone even want to take communion if they don't really believe it is the Body and Blood of Christ the same way we do? Unity with Protestant Churches is not off the table, but our understanding of the Eucharist must be unified in order for us to be technically "In Communion" with each other. How is that still Radical Unity? Because we are unified in the Creed. We do not need to be in full Communion with each other to love and respect each other in the spirit of Radical Unity. The crucial element is that we focus on where we agree while we maintain healthy boundaries in the places where we disagree. 

What about non-Christians? What about atheists? What about Satan worshippers? We need to find a common ground. We need to start with love and respect. We need to say "we are all human and whether you love Him or not, I believe that God loves you." This brings me back to our initial discussion of gay marriage - it just doesn't matter. The crusade for it is a reaction to feeling unloved, and the crusade against it is a spiritual warfare that is intended to create disunity. Let us rise above the disunity in faith and be convinced that for all mankind "neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39) - that is, of course, unless you believe the heresy that God only loves Christians or that He loves us more.

Antifragility is a concept developed and popularized by Nassim Taleb and, briefly, is an idea that as the opposite of "positive" is not "zero," the opposite of "fragile" is not "sturdy/robust." We don't have a word in any language that expresses the property that something gets stronger the more that you beat it up. He makes a very convincing argument that in medicine, business and life in general we need to design systems to be "antifragile" so that they don't just withstand the natural entropy and uncertainty of the universe but are strengthened by it.

Radical Unity is Antifragile. I stated earlier that I feel that I am stuck in the middle between two warring parties, empathizing with both but agreeing with neither. How do I reconcile that? By choosing unity over disagreement. By saying I love you even though I disagree with you, and I love you enough to say "I am you, and you are me, and we are one, even though we disagree." Note the difference between this and the formation of factions that happens with the "we disagree with them" mentality that we see everywhere these days. That "us" and "them" mentality is very fragile and is, in fact, actively destructive. In contrast, Radical Unity is antifragile in that I can say "you can say whatever you want, but I can still love you, and I am committed to finding a common ground." Isn't this what Christ did? Did He not find any excuse to find any common ground? Did He not break down every social, political, and religious barrier between Himself and the Samaritan woman? Why are we afraid to be like Him?

Forgive me for offending you if I have. If this is nonsense to you, please suffer me as the fool that I am, praying for my weakness and lack of understanding. If this does happen to make sense to you, then please pray with me for Radical Unity. May God guide us all to be united in His Love.

In Christ,

A Christian of the Orthodox Church

Anamnesis

"He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.'" 1 Corinthians 11:24

The word St. Paul used for "remembrance" in this verse is anamnesis, which is the Greek word made up by mnesis, meaning "pertaining to memory", with the prefix ana- meaning both "back" and "anew." Therefore, we are not just remembering the Last Supper as something in the past but living it anew every time we celebrate the Eucharist. From an Orthodox perspective, communion is not just a symbol (consubstantiation) or even a miraculous change in substance (transubstantiation) but rather our being present at the Last Supper by partaking of bread and wine that the Holy Spirit changes in a mystery to become the Body and Blood of Christ. The disciples themselves, in the presence of Christ in the flesh, were partaking of the same Body and Blood, which doesn't make any sense and will not make any sense in human logic because their participation was the same mystery that we participate in through anamnesis.

This concept of anamnesis is not restricted to just the Eucharist but extends to all liturgical services - on Palm Sunday we enter Jerusalem with Christ, on Good Friday we are witnessing His Crucifixion, on Easter Sunday we are present for His resurrection from the dead, and so forth. In addition, if whatever we do is done for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) then anamnesis is a summary of everything we do as Orthodox Christians - not just liturgically and Sacramentally, but even in the every day humdrum of our lives. In His incarnation, Christ blessed our whole existence. When we eat, we can eat in remembrance of Him who ate; when we run, we can run in remembrance of Him who ran; when we sing, we can sing in remembrance of Him who sang. In this way, everything becomes a sacrament.

This begs the question, then, “if everything is a sacrament then what difference does it make if I go out for brunch instead of going to the Good Friday service to celebrate Christ’s life giving death on the cross?” If we see our participation in the life of Christ as a relationship, then the weightiness of the events in which we share with Him will have an effect on the depth of that relationship. Just as with our human relationships, going through a difficult time together makes you feel closer to each other. If all we expect to see with Christ is happy times, then we are like Judas who was willing to go with Him to the throne, but not to the cross. Maybe we can’t really fool ourselves into thinking that going to brunch is the same as going to church, but are we not “bringing the brunch to church” when we ask for the liturgy to conform to what we want it to be rather than submitting to it in whatever form it may come?

This is an excerpt from To Believe in Jesus by Sister Ruth Burrows:

"I have often heard it said that young people, and no doubt others who have not tried to understand its inner meaning, find mass boring, even distasteful. It is essentially the mystery of faith and nothing can substitute for faith. It cannot be interesting on the purely natural level but only when faith lights up the action from within. Undoubtedly everything must be done to ensure that the liturgy is carried out as perfectly and as beautifully as possible but everything must be at the service of faith. The ceremonial, the singing, everything must aim at illuminating the inner meaning of the mass and our share in it. Anything extraneous has no place in the celebration. To turn mass time into a sacred concert, or a prayer meeting, to make it too lively and interesting, with things to do and rollicking songs, is a disservice. It is substituting for the effort of faith. It is mere entertainment loosely connected with the mass, aimed at arousing emotion and keeping attention. One would want proper emotions to be aroused but only in the context of faith. At the same time, we must not be dependent on emotion and must be prepared to enter deeply into the mass whatever our feelings. Here too is the occasion for 'fast'.

"If we really know what the mass is, we won't be too disturbed when things are not to our liking. Tastes differ and it will be impossible to please everyone. After , all, we are celebrating sacrifice and it would be rather odd if, in the name of offering sacrifice, we insisted on having things our way and showed annoyance and resentment when our wishes were not considered. It is of the essence of our surrender to God that we surrender to our neighbour too ; it is largely, almost entirely in surrendering to our neighbour that we surrender to God."

This passage helps to frame for me the ongoing discussion we are having in the Coptic Church about how to make Orthodoxy accessible for an American congregation. We are trying to find a balance between the “needs of the people” and our liturgical Tradition, but the needs of each person will be different, so chasing this vision of a “relevant church” will always be a moving target. Rather than asking how we can conform the Church to fit the desire of the people, perhaps we can ask how we can increase the understanding of the congregation to have it conform to the Church and the richness of its Tradition. The practicalities will still be challenging, in that we still need answer some questions related to the role of 1) culture, 2) language and 3) hymnology. In answering these questions, however, the end goal cannot be “how do we get more people to come?” but rather “how do we get more people to participate in the anamnesis of the life of Christ?” One element in that anamnesis is the Christ-like sacrifice of going to a service even when we do not feel that it is fun, or interesting, or directly relevant to us personally, but we see how it may benefit our fellow parishioner.
 
If we believe that God is with us, we must believe that he is guiding all things towards the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). He will do so for each of us, individually, in both the mundane and the sublime. He will do so for His Church, as whole, in both the short term and in the long term. May He help me never to forget that He is present in all things and at all times.