20110105 Christian Orienteering, News, and an Interview with a New Priest

As far as Ridely’s “Rational Optimist” goes, it is a great answer to the pessimism about our future and our instinct to turn to bigger government for solutions to our problems.  I really like the book, but, like Crunchy folks everywhere, do romanticize local autarchy and lament the loss of communalism that increased specialization and integration brings.  Crunchy folks are willing to sacrifice some “efficiency” (which is usually subsidized!) for the sake of the preservation of community.  But this is not Fr. Gregory’s focus: he is most interested in what the book implies for Christianity.  Here, his main point is that Christians should be less autarchic (self sufficient) and more specialized, finding ways to create “an environment where everyone serves the needs of everyone else.”  In other words, persons and groups within the Church need to be encouraged and enabled to develop and apply their gifts and charisms and to enjoy the result of the same development and application in others (this is the traditional “corporate” understanding of the Body of Christ, after all).  This interconnected specialization “raises all ships” and makes for a healthy communities and churches.  It is a much lamented fact that we do not do a good job with this.  In fact, there are plenty of places where the leadership actually discourages this either intentionally (as in the case of those who do not want to try new things or give up their own power) or intentionally (as in the case of micromanaging or ignorance).

So far, so good.  But when it comes to applying these lessons to the parish life, I do have a couple of reservations.  Fr. Gregory uses the concept of economic integration to take on parochialism and the culture of self-sufficiency that keeps many of our parishes from their true mission and potential.  I agree.  It is just worth noting that there is some tension.  Theologically, (and this is outside Fr. Gregory’s presentation, so it is not a critique of his work!), there is a real sense in which parish IS the fullness of the Church, so there is a sense in which it IS autarchic and self-sufficient.  The parish (and especially the Eucharist which is celebrated there) is theologically complete. Now don’t go too far with this or you’ll run into heresy: we aren’t Baptists!  We are part of the broader Church with an established ecclesiology.  It is clearly a case of “both-and”!  Again, this is just a minor clarification.

Fr. Gregory focuses on the implication of the market for interconnectiveness because the temptation among so many of our parishes is introversion, an introversion that is not supported by such dysfunctional parishes in terms of theology, but for, the sake of (to quote Fr. Gregory); “authentic liturgical or ascetical or pastoral practice or even to maintain an ethnic identity”.  He is completely right that such things are secondary (at best) to the health of a parish, and that health requires integration and extroversion.  But while the market analogy does, as Fr. Gregory says, point to the need for integration and a decline in autarchy, it also supports the very kind of things that are typcially associated with the exact opposite thing.    Rather than being an excuse for unhealthy introversion, the market analogy suggests that such ethnic, cultural, linguistic, ascetical, and liturgical variations should be thought of in terms of specialization.  Not all of the specialized parishes will be viable; but it is this kind of variation that makes for a healthy market.  As with so many parts of our fallen culture, it seems that even such things can be baptized and blessed.

Let me conclude with one more thought: folks worry that “administrative unity” will lead to a homogenous Orthodox culture.  One of the implications of works like the ones Fr. Gregory cites is that such a thing would be counter-productive and completely out of character for America.  I guess the point that Fr. Gregory and I are both trying to make is that there should be variation, but that all of the variants must be both serious (from Finke and Stark) and integrated (from Ridley).    


Struggling with Our Weight (and with eating healthy)
It’s not just about self-control: some people are behind the eight ball long before they are culpable for their choices or capable of restraint.  LiveScience (via Yahoo News) reports that “One-third of 9-month-olds [are] already obese or overweight”  Given the effects of obesity on health and the correlation between early and late obesity, WE HAVE TO DO BETTER.  A while back we shared the finding that governmental meddling with incentives, what can we change?  Let’s start with our own lives.  Let’s try simpler diets with less processed foods.  Let’s make sure that the food and drink we feed our children are healthy; not just easy, cheap or tasty.  As a culture, we are killing ourselves.  Personally, I buy into the notion that blood sugar (and insulin) is a useful way to monitor and approach this.  The Daily Beast (again, through Yahoo News) has a fun article that supports this, going so far as describe the benefits of a “Paleolithic”diet that includes periods of fasting, intense exercise, and a low glucose diet.  I love this quote; “just because you can eat it doesn’t mean it’s food”.  Awesome.


The Need for Community – and how wealth stifles it
David Wilson has a great article at Templeton’s Big Questions Online called “Rich Man, Poor Man; Can affluence be a form of poverty“.  He challenges the notion that poverty causes social pathology and turns it on its head: wealth is a stronger cause than poverty.  It all comes down to connectedness (remember Putnam et al’s concept of “Social Capital”).  Wilson ran an experiment where groups could complete for grants and plots of land to build parks.  The groups from poor areas were MUCH more capable of working together than those from the well-of suburbs.  The interpretation of these results is that “human cooperation does not emerge directly from human psychology, but rather from practicing it in everyday life.”  Nor is family life enough; circumstances have to encourage people to work with people in a broader community.  When they do, they can get more done and (insert theological implication) they become more human.  Wealthy people can avoid being around others; many poor people need community to survive.  The last quote is classic, and gains huge importance when you augment it with the Christian understanding of what it means to be truly human; 


“I worry that the affluence of modern society is eroding our capacity to cooperate at any scale, small or large.  Those of us who can pay with our credit cards don’t need to cooperate, and so we forget how.  When the need to cooperate arises, there isn’t a psychological module that becomes activated-we just fail to rise to the occasion.  Working together is like the old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall – practice, practice, practice.”

I’d say the same is true for how to get to heaven, and the local parish is the best place to do it.


Science and Religion News:

The new atheists are staying on message – is your parish culture up to the challenge?  The reason I have links on the OrthoAnalytika website to scientistic sites is because we need to make sure we understand what they are saying, how people are responding to their message, and how we can respond to it.  There are many wonderful things that come out of their work:  we definitely need to be challenged.  It is true that much of what they say doesn’t affect Orthodoxy as much as it does fundamentalists, but they are attacking all of us, and we need to make sure that our faith and the faith of our people is strong AND REAL enough to handle the challenges.  The primary way to do that is to make sure that their faith is based not on socialization but is grounded on the solid rock that is Christ and His Church.  If they have a mature experiential faith, then they may not know the exact response that refutes the challenges of the new atheists, but they will recognize the attack as false and weather it just fine.  As I have pointed out before: research on public opinion has made it clear that there is only one group of people that are susceptible to manipulation: it’s not the people who are convinced of their own opinion (in this case, that Orthodoxy is the right; the “believers”); nor is it the people who don’t care one way or another (the “oblivious”); it is the people whose opinions are superficial but still pay attention to the cultural debates (the “manipulates”).  The believers know are aware that someone is trying to manipulate them and react accordingly; the oblivious don’t notice or care about challenges to their way of life; but the faith of the manipulates will be challenged.