The Pursuit of Happiness

A Fruitless Endeavor

America has always had a bit of an identity crisis. Many of the original colonists arrived with a Protestant Christian mission to build a Christian society or escape suppression of their particular Protestant sect, yet the aristocrats that ended up spearheading the independence from Great Britain held ideological views that even most Protestant Churches at the time would have believed to be heretical. Over time, an American mythos developed that takes the form of basic religious tenets. America is mostly Protestant (even if less so now than in the past). However, most American Protestants with religious fervor swear oaths to the Constitution of the United States of America, pledge allegiance to the flag and the Republic for which it stands, and honor the founding fathers as saints. As polarizing as politics seems to be in America, and as eternal the struggle between the Democrats and Republicans appears to be, should anyone dare question fidelity to the Constitution or “democracy”, that person would be marginalized and suppressed as any heretic would have been during the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch trials. Even Americans outraged over history told through the lens of Critical Race Theory have themselves been taught a biased history through the lens of the American Civic religion. Thus, disagreements between the “parties” - between the left and the so-called right - are merely inter-religious disputes. The Progressive wing carries the ideology of the founding fathers to its logical conclusion, while the “conservatives” prefer to carry it at a slower pace, eventually compromising themselves on every issue other than taxes. An Orthodox Christian in America must be careful not to allow the presuppositions of the American ideologies to become entangled in their own beliefs, because the ideas which informed the American founding fathers, which form the basis of American government, are in fundamental conflict with Orthodox Christian theology and spirituality. 

The purpose of the Orthodox life and the purpose for which America was founded are very different. For the Orthodox Christian, the goal of one’s life is to become free from sin, and to become united with God. This begins in this life, and is later completed in the bodily resurrection. This process is called Theosis, or deification. The words of Saint Nectarios of Aegina provide a nice concise summary of how to attain it: “Let us beware that, for the sake of our present life, we are deprived of the future. Let us beware not to neglect the purpose of our life in order to fulfill our biological needs.”