July 4, 2016 – Fraternized

The Elizabeth New Life Center in Dayton offered this prayer for our country on our 4th of July holiday:

We pray today for the nation in which we dwell.
We pray you would grant us to be governed by good and wise leaders;
That we would be governed in such a manner that we may live in peace.
We pray you would give the people of our nation a hunger for righteousness and justice.
That your care for the widow, the orphan, the poor-that your light would be shown through us.
May we be a people of humility, generosity and compassion.
May the weakest among us-the unborn, the unfortunate and the elderly-be shown your justice and mercy.
We pray that we who are the followers of Jesus Christ and His peaceful kingdom, would be a peaceful people seeking to live in peace with one another.
We pray that hate and acrimony would give way to love and harmony.
We ask this in the name of your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Wishing all my fellow Americans a safe and blessed Independence Day holiday.

“The theory that America is a melting pot no longer seems to be in vogue. Sociologists are pointing more and more to the pluralistic character of American society. Yet, while America is indeed a nation of many people of diverse racial, ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds, who are free to hold and cultivate their customs and languages, no cultural tradition is able to remain completely autonomous or unaffected by the lure of the American Way. The process of Americanization is inevitable and inexorable. Indeed, acculturation becomes easier with each succeeding generation.

There are those, however, who believe that the American Way is suspect and even corrupt. They maintain that to survive Orthodox people are obliged to live as a remnant in artificial islands, isolated from the mainstream of American life. This attitude is not simply myopic but also inherently wrong, because it constitues a betrayal of the Church’s self-understanding and mission. In fact, it is a prescription for the transformation of the Church into a sect and a sure way to erode her internal vitality and to dimish her role as a spiritual force in our society. In response to the moral and spiritual imperatives of the Gospel, we are obliged to rise above every fear, surmount every obstacle, and transcend every prejedice, which would deny the catholicity of the Church, seek to restrict her vision, limit her outreach and mission and seal her doors.

The Church is God’s eternal witness and the sacrament of his love for everyone. The Church is the sign and herald of God’s Kingdom in the midst of the contradictions and anomalies of the fallen world. The Church has no borders and knows no fences. She is the house of all, the universal community. As Orthodox Christians in America we need not abandon our roots nor be apologetic about the fact that we carry with us cultural values that have been hammered out in places and times other than our own. Indeed, this very fact acts to remind us of our responsibility and mission to be active and creative participants in the historical process. We have every right to hope and work for an American Orthodoxy because there are grounds for it in our collective histories.” (Alkiviadis C. Calivas, Essays in Theology and Liturgy: Vol. 2, pp 52-53)