Can Orthodoxy learn?
January 9, 2009
In his introduction to the following video, Fr. Stephen Freeman (from whose blog I learned about it) summarized its contents in this way:
[Metropolitan Kallistos] speaks about three areas where Orthodoxy in the contemporary world needs to be in “dialog”—not to learn what it does not know—but to bring the riches of Orthodox understanding to places that should be of particular concern to the Church. (Emphasis mine)
Having watched it a few times now, I’d have to disagree with Fr. Stephen’s interpretation. I think the Metropolitan uses “dialogue” to mean exactly what the word means: a two-way conversation (pardon the redundance) in which the parties involved open up to one another in the course of the exchange. I simply don’t see how his words can be understood to mean that Orthodoxy has nothing to learn from engagement in the 3 areas he identifies, but only has riches to offer. In fact, Metropolitan Kallistos seems to believe that Orthodoxy has something to learn from these “secular” disciplines, and that conversations with them will lead to a more fruitful embodiment of Holy Tradition in the life of the Church.
Do watch it and let me know what you think.
January 9, 2009 at 1:31 am
He’s asking for engagement and declarative speech to point us towards the “Way of Life” both here and in other speeches he has made. The Ecumenical Patriarch has done the same in asking the Orthodox Church to meet the needs of its people by answering directly those questions which need specific answers (for one example: bioethics) as he did in October when speaking about the necessity for “pan-Orthodox dialogues” on the many crises of the day.
January 9, 2009 at 7:08 pm
“To un-learn the learned”
January 11, 2009 at 12:10 pm
As someone who fled to the East in part to escape the rampant Modernism and man-centered feel-goodness of my former church, I tend to shudder when I hear the words “dialogue” and “ecumenism.” In my mind, I hear “capitulation”, because that’s unfortunately what this attempt has led to with the West.
What I think Bishop Kallistos (whose voice I could listen to all day long) is saying is that we must know what’s going on in the world in order to be able to better share our Faith and bring about the Kingdom of God. And if that’s the case, then I certainly agree.
The Orthodox world has been rather isolated from Western Christianity, and while this has kept it free of the corrupting influences which have plagued the former, it has also kept it from evangelizing the world. But, Christ said to spread the Gospel to all the world…
January 11, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Karen,
I see where you are coming from and to a large extent I share your analysis. However, I think you are providing a good example of the ubiquitous tendency to ignore the wisdom contained in the old Latin tag: “abusus non tollit usum”. With due apologies to the majority whom modern education has deprived of their classical heritage, this is not easy to put into English; roughly, it means: “just because people misuse something doesn’t mean it has no proper use”.
In other words: yes, much damage has been wrought by the misuse of the terms “dialogue” and “ecumenism” to justify relativism, indifferentism and sometimes institutional quasi-apostasy, but these things have a correct, noble and indeed necessary place in the Church(es) if She (they) are to avoid the pitfall of which you yourself show that you are aware, namely that of enclosing herself in a beautiful, exotic ghetto where she cannot communicate with the world around her, and becomes a kind of religious theme park catering exclusively for the eccentric and truculent few who are attracted to that particular kind of counter-cultural bubble.
I myself am one of the latter and I believe that there has to be a place in the Church for cranky, cantankerous misfits like me. But we cannot form an honour-guard round the Gospel so impenetrable as to prevent it being seen by the 99% of ordinary human beings who have got a life and don’t share our enthusiasms. That is why what Bishop Kallistos (my old teacher, by the way) is saying is so important, and it is a pity to interpret it restrictively as being a one-way street in which the Church(es) graciously condescend to share her huge insights with a benighted world, while herself having nothing to learn.
I myself, from adolescence, have been often near despair at the damage caused to my own church by a superficial interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, with its call for the ecumenism and dialogue whose very name now arouses fury from many of the orthodox (lower-case “o” used advisedly). The wreckage is everywhere to be seen. But I become ever more convinced that only be appreciating fully and applying properly the true, profound sense of these much abused terms can she become ever more what she has always been and must ever be: truly catholic.
January 12, 2009 at 3:27 am
Fr. Paul, bless!
Well said. There is definitely a type of dialogue that is good and proper, but it’s too often misused.
January 12, 2009 at 10:51 am
When did the “We are the one true Church and we are here to help you” approach really work, anyway? If the life of the Church in the world is to be patterned after the life of Christ, then the Incarnation sets the standard like this: God shared in the drama of the human condition—bled, suffered, and died—and healed it by that sharing. Can the Church hope to become herself without being vulnerable to the fallen world with her “secular disciplines”? It would seem then that we’d have to do a better job of being impassible than the Son of God Himself.
More and more, I’m convinced that Jesus’ beef with the Pharisees was not so much because of their legalism per se as it was with the desire for self-preservation that led them to multiply laws and traditions, all in the name of keeping pure the Word of God entrusted to Israel. The Great Commission carries with it the risk that Christians will lose their identity to the world, but I think it’s a risk we’re supposed to take with trust in the Spirit’s protection. The Church couldn’t be herself otherwise, and I think it’s because there is something about stepping out of the safety of the boat and onto tumultuous waters that rejuvenates and strengthens her faith in her Lord.
January 12, 2009 at 11:48 am
WH,
As someone who has no first hand experience of the corrosive effects of modernity on the Church as has been the case in the West, my understanding of what Met. Kallistos said is reasonably positive.
However I felt that “engage” would have been a better word than “dialogue”. I don’t think the Fathers “dialogued” with Greek Philosophy and science; I think they “engaged” it. This engagement raised questions. The Church sought to answer these questions, and I think it is reasonable to say that this engagement deepened our understanding of our faith. With regards to doctrine, we see the same trend: questions and controversies are raised, and then the Church speaks (perhaps over the course of many centuries).
I think Met. Kallistos has a point. For example, the Indian Church has not engaged the scientific explanation of Creation, so one reads one thing in the Bible and the liturgies and the Patristic texts; and one thing in school. The twain has to meet. There has to be an explanation.
I believe it would be harmful and indeed counter-productive for the hierarchs to believe that they must immediately address each new development in the secular academy, but perhaps at one level we have to put into motion the process of engagement. Modernism, secularism, feminism have raised questions. Many Orthodox have in some way been influenced by these new winds; the effects have not limited, but they are there.
Suraj Iype
January 12, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Ilyas,
Have you heard the story of some blind men trying to describe the elephant?
Now, I am recovering from that blindness, much like the infamous hymn, “was blind, but now I see….”
I am just wondering whether it is possible to describe the colour of that elephant to the rest.
By the way, his name is Dumbo.
Any peanuts?