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.
Americanism is antithetical to the Gospel. Consider the Lord’s words to the Holy Apostle Peter:
Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? . . . And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life (St Matthew’s Gospel 19:27, 29).
For those chasing the ‘American Dream’ (i.e., ever increasing worldly riches), the path is similar but the end is completely different. These men leave behind family and homeland, renounce their culture, cut themselves off from their inherited traditions/customs, etc., and travel to lands unknown not for the sake of gaining Christ but for the sake of enlarging their annual income. (Some do come to escape religious persecution, but their religious zeal is generally no match for the lust for money that confronts them in the States, as we shall see in more detail below).
The industrial titans of the US are the inspirational icons for the Dream chasers: Henry Ford, John Rockefeller, now Elon Musk, whose SpaceX IPO will likely make him the first trillionaire in the world. He was born and raised in South Africa but left when he was still a teenager, looking for the proverbial greener pastures:
“I came to North America because I felt this was where there was opportunity to do great things in technology,” he said in 2013.
The familiar pattern repeats itself.
This clamoring for the wealth of the world contrasts starkly with the goals of older societies, whether classical or Christian:
Ancient thought sought a “virtuous circle” of polities that would support the fostering of virtuous individuals, and of virtuous individuals who would form the civic life of a polity oriented toward the common good. Much of the challenge faced by ancient thinkers was how to start such a virtuous circle where it did not exist or existed only partially, and how to maintain it against the likelihood of civic corruption and persistent temptation to vice (Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed, Yale UP, New Haven, Conn., 2018, pgs. 99-100).
Americanism largely rejects this form of communally focused, common-good polity with virtue for its end in favor of an unleashing of individual ambitions for the sake of economic prosperity, etc.:
In order to unleash the productive and scientific capacity of human societies, a different mode and order had to be introduced—a completely new form of political technology that made possible a technological society. That form of technology was the modern republic—posited on the rejection of the key premises of ancient republicanism—and above all it rested on the harnessing of self-interest in both the public and the private realms in order to secure human liberty and increase the scope, scale, and extent of human power over nature.
The precondition of our technological society was that great achievement of political technology, the “applied technology” of liberal theory, our Constitution. The Constitution is the embodiment of a set of modern principles that sought to overturn ancient teachings and shape a distinctly different modern human. It is a kind of precursor technology, the precondition for the technology that today seems to govern us. According to James Madison in Federalist 10, the first object of government is the protection of “the diversity in the faculties of men,” which is to say our individual pursuits and the outcomes of those pursuits—particularly, Madison notes, differences in the attainment of property. . . . the government itself is to be given substantial new powers to act directly on individuals, both to liberate them from the constraints of their particular localities, and to promote the expansion of commerce and the “useful arts and sciences” (Ibid., pgs. 100-1).
The Puritan (or broader Protestant) attachment to capitalism, as analyzed by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, linked hard work, frugality, and worldly success to signs of divine election. This ascetic drive fueled capital accumulation and modern capitalism but, stripped of its religious foundation, fostered a hollow materialism.
Alexis de Tocqueville describes the result of the ‘divinely written’ federal constitution with horrific accuracy:
“A native of the United States clings to this world’s goods as if he were certain never to die; and he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach that one would suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications” (quoted in Russell Kirk, ‘Christian Doctrine and Economic Order,’ Rights and Duties, Spence Publishing Co., Dallas, Texas, 1997, p. 227).
Sadly, the situation in the States would grow even worse in the years that followed Alexis’s observations. The South, as a largely agricultural people less interested in the ‘cash nexus’, as Richard Weaver calls it in The Southern Tradition at Bay, and more interested in older, more humane ways of living (following the natural rhythms of the seasons rather than trying to control nature, a deep love of family, ancestors, tradition, and unmodern forms of Christianity) – the South was a restraint within the union upon the desire for inordinate economic expansion and upon other unhealthy appetites.
This the industrial Northern States could not abide, which helped precipitate the War of Northern Aggression (a.k.a., the misnamed Civil War) which put an end to the influence of the traditional South within the union:
Among the consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction had been the enfeebling of the old Constitution, the subjugation of the agricultural economy, the corruptions of the Gilded Age, and the triumph of a secular order with Protestant roots but divested of faith in a transcendent order. Between 1860 and 1870 a revolution had been worked, and [Orestes] Brownson found that revolution to be an American variant of Jacobinism (Ibid., p. 236).
The post-War constitutional changes further engrained money-chasing into the life of the United States:
. . . we need not wonder that the treatment of the southern states during Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, made him [Brownson] almost despair for the American Republic. He perceived in the measures of the Radical Republicans a design to crush the agricultural South, to employ the power and resources of the federal government for the stimulation of heavy industry, to concentrate power in a central government and in great profit-making corporations, to gratify special economic interests at the general expense (Ibid., pgs. 233-4).
Such developments have had a woeful effect upon Christians. Dr Kirk continues:
This thoroughly secularized American state would not remain neutral on moral questions. As the general government consolidated its power over the years, it would interfere increasingly with the concerns of the Church. . . .
Might the Church withstand the pressures? Indeed, might the Church cohere long in the licentious American democracy with its ungoverned appetites and revolt against authority? (Ibid., p. 236)
The spirit of Americanism wars against Christianity:
“There is a subtle influence at work which undermines the authority alike of the parent and of the magistrate, with Catholics as with non-Catholics,” Brownson wrote to his son in 1870. “Catholics as well as others imbibe the spirit of the country, imbibe from infancy the spirit of independence, freedom from all restraint, unbounded license. So far are Catholics from converting the country, they cannot hold their own” (Ibid.).
Americanism is not friendly toward traditional, liturgical Christianity. It is especially an implacable enemy of the Orthodox Church, which has not compromised the Faith as have Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The spiritually blind and confused MAGA celebrants of the 250th anniversary of America will deny it vehemently, but the United States have become in reality a manifestation of the spirit of Antichrist.
But this does not mean we are doomed. For Christ will always be able to overcome Antichrist. And where is Christ, that we may ask Him for His help and healing and renewal, for cleansing and sanctification? We will find the God-man in and through His saints, Who are part of Him, part of His Body, the Holy Orthodox Church. And they are not far from us, particularly the saints of our ancestors in Africa and Europe – St Cyril of Alexandria, the defender of true doctrine, St Columba of Iona, the Spirit-bearing missionary to the Irish, Scottish, and English, and all that glorious host – and the newer saints of North America, Sts Tikhon, Raphael, Jacob Netsvetov, and others. Let us draw near to them, becoming their close friends, that we might then through their intercessions be united to Christ and to His Father and the Holy Ghost.
The 250th anniversary isn’t quite the celebration it is being made out to be; many citizens of the States no longer believe in the false faith of Americanism. This year is more of a crossroads, where the two most fateful choices stand before us: Christ or Antichrist? That is what the peoples of the States must decide at this critical moment.
Very good article that sums up, in a nutshell, the reality of almost two centuries, and something that we encountered when we immigrated from Europe. The New York sort of Americanism is the best of the kind, and where it takes place, the grass does not grow. This is why they have more concrete than grass and the highest disparity in income. Mid nighties, when we left it for a decent Midwest kind of life, the disparity in income between the bottom worker and a well doing individual (CEO) was about 358 times.
In turn, if we watch the recent episodes of Joe & Nic’s Road Trip channel on YouTube, the condition of the rural areas in many states it is something that brings a sense of sadness, and despair. It is the recurring story of the socioeconomic decay with no return. Therefore, in the rural areas the Protestant churches are something of a past, from the grandparents times. It is hard to foresee an Orthodox Church thriving. The young people either leave, or fall prey to the drug-infested environment.
In the large to medium size cities, the Orthodox Church of some ethnic make-up is doing good work attracting the young people. However, for instance, I will not see the Greeks unified with any other ethnic group, and other than the OCA, a unified American Orthodox Church would not happen soon. The Metropolitan Saba, I met recently in our church, like all other hierarchs, is trying hard to keep the churches going strong when the established ethnic groups and the converts, are like water and oil. The ethnic group believes that more words in their native language create the mystical experience of the service.
In conclusion, it is hard to stay positive when we do not see clearly the future…
So it’s no wonder there is no authentic American Orthodox Church.
Our culture is so corrupt there is no way for there to be an American expression of Orthodoxy.
Is there any other nation in the world that can receive this kind of criticism?
The theme of Walt’s writing is that the traditional American culture is regional and local, particularly the rural areas, and that this culture can be redeemed. The “super culture” that emanates from Washington is essentially AstroTurf that was pushed down to smother regional cultures. It owes its beginnings to Yankee Puritanism, but is stripped of any Christian content to become a Materialistic Religion which is essentially worship of one’s own desires. Even if it wears a Christian mask, to fool the rubes, it has no relationship to Christ. Their god is not just of this world, it is the foundation of this world. All countries and cultures could be critiqued. There is no perfect system or place. We focus on ours because it is our most immediate issue, since we live here, and because the U.S. is an evangelizing state. We literally go around the world trying to spread our values. So that makes us a source of problems for everyone else – even Orthodox cultures.
Walt isn’t writing about regional American culture here.
And even though he’s absolutely right about American culture (although arguably every state has its own unique culture, which makes more sense to me in a country this size) NO ONE anywhere except perhaps Fr. Josiah Trenham is talking about meeting the canonical requirement of one bishop in one geographical area ESPECIALLY Greeks and Serbs and Russians and Romanians and Arabs who seem to think we all need to become what they are.
I don’t see that improving. Do you?
And I wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. Is there any other nation in the world that deserves this sort of criticism?
Currently? Israel, of course, but we are joined at the hip to them so our “AstroTurf” culture and their real culture are practically the same. Who else? Well, Ukraine of course. You can’t say enough about Kiev. The UK is a cesspool. France also. Germany is becoming a militarized cesspool. There are a lot of horrible 3rd tier countries (looking at you Syria), but they are menaces to their own people more than to anyone else. Saudi Arabia is, of course, terrible and an evangelizing state whose aim is to cover up the fact that their monarchy is a corrupt collection of sex traffickers. But, again, compared to us they are bush league. In fact, their money mostly gets laundered through American channels to do real damage.
As for the jurisdictional situation – yes, it will improve. Not the way you might like it, but it will. How? Poverty. Like everything else in our society, overlapping, inefficient jurisdictions and redundant seminaries all depend on a steady flow of money. We’ve been telling people on this site for years that the money supply is going to be cut off. People can’t afford groceries, do you think Southerners are going to keep send money to support a bishop in Chicago a couple thousand miles away?
Jurisdictional overlap is, how we say in business, “priced for perfection.” So is the idea of having an ethnically-based parish that does no local evangelism, while relying on ethnics to drive 1 1/2 hours each way to attend liturgy. That is simply not real world in 2026.
This is a process that is already happening. We’ve been harping on this since 2020.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/local-parishes-local-communities-and-orthodoxy-for-all/
“Once upon a time, when coffee fellowships after liturgy existed, I took an informal poll. Like most urban areas, our corner of Florida is a big city surrounded by little suburbs. Out of curiosity, I asked 10 people which city they lived in and got 6 different answers. Interestingly, not one of those 10 people actually lived in the city in which our Greek Orthodox parish was located. After discussing the situation, as a group we were able to come up with a few families that actually did live in the local city. A few families out of over 400, that is. The priest’s family was not one of those, he lived a couple of cities over. Better schools there and more value for your housing dollar.
Of the people in the conversation, many drove upwards of 20 miles one-way to attend church. One older couple drove almost three hours each Sunday round trip. And almost all of them had a canonical Orthodox parish closer to them than the Greek one we were sitting in. Usually, it was a lot closer. But it was the wrong ethnicity. Or it was too small. Or it had the wrong liturgical language. Or the icons were not as pretty as they should be. Or there weren’t enough activities for the kids. Or the priest was foreign. Or it was Western Rite. For whatever the reason, it seemed quite a few parishioners would drive past a parish closer to them on the way to the Greek Church.
So here was this parish, sitting in the middle of a city of around 20,000 people, and it essentially had no connection to the local community. It might as well have been floating in space. Because of the travel distances, most parishioners came only on Sundays. Weekday liturgies and vespers were mostly empty, with the exception of Lent when everyone made special efforts to come. There were social events, in those pre-Covid days, but they could be hit-or-miss unless they were on weekends. Driving over an hour in heavy traffic after work, with kids, was a harsh thing to do unless it was a very special occasion.
Coffee hour and catechism classes were great, of course, and post-Covid (God willing) they will be again. My family has some great friends in our parish, but we see them once a week at best. Not one family lives anywhere close to us. None of the kids at church go to school with our kids. No common sports teams, no common karate or dance classes. Many of our kids’ friends at church are not even in the same county. In fact, families from four different counties attend the parish. We all live in very different local areas with very different lives.
Prior to Covid-19, those with an Orthodox heritage (Greek, Russian, Serbian, etc.) tended to just go to whatever “ethnic” church was most convenient, even if that was an hour or more drive. For non-ethnic Americans interested in Orthodoxy, the situation was a lot more confusing. Assuming you have choices, which flavor of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is for you and your family? When I was first inquiring into Orthodoxy in the late 90’s, I actually had four parishes from different jurisdictions within roughly the same 25-mile driving distance from home. For regular Americans searching for the original Church, just trying to pick a parish to visit can be a daunting task. We ended up in the Greek Church only because we had been to a Greekfest once, and so we knew where it was.”
Normalcy bias is an innate human trait. We always assume that tomorrow will look the same as today. The Roman Senate was meeting and issuing edicts right up until the collapse of the Western Empire. The Mayan rulers were trying to erect new stone monuments, even as their population was fleeing into the jungle as a result of persist famine caused by soil degradation and deforestation. In the Bible, we have a record of a king who was partying right up until the time an army took his city.
Almost no one ever really recognizes historical transition points until after they have passed. That is where you are now. Not a collapse, because that would indicate you might have a “revival”. What goes up, must come down. What goes down, must come up. Right? But that isn’t what you have here. This is a true transition. The economic and global circumstances that enabled our jurisdictional stupidity are transitioning into a set of circumstances that cannot support it going forward.
You will change, or you will die. Ben Shapiro is a Zionist monster, but he did get one thing right. “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Or your plans, or your deeply held attachment to your ethnicity.
I do not assume tomorrow will be like today.
I assume it will be worse. 🙂
Here in the Twin Cities, it’s a challenge finding even just a parish that is not progressive politically. And the parishes that ARE progressive are run by their parishioners. Not the clergy.
I know of ONE. And it’s not one that I can attend for several reasons.
My family attends the only parish that would allow me to bring my adult daughter Jessica who has autism to Liturgy without masking, and it happens to be an Antiochian parish. The priests are lovely, but they seem very focused on preserving Orthodoxy as part of Middle Eastern culture. We do have lots of catechumens, and converts like myself, and those of us who are not members of any of the big Middle Eastern families either try to fit in by helping preserve the Middle Eastern culture or by milling around at the edges.
Metropolitan Saba not too long ago, maybe a year ago, said or wrote something about changing this, but he mentioned doing things like building homes for the elderly.
This strikes me as being tone deaf. What elderly person do you know wants to go live in a nursing home?
What we really need in this country, due to the spectacular increase in autism in our population, is to build homes for adults with autism whose parents will outlive them. If Metropolitan Saba had any understanding of American society he would know that.
My son in law is our subdeacon. The Metropolitan wants deacons to sign something promising that they will remain deacons and not try to become priests. Charles wants to be a priest. He already has his M Div from an Anglican seminary and he was an Anglican priest for 3 years prior to converting. In order for him to be ordained, even though he just purchased a small home and has a wife and a toddler daughter, the Archdiocese would require him to leave home and spend three years in seminary.
A number of things at our parish have had to be changed, per Metropolitan Saba, so that we are doing things exactly the way they are done in Antioch.
All of this appears to be a deliberate effort to prevent there from being an indigenous American Church. And I think it will be successful.
So the parishes you describe are currently malfunctioning. Which is a major problem, because all Orthodoxy is local. As for Metropolitan Saba, he is new the U.S. but is already doing really great things. Perhaps not fast enough, but did you not notice in the article that Nicholas wrote about timescale? There is no shortcut here. You either have locally functioning communities, or you have very little. There is no shortcut.
Metropolitan Saba is the most dedicated hierarch we have had in decades in terms of Evangelism. That has to include evangelizing the cradles as much as the non-Orthodox. This is not about cradles versus non-cradles. It is about those who want to sustain a distinct ethnic identity as the primary focus of their parishes, versus their own children. That can be a hard message to deliver face-to-face, but it is one that we have no problem putting out there. Each generation, fewer and fewer American born children want to belong to grandma’s social club. The cradles leave, and the parish inevitably closes or transitions to a non-ethnic parish (of which Antioch has many) which uses English.
So, actually you are doing exactly what was said. Ethnic parishes today, then the same tomorrow or maybe worse. That is normalcy bias in action. It is very sad that parishes do not accept autistic children. We have multiple with autism, and they present absolutely no problem. All parishes should be kind to everyone. Those that aren’t will learn a harsh lesson. Either in this world or the next.
As for Progressive politics, not sure why that matters. There is Orthodox and there is heterodox. You can be a flaming economic liberal who supports mass migration with 100% taxation on Elon Musk and still hold to the Orthodox Faith. The concern is that you are describing parishes that are imbibing heterodox religious ideas. If that is the case, then those parishes present a problem.
The idea of group homes for autistic children is a very good one.
But back to Metropolitan Saba. He is the man who coined the phrase that we are in the “Age of Evangelism.” He is also the man who has kept the WR in place, and has talked openly about changing up our seminary model to provide for more remote and local training.
Have you seen this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuhzyA8gf_w
How is requiring everyone in this country to do things exactly the way they are doing them in the Middle East a focus on evangelism?
It’s an obvious design to preserve Arabic culture.
Saying we are in the Age of Evangelism and making it prohibitively difficult to become a priest seem to me to be diametrically opposed.
If it is so obvious, why do others in the Antiochian Archdiocese not see it the same as you? As for the priesthood, Antioch is expanding the distance learning option.
“However, the distinctive features of the AHOS MDiv program allow for a slight modification of this procedure. The program utilizes a hybrid-learning model, which is different from traditional, on-campus seminary; these two different models each have different advantages and benefits and thus may be suited to students in different life situations or with different future goals. Therefore, when applying to the Metropolitan for a blessing to begin MDiv studies, applicants may include a statement explaining why studying through AHOS might make more sense in their particular case (no such statement is necessary if they are willing and able to attend a traditional, on-campus seminary). Of course, providing such an explanatory statement must be done with the understanding that the Metropolitan will have the ultimate decision.
All men who feel called to priestly ministry should begin by discussing this vocation with their priest. When the time is right, the priest may then request a seminarian application packet from the archdiocese office and pass it on to the applicant. The archdiocesan application deadline each year is January 31, in advance of a fall commencement of studies. Again, this is the first stage of the application process; after receiving archdiocesan approval, candidates must then apply to the seminary chosen for them by the Metropolitan.”
I did not say homes for autistic children.
I said autistic ADULTS.
I will outlive my autistic daughter. She is 34 now. I am 69. Who will take care of her and where will she live when I am gone?
I recognize the piety of Metropolitan Saba. I also remember the candidates for Metropolitan. He was chosen because he will preserve Arabic culture.
Sorry, meant to say “our autistic children.” You are not the only one in that position. Yes, they grow up, and we die. The actions and words of Metropolitan Saba are not the same as Elpidophoros. Not at all.
Huh? I don’t know what you are referring to. What does Elpi have to do with this?
The point I was making is that an American person would be more attuned, or should be, to the steep rise in autism in this country and see that building homes for adults with autism is much more culturally and societally relevant than building homes for elderly people!
FYI:
Next week, a free Zoom presentation with the author of a new book:
The Autism Generation: Understanding the Autism Epidemic from Causes to Solutions with Julie Lapidus
Register here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/If4AhBAsTQGMwjg9kfBekA?fbclid=IwY2xjawSinwxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFRNjlUME9IZ2FMQmt2MmxWc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHlLXNodrjLkt-YfbfC3P2axrOyCtz6GYjQ7nakPbr5oc4SJODzg3yU_M60k7_aem_QjEnRArlZ_tQX9UICiCTLw#/registration
And lastly… “You can be a flaming economic liberal who supports mass migration with 100% taxation on Elon Musk and still hold to the Orthodox Faith.”
Huh uh. I’m talking about public, political advocacy for keeping abortion legal in what is now the abortion capital of the world — Minnesota. I’m talking about public, political advocacy for homosexual rights and marriage and acceptance of and the serving of the Eucharist to openly gay parishioners. I’m talking about parishioners who went downtown Minneapolis to agitate and interfere with ICE.
That is what I mean by progressive.
That is heterodoxy. It isn’t political. It is just plain immoral.
I knoooooooooooooooooooooow. Those are the parishes we have to choose from here.
And the ONE Antiochian parish in the entire state is my parish.
Yes, I have listened to that youtube interview of Metropolitan Saba. As I said, no one can question his piety.
I want my granddaughter to be able to attend an American Orthodox Church. I want her dad to be able to be an Orthodox priest.
That’s not going to happen the way Metropolitan Saba is arranging things.
I have a question for you.
What does evangelizing look like in an Orthodox parish? You reference it here; ethnic parishes that don’t do it.
What does it look like if they do?
The first step would be offering all the services and all the associated printed materials in the vernacular — that is, in English, since it’s America.
Beyond that, the sky is the limit in terms of Bible classes, book clubs, outreach events, service projects, etc. that a parish could offer to attract their local community and potential converts, always with a focus on patristic tradition, of course. The priest should also encourage people to invite friends to church.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel; look at successful Orthodox parishes in America and copy the best of what they’ve done.
Well. In our Antiochian parish the only one in the state we have:
— an internally advertised parish prayer group for recovering alcoholics.
— a men’s club, for parishioners.
— a ladies’ group. They provide meals for any parish event.
There are two outside charities that we advertise in our bulletin every Sunday. They aren’t ours. They are community charities organized by other groups.
And we have a Middle Eastern festival every summer.
That’s it.
Be the change you seek. If you see a need, start whatever group or initiative you’d like to have, after praying and seeking guidance from your priest. No one is going to do it for you, but you will find fellow travelers to help you along the way once you make the first move.