Day 22

Jesus said to His Disciples, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all this they will do to you on My account, because they do not know him who sent Me. John 15:18-21 (From the First Gospel on Holy Thursday Evening)

I want to talk a little bit about heresy today. Heresy is an opinion or belief that is contrary to religious doctrine. There are any number of religious doctrines that exist in the world today. In fact, there are various Christian doctrines in the world today. Obviously I want to speak about Orthodox Doctrine. This is what we have been talking about through all these reflections.

In the early Christian Church (when we were one Church), after it become the established religion of the Roman Empire, it began to deal with a number of heresies, opinions and beliefs that were contrary to what the one Christian Church was teaching. It is beyond the scope of this short reflection to discuss them, but the seven Ecumenical Councils of the Early Church dealt with them.

We don’t often think about heresies today. However, in his reflection today, Fr. Stavros speaks about “political correctness”, something that I believe is a present day heresy and certainly a threat to the Christian Faith.

“Political correctness” teaches that there are no right and wrong. Anyone can believe what they want, everyone has an equal voice, and every idea should receive equal weight. While this might sound like a good idea at first, at its heart it teaches that those ideals that are contrary to the teachings of the Church…hated, greed and fear are as good as the things the Church teaches us…namely love, peace and generosity.

That might seem like a stretch, but think about this line from the movie “Wall Street”: “Greed, for lack of a better word…is good.”  We only have to look at the media and entertainment of the day to see how many ideas that are contrary to Christian teaching are put forth.

In fact, many of the moral arguments of the day are couched in “political correctness”, or even more dangerously, in love. These ideas and concepts are not biblical, as Fr. Stavros points out. The Church teaches us, through scripture and the words of Jesus Christ, how we are to live, how we are to treat one another.

The words of today’s gospel passage strike a strong chord for us us Christians today. We live in a world today that teaches ideas that are contrary to what the Church teaches. The world (you could use the word society here) “hates” us for our beliefs.

As Fr. Stavros tells us today, it is not easy to be a Christian. We live in contrast to the ideas that society puts forward. But is precisely that life, a life of love, peace and generosity, that will change the hearts of those around us.

We must be vigilant and guard against falling into “political correctness”, of believing that it is alright for everyone to believe what they want. Our desire must be for everyone to come to the knowledge of God and inherit eternal life. We can do our part in this by how we live, by practicing what the Church teaches us, by living our faith.

Live your faith…today and every day!

In Christ

Fr. David