A Few Kind Words for Jay Dyer(and some random thoughts)

As some of the readers of this blog may know, when Nicene Truth first came on to the blogosphere I was very excited.

Jay, and at that time Robert and David(co-contributors) on Nicene Truth were delving into subject matter which I felt was not being given any attention, i.e. the subjects of Freemasonry, the occult and like subjects.

I will not go into depth in this post as to why I feel such matters are important except to state that when one goes beneath the surface into the machinations of behind the scenes people of influence and start to really understand the power grid of this fallen world, many surprising(and shocking--and yes terrifying) things may all of a sudden come into the consciousness to make one re-examine this present world order and its course and what power lies in the shadows, seemingly just beyond the reach of outright probing and "normal" reality.

These subjects put flesh on "evil" as not simply a philosophical problem(as when the "Problem of Evil" is discussed especially in regards to the old philosophical problem which asks, simply, "If God is good, how can there be evil?") and then lenghty discussions take place on many different fronts about this problem and it's usually cast in a scholarly way and it's neat and tidy and fires up the cerebral faculties and it rests there.

Rarely do I see anyone speak of the Devil and the fallen hosts discussed in a manner which bespeaks of his real operation in the real world that you and I live in.

Jay posted this article making a fairly good case and plea for the reader to take into his consideration that the reality in Jesus' day, that of demons actually being in people and needing to be cast out, has not just simply vanished or been proven wrong because of the "advanced" age in which we currently find ourselves. This reality of demons is in fact intact and very correlated to the "normal" reality we each find ourselves in.

Perhaps the saying of the Lord is appropriate here as Christianity recedes and in rushes idolatry anew and strengthened:

LUKE 11: 24"When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.'

25 "And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order.

26 "Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; an the last state of that man is worse than the first."

The Lord, as the Light of the world shone brightly but now is He, the Light, being rejected by the world en mass and in are rushing the spirits, bringing with them hosts of great wickedness which is just beginning to gather more power and momentum and where evil exists, darkness is comfortable, not fearing the exposure of the Light.

Jay Dyer's posting on these subjects was welcome for me, even though even amongst the "conspiricists" great variance is to be found in their beliefs and there is some really kooky stuff out there.

I received an e-mail from Robert Nash inviting me to participate on Nicene Truth and spoke on the phone with Robert a few times, and Jay once and we were all pretty excited about what was planned on this blog.

I myself did not post often, three articles were posted to be exact and if the reader is interested in reading those, they may be found on the sidebar of this blog under "Posts of Mine on Nicene Truth".

Which, because of my involvement, I feel I should say just a few words about Jay's decision to remain in the Roman Catholic Church as I too was startled to some degree when I read Jay's article refuting Jay by his Retraction of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I, too, feel it a personal decision which Jay undertook and I do not wish to persuade him otherwise but along with NeoChalcedonian on his farewell article regarding Jay's departure from the Orthodox Church I too would echo that Jay, like all of us, needs prayer that he may find peace within himself as he states in his retraction that he wants to rest. But I too would disagree with Jay on his line of reasoning.

This issue of East and West, The Orthodox Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church, as any one of us has found on either side of the debate, is very complex, layered, and does not lend itself to knockout punches whereby our opponents are instantly converted by seemingly airtight arguments rendered on them.

So I am not constructing an airtight argument as to why Jay may or may not be right or wrong but rather, sharing some thoughts as I contemplated this particular event(which to me is an event because of my involvement-to a very limited degree as already stated, on Nicene Truth, one day, and the next, in tuning in, I am no longer involved and the prime author has retracted everything he said previously in regards to Eastern Orthodoxy-surprised me!)

Jay cites some statements which he uses as a case to build for the primacy of the pope as it, primacy, is held today by the Roman Catholic Church.

I don't believe that Jay has taken into account that these statements, made by popes and others, were made at the time when the Holy Orthodox Catholic Faith flowed between and through the Five Sees; the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

The citations Jay provides were written at a time when Rome herself was indeed Orthodox, and from the high remarks lavished on her in lieu not only of her position as the First See but also because of her exemplary Orthodoxy and the keeping of that one salvific Faith preserved and undiminished when other Sees were beset with heresy.

Rome was Orthodox and this is why the East "tolerated" her position because they were brethren, confessing one and the same Faith together and gladly accorded primacy, as it, primacy, existed then in its proper context.

Jay, it would seem, like many, confuse "The Place" with "The Faith". Though the two may converge and subsist together in place, substance and time, they do not necessarily do at all times as witnessed by the East's rejection of Orthodoxy and Rome's keeping of it especially in the life of our Holy Father in the Faith Maximos, who left " the Greeks" in the East because they had abandoned the Orthodox Catholic Faith and fled to the West because there that Holy Faith was intact and held by Pope Saint Martin and those with him.

So Constantinople, "the Place" exchanged "The Faith" for a heresy and that Faith it once held, though similar in appearance was not "The Faith" but something else.

The holding of Rome as the guarantor of the pure Apostolic Faith sheerly because of "the Place" is incorrect.

Does she confess that One Faith held in common by all at all times(St.Vincent of Lerins) or does she not?

Rome has come up with many ways to explain her "development", as still that same church. Because she, Rome, is that "Place", she holds the outer form and memory of the tradition for which she was revered but inwardly she is composed of something other than that one substance of the Lord's Body.

Hold still, everyone, because we may in our lifetime witness another schism in the Church if the Ecumencial Patriarch Bartholomew continues as he is in opposition to Moscow, who is holding the line formulating Orthodox answers to modern problems and challenges but of course is considered as narrow and old fashioned for doing so.

If Constantinople should, for argument's sake, unify with the Roman Catholic Church, the Patriarch of Constantinople would cease to be "Orthodox" despite the fact that he takes up residence in the place Constantinople as Patriarch of the New Rome. He would in effect not hold in common that Faith held by the other Patriarchs.

Jay, though not putting too much emphasis on Vladimir Solovyev, maybe could check this out and then decide if he would wish to continue to employ Vladimir in his decision making process.

As well, I don't think it fair, based on his reading of of certain Orthodox authors,approaching them in a certain mindset, to take away that we Orthodox Catholics do not hold to the sovereignty of God:

"O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who are in all places and fill all things"...

Jay is correct in stating that the "juridical" is important in understanding God and salvation though the emphasis on the juridical would seem to be elevated in the West to an unnatural degree and thus deforms other aspects of salvation.

Orthodoxy, nay, the Christian Faith is "Eastern" in origin and hence the misunderstanding invariably arises for the mind shaped in the western model to "understand" Orthodoxy. Person hood is understood differently in the East as well as salvation. Orthodoxy maintains this "easterness" and draws from this different ontological soil in speaking to the West.

For a good article, that may shed some light on this different approach to knowledge, try this, "Introduction to Humility".

The East finds itself constantly having to "define" itself cataphatically, a way She is not comfortable with, to the West and cannot be made sense of except by the one entering the Church as through a veil, behind the outer appearance and into Her Being, being immersed in Her.

In one sense I found it strange that Jay, taking to task the East for taking to task the West in many areas, would not, in handling "conspiracy" information, posit the possibility of an existence of a history as held by the East as perhaps the true history in that the West, in its seeming victory in its imposition of its worldview and mindset, gets to tell the story from its own perspective. The obvious analogy being that in much accepted "news", those holding the power are telling us what is "true" about any number of things; meanwhile, anyone doing some research finds it hard to accept the "Official Story".

Is it possible that this self-same operation is at work when dealing with what version of the Church is regarded as true?

The East, as the one transplanted here and only really just beginning to grow, is having to adopt the Western structure out of necessity that a dialogue may take place between both.

As the newcomer, it must by necessity use the West's structure and grid and terminology within which the West, as its creator and user, has become long accustomed to and at home in and knows how to wield its armaments properly and adeptly to ward off any sortie by the East into its consciousness and hegemony for control of information.

All in all I would only say that Jay put together an article that helped sort out his own thoughts on the reason he chose to remain Roman Catholic instead of becoming Orthodox Catholic but again I would add that it is a matter of approach, in a sense, the will that sits behind knowledge which directs the one possessing knowledge into the direction that seems to be the right one.

I wish you my best, friend Jay, and I would hope to meet you one day.