Well there's triumphalism and then there's triumphalism

- Edited from original

Everyone decries triumphalism as being counterproductive. I sense that I come across triumphalistic at times in the negatively characterized sense. But I'm not convinced it is bad.

Here's the first definition from Answers.com

"The attitude or belief that a particular doctrine, especially a religion or political theory, is superior to all others."

Guilty - so? Orthodoxy is the fulness of the faith, where something unorthodox differs, it's wrong, damaging, and unhealthy. Truth is superior to error. I believe our anthem at Pascha expresses the truth of Christ's resurrection better than anything I came across before discovering Orthodoxy - "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." We glory in God's revelation to us through His Church.

Here's where I start to feel a twinge of wait a minute. Second definition from the aforenamed site,

"The term triumphalism is what anthropologists call an "observer's category"; it is generally taken as having a pejorative sense (see the Oxford English Dictionary) and few members of groups would identify themselves as being triumphalist.

The term is sometimes used to refer to relatively inconsequential behavior, such as excessively demonstrative glee at the defeat or failure of a sports rival. People experience triumphalism in this recreational form as collective pride (e.g., school spirit) or sports fanaticism (“We’re Number One!”).

Triumphalism also takes more consequential forms, including extreme forms of patriotism, nationalism or religious extremism.

Triumphalists may derive a sense of pride, security, or virtue from their sense of superiority and expectation of ultimate triumph. However, those who believe in their own group’s superiority or inevitable ascendancy do not typically claim the label ‘triumphalist.’ Instead, the term usually has a negative connotation and is used by those who do not accept the superiority of the belief or group in question, or by those who are warning against the effects of over-confidence and hubris within their own group."

One reason I don't watch Cowboy football games with as much engagement (other than the fact that Tom Landry's departure was so poorly handled) is that I see how people's emotions get so tied up in the outcome - I'm happy if my team squashes your team, I'm sad, feel like a failure, and have an identity crisis if yours squashes mine. One team, and their vicarious fans, gets a W on their forehead, the other gets an L. I've similarly detached myself from political competitions. But the trash talk, wrestling rhetoric is more blatant in that field. Athletic team commentators seem much more sportsman-like and objective about their analysis of why a team wins. They understand about attitude, ascetic discipline, the qualities of a good coach, diet, etc. Plus everything is subject to instant replay and drug testing so if a fast one is pulled, it's harder to hide. Though there are a few nanner nanner boo boo players along with that type of fan reaction. I think I'm starting to see how triumphalism can get categorized as a posture of wanting to bring someone down, rather than rejoicing in the beauty, success, health, and happiness engendered and embodied by proper form and content.

I confess a certain anger at heterodox religions and their defenders. I want them to suffer defeat and depopulization because of their damaging paradigms. I feel that I have been personally hurt by their teachings and practices, or more often, lack there-of. I know a lot of Orthodox want to properly give credit to their abandoned team by appreciating their providing partial truth which was better than nothing. I'm just getting tired of straining so hard to appreciate the good side of an abusive system. Like trying to appreciate how well an offensive scene was painted on canvas which was so superbly stretched. Why do we need to defend it? At the same time, I have sympathy for the artist who painted said scene and at the destructive influences that motivated him.

Some people's conversions were perhaps met with less violent reactions than mine was - I'm still shaking my head at the fall-out. And maybe I should feel guilty in rejoicing so triumphantly when I initially told my Protestant family of how I'd "seen the true light, received the heavenly Spirit, and found the true faith, worshipping the undivided Trinity who has saved us." Maybe this is why Jesus told the blind man to not tell anyone he'd been healed. But if I remember correctly, the healed people, not that I nor many of my fellow this-side-of-the-veil-bound inmates are healed, we've just found the BEST DOCTORS AT THE BEST HOSPITAL!!!!!! COME AND SEE, THERE'S ROOM FOR YOU TOO, IT'LL JUST COST YOU EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!!!!!, couldn't contain themselves.

So triumphalism in the bad sense is rejoicing that I personally am not a heretic like them, a la the Pharisee and the Publican. But in a more natural sense, I believe it is in rejoicing in the truth, and exposing the dangers of error, hoping that other people in those inferior religions will become more sensitized to unhealthy modes of living and come to rejoice with me in learning the intended, predestined one. Please pray for me that I will be healed of any wrong posturing.