The Church and Social Issues

Recent polls indicate a sharp reduction in the influence of "organized religion" in American life. It becomes more and more evident that we are returning gradually to a situation which existed in the nineteenth century, when only 10 to 15 percent of Americans were formally "church-goers," and which sharply contrasts with the "religious boom" in the forties and fifties.

The reason which is often given to this evolution is that the Church is "socially irrelevant," that it does not help to solve the problems of human life and that young people in particular consider it useless. To answer the challenge many Christians and entire churches rush into attempts to make the Church "relevant" again: they make easily drafted pronouncements on international affairs, on Vietnam, on ethical problems such as divorce, homosexuality, urban problems, race segregation or birth control. Generally speaking, the liberal wing of Protestantism is more committed to "social action" than the conservative, and this liberal wing finds great moral support among Roman Catholics since Vatican II.

Far be it from us to suggest that this "social consciousness" of so many Christians today comes only from a negative experience: the fear of losing people. The concern is often very positive - a concern for real problems, for fellowmen, for one's country, for human society as a whole. A new theology, based essentially on this concern, has taken shape: the Church is considered exclusively as a ferment for the betterment of society: God Himself "is where the action is," and thus He loses the attributes of an immovable and transcendent Being to become imminent to the problems of this world - seen only "in history." Prayer itself must therefore be replaced by "action."
Needless to say, our Orthodox Church is directly challenged by these developments. Not only does it often appear in the eyes of Protestants and Roman Catholics as the most withdrawn of all from social concerns, but the Orthodox themselves, sensitive to the challenge of their times, often ask: "What does the Church say? ... What does the Church do?..."

It seems to us that in order to answer the challenge, we must first of all avoid the two temptations of superficially condemning those who "care" and "struggle," and of ignoring the dreadful reality of some basic social issues of our times. Who can deny, for example, that Vietnam and race problems are moral issues which will determine the fate of our generation and probably that of the following? Can we, as Christians, fail to look for a Christian solution to these problems? Is it possible to ignore the fact that communist Marxism, although morally and intellectually bankrupt, still claims to provide mankind with a "social" alternative to Christianity? Therefore, it is not by ignoring these - and many other issues of our day - that one can remain truly Christian.

However, the truly Christian - and, perhaps, the peculiarly Orthodox - responsibility today is to show that the solutions to these problems are found in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom which exists "within" and "among" us since God became man. For the Kingdom of God is not only a reality "beyond," but it is also a living reality in this world. The function of the Church consists not simply in making this world "a little better," but to make the Kingdom of God present among men. The Church does not carry with it a social Utopia, but the ferment of a new humanity, a new eternal life for the world. Only in the Kingdom of God and in the person of Jesus Christ himself does one find the norm, the pattern of social action. Only there is the absolute with which one can evaluate any present situation. This is the reason why throughout the centuries the Orthodox Church has been much more reluctant than the Western Christians to give ready-made and easy formulas of action. It did not rule specifically on birth control, on war, on pacifism: it always referred first of all to "the Kingdom of God, and its justice," for without knowing that Kingdom, it is simply futile to seek "justice" elsewhere. Christians are adopted sons of God, and free citizens of this Kingdom; as such, they are "taught by God" (John 6:45), and therefore should be able to devise their own pattern of behavior, their own formulas.

The error, the tragic error of a theology based only on "social concern" is that it looks for solutions to the world's problems in the world itself. It is not by replacing prayer with "action" that one will achieve this goal, but by putting more prayer in one's actions. Only that man knows "what to do" who first knows "who he is" and accepts from God "the power to be a child of God."

 

From: Witness to the World by John Meyendorff, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY 1987