Posted on 06/11/2005 7:27:43 AM PDT by sionnsar
Ten years ago or so I dreamed that I was an Orthodox priest. If you had asked me even three years ago what if I would become if I ever decided to leave the Episcopal Church, I would have replied “Eastern Orthodox.” Yet today I find myself becoming what I truly never seriously considered until the past two years.
Why did I not choose to become Orthodox? Who but God can answer? All such matters are a mystery, a mystery between the mystery of the human heart and the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Rational analysis takes one only so far. All I really know is that during the past two years, as I intently studied both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, I found myself increasingly drawn, against my will and desire, and certainly to my amazement, to Catholicism.
I love the liturgy and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church. It speaks to the depths of my heart. I long to pray the Divine Liturgy and be formed by its music, poetry, beaity, and ritual.
I love the integration of theology, dogma, spirituality, and asceticism within Orthodoxy. There is a wholeness to Orthodox experience that is compelling, powerful, and attractive on many different levels. This wholeness refuses any bifurcation between mind and heart and invites the believer into deeper reconciliation in Christ by the Spirit. This wholeness is something that Western Christians particularly need, as we confront and battle the corrosive powers of Western modernity and secularism.
I love the reverence and devotion Orthodoxy gives to the saints and church fathers, who are experienced in the Church as living witnesses to the gospel of Christ Jesus. I love the icons.
And I love the theological writings of many Orthodox writers, especially Alexander Schmemann and Georges Florovsky. For all these reasons and for many more, it would have been oh so very easy for me to become Orthodox.
But two features in particular gave me pause.
First, I am troubled by Orthodoxy’s “Easternness.” The coherence and power of Orthodoxy is partially achieved by excluding the Western tradition from its spiritual and theological life. One is hard-pressed to find an Orthodox writer who speaks highly of the Western Church, of her saints, ascetics, and theologians, of her manifold contributions to Christian religion and Western civilization. According to Orthodox consensus, Western Christianity went off the tracks somewhere along the way and must now be judged as a heresy. Understandably, Eastern Christianity considers itself the touchstone and standard by which the Western tradition is to be judged.
To put it simply, Orthodoxy has no real place for St Augustine. He is commemorated as a saint, but the bulk of his theological work is rejected. The noted scholar, Fr John Romanides, has been particularly extreme. I raised my concern about Orthodoxy and the West a year ago in my blog article Bad, bad Augustine. In that article I cited one of the few Orthodox scholars, David B. Hart, who has been willing to address Orthodox caricature of Western theologians:
The most damaging consequence, however, of Orthodoxy’s twentieth-century pilgrimage ad fontes—and this is no small irony, given the ecumenical possibilities that opened up all along the way—has been an increase in the intensity of Eastern theology’s anti-Western polemic. Or, rather, an increase in the confidence with which such polemic is uttered. Nor is this only a problem for ecumenism: the anti-Western passion (or, frankly, paranoia) of Lossky and his followers has on occasion led to rather severe distortions of Eastern theology. More to the point here, though, it has made intelligent interpretations of Western Christian theology (which are so very necessary) apparently almost impossible for Orthodox thinkers. Neo-patristic Orthodox scholarship has usually gone hand in hand with some of the most excruciatingly inaccurate treatments of Western theologians that one could imagine—which, quite apart form the harm they do to the collective acuity of Orthodox Christians, can become a source of considerable embarrassment when they fall into the hands of Western scholars who actually know something of the figures that Orthodox scholars choose to caluminiate. When one repairs to modern Orthodox texts, one is almost certain to encounter some wild mischaracterization of one or another Western author; and four figures enjoy a special eminence in Orthodox polemics: Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and John of the Cross.
Ironically, the various contributions by Perry Robinson and Daniel Jones, here on Pontifications and elsewhere, have heightened my concern. Both have sought, in various ways, to demonstrate that Western theology is incompatible with the catholic faith. While I have neither the training nor wit to follow many of their arguments, I am convinced that their project is wrong. Both presume that one can know the catholic faith independent of ecclesial commitment and formation. If one insists, for example, that St Maximos the Confessor, read through a post-schism Eastern lens, is our authoritative guide to a proper reading of the sixth Ecumenical Council, then of course Augustinian Catholicism will come off looking badly, despite the fact that Maximos was himself a great supporter of the prerogatives of Rome and despite the fact that Rome was instrumental in the defeat of monotheletism. Yet Catholicism embraces both Augustine and Maximos as saints, even though it is clear that Maximos has had minimal influence upon Western reflection, at least until very recently. Clearly Rome did not, and does not, understand the dogmatic decrees of III Constantinople as contradicting Western christological and trinitarian commitments. As much as I respect Perry and Daniel and am grateful for both their erudition and civility and their stimulating articles on these matters, it seems to me that their conclusions are more determined by their theological and ecclesial starting points than by “neutral” scholarship. And one thing I do know: there is always a brighter guy somewhere who will contest one’s favorite thesis.
Neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism, in my judgment, can be conclusively identified as the one and true Church by these kinds of rational arguments, as interesting and important as they may be in themselves. Arguments and reasons must be presented and considered as we seek to make the necessary choice between Rome and Constantinople, yet ultimately we are still confronted by mystery and the decision and risk of faith.
If the catholicity of Orthodoxy can only be purchased by the practical expulsion of Augustine and Aquinas, then, at least in my own mind, Orthodoxy’s claim to be the one and true Church is seriously undermined. A truly catholic Church will and must include St Augustine and St Maximos the Confessor, St Gregory Palamas and St Thomas Aquinas. A truly catholic Church will keep these great theologians in conversation with each other, and their differences and disagreements will invite the Church to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the divine mysteries. To set one against the other is not catholic, but partisan.
Second, I am troubled by the absence of a final court of appeal in controversies of faith and morals. We Anglicans are now witnessing first-hand the disintegration of a world-wide communion partially because of the absence of a divinely instituted organ of central authority. In the first millenium the Church employed the Ecumenical Council to serve as this final authority; but for the past thirteen centuries Orthodoxy has been unable to convene such a council. Is it a matter of logistics, or is the matter perhaps more serious, a question of constitutional impotence? Or has God simply protected the Orthodox from serious church-dividing heresies during this time, thereby temporarily obviating the need for such a council? Regardless, it seems to me that if Orthodoxy truly is the one Church of Jesus Christ in the exclusive sense it claims to be, then not only would it be confident in its power and authority to convene an Ecumenical Council, but it would have done so by now.
Yet as Orthodoxy begins to seriously engage the worldview and values of modernity (and post-modernity), the need for a final tribunal will perhaps become more evident. Consider just one example—contraception. It used to be the case that all Orthodox theologians would have roundly denounced most (all?) forms of contraception. But over the past twenty years or so, we have seen a growing diversity on this issue amongst Orthodox thinkers. Some state that this is really a private matter that needs to be decided between the believer and his parish priest. Clearly this privatization of the issue accords with modern sensibilities; but I am fearful of the consequences. Given the absence of a final court of appeal, does Orthodoxy have any choice but to simply accept diversity on many of the burning ethical questions now confronting us? Can Orthodoxy speak authoritatively to any of them?
For the past two years I have struggled to discern whether to remain an Anglican (in some form or another) or to embrace either Orthodoxy or Catholicism. Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism make mutually exclusive claims to be the one and true Church of Jesus Christ. We are confronted by a stark either/or choice. An Anglican is tempted to retreat to a branch theory of the Church, and on that basis make a decision on which tradition appeals to him most; but both Orthodoxy and Catholicism emphatically reject all such branch theories. There is only one visible Church. To become either Orthodox or Catholic means accepting the claim of the respective communion to ecclesial exclusivity. How do we rightly judge between them?
One thing we cannot do. We cannot pretend that we can assume a neutral vantage point. Oh how much easier things would be for all of us if God would call us on our telephones right now and tell us what to do!
The Pope convenes the College of Cardinals in emergency session. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” he says. “The good news is this: I just received a phone call from God!” Everyone cheers. “But here’s the bad news: God lives in Salt Lake City.”
I cannot see the Church from God’s perspective. I am faced with a choice. Good arguments can be presented for both Orthodoxy and Catholicism; none appear to be absolutely decisive and coercive. Moreoever, considerations that seem important to me are probably irrelevant to the large majority of people. “The Church is a house with a hundred gates,” wrote Chesterton; “and no two men enter at exactly the same angle.” Finally, I can only rely upon my reason, my intuitions, my feelings, my faith, under the grace and mercy of God. May God forgive me if I have chosen wrongly.
(cont)
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Any answers to his questions?
So would I be.
An Ecumenical Council requires the presence of the Pope or his legate, and must be attended by the Church of the East as well as the West. In addition to that, they have to profess the same faith. Thus, it is not possible for the Eastern Orthodox, or the Roman Catholic Church to call an Ecumenical Council at the present moment -- although Roman Catholics claim to have had more such councils simply because the Orthodox were invited.
The Orthodox Church was not just 'lucky' not to need 'central authority' as the author speculates -- the Eastern Church never had central authority. The Patriarch of the West, on the other hand, always ruled his Patriarchate as a central authority. The undivided Church had five Patriarch, four of whom were Eastern. Western Church never knew more than one patriarch at one time.
Could it be that the Orthodox just 'do it better' by following in the Apostolic tradition of equality among bishops and fraternal consensus?
As for the author's rambling about St. Augustine -- he apparently does not understand that individual fathers do not make pronouncements for the Church. The Ecumenical Councils do. St. Augustine was free to speculate, but the Church does not have to accept it as something carved in stone. His work was unknown to the East for over 1,000 years. Some of it is in agreement with the teachings of the East and some of it (i.e. "original sin") is rejected.
The Orthodox are not bashing Western Christianity, as this person asserts. We can read your theology. We find it unrecognizable in some cases, because the undivided Church knew not of some of the innovations added after the Schism.
The problem the Orthodox see with Western theology is best described by Prof. Alexander Kalimoros in his The River of Fire, which I highly recommend for reading by the non-Orthodox:
We find this foreign and distant. The Western concept of God is alien to the East
What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God?...Do you see, then, that Western theology teaches that our real danger and our real enemy is our Creator and God? Salvation, for Westerners, is to be saved from the hands of God!
The divide goes along the juridical concepts of God prevalent in the West, and as such nothing even close to the Church as it was established by the patristic tradition.
Western Christians thought about God’s justice in the same way also; God, the infinite Being, was infinitely insulted by Adam’s disobedience. He decided that the guilt of Adam’s disobedience descended equally to all His children, and that all were to be sentenced to death for Adam’s sin, which they did not commit. God’s justice for Westerners operated like a vendetta. Not only the man who insulted you, but also all his family must die. And what was tragic for men, to the point of hopelessness, was that no man, nor even all humanity, could appease God’s insulted dignity, even if all men in history were to be sacrificed. God’s dignity could be saved only if He could punish someone of the same dignity as He. So in order to save both God’s dignity and mankind, there was no other solution than the incarnation of His Son, so that a man of godly dignity could be sacrificed to save God’s honor.
Finally, the author says
“The Church is a house with a hundred gates,” wrote Chesterton; “and no two men enter at exactly the same angle.” Finally, I can only rely upon my reason, my intuitions, my feelings, my faith, under the grace and mercy of God
Well that betrays his Anglican roots, no doubt -- and Protestant mind; when it comes to truth, we trust ourselves. Adam is alive and well!
Unfortunately, I now have to leave for a busy day and half -- though I hope to check in tonight.
For those of us who didn't follow (Ok, that would be me) - what is WCC or NCC?
NCC - National Council of Churches. Gets most of its funding from the liberals at the United Methodists and Presbyterian Church USA. A collection of liberal denominations dedeicated to furthering their liberal agenda. Bible believing groups stay away from that crowd.
WCC- World Council of Churches - Left front organization with a global outlook and an anti-American agenda.
Thanks.
Getting offline - Arlene is coming ashore - 20 miles off shore but I have some things to do.
There are more former Anglicans and former Anglican clergy in Orthodoxy than you can shake a stick at. There are obviously a lot to chose to go Catholic as well. Others have elected to try to maintain Anglican distinctives in the Continuing Anglican world. Others have decided to do the best they can within "official" Anglicanism.
I think that if you look at each of these choices, you will find a lot of complex reasons for their choices. At root, I think that a lot of the things that drive these decisions depend on what kind of Anglican one was in the first place, what ones personal influences are, what ones inclinations are, and what one sees as being the deficiencies of Anglicanism.
For the author of this piece, it appears that having centralized authority is important, and it seems that his personal vision of of what Anglicanism (or rather, Christianity) should be involves an embrace of Thomistic scholastic thinking. In this case, it would really not make sense to become Orthodox.
One thing that he says that I basically agree with is when he says:
Neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism, in my judgment, can be conclusively identified as the one and true Church by these kinds of rational arguments, as interesting and important as they may be in themselves. Arguments and reasons must be presented and considered as we seek to make the necessary choice between Rome and Constantinople, yet ultimately we are still confronted by mystery and the decision and risk of faith.
I would disagree that the choice between Rome and Orthodoxy is "necessary" for Anglicans -- it ignores the fact that some traditional Anglicans are very satisfactorily pursuing their spiritual journey within the Continuing churches and even within official Anglicanism itself, and that they have valid reasons for not wanting to convert either to Catholicism or Orthodoxy.
That said, for those who feel that they perhaps cannot remain within Anglicanism, reading books and having discussions are important things, but the centerpiece of any Anglican's decision must be "come and see."
Christianity is personal, not an abstract theology. Christian theology is learned at prayer, not with one's nose in a systematic theology textbook. To see what a church believes, see how they worship and how they live. One should visit the Orthodox churches in one's area several times, and get to know people. One should visit the Catholic churches in one's area and get to know people.
Only then can an Anglican know whether he wants to take another step on a spiritual journey, and what that step should be.
We have a retired Anglican priest who regularly attends our parish. At first, he had a lot of questions about what we believe and questions on books to read. It is interesting that, especially since going through Holy Week with us, he seems more and more to be just absorbing the services, which he attends more and more, now attending virtually every weekday and weekend service. Any discussions are about the hymns that were chanted in the service -- not in a dissecting way, but in the sense of continuing to experience them.
I have no idea whether he will become Orthodox. I don't think anyone has even discussed the matter with him, nor is there any need to, unless he decides to bring the matter up himself. We have a Methodist minister who has been attending our Vespers off and on for years, and a Catholic priest who is at Vespers more often than not. We enjoy them all, and don't presume to tell them where their journey needs to go, and when.
A very valid argument. Sentiment runs very high in many parts of Orthdoxy to leave both institutions. The churches of Serbia, Georgia, Jerusalem, and Bulgaria have all passed resolutions or issued statements that to some extent reduce or eliminate involvement in the WCC. The monasteries on Mt. Athos have issued very strong statements in this regard.
The ROCOR has always held strongly that we should be involved in neither organization, and frankly this is the major sticking point in the efforts to restore communion between the ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate, now that communism has fallen. It wouldn't surprise me if the MP uses this restoration of communion as an excuse to pull out of the WCC, since the Russian hierarchy and laity seem not at all to be fond of ecumenism as it has been done in the past.
When the WCC began, leading Orthodox hierarchs and figures felt that it was the duty of the Orthodox to participate in order to give witness to the Orthodox faith. In retrospect, this was very faulty reasoning, but it is hard to put oneself back to that time today and predict what would happen. Consistently, the Orthodox have produced their own "dissenting views," to counterbalance the official declarations. At first, these where duly published, but with time the liberal cabal has more and more sidelined the Orthodox voice.
At the time that this happened, there was sentiment to withdraw, but there were many who felt that the WCC meetings were the few opportunities that Orthodox churches in the free world had to communicate with those Churches locked down under communism. Again, with hindsight, probably not good reasoning, since what often happened was the Soviet Union manipulating the Soviet bloc Orthodox churches into helping it pursue its political ends via the WCC.
At this time, there is no good reason to belong to either organization. It is clear that there is nobody in the WCC listening to what the Orthodox have to say, it is clear that there is no "iron curtain" preventing free communication with those churches in the former Soviet bloc, and it is clear that there are those, like you, who believe that our involvement in the organization implies that we agree with it theologically and politically. We do not, but it is not reasonable to expect people to come to another conclusion than that, and thus I and many, many others believe that we need to get out, and the sooner the better.
At this point, to be honest, most of what keeps us in is probably the combination of the Orthodox tendency to inertia and passive resistance rather than open conflict and high-profile sudden moves or statements. That and the fact that, as with any other church, there are people who have built their entire careers around ecumenism -- and those sorts of folks tend to have a bureaucratic mindset that allows them to effectively pursue infighting in attempts to protect their turf.
*** The "God" of the West is an offended and angry God, ... What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God?...***
kosta50, though much of the material in your quoted text seems to evidence an misunderstanding of (at least) Protestant theology, do you not see in the Scriptures this concept of "salvation" being ultimately salvation from the wrath of God?
Romans 5:9
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Ephesians 5:6
Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience
Colossians 3:6
For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
and especially...
1 Thessalonians 1:10
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
***Second, I am troubled by the absence of a final court of appeal in controversies of faith and morals. We Anglicans are now witnessing first-hand the disintegration of a world-wide communion partially because of the absence of a divinely instituted organ of central authority.***
The final court of appeals is Jesus Christ, who is "standing in the middle of the lampstands" and has the power to take away the candle from any church which disobeys him.
Why we think we need to jump in there and settle all matters (often with a judicial sword might I add) is beyond me.
Jesus said, "Any plant that my Father hath not planted shall be rooted up". He didn't say, "I want you to go root them up."
If the Anglican communion disentegrates it is because the real court of appeals, the heavenly court, has passed sentence on it and it's light has been taken away.
Agreed. If this is Al Kimel, though, I vaguely recall his being very down on the Continuing churches.
Every Western Christian community has a history in Orthodoxy, using historic Western liturgies, not the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The Orthodox West went off the track with the papal "reform" in the 9th-11th centuries, led by Frankish popes and the abbey of Cluny. This produced papal monarchy (or imperialism), the imposition of the filioque, clerical celibacy, and the Great Schism. The Norman Conquest, for example, was in part a religious war, to impose the papal "reform" on Orthodox England and Ireland.
The excesses resulting from the papal "reform" also made the Lutheran Refomation necessary. Luther and his early Lutheran colleagues were arguably trying to restore Orthodoxy to the West. But they had no living Orthodox community to serve as a template for this, so they (doing the best that they could) fell short of the mark. The other Protestants, for the most part, went even farther astray, and had no real interest in restoring Orthodoxy.
Despite the host of Orthodox theologians who attack "the heresies of the Latins", Orthodoxy is not inherently anti-Western. Western Christian churches, in dialogue with their Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters, need to find their way home. All the post-modern issues facing the Anglican, Lutheran, and even Roman Catholic communions show the reason why!
What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God?...Do you see, then, that Western theology teaches that our real danger and our real enemy is our Creator and God? Salvation, for Westerners, is to be saved from the hands of God!
It is this aspect of the "Western" God that Luther revolted against as well.
See my post #17 with respect to Luther and Orthodoxy. That post over-simplifies a lot on that subject, which is a long story indeed. Luther only knew the Orthodox Church from reading, not as a living community. And he also started from 16th century Roman Catholic terminology and presupositions. Thus he could only get so far.
Kosta, you ought to read this passage from the article again:
"More to the point here, though, it has made intelligent interpretations of Western Christian theology (which are so very necessary) apparently almost impossible for Orthodox thinkers. Neo-patristic Orthodox scholarship has usually gone hand in hand with some of the most excruciatingly inaccurate treatments of Western theologians that one could imagine—which, quite apart form the harm they do to the collective acuity of Orthodox Christians, can become a source of considerable embarrassment when they fall into the hands of Western scholars who actually know something of the figures that Orthodox scholars choose to caluminiate. When one repairs to modern Orthodox texts, one is almost certain to encounter some wild mischaracterization of one or another Western author; and four figures enjoy a special eminence in Orthodox polemics: Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and John of the Cross."
His point is perfectly illustrated by the commentary you have posted e.g.:
"The "God" of the West is an offended and angry God, full of wrath for the disobedience of men, who desires in His destructive passion to torment all humanity unto eternity for their sins, unless He receives an infinite satisfaction for His offended pride.
What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God?...Do you see, then, that Western theology teaches that our real danger and our real enemy is our Creator and God? Salvation, for Westerners, is to be saved from the hands of God!"
This nonsense is so off the wall that there are probably no Protestants or Catholics that would recognize this as bearing any resemblance whatsoever to "Western theology". It is a gross misrepresentation of St. Augustine and all the Western fathers, and it comes across, from our perspective, as something at the level of a Jack Chick comic.
If this is where you guys get your information on Western theology then no wonder we are incomprehensible to you. If you really want to understand what the West believes then I recommend that you read the Fathers and the Saints in their own words and not have them filtered for you by someone who seems to be writing from a basis of ethnic bigotry rather than rational objectivity.
The wrath of God is part of His justice, where mercy triumphs over judgment. Kalomiros says "His justice means His goodness and love, which are given in an unjust manner, that is, God always gives without taking anything in return, and He gives to persons like us who are not worthy of receiving...to the evil and impious."
And just as His thoughts and ways are not ours, neither is His justice anything like ours. From our rational point of view, His justice is "not at all just since it punishes and demands satisfaction from persons which were not at all responsible for the sin of their forefathers."
God is love and what can Love do but offer mercy and forgiveness, even to the wicked? To our very last breath, God's "punishments are loving means of correction, as long as anything can be corrected and healed in this life."
By necessity, the Scriptures describe God in anthropomorphic terms which often mislead us into a tendency to humanize God, which is a Greek pagan legacy. Ancient Greeks thought of gods as immortal and powerful humans, with human emotions and character shortcomings of jealousy, passion, etc.
We Orthodox do no such thing. It is our apophatic understanding that "God neither rejoices nor grows angry, for to rejoice and to be offended are passions; nor is He won over by the gifts of those who honor Him, for that would mean He is swayed by pleasure. It is not right that the Divinity feel pleasure or displeasure from human conditions."
Consequently, His justice -- His mercy -- is not based on passions, pleasure or satisfaction in human terms, as humans see justice. Western juridical theology incorporates this profoundly human aspect of justice as God's. Catholics and Protestants "rather consider God as being chained by a superior force, by a gloomy and implacable Necessity like the one which governed the pagan gods. This Necessity obliges Him to return evil for evil and does not permit Him to pardon and to forget the evil done against His will, unless an infinite satisfaction is offered to Him."
This stems from the fact that St. Augustine, for reasons that may have a lot to do with his own personal failings and guilt developed this idea that it was God Who deprived us of His Grace and punished us with death, rather than see that we rejected God and His Grace. Thus, to the Orthodox mindset, the whole of Western Christianity is turned upside down from the start and consequently the rest of the Western phronema follows in the same fashion.
Thus, the wrath of God is understood in the opposite way as well. We do not see God's wrath as something He does to punish humanity that He loves, as it is understood in the West. God's judgment is mercy -- but to those who hate Him, it is a wrath. His burning love for humanity that warms and animates the believers, scorches, annoys and destroys those who hate Him.
If any one of us ends up in hell, it will be our doing, not His.
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