Thanks for a great post! You make some very thoughtful points about the world we live in today. I know you teased more to come in future posts, but I must ask — even when we have lingering doubts, what else can we really do besides continue talk to God about those doubts and come encounter Him in the Sacraments anyways? Even if we feel like we’re talking to ourselves? Even if we don’t feel something the moment we commune? Because I remind myself that the reality is that He’s listening to prayers and that He is present in the cup, regardless of whether I feel something or not. On balance, I can say that He’s there and with us and is real in my life, even if I can’t say I feel it every single moment.
Sometimes I worry that it’s too easy to get hung up on needing to have 100% certainty or needing to have a spiritual experience, and I’m worried that’s a trap. What do you think?
Faith implies doubt, just as doubt implies faith. Faith can grow and develop and encompass old doubts. But this new faith will also have a new set of doubts. This is the journey. Orthodoxies of all types—both secular and religious—often appear afraid of doubt. And that can make them rigid, unappealing and even dangerous. Accepting that doubt is part of life keeps us flexible and more fun to be around.
Reminds me of CS Lewis' commentary in The Abolition of Man, aka the most difficult 60-some pages I've ever read, and in the Space Trilogy, which I've recently been re-reading.
Steve, very interesting post. Sometimes I wonder, however, how accurate the frameworks of secular1 (compared to secular3) is. Do we not believe in the past there was a sense among people that you could believe whatever you wanted then, and you should be on a quest to find ‘your truth’- just as there is in our postmodern world? For instance, the ancient Roman Lucius said: “religion to the common man is equally true, to the philosopher equally false, and to the politician equally useful”. I still think Charles Taylor’s framework is very useful - but I wonder how much of the disengagement with the church in recent times can be attributed to this postmodern, subjective search for the truth since (I think) it has been present across history?
Challenging thoughts but I am not sure your template is as neat and universal as you present. You paint, with a pretty broad brush, all of us into our “Secular 3” corner. I don’t feel so trapped as you imply we all are. Yet I do admit the faith/doubt debate is a faint background. Though my “enchanted”experience is dominated by a rational faith, the enchanted has broken through enough to make faith “real” and the truth undeniable despite my faint “experience” of the spirit and the kingdom. I will read this again to understand better what you are saying.
There are good points here about the unconscious (usually) way our strange socio-technological milieu shapes how we approach Orthodoxy, some points I've considered over the last year or two. So high-five for raising those kinds of questions which deserve serious consideration. I don't see many, if any, Orthodox "content creators" scrutinizing things from that standpoint, or looking at the broader philosophical issues surrounding all these. Indeed, a lot of supposedly traditional, "reactionary" type people are unwittingly building their ideology atop a very modern set of presuppositions.
On the other hand...
"The way we approach pop culture: we see it as inherently propagandistic, something that’s leading our young people away from engagement with the Church"
"...filling the heads of young people with Orthodox perspectives so they can be inoculated to the “secular” forces they’ll inevitably encounter when they head to college or [move] to a big city to start working"
"...they’re falling away in droves, not because of anything we’re doing wrong, but because “secular” forces are getting to them."
It's hard for me to see how anybody in the Church could possibly deny that this is the situation in the world today. Now if your real argument is that we'd rather point and blame somebody else rather than take responsibility for our own shortcomings (with the upbringing of youth), then sure, I'll grant you that. There's plenty of blame to go around and, like you said, it's a lot easier to say the problem is entirely Out There so we can avoid having to look In Here.
But the simple fact is that "pop culture" is clearly and blatantly propagandistic and is ideologically catechizing its consumers, regardless of the medium - music, television, movies, social media, news media, even video games - into a very particular worldview and set of values and behaviors which I'd describe as "the opposite of Orthodoxy," which even avoiding more specifically political contentious aspects, include unlimited self-indulgence, pursuit of Mammon, entertainment, and worship of the passions, en route to creating one's personalized identity through the entertainment and products they consume, and/or personal feelings and whims. Whether or not that's truly "secular" is just semantic nitpicking.
I don't know how an Orthodox Christian could possibly argue it's merely neutral or some such thing unless they're so deeply immersed in it that it's a frog-in-a-boiling-pot situation. Although in many ways I feel like I've been a lousy Orthodox Christian, and I'm not real great at fasting or other "denying yourself" aspects of the faith, an interesting side effect of my experience is that I've completely lost all appetite for nearly all entertainment products.
Music I used to like, video games, any desire at all to watch TV shows or movies, playing guitar and indulging in rock-star fantasy; I just don't enjoy any of it anymore, and much of what I used to enjoy just grosses me out now. None of this was the result of me struggling to deny myself pleasure, or a priest or internet influencer telling me Don't Watch TV. Rather, it was just a seemingly inevitable appetite change as a result of participating in the life of the church. I'm not saying this is going to be everybody's experience, but it was so striking that I felt it worth mentioning. Just trying to keep a prayer rule, reading Scripture, lives of Saints, and patristic writings, going to church and confessing, communing, and so on, seemed to bring this about.
It's also becoming increasingly inadvisable to encourage one's kids to "head to college or [move] to a big city to start working" when at this point higher education has exposed as a racket for exploiting kids who don't know any better into going into massive debt for mostly useless degrees while being catechized into the value system of an academia quite hostile to anything recognizable as "Christian." And moving to the city doesn't seem like a great idea either given stratospheric cost of living. In my experience living in the city, it just provided easier access to venues for kindling my worst tendencies; for instance, shopping for dumb things I don't need, a comparatively tepid temptation compared to the lures of bars and night clubs and all that, which is an issue for many.
My oldest child is still a toddler so I'm a few years away from having to worry much about this, but instead of going into crushing debt at age eighteen to be lectured by people who hate her, I might suggest the opposite: spend four years working on a farm instead! You learn about the natural world, how to take care of living things, become rooted in reality instead of digital abstraction, and develop practical skills which no stage of public or higher education seems intent on teaching nowadays. It's a win all around.
This is challenging and important, but can you please get rid of the gifs? The repetitive movement is distracting and incredibly annoying. I have to try to read the article while holding my hand over the little mini-seizure of a movie clip so I can concentrate on the words.
Oof. A challenging, but needed read. Thanks.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for a great post! You make some very thoughtful points about the world we live in today. I know you teased more to come in future posts, but I must ask — even when we have lingering doubts, what else can we really do besides continue talk to God about those doubts and come encounter Him in the Sacraments anyways? Even if we feel like we’re talking to ourselves? Even if we don’t feel something the moment we commune? Because I remind myself that the reality is that He’s listening to prayers and that He is present in the cup, regardless of whether I feel something or not. On balance, I can say that He’s there and with us and is real in my life, even if I can’t say I feel it every single moment.
Sometimes I worry that it’s too easy to get hung up on needing to have 100% certainty or needing to have a spiritual experience, and I’m worried that’s a trap. What do you think?
Faith implies doubt, just as doubt implies faith. Faith can grow and develop and encompass old doubts. But this new faith will also have a new set of doubts. This is the journey. Orthodoxies of all types—both secular and religious—often appear afraid of doubt. And that can make them rigid, unappealing and even dangerous. Accepting that doubt is part of life keeps us flexible and more fun to be around.
Reminds me of CS Lewis' commentary in The Abolition of Man, aka the most difficult 60-some pages I've ever read, and in the Space Trilogy, which I've recently been re-reading.
Steve, very interesting post. Sometimes I wonder, however, how accurate the frameworks of secular1 (compared to secular3) is. Do we not believe in the past there was a sense among people that you could believe whatever you wanted then, and you should be on a quest to find ‘your truth’- just as there is in our postmodern world? For instance, the ancient Roman Lucius said: “religion to the common man is equally true, to the philosopher equally false, and to the politician equally useful”. I still think Charles Taylor’s framework is very useful - but I wonder how much of the disengagement with the church in recent times can be attributed to this postmodern, subjective search for the truth since (I think) it has been present across history?
Challenging thoughts but I am not sure your template is as neat and universal as you present. You paint, with a pretty broad brush, all of us into our “Secular 3” corner. I don’t feel so trapped as you imply we all are. Yet I do admit the faith/doubt debate is a faint background. Though my “enchanted”experience is dominated by a rational faith, the enchanted has broken through enough to make faith “real” and the truth undeniable despite my faint “experience” of the spirit and the kingdom. I will read this again to understand better what you are saying.
There are good points here about the unconscious (usually) way our strange socio-technological milieu shapes how we approach Orthodoxy, some points I've considered over the last year or two. So high-five for raising those kinds of questions which deserve serious consideration. I don't see many, if any, Orthodox "content creators" scrutinizing things from that standpoint, or looking at the broader philosophical issues surrounding all these. Indeed, a lot of supposedly traditional, "reactionary" type people are unwittingly building their ideology atop a very modern set of presuppositions.
On the other hand...
"The way we approach pop culture: we see it as inherently propagandistic, something that’s leading our young people away from engagement with the Church"
"...filling the heads of young people with Orthodox perspectives so they can be inoculated to the “secular” forces they’ll inevitably encounter when they head to college or [move] to a big city to start working"
"...they’re falling away in droves, not because of anything we’re doing wrong, but because “secular” forces are getting to them."
It's hard for me to see how anybody in the Church could possibly deny that this is the situation in the world today. Now if your real argument is that we'd rather point and blame somebody else rather than take responsibility for our own shortcomings (with the upbringing of youth), then sure, I'll grant you that. There's plenty of blame to go around and, like you said, it's a lot easier to say the problem is entirely Out There so we can avoid having to look In Here.
But the simple fact is that "pop culture" is clearly and blatantly propagandistic and is ideologically catechizing its consumers, regardless of the medium - music, television, movies, social media, news media, even video games - into a very particular worldview and set of values and behaviors which I'd describe as "the opposite of Orthodoxy," which even avoiding more specifically political contentious aspects, include unlimited self-indulgence, pursuit of Mammon, entertainment, and worship of the passions, en route to creating one's personalized identity through the entertainment and products they consume, and/or personal feelings and whims. Whether or not that's truly "secular" is just semantic nitpicking.
I don't know how an Orthodox Christian could possibly argue it's merely neutral or some such thing unless they're so deeply immersed in it that it's a frog-in-a-boiling-pot situation. Although in many ways I feel like I've been a lousy Orthodox Christian, and I'm not real great at fasting or other "denying yourself" aspects of the faith, an interesting side effect of my experience is that I've completely lost all appetite for nearly all entertainment products.
Music I used to like, video games, any desire at all to watch TV shows or movies, playing guitar and indulging in rock-star fantasy; I just don't enjoy any of it anymore, and much of what I used to enjoy just grosses me out now. None of this was the result of me struggling to deny myself pleasure, or a priest or internet influencer telling me Don't Watch TV. Rather, it was just a seemingly inevitable appetite change as a result of participating in the life of the church. I'm not saying this is going to be everybody's experience, but it was so striking that I felt it worth mentioning. Just trying to keep a prayer rule, reading Scripture, lives of Saints, and patristic writings, going to church and confessing, communing, and so on, seemed to bring this about.
It's also becoming increasingly inadvisable to encourage one's kids to "head to college or [move] to a big city to start working" when at this point higher education has exposed as a racket for exploiting kids who don't know any better into going into massive debt for mostly useless degrees while being catechized into the value system of an academia quite hostile to anything recognizable as "Christian." And moving to the city doesn't seem like a great idea either given stratospheric cost of living. In my experience living in the city, it just provided easier access to venues for kindling my worst tendencies; for instance, shopping for dumb things I don't need, a comparatively tepid temptation compared to the lures of bars and night clubs and all that, which is an issue for many.
My oldest child is still a toddler so I'm a few years away from having to worry much about this, but instead of going into crushing debt at age eighteen to be lectured by people who hate her, I might suggest the opposite: spend four years working on a farm instead! You learn about the natural world, how to take care of living things, become rooted in reality instead of digital abstraction, and develop practical skills which no stage of public or higher education seems intent on teaching nowadays. It's a win all around.
This is challenging and important, but can you please get rid of the gifs? The repetitive movement is distracting and incredibly annoying. I have to try to read the article while holding my hand over the little mini-seizure of a movie clip so I can concentrate on the words.