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Friday, January 19, 2018

Politics Is Inseparable from Theology



Theology (Godlore) is the fountainhead from which all other thought flows, including politics.  Whatever one believes about God, man, and the cosmos, this will affect his view of what form of government is best.  This is plainly seen in the connection between Protestant theology and the [u]nited States’ political system.

 . . .

New Man


Historian C. Gregg Singer traces the line of influence from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century in his book, A Theological Interpretation of American History. He says,

Whether we look at the Puritans and their fellow colonists of the seventeenth century, or their descendants of the eighteenth century, or those who framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we see that their political programs were the rather clear reflection of a consciously held political philosophy, and that the various political philosophies which emerged among the American people were intimately related to the theological developments which were taking place. . . . A Christian world and life view furnished the basis for this early political thought which guided the American people for nearly two centuries and whose crowning lay in the writing of the Constitution of 1787.9

Actually, the line of influence extends back even further. Historian Arnold Toynbee, for example, has written that the American Revolution was made possible by American Protestantism. Page Smith, writing in the Religious Origins of the American Revolution, cites the influence of the Protestant Reformation. He believes that

The Protestant Reformation produced a new kind of consciousness and a new kind of man. The English Colonies in America, in turn, produced a new unique strain of that consciousness. It thus follows that it is impossible to understand the intellectual and moral forces behind the American Revolution without understanding the role that Protestant Christianity played in shaping the ideals, principles and institutions of colonial America.10

Smith argues that the American Revolution "started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg." It received "its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and much of its social theory from the Puritan Revolution of 1640-1660.11

Most people before the Reformation belonged to classes and social groups which set the boundaries of their worlds and established their identities. The Reformation, according to Smith, changed these perceptions. Luther and Calvin, in a sense, created a re- formed individual in a re-formed world.

Key to this is the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer where each person is "responsible directly to God for his or her own spiritual state.... The individuals who formed the new congregations established their own churches, chose their own ministers, and managed their own affairs without reference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy."12

These re-formed individuals began to change their world including their view of government and authority.

 . . .

Source:  Kerby Anderson, https://bible.org/article/american-government-and-christianity, opened 11 Jan. 2018

For the modern American constitutional system, everything hinges on the idea that each individual person is an authority unto himself.  He is responsible to no man, only God.  Authority flows from this ‘new man’ and his fellow disconnected, atomistic citizens to whatever government they wish to establish.  And this, as we have just seen, is based on the Protestant interpretation of I Peter 2:9 that all believers are equally a ‘royal priesthood’, and therefore no hierarchy is valid.

But if this interpretation of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ is false, the system itself is false and therefore dangerous.  And, in fact, what one finds in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers is an abundance of references to hierarchy in the Church, in heaven and on earth:  Hebrews 13:17, James 5:14, I Corinthians 12, Rev. 4:4, etc.

St John Chrysostom in his commentary on I Corinthians says,

1 Corinthians 15:40
There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

1 Corinthians 15:41
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another star in glory.

And what means he by these expressions? Wherefore from the resurrection of the body did he throw himself into the discourse of the stars and the sun? He did not throw himself out, neither did he break off from his purpose; far from it: but he still keeps to it. For whereas he had established the doctrine concerning the resurrection, he intimates in what follows that great will be then the difference of glory, though there be but one resurrection. And for the present he divides the whole into two: into bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial. For that the bodies are raised again, he signified by the grain: but that they are not all in the same glory, he signifies by this. For as the disbelief of the resurrection makes men supine, so again it makes them indolent to think that all are vouchsafed the same reward. Wherefore he corrects both. And the one in the preceeding verses he had completed; but this he begins now. And having made two ranks, of the righteous and of sinners, these same two he subdivides again into many parts, signifying that neither righteous nor sinners shall obtain the same; neither righteous men, all of them, alike with other righteous, nor sinners with other sinners.

Now he makes, you see, first, one separation between righteous and sinners, where he says, bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial: by the terrestrial intimating the latter, and by the celestial, the former. Then farther he introduces a difference of sinners from sinners, saying, All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of fishes, another of birds, and another of beasts. And yet all are bodies; but some are in more, and some in lesser vileness. And that in their manner of living too, and in their very constitution.

And having said this, he ascends again to the heaven, saying, There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon. For as in the earthly bodies there is a difference, so also in the heavenly; and that difference no ordinary one, but reaching even to the uttermost: there being not only a difference between sun and moon, and stars, but also between stars and stars. For what though they be all in the heaven? Yet some have a larger, others a less share of glory. What do we learn from hence? That although they be all in God's kingdom, all shall not enjoy the same reward; and though all sinners be in hell, all shall not endure the same punishment.  . . .

Source:  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220141.htm, opened 13 Jan. 2018

Fr John Whiteford also writes,

 . . .

As for the Protestant view of the "Priesthood of all believers," we would agree with them up to a point. St. Peter indeed says that "you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…. you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:5, 9). You also find the same idea expressed three times in the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:6; 5:10; 20:6). But you also find the same idea in the Old Testament. For example in the Law of Moses it says "And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel" (Exodus 19:6).

However, in the Old Testament, even though they were a kingdom of priests, they still had a distinct priesthood. And there is a very interesting incident found in Numbers chapter 16, in which some people began to assert that there should not be such a distinction. In fact, the basic argument of Korah, Dathan and Abiram is not much different than what you hear from many Protestants:

"They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?"" (Numbers 16:3).


If you read the rest of that chapter, you will see that this attempt to democratize the Liturgical Priesthood of the Old Testament did not end well for them.

Deacons, priests, and bishops have a special grace that is bestowed upon them by the laying on of hands (ordination), and so they have a distinct role in leading the people in worship, and performing the sacraments of the Church.  . . .  So we are all a kingdom of priests, but God has established a distinct priesthood to perform a particular role in the life of the Church.


There is hierarchy.  The philosophy upon which the American constitutional system rests is false.  It is, as we have said a few times before, a modern expression of Neo-Platonism:  Everything that exists is an emanation of the impersonal divine being called by Plotinus the One.


But in place of the One, the u. S. system substitutes the impersonal ‘will of the people’.  And as three levels of ‘reality’ emanate from the One, so too do three levels of governmental/societal ‘reality’ emanate from the will of the people:  legislative, executive, and judicial, or local, state, and national.  But none of these have any real independent existence; they could be wiped away by the One/the people’s will at any moment.  The only thing that is truly real in this system is the One/the people’s will (which wears the phony mask of 'Constitution').


As with most falsehoods, there is a kernel of truth in its attempted Trinitarianism.  But only the Orthodox political system has a Trinitarian order that is not the ephemeral out-breathing of an impersonal essence:

 . . .

Introduction

Seeking justification for their pagan Rome of unending greed for material riches and unquenchable thirst for global power that will end in the now foreseeable Apocalypse, some post-sectarians believe in a man called Jesus. However, we Orthodox Christians ‘worship the indivisible Holy Trinity, Who has saved us’. This Trinitarian Belief is embodied in the single phrase, Church, Empire and People, as also in the words Altar, Throne and Cottage, or Orthodoxy, Sovereignty and People.

The Kingdom of the Father

As we confess the Kingdom of the Father, so we confess the sacred Altar of the Church of Christ His Son. That is why we are opposed to Antichrist, whose prophesied reign is being prepared by Babylonian globalism, in opposition to our Jerusalem Church. For we confess the primacy of our Faith (Matt. 6, 33).

The Kingdom of the Son

As we confess the Church of the Son, so we confess His Incarnate Empire on earth. The Ruler on this Throne must oppose the Anti-Christianity of Secularism and fight for freedom, as we have just seen in Syria, for we oppose all centralized tyrannies and defend the freedom and sovereignty of the peoples.

The Kingdom of the Holy Spirit

As we confess the Holy Spirit, so we confess His potential to sanctify and save People living in the world from evil. We fight against the oppression of the Establishment elite/aristocracy/oligarchy and its bureaucrats/parliamentarians /hireling media, who deny the People Christ’s saving Truth and Justice.

Conclusion

The above explains why we fight for the Purity of Holy Orthodoxy against deviations, whether liberalist-secularist or ritualist-obscurantist. We believe in Christian Rome, the Sacred, which is why we so firmly opposed the documents of Crete, prepared by secularism and treachery. We do not confess and bless globalism through imitation of a mere human-being, we confess and bless the Kingdom of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Eternal God Who is in Three Persons.

Source:  Fr Andrew Phillips, http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/our-combat/, opened 12 Jan. 2018

Rather than starting with humility towards the All-Holy Trinity, the u. S. system begins with the presumption of ‘the people’.  The Abbe Sieyes shows the underlying principle of pride in this type of system in his essay What Is the Third Estate? [the Third Estate was the bulk of the French people who were not nobles or clergy--W.G.]:

What is the Third Estate? Everything.
What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing.
What does it want to be? Something.


From this inversion of the source of authority, the Holy Fathers tell us, will come the kingdom of Antichrist, the incarnation of the devil’s malice toward God, man, and the whole creation.

The peoples of the States of all sections, since their War for Independence from Great Britain, have believed that they are doing something new in the world, that they are regenerating man politically in a very real way, that Christ’s birth and the birth of ‘America’ are the two major turning points in the history of the world:  They are throwing off all the dark and backward authoritarianism of king and bishop that their Western European forebears knew and founding an ‘empire of liberty’ (Jefferson’s words).  But it is just this ‘non-imperial imperium’ (Jay Dyer’s words), free of the last vestiges of the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church, that is helping so greatly to prepare the way for Antichrist.

It is time they came to their senses.  Understandably, the States have no desire to return to the brutal feudalism of after-Schism Western Europe, but there is another option:  The Orthodox Christian tradition of fore-Schism Western Europe and Africa:

 . . . This is not a question of conservatism. Those who are conservative simply regret the pyramid [of feudalism--W.G.] of the past. We reject both the past and the modern pyramid, for our guiding light is the Age of the Saints of the first millennium.

In this way we follow the Tradition, far more radical than mere liberal and mere conservative. We proclaim the values of the Old West, the values of the Saints who stand at the root of the real West. These are the values of:  the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the bearer of God Ignatius, the holy family Sophia, Faith, Hope and Charity, the fearless virgins Tatiana and Cecilia, Lawrence and Sebastian, Anastasia, Januarius and Pancras, the pure lamb Agnes, Irenaeus of Lyon, Eulalia of Barcelona, Ursula of Cologne, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Martin of Tours, John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, Patrick of Ireland, Benedict of Cassino, Columba of Iona, Gregory the Great, Theodore of Tarsus, Clement of the Low Countries, Modest of Carinthia, Boniface of Fulda, Edmund of East Anglia, Anschar and Olaf and the great host of local saints, known and unknown. This is the lost West, the real West, the geographical West.

From the Service to All the Saints of the Western Lands

For one thousand years the light of the Sun of Righteousness shone forth from the East on the lands of the West forming a Cross over Europe, before they fell beneath the darkening shades of the Churchless night. Let us now return to the roots of our first confession of the Holy Spirit in the bright Sunrise of Orthodoxy, which is brought again from the East, and so shine forth the light of the Everlasting Christ once more.

O all the saints of the Western Lands, pray to God for our repentance and return, our restoration and resurrection. Tell the people to leave aside the things of men, the fallen fleshly mind and all its vain musings, for they are without the Saviour and the Spirit. And so, through your life in the Holy Trinity, shall we find salvation in the purity of the Orthodox Faith before the end.

Now do we sing to all the saints of the lands of the West and at their head the apostles Peter and Paul, the true glory of Old Rome, and, like stars in the dark night sky, to the constellation of the martyrs and fathers who followed in their apostolic footsteps, leaving behind them the great treasury of holy relics. O First Rome, who art glorious in thy saints alone, do thou return to the eternal faith of Orthodoxy through the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the Father, as the Saviour tells us.

O all ye holy women, martyrs, matrons and queens, from Old Rome to Sicily of the south, from Sardinia to Iberia, from Gaul to the islands of Britain, from the Celtic realms to the Germanic lands of the north, preferring the humble truth of the Galilean to the proud might of paganism, ye have brought the words of Christ to dumb men, raising up infants and kings to the measure of the stature of Christ, so hallowing your peoples and our souls by the light of the Holy Trinity.

O constellation of all the saints of the Western lands, who shine forth in the night sky, together we gather in your name, in praise to ask you to intercede for us with your prayers. Bring back the Western peoples from the inglorious darkness of their unwisdom to the Wisdom of God, that they may cast aside all the illusions of the fallen reason and know again that the only true glory and enlightenment is in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

Source:  Fr Andrew Phillips, http://www.events.orthodoxengland.org.uk/the-feudal-west-and-the-lost-west/, opened 12 Jan. 2018

All Saints of the Isles.  Holy icon from http://orthochristian.com/95232.html, 15 Jan. 2018

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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