Patriarch Calls for World Peace in 2013

In his recent Christmas Encyclical, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has declared 2013 to be a "Year of Global Solidarity" in which he hopes that the powers that be in the world will make strides toward global peace and the eradication of hunger. While I lack the optimism of the Ecumenical Patriarch with regard to wold governments, I cannot help but applaud his sentiments and, more importantly, his audacity. Ours is, after all, a radical hope for a true ideal, one which we must pursue even in the certainty that our efforts will fail.

Let us rejoice in gladness for the ineffable condescension of God.The angels precede us singing: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will among all people.”

Yet, on earth we behold and experience wars and threats of wars. Still, the joyful announcement is in no way annulled. Peace has truly come to earth through reconciliation between God and people in the person of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, however, we human beings have not been reconciled, despite God’s sacred will. We retain a hateful disposition for one another. We discriminate against one another by means of fanaticism with regard to religious and political convictions, by means of greed in the acquisition of material goods, and through expansionism in the exercise of political power. These are the reasons why we come into conflict with one another...

This is why, from this sacred See and Center of Orthodoxy, we proclaim the impending new year as the Year of Global Solidarity.

It is our hope that in this way we may be able to sensitize sufficient hearts among humankind regarding the immense and extensive problem of poverty and the need to assume the necessary measures to comfort the hungry and misfortunate.

As your spiritual father and church leader, we ask for the support of all persons and governments of good will in order that we may realize the Lord’s peace on earth – the peace announced by the angels and granted by the infant Jesus. If we truly desire this peace, which transcends all understanding, we are obliged to pursue it palpably instead of being indifferent to the spiritual and material vulnerability of our brothers and sisters, for whom Christ was born...

We hope earnestly and pray fervently that the dawning 2013 will be for everyone a year of global solidarity, freedom, reconciliation, good will, peace and joy. May the pre-eternal Word of the Father, who was born in a manger, who united angels and human beings into one order, establishing peace on earth, grant to all people patience, hope and strength, while blessing the world with the divine gifts of His love. Amen.

Joy to the World, the Lord IS Come

Consider the following thoughts from Leo the Great's "Second Sermon on the Feast of the Nativity." Here he draws that all-important connection which is so frequently lost in the diluted religious remembrances which limp weakly behind our Christmas festivities, that the nativity is a salvific moment. It is meaningless for us without the passion it alludes to. That the Son of God should empty himself of his divine station and become one of us has value only because we anticipate the climax of the narrative when he returns to his rightful place at the right hand of the throne of God, becoming the path by which we might follow to the same end.

Let us be glad in the LORD, dearly-beloved, and rejoice with spiritual joy that there has dawned for us the day of ever-new redemption, of ancient preparation, of eternal bliss. For as the year rolls round, there recurs for us the commemoration of our salvation, which promised from the beginning, accomplished in the fullness of time will endure forever; on which we are bound with hearts up-lifted to adore the divine mystery: so that what is the effect of GOD’S great gift may be celebrated by the Church’s great rejoicings. For GOD the almighty and merciful, Whose nature as goodness, Whose will is power, Whose work is mercy: as soon as the devil’s malignity killed us by the poison of his hatred, foretold at the very beginning of the world the remedy His piety had prepared for the restoration of us mortals: proclaiming to the serpent that the seed of the woman should come to crush the lifting of his baneful head by its power, signifying no doubt that Christ would come in the flesh, GOD and man, Who born of a Virgin should by His uncorrupt birth condemn the despoiler of the human stock.

This crucial meaning of the Incarnation is lost in token sermons and fashionable invocations of "advent," but remains as an artifact in our rich tradition of hymns, however thoughtlessly they are intermingled with Jingle Bells.

"Fear not then," said the Angel, "Let nothing you affright, this day is born a Savior of a pure Virgin bright, to free all those who trust in Him from Satan's power and might."

O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

So remember that what happened at the birth of Jesus was far more radical than our caroling and nativity scenes and wreaths would suggest. That little baby--born to ignoble people in a stable, lauded by filthy shepherds, visited by foreign pagans, and pursued by murderous politicians from birth--came to upset the world order so that the sick might be well, the poor might be rich, the meek might inherit the earth and sinners the kingdom of heaven.

Preparing for the Nativity: Archbishop Demetrios

The following are the thoughts of Archbishop Demetrios, head of Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, from his 2012 encyclical for the Nativity:

The joy and assurance that we have in our communion with God on this holy feast engenders within our hearts an enduring hope. Our joy in the fulfillment of His divine plan for our salvation and our assurance through our faith in the truth of the Gospel, give us a firm hope in His promises of eternal life, for the complete restoration of our fellowship with Him, and for the fulfillment of all things. This is a feast of hope because through it we see all that has been accomplished, and we are given a glimpse of what is to come. This Feast of the Nativity of our Lord affirms for each one of us that we can have hope and joy in any of the circumstances and conditions of life—hope in the transformation of our lives through faith and hope in the power of God’s love.

Preparing for the Nativity: George Whitefield

This passage is taken from George Whitefield's excitingly titled, "The Observation of the Birth of Christ, the Duty of All Christians; Or the True Way of Keeping Christmas," in which he reminds us that, of all things, the birth of Christ warrants celebration:

If we do but consider into what state, and at how great a distance from God we are fallen; how vile our natures were…when I consider these things, my brethren, and that the Lord Jesus Christ came to restore us to that favor with God which we had lost, and that Christ not only came down with an intent to do it, but actually accomplished all that was in his heart towards us; that he raised and brought us into favor with God, that we might find kindness and mercy in his sight; surely this calls for some return of thanks on our part to our dear Redeemer, for this love and kindness to our souls. How just would it have been of him, to have left us in that deplorable state wherein we, by our guilt, had involved ourselves? For God could not, nor can receive any additional good by our salvation; but it was love, mere love; it was free love that brought the Lord Jesus Christ into our world about 1700 years ago. What, shall we not remember the birth of our Jesus? Shall we yearly celebrate the birth of our temporal king, and shall that of the King of kings be quite forgotten? Shall that only, which ought to be had chiefly in remembrance, be quite forgotten? God forbid! No, my dear brethren, let us celebrate and keep this festival of our church, with joy in our hearts: let the birth of a Redeemer, which redeemed us from sin, from wrath, from death, from hell, be always remembered; may this Savior's love never be forgotten! But may we sing forth all his love and glory as long as life shall last here, and through an endless eternity in the world above! May we chant forth the wonders of redeeming love, and the riches of free grace, amidst angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, without intermission, for ever and ever!

I cleverly excluded the sections on how Whitefield expects people to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity: without "cards, dice, or gaming of any sort," without "eating and drinking to excess," and without taking time off from your "worldly callings to follow pleasures and diversions." Whitefield really knows how to throw a feast.

Preparing for the Nativity

Over the next few days, I would like to offer a few quotes to direct the mind toward the way the Nativity has been and still is celebrated and conceived of in the world. Naturally, in the States and much of Europe, the Feast of the Nativity has been replaced by the ho-ho-holy night when Saint Nicholas breaks into suburban homes to fill stockings with Apple products, but this turn in the observation of Christ's birth is relatively recent and largely localized. The real "war on Christmas" has been waged by those who believe that the essence of the holy day rests in public manger scenes and the shibboleth "Christmas" and who forget that the real manger was hidden away where the poorest of the poor slept on a ground of mixed dirt and livestock feces and that the baby within it was attended to only by a marginal minority whose names are forgotten.

Leo the Great is right to call the Nativity a mystery. The virgin birth, the shining star, the visiting magi, the announcing angels, the murderous ruler, and the supreme king converge in a moment that, truly understood, should bring us a joy that transcends gifts and feasts and winter ambiance and even that laudatory idol of familial affection.

The things which are connected with the mystery of today’s solemn feast are well known to you, dearly-beloved, and have frequently been heard: but as yonder visible light affords pleasure to eyes that are unimpaired, so to sound hearts does the Saviour’s nativity give eternal joy; and we must not keep silent about it, though we cannot treat of it as we ought.

For Leo's listeners, the Nativity was a familiar remembrance, one so familiar that they needed to be reminded how eternal were its joys. Now, I fear, we don't think about it at all.

The Demise of Sensationalism

Having given you a taste of the failed prognostications about the demise of American Christianity, let me share now an even more radical and even less true prediction from another article in the New York Times of 1927. In this case, the author is Edward P. Gates, the General Secretary of the United Society of Christian Endeavor. Unlike most powerful Christians of his day, Gates was arguing against censorship of newspapers and books. He reasoned:

In the case of the printing of the details of the Snyder-Gray murder trial, about which there have been numerous protests, I think the press is justified in doing so for the reason that the public obviously demands this type of news. By doing this the press will eventually nauseate the public on sordid cases of this sort, and the public taste will automatically right itself and demand less sensational stories.

Poor, sweet Mr. Gates. It's almost a pity that we cannot give him a window into our time to see how inestimably wrong he was. The lack of censorship in the press did not nauseate the public; it desensitized them. Now reality is not nauseating enough, and we must sate ourselves on sensational virtual stories of an increasingly graphic and increasingly public type.

The solution, of course, is not the restrain the press but to restrain the will. Unfortunately, the former is not only more easily accomplished but more likely, even with America's vaunted freedom of the press. Humanity will let go of freedom before it will let go of sin, an irony and a paradox.

[The Execution of Ruth Snyder - Tom Howard, New York Daily Times, Jan. 12, 1928]

The Demise of American Christianity

Legendary newsman Elmer Davis offered these thoughts on the nature of American anti-Christianity:

This, after all, is the most extraordinary of recent religious phenomena--the welding together of assorted disgrugtlements [with Christianity] into a new church as thoroughly regimented as any Christian body and quite as intolerant. The intolerance has to be taken out in talk at present, other religions controlling the secular arm: but if Mercurianity [disgruntlment with Christianity] keeps on going it is likely to be the State church of America within a couple of decades.

Already it is as strong in numbers and as much stronger in influence, as was Christianity at the beginning of the reign of Constantine. Like fourth-century Christianity it is the slick new city religion, still suspect on the farm; like Christianity it is a sycretion [sic] of diverse elements held together by a fanatical refusal to compromise with older creeds and a firm conviction of its monopoly on salvation. And like Christianity its cohesion is powerfully aided by a ritual language which enables true believers to recognize each other as surely as members of the Loyal Order of Moose.

On the one hand, it is remarkable that a description published in the New York Times in 1927 should remain so uncannily accurate in describing the quasi-religious expression of irreligion in America. On the other hand, it is equally noteworthy that Davis's prediction that a "couple of decades" would see positive irreligion become the state church of America has not come true. Not even close. Irreligion may be on the rise statistically, but not the kind of militant irreligion typified by groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Religious thought and behavior, and Christianity in particular, remain alive and well in America, nearly a century after Davis could foresee their eclipse by "Mercurianity." It should be a lesson against too intense an alarmist tendency in the way we assess faith in this country.