My article, “A Passion for Government Leads to Neglect of Our Neighbor,” was published as today’s Acton Commentary. In it I examine the disconnect among many today between desires and deeds. Referencing a recent Pew Center report and the societal analysis of Wilhelm Röpke, I write,

If support for cuts of only 8 percent of last year's deficit is anathema, how much more so the hard decisions needed to restore our fiscal health? Willing the good -- care for those in need -- while working the bad -- intergenerational injustice -- is the disease of the day. The cure is not revolution or seeking government privilege or escape, but the commonsense “way of the Lord”: to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers” once again.

Furthermore, I conclude, “Just like John the Baptist preached to the ancient Jews, each of us needs to embrace a restorative repentance, refocusing on our duties to those who are nearest to us, and to God most of all. The way, indeed, may not be easy, but I’ve heard that ‘the burden is light.’”

In particular, I note our “common passion” for state-sponsored solutions to social problems, coming through deleterious deficit spending at the expense of the wealth of future generations. While I do support responsible entitlement reform (which, incidentally, the sequester didn't touch), the point of my article fits more with the character of Via Vitae -- there is much that people can do right now by adopting a new way of life. To explore this here further, I believe that a translation of the three monastic virtues -- virginity, poverty, and obedience -- to the way of life of everyday Christians may be the common asceticism needed to make great headway at such “restorative repentance.”

Besides being possibly the three least popular things in our culture today, virginity, poverty, and obedience are not just for monks, despite the label “monastic virtues.” To put them in perhaps more general terms, it may help to think of them as chastity, simplicity, and self-denial. Thus, I will use these terms interchangeably here.

In the context of discussing the U.S. Supreme Court’s track record on marriage-related cases, Patrick Fagan has recently written,

Sexual license and republican liberty cannot live together. One of them will supplant the other. Either we become a sexually restrained people -- a form of self-control needed for institutions that depend on liberty -- or, as we become more and more sexually unrestrained, we will need the all-helping state to do what we won’t be able to do for ourselves and our children.

Indeed, studies from both the right and the left have acknowledged the great societal benefit of stable, loving, low-conflict marriages. While sexual sins are not the only cause of marital conflict and breakdown, they are far too widespread and destructive to bury our heads in the sand and ignore them.

Possibly the most common error, I would contend, is to imagine that such sins are merely physical when, in fact, they begin in the heart. As St. John Cassian records,

The following severe saying is reported of St. Basil, the Bishop of Caesarea: “I know not woman and yet I am not a virgin.” By this he means that bodily purity consists not so much in foreswearing women but in integrity of heart. For it maintains a perpetual incorrupt holiness of heart whether from the fear of God or from love of purity. (Institutes 6.19)

Understood in this way, even the married need to learn and practice such virginity.

It is no coincidence either that Cassian's book on fornication immediately follows his book on gluttony. As many fathers have noted, if people cannot control their stomachs, then what hope do they have to control other parts of their bodies? Thus, to cure the passion of lust, Cassian first recommends fasting for the physical side of the problem, in addition to cultivating “a contrite spirit,” “perseverance in prayer,” meditation on the Scriptures, “manual labor,” and “above all, true humility” for the spiritual side. While these virtues and disciplines can be cultivated on a personal basis, all of them can be cultivated within communities, beginning with the family, the Church, our jobs, and other associations as appropriate. And as noted by Patrick Fagan and the studies mentioned above, the stability given to families and communities through chastity not only serves our spiritual growth but also the common good.

The next monastic virtue, poverty or simplicity, more typically would be regarded today as an injustice, rather than something good. While, of course, poverty can be truly oppressive, what the fathers mean by the term is a freely chosen, simplistic way of life. While I focus today in my Acton Commentary article on government debt, we should not ignore the fact that consumer credit card debt alone in the United States sits at $799.5 billion or $6,693 per household, as of the second quarter of 2012. We ought not to be surprised that our government cannot live within its means if so few of its citizens can either. On the whole, a culture of consumerism permeates our society; Americans refuse to wait until they can afford the luxuries of modern life, even in some cases, as of a 2006 Pew Center report, claiming that they “can’t live” without them.

The virtue of simplicity, on the other hand, helps us to be thankful for what we already enjoy and be content with what we have. I remember my first Great Lent as an Orthodox Christian. I was a single, poor, undergraduate. Having gone through half of the fast as basically vegan (as is the Orthodox ideal), which meant for my limited cooking skills a consistent diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and stir fries, I ran out of groceries and had to go shopping.

800px-Whole_Foods_Market,_InteriorHaving lived so simply, I will never forget the impact of walking into the supermarket that Lent. What abundance! There was food on top of food, of all kinds -- I had never truly internalized something so obvious before, the great overabundance of not only affordable food, but of whatever food we may choose. The experience was humbling, to say the least. Now, certainly families do not have as much dietary freedom as an undergraduate bachelor, but nevertheless, we all can do more to be content with less, luxuries in particular, cutting down on our debt and, hopefully, having something extra to give to those in our communities in need.

Lastly, a renewed appreciation and practice of the virtue of obedience or self-denial can help strengthen our society as well. While an anti-authoritarian strand of our culture would naturally disdain obedience, the fathers found it to be empowering. In particular, it prevents one from being a slave to one’s own will. “[T]o will is present with me,” writes St. Paul, “but how to perform what is good I do not find” (Romans 7:18).

The first and most important duty of obedience that we all share is to Jesus Christ, who is our ultimate deliverance from this predicament. However, self-denial is also traditionally commended in many other relationships: children to parents, laity to clergy, workers to employers, and mutual submission between husbands and wives, to name a few. Obedience, at its heart, cultivates a compulsory habit of service to others, precisely what we need to be doing more of today.

In cultivating these spiritual disciplines of the kingdom of God, we bring about substantial societal improvement for the common good. If we can cultivate these three virtues in our hearts and communities, there will be less need among us for impersonal and unsustainable government assistance, no matter whether or not any further official cuts are passed in Congress. In living the evangelical way of life, we naturally work toward correcting the intergenerational injustice that plagues the present day. And thankfully -- since such virtues depend on our initiative (and the grace of God, of course) rather than the arm of the state -- nothing is stopping us; we can begin today.