All Political Ideologies Are Incompatible With Orthodox Christianity

At coffee hour one recent Sunday, the policies of Victor Orban’s government in Hungary came up as a topic of discussion. I stated my admiration for how Orban’s government is using tax and economic incentives to encourage families to have more children. One of the parishioners objected, “That is socialism.”

The Hungarian, Georgian, and Russian governments have policies specifically designed to encourage family formation and multiple children.

“Well, it’s working there and in Georgia also,” I replied, “Don’t you agree that we need more babies? Our birthrate is too low, and whole civilizations are in danger of disappearing. Remember what Elon Musk just said about Japan?”

“Sure we need more babies,” he said, “But not that way!”

Policies that are working in more than one country to get the outcome we both desired (more babies) were dismissed without a second thought. Not because of the actual costs vs. benefits of the policies themselves, but because the very idea of them violated his commit to “conservative” economic principals of government non-intervention in the economy. Awarding benefits to families on the basis of having more children was a misuse of tax dollars for social engineering. There had to be another way more consonant with his economic values. He was sure of it. He just couldn’t think of one at the moment. No matter, Orban and his party were still wrong, even if he had no idea what might be right.

My friend and fellow parishioner is not alone in his dogmatic embrace of an ideology. It seems like our modern world is dominated by “isms” – liberalism, progressivism, conservatism, extreme nationalism, neoliberalism, Marxism, socialism, transgenderism, deconstructionism… The list of ideologies seems endless and endlessly destructive. Particularly when we try to import them into the Orthodox Church, for truly the Orthodox Faith is the enemy of all ideologies.

Orthodoxy Embraces Reality

Orthodoxy is truth as revealed to us by the Triune God. The world is fallen, and in need of redemption that only union with God can provide. God created a cosmic order in which this redemption can take place. Within that order, objective reality exists. While people can certainly find ways to improve humanity’s lot, reality imposes limits on what humans can accomplish on their own. The Church recognizes reality and lives humbly within its confines, even as the Faithful pray for miracles that only God can work.

All ideologies are distortions of the reality God created, with some more obvious about it than others. For example, typical leftist distortions of reality include: “A toddler can choose to change his or her sex.” “Same-sex attraction is natural.” “Lockdowns can stop the spread of an aerosolized virus.” “Printing and spending more money reduces inflation and helps the working class.” “Abortion does not kill a baby.” “Ukraine is a democracy.” “Fossil fuels must be ended to save the planet.” “Russia is an existential threat to the West.” “Guns cause violence.” “More immigration is always good.” “Diversity is our strength.”

For “conservatives”, the above distortions of reality are obvious. Less so are their own, such as: “The US is the greatest country ever.” “We just need to get back to the Constitution.” “America was founded as a Christian nation.” “America has always been a force for good internationally.” “The government should play no role in economic or social policy.” “The US military protects our freedoms.” “The US has the greatest medical system in the world.” “NATO is essential.” “Corporations have the same rights as citizens.” “Cutting taxes on corporations and the rich will spur productive use of money in the economy.” “American values are universal. Inside every foreigner is an American struggling to get out.”

Both sets of positions above are rejections of objective reality, rational cost-benefit analysis, historical facts, or all three. That is, of course, of no consequence to idealogues who believe in them. When reality stubbornly refuses to conform to their ideologies, true believers deny or ignore contradictory facts. They often go on the offensive against heretics who challenge holy dogma. An idealogue would rather watch children and puppies starve than rethink a core ideological belief.

This, by the way, is why so many “experts” are consistently wrong. The COVID vaccines are safe and effective, because the COVID vaccines must be safe and effective. Masks work because masks must work. White supremacy is the biggest problem in the US because it must be. Global Warming is happening and it must be mankind’s fault. Experts should be proficient at understanding and interpreting data in an unbiased fashion. Unfortunately, too often the “experts” are only interested in preserving the current “narrative” which aligns with their deeply held ideological beliefs.

Rejection and/or the avoidance of truth has no place in the Orthodox Church. You are not being a good Orthodox Christian if you find yourself: avoiding / lying about facts that contradict your ideological worldview, launching ad hominem attacks to silence critics of your position, encouraging censorship to protect your ideology from inconvenient facts, engaging in or encouraging violence, and/or misrepresenting Patristic teaching to equate your ideological biases with Church dogma.

Ideologies Put Too Much Faith in Man

The Orthodox Church counsels us from the Psalms, “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.” Most ideologies ignore this common sense advice, and instead proclaim infinite trust in government and men. Ideologies are, by their nature, Utopian. Just as the Puritans felt that man could be shaped by the law into citizens of the Kingdom of God on Earth, so do all manner of “isms” seek to build, or “restore”, a perfect kingdom of men. If the ideologues can just coerce enough people, then we can vanquish racism, save the planet, end gun violence, establish perfect equality, or maybe bring back the “real” America circa 1955.

It all sounds very much like the original sales pitch given to the first people, Adam and Eve, “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.“ (KJV Genesis 3:4-5)” Man started out by wanting to be his own god, and seems to have never gotten over that desire. The modern attitude of Western society puts man at the center of his own salvation. If we just trust the experts and follow the science, we can do anything! Even death itself can be conquered, though you may become more machine than human in the process. We are part of an evolution from religious barbarism to a shining technocratic future. Just obey your bettors and all will be well.

The Orthodox Church takes a much more humble view of the potential of human actions such as law and governance to “transform” society. This humility is clearly laid out in the document The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church:

The law contains a certain minimum of moral standards compulsory for all members of society. The secular law has as its task not to turn the world lying in evil into the Kingdom of God, but to prevent it from turning into hell. The fundamental principle of law is: “do not do to others what you would not want to be done to yourself”.

 

However, in the cases where the human law completely rejects the absolute divine norm, replacing it by an opposite one, it ceases to be law and becomes lawlessness, in whatever legal garments it may dress itself. For instance, the Decalogue clearly states: “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Ex. 20:12). Any secular norm that contradicts this commandment indicts not its offender but the legislator himself. In other words, the human law has never contained the divine law in its fullness, but in order to remain law it is obliged to conform to the God-established principles, rather then to erode them.

 

However, the experience of the Christianization of the legal system inherited from the pagan Rome under Emperor Justinian proved to be quite successful. It was so not in the least because the legislator, in developing the Codex, was fully aware of the dividing life between the order of this world, marked with the fall and sinful erosion even in the Christian era, and the statutes of the grace-giving body of Christ, the Church, even its members and the citizens of a Christian state are the same people. The Codex of Justinian determined for centuries the Byzantine legal system and made a considerable impact on the development of law in Russia and in some Western European countries both in the middle ages and the modern time.

Humans will never build Heaven on Earth. This world will pass away in its imperfections and be restored to perfection by the Grace of God in His own good time. That does not mean we are legal nihilists. Secular law can serve an important role in keeping society from descending into a hellscape. Many American cities exhibit the need for secular law and order quite clearly, as the abandonment of even minimum standards has led to catastrophic results.

Secular law and Church law are not the same, and do not serve the same functions. The difference is especially apparent in ritual duties. We would never support, for example, the secular authority requiring people to fast, to attend Divine Liturgy, to go to confession, etc. On the other hand, if secular law contradicts or prohibits Orthodox Christian duties, then it is not law but lawlessness.

An embrace of Orthodox humility vis-à-vis the limits of secular power would have prevented the horrific, ideologically motivated violence endemic to our modern era. Humble maintenance of a minimum standard of public morals would never necessitate the deaths of millions. Only a drive for Utopian perfection would require the sacrifice of so many souls. Narcissistic dreamers are dangerous.

Orthodox Christians should understand, and teach others, that there are no perfect solutions in this world. No problem will ever be fully solved. Attempting to “fix” something once and for all (zero COVID, ending gun violence, ending poverty) will always fail. That doesn’t mean we should never try to improve the human condition, only that success always has its limits. Further, in this world any solution to any problem will involve potentially harmful tradeoffs. A “cure” can easily become worse than the disease. When the “cure” becomes part of an ideology, then idealogues must downplay or ignore any ill effects. Such willful blindness is anti-Orthodox as it invariably leads to an abandonment of truth and to needless human suffering.

You could be wrong. Your ideas could be wrong. Your approach could be wrong. A wise, humble, and pious man or woman is open to these possibilities and will change course accordingly. We need more such people.

Ideologies Are Counterfeit Religions

Ideologies function like religions on purpose, because they were created to supplant religion:

“Ideology” was invented at the end of the eighteenth century as an alternative to religion and was intended to exercise the same impact on people’s minds and behavior. The French philosopher Antoine Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836), who coined the term “ideology,” used les eléments d’idéologie as a foundation for his secular epistemology. Being a faithful follower of the Enlightenment, de Tracy constructed ideology as a way of cognition of the truth without engaging “religious bias.”  Ideology, thus, at its very inception was anti-religious.

The passage below is from an article by a “detransitioner” and neatly summarizes how Gender Ideology functions as a religion:

The world painted by Tumblr’s radical queer, feminist, transsexual theorists was one that has since become familiar to many people. You might know it as Wokeism, DEI, Successor Ideology, or Critical Theory. It has many tenets, but to massively oversimplify, it applies a pseudo-Marxist analysis to pretty much every social issue: men oppress women, whites oppress People of Color, the abled oppress the disabled, and so on. Through the magic of Intersectionality, these class antagonisms coalesce into one great struggle: the oppression of the Marginalized by White Supremacist Capitalist Cis-Hetero-Patriarchy (the Enemy). The world is wicked, and it is that way because it was made wicked by the Enemy.

 

One has to understand the nature of the world’s evil before one can repair it. The first step in obtaining that knowledge is realizing that our bodies are not us, but things which we’re trapped inside of. We’re not humans; we’re ghosts haunting rotting corpses. To stop the Enemy, trans people need to make us all understand that our true selves don’t exist in our corrupted material forms. This is what gender identity actually means: We are not our bodies.

 

Virtuous souls have been unjustly trapped in profane flesh. The most virtuous are those who suffer most from their embodiment: women, “queer” people, the disabled, those lower in the hierarchy of the racial caste system described by critical race theorists like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi. These are the Marginalized. The Marginalized are the chosen people. They are chosen because they suffer. If you aren’t Marginalized, you can become Marginalized by deciding to transition. If you’re already Marginalized, you can become even more virtuous through transition, because Marginalized identities stack. A Woman of Color is more virtuous than a white woman, and a Trans Woman of Color is more virtuous yet. Trans actually carries more weight than some other forms of Marginalization; a woman transitioning to become a trans “man” or a gay person becoming a “straight” trans person are increasing their net Marginalization despite giving up Marginalized identities.

 

If those who are born Black or disabled are the chosen, trans people are the converts who have voluntarily accepted Marginalization. They choose to suffer more from their involuntary embodiment. Because of this, they become virtuous. They are saved.

Greenism, Marxism, COVIDism, Critical Race Theory, Transgenderism, Veganism, Human Extinctionism, Transhumanism, and additional ideologies all function as religions in the same way. There is a priesthood, there is dogma which you may not question, there are enemies despoiling the Garden of Eden, there is sin, there is sacrifice / atonement, there is approved “art”, and there is even a path of salvation to gain their versions of the Kingdom of Heaven. Powerful elites support these religions as their anti-human dogmas always require force to enact them. More force equals more power which equals more wealth and control for those in charge.

What’s not to love?

Unfortunately, many such ideologies, especially Greenism, have found their way into the Church. Adherence to heretical ideologies often separates Orthodox believers from one another, and too often forms a shared basis for “ecumenical” engagement between Orthodox Christians and other faiths. The non-stop Climate Change propaganda from the Greek Archdiocese comes to mind, along with the accompanying endless stream of joint “papers” and “declarations” on the environment with heterodox religious leaders.

Even when Orthodox hierarchs and priests oppose socially-transforming ideas put forth by ideologies, they often do so as if they were dealing merely with harmful policies crafted by the political process. Rather, we must all recognize that we are fighting the implementation of malignant religious dogmas that are actively competing with Holy Orthodoxy for human souls.

The current policies of the governing elites are politically toxic. Parents are increasingly alarmed at the government, corporations, and cultural elites pushing Transgenderism on their children. Despite Americans demanding lower gas prices, the governing elites remain committed to strangling access to fossil fuels. The vast majority of Americans are sick of Critical Race Theory, but elites are doubling down on it everywhere they can. Americans are increasingly reluctant to get any more COVID vaccines and boosters, so now the FDA is pushing the jabs on toddlers and babies. Jabs that European countries have said are too risky for those under 18. This is certain to end well, right? Crime is skyrocketing, so the governing elites discuss how to further disarm law-abiding citizens to make them more vulnerable. The dollar is in sharp decline, so the elites print and spend more of them.

None of this makes any sense if your goal is to win elections. If you are trying to accumulate more power and wealth under the cover of religious dogma masquerading as “science”, or if you are a true believer in a non-Christian religion that demands illogical things – then perhaps it all makes sense after all. Particularly if one takes into account the action of Satan, the father of lies, with his consuming desire to distract mankind from the true path of salvation.

Conclusion

This is not a call for the Church to stay completely out of political affairs. When policies and laws clearly violate Christian duties, then the Church must protest. When the state impinges on the freedom of the Church to proclaim the Gospel and minister to the Faithful, likewise must the Church speak out. The Church should also use her Prophetic Voice to speak for the poor, the downtrodden, the common people whose lives have been devastated by ideologically-driven lockdowns, mandates, inflation, sanctions, and the degradations of our educational system. When doing so, however, the Church must come from a place of defending reality as it is, and not as some wish it to be. The Church must recognize heretical religious dogmas, and reject them for what they are. As part of that effort, the Church can do much to reclaim true scientific inquiry that expands human knowledge, rather than curtailing it. The Church must also remain humble, aware of the limitations of secular law, and teach others to mindful of that as well.

We cannot make the Earth into Heaven, but perhaps we can at least halt its slide into Hell.

Constantine is a cradle Orthodox raised in the Greek Archdiocese who currently attends a Serbian parish 

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