Faith and Modernity

“We modern people suffer a lot because we don’t want to accept ourselves as we are. So we don’t accept ourselves, but at the same time, we constantly ask ourselves: “Why, why, why?” And this endless why (“Why do I think this way? Why do I do this?”) is a sign of egotism and our lack of humility. As a result, we fall into a vicious cycle of spiritual illnesses and psychological torments. In the end, we torment ourselves and others, but we don’t get the fruit, because we don’t want to understand that we’re weak people. But when we understand this, we humble ourselves, that yes, in the end, this is who we are.” (Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol)

“What is it with the modern world? I wonder if I am simply undisciplined. Or is it that I have exchanged the finite rhythms of the earth for the limitless stare of the internet? I can feel my phone brooding in the corner of my study where I firmly put it away last night. I feel the glare of its eye as I move about the hall upstairs, six small feet pattering in my wake. I’ve told myself I will not look at a screen before I’ve prayed, before I’ve done something to root myself in some sense of God’s reality each day.” (Sarah Clarkson)

“The human life can be terribly complicated. We rarely make decisions that are straightforward. We are filled with contradictions. The gospel is frequently presented as a matter of choice and decision, a very dangerous categorization in a consumerist culture. We are the subjects of massive propaganda and advertising, the goal of which is to guide our consumption, not only of goods and services but of ideas and allegiances. In a world that celebrates freedom, we are made the subjects of marketing so all-pervasive that freedom itself is suppressed and distorted. Worse than this, I think, is the fact that our culture nurtures the “character” of consumption within the soul. We think and reason as consumers and “decide” in that same manner. This is not the same thing as the “will,” or freedom as understood in the teaching of the faith. We rarely actually engage our will, substituting, instead, the passions of consumption.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“We often miss the cosmic implications of Christ’s victory because we have been given a truncated view of redemption. Through centuries of misuse, terms such as redemption and salvation have become approximations for various inner experiences or else synonyms for conditions of the afterlife. These misunderstandings have led modern Christians to neglect what God has redeemed us for and to. God has redeemed us for living as resurrected images of Him in the new heavens and the new earth; He has redeemed us to fulfill our royal-priestly vocation of turning the wilderness into Paradise. He has saved us for asserting His rule over all aspects of human endeavor and cultural activity.” (Robin Phillips)

“In modern culture, the word “faith” often implies that “there is something out there”, apparently something immaterial, but this approach has nothing to do with the Christian faith. For Christians, faith consists of three components: confidence in the existence of God—not an abstract “something”…we believe in a concrete God Who created this world and man, Who acts in this world and takes care of it; the second component is trust in God, in His all–good Providence; and the third component is faithfulness to God—if God commands to do this, then I do this, and if God commands not to do that, then I don’t do that. All this makes up the Christian worldview, on the basis of which you can act as a Christian in every situation. And a Christian makes his choice every time: how he should act, behave, think and perceive reality.” (Priest Alexei Shishkin)

“Real faith doesn’t depend on report or information but on personal experience. ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ says the Psalmist. ‘Come and see’, says Philip to Nathaniel. Unless you see God in your life, say the Fathers of the Church, don’t expect to see Him after you die. It’s here that our spiritual receptors are tuned to receive God and to perceive the riches of His kingdom. People today, in particular, have closed down their spiritual receptors and have nothing at all to do with spiritual reality. By and large, nothing surprises them anymore, nothing in their everyday lives, because they’ve computerized their lives and turned them into mind-numbing routine.” (George Mantzaridis)

“We focus on minor things and miss important things with our selective hearing. Our spiritual hearing loss takes a heavy toll on our lives. Our spiritual deafness is caused by our lack of focus and purpose. We are so easily captured by the frivolous and the temporary. We avoid anything that might wake us up from our distractions, with all the strength we can muster. We avoid the confrontational moments of our Faith, knowing that if we really listen, our lives will experience holy disruption.” (Fr. Barnabas Powell)

“One of the blind spots of modernity is to imagine ourselves to be in a non-religious, secularized world. I describe it as a blind spot inasmuch as the modern mind-set is itself thoroughly religious in its make-up. No medieval theologian had a “theory of everything” anywhere as complete as the mind of modernity. The modern world is not “disenchanted” so much as it has a “modern enchantment.” We have faith in market forces, medicine, government, democracy, technology, algorithms, and the march of progress. We think we know the meaning of history. The human mind is not compatible with “disenchantment.” It is, and always has been, an enchanted space.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“Though our secular society believes in the unseen forces of “dark matter,” “black holes,” and the “solar wind,” it denies the invisible spiritual forces that Scripture and Holy Tradition assume. But if we are faithful to the Word of Life, we will live in a three-dimensional world, a world that includes angelic and demonic powers as well as earthly rulers and authorities…we must look to Christ to contend with the dark forces of evil that otherwise would overpower us. Of all the visible and invisible forces that surround us, only He has won the victory over them. Therefore, we must put our faith in Him as our champion in our fight against the rulers and powers of darkness. And all that we do should be done in His Name.” (Fr. Basil)

“Faith and science need not and ought not to spar over whether a divine power is at work creating, sustaining and planning the future of the universe. Pure science will not deal with topics transcending their arena of operations. It suffices to state that under certain controlled conditions of temperature, pressure, content and mass, the following results occur, from which are described as axioms and then laws. We rejoice in the beauty and wonders that the Hubble and other spacecrafts photograph, and we anticipate results of creation’s origin if indeed the atom smashers at Geneva and elsewhere provide. But to think that science will be able to prove or disprove the existence of God is out of the question. A deity whose existence can be discovered or defined by human reason is no God at all.” (Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky)

#GeorgeMantzaridis #FrBarnabasPowell #FatherStephenFreeman #FrBasil #FrVladimirBerzonsky #MetropolitanAthanasiosofLimassol #SarahClarkson #RobinPhillips #PriestAlexeiShishkin