Category Image A Little Irony


A report has recently been published indicating both that college students are more narcissistic than ever, and that narcissism can be very damaging. A group of psychologists believes that the self esteem movement of the '80s is largely responsible for where we have arrived at, and that we need to stop. The irony here is, of course, centered around the fact that I'm writing about this on my blog, blogs being fairly narcissistic things. It certainly is a question I have wrestled with. Should an Orthodox Christian really blog?

Why wouldn't an Orthodox Christian blog, I suppose some would ask. The answer lies deep within Orthodox Christianity, and so only being fairly new to the whole thing, the best I can do is give a somewhat superficial answer to the question. I am hesitant to ever say that Orthodoxy can be summed up by "...", or is best known for "...". However, it is safe to say that two key elements in Orthodox Christianity are the Incarnation and the Trinity. The Incarnation, that fact that God became man, and thus brought about the restoration of human nature, drives our understanding of our personal salvation. As St. Athanasius is noted for saying, God became man so that man might become God. In this sense, we each are unique and special and are called to a very high calling - to become united to God - to partake of His Divine Nature. At the same time, part of the Incarnation is the notion of the Hypostatic Union. It is not a singular sort of thing. It is God assuming flesh, becoming united to humanity. In turn, we are called to be united to God. We do this in communion with Him and with others within the Church, or Assembly (Ekklesia). This reflects the other piece of the puzzle, which is the Trinity. The Orthodox Church holds to a Trinitarian Anthropology . Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we are called to reflect in our lives a unity of persons. We do not even make sense in isolation. We have no meaning. The Fall is understood as man, having retained God's image, losing His likeness as we become singularities. The Incarnation, and the Crucifixion, and Resurrection are all events aimed at restoring that likeness. Narcissism is movement against that.

The article points out that narcissism leads to people being quite miserable. Much of what makes people miserable in this case is precisely what the Church has always told us is wrong with mankind - an inability to form solid relationships, the inability to live out a trinitarian world view. It is fascinating that, once again, in our "enlightened" society, we have to go off and pursue that which the Church has always taught against, in order to discover that the Church was really right all along. And I'll need to keep reminding myself of that every time I fire up my blogging tool .

Posted: Tuesday - February 27, 2007 at 11:50 AM          

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