I also posted this brief article on the website of St. Basil’s (Austin).
“Know Thyself.” It is impossible to overstate the importance of this maxim, carved over the entrance to the Temple of the Oracle at Delphi, to the mind of Socrates, to the heart of Jesus, to the daily, practical reality of living as a Christian.
Which is why a central part of the formation which anyone seeking Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church will undergo is an emphasis on “self-awareness.” Self-awareness, for example, of one’s “bedside manner,” the way one “comes across” to those she is ministering to, or simply interacting with. The way I respond to another – a friend, a spouse, a co-worker – “in the moment” can reveal volumes (and layers) about what’s going on deep inside of me.
But, equally, self-awareness is the solitary discipline of examining one’s own life: one’s motivations, attitudes, tendencies, and habits. Ancient Christians practiced the discipline of examining the conscience, in which, perhaps before bed time, one slowly “replays” the videotape of the day. Why did I say that to this person? Did I really harbor that grudge? Did I really drink that much at that party? How can I choose to live better tomorrow?
It’s not about beating yourself up; it’s not about a “guilt trip.” It’s about being honest, and taking the first steps toward honesty. The kind of honesty which is best achieved in relationship with a trusted friend or spiritual director who has traveled further down the road than I. The kind honesty which my “addictive self” tends to hide from. The kind of honesty which is forged only in a community of love, service, and mutual submission.
“Heresy.” It’s a dirty word, one that conjures up all sorts of gruesome images (most of them manufactured by Hollywood) of medieval brutes tightening the noose around the neck of some young, free-thinking, romantic rebel type.
Sadly, though, almost no one knows what the word actually means. Heresy is not, much to the chagrin of popular opinion, simply some “doctrine” or belief statement which “contradicts” the Bible or some creed or confession. Actually, one measure of Orthodoxy is that nothing can contradict it, for it affirms everything. Heresy, then, is not simply and unequivocally false, but rather it is always a “half-truth,” taking some element catholic faith and bending or twisting it.
Haireisis is the Greek term which means “choice.” Heresy is what happens when a person or a community looks at the full spectrum of catholic truth, and identifies one sliver of that truth (for example, the notion that the Incarnate Word is a human being, or that human reason has been impaired as a result of the fall of man), and then so emphasizes that particular “sliver” that all the other truths which provide its context get neglected or eclipsed.
In a recent post I claim that Bill O. is a heretic. What I mean is that Bill has rightly seen that what it means to be a Christian involves certain “truth claims,” for example the claim that “Jesus is Lord.” However, he so emphasizes this truth that other features of what it means to be a Christian are forgotten. All that matters is the propositions which one has in one’s mind, and these are essentially a matter of private preference.
In a recent “screaming match,” Bill O. claimed that “Christianity is a philosophy.”
What’s crazily ironic is that he is right, but not at all in the sense in which he means. What he means, it seems clear, is that Christianity is a belief system which functions at the level of ideas, and which is basically a set of private preferences which people have a “right” to express, given that (supposedly) the majority of Americans are still Christians in some abstract sense. At least this much can be gathered from this silly “interview,” linked to above.
What is ironic is that O’Reilly is spot on in stating that “Christianity is a philosophy,” at least according to Peter Leithart’s book _Against Christianity_, in which Leithart argues that what the apostles, whose words are recorded in the New Testament, were describing is not a belief system or worldview which one has in one’s head, but rather a set of commitments to Jesus as Lord which then binds one into a particular community of fidelity to one’s brothers and sisters. That is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ refers to a way of life, a set of commitments, and a particular community called “the body of Christ.”
Hence, Leithart is able to label “Christianity,” which (in Latin-based languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish) as an “-ism,” a gnostic-like heresy. Bill O., who technically is Roman Catholic, would thus be an adherent to this heresy.
None of this is actually that surprising, since the privatization of the Gospel is the heresy of our time. As such both of the talking heads in this interview participate in it.
I only have one real question from watching this video. It is pretty obvious me to that what motivates Bill O. to display his colorful antics (such as using the word “butt” as well as alluding cynically to his own exclamatory use of “Jesus Christ”) is the desire to boost ratings for the ultimate purpose of increased advertising profit. Hence he is in no way arguing in good faith, and should not be taken seriously. That is, Fox News is a pathetic cultural joke far less respectable than the kind of sophistry against which Plato and Aristotle combated.
Please note that I would say the same thing about msnbc, although one must admit that the latter is largely free of the hypocrisy which characterizes Fox.
My only real question is this: does Bill’s interlocutor (David Silverman, president of American Atheists), whose position is far more rational than Bill’s but equally partakes in the illusion of secular reason, take himself to be seriously engaging in public discourse? Or is he, too, self-consciously participating in the antics of ideological consumerism?
I thought I had something on my blog about this, but I guess I don’t.
Gotta love St. Francis. This is from http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/francis.htm.
Because the body was meant to carry burdens, to eat scantily and coarsely, and to be beaten when sluggish or refractory, Francis called it Brother Ass. When, early in his new life, he was violently tempted, he threw himself naked into a ditch full of snow. Again when tempted like Benedict he plunged into a briar patch and rolled about until he was torn and bleeding. Yet before he died he asked pardon of his body for having treated it so cruelly; by that time he considered excessive austerities wrong, especially if they decreased the power to labor. He had no use for eccentricity for its own sake. Once when he was told that a friar so loved silence that he would confess only by signs, his comment was, “That is not the spirit of God but of the Devil, a temptation, not a virtue.”
Francis was reverently in love with all natural phenomena—sun, moon, air, water, fire, flowers; his quick warm sympathies responded to all that lived. His tenderness for and his power over animals were noted again and again. From his companions we have the story of his rebuke to the noisy swallows who were disturbing his preaching at Alviano: “Little sister swallows, it is now my turn to speak; you have been talking enough all this time.” We hear also of the birds that perched attentively around when he told them to sing their Creator’s praises, of the rabbit that would not leave him at Lake Trasymene, and of the tamed wolf of Gubbio—all incidents that have inspired innumerable artists and story tellers.
