That They May Be One - a Musical Explanation of Orthodoxy

 

It's sometimes weird how ideas come to me. The notion of the Church as One has been a fixture of theology as long as I have been Orthodox, but I haven't thought about it too much in the sense of what it means. How are we one? How do we relate to one another? What does it mean that all things are summed up in Christ?

When I was just beginning to learn music theory for guitar, I asked my guitar instructor, Matt Wade (who would be puzzled to see his name come up here) "when you play a solo, are you thinking about the chords or the scale?"

He said "well, chords and scales are pretty much the same thing to me."

It was one of those moments where I didn't really get what he was saying, but I knew enough to know I needed to learn this principle. Having learned it, I think it has application to the Christian life.

In Western music (with apologies to all you Byzantine Chant nerds), everything relates back to the major scale. If you want to make a major triad, you simply take the first, third, and fifth notes of the major scale. The third is, in this context, called a "major third" in that it is two full steps from the root (the "root" is the first note of the scale). If you want to make a minor triad, then you flat the third. "Flat in relation to what?" Well, the major scale intervals. Instead of two full steps from the root, you get a step and a half, and we call that a "flat third" or "minor third." 

There are, of course, other ways to look at it. You can say you are taking the first, third and fifth of the minor scale, but the minor scale is also in relation to the major scale. Say in the key of C, you have the root (C), flat third (Eb instead of E), and fifth (G) to make a C minor chord. For the entire natural minor scale, you also flat the 6th and 7th. "Flat in relation to what?" Well, the major 6th and major 7th.

Somewhat of a similar concept, also in relation to the major scale, a 7th chord (or "dominant chord") is a major triad with a flat 7th added (so four notes). "Flat in relation to what?" Well, the major 7th. Etc.

It doesn't matter what scale or chord you are talking about, it always relates back to the major scale. So when my guitar instructor said "chords and scales are pretty much the same thing," what he meant was both chords and scales are just ways of arranging the notes in the major scale, either augmenting them or diminishing them ("sharping" or "flatting" in this sense) to color the music you are playing. A different scale is not a different thing. It's a different application of the same thing. There is no natural minor scale, or major or minor pentatonic scale, or harmonic minor scale, or whatever, without relation to the major scale. It all begins and ends there. Every chord and every scale has a relation back to the intervals of the major scale.

The Christian life is very much like this. We tend to want to separate aspects of Christian living. There is the monastic life. The married life. Parish life. The episcopacy. The priesthood. These, as we like to view them, are all different things. "I'm a father, but not a priest." "I'm a monastic, so I am not in the world." But all of them ultimately relate back to the one life in Christ. He is the uniting principle in Christianity. In that sense, there is no "ultimate" expression of Christianity. There is no Church of one, other than the One Who is Christ. We are all members of the Church not of our own accord, nor in some sort of fragmented way, but in relation to Him. The married life seeks to glorify Christ by the union of the two people in the marriage. The priesthood seeks to glorify Christ by carrying out His ministry. The monastic life seeks to glorify Christ in prayer for the world, to and through Him Who redeemed the world. It's not different things, nor even a hierarchy of good things, but rather it's all different ways of expressing the same thing.

Monasticism is a later development in the Church. It is a perfectly Christian practice, and it is good, but we tend to want to make it the ideal. In a sense, it is the fullest expression of the Christian faith, because the monk or nun devotes his or her life to the things of God, doing all the services, saying all the prayers, working to adorn the grounds and one's cell, and being fully immersed in the Church. But in a proper sense, it is simply a different expression of the same thing. Are you less of a Christian because you stay away from liturgy to help an elderly parent or someone who is infirm, hungry or homeless? Are you less of a Christian because you cannot be in the church building every waking hour because you have to work and provide for your spouse and children? Are you less of a Christian because you cut the grass in your home and not on the church grounds? Of course not! The opposite is also true. Being "in the world" is not superior to monasticism, it's just different. All of our labors are needed. Because all of our labors point back to Christ.

Are you single and celibate? Fantastic! St. Paul famously extols your virtue! Are you married! Also fantastic! St. Paul celebrates you as well! Bishops are to be "husbands of one wife," but that does not, obviously, mean our bishops are transgressing because they are celibate and monastic. The Church, in her good order, determined that a bishop should be devoted to the Church and not have his loyalties divided by maintaining a family. Unlike the Catholics, our priests are not so bound, and are free to marry and have children. None of these is bad, and none of these is lesser than the others.

It is the same with service in the Church. I am a reader. I am not "in charge." I am not the boss. I have responsibilities, and I try to do those to the best of my ability. But while it is a great honor to serve the Church, it is not a point of pride nor anything to boast about. I am the lowliest servant. My priest is the head servant in our parish. He submits to the bishop, who is the chief servant in our diocese. But the bishop is not more saved than I am, or my priest is, either because he is a bishop or because he is a monk. We're all in this together. The uniting principle is not office or service, but Christ. The Church's order exists not to exalt one above another, but so that the Church can fulfill this one ministry of Christ effectively and in good order.

If your membership and participation in the Church does not relate back to Christ, then you are making sour music. If it does, then there is no need to bifurcate your vocation, membership, and service in comparison, much less opposition, to another's. The monk's service and salvation are in relation to Christ, as is my own, and as is yours. The Church is truly One in Him.

Finding the Church

Our parish hosted the 25th anniversary Our Life in Christ podcast this weekend. If you are unaware, Our Life in Christ is a podcast hosted by our old friend Steve Robinson and our now-new friend Bill Gould, beginning as a local radio show in Arizona, and eventually becoming a long-running podcast on Ancient Faith Radio. You can listen to older episodes, and soon, the last two episodes from Saturday, here:

Our Life in Christ: Ancient Faith Radio

The podcast has essentially been defunct since 2014, though Steve has posted lots of other podcasts, blogs and other media since then. Bill sort of semi-retired from Orthodox media, but has been very active in his own parish. That last part was part of the discussion on Saturday, and that part of the discussion is what prompts this post.

There has been much criticism of "netodoxy," or "online Orthodoxy," or "cyberdoxy," mostly centered around various people complaining about so-called "Orthobros." Best I can tell, an "Orthobro" is a young male convert who is either insufficiently liberal or somewhat to the right of whomever is using the pejorative.  Like most terms that begin as descriptive, it has become almost exclusively a pejorative today. Part of the discussion we had this weekend sharpened my view on this problem. It dealt with the issue of catechesis and formation, and how that is done. And ironically, it was not an approach "from the left" as it were, nor "from the right" for that matter. It was Bill Gould simply stating what should be obvious to anyone who has been Orthodox for more than five minutes: formation happens in the parish, and the parish is run by the priest and his bishop. The pejoratives miss the point. The issue is not what these people believe, but that they are not being formed. Note -- I did not say they are not being formed well. They are not being formed at all.

The problem with internet orthodoxy is not that people have the wrong opinions. Rigorists can soften, weak-kneed liberals can harden, and those of us occupying some part of the mushy middle can pick a side and move our center. Views and attitudes and foundational assumptions can change over time.  What doesn't change is how the Church operates, and I think setting up anyone, of whatever preconditioned viewpoint, to think there is a hard-set "right" or "wrong" view of just about anything that is not dogmatic is setting them up for disappointment. I've personally been through this.

When you join the Orthodox Church, you are not joining a set of beliefs. We don't have Confessions and a list of dogmatic things you must assent to, outside the Scriptures, the Canons and the Ecumenical Councils. Some parishes still use the "anathemas" to denounce former beliefs. Most simply pray for the catechumen, and eventually the newly illumined, to "set aside their former delusions." So there isn't a book you can go to and get all the answers to your questions. For us, becoming Orthodox, Our Life in Christ filled that role, but we knew at the time, if only because Bill and Steve talked about it, that this was not real. In order to see for ourselves, we had to find a Church.

When we did, we found a Church very much as they had described. There was a liturgy that was not subject to whim. There was the ancient faith, unapologetic and not subject to revision or "new understandings." But there was also a pastor, and that pastor administered the parish with the primary goal of caring for souls. Most priests do this. That priest reported to a bishop, who was himself subject to a Metropolitan, and the Metropolitan was subject to the Holy Synod of Antioch and, through it, the Patriarch of Antioch. When the priest didn't like something the Archdiocese was doing, he did it anyway. When I didn't like something the priest was doing, I usually kept my mouth shut and understood he was in charge. I'm sure when someone didn't like what I was doing in the chanter stand or the choir, or in catechesis or the Teen SOYO discussions, they mostly kept their mouths shut as well.

That's the way it works in the Church. I answer to my priest, not public opinion or popular sentiment. It is only where the priest is doing violence to the Church's order, whether by his own disobedience or his serious and public sin, that I have cause to go outside that order, and even there, I go up the chain of command, as it were, going around the priest but going back in line to the proper order. Again, we've actually been through this, and made mistakes along the way, so we've learned both what to do and what not to do. But there is no "order" online, and that is precisely the problem.

When we talked about what we should do when online Orthodoxy seems to be invading our parishes in the form of zealous inquirers, Bill had a really interesting answer. He said we should refer them to the priest, and through the priest, the bishop.  Steve suggested also reminding them that "this is what you signed up for," by which he meant obedience is what we all signed up for. This has been the practice at St. Patrick since her inception, so it's not so much that I found this idea novel or surprising. It's more that their articulation of the solution reminded me that it's really not my problem. I don't have to counter every wingnut on YouTube, and I don't have to stamp out every bad idea. And I'm a catechist, so if I don't have to do it, neither does anyone else really. Let the priest handle it. He's trained to do it, and even if he isn't very good at it (most priests, including our priest, are good at it), he's the one the bishop gave the authority to do it. I'm not in charge. Except as the priest delegates it to me, it is not my place to even tell an inquirer that he isn't in charge either. I do neither of us any favors when I usurp the role of the priest by presuming to lecture inquirers beyond what the priest has given me to do. Besides, in very broad, general terms, most Orthodox priests aren't going to do that either. In most cases, the priest isn't there to slay your heroes or discount your beliefs. What a good priest will do is simply say "I don't have a blessing to do that" (for example, if his bishop tells him to receive converts by chrismation but this particular convert insists on baptism). He will confirm and uphold the order of the Church.

So the real problem with cyberdoxy is not that it is always wrong, or even that it is sometimes controversial. It's that it isn't real. Bill said something along the lines of "there is no internet jurisdiction." Yes, precisely. There is no internet jurisdiction because bits and bytes aren't real human beings. It is very easy online to be rude, say hurtful things, etc. And lots of guys on YouTube seem to major in that, even as they also often have very good things to say, and good wisdom to pass on. It is the nature of internet anonymity (even if you use your real name, most people online cannot find you, and those that can mostly won't bother). There is no immediate downside to saying whatever you want, and because of that, people often feel free to say whatever they want. I know I've fallen into this, so I don't mean to criticize too harshly. But it is simply a fact that you can say things online without having to worry about someone else's hurt feelings, much less, as my father used to say, talk that "might tend to make a man's nose hurt."

The other side of the coin is also true. There is no online pastoral care. No matter how much affinity you feel for another person on the internet, they don't know you, and ultimately, they don't care about you except in an abstract sense. They are not your spiritual father. They are not forming you in the faith. At best, they are giving you information, and information can be good or bad, but it is not tailored to you if it is disseminated online by someone you don't know, and who doesn't know you.

What this means is simple -- do not trust what you see online except in the bare sense of obtaining information, and do not accept information blindly simply because you want to agree with it. That includes literally everything I've ever written on this blog. If you know me (and most readers of this blog do, since for good or ill I have never attempted to make it "viral"), then come and ask me if you have questions. Likely, if you are Orthodox, I will refer you to your priest, and if you are not, I will refer you to mine or one near you. But you are not Orthodox without a parish, a priest, and most important, a bishop. Orthodoxy is not a spectator sport. If you want to find the Church, you have to first find a parish.