When the Homily is about Immunology

Out of touch with the 21st Century...

I'm angry, so please forgive me right off...

From The Oooze I ran across this article and while somewhat interesting there was a general sense in which it disturbed me. It purports to tell us "10 reasons why your church sucks" And one of the reasons is as follows:

your church is old. Your church is filled with old people who have no reason to move ahead. They have more life behind them then they do ahead of them

Hmmm...perhaps I am the only person who has a problem with this? In our culture today, I suspect that precious few of us see some inherent and profound worth in people who have "have more life behind them that they do ahead of them"? Hell I wish there were ALOT more old people in my Parish like a really old Babushka who will no qulams in telling it like it is!

No reason to move ahead? Well maybe in protestant theology this may be true, but in Orthodox theology we are ALWAYS moving ahead. But this is not what O'Keefe means...he's talking about not moving ahead in terms of things that sadly have no choice but to be much less important than what I was talking about.

The way that the elderly are referred to in the article literally sickens me. I mean I am on the verge of tears here thinking about how our culture has rejected our aged people who have so much to offer us and here in this article they are treated and referred to essentially as being irrelevant because they won't ride the wave of popular opinion or preference. I WANT old people in my church....lots of them...I want my children to learn to respect them, to honor them and mostly to listen and learn from them. But O'Keefe seems to see this as a fruitless venture that will profit you nothing....rather we ought to be guzzling our Mountain Dew, doing some extreme sports, using all the latest lingo, and in general keeping up on all the latest fads in order to be relevant. No thanks. Better I spend one hour listening to an old Russian man tell me about his experience in a Communist deathcamp than a lifetime listening to a 20-something babble about how cool the skateboard park is.

Mr. O'Keefe....send your old people down the street to the church with the three-barred cross on top.

Kids, we are buying into our culture wholesale and we think by keeping the church hip we can keep it relevant....but my goodness the problem the Church is SUPPOSED to be addressing has not a damn thing to do with the latest fad, the hottest rage band, or even the newest and coolest technology that our poor and apparently distrusted old people cannot (or will not) keep up with. But I'll tell you what, those old people know alot about stuff that - LET'S FACE IT - really matter! The Church addresses ETERNALLY relevant issues that do not come and go like the sulfurous wind of Fox reality television or heaps of mindless MTV refuse.

Furthermore:
Eighth, your church doesn’t share a relevant message for a relevant time. You’re so concerned with doctrine, you are not allowing me to explore the faith and question the unquestionable

And here again is where I further part company with the "post-mod" movement, if indeed this is their general mantra. I've been down this most dangerous road as an Episcopalian and it leads, quite simply, to hell. Denying the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is just around the corner for you folks...why? Because it is not culturally relevant - no one believes in that sort of thing anymore - so let's deny it happened literally and ascribe to it somesort of inner and secret meaning. We are allowing the Faith to be bled by the leeches of the all-mighty and ever-wise culture we live in. I mean come on...why are we giving so much power, importance, and authority to a mass of people who create and happily sustain a social environment in which elephant fecal matter splattered on a canvas is considered art and whose nous are blind to the things of God?

O'Keefe says "your church is out of touch with the 21st century"

YES YES YES...again I say YES!
This is nothing new....read your history. The same accusation has been made time and time again throughout our history and the Holy Martyrs were ultimately willing to lay down their lives rather than sacrifice their beliefs to the god of popular notions.

We ought to be bowing before the elderly and beseeching them: "Father or Mother, please give me a word..."
But no..."Jackass: the movie" is out and THAT is where we can find really important things worthy of the church to mimic in order to be relevant. Geez, my kids would probably prefer me to do many things differently as a father that would be "more relevant" for them, but that doesn't mean it's what's best for them.

Ok, my rant is over.