“As He who called you is holy, so also shall you be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’” (I Peter 1:15)
Holy means separate, or apart. St. Peter as a Jew considered it normal for Christians to do as the Jews and make themselves distinct from Gentiles. We read in Acts 10 the change of his attitude and what it took to accept non-Jews as authentic Christians. After their return from exile in Babylon, Jews defined themselves as a people apart from all others. They spurned the attempts at friendship from the inhabitants of Palestine since their banishment. They defined themselves as a people set by the Lord apart for a special purpose, different from all other nations and people, the gentiles; and that alienation exists to the present. Russia, except for the century of Communist atheism, considers itself a holy nation. What about the United States? Can the concept ever be considered?
To understand the essence of a nation, one must transcend what they write and think about themselves and root out the assumptions beneath the surface of society. What is it that the people take for granted as self-evident ambitions for perfection? Have they some vision of who they are and whom they wish to become?
In America our self-definition is the myth of cultural, racial and ethnic homogenization. The melting pot. Canada is not as visionary, settling for a mosaic, a patchwork of ethnocentric entities woven into a huge quilt, a tossed salad with separate distinct tastes. Quixotic America is a gigantic blender of “huddled masses yearning to be free” who pay the price of such freedom by surrendering their distinctiveness—rather, holding onto it as best they are able, against the pressure for integration, doing their best to maintain their idiosyncrasy and to resist the compelling dilution process of the great American blender. Do the happy immigrants realize that they will pay the price of their prized citizenship at the cost of losing the first generation born in their new homeland?
To be holy means to be divine—the opposite of profane. A less pungent term is “secular.” In the call of St. Peter, the apostle assumed that Christianity continues the Hebrew definition as apartness. The other apostle to the gentiles, St. Paul, affirms St. Peter:
“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people: ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord’” (II Corinthians 6:16).
In America there is no room for holiness in the public arena. We feel this as Christian witness is yielding to the secular order to clear away all religious symbols from public places. Christmas has replaced Pascha in popularity and is now called the “Holiday Season.” St. Nicholas is divested of all his Episcopal reasons for charity and has evolved into a senescent character who for some unknown reason enjoys giving things away. Even the innocuous Christmas tree may not display Christian symbols in public places, nor can carols refer to the coming of the Son of God to the world.
America may try to do without symbols, but the elimination of Christian values and morals infect and pollute society today. The ultimate sin against God the Creator is the killing of unborn children. The count is now 47 million abortions since Roe-Wade became the law of the land. Abortions had been the hallmark of pagans. In America the warfare over the definition of life is still being waged. Homosexuality implemented by a combination of the media without moral compass as well as a culture of ostentatious wealth flaunted by professional athletes and entertainers have been successful in carving away the Judeo-Christian traditional standards while the religious defenders are losing ground.