By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland. His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
A ‘nation of immigrants’ cannot have a stable, cohesive culture. The United States are often wrongly called by that name. Wrongly for two reasons. First, the union of States is a confederation of 50 nations, not a single, indivisible unit. Second, early on in their lives, the cultures of the separate States crystallized into distinct forms that still shape the lives of the people who live in them.
But the ideological underpinnings of the American experiment cannot abide that. For the true believers in Americanism, the ability of the ‘one nation of America’ to continually accept immigrants from all over the world and transform them into brother-citizens of the US, through catechesis of the Declaration and federal constitution and the sacred recitation of a loyalty oath, is undeniable evidence of the authenticity of Americanism.
Melting Pot America is supposedly one of the greatest success stories in world history – people of radically different cultures living peacefully together as they experience the American Dream of endless riches in the new land flowing with milk and honey.
The threads of that narrative are beginning to fray rather badly in a number of ways. But the most serious problem is the spiritual confusion that our immigration policies have brought to the peoples of the States. Rather than generally recognizable Christian cultures appearing in slightly different forms, depending on the States and regions one is looking at (French in Louisiana, Spanish in Florida and the southwest, Scandinavian in the Great Plains, Dutch in New Jersey and New York, etc.), as was the case for most of US history, today there are a host of religions on display in our community playgrounds of pluralism.
This is highlighted by events in Washington, D. C., in recent weeks.
In October, President Trump participated in a Hindu Diwali celebration, lighting the diya lamp in the Oval Office. This was accompanied by an official statement from White House. President Trump, who seems to be somewhat aloof from serious religious convictions, didn’t appear to have any compunction about participating in a pagan religious ceremony, but it is certainly that, as explained by The Times of India:
Light Over Darkness
Lighting a diya represents the triumph of good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and light over darkness. The triumph of good (Lord Rama’s return to Ayodhya) over evil (Ravana’s defeat) is symbolized by the lighting of houses and temples with diyas during Diwali, the festival of lights.
. . .
Offering to Gods
Lighting a diya is an essential part of puja (worship) ritual. It is believed that offering a diya to a deity brings divine blessings and expresses respect and devotion. This deed represents humility and the wish to infuse one’s life with divine purity and light.
Another web site adds:
The lighting of diyas during Diwali is believed to invite the presence and blessings of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity.
As the Orthodox will hopefully remember, the gods of the nations are demons.
Thus, President Trump literally invited demons into the White House a couple of months ago.
Moving forward, on 8 December Trump honored the Roman Catholics’ Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. This is at least a step in the right direction (the direction of Christianity), but it is still out of step with the pure faith of the Orthodox Church, as St John Maximovitch writes.
A few days later, Mr Trump was hurtling back in the opposite direction again, honoring Hanukkah at the White House, where a giant menorah was lit (thanks to Dr Michael Hoffman for the video link).
This is where things have typically gone wrong in the States lately, with the subordination of US interests in general, and Christianity in particular, to Judaism. Some recent events show that this misguided tendency is as strong as ever.
First up is the Trump regime’s placing of sanctions on two more ICC judges for their investigation of Israeli government officials’ involvement in war crimes in Gaza.
Second is the nearly surreal gathering of more than 1,000 supposedly Christian pastors from the States in Israel, who there were deputed as propaganda ministers for the Israeli government and who will now disseminate said pro-Israel propaganda back here in the US. From an essay at The American Conservative:
More than 1,000 U.S. pastors flew to Jerusalem on December 3–7 for the Friends of Zion Ambassador Summit, a fully funded trip backed by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
When one megachurch pastor in Texas received his invitation to the summit, he reviewed the itinerary and said to himself what any discerning Christian leader should have said: “This feels like an indoctrination trip, not ministry.” He declined immediately. But a thousand others became part of what Israel’s foreign ministry called “the largest Christian delegation ever to visit Israel.”
No modern government has ever invested so much money, coordination, and political effort to mobilize American pastors before now. Why would Israel pay to assemble 1,000 Christian leaders, covering their airfare and luxury accommodations, and choreograph their every step?
And more importantly, why would spiritual leaders allow themselves to be used in this way?
At a minimum, it raises serious questions about whether American religious leaders should be mobilized to serve the interests of a foreign government rather than the interests of the United States.
The summit was not a spiritual gathering. It was a political operation wrapped in Scripture, engineered to manufacture a religious mandate for policies that cannot withstand moral scrutiny. It was statecraft masquerading as spiritual experience.
The summit’s own “Before You Go” guidelines made the contradiction unavoidable. Pastors were told that public evangelism and distributing Christian materials were prohibited in Israel, and that they should refrain from preaching altogether. In effect, the very faith that has driven Christians to share the gospel for two millennia was instructed to remain silent in Jerusalem.
This is not at all true, apostolic, Orthodox Christianity. The Orthodox Church, from the time of the Apostles, has fought tirelessly against these attempts at placing Christians once again under the yoke of Judaism. This is clearly seen in the New Testament and continued in the lives of the Orthodox saints. Such a one is St Gregory of Omir. St Nikolai Velimirovich, a wonderful 20th-century teacher and writer and bishop of Serbia and North America, says of him in The Prologue of Ohrid (for December 19):
At first, Gregory was a deacon in a church in Mediolanum [Milan] and had many visions. By God’s providence he was taken to Alexandria. There Patriarch Proterius, according to a heavenly revelation, consecrated him bishop of the land of Omir in southern Arabia, which St. Elesbaan the King (October 24) had just freed from the tyranny of Dunaan the Jew. He was a good shepherd and great miracle-worker. He organized the Church in Omir with the help of the Christ-loving King Abramius, built many churches, and baptized many Jews. By his prayers he performed great and awesome miracles, even bringing about a revelation of Christ the Lord before the unbelieving Jews, which led to their baptism. He governed the Church for thirty years and entered peacefully into life eternal in the year 552 A.D.
He expands on St Gregory’s work of converting the Jews to Christianity:
Can faith move mountains? (Matthew 17:20). Without a doubt it can, and it can do even more than that: by faith, God Himself can be moved to mercy toward us sinners. In the Omirian town of Safar, the majority of the inhabitants were Jews. St. Gregory endeavored to convert them to Christianity. Then the Jews suggested to St. Gregory and to King Abramis that they should have a debate about faith with the assurance that if they [the Jews] were defeated then all of them would enter the Christian Faith. This debate lasted several days in the presence of several thousand people, both Jews and Christians. The Jews, seeing that they would be defeated by Gregory’s irrefutable reasons and proofs, sought from Gregory that, in some way, he show them Christ alive so that they might see Him with their own eyes and then they would believe. Having great boldness before the Lord because of the purity of his heart, St. Gregory knelt facing east and, before everyone, began to pray to God. When he had finished his prayer, the earth quaked, thunder clapped, and the heavens opened in the east. A cloud, glowing with a flaming fire and shining rays, moved from the east and then slowly descended to the earth toward that place where the assembly of people had gathered. In the midst of the cloud there stood a man of inexpressible beauty, with a face of extraordinary brightness and in a vesture that appeared to be woven of lightning. He moved upon the cloud until He came over Bishop Gregory himself. Everyone saw Him in unsurpassable glory and beauty, and in fear fell to the ground on their faces. Gregory cried out: “One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.” At this, there came a voice to the Jews from the Lord’s glory: “For the sake of the bishop’s prayers, He Who was crucified by your fathers heals you.” And the shining cloud moved away as slowly as it came. After that, the Jews were baptized.
For far too many Evangelical Protestants, St Gregory would probably be considered an enemy to be shunned for daring to tell the Jewish people that they aren’t the apple of God’s eye, that they need to be baptized into Christ, etc. Nevertheless, it is the correct stance, but the emphasis in Americanism on religious pluralism as a virtue, as well as Dispensationalist errors, make it unpalatable for them and others.
This is a travesty, especially as the celebration of the birth of Christ has come, the day when all spiritual falsehoods and idols were overthrown. Yet the doors of the Orthodox churches all across the US will be open, from Dixie to New England to Alaska and Hawai’i, where the peoples of the States may encounter the True God – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – and offer up praises to the Jesus Christ the Son of God, the God-man, for his unfathomable love for us men and for all His creation, and welcome Him into their hearts:
Out of burning love, Thou didst come down from heaven;
From eternal beauty, Thou didst descend into monstrous pain;
From eternal light, Thou didst descend into the thick darkness of evil.
Thou didst extend Thy holy hand to those choked in sin.
Heaven was amazed, the earth quaked.
Welcome, O Christ! O ye peoples, rejoice!
Out of burning love, by which Thou didst create the world,
As a slave Thou didst debase Thyself to loose the enslaved,
To restore the house that Adam destroyed,
To enlighten the darkened, to unloose sinners.
Love that knows not fear or humiliation—
Welcome, O Christ! The Master of Salvation! (St Nikolai, Prologue, December 25)
