Power and Influence in Unity

“All who have separated themselves from the people of the lands to adhere to the law of God—enter into an oath—.We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons” (Nehemiah 9:28,30)

It’s troubling the way that the Orthodox Christians in America are so divided into ethnic jurisdictions and fragmented into clusters of separated communities. Jews in our nation don’t outnumber our greater spiritual family, yet their impact on the policies of our country is overwhelming, far greater than their numbers, while we are hardly noticed as an entity to take into account by the country’s leaders at any level.

The founding fathers of our nation were concerned that the Roman Catholic Church might have an influence on America that could compromise the basic premise of separation of Church and state. That fear even arose when John F. Kennedy ran for President. What serious politician would not take into account the values and morals of those who are members of that communion?

I thought of it one recent day as I was invited to attend a gathering of clergy persons from the wide array of religions in Greater Cleveland. The community is mixed ethnically and racially; however, the blacks are in the majority. From the stormy era of the 1960’s when they were creating disturbances in major cities in order to assert their identity and express their feelings in violent ways to the new millennium, they, like the Jews, have learned how to coalesce around common concerns and to make the government at all levels serve their interests. They imitated the Jews in banding together, then finding and focusing on an agenda that enhances their causes. It’s the American way. This is how government in a democracy works.

Protestant Christians from all jurisdictions calling themselves Evangelicals find they have common interests that impact upon the political system, such as anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, family values and other basic Biblical ethics. They too are making their own concerns felt. They have learned the lesson from Jews and blacks that the way to hold fast to traditional spiritual values and oppose the humanist, atheistic and agnostic challenges to the Christian virtues at the base of this nation’s beliefs is not to stand apart from the political system, but to influence our lawmakers and elected officials in direct, even confrontational ways.

We Orthodox Christians share most if not all of the Evangelical principles that are Bible based and beneficial to human welfare, but our voices are not heard. Is that the best we can do? Are we destined to be passed over and ignored by the nation’s leaders and media? Clearly our morals and value system differ from mainstream Protestantism and Evangelicalism in some respects, but what if anything will we do about clarifying and proclaiming what it is that we believe this civilization ought to be doing to achieve the will of God in our time?

A large cause of our divisions is influence from abroad. The mother churches of Orthodoxy are not willing to surrender their control in our land—most notably the Patriarch of Constan-tinople. But others also have little interest in our plight of separation into jurisdictions with no overarching leadership. We are handicapped by the perception of being but a smattering of ethnic entities with long chains connected across the Atlantic Ocean. We are weak because of it, and bereft of influence. A strong united Orthodox American Church would help our sister churches abroad—addressing the plight of Turkish occupation of Cyprus, the faith divisions in Slav lands, or the fate of Christian minorities in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the Near East. I’ve prayed for a united Orthodox Church of America ever since ordination. I wonder if I shall see it in my lifetime.