Notes on Orthodoxy

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Notes on Orthodoxy

Trevor Peterson

February 27, 2013

The other day Julie asked me if I was nishing my dissertation (my

dissertation that I never really got started on but nally admitted it sixyears ago and dropped out of the program). No, I was typesetting someold papers. Why? Just for fun.

My latest obsession is LATEX; now that Ive gone back and discoveredthat its caught up with Unicode (would I have got a more enthusiasticstart on my dissertation if XLATEX had come on the scene just a few yearsearlier?) Ive been converting some of my earlier writings from word pro-cessor documents. At rst I gured it was good practice to expose myselfto the various features of the software; then it became a mission to give mypapers new life. From creative writing projects that started almost a quar-

ter of a century ago to papers that laid the groundwork for my grad schoolmagnum opus that never materialized, theyre nding their way throughTEX, to PDF, and onto Scribd for all the world to see.

Its been a fascinating journey back through my past ramblings, but itstruck me at some point that the end result would be a rather outdatedpicture of who I am. Anyone who came across my trove on Scribd wouldencounter a young Evangelicalperhaps very young and very sure of him-self, or otherwise a bit older and more muddled. But I apparently aban-doned my word processor just when things were getting interesting.

I suppose at least some of the reason is that what came next requiredso much attention and energy that I purposely cut myself o from earlier

endeavors. I stopped teaching and preaching; I quit my academic program.But I didnt really stop writingit just shifted from the sort of thing thatwas shared on paper to the electronic medium of a blog. I never really hadvery many readers, but it helped me to organize my thoughts by writing

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them down; and I always thought that someone, somewhere might nd

them useful.Still, it takes a certain level of motivation to cull through a blog, toseparate the signicant from the mundane. If it has become a matter ofleaving my musings for posterity, perhaps Id better distill them downto something a bit more manageablesay, 50 pages of dense typeandpackage them in a format over which I can exert a bit more control.

Here, then, I present my more abstract thoughts on Orthodox Chris-tianity and the journey that took me there. Perhaps the more interestingpart contains the day-to-day musings that did not make the cut. For these,the blog is their most natural habitat and still the best place to nd them.But if youve come here to see me prattle on about various subjects, this

is prattling at its best. I do not hope that it has value, but maybe some ofit is at least interesting.

1 Explanation

At the furthest remove from the personal, I have sometimes felt the needto explain Orthodox faith and practice more or less objectively. Its nevertruly objective, of course, but the point is to start with what Orthodoxy isand where it comes from, then to explain why I would pursue it.

1.1 St. Ignatius vs. Evangelicals

Today is the commemoration of Ignatius of Antioch, which provoked meto go back and read some of his letters. Ignatius was bishop of Antiocharound the beginning of the second century. In fact, he was martyred soearly in the century, that for all practical purposes he can be called a rst-century Christian. Hes one of several known as Apostolic Fathersthegeneration of Church leaders immediately following the Apostles them-selves. He was a disciple of John and barely outlived his master. Short ofScripture itself, this is about as close as we get to the beginnings of Chris-

tianity. Im sure I must have read at least part of his letters sometime incollege or seminary, but I wasnt particularly interested at the time. Imnoticing some interesting things in them now:

He clearly assumes a governing structure of one bishop in the church

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of each city over several presbyters. (The English word priest, inci-

dentally, is derived from Greek presbyter, and apart from Protes-tant tradition translates the same. Protestants prefer the term el-der.)

He articulates a sacramental or salvic view of the eucharist (com-munion), calling it the medicine of immortality, an antidote toprevent us from dying, causing our eternal life.

He advises complete spiritual submission to the bishop and speaks ofhim as the representative of Christ (and the presbyters in the placeof the apostles). For him, the bishop is the center and source of unityfor the Church. Indeed, without the bishop and presbyters, there isno Church.

He hints at the salvic nature of the Church by indicating that notonly heresy is to be avoided, but schisms in general, and that anyonewho follows schismatics out of the Church is in danger for his soul.

He warns against heretics who (among other things) deny that theeucharist is the body and blood of Christ.

He invalidates communion or baptism that is not performed by thebishop or his agent.

And thats to say nothing of the intense devotion to the Virgin Mary thatappears in the so-called spurious epistles. (I make no judgment one wayor the other about their authenticity.)

I nd these points interesting, because they highlight the historicalproblem for Evangelicalism and Protestantism in general. These are ele-ments with which Evangelicals I know would take issue, and in so doingthey would have to say that a disciple of the Apostle John himselfnotjust any disciple, but one entrusted with oversight of the Church at An-tiochdeparted signicantly from the true, biblical model of the Churchand its ordinances. I dont think most Evangelicals quite realize the seri-

ousness of the charges they must bring. Its easy enough to feel comfort-able with some vague idea that over centuries of gradual deterioration andcorruption the Church turned into Roman Catholicism and subsequentlyneeded to be reformed in a big way. But the evidence of St. Ignatiuss let-ters points to a Church situation so dramatically dierent from what many

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Evangelicals would expect, that theyre faced with a dicult choice. Ei-

ther admit that the Church rapidly plunged into serious error from the rstgeneration after the Apostles, or re-think the picture of early Christianitythat has become popular.

Personally, I think the latter is the better option. (Of course, I would.)When faced with this kind of conict, doesnt it make more sense to re-think our interpretation of Scripture (which admittedly provides very littleexplicit support for the Evangelical model) than to suppose such a radicaldeparture in such a short time?

1.2 Is Orthodoxy Practical?

Most emphatically, yes. In fact, I would say that Orthodoxy is a gooddeal more practical than most versions of Evangelicalism. Orthodoxy mayground itself in some of the most intellectually developed theology, buteven the designation of theologian requires a person who lives an exem-plary life, who knows God intimately. Orthodox theology has always hadto be transmitted in such a way that the simplest can grasp its signicanceand relevance for their lives. And the heroes of Orthodoxy have been pri-marily those whose lives made a dierence to the people around them.

Fundamental to the idea of a saint (in the specic sense, not the sensein which it applies generally to all believers) is the image of a martyr. The

martyrs were the rst to be designated as saints worthy of veneration andbelieved to intercede for other Christians, even after death. Occasionallymartyrdom came suddenly, without warning, and required a spur-of-the-moment response that displayed the inner character of the saint. Moreoften, martyrdom came in a context of persecution, which prepared thesaints testimony as a godly person, wholly sold out to Christ, even beforeit came to the point of a nal proclamation, ending in death. Saints wereemulated for their proven character and their bold witness before godlessauthorities and the whole world. They were seen as the pinnacle of Christ-like life, to be honored, imitated, and sought after for their blessings andprayers.

When the Church entered a new stage of its life, no longer persecutedbut now dominant over other religions in the empire, the image of themartyr began to fade from view. The threat of complacency provoked anew movement of asceticism, which was understood to be a type of self-

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induced martyrdom. Where the world no longer exerted the kind of pres-

sure that forced Christians to great heights of character, it was necessaryto establish regular practices that would provoke spiritual growth. Thesenew saints were men and women who left behind the luxury of the worldand spent their time in the wilderness, struggling alone and in communi-ties with mostly internal temptations and demonic attacks. They becameexperts in asserting control over their passions and living as though theirfallen esh was no longer a signicant factor.

The measures taken by these ascetics were admittedly extreme at times,but the Church softened their rough edges by making clergy of them. Therule that a bishop (unlike a priest) must be a monastic not only kept himfree from the worldly cares of a spouse and family, it also brought monas-

tics into the mainstream of Church life. This kept them in touch with therealities of lay existence and reminded them of other needs beyond per-sonal internal growth. It also reinforced the importance of community,which led to a monastic system where even hesychasts (basically, hermits)are linked to a communal (cenobitic) monastery and expected to interactwith others to some degree.

For the Church, this link between monasticism and the clergy has in-fused daily parish life with a moderate asceticism. For those of us whodont live under constant persecution, the ascetic practices of Orthodoxyprovide a path of personal growth that runs through hardship imposedby the Church, rather than the world. We can still emulate the saints inpractical ways, as we strengthen our self-control through regular fastingand prayer. The standards are not unreasonablein addition to severalbuilt-in exceptions and allowances (shellsh, somewhat relaxed standardson weekends and holy days, etc.), there is room for adjustment to healthconcerns and life circumstances, in consultation with ones spiritual father(typically, but not exclusively, the parish priest).

Another practical aspect of Orthodoxy is the liturgical cycle. Again,much of the practice starts in the monastery, where freedom from familyand secular obligations allows for almost constant prayer throughout theday and night. The material is still there to spend virtually every waking

moment (and even sleeping) in prayer, but it is used more selectively in thelife of the parish. There are individual morning and evening prayers withwhich to start and end the day. There are corporate services of Vespersand Compline (evening) and Orthros (morning), with the four designatedservices of the Hours in between. There are all-night vigils, and Divine

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Liturgy, which can be observed morning or evening.

In the regular life of the parish, Sunday observance begins Saturdayevening with Great Vespers. In the Slavic tradition, this is combined withOrthros and First Hour. Other churches observe Orthros (or Matins) rightbefore Divine Liturgy in the morning. There are also private prayers toprepare for communion, and confession with a priest as necessary. It allts together, with communion as the climax, and it stakes out the center ofthe weekend as an oering to God. Fasting before communion establishesan appropriate level of anticipation and as a useful side-eect prompts acommunal meal after Divine Liturgy each week. Other services vary fromparish to parishperhaps a Wednesday evening intercessory service, orTuesday/Thursday Vespers. Major holy days and fasts are observed with

extra services, to draw appropriate focus to God. All of these services andcycles work together to frame our time in terms of spiritual reality. Prayerreally can be without ceasing, and we really can learn to live in the world,but not of it.

Along with fasting, other practices of Orthodox worship involve thewhole personphysical, spiritual, and mental. Appropriate dress and pos-ture, bowing and kissing to show honor and greeting, crossing to draw at-tention and recall signicance, incense and icons to engage the sensesallof these things give faith a practical dimension that permeates the life ofthe believer with reverence before God.

Orthodoxy also stresses the outward dimensions of faith. Corpo-rate prayer constantly calls to mind others around us through inter-cessionsecular authorities, non-believers, suering Christians in otherlands, even those who have already died. Many of the saints are thosewho brought the gospel to new lands or established churches where therewere none. Veneration of saints also reminds Orthodox that the body ofChrist is made up of peoplethat the face of Jesus the world sees is theChurch. Just as we arm that every icon is an icon of Christ, we remem-ber that the primary objective of our lives is to show Christ to others asclearly as possible. For this reason, a lot of Orthodox preaching has todo with showing Christ through our lives, rather than specically telling

others about him. There is also a lot of stress on reaching out to those whoare poor and needy, because there is so much in the Bible about that issue.

Of course, Orthodoxy is also practical in many ways that it shares incommon with other types of Christianity. It stresses many of the samebiblical imperatives about love for God and ones neighbor. It calls us to

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a holy life and Christ-like character. Where Orthodoxy diers is in the

implementation of these goalsin the tools it provides and the spiritualbasis it arms. The Orthodox life is a constant journey of growth towardconformity with the image of Christ. In no sense can it stop with a momen-tary conversion. In Orthodoxy, repentance and conversion are everydayattitudes that apply as long as we live. Even after death, it is expected thatwe will continue to grow, to become more like Christ, and more like healways intended us to be.

1.3 Orthodoxy and Salvation

Its become more and more evident to me that I need some kind of re-

sponse prepared for Evangelicals who ask about Orthodoxy and salvation.This issue in some respects tends to be a higher priority for Evangelicalsthan for Orthodox themselves. As evidence, consider the results when yougoogle eastern orthodox salvationalmost everything that comes up (inthe rst seven pages or so, which is as far as I got) is either general in-terest (ask.com, about.com, wikipedia, etc.) or some kind of Evangelicalpolemic (something written by Evangelicals for Evangelicals about Ortho-doxy, mostly to point out whats wrong with it). These results contrastwith several other topical searches that Ive done online over the past cou-ple of yearsnormally, if its an issue that Orthodox writers address, youll

nd it on an Orthodox site without too much searching.The reason for this outcome, I submit, is not that Orthodox adherentsare unconcerned with salvation per se; rather, their approach to salvationis dierent in several respects that aect the way they talk about it. Aquestion like, Are you saved? makes sense in an Evangelical context(although those who are sensitive about evangelism would advise againstusing it, since its not terribly meaningful to outsiderspresumably thetarget audience of the question). It makes a good deal less sense in anOrthodox setting, as I hope to explain. This is partly a matter of conven-tiondierent groups use dierent terminology, sometimes to refer to thesame things. It goes beyond that, though. In this case, as is so often true

of convention, terminology is driven largely by the underlying ideas thatneed to be expressed in the group. A question like, Are you saved? neverreally needs to be answeredfor that matter, cannot be answeredin Or-thodox circles; therefore, a convention never developed for asking it.

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You see, Orthodoxy takes the long view of salvation. Salvation is some-

thing we experience in process now and ultimately in the future. Salvationin Orthodoxy does not stop with a declaration of someones status or an ab-stract spiritual turning point. From an Orthodox perspective, the wisdomin avoiding terms like saved when speaking to those outside the fold isfound precisely in the fact that their meanings are non-intuitive as usedby Evangelicals. They carry a great deal of symbolic meaning for Evan-gelicals themselves, but for anyone else, they dont seem to mean muchof anything, or at least dont mean what one might naturally think theywould mean. Are you saved? for instance, is a question almost exclusiveto (Evangelical) religious discussion. In normal life, one might say, Wereyou saved? referring to deliverance that occurred at a specic time in re-

lation to a specic threat; but saved does not describe a denable statefor most people (aside from something like a saved seat, but that is nottalking about a person).

In this case, Orthodoxy would agree with standard intuitionsalvationis something that goes on in process while a threat persists and is com-pleted only when the threat in question is gone or has been eectivelyovercome. In terms of the Christian life, we are being saved out of ourfallen condition and the dangerous consequences that lie ahead, and atthe nal judgment those who belong to Christ will be saved from eternalpunishment. But going beyond this quibble over language, the dierencesget even more signicant. Because Orthodoxy does not tend to focus onthe act or process of salvation as dening in itself, youre not as likely tohear or see it discussed. Instead, they talk about things like theosistheprocess of being conformed to the image of Godor sainthood, which isthe end-goal of the process.

Another critical dierence is the role of the Church. Whereas in Evan-gelicalism, the Church is understood to be the collection of all saved in-dividuals, in Orthodoxy, the Church is the ark of salvation, where we areall saved together. This is not to say that personal faith is unimportant;rather, it is a dierent way of understanding what personal means. InWestern terminology, personal and individual tend to be interchange-

able on a certain level, and particularly when used to describe faith. InOrthodoxy, personal is understood in Trinitarian terms. For us to bepersons is meaningful as an aspect of our creation in Gods image. Thenature of God denes personhood for us. The three persons of the Trin-ity are always understood in their relationship to each other, and likewise

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we are persons as we relate to others. There is still an element of the in-

dividual here, because for two persons to be in relationship there has tobe some dierentiation between them. So each person is marked o asdistinct from every other, but this is only in the context of a relationship.Individuality, on the other hand, looks at the dened entity in isolation.An individual can be in relationship, but they are unassociated factors. Infact, to put an individual into relationship involves making that individualinto a person.

So, in Orthodoxy, personal faith and personal salvation have to do withcommunity. Yes, I believe, but I believe as part of a believing community,and my faith is dened by the faith of the community. Yes, I am beingsaved, but I am being saved as part of a community of salvation. There

is no need to choose between individual and collective salvation, individ-ual and collective faith. They are integrally linked, and their sequence isnot xed. In Orthodoxy, you might have one person who is baptized asan infant in the faith of the Church and later embraces that faith as anindividual, while another person embraces the faith rst and is baptizedinto the Church later. Salvation in Orthodoxy is truly synergisticwithboth divine and human elements in the processand things that happenoutside of Gods own nature do not happen all at once. Evangelicals liketo pick apart the material and spiritual components of sacraments and askwhether regeneration precedes or follows the ritual of water baptism, forinstance. Orthodox simply accept that it all goes togetherthat we expe-rience it as separate elements in time, but in the divine mystery it is oneact.

Inevitably, discussion with Evangelicals about Orthodoxy will come toissues considered critical to the Evangelical concept of salvation. How doyou know whether someone is going to heaven or hell? How can you besure of your salvation? Is it possible to lose your salvation? And wrappedup in this line of questioning is usually the further inquiry, what is the fateof non-Orthodox Christians? I dont claim to have great answers for anyof them, but Ill oer what I can:

How do you know whether someone is going to heaven or hell? Sim-

ply put, you dont. There are some exceptions, of course, but in general,Orthodox are not encouraged to judge the eternal fate of anyone. Recog-nized saints are known to go to heaven, but many saints of the Churchare unknown. Also, there is a distinction to be made between what onecan know about ones own situation and what can be known about others.

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Ill come back to ones own situation when we get to some of the other

key questions. Where others are concerned, we generally dont know. Wemight have a pretty good idea, but we dont know for sure. We are allengaged in a process of growing and striving (or at least we should be),and continuing the journey is the most important thing. God will take careof getting us there in his own way and time.

How can you be sure of your salvation? In one sense, you cant. Thiswill relate directly to the next question, but the point here is humility. Wealways recognize our sinfulness before God. We always look for ways thatwe still need to grow. The struggle in this life never stops. This is not asbad as it might sound. Martin Luther agonized over never knowing if hedthought to confess everything or if hed adequately paid for his oenses. In

this respect, Protestantism started from a legalistic system in Catholicismand didnt substantially change the legalistic framework. They preservedthe primary image of God as judgethey simply found a way to separateour specic sins as believers from the implications of negative judgment.Orthodoxy accepts the idea of God as judge and the forensic metaphorsused in Scripture, but its fundamental understanding of salvation has todo more with relationship and spiritual health. Yes, our sins against Goddamage our relationship. Yes, they hurt us spiritually. But the answerto spiritual injury is healing, and the answer to a broken relationship isreconciliation. God is our loving father, who waits and watches for hisprodigals to return home. Hes not looking for us to mess up, so he canstrike us dead and then sentence us to hell because we didnt have time torepent.

Is it possible to lose your salvation? Well, again, we have to beginfrom the idea that salvation is something you dont really have in this lifeanyway. Is it possible to stall the process and walk away? God has given usfreedom as humans, and Scripture contains severe warnings for apostasy.He respects our choice, if we decide to turn back. More to the point, thereis a sense in which Gods action is the same regardless of how we endup. There is a common notion in Orthodoxy that the same divine glory isexperienced in one of two ways. If we arrive in a sound relationship with

God, we come into the light of his glory as something for which we werealready created. If we arrive in a state of enmity with God, his glory burnsus as the res of hell. So God has done everything for us that is necessaryto make relationship possible. The rest is our choice.

What is the fate of non-Orthodox Christians? This is a question I have

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asked myself on various occasions from various Orthodox individuals, in-

cluding more than one priest. It is also a question I have heard from sev-eral Evangelical friends. The standard Orthodox answer is agnostic. Godsgrace works both inside and outside the Church, and we cannot judge thefate of any individual. We certainly dont limit Gods grace from workingin unexpected ways. There are Orthodox who will say denitively thatnon-Orthodox Christians are as lost as anyone else outside the Church.They will appeal to unequivocal statements like, There is no salvationoutside the Church. This kind of statement is truly part of Orthodox tra-dition, but for most Orthodox, it doesnt seem to be the end of the story.As one concrete example, there are Orthodox churches where memorialservices for the dead can be performed for non-Orthodox Christians. If

they were known to be in hell, or if their status were equated with that ofany non-believer, there would be no point oering such a service, and cer-tainly no point in making a distinction between them and non-believers.

Saying that there is no salvation outside the Church may be taken inderent ways. Perhaps it was appropriate to a certain time and set of cir-cumstances, but now that millions of people spend their lives ignorant ofOrthodoxy yet striving to follow Christ, it is not quite so directly applica-ble. Perhaps it means we dont know of any salvation outside the Church.Perhaps there is some sense in which those who are outside the Churchbut who love Christ are striving to get in, if they could only nd the way,and God honors this desire. I dont have a fully satisfying answer, evenfor myself. But even if it is written o as a contradiction, the contradic-tion must still be allowed to stand on its own two feet. Maybe it doesntmake any sense, but the widespread belief among Orthodox that God issomehow working with those outside the Church has to be acknowledged.

1.4 No Further Desire for the Things of the Earth

Its dicult to explain to those outside the appeal of Orthodoxy. If any-thing, it gets more dicult the further I go. Maybe Im losing touch withthe outside perspective, but I think at least some of it is just the real gulf

that lies between Orthodox life and that of others, even other Christians.Maybe a clue lies in how much of what Im learning is experiential. Yes, Ido a lot of reading, but I honestly dont know how much Id get out of whatI read if I werent also living an Orthodox life (as limited as it is). Now,

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I need to be careful here. When I talk about an Orthodox life, I have in

mind what you might call an ideal, or a high standard. Clearly, Orthodoxpeople can live their lives in many dierent ways. Ive commented beforeon the disconnect when popular movies portray people from an Ortho-dox culture as completely incapable of understanding what a vegetarianis, much less why someone would choose to live as one. My rst exposureto Orthodoxy was in terms of its fasting practice, which makes everyonea vegan for about half the year, aside from the monks who give up meataltogether. But clearly there are those who have some cultural associationwith Orthodoxy but practice it in less rigorous forms.

I need to be careful, because the point is not to say that such peopleare not Orthodox. At the same time, there is some cause for dening

Orthodoxy in terms of what it ought to be, not the lowest possible standardof what Orthodox people might actually practice. Somewhere between thelifestyle of a person who thinks lamb is vegetarian and that of an anchoritemonk is a reasonable standard of what Orthodox life should be. That is,in a sense, what Im shooting for as my point of comparison. So, there areOrthodox people who attend church once or twice a year and show up rightbefore and leave right after taking communion. There are also Orthodoxpeople who attend church several times a day and spend a majority oftheir day in prayer. But somewhere in between, many Orthodox clergywill say that you should be in church every Sunday possible, and yourebest prepared for Sunday if youre there Saturday night, and you should bethere for feast days if you can get the time o of work. And many parisheshave regular weekday services as wellvespers once or twice, or maybea weekly molebenwhich presumably they wouldnt have if they didntexpect at least some of their congregation to attend.

So in general, its safe to say that Orthodox attend church more of-ten and for longer services than you might expect in a lot of Protestantdenominations. (Not speaking statistically, but in terms of norms and ex-pectations.) And there are lots of good theological reasons for this, but asIve pointed out before, Bp. +Thomas may boil it down most succinctlywhen he says in his New Jersey accent, If you dont like church, you

gonna hate heaven. Orthodox spend a lot of time in church, because theyprioritize worship. In a sense, this life is dress rehearsal for heaven, andwhen we look at the portrayals of heaven in Scripture, worship is what wesee. If we dont actually love worship right now, we need to do everythingwe can to change that before we get there.

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This brings me to another pointdiscipline. In a conversation today

after church, it came up that Evangelicals often preach the right priorities,but they dont necessarily know how to get there. Sure, youll hear fromthe pulpit that worship is important, that life should be centered on Christ,that prayer should be consistent, that it should be a joy, etc. But how doyou get there? In an extreme form, I remember discussing with an Evan-gelical friend this approach to spiritual growth that hed newly discovered.Our relationship with Christ should be one of love, and we shouldnt dothings that we dont genuinely want to do. We shouldnt force ourselvesinto certain modes of devotion, because then were just going throughthe motions. Now, I may have misunderstood his point, but it sounds tome like the right goal but the wrong way to get there. Sure, we ultimately

want it all to be about love for Christ. We want it to be what we do natu-rally, because we want to, because we love him. But how do we get fromhere to there? The historic and traditional answer of the Church is, disci-pline. I dont think this idea is completely lost from Evangelicalism, but itseems to be getting there.

I think it goes along with a fear of externals. Protestantism began inpart out of a concern that the RCC was all show and no substance. Sure,people come to church and go through the motions, but where are theirhearts? So Protestant religion became largely internalizeda lot of theexternal elements went away, which probably contributed to the individ-ualization of Western religion, as each person focuses exclusively on hisown heart, and which eventually degenerated in Western culture to thepoint of celebrating our aws. Any focus on external conformity is dis-honest; if people cant accept us (if we cant accept ourselves) with all ourproblems, who needs them?

So, external reverence in church? Be suspicious, because it could justbe put-on conformity to someones expectation. Forcing yourself to praywhen you dont feel like it? Pointless, or worse, because prayer shouldcome from the heart. And certainly we should be cautious about doingthings externally, without the heart engaged. On the other hand, if we doaway with externals altogether, we lose the opportunity to grow. Read

Orthodox spiritual writing, and there is no questionprayer should befrom the heart. No questionworship is not just a series of motions androte responses. But by doing them even when were not sincere, or notready to talk directly to God, we force ourselves into the right mindset.We condition ourselves to want the real thing, even if all we can muster

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at the moment is a half-hearted compliance. And when youre standing

there for morning prayer and realize youre just running through the samewords you say every other morning, without taking them to heart, thenin that moment you have a choice to make. Sure, you can keep pluggingalong without thinking, but you can also stop yourself, concentrate yourattention, and start again. If you werent standing there for your morningroutine, and you didnt feel like praying, youd probably just ignore italtogether.

I guess the question is, is it better to have ve minutes of sincere wor-ship in a week, with the rest of your time consumed on yourself, or tospend ve hours in church, sometimes praying from the heart, sometimesfrom the head, sometimes struggling to pay attention at all, but through all

of it stretching toward the goal that we were told wouldnt be easy? Andthe same goes for all the rest of this external stu we do. The 50 timesa day that I adjust the cross around my neck (which after several monthsIm still not used to) are 50 times a day when I might be thinking abouttaking up my cross to follow Christ. Every morning and evening when Istand for prayer, I have another chance to seek the face of Christ. I dontcross myself every time an emergency vehicle passes with its siren going,but the times when I choose not to (so as not to draw attention to myself)Im that much more conscious of the need to pray.

It may be that in heaven I wont need these externals, these disciplines,these habits and reminders to keep my heart where it belongs. Not thatthe externals will go awayfrom everything we see about heaven in Scrip-ture, it doesnt seem like they will. Theyll just always be 100% consistentwith the internal feelings. Orthodoxy may seem weird, extreme, overlyformalized, with too many rules, etc. I suppose in contrast with our usualWestern society it couldnt seem any other way. But is that necessarily abad thing? To put it as concretely as possible, if Id rather be in churchthan watching TV, wheres the weird in that? St. Silouan the Athonitewrites:

My soul ever yearns after God and prays day and night, for the

name of the Lord is sweet and dear to the prayerful soul, andwarms the soul to love of God.

I have lived a long life on earth, and seen and heard manythings. I have heard music which delighted my soul, and Iwould think, If this music is so sweet, how greatly must the

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heavenly singing in the Holy Spirit, glorifying the Lord for His

suerings, delight the soul!We live a long time on this earth, and we love the beauty of theearththe sky and the sun, lovely gardens, seas and rivers, for-est and meadow, music, too, and all the beauties of the world.But when the soul comes to know our Lord Jesus Christ, shehas no further desire for the things of the earth.

Im not there yet, but if theres any argument to be made for why Or-thodoxy is right, its that I know the way to get there!

1.5 Can We Ever Make Them Happy?I want to start out by clarifying the tone of my title here. Its not anexasperated exclamation, but a thoughtful and honest inquiry. I dontknow the answer, but it bears considering. That said, what am I talkingabout?

Today I ran across a talk given by Hieromonk Damascene about a yearago, on the subject of Orthodox Evangelism. Whenever I encounter suchthings, Im initially excited about the prospect of passing them along toEvangelical friends, or at least taking away useful tidbits for possible dis-cussion. In most cases, however, as in this one, initial excitement givesway to frustration. I dont mean to blame Fr. Damascene here, or anyother writer or speaker whose materials have provoked this kind of re-sponse. Theres nothing theyre doing wrong. Its just that I know howsome of what they say will be received, and how it will tend to color thereception of their overall message.

I wrote last year about how it seems that Evangelicals react negativelyto Orthodoxy in opposite directions, when they judge its view of salva-tion as both too legalistic and too universalist. Here, it seems like theressomething similar at work. On one hand, they accuse Orthodoxy of ignor-ing the Great Commission. And certainly, Orthodoxy has had its share ofproblems in this area. Although there are plenty of historical examples

one can point to, where Orthodox saints have brought the Gospel to un-reached peoples, in recent history they seem to be few and far between.Although present trends in America and some other places are more favor-able, with Orthodoxy experiencing signicant growth, the reaction is oftenthat they are growing mostly by taking in disgruntled Protestants. (This

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is not altogether accurate or fair, but there is a certain amount of truth.

Case in pointI recently listened to an interview with the editors of Deathto the World, an Orthodox punk zine, who set up shop at Christian musicfestivals, where presumably most of the target audience already has someconnection with Christianity.) There is important stu happening, to besure, but it still looks rather inward focused by comparison with what alot of Evangelicals are used to.

On the other hand, when you do nd someone promoting evangelismwith an Orthodox audience, as in Fr. Damascenes talk, there is anotherproblem for Evangelicals. To motivate Orthodox to take the Great Com-mission seriously, he stresses that it is not enough for Christianity to bespread around the worldit must be Orthodox Christianity. So (Evangel-

icals reply), now Orthodoxy has the only true Gospel, and what the restof us are doing is worthless! Well (we say), which do you want? First youdont think we get what a pressing need there is to go out and preach theGospel, then when we do, you think we overestimate the message that weuniquely have for the world.

I think I know the Evangelical responsewe dont want you to evange-lize on your own terms, but to join us in evangelizing on ours. At least, thatwould be the honest response. Evangelicals obviously arent going to ac-cept Orthodoxys claim to be the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church. Forone thing, if there is such a thing, it can only be the invisible Church com-prising all believers everywhere. For another, if they accepted the Ortho-dox view on this point, they would themselves become Orthodoxtherewould be no other rational response they could give. So theyll alwayssee a claim to be the one, unique Church as exclusivistic. For Orthodoxto evangelize properly (they would assume), they must rst straighten outtheir ecclesiology and enter the arena of evangelism as part of the Protes-tant team. If Orthodoxy does not proactively evangelize, it will be judgedas ignoring the Great Commission; if it tries to evangelize on its own terms,it will be perhaps worse yetit will be working against the Evangelical ef-fort.

So, to return to my question, can we ever make them happy? Is there a

way for Orthodox as Orthodox to evangelize the lost without antagonizingEvangelicals? Should we bother trying? One thing that I think needs tobe communicated as clearly as possible is that were not in the businessof proselytizing Evangelicals or other Christians. We believe Orthodoxyis the true Church, but we dont generally go around telling people they

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need to leave their churches or face the wrath of God. For one thing, we

dont believe that per semostly were agnostic about what will happenif they stay where they are. For another, we just dont see that kind ofthing as our mission. A lot of Evangelicals have come into the OrthodoxChurch, but for the most part, theyve done it on their own initiative. Ifanything, Orthodox have probably been less helpful than they could havebeen to these Evangelical seekers.

Holding to the idea of the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church maysound like us vs. them, but thats not how we treat it. This may soundoensive, but in a sense, there can be no us vs. them, because thereis no them. Its never our church vs. your churchthere is only oneChurch. We think were in, and we think everyone else should be too.

But whether they are or arent is a matter of individual standingtheresno other team out there for us to play against. (Not a Christian one,anyway.)

I could go on with this, but I think Ive already dug myself a deepenough hole, with no hope of climbing out. Maybe Im trying too hard forsomething that doesnt exist. Maybe this is one of those things that youonly get once youre in and can see it from a place of faith. Maybe Im notthe one they should be listening to, anyway.

2 Criticism

The next section is not so much about criticism as generally understoodwhen we speak ofcriticizingothers, as it is about the work of a (book, lm,food, etc.) critic. Here are gathered some pieces where Ive had occasionto think and respond critically to some other writing or speech, includingmy own. The works to which I was responding were not specically aboutOrthodoxy, but the interaction was provoked by signicant relevance toOrthodoxy, as should be clear from what I had to say about them.

2.1 Velvet Elvis

Today, I read Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell, founding pastor of Mars Hill, whichaccording to the back of his book is one of the fastest growing churches inAmerican history. It was suggested to me by the pastor of the Evangelicalchurch we attend when I was explaing to him and the other elders how I

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ended up attracted to Orthodoxy. My initial thought when I saw the book

wasweird format. My second thought wassomeone wants this to lookpostmodern. I dont know if it normally comes with a dust jacketthelibrary copy doesnt have one. The cover is plain white, with the titlerotated 90 degrees (clockwise) and written in Orange. The subtitle is un-der/next to it in faint graythe same color as the authors name. Inside,the book is three-colormostly black and white print, but with a lot of or-ange highlighting, including fully orange pages between the chapters. Thepage numbers are also written sideways, and for some reason the chaptersare called movements. It doesnt seem very musical beyond that. Thereare a lot of one-line or even one-word paragraphs throughout the book, sobetween the white space and the extra orange pages between chapters, its

actually a much faster read than its nearly 200 pp. (including endnotes)would suggest. Since I brought up the endnotes, I should mention that Ind them o-putting. Mostly, the notes are Scripture references, whichcould easily have been handled in-line. I suppose someone doesnt wantthe book to look too religious by putting them out there where the casualreader might see them. I tried not to let these elements prejudice my re-action to the book, since its entirely possible that the publisher had a lotmore say in them than the author.

Im reasonably condent that I know why the book was recommendedto me. Early on, it has some positive things to say about tradition andabout reading the Bible in community. The author is clearly quite enthu-siastic about Jewish tradition in particular, which would seem relevant tomy own experience. There are other elements that might have had some-thing to do with the recommendation, but Im less certain that they werespecically considered. In short, it was probably meant to show that someof the key things I was looking for when I found Orthodoxy can be foundin certain types of Evangelicalism that exist right now. It does that, andIm grateful for it in its way, but as I hope to explain here, it didnt changemuch about my outlook on much of anything.

Ive known for quite some time that there is a subset of Evangeli-calismgenerally categorized as postmodern or labeled the emerging

Churchthat likes to talk about tradition and reading as part of a com-munity. Personally, I got to those ideas through the literary critic StanleyFish (among others); Im not sure these people are coming at it from quitethe same angle, but the result is more or less the same. One signicantdierence, I suspect, is that my hermeneutical journey took me through

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some more radical methods, many of which are grounded in a completely

secularist outlook, so by the time I realized where it was all leading, thepicture looked quite a bit more bleak. No, bleak probably isnt the wordI want here. What I think I really want to say is that I was more jadedabout the whole process of reading for objective meaning. I will freelyadmit that some of this feeling probably came from the degree to whichI had been trained in and accepted the more modernist Evangelical pro-gram of mechanistic Bible reading. Although I grew up in a time when Ishould have been more comfortably postmodern, my friends were adultsand conservative Christians, and my favorite reading material was some-what outdated apologetics (Geisler, McDowell, Lewis, et al.). It was moreof a shock to my system when I realized that the approach didnt work,

and I quickly progressed through some of the darker levels of postmodernreading.

So in many ways, I would say this book is a sunnier version of my ownexperience over the past few years. I, too, rediscovered the importanceof community in reading the Bible and the inevitable ow of tradition.I, too, was drawn rst to Jewish tradition. In my own experience, thisattraction had a lot to do with a long-standing anity for Judaism anda simultaneous intensive study of Semitic languages, mostly Hebrew andJewish Aramaic. Jewish tradition was also, for me, safer territory thandeep Christian traditions. I had no baggage of a Reformation against Ju-daism, and there was a sense in which Judaism felt like Christianity withsome stu stripped away (as opposed to a lot of extra stu added thatdidnt belong). This outlook was willfully simplisticI knew then, as Iknow now, that Judaism is not the religion of the Old Testament or theparent of Christianity. They are better understood as sister faithsbothpicking up where the faith of the Old Testament left o and progressingalong their own developmental lines.

I dont know if Bell had any of these feelings that led to his interestin Jewish tradition, but one factor that I suspect we shared in commonwas the view of Jewish tradition as a free-oating collection of voicesabig, postmodern soup of readings where everyones comments are valued.

Postmodernists love to hold up the Talmud, with its many marginal com-mentaries, as a prime example of how reading is supposed to work. Theonly problem is that it never really worked that way. The discussion ismeant to have some kind of resolutionsome of the voices are meant tobe wrong. There is an authoritative structure that has nailed down to a

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great extent the boundaries of Jewish practice, and the living out of this

vision today consists mostly of rabbis quibbling over the pickiest detailsthat somehow their people still need to be told how to think about. Bellmight like the postmodern idea of Jewish tradition, but he would not actu-ally want to live by it or by a Christian equivalent. I say this with relativecondence, because he still thinks like a Western Evangelical. He talksabout tradition, but he still handles it like a Protestantat best, he picksout of various traditions what he nds appealing in them and throws therest away. In my opinion, this misses the point entirely.

The strongest connection I see between Bells views and my own jour-ney is with what I would call the rst of my two options. Once I realizedhow reading works, I knew there were only two ways I could goeither

to nd a community that was willing to read with freedom and mutualacceptance and few boundaries, and to somehow muddle along towarda consensus of how we would live, or to plug myself into a communitythat already had an established and honest tradition. The rst option, Idecided, could only proceed honestly with a bunch of people who thoughtlike I did. (Even then, I wasnt sure it could be sustained.) Most peoplefeel a need to take seriously their beliefs and balk at constantly changingthem. With too many of that kind in the group, it would soon fragmentover things that people considered too important to leave fuzzy. And acommunity that only works for academically minded people just doesntsound like a good idea for a church. Aside from the contradiction that itappears to be very open-minded but only so long as those who join conformto the type of open-mindedness we want, it would inevitably have prob-lems with children who grew up in the community and ended up rejectingtheir parents open-mindedness. Like most forms of Western liberalism,it would ultimately show itself truly closed to anyone who couldnt adoptthe same mindset.

I gave up on the rst option before ever trying it in real life, but it looksto me like what Bell is advocating is something like it. He freely admits,however, his superpastor mode in the early days of Mars Hill, and I suspectthat the same thing happened here that happens so often in Evangelical

churches (particularly megachurches)people were attracted to him andto his vision, and they signed up because they thought according to sim-ilar patterns anyway and willingly conformed their thinking to his. Notthat they all thought alike on every detailIm talking about the largerframework here, which can often include certain types of openness and

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exibility (within boundaries). As he says, the community will keep in-

dividuals from going o the deep end in their own understanding (or atleast nd ways to make them leave if they do), but that presumes that thecommunity has some kind of consensus to begin with. Where a churchwas started by a charismatic adrenaline junkie, I would be truly surprisedif that consensus didnt come mostly from his own thinking and style. Andat this point, its worth bringing up the whole notion of leadership and au-thority within the community, which probably exists at Mars Hill in someform but is clearly avoided in the book.

And authority is a key, I think, because it means the dierence betweena postmodern Evangelical who picks and chooses old ideas and practicesthat he likes, and an Orthodox Jew (or Orthodox Christian) who lives in

submission to the Tradition handed down over countless generations. Asa glaring example of this point, a quick scan through the endnotes in thebook (those that arent Scripture references) shows that hes consulting agood deal more with Jewish traditionwhich in its developed, Rabbinicform has virtually nothing to do with the development of Christianity andtherefore cant possibly hold any authority over Christians todaythanwith Catholic tradition, whether Western or Eastern, or for that matterwith Reformed tradition. Authority also means the dierence between afree-form gathering of ideas about a text and a received meaning of thetext that produces agreement not only within a local congregation butthroughout the world. If simply having a tradition is enough, what hasprevented the Protestant world from coming together? I would submitthat there is no authority in Protestant traditions, so there can never becommon thinking across the board. Another thing I would add about au-thority. He talks about the structure of Jewish discipleship to make hispoints about Jesuswell taken, I would saybut how does it end there?Where in Christian tradition does this kind of radical submission continue?It is nowhere to be found in his model of community, but it has been cen-tral to Orthodoxy.

Having said that, I think he does make a lot of good points in the book.Early on, he makes a good case for negative theology and preserving mys-

tery. Much of what he says in the later chapters (where Tradition seemsnoticeably absent in the content and the approach) does align pretty wellwith Orthodox teaching. Salvation is not just about a legal transactionitis about relationship, about restoring us to the image of God. Whats mostimportant is not Scriptureits God; not what we think, but what we do.

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Were involved in something bigger than me and Jesusits about changed

lives that mean a better world for everyone and everything. Nature itselfis redeemed in the process, as Christ lives through us. Heaven and helldont just happen then and therethey start here and now, and we createour own outcome. Evangelism should be primarily about living and wel-coming others to live with us, not about looking for just some one-timedecision. Amen! I will always rejoice to see Evangelicals coming to suchconclusions. And to the extent that this kind of thing gets people thinkingin the direction of community and tradition, Im all for it. May it bring atleast some who follow it to where they can see the Church as it was meantto be.

But Im not convinced that it will. Its still a big leap from recognizing

value in tradition to following tradition. Its a desire to have ones cakeand eat it too. Let me benet from tradition, but let me still be the author-ity. Let me ascribe value to the past, but let me still favor the future. Asmuch as postmodernism seeks to refute modernism, at its root the chrono-logical bias is still the same. Bells rst chapter in the book shows thisitsmoving forward, its creating something new, its reinventing, its explor-ing. Yes, he acknowledges that this often consists of dusting o somethingold, but the outlook hasnt really changed. Yes, he is comfortable appeal-ing to creeds and councils (in support of Protestant theology), but he stilldisagrees fundamentally with their mindsetthat what is new is suspect,that changing the Tradition is bad, not good. This is not to say that thereis no place for creativity in Orthodoxy, or that nothing ever changes. Butgood change and good creativity is always understood as an outworkingof what was already there. There is still an opposition between Bells ap-proach and the traditional approach of the Church, and the outcome couldvery well be that this whole movement will be just one more passing fadas Evangelicalism tries to keep up with the secular world.

2.2 The Lords Prayer

The pastor at Bethany has a habit of referring to common Christian prac-

tices as more or less universal, except that we dont practice themnotwith as much regularity, at least. Perhaps the most frequent example iscommunion. Hardly an observance goes by without his mentioning thatpeople are doing the same thing all around the world. Aside from the

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obvious problem that most of those people around the world have a dif-

ferent view of what communion really is, the reason he can assume thatso many others are taking communion is that they do it every week (atleast). Bethany, like many Baptist churches, observes communion aboutonce a month (some do it less). I guess when its only a remembrance, itdoesnt make that much dierence how often you remember.

Yesterday, his message was from Matthew 6, about the Lords Prayer.Before he started, we did a completely uncharacteristic thingwe recitedthe prayer together. He then began:

All around the world today, people have prayed [the Lords]Prayer. in a cathedral in Europe . in a little village in

Tanzania all over America in little white churches that sayFirst something-or-other

And for some reason, which I suppose hell get to, today we decided tojoin in this otherwise universal practice. He went on:

When we pray this prayer, its a beautiful moment; its com-fortable, its familiar, it kind of knits our heart with God, butfrankly, we often dont think about the words, and more point-edly, some of them we dont mean when we say them.

Its an important observation, no doubt. We should, ideally, always praywith our heart, mind, and will. Whether praying in our own words or inChrists, we should know, believe, and mean what were saying. Presum-ably, this is why reciting the prayer regularly in services has no place inso many Evangelical churches. If it were said too often, it might lose itsmeaning. As he went on, he elaborated the pointliving out our salvationshould be about a personal relationship with God, not about keeping rules.Prayer should be an intimate conversation with God. We shouldnt repeatthe same prayers over and over again. No special tone is necessary.

Its a fairly standard treatment of the prayer in Evangelical circles. Je-sus gave it as a modelnot as something to be repeated verbatim, but asa pattern to inspire our own, original prayers. When we pray, we should

talk to God from the heart, using normal language, and including the as-pects that we see in the Lords Prayer or in some other aid. (A common oneis ACTSadoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.) Surely, thisis a better way to communicate with God from the heart than by recitingsomeone elses prayers.

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It made sense to me for quite a bit of my life, but as I got interested

in language, I began to question the whole line of thinking. Are suppos-edly extemporaneous prayers really all that original? Are they really moreheartfelt? In my experience, Evangelicals tend to pray with some prettystock language (which they mostly learn from each other). They struggleto vary their prayers before meals, so that they dont become rote recita-tion, but when youre praying for exactly the same thing three times a day,365 days a year, how dierent can the words really get? Their intercessoryprayers for friends, relatives, and fellow church members can also becomerepetitive. If someones sick, and youre praying for their healing (or forGods will to be done), how many dierent ways can you say it? Theyneed to be reminded as much as anyone else to focus on God, to worship

him with their prayers instead of just asking for stu. They can just aseasily zone out during congregational prayer or pray in their own wordswithout thinking about the content.

In the process, by rejecting pre-written prayers, Evangelicals often missout on the greatest hits of Christian spirituality. Although their faith isnominally that of a 2000-year-old community, youd never know it fromtheir liturgical life. The constant drive to re-invent, to avoid the stigmaof tradition, actually impoverishes their language, as they are only free towork with what has been in use for a single generation.

Certainly, it is possible for Orthodox Christians and others with longliturgical traditions to become complacentto go through the motions ofreciting their standard prayers without thinking about them. But theresno reason they have to. And in fact, there are distinct advantages to hav-ing learned prayers. When you dont feel like praying, forcing yourselfthrough morning or evening prayers can be therapeutic. Sure, you canjust rattle through them without thinking about what youre saying. Butits also a great tool to cultivate an attitude that you dont already have.Trying to jump-start a prayerful heart with whatever words you nd insideyou seems counter-productive. Granted, you might achieve similar eectsby writing out your own prayers when things are going well and readingthem back when theyre not. But even then, youre still limping along with

only your personal best. Whats the point of being saved within the bodyof Christ, if thats as good as it gets?

By all means, it is good to stop every now and then and really thinkabout something like the Lords Prayer. It is certainly better to pray withfuller understanding. It is good to slow down and pay attention to the

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words and what they mean. The same sort of advice can be found all

throughout Orthodox literature, about some of the most frequently re-peated prayers. But that does not diminish the importance of repeatingthem.

Heres a challenge for Evangelicals and anyone else who thinks prayermust always be extemporaneous. Find the balance between genuine, per-sonal prayer from the heart, fully internalized, fully intentional, pouringout ones soul directly to God, and prayer that is unceasing. Scripture tellsus to do both, but it seems to me that the usual means of addressing therst one inevitably prevents the second. To pray naturally, spontaneously,in ones own words, and without repetition, and to pray constantly, canonly reduce prayer to the whole stream of consciousness that we expe-

rience as we go through life. Every random thought in my head, everyword I speak, must somehow qualify as a prayer. Perhaps it is possible todo so, but how does one get there without becoming lost in a sea of mean-inglessness? How does one draw the line between everything is prayerand nothing is prayer? The answer of Orthodox asceticism is to trainthe heart through long discipline of repetitive, incessant prayer, until itcan only act in communion with Christ. If Evangelicalism has a viablealternative, Ive never heard of it.

2.3 The Old Testament Canon

In my third semester of seminary, I wrote a paper on the canonicity (really,the uncanonicity) of the Apocrypha. Its not my intention here to respondblow-by-blow. I mostly just want to take the opportunity to reect a biton the paper as it strikes me now. A lot has happened in the interveningdecade. I like to think that Ive progressed a bit in my writing skills andmy sense of what constitutes good research. Needless to say, my outlookon the subject has also changed.

One of the most glaring problems that strike me now is the shoddy re-search that went into the paper. My published sources were mostly slantedin an Evangelical direction, while the other side was covered by some

e-mail exchanges with people I found in various newsgroups. Granted,theres something to be said for having actually exchanged blows with anenthusiastic opponent; but the tendency is still going to be for the pub-lished arguments to look more compelling, because they cite impressive

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sources, or they come from known, reputable sources (reputable in certain

circles, that is). As I recall, this reliance on personal exchanges was oneof the few substantive criticisms I got back with my grade. It was mostlya result of lazinesswe didnt have a very good library, especially whenit came to locating sources outside the Evangelical tradition, and I didntmake the eort to nd them elsewhere. As a result, the deck was stackedfrom the beginning.

At the same time, the published sources I did use were second- andthird-rate. Books on Old Testament Introduction are intended for a partic-ular purpose and can serve that purpose well, but they should have beenlittle more than a starting point. For the most part, I was not looking atprimary literature (actual writings of Church Fathers, rst-century Jew-

ish writers, etc.), or even secondary literature (original studies of thosewritings)I was looking at collections based on writings that may havebeen secondary literature, but also may have been tertiary. And although Ihad a half-way decent listing in the bibliography, the footnotes reveal thatmost of my points were supported by a small handful of resources. Thisproblem doesnt in itself invalidate the points I made, but it does seriouslycall them into question.

There are also some pretty clear biases. For instance, I assume, ratherthan argue, that to be canonical, inspired Scripture, a text must be inerrantin all of its details. I also assume toward the end, when Im talking aboutJewish custody of the OT Scriptures, the Dispensational view that JewishIsrael continues as its own spiritual entity, with its own role in Gods plan,beyond the foundation of the Church on the Day of Pentecost. I actuallyremember something of the fundamental outlook I took away from thisstudy, beyond whats entirely clear from the paper itself. I was convincedthat the Rabbinic canon was the one to follow, because God had giventhe OT to the Jewish people as an inalienable possession, and it was theirbusiness to dene what constitutes its canon, not ours. And certainly it wasbeyond the ability of the largely corrupt, institutional Church to improveon their judgment. This outlook now seems so backward to me, that itshard to fathom how I acquired it in the rst place.

One thing Im reminded of is how I lacked the courage to apply thesame kind of study to the NT canon. I allude in the paper to the fact thatProtestants generally accept the historic judgment of the Church in thatarea, and I remember having some misgivings about how hard it would beto get around the role of Tradition in the recognition of NT canon. Clearly,

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I couldnt accept the Rabbinic judgment that the NT was completely out

of bounds. I was somehow satised with the idea that the OT belongedto Rabbinic Judaism and the NT belonged to Christianity. (Which is in noway to say that I thought Christianity should ignore the OTfar from it.)But if the Church couldnt be trusted to sort out the OT canon, why shouldit be trusted on the NT? And the fact was also there, that in any case, itreally came down to the judgment of the community over what consti-tuted Scripturea judgment that, at least in the case of the OT canon,had no discernible relationship to the spiritual condition of the commu-nity. I didnt see it then, but it was an almost magical view of the Spiritsintervention to preserve Scripture.

Of course, I dealt with specics as well. My arguments mostly con-

sisted of showing how one form of evidence or another could go eitherway. It might be dicult to make a solid case that the Rabbinic canonwas the only accepted list, but if I could show that it was just as dicultto arm a longer canon, I had room to play with. Forget the fact thatascertaining the canon must have always been a gradual process, and thateven though there may have been dierent perspectives on which apoc-ryphal books really belonged, there is still signicant testimony that thecanon was open. I dont think I ever managed to remove from myself theassumption of a hermetically sealed canon, so it was really quite impossi-ble for me to accept that it could have been so undened as to allow forvariant collections. And I never paid the least attention to what has beenused in the liturgical life of the Church over the centuries.

Im not sure if I ever actually considered how the progression must haveworked. Jesus and the Apostles had a relatively xed canon matching thatlater armed in Rabbinic sources, but then what? How did those wishy-washy Christians of the second and third centuries end up even consideringthat extra books might belong? What (presumably Gentile) Christian de-cided 1 Maccabees was important enough to include? And why add newbooks that had not been included earlier, calling them part of the OT?Why not make them part of the NT, since the canon of the OT had alreadybeen xed by that point? Furthermore, how did any of this process make

any sense at all, if Tradition was not a signicant piece of the puzzle?Im trying not to be too hard on myself. Most of the papers I wrote

in seminary were more apologetic in character than truly exploring newterritory. You start with an issue and your preconceived conclusion (usu-ally, the standard Evangelical line), and you assemble your arguments to

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back it up. Sometimes, if there are acknowledged options within the Evan-

gelical mainstream, you can actually draw your own conclusion. But insome areas, you just dont take seriously the alternative viewpoints. Prettymuch anything that looked like Catholicism fell into this latter categoryfor me. Well see it again if I get to my paper on born of water and spiritin John 3:5, which clearly had nothing to do with water baptism. That Idealt with things this way was predictable, given my background. Thatmy teachers never objected also speaks to the environment in which I waslearning. We all believed in sola scriptura, but we also stuck pretty closeto our own traditions.

2.4 Of Water and SpiritIn my rst semester of seminary, I took a required class on methods ofbiblical research. One of our assignments (I believe it was the big assign-ment for the semester) was to write a paper on John 3:5 and the meaningof born of water.

Much like the OT canon paper, a major bias that stands out is that Inever really took seriously the traditional view. I paid some lip service tothe possibility that the passage could be talking about baptism, but I wroteit o with some pretty imsy arguments and instead spent most of myattention on the choice between born of water as a reference to physical

birth and born of water and spirit as more or less redundant. The wholediscussion has a feel of, since its not about baptism, what does it mean?The other overriding assumption is the typical bottom-up interpretive idealof Evangelical hermeneutics. The meaning of the passage can only extendto what was going on at the moment between Jesus and Nicodemus, whichcan only be based on their shared background in OT Scripture. The life ofthe Church in which John wrote is more or less irrelevant.

Not to be too hard on myself, I think I was on the right track with theidea that Nicodemuss initial assertion about Jesus was earthly, eshly,and could only be correcting through a total rebirth. I failed, however,to extend the idea to its logical conclusion, that Jesus was not really ex-

plaining things for him (at least, not as he was) but for those who alreadysaw with the eyes of the Spirit. This is, I think, a common aw in Evan-gelical reasoningthat although the importance of being born again isemphasized, and particularly in more Reformed circles, the incapacity of

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fallen man to receive the things of the Spirit prior to regeneration, when it

comes to interpreting Scripture, methods are applied that assume clarityis possible prior to the presence of the Spirit. In this case, the contradic-tion is obvious (once you know where to look for it)Jesus plainly toldNicodemus that he had to be born again before he could understand, but Iassumed with many Evangelical interpreters that whatever Jesuss mean-ing, it must have been something Nicodemus could grasp.

Toward the end of the paper, I marshaled my specic objections to thesacramental view:

1. If Jesus meant to convey baptism, he would have continued refer-ring to it explicitly throughout the passage. I reasoned that, if this

passage was talking about baptism, he was making it a means ofregeneration and a condition for salvation. Since this idea is artic-ulated nowhere else in Scripture, Jesus would surely have made hismeaning explicit. I assumed, of course, an absurdly strong view ofsola scriptura, that whatever Jesus would say here would be donewith a view toward the eventual need that every doctrine could beclearly articulated and defended using only statements contained inScripture. (I dont suppose I stopped to think that this line of reason-ing runs counter to the expectation that Jesuss words gain their fullmeaning in their immediate context.) I also assumed that Scripturenowhere else suggests a sacramental view of baptism and that Johns

Gospel has nothing to say about Christian ordinances.

2. Nicodemus was unlikely to have made the connection with baptism.Again, I missed the point that Nicodemus was not yet ready to receivethe truth Jesus was getting at here, and I completely ignored the forcehis words would have had for the Christian community that wouldread Johns Gospel.

3. The topic was not Spirit baptism but regeneration. Perhaps evenmore absurd than my assumption that Jesus was intentionally con-structing the New Testament as one might write a theology book, I

also assumed that the theological categories I was studying in sem-inary had some relevance to the language of the NT. Clearly, Jesuswould not have mixed up these two important and distinct doctrines.If he had in mind regeneration, there was no place for him to be talk-ing about baptism, which is an altogether dierent ministry of the

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Spirit!

I dont know where I thought this silly notion came from, that Jesus wastalking here about water baptism. I acknowledged that it was the ma-jority view among commentators (and surely the only view expressed forthe rst several centuries of the Church, though at the time it wouldnthave occurred to me that such might be worth knowing), but I apparentlywasnt bothered by the discrepancy. It wasnt even worth giving muchconsideration.

3 Reection

Finally, on the more personal end of the spectrum are writings about myown journey to Orthodoxy. Mostly they were prompted by external fac-torssuggestions by Evangelical friends to examine my motives or theeects of my choice to become Orthodox, or a study that required me tothink through my story. But whatever the reason, they were produc-tive engagements that raised importantand I hope, helpfulissues thatwould apply to anyone exploring this sort of conversion.

One such piece is missing herea multi-part blog post that was so longI decided it was better prepared as a separate document. You can nd iton Scribd under the title Coming Home.

3.1 Non-Intellectual Reasons to Be Orthodox

As my wife and I have struggled with our dierences over Orthodoxy,weve sought out help from various sources. We started with the pastor ofour Evangelical church, who met with us a few times, then got seriouslyill and had to take an extended break from all ministry duties. Even sincehes been back, he hasnt been up to full capacity, so we havent met inquite some time. The last assignment he gave us was to both work onthe question of what my non-intellectual reasons are for being attracted

to Orthodoxy. This is most of the response I prepared and eventually gaveto my wife. (I have omitted one extended illustration.) Again, I apologizefor the length.

I guess the rst thing that comes to mind in the way of a non-intellectualreason for my attraction to Orthodoxy is actually an anti-intellectual rea-

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son. Much of what I like about Orthodoxy has to do with the way it

transcends my own intellect. Accepting Orthodoxy doesnt exactly meanchecking my brain at the doorin fact, theres a great deal to think aboutwithin Orthodoxy. But it does mean that I submit my conclusions aboutfaith to the judgment of the Church. I cease to be my own intellectualauthority. Of course, the act of accepting Orthodoxy itself requires me tomake an independent, intellectual judgment, but thats something I woulddo as an Evangelical. I think of it in these termsthat the last Evangelicalact I ever performed would be to accept Orthodoxy. From that point on, Iwould follow the lead of the Church; but its unavoidable that I must reachthat decision on my own.

Not only is it an anti-intellectual move in that I surrender my intellec-

tual judgment of faith issues to that of the Church, but generally speaking,Orthodoxy is much less intellectually oriented than Evangelicalism. Thisis not to say that Orthodoxy is intellectually shallowif anything, theoverall trend runs the other way around. Orthodoxy has amazing depthof theology, but it is combined with a long-established accommodationof dierent intellectual levels within the Church. More to the point, itoperates with a less exclusively intellectual approach to religion. It hasintellectual elements, to be sure, but they dont stand out quite as starklyas they do in Evangelicalism; theyre more balanced by other elements. .. .

Orthodox theology, as precise as it is, must always be intertwined withpractice. If it does not express itself in practical behavior, if it does nottangibly aect the way the Church worships, it isnt really doing its job.So something like the use of icons grows out of a proper theology of theincarnation. The two are understood in Orthodox thinking to be fullyintegrated, so that a person who rejects the use of icons in worship has de-cient theology. For those who arent intellectually oriented, Orthodoxycan be almost exclusively about practice, and if its managed correctly,right thinking will follow. Also, because of Orthodoxys focus on the in-carnation, the material always plays a role in worship. Things like the wayone dresses, the posture one uses, motions, visual trappings, smells, and

sounds, take on a signicance unparalleled in Evangelicalism. They arethe means through which truth is conveyed in a non-intellectual, experi-ential way. As someone whose tendency is to be very intellectual aboutmost things, I long for an expression of faith that incorporates more thanjust intellectthat challenges me to live as a whole person before God.

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Another angle from which Ive tried to approach this question is in

terms of the basic human needs for security and signicance. The weirdthing is that most of what I can come up with falls on the security side,which is supposed to be atypical for men. It also seems atypical for myunique personality, since I tend to be a lot less concerned with securityand stability than with feeling like Im signicant. In this case, though,I am choosing a course that tends to diminish my own signicance (in asense) but gains mostly security. Where I tend to nd signicance in myintellectual abilities and achievements, Orthodoxy attracts me because ofhow it diminishes the role played by my own intellect, at least on thebig questions. Instead, Orthodoxy oers securitysecurity that gettingthe right theological conclusion doesnt depend on my ability, security

that I am part of an authoritative community, security that the Churchhas always been more or less what it was meant to be. Of course, theinverse of all this applies as well. Being outside of Orthodoxy makes mefeel insecure about the same issues.

I suspect that this preference for security is somehow bound up with atleast two elements of my own personal background. As Ive said before,I see a correlation with my nomadic childhood and the way Ive reactedin adult life to my parents rambling lifestyle. One of the things that ini-tially prompted my interest in Orthodoxy was not an intellectual issuebut an article I read on ux and sumud. It had to do with the conictin Palestine, and the author was arguing that Israel is an agent of ux,which dominates the Western lifestylechange, rootlessness, universal-ity, etc.while Palestine is more characterized by sumudan Arabic termthat refers to a rootedness that keeps one attached to three stabilizingentities: family, religion, and culture. Without going into the details, ithappened that this person was writing from an Orthodox perspective, andI saw a clear dierence between Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism in thisrespectthat Evangelicalism sets up individual judgment as primary andtherefore tends toward isolation and ux, whereas Orthodoxy emphasizesthe collective, authoritative judgment of the community and gives the in-dividual a religious home base of sorts. I saw that in my life, I lack all

three elements that contribute to sumudI live in an area where there isno real local culture, I have only loose ties to family, and I am part of areligion that minimizes the authority of the community.

The other element from my background is in fact the intellectual jour-ney I have taken. Im not going to say much about it here, since Im sup-

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posed to be looking at non-intellectual issues; but I bring it up here in the

context of looking at my whole person, where intellect is just one piece ofthe puzzle. I went so far down the path of intellectual individualism that Ifound myself stranded and completely alone. I lost condence in my abil-ity as an individual to nd the truth through reasoning, and I longed forsome standard that could guide my thinking. An authoritative communitylike what I found in Orthodoxy looked like the only viable option.

Finally, I really think there is something to what I discovered fromreading this latest Stephen Lawhead book. I wont say God spoke directlyto me, but it was one of those epiphany kind of experiences. To reiter-ate, I realized that much of what Ive always liked about his books is theway he reconstructs Celtic Christianity. I suspect that what it mostly comes

down to is an Evangelical longing for something more than Evangelicalismbut refusing to nd it in Catholicism or Orthodoxy because of a prejudicethat they are wrong. So in his books he rejects the faith of the institu-tional Church but reconstructs a form of Christianity that incorporates allthe major elements that hes really looking fora core of right doctrine,with appropriate rituals, liturgies, and traditions that speak out of a livingcommunity. By drawing these things from Celtic paganism, he avoids theo-limits territory of institutional medieval Christianity, which amountsto recreating the same thing in a more palatable form. I loved the outcomefor the same reasons he didbecause I shared his bias against Catholicism,but I was longing for a more catholic version of Christianity. Of course,at the time I didnt know enough about Orthodoxy to have any idea whereit would t in all this, but looking back I can see that I was really longingforand nding in an imaginary worldsomething that existed all alongin Orthodoxy.

Indeed, something similar can be said about much of what I lookedat before Orthodoxy. I distinctly remember that when I taught the elec-tive on Jewish prayer I explained to the group the advantage of using aJewish prayer book over something from the Christian tradition. My ar-gument was that in a lot of ways Jewish prayer only lacks elements thatas Christians we would want to add, as opposed to Catholicism, for in-

stance, which adds elements we would need to remove as Evangelicals.But the point I want to stress here is that all my experimentation with Ju-daism was intended to be a safe alternative to exploring the traditionsthat already existed within Christianity. It was a misguided strategy, asI see now, but at the time it was all I was ready for. So the longing for

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something more than what Evangelicalism typically oers has been there

for much longer than I could really recognize what it was. Its just takenme a rather winding road to nd what I was looking for.C. S. Lewis has a theme in his writingit comes up in the Chronicles

of Narnia to a certain extent and somewhat more overtly in the PilgrimsRegress. You can see a land from far o, and its clearly somewhere youwant to get to, but you totally misunderstand the path to go by. Sometimesit means you waste a lot of time and energy on a lot more roundabout path,and when you nally get there youre able to see the shortcut you couldhave taken. Thats what I feel like where Orthodoxy is concerned. I couldhave traced back through Church history, to follow where Protestantismsplit o from Catholicism, and where Catholicism broke with Orthodoxy.

But I was not ready to take that pathmy biases in that direction were toostrong. Instead, I had to look outside Christianity rst, which ironicallyseemed like the safer direction to go, but served only to teach me that theanswer was closer than I thought.

I suppose this all seems very intellectual, but I think thats more myway of expressing it than what it actually is. It involves an intellectualjourney, but its grounded in deeper longings that go far beyond intellect.At least, thats the way I understand it.

3.2 Perelandra

Sometime back around the start of my teen years, an adult friend intro-duced me to C. S. Lewiss Space Trilogy. Up until that point, Id read theChronicles of Narnia, and perhaps Mere Christianity, but I wasnt yet famil-iar with any of his more grown-up ction. I remember enjoying the trilogyquite a bit, though the last of the three got o to a slow start. (Fortunately,he warns you of this at the beginning.) I also remember a distinct pref-erence for the middle book, Perelandra, though until now I couldnt havetold you why. Im not sure whether I ever read the trilogy again betweenthen and now, though Ive owned it for quite some time. Wendell Berrymakes several references to the third book, That Hideous Strength, which

got me thinking about reading them again.The rst book, Out of the Silent Planet, begins with the main character,

Dr. Ransom, being abducted and taken to Mars. This is something of asurprise element, and I should warn you now that there will be some minor

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spoilers throughout this post, but its the kind that readers probably gure

out long before the protagonist. Besides, if you havent read the books yetby now, its your own faultthey were written and are set in the 1940s,before Sputnik or any manned space travel. (Consequently, they can takequite a bit of license.) Ransom makes it back to earth (another spoiler, butnothing more than youd get from reading the back of the second book),and in Perelandra hes sent to Venus (Perelandra being its real name).The third book is set on Earth, with a clear connection (eventually) towhat went on in the rst two.

In the world of the Space Trilogy, Earth is the only planet (as far as weknow) whose sentient race has fallen. Mars is much older and was alreadyinhabited when Satan fell; Venus is much younger, and Ransom encoun-

ters its equivalent of Eve. He is not the only visitor from Earth; a coupleof days after he arrives, Westonthe scientist who built the spaceship andabducted him in the rst bookshows up, now a liberal/New Age theolo-gian of some sort. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Weston ispossessed by some demonic force, which relentlessly works on persuadingthe Woman to break their one negative commandnot to live on the xedland. (They live on oating islands in a mostly water-covered world.) Theeect is reminiscent of the Screwtape Letters through the middle of thebook, during which time Ransom struggles in vain to refute what he nowthinks of as the Un-man. The demon apparently needs no sleep, and thewoman much less than Ransom, so hes constantly waking up to nd themalready in conversation.

Ransoms internal struggle reaches its climax in chap. 11, when he -nally realizes why he was sent to Perelandra and what he has to do. Its atthis point that I not only remembered why I liked this particular book somuch, but I also learned something about my proto-Orthodox past. Ive al-ready commented on my love for Stephen Lawheads novels and how thatseems to have have expressed some latent Orthodox longings. If anythingPerelandra goes a step further. Sometimes it seems like C. S. Lewis is per-haps the closest thing we have to an authentically Orthodox Evangelicalor perhaps an authentically Evangelical Orthodox. His classical Anglican-

ism probably helps in this respect, but somehow it seems like theres evenmore going on here. Im not going to try to sort it out; Ill just mentionit and move on. The point is that by now it wasnt terribly surprising todiscover yet again that Lewis wrote something that looks very Orthodox.The surprise was more in knowing that somehow this book touched me in

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the depths of my teenage soul, and only now I see how I was responding

to Orthodoxy before I knew what it was.If it seemed like it would make much sense on its own, I would just putchap. 11 before you and let you read the whole thing for yourself. But itis part of a larger story, so instead Ill just include a few selections, notingalong the way where I think they connect with Orthodoxy:

Inner sil

Notes on Orthodoxy

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Transcript of Notes on Orthodoxy