{"id":489,"date":"2011-03-26T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T21:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/03\/489\/"},"modified":"2011-03-26T21:24:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T21:24:00","slug":"489","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2011\/03\/489.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

ECSTASY AS SOLACE<\/span>: I really liked this quote from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, found via Wesley Hill<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Secularism is a religion because it has a faith, it has its own eschatology and its own ethics. And it \u201cworks\u201d and it \u201chelps.\u201d Quite frankly, if \u201chelp\u201d were the criterion, one would have to admit that life-centered secularism helps actually more than religion. To compete with it, religion has to present itself as \u201cadjustment to life,\u201d \u201ccounselling,\u201d \u201cenrichment,\u201d it has to be publicized on subways and buses as a valuable addition to \u201cyour friendly bank\u201d and all other \u201cfriendly dealers\u201d: try it, it helps! And the religious success of secularism is so great that it leads some Christian theologians to \u201cgive up\u201d the very category of \u201ctranscendence,\u201d or in much simpler words, the very idea of \u201cGod.\u201d This is the price we must pay if we want to be \u201cunderstood\u201d and \u201caccepted\u201d by modern man, proclaim the Gnostics of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

For it is here that we reach the heart of the matter. For Christianity, help is not the criterion. Truth is the criterion. The purpose of Christianity is not to help poeple by reconciling them with death, but to reveal the Truth about life and death i order that people may be saved by this Truth. Salvation, however, is not only not identical with help, but is, in fact, opposed to it. Christianity quarrels with religion and secularism not because they offer \u201cinsufficient help,\u201d but precisely because they \u201csuffice,\u201d because the \u201csatisfy\u201d the needs of men. If the purpose of Christianity were to take away from man the fear of death, to reconcile him with death, there would be no need for Christianity, for other religions have done this, indeed, better than Christianity. And secularism is about to produce men who will gladly and corporately die \u2014 and not just live \u2014 for the triumph of the Cause, whatever it may be.<\/p>\n

Christianity is not reconciliation with death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life. And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely an enemy to be destroyed, and not a \u201cmystery\u201d to be explained.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n

So here are some random thoughts prompted by this quotation. Take home what resonates with you and discard the rest as the styrofoam peanuts of my stupidity!<\/p>\n

One thing I like about this quote\u2013I like a lot of things about it, but this is one\u2013is that it may seem to contradict Augustine\u2019s famous line about how \u201cour hearts are restless \u2019til we rest in Thee,\u201d and yet I really don\u2019t think it does. Just as the Desert Fathers often seem to contradict themselves (let alone one another!) because they\u2019re addressing very different seekers with radically divergent needs, weaknesses, and longings, so I think Schmemann is simply not addressing the same kind of person Augustine is. I suspect each of us is a Schmemann-addressee some of the time and an Augustine-addressee some of the time, although we\u2019ll sway more toward one end or the other (I\u2019m much more an A-a, I think), so here are some scattered thoughts about Christ as comforter and as troubler of the waters.<\/p>\n

First, Christ always stands against contentment. If you\u2019re satisfied you aren\u2019t a philosopher, let alone a Christian. Christ, like the James Bond franchise, tells us that The World Is Not Enough.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we really need to hear that! Sometimes we are content to cultivate our gardens, to love the people we want to love and turn away from the shadow of death. An immense amount of basic, boring, necessary good gets done in the world by people who are contented\u2026 and yet that should never be enough for us.<\/p>\n

Then there are those of us for whom the inadequacy of immanent beauty and everyday love is all too obvious. We\u2019re like the people in the AA slogan, for whom \u201cone drink is too many and a hundred isn\u2019t enough.\u201d We\u2019re like the people in Chesterton\u2019s punchline, which was instrumental in my conversion: \u201cThe man who enters the whorehouse is seeking God.\u201d We\u2019re like the Bagthorpes, in Helen Cresswell\u2019s terrifically sardonic children\u2019s series, whose family motto might be Too Much Is Never Enough.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy for those who can suffice themselves on the incredible loveliness of this life to look down on those of us who can\u2019t. They can accuse us of ingratitude and of pretension; who promised us a life in capital letters? And so they can remain where they are.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s easy for those of us who do feel that both ourselves and the world are radically insufficient to make do with \u201ccheap grace,\u201d in the form of politics or alcohol or art or psychoanalysis, all of which are well enough in their own right and legitimate sources of insight and\/or ekstasis but none of which are as big as the need. All of these possibilities are erotic in some sense, but none are as erotic as religious devotion. (But then, what is?) And so we, too, find a million ways to remain where we are.<\/p>\n

Or to summarize this entire post in two sentences: A life without unconditional surrender is banal. Only in devotion to God can the ecstasy of surrender marry the solace of ethical love.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ECSTASY AS SOLACE: I really liked this quote from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, found via Wesley Hill: Secularism is a religion because it has a faith, it has its own eschatology and its own ethics. And it \u201cworks\u201d and it \u201chelps.\u201d Quite frankly, if \u201chelp\u201d were the criterion, one would have to admit that life-centered secularism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nEve Tushnet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ECSTASY AS SOLACE: I really liked this quote from Fr. 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