Gone Fishin'

I don't plan to post anything during Great Lent. See you after Pascha!

Excellent Economic Primer

I haven't taken enough time to commend to your attention the marvelous articles populating Orthodoxy Today, a link to which appears elsewhere on this blog page.

In particular, I highly recommend the "A Primer on Capitalism" by Chris Banescu.

Bank Nationalization? A Sequel

Alan Greenspan has joined the selective chorus advocating bank nationalization.

Jerome Tuccille reported that Ayn Rand called Alan the "Undertaker" because of his dress and manner. Little did she know how apt that moniker would become.

Bank Nationalization?

I read a news report that a growing chorus of economists and others are recommending the nationalization of American banks. That'd be surprising, except that the chorus members were never too awfully committed to the market anyway.

Maybe we should invite back Alan Greenspan to run the banks the same way in which he ran the Fed. He set the real Federal Funds rate below zero for three years, which set the stage for the leverage orgy that we're unwinding.

While we're discussing the nationalization of our commerical banks, why don't we discuss the privatization of our Central Bank?

Cessation Of Artificial Life Support

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin of the Moscow Patriarchate considers the cessation of artificial life support:

"No doubt, there are cases when it’s not clear whether a soul still remains in the body, when the body doesn’t show any signs of conscious life, though some of its functions can be preserved. Perhaps, in such cases there’s no sense to artificially preserve bodily activities with complicated equipment..."

"A Christian remembers that the most important, real life starts beyond the limits of this world when a person worthily faced the end of his temporary life, with repentance, prayer and readiness to meet God – it’s not customary to artificially preserve life in his body when he doesn’t show any signs of conscious life. It is not in Christian tradition, our predecessors have never done this,” the priest said.

Subversion Is The Sticking Point

Moscow and Old Rome won't be meeting anytime soon, owing to remaining concerns about Old Rome's "proselytism" in Orthodox countries. As noted, I prefer to use another term.

Area 51 Fans Will Be Disappointed

Orthodoxy excludes the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, according to a Russian theology professor.

I agree, although not for the same reasons. Given the matter and forces in the universe, any other intelligent life would be pretty much like us. There's really no room for variation. The exotic-looking intelligent being is safely relegated to science fiction, except for spiritual beings.

I'm Beginning To Like Him

From Kyril, the new Patriarch of Moscow:

A believer can’t look and feel gloomy,

“A bishop mustn’t smile,” that’s a deeply erroneous idea of a model Christian. Believer’s outlook is characterized with tranquility and wisdom and faith gives him inner joy,”

Christianity is “eternal joy, it is not a false hundred-dollar smile, but everlasting joy about the Lord and peace of God.” “A believer in Christ has no reason to sprinkle ashes on the head,”

Cloths in black-grey-brown color grade characteristic for some believers, gloomy faces without a hint of smile “have nothing to do with Orthodoxy, with sightlines, with dignity and modesty,” being in fact “a travesty of Church, a vicious taste,”

When we preach folk, museum, costumed Orthodoxy, we make signals to the society and people that our faith is supposed to bear no relation to recent life. While the place of Orthodoxy is in the streamline of life and in the inner abode of our feelings,”

Try to tell me that something special isn't going on over there.

Source

Refreshing

Moscow, January 30, Interfax – Delegate to the Local Council from the Sumy Diocese of the Ukrainian Church Hegumen Simeon (Gagatik) known for his critical publications against inter-Christian contacts, suggested that the Patriarch of All Russia should be granted one of the Pope’s functions.

Fr. Simeon, in course of the Local Council discussions, offered to introduce a provision into the Russian Church Statute that “the Patriarch is a guarantor of observing traditions and canons of the Holy Fathers,” professor of the Moscow Theological Academy Deacon Andrey Kurayev told Interfax-Religion on Friday.

Newly elected Patriarch Kirill reminded this provision couldn’t be applied to the Primate of the Russian Church as it is characteristic of Catholics to consider the Church head a keeper of the purity of faith while “for us it is the Council that guards the purity of Orthodoxy.”

[Emphasis mine]

Source

"God Is Byzantine"

A friend, who attends an OCA parish, told me about a recent convert and choir member who was complaining about Byzantine chant. You know, it sounds plumb strange, and it seems as if the most nasal rendition is the most highly prized.

The convert was told by another parishioner, "You may want to get used to it. God is Byzantine."

Is Theology Just Another Subject?

Bishop Hilarion doesn't think so:

One of the tragic consequences of the divorce between Christian theory and praxis, between faith and knowledge, is that nowadays knowledge about theological subjects does not necessarily presuppose faith. You can be a theologian and not belong to any church community; in principle, you do not need to believe in God to receive a theological degree. Theology is reduced to one of the subjects of human knowledge alongside with chemistry, mathematics or biology.

For Pete's Sake

Speaking earlier this week during a conference at Moscow's St Filaret's Institute, Metropolitan Kirill's deputy, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, said "Orthodox civilisation" upheld the "ideal of unity between Church, nation and government" and would "resist a Western democracy whose ultimate fall is drawing ever closer".

Found here.

"In Short, I Believe In Ghosts"

I wrote that here.

Truly Inspiring

I borrowed this one from Fr. Stephen:

The Thinker And The Simpleton

The Thinker. Samuel Huntington died. However one felt about his views, no one could dispute their predictive power. Interestingly, he saw Orthodox (Christian) civilization as one of the eight world civilizations that stood in opposition to "Anglo-Protestant" Western civilization.

The Simpleton. The Russian media has jumped on the present trend of blaming Russia' s economic problems on America in focusing on the predictions of crackpot, Igor Panarin. Panarin, a professor in the foreign ministry's academy, predicts the collapse of America in 2010.

The Incarnation As Scientific Truth?

Fr. Stephen's blog had a pretty good discussion going on until some feller got confused about the difference between theological and scientific propositions.

If I Had A Hammer...

Jesus' carpentry career involved submission to economic laws also in the ordering of His production structure according to the capital goods available to Him. The capital goods were arranged pursuant to a recipe, otherwise known as technology.

Maybe He used a hammer, maybe not.

If I Were A Carpenter...

Tradition tells us that Jesus was a carpenter. This was probably His most visible submission to the laws of economics. I wonder about how Jesus went about His trade. For example:

Was He a sole practitioner?
Did He employ others, such as laborers or other carpenters?
Did He run a big carpentry operation?
Did He make a profit?
Did He furnish his services at cost?
Did He charge nothing for his services?
How did He deal with this competition, i.e., other carpenters vying to provide the same services?
Did He undercut the prices that his competition charged?
If He undercut his competition's prices, did He drive them out of business?

From my standpoint, the Incarnation gets to be a pretty complicated affair.

Perry's Back

Thank heaven. And, I like the new direction of his thinking. I hope he continues in this vein for a long, long time.

I celebrated the occasion by sounding off about my peeps.

Metaphorical Economics

I apologize for my absence, but I have been knee-deep in current events. It's hard to believe, but folks are interested in what I have to say.

If circumstances were more positive, however, their interest in my particular opinion would be much smaller. There's a natural human tendency, during more fortunate times, to ascribe one's economic success to skill, rather than to the generalized smiling of an expanding economic pie.

Randomness stymies overreaching.