Letter From The Editor

by Rev. MATTHEW BROWN

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 history of this little journal and to adapt it to our present moment. Since its debut in the early 1980s, Jacob’s Well has been a blessing to the entire Englishspeaking Orthodox world, and we hope to renew and advance that legacy.

We are all indebted to Father John Shimchick, rector of the Church of the Holy Cross, Medford, NJ, for his 28 years of service as editor of Jacob’s Well. He gave our diocese something to be proud of: a magazine of unique quality and spiritual depth. Following his example, each issue of the magazine will be dedicated to a theme, such as Death and Dying, for example, or Tradition and Change—and though they’ll concern eternal questions, they will also correspond to contemporary issues in church life.

Taking an integrative approach, each issue’s articles will address its theme 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.

We must find a way to redirect our tribalism, 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 manifestations of tribalism in our communities today and to suggest ways of resolving 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 the Good Samaritan, the healing of the Centurion’s daughter, or the command to “make disciples of all nations,” He worked to dismantle the tribalism of his own Jewish community. But as with the Law, He did not abolish tribalism but fulfilled it. He created a new tribe: one based not 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. Because we all bear the image of God, we are all eligible for membership. 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.