spiritual warfare

Knights of the Desert

Increasingly, I find dissidence and social resistance are considered, among the religious, to be either un-Christian, or somehow an unpleasant aspect of Christianity that is best swept under the rug along with keeping the fasts. Actually, fasting and resistance to the world, in fact open warfare with the world, are related. The very purpose of asceticism is to save us – from the world and unto God. So often, you’ll find those who don’t do one (e.g. fasting or resisting the world) don’t appreciate the other. I’ll be called judgmental for that, but I really don’t care – I only care, at this point, if it’s true. But what is true religion? To relieve the poor and keep oneself unstained by the world. Increasingly, I’m thinking that all of orthopraxy (or orthopraxis for you misguided sticklers) is summed up in that statement.

The other day someone asked a personal question at coffee hour – namely, why I tendered my resignation at a particular company. I explained that I’m not a big fan of corporations and what they’ve done to the culture, the world of work, and people. I find they tend to create a climate of fear and compliance that’s antithetical to what I value. My boss tried to make me afraid and, when faced with an invitation to fear, I tend to break it. So I broke it; I handed in my resignation. You should have seen how people stiffened. You’d have thought I smacked the Bishop. Literally.

So what’s so radical about this? Before you go nitpicking it, I’m not an idiot – this is just one of many examples I could cite, across the interactions of many different kinds of people in many different religious environments. I’m not taking it personally, nor is it about anything personal. Not really. What I’m talking about is the perception that true religion is Mitt Romney, or at least religion should allow for it.

But I see genuine religion quite differently. I see it as much more similar to the placing of a Crusade on laymen-knights who have before them both an ascetic quest in the desert and a moral and ethical battle in the cities of the world. [Just to be clear, ethics is a science, based on those principles necessary to the survival first of the individual and, second, of the species. Morality is a revelation, something that requires a personal source and standard, a person or persons that are of the same image as the species or, more to the point, vice versa.]

Placed on us is not a commission to go forth and blend in, or go forth and adopt the world’s way of life, or go forth and invest your primary energies and essence into the world. Ours is a commission to go forth and do battle, call people out of the world while remaining within it (live in the desert in your own backyard), and defend the downtrodden, the exploited, the weak, and the oppressed. Religion (the kind I would criticize) is simply the translation of the world’s principles into liturgical language. True religion, the kind that is focused on relieving the poor and keeping oneself unstained by the world, is an ascetic warfare on the world and an ascetic conquest of the self, by which in both cases, we overcome the Evil One. True religion is not a sigh of frustration and defeat but a horn of challenge. As C.S. Lewis has said, Christianity is not defense but attack. We defend the weak, but we attack the dragon.

One of the most basic forms of attack, that helps us solidify our sense of resistance and rejection of the world (imo), is boycotting. You can boycott fear in a workplace (like I did), or you can do it in defense of others.

Recently, I was at a restaurant and the manager was yelling furiously at an employee, taunting and threatening him. I walked to the cashier, canceled our order, and explained that I won’t do business with someone who abuses workers, tries to make them afraid, and attacks their dignity. The manager came up and apologized for doing it in public, and I explained that it’s even worse to do it in private, where he’s free from accountability. I cut them off for six months, because it is the duty of Christians to defend the weak, the poor, and the dignity of work and of mankind, and to resist evil and work toward its downfall.

Some months later, I was in a supermarket, and the manager was pacing the front of the store, screaming over a cell phone at an employee who wasn’t coming to work, telling her she was fired. I stepped to the counter and informed the clerk, in the full hearing of all, that the behavior was illegal and immoral. The manager had not only violated the rights of this worker, but had tried to use shame and fear as weapons, and to exude toughness and volatility in the midst of a culture that is already overflowing with it and awash in the resultant blood and violence.

A while back, Yahoo was handed a request by the Chinese government for information that would identify dissidents contributing to internet discussion that was critical of China’s government or form of government (i.e. corruption, abuse of power, exploitation, and a history of genocide, torture, and untold agony). Without the slightest fuss, Yahoo offered up these people, who were then taken from their families (where they were breadwinners) and imprisoned for the best years of their lives. Google, so you know, was given the same request and not only completely refused, but moved their data servers offshore, where they could not even be seized by force. Google’s stated attitude (on this and other repeated occasions), is that there are some things you just don’t do. A common slogan at Google, posted around facilities, used in boardrooms, and guiding the decisions of decision-makers is “Don’t be evil.” That’s not the kind of organization Google wishes to be.

Frankly, I sent a gmail invite to every yahoo user in my contact list, suggesting they upgrade to a provider with better features and superior intangible benefits. I realize it’s a greed-based grabbing culture, and people flock to Walmart (one could write books on the evil giant) for a few dollars and change, helping sentence its workers, and all employees of companies who follow their model, to low wages, laughable insurance and benefits and, essentially, a shorter lifespan and poorer health, inadequate medical prevention and care, and all the attendant ills of chronic poverty. For a few dollars, we don’t care if we deal with the Devil himself. But we should.

You start talking boycotts, and the apostles of the dominant culture in our midst will pull out every “bible” verse about compliance and meekness they can lay hands on, not caring if it really adds up to the Christian worldview or just a bundle of proof texts that help prop up the world with religious stakes and servants. Expedience rules, just as it does at the checkout counter. Why would we expect any other kind of behavior from those in the line? It’s quite predictable. They’ll conjure up shibboleths of evangelical radio or left-wing newsletters, but in fact they’ll never talk of St. John Chrysostom and scores of other Saints who publicly denounced illicit behavior and worked diligently and openly to have it stopped. This will either have escaped their notice or be dismissed as the very proof-text piffle they’re offering at the outset.

Amazingly, you’ll even hear that boycotts is ‘participation in the world’ instead of resistance to it! You’ll hear it in the car on the way to Walmart, ironically, but that’s what’ll be said. In the end, the lines are drawn not between those who attend our churches and those who don’t, but rather between those who worship at the altars of the world and those who smash them, because they’re altars of human sacrifice. You’ll hear all kinds of “but we should be tolerant” until you realize they’re chewing on human bones.

The question is the same question Google asked, to our shame: What kind of people do we choose to be? The Walmarts of the world would dress up expediency as virtue: “Do something for your family, save money at Walmart.” If you haven’t heard the ad their running, you should. They ask you to look only at the surface, think only of instant gratification, consider only the end and ignore the means. The very basis of the conversation is anti-Christian.

Pretty it up, dress it up in a cassock, and lay it on the altar, but it’s still excrement with the stench and stain of the world. And we’re still facing the question of whether, as more and more people are gobbled up, pressed down, turned into means to an end that all good men must reject, we will get up off our lard asses and fight back, for ourselves and for them. For the very dignity of being human beings, made in God’s image, and for the sanctity of even the basic quest for goodness. If we can’t save the world, and deliver it from The World – the dominant culture – the world system – the evil artifice and Babel of principalities and powers, can we at least get up the gumption to get off the sofa and chuck a spear at it? And refuse to eat its dead.

That’s what it is. Eating the dead. And when the apostle said to at least stay away from blood and from strangled things, I see in that exhortation a command to correct, admonish, and resist the world’s edifice that it builds on the backs of the poor, the minds of all men, and the souls of the weak. It is hard to be a knight in the desert. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Remember the 80/20 rule, and hold the line. And I for one will be made stronger and more likely to stand, because you’re standing.

Opposing one another is slavery to the Enemy

“The Saviour has taught men what they could never learn among the idols. It is also no small exposure of the weakness and nothingness of demons and idols, for it was because they knew their own weakness that the demons were always setting men to fight each other, fearing lest, if they ceased from mutual strife, they would turn to attack the demons themselves. For in truth the disciples of Christ, instead of fighting each other, stand arrayed against demons by their habits and virtuous actions, and chase them away and mock at their captain the devil. Even in youth they are chaste, they endure in times of testing and persevere in toils. When they are insulted, they are patient, when robbed they make light of it, and, marvellous to relate, they make light even of death itself, and become martyrs of Christ.” – St Athanasius the Great, On the Incarnation, Chapter 8, 52

Adoring the Cross

“Hail! life-giving Cross, unconquerable trophy of the true faith, door to Paradise, succour of the faithful, rampart set about the Church. Through thee the curse is utterly destroyed, the power of death is swallowed up, and we are raised from earth to heaven: invincible weapon, adversary of demons, glory of martyrs, true ornament of holy monks, haven of salvation bestowing on the world great mercy.” – From the Great Vespers on Saturday Evening before the Third Sunday of Lent, The Adoration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross.

Don't I know I'm going to die?

Have you realized that the world and worldly cares do not hinder in fulfilling God’s commandments, when there is zeal and attention? That silence and retirement from the world are useless, if laziness and negligence prevail?” – St. Simeon the New Theologian

Worldly thoughts and the cares of life have the same effect on the understanding as a veil draped over the eyes, for the understanding is the eye of the soul. So long as we leave them there, we cannot see. But when they fall away as we remember that we are to die, then we shall clearly see the true light which illumines every man as it comes into the world from on high. – St. Symeon the New Theologian

We have to work, St. John Chrysostom says, but we need not concern or trouble ourselves about many things, as our Lord told Martha (Luke 10:41). For concern with this life prevents that concern with one’s own soul and its state which is the purpose of the man who devotes himself to God and is attentive to himself. It is said in the Law, “Be attentive to yourself” (Deuteronomy 15:9). St. Basil the Great has written about this text with marvelous wisdom. — St. Peter of Damaskos

The Kingdom is our Summer, the World our Winter

“Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4). Who therefore does not rejoice at the approaching end of the world, testifies that he is its friend, and by this he is revealed as an enemy of God. But let this be far from the faithful, far from the hearts of those who believe through their faith that there is another life, and who love it in very deed. Let them grieve over the ruin of the world who have planted the roots of their hearts deep in the love of it, who neither look for the life to come, nor are even aware that it is. But we who have learned the joys of our heavenly home must hasten to it as speedily as we may. We should desire to go there with all haste, and to arrive by the shortest way. And with what miseries does not the world urge us forward? What sorrow, what misfortune is there, that does not press upon us? What is this mortal life but a way? And what folly would it be,let you carefully consider, to be weary with the fatigue of the way, and yet not eager to finish the journey!

That the world is to be trodden on, and despised, Our Redeemer then teaches us, by a timely similitude: Behold the fig tree and all the trees: when they now shoot forth, ye see and know that summer is now at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand (vv.29-31). This is as if He were openly to say: as from the fruit on the trees you know that summer is near, so from the ruin of the world you may know that the kingdom of God is likewise near. From which it may be truly gathered that the fruit of the world is ruin. To this end it arises, that it may fall. To this end it germinates,that whatever it has brought forth from seed will be consumed in disaster. But happily is the Kingdom of God compared to summer, because then the clouds of our sadness will pass away, and the days of our life shall be resplendent in the glory of the eternal Sun.” — Pope St. Gregory the Great of Rome

The False Wig, The Crooked Mask

“Think of actors: they wear masks, they dress up. One looks like a philosopher while not being one; another seems to be a king but is no king; another appears to be a doctor and has not the faintest idea how to cure the sick; another pretends to be a slave despite being free; still another plays the part of a teacher yet does not know even how to write. They do not appear as they are, they appear to be something else. The philosopher is a philosopher only because of his abundant but false wig, the soldier is a soldier just because he sports a military uniform. These disguises help to create an illusion, to hide the reality.

The world is a theater too. The human condition, richness, poverty,power, subjection are merely the pretenses of actors.

But when the day is done and the night falls (which, however, we ought to call day: it is night for sinners and day for the just),when the play is over, when we all find ourselves confronted with our own actions and not with our riches or dignity or the honors we have had or the power we have wielded, when we are asked to give an account of our lives and our works of virtue, ignoring both the feats of our opulence and the humility of our need, when we areasked: “Show me your deeds!” then the disguises will fall and we shall see who is truly rich and who is truly poor.” — St. John Chrysostom

The World vs. The Kingdom

… Tell me, who of you that stand here, if he were required, could repeat one Psalm, or any other portion of the divine Scriptures? There is not one. … And it is not this only that is the grievous thing, but that while ye are become so backward with respect to things spiritual, yet in regard of what belongs to Satan ye are more vehement than fire. Thus should any one be minded to ask of you songs of devils and impure effeminate melodies, he will find many that know these perfectly, and repeat them with much pleasure. — St John Chrysostom (author of the Divine Liturgy)

Follow the straight path which has been charted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and do not allow yourselves to be encircled by sin…Today’s path which is followed by various societies is directed towards sin. The cause of this is the development of civilization – of wrongly conceived civilization – towards which the various leaders are striving by diverse means to direct mankind, trying to create a new way of life, different from that prescribed by the Lord. — Modern Orthodox Saints Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene of Lesvos., by Constantine Cavarnos

For if thou wouldest learn how great is the profit of the Scriptures, examine thyself, what thou becomest by hearing Psalms, and what by listening to a song of Satan; and how thou art disposed when staying in a Church, and how when sitting in a theatre; and thou wilt see that great is the difference between this soul and that, although both be one. — St John Chrysostom (author of the Divine Liturgy)

Christ on the War with the World

If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. . . . If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. – Our Lord, in the Gospel According to St. John the Evangelist

These things I have spoken to you that, in me, you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. – Prayer of Our Lord, in the Gospel According to St. John the Evangelist

The world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. – Prayer of Our Lord, in the Gospel According to St. John the Evangelist

The Brother of God on the War with the World

You adulterers, don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? So whoever becomes a friend of the world is the enemy of God. – Epistle of St. James

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. – Epistle of St. James

Warfare: the Enemy, the World, the Passions

“I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him Who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and its lust: but he that does the will of God abides forever.” – St. John the Apostle

Comment: Throughout all stages of our lives, we are called to continual warfare. With the Enemy and against his works, with the World and against its system, attitudes, and values, and with the Passions, because the greatest conquest is the conquest of self. – DD

The Rock on War with the World

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. – Second Epistle of St. Peter

Living in the World vs. Life in the World

For it suits the old man to seek the present world, to love transitory things through desire, to raise the mind in pride, not to have patience, to ponder through pain of spite on the injury of a neighbor, not to give one’s goods to the poor and to seek those of others to multiply one’s own, to esteem no one solely on God’s account, to render enmity to enmity, to rejoice in a neighbor’s affliction. All these are attributes of the old man and plainly derive from the root of corruption. But he who surmounts these things, and at the precepts of the Lord changes his mind to kindness, of him it is rightly said: “The old things are passed away. Behold, all things are made new.” — St. Gregory the Great

Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me: `We have wives and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life?’ I replied to them: `Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not lie to anyone; do not be absent from the divine services; be compassionate to the needy; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another man’s domestic happiness, and be content with that your own wives can give you. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven. — St. John Climacus

Investing in Vanity

He who esteems life in this world and judges its values as worth protecting does not know how to discern what is his own from what is alien to himself. Nothing transitory belongs to us. — St. Gregory of Nyssa

Why do you beat the air and run in vain? Every occupation has a purpose, obviously. Tell me then, what is the purpose of all the activity of the world? Answer, I challenge you! It is vanity of vanity: all is vanity. — Abba John the Short

Key Distinction: Us and the World

“But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” – First Epistle of St. Paul to the Church at Corinth

“Behold, says the Lord, I will bring plagues upon the world; the sword, famine, death, and destruction.” – The Prophet Ezra

“Beguiling and deceptive is the life of the world, fruitless its labor, perilous its delight, poor its riches, delusive its honors, inconstant, insignificant; and woe to those who hope in its seeming goods: because of this many die without repentance. Blessed and most blessed are those who depart from the world and its desires.” — Elder Nazarius

The Beloved of the Lord on War with the World

Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it: but he that does the will of God abides forever. – First Epistle of St. John

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