I have received some encourgement from a good friend to blog. The email I received that encouraged me to do so read something like this - "Zeke - blog ...blog." And that was it.
So here it goes. With this same person I seem to have an ongoing discussion concerning ecclesiological issues, namely, the Orthodox Church's claims to being the "true Church" or the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church" or the very "fullness of Christ." Now this is a complicated issue that receives altogether too much attention and results in altogether too much pride. I'm not saying that making these claims is necessarily prideful or arrogant - I really do believe that the Orthodox Church lives in the fulness of Christ - but what I am saying is that too much of this talk amongst us Orthodox folk puts us in the wrong frame of mind. There is a time and a place for argument and even polemic but generally speaking it gets out of hand and begins to control us.
Father John Jillions addressed this issue in a beautiful way in his homily last Sunday. He said that a lot of people are trumpeting the Orthodox Church as a the "true Church." He said that an undue emphasis on these issues misses the true question and that is "Does our Church show the love of Christ? When a person walks into the door of the Church, do they see people aflame with the love of Christ?" Too much talk of the "trueness" of Orthodoxy is tainted and disfigured by a corelative and parallel discussion of why other Churches are not true, what they do that is so bad, and it is often quite poisonous to ourselves and to others. I'm thinking here of Matt 23:11-15 -
11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. 13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 14 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
The problem comes when we make ourselves look good in comparison to all others.
And for converts to Orthodoxy, such as myself, the discussions of the truth of Orthodoxy and the things lacking in other Churhces, manifests itself is a hatred of our past. To be sure, there are certain things in my past Church experiences that I hate with a passion but it seems to me unjust and triumphalistic to forget the places that have nourished me long before I became Orthodox. To forget what has already been preparing me is to knock out the rungs on the ladder by which I was enabled to climb to the Orthodox Church.
What really drew me to the Orthodox Church was the prayerful life, the inner life, the liturgical life, beauty, the saints and the loving condescension of Christ made manifest at each and every eucharistic gathering of the faithful. It primarily wasn't polemics against the Pope or women priests or gay priests or Vatican II reforms or Evangelical styles of worship or anything of the sort that drew me in - they may have played a part because these were questions I had. What drew me in was the realization that in the Orthodox Church, there is the beauty, the grace, the saints, the love and the very vision of God that transfigures people in a way and to a degree that I simply could not see in any other place. In short, the love of God drew me in.
Even though we don't have instruments in our liturgical worship, maybe we toot our own horns a bit too often. This is something I'm desperately trying to change within myself. I still let people know what I think, especially if I think it wounds the heart, but I'm trying to do it differently. I'm trying to conduct these convesations as though the ideas with which I disagree have a face. Many ideas have a face who honestly and sincerely believes in a given idea and when I remember that, it changes my approach from polemical dismisiveness to real engagement with the heart of another human made in the image of God.
So here it goes. With this same person I seem to have an ongoing discussion concerning ecclesiological issues, namely, the Orthodox Church's claims to being the "true Church" or the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church" or the very "fullness of Christ." Now this is a complicated issue that receives altogether too much attention and results in altogether too much pride. I'm not saying that making these claims is necessarily prideful or arrogant - I really do believe that the Orthodox Church lives in the fulness of Christ - but what I am saying is that too much of this talk amongst us Orthodox folk puts us in the wrong frame of mind. There is a time and a place for argument and even polemic but generally speaking it gets out of hand and begins to control us.
Father John Jillions addressed this issue in a beautiful way in his homily last Sunday. He said that a lot of people are trumpeting the Orthodox Church as a the "true Church." He said that an undue emphasis on these issues misses the true question and that is "Does our Church show the love of Christ? When a person walks into the door of the Church, do they see people aflame with the love of Christ?" Too much talk of the "trueness" of Orthodoxy is tainted and disfigured by a corelative and parallel discussion of why other Churches are not true, what they do that is so bad, and it is often quite poisonous to ourselves and to others. I'm thinking here of Matt 23:11-15 -
11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. 13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. 14 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
The problem comes when we make ourselves look good in comparison to all others.
And for converts to Orthodoxy, such as myself, the discussions of the truth of Orthodoxy and the things lacking in other Churhces, manifests itself is a hatred of our past. To be sure, there are certain things in my past Church experiences that I hate with a passion but it seems to me unjust and triumphalistic to forget the places that have nourished me long before I became Orthodox. To forget what has already been preparing me is to knock out the rungs on the ladder by which I was enabled to climb to the Orthodox Church.
What really drew me to the Orthodox Church was the prayerful life, the inner life, the liturgical life, beauty, the saints and the loving condescension of Christ made manifest at each and every eucharistic gathering of the faithful. It primarily wasn't polemics against the Pope or women priests or gay priests or Vatican II reforms or Evangelical styles of worship or anything of the sort that drew me in - they may have played a part because these were questions I had. What drew me in was the realization that in the Orthodox Church, there is the beauty, the grace, the saints, the love and the very vision of God that transfigures people in a way and to a degree that I simply could not see in any other place. In short, the love of God drew me in.
Even though we don't have instruments in our liturgical worship, maybe we toot our own horns a bit too often. This is something I'm desperately trying to change within myself. I still let people know what I think, especially if I think it wounds the heart, but I'm trying to do it differently. I'm trying to conduct these convesations as though the ideas with which I disagree have a face. Many ideas have a face who honestly and sincerely believes in a given idea and when I remember that, it changes my approach from polemical dismisiveness to real engagement with the heart of another human made in the image of God.
posted by Enthymemosis at 12:07 a.m.
14 Comments:
Your wise friend should be thanked for encouraging you to post your thoughts. And you should be thanked, too. These words get at the heart of the Gospel.
The difficulty the Orthodox and Catholic Christians have is that the belief in one, and only one, true Church is a scandal to millions of other Christians, just as Christ's life, death, and resurrection are a scandal to the world.
Remembering that, while the Church is *the* sacrament, *the* mystery, that brings grace to world and brings people to God, God works freely and generously with all people.
If I hadn't seen the Gospel lived out by Anglicans, Mennonites, and a wide array of Evangelicals, I would have never recognised the Church when I met her. And, Zeke, you were a part of that "wide array", so thank you again.
And beware the Ides of June.
That third paragraph is an incomplete sentence. Please use your light pens to erase "Remebering that," and to capitalise "while". It's still an incomplete thought, but I'm through redacting.
thank you.
Hey Zeke, refreshing words for those of us outside the Orthodox fold.
Thanks for your honest words. I am one of those who, giving up on finding the "best" doctrine, am rather seeking fire. Perhaps too moth-ish for some, but where there is fire there is Light.
Peace and Love in Christ our Lord,
Tyson
Thank-you Zeke.
thanks for your thoughts Zeke... i remember reading about the dangerousness of zeal and i do worry about us converts; i think also that converts sometimes do not realize that our church [the orthodox church] is also far from perfect, though it has, i agree, a fullness that i have/had not seen else where...
keep blogging!
Thank you for this.
Hmm - thanks for that.
I am in the place where I am very painfully aware of the fact that the Orthodox church is made up of fallen humans... I am finding it a challenge these days.
it's hard being a human struggling for to realize and lay hold of kingdom, of union with the risen Lord and ... seeing as it's Pentecost ... acquiring the Holy Spirit.
i can see that i've struck a cord here. none of my previous posts have elicited this many reactions from people. i would love to hear more from everybody on what you think about this topic - or rather - about he interelated topics i touched on in this last post: what it means to believe in the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church," what we mean when we say that we believe the Orthodox Church is in some elusive sense the "fulness of the faith," the role of doctrine in the spiritual life, etc.
these are issues we Orthodox folks seem to either shy away from or over simplify or simply fail to engage with sufficient depth.
i think i feel a series of posts coming up. in many respects i fear to reflect too deeply on this issue because it is a difficult one and one that gets me (and a lot of people) quite fired up.
thanks for all your comments and thoughts. i really appreciate everyone's input.
God be with us all.
One thing I always keep in mind (and try to mention to non-Orthodox when this topic comes up is this: The Orthodox Church may have preserved the fulness of the faith, but just because we claim this doesn't mean that we think that all other confessions are completely devoid of any measure of faith or grace.
Christ gave His life to us to be lived through His Church. Anything that any Christian group has that genuinely brings people to Christ is something that 1) comes from Christ, and 2) can be recognized as also being a part of the Church. We should learn as Orthodox to recognize and celebrate the parts of heterodox confessions that have still been retained.
I said to my sister the other day something about orthodoxy being the fulness of the faith, and I may have struck a new vein of thought in my own mind about the language I use when talking about it.
compared to the church I grew up in, and many of us have experienced this, it is easy to see how orthodoxy is 'fuller'. simply, there is more to it. there were no icons, no incence, not as much concern for historical and theological unity, an attempt at balancing evry pary of the faith at the risk of not doing enough of some things like evangelism. I think I am rambling here, but I said that it was sad that she was forced to close her eyes in church so she was not distracted. now if I close my eyes I get distracted, because life, and church, are full sensory experiences. we look into the face of God every sunday, everyday. both in our church, and in the icons in church. My sister's church(es) are doing wonderful things, praising their hearts out, preaching strongly, probably doing good programs, but they lack certain things. sure, orthodoxy may lack certain things, but that is because I lack certain things that the church has offered me and I can't get to it yet because I am too busy blogging or writing or reading, or trying consume less.
I am kind of bleary eyed this morning, but I loved this post because it reminded me of why I became orthodox. the answer to Fr. John J's question was yes. In fact, it was Cheryl and Biss who showed me that in a strange moment of vulnerability, and Sid too. people were willing to enter into difficulty without any hesitation. granted it wasn't a ton of difficulty, but these people barely knew me.
when I heard someone say that orthodoxy was the 'the' way, I thought he was SO arrogant. I leaned over to Dan and said 'that sounds great, except that it makes you so arrogant, I could never be orthodox'
eating my words, and knowing that I have sounded and been arrogant about it, here I am orthodox because I wanted to have that same flame. (sorry for the lame rhyme) I really did. and I see it in higher concentrations in orthodoxy than anywhere else. of course people love God elsewhere, but the way of life, Christ the eternal Tao that is manifest in orthodoxy pushes me to love more than anything else I have experienced. I guess because it is so experiential I think that when other people experience it, they should have the same reaction I did. I forget that they are not me. its slowly coming clear. my vision is always blurred by my zeal, for whatever it is. I get excited easily. I am hoping this is a slow burn.
Orthodoxy is important to all Christians because it is the bedrock upon which the flame of biblical Christianity has been kept alive, not only in doctrine, but as a complete way of life. The reason we aren't in communion with non-Orthodox Christian goups is that we can't comprimise the Faith passed down since the Apostles, not just what we decide are "essentials," but the fulness of what we have received. This is for the good of all Christians, to know that the early Church, complete with Jerusalem and Antioch, are still here. It's also good for all Christians to know that we wait for them, not with prideful arguments, but with arms open in love.
Being the true Church is about being a light to the whole world, a light that also shines within our souls to show us that we have no right to be pridful, arrogant, or judgmental. We are sinners.
Knowing the Truth isn't a matter of the rational mind as much as it is a matter of the heart. To be the true Church means that we emobody the Truth in the world. Participating in the fulness of the Faith means manifesting the fulness of love, humility, peace, sobriety, joy, and patience.
When I look at how well I show the world that we are the true Church, I find myself lacking. Between the "one" and the "catholic," is the "holy." Lord, have mercy. Indeed, the whole Church is holy, but as individuals the realization of our own stupid sinfulness should keep up in submission to a humble spirit.
By the way, I recommend the recently published book, "One Flew Over the Onion Dome: American Orthodox Converts, Retreads, and Reverts," by Father Joseph Honeycutt of Orthodixie (southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com). Father Joseph, a former Episcopal priest who was reared Southern Baptist, is a friend and formerly one of my parish priests. The book is availalbe on his blog. It can remind those of us who became Orthodox from other Christian groups about the common mistakes we can all make because of our past experiences and misguided zeal.
Thanks for insights. Keep the Faith. God be with you.
What a great thread. Just what I needed right now. Cheers to you all!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Post a Comment
<< Home