[limpoporanique]

Andreas Moran wrote:
But different, I submit, is the case where the Orthodox Christian is following some profession or business which involves the provision of some service (as registrar, bed and breakfast provider, printer) which, where that profession or business facilitates and promotes some activity - let us say homosexual activity - which is, by the Church's clear teaching sinful. Does this create a dilemma? If an Orthodox Christian provides a double bed for a homosexual couple or fulfills an order received for printing material which promotes homosexual behaviour in a way which contradicts the teaching of the Church, are these not ways of participating in the sins of others? Do practising Orthodox doctors provide abortions on demand? Do practising Orthodox operate casinos, or purvey pornography? I'm thinking of a lesser example; a friend of mine in Moscow worked for an American company translating Evangelical texts from English into Russian. His spiritual father ordered him to stop that employment. I think that situations may arise which would call for a straightforward answer. My starting point I suppose is that we are all contributing to the support of sin in ways that often we are not aware of. But my added point is that this does not mean that we withdraw from society or see it as entirely complicit and corrupt. Instead we choose what to engage in and what not and which can vary from person to person or situation to situation. Thus in Canada one possibly chooses to be a doctor, nurse, etc even though all hospitals offer abortion. However a line could well be crossed if one is personally called to participate in the actual performance of an abortion in a hospital. In any case though my point again is that there is a level of participation here from all of us even in the simple act of paying taxes, of not being a conscious rebel vs the state (and then of course receiving none of its benefits- which is a basic impossibility in our world since the state provides the most basic infrastructure).

By this again I do not mean that we are hopelessly compromised. Nor do I mean my point in a cynical way as if we should all run off to the bush. (and I'm not sure that this does not accuse us of contributing to the sin of society even more seriously than if we remain) There is a point here though that I am having trouble formulating. It has come up often enough during our 20thc and I suppose it will continue. It involves the fact that the state is now all encompassing, even the benign and 'tolerant' state. I think we see now that this involves all of us and compromises all of us in various ways; that it leaves none of us entirely innocent if that is what we suppose we can achieve.

However the question I have most trouble grappling with is precisely the acceptable level of involvement. Not because we have no real wiggle room to distance ourselves from what is done in the name of governance and society; and not even because in fact we are all tainted to some degree. But because human action allows something else besides a straight forward abetting or encouragement of others to sin. Here precisely is the space that I think that we can work within in terms of our society and its institutions, working in the best way that we can with what is available.

In the Risen Christ- Fr Raphael