“If you are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the
right hand of God…. Mortify therefore your members which are on the earth; fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil consequences, and covetous, which is idolatry”
(Colossians 2:1,5)
In the early days of the immigration of Slavs and other Orthodox Christians to America, many of them succumbed to the lure of the Episcopal Church. They felt it to be non-papal and yet having an external form of devotion much like they remembered in the Old World—structure, liturgical ceremony with choirs, incense, vestments and the other external elements of worship. They were told that since Orthodoxy was to an extent national, in the new nation the Anglican Church called in America the Episcopal Church, it was the place for them in their new homeland.
When that communion offered comfort and aid to those forced to leave their lands of origin because of the revolutions that overthrew religion, a bond of appreciation further facilitated the feeling of unity between Anglicans and Orthodox. Even some of our priests who should have known better would respond when asked where our faithful should worship when an Orthodox Church was nowhere near, “Go to the Episcopal Church.” Some Episcopal clergymen cultivated a friendship with our clergy, such as Dean West in New York City and Bishop Scaife in Pittsburgh. That communion has tumbled downward and little by little abandoned many of the Biblical and traditional virtues and values cherished by their Church of ages past.
Almost defiantly their leaders questioned Scriptural inerrancy, as in another Bishop by the name of Robinson’s attack on fundamental Christian tenets in his book, Honest to God. Long gone is the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ, real presence in the Eucharist, condemnation of birth control, abortion, lesbianism, and homosexuality. The final [or perhaps not yet final] action is in ordaining a gay bishop who can state: “Just to simply say that it goes against tradition, the teachings of the Church and Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong. We worship a living God, and that living God leads us into truth” [Rev. V. Gene Robinson upon his confirmation as the first openly homosexual bishop of the Episcopal Church]
Since then, however, whatever feelings of potential affiliation due to mutual visions of Christianity real or imagined have disappeared. The above quotation by the new gay bishop explains the end result of compromise with the sins of the world. It has always been done in the name of understanding and love—an understanding without discernment and love without truth, as our Lord demands: Tell all the truth with love. In a sense Robinson is forthright and consistent in rejecting the authority of the Holy Scriptures. His fellow homosexuals at least began with the Scriptures, explaining away the clear condemnation of homosexuality, as in the case of the visitors to Lot in Sodom and the demands to abuse them sexually by the male citizens, as though it were a breach of hospitality. Another such ruse is to claim that the commandments of the past no longer have a bearing on the present, as Robinson suggests: We worship a living God, implying that the God of Moses and Christ is dead.
More basic even than the particular violations of tradition, Church and Scripture, is the patronizing of Christians in these times. They claim to be exempt from all struggles with sin, because there are no longer the sins in the past, or else today’s “Christians” are exempt, like athletes in certain colleges who are not expected to sit in classrooms or take exams, because it’s clear they are incapable of handling serious academic work.
This theology of iconoclasm of spiritual growth towards union with the Holy Trinity is the antithesis of the Orthodox Christian spirit of unity with holiness. Tradition is sacred for us. Scripture is also. When we read the creation story of the human being, learning that we are made in the image and likeness of God, we understand that by image we are gifted with something God-like that cannot be removed; and by likeness we realize that we have this lifetime to become like God. The difference is that one is pure gift, the other is something to aspire to and set our minds, hearts, wills and souls to accomplishing by imitating the holy saints of the ages who have demonstrated that it is possible, or as they say today do-able. We are called to be saints. We bring no joy to our spiritual ancestors when we surrender to the age, abandon our precious heritage, forfeit our right to inherit the Church of our fathers, and justify it by rejecting the very possibility of growing into the fullness of the stature of Christ.