Worldly Idealism, Social Mission, and the Kingdom Not of This World - Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

Eugene wrote this letter to Thomas Merton in 1962, the same year he was received into the Orthodox Church after an arduous and painful journey in search of the truth, which he ultimately realized is a person: the Lord Jesus Christ, whose Body is the Holy Orthodox Church. He had been previously inspired by Thomas Merton and his pursuit of the other world, and with pain of heart wrote a letter expressing his concerns, concerns which were later justified by Merton’s ultimate abandonment of not only prayerful, ascetic Christianity, but of the uniqueness of Christian truth altogether.

The ideas set forth in this letter were written at the same time Eugene was writing his desired magnum opus, The Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God, specifically the chapter titled “New Christianity.” Neither this chapter nor the entire book were finished, but in addition to this letter to Merton, what was completed was the chapter on Nihilism, available from St. Herman Press under the title: “Nihilism: the root of the Revolution of the modern age”.  

Presented here is a reading of Eugene’s letter in its entirety, beginning and ending with valuable context from the biography of Fr. Seraphim: “Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works” by Hieromonk Damascene, finishing with a quote by Fr. Seraphim from his book “Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future”

Introduction: 00:00

Letter to Thomas Merton: 04:52

Conclusion: 44:36

Excerpt from “Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future”: 48:37  

Excerpts from Eugene’s letter:   

“The outward Gospel of social idealism is a symptom of this loss of faith.”  

“The Kingdom is not of this world; to think or hope that Christianity can be outwardly "successful" in the world is a denial of all that Christ and His prophets have said of the future of the Church. Christianity can be "successful" on one condition: that of renouncing (or conveniently forgetting) the true Kingdom and seeking to build up a Kingdom in the world. The "Earthly Kingdom" is precisely the goal of the modern mentality; the building of it is the meaning of the modern age. It is not Christian; as Christians, we know whose Kingdom it is. And what so greatly troubles me is that today Christians—Catholic and Orthodox alike—are themselves joining, often quite unaware of the fact, often with the best possible intentions, in the building of this new Babel....”

“When I feed my hungry brother, this is a Christian act and a preaching of the Kingdom that needs no words; it is done for the personal reason that my brother—he who stands before me at this moment—is hungry, and it is a Christian act because my brother is, in some sense, Christ. But if I generalize from this case and embark on a political crusade to abolish the "evil of hunger," that is something entirely different; though individuals who participate in such a crusade may act in a perfectly Christian way, the whole project—and precisely because it is a "project," a thing of human planning—has become wrapped in a kind of cloak of “idealism.”"

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