If we admit that Orthodoxy is not growing in America and that our faith and praxis somehow seem lukewarm, and that the Orthodox Church truly is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, then the fault must lie in ourselves and how we are living out our faith. The essential problem is that we have not made Orthodoxy the foundation, adapting it to our modern lives and not the other way around. We start out as Republican and Democrats and then find ways to dovetail Orthodoxy into our existing beliefs. Thus you have the spectacle of those trying to defend economic libertarianism or veganism, or materialist consumption as somehow compatible with Orthodoxy, when we should be doing just the opposite. If the teachings and witness of the Church, the message of the Gospels, and the lives of the Saints contradict libertarianism or radical veganism or what have you, then we must be willing to abandon those secular doctrines in the face of Christian teaching.
This is where the Amish provide a powerful example. Despite the criticism by those who at heart are probably profoundly uncomfortable with what the Amish stand for, the Amish are not “stuck in the past”. While it is most visible in the realm of technology, the Amish are engaged with the modern world, but the critical difference between them and us is that they meet the modern world on their terms. Anything that enters their society is prayerfully evaluated on whether or not it is compatible with their beliefs, and what the possible effects will be on their families and society. I would submit that us Orthodox in America as a whole would be well served such an outlook. Replacing our modern life with the Orthodoxy “add-on”, with a way of living that was Orthodox first, with modern life intruding, if it all, only when and where it is found compatible with the Orthodox faith. If this means starting from scratch in an agrarian fashion, so be it. But even without a “back to the land” ethic, would mean a more organic sense of community. It would mean Orthodox faithful living with a close distance of the nearest Orthodox church, and thus each other. It would mean an end to “commuting” to a distant church simply because you like the icons there, or they aren’t “ecumenist”, or they speak your grandfather’s native tongue. In order to attend my Serbian church I must drive past (or further than) SIX canonical Orthodox churches. While I speak Serbian semi-fluently, and understand the Slavonic liturgy, does it make sense to drive an hour to church? Am I ever going to have a shared sense of community with the other Serbian parishioner who drives an hour from the south and thus lives two hours away from me?
Ultimately our Christianity, our Orthodoxy is not radical enough. I mean this not in the sense of the joyless Orthodox piety-fascists one meets here and there, but in the sense that, like the Amish, we need to start making Orthodoxy the foundation for how we live our lives, and how we interact with others and God’s creation. We need an Orthodox ecology (in the broadest sense of the term). If living in humility means watching a 20” TV (though the argument could be made that in truth an Orthodox Christian has no business watching TV at all) instead of a wide-screen plasma; or driving a ten-year old Subaru station wagon instead of a new Hummer H2 then what is stopping us? If it means becoming agrarians and living at peace with God’s creation and our neighbor, not participating, or participating as little as possible in the exploitive and soul-warping chaos of secular materialist society, then what is stopping us?
30 comments:
You wrote:
If we admit that Orthodoxy is not growing in America and that our faith and praxis somehow seem lukewarm, and that the Orthodox Church truly is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, then the fault must lie in ourselves and how we are living out our faith. The essential problem is that we Orthodoxy from the foundation of our modern lives and not the other way around.
The second sentence doesn't seem to make sense.
Also, with respect to the Amish, have you seen the movie DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND about the Amish rite of Rumspringa?
Oops, sorry for the garbled sentence... it's been fixed. I've read a bit about the Rumspringa, but the film sounds interesting, thanks for the info.
when and where do you want to start a rural mission?
My heart is with this post every point along the way.
There are a handful of us agrarian-leaning Orthodox here in the state of Washington who have been looking at property out on the Olympic Peninsula (Jefferson County to be precise). Excellant climate for farming and gardening, an enough seafood in the Hood Canal, Puget Sound, and Straigh of Juan de Fuca for a man to make a modest living, or at very least feed his family in abundance. Deer, Roosevelt elk, and wild boar to be found in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, and the artsy-fartsy town of Port Townsend (which boasts one of the best used book stores I've ever visited) for a craftsman to ply his wares.
Hey now, some of us may end up on the kitsap side of the canal. Don't write us off :)
my friend rade,
it must begin somewhere mustn't it?
"it will all work out."
peace,
jeremy
Well considering you'll be just a quick boat ride (or a slow boat ride if you want to troll for salmon or check the crab or shrimp pots)away, you'll certainly be part of the Olympic/Kitsap Orthodox Agrarian Community. Beside the Orthodox U-brew place will be in your neck of the woods...
Jeremy: There is a common Serbian saying which translated reads "Every beginning is difficult." But if we avoid the difficult beginnings we'll never grow closer to each other and God.
Thank you for this post.
These ideas dovetail with so much that I am carrying in my heart right now. We are struggling to eat more locally produced foods; as well as less medicated meat products. I have a garden that produces the majority our our salad in the summer.
I am the mother of two eleven year olds. I am striving to weave their Orthodoxy throughout their lives. How to make what we do and pray relevant? How to instruct them in the faith so that they will be beacons of light to their friends? How to teach them about choices?
We are already discussing the whole boyfriend/ girlfriend issue. As Orthodox we do not date casually. We don't have boy/girl friends in grade 6.
We are very fortunate that our parish is close to home. We strive to attend all the celebrations of the Feasts. I pull them out of school for Holy Thursday through Bright Monday.
Your words are encouraging.
At any rate if you start something in Washington I'd really like to come and visit.
As a farmer's son with years of experience raising granaries, digging potatoes, and manually planting corn with a 1930's vintage hand planter, I totally disagree with this post.
If "a handful of [] agrarian-leaning Orthodox" want to start an enclave, who am I to disagree? On the other hand, wasn't there a huge battle at "the ochlophobist" over the Gnostic, navel-contemplating tendencies in American Orthodox life, with überfromm wallowing in the puerile comforts of ritual piety rather than taking up the Cross? Basically, how does living off your own labour in the country have anything to do with the Gospel one way or another?
Members of my and my wife's families are peasants (just like yours, I presume, Mr. Radoje,) and believe me, smoking your own sausage while living in a 100% Orthodox community is no guarantee of spiritual health. (See Rebreanu's Ion.) The villages of Orthodox Europe are emptying of young people who find no nourishment in their 'traditional lifestyles.' And frankly, the 20 inch TV is what they aspire toward. They want to get rid of those stupid embroidered shirts in favour of snazzy nylon track suits. They want to be able to afford dental work and Marlboros.
Without in any way denigrating your piety or your love of Christ, I have to say that an Orthodox agrarian movement would have proven powerless to convert me to Christianity. The Amish have less impact on the world than the Szatmár Hasidim. So much for teaching all nations!
The villages of Orthodox Europe are emptying of young people who find no nourishment in their 'traditional lifestyles.'
And what nourishment are they seeking? You answer it yourself:
They want to get rid of those stupid embroidered shirts in favour of snazzy nylon track suits. They want to be able to afford dental work and Marlboros.
While I would not begrudge them dental work...I'm not sure they gain much else from abandoning their "traditional lifestyles" and in fact, I believe can be losing a great deal with regard to community. Fact is, we do not have much in the way of community these days (we don't NEED it, or so we suppose) and we could learn a great deal from an agrarian life centered economically, socially, and religiously on a local level.
Basically, how does living off your own labour in the country have anything to do with the Gospel one way or another?
Well, what does my sitting here in a lab using my lunch break to comment here have to do with the Gospel? I imagine it depends on me.
I believe that a greater level of self-sustanence affords one the ability to be far more in touch with the morality of one's economics. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to build some idealic romantic image of the 19th century Rusyn village, but by the same token we do not HAVE to go on living in the oblivion of suburban life do we? Can we not be critical of it? And if we have a means of escaping it, a means of perhaps gleaning some wisdom from the way we USED to live and apply it...then why on earth wouldn't we?
If we can more practically - though never perfectly - step off the wild train we all tend to ride these days, then why not?
For me, I believe that if I live more directly off of the earth, I believe I will learn to appreciate that earth, appreciate creation, appreciate our Creator - in a way that I do not presently do. How alive the seasons become when you LIVE them, and the dance of the liturgical cycle to which it is tied comes even more alive. It's not for everybody, but perhaps we might open a bed and breakfast for you city slickers to come and visit.
:)
In the end, I agree with Rade...instead letting Orthodoxy fit us...why not let our lifestyle fit Orthodoxy. While this does not neccesarily mean that all of us should become agrarians, it does mean - at least I think - that we might consider the motivations, desires, "needs", and wants that drove us from a more "traditional lifestyle."
Rade...I think you said you've not read Wendell's essay: "Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community"...I highly recommend it. It's in the book by the same name.
By the same token we do not HAVE to go on living in the oblivion of suburban life do we? Can we not be critical of it?
Listen, life is not a choice between the soccer-mom suburbs and the Lake Isle of Innisfree.
I'm not trying to build some idealic romantic image of the 19th century Rusyn village...
That's good, because if they had the choice, 95% of those villagers would happily have moved to Budapest. The difference is that today, they have the choice, and they are. Have you actually been to a village in Eastern Europe? The average age is like 50 and it's rapidly rising.
Cantemir, isn't one of the highest virtues in Christianity the taming of one's appetites? Most of the young people leaving villages are doing so because of materialism, pure and simple. They are screwing up their lives, and we should justly condemn the trend, not approve of them because they are "practising their freedom" or whatever.
For what it's worth, in the Romanian village I frequent, I've found a peace and focus on Orthodox living far beyond my expectations. In the cities, people seem Orthodox in name only, but in the countryside, they really live what they believe.
cantemir is not wrong in his sentiments. An interesting thing to consider is that the motive behind the Eastern European villager heading to the city and the Western Orthodox city dweller heading to a more agrarian lifestyle is essentially the same - that permeating dissatisfaction which is part and parcel of modernity. We all long for something better and many of us will excercise our free choice to go after that "better."
Many of us had ancestors who left villages in Europe to come and make a new life in North America. I am not altogether convinced that their leaving the old village was the wrong thing to do. As I have stated before, Chesterton's model of village life is a wee bit too rosy. Yes, love is possible in a small context without a multitude of choices. But so is petty tyranny. And human nature being what it is, most villages in the world are breeding grounds for little tyrants. As well, the model Chesterton longed for cannot really occur again in the West (for the forseable future) because today any "village" one chooses to go to one can just as easily choose to leave. Thus there is a selfconscious aspect to the whole affair that changes how human relationships work. This is one reason I am opposed to intentional communities. True communities form naturally out of some form of necessity. Communities formed out of intent are not real communities, they are cliques or clubs.
That does not mean that a group of Orthodox should not decide that they are going to settle (each family on an individual basis) in a given local and be good neighbors to each other, free to come and go as they please. Such a group might find the common association of likeminded persons helpful in living the Orthodox life. They might find that a natural lay Orthodox spirituality arises out of living Orthodoxy in an agrarian context. These people would not be recreating an Eastern European village in the West. They would be doing something altogether different.
Choice is with us now, there is no going back. We should seek to choose to live in the most human manner possible. This is the attraction of agrarianism for many of us. That, and the conviction many of us have that Christianity is essentially an agrarian religion with agrarian sacred texts.
Cantemir, isn't one of the highest virtues in Christianity the taming of one's appetites? Most of the young people leaving villages are doing so because of materialism, pure and simple.
That's easy for you to say. You have fillings. Let's not be cute here.
I'm sure you've noticed that village girls have a hard time scraping together $1000 to bribe a doctor for a modicum of decent treatment in hospital. Their kids don't get prenatal care. These people drive to the hospital in a horse cart, and it's not because they love horse carts so much or because they've 'overcome their appetites.'
If you honestly plan to forego dental work, medical care for your family, and other minimal advances in modern life, for the pure love of Christ, well, bully for you, you're probably on your way to sainthood. On the other hand, if you're not, then you're sightseeing amongst other people's poverty and misery for your own gratification.
For what it's worth, in the Romanian village I frequent, I've found a peace and focus on Orthodox living far beyond my expectations.
I don't doubt that this is true - in a sense. On the other hand, this reminds me of all the people I know who went to Greece and found 'a holy land,' 'true Orthodoxy,' etc., and somehow missed the political corruption, the street crime, etc.
By the way, where in Romania are you, Mr. Culver?
Nothing says modern like thinking about taking flight from modernity...
Going from the thread on The Ochlophobist's blog, I agree that there is no working "model" right now of living an Orthodox life in the 21st Century, especially in the United States. (The exceptions, of course, are some form of psuedo-monasticism or, as is being spelled out here, an agrarian commune; how satisfactory either of those are is obviously up for serious debate.)
All the same, has there ever been a set manner of being a Christian in the world? If we're only on a pilgramage here (and we are) and history, following St. Augustine, is only the great boredom before the eschaton (and it is), how important is this question? How critical is it for me to move out of my apartment in the city and into the great expanse of the Midwest's corn fields? Maybe God is a little easier to "spy" under a Montana sky than in dense L.A. smog, but maybe--just maybe--that "God" isn't any god we as Orthodox Christians recognize.
Blind romanticism didn't restore the crowns of Europe and it won't restore the Orthodox Church to some pristine state that may never have actually existed. There may come a time when all of "this" falls away; when the cities collapse and the great advancements of the technological age rot in heaps of debris. Shall not the Christian go on proclaiming the Gospel? Shall not churches still be erected out of sticks and stones again? Or should the faith of those future humans fossilize under the pressure of a blind longing for this age when their shelves were full of Popular Patristics from SVS Press and $6 of gas got them to church and back on Sundays?
I don't say this to uphold the view that an Orthodox Christian (or any Christian for that matter) ought to just roll over and take whatever the world around him gives him. Discernment is key and yes, some conditions are more amicable to Christian living than others. But still, none of that is a guarantee and there is no promise in Christ's words of "optimal conditions" for our faith. Whether its under the lash or silk bed sheets, the question that we must still answer (and answer correctly) at the end of the day is: "What do ye think of the Christ?"
Listen, life is not a choice between the soccer-mom suburbs and the Lake Isle of Innisfree.
Hey now, ain't nuthin wrong with soccer-moms (grin). I agree we are not dealing with an either/or situation here...but I would argue to a large degree we as a "modern" people have made it just such a situation. The whole point of tradition is that we pass our lives, our experiences along to our children...but I sense in our current social environment a profound disdain for tradition - for the wisdom of our elders. A sense that we really don't need people who don't understand modernity to explain to us ANYTHING. This, I believe has been, is, and will be our social undoing. It is certainly true of theology, I think it is equally true in every other aspect of life.
if they had the choice, 95% of those villagers would happily have moved to Budapest. The difference is that today, they have the choice, and they are. Have you actually been to a village in Eastern Europe? The average age is like 50 and it's rapidly rising.
Are you actually arguing: "C'mon mom, everybody's doing it!" I would argue that this exodus is actually a symptom of a bigger problem - the exploitation and ruination of local communities.
Besides in Juskova Vola (my ancestral home in eastern Slovakia) for example, the Mayor of the town is my age (I'm not quite that old yet - at least sometimes I think) and has three young children - even a newborn. He sent me a host of pictures and I saw numerous young families and children.
But, taking your point as true, so what? What does it mean?
Again, I will not argue that everyone ought to live a more traditional agrarian life...but what I will argue is that in the process of leaving that life behind we have left much else behind as well. We'd do well to consider what has driven us where we presently reside as a culture and society. And more than that, whether we have cut ourselves off from tradition.
I will not argue that everyone ought to live a more traditional agrarian life...
How else am I supposed to interpret a title like "Orthodoxy at the 'Amish Point'?" I understand if some individual Orthodox feel that, like the Holy Desert Fathers, they would be saved in the desert but damned in the carnal world of the city, and flee the devil. What I can't understand is the suggestion that this is necessary or wise for all Orthodox or, indeed, more than just a small number.
Besides in Juskova Vola (my ancestral home in eastern Slovakia) for example, the Mayor of the town is my age (I'm not quite that old yet - at least sometimes I think) and has three young children - even a newborn. He sent me a host of pictures and I saw numerous young families and children.
Although I my Economist's World Factbook near to hand, Slovakia's population is declining. I'm pleased to hear that not every village is suffering decline. In the aggregate, however, the trend cannot be denied.
Are you actually arguing: "C'mon mom, everybody's doing it!"
Look, you're not going to make peasants better Orthodox by telling them to stay poor and to keep raising crops by hand. I just don't see the connection. Believe me, there's plenty of perversity, violence, and corruption in villages. I don't know that there's any kind of Christian case that small is beautiful. If there is, it certainly hasn't been made anywhere I can see.
I don't see where anyone got the idea that I was extolling eastern European peasant life as the golden standard for an Orthodox way of life. I've spent enough time in my family village in Serbia to be disabused of such notions. "Orthodox Europe" (a bit of a misnomer, but anyhow...) cannot really help us here in the US because in those places at the very least Orthodoxy exists in some degree in the overall cultural background. The overall cultural background in the US can hardly be called Christian anymore, much less be amenable to Orthodoxy. Whether or not we agree that agrarianism is the best starting point for an Orthodox-centered lifestyle is beside the point. This isn't a matter of returning to the idyllic past that never existed, but of ceasing to take the modern world for granted. An Orthodox agrarianism, or urbanism, or what have you could very possibly end up with all the "things" we have today, but those "things" would only be accepted on the basis of their conformity with living out the Gospel teaching and the witness of the Church.
I'll gladly collect some texts on why "small is beautiful" is an entirely Christian viewpoint, but I would also ask how the Christian case could be made for economic prosperity being seen as an ultimate end, unlimited economic growth regardless of the cost, and blind acceptance of technological progress are acceptable for a Christian viewpoint.
I'll gladly collect some texts on why "small is beautiful" is an entirely Christian viewpoint, but I would also ask how the Christian case could be made for economic prosperity being seen as an ultimate end, unlimited economic growth regardless of the cost, and blind acceptance of technological progress are acceptable for a Christian viewpoint.
That's a false either/or, though. One doesn't have to be a hardcore libertarian if one isn't, say, an agrarian communitarian. I think the point is that one can be Christian in the world in a very dynamic way; one doesn't have to flee into the great expanses to find Jesus. (Though it's possible that works for some people.) The reality is that most people today can't do that and really, fleeing the cities has less historical precedent in Christianity than not. Keep in mind that during the early centuries of the Church, it was the Christians who stayed behind in the cities to care for the poor and sick (Roman and Hellenistic cities being hubs for all sorts of filth, crime, and disease.) When those with the means took flight to their estates in the country, it was the Church that stayed put to weather out the storms and aid those in need. That's hardly a model for retreatism.
Yes, but lets be honest now, how many of us are staying in the cities or suburbs so we can better care for the poor sick and elderly, or how many of us are staying in the cities and suburbs because we prefer our lives of relative ease and luxury? Perhaps my experience has been singular, but from what I've seen being "Christian in the world in a very dynamic way" is more often an excuse to live worldly, secular lives with a gloss of Orthodoxy over them.
If y'all will forgive a little blog cheating, the following are slightly edited comments I left on Gabriel's blog which pertain to this discussion as well:
When I use the phrase "Amish point," this is what I mean: There comes a time when serious Christians have to say no to certain technologies. This is quite evident in the arena of bioethics today. I will not allow my daughter to get certain vaccinations because (among other reasons) they were developed using cells from aborted children. But bioethics are not my only concern. Entertainment technologies are approaching a point at which I think Christians may have to disengage from some. Let us say that 30 years ago instead of TVs middle class persons have three dimensional hologram theatres in their living rooms, and that smell machines are added to the media form so that one sees (in three dimensions), one hears (and the sound is made to come from the direction of the hologram of the person speaking, etc.), and one smells the appropriate smells. Such a media form might sound quite cool to many but the effect of it, in my opinion, would cause a disassociation between the media form and reality the likes of which TV today only scratches the surface. Who knows what effect such technologies would have on the minds of children. I think that such media technologies are on their way. The Amish point is that specific time when a given Christian community says, "we can go no further." It seems to me that to avoid assimilation in the future we are going to either have to have a singular, comprehensive Amish point, or a series of selective Amish points.
As for (Berry style) agrarianism, I think that it offers a possible manner of life that would be very helpful to families trying to flesh out the Orthodox life, but I do not think that everyone is called to it or should pursue it. In my opinion the threat to Christianity that is most serious is not urbanism or suburbanism, but rather mindless affluence (and the lust for mindless affluence found among those who are not affuent). Christians should not abandon cities (though perhaps some suburbs) willy nilly. Besides, one can be an agrarian anywhere. I have a friend who teaches poor people in the projects to container garden on their rooftops. In order to avoid assimilation, I think that Christians must first reject the pan-sexualism which is the religion of our age, and then learn that the things that they consume do not come, ultimately, from factories, but rather from God via his creation.
I think often of Perry Robinson's oft-used phrase about this universe being an open wound. But even living in this open wound I can attempt to leave things in a better state than I found them. I do not refer to activism here, merely stewardship. We need to continue to be filled with gratitude for God's creation in a postlapsarian, pre-eschaton world. That gratitude will keep me from veiwing the things of this world as disposable simply because they are passing away.
It is worthy to note that the Amish (as a people) did not go back to anything. They simply stopped moving forward with regard to their relationships to certain technologies. Clearly, all serious Christians would agree that there are technologies of the present and near future which must not be used. Many serious Christians question the wholesale acceptance of current technologies by most Christians (say, TV). If, over time, we reject more and more technologies, then we will increasingly distinguish ourselves from mainstream society. If we reject no technologies then we will be assimilated to our culture. The modernist myth that technologies are morally nuetral can only have weight in a teleologically deprived system of thought. That anti-teleological assumption has been largely discredited by Christians of many stripes now. There are two essential questions here. What is the telos of medical technologies gained through the murder of unborn children (or the telos of the home hologram entertainment theatre)? If that telos is hell (in other words, it has no telos, but is part of the Satanic Nothing), then what is the appropriate relationship of the Christian to that specific technology?
...and moving out to the country to escape the world doesn't bring with it its own forms of living cushy? Creating hardship for onself just to live "ruggedly" strikes me as not so much un-Christian as it does absurd. I agree that many Christians living in the cities (or anywhere) fall into the trap you speak. However, getting out of the city doesn't make them any better Christians. And like I said, being able to move out and sustain oneself is a luxery. Most people are where they're at because they have to be there. They are where the jobs are, where they can support their families, and where they have communal ties.
Yes, Gabriel's point is mine as well. I would only add that to the 95% of world Orthodox not living in America, living in the country means gross poverty of a sort literally unimaginable in North America. I think that in order to support our brothers abroad, we need to offer them better solutions than just 'go live in the country, don't buy a TV, and live in squalor.'
There are several different forms of agrarianism in the United States. One, for instance, can distinguish between Northern and Southern agrarianism. There is Wendell Berry's vision, which is quite different from theonomist Reformed agrarian thought. There are populists and there are fervent seperatists. There are those who associate agrarianism with pacifism, and those who in militias. That said, none of these various types of agrarians would defend Eastern Europeans living in squalor for the sake of agrarian principles. If one is Orthodox, and at the same time embraces an American style of agrarian thought, this means that one is not looking to Eastern European farm communities for models of agrarian life. Agrarians would view Eastern European village squalor as a result of economic forces which are contrary to agrarian principles. Agrarians believe that many current economic policies both in Europe and the United States make it more and more difficult for people to start and maintain family farms. There is no doubt that family farming or simply a general agrarian lifestyle is a luxury today. But part of the reason that it is a luxury today is because of inhuman economies.
We should perhaps also stress that while life in an Eastern European city is in many ways better than that found in the villages, many of those who leave the villages do not find life in the city to be a picnic either. It may be better, but it remains quite difficult.
Ochlophobist,
While I have nothing in particular to say about agrarianism as a philosophy, I want to draw your attention to several comments attached to this post that do seem, in some sense, to romanticise Orthodox village life in Eastern Europe. This is something no convert has any business doing, frankly.
Our host is coming from a different place and is clearly no 'Crunchy Con' backpacker. I'm sorry if I ever implied that I thought he was.
I agree with nearly all of the points made by both "sides" of the debate in this thread, good cantemir, though I suppose I have expressed this poorly. Allow me to try again.
My maternal grandfather was, during his youth, a urine poor farmer on the side of a hollow in West Virginia. His family's cash crop was Sassafras, which they has shipped to Cincinnati by train to be made into tea and cough drops. They barely survived most winters. 9 children survived their childhoods. 5 were lost. Eventually there was a fire on the farm which would have caused the family to become destitute were it not for the fact that my great-grandfather, along with my grandfather (at age 15), and several of his brothers were able to join the WPA. Shortly after this my grandfather lied about his age to join the Navy and enter the pacific theater of WWII. When my grandfather returned from the war, he went home to WVA, got himself a girl, and moved north to Akron, Ohio ASAP to work for Diebold's Steel for 37 years. He did not look back. He had to do what he had to do. He would not raise his children in the squalor he grew up in. They all went to college and went on to live middle class lives.
Do I fault my grandfather for leaving the farm? Not at all. He made the only reasonable decision. That said, I recognize that my grandfather is a caliber of human being that is a bit higher than those of us who descended from him. He is more brave, more resourceful, more hard-working, and has more integrity. This is not entirely due to his upbringing, but one definitely gets the sense that his rural, poor, agrarian upbringing might have had something to do with it. My grandfather is now close to the end of his life, and all he speaks of is his childhood in WVA. It formed him, and in many ways, his stories over the years have formed us. Most my of cousins will not have anything akin to those sorts of stories because they grew up in suburbs. Their lives have been formed completely by the teledrama found on TV, movies, video games, in public schools, and heard in popular music. Even though my grandfather made the right decision, I do not think that it is inappropriate to feel that something has been lost.
Those who embrace most of the American versions of agrarian thought would not voluntarily put their children into the environment in which my grandfather grew up. But they might try to live in a manner that deliberately incorporates agrarian styles. Such a decision would be made carefully and cautiously, and should be considered a luxury if one can actually make it (I say this as a person who does not have the means at this time to make such a decision).
I write all this to make this point: one can be an agrarian and view rural squalor as something which should be avoided, even if it means moving to the city. At the same time, that agrarian can view such a moving to the city as a great loss and something which is unfortunate, even though it had to be done (thus one can miss the eastern european village, even as one agrees that they would get themselves out of there in a heartbeat). And the agrarian can work to reassociate himself with an agrarian form of life in a manner which is prudent.
Thus I agree with your points, Gabriel's points, jamesofthenorthwest's points, and radoje's points, all at the same time. I very rarely try to reconcile divergent views, but I really doubt here that we have a substantial disagreement going on. Perhaps I am wrong.
living in the country means gross poverty of a sort literally unimaginable in North America
I would just add - for whatever it may be worth - that gross poverty and squalor often awaits those migrating to the city as well and is not the exclusive property of country folk.
It does seem we are tending to argue with one another with the extreme positions of each point in mind, regardless of whether any of us are actually taking such positions.
My family and I are moving to the country. I will be retaining my job in the big city for the time being and meanwhile we will be seeking to live off our land as much as we are able. We also intend to isolate our economy as locally as we possibly can so that we may be able to better apply our values and beliefs to our economic habits, something that is profoundly difficult to do when we actively engage in the global economy.
Will it make us better Christians...I don't know, I doubt it...heck I'm not sure I know what THAT monumental task would require.
Anyway, I very much appreciate and affirm the Ochlophobist numerous points in his last post.
But they might try to live in a manner that deliberately incorporates agrarian styles. Such a decision would be made carefully and cautiously, and should be considered a luxury if one can actually make it
I suppose it is a luxury, but not one that is being done without some sacrifice and effort...likely more than any of the more "traditional" or common luxuries I own - in fact they will likely go "bye bye."
"If we admit that Orthodoxy is not growing in America"
I wouldn't admit to that! the last survey, I read from a few years ago had "Orthodoxy" as "the fastest growing Christian denomination/ movement in America". I think sometimes the growth does taper off or level off for a few years, but that is relatively normal as far as growth patterns of individuals and groups are concerned.
I agree that the Amish are powerful in their commitment against the world, which can be the closest thing to monasticism among the Protestants. To some degree they are "irrelevant" to borrow that term from the Evangelicals. I say this because they live by a tradition, but that it is not a "living tradition", like Holy tradition. They equate by simply being frozen in time. While Orthodoxy appears that way, it is more conscience of "Being led by the Spirit", and adapting to new times while at the same time maintaining the Apostolic Tradition.
Anyway I have thought of the Amish when considering Protestant parallels to Orthodoxy as well...
We start out as Republican and Democrats and then find ways to dovetail Orthodoxy into our existing beliefs. Thus you have the spectacle of those trying to defend economic libertarianism or veganism...
I mostly agree, especially with the gist that politics has become a religion in America, but the second sentence quoted above would seem to refute the first sentence. By assuming that economic libertarianism is not compatible with Orthodoxy you are making a political statement. It's odd, I think, to demonstrate a belief that politics has become our first priority by implicitly making a political statement.
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