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.
The responses to Charlie Kirk’s murder have so far been very visceral. We wanted to step away from that and take a more dispassionate look at what Mr Kirk’s death means.
The eulogies and encomiums for Charlie Kirk are multiplying as the multitudes of people whom he touched come to terms with his death. There are some recurring themes in them – of Mr Kirk as a happy, Christian warrior advocating for a renewal of America; as a husband and father; and so on.
One of the most striking recurrences is the proclamation that Mr Kirk is a martyr. Examples:
‘A Martyred Apostle for Liberty’ – Mike Bayham
‘America’s greatest martyr to the freedom of speech he so adored’ – Turning Point USA
‘Charlie Kirk, Martyr’ – Joshua Treviño: ‘American liberty requires sacrifice, and it requires martyrdom too.’
‘Charlie Kirk will be a free speech martyr’ – Ben Shapiro
‘Charlie Kirk is a martyr’ – Pastor Jack Graham
And so on.
In Christianity, to become a martyr is one of the highest achievements possible. However, in Mr Kirk’s case something other than Christian martyrdom seems to be at work. As we see above, Mr Kirk’s martyrdom is more associated with modern American ideals – liberty, free speech – than with Christ. His comparison with Martin Luther King, Jr, is revealing in this respect:
Intercessors for America, a Christian group with ties to the Trump administration, emailed supporters on Wednesday night with a suggested prayer in response to Kirk’s death. The subject line referred to “Charlie Kirk, a modern day MLK.”
Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group, shut down his office upon hearing the news of his friend’s death.
“I’m racking my brain trying to think of another political figure that had a similar impact and following who was assassinated, and the only person I can think of is Martin Luther King Jr.,” Schilling said (The Salt Lake Tribune).
MLK, Jr, was rather notorious for turning the Holy Gospel into an ideological tool to push a political program centered around various human rights. Mr Kirk followed suit:
Kirk built a massive political movement with viral video clips of sharp comebacks and quick counterarguments in all-comers debates. He described himself as a disruptor and argued disruption was the only way to make America great again. Adopting Donald Trump’s signature political slogan, Kirk called it “the MAGA doctrine, which is a doctrine of American renewal, revival … that America is the greatest country in the history of the world” (Christianity Today).
His dedication to worldly ideology is even more pronounced on the web page of the organization he started, Turning Point USA. The three pillars of his version of Americanism are what one would expect. Quoting from the web site:
The US Constitution is the most exceptional political document ever written.
The United States of America is the greatest country in the history of the world.
Capitalism is the most moral and proven economic system ever discovered.
These are statements of blind faith. They must be accepted uncritically as articles of the false American religious creed, for they do not hold up under scrutiny.
As to the first, there has never been unanimity amongst the peoples of the States regarding the beneficence of the Philadelphia charter. The Anti-Federalists at the time of its writing and ratification were quite opposed to it, and their warnings are still relevant today. And its deficiencies are still regularly pointed out and discussed amongst significant minority groups such as libertarians and Southern traditionalists.
As to the second, what metrics have earned us ‘greatest nation’ status? There are only two things at which the US excel all other nations: making money and bragging about our political system (indeed, the theme of Mr Kirk’s 2024 RNC speech could be summed up as ‘Make Gen Z Americans Rich Again’). In traditional metrics like culture (production of original paintings, music, architecture, etc.) and holiness (i.e., the birth of saints), they are quite deficient. Worse, in the US having large amounts of money is more or less equivalent to holiness/saintliness, which leads to the third pillar.
How moral is a system that allows a few billionaire oligarchs to control the US economy and make it work in their favor instead for the common good? Whether one looks at the Old Testament law and prophets or New Testament warnings or the laws of Orthodox countries, one does not meet with capitalism as the ideal economic system of God’s people but rather a system of wide property distribution that intentionally discourages wealth concentration.
Nevertheless, it is said that Mr Kirk’s focus turned more toward Christianity over the years, and thus he formed Turning Point USA Faith. But even here, the mission is tainted by worldly Americanism. Per the TPUSA Faith web site:
We engage, equip, and empower millions of grateful Americans who are prepared to defend our God-given rights, by giving them the tools to expose lies and articulate the connection between Faith and Freedom.
As per usual with Americanism, Christ (and religion in general) is not the end, but a means to an end: to ensuring the survival of the rights and freedoms of Americans. It is a powerful temptation; we were once trapped in that paradigm. But that does not justify it.
And also as per usual with Americanism, Zionism is never far away from the discussion. So it is with Mr Kirk. He was a fervent supporter of the ethnic state of Israel (Note: there are reports that Mr Kirk broke with the pro-Zionist camp and that this may have had something to do with his assassination):
Charlie’s defense of Israel was not only political. It was also personal and spiritual. For him, Israel was more than an ally in a dangerous region; it was a place that confirmed the truth of his faith and the reality of the Bible he lived by.
“Israel changed my life,” he often said. “It strengthened my faith, made the Bible pop into reality, and gave me the most precious memories with Erika.”
That conviction shaped everything he said about the Jewish state. He viewed Israel not only as a strategic partner but as living proof of God’s promises. “We believe that the creation of the state of Israel in the 1940s was a fulfillment of prophecy,” he explained. “Seven million Jews out of fourteen million now have a home. That idea needs to be defended” (Israel365News).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an emotional tribute to Charlie Kirk, calling the political activist who was assassinated Wednesday a “once-in-a-generation” figure.
“He was a defender of our common Judeo-Christian civilization. He was unbelievably excited to walk in the footsteps of Jesus here. He valued our bond, the bond between America and Israel,” Netanyahu said Thursday on “The Faulkner Focus.”
. . . The prime minister also highlighted Kirk’s unwavering support of Israel.
“He wrote me a letter on May 2 this year. He said, ‘One of my greatest joys as a Christian is advocating for Israel and forming alliances to defend Judeo-Christian civilization,’” Netanyahu said.
. . . A lion-hearted friend of Israel . . . (Fox News)
This is at odds with the Orthodox Church’s view of Israel, presented succinctly by Fr Zechariah Lynch in a recent essay, from which we quote a few paragraphs:
In the New Testament, the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and His appearing in the flesh is called the spirit of Antichrist. St. John proclaims, “Who is the liar? Is it not anyone who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? This is the Antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son cannot have the Father,” (1 Jn. 2:22-23). He again teaches, “For many deceivers entered the world, those not confessing Jesus the Messiah coming in the flesh; this is the deceiver and antichrist … anyone who transgresses and does not abide in the teaching of Christ (the Messiah) does not have God,” (2 Jn. 7,9). The active rejection of the Messiah Jesus is of the spirit of antichrist, according to the New Testament. Thus, Rabbinical Judaism (Jews who refused to believe in Jesus Christ) is considered to be of the antichrist spirit by early Christians.
Rabbinical Jews of the 1st century and onward detested Christianity. In the 1st century, the Birkat haMinim was part of Synagogue services. A target of these Jewish anathema prayers became Jewish believers in Jesus; a portion of the prayers was a “curse of the Nazarene.” The intent was to make it completely impossible for any Jewish Christian to attend a Synagogue service. It became clear that to be an adherent of Rabbinical Judaism, one had to “curse” Jesus.
. . . the point of this article is to demonstrate that there exists no New Testament requirement whatsoever to bless or support the modern State of Israel. In fact, as demonstrated, the New Testament teachings act more to condemn the actions of this modern State and its Zionist ideology. According to the Biblical standard, the modern Zionist State of Israel is better classified as an antichrist manifestation. If a person desires to support Israel, that is strictly a political stance. It has nothing to do with a Biblical command, no matter how one may try to wrap it up. It should be noted that not all ethnic Jews support the Zionist ideology, a core of which is the ethnic superiority of Jews and the inferiority of non-Jews. This is one of the reasons why Zionist Israel is so willing to slaughter the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine and Gaza. There are also numerous Jews who are Christians.
There is no authentic Christian teaching to support the modern State of Israel, nor any Christian mandate to bless it.
Christians are commanded to proclaim, “Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord, blessed is the Name of Jesus Christ!”
The murder of Charlie Kirk is a horrible event on many levels: for his wife and children, for his followers, and for all the peoples of the States, and we second the thoughts of those calling for prayers, for peaceful reconciliation, for calm deliberation, etc. But the spiritual ramifications of this event must also be examined, and examined in the light of true Christianity, of the Orthodox Faith, and not its false forms like Americanism.
What we find when we do so is not pleasant, for it appears that Mr Kirk was a martyr for an idol, for Americanism. Again, read the statements that opened this essay; that is not a provocative leap into speculation but merely an acknowledgment of what others are saying.
Such a statement will probably not get me invited onto any of the MAGA podcasts, but it needs to be pointed out. Because if Charlie Kirk is the chief martyr of modern America, rather than an authentic Christian martyr of North America like St Peter the Aleut, St Juvenaly of Alaska, or St John Kochurov, the ship of the 50 States is going to crash upon the shoals, and their peoples will perish miserably.
That very disaster is what holy Orthodox elders and eldresses have been prophesying about the States for decades now unless there is repentance. But true repentance will not happen outside the Orthodox Church.
Charlie Kirk did promote many good things, like traditional marriage and family, the pro-life cause, and Christianity, as Fr Josiah Trenham said in his short video about Mr Kirk. But everything got subsumed under the MAGA banner; otherwise, he would not be called a martyr for American liberty but a martyr for Christ.
Putting a new coat of varnish on the rotten furniture of Americanism won’t solve any of our long-term problems.
Amazingly, Mr Kirk held an hour-long interview with the Orthodox priest Fr John Strickland about a month before he was murdered (on 12 Aug.). If it is circulated widely, if it causes a great conversion of many people to the Orthodox Faith, then we would gladly reassess the meaning of Mr Kirk’s death. That would certainly be a greater legacy than reviving worldly Americanism.
I don’t think I ever heard of Charlie Kirk (or if I did I had forgotten) until he was assassinated.Since I live in the Canadian North, so perhaps I can be forgiven for that. Anyway, since then, I have been following articles and podcasts about him to some extent, and I would like to contribute three cents to this conversation:
1) While some Evangelical and other types of Christians may support the new State of Israel based on the events of the Old Testament, I think few people know that while the new State of Israel was bing formed, the Orthodox Jews never supported the idea, and actively opposed it. Why? Because it was not God, Himself, giving the land to the Jews, it was the Jews taking it by secular means. There had to be a spiritual leader at the forefront, a prophet, a representative of God, not a political figure, like Netenyahu, who has committed every crime in the book and justifies himself because of the history of his biblical ancestors. Protestants who support this, really don’t understand what they are reading in the Old Testament. They look upon the decimation of the Amorites, Canaanites etc. as justified genocide, whereas, it was an expression of God’s mercy and love for the gentile nations of the time. It was at His will, not ours, that he put an end to the endless sinfulness of those nations who He foreknew would never repent. But some of them did, as in the case of the Harlot, Rahab of Jericho, and because of that, not only were she and her household spared, but she is even named in the first chapter of Matthew’s geneology of Jesus, as one of His ancestors – for that time, a tremendous tribute to a woman, and of ill repute, at that.
2) It takes years for the Orthodox Church to name someone a saint or a martyr, and usually after God, Himself, has wrought many miracles through that saint, and the holiness of the deceased can no longer be denied or ignored. Calling a man like Charlie, a martyr for Christ at this early stage is tenuous. If he was killed because he was a Christian on the path to finding Orthodoxy, and the forces who knew that wanted to stop it, then sure, but we may never know, and why should we know if we should venerate him as a saint or not? There are so many martyrs for Christ we don’t know about. The important thing is that God knows, and all will soon be revealed. But if he was killed just because someone didn’t like what he was saying or doing politically, then so was Socrates, and the Orthodox do not venerate him as a saint, although they greatly respect him for it. The rush by Protestant and secular Americans, and even some Orthodox to name Charlie something, a saint or a martyr, shows how shallow and secular this society is…it’s so much easier to espouse the man as an idol, than to espouse his message of free speech and Christianity. Those who truly wish to honour his memory, should focus on his message and his pursuit to learn more about the Orthodox faith. But these things are hard. For the masses, it’s easier to just worship the memory of a man as a saint or a martyr without bothering about his substance.
3) Speaking of Socrates, he hated democracy, which has been discussed in this thread, on the grounds that it was doomed to failure. He reasoned this out from the known facts of his time that the masses who voted were ignorant, emotional, easily swayed and prone to bribery. Therefore, democracy, would always fail to do what it was supposed to do. Nothing has really changed, has it? But the Church, although she does not honour Socrates as a Saint, does refer to him as a Christian before Christ because of his monotheistic beliefs. If Socrates and Charlie both died because of their faith, they may be sharing some tea at this moment in the bosom of Abraham. We don’t know, and that’s OK, because none of us loves these men more than God loves them. So, because of the way these men lived their lives, and because our God is merciful, we live with the eternal hope that they, and we, will be glorified on the Last Day. This is the Orthodox approach, or at least it should be.
I agree with only your last paragraph. I’ve heard it said that the blood of martyrs always brings people to Christ. I hope and pray that is exactly what will happen.
As to your quotes about what Charlie Kirk died for, they are the opinions of those trying to use his death for their own particular cause or organization and reflect their own views of Americanism. So many of Charlie Kirk’s views were changing in these last few months. It appears his views were becoming more and more Orthodox by the day. Tucker Carlson spoke yesterday evening on his show that Charlie Kirk died for his Christian faith, that everything he did was led by that. If only you could have quoted him in your article.
If any non-Orthodox were to read your article I fear they would run as far away as they could from Orthodoxy if they thought you were representing it. We are Americans. There’s no avoiding it. Of course in our Orthodox life we gradually throw off that which no longer fits in the Orthodox ethos, but this is where we live and the culture we must spread the gospel to.
From what I’ve watched of Charlie Kirk these last few days, it looked to me like someone who was using the freedoms we have to spread Christ in the way he felt called to and with the knowledge he had. He can hardly be blamed for not knowing much about Orthodoxy until recently. Most Americans don’t. Even his beautiful interview with Fr. John Strickland was titled America’s Best Kept Secret. If anyone is to blame for him not being a martyr because he wasn’t Orthodox, it is on all of us for not sharing the good news far enough and wide enough across our country the way he did on college campuses. May the Lord have mercy on us.
Thanks for reading and participating Anna. As you can see with Nicholas’ take:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-battle-over-the-legacy-of-charlie-kirk/
The biggest issue now is the battle for the legacy of Charlie Kirk. On that front, Zionists are trying to make him a martyr to Zionism, while many secular-minded conservatives are trying to make him the right-wing equivalent of MLK. When a man becomes a mythic symbol, you lose the man entirely. Kirk was on a very public spiritual journey. He called many young people to Christ. He was a personally likeable, a good father, a solid leader, and pious.
He also carried water from some of the greatest atrocities ever committed by mankind. Those two things are both part of his legacy. As his spiritual journey unwound, he was asking questions and rethinking his Zionism. That much is clear, and it was at great personal cost.
The big thing, we still don’t know why Kirk was killed. There is the hastily spun official narrative, but multiple, credible investigators have poked massive holes in it. There is even a former Marine Sniper who did a frame-by-frame analysis of the shot and concluded that the alleged placement of the shooter does not match the ballistic evidence. Is he correct? We will probably never actually know. For those in power, the truth of Kirk’s assassination is much less useful than the narratives they can overlay on top of his life.
Given the truth of the situation, claiming martyr status for him would seem to be a bad idea. If the Zionist narrative wins out, which it probably will, then you have spent your time effusively praising a man who will mostly be remembered as a cheerleader to genocide. Or perhaps a man whose death was used to justify the end of American freedom, as we are well on our way to prosecuting “hate speech” and “antisemitism” with Charlie Kirk’s death being put forward as the justifying factor.
In any case, Kirk’s primary success was centered around his outreach for the Gospel. That is the part we need to focus on. Kirk loved his audience and shared Christ with them. Young people need Christ, who can save their souls while politics and ideology cannot.
Thank you for your reply. I did read the other article as well and appreciated it being more thorough and covering all aspects of Charlie Kirk, both the positive and negative. This article was just so negative and didn’t seem to allow room for any of the good he was doing or room for grief over the loss of life.
Truly, may the Lord have mercy on us..
I appreciate this article for looking at what truth Charlie Kirk was telling. It’s easy to say they killed him for telling the truth. The problem is that without being specific about what truth he told or who killed him, “They” can easily become the speaker and listener’s pre-existing enemies and “The Truth” becomes whatever beliefs the speaker or listener want others to hold.
My own view is that Kirk was offering his opinions about the greatness of America, the value of the Constitution and the need for capitalism. He got fame offering those opinions on college campuses, in a way that appealed to the current Republican Party, which resulted in him having some power in the party (certainly more power than a voter). His prominence in life and death stem from that political success.
Finally, I think it is wrong to kill someone for their political opinions. The tradition of Western Civilization, however, is filled with such murders. Even asking others to defend their political opinions can be fatal. Socrates was sentenced to death and killed for his commitment to discussing the beliefs of his fellow citizens.
As the ancients taught and as is still apropos, all excellent rhetoric (written or spoken) contains three essential elements: logos, ethos and pathos. Unfortunately, this piece is missing the pathos, as your introduction makes clear was actually one of your aims.
This missing element makes the piece fall flat for readers. Keeping your Orthodox audience on an Orthodox blog firmly in mind, you should have led with the information in your final paragraph and then written thoughtfully and honestly from there, without avoiding the obvious emotion of the topic.
As a patriot and military man, I disagree with many statements in Garlington’s article. I don’t have time to elaborate right now, but I ask readers to look at Austin Martin’s analysis (here) to get a gist of my sentiments too. Nonetheless, here are some thoughts:
1) Americanism just stands for American patriotism. It is not an “idol” any more than Orthodoxy is an idol. It reflects what our imperfect country can ideally stand for, even when it falls short. BTW: Did Mr. Garlington serve in the US Armed Forces?
2) There are few “pure” martyrs. People got killed by evil authorities for a variety of reasons, but only a minority are recorded as having died because they were directly, personally challenged to deny their faith. Yes, sometimes many were executed just because of their label as “Christians”; others who were Christians just “got in the way” of an evil regime. [Read the Prologue.] Were the 500,000 Russian clergy and monastics who died under the Bolshevik/Communist regimes legitimate martyrs? If they were martyrs, then so is Charlie Kirk, who put his faith into practice with courage and love. If more Orthodox adherents did that, then maybe our Orthodox Faith would not be declining in America [Ref: Alexei Krindatch]:
All adherents from all jurisdictions: -17%
Regular Attendees, all jurisdictions: -14%
Greek Orthodox Church: – 22%
OCA……………………….: – 12%
Antiochian Church……..: – 5%
Serbian Church…………: – 13%
ROCOR…………………..: – 14%
AVE of just 5……………: – 13.2%
—————-
* 2014 – 2024
—————-
================================================
That’s a good point. If we’re going to draw strict lines around the categories, then Tsar Nicholas was killed for politics and not religion.
1) Patriotism and Americanism are really two separate things. A patriot loves his country because it is his. His culture, his land, his language, his people, his traditions. The same as one loves his own mother. She doesn’t have to be the greatest mom in the world, but she is his. A patriot does not begrudge another man loving his own country. He understands it. Americanism, in the way Walt defines it, could be described as “America the universal idea” or perhaps “America – the end of history.” Americanism is a religion. America represents the highest achievement of mankind. Anyone can become an American, as its not about religion or heritage, but merely accepting a set of Enlightenment principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Everyone, everywhere is capable of being an American, which is why America has to rule the world. Anyone opposing the spread of American power and culture is irrational and hateful, not patriotic, because everyone should want to be like us. We’re the best. Our economy is the best. Our military is the mightiest. All hail America.
Americanism strikes one as just another Millennialist heresy, not actual patriotism. While Evangelicals may mix in Christianity with their self-worship, It is always a very American God that they serve.
America Firsters who want to leave other people alone while we tend to our own obvious problems are patriots. Neocons and Neoliberals are not. Many who consider themselves conservative are simply confused.
On the other hand, “leftists” (imprecise word, but the political spectrum is confused at this point) often point to even the mildest forms of Christian governance (think 1963 New York with school prayer) as being dangerously “Christian Nationalist”. This too is completely incorrect, as Nicholas took Fr. John Jillion’s to task for making just that mistake.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/is-there-a-christian-nationalist-threat-to-america-and-orthodoxy/
2) We actually have no idea why Kirk died. The official FBI story is currently full of massive inconsistencies. Not the least of which is a 22 year old nerd managing to make a perfect first shot with a weapon with which he appears to have been unfamiliar, that he is supposed to have broken down for transport (thereby completely losing his zero), in high wind and mid-day glare, and he had never killed anyone before. He then had the wherewithal to engage in a perfect E & E plan, was able to drive 4 hours home, and only was caught because he confessed to his dad. So no, sorry, currently we actually don’t know whether Kirk was killed because as a Christian he told the truth about LGBTQ sinfulness, or because of some other reason. Martyrs are often recognized long after their demise. We are rushing headlong into this, simply because Kirk was a really good missionary to the Youth. For that he is to be applauded, which is what Nicholas did in his piece.
Because we are rushing into this, we are not waiting long enough for Kirk’s historical legacy to be sorted out. He may very well end up remembered as a staunch Zionist, a flak for genocide. He may end up being remembered solely for his political aspirations. Or as the catalyst for Trump finally crushing free speech in the name of revenge for Kirk against the Left. Now, we took a stand on that because it is important to us that Kirk be remembered as an evangelist for Jesus Christ, because that is where he was most effective – convincing college students to go to Church. For now, especially secular conservatives, who themselves like Christian ideals without the Christ that goes with them, are barreling headlong to crown him. For their own agenda, by the way.
Where did you get those stats, because those don’t line up at all with the Pew research numbers that just came out earlier this year.
In any case, however, it is a good point that Orthodox need to be more proactive the way Kirk was. Which is why Nicholas wrote this:
“For effective evangelism, Kirk’s legacy looms large. He proved that young people are hungry for Christ, often without even realizing it, and that change is possible for any of these young people. Former gay, trans, and radical students have testified that Kirk’s encouragement led them seek out Christ, thus transforming their lives forever. The Orthodox Church, though already succeeding in evangelism to a degree in our post-Christian society, needs to take a page from the Charlie Kirk playbook to really reach the youth. We need to go out and meet them where they are, in person, with love and compassion. When it comes to outreach for Christ, we all need to be Charlie Kirk.”
https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-battle-over-the-legacy-of-charlie-kirk/
While I agree with all of that, it’s the over-simplicity that Walt brings to these kinds of discussions that bothers me. Hesychasm and monarchism are a too esoteric to expect of someone who doesn’t directly encounter the teachings in Orthodox literature. None of us came to those conclusions by reading the Bible alone. The problems with Enlightenment philosophy take years to sort through. How much more esoteric (even if entirely true) is the understanding that Tsar Nicholas II was “the man who restrains” whose death brought about the age of the Antichrist! You can’t expect a normie protestant immersed in democracy-worship to wake up to that on his own.
Charlie Kirk taught the social and political aspects of the Christianity commonly accessible to him. Can we really fault him for that? Jesus said that to whom much is given, much is expected. Kirk was given very little and did amazing things. But we in the Orthodox Church have the entirety of Church tradition at our fingertips, and we just use it to cosplay as desert hesychasts and hold conferences congratulating ourselves for picking the right denomination.
And I find it farcical and hubristic that any American could understand hesychasm. I read 15 pages of Meyendorf’s edit of The Triads and decided that it was above me. Then I go online and see people discussing it like it’s basic catechism. This is what Fr Seraphim Rose meant by “the game of hesychasm.”
It’s like, I read an article by the renowned Moscow theologian Alexei Osipov where he dumps on the Catholic saint Therese of Liseiux. And yeah, by our standards, what she wrote was out of balance. But she was a teenage girl trying to figure out how to love Jesus in the absence of any guidance from the adults around her. Why are we throwing rocks at her?
https://madmonk33.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/the-delusion-of-catholic-mystics/
Oh sorry, a teenage girl in 19th century France didn’t figure out 4th century desert hesychasm. Apparently it’s prideful to want to be a saint — I never knew!
Terrible. She wanted to bring others to salvation and pray on their behalf. Nothing is more un-monastic that praying for others’ salvation. Clearly she was a spiritual failure.
How does someone as immersed in Orthodox tradition as Osipov get to the point where he writes these things?
I’m still nominally Orthodox, but I’m disgusted with the culture of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy doesn’t produce saints — it produces one-dimensional, self-righteous ideologues.
And we say that we need to do even more evangelism to match what the protestants are doing. Why? So that we can produce more internet hesychasts?
Sometimes reading your posts, the thought comes to mind that knowing too much can actually be a curse. Most of us are more or less normiedox. But that isn’t new. Through out history, the vast majority of people went to church, did some reading of the Bible and the lives of the saints, participated in the sacraments, tried their best to live their lives in a godly fashion, raised up babies, served their communities, got old, and died. Rinse, repeat each generation.
It really isn’t a bad model. The Early Church taught no Theology until after baptism. Then it was very basic concepts. Which is what most people can handle. One of the beautiful things about Orthodoxy is that the average human doesn’t have to be his own Pope. If you think it is torturous to listen to online Orthodox Theologians, then attend a seminar at a Baptist Bible college. Been there, done that, wish to never repeat it. Everyone in the room feels compelled to have an opinion over everything, because as their own Spiritual Fathers, they are expected to.
The average person is not going to be a deep thinker on Theological questions. In Orthodoxy, you don’t have to be. No one is hiding the material from you, but the average human is better off not picking most of it up. The average online arm chair Orthodox Theologian is one of the most annoying things on earth. The latest dust up on X over Penal Substitutionary Atonement comes to mind. Why even have that discussion? Does the outcome of that online theological discussion change one thing about how an Orthodox Christian will live his or her life? No? Then find a new hobby. Which is what discussing “deep” Theological topics is for these people. A hobby. A way to show how smart they. How well read they are.
They are better off bird watching.
You said:
Well, yeah. That is why we often run pieces that pick on democracy and Enlightenment ideas. The democracy worship can creep into the Orthodox Church as well. The Fordhamites are busy publishing books trying to blend Orthodox with multi-cultural, liberal democracy. It’s a fool’s errand, but then again, they are fools.
The issue is with our cultural baggage. We come into the Orthodox Church, or grow up in the Church, and all of these Enlightenment ideas invade our consciousness to the point we don’t even notice them. Taking a page from Thom Paine’s master work of pro-war propaganda, we assume that democracy is a God-ordained form of government that actually works. Those are bad assumptions, but you are correct, average Americans are never going to get there on their own.
Anyone who believes they understand hesychasm is probably deluded. Most people top out at keeping a regular prayer rule. Most people are just trying to do the best they can in their limited way. God is merciful.
Any parent reading about Therese of Liseiux just wants to give her a big hug, a warm meal, and get her some help. The thing about so many modern Roman Catholic saints is they do seem unbalanced. But, the RC holds them up as models for the average believer. It isn’t so much throwing stones at a young girl with some strange ideas who really needed a father figure in her life. It is putting that young girl forward as an example for other young, struggling girls.
Actually, we are producing a large number of saints. Maybe not capital “S”, but who knows? Mother Olga was just an Aleut woman. Being a big “S” saint is not always about writing deep theological works or beating the Tartars or advising emperors or working mighty miracles. Sometimes it is just bringing God into your everyday life and being a light unto those around you. Parishes are full of quiet, humble, everyday people just trying to get by, love God, and help others. They don’t attempt hesychasm, they don’t talk about deep theological topics at coffee hour. They comfort those going through tough times. They celebrate with those with joyous news. They hold young babies so moms can drink coffee in peace. Your experience of Orthodoxy is just very different from how many of the rest of us experience Orthodoxy.
Why do we need to evangelize? Because people are hurting. They are lost. They are broken. They are alone. Protestantism is very isolating. Been there. Done that. People need community. They need a faith they can embrace that won’t change every 5 minutes. They need to reconcile with God. They need to experience God for themselves, and the Divine Liturgy with the Eucharist makes the possible. They need confession, because too many of them are trying to rely on secular psychology which is at best overrated for effectiveness, and at worst a fraud.
So why do we want to evangelize? Because we love people and we want to help. Orthodoxy is a hospital for sick souls. There will always be disappointments among mere humans. Bad bishops. Apostates. Hypocrites. Liturgical changes you don’t like. Dumb spending decisions. Ambition and manipulation. But such things will be anywhere that people are. Probably we expect better out of the Church, as she is led by the Holy Spirit, but that sort of applies to the grand sweep of history. On a day to day basis, bad leadership can put us pretty far off track. Though we will always recover. To a large extent, many of the problems are really more about teaching us patience than anything.
Oh, that’s completely true. Ecclesiastes 1:16-18 talks about this. Solomon studied and studied to find truth and wisdom, and he learned more than had ever been in Jerusalem, and all he found from it was grief, madness and despair. And then he says in 12:12, “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is weariness of the flesh.”
People often say, “I read my way into Orthodoxy.” Well, I sort of read my way out. Some of this I’ve discussed with you over email that I don’t want all over the internet, because I’m not trying to pull people out of the Church.
That’s not really true though, because we’ve created a very complicated Orthodoxy. What I want to get back to is simple Orthodoxy. My article on Romanian exiles talks about this. The peasants had very simple faith, but it immersed their lives. Often they didn’t know anything beyond the Lord’s Prayer. Whereas we have this consumerist Orthodoxy where we follow our favorite theologians like pop culture.
I read Corneliu Codreanu’s prison diary, written just a few months before he died. Like Charlie Kirk, Codreanu’s life and work was defined by his faith. Everything he did was because he believed in something higher than money. And yet he never read the Bible until his last months. For the first time, in prison, he read through the Gospels and Pauline Epistles. He was struck at the beauty of it, and I found it sad that he had spent his life without ever reading them.
HTP has a short book called Testament of Memory, about early missionaries in southern Siberia. The Altai people were simple pagans, and the gospel delivered to them was very simple. It wasn’t at all how we would explain it today. Basically, God has a son, and if you accept baptism, you will spend eternity with him. It was beautiful, but that would never work in America because of all the philosophical and religious background we have.
Some of these pre-schism Western saints accomplished amazing ascetic feats and miracles, and all they had was the Psalms. They didn’t have Schmemann or Elder Sophrony. They didn’t have the Jesus Prayer. They probably believed in the filioque. They didn’t have the complexity of the Eastern liturgical services and fasting calendar. And yet with their simple faith, they did more than we could ever dream of.
On top of all that, in traditional Orthodox countries, Orthodoxy is just part of the local culture. It’s woven in seamlessly. But in the West, it’s a denomination that is presented and has a certain face to it. So the whole way we think about it is different.
And then you look at the ancient Christians, and the way they thought about Church life was completely different.
So we don’t have the same normiedoxy as other generations.
The problem is that it’s presented at the parish. Go to your parish bookstore, and you’ll see Schmemann, Hopko and Romanides. Or maybe Peter Heers or Fr Kosmas Orthodox Talks. You’ll see Lord of Spirits or Religion of the Apostles. Fr Stephen Freeman or Abbot Tryphon. There may even be a few Coptic books. This advanced or academic big-O Orthodoxy, which often isn’t even small-o orthodox, is presented as common devotional reading for the masses, and no one questions that, because no one has read beyond it. And then people like what they read, and they worship it like pop culture. Try telling a boomer OCA priest that Schmemann was a protestant in a cassock, and watch him make you into an enemy.
We all love Fr Josiah Trenham, yes? He’s trad Orthodox without the cringe. He presents Orthodoxy in a way that is socially acceptable without compromise. And I’m only being a little sarcastic. There’s a lot to respect about his approach. But his Patristic Nectar talks also include those of Hopko and Zacharou. Is that okay? If Trenham is so patristic, why is he promoting heretics and false teachers? Answer: Because that’s the Orthodoxy that’s been presented to us. These are approved, mainstream teachers, and so there’s no questioning. It’s taken for granted that Hopko was representative of Orthodoxy and that Zacharou is an authentic elder.
That is to say, I can read the Fathers and say, “This is Orthodoxy!” But no it’s not. Orthodoxy is Hopko and Zacharou. Whether that aligns with what the Fathers taught is a question of literature, not religion.
We say that, but I don’t think we mean it. Fr Zacharias Zacharou was one of the first to promote COVID lockdowns, and he said that we can have a “triumph of hesychasm” by staying home and saying the Jesus Prayer, which he says does the exact same thing as the Eucharist. This article was shared widely by everyone with no discernment.
I don’t think most people should be saying the Jesus Prayer as a repetitive, meditative practice. The Jesus Prayer is great to say one time right before bed, or if you feel like you need to reach out to God but don’t know what to say, or if you just sinned and need to reconnect. But the way this is slathered on priests’ business cards or sung as a communion hymn, the way everyone has a prayer rope, the way it’s taught as the core Orthodox practice — I find all this extremely inappropriate.
I visited my first monastery when I was a 21 year old catechumen. I stayed for 8 nights, which should have never been allowed. The abbot gave me a prayer rope and told me to say the Jesus Prayer at all times. One of the monks would watch me during services and come over to tell me that I need to say the Jesus Prayer. The abbot also gave me St Dorotheos of Gaza, and then he berated me when I later said that I disagreed with some of it.
How did we get to the place where we are putting mid-level asceticism on young catechumens? And this is just standard, paint-by-the-numbers American monasticism.
Many years later I rolled into a new town and started attending a converty mission church. The priest was one of these energetic converts who is really good with catechumens but has nothing of depth to offer. In many ways he is a better person than I am, but he did not have the spiritual foundation to be a priest. He knew that I was in a great spiritual malaise. His solution was to tell me that it’s an absolute requirement to do the fasting calendar because that’s one of the wings with which you ascent to God, and the other wing is to say 100 Jesus Prayers a day. He told me that God will teach me how to say it, because he read that in a book somewhere. And there’s a sense in which all of that is true, but the effect for me is greater burn-out and self-loathing once I failed at it.
And all of that could be avoided if we put away our pretensions to mystical spirituality as fat, consumerist Americans and just focused on Simple Orthodoxy.
I have met many monastics who built their lives around the Jesus Prayer, and probably every single one of them had no spiritual understanding. I have met monastics I thought were saints, but all of them folded when crisis came.
For example, just because his sins are enough of a public scandal that it’s not slander to talk about them online. The Bishop Theophan of the GOA’s Albanian diocese. I knew him very well when he was a priest in St Louis. He pulled me out of the above malaise. I served in the altar with him, and he knows that I would have followed him to the gulag (this was during the COVID lockdowns and the early Biden presidency when things were getting scary). Fr Theophan believed in me when no one else did. He let me attend church against the law and against his bishop’s orders. He didn’t enforce any COVID rules about icons or masks.
Then he coldly abandoned our church, and then he abandoned me, and then he made a deal with Satan to become a bishop and caused an international scandal. Alien body-snatchers is a more plausible explanation than that he always had a secret, hidden agenda.
Why did Fr Theophan do the terrible things he did? Answer: American greed. The first time I met him, I told him that he would have been better off if he had stayed in Romania because American prosperity ruins people’s souls. But of course, it’s this very American prosperity that is why immigrants come here. That’s part of the package. The cost of American prosperity is your own soul.
Fr Theophan is an extreme example, but I’ve met so many people like him. Good people who are ruined by their pride and ambition. Orthodoxy gives them a vehicle for to amplify that pride and ambition. It makes them feel important and right.
While I have all respect for traditional Alaskan Orthodoxy, that’s not what we have down in the Great 48. This system of diaspora Orthodoxy has never produced a saint. The closest its come is Fr Seraphim Rose, who is still slandered.
I used to say that we would never have an American saint because we are too immersed in narcissism. But in recent years I decided that maybe we could have a saint, but we would reject him. We would find a way to say that his martyrdom doesn’t really count. We would pretend that he wasn’t one of us. The revolution will not be televised, and the saint’s writings will not be on OCN or studied at St Vlad’s.
Imagine St Gabriel of Georgia in America burning a picture of Thomas Jefferson. That’s closer to what a real saint would do.
I have been to about 50 different churches of all different kinds. I have met many people who do that in the short term when it’s easy. But when crisis comes, they almost always default to what is easy and cowardly instead of what is right. I have met many people who started like this and then devolved into the kind of self-righteous ideologue I described.
One of my closest Orthodox friends, about my parents’ age, was one of the great mentor figures of my 20s. He initially came to Orthodoxy because he was going through a divorce, and saying “Lord have mercy” resonated with him. For many years he stoically kept a dying OCA mission open until they could find a full time priest, and today it has over 100 people on Sundays. That wouldn’t have happened without him. But I also watched him become very casual with giving advice and making doctrinal statements about things he knew nothing about. He had no ability to ever admit he was wrong, even on something he wasn’t invested in. I’m very hurt by things he said to me and refused to back down on, and I was close enough to his home life that I could see how he would torment his wife with his selfishness. And it’s like, You can write your books and build your internet career, and you did great work keeping that mission open, but why do you treat your friends so callously?
And so you see how these everyday saints slowly lose their humanity and become, as I said, one-dimensional, self-righteous ideologues. It’s a pattern I see over and over.
You especially see this with internet priests. I mentioned Fr Trenham above. Gradually I have watched him become more and more comfortable with teaching his own opinions as Orthodoxy. He has an arrogant, clericalist side that pokes out. Fr Trenham is very satisfied with himself.
I have many mutual friends with Fr Andrew Damick. They are all worried about his salvation. Way back in 2018, one of them told me, “I hope he’s martyred one day,” and that was before Lord of Spirits or Jay Dyer. And of course when Fr Damick was ordained, he did not intend on becoming the psycho he turned into. A young Andy Damick would be horrified.
But that’s what Orthodoxy does. The Orthodox Church takes good people like a young Andy Damick, gives them something to believe in and something to accomplish, and then turns them into narcissistic psychopath ideologues.
I don’t believe that. The greatest like of the Church is “it’s a hospital, not a courtroom.” This is one of those PR lines we tell ourselves so much that we never question whether it’s true.
I have a hard time still believing that. I think the better narrative is that things only get worse over time. Entropy is the nature of the world.
You often see the “westernized” theology of the 1600s-1800s attacked. That’s an exaggeration, but there’s truth to it. There was something different than how the ancients understood it. But the hubris of the 1900s is that we have read the Fathers and reconstructed a “neo-patristic synthesis.” And no we didn’t. We just made something even more artificial and worldly. The theology of the 1900s was a further devolution from the 1800s. It wasn’t a “return to the Fathers”. That’s just not true.
Very honest assessment, as an Orthodox Christian, I agree, thank you for your honesty.
These kinds of onanistic normiedox polemics are half the reason I’m so disillusioned with Orthodoxy. Garlington has substituted the ideology of Americanism for the ideology of boomer hesychasm. You can especially see this in his enthusiasm for the Philip Ludwell conference, as though the South will ever convert to this Tsarist Russian nostalgia neo-Confederate Orthodoxy that Garlington and Whiteford invented.
The lead question, “If Charlie Kirk died a martyr, what was he a martyr for exactly?”
I’ll answer that. Charlie Kirk said many things that were incorrect. I never paid a lot of attention to him. Really the only thing I ever listened to was his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, who will also be martyred.
However, what he said about politics and society was intimately tied to his faith in Christ. As warped as that faith may have been, it was still authentic. Charlie didn’t sit at home writing on the internet like Walt and I do. He went out into the meatspace and engaged with the hurts of young America. He listened to the unheard. And they murdered him for it.
The secularist or wealthy lukewarm Christian (such as those at Philip Ludwell or who make up high-ranking clergy) have no understanding of laying down one’s life for those he loved. Whatever rhetorical flourishes they make in the public sphere are for their own aggrandizement, but they won’t sacrifice for anything beyond themselves.
But Kirk made that sacrifice because he believed that truth matters, and he believed in truth because he knew Truth as a Person. That’s what Kirk is a martyr for — Kirk died because he told people the truth to his best understanding. And Orthodox ideologues like Garlinton throw rocks at him.
Charlie Kirk died doing what he loved. He didn’t die of cancer in a nursing home. He lived a full, passionate life and gave everything for it. I envy that. As Charles Bukowski said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.” Kirk loved truth, he loved decency, and he loved the lost and disaffected American youth who have been so misled and abused by those of Garlington’s generation.
Whatever you think about Charlie Kirk, his political activism was closely connected to his Christian faith. This is the first overt, high-profile Christian martyr in America, probably since the Civil War. That’s a heavy precedent to set. If they came for Kirk, then they’re coming for us next.
Politicians occasionally get shot, but that comes with power. Kirk was just exercising his first amendment in the normal channels by which we are told that social change is supposed to happen. This is something new. Two days before, Jezebel put out an article about how they paid witches to curse him. This is a John Brown kind of moment.
I am willing to write a more full response if Nicholas asks me to. I don’t have a problem with Garlington as a person, but his concept of Orthodoxy needs to die. The Whiteford pseudo-traditionalists of the Church are our Fox News, and Garlington is our Bill O’Reilly.
You are always welcome to write a response. One opinion is a monologue. Two or more is an actual conversation.
First of all, your response is confusing because this is an Orthodox Christian web and the article is quoting an article from Substack good for everybody else. We should not mix the Orthodox Christian Martyrs with Christian Martyrs of some denomination. If we start combining Orthodoxy with general Christianity, and political concepts like liberty, freedom, equality we will get a DEI Orthodoxy that will make the enemies of the Church happy.
MAGA is a big umbrella for defending the basic principles that define a nation rather than an English-speaking population in full process of moral degradation by falling, from top down, in depravity. The Judeo-Christian concept, that has been over-used, is becoming the pillar for MAGA. For the Orthodox faithful, the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament and Christ as a Savior rather than a religious mixture like a sanwich.
Charlie Kirk will be remembered for his quest to win atheists and pagans from the darkness of the modern life to a decent Christian way of conducting their lives. We, the Orthodox Christians should lite up a candle for him and say a prayer as we do for our dear friends, or family members, who were not Orthodox but were great souls.
In conclusion, I can sense that you have a personal dislike for Walt Garlington and you bring some odd arguments. This is sad indeed…
Lets cut to the chase. Make Orthodoxy Evangelical Again. MOEA! Did Austin know its no insult to be called tsarist? Insult me more im getting turned on. Bibi and the ZOG media blob opened the flood gates of nonsense this week and few have the fortitude to withstand getting swept away. Its nigh impossible to remain staunch in these days so I salute men like Walt.
The Ludwell thing isn’t really my cup of tea….but to judge them as being lukewarm is not only untrue, it’s a direction contradiction of Christ’s call to not judge.
I stopped reading what you wrote at that point.
Excellent analysis. The American system has been a cruel nasty judeo masonic joke on the world’s goyim from the word go. The fake dollar sign meets the star of Remphan and the All Seeing Eye. No one much spoke about Kirk until he was dusted by Mossad last week to advance all the agendas well known to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Now the media and zionist political class have whipped the matter into something to suit their narrative and plan. Its all quite appalling.. It seems Charlie was learning on the job about who runs this criminal enterprise called the American Empire causing him to make a few fatal dissenting noises. He lived and died as a pawn to the khazars and their baphomet. This is of course sad, because all of us were at one point duped and blind to this reality. He didnt deserve his fate, but neither does anyone else in this bolshevik paradise. Most will run their earthly race having no idea what is this thing we are ranting about because the jews and their god are very good at their craft. Poor Charlie. Poor you. Poor me. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us.