Fight, Flight or Freeze?

I RECENTLY presented a lecture titled “ Podvig : Notes towards the Definition of a Russian Option.” I prepared it as a response to Rod Dreher’s now world-famous Benedict Option (did you know his book has been translated into eleven languages!). Almost immediately after I finished delivering the lecture, I realized I had completely failed to actually answer the key question that had been posed to me: Fight or Flight?

I believe Eighth Day Institute’s annual Inklings Oktoberfest is an incarnation of part of the answer to that question. So I want to briefly reflect on the nature of that festival by offering you a first – and abbreviated – draft of what could be considered a second conclusion to that talk on podvig (you’ll have to wait for it’s publication to learn more about podvig …sorry!).

My good friend Dr. Mark Mosley sent me an interesting email when he discovered I was working on a lecture addressing the question of “Fight or Flight?” He reminded me that from both a physiological and a psychological perspective there is a third option (which happens to work nicely with the original alliteration): Fight, Flight, or Freeze?

If we find ourselves in danger and respond with either fight or flight, our heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate increase, as does our alertness and vigilance. However, if there is no chance for survival by fighting or fleeing and we respond by freezing, our nervous system reacts very differently: the heart rate slows down, it may cause us to fall over to preserve blood flow, or it may even simulate death so that a predator loses interest.

Dr. Mosley suggested that our culture might be better characterized as one that has “frozen” rather than one that is fighting or fleeing. According to Mosley, “The difference psychologically and culturally is that ‘fight or flight’ recognizes that the stimulus is a danger and responds with action. ‘Freeze,’ on the other hand, either cannot consciously recognize the ‘danger’ and respond with appropriate action or it avoids the danger by shutting all emotion and movement off as a way of controlling the fear response.”

I think Dr. Mosley is onto something. I think we are watching our western culture, which was forged by the early Church, writhe in its final death throes. And while there are still many who respond as “cultural warriors” and a few who actually flee to the mountains, I think many of us are simply frozen. We don’t know how to respond. We just don’t know what to do. This gives us an even stronger impetus to think carefully about the question of fight or flight and to adequately articulate an answer.

I believe the answer is both fight and flight. And if I was compelled to provide a pithy characterization of each response, I’d give you the following: Christians must respond to our secular age with an ascetic flight and a festive & intellectually coherent fight .

Flight is absolutely necessary. In many ways, with our media-saturated and noise-ridden world, flight is more necessary than ever. We must flee the ways of the world. And this flight must be an ascetic flight . The word asceticism comes from the Greek word askesis , which simply means exercise or training. In the early Church it came to signify spiritual training through practices such as solitude, silence, prayer, fasting, and confession. These ascetical practices help us overcome our passions, cleanse our perceptions, make us holy, restore our likeness to God. We must pray and fast.

In his novel The Devils , Dostoyevsky compares Russia with the Gadarene demoniac whom Christ alone could heal. I would suggest the same applies to the western world today. A legion of evil spirits has overtaken it and they are shaking it with convulsion, torturing and maiming it. The only hope for it to be set free is through a spiritual struggle, an ascetical exploit, a podvig , one that is invisible but of great proportions. We, the West, are possessed. And we desperately need an exorcism. Christ says this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting (Matt. 17:21). This is our ascetic flight.

But I would also insist on the fight response. Our ascetic flight (our prayer and fasting) is actually part of the Church’s fight. But there is more to be done. I believe we must also offer a festive, intellectually coherent fight . I think the world is hungry for an intellectually coherent and thus persuasive account of our faith. As Peter once put it in his first epistle, we must always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for our hope (1 Pet. 3:15). This is why I’m such a passionate advocate for reading, for returning to the Fathers. Eighth Day Institute organizes events that challenge your mind, that encourage you to think about your faith, that return you to your roots, all so you can renew our culture through faith and learning.

But an intellectually coherent fight is not enough. Our fight must also be festive. The Church does not limit Herself to austere seasons of fasting; there are also jubilant seasons of feasting. There is a time for sorrow and there is a time for joy. There is a time for flight and there is a time for fight. There is a time for fasting and there is a time for feasting. I believe the Church has a huge opportunity to show the world the joy of our life in Christ through feasts properly celebrated. There are so many rich feasts in the Church’s tradition. Moreover, many of them are already a part of the regular cycle of our secular world’s calendar (e.g., Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day). We just need to restore and display the deeply Christian and festive nature of their celebration.

And then there are the Inklings, a small group of friends who read and wrote together, who met at a pub regularly over pints and pipes with pencils in hand. They laughed and cried together. They praised and critiqued each other’s writings. They spurred one another on toward love and good deeds. Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, they encouraged one another to run the race set before them with endurance. They had a common faith in the nativity, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh. They fasted together in preparation for the annual commemoration of those world-changing events. And they feasted together with the joy of the knowledge that with the eighth day resurrection old things have passed away and all things are being made new (2 Cor. 5:17).

May we follow in their footsteps. May this small cloud of witnesses whom we call the Inklings spur us on toward love and good deeds. May their example of ascetic flight and intellectually coherent and festive fight encourage us to run the race set before us with strength and endurance. And may our common celebration of their lives and literary works be to the glory of our triune God and His Son’s glorious three-day resurrection for the life of the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist & Physician
Anno Domini 2019, October 18