Yes I agree, the kingdom of God is a certain kind of anarchy! Also on your last paragraph:
“And I'm beginning to wonder if the long history of etherealization I find myself rebelling against actually has its roots in the transfer of Christian attention from Yerushalayim—watered from the heavens, beset by empires—to Rome, a city virtually synonymous with the technological control of nature and the glories of imperial conquest.”
An excellent question! Do you think Orthodoxy has been (or might be) able to help us shift our attention back where it belongs?
Thanks for this, Matthew. Other than posthumously and involuntarily Jacques Ellul, in his "Subversion of Christianity," no one has agree with me yet that the Kingdom is a form of anarchy -- now I feel less crazy ;)
As for whether Orthodoxy has been, or might be, able to help us shift our attention back where it belongs...that's a tough one. Without a doubt, in Orthodoxy the attention is *not* going back to Yerushalayim. There's no way. Lost cause. Quixotic windmill attack, nothing more. The history of anti-Judaism in Orthodoxy runs almost two millennia deep. We'll see whether the greater voices of Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw and Jonathan Pageau can at least get us more towards a "Wild Orthodoxy," as opposed to Byzantine or Russian Orthodoxy -- i.e. imperial Orthodoxy. Which is to say, Orthodoxy.
Perhaps the Ethiopian Orthodox -- who have always been much more Semitic in outlook (but who are not considered "really" Orthodox by the Russians, etc) -- will show the way. Or already have, and we have to discover the fact in our own idioms. Who knows.
Not referring to states or politics: if there is an Israel, it must be the Church (using Pauline terms); and if there is a Church, it must be both real and ethereal, of both the flesh and the spirit. There is a Church of the heart, and a Church of the hierarchs. A timeless Church, and a historical Church. A communion of saints seen here and now, and a communion of saints unseen simultaneously.
Using this conceptual grid, Eden emerged from primordium in the mountains of Judea, but it also emerges year after year more beautifully in the landscaping of my little yard. The Jerusalem of Israel holds all the sites and stages where the Son of Man laid out the mysteries of salvation, but the Jerusalem of the kingdom of Heaven orients my prayers to the East, from where the Son of Man shall come again and sit upon His throne. I think we need both the mystical and the physical.
Israel, the state now, is a beautiful place, although much smaller than I had imagined prior to visiting. But, the symbolism and beauty I saw there I hope prove to be mere shadows of what we can create here in our private and public spaces--and even then only triflings compared to what my heart can become as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Now onto politics, how apropos for a call to repentance when the spiritual warfare of the heart mirrors so closely the savagery and injustice in that continental convergence of states, ideologies, principalities, and their human subjects doing the will of God knows what spirits. Lord have mercy!
Thanks for this, Graham. It’s complex, provocative and shimmering with an old beauty. I went to the Holy Land once, and standing on the Temple Mount, an indescribable feeling rushed into me, causing me to think something like, “Ohhh, I see, this place actually is holy.” It’s not a metaphor in any way. My short visit there was one experience like that after another, in both directions. Coming down from that very literal hill of sacred experience, a rabbi interrupted our group to talk about bombs while a group of American Christians in pink shirts reading “Powerlifters for Jesus” cheered him on.
But I have to say, in my own prayer journey, even as I return to the Christ path, that place has not been central. After reading your essay, part of me sees this is just because I have never drank in these complicated, holy stories in the ways you and others have. I want to do that now. But there’s this line toward the end of your writing I keep wondering about: “I offer this only as a way to take seriously this land I don’t live in, but whose stories I’m trying to live by...” It strikes me that the tension in my own prayer journey is the opposite of this. I am trying to take seriously this land where I live (I know you are, too), meaning that I wonder about how it is also holy in particular ways – not metaphorical ways. I believe the land longs to be related with in these ways, or God longs to be related with in these ways through the land. And yet I can never live by this land’s stories because I don’t know them. The peoples who know the deep, sacred contours of this North American continent are not my ancestors, and the ancient stories that relay the actual, sacred Presence as it manifests in the land here are told completely outside the Christian or Hebraic cosmology. What to do about that, I don’t know. But your article has provoked a lot of interior wondering about it – and tension – so thank you.
Joe, I love this. I'm on this journey with you, brother! I think for me, trying to go a little deeper into the meaning of Israel is a first step toward understanding how and why a land -- any land -- and, I hope, our land specifically in Sandstone -- can be holy. The Hebrews/Israelites/Jews have something like a four thousand year relationship with a piece of land, which has articulated itself in the beautiful and disturbing poetry of their scriptures, so they've figured some things out that go a little deeper than the perennial starry-eyed youth of this American frontier mind of ours. But so have of the course the First Nations who spent ten or twenty thousand years or whatever figuring out things that this land had to say in the voice of God, too. I know you and I have both read "The Third Promise" and I found Seidenberg's insight that indigeneity or non-indigeneity are not eternal, ontological states very hopeful -- a people is either becoming more or less indigenous to a land, where "Indigeneity is not only determined by the mere fact of being first or longest in a place, but also by forming a way of life that evolves in relation to the place where one lives. An indigenous religion is one whose rituals, stories, times, dreams and laws are tied to a particular land and to its ecological rhythms and necessities. One could describe the nature of these ties as constituting a covenant between a people and a land." I think our project is to *become* indigenous in our own land (or at least work towards that) -- but I think also we can draw inspiration from those who have already done so in their own lands, and talked about it with infinite depth in the dream language of their religious myth. Writing this "Yerushalayim" essay -- largely with the help of studying and re-studying Seidenberg's essay -- I am astonished at how "concrete" the holiness of a land is (it's not a metaphor, as you said). Maybe this is some kind of indescribable energy happening in a place, that one can open one's heart to. Maybe it's also stuff like: Less subject to technological control means need for basic trust in the Creator to send enough rain, etc.
One more thing -- the Hebraic cosmology may have its analogs elsewhere, including with American First Nations. I've been reading Ohiyesa's "The Soul of the Indian" (since Kingsnorth mentioned it) and I am struck by the very intriguing passage that Kingsnorth was struck by: "It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years' experience of it, that there is no such thing as "Christian civilization." I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same."
So much to say, Graham, but mostly “Thank you.” I’ve had an ongoing dialogue and tension around these things. What does Christianity have to say to our ancestral lineages who have encountered this world as more alive than we do, or at least than I do? What do those non-Christian, non-Hebraic lineages have to say to us? How does a religion that has come to be – or seem – universal help us hear the particular voice of God in a particular place? Your reflections have introduced a whole new dimension, a third thing, for pondering and praying about this all. I’m inspired to explore more of how indigeneity looks within the Hebraic and Christian stories, and I’ll have to check out Ohiysa’s writing, too.
I’ll end with this quote from Vine Deloria Jr., who was my original gateway into these inquiries: “Religions must not be simple expressions of ethical and moral codes as we have been taught. They must be more complicated manifestations of the living earth itself and this aspect of religion is something that American Indians of all the peoples on earth represented.”
I love this statement, including his bias (love) toward his own peoples (he was Standing Rock Sioux, the son and grandson of Dakota leaders) within it.
"Religions must not be simple expressions of ethical and moral codes as we have been taught. They must be more complicated manifestations of the living earth itself" -- wow, Joe -- that's it, isn't it? Religion as a wild dream of the Earth, and about the Earth, and for the Earth, a dream dreamed by people, and for people, who are shaped from the Earth itself, given breath by the Holy One...
Well, I know nothing about anything but I find your articles thought provoking, and as you said below, it's about the conversation. I look forward to them. I enjoy reading them, I try to read them carefully, I don't always understand them, having very little religious foundation, I usually like them, but (full disclosure) I also hit like just to keep track of where I am, what I've read. (I keep wanting to post one of those emojis cracking up.) Anyway, these recent posts, and your poems, put me in touch with the ancients, and for that I am grateful. You have a way of bringing the origins, the relation between Yah and his people, to Life for someone who knows nothing about anything. I have often dreamed of going to Israel, have had Hebrew show up in my dreams. I think, though, that I will never get there now. But, I feel, Sabbath Empire gets me close.
Shannon, I really love your humble, open-minded attitude and your willingness to give this stuff your attention, when you're able to -- that means a lot. Also, I want to know more about Hebrew showing in your dreams!?
Graham, as usual, thanks for the thoughtful and passionate content.
One concept that's helped me navigate all this stuff personally is that Jesus actually becomes the bridge between the "Jew" (the visceral, the embodied, the concrete, the tangible) and the "Greek" (the ethereal, the philosophical, the abstract, the conceptual): that in following Christ, we can connect Heaven with Earth. He has healed this tension and prepared this reconnection, this rebinding (religion, re-attachment of ligaments) by undergoing the fullest intensity of animosity from both worlds, being suspended between heaven and earth, rejected by his Father and his Bride simultaneously.
I think that, since the enlightenment, the modern western world has lost touch with or failed to fully appreciate the importance of the truth of the Jewish life (the law and the prophets) and instead has a tendency to over-emphasize the Greek truth. I believe that a reintegration of the earthy and carnal principles of Judaism, without discarding the light and vision of the Greek principles, will truly be re-orienting for our culture and society: "I have not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them".
I couldn't add anything to that, Avery, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to subtract anything; beautiful, profound. Will meditate on that day and night....
Seriously, Graham, this was a beautiful, poetic, and intriguing post. My only sense of disagreement is less to do with the Hebraic orientation as much as it is that the Hebraic and Hellenistic seem to be held up as inherently antagonistic to the point of being mutually exclusive. At least, that's the sense I've gotten from your past few essays, and I don't think that needs to be the case. In your defense, though, it seems too many people take the same stance and land on the other side. I just think there's room for both in Christianity as there is for Arabic, Russian, Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Indian, Far Eastern, and various indigenous traditions. People from all tribes and nations and all that.
I guess that's really my only complaint: affinity for our Hebraic/Jewish core needn't mean anything not that is somehow lacking or inherently opposed to it on a cosmic level. I truly believe at the human level of understanding, the Truth will necessarily be a patchwork job.
And, of course, if all you're doing by stating things in such black and white terms is to simply bring into sharp relief some ideas or viewpoints you see as important but lacking, then I really have nothing to complain about.
I'll definitely have to check out that Ecology of Eden book. It sounds fascinating!
Good thing there's not a 'dislike' button, or you all would see how many people unsubscribed today! A halflike button -- I like that (sort of). The whole 'like' or not binary aspect of instantaneous 1-bit dopamine feedback is one of the many hazards of this environment, I think -- the conversation is where it's at!
Yeah, I don't mean to come across as 'Hebrew' vs 'Greek' as if these are the two mutually exclusive poles of a bipolar universe. Of course they're not. I think I'm just reacting to the many dimensions of anti-Jewishness longstanding in my own tradition by going overboard in the other direction. Or, not overboard, really -- if you want to see me go really overboard, I could go on some really colorful tirades, but I work hard to keep it pretty mild while also saying something real, not necessarily feeling the need to pat every single person's cherished worldview on the back.
I agree there's plenty of room for many different cultural expressions in Christianity--definitely.
I'm fighting to see plenty of room for cultural expressions which include a serious love of Earth and life on Earth which feels like an uphill battle more often than it really needs to.
Regarding the anti-Jewishness that is all too prevalent in Christianity, including Orthodoxy, I feel like I have finally have some clarity on the matter. Now, none of what I'm about to say is meant to justify bigotry or violence on either side of the Christian-Jewish divide, but rather simply try to see what, perhaps, were some motivations.
I relatively recently learned, thanks to the excellent work of Fr. Stephen De Young on the Lord of Spirits podcast that often we tend to project modern Rabbinic Judaism onto the Jewish people at the time of the Yeshua, but that this is not the case. Basically, what I learned was that after the Roman Empire sacked Jerusalem and over the next several decades thoroughly decimated the Jewish people, Christianity and the Pharisees were the only Jewish sects to survive. Christianity continued what had been done by their Jewish ancestors in producing a prolific, varied, and not always consistent volume of texts while the remaining Pharisees banned the production of new texts for a bit, and relied on oral teaching, as they figured out their post-Temple, diasporic self-understanding. Much of this identity formation involved them explicitly distinguishing themselves from Christianity and developing a Jewishness as over and against Christianity. Eventually, these oral teachings were gathered in the Talmud and Rabbinic Judaism developed more and more independently from Christianity. Christianity, too, continued to develop, and quickly became majority Gentile. Given that the first persecutors of the Church were largely other Jewish sects, and Judaism defining itself in explicitly anti-Christian terms during the first few centuries of the Church, I can see where early Christians developed a bad taste in their mouths towards Jews and that they passed this on.
Obviously, this isn't anything like a full history and I'm not claiming that what I mentioned was the only or the most important factor. There's a lot about the history of the development of the Jewish-Christian divide I don't know. But if this was a relevant and major phenomenon, then I think it goes a long way in shedding light on why, from the Christian perspective, a chasm opened up between us and our Jewish brethren and into which was pour vitriol.
Obviously, the level of vitriol, bigotry, and outright persecution leveled at Jews by Christians throughout Church history is, I think, unjustifiable under Christian principles, no matter the circumstances that were instrumentalized to justify it. In fact, for me at least, the idea that Judaism post-Christ deliberately defined itself in terms meant to reject Christianity only stokes pity in my heart, hurt for the divide, and honestly helps me to feel closer to them spiritually than I ever have since I can understand where they're coming from, even if I don't agree.
Yes, definitely, Zach -- I recently read John Howard Yoder's "The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited" which covers this dynamic in great detail (and includes critical commentary, after each chapter, from a non-Christian Jewish perspective). Yoder makes the same case that Rabbinic Judaism is a later form of Judaism than Messianic Judaism (Christianity), and to some extent, is a product of it. But he digs into the common narrative -- relayed by Fr. Stephen De Young, it sounds like -- that Christian anti-Jewishness was mostly a reaction against a Judaism which had decided to identify itself in explicitly anti-Christian terms. He shows that, in fact, the need to define itself in anti-Christian terms was a reaction to a Gentile-dominant Christianity defining itself in anti-Jewish terms.
Anyway, however it all happened will probably always be debatable. And, either way -- just because things developed in one direction, and then kept going in that direction for a very long time, doesn't mean we can't stop and reevaluate, right?
What I'm starting to wonder is if the forced removal of many dimensions of Jewishness from Christianity is perhaps one of the unifying themes by which we can understand why Christianity seems lost inside its own symbolic world right now.
(Not saying anything new, of course; just me blabbing out loud after a long day of people unsubscribing because I apparently don't hate Israel enough....)
I'm disappointed, Graham: with people getting mad at you and all, I figured that there must be something really juicy in here—but then all I find is one lyrical, anodyne image after the next. Haha.
I would point out, though, that maybe some folk are misreading this one because the word "Israel" is used in three different ways. There is Israel the holy land, Israel the political state, and Israel the chosen people. So I take it that in this essay, you're saying nothing about the political state and everything about the holy land. And then the Church is Israel the chosen people, with the Jews as such having become theologically irrelevant—for in Christ, there is neither Jew nor gentile.
Strictly speaking, then, the present connection between the Church and the political state of Israel is a coincidence. It isn't intrinsically meaningful that the political state now sits upon the holy land, although that happens to be the case.
Also, an aside: I am as sure of universal salvation as I am that Jesus is the Lord—and I have found that there is absolutely no point in arguing with anyone about the thing. It's a matter of self-evident moral intuition, and some people have it, some people don't. If you have it, then you need no argument; and if you don't, then nothing will persuade you.
Ha! Yes: Well, for some reason, I feel the need to go through the agony of the writing process paying extraordinarily close attention, and somehow believe that when people read the results of that, they'll be reading slowly and also with attention -- a very silly belief, especially when the medium of transfer from my attention process to theirs is this outrageous mind-numbing ecosystem of screens! "Israel" seems to be one of those trigger words where all that matters to many people is whether or not you insert the appropriate amount of hate either before, or after, it, depending on which ideological camp they've decided to belong to, despite not living there, or knowing anyone who does. Well, anyway, I *did* say at the beginning of the essay "Israel--as an idea, a story, a dream, a people, a specific place on Earth, with each dimension rooted in the others" and I *did* say at the end of it "I am naive, but not so naive as to think that just because the modern State of Israel has the word “Israel” in it means it's an organic continuation of the dream of Israel as remembered by the Hebrew bible. Maybe it is; maybe it isn't...I've said nothing in this essay about states either way—which are collective acts of imagination, and less real than people, trees, and mountains—other than that a lot of them, for thousands of years, have been vying for control of the land of Israel, and still continue to do so" --- but I suppose that doesn't matter much for those looking to make sure I was going to signal the properly huge amounts of moral outrage in whichever direction I was supposed to, to be on their side.
One thing: "It isn't intrinsically meaningful that the political state now sits upon the holy land, although that happens to be the case." -- I'd say rather that whatever and whoever is now sitting up on the Holy Land is intrinsically meaningful, just by virtue of being physically there rather than elsewhere. That doesn't equate to automatic, indefectable divine favor -- obviously -- but it does equate to some kind of automatic meaning arising from the land itself.
Yeah—it's not exactly your fault, but I'm thinking that some may not read past the clause "The terrorist massacres of the deathcult Hamas on October 7 reawakened for me a love for Israel", or get far enough to see you explicitly say that you aren't talking about political states.
And about the Holy Land, I see what you mean in that sense. I'd just wanna push back against any notion—apparently associated with a certain type of Evangelical—that the Jews as such are still God's chosen people, that the establishment of the political state of Israel on the holy land means that the Rapture is nigh, and so on. But you don't appear to be suggesting anything like that.
Maybe I shoulda put the paywall after the first sentence ;)
Well, yeah -- it was pretty clear which side I *wasn't* on right away, and I'm fine with that.
I'm open to the idea that the Jews as such are still God's chosen people, if one takes that as the Hebrew prophets took it, more than as something like American utopian Manifest Destiny-ism. From the bible, and from people like Heschel interpreting the bible, the main sense I get is that to be chosen is to be chosen to suffer, getting torn up by the nations, and not ever really having a king to do anything about it.
When I taught 8th grade scripture, I used to try to convince my students that Look, man: You definitely do *not* want to be chosen by God--look what happens to literally everybody who gets chosen--John the Baptist, rotting in prison before his beheading, just being the last of a very long line of prophets who had the misfortune of being chosen by God to be a light to the world...
With Constantine, you have a subversion of that idea -- to be on top as the most prosperous, the most powerful -- is a sign of having won God's favor...
And no, I don't think the rapture is nigh, and I don't eagerly await the building of the 3rd temple, etc -- I think Yeshua fundamentally dispersed the whole idea of a temple of stone once and for all.
Which, among so many other things, puts me at odds with Orthodoxy...
Sure—I agree with the Jewish model of being chosen, and I am no fan of Constantine. But in my understanding, the Gospel abolishes the difference between gentile and Jew, so no one is "chosen" anymore on racial grounds. Jews are chosen insofar as they believe in the Messiah, just like gentiles. So the Church is now the chosen people—although I think that may then also raise the question of what the Church is, and whether the visible, institutional Church is the real deal or an egregore.
As for being at odds with Orthodoxy, I'd say don't worry too much about it. My attitude is basically, "Go to church for the Eucharist, and if they haven't kicked you out yet, you're doing all right." I think that people like you and me sense that there is a vital need for the poetic transfiguration of the received, historic Tradition; and indeed, this project may well have to do with the fabled Age of the Holy Ghost. Of course this will be called heretical—and so what? I only care for poetic truth, and I am supremely indifferent to their labels.
Well -- no one was chosen on racial grounds in the first place, as I see it. Abraham was chosen as someone who would walk away from Ur into the Unknown, not because he was a Hebrew. A holy nation sprung out of him like a tree -- biological continuity is part of the picture, it's not irrelevant -- but not all his biological descendants were chosen (cf. Ishmael). On the other hand, non-Hebrews or half-Hebrews were brought into that tree (cf. Joseph's children, whom he had with his Egyptian wife, were part of the chosen strain). And then only a few Hebrews ever left Egypt, and only a few Jews, as they were called post-exile, ever returned to Judah/Judea, and it sounds like quite a bit of Babylonian blood got added to the mix -- so being a Hebrew per se, and then a Jew per se wasn't quite it. It was those who believed in the Abrahamic project.
My reading of the NT is not that the difference between gentile and Jew is abolished, but that these two different identities are united as "one new humanity" (Eph 2:15) in Yeshua so that, together, they can be the renewed Israel -- which was always supposed to draw gentiles into itself anyway (and sometimes did that, sometimes not -- maybe most times not).
I myself am not too worried about either being called a heretic, or actually being one. But to be a heretic and also snatch the eucharist from the Orthodox Church is kind of an incoherent way to live, as the Orthodox church anathematizes heretics, which means dismissing them to hell. See this ex-priest's article: "Anathema: Eastern Orthodoxy and The Ritual Cursing of All Other Christians" (https://thereformedninja.blogspot.com/2022/11/eastern-orthodoxy-and-ritual-cursing-of.html) For example, if I were to proclaim the historical fact that Yeshua used unleavened bread at the passover, since he was an observant Jew, it sounds like I've probably already been anathematized: "That whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystic Supper had unleavened bread (made without yeast), like that of the Jews, and not leavened bread, that is to say, bread raised with yeast, let him depart far from us and let him be anathema as one having Jewish views and those of Apolinarios and bringing dogmas of the Armenians into our Church, on which account let him be doubly anathema."
Well, OK, I'll say it -- he used unleavened bread. Like that of the Jews. Because he was one. And still is.
I'm not actually worried about publicly saying that being something that could bring upon myself the double curse of a double anathema -- I'm just saying it's not quite as easy (in Orthodoxy, as it may be perhaps elsewhere) as simply not caring what other people say, and taking the Eucharist anyway. I couldn't ultimately justify that incoherence, I guess.
I'm totally thinking out loud here, Sethu! I appreciate the dialogue -- it's very welcome.
** Follow up note: I stand corrected -- he definitely used leavened, not unleavened, bread. Still as a Jew, though. See "The Messianic Feast" by T. Alex Tennent
At first I thought that the Book of Ruth was sweet and nice, but I wasn't sure why it was sitting there in the Bible—but then I realized the point was that David's grandmother was a gentile. If you're defining the Abrahamic project as basically spiritual in the first place and "Jew" as primarily a spiritual qualification, then sure, I suppose I don't object to that. I could find that workable.
As for the heresy thing, I just try not to worry too much about the sort of rabid blathering that you've quoted. I think more like a magician: the Eucharist is real magic, and I want it, and I will go get it if I can do so without overtly telling lies or anything. I'm Eastern Catholic at the moment. And I believe in man and woman and the Eucharist itself, which is apparently more than a lot of believers can say. So, I think the Church has far bigger things to worry about presently than my adventures—and hey, they're supposed to be the cops, right? It isn't on me to police their border.
Thank you once again, Graham my young friend, for expressing my own older-and-vaguer-than-yours thinking about all these difficult things! And thank you for a new and useful word, etherealization. I absorbed much of what Eisenberg and Ezekiel and Jeremiah tells us in your well-chosen quotations when I visited The Holy Land this past spring. Jerusalem (I can pronounce it your way but cannot spell it) as we rounded the hills from the north of the city, revealed itself as the CENTER of the earth-- revealed it to a whole busload of American and Eastern European pilgrims, retired truckdrivers and theology students alike, all weeping without being able, even hours later, to express why.
The next day our relentless tour guides gave us a precious half hour of solitude (well, we could at least spread out a bit) during our visit to a garden on The Mount of Olives. More tears. On my knees knowing that to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" , our Christian duty, means only ONE THING: to pray for Yeshua's return. I am still feeling rejected that Our Heavenly Father did not send Him during MY HALF HOUR. Yeshua's incarnation (I recall the Spanish word for meat) establishes your sense that " The Promised Land ... is biblical vision about the realization of a PARTICULAR way of life on Earth, not somewhere else." This is true.
PHI! Thanks so much for sharing your experience of the Holy Land -- what an enormous gust of refreshing wind for me, having been so wrapped up inside my head over this essay for so long. It's really good to hear from someone who has been there, and has felt it. It's strange: I'm usually pretty cynical toward urban landscapes, and I especially look down on virtual experiences involving flat screens, but last night, after posting my essay, I watched this 30 minute GoPro recording of a dude just going for a laid-back walk two days ago through downtown Yerushalayim (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feTgIIz5AjQ), and the sense of peace just emanating from that stupid, unedited, non-soundtracked, un-commentaried video of nothing special happening was surprisingly intense! God willing, I would love to actually go there in the flesh one day...
This time I listened to that still, small voice and decided to part ways.
For the benefit of others, I will state my sense that Graham represents a neo-Judaizing tendency: not in any sense that he enjoins circumcision on non-Jewish Christians (and other Orthodox may wince that I have doubts whether pork is fit for human consumption as a bottom-feeder that's been compared to putting jet fuel in a car).
What is said about Israel above seems an idealized Israel, not the actual state of Israel that is wreaking such devastation in Palestine that my church prays for His Eminence a Metropolitan and his suffering flock alongside His Eminence ONUPHRIOS of Ukraine and his suffering flock. The actual state of Israel that has been bulldozing Christians' homes and on live TV knocked down an Orthodox heirarch and sprayed him with fire extinguishers. I remember searching for photos of a church in Gaza that had been bombed, found a fact check that claimed that the historic Gaza church had in fact not been bombed, and identified the bombed building as a bank... and the fact check did not lift my spirits, the equivalent of cutting down fruit-bearing trees in war, or rather something much worse. The devastation to people's access to their finances is beyond a scorched earth policy against all fruit-bearing trees. The State of Israel as you speak of it seems an idealization and not the State of Israel that my abbot and heirarch discusses.
Beyond that, a thread in your posts seems neo-Judaizing in that you never accept the authoritative place of Greek in Orthodoxy, or here have anything non-negative to say about Yeshua's Bible, the Septuagint. That aspect of the authority of Orthodox Tradition is not taking as binding.
In retrospect, I regret that I took a second Greek class instead of Hebrew during my first graduate program, although most of the regret is that it was about using commentaries and not a course in the Greek language proper. In other words, I took one language course proper when I could have taken two language courses proper if I had studied Hebrew. I did ask to be able to take a Hebrew class during a later PhD program I didn't complete, but the logistics among other things were against it. My abbot, who is now taking a Hebrew class, is very appreciative of the language, and its subtlety. Though I am obeying him in trying to obtain a more expert proficiency in Greek. I expect he would give me a blessing to study Hebrew once I have reached a high level in Greek, but the Renaissance "Ad fontes!" to the Hebrew language is one I have not encountered elsewhere in Orthodoxy, and my abbot's appreciation and admiration of Hebrew have never been expressed with a dig against the Greek. While I was in the allegedly Roman program that denied my request to take a Hebrew class, I read Pope Benedict on de-Hellenization, https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/de-hellenization-benedict-xvi/, and found it to make sense (my "Open Letter to Catholics on Orthodoxy and Ecumenism" which you can find by Googling said he was the most Orthodox-like of Popes in recent history, although I took issues with him on certain particulars). I don't want to get too much into details, but you seem to represent a de-Hellenized take on Orthodoxy, which is to say a non-Orthodox take on Orthodoxy. And you hit the ejection seat when I framed Hell as a permanent place that people really go to.
I really appreciate many of the things you have written and I hope you will have future helpful posts, and perhaps that our paths may cross again.
I appreciate your calm, thorough, civil note, Brother Christos. Others who have also unsubscribed today haven't been so generous! Yes, I do think you're right that Orthodoxy is necessarily Hellinist (and Hellenizing) and since my intuitions are in the direction of Hebraic (and Hebraicizing) instead, Orthodoxy is probably not the place for me. I will take issue with just one little thing you said, though: I did specifically say at the end of the essay that I had not been talking about the State of Israel, or any states, except insofar as states have been trying to conquer the land since forever -- since states first existed. You saying I was idealizing the "State of Israel" in the essay, when I was actually talking about the land itself, is an example of how pervasive virtualization is in Orthodoxy. "The land itself" is scarcely even imaginable as a thing.
Journey well, brother! And thanks for being here for awhile...
Thank you for pulling these strands together Graham. I had never thought Israel as a nexus for bird migration though I think a lot about bird migrations in general. That's both a rich reality and metaphor it seems.
This article is impressive and something completely new to me. I was quite mind-blown and wanted to read more. His bibliography for that article was insane.
I don't know where to start but would love to jump in!
Thanks for the better link, Blake! I think I've read that essay maybe five or six times now -- there's so much there to explore. As for the bibliography, I've decided to start with the massive "Ecology of Eden" -- very well worth digging into.
I have young kids, and they kind of drive me crazy with what if, what if, what if -- but now I'm starting to have these big what if questions, like: What if even in its bleakest days -- flattened and transformed into 'Aelia Capitolina' of the now 'Syria Palestina' -- Christians had insisted upon seeing Yerushalayim as the center of God's activity -- in all its tragic ruins -- rather than taking the cruel winds of history as a sign of God's defection to Rome? What if, what if, what if...
Yes I agree, the kingdom of God is a certain kind of anarchy! Also on your last paragraph:
“And I'm beginning to wonder if the long history of etherealization I find myself rebelling against actually has its roots in the transfer of Christian attention from Yerushalayim—watered from the heavens, beset by empires—to Rome, a city virtually synonymous with the technological control of nature and the glories of imperial conquest.”
An excellent question! Do you think Orthodoxy has been (or might be) able to help us shift our attention back where it belongs?
Thanks for this, Matthew. Other than posthumously and involuntarily Jacques Ellul, in his "Subversion of Christianity," no one has agree with me yet that the Kingdom is a form of anarchy -- now I feel less crazy ;)
As for whether Orthodoxy has been, or might be, able to help us shift our attention back where it belongs...that's a tough one. Without a doubt, in Orthodoxy the attention is *not* going back to Yerushalayim. There's no way. Lost cause. Quixotic windmill attack, nothing more. The history of anti-Judaism in Orthodoxy runs almost two millennia deep. We'll see whether the greater voices of Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw and Jonathan Pageau can at least get us more towards a "Wild Orthodoxy," as opposed to Byzantine or Russian Orthodoxy -- i.e. imperial Orthodoxy. Which is to say, Orthodoxy.
Perhaps the Ethiopian Orthodox -- who have always been much more Semitic in outlook (but who are not considered "really" Orthodox by the Russians, etc) -- will show the way. Or already have, and we have to discover the fact in our own idioms. Who knows.
Not referring to states or politics: if there is an Israel, it must be the Church (using Pauline terms); and if there is a Church, it must be both real and ethereal, of both the flesh and the spirit. There is a Church of the heart, and a Church of the hierarchs. A timeless Church, and a historical Church. A communion of saints seen here and now, and a communion of saints unseen simultaneously.
Using this conceptual grid, Eden emerged from primordium in the mountains of Judea, but it also emerges year after year more beautifully in the landscaping of my little yard. The Jerusalem of Israel holds all the sites and stages where the Son of Man laid out the mysteries of salvation, but the Jerusalem of the kingdom of Heaven orients my prayers to the East, from where the Son of Man shall come again and sit upon His throne. I think we need both the mystical and the physical.
Israel, the state now, is a beautiful place, although much smaller than I had imagined prior to visiting. But, the symbolism and beauty I saw there I hope prove to be mere shadows of what we can create here in our private and public spaces--and even then only triflings compared to what my heart can become as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Now onto politics, how apropos for a call to repentance when the spiritual warfare of the heart mirrors so closely the savagery and injustice in that continental convergence of states, ideologies, principalities, and their human subjects doing the will of God knows what spirits. Lord have mercy!
OK, I don't understand all that, Joe, but you don't have to understand a bouquet of flowers to know they're beautiful.
No, not bouquet, I take that back -- a meadow. The flowers you're offering aren't ripped up decoration, but living things.
Thanks for this, Graham. It’s complex, provocative and shimmering with an old beauty. I went to the Holy Land once, and standing on the Temple Mount, an indescribable feeling rushed into me, causing me to think something like, “Ohhh, I see, this place actually is holy.” It’s not a metaphor in any way. My short visit there was one experience like that after another, in both directions. Coming down from that very literal hill of sacred experience, a rabbi interrupted our group to talk about bombs while a group of American Christians in pink shirts reading “Powerlifters for Jesus” cheered him on.
But I have to say, in my own prayer journey, even as I return to the Christ path, that place has not been central. After reading your essay, part of me sees this is just because I have never drank in these complicated, holy stories in the ways you and others have. I want to do that now. But there’s this line toward the end of your writing I keep wondering about: “I offer this only as a way to take seriously this land I don’t live in, but whose stories I’m trying to live by...” It strikes me that the tension in my own prayer journey is the opposite of this. I am trying to take seriously this land where I live (I know you are, too), meaning that I wonder about how it is also holy in particular ways – not metaphorical ways. I believe the land longs to be related with in these ways, or God longs to be related with in these ways through the land. And yet I can never live by this land’s stories because I don’t know them. The peoples who know the deep, sacred contours of this North American continent are not my ancestors, and the ancient stories that relay the actual, sacred Presence as it manifests in the land here are told completely outside the Christian or Hebraic cosmology. What to do about that, I don’t know. But your article has provoked a lot of interior wondering about it – and tension – so thank you.
Joe, I love this. I'm on this journey with you, brother! I think for me, trying to go a little deeper into the meaning of Israel is a first step toward understanding how and why a land -- any land -- and, I hope, our land specifically in Sandstone -- can be holy. The Hebrews/Israelites/Jews have something like a four thousand year relationship with a piece of land, which has articulated itself in the beautiful and disturbing poetry of their scriptures, so they've figured some things out that go a little deeper than the perennial starry-eyed youth of this American frontier mind of ours. But so have of the course the First Nations who spent ten or twenty thousand years or whatever figuring out things that this land had to say in the voice of God, too. I know you and I have both read "The Third Promise" and I found Seidenberg's insight that indigeneity or non-indigeneity are not eternal, ontological states very hopeful -- a people is either becoming more or less indigenous to a land, where "Indigeneity is not only determined by the mere fact of being first or longest in a place, but also by forming a way of life that evolves in relation to the place where one lives. An indigenous religion is one whose rituals, stories, times, dreams and laws are tied to a particular land and to its ecological rhythms and necessities. One could describe the nature of these ties as constituting a covenant between a people and a land." I think our project is to *become* indigenous in our own land (or at least work towards that) -- but I think also we can draw inspiration from those who have already done so in their own lands, and talked about it with infinite depth in the dream language of their religious myth. Writing this "Yerushalayim" essay -- largely with the help of studying and re-studying Seidenberg's essay -- I am astonished at how "concrete" the holiness of a land is (it's not a metaphor, as you said). Maybe this is some kind of indescribable energy happening in a place, that one can open one's heart to. Maybe it's also stuff like: Less subject to technological control means need for basic trust in the Creator to send enough rain, etc.
One more thing -- the Hebraic cosmology may have its analogs elsewhere, including with American First Nations. I've been reading Ohiyesa's "The Soul of the Indian" (since Kingsnorth mentioned it) and I am struck by the very intriguing passage that Kingsnorth was struck by: "It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years' experience of it, that there is no such thing as "Christian civilization." I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same."
So much to say, Graham, but mostly “Thank you.” I’ve had an ongoing dialogue and tension around these things. What does Christianity have to say to our ancestral lineages who have encountered this world as more alive than we do, or at least than I do? What do those non-Christian, non-Hebraic lineages have to say to us? How does a religion that has come to be – or seem – universal help us hear the particular voice of God in a particular place? Your reflections have introduced a whole new dimension, a third thing, for pondering and praying about this all. I’m inspired to explore more of how indigeneity looks within the Hebraic and Christian stories, and I’ll have to check out Ohiysa’s writing, too.
I’ll end with this quote from Vine Deloria Jr., who was my original gateway into these inquiries: “Religions must not be simple expressions of ethical and moral codes as we have been taught. They must be more complicated manifestations of the living earth itself and this aspect of religion is something that American Indians of all the peoples on earth represented.”
I love this statement, including his bias (love) toward his own peoples (he was Standing Rock Sioux, the son and grandson of Dakota leaders) within it.
Looking forward to reading more.
"Religions must not be simple expressions of ethical and moral codes as we have been taught. They must be more complicated manifestations of the living earth itself" -- wow, Joe -- that's it, isn't it? Religion as a wild dream of the Earth, and about the Earth, and for the Earth, a dream dreamed by people, and for people, who are shaped from the Earth itself, given breath by the Holy One...
Well, I know nothing about anything but I find your articles thought provoking, and as you said below, it's about the conversation. I look forward to them. I enjoy reading them, I try to read them carefully, I don't always understand them, having very little religious foundation, I usually like them, but (full disclosure) I also hit like just to keep track of where I am, what I've read. (I keep wanting to post one of those emojis cracking up.) Anyway, these recent posts, and your poems, put me in touch with the ancients, and for that I am grateful. You have a way of bringing the origins, the relation between Yah and his people, to Life for someone who knows nothing about anything. I have often dreamed of going to Israel, have had Hebrew show up in my dreams. I think, though, that I will never get there now. But, I feel, Sabbath Empire gets me close.
Shannon, I really love your humble, open-minded attitude and your willingness to give this stuff your attention, when you're able to -- that means a lot. Also, I want to know more about Hebrew showing in your dreams!?
Graham, as usual, thanks for the thoughtful and passionate content.
One concept that's helped me navigate all this stuff personally is that Jesus actually becomes the bridge between the "Jew" (the visceral, the embodied, the concrete, the tangible) and the "Greek" (the ethereal, the philosophical, the abstract, the conceptual): that in following Christ, we can connect Heaven with Earth. He has healed this tension and prepared this reconnection, this rebinding (religion, re-attachment of ligaments) by undergoing the fullest intensity of animosity from both worlds, being suspended between heaven and earth, rejected by his Father and his Bride simultaneously.
I think that, since the enlightenment, the modern western world has lost touch with or failed to fully appreciate the importance of the truth of the Jewish life (the law and the prophets) and instead has a tendency to over-emphasize the Greek truth. I believe that a reintegration of the earthy and carnal principles of Judaism, without discarding the light and vision of the Greek principles, will truly be re-orienting for our culture and society: "I have not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them".
I couldn't add anything to that, Avery, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to subtract anything; beautiful, profound. Will meditate on that day and night....
Is there a "half like" button somewhere? Ha ha.
Seriously, Graham, this was a beautiful, poetic, and intriguing post. My only sense of disagreement is less to do with the Hebraic orientation as much as it is that the Hebraic and Hellenistic seem to be held up as inherently antagonistic to the point of being mutually exclusive. At least, that's the sense I've gotten from your past few essays, and I don't think that needs to be the case. In your defense, though, it seems too many people take the same stance and land on the other side. I just think there's room for both in Christianity as there is for Arabic, Russian, Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Indian, Far Eastern, and various indigenous traditions. People from all tribes and nations and all that.
I guess that's really my only complaint: affinity for our Hebraic/Jewish core needn't mean anything not that is somehow lacking or inherently opposed to it on a cosmic level. I truly believe at the human level of understanding, the Truth will necessarily be a patchwork job.
And, of course, if all you're doing by stating things in such black and white terms is to simply bring into sharp relief some ideas or viewpoints you see as important but lacking, then I really have nothing to complain about.
I'll definitely have to check out that Ecology of Eden book. It sounds fascinating!
Good thing there's not a 'dislike' button, or you all would see how many people unsubscribed today! A halflike button -- I like that (sort of). The whole 'like' or not binary aspect of instantaneous 1-bit dopamine feedback is one of the many hazards of this environment, I think -- the conversation is where it's at!
Yeah, I don't mean to come across as 'Hebrew' vs 'Greek' as if these are the two mutually exclusive poles of a bipolar universe. Of course they're not. I think I'm just reacting to the many dimensions of anti-Jewishness longstanding in my own tradition by going overboard in the other direction. Or, not overboard, really -- if you want to see me go really overboard, I could go on some really colorful tirades, but I work hard to keep it pretty mild while also saying something real, not necessarily feeling the need to pat every single person's cherished worldview on the back.
I agree there's plenty of room for many different cultural expressions in Christianity--definitely.
I'm fighting to see plenty of room for cultural expressions which include a serious love of Earth and life on Earth which feels like an uphill battle more often than it really needs to.
I hear ya!
Regarding the anti-Jewishness that is all too prevalent in Christianity, including Orthodoxy, I feel like I have finally have some clarity on the matter. Now, none of what I'm about to say is meant to justify bigotry or violence on either side of the Christian-Jewish divide, but rather simply try to see what, perhaps, were some motivations.
I relatively recently learned, thanks to the excellent work of Fr. Stephen De Young on the Lord of Spirits podcast that often we tend to project modern Rabbinic Judaism onto the Jewish people at the time of the Yeshua, but that this is not the case. Basically, what I learned was that after the Roman Empire sacked Jerusalem and over the next several decades thoroughly decimated the Jewish people, Christianity and the Pharisees were the only Jewish sects to survive. Christianity continued what had been done by their Jewish ancestors in producing a prolific, varied, and not always consistent volume of texts while the remaining Pharisees banned the production of new texts for a bit, and relied on oral teaching, as they figured out their post-Temple, diasporic self-understanding. Much of this identity formation involved them explicitly distinguishing themselves from Christianity and developing a Jewishness as over and against Christianity. Eventually, these oral teachings were gathered in the Talmud and Rabbinic Judaism developed more and more independently from Christianity. Christianity, too, continued to develop, and quickly became majority Gentile. Given that the first persecutors of the Church were largely other Jewish sects, and Judaism defining itself in explicitly anti-Christian terms during the first few centuries of the Church, I can see where early Christians developed a bad taste in their mouths towards Jews and that they passed this on.
Obviously, this isn't anything like a full history and I'm not claiming that what I mentioned was the only or the most important factor. There's a lot about the history of the development of the Jewish-Christian divide I don't know. But if this was a relevant and major phenomenon, then I think it goes a long way in shedding light on why, from the Christian perspective, a chasm opened up between us and our Jewish brethren and into which was pour vitriol.
Obviously, the level of vitriol, bigotry, and outright persecution leveled at Jews by Christians throughout Church history is, I think, unjustifiable under Christian principles, no matter the circumstances that were instrumentalized to justify it. In fact, for me at least, the idea that Judaism post-Christ deliberately defined itself in terms meant to reject Christianity only stokes pity in my heart, hurt for the divide, and honestly helps me to feel closer to them spiritually than I ever have since I can understand where they're coming from, even if I don't agree.
Yes, definitely, Zach -- I recently read John Howard Yoder's "The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited" which covers this dynamic in great detail (and includes critical commentary, after each chapter, from a non-Christian Jewish perspective). Yoder makes the same case that Rabbinic Judaism is a later form of Judaism than Messianic Judaism (Christianity), and to some extent, is a product of it. But he digs into the common narrative -- relayed by Fr. Stephen De Young, it sounds like -- that Christian anti-Jewishness was mostly a reaction against a Judaism which had decided to identify itself in explicitly anti-Christian terms. He shows that, in fact, the need to define itself in anti-Christian terms was a reaction to a Gentile-dominant Christianity defining itself in anti-Jewish terms.
Anyway, however it all happened will probably always be debatable. And, either way -- just because things developed in one direction, and then kept going in that direction for a very long time, doesn't mean we can't stop and reevaluate, right?
What I'm starting to wonder is if the forced removal of many dimensions of Jewishness from Christianity is perhaps one of the unifying themes by which we can understand why Christianity seems lost inside its own symbolic world right now.
(Not saying anything new, of course; just me blabbing out loud after a long day of people unsubscribing because I apparently don't hate Israel enough....)
I'm disappointed, Graham: with people getting mad at you and all, I figured that there must be something really juicy in here—but then all I find is one lyrical, anodyne image after the next. Haha.
I would point out, though, that maybe some folk are misreading this one because the word "Israel" is used in three different ways. There is Israel the holy land, Israel the political state, and Israel the chosen people. So I take it that in this essay, you're saying nothing about the political state and everything about the holy land. And then the Church is Israel the chosen people, with the Jews as such having become theologically irrelevant—for in Christ, there is neither Jew nor gentile.
Strictly speaking, then, the present connection between the Church and the political state of Israel is a coincidence. It isn't intrinsically meaningful that the political state now sits upon the holy land, although that happens to be the case.
Also, an aside: I am as sure of universal salvation as I am that Jesus is the Lord—and I have found that there is absolutely no point in arguing with anyone about the thing. It's a matter of self-evident moral intuition, and some people have it, some people don't. If you have it, then you need no argument; and if you don't, then nothing will persuade you.
Ha! Yes: Well, for some reason, I feel the need to go through the agony of the writing process paying extraordinarily close attention, and somehow believe that when people read the results of that, they'll be reading slowly and also with attention -- a very silly belief, especially when the medium of transfer from my attention process to theirs is this outrageous mind-numbing ecosystem of screens! "Israel" seems to be one of those trigger words where all that matters to many people is whether or not you insert the appropriate amount of hate either before, or after, it, depending on which ideological camp they've decided to belong to, despite not living there, or knowing anyone who does. Well, anyway, I *did* say at the beginning of the essay "Israel--as an idea, a story, a dream, a people, a specific place on Earth, with each dimension rooted in the others" and I *did* say at the end of it "I am naive, but not so naive as to think that just because the modern State of Israel has the word “Israel” in it means it's an organic continuation of the dream of Israel as remembered by the Hebrew bible. Maybe it is; maybe it isn't...I've said nothing in this essay about states either way—which are collective acts of imagination, and less real than people, trees, and mountains—other than that a lot of them, for thousands of years, have been vying for control of the land of Israel, and still continue to do so" --- but I suppose that doesn't matter much for those looking to make sure I was going to signal the properly huge amounts of moral outrage in whichever direction I was supposed to, to be on their side.
One thing: "It isn't intrinsically meaningful that the political state now sits upon the holy land, although that happens to be the case." -- I'd say rather that whatever and whoever is now sitting up on the Holy Land is intrinsically meaningful, just by virtue of being physically there rather than elsewhere. That doesn't equate to automatic, indefectable divine favor -- obviously -- but it does equate to some kind of automatic meaning arising from the land itself.
Yeah—it's not exactly your fault, but I'm thinking that some may not read past the clause "The terrorist massacres of the deathcult Hamas on October 7 reawakened for me a love for Israel", or get far enough to see you explicitly say that you aren't talking about political states.
And about the Holy Land, I see what you mean in that sense. I'd just wanna push back against any notion—apparently associated with a certain type of Evangelical—that the Jews as such are still God's chosen people, that the establishment of the political state of Israel on the holy land means that the Rapture is nigh, and so on. But you don't appear to be suggesting anything like that.
Maybe I shoulda put the paywall after the first sentence ;)
Well, yeah -- it was pretty clear which side I *wasn't* on right away, and I'm fine with that.
I'm open to the idea that the Jews as such are still God's chosen people, if one takes that as the Hebrew prophets took it, more than as something like American utopian Manifest Destiny-ism. From the bible, and from people like Heschel interpreting the bible, the main sense I get is that to be chosen is to be chosen to suffer, getting torn up by the nations, and not ever really having a king to do anything about it.
When I taught 8th grade scripture, I used to try to convince my students that Look, man: You definitely do *not* want to be chosen by God--look what happens to literally everybody who gets chosen--John the Baptist, rotting in prison before his beheading, just being the last of a very long line of prophets who had the misfortune of being chosen by God to be a light to the world...
With Constantine, you have a subversion of that idea -- to be on top as the most prosperous, the most powerful -- is a sign of having won God's favor...
And no, I don't think the rapture is nigh, and I don't eagerly await the building of the 3rd temple, etc -- I think Yeshua fundamentally dispersed the whole idea of a temple of stone once and for all.
Which, among so many other things, puts me at odds with Orthodoxy...
Sure—I agree with the Jewish model of being chosen, and I am no fan of Constantine. But in my understanding, the Gospel abolishes the difference between gentile and Jew, so no one is "chosen" anymore on racial grounds. Jews are chosen insofar as they believe in the Messiah, just like gentiles. So the Church is now the chosen people—although I think that may then also raise the question of what the Church is, and whether the visible, institutional Church is the real deal or an egregore.
As for being at odds with Orthodoxy, I'd say don't worry too much about it. My attitude is basically, "Go to church for the Eucharist, and if they haven't kicked you out yet, you're doing all right." I think that people like you and me sense that there is a vital need for the poetic transfiguration of the received, historic Tradition; and indeed, this project may well have to do with the fabled Age of the Holy Ghost. Of course this will be called heretical—and so what? I only care for poetic truth, and I am supremely indifferent to their labels.
Well -- no one was chosen on racial grounds in the first place, as I see it. Abraham was chosen as someone who would walk away from Ur into the Unknown, not because he was a Hebrew. A holy nation sprung out of him like a tree -- biological continuity is part of the picture, it's not irrelevant -- but not all his biological descendants were chosen (cf. Ishmael). On the other hand, non-Hebrews or half-Hebrews were brought into that tree (cf. Joseph's children, whom he had with his Egyptian wife, were part of the chosen strain). And then only a few Hebrews ever left Egypt, and only a few Jews, as they were called post-exile, ever returned to Judah/Judea, and it sounds like quite a bit of Babylonian blood got added to the mix -- so being a Hebrew per se, and then a Jew per se wasn't quite it. It was those who believed in the Abrahamic project.
My reading of the NT is not that the difference between gentile and Jew is abolished, but that these two different identities are united as "one new humanity" (Eph 2:15) in Yeshua so that, together, they can be the renewed Israel -- which was always supposed to draw gentiles into itself anyway (and sometimes did that, sometimes not -- maybe most times not).
I myself am not too worried about either being called a heretic, or actually being one. But to be a heretic and also snatch the eucharist from the Orthodox Church is kind of an incoherent way to live, as the Orthodox church anathematizes heretics, which means dismissing them to hell. See this ex-priest's article: "Anathema: Eastern Orthodoxy and The Ritual Cursing of All Other Christians" (https://thereformedninja.blogspot.com/2022/11/eastern-orthodoxy-and-ritual-cursing-of.html) For example, if I were to proclaim the historical fact that Yeshua used unleavened bread at the passover, since he was an observant Jew, it sounds like I've probably already been anathematized: "That whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystic Supper had unleavened bread (made without yeast), like that of the Jews, and not leavened bread, that is to say, bread raised with yeast, let him depart far from us and let him be anathema as one having Jewish views and those of Apolinarios and bringing dogmas of the Armenians into our Church, on which account let him be doubly anathema."
Well, OK, I'll say it -- he used unleavened bread. Like that of the Jews. Because he was one. And still is.
I'm not actually worried about publicly saying that being something that could bring upon myself the double curse of a double anathema -- I'm just saying it's not quite as easy (in Orthodoxy, as it may be perhaps elsewhere) as simply not caring what other people say, and taking the Eucharist anyway. I couldn't ultimately justify that incoherence, I guess.
I'm totally thinking out loud here, Sethu! I appreciate the dialogue -- it's very welcome.
** Follow up note: I stand corrected -- he definitely used leavened, not unleavened, bread. Still as a Jew, though. See "The Messianic Feast" by T. Alex Tennent
At first I thought that the Book of Ruth was sweet and nice, but I wasn't sure why it was sitting there in the Bible—but then I realized the point was that David's grandmother was a gentile. If you're defining the Abrahamic project as basically spiritual in the first place and "Jew" as primarily a spiritual qualification, then sure, I suppose I don't object to that. I could find that workable.
As for the heresy thing, I just try not to worry too much about the sort of rabid blathering that you've quoted. I think more like a magician: the Eucharist is real magic, and I want it, and I will go get it if I can do so without overtly telling lies or anything. I'm Eastern Catholic at the moment. And I believe in man and woman and the Eucharist itself, which is apparently more than a lot of believers can say. So, I think the Church has far bigger things to worry about presently than my adventures—and hey, they're supposed to be the cops, right? It isn't on me to police their border.
Thank you once again, Graham my young friend, for expressing my own older-and-vaguer-than-yours thinking about all these difficult things! And thank you for a new and useful word, etherealization. I absorbed much of what Eisenberg and Ezekiel and Jeremiah tells us in your well-chosen quotations when I visited The Holy Land this past spring. Jerusalem (I can pronounce it your way but cannot spell it) as we rounded the hills from the north of the city, revealed itself as the CENTER of the earth-- revealed it to a whole busload of American and Eastern European pilgrims, retired truckdrivers and theology students alike, all weeping without being able, even hours later, to express why.
The next day our relentless tour guides gave us a precious half hour of solitude (well, we could at least spread out a bit) during our visit to a garden on The Mount of Olives. More tears. On my knees knowing that to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" , our Christian duty, means only ONE THING: to pray for Yeshua's return. I am still feeling rejected that Our Heavenly Father did not send Him during MY HALF HOUR. Yeshua's incarnation (I recall the Spanish word for meat) establishes your sense that " The Promised Land ... is biblical vision about the realization of a PARTICULAR way of life on Earth, not somewhere else." This is true.
PHI! Thanks so much for sharing your experience of the Holy Land -- what an enormous gust of refreshing wind for me, having been so wrapped up inside my head over this essay for so long. It's really good to hear from someone who has been there, and has felt it. It's strange: I'm usually pretty cynical toward urban landscapes, and I especially look down on virtual experiences involving flat screens, but last night, after posting my essay, I watched this 30 minute GoPro recording of a dude just going for a laid-back walk two days ago through downtown Yerushalayim (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feTgIIz5AjQ), and the sense of peace just emanating from that stupid, unedited, non-soundtracked, un-commentaried video of nothing special happening was surprisingly intense! God willing, I would love to actually go there in the flesh one day...
This time I listened to that still, small voice and decided to part ways.
For the benefit of others, I will state my sense that Graham represents a neo-Judaizing tendency: not in any sense that he enjoins circumcision on non-Jewish Christians (and other Orthodox may wince that I have doubts whether pork is fit for human consumption as a bottom-feeder that's been compared to putting jet fuel in a car).
What is said about Israel above seems an idealized Israel, not the actual state of Israel that is wreaking such devastation in Palestine that my church prays for His Eminence a Metropolitan and his suffering flock alongside His Eminence ONUPHRIOS of Ukraine and his suffering flock. The actual state of Israel that has been bulldozing Christians' homes and on live TV knocked down an Orthodox heirarch and sprayed him with fire extinguishers. I remember searching for photos of a church in Gaza that had been bombed, found a fact check that claimed that the historic Gaza church had in fact not been bombed, and identified the bombed building as a bank... and the fact check did not lift my spirits, the equivalent of cutting down fruit-bearing trees in war, or rather something much worse. The devastation to people's access to their finances is beyond a scorched earth policy against all fruit-bearing trees. The State of Israel as you speak of it seems an idealization and not the State of Israel that my abbot and heirarch discusses.
Beyond that, a thread in your posts seems neo-Judaizing in that you never accept the authoritative place of Greek in Orthodoxy, or here have anything non-negative to say about Yeshua's Bible, the Septuagint. That aspect of the authority of Orthodox Tradition is not taking as binding.
In retrospect, I regret that I took a second Greek class instead of Hebrew during my first graduate program, although most of the regret is that it was about using commentaries and not a course in the Greek language proper. In other words, I took one language course proper when I could have taken two language courses proper if I had studied Hebrew. I did ask to be able to take a Hebrew class during a later PhD program I didn't complete, but the logistics among other things were against it. My abbot, who is now taking a Hebrew class, is very appreciative of the language, and its subtlety. Though I am obeying him in trying to obtain a more expert proficiency in Greek. I expect he would give me a blessing to study Hebrew once I have reached a high level in Greek, but the Renaissance "Ad fontes!" to the Hebrew language is one I have not encountered elsewhere in Orthodoxy, and my abbot's appreciation and admiration of Hebrew have never been expressed with a dig against the Greek. While I was in the allegedly Roman program that denied my request to take a Hebrew class, I read Pope Benedict on de-Hellenization, https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/de-hellenization-benedict-xvi/, and found it to make sense (my "Open Letter to Catholics on Orthodoxy and Ecumenism" which you can find by Googling said he was the most Orthodox-like of Popes in recent history, although I took issues with him on certain particulars). I don't want to get too much into details, but you seem to represent a de-Hellenized take on Orthodoxy, which is to say a non-Orthodox take on Orthodoxy. And you hit the ejection seat when I framed Hell as a permanent place that people really go to.
I really appreciate many of the things you have written and I hope you will have future helpful posts, and perhaps that our paths may cross again.
I appreciate your calm, thorough, civil note, Brother Christos. Others who have also unsubscribed today haven't been so generous! Yes, I do think you're right that Orthodoxy is necessarily Hellinist (and Hellenizing) and since my intuitions are in the direction of Hebraic (and Hebraicizing) instead, Orthodoxy is probably not the place for me. I will take issue with just one little thing you said, though: I did specifically say at the end of the essay that I had not been talking about the State of Israel, or any states, except insofar as states have been trying to conquer the land since forever -- since states first existed. You saying I was idealizing the "State of Israel" in the essay, when I was actually talking about the land itself, is an example of how pervasive virtualization is in Orthodoxy. "The land itself" is scarcely even imaginable as a thing.
Journey well, brother! And thanks for being here for awhile...
-g
Thank you.
Thank you for pulling these strands together Graham. I had never thought Israel as a nexus for bird migration though I think a lot about bird migrations in general. That's both a rich reality and metaphor it seems.
Yeah, totally, Abbey -- makes me think of "Look at the birds of the air" in a richer way now!!
That article link is not working but can be found here. https://www.tikkun.org/the-third-promise/
This article is impressive and something completely new to me. I was quite mind-blown and wanted to read more. His bibliography for that article was insane.
I don't know where to start but would love to jump in!
Thanks for the better link, Blake! I think I've read that essay maybe five or six times now -- there's so much there to explore. As for the bibliography, I've decided to start with the massive "Ecology of Eden" -- very well worth digging into.
I just ordered it!
Plenty of nourishment here, Graham, the flow of my heart runs in these waters too, thank you.
You're so welcome, Penny -- I'm glad yours does, too.
I have young kids, and they kind of drive me crazy with what if, what if, what if -- but now I'm starting to have these big what if questions, like: What if even in its bleakest days -- flattened and transformed into 'Aelia Capitolina' of the now 'Syria Palestina' -- Christians had insisted upon seeing Yerushalayim as the center of God's activity -- in all its tragic ruins -- rather than taking the cruel winds of history as a sign of God's defection to Rome? What if, what if, what if...