Fr Stephen Freeman has a facinating series discussing modernity on his blog http://glory2godforallthings.com/
A few of the posts in the series have been included in their entirety below. I highly recommend reading through the comments section for each post on Fr Stephen's blog as the discussions are quite interesting.
ps. for another fascinating series check out Michael Cannaverde's series "(Post)Modernity and Christianity" http://eremos--poustinia.blogspot.ae/p/modernity-and-christianity-series.html
A few of the posts in the series have been included in their entirety below. I highly recommend reading through the comments section for each post on Fr Stephen's blog as the discussions are quite interesting.
ps. for another fascinating series check out Michael Cannaverde's series "(Post)Modernity and Christianity" http://eremos--poustinia.blogspot.ae/p/modernity-and-christianity-series.html
The Modern Project
When I was doing a graduate degree in theology, it was not uncommon to hear discussion of the “project of modernity.” It was an academic catch-phrase to describe the social/philosophical/political/religious efforts to construct the modern world. The Enlightenment (17th-18th centuries) brought new ways of thinking into the mainstream of Western culture (and now the world). It newly imagined the meaning and construction of the State; it pondered and reinvented Christianity; most importantly, it re-imagined what it meant to be a human being. We are the heirs of that legacy. The most uneducated person in our society shares the assumptions of the “modern project,” regardless of whether he is even remotely aware of it. We are the modern project.
In the modern project, human beings are autonomous centers of consciousness whose choices and decisions bring about their self-actualization. I will explain:
We are autonomous centers of consciousness. My identity is rooted in the fact that I am conscious and aware. It is the center of my self and belongs to me alone. I may choose to share with others and make common cause with others – but I am defined only by myself. This is the heart of individualism.
Our choices and decisions bring about our self-actualization. Who I am in the world is a product of my experiences and the choices and decisions I make. Those decisions create my identity – they are my means of actualization. My decisions and choices are what determine the meaning of my life. I am who Ichoose to be.
When you look at these critical ideas, it is easy to understand why the primary driving force of modern history is freedom. This definition of what it means to be human makes a certain version of freedom the most essential part of life. Anything that restricts freedom becomes an enemy of individual existence and self-actualization. Only if I am free to choose am I able to properly exist as a self-actualized individual.
These are not necessarily conscious ideas, but they are almost universal in the modern world. We discuss “freedom” and “choice” without the need to define our terms and with a wide-range of social agreement. Just as certain Christian groups played a major role in the development of the modern world-view, so their spiritual heirs have become the dominant modern form of Christianity. Churches that practice infant baptism (normative in Classical Christianity), once the dominant practice even among Protestants, today constantly have to defend a practice that seems to contradict the most basic assumptions of human freedom. “Shouldn’t the child be able to choose for themselves whether to be Baptized?” Anything that impinges or limits choice seems dangerous or questionable within the modern project. A relationship with Christ is something that must be freely chosen. “The Hour of Decision” is a phrase that resonates with the modern heart.
Church discipline on moral matters (or otherwise) has also come under increasing scrutiny. Modern persons may associate themselves with a Church, becoming “Catholic,” or “Orthodox,” or “Presbyterian,” etc. But that the moral details of their lives should be governed by that association seems questionable to them. A majority of Americans who identify as “Roman Catholic” ignore the Church’s teaching on many issues – particularly those that they regard as “private” (sexual issues in particular). The Church serves a function in their lives, but only the private choice of the individual has the power to define and determine true identity. In such a world “Catholic,” “Orthodox,” “Calvinist,” is more a label, a self-chosen identifier, than a community in which identity and life are formed.
There is a civilizational clash between Classical Christianity and the Modern Project.
In the Classical understanding we are not autonomous individuals. We are contingent beings whose existence is a gift with purpose, meaning and direction given by God. We have value as persons, not because of our choices or our ability to choose, but because we are created in the image of God. Thus the least of us, including the incompetent and the vegetative, have true worth and dignity.
We are not defined by our choices and decisions. Who we are is the gift of God – it is a given. Its identity is a matter of revelation and transformation in the Christian life and not a private work of self-construction. Our choices and decisions are not unimportant, but they only have relative merit or power. In the end, we are God’s creation and our decisions only have meaning in relationship to Him.
The civilizational clash is perhaps most poignant at the places where modern choice and classical givenness most contradict one another. The most common points have been on the level of biology and relationships. The instincts of Classical Christianity are to treat biology and relationships as givens. Gender is not a choice. Family is biological rather than associational. Sexual relationships serve a given order rather than private needs. The instincts of the Modern Project are to maximize freedom and choice. Biology is real, but not necessarily determinative (thus some today self-identify their gender). Family is increasingly defined as a set of choices – relationships that we prefer. The givenness of blood-ties with inherent responsibilities are largely disappearing in current jurisprudence. Thus we have the “accident of birth,” which cannot begin to compete with “freedom of choice.”
The often maligned popular version of relativism (“if it’s true for you”) is simply an expression that maximizes choice. Truth that is not chosen is experienced in the modern world as oppressive. The Classical Christian world of doctrine and dogma is thus endangered as a set of extremely inconvenient truths. Why would it be wrong for us to re-imagine God?
The End of Civilization
Christian civilization ended somewhere around the time that the modern world began. The Modern Project has not asked how it could save Christian civilization – that civilization was its enemy from the beginning. The modern question has been: “What do we want the world to look like?” For how the world looks is a matter of choice. Thus Protestant theology (which is itself a modern project) has largely been driven not by deeper exploration of its roots and traditions, but by continued exploration and re-imaginings of the Christian gospel. Sola Scriptura was never imagined to be a controlling force directing the course of civilization. It was first and foremost a wedge used to dismiss the Classical Church and its Traditions. Like the American Constitution, Scripture has been “evolving” ever since.
Today Classical Christianity has not disappeared. It remains and is a thorn in the side of modernity. The popular media keep a constant watch on the Vatican, hoping for any sign that its classical foundations are slipping. Orthodoxy in its resurrected Russian vehemence is characterized as allied with a “thug,” and as thoroughly reactionary.
Meanwhile, Christianity in its classical form is set upon a difficult road. The temptation is simply to be reactionary – to see itself as the conservative “choice,” in which case the Modern Project will be complete. For if Christianity will simply agree to be a choice then it can be understood (and marginalized). It is, however, the Classical contention that we are not the product of our own choices, that our lives are defined by God’s gracious gift and that all things are relative to God alone that flies in the face of the modern world. It is the place of Tradition – something given that is not a choice – that refuses to yield to modern pressures.
The spirituality of Classical Christianity is that of self-emptying rather than self-choosing. It recognizes that life is, finally, always a given. The demands of blood and kinship are real and rightly lay claim. My imaginings and demands for a world of my own fashioning are seen as temptations that draw me away from the difficult tasks that lay most rightly at hand. The Modern Project has always promised a better world – and for those with the wealth and intelligence to profit most from freedom – the promise has paid great dividends. But the promise has also been a hollow mockery of our existence. For we are, in fact, contingent. And though we may imagine ourselves able to be something other than what we are, in the end the grave refuses to yield to our choices. In perhaps the greatest irony of all, the Modern Project now champions the right to die – as if we actually had a choice.
A Modern Conversion
A few years back I had a very enlightening conversation with one of my Russian parishioners. I had Baptized her and her family some years before. In the conversation I referred to her and her family as “converts.” She bristled and quickly spoke, “I am not a convert!” My thoughts were running ahead. I did not say what I was thinking but was mindful of the fact that I had catechized and Baptized her.
“Converts are people who choose,” she said. “I have always been Orthodox. But I was not yet Baptized.”
It was a revelation. “Converts are people who choose.” I had never heard the word used with such disdain. No American would ever think less of someone for making a choice. Indeed, some American converts imagine that their Orthodoxy is superior for the very fact that it is chosen.
It is a clash of civilizations. Not simply Russian versus American, but, more to the point, Classical Christian versus the Modern World.
In the previous article I noted this understanding: In the modern project, human beings are autonomous centers of consciousness whose choices and decisions bring about their self-actualization.
We consider ourselves to be the product of our choices and therefore value them almost above all else. We not only value our ability to make choices – we value the people who make them. “Decisioners” (a “Bushism”) are paid more in our culture than others. The people who make the choices are thought of as the most valuable people, those worthy of being paid the most.
American Christianity very early on began to adapt itself to the culture of choice. The Great Awakenings (late 18th and early 19th centuries) pushed a theology of choice to the forefront of Christian existence. To be a Christian is to “make a decision for Christ.” “God has no grandchildren!” the revivalists proudly proclaimed. Those who were born into the Christian faith and Baptized as children, but had never made a conscious “decision for Christ” were considered less than Christian. Baptism as sacrament was treated as “empty” ritual. The “personal decision” became everything.
As time has gone by, this thinking has effected much of the modern Christian world. Many contemporary Christians would think that my above description is “traditional” Christianity – even normative, with the notion of infant baptism being a cultural innovation of the Middle Ages and a degeneration of “true” Christianity. However, decisional Christianity is less than 250 years old, and is simply an example of the Modern Project in Christian disguise. It is not the faith of the Fathers (once delivered to the saints).
Doubtless, there is no human life without choices. My Russian parishioner certainly made a “decision” to contact me and make arrangement for her family’s Baptism. Why did she not see this as a choice?
It is not choice precisely that is the issue between the Modern Project and Classical Christianity – it is the nature and power of choice. Within the Modern world, choice is seen as foundational, the primary driving force of history and of reality itself. We are who we choose to be, and the world is as we choose to make it. In Classical Christianity, choice is peripheral, an incidental requirement in the course of life.
The modern convert sees his/her choice as constituting their existence. “I am Orthodox because I choose to be Orthodox.” Classically, a convert accepts what they already are. “I am Orthodox and I acceptBaptism.”
In the Orthodox service of Baptism, the candidate (or sponsor if a child) is asked, “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” It is interesting that the question is not, “Do you choose to unite yourself to Christ?” In the Classical understanding, it would be similar to asking, “Do you breathe the air?” We give assent to our union with Christ, just as we rightly give assent to breathe. To unite ourselves to Christ is to give assent to our true life. The notion of choice utterly fails to do this justice.
For the Modern Project, our choice presumes that there are multiple, viable options. I may shop at this store or that store. Where I shop is my own decision. I have actually heard contemporary Christians say that denominationalism is something that God brought about so that all people could have a Church that suited them!
The Classical Christian understanding is that the nature of our life is not a choice but a given. Our lives are contingent and only exist because they are rooted and grounded in God. Rightly understood, the “choice” for Baptism, is simply the acceptance of existence.
Life in Christ is inherently the right-ordering of our existence. It is not one out of many options. There are certainly many options for how to live in a manner that is contrary to true existence – but only life in Christ is true life.
Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:25-26 NKJ).
The nature of conversion in the Classical model is probably best illustrated by the structures of the catechumenate in the early Church. Those who wanted to be united with Christ were first enrolled as “learners” (catechumens – mentioned in Galatians 6:6). The period of learning included instruction in the gospel but primarily in the life of the Church. This period could extend for one or more years. Interestingly, catechumens were not instructed in the Holy Mysteries (Baptism, Eucharist, etc.) until after Baptism when they began the Mystagogial Catecheses (learning in the mysteries). The Creed itself was not even taught to Catehumens – but “traditioned” to them as part of the liturgy of Baptism!
Choice was seen as something playing a fairly minor role in the Christian life. It certainly had a part in everything – but the entire process was geared towards formation, not towards decision-making.
To this must be contrasted the modern Christian practice in which decision-making is everything and “joining” (however it might be sacramentally expressed) rather anti-climatic. The notion of formation is quite beside-the-point.
Many inquirers are put off by what might at first seem a reluctance on the part of Classical Christianity (Orthodox or Catholic) to admit them into the ranks of the Church. Classes must be attended, and some keep waiting for the “sales pitch” (that may never come). They will be told that “Orthodoxy is a way of life.” How do you choose a way of life?
Our choices do not make us better or worse. The kind of persons we are comes through the patient practice (or neglect) of the spiritual disciplines in the life of the Spirit. Those who engage in choice as a spiritual discipline only become proficient in shopping. I have found in modern missionary work, that catechumens must often be made to “slow down,” so that their “shopping instincts” can be thwarted. It is good in our present circumstance if someone is allowed to “become” Orthodox rather than to “choose” Orthodoxy.
For many, particularly those who still live largely in the consciousness created by the Modern Project, this talk of “becoming” rather than “choosing” will seem odd or merely semantic. For those who have begun to “become” Orthodox, the distinction will be clear. These words of Christ seem appropriate:
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. (Joh 15:16 NKJ)
Obedience and the Modern World
In the modern project, human beings are autonomous centers of consciousness whose choices and decisions bring about their self-actualization.
Few things make a modern person more uncomfortable than the topic of obedience. Many Orthodox read statements declaring that “obedience is the foremost rule for monastics,” and immediately thank God they are not monastics. Our minds easily race to horror stories of cult-like obedience and spiritual abuse. Some may very well have experienced obedience in an abusive form. Today, obedience is about as far away from popular virtue as at any time in history.
It is difficult for us to understand obedience as a virtue – since it seems to contradict the freedom that is essential for personhood. And freedom is indeed essential. In healthy situations, even in the strictest monastic obedience, freedom is never lost. It remains an inherent part of our humanity. However, how that freedom is manifest is quite another matter.
St. Maximus the Confessor is the great teacher on the nature of the human person in Orthodox thought. His teachings are the underpinning of the 5th and 6th Ecumenical Councils. He looked with great subtlety at the nature of freedom and described in particular the nature of the human will.
He described the will as a function of our nature. Some will ask, “What’s a nature?” The simplest answer is that it is “what we are.” Our bodies are the biological expression of what we are. The soul is a psychic expression of what we are. The Church holds that our nature is not fallen – it suffers no distortion. Were our nature distorted we could never be nor become what we truly are.
The will is that movement of our nature towards its proper end. Human nature wills to be human and it is freely able to will what is in accord with its nature. Our nature does not will to grow like a tree. Our nature does not will to burn like a star.
But there is a distortion in our existence. This is described as a fundamental loss of integrity – a fragmentation within the human person. We experience not only our nature’s will, but also the agony ofchoice. St. Maximus used the word “gnome” (pronounced “no mee”) to describe this “choosing will” (often translated “gnomic will”). The word gnome in Greek is normally translated, “opinion,” which seems to me to render the experience of “choice” rather well.
We choose because we like something or we fear its pain. This bi-polar existence, torn between pain and pleasure, is the engine that drives choice and torments the gnomic will. St. Maximus sees this as precisely the character of human fallenness. Our attachment to pleasure and fear of pain are what the fathers term the passions.
And it is true freedom from such passions that is the hallmark of the Classical Christian life. The struggle of prayer and fasting, the whole experience of spiritual discipline has as its goal our union with God and freedom from the cycle of pain and pleasure. We were not created for pain, and the pleasure which is truly natural to us differs from the pleasure which we now experience.
The Orthodox vision of natural human existence seems quite foreign to the endless Modern search for happiness. The map of the world in the Modern Project is (in theory) a constant movement away from pain and towards greater and greater pleasure (in its broadest sense). In America this is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence’s right to the “pursuit of happiness.” It is also a fundamental embrace of a two-storey worldview. In this life, the Modern Project would say, there is only pleasure and pain. These are objective realities, the same for believer and non-believer. There is no escape from the cycle, so we must work to maximize pleasure and diminish pain.
The Classical Christian world asserts a transformation in which our life becomes centered not in pleasure or pain but in Christ Himself. Pleasure and pain are relativized through the practice of spiritual disciplines. Union with Christ makes possible apatheia (freedom from the bondage of the passions). It is obvious that most people will not attain to a great measure of spiritual stature such that they will live without the passions. But the Christ-centered model gives the ordering of life. And it is here that the practice of “obedience” comes to the fore.
At its heart, obedience is not the destruction of the will, or simply “doing what you are told.” Obedience requires a union of trust with God in which we recognize that the direction of our life is a gift rather than a choice of our own devising. It is a movement of the heart towards God rather than an assertion of the self. This, however, cannot be coerced. There is no obedience with coercion.
But the Classical Model believes that in Christ the fullness of human nature is revealed. Human nature is not a project of our own construction, but a reality that is made manifest in our existence. Thus the “object” of our struggle is not something yet to be revealed by science, but the reality revealed in the God/Man, Jesus Christ.
For some, the distinction between obedience and choice might seem to be mere semantics. After all, isn’t obedience just another choice? I like the model of marriage (classically understood) as an example of the difference. In a healthy marriage, we do not “choose” fidelity. If a spouse is at the point of having to choosefaithfulness, then the marriage is in crisis. For the nature of choice is easily subject to the winds of pleasure and pain.
Obedience in marriage is simply living in the state of faithfulness. To be unfaithful is not a choice to be considered, regardless of the pleasure it might offer or the pain it might seem to assuage. It is this classical understanding enshrined in the vows of traditional Western marriage: “in sickness and in health, for better or for worse…’til death do us part.” Pain and pleasure are taken for granted and not brought in as objects of choice. (For those who immediately need to qualify everything – of course there will be circumstances under which a marriage is dissolved. That is a matter for a different conversation.)
C.S. Lewis, when he became a Christian, said that he did not then ask himself what he believed. Rather, he asked, “What does a Christian believe?” This is the model of the ancient catechumenate. The catechumens were not even given the Creed until after Baptism! The Modern Project has transformed Christianity into a debating society. The bulk of theological writing after the Reformation is an argument for one thing or another, opinions representing theological choices. The Modern understanding has greatly eroded the nature of believing even among those within “Classical” Christian Churches. Surveys in the 1990’s showed that over two-thirds of American Catholics held a more-or-less symbolic view of the Eucharist rather than the traditional view that the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. This is predictable given the nature of the Modern Project. In symbolic views, the locus of the “change” is within the mind of the individual. There, choice is allowed to play its essential modern role. “The bread and wine have meaning because I choose to believe it.”
I have occasionally been upbraided by visiting Catholics in my parish who are not allowed to receive communion (the Orthodox and Catholics are not in communion with each other). The protest is: “But Ibelieve that it is truly the Body and Blood of Christ!” For them, the important question is what they themselves individually think.
All of the sacraments undergo similar assaults in the Modern Project. For the individual and his/her choice to be truly free (and thus sovereign), things must be only as we want or choose them to be. Things only mean what we think they mean. Being told that we are wrong insults our freedom and invades our sense of sovereign privacy.
Classical obedience recognizes first and foremost that things are not as they may seem, but as they arerevealed to be in Christ. Two verses of Scripture illustrate this understanding:
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. (Heb 11:3 NKJ)
and
…we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2Co 4:18 NKJ)
The Kingdom of God, contrary to the Modern Project, is not a goal towards which we strive, nor something we are “building up” in our midst. Rather, the Kingdom of God has already burst forth in our midst in the coming of Christ. It is inexorable in its presence, not subject to our choices or preferences. The Kingdom of God has come whether we like it or not. Classical Christianity is thus not a “project.” It is not something we are building or working on. It is an obedience to a reality that is already present, revealed in Christ. It is not a conservatism that tries to preserve something that has passed. It is a way of life that lives in response to what is given in the Kingdom.
The nature of Modernity is that it can be nothing other than a project. The question is thus always, “What’s the project now? Where should we direct our attention? What can we fix next?” The Project can be as radical as a Marxist paradise or as modest as the pursuit of a career. But it is decidedly about this world of pleasure and pain.
The Modern Vocation
In the modern project, human beings are autonomous centers of consciousness whose choices and decisions bring about their self-actualization.
What could be more impossible than inventing yourself? What imagination, courage and daring would be required? How is such a thing possible? To the young our culture offers the incredible task of “becoming.” This is not achieved through apprenticeship or through a process of deep consideration. Rather, they are offered an education with virtually every option imaginable. Often these options include years beyond a bachelor’s degree and the incurring of debt that would have deadened earlier generations.
The “choices” made at this young but critical stage-of-life illustrate some of the absurdities in the modern project. Freedom (complete with its debt) has become a mockery of youth. In Paris, students would be at the barricades.
The historical context of the Modern Project has changed tremendously over the last few centuries. The “choices” of the early part of the modern period very likely created a surge in freedom at a moment whose potentials for reward were at a maximum. The settling of America (driven by land and gold) would have proceeded much more slowly had individualism not been a driving economic factor.
That same landscape and the economic success of America fueled the perception that the Modern Project was the key to happiness and prosperity. Hidden beneath the aggregate numbers of that success, however, are the failures of those whose “choices” were not rewarded.
These failures provide a likely explanation of popular versions of American Calvinism. Poor “choices” and their abysmal results “prove” the theories of the depravity of man and the righteousness of God. Protestant “virtues” of hard work, thrift and common sense were touted as the means to the righteousness of God and the prosperity of man. The same virtues continue to have a hold on the popular imagination.
A recent blog article on the failures of the American college system (by a young person who found “success” without college) offers a sad example:
You have to put some skin in the game. You have to find your niche and master it. You have to be the best. Conquer it, whatever it is that you want to do. Be better than everyone. Be a visionary while everybody else is checking the handbook. Take risks while everybody else stays cozy and comfortable. Be good at something. Then, once you’re good, become great.
It is the myth of the good choice in the new economic landscape. What is the vocation of choice? What is the proper role of the freedom inherent in human existence?
The classic Biblical summary of human well-being is found in Micah:
He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what the Lord requires of you: to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic 6:8 NKJ)
In more explicitly Christian terms – we were created for union with God through Christ. That union alone makes life “good.” Prosperity and success are not measures of the Christian life – they are merely the sounds of cheerleaders in the economic “market” of human competition. In no case are they the required hallmarks of justice, mercy and humility.
The marriage of American economic power and Christian gospel has, like the American economy itself, been a powerful voice for the modern project. “Self-actualization,” interpreted as “career,” has been the preferred “spiritual” path for several generations. “Career” and “identity” have fused.
I should offer a disclaimer. I am the son of a man who made “poor choices.” He was the son of a man who made “poor choices.” Indeed, I come from a long line of poor choices. I cannot think of a single individual among those whom I most admire who fits the American description of success and prosperity.
The failure of the Modern Project on the personal level accounts for one of our favorite pejorative terms: “loser.” Those who have not chosen wisely, who somehow failed to turn hard work into success, or are simply less than gifted become losers. Our culture’s two most dominant emotions are shame and envy. Shame is what we experience when we feel there is something wrong with us – it is what losers are “supposed” to feel. Envy is not covetousness – it is not the desire to have what someone else has – it is the feeling that resents another for having what they do have. It is the source of pleasure we feel at someone else’s misfortune. It is the Biblical “evil eye,” a source of “great darkness” (Matt. 6:23).
I offer no proposals for a new economy – only observations about the dissonance of our present model for the true Christian life. That the present economic order has been blended with a version of the Christian faith (representing a major distortion) makes discernment in all of this of deep importance.
The primary virtues of the public Christian life are kindness, hospitality, mercy and sharing.
But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful (Luke 6:35-36 NKJ).
It is the practice of these virtues that make us to be “sons of the Most High.” It is these characteristics that manifest the image of Christ being formed within us. Thus St. Paul offers this as the purpose of our work:
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need (Eph 4:28 NKJ).
The proper vocation of the Christian life is to be united with God and to be conformed to His image. Economically that vocation is defined by work, hospitality, mercy, kindness and sharing. These are the criteria of “success” in the Christian life. The pursuit of these virtues and the life required to acquire them are the hallmarks of Classical Christianity.
Unlike the world of the successful and losers, the Classical Christian path is open to all. We do not need to correctly pick a vocation and navigate our way through the constantly shifting changes of popular demand. Even the poorest of the poor is capable of sharing (statistically, the poor give a greater share of their goods to others). This is a manifestation of the Kingdom of God as preached by Christ. What a tragic caricature has been created in the failed promises of the Modern Project!
