Tribal
Spring 2019
Jacob’s Well is under new leadership, with new staff, a new look, and a new approach. As clergy and parishioners from across the diocese—from New Jersey, to upstate New York, to Long Island and New York City—and as professionals in art, journalism, counseling, and administration, we’ve come together to honor the rich history of this little journal and to adapt it to our present moment. Since its first issue was released in the early 1980s, Jacob’s Well has often been a blessing to the entire English-speaking Orthodox world, and we hope to renew and advance that legacy.
We are all indebted to Father John Shimchick, the rector of the Church of the Holy Cross, in Medford, N.J., for his 28 years of service as editor of Jacob’s Well. He gave our diocese something tobe proud of: a magazine of unique quality and spiritual depth. Following his example, each future issue of the magazine will be dedicated to a particular theme. They will be conceptual in nature—Death and Dying, for instance, or Tradition and Change—and though they’ll concern eternal questions, they will also correspond to contemporary issues in church life.
Our approach will be integrative, meaning the articles will address the given topic from a variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and disciplines. To us, as Orthodox Christians running an expressly religious magazine, the theological or spiritual perspective is always paramount. But our religious beliefs should not be quarantined from other disciplines. Spiritual truths hold true in all areas of life and study. Often the contributions of science, the arts, literature, and philosophy can lead us to a more complete theological answer and can help us connect spiritual lessons to our daily lives.
For our first issue, we chose the problem of Tribalism. Our human tendency to seek comfort and companionship by excluding outsiders has been the cause of endless violence and suffering, going as far back in history as we can tell. At the same time, the sense of satisfaction and security it gives us is nearly irresistible. It seems to be coded into our DNA.
No doubt tribalism has helped our species survive in ages past. In a society of hunter-gatherers, where resources were scarce, it was more important for everyone to row in the same direction than to row in the right direction. Wariness toward outsiders made sense, if only because outsiders could bring literal diseases to indigenous communities. In some ways, our tribal instinct is a highly developed and socialized immune response. But Christianity introduced a new era of human history and a new set of social values, demanding that we treat strangers with charity instead of contempt.
Tribalism still has its uses: it helps us forge strong familial bonds and friendships. We can’t eradicate it, any more than we can get rid of our need for food or shelter. Therefore, much like the passions, it needs to be reoriented. As St. Maximos the Confessor teaches, the passions are misdirected desires that are fundamentally natural and even good. If lust is merely the misdirection of our impulse to love, then tribalism is the misdirection of our need for companionship and security.
Can we find a way to redirect our tribalism? We need to, whether it be the Right/Left tribalism that is tearing this country apart or the ethnic nationalism that hinders our Church’s mission and work. All the essays in this issue aim to identify ways tribalism is manifest in our communities today and to suggest ways of resolving it or transforming it.
Fortunately, there is plenty of material in the scriptures to guide us. Christ addresses the problem of tribalism throughout the Gospels. Whether in the parable of Good Samaritan, the healing of the Centurion’s daughter, or the direction to “make disciples of all nations, He was always working to dismantle the tribalism of his own community, the Jews. But as with the law, He did not abolish tribalism but fulfilled it. He created a new tribe: not one based on political citizenship, ethnicity, or ideology, but a transcendent one that could unite all of humanity.
This, then, is the solution given to us by the Gospels: not to abolish the tribe, but to expand it. Everyone is eligible because we all bear the image of God. The early Christians took this to heart, as we can ascertain from the 2nd-century Epistle to Diognetus: “Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, language, or custom,” the anonymous author wrote, “For nowhere do they live in cities of their own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an eccentric lifestyle.… While they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one's lot was cast, and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship.”
Going along with this principle, Christians should embrace the truths we find in other cultures, peoples, and religions. We have a tradition of rejecting only that which is evil, and incorporating and synthesizing the rest. St. Justin Martyr, writing in the 2nd century, captured this eloquently: “Whatever has been rightly said by anyone in any place belongs to us Christians, because second to our devotion to God is our love of Reason, which is from the self-existent and indescribable God. … All who live according to Reason are Christians, even though some may mistake them for atheists.”
It is our job, as the Church, to bring the eschaton into the present age. We must co-opt the biological impulse of tribalism to unite all of humanity to Christ—but that is a task that must begin within ourselves. May God give us the strength.
Essays
The Trouble with Tribalism | Dr. Nicholas Mizer
Managing Tribalism in Our Lives: Some Insights from Arab Thought | Adam Zeidan
Church as Community: Change and Renewal in American Parishes | Fr. Michael Plekon
Orthodoxy and Nationalism | Nicholas Sooy
10 Rules for Talking Politics and Religion | Fr Matthew Brown
Tribalism and Psychotherapy: An Interview | Nick Tabor
Articles
Embracing Suffering: St Nilus | Dn Stephen Muse
Three Ways to Pray | Desiree Scorcia
Worshipping with Our Children | Mat. Kathryn Los Tekosis
The Saint Who Refused to Be Commander-in-Chief | Nicholas Sooy
Shine, Shine, New Jerusalem | Dn Patrick Baumgarth
Trinity and the Cosmos: An Interview with a Planetary Geologist | Nick Tabor
Good Church Singing Starts with Kids | Maria Sheehan
Icons in Sound: The Music of Fr Sergei Glagolev | Harrison Russin
Teens and Their Parents | Angelina Christos
Trust and Vulnerability | Larisa Paxton
Children’s Page
Diocesan Life
A Word from Our Archbishop
Dispatch from St Andrew’s Camp | Mat. Tamar Cowan
Blessing of Vehicles | Fr Theodore Gregory
St Nick’s Family Night | Fr Matthew Brown