Creeping Liberalism

[GregConstantine]

"I don't know why you ever bother to go to Confession"

Remember our conversations about how you come across sometimes. Please think about how this sounds. Thank you

 

[~Anastasia~]

My parents and my other older relatives who grew up in the mid 20th century, as well as stories about my even older relatives (late 19th-early 20th centuries) told stories about what people would do to one another because certain actions were considered "shameful". It was terrible how they treated each other.

Perhaps if someone is a member of a community, in our case, a member of a parish, and they are refusing to repent, and their actions are causing a great harm to the rest of the community, then I can see where "shaming" a person might be appropriate. What I mean by that is telling the person you cannot come here anymore, you cannot be a part of this community until you repent, or removing that person from a position of leadership (if they are the parish council president or something like that). Then and only then would we take such actions.

I was thinking that I might not know what you meant in the first case (and maybe I still don't) but in the second - I was attending a non-denom fellowship when my marriage cracked really severely. I had met with leadership from the church before that to try to get help and advice and didn't get any input that was useful. They had been divorced and remarried themselves. So when I was unable at that time to "fix things" they were somewhat sympathetic, but their first reaction (while I was still crying at the altar rail) was to inform me that I would be removed from everything going on in the church.

I accepted it as discipline, but your post reminds me of it. It certainly didn't feel like anything wonderful or encourage me in my faith. It's too late now to sort out what might have been right about it, and God uses all things, so no worries of the past. But I see your point with more personal eyes, and I think we should always prayerfully consider our response.

(Though I'm not advocating for accepting fornication or other immorality in the Church, by any means - I am actually reminded of another scenario, but since it involves someone else, I will not discuss it. I am just suddenly aware of the intricacies of this issue.)

 

[rusmeister]

I don't think that condemnation of sin is the judgment of God on the sinner.

Often in social stigma though, the offender IS judged and alienated. So I see no problem with society disapproving of sin. I do see a problem with Orthodox Christians following what many people do with social stigma though: avoiding people, shaming them, making them feel unwelcome and unworthy. If you have experienced social stigma (I have seen it personally with medical issues), it often extends to those reactions.

So disapproval of sin by society? That's not a problem (though I doubt that will happen with fornication). Following the general pattern of what often happens with social stigma could very well be a problem though.

I think we agree, then; it seems to me that you have been reading "stigma" as the alienation and avoidance of people, whereas I mean treating the behavior as negative and undesirable.

A definite problem arises when people come to think that no shame need be attached to things that we OUGHT to be ashamed of, and that is what I am trying to speak to. When I say "stigmatize", I mean affirm that the wrongs are wrong. We may keep people who commit sins other than our own in our circles, for we do not think ourselves "more worthy", but we mustn't approve of our own sins, nor the sins of others, or treat them as "not-sin". We may need to keep silence, we certainly need tact, respect, and love, but there are equal and opposite evils: pharasaical condemnation of others, on the one hand, and approval and smiling acceptance of sin as not-sin on the other. Recognizing and avoiding both is what we ought to desire. I think the former is ever-present, but the peculiar danger of the latter, when people honestly lose the sense of wrong, even within the Church, and loving admonition, or at least pointing out the desirable and the ideal, is more necessary in this day and age when people have lost all sense of the ideal, ideals of holiness and right living.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I do remember when people were actually ashamed if they had sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and attempts were at least made to keep it from being widely known. This does not seem at all to be the current social climate in the US though, at least for unmarried folks. Perhaps there is still something of the old shame attached to adultery, for some. I wouldn't really know, but that is the general sense I get from the handling of the topic.

It may be more of a legal concern though, not wanting to give the spouse "ammunition" in case of a divorce. I can't be sure how much each factor plays in to common concern.

 

[rusmeister]

"I don't know why you ever bother to go to Confession"

Remember our conversations about how you come across sometimes. Please think about how this sounds. Thank you

I think you're right. I apologize.
I was trying to say, poorly, that there is a real need and place for shame in our lives, and even reminders that some things really are shameful. "Shame on you!" used to be a common admonition, and often used very rightly. And the expression has all but disappeared. Psychologists have succeeded in making shame into a vice; whereas it was always rightly or wrongly experienced, justly or unjustly, now people can only think of it as a bad thing and any mention of the word brings out the reactions against unjust use that do not consider just use of the thing.

 

[gzt]

I think there has been some miscommunication here: "stigma" is generally used for persons or groups, both historically and currently, especially in, say, sociology literature, rather than for, say, actions. I mean, just look at the etymology - you can put a mark on, say, somebody's forehead, you cannot put a mark on "sexual intercourse outside of marriage". Second, the parallelism of the remark suggested it: the suggested parallel is that we should punish the people legally, but we should first punish them socially if possible.

It is also abundantly clear that you have a complete misunderstanding or misapprehension of what I'm suggesting. Please reread my posts carefully.

Hope that helps. Have a nice day.

 

[GregConstantine]

Glad you apologized Rus, but you also need to stop blaming psychology so much. Sure, just as anything else in the world, the field of psychology gets hijacked by the powers that be in our culture and society. But please remember that psychology is the scientific study of human behavior. Therapy, while a part of the field, isn't the only thing it does. I would say it actually only plays a small role in the field in general. Most psychologist spend their time doing research and running statistical analyses.

 

[dzheremi]

There is also the problem that if you want to get people to repent, rather than just feel bad (which is part of repentance, sure, but not the whole thing), shaming can have the opposite effect. Talking to people I know living all kinds of lifestyles away from any church standard, when it comes to religion, they very easily describe this kind of social mechanism as something designed to make people feel bad but enabled to continue on doing whatever they're doing, which of course makes it very easy to say "Well, I may be doing this, but at least I'm not a hypocrite!" (i.e., they are indulging in their sins openly and celebrating them as a good thing, as the world does, rather than going through the show of public contrition after the fact a la Jimmy Swaggart or other disgraced high-profile Christians from TV; keep in mind that for many people, such personalities define Christianity more or less completely.)

And I know that the response to this kind of post can and in some sense should be "Well of course people who are worldly like that would say that! They hate Christianity!" Yes, fine, but why? And who are you trying to reach? That's the point: Shaming probably only works (and then to a limited degree) with those who already agree on some level with the idea that there is something to be ashamed about. And as others have noted already, that's less and less common in our day, at least in Western countries.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

There is a backlash against Christianity because it has several features people don't like.....

Rules
Boundaries
Sexual ethics
forbids salad bar-style "all gods are basically the same god" mindsets
Sets the bar high for forgiveness
Stands against the world

We live in a society where people will cohabitate because there isn't one soul left who will frown upon it! You do it BECAUSE YOU CAN! We live in a society where you will abort your baby because nobody will judge you for it, people will pity you, and it's just a "right." Matter of fact, it's "women's health care!" You abort BECAUSE YOU CAN! A man has no problem walking down the street holding hands and lip-locking another man then taking him home to sodomize him and possibly running off to Vegas to get "married." Why? Because we have a society that will think it's cute and lovely. They do this BECAUSE THEY CAN. People have kids out of wedlock willy-nilly and are "partners" rather than married because society has a "no hangups" clause. They do it because they can.....People buy inappropriate content without shame, go to strip clubs without shame, have kids with multiple partners without shame, divorce without shame.

This shame-free society you and gzt want is already upon us. And it's yielding us some lovely fruit. I see the fruits of the vineyard in my classroom every day. My wife observes it in the hospital where she works. Yep, great stuff.

The beginning of wisdom and love of God is the fear of God. And we are called to have a sense of shame for our sins and failings. Shame, fear, caution, and other instincts helps us grow often times and to avoid the foolish impulses that humanity is prone to. Shame has kept me from doing some VERY dumb things in my life. Shame worked fine for a long time. This brave new world of no hangups and kumbaya isn't working so hot.

Feeling ashamed after sinning can be helpful and lead to repentance. But stigmatizing a person by shunning, branding them, calling them names, excluding them, ostracizing them, acting out violently against them, etc is absolutely unacceptable.

I know this is difficult for some conservatives to hear, but I believe, (as well as many others) that the reason why we are seeing such a backlash against what is perceived as Christianity in the West is precisely because of the way Western Christendom dealt with people and their sins. Some (Conservative people) may think they are innocent victims being attacked by these people who just up and decided one day to hate on Christians. I suppose that may be true for some of them, but for the majority, I'm doubtful that's the case.

One of the biggest mistakes we made in the West is to conflate Christianity with Conservatism. The West took a very legalistic approach to Christianity. This influenced how people treated one another when they sinned.

My parents and my other older relatives who grew up in the mid 20th century, as well as stories about my even older relatives (late 19th-early 20th centuries) told stories about what people would do to one another because certain actions were considered "shameful". It was terrible how they treated each other.

Perhaps if someone is a member of a community, in our case, a member of a parish, and they are refusing to repent, and their actions are causing a great harm to the rest of the community, then I can see where "shaming" a person might be appropriate. What I mean by that is telling the person you cannot come here anymore, you cannot be a part of this community until you repent, or removing that person from a position of leadership (if they are the parish council president or something like that). Then and only then would we take such actions.

 

[dzheremi]

Wait...are the feeling of shame and the practice of shaming assumed to be synonymous by some posters in this thread? Because I read Greg's post as being against some of the extremes people can go to in shaming a person, rather than being against having anyone ever feel shame for anything they do. In fact, he says right there in the beginning that shame can be a good thing in bringing people to repentance.

 

[All4Christ]

Wait...are the feeling of shame and the practice of shaming assumed to be synonymous by some posters in this thread? Because I read Greg's post as being against some of the extremes people can go to in shaming a person, rather than being against having anyone ever feel shame for anything they do. In fact, he says right there in the beginning that shame can be a good thing in bringing people to repentance.

From my perspective, stigma typically means shaming people, alienating people, labeling people, marking people...and not the feeling of shame or the disapproval of sin. The most recent explanation from Rus made more sense as a valid Orthodox perspective over the related practice of shaming a person that often comes with social stigma. All personal experiences I've had with stigma have shamed, or ostracized the person, not the related behavior (or in my case, medical condition). I agree with Greg's analysis of how we should handle sin, and it seems to be a fairly "Orthodox" perspective in my opinion, no matter what your definition is of 'stigma'.

 

[GregConstantine]

Wait...are the feeling of shame and the practice of shaming assumed to be synonymous by some posters in this thread? Because I read Greg's post as being against some of the extremes people can go to in shaming a person, rather than being against having anyone ever feel shame for anything they do. In fact, he says right there in the beginning that shame can be a good thing in bringing people to repentance.

Yep! Thanks for reading my post!

 

[GregConstantine]

From my perspective, stigma typically means shaming people, alienating people, labeling people, marking people...and not the feeling of shame or the disapproval of sin. The most recent explanation from Rus made more sense as a valid Orthodox perspective over the related practice of shaming a person that often comes with social stigma. All personal experiences I've had with stigma have shamed, or ostracized the person, not the related behavior (or in my case, medical condition). I agree with Greg's analysis of how we should handle sin, and it seems to be a fairly "Orthodox" perspective in my opinion, no matter what your definition is of 'stigma'.

Thank you too for reading my post!

 

[All4Christ]

A gem of wisdom about shame from St John Chrysostom:

Do not be ashamed to enter again into the Church. Be ashamed when you sin. Do not be ashamed when you repent. Pay attention to what the devil did to you. These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance. However, sin has the shame and repentance possesses the courage.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Greg, you can't rag on Rusmeister for having too much of a go-to "Chesterton" obsession without full disclosure of your own "you people never read my entire posts!" obsession!

Thank you too for reading my post!

 

[~Anastasia~]

A gem of wisdom about shame from St John Chrysostom:

Do not be ashamed to enter again into the Church. Be ashamed when you sin. Do not be ashamed when you repent. Pay attention to what the devil did to you. These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance. However, sin has the shame and repentance possesses the courage.

You know, I've heard the parts of that, but I'm not sure I ever knew they were part of a single exhortation like that. Thank you for posting.

And that's what I get when too many of my Patristic quotes come from bites on Facebook. I'm going to have to be sure to ask Father about planning to include Patristics into my reading plan. I've read far too little.

Thank you for posting this!

 

[GregConstantine]

Greg, you can't rag on Rusmeister for having too much of a go-to "Chesterton" obsession without full disclosure of your own "you people never read my entire posts!" obsession!

Well, if the posts are being read, then the "obsession" wouldn't be there, right?

 

[Orthodoxjay1]

There is a backlash against Christianity because it has several features people don't like.....

Rules
Boundaries
Sexual ethics
forbids salad bar-style "all gods are basically the same god" mindsets
Sets the bar high for forgiveness
Stands against the world

We live in a society where people will cohabitate because there isn't one soul left who will frown upon it! You do it BECAUSE YOU CAN! We live in a society where you will abort your baby because nobody will judge you for it, people will pity you, and it's just a "right." Matter of fact, it's "women's health care!" You abort BECAUSE YOU CAN! A man has no problem walking down the street holding hands and lip-locking another man then taking him home to sodomize him and possibly running off to Vegas to get "married." Why? Because we have a society that will think it's cute and lovely. They do this BECAUSE THEY CAN. People have kids out of wedlock willy-nilly and are "partners" rather than married because society has a "no hangups" clause. They do it because they can.....People buy inappropriate content without shame, go to strip clubs without shame, have kids with multiple partners without shame, divorce without shame.

This shame-free society you and gzt want is already upon us. And it's yielding us some lovely fruit. I see the fruits of the vineyard in my classroom every day. My wife observes it in the hospital where she works. Yep, great stuff.

The beginning of wisdom and love of God is the fear of God. And we are called to have a sense of shame for our sins and failings. Shame, fear, caution, and other instincts helps us grow often times and to avoid the foolish impulses that humanity is prone to. Shame has kept me from doing some VERY dumb things in my life. Shame worked fine for a long time. This brave new world of no hangups and kumbaya isn't working so hot.

Thanks Gurney, you know in a way this relates to what Father been saying a lot about "the world" in his homolies lately. Father says we aren't suppose to be like those out in the world, especially the secular world concerning Abortion, sex outside of marriage, sodomy, transgenderism, how we live our lives as Christians, the sacraments - especially marriage, glutony, etc. It seems some people here on TAW are more concerned about what the world thinks, and they want the church to conform to the world, so they want the approval of abortion as "women's health" , divorce as "freedom of association", and homosexuality as a "right" due to the secular concept of "liberty". Well no matter what gzt and others say, tee Church ain't bending over backwards to be sodomizied by "the world".

 

[gzt]

It seems some people here on TAW are more concerned about what the world thinks, and they want the church to conform to the world, so they want the approval of abortion as "women's health" , divorce as "freedom of association", and homosexuality as a "right" due to the secular concept of "liberty". Well no matter what gzt and others say, tee Church ain't bending over backwards to be sodomizied by "the world".

I don't know where or how you're getting those ideas from my posts. We must be careful not to bear false witness.

 

[All4Christ]

Thanks Gurney, you know in a way this relates to what Father been saying a lot about "the world" in his homolies lately. Father says we aren't suppose to be like those out in the world, especially the secular world concerning Abortion, sex outside of marriage, sodomy, transgenderism, how we live our lives as Christians, the sacraments - especially marriage, glutony, etc. It seems some people here on TAW are more concerned about what the world thinks, and they want the church to conform to the world, so they want the approval of abortion as "women's health" , divorce as "freedom of association", and homosexuality as a "right" due to the secular concept of "liberty". Well no matter what gzt and others say, tee Church ain't bending over backwards to be sodomizied by "the world".

I haven't heard ANYONE at TAW say they want these things to be approved as "women's health", "freedom of association", etc. No one at all. Some have said that it isn't a sin for Orthodox to support the legalization of some of those things, but that is a far cry from what you are saying, not to mention that it was a comment about people in general, not the poster's personal opinion.