Orthodox Reflections

— Augustine Martin

I heard a joke recently. A Greek lady is attending the presidential inauguration with her mother. The mother leans over to the woman and says, “Do you see that man on the stage?” “The president?” “Yes,” the old yiayia says. “His brother is a doctor.”

Recently some of us at Orthodox Reflections collaborated on an article about the sin of usury. Hilber Nelson commented:

Pointing out the sin of usury is one thing, as this article does well. And readers will most likely nod ‘in principle’. But without providing practical advice on usury-free living, getting Orthodox clergy charged with running their 501C(3)s, and everyday laity running their households to honestly confess their own complicit avarice, this article is about as productive as telling the alcoholic to just stop drinking. So, I hope the author is writing a second article of practical advice, and soon.

Fair point. It’s one thing to point out the textual fact that both the Bible and the Greek Orthodox tradition condemn moneylending in its entirety. But our entire economy is just a network of usury schemes. Practically, what do we do?

Part of the purpose in bringing up these quotes from St Basil is to start a conversation. These questions may not have clear answers, but they should be asked. The cornerstone quote is this one:

Tear up the unjust contract, so that sin might also be loosed. Wipe away the debt that bears high rates of interest, so that the earth may bear its usual fruits. For when gold and bronze and things that do not naturally reproduce give birth in a manner contrary to nature, then the earth which bears according to nature becomes barren and is sentenced to fruitlessness as a punishment to those who dwell there. [“In Time of Famine and Drought”, page 78]

Part of the reason why moneylending is a sin is because it’s against nature. Money doesn’t reproduce in the way that living things produce, and it’s not labor. Man can till the earth, which produces things according to nature. Or man can take natural resources like wood, stone and metal and make something out of them. But man does not create anything when he makes money off of money – he just generates money, which is nothing outside its market context. In this sense, the finance industry is a form of sodomy. It imitates reproduction, and perhaps it is more enjoyable in the short-term, but it’s a perversion that corrupts society and alienates us from God. God does not bless things that go against the order He created.

One might even say that finance is outside of God’s … economy [pun intended].

Money is a form of sorcery. It’s literally nothing. If you have a cow, that cow has an absolute value. The milk and meat are not contingent on the markets. The soil of a farm may degrade over time, but it’s still a self-contained unit that produces as much as nature allows. But with money, it has an arbitrary value. The same job that pays $15 an hour today previously paid $10 an hour, but the job itself did not change. Only the markets changed. And so if money has no objective value, then it has no value at all. It exists by fiat.

God made the livestock and the fields. He even made gold and silver. But only man made money. Man pressed metal from the dirt into coins and gave it an exchange rate. Livestock and fields are left in the open, even if behind a fence. But as soon as money is left outside, we all rush and grab it.

St Paul is often misquoted as saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” Actually he says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” This is a compound word in Greek, literally, “the love of silver.” And so it’s not merely luxury or consumerism that is the root of all evil, nor even massive landholdings or private property, but rather the love and reproduction of something that exists against nature.

Another important part of St Basil’s quote is that because God has not blessed money to reproduce, He will curse whatever is produced of it. We see how our financial system has fallen apart, both domestically and abroad. Americans are distraught and helpless at how the cost of food, housing and transportation is skyrocketing, and no one has any solution. Various Orthodox countries sold their hard-fought independence to the EU in exchange for cash. As a result, they have been flooded with homosexuals and Mohammedans, and the economy of Greece crashed anyway.

So practically, what do we do? What is the correct moral choice? If nothing else, you can minimize your involvement. You can’t completely opt out of modern finance. Who can resist the beast? At some point you will have to take out a loan. You have to have a checking account. But you can keep your hands as clean as possible.

Orthodox Christians should not invest in a 401k or the stock market, as these are making money off of money. God will not bless the gains from your 401k. Previously Nicholas wrote about how these retirement accounts are used to fund the tranny revolution. Americans’ greed for their retirement and “free money” is driving us to extinction with the promotion of sterile sex and mass immigration.

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But what about our careers? Is it a sin to work in finance?

The bank teller is just a cog in the machine. Is it wrong to be a teller? He’s just a cashier. Maybe not, but what about the guy at the desk who facilitates your auto loan? It’s not a sin to get an auto loan, so is it a sin to help with the paperwork? Is it okay to be in upper management for a small local bank? Your local “Tri-County Trust” is hardly J.P. Morgan. Is working for a bank qualitatively different than working at payday advance loan store?

I don’t have the answer to these questions. But it’s important to ask them. They’re worth thinking about. American Orthodox Christians have this idea that it doesn’t matter what you do for money as long as you’re a nice person on Sunday and keep the fasting calendar. Clergy certainly don’t care where your money comes from, and they will NEVER preach on anything we’ve written in this article and the original one. St Paul told the Ephesians that he has given them “the whole counsel of God,” which our priests have refused to do.

Presently ROCOR is trying to fundraise for its dilapidated Synod Building in New York. I’m told (on good authority) that the building was donated by a bank president. Has God allowed ROCOR’s Synod Building to fall into such disrepair because it was acquired through sinful money? No one asks, and no one cares, as long as the money keeps flowing in. That’s your ROCOR “traditionalism.” We’re a long way from Archbishop Averky.

The careers we encourage our children to follow are the ones that make the most money but have the least actual value. The world does not need more lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, bureaucrats and stockbrokers. If society collapsed, we could do just well without any of these. Greek parents especially push their children towards these kinds of worthless, high-status, high-income careers.

What Greeks don’t encourage their children to become is car mechanics and HVAC technicians. Nursing may be borderline, but becoming a music teacher or an environmental conservationist is a worse scandal to a Greek than marrying a Catholic. God forbid your child wastes his life as a priest or a monk.

These low-status, low-paying jobs are among the few things that actually make the world better and reach across humanity. No matter whether you are good or evil, rich or poor, white or black or polka-dot, everyone needs brake pads and tires. Everyone needs the air conditioning to work. Everyone needs deli meat, trash pick-up and smooth roads. But Greeks don’t do that kind of work. They drank the wine of American consumerism, and today their churches are either empty or full of converts. What the Turks failed to do in 400 years, America did in two generations.

I lived in Northern Virginia for a while. The local Orthodoxy, like everything else there, is funded by careers in the federal government. I often told people that working for DHS, CIA, DoD, FBI or any other of these organizations is just as much of a sin as working for Planned Parenthood, with the possible exception of the trinket shop at the battlefield. Worst of all are the defense contractors. Obviously people did not agree. One local deacon even works for the FBI. Is that okay? A monk designs parts for tanks. Is that appropriate? No one asks, and no one cares. Money builds churches, and that’s all that priests and bishops care about.

These same NOVA bureaucrats go to nearby monasteries for vacation. Abbots and abbesses love big donors. Lay people buy some soap, go back to their comfortable suburban life in Fairfax County, and say the Jesus Prayer. All the while they make their money off of murder abroad and betraying their fellow Americans domestically, just because “it’s a good career.” That is to say, just out of greed. The DC economy stretches its tentacles all across eastern Virginia, artificially inflating housing costs and destroying the local, organic economy of actual Virginians.

You cannot have the things of the world and have Christ. You cannot have your decadent, suburban lifestyle and have salvation. You cannot – I say this to myself as much as to anyone else — ingest the entertainment of the world and still have room for the Holy Spirit. Especially in our society, which is so secular, so carnal and so consumerist – you must choose between the life in this world and the life in eternity.

Someone will say, “But we have to provide for our children. You can’t expect us all to live like monks!” St Basil addresses this too:

“But wealth is necessary for rearing children,” someone will say. This is a specious excuse for greed; although you speak as though children were your concern, you betray the inclinations of your own heart. Do not impute guilt to the guiltless! They have their own Master who cares for their needs. They received their being from God, and God will provide what they need to live. Was the command found in the Gospel, “If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor,” not written for the married? After seeking the blessing of children from the Lord, and being found worthy to become parents, did you at once add the following, “Give me children, that I might disobey your commandments; give me children, that I might not attain the Kingdom of Heaven”? [“To the Rich”, page 54]

St Basil says that the command to the rich young ruler applies to all Christians and is a requirement for salvation. Those aren’t my words. It’s a fact of the text. He and St John Chrysostom reject any kind of two-tier Christian life. Famously Chrysostom said:

You certainly deceive yourself and are greatly mistaken if you think that there is one set of requirements for the person in the world and another for the monk. The difference between them is that one is married and the other is not: in all other respects they will have to render the same account. [“Against the Opponents of the Monastic Life”, III, quoted from Fr Josiah Trenham, page 132.]

We think that this means that monks can live decadently and that married people can have good self-esteem about saying the Jesus Prayer. But actually Chrysostom is setting a higher threshold for everyone. No one is allowed to be worldly or carnal-minded. No one is allowed to hold anything back. You achieve all of salvation or none at all. There are no participation trophies in the Kingdom of God. You either win big or lose everything. There is not a single word anywhere in the Bible that would imply that God will accept half-efforts, part-time efforts, or compromise.

You can reject the tradition of the Church if you want. You can live your suburban lifestyle in front of the noise-and-picture machine and gamble your eternity. That’s a choice. But you can’t lie and say that the Orthodox tradition teaches something other than what the texts say.

America is essentially air-conditioned Babylon. Except that our electric grid is dying, so soon we will just be regular Babylon. It is my belief, for another article, that the mercantile Babylon in Apocalypse 17-18 and Jeremiah 50-51 (in the Masoretic) refers to America, if not ultimately then at least typologically. When you pursue these high-status, high-income, high-consumerist careers, you participate in the sorcery of Babylon. Those who drink the wine of the Harlot of Babylon will share in her destruction.

Luke was a wealthy Jewish doctor. Barnabas was a wealthy Jewish landowner. Matthew was a wealthy Jewish government worker. Paul was a wealthy Jewish lawyer. They abandoned it all to follow the simple carpenter from the Judean Ozarks. Paul wrote many things about the spiritual benefit of manual labor. We don’t know what tent-making was exactly, but it seems to be related to tanning leather:

1 Thessalonians 4:11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,

These are the kinds of careers we should be encouraging our children to do – manual labor that makes the world better. We should be pushing our children into the trades and not white collar careers. Most high-status careers have fallen into disrepute. Older Greeks who work in medicine, pharmaceuticals or the government are coming to the realization that they have built their lives on morally ambiguous work that hurts the world, but they’re too entrenched to back out.

We should also be encouraging our young people to plan for a single-income household. It’s not always possible, but at least we should plan for it. And we have to have to have to help our young people find an Orthodox spouse.

Earn your money through your own work and not through usury schemes like a 401k. This is the kind of labor that God blesses, not that of drug-dealers and loan sharks. You can’t entirely opt-out of the Babylon system, but you should minimize your involvement and trust God to provide for your needs.