www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West When to be polemical

I have been having a friendly debate for years with friends, and latterly with my fianc�e, over when to be polemical in discussions with other Christians in particular.

This came to the fore last week as I went home for a family anniversary (cf. "Vesting When Serving Ecumenically" on section 2 of the Forum) at an Anglican parish in the same week as parts of the Anglican Church of Canada officially gave approval to blessing of same-sex unions. Such demonstrable moral apostasy cannot go unchallenged, I feel, and pretending it's nothing is to condone heresy and thereby assist in putting thousands of souls at risk of error and possible perdition.

In such situations, my inclination is to follow Flannery O'Connor (as she described the justification for her often grotesque imagery in her fiction): to the deaf, you practically have to shout, and to the nearly blind, you must draw large, startling figures. I am inclined, in other words, to be blunt and critical to the point of being "polemical" (as some would construe it). I am so because I despise and utterly loathe the unwillingness or inability to speak forthrightly for fear of being thought impolite or creating conflict. If there is one quality--apart from loyalty--in my friends that I absolutely insist on, it is the necessity of being utterly forthright and pulling no punches. A failure to speak thus is a failure of courage and moral character in my opinion. Moreover, I absolutely love debate--the more vigorous the better, remembering Chesterton's famous distinction between an argument (impersonal and necessary for living) and a quarrel (personal, petulant, utterly superfluous)--and so throw out polemical jabs to get people riled up and ready to rumble.

I think part of this comes from my tutelage under three rather famous polemicists: John Henry Cardinal Newman, Stanley Hauerwas, and Alasdair MacIntyre. In an age in which we have become pathetically, risibly afraid of conflict, substituting feelings instead of ideas, I'm all in favour of making people as uncomfortable as possible. As Hauerwas puts it, "Why say politely what can be said offensively?"

So in the case of the ACC, my inclination is to come out swinging (and with such a wide target, too! how can one resist?) in order to provoke a debate, shake the confidence of the members, and put them into what MacIntyre famously called an "epistemological crisis" in which their tradition is shaken by its encounter with a rival tradition having better answers to the questions at hand. All this is done with an evangelical purpose: to get them to see the error of their ways and to convert to Orthodoxy or Catholicism.

HOWEVER, my fianc�e says such an approach only ever alienates and does not attract, and I should be much more demure and friendly, and less ready to pounce, around such people. I choke and gag at the prospect.

What is the consensus? What seems to be the best way to proceed? Or is it strictly on a case-by-case basis?

Adam

Dear Brother Adam,

Being one prone to similar inclinations, I offer you my own approach.

I attempt to be as absolutely amicable as possible, while being completely correct in dogma at all times. A very good friend who now serves as a bishop often reminds me that we must be as innocent as lambs but as clever as serpents.

The recent debate over remarks made by Senator Santorum of the great God-protected Commonwealth of Pennsylvania brought forth such an opportunity. It just so happened that the good Senator had delivered our RC charitable agency a check for $500,000 US dollars but a month prior to his delightful public remarks which drew the ire of the liberal establishment.

At the presentation of the check, I had insisted on being present based on the argument that we needed to have at least one Republican staff member present in order to make him feel comfortable (a subtle joke, but it got people thinking about my beliefs, especially since they like me here but they don't like Senator Santorum - because of his conservative positions).

Once his remarks hit "the fan" a month or two later, discussion flowed around them prior to one of our daily meetings. When I came in the room I said something like, "Thank God someone is speaking up for our Catholic beliefs!"

My exclamation had a double impact since they all know me as a knowledgable Orthodox Christian. Here I was affirming the beliefs of the RC Senator as completely compatible with Catholicism and Orthodoxy! So all discussion ended and they were, at least a little bit ashamed to have been "speaking up AGAINST Roman Catholic beliefs."

Perhaps they will ponder those things in their hearts.

One more example comes from an exchange that I had with a woman who was leading a sensitivity training for our staff regarding gay and lesbian youth (our agency serves homeless youth). She was a self-avowed "bisexual." [Of course, that is impossible, since everyone has but one sex. What she meant to say is that she sleeps with people of all genders.]

She mentioned that doctors were at one point attempting to identify the gene that leads to sexcual orientation. She assured us that these doctors very correctly stopped all such research since some evil parents might have become inclined to abort a child who had a "homosexual or bisexual" gene.

I took my moment and spoke for the first and only time during the training: "But wouldn't that decision to destroy a homosexual fetus be the mother's inalienable right?

She turned gray, and answered, unhappily, "yes."

Sometimes, you just have to find the context and moment to make the right point.

I must go now.

In Christ,
Andrew

Hi,

I don't like to be polemical. I don't like to get into arguments or debates unless I need to.

When discussing an issue, I offer my point of view. If I consider my point of view relatively well informed, and if that is relevant to the discussion, I say so (this is, that I think my opinion is informed and why).

It is not my usual approach to offer proof of things. Truth should be able to proof itself, and everything else is simply not worth.

Many people around me are different in this regard, and I really dislike people pushing their point and offering proof even if you happen to agree with them.

I've never convinced anybody of anything important by being polemical. But that might mean only that I am a very inept polemicist.

Shalom,
Memo.

Dear Memo,

Well, I've given up being argumentative period.

I've written an article about this and some have interpreted it to mean I don't like chat forums.

No, I just don't like being argumentative. But I'm not going to argue the point . . .

Alex

Adam:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I applaud your willingness to be entirely forthright and fight for your position � as long as you don�t SOUND like Prof. Hauerwas, or use vulgarity as often as he does, I don�t see the harm. By the way, when is he finally going to realize that there are rival traditions to his own that provide better answers to the questions of who is God, what is man, what is the Church, etc.? Just wondering.

I do have a question, however: if the problem with the modern world is, as MacIntyre suggests, the hegemonic liberal/Benthamite �narrative� of associating moral concepts of good and evil with like and dislike (with feeling or opinion), is your critique of, say, blessing same-sex unions not something of a waste of time? When arguing with those who say, �That�s just your opinion, and this is ours,� are you likely to be successful by showing them the folly only of their position/opinion on that particular issue? Don�t you need to start at a more fundamental level, i.e. at the level of first principles? How do you get people ensconced within a particular narrative tradition to move outside of that tradition so that they can see its flaws and imperfections and compare it with other traditions? To whom or to what do we appeal?

I ask this question because, as a grad student and teacher, I have often found that dialogue with those outside of my particular narrative about some one issue or question always ends up there, anyway. Lacking a common idiom at the start, the discussion necessarily turns to comparing our respective idioms. In order to compare, however, we already need to have a common idiom (say, natural reason, or Christianity, or postmodernism). Does that mean that one already exists?

My basic question, I suppose, is this: is inter-narrative dialogue really possible?

In Christ,
Theophilos

I believe it could be possible to be open minded and discuss things in a positive way, with Anglicans and Lutherans for example, but there are things in which we must not compromise, the gay unions and female priests are two of them. It is a matter of fact that the Anglican Church has used these strategies before. I recall the time when they were very close to Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church, some said the Romans were willing to recognize their orders, and then the Anglicans decided to ordain women priests. This time it was just the same, they say "hey we are close to Catholics and Orthodox" so that the next day they can accept gay marriages without making their faithful think that they have lost "union" with the previous groups.

There's often a confussion between a true ecumenism, in a compasionate way, and a false ecumenism, between compassion of the heart and indifferentism. It would be impossible not to tell the Anglicans that they are very very wrong and that those inmoral attitudes cannot be tolerated since they are not only an "obstacle" to christian dialogue but are in direct opposition to the nature and God. To tell them they are ok, would be a lack of charity toward the members of the Church of England, who are left alone without any true bishops or moral authority to guide them.

Dear Snoopers,

Again, Anglicans are not a uniform body of people who all believe the same things - like Orthodox or Catholics by and large.

The Book of Common Prayer (are you still interested? ) when it was formulated, ASSUMED that there would be a wide range of views among Anglicans on everything from th Eucharist to authority in the Church.

It tried to be "accommodating" to one and all, save for the Pope, purgatory et al.

One Anglican High Church priest I met told me that while the BCP is against the "RC version of Purgatory" it accepts the "Anglican version of Purgatory." ;

(I had a "hell" of a time understanding that one!)

But, Snoopers, you've put your finger on one of the greatest practical problems with respect to ecumenism with other non-Catholic, non-Orthodox bodies - when does one know that one is dealing with the mainstream of believers in the person of the representative theologians during ecumenical commission meetings?

And if you know that, then you are a better person than me!

And I'm sure you are anyway!

Alex

I have to say that I have developed a great sympathy for Anglo-Catholics and will be glad to be taking the icon of the Mother of God of Glastonbury from my kellion for veneration and to carry in the procession when they have their pilgrimage to Glastonbury in July. The Holy Mother has love for us all, and surely covers all who call upon her, beneath her holy protecting veil.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

I too had the Glastonbury Icon, but gave it to an Anglo-Catholic priest for a shrine in his parish.

Has an Akathist ever been written to it?

(Would you know where a copy of it could be purchased? I should have made a colour copy before I gave it away, but as you know, they say wisdom comes only with age!)

Alex

The icon in Devon was photographed, but the priest seems not to be given to dispensing copies!
I should get the icon in my chapel photographed, as many people want prints. I'm biased, but I think it is better painted than the Devon icon.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Father!

I am in line for such a photograph and you should perhaps have a fundraiser for an Old Orthodox outreach programme on the basis of the sales of such photos!

The programme could be focused on devotion to the Mother of God of Glastonbury!

Alex

I think this devotion could be a great bridge between different Christian traditions. Glastonbury is very important as one of the first Christian temples in Britain and may even take us back to the sub-apostolic age. Holy Tradition places the Holy Apostle Aristobulus of the Seventy - the brother of St Barnabas - as the first bishop in Britain. Glastonbury certain has a great choir of saints of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, uniting both Orthodox and Catholics in devotion and veneration. All Christians need to unite in praying for such a holy place, overshadowed by so much that is dark and demonic.

Sadly the Old Believers in Moscow (Belayakrinitsy)would not face up to the sanctity (or even Christianity) of the saints of Glastonbury and pre-schism Britain in general, even though some of them are martyrs of the Roman persecutions, some of them are fathers who participated in councils and some of them lived the monasticism of the thebaid - long before Christianity took root in the Slav countries. Ahhhh the ethnocentric downfall of much of Orthodoxy!!!...where angels fall!!!

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

Yes, indeed!

An interesting aside is that the Glastonbury thorn that is clipped each year and sent to Her Majesty The Queen around Christmastime only flowers for Old Calendar Nativity!

Another example of sub-apostolic veneration for the Mother of God is at Chartres in France.

The Celts worshipped an image of a seated Virgin with a Child on its lap.

The Christians not only claimed that the Celts were honouring a "prophetic image" of the Saviour Who was to come, but also reproduced this image as "Our Lady of Chartres" and placed it in the "Sous-Terre" chapel.

There is at Chartres, to this day, a "Feast of Our Lady of Chartres, 100 BC" in addition to the other feasts in honour of the three miraculous Madonna images there!

Alex

Didn't the Brithonic Celts believe that the Sun Mother gave birth to Iesun (Iesu the Welsh for Jesus!!!) each midwinter?

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

Yes indeed!

And certainly astute Christian missionaries would have picked up on these and related them to the Gospel etc.

The Egyptian "Tau" Cross was popular among the pagans and Greek missionaries simply adopted it and told the people that they were already honouring the Saviour of the world etc.!

I suppose St Paul started it all in Athens when he spied the altar to the "Unknown God" and told the Areopagites he was in that city on business on behalf of that God!

Alex