Orthodox Priest: Thieves Hijacking the Language of the Christian Moral Tradition

10/4/2010

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earth. The moral vocabulary and concepts of the Christian West come directly from God through the writings of the prophets, the apostles, the Fathers, the Saints - men and women who heard the Gospel and lived in Christ and thereby imparted wisdom to us about who we were created to be and how we should live. We call this the moral tradition.

And here's the rub. We live in a civilization that uses the vocabulary of the moral tradition on the one hand, but forgets who gave it to us on the other hand.

What happens then when people leave Christianity and want to promote ideas about morality that violate the moral tradition? They have only one option: Hijack the language. They use the terms of traditional Christianity but mean very different things by them. Words don't mean what they used to mean. Language gets inverted, turned upside down. Do this long and loud enough, and in less than a generation the new meanings take hold.

For example, take the word "love." In our day any definition of the word never moves beyond the sense that love is a subjective feeling. This way of thinking about love has concrete ramifications. How one feels about the neighbor is more important than what one does for him. In fact, if the good feeling is not there, more often than not the responsibility we have for that person loses its moral force. We walk away from commitments thinking that if we don't feel committed, it is not important to fulfill them.

Of course love never meant that, at least in the generations leading up to ours. But if this adulteration of meaning is allowed to stand, the next generation will believe that today's understanding is the one that stood for all time. They won't know that the past can show them a way out of their confusion because they will read the past in the darkness of the present. When this happens, the moral tradition becomes a prisoner of the present, rather than its enlightener.

This point is not lost on the hijackers. One reason that ideological thieves hijack the moral vocabulary instead of developing one of their own is that it lends an air of authority to their ideas. When hijackers use the language of the moral tradition, they implicitly claim to stand inside that tradition. It's only a pose of course, but their pose fools many people.

This is what religious liberals like Jim Wallis or leaders of the National Council of Churches do. They are not really interested in traditional understandings of social justice or the common good. Instead, they have taken the secular reductions of those terms but present their ideas as no different from what Christian have always believed. People who don't know the moral tradition join with those who don't really understand the politics behind the hijacker's positions (and many people don't know either), and are led into deep moral confusion.

We have to fight back. We should not, like Dn. Fournier's questioner, cede the battle as lost. Christians can't sit idle and allow the secular or religious left to hijack this language. It is not theirs. And no, it is not tolerant, compassionate, or open-minded to let them think that they have a right to it.

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Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse is an Orthodox priest serving in Naples, Florida. He is President of the American Orthodox Institute and edits the website Orthodoxy Today

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: orthodox, priest, moral tradition, morality, liberals, heresy, abortion, catholic

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1 - 10 of 16 Comments

Jack Gordon
2 years ago
Mr. Krio: I can provide the relevant data, but this is a web site and we are writing mere commentary on articles published here. Since I don't wish to bore readers with a long dissertation they can find elsewhere, I suggest they (and you, of course) visit http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/, the website of Emmanuel Saez, the E. Morris Cox Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. There you will find the charts and data proving that under neo-conservatism the US has seen a huge increase in the gap between the immensely wealthy and the average citizen. (Not surprisingly, I haven't seen you post demands for similar backing for many of the totally outrageous assertions of your reactionary cohort, those like Vance who states above, "BUT there are too many Liberals in the ranks of the Bishops and clergy and they will not comply because they were accomplices in the Liberal Establishment hijacking Christian Moral Language." That is the kind of nonsense that regularly shows up here and, as I said, Mr. Krio, I can't remember your calling anyone on it.)
George Krio
2 years ago
Jack Gordon, for all your talk about data, all you provide is assertions. Your point here is not to make an argument, but to scream out "Unfair! Unfair!" like so many Progressive statists where moral posturing substitutes for an argument.

You assertion needs a lot more examination and critical thinking that you display here.
Jack Gordon
2 years ago
Amen, Rob.
Rob
2 years ago
I don't mind folks becoming rich due to their hard work, innovation etc. But what I do have a problem with is our government enacting laws (lack of regulations & tax policy) that only serves to make it easier for them to enrich themselves meanwhile the average working man receives no such assistance. I don't favor socialism or anything of the sort, but I'm not sure stacking the deck for the ultra rich is a good thing either. When folks like Warren Buffet are saying that it's time for the ultra rich to pay more tax, I believe him. It's an acknowledgement that maybe there will be a few less zeros because of the tax, but when you are dealing with the number of zeros these guys are dealing with, losing one isn't going to disrupt your empire.
Jack Gordon
2 years ago
Eric: Check the stats and you will discover that the data presented is correct. Economists have little use for personal anecdotes because they don't really tell us much beyond their small story. Global statistics, on the other hand, are an indication of what is really going on, not what some pundit or pol wants us to believe is going on. All data shows us that the disparity between the very richest Americans and the poor or even average income earner has widened appreciably since the time of Reagan; with Bush, the figures have grown absolutely embarrassing. What is curious is that there are still workers like you willing to defend this stick up. I notice, on the other hand, that many leftists who once defended so-called free trade have wised up and are now attacking that particular plan to further enrich the already filthy rich.
Pete Brady
2 years ago
While we're at it let's take back the "rainbow."
Rob
2 years ago
The best way we are going to take the words back is to live the words. But I have felt over the years that too much of our Catholic energy is being spent trying to influence politicians instead of converting souls. I do realize that our Chruch teaches that we are to participate in politics, but I have begun to feel like most Catholics are expecting the government to take care of all the ills of the world. it's as if we expect our governement to be an extension of the church.

Instead of focusing on what our government is doing or not doing, we should be focused on what people in our parishes are doing. We have no credibility on any of these issues anymore because the statistics for divorce, abortion, rampant materialism etc do not differ much from the churched to the unchurched. Too many Christians are living in the world no different from their non-Christian brothers, the only difference is the non-Christian catches the full game on Sunday and the faux Christian takes an hour out of their week to go to mass. Doesn't have a clue what is going on there, but there is no real difference in how each lives.

I wish my Church would take all the money it's spending on who knows what and begin to really instruct the faithful. Stop worrying about politics and teach us the faith. Trust that the faithful when properly instructed will change this country. Focus on creating vibrant parish communities with strong Catholics who live their faith. If you do that, all this other nonsense will take care of itself. Not having done that, well we all see the results.
azul
2 years ago
Jack Gordon, you are absolutely correct. Since the 80's and our folksy, grandfatherly President, Americans are being told that tax breaks for the rich, for corporations are good because the rich create jobs. That hasn't happened.We have story after story of the corporations cutting jobs and getting huge profits. The rich get richer and the poor are getting poorer. Our middle class is disappearing and we are allowing this to happen. The unfortunate part is that so many are drinking the koolaide, and believe what the right is pushing. When we have a strong middle class, we have stronger families, families who can welcome babies into this world. Growing up the Democrats and the Catholic Church practiced social justice. It's not the left trying to redefine the term, it's the right and unfortunately too many in the Catholic Church.
R. Ariel Vázquez
2 years ago
Thanks for this article, it is appropriate for a discussion in a Bible study group that I am conducting in my home church about "The Voice of God" (Psalm 29), obviously, if you guys don't mind. . .
John
2 years ago
Jack and Ed,

Maybe your little interaction should open your eyes to the fact that we shouldn't identify as right or left, that we should live our lives as Catholic, which is neither right or left. Instead of automatically jumping to the defence of your respective parties open your eyes and see what the people are saying about them and realize that they may have a point. As catholics there is no party or side that is perfectly right for us. The republican party has a slight edge because they are supposed to be Pro-life, and there is nothing on this world more important than life, however, we have to be careful about assuming republicans are pro-life because some are not.

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