Liberal FAQ

Liberal FAQ

Q1: Concerning God's gender as always masculine.

A1: In Orthodox Christianity, the Word of God, who was incarnate in Jesus Christ, can be referred to in the feminine sense, in which case she is known as the Wisdom of God: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2000/09/08/108957-icon-of-sophia-the-wisdom-of-god The Wisdom of Solomon talks about the Wisdom of God in this sense. (“And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.”, Wisdom of Solomon 7:27, KJV; “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. “, Revelations 21:5; “For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.”, Wisdom of Solomon 7:26; “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”, Hebrews 1:3; “For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.”, Wisdom of Solomon 7:29; “Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”, Hebrews 1:4;  "The LORD by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.",  Proverbs 3:19; "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath [same word as Spirit] of his mouth.", Psalms 33:6; "All things were made by [Christ]; and without him was not any thing made that was made.", John 1:3; "For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding", Proverbs 2:6; "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.", Isaiah 55:11; "For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.", Proverbs 8:35-6 ; "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?", John 11:25-26; "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.", Proverbs 8:22; "The same was in the beginning with God.", John 1:2. However, some theologians have tried to make Sophia, the Greek word for Wisdom, some sort of Fourth Person of the Trinity, a theology ultimately derived from Gnosticism and known as Sophiology, which is a no-no. Some others have tried to identify Mary with the Wisdom of God, which is also a no-no. Wisdom is the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity: http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/dogmas/wisdom.shtml "Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled." - Proverbs 9:5. Wisdom is invoked three times in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom: the first time, before the reading of the Gospel (Scripture, being an icon of the Word, is an icon of Sophia); the second time, before the reading of the Epistle; the third time before the reciting of the Nicene Creed.

Q1a: Concerning women being barred from the clergy.

A1a: Being a priest is not a right, it is not something anyone is entitled to. Since women were never permitted in the clergy, the onus is on the one who wishes them to be allowed in the clergy, and this argument cannot be made on the basis of rights, since it is not a right. Neither cannot a case made on the basis of, "There is no good reason not to allow them to be in the clergy," since historical precedent is considered a very, very good reason.

Q1b: Concerning abortion as a human right.

A1b: We have no choice. Christian doctrine is, and always has been, that the human soul is imparted with conception. If you firmly believed that abortion was taking a human life, in the depths of your heart, you could not possibly be alright with it, no matter how much you supported women’s rights. Even if you still thought she had a right to it through some rationalization of self-defense, it couldn’t possibly be something you were comfortable with, anymore than lethally defending oneself against a child whose completely unintentional harm won’t kill you. Hating women has nothing to do with when we think the soul is imparted. To say that not all human beings are persons, is a frightening thought to us. To us, a human life is universally and innately precious simply for being a human life, and we see abortion as a way to make the value of human life *conditional*. Human life is unconditionally valuable because God's love for us is unconditional.

Q2: Concerning opposition to secular gay marriage.

A2: To the Orthodox, marriage is the consecration of a union between two opposites to create harmony, it represents the union of both sexes of humanity in spiritual and physical communion. So gay marriage, to the Orthodox, is like saying that a man's union with himself should be legally recognized as marriage--it's incoherent. Furthermore, this harmony of the sexes is seen as the source of the continuation of the human race; sex today is almost completely detached from genitive act, but what’s more concerning is that procreation is being utterly detached from sex. Artificial insemination today, but eventually you will have artificial wombs, it might lead to a caste system where everyone is predestined for a specific function, or it might lead to a world where parent(s) (being a single mom is increasingly seen as more noble, while being a married mother in a functional relationship is being portrayed more frequently as oppressive) use magazine covers to design their kids. Kids could either become consumerist products, or meat robots, and they won’t be valued innately for being humans either way, the value would be *conditional* (see A1b of this FAQ);  just as tragically, the last bastion of the once thriving sphere that existed outside the market and the state, will have one or the other inserted in it as a go-between. But if heterosexual marriage is strengthened, the traditional family will stay durable, and its nobility will appeal to those who might otherwise not be interested--is gay marriage an attack on heterosexual marriage? Yes, absolutely, because it detracts from the value of heterosexual marriage, in the same way as if it were legal to marry oneself and anyone who didn't recognize it were called a bigot: it destroys the fundamental fabric of what marriage is about when you are forced to see this sort of thing as equal and the same as a true marriage.

Q3: Concerning sex-changes as treatments that saves lives.

A3: Sex-changes do considerably lower the suicide rate of transgendered persons (before transition the rate is ten times that of cis: http://endtransdiscrimination.org/PDFs/NTDS_Report.pdf), but only temporarily: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 Right after transition, the rate is approximately that of cis, and starts to climb very slowly. But around ten years after transition, the rate jumps and the curve becomes much steeper, hitting nineteen times that of cis. You might argued, “That is because of bullying and intolerance.” I’d say no, because first off, the second study was conducted in Sweden. I’d say no, because second off, ten years is when you’d think the suicide rate would actually drop; it’s during the first few years that you’d have to put up with being abandoned by friends and getting used to worse bullying than you’re used to. After ten years, you’d have a circle of friends who acknowledged you as your new gender, you’d have a much wider support group, you’d probably be familiar with the transgender community in your area if there were one, and you’d have grown accustomed to the bullying and learned how to cope with it. But instead of the first few years being the massive spike in suicides, and the ten years later being a big drop off, it’s the other way around.