An Alternative to Piety Without Pity

Why OST matters

Writing on his substack blog Coram Fratribus, the Roman Catholic Bishop-prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim Erik Varden offers an observation about

A trend much talked about in our time concerns what we might call secularist religion. People put forward very high ethical demands on the basis of a standard often recently acquired; at the same the threshold is low to thrown somebody out and say: ‘You are no longer allowed to have a voice in this assembly’.

This leads him to wonder “Is it a kind of pietism without grace?” before concluding “Yes, and pietism shorn of grace becomes cruel.”

Contemporary politics (on both the left and the right) have become “a kind of pietism without grace” and so inescapably cruel. While there are many factors both for the rise of secular pietism as well as its cruelty, I think René Girard’s notion of the “scapegoat” is helpful.

At the cost of oversimplifying, rather than face the impossibility of fulfilling my conflicting desires, I shift responsibility for my failure to a “scapegoat.” My frustrations, my shortcomings, and failures are the fault of the scapegoat. And so “justice” in this scenario requires that I punish the scapegoat.

To be sure, this doesn’t necessarily mean my desires are fulfilled. But someone must pay.

What’s lost in all this, is the acceptance that because my desires are not “pure” but “mixed.” Indeed they are often contradictory. I want, one the one hand, to be a part of a warm, community that affirms and supports me. But, on the other hand, my desire for closeness, comes at the expense of some portion of my independence.

And, more basically, the community’s support calls into question the integrity of my “uniqueness.” It calls into question the sufficiency and even the possibility of “being my true self” apart from the larger community

Rather than accept this tension (and so the impossibility of fulfilling my desires), I blame the scapegoat. “If only you really understood me or accepted me.” “If only, ‘we’ were in power rather than ‘them,’ all would be well.”

But of course, no matter how virtuous “you” are or how powerful “we” are, my desires remain unfulfilled because they are unfulfillable.

Girard points out that taken to its logical conclusion, my flight from responsibility, my willingness to punish the scapegoat, eventually erupts in violence. And so, to return to where we began, we see the cruelty of politics without grace.

Grace here doesn’t simply mean “kindness” or “politeness.” As often as not, these are simply feints, was of keeping the inherent violence of “your” conflicting desires at arm’s length. I seek only to delay, not transcend, the inevitable violence while I work to first defend my vulnerability so I can when the time is right exploit yours.

The horizon grace of politeness and kindness, of mutual understanding and compassion, of tolerance and even forgiveness, is necessary but insufficient. Grace in the vertical dimension is also needed; I must be “born from above” by “water and the spirit” (see John 3:5).

Here again, this is no statement of mere piety but a statement of the sacramental ontology. Apart from the grace of the sacraments—especially baptism and chrismation, Holy Communion, and Holy Confession—horizontal always runs dry.

But here we should pause.

Saying horizontal grace is insufficient apart from vertical grace, doesn’t mean it is unnecessary.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Horizontal grace—kindness and the rest to be sure but also the practicable ability and willingness to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and comfort the cold and lost—is both the fruit and evidence of vertical grace.

…someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? (James 2:14-20)

And so, OST.

What we offer is not so much advice or even inspiration. In both are like books, there is no end (cf., Ecclesiastes 12:12) and this is precisely the problem.

Our desires are always mixed. Even limiting our advice to the demonstrably prudential and our inspiration to the virtuous, there are as many paths and motivations as there are problems to be solved and problem solvers.

All, however, will always fall short in one way or another. All will require tinkering and re-evaluation. Apart from vertical grace, of seeing each other not simply as people of goodwill or even brothers and sisters in Christ but as members of the One, Body of Christ.

We need not simply a common inspiration but a common sacramental life centered in the Eucharist. Our politics have become cruel not simply because they have become a graceless piety; this is, after all, simply the default position of the world.

No, the problem is that this same gracelessness has infected Orthodox Christians. Our words and deeds have become cruel because we are not polite or kind; mutual understanding, compassion, tolerance, and even forgiveness are increasingly rare among us.

And so we imitate the world. Or, rather, we have become “foolish.” What we “begun in the Spirit,” we now strive to make “perfect by the flesh” (Galatians 3:3. NKJV).

It is the task of OST to call first the Church, and then the World, back to the Spirit, to hear the Word of God and obey not just corporately but personally.