Comments by "Ivan Engel" (@ivanengel8887) on "Jonathan Pageau - Living in the World as Orthodox Christians" video.
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I think the doubts agbout Pageau, who I admire deeply, come from a place of envy. I envy people who are comfortable with the West in the West, and by this I mean: I want to be surrounded by Orthodox people who help me get deeper in the faith, I long not just for fellowship but also the very ascetical effort in communion to the very heights of sainthood. Being surrounded by Westerners is the opposite, and I feel it as a blunting and stunting of the faith. So Christ can go to the lepers and the prostitutes, but I'm not Christ. When I'm a saint perhaps I can go back down from the center back into the margin, but I hate it here. It's filthy, degraded and not what I believe I was made for. But on the other hand, I was made for being able to endure it, so there's that.
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Super glad you asked the question about finding a wife for orthodox male converts. Speaking as an unmarried man who's dated many orthodox women before, they're mostly feminists even if they'd say the opposite. You can say, "What? How do you know my daughters are feminists?" I might be wrong about them in particular, but I've also listened to you speak, and I've also heard the "I don't like rigorists" before from lots of women. It's basically "I don't want to be yoked". Every man who would expect them to be wives is seen as a tyrant. This does not bode well.
If you're going to do a podcast about how the old world is better because they weren't rugged individualists and they weren't offended by notions of authority or submission, I must stress, we don't get to be too picky about who we submit to. I don't make Christ to my liking. I don't make my spiritual father to my liking, I don't make my bishop to my liking. That is "Church-of-one" behavior. People don't want to be subjugated. But Christ did come to subjugate us all, we just don't want to call it yoke. Though it is easy and the burden is light, it is still a yoke. I pray your daughters don't grow old before they realize that prince charming ain't coming to sweep them off their feet and fulfill their fantasies, or that they pick a weak man because he doesn't have a standard so they're free to do whatever they want (and in the end, they end up resenting them and becoming debauched). In the name of the "best ideals" we don't manage to do the least. I see it all the time.
Women tend to think that because they might be physically attractive and because they have the market to their favor that they're a great catch when it comes to their way of being. They mistake the validation they get for their beauty as if it was validating their virtue. Most of the times a man will date a woman for a year until they find something they dislike in them and ditch them, and he's usually better off because it's not hard for a man to find a younger wife. But how many years do women have to date? The window is very small, it's always later than we think, and women who jump from one man to the next quickly don't really confront who they ought to be in order to be fitted to someone else, they're trying to find someone who fits with their idealized lives (or the ones that their parents gave them). By the time they wake up they're no longer as physically attractive and they haven't worked on their own flaws or their own salvation enough to justify the fact that they're simply not as young, not as attractive, not as colorful or cute. They're just... spent on frivolities. It's the same for men who are older and poor. To be young and poor, but driven, is almost charming. To be old and poor sucks.
Men might be poor and immature nowadays, but the women I've met are, generally speaking, much worse spiritually speaking. It's just not as evident because women's flaws aren't as noticeable. I see the men struggle mightily, while the women I know have either had really good parents do the heavy lifting for them (and they're a very small minority), or are simply coasting by and using appearances to seem better while their inner life is terrible. The quiet/shy/insecure ones are the most deceptive in this regard.
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@mystic_disciple The Church is not full of saints, it's full of sinners. Where have I said that you need the perfect Orthodox wife? Bold assumption. I think you're presupposing what hasn't been said. It's better to be in the desert than to have a contentious wife. I've had plenty of orthodox women want to marry me, but I turned them down not because I expected perfection, but simply because they weren't fit. There's a difference between the minimum and perfection. People like to dump on men, but the problem is not in men. Most women aren't fit to be good mothers and wives.
Also, what I have said is not polemical at all, on the contrary, it's actually against the canons of the Church to marry outside the Church. To decide to overlook that canon is something a bishop has to choose, it's not a given that we can pretend to normalize. Modernists need to understand the implications of what they attempt tp normalize, because they take grace for granted. One thing is to relax a law, another is to say it doesn't exist altogether.
Pageau was married before he became Orthodox, it's a different situation. Just because his wife didn't convert doesn't mean that he's correct in telling others to find wives outside of the Church.
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@sparkomatic I too worry that Pageau extends too many olive branches that should not be offered, and that some of what he teaches is flat out wrong. I think he still makes the margin into the center, to use his language, despite himself denouncing it. There is hipocrisy there, no doubt. But I think that to simply accept or reject is not the appropriate Christian solution, because we're not Christ. If our brother is wrong, we must pray for them, and if we may correct them, we must correct them too. But to disregard or to correct wrongly worsens the problem, to my mind. Ultimately, we know the Father through the Son, which means that we know God by loving our neighbor (which means being in relationship to them). Both the rigorists and the lax have abstracted themselves out and are acting antisocially. Even our parishes are full of people who don't know how to relate, and if people respond to what Pageau is saying (positively or negatively) it is because they are seeking communion. Whether they find it or not is another thing. Pageau can't offer communion, but he can still point, dimly if not perfectly, at the Church. Hopefully he repents of his mistakes.
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@PrayersfromtheRedwoodForest I haven't specified any single flaw nor gone into any single case in particular. As for your comment on me being bitter, it's' completely out of place. You can keep your opinions to yourself, which is something that for some cultural reason Americans don't seem to understand. In due time they will after God has finished allowing your destruction. You seem to be losing your country precisely because of the degeneracy of its culture (which includes brazen comments such as these).
I'm good-looking, strong, smart, cultured, fun. Before I became a Christian I have dated plenty of models, and I get lots of attention from women, after I became a Christian I've had no problem having my pick. I'm not bitter at all, I'm simply defending my brother's interests by stating the fact that a lot of people are modernists and like to shit on men when the reality is that there's a reason why most converts are men.
Men really are becoming more pious than women, that's a fact. Otherwise women would be converting and wouldn't be leaving the faith at such alarming rates, there wouldn't be such a strong feminist move inside the Church trying to subvert it from within or bratty women larping as Orthodox when in reality they're more interested in Instagram than the faith.
The ones who want to pretend these things are not happening are out of line and need to get a reality check, which I'm happy to give them. They're weak, they're lukewarm, they're completely out of place and out of their depth, and they're not living the life they ought to. They are thin-skinned, infantile and girly.
As for it being easier for older men to marry younger women: young men are a liability, while older men are tested and proven, which is why in every culture in every time period except the West at this particular time, it has been the norm for age differences with the older party being the man. Only a modernist who cannot see beyond their own time and particular culture knows this. Women have a brief reproductive window, men do not. It's not complicated.
Men age like wine in this respect, women age like milk. Not only does fertility drop precipitously after 30, but you're not get the years you haven't had children back, so an older women means less children. If you start late you're going to have less children, full stop. Children are not pets or toys, you are commanded to have as many as you can, to say a woman's age does not matter goes against this principle and betrays modernist tendencies.
The "dad bod" point was dumb, but to indulge you in that silly line of thinking: men until the age of 50 can be in shape with relatively little effort. It takes going to the gym 3 times a week and eating properly. It's not hard to do. After 50 it becomes a little bit harder because testosterone drops significantly, but even then it's doable. To even evaluate whether a man is physically strong or as sensually beautiful betrays a modernist bias where women would rate physical beauty higher than virtue (which can improve with age) or potential to support a family (which again can improve with age).
Only an idiot marries just for looks, and while strength and vigor show character and health, the pressure is not hard for men to weather, while it is impossible for women to endure. There's pretty much no argument to be had on that.
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@olgakarpushina492 So "feels" basically. You feel my comment is unkind so it must be untrue. Ok, perhaps you're sensitive and think that other people's behavior should fit your sensibilities. Not very loving on your part, quite tyrannical in fact. Are your sensibilities ever wrong that you seek so fervently to impose them on others? You are not going to shame me to change, least of all like this.
Let me offer you this, since you offered your opinion so carelessly and without saying anything substantive other than "I didn't like it, I thought it unkind even though I couldn't explain how or why", which amounts to mere mudslinging. Why should anyone care about "your litmus" or your opinion that you offered so freely? Self-referentiality is meaningless on the internet and not very appreciated in real life either. I don't know you, why should I care about your personal standard. Who are you that I should?
You say other people are judgmental... you're the judgmental one, judging them and expecting others to fit your idol of God. You seem to worship niceness, not Christ, and you expect others to bow down to your idol. You're also definitely out of place, since we're not equals. Why would you even think we were? Oh, your culture tells you that. Well, your culture might be wrong.
So, again, who are you that you go around offering thumbs up or down on others? God save me from this sanctimonious bullshit, you say other people judge, you're the one judging. You literally judge and shit on what other people say based on your feelings without offering anything of more substance than your impression, and yet they're the judgy ones. Lord have mercy. Peak self-importance.
Since you wanted to cut me to size, I'll do you the same favor: I doubt anyone cares about your opinion in your own personal life, you don't sound like a leader. Does anyone follow you willingly? Cause I have people who do follow me willingly, who appreciate and respect me.
I'm going to keep leading people who seek me for my wisdom and my strength of character, while you post passive-aggressive nothings like "I don't like what mean man say on the internet because it does not feel nice" into the void. Good luck with that. "My litmus test" lol. Self-important, whiny and weak. Why should your sensibilities be imposed on others? You think too much of yourself and give very little of yourself to others. Your idols of God must go, or you'll never know Christ.
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@mikealrodriguez6907 Oh, nice, another passive-aggressive, entitled and cowardly manlet joins the thread. Don't lie now, those people aren't your friends, by how you judge them they repulse you while you claim "they repulse women". Sneaky. And if those people, if they're even real, knew how you talk about them behind their backs (if they really knew you), they wouldn't like you very much either.
I've had no problem dating anyone I've wanted to, I've probably turned down way more women than you've probably ever dated in your life. My face is on the internet, I've been told I'm quite attractive (though I don't believe it's because of my looks). Also, I'm a leader in my community, and my spiritual father who is a priest has recommended me for ordination. I'm curious about your physiognomy, since you like offering opinions on other people's characters. Maybe seeing your face can explain your low testosterone opinions.
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