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What a great and enlightening read. I'm really glad to see this thread is still alive and kicking.

This may be the best thread I've ever read. I've been following it from the beginning and I can't wait for the next post.

I'm Eastern Orthodox, but this thread has convinced me that the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church constitute THE Church in Christ's eye. Sure there's some very real differences in theology, but the roads obviously lead to the same place.

The analogy that continually springs to mind is that of theories on the art of acting.

On one hand there are the representational actors. This is the style of acting made famous by the English and it could be argued that Lawrence Olivier is the finest example of this style of acting. The representational actor will contort itself into the behavior and walk the walk of the character it wants to portray and trust that this discipline will cause an internal shift in the actor and the actor will be become the character it wishes.

On the other hand is the presentational actors. The presentational style of acting was fully developed into a discipline in Russia by Stanislavsky and it could be argued that Marlon Brando is the finest example of this style of acting. The Stanislavsky style of acting will work to create an internal shift in its psyche and trust that his outward behavior will be affected by this internal state and he'll become the character he wishes.

Both Olivier and Brando are to be considered fully actualized actors and neither path they choose to take could be considered wrong yet they both lead to the truth of their characters. Neither discipline is wrong and both lead to the truth.

Hopefully this analogy isn't too simplistic and out of place in such an extremely thoughtful thread, and please forgive me for sliding Marlon Brando into the conversation :-D

Thanks to all the participants for making this such a remarkable thread. Now all of you just ignore me and get back at it, but remember... God is watching ;-)