The below is from the blog Eirenikon. I agree with him on the fruitless, tendentious, and needlessly confrontational material that seems to be popular right now. There is enough within Orthodoxy to discuss without walking over to your neighbor's village and setting fire to it. The ABCs of Orthodoxy are not 'Anything But Catholic' and for anyone with even a passing understanding of Church history or theology such statements are a mockery of serious scholarship.
A friend forwarded me a couple of gems from a recently published text which purports to be “an Orthodox catechism for our times” and “a book with the big answers to the big questions every person asks themselves about faith, science and doubt” –Western Christianity, in all its expressions (whether Catholic, Protestant or so-called Western Orthodox) shares the same ontological and dualistic ecclesiology. Following Plato’s dualism, Western Christianity speaks of a God outside the box and creates a church inside the box. For the West, the Kingdom of God exists in heaven, but it is men who create the Kingdom of God on earth.
Western worship, regardless of whether it is Catholic, Protestant or Western Orthodox so-called, is man-made.
I can think of no better example of the kind of pseudo-intellectual pablum that David Bentley Hart identifies as “something of a cottage industry in the Orthodox Church—especially among converts—to discover and ‘market’ ever newer ancient differences between Eastern and Western Christian theology, morality, devotion, spirituality, politics, cuisine, or whatever else one can think of.”
Or, as I’ve seen it called somewhere on the net, “Pop Byzantine.”
I’m told the back cover of this exciting new book bears the endorsement of Orthodox bishops. Kyrie eleison.
P.S. I’m also told that the author, a former Baptist seminarian, seems to be enamored of biblical higher criticism, e.g. the tired old “documentary hypothesis.” What such late 19th century unbelieving German protestant blather has to do with Orthodox Christian catechesis is beyond me. “Western captivity” indeed.
Or, as I’ve seen it called somewhere on the net, “Pop Byzantine.”
I’m told the back cover of this exciting new book bears the endorsement of Orthodox bishops. Kyrie eleison.
P.S. I’m also told that the author, a former Baptist seminarian, seems to be enamored of biblical higher criticism, e.g. the tired old “documentary hypothesis.” What such late 19th century unbelieving German protestant blather has to do with Orthodox Christian catechesis is beyond me. “Western captivity” indeed.
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Its sad to see, especially since there are many of us on the Western Side who are very pro-Orthodox.
ReplyDeleteSome of the Pop Byzantine stuff is interesting for a convert to help them get their brain around an Orthodox world view, but it does so like Atkin's diets do. It is corrective, but not healthy and shouldn't be used beyond the initial phases of the diet. Slowly one should work back to a reasonably considered opinion that has just enough "western" carbs for their system to handle.
ReplyDelete:)