Orthodox Reflections

Atheists have recently been out in full force, across multiple channels, claiming that Christian morality is nothing special. They argue that anything good in Christianity, such as the Golden Rule, is actually older than the Christian Religion. These atheists argue that human civilizations have been around for millennia, and people did just fine getting along with each other without Jesus Christ or His teachings. In fact, so they argue, God is not even needed as a basis for morality. Human feelings, such as empathy, can be a guide to “doing what is right”. Further, humans are hard wired, “evolutionarily” speaking, for altruistic behavior to maximize societal outcomes. Below is a typical example of an atheist arguing that people don’t need God, or His commandments, to be moral: Is empathy, as we would define it in our culture, universal? Are people in different cultures altruistic the way we often associate with Westerners? Do people with, and without, a Christian basis for their morality all behave pretty much the same?

Not hardly. 

The observations below were written by an Indian named Jayant Bhandari who came to the UK to study as a young man. Here is what he had to say about the differences in morality between India and the West (some emphasis added):  

What looks relatively innocent carries profound significance and is reflected in all social and economic transactions in India: making money from a transaction is insufficient. At the very least, a small part must be earned through cheating, even if it’s a symbolic fraction of a penny. You could pay an employee as much as you wanted, pay the businessman what he asked for, or enter into a contract favorable to the other party, but you knew you would be shortchanged and contracts reneged. There is no shame or guilt associated with cheating.

 

In the ultimate analysis, India was a no-trust, atomized, amoral society. Envy, greed, and absence of fairness ran unrestrained and wild, for virtues and sins were foreign concepts. People praised your street smartness if you cheated on someone and got away with it. Lacking virtues and spirituality, people visited temples to get material favors from their favorite deities. The virtues implanted by colonizers were wearing thin.

 

Westerners who believe that the virtues and sins they are familiar with are fixed elements of the firmament or part of the natural law may not realize that they think that way merely because they grew up with them in their culture, which is a product of several millennia of intertwining classical western philosophy, Christianity and the honor system. Without that cultural fabric, they would have never consciously known if they felt envious or covetous, and there would be no guilt or shame associated with what is known as sinful behavior. Without the European cultural fabric, they would have never known the concept of sins and virtues, let alone a way to differentiate them.

 

Our teachers dictated what we were supposed to believe in, and any questioning was perceived as an offense. This authoritarian attitude permeated society, institutions, and social relationships. Complying with instructions was the norm, and sadistic individuals held sway. Every relationship seemed to adopt an oppressor-subservient dynamic. My heart couldn’t conform to this, but resisting the prevailing current was exhausting.

 

I had left India to escape the ever-present oppression marked by sadistic, irrational, and unaccountable figures in authority. It was a discouraging environment for curiosity. Everyone in society knew how I should live, reminded me about it, manipulated me into following him, and enforced it on me if he had the authority. No one could be trusted to do his job honestly.

 

Having grown up in a caste-based society, I was gradually coming to accept that a social structure promoting equality was possible. Your car’s size and status didn’t exclude others from being treated well.

 

In India, during my graduation in India, at a nearby police station, an alleged thief had his wrists bound to a tree branch in a way that prevented him from resting his heels on the ground. In another incident, a prostitute was subjected to rape by everyone at the station, purportedly to teach her a “moral” lesson. The senior police officers perhaps saw this as a bonus for the lower-level staff. The Indian society and courts believed that the victims received what they deserved.

The subcontinent of India has some of the most ancient cultures on Earth. If morality, the way we experience it in the West, were a natural, evolutionary development, then Indian cultures would have arrived at our level long ago. But India hasn’t developed anything close to the moral code we take for granted. Cheating, greed, envy, police torture, bribery, a cruel caste system – all of these things are common place and accepted. Actions which Westerners look down on as “sins”, such as cheating in a business deal, are celebrated among Indians. 

Notice that Jayant Bhandri does not blame India’s sad moral state on colonization. In fact, he says this, “The virtues implanted by colonizers were wearing thin.”  Clearly he believes that Indian society benefitted from learning from a more advanced civilization with a superior moral code. The effects of that learning are now disappearing.

India is not atheistic, but the Hindu religion does not improve the moral condition of the people. Bhandri notes, “Lacking virtues and spirituality, people visited temples to get material favors from their favorite deities.” A common misconception of atheists is that people created religions to establish codes of morality and to give them hope of an afterlife. That is not true, as most religions are far less concerned about those things than they are about gaining blessings in this world. In addition, atheists like to frame the essential argument as religion (in general) versus atheism. That is way too simplistic. The world around us makes clear that many religions produce absolutely awful cultures. All religions are not the same. All “gods” are not like the Christian God. All cultures are not like the West. 

As insightful as the article is, Jayant Bhandari makes a common error when he credits, “intertwining classical western philosophy, Christianity and the honor system” for the happy state of affairs we enjoy in the West. That is not true. Our Western concepts of right and wrong, sin and virtue, are based solely on Christianity. Christianity provides the objective basis for our entire system of morals. At its core, Christian morality is based on the concept that each person is made in the image of God. Therefore, each person has certain inherent rights and is entitled to be treated well – regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, or social status. This concept, the inherent value of human beings, is so embedded within our society, that atheists can’t, or won’t, recognize how pervasively they have been influenced by it. What they see as being “natural” morality is nothing of the kind. Were we truly to live in a state of “subjective morality”, free from the influence of the Christian Faith, the Western world might even be worse than India. 

The vast difference in morals between cultures is a fact that large scale immigration to the West, from non-Christian societies, is making plainer everyday. Dr. Naomi Wolf provides an example of the kinds of cultural clashes that have become commonplace within the United States. The excerpt below is from an article she wrote about being a female passenger driven a certain type of taxi driver:

These days, I dread, under certain circumstances, getting into New York City taxis. Cultures around the world vary of course. (That should not be a taboo sentence.) And there are some cultures in this world which women have no voice at all, and are treated with complete disrespect. I don’t wish to name that culture, as generalizations can indeed be racist or xenophobic.

 

I’ve lived for two decades in New York City, and usually my interactions with cab drivers are lovely.

 

But the new reality is inescapable: more often than not, when the driver of the taxi to which I am now doomed, is from a part of the world where these particular misogynist cultures exist, and if the driver is a recently arrived immigrant and male, I know that I will have a miserable argument before I can arrive at my destination.

 

Western culture contains some of the greatest accomplishments of human beings ever; the greatest treasures; and these are treasures for all.

 

The simple expectation I described above — that women and men have the same rights and freedoms as one another — is one crucial example. So this expectation — that in America, women are equal in rights and respect to men — is at the heart of my social contract as an American.

 

It is not at the heart of my driver’s social contract.

Unlike Dr. Wolfe, I have no problem naming the religion – Islam. Many men who immigrate to the United States from Islamic cultures do not respect women as equals, or perhaps even as people. Nor do these men embrace a culture of good customer service, which would at least encourage them to treat women with money to spend as worthy of some respect. However, abusing women trying to travel by taxi is just the tip of the iceberg. Western countries now face “grooming gangs” exploiting young girls, gang rapes, female genital mutilation, “honor” killings of female relatives, a plague of knife attacks, and even more horrific crimes. Clearly “empathy” and other “universal” moral values are not as “universal” as atheists believe. 

Dr. Wolf correctly recognizes traditional Western Culture as a tremendous and unique accomplishment. As a secular feminist, however, she fails to credit the true source of the West’s triumph – Christianity. It is the Christian Faith that proclaimed that women are fully human and worthy of respect. Respect for women has never been a “universal value”. 

Many atheists contend that all morality is “subjective” and that Christian morality was not really any different from the classical world in which it was born. In fact, Greco-Roman pagan “morality”  was a hellscape for women, children and male slaves. Women were considered less than men, sex was based on dominance (including violence and even rape) not love, pederasty / pedophilia was considered normal for men to engage in, unwanted infants were openly murdered via abandonment and abortion (particularly baby girls), rampant promiscuity (on the male side) was normal, and sexual abuse of slaves was perfectly acceptable. The heads of Roman families had literal power of life and death over their children.  Owners had the power of life and death over their slaves. 

Before Christianity, children were considered nonpersons. Adult men could do with them as they saw fit. What we now call pedophilia was to the ancients perfectly normal:

And the most profitable way for a small child slave to earn money was as a sex slave. Brothels specializing in child sex slaves, particularly boys, were established, legal, and thriving businesses in ancient Rome. One source reports that sex with castrated boys was regarded as a particular delicacy, and that foundlings were castrated as infants for that purpose. Of course, the rich didn’t have to bother with brothels — they had all the rights to abuse their slaves (and even their children) as they pleased. And, again, this was perfectly licit.

In the classical world, men were free to carry on homosexual affairs and to commit adultery with slaves, prostitutes, and concubines, but a woman caught in adultery could be charged with a crime. The legal penalty for adultery allowed the husband to rape the male offender and then, if he desired, to kill his wife. Women were so under-appreciated in Roman culture, so often treated as second-class human beings, that they were only slightly better off than slaves. 

Into this world of darkness came Jesus Christ, preaching a message of love and hope that was radically different from anything seen before. Christianity taught the exact opposite of the classical pagan “morality” which surrounded it. In the Christian ethic, a man displayed his masculinity in chastity, in self-sacrifice, in deference to others, in joyfully refraining from all sexual activity except with his wife. A Roman woman was accustomed to being treated as a second-class human being, but in Christendom she found a completely new way of life. Within the Church, a woman found a culture of genuine love that saw her as equally important as any man in the eyes of God. She was sexually equal with the man in the marriage union and, under the law of God, had the right to demand marital fidelity.

 Christianity protected children and gave them dignity. Unmarried girls (particularly pre-pubescent ones) were off limits, as were boys of any age. Thus the concept of childhood was created not by “nature” or by some social contract, but by the Orthodox Church based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Children, in Christianity, are to be nurtured and protected. They are not mere playthings to be used based on the whims of adult men. The consequences of this moral revolution have been so complete, most Westerners don’t even realize that the only reason they believe sexually abusing children is wrong is because Jesus Christ and His Church told them so. Outside the Christian Faith, Jeffrey Epstein is not an historical anomaly. In a fallen world devoid of Christian influence, Jeffrey Epstein’s behavior could once again be the norm in the West, just as it is in many non-Christian cultures today. 

Despite the stunning transformation of Western societies based on the Christian Faith, many Atheists point out that Western Cultures have been far from perfect. 

Western societies, though founded on the moral precepts of Christianity, have regularly failed to live up to their own ideals. We know this because there are objective standards of morality by which we can judge their lapses, while calling them to repentance and improvement. Without objective measures, how could we even say what the failings of Western societies are? If God does not exist, and man is not made in the image of God, then what rights does he really have?

Of what inherent value are men and women if they are nothing but evolved apes? Why is it wrong for the powerful to keep slaves? Why is revenge against enemies wrong? Why is abusing women wrong, if you can get away with it? Why are children special and worthy of protection? Atheists can come up with no convincing reasons why society should not be organized by the powerful, solely for the benefit of the powerful. The best they can do is appeal to emotions such as empathy and abstractions such as a “social contract”. Such things, in the absence of Christianity, do not guarantee the “evolution” of a Western-style moral code, or even a moral code capable of producing a relatively decent society. 

Despite the failings of fallen societies based on it, the Western moral code has shown itself to be capable, over time, of correcting many egregious (sometimes long lasting) societal failings through continuous moral development. One example of this is a favorite of atheists – slavery. Why, atheists ask, did God not simply outlaw slavery in the Bible? At first this might seem like a “gotcha” for the atheists. Until you realize that the first response to them is – in the absence of the Christian God, why is slavery wrong? What is wrong with owning a self-aware ape? The atheist response is usually emotional. You wouldn’t want to be a slave, so how could you make someone else a slave? Something like that makes superficial sense, until you realize that  slavery has been a constant feature of almost every culture. Clearly, “empathy” failed to end slavery as an institution, or even materially better the conditions under which slaves lived. History has proven that people can be absolutely horrible to others if it selfishly benefits them in some way. 

Christianity, on the other hand, eventually eradicated slavery on a global basis. Not because of “empathy”, but because of Christian morality. While the Orthodox Church did not try to end slavery in her early centuries, she contained within her teaching the basis for its eventual destruction as an institution. Perhaps among the first to recognize the incompatibility of slavery with the Christian Faith was Saint Gregory of Nyssa.  In his 4th century work, fourth homily on Ecclesiastes, Saint Gregory attacked slavery as incompatible with humanity’s creation in the image of God. The following portions sample his powerful argument:

‘I acquired slaves and slave girls.’ What is that you say? You condemn a person to slavery whose nature is free and independent, and in doing so you lay down a law in opposition to God, overturning the natural law established by him. For you subject to the yoke of slavery one who was created precisely to be a master of the earth, and who was ordained to rule by the creator, as if you were deliberately attacking and fighting against the divine command.

 

What price did you put on reason? How many obols did you pay as a fair price for the image of God? For how many staters have you sold the nature specially formed by God? ‘God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”’

Saint Gregory of Nyssa was unique among the Church Fathers in his total opposition to the existence of slavery in any form. However, while the Christian Faith did not yet condemn slavery in the early centuries, the moral influence of Christianity did much to ameliorate the worst impacts of it. Early Christians regarded slaves who converted to Christianity as spiritually free men, brothers in Christ, receiving the same portion of Christ’s inheritance. The key theological text for this was Paul’s declaration in Epistle to the Galatians (Galatians 3:28): “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

Paul also told slaves to obey their masters “with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ,” (Ephesians 6:5 KJV), while  applying the same guidelines to masters in Ephesians 6:9: “And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.”

In his Homilies on Philemon, Saint John Chrysostom states that those who own slaves are to love their slaves with the Love of Christ: “this … is the glory of a Master, to have grateful slaves. And this is the glory of a Master, that He should thus love His slaves … Let us therefore be stricken with awe at this so great love of Christ. Let us be inflamed with this love-potion. Though a man be low and mean, yet if we hear that he loves us, we are above all things warmed with love towards him, and honor him exceedingly. And do we then love? And when our Master loves us so much, we are not excited?”.

Other early Christian saints, while not openly advocating abolition of slavery as did Saint Gregory of Nyssa, did make sacrifices to free slaves. These include Saint Patrick (415–493), Acacius of Amida (400–425), and Ambrose (337 – 397 AD). Saint Eligius (588–650) used his vast wealth to purchase British and Saxon slaves in groups of 50 and 100 in order to set them free. Saint Pelagia is depicted by James the Deacon as having freed her slaves, male and female, “taking their golden torcs off with her own hands”. This is described as a highly virtuous and praiseworthy act, marking the end of Pelagia’s sinful life as a courtesan and the beginning of a virtuous Christian life leading to eventual sainthood.

All this Church activity produced a shift in the view of slavery in the Eastern Roman Empire. Laws governing slaveholding gradually diminished the power of slaveholders and improved the rights of slaves. By the early 4th century, manumission of slaves through the church was added in the Roman law. The Christian captive or slave came to be perceived not as private property but “as an individual endowed with his own thoughts and words”. Thus, the Christian perception weakened the submission of slaves to their earthly masters by strengthening their ties directly to God – the Master of all.  

Eventually, of course, the moral development of Christian societies led to the complete abolition of slavery throughout the entire world. Atheists, who can’t explain why slavery is wrong to begin with, frequently complain that abolition took too long. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade particularly upsets them, being both relatively recent and linked (in their minds) with the “original sin” of racism. The fact is, however, that as Saint Gregory of Nyssa already clearly saw in the 4th Century, slavery is incompatible with man being made in the image of God. As Christian people, and societies, strove over time to grow in the likeness of God, many immoral things that were once commonplace have been overcome.  For both individuals and societies, such moral growth takes time, effort, and is often painful. There are no shortcuts.

Atheists are at war with the Christian moral tradition. Which is ironic, because the further erosion of that tradition will result in the kinds of oppression that atheists claim to oppose. Without Christianity, there is no objective basis on which to criticize the actions of the rich and powerful. If humans have no inherent value, then each of us stands naked before the raw exercise of power. In such a world, we are all slaves. Which is why the rich and powerful back the atheists in this struggle. Those at the top are no longer content to be giants among men. They now want to be their own gods. In yet another irony, their drive for godlike status is being actively assisted by those who claim there are no gods. 

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