You Are Not A Machine (Big Announcement!)
For decades I have been animated by the question: in what ways does modern life affect the spiritual life of modern people, and what can we do about it? My doctoral dissertation (The Theological Anthropology and Cosmology of C.S. Lewis: An Orthodox Christian Evaluation) was inspired by this question, for in order to properly answer it, one first needs to know what it means to be truly human, what our relationship with God’s creation should look like, and what the purpose of our lives is.
These questions, of course, are particularly relevant for Orthodox Christians…but they are also relevant for all souls created in the image and likeness of God. I see the new project as a natural outgrowth of The Collective Wisdom Project…in many ways the two projects are two sides of the same coin. There is a great tradition within Orthodoxy, best exemplified in St. Basil the Great (you can read Fr. Seraphim Rose’s reference to St. Basil, below), of looking for and using the best in our culture to support the work of the Church. While the new channel’s content will be rooted in Orthodox Christian anthropology and cosmology, I will be looking at a variety of thinkers (Orthodox and non-Orthodox) and ideas who offer insight into our modern situation.
I’m writing today with news that I hope you will find of interest. I for one am very very excited to be able, finally, to introduce you to a project that has been literally decades in the making. Before I introduce it, however, I wanted to mention that I definitely plan to continue to grow and develop Protecting Veil. I see the two platforms as two sides of the same coin, which I think you’ll understand once I introduce it properly.
The new platform is called You Are Not a Machine, but before I get into what exactly this project is, here’s some backstory as to the why.
Soon after becoming Orthodox decades ago I read two books that left a lasting impression on me and planted seeds, the fruits of which after decades of gestation are finally beginning to appear. Those two books were Fr. Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, and Philip Sherrard’s The Eclipse of Man and Nature: An Enquiry into the Origins and Consequences of Modern Science.
I am going to quote extensively from Fr. Seraphim Rose’s biography below, so let me briefly discuss Sherrard’s book. What struck me in Sherrard’s work was the way in which his Orthodox faith and theological convictions provided him with an interpretive lens to understand what was happening in contemporary culture. His basic thesis is that there has been a shift from a participatory and sacramental view of creation to a more detached, scientific view. He argues that when we embrace this materialistic, mechanistic worldview it leads to our own dehumanization, as well as to severe consequences for the natural world (the care of which was Adam and Eve’s (and therefore, our) original task).
What I learned from both Fr. Seraphim and Philip Sherrard is that the structures of the modern world in which we find ourselves (not only institutions, but even mundane things such as our roadways, neighborhoods, shopping malls, education system, health system, etc.) represent physical manifestations that can either contribute to, or hinder our spiritual life.
It is easy, having been born into the reality in which we find ourselves, to take this reality for granted: to assume that it is “normal.” Both Sherrard and Fr. Seraphim argue that the reality in which we find ourselves is not, in fact, “normal,” and that we should be aware of the spiritual effect it has on us.
In order to become aware of the spiritual effect that the modern world has on us, it is necessary to cast a critical eye on the culture in which we live. In the biography of Fr. Seraphim Rose, we read that in the summer of 1975:
“Fr. Seraphim gave an in-depth series of lectures on the development of Western thought, from the Great Schism to the present…For all the talks, Fr. Seraphim wrote extensive outlines, organizing the vast historical and philosophical research he had done for The Kingdom of Man and The Kingdom of God. This was the ripened fruit, not only of that early research, but also of his rich store of experience as an Orthodox Christian. He was now much better equipped than before to present his knowledge in a way that would have a practical application to the lives of contemporary people. He called his lecture series a ‘Survival Course’ because of his belief that in order for people to survive as Orthodox Christians nowadays, they had to understand the apostasy, to know why the modern age is the way it is. In order to protect oneself, one must have an idea of the strategy of one’s enemy. Fr. Seraphim also called his classes ‘a course in Orthodox self defense.’…
Fr. Seraphim stated: ‘A great danger of our times and the movement of those who come to Orthodoxy is what one might call, in very down-to-earth language, the phenomenon of “spiritual baboons,” i.e., people who are outwardly Orthodox and even pride themselves on being very correct in their Orthodoxy, but deep down are not really changed, do not grow in Orthodoxy, and remain very much a part of the modern world, which is rooted in anti-Christianity. Because they do not grow, they do not see how much in conflict is true Orthodoxy with a world which they have still not left behind. As opposed to this, a conversion to true Orthodoxy must be total; it must affect everything one does, the way one looks at things and the way one values everything in one’s life. Otherwise, Orthodoxy becomes just one more sect, differing only outwardly from other sects….
In order to have this total Orthodox worldview, one must be constantly educating oneself, going deeper and broader….
This course will concentrate on the most important movements and most important writers who helped form the mentality which we have today. If one is not aware of all this, one can still be Orthodox, of course, but one is running a great danger, because the movements of thought around one, which have been formed over the last eight or nine centuries, affect one directly, and one cannot know how to answer them without knowing where they are right, where they are wrong, and how they have arisen. One can be in a very precarious position, even in the position of an “Orthodox fundamentalist” who simply sits in his corner and says, “Oh, I believe this and everything else is evil.” This, of course, is very unrealistic because you have to have contact with the world: your children are going to school, you read newspapers, you have contact with people who believe different things and even with Orthodox people who don’t know what they believe. If you are not aware of what’s going on, your Orthodoxy will be infected, without your even knowing it, by all kinds of modern ideas. You will be going to church on Sunday, and the rest of the week living by some kind of different standard, which can be disastrous…. In order to avoid this we must follow the advice of St. Basil [the Great] and begin to learn to take from the world around us wisdom where there is wisdom, and where there’s foolishness to know why it is foolishness.’”
~ Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works, p. 618-620
Fr. Seraphim’s survival course is a good place to get a birds-eye view, from an Orthodox perspective, of how our culture developed (you can download it for free here). As Fr. Seraphim noted (following St. Basil), our culture is full of a great deal of both wisdom and foolishness, and for those of us who live in the world, there is no getting around this.
My goal with You Are Not a Machine is to continue the excellent work that Fr. Seraphim Rose and Philip Sherrard began, by looking deeply at the ways in which our lives are spiritually shaped and affected by our culture. As Fr. Seraphim said, for Orthodox Christians this undertaking is necessary, for “If you are not aware of what’s going on, your Orthodoxy will be infected, without your even knowing it, by all kinds of modern ideas. You will be going to church on Sunday, and the rest of the week living by some kind of different standard, which can be disastrous.”
This endeavor is not only for Orthodox Christians, however, as all of modern humanity is affected. If these things are true, they are true for all humans made in the image and likeness of God; and through this endeavor, we have the opportunity to offer light to the darkness of the world around us.
Why You Are Not a Machine? At the heart of the modern experiment is a diabolic mechanistic anthropology that views humans as machines. While most people believe in God and in the existence of the soul, most of us live as functional atheists. The mechanistic worldview is the de facto belief system at the heart of the modern world, and as such it is a key to understanding it. The goal of You Are Not a Machine is to expose the ways in which our daily lives are affected by this anti-Christian worldview.
You Are Not a Machine will exist in that liminal space between the Church and the world, facing and addressing the world from our profound Orthodox Christian anthropology and cosmology. I hope you will join me in this new adventure (and if you know of anyone, Orthodox or not, who might be interested, please share!) Again, rest assured that I will continue my work at Protecting Veil, and my hope is that both projects will feed and enrich one another.
So…how to get engaged with this new project?
I compiled The How Did We Get Here? Reading List to offer resources to begin to understand how we ended up in the matrix in which we find ourselves. We are like the proverbial fish that is unable to see the water in which it swims, and the books included in this reading list will help us begin to discern the waters in which we’re swimming.
Download The How Did We Get Here? Reading List
1) So, the first step is to sign up for the You Are Not a Machine newsletter. By signing up for the newsletter, you will also receive The How Did We Get Here? Reading List.
2) Please subscribe to the You Are Not a Machine YouTube channel.
3) And you can follow the project elsewhere online here:
Finally, it is my intention to try to keep these two projects separate, but I will occasionally keep you informed here about developments with You Are Not a Machine.
I hope you will join me on this new adventure!