maybe Orthodoxy is everything... ;-)

Searching online for David Thomas' discussion of the dating of Paul of Antioch's Letter to a Muslim Friend (as you do), I stumbled upon this blog, which opened a window onto modern Orthodox Christian experience.

Most interesting indeed, and one to return to when I have two-and-a-half hours spare (possibly in July) is this lecture by a real scholar, Roman Catholic professor Sidney Griffith. His breadth of learning and ability to synthesize and interpret the complexity of Middle Eastern Christian history in its fragmentary and repeatedly politicized context is outstanding. I've read most of his publications, and if I had time I'd read them all!

more recent Orthodox missiology

Well-meaning attempts at proclamation-in-power, or less well-meaning cynical manipulation of religion for secular political ends has dogged the Roman Catholic Church more than any other, but the Protestant churches have been by no means free from such taint, nor have the Orthodox.

Recent missiological writings from the mainstream and historic denominations have tended to shy away from exclusivist positions and from what evangelicals would recognise as direct proclamation of the gospel. The wording of many WCC documents, and the thoughts of today's Orthodox spokespeople on mission is often rather mealy. Alternately uplifting and hand-waving, these writings express an ambivalent view of cultural power.

On the one hand, we read of the great importance of "inculturation" (granted) which 'occurs when Christians express their faith in the symbols and images of their respective culture. The best way to stimulate the process of inculturation is to participate in the struggle of the less privileged for their liberation.'

Lovely, but why is Vladimir of Kiev still celebrated (nay, revered) by the Orthodox? A brute who was impressed by a showy Byzantine liturgical celebration (aimed straight at the elites of its day) and who forced his people to be baptized in a river, thereby 'accepting the Christian faith' on behalf of the Rus, and perpetuating in a new place a 'gospel' of power and a church so violently implicated in the workings of the earthly city that its integrity as a church has often been obscured...

[The quotation is from a 1982 WCC document, Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affirmation, recorded with approval by Ion Bria, a leading Orthodox missiologist and academic, in his Go forth in peace: Orthodox perspectives on mission (Geneva: WCC, 1986), pp.80-81.]

a rather sadder chapter

The shocking conduct of Greek clergy among the Alans, including extortion rackets, observed by Bishop Theodore in 1233 (sent three centuries after the nation had been baptised) was part and parcel of the general neglect and intolerance of non-Byzantine believers or seekers. The Bishop of Cherson even objected to Theodore’s ultimately vain attempts to properly preach to and disciple the Alans, crying,

‘“The Devil take the godless Alans who are even worse than the Scythians [Mongols]!” … In the eighteenth century, when Russia was conquering the Northern Caucasus, General Eropkin found in the Baxan village of Kabarda a decrepit codex of the Gospels in Greek. The locals explained that they knew only one way to apply it: they used to put it on a sick man’s head. This is an ironic epitaph to Byzantine missionary efforts in the Alania.’ 

Sergey A. Ivanov, ‘Mission Impossible: Ups and Downs in Byzantine Missionary Activity from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century’, in Jonathan Shepherd, ed., The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp.251-66 (p.261).

Of course, whether or not one believes that the application of a book to the forehead is 'a good thing' does depend on one's perspective. In the hagiography of one Iakovos, a Greek shepherd who was killed by the Turks in 1520, we read of a local Muslim woman of high renown who was cured of a nasty illness by having  copy of the gospels held above her head.

N.M. Vaporis, Witnesses for Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860 (Crestwood, NJ: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000)., p.58.

So, if you're a critical modern historian (or me) you might be tempted to sneer at such practices, but if you're an 18th century priest collecting uplifting stories of Orthodox life under oppression (or even if you're simply republishing them in the 20th century) then such things can apparently form part of a rounded approach to Christian witness...

Orthodox missiology

The lure of proclamation-in-power is so strong, particularly in churches with a lot of direct investment in material culture (i.e. the ones with a lot of expensive buildings and gold-coated gubbins). This has long been true of what we might call the historic (ossified?!) churches of Christendom. Even some of their modern writers are happy that evangelism-by-impressing should be considered an important part of mission work.

If I am slightly negative about this approach, don't think I am altogether happy with revivalist tent meetings, either, or that I am an expert evangelist myself. Horses for courses, one might say. But cultures change, and some churches are not really keeping up...

Alexander Veronis (Missionaries, Monks, and Martyrs: Making Disciples of All Nations [Minneapolis, 1994]) comments on Stephen of Perm (1340-1396), a godly and successful evangelist among pagan peoples in what shortly became central Russia. Veronis is quite happy that the celebration of the liturgy as an alien event and the impact of impressive buildings should be considered an important part of mission work. This courageous priest went outside Russian territory, lived among the pagans and spent many hours teaching, arguing, debating as well as working alongside them.

Stephen’s method of preaching was not always so aggressive. His most successful means of converting the Zyrians came through the power of the Divine Liturgy and the majesty of various church structures. Throughout Orthodox history, the beauty of the divine services and church buildings have played an important role in the witness of the church… Stephen had adorned the church with beautiful icons and ornaments because he knew the power such a sight could have on the native population. He only had to recall the powerful influence that a beautiful church and liturgy had on the conversion of Prince Vladimir and the Russian people. (p.61)

Zyrians came to see the church building, not yet for prayer, but desiring to see the beauty of the church, adorned as a beautiful bride (p.62). These visits enabled him to preach the truth to many more than he debates with local religious leaders did.

Fair enough, but such an approach simply did not work (and does not work?) among Muslims. There were plenty of impressive structures and other-worldly liturgical celebrations going on in the former Byzantine empire in the middle ages and early modern period. But putting one's trust in the impressiveness of physical structures is not going to work in the long run: such things decline. And as they did, so did any hope that that sort of ‘mission’ would bear fruit among the conquerors of eastern Christendom...

Four centuries!

This is post 400. And the first past the post of 2009.

A lot of fun, satisfying, tiring and even wearing stuff has been happening over the Christmas and New Year period. Some of it may even make its way onto the blog.

For now, here's a sad story of the vanishing bookshop chain (SPCK). Not connected with the credit crunch and the collapse in retail sales around the UK, but the result of some very murky dealings by some Orthodox businessmen. Speaking from a conservative evangelical perspective, I never found all that much of interest in SPCK (but, then, the faith-lite of what's in Wesley Owen these days is hardly better, alas), but I still lament their demise, especially if they have been beaten, stripped and robbed. I heard the story first from my brother's brother-in-law (yes, that's my claim to fame).

knickers and twists

The change in the date of Easter is contrary to the resolutions taken at the First Ecumenical Council and believers may lose their faith as a result of this change. The difference between the Jewish passover and Christian Easter must be maintained.

(Anon., ‘The Georgian Patriarchate’, in Bria, ed., Martyria/Mission: the Witness of the Orthodox Churches (WCC, 1980), pp.126-131 [p.130])

"Believers may lose their faith as a result of the change."

Just think about that for a moment...

I try to be sympathetic to different theologies and to understand where people are coming from, but this one ...? Didn't they and don’t they have more important things to worry about in Georgia? 

Clearly they did, because the writer of that chapter preferred to be anonymous!

defining your terms

It's quite easy to for evangelical Christians to think and talk about 'real Christians'. We usually know who is one and who isnt', right? Obviously, anyone who doesn’t agree with my type of evangelicalism isn’t a real Christian. Which is good, because other people (not me, obviously) do silly and unChristian things and I don't want to be tainted by association with ‘Christians’ who do those bad things. They’re not actually, really Christians.

Even if this manouevre is not strictly honest it does have a noble purpose, from time to time, that goes beyond me. It is a defensive mechanism for maintaining God’s honour in the world. But evangelicals (despite being some of the most sensitive and uptight believers in their soteric exclusivism) are not the only ones who do it…

‘A historical critique of the Oriental Church does not mean anything for us, because the Oriental Church does not conceive itself to be a gathering of men but as an Orthodoxy. This means that that which lies outside the truth of Christ or doxology does not belong to the Body of Christ’.

(Metropolitan George Khodre of Mount Lebanon, ‘The Church as the Privileged Witness of God’, in Ion Bria, ed., Martyria/Mission: The Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today (Genva: WCC, 1980), pp.30-37 [p.31]).

Which is a neat way of getting round the problem!

Provoking those who observe the church

Theodore Abu Qurra (750-825AD) was an Orthodox bishop of Harran, living under Muslim rule of the Middle East as the Abbasid dynasty approached its cultural zenith under the tutelage of Christian scholars, translators, doctors and administrators. He composed several apologetic works (defending the Christian faith by comparison with Islam and occasionally Judaism). A brave and highly intelligent man. But very much of his time. For example, in his discussion of icons at the close of one of his treatises, he says

If someone says “The ‘outsiders’ may mock us because of the cross of Christ without seeing these icons” let that person know concerning those [‘outsiders’] who enter our churches, that if they do not see these icons in our churches, it would not occur to most of them to react in the way we have mentioned. As for the icons, they are what arouses their desire to mock us.

How sad that it was not the words or the lives of the Christians in those churches that would provoke a response from the ‘outsiders’. I do not intend to deny the effect of icons in provoking discussion, maybe even profitable evangelistic discussion – huge proportions of the Arab Christian controversial literature is taken up with their defence and their pointing to Christ – but where was the concern for everyday gospel living and gospel talking? Why does it not occur to the outsiders to mock the Christians (or take an interest) on account of their radical lifestyles, sacrificial love, and bold proclamation? Sure, the Christians were often ghettoised and suffered under serious discriminatory social constraints, but Theodore is envisaging visitors to the churches so he is not living in a situation of total community or individual ostracism.

Of course the Christians under Islam then and now walk a tightrope as regards their conversations and what they read and write. If anything in their behaviour is construed as trying to convert a Muslim then it provided (and still provides) a pretext for violence. Not always, but the threat is always there, and with local variations in how the law is applied, local tensions, international politics and the greed of people in the street all thrown into the mix, is it any wonder that icons-as-gospel-proclamation was defended so strongly? Not that it did much good, for there were plenty of pogroms, confiscations and vandalism carried out by Muslims on the grounds of iconoclasm. That particular retreat from the gospel, well intentioned though it may have been, turned out tragically to be no refuge .

Text from Mark N. Swanson, ‘The Cross of Christ in Arabic Melkite Apologies’, in Samir Khalil Samir & Jorgen S. Nielsen, eds, Christian Arabic Apologetics During the Abbasid Period (750-1258) (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp.115-145 (p.139)

Tradition

Well, this was going to be an interesting slant on an interesting blog I stumbled upon the other week. A Calvinist pastor (former army chaplain) who has recently converted to Orthodoxy (was it Greek, Russian, Estonian, Bulgarian, Rumanian, Ukrainian... or is that a cheeky question!?) has made a couple of blogs that are delightfully meandering and yet quite astute in their criticisms of Protestantism.

But now I can't find the blog!

Never one to be deterred by trifling considerations, and since I can remember some of what he said, here goes...

One of his major criticisms of Protestants relates to the ecclesiological mess, and to our rejection (ed. through fear?) of tradition. Some fair points there, but what is interesting is that he has his golden age. The church fathers are the golden age - and 'they' are apparently preserved in the Orthodox faith of today. Whatever one might want to say about the fathers, there seems to be some historical blindness, and some contemporary blindness there. Has he not spotted the differences between the national orthodox churches? [Here's an unfortunate example of Orthodox 'unity' today. Forgive me for pointing out this speck in my brother's eye, but I simply speak as a Protestant who is slightly annoyed by the attempt by the Orthodox to claim the unity high ground and the continuity high ground without looking at their own glass house...]

And whose unity is he on about – a few clergy and monks are ‘united’, but what of the laity!? And who are the laity anyway. Isn't it all of us?

Thinking of the golden age, of course, Protestants have one, too - it's just a lot shorter. Finished somewhere around AD100, I think!

So, there's innovation and acculturation, and often appropriately so. As Andrew Walls perceptively points out, that's how the Christian faith started, and ever since then it has to cope with the tension of forces that pull in new directions while other forces are all about imposing your circumcision on someone new.

a whole new world

An ex-Anglican Orthodox Christian writes on Pentecostal and other Independent responses to witchcraft in South Africa. You learn something new every day (though I have to confess that the novelty of neo-paganism was not a secret - yes it was all made up in the 1930s and 40s...)