Any opinions on Fr. Richard John Neuhaus from our Constantinopolitan (or Alexandrian, or Maronite, etc.) friends?

Personally, I think he's a trip!
Someone who shoots from the hip!
And gives the heterodox a lot of lip!

cf. www.firstthings.com

Here's a view from a nomial Orthodox who's straddling the line between east and west,
in a very weird way right now-rather cryptic, but
its not something I would like to elaborate publicly on.
First Things is a great journal-if I wasn't a dirt poor unemployed college grad I would certainly subscribe. It certainly takes on liberal Catholicism pretty well, and is ecumenical in a small-o orthodox way.

Michael

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Michael King ]

Here's a view from a nominal Orthodox who's straddling the line between east and west,
in a very weird way right now-rather cryptic, but
its not something I would like to elaborate publicly on.
First Things is a great journal-if I wasn't a dirt poor unemployed college grad I would certainly subscribe. It certainly takes on liberal Catholicism pretty well, and is ecumenical in a small-o orthodox way.

Michael

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Michael King ]

I met him in all three of his incarnations. As for his current and third, he is without a doubt witty and caustic and has a bitting tongue. In certain circles that would be high entertainment with some rare forgivable excesses. However, a religious commentator is called to higher standards, and I don't believe his occasional evil acts can be overlooked.

K.

I think Fr. Neuhaus is clearly intelligent, but (and I thought this way when I was a Roman Catholic as well, btw) is too caught up with political issues for my personal taste. There are often interesting articles in First Things, but I think that there is a tendency to support only one political perspective -- and that's a shortcoming in a magazine that claims to be about faith and the public square. Therefore, I am not surprised that Kurt has such negative things to say, because surely Fr. Neuhaus has very different views on a wide number of issues than does Kurt. Although I would personally agree with Fr. Neuhaus on many things, nevertheless I don't think it's proper to have mostly one viewpoint portrayed in a magazine like that one -- unless it is explicitly identified with that one viewpoint.

Brendan

Who is Richard John Neuhaus? (Am I supposed to be embarassed that I don't know? I don't get out much.)

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Dr John ]

Dr John,

Richard John Neuhaus was a '60s liberal Lutheran minister, pastor of a slum church in New York, committed to charitable work and working for "social change' to promote social justice. Over time he became disenchanted with liberalism's answers to social problems — becoming in American political parlance a "neoconservative', not the libertarianism of the Old Right but more like a revised version of his liberalism, believing that some state control and intervention, etc. work. I don't know if he ever was Modernist but certainly his theological views became orthodox. Finally he resigned his Lutheran pastorate, entered the Roman Catholic Church and is now a priest. I think he is married. He is conservative Novus Ordo and holds that every just grievance the first Lutherans had* has been corrected in the post-Vatican II Roman Church. But he also is a keen critic of postconciliar abuses, including in liturgy — he has described Amchurch practice as "depressing' and admits some Lutherans and Episcopalians practice the old Catholic liturgical movement's ideals while a lot of Catholics don't.

First Things, which he publishes, is a classy periodical by and for people of like mind — religious neocons. It is very friendly to the small-o orthodox, Catholic-minded reader. But not all of its readers are that — some consider themselves conservative but are moderate, still Christian Protestants, like the American Anglican Council in the Episcopal Church (yes to women ministers, no to gay weddings) and some Lutherans. One former Lutheran woman minister has been published in FT describing her conversion to a conservative Catholic laywoman.

*And they had some.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Richard John Neuhaus was a very good friend of Alexander Schmemann and had a nice review of Schmemann's journals in First Things about a year ago. He liberally quoted from the journals and organized material around important themes in Schmemann's writings. Really a very good and favorable introduction to Schmemann's thought.

Neuhaus is less enthusiastic toward Orthodoxy as a whole, though. Since he's such a political creature, he tends to focus on Orthodoxy's internal ecclesiastical squabbles at the expense of the larger picture.

I don't mean to sound 'parochial', but I never heard of this guy. As a Greek-Catholic, I think we have enough issues of our own without worrying about disaffected Lutherans who have a conversion to Roman Catholicism.

I know, I know (don't hit me!!!) that we are supposed to be in communion with the RCs and that their internal family interactions are supposed to be important to us, but, personally, I don't really care.

More important to me is what's going on in our Constantinopolitan community (yeah, yeah, I know: in that respect I'm a unrepentant ecumenist).

The Roman community is going through a lot of birth-pains "groaning and moaning" in their effort to give birth to a new form of the Church in the West.. (Hopefully, not a mouse.)

But, I think it's kinda-sorta irrelevant for us "Orthodox" Christians to get involved in their machinations and internal family interactions.

I wish them the best, and I wish them godspeed. And I hope that we can stay far, far away.

Blessings!

Dear Dr. John,

How about a mouse that roars?

Did I hear you say at a respectful distance? But don't stay too far away; we're family after all.

Steve

Now I remember why I fight with you all the time.

With that attitude, I'm surprised you haven't jumped the fence to Orthodoxy.

[ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: NDHoosier ]

Don't have to. I'm already there. What fence?

Blessings!