Question:  Christianity is becoming so confusing. What are we to think about the recent problem with Jimmy Swaggart and the report that he has been caught with more prostitutes? We always watched him on television and felt inspired by him. He was always defending Christian morality and preaching the Gospel. Now this. What is one to think?

Ella Hatsispiros, Chicago

Reply:  The only thing to think about Mr Swaggart personally is to recall that he needs our prayers and compassion. Something must be said, however, about the things that he taught on television, because there is a very great lesson to be learned in all this. We must explain why Orthodox Christians must not look outside the faith for teaching and inspiration, why, for example, it is so desperately wrong (even evil) to include quotations from various non-Orthodox mystics and New Age philosophers on calendars and bulletins in Orthodox parishes, as us frequently done these days.

There is an old English saying that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." We might correctly add that moral outrage is the last refuge of the morally sick. Those of us who can well remember the dark days of McCarthyism in America, are aware that, sometimes, precisely this type of patriotism and moral outrage are combined in one sick demagogue on a power trip.It is noteworthy that when Mr Swaggart was caught in this most recent sexual tragedy, he was in the process of prosecuting and persecuting a fellow evangelical minister for doing something of the same nature, but less serious. Why would a man who for years has continually pursued the most unclean type of prostitutes, paying them to perform perverse sexual acts with him, preach moral outrage and persecute another man who is doing something similar but less serious? Would not the Orthodox Christian faith have taught Mr Swaggart to have struggled against his own passions with prayer, fasting, prostrations, self-examination and confession, while refraining from making moral judgments and condemnations of others?There are two reasons for preaching "moral outrage." One reason is that the preacher himself is consumed with the passions that he or she is raging about. Political demagogues seeking power and control over people may also use the technique of moral outrage in much the same why that Hitler used the Jews (remember, Hitler was half-Jewish and had a twisted self-hatred because of it).Here is the real problem in the context of Mr Swaggart's teachings and preaching - indeed of evangelical Protestantism in general (and of the neo-fundamentalists who have infected the Orthodox Church in America). The first time that Mr Swaggart was forced to publicly acknowledge his sexual predilections, he professed a tearful repentance. He added an interesting statement. He said that he had tried fasting, and found that it was not necessary or God-pleasing. He asserted that all that had been necessary was for him to say that he was sorry to God. Events certainly have proved him wrong, and I recall that he occasionally preached against the Orthodox Church for its practices, and that most sectarians either condemn or scoff at our Orthodox Christian practice of fasting, prostrations and moral struggle in general. Perhaps if he had followed a more Orthodox Christian approach, confession, fasting, prostrations, the Jesus Prayer, consulting a spiritual father in obedience, etc, he would have been able to come to grips with his passions. With God's help in his own effort of great moral struggle, he could have been able to control himself. Repentance does not mean "saying you are sorry," it means struggling with your whole being to overcome the root causes of your separation from God, struggling diligently, with God's help, to overcome the bonds of our fallen human nature and assimilate the renewed human nature manifested in Jesus Christ.The problem for us is not Mr Swaggart's moral failings, which should be more a cause of sincere sorrow over his suffering and tragedy. The problem is the teachings and doctrines which would allow one to indulge in such things while persecuting and prosecuting someone else for a lesser problem, and all the while openly condemning the Orthodox doctrine of fasting and moral struggle.

It is very troubling when we read an Orthodox publication which "harps" on a given moral problem, for experience has taught us that moral outrage or a fixation on a given moral problem is usually autobiographical. Sometimes, however, hypermoralism is only an expression of an arrogant self-righteousness. Recently, during a visit to Europe, I was riding across one city with a young man of Greek descent. He was clinging to Orthodoxy in a certain way, but very much under the influence of "Born-againism." When the conversation turned to an election that was under way, my young acquaintance suddenly became agitated. His face twisted in a cold and discomforting way and he hissed, "Politicians are all liars." "Well, perhaps only some of them, eh," I replied, trying to soften the conversation. The young man ground out the words, "Don't they know that liars will not inherit the Kingdom of God. We ought to be preaching this to them." He spoke in harsh, supercilious and self-righteous tones. I could only reply, "When we attain total perfection ourselves, perhaps we can instruct them with understanding love, meanwhile, after we pray about our own sins, we might also pray for them." My acquaintance was quite unsatisfied by this answer. I wonder if such people can ever take time out from judging others to take a close, hard look at their own sins. If not, then Satan already owns them.