What makes men be attracted by Orthodoxy?

[-Sasha-]

I'm not sure that kind of caricature is entirely accurate (maybe with some), but I do think that the West in general has lost or obscured the idea of "Christus Victor", the victorious Christ Who has conquered death through the cross, and vanquished it forever, offering life to those who are in the tombs and to all of us. While there is a great deal of emphasis on Christ's redemption of mankind on the cross in Catholicism, for instance, it is generally the form of the suffering servant that receives the most attention. That's definitely not wrong (I've learned to be more careful using that word recently, thanks to EO people here), because Christ was indeed a suffering servant (though I like how I've heard the EO put it, that His passion was a "passionless passion", in that though He suffered and died, nothing controlled Him), but as a matter of emphasis, I could certainly see why a victorious, strong Christ Who conquers and liberates is more attractive to men (but maybe not only men? I'm not a woman, so I can't say) than One Who is seen primarily in pitiful/pitiable terms and depictions.

I've made the point before relatively recently that this is a change within Roman Catholicism itself sometime in the 12th-13th centuries or so (or at least so far as I could find in their hymns), when for whatever reason feelings took over to some greater degree than they had been observed before, and so you don't seem to find the distinctly feelings-based devotions like that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus until around that time (e.g., the writings of Bonaventure, who died in 1274, were apparently a precursor to the modern devotion).

This is all too late for me, but it is kind of interesting in a 'what not to do' sort of way.

Just an anecdotal tidbit, before I found out that Eastern Orthodoxy existed I had never heard that Christ went into hell before His resurrection, let alone anything about victory or triumph.

 

[dzheremi]

Just an anecdotal tidbit, before I found out that Eastern Orthodoxy existed I had never heard that Christ went into hell before His resurrection, let alone anything about victory or triumph.

I was RC before discovering the Coptic Orthodox Church, and the difference is vast. I did hear about Christ's descent into hell, but it was not discussed in any amount of depth, and the image that seemed to be preferred was not the victorious Christ, but the sacrificial servant. Again, I don't think it's wrong, but it's a matter of emphasis, and I think if the RCC and other western churches want to attract men (back) to services, it's one they could stand to be more balanced about.

And, y'know...maybe get some better, theologically stronger hymns for the crucifixion. Bring back ones from their own heritage, like Crucem Sanctam Subiit (He ascended to the Holy Cross), and sing it appropriately, with strength!

^ Yes! And the video (made by a Coptic person) also features a montage of warrior saints, which is appropriate in the context of Western Christian history since this hymn was apparently sung by the Knights Templar in the 12th century.

^ No! Do I even need to explain? Twinkly piano nonsense and a guy who sounds like he's been on hormone blockers specifically for the recording session. (Sorry to anyone who likes this stuff, but good grief...it's a weepy, wimpy ballad, all about feelings. You could make it be about how the singer's dog died and it would have the same tone. Since when did Henry Gross of "Shannon" fame start writing hymns?)

 

[Not David]

I was RC before discovering the Coptic Orthodox Church, and the difference is vast. I did hear about Christ's descent into hell, but it was not discussed in any amount of depth, and the image that seemed to be preferred was not the victorious Christ, but the sacrificial servant. Again, I don't think it's wrong, but it's a matter of emphasis, and I think if the RCC and other western churches want to attract men (back) to services, it's one they could stand to be more balanced about.

And, y'know...maybe get some better, theologically stronger hymns for the crucifixion. Bring back ones from their own heritage, like Crucem Sanctam Subiit (He ascended to the Holy Cross), and sing it appropriately, with strength!

^ Yes! And the video (made by a Coptic person) also features a montage of warrior saints, which is appropriate in the context of Western Christian history since this hymn was apparently sung by the Knights Templar in the 12th century.

^ No! Do I even need to explain? Twinkly piano nonsense and a guy who sounds like he's been on hormone blockers specifically for the recording session. (Sorry to anyone who likes this stuff, but good grief...it's a weepy, wimpy ballad, all about feelings. You could make it be about how the singer's dog died and it would have the same tone. Since when did Henry Gross of "Shannon" fame start writing hymns?)

What about Dies Irae?
It sounds so epic.

 

[dzheremi]

I don't know that one. I don't think the point is 'epicness', but rather that they've lost something that they could recover which could help connect to men who are disaffected by the feminization of western Christianity. I mean, some people find worship songs full of rock guitars and yelping about how Jesus makes them feel to be 'epic', so the point is to get away from feelings as the arbiter of anything and back to theologically sound hymns and their proper settings.

I pray that they do it, but it seems very unlikely except in pockets here and there. They have not changed their way of being (ontology) as they would have to in order to even really address this issue. Fittingly, some very masculine leadership (you know, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" -- and really stick the no!) is probably needed and very lacking. We have all seen the squishness of the current Pope of Rome, so there's no need for further comment. Kyrie Eleison.

 

[Not David]

I'm not sure that kind of caricature is entirely accurate (maybe with some), but I do think that the West in general has lost or obscured the idea of "Christus Victor", the victorious Christ Who has conquered death through the cross, and vanquished it forever, offering life to those who are in the tombs and to all of us. While there is a great deal of emphasis on Christ's redemption of mankind on the cross in Catholicism, for instance, it is generally the form of the suffering servant that receives the most attention. That's definitely not wrong (I've learned to be more careful using that word recently, thanks to EO people here), because Christ was indeed a suffering servant (though I like how I've heard the EO put it, that His passion was a "passionless passion", in that though He suffered and died, nothing controlled Him), but as a matter of emphasis, I could certainly see why a victorious, strong Christ Who conquers and liberates is more attractive to men (but maybe not only men? I'm not a woman, so I can't say) than One Who is seen primarily in pitiful/pitiable terms and depictions.

I've made the point before relatively recently that this is a change within Roman Catholicism itself sometime in the 12th-13th centuries or so (or at least so far as I could find in their hymns), when for whatever reason feelings took over to some greater degree than they had been observed before, and so you don't seem to find the distinctly feelings-based devotions like that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus until around that time (e.g., the writings of Bonaventure, who died in 1274, were apparently a precursor to the modern devotion).

This is all too late for me, but it is kind of interesting in a 'what not to do' sort of way.

Your fellow OO shared an article that talks about feminization starting with the Roman Catholic :

"In the New Testament, Jesus is compared to a bridegroom who’s going to come for his bride – his followers. The bride symbolizes the church as a whole.

But in the Middle Ages, female mystics, following the lead of Catholic thinkers like Bernard of Clairvaux, began developing an interpretation of the bridegroom/bride relationship as representing that which existed not only between Christ and the collective church, but Christ and the individual soul. Jesus became not only a global savior, but a personal lover, whose union with believers was described by Christian mystics with erotic imagery. Drawing on the Old Testament’s Song of Songs, but again, using it as an allegory to describe God’s relationship with an individual, rather than with his entire people (as it had traditionally been interpreted), they developed a new way for the Christian to relate to Christ – one marked by intimate longing.

For example, the German nun Margareta Ebna (1291-1351) described Jesus as piercing her “with a swift shot from His spear of love” and exulted in feeling his “wondrous powerful thrusts against my heart,” though she complained that “ometimes I could not endure it when the strong thrusts came against me for they harmed my insides so that I became greatly swollen like a woman great with child.”

The idea of Christian-as-Bride-of-Christ would migrate from Catholicism to Protestantism..."

 

[dzheremi]

That seems accurate to me. I honestly don't know all of the people involved, but it does explain why the Catholic 'mystics' like Theresa of Lisieux creeped me out so much when I tried to read them years ago, when I was trying to save my faith as a Roman Catholic. Ugh. Lord have mercy.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Roman Catholicism....Catholic Answers Forum, remember them days, Jeremy?

That seems accurate to me. I honestly don't know all of the people involved, but it does explain why the Catholic 'mystics' like Theresa of Lisieux creeped me out so much when I tried to read them years ago, when I was trying to save my faith as a Roman Catholic. Ugh. Lord have mercy.

 

[Not David]

I don't know that one. I don't think the point is 'epicness', but rather that they've lost something that they could recover which could help connect to men who are disaffected by the feminization of western Christianity. I mean, some people find worship songs full of rock guitars and yelping about how Jesus makes them feel to be 'epic', so the point is to get away from feelings as the arbiter of anything and back to theologically sound hymns and their proper settings.

I pray that they do it, but it seems very unlikely except in pockets here and there. They have not changed their way of being (ontology) as they would have to in order to even really address this issue. Fittingly, some very masculine leadership (you know, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" -- and really stick the no!) is probably needed and very lacking. We have all seen the squishness of the current Pope of Rome, so there's no need for further comment. Kyrie Eleison.

There is a section talking about lack of masculine ministers but I will provide one quote:

As 19th century minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson explained, these dual tracks were encouraged even as boys were growing up:

“One of the most potent causes of the ill-concealed alienation between the clergy and the people, in our community, is the supposed deficiency, on the part of the former, of a vigorous, manly life. It must be confessed that our saints suffer greatly from this moral and physical anhaemia, this bloodlessness, which separates them, more effectually than a cloister, from the strong life of the age. What satirists upon religion are those parents who say of their pallid, puny, sedentary, lifeless, joyless little offspring, ‘He is born for a minister,’ while the ruddy, the brave, and the strong are as promptly assigned to a secular career!”

 

[dzheremi]

Roman Catholicism....Catholic Answers Forum, remember them days, Jeremy?

Yeah, vaguely. I was banned in 2014, I think, so it's getting hazier by the day, thanks be to God.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You forgot poor ole Gurney in the CAF days!? I was banned 2011.....shadow-banned.....

I’m pretty confident that CAF has done more to recruit for Orthodoxy and Protestantism than any other site.....unintentionally!

Yeah, vaguely. I was banned in 2014, I think, so it's getting hazier by the day, thanks be to God.

 

[prodromos]

Yeah, vaguely. I was banned in 2014, I think, so it's getting hazier by the day, thanks be to God.

You forgot poor ole Gurney in the CAF days!? I was banned 2011.....shadow-banned.....

I feel like such a failure, I never did get banned. I thought I had when they did their big upgrade, but alas it was just a technical glitch.

You guys are in very good company with fellow banees Anhelyna, Fr Ambrose and Irish Melkite.

 

[Anhelyna]

Some of us wear that badge with pride I got banned twice and I've still no idea as to the reason

 

[dzheremi]

How do you get banned twice? Did they let you back in the first time without realizing that they had already banned you?

My favorite part is that I came back from spending about two weeks in a monastery to find that I was banned. So I hadn't even had access to the internet in a while, and the way I found out that I had been banned was not even by going to the site itself, but by coming back to e-mails from the few people on there who had my contact info asking "What happened? Why were you banned?" I had no idea what to tell them. It obviously wasn't for anything I had done recently!

 

[Anhelyna]

I've no idea as to how I got back on after the first banning - genuinely.

The second time I did get a note from them saying I was banned by IP

AND - I have a new ID on there - and it works I can't believe some of the stuff there now !!

 

[archer75]

I've no idea as to how I got back on after the first banning - genuinely.

The second time I did get a note from them saying I was banned by IP

AND - I have a new ID on there - and it works I can't believe some of the stuff there now !!

What's it like?

 

[Anhelyna]

It has not improved :-(

 

[bèlla]

That seems accurate to me. I honestly don't know all of the people involved, but it does explain why the Catholic 'mystics' like Theresa of Lisieux creeped me out so much when I tried to read them years ago, when I was trying to save my faith as a Roman Catholic. Ugh. Lord have mercy.

I have read my share and the imagery is too graphic. I felt they projected their sexual longings and validated the practice through mystical union. God has never aroused me. I think this is inappropriate.

 

[bèlla]

“Women are the backbone of the Christian congregations in America.”

Absolutely true. All of it. If they quit many will close.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

^ No! Do I even need to explain? Twinkly piano nonsense and a guy who sounds like he's been on hormone blockers specifically for the recording session. (Sorry to anyone who likes this stuff, but good grief...it's a weepy, wimpy ballad, all about feelings. You could make it be about how the singer's dog died and it would have the same tone. Since when did Henry Gross of "Shannon" fame start writing hymns?)

I agree this version, well, stinks, but do you know the history of that song? It first shows up in print in 1899 in "Old Plantation Songs" and was written by slaves prior to the American Civil War. While a lot of spirituals don't have a lot of theological depth, when sung right, they do say a lot.

 

[dzheremi]

My point is not that it is not saying anything; rather, what it is saying is not of the theological depth or the correct orientation (surely it's not wrong to say "it causes me to tremble", after all, the Bible does say we are to work our salvation with fear and trembling, but to make things about your reaction to them is not appropriate) to be substituted in place of hymns that do have the depth and orientation needed to actually be sung in a traditional church like the western Christian church used to be, many centuries ago.

I don't begrudge anyone spirituals they like to listen to (and, yes, the Johnny Cash version is much better to my ears), but that's why there's a difference between a hymn sung in church and a popular song with religious themes, or at least there is supposed to be.