Orthodox Reflections

Common people talk too much. In doing so, they often oppose the “narrative”, which is bad for corporate profits and for political power. Such resistance by the Plebeians simply will not do. For the Global Elite, life would be much better if we would all just shut up and get in line. The blatant use of coercion and censorship to make us do just that is the direction we are heading. Let us consider where we are and that Freedom of Speech is under an assault which it might not survive.

California Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), passed Aug. 29 by the California Senate, would subject doctors and others to disciplinary action (including having their licenses to practice medicine in California suspended or revoked) for spreading “vaccine disinformation.” The bill defines “misinformation” as any “false” information that is “contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.” The bill only awaits Newsome’s signature to become law.

At which point, “science” in California will become “orthodoxy” from which no physician is allowed to dissent. Political commentator Robby Soave, a host of “Rising” on Hill TV, wrote in an article for Reason:

“Science is a deliberative process, and medical professionals need to be allowed to dissent from mainstream orthodoxies and challenge dominant perspectives. Patients deserve expert care, but it’s unreasonable for the government to compel ideological conformity in this field.

 

“Besides, the state has shown no particular aptitude for discerning what constitutes genuine misinformation. On the contrary, government actors have frequently instructed social media companies to be wary of perfectly legitimate points of view.”

As critics have pointed out, the “standard of care” wording is so vague that the bill essentially means whatever the Government of California says it means. This is a blank check for the government to stifle legitimate debate on behalf of the rich and the politically powerful. The bill should be called, “Pfizer Profit and Corrupt Politician Protection Act”.

Physicians will be unable to voice their educated opinions about how best to treat their patients. They will be under pressure to downplay “vaccine” side effects, even as those are becoming increasingly known. They will be forced to pretend, on pain of losing their medical licenses, that the mRNA jabs are “safe” and “effective”, even for children. Even as they, as physicians, are aware that nations around the world are increasingly banning the use of these jabs for those under 18, and in some cases even under 25. All patients in California will suffer as meaningful voluntary, informed consent requires full, open discussion of all possible risks and benefits of any courses of treatment.

The irony is that these restrictions on medical free speech are occurring even as the truth about the mRNA jabs is finally breaking into the mainstream. As an example, in July 2022, seven distinguished medical researchers, Peter Doshi included, wrote an open letter in The BMJ to the CEOs of Moderna and Pfizer asking the pharmaceutical companies to release clinical trial datasets for independent scientific review. Doshi and colleagues noted the results of their recent study showing the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines exhibited a “risk increase” of “serious adverse events of special interest”. This raised concerns that “mRNA vaccines are associated with more harm than initially estimated at the time of emergency authorization.” Harms that include impacts on fertility, sudden death, myocarditis, neurological disorders, and much more.

Bad publicity is bad for business, especially with new jabs being rolled out and so few takers lining up for them. So, of course, the companies making the drugs, the medical associations that supported the jabs, the Public Health establishment, the Federal Government, and many politicians are desperate to control the narrative. If they can do that legally in California, then a precedent will have been set that any lover of freedom should rightly fear.

Further, there is no reason to assume such efforts to outlaw free speech will stay confined to just vaccine “misinformation”. Most Blue State governments are all-in for mutilating, sterilizing, and sexualizing minors in the name of “transgenderism”. How long until we see a bill outlawing the spread of transgender “misinformation”? Why stop there? Why not a bill outlawing Ukrainian War “misinformation”? Or a bill outlawing “MAGA extremist misinformation”? After all, in each of those cases “lives are on the line” and our “democracy is threatened” by “domestic extremism”. Why not protect people across the board from all “misinformation”?

The California law is just the latest move in an ongoing campaign to severely curtail free speech those in power find inconvenient. Even without this law, many physicians and nurses throughout the US and Canada have had their licenses threatened for questioning the official narrative of the “jabs”. This hit very close to home for us at Orthodox Reflections. Two physicians that have contributed to our blog were investigated and their medical licenses threatened for supposedly spreading “misinformation”.  If you ever wonder why Orthodox Reflections will publish articles anonymously, such retaliation for free speech is exactly why.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to you… My medical license is being investigated for the FIFTH time. pic.twitter.com/dDvycUjDJG

— Scott Jensen (@drscottjensen) October 26, 2021

Even without a law on “misinformation” like the one proposed in California, the Federal Government has already been colluding with Big Tech to censor unapproved speech. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is suing the Federal Government over this collusion. He had this to say about what he has found so far:

Essentially, big government has been colluding with Big Tech to outsource its censorship, which is illegal. And so what we’ve discovered so far through this landmark case that was filed in May – we got discovery within the past few weeks here, we’re still fighting to get more – is a vast censorship partnership between big government and Big Tech. And you saw just in that intro there, we found reams and reams of emails and documents and correspondence where the government is dictating to these social media companies what to do. To take down certain posts, to censor content. More than that, there’s weekly censorship meetings. There’s direct communication from a senior-level Facebook executive with the surgeon general of the United States saying, “Hey, we heard what you had to say. We did that. What more can we do?”

Attract the government’s notice, and you could lose your social media, your income stream, your Webhosting, and maybe even access to your bank account. The government and Big Tech are in this together.  If we end up with laws on the books authorizing more of this collusion, imagine how far it can all go?

Lest we forget, the government also has the power of arrest and incarceration. If spreading “misinformation” is criminalized, and the government gets to define what is “misinformation” – how long before getting banned from Twitter is the first step to an arrest warrant? We may be there now. Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, in a recent interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, stated that as many as 50 search warrants or subpoenas were recently issued for Trump supporters.  The FBI even confiscated the phone of Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy. The only crime any of these people seem to have committed was opposing, vocally, the Biden Regime. Federal law enforcement is undergoing full political weaponization. Will any outspoken critic be safe in such an environment?

Powerful media companies don’t even need government involvement to suppress free speech. Much of the recent de-platforming and censorship have been self-directed by Woke capitalists in Big Tech. A current example of suppressing inconvenient speech are the actions of Amazon in blocking negative comments about its Lord of the Rings prequel. The show is very unpopular with viewers, a fact that Amazon is trying to hide by blocking and removing negative reviews on its own site and on others it owns, such as IMDB. No big deal you might say? Just viewer reaction to a program? Maybe so, but if you can disappear and block negative comments across multiple sites over a show, then couldn’t you do the same thing over real issues? Of course you can, which is why so many stories that should be absolutely huge just die from lack of oxygen. Big Tech is really Big Brother. 

If you believe we are simply overreacting, then ask yourself this. If we had explained lockdowns, vax passports, mandatory jabs, and all the rest to you in 2019 – how would you have reacted? Probably in total disbelief, perhaps writing off everything said as a “conspiracy theory”, just too far fetched to ever be true. Yet all of that actually did happen.  Over the past two plus years, we have found ourselves marching step by step towards true authoritarianism.  An authoritarianism based on an unholy partnership between Big Business and Big Government.

Fortunately, at least some political leaders have noticed the public / private nexus that threatens our most basic liberties. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had the following to say:

Because I think when Reagan came on the scene, for example, it was really big government. That was to blame and big government that needed to be reeled in. Yes, we still need to do that. Don’t get me wrong, but you now have the woke mind virus has infected all these other institutions. I mean, just look at corporate America. Most corporations, some of these big corporations are now exercising quasi public power in terms of using their economic power to change policy in this country. You just saw what the credit card companies are going to try to do with the firearms. You’ve seen big Wall Street banks collude to deny financing to companies who may be involved in combating illegal immigration or firearms or things that they don’t like.

 

“I think the lesson for people on the right is I think there was a generation of people, that kind of the muscle memory was just if it’s private, just defer to it. If it’s a corporate, let them do kind of what they want to do, because, you know, look, we don’t want to micromanage different things in the economy. I’m not I’m not a central planner. I certainly don’t want to don’t want to be doing that,” DeSantis said, adding that “corporatism is not the same as free enterprise.”

Hopefully for us all, DeSantis will inspire more politicians to resist this creeping authoritarianism.

The Impact on the Orthodox Church

This is a dangerous time for the Orthodox Church. The first risk is direct persecution. Because of our moral teaching, the Orthodox Church is now, by definition, an extremist organization. Take a look at some excerpts from this Statement on Same-sex Relationships and Sexual Identity from the OCA Synod of Bishops:

The Orthodox Church teaches that the union between a man and a woman in marriage reflects the union between Christ and His Church (Eph. 5). As such, marriage is by this reflection monogamous and heterosexual. Within this marriage, sexual relations between a husband and wife are an expression of their love that has been blessed by God. Such is God’s plan for male and female, created in his image and likeness, from the beginning, and such remains his plan for all time. Any other form of sexual expression is by its nature disordered, and cannot be blessed by the Church in any way, whether directly or indirectly.

 

Therefore, in accord with the timeless plan of God our Creator, the unchanging teaching of Christ the Savior announced through his holy apostles and their successors, and the consistent witness of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, the Holy Synod affirms what the Scriptures clearly and plainly proclaim and the holy fathers unerringly confess, namely: that God made human beings in two sexes, male and female, in his own image, and that chaste and pure sexual relationships are reserved to one man and one woman in the bond of marriage.

 

As such, we affirm that sexual relationships are blessed only within the context of a marriage between one man and one woman. Motivated by love and out of sincere care for souls, we call those who suffer from the passion of same-sex attraction to a life of steadfast chastity and repentance, the same life of chastity and repentance to which all mankind is called in Christ.

 

Any clergy, theologian, teacher, or lay person who contravenes our directive thus undermines the authority of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America by disregarding the Holy Synod’s consistent and unwavering teaching on these matters. We call on any such persons to cease their disruptive activities, which threaten the peace and tranquility of the Orthodox Church in America, cause scandal and uncertainty, and tempt those who struggle against their disordered passions to stumble. Consequently, those who teach these errors become participants in the sin of those whom they have tempted or whom they have failed to correct, and thus should seek remission of this sin in the mystery of holy confession. Those who refuse correction open themselves to ecclesiastical discipline.

 

We remind our faithful and clergy that every person of goodwill is welcome to visit our parishes. However, reception into the Church, and continued communion in Christ at the sacred Chalice, is reserved for those who strive to live a life of repentance and humility in light of these God-given truths, conforming themselves to the commandments of God as the only path of salvation in Christ. All of us are sinners, but it is for precisely this reason that Our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to “Repent and believe in the Gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk. 1:15).

In one statement, the Bishops of the OCA managed to:

• Affirm that humans are made in the image and likeness of God, which forms the basis of respecting human free will
• Affirm marriage is between only a man and a woman
• Reject same-sex marriage
• Reject sexual relations outside marriage, including homosexual sex
• Affirm that humans are either male or female. There are only two genders, and you are born one or the other
• Instruct dissenting priests and academics to stop undermining Orthodox teaching

From the standpoint of the Corporate / Government Regime, everything in this statement is intolerable hate speech – homophobia, transphobia, patriarchy, slut shaming, academic suppression… That is just one statement. Our Orthodox Websites and publications are full of such moral teaching. So far, respect for Freedom of Religion has largely kept Orthodox jurisdictions and ministries from being de-platformed, censored, and otherwise harassed. How long can that last, however, when other First Amendment rights such as Freedom of Speech are being ripped to shreds?

A further sticking point with the current regime is that most Orthodox jurisdictions continue to support Metropolitan Onuphry in Ukraine and the canonical Orthodox Church. That puts most Orthodox Christians at least somewhat at odds with Kiev and its heretical, politically motivated church. If the war drags on, how long until the US government’s position hardens into you are either “with us” or “against us”?

Given the US slide into authoritarianism, Orthodox jurisdictions and ministries could easily find themselves facing the same kinds of censorship and persecution that other “enemies of the state” are facing right now.

The second threat to Orthodoxy is the growth of a fake, accommodationist “Orthodoxy” centered largely in the Patriarchate of Constantinople (and related Greek Archdioceses around the world) whose beliefs are actively shaped by progressive academics.

According to the progressive gaslighting, there is a good “Orthodoxy” that is pro-Democracy (as a Theological position), pro-Kiev Government, open to compromise on moral questions (abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, surrogacy, transgenderism), obsessed with Climate Change, ecumenical in outlook, and willing to follow TheScience™!  The academics present this progressive “Orthodoxy” as the “traditional” Orthodox Church that has not been corrupted by either evil Slavic cultural influence or “right-wing American converts”.

Orthodox Christians must wake up and realize that this progressive “Orthodoxy” is actually a competing faith. One, by the way, that has deep financial, political, and social support. The progressive faith will not be censored or suppressed by the regime. The progressive faith will offer Orthodox Christians an opportunity to live normally, as long as they are members of progressive jurisdictions / parishes that hold the “right beliefs”. The external forms, such as the liturgy, will be preserved the way they are. While the progressive “Church” will be devoid of spiritual truth and salvation, on the surface everything will continue to “look” as Orthodox as ever. No doubt quite a few will be deceived by this situation.

Orthodox Christians ignore the ongoing fight for Freedom of Speech at our peril. We still have an opportunity to push back, but that window for meaningful resistance may close at any time. We must resist while we can. Further, we need to call out our own progressive Fifth Columnists lest any among us be deceived into thinking that a “progressive” faith is a haven in the midst of the gathering storm.

May God save us all.

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America