The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy

Conclusion

conclusion The Politics of Divine-Human Communion Since the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, the world’s focus has shifted to Islam. There has been much discussion on whether Islam is mutually exclusive with Western liberal democracy. While it seemed that a universal consensus existed, especially after Vatican II, on the compatibility between liberal democracy and Christianity, the postCommunist situation in Eastern Europe provoked some cracks in that consensus. Was Orthodox Christianity similar to Islam in being an obstacle to the implementation of democratic structures in Eastern Europe? Is Orthodox Christianity on the wrong side of the “clash of civilizations”? Added to this was a Western Christian voice emerging over the last few decades that, in one form or another, declared modern liberal democratic principles to be antithetical to Christian understandings of God, community, and the human being. Many of these Christian voices base this claim on the newly revived notion of theosis, or “deification,” which is especially troubling in the Orthodox world, since those Orthodox who are reflexively anti-Western, who are fighting at all costs for an Orthodox hegemony in traditional Orthodox countries, but who lack the intellectual resources for a rigorous and consistent political theology beyond appeals to the past, can 195 196 The Mystical as Political now turn to the thought of, ironically, non-Christian theologians to support their ambivalence to liberal democracy. The basic claim grounding Christian ambivalence toward modern liberal democracy is that the latter embodies claims about being human that are antithetical to those espoused by Christians. With those who express this ambivalence, I stand in agreement that any consistent Christian political theology must begin with the claim of what it means to be Christian. I have defined what it means to be Christian in t erms of theosis or, as I p refer to translate it, divinehuman communion. It has long been assumed, even by the Orthodox , that the mystical notion of theosis has nothing to do with politics, that divine-human communion can only be achieved by fleeing from the “world” to the desert, the monastery, or the forest. And, yet, if we further clarify divine-human communion in terms of fulfillment of the commandment to love God and neighbor, then it becomes clear that the calling to embody the divine presence more fully in the material creation is not simply to those who flee the world, but also to those who remain in the world. Theosis was never meant to institute a Gnostic either/or-ness between the divine and the material creation, but affirms material creation as the arena of the divine presence. Theosis also does not allow this Gnostic dualism to seep into the various structures that shape our communal spaces; it is not meant to signify an escape from material creation nor an escape from the various structures within which we relate to that material space. It is simply not the case that only those who isolate themselves from family, work, or politics are capable of divine-human communion; it is also a calling for those who either choose or have no other choice but to remain in those structures. Humans, then, are called from their very birth to communion with God, and their entire lives can be interpreted as one continuous struggle to embody this communion or, otherwise put, to learn how to love. Augustine got this logic straight long ago that if God is love, then our love is simply an indication of God in us, and the marker of that is how we love the other. Love, however, is not automatic; it has nothing to do with being a soulmate. Humans perpetually struggle against conclusion 197 those things that seem to get in the way of love—predispositions, fear, low self-esteem, false ego-projections, just to name a few. It may seem that out of love a parent pushes a child in a certain direction, when it is often the case that such a push masks a deep-rooted fear of failing as a parent. What seems like love is often self-referential. I am of the opinion that the ascetical tradition, in both East and West, understood that fulfilling the love commandment requires ascetical discernment and practices. The best way to look at this tradition is as one of thinking on how to acquire the virtue of love, which is to grow in deeper communion with God. The...