Elsewhere amid the gorgeous mosaic of a melting pot we call Beliefnet.com, Frederica Mathewes-Green writes about why Orthodox Christianity appeals to the menfolk (a longer version of this article is here). Actually, she polled about 100 Orthodox men to ask them what it was about Orthodoxy that attracted them as men. Excerpt:
Challenging. The term most commonly cited by these men was "challenging." Orthodoxy is "active and not passive." "It's the only church where you are required to adapt to it, rather than it adapting to you." "The longer you are in it, the more you realize it demands of you."The "sheer physicality of Orthodox worship" is part of the appeal. Regular days of fasting from meat and dairy, "standing for hours on end, performing prostrations, going without food and water [before communion]...When you get to the end you feel that you've faced down a challenge." "Orthodoxy appeals to a man's desire for self-mastery through discipline."
"In Orthodoxy, the theme of spiritual warfare is ubiquitous; saints, including female saints, are warriors. Warfare requires courage, fortitude, and heroism. We are called to be 'strugglers' against sin, to be 'athletes' as St. Paul says. And the prize is given to the victor. The fact that you must 'struggle' during worship by standing up throughout long services is itself a challenge men are willing to take up."
A recent convert summed up, "Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it's also about overcoming oneself. I am challenged in a deep way, not to 'feel good about myself' but to become holy. It is rigorous, and in that rigor I find liberation. And you know, so does my wife."
Bnet also has up a set of short video interviews with John "Wild At Heart" Eldredge, in which he discusses stuff like how the church's transforming of Christ into little more than Mr. Rogers with a beard drives men crazy ... and away.
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Orthodoxy does not produce apparitions. Mental illness produces apparitions.
Excuse me?
From Ukrainian Orthodoxy:
Miraculous appearances and apparitions of the Mother of God are well-known in Orthodoxy, especially the dramatic rescue of cities and monasteries through apparitions where Our Lady extends Her Mantle or Pokrova of protection over the people. Many miraculous Icons, in fact, are associated with such apparitions.
M_David, why you are always so negative any time you talk about Russia? Some russins here might be offended :) You might not like our culture but at least do you feel compassion?
I wasn't aware I singled Russia out here.
I'm pretty negative about all European demographics right now - from Ireland (TFR=1.9) to Russia (TFR=1.3) to Italy (1.3) - and these numbers are pushed up due to Muslim high fertility (in Russia and Italy at least). The facts of Europe's cultural situation speak for itself, and discussing them should not offend anyone. I've got plenty bad to say about America too if you have time :-).
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Interesting post, Erin. Regarding:
The very young marriages that fill the history of the world quite often included arranged marriages, and no one I know of would really suggest going back to a system like that.
I was thinking about this, and wonder how common this is or was. Do you think Mary and Joseph were arranged?
Actually, I think semi-arranged marriages will probably make a comeback as the culture degrades. I mean like Japan does, where parents sort of roughly give you choices, or have veto power. They have a divorce rate of like 2% (but not good fertility!).
One of the reasons children cannot marry young today is economic - they have to spend so long getting educated, they cannot support a family until around 25-30yo. We would need a tight family network to support young couples in the early years if we were to drop the marriage age. This could happen. I know that's how I'm raising my kids. I'm not foolish enough to think my kids will stay chaste until they are 30 ;-).
And think about it: if the marriage age drops, and parents begin to support children marrying young, they will certainly have more say in who gets married to whom. I know I would have married younger (I was 27) had I had this support.
I believe the romantic love movement (starting in England after the industrial revolution) has not proved itself. I think it likely to change so marriage will look more like, say, the average high-fertility culture that marries young with more parent input. I would guess our obsession with romance lowers fertility, and high fertility cultures are more focused on families and practical matters.
One glaring fact: if we do not drop marriage age closer to puberty, there WILL be sex out of wedlock for the majority of people and it will become part of the culture. The urge to breed is what keeps us alive, and it is very strong, and God wants it that way. As FMG says, the sexual drive has a strength akin to thirst.
And any culture that pulls the average marriage age away from puberty (always done in order to create more wealth or independence, natch) is in violation of biological and natural law, so the center will not hold. I can't see how any Christian culture can go this route and expect to survive. And we see this in the demographics - every culture with elevating marriage ages is below replacement, and will be gone soon enough.
100% agree with previous orator.
And by 'he' in previous post i meant Mark Ames, sometimes i think words but forget to type them.
Well, my Catholic parish is fairly male-dominated...women are even outnumbered on the Pastoral Council (I'm one of the very few female members). And yet we're Catholic, not Orthodox. Another silly stereotype bites the dust. :)
"A friend and I recently talked about a book titled, "The Good-Enough Catholic." We had a good laugh at the idea that you'd never, ever find a book called, "The Good-Enough Orthodox." That's because a lot of Orthodoxy in America, particularly convert Orthodoxy, is in the grip of a mindset that wears its faith like a badge of honor that shows just how tough we are. The difficulty of Orthodoxy is feeding a wicked pride, and enables many to feel that they are better, tougher, stronger, more Christian than their neighbors because they're Orthodox."
I beg to differ - in fact, "The Good Enough Orthodox" is what most babbas call their grandchildren. They come around for Pascha and Christmas to be sure, good little P&E'ers... but Orthodoxy outside of your convert parish - in its ethnic enclave glory, a la P-purgh, the church is largely aging, largely women, and has as often as not seen their progeny abandon the faith, go RC after their daughter married that handsome Italian boy, or join the mega-church seeker-congregation, or has moved just far enough out into the subburbs to not have their non-attendance of the parish in the old neighborhood questioned.
Look at the baptism records and old parish photographs -our parishes used to be MUCH bigger. Read the Hopko letter - he laments that nowadays a parish of 200 is considered large, and some OCA diocese have fewer members throughtout as our old cathedrals did.
Estimates on OCA membership are tricky to be sure. If there is anyone that still believes it is 1M+, I have this great ocean-front property in Arizona I need to get rid of for rock bottom prices, please call me...
The last OCA yearbook lists 1026 clergy - 180 some deacons, the rest priests...
Using the Hartford Institute's estimated membership of 39,000 for the OCA...
(per: http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/tab2.pdf)
You get -
ratio of clergy to laity: 38.01
ratio of priests to laity: 47.04
39,000 / 456 parishes = 85.52 members per parish
Using Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff's estimated membership of 27,196
You get -
ratio of clergy to laity: 26.50
ratio of priests to laity: 32.85
27,196 / 456 parishes = 59.64 members per parish
If some sources are correct, that the OCA active membership is closer to 15,000 you are getting to a point where 1 in 15 members of the OCA is a deacon, priest or bishop. Not great any way you slice it.
The projected Orthodox growth rate is a tough proposition - the current numbers seem to presuppose a much higher rate of active membership in the Russian Church than I am willing to accept. Depending on who and how you count, active membership among folks who attend 2+ times per month is probably somewhere in the 15-20% range of folks who would be guestimated to be Orthodox (that is to say, members of the population that do NOT self-identify as Muslim, Jewish, Buddist, etc.) Some take it as an insult and affront when someone is blunt about this, but I am going to be blunt about this: "Holy Russia" did not re-blossom over-night in the ex-USSR to the point where it is accurate or honest to pretty much throw in the entire Russian population with the a world-Orthodox head count.
But did anyone else catch the references to her male converts as "choosing Orthodoxy" like a brand? In a sense we all choose where we are or for some, where we aren't... but she sounds like she is a sales rep for a cell phone brand - most people choose this carrier because they like how it handles, better reception more places.
Never mind that 100 converts who travel in the Frederica camp, is probably NOT the most reliable sample out there.
Frederica has been Orthodox long enough for her to drop the neanderthal neo-vert stance of "East good, west bad" nonsense. But her long and protracted honeymoon seems to be working for her - visions of an Orthodox West still dance like sugar plumbs in her head at night. It just seems easier to look at it that way and focus on all her convert pals, Mr. Dreher included, and only see the "boom". It is definately easier to envison Orthodoxy as the "Braveheart warrior Church" and paint it as such in her writings, than it is to start asking "Where are grandkids of the cradle-dox?"
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