Happy New Year

Thank you, dear readers, for the past year. My hope and desire for us all is to experience in new ways the Great Mercy of God in the new year. I wish you peace and happiness in 2013.

St. Stephen's Day, Boxing Day

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking . . . " Here (Matthew, if I recall correctly) Jesus contrasts himself with the ascetic John the Baptist. Note that Jesus doesn't disavow John's practice, or that of his disciples. But he does contrast himself with them. Something to consider during this time of feasting . ..

Christmas

A peaceful, happy feast of the Nativity to all. Thank you for reading me this year. I hope to have more for you to read in the new year.

fortunate

I will never forget an episode that happened during my doctoral studies. One day, as one other doctoral student and I were comparing the Ethiopic and Syriac versions of one of the Parables of Enoch, our professor (James Vanderkam, of Book of Jubilees fame) stopped our discussion suddenly and remarked to us, "Do you realize how fortunate we are to be able to be doing this?"

Although it made an impression on me at the time, its import has only deepened through the years.

a habit of mind and heart

One way to define practical theology is that it is rigorous theological reflection on what the church does. As such, it draws on the full range of theological disciplines available, as well as disciplines outside the theological sciences.

It is also, I think, a habit of mind (and heart) necessary for anyone to learn who desires to work in the church.

Phos hilaron

A central element of vespers in eastern and western Christian traditions is the ancient hymn phos hilaron, which as Robert Taft notes in his history of daily prayer was already considered ancient at the time of St. Basil. It is a hymn of praise sung at the lighting of the evening lamp - a custom rooted in both Jewish and pagan practice in antiquity.

When I lived in the United States it was difficult to appreciate the joy the hymn expresses at the coming of the light. The evenings in the part of the country I lived in were never really dark enough in the early evening to view the kindling of the evening light as anything other than a liturgical gesture - important, but one with a certain abstract quality.

That's changed since I came to live in Finland. When it gets pitch-dark in the late afternoons at this time of year, lighting candles is more than a gesture - the act brings joy and relief to the oppressive dark.

Now if we can only somehow connect these two realities in the church's teaching here . . .

Tuesday

It's fascinating to read the commentary of St. Maximos on the Lord's Prayer, to see the way in which he manages to squeeze an entire theological tradition into the compass of what is really a brief treatise. It inspires me to go back and see which Syriac authors penned commentaries on the Lord's Prayer.

************

Just a postscript to say that I've decided to go ahead and apply for the position. Again, I appreciate very very much everyone's thoughts on this matter.

thank you, part 2

Thank you again to all who responded to my question, both at the end of last week and over the weekend. I'm giving myself one more day to ponder things. I'm hoping to respond to comments over the next couple of days. It's been fall break here, and we've got a sick kid at home right now.

I was reading last night the commentary on the Lord's Prayer of St. Maximos the Confessor (English translation in Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, The Philokalia, volume 2, pp. 285-305). I'm interested in interpretations of the clause in the prayer about forgiveness. Maximos interestingly links forgiveness with the unity of human nature and the unity of the human will. He says:

... just as God dispassionately forgives His creatures, so such a person [who prays for 'the incorruptible bread of wisdom'] must himself remain dispassionate in the face of what happens to him and forgive those who offend him. He must not allow the memory of things that afflict him to be stamped on his intellect lest he inwardly sunders human nature by separating himself from some other man, although he is a man himself. When a man's will is in union with the principle of nature in this way, God and nature are naturally reconciled; but, failing such a union, our nature remains self-divided in its will and cannot receive God's gift of Himself. (Palmer, et. al., The Philokalia, p. 301).

Note how Maximos speaks of coming to forgive someone as a kind of return to one's true nature. There are also links here with Maximos's Christological teaching, for which he suffered a great deal.

thank you

Many many thanks to all who gave their thoughts on my question yesterday. I appreciate it a lot!

I'm going to take the weekend to think about it further, and decide by Monday morning.

Have a good weekend!

advice?

Dear Readers,

I find myself at something of a crossroads, and I would welcome any advice you can give me.

A position in Eastern Orthodox practical theology has opened up in the university here at which I used to teach.

Do I apply for it or not?

I have been an acting professor of church history there before, for three years. And a replacement lecturer in Orthodox systematic theology for one year.

I began teaching theology at the postgraduate level in 1993. My field is history of Christian liturgy and asceticism. I have interests and expertise  in other areas as well: patristics, systematic theology, comparative religion, ascetical theology, historical theology, ecumenical theology.

When I applied for a permanent professor's position in church history at this university one of the criticisms of my application was that my field was really practical theology and not church history.

I am a good teacher, a good lecturer. I have not published anything since leaving that university in 2007. I haven't been able to find an academic position in my field since 2007.  I still have a passion for teaching and research.

I have been the head of the Eastern Orthodox theological house in Cambridge, England, and I've been an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.  I have studied at Harvard, Oxford, and the University of Notre Dame.

My Finnish is good enough for everyday life; I do not realistically think I can lecture in Finnish right now. I could well be able to if I were to focus on my spoken Finnish.

To be honest, my experience of two previous applications for a permanent position here has led me to the conclusion that at least in theology there are considerations and interests beyond the academic and scholarly that ultimately lead to a candidate's being chosen for an academic position here. I am pessimistic at best about my chances.

I'm genuinely torn about what to do.  Thanks for your help.

 

 

Philokalia

I've begun reading the Philokalia again, right now Mark the Ascetic's On the Spiritual Law: Two Hundred Texts.

more about unbiblical dads

Apart from begging the question of what counts as a "biblical" view of fatherhood or male gender roles, saying that being a stay-at-home dad is "unbiblical" stretches biblical exegesis beyond the breaking point.

unbiblical dad

More about this later, just wanted to note an article that quotes a Southern Baptist assistant professor as saying that stay-at-home dads are "unbiblical."

Theologically, biblically, socially, anthropologically, there are so many things wrong with that view I have problems knowing where to begin.

is it necessary?

Must one accept the Byzantine conjoining of church and state in order to be Orthodox today? Personally I think not, though reading about the Pussy Riot trial and its aftermath makes me realize that not a few Orthodox today would answer yes.

healing of hurts

One very pressing issue that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves in Orthodox theology is that of healing anger and bitterness borne by people who having been wronged in one way or another, great and small.

How, in other words, do we forgive our enemies and set down burdens of hate, bitterness, resentment? It is true that these poison the heart of the one who bears them. But how to draw the poison out and heal the wounds hurt has caused?

church responses to xenophobia?

I read in the papers these days that polls are projecting a big win for the anti-immigrant, anti-European True Finn party (in Finnish, Perussuomalaiset, which oddly enough the party itself wishes to translate into English as The Finns, a rendering which to me begs a host of questions).

The rise of this party is linked to a number of causes, including xenophobia.

Has the Orthodox Church of Finland spoken out against the growing xenophobia in Finnish society?

Christology and birthdays

My son turns ten today. Many years! :-) The day's celebrations turned my mind to the humanity of Christ. We have the narrative of the wedding at Cana, and there are narratives of Jesus being present at meals. He comes upon people getting ready to bury someone, and brings Lazarus back to life from his tomb. But no birthdays. If birthdays were celebrated by Jews in the Second Temple period, it's not unreasonable to think that Jesus celebrated the birthdays of family and friends. The only birthday we have in the gospels is Jesus' own. Second-century texts such as the Protevangelium of James sought to fill in the gaps in the gospels' narratives of Jesus' life. The stories in such works have often been dismissed as fanciful storytelling, and it's not hard to understand the critique. At the same time, behind them is, I think, a desire to preserve the humanity of Christ. As Christology developed, sometimes the church lost sight of Christ's humanity. Perhaps the relative silence of the gospels about Christ's early life also partly explains the doctrine of recapitulation set forth by Irenaeus. Thus every human being, as she or he grows and matures, supplies the missing pieces in the narrative of Christ's life, since his own life sanctified every age of human life.

silence

I'm tired today and my brain is functioning at a low level.

As I write this I hear the sound of the gusty rain falling.

For some reason I began thinking about silence. As you know, silence can signify many things, it has many different functions. Sometimes, perhaps too often, silence walks hand-in-hand with judgement, with weighing others and finding them wanting. It's the silence of disapproval, of censure.

There is another silence too. Think of Christ's silence before the woman caught in adultery and facing death by stoning. This is an enigmatic silence, for it is accompanied by Christ's drawing or writing on the ground - the narrative doesn't reveal what.

Whatever he was writing or drawing in his silence, he concludes it not with condemnation but with a word of mercy and freedom.

No wonder this pericope has been so controversial in the history of the church.

responses to fascism today?

What has been the response of the Orthodox church in Greece to the beating, terrorizing, and murder of immigrants? To the growing power of the Golden Dawn party there?

an Orthodox catechetical school for Finland?

Is there room in Finland for an Orthodox catechetical school?

I know, you can study in Joensuu to be a church educator, and there's the school at New Valamo. I'm talking about something different from both.

I dream of a place where people can come together to learn, ask questions, think creatively and fearlessly about theology, church life and practices, the problems and challenges the church faces today. Where new ways of engaging the tradition could emerge. A place for the life of the heart, a place to learn something of wisdom.

theology for Finland

Theology lives in a tension between the catholic and the local. How does the local express the catholic, and how is the catholic rooted in the local?

If we think about Orthodox theology here in Finland, what are the local issues we need to be addressing?

love casts out fear

What are the theological grounds for openness to the strangers we encounter in our lives? How do we convince people that fear of, even hostility towards, the Other are profoundly un-Christian responses?

Labor Day

Ok, so tomorrow's not Labor Day here in Finland. It is back home, though. As I read some articles today on the state of American labor this Labor Day, I thought about Catholic social teaching and its support for labor and labor unions.

Off the top of my head I couldn't think of anything comparable in modern Orthodox social teaching. Are readers aware of any patriarchal or episcopal teaching on labor and unions?

what would be useful?

Another question for you today, dear readers.

How could this blog be useful, helpful, interesting, for you?

To put it another way, what would you like to see in this blog?

what place is there?

No odd theological ideas today. Just a question of personal significance:

I have a doctorate in theology. I've taught in Finland as a professor of church history, and as a lecturer in Orthodox systematic theology and patristics. I've been the head of an Orthodox theological institute affiliated to Cambridge University. I've got twenty years' teaching experience at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels.

It appears that there is no place in Finland, in either academia or church, where I can use my education and experience. The doors appear to be closed to me. I have not worked in academic theology since July 2007. I have been unemployed for the greater part of the past five years.

Is there a place here where I can offer what I have to give? Or should I admit defeat and give up theology for something else?

anthropology, prophecy, ethics

More thinking out loud . . .

Christians believe that human beings are created in the image of God. Is there a place for the prophetic as much as the sapiential in an Orthodox theological anthropology? In other words, is it possible to speak of God, wisdom, and prophecy when delineating what it means to be made in God's image? Of course, Orthodox theology makes a distinction between the image and the likeness of God, which adds, it seems to me, a teleological dimension to the discussion.

Orthodoxy and modernity

Is it possible for Orthodox theology to come terms with modernity, other than through rejection? I think it is, though the black hole of the culture wars makes the task more difficult than it already was.

expected knowledge

Realistically, how much knowledge of the Bible and theology do we have the right to expect of church members? Sure, the answer will vary by tradition to some extent.

For me this is a question of how the church does or does not shape or inform the worldview of church members. For example, for Orthodox believers, what does it mean in everyday life that the Eucharist is a sacrifice? That they feast on the Word of God made flesh? Does it have any everyday significance?

Anabaptist Orthodox?

In the past twenty years a few people in the Anabaptist tradition began a dialogue with the Catholic church. Some of those people eventually became Catholics but without feeling that their having become Catholic was a betrayal of their Anabaptist heritage or theology.

Is such a dialogue possible between Orthodoxy and Anabaptism? The chasms to bridge would of course be different as the Protestant Reformation would not be a shared historical experience to be revisited. But perhaps ecclesiology, relation between church and state, liturgy, and asceticism would be good places to start.

Maybe there's already a dialogue like this happening somewhere? If so, let me know.

more on solitude

We are all "networked" today, in one way or another. To consider solitude is to ask ourselves what sort of connectedness do we live within, and what kind of connectedness it is that we want.

solitude

I know I'm not the first to say this, but I think it still bears repeating: the problem of solitude is more important than ever in this time when networking and being connected have become the norm for many, and the goal for many more.

Ours is not the first networked age; human beings have lived within complex social networks before now. But the nature of the networks we have now makes solitude more difficult to practice than it already was before the rise of the Internet.

But the issue isn't simply one of it becoming more difficult to find and practice solitude. We need to ask ourselves what the purposes of solitude are today. For whom, and for what purpose, do we seek solitude? How do we relate solitude to connectedness? Is solitude opposed to being networked, or is it complementary? How does solitude relate to the selves we create in our several networks?

punk prayer 2

To put it in positive terms: the two words can go quite well together. Some of the Psalms can be interpreted in such terms.

And sometimes in the life of the church they must be so linked.

punk prayer

The two words are far from mutually exclusive.

Pussy Riot verdict 2

Apparently the Orthodox ecclesiastical authorities in Russia have forgotten about the venerable tradition of the iurod (holy fool). But maybe this is the way the church treated earlier holy fools as well.

Pussy Riot verdict

The Byzantine symphonia, alive and well.

does anybody really want it?

Tonight I took from the shelf a book entitled Mary is for Everyone. As you might gather from the title, it's a collection of essays from authors across a range of Christian traditions on the ecumenical significance of Mary.

I looked through it with some sadness. Its ecumenical orientation is necessary and laudable, but I wondered why all the effort put into this area, as in so many others in the ecumenical arena, have borne so little fruit.

One reason is that most churchgoers really don't want church unity. They fear losing their identity. Another is the persistence, at the grassroots, of stereotypes of other churches. Another is the simple fact that church unity does not equal church growth. When congregation size is fetishized, anything that doesn't increase church membership is eventually dropped like the proverbial hot potato.

Dormition

Today is the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Marian piety is one of those hot-button issues, for many different theological, historical, philosophical, and sociological reasons. I remember being taught as a youth that we Methodists, unlike our Catholic neighbors, didn't "worship Mary." I think now that comments like that reflected both passing acquaintance with some of the extreme forms of veneration of Mary, and ignorance of what Catholics actually taught about her (this was after Vatican II, mind you).

It's worth pointing out that the magisterial Reformers did not completely do away with devotion to Mary, though over time it died out in the churches of their heirs - though more slowly than one might imagine.

For me, today's feast points to the reality of Christ's humanity. The history of Christian thought shows again and again that the temptation to downplay, relativize, and even deny Christ's full humanity is strong. It seems easier to accept a less-than-human Savior than it is to face the implications of Christ's really being fully human.

As both Catholics and Orthodox teach, and as has also been affirmed by many bilateral and multilateral dialogues on Mary and the saints, authentic Marian piety ultimately points us to Mary's son.

without end

Any theological anthropology written today must necessarily be incomplete. This is because no one work can capture in its entirety the mystery of the human person. Thus theological anthropology must always be a work in progress. This is important to state up front when considering the question of how to write about the human person today. I am starting to think that philosophers who strive for describing diversity rather than static unity are correct. The stuff of human life is too complex and rich to capture in one neat vision.

anthropology, continued

A theological anthropology today must also take seriously the fact that people are economically determined today. People live their lives demarcated by economic forces that shape their identity as human beings. A theological anthropology is no good if it proposes a vision of human beings alone. It must also take into account the forces today that would define humanity in a very different way than that preached and taught in the church.

anthropology

I've heard it said that theological anthropology is the subject requiring the most attention in the coming decades. In the context of this conversation, I think that current debates over computationalist views of the human person will be important to take into account. Lanier versus Kelley is what I'm thinking here. More in another post.

origins

Every person has formative experiences that shape her or his thought. One of mine took place at a Christian summer camp when I was fifteen. Already then I had an interest in liturgy, and had gone to this camp (called Summer Assembly) because a professor of theology was going to give a series of lectures on "Worship in Spirit and in Truth." I ate up the lectures. At the end of the week there was to be a love feast in the evening. It seemed a fitting conclusion to the lectures.

I was the only one from my congregation at the love feast. The professor instructed the class members to divide into small groups to share the bread and cup of the love feast, the better to intensify the fellowship among the class members.

As people split up into groups, I nervously looked around for a group that would welcome me. I moved from group to group. Everyone was so involved in their intimate "fellowship," nobody noticed the lanky kid looking for a welcome. Heartbroken, I left.

You can read this as a story of teen awkwardness, I suppose. And to be sure, I wasn't the most socially adept teen. ;-) But the lesson I took away from that experience was that worship can exclude, can alienate. This experience helped shape my own views on the importance of welcoming the stranger, of hospitality in the liturgical assembly.

feast and fast

To be honest, dear readers, I'm not entirely sure myself where I'm going with all this, so bear with me . . .

Feast and fast, dionysian and apollonian, dance together in the complex rhythm of life. How do we teach that balance? Or is there a balance at all?

subversive

Two ideas have been in the back of my mind for the past couple of years. Time to get them out of my system and see where they go.

First (and not so new), the act of gathering for Sunday worship as a subversive act, the constitution of the body of Christ in the face of the powers of the world.  I know this sounds apocalyptic - perhaps eschatological is a better term? If you've read my posts up till now, maybe asserting this idea about liturgy seems like it flies in the face of what I've said earlier about the goodness of the material world. I don't think the two ideas are in conflict; they're merely in tension. ;-)

Second: in the Byzantine tradition there is a long history of writing commentaries on the Divine Liturgy. It goes back at least as far as Germanos of Constantinople, and it has roots in earlier commentaries on the liturgy of the Eucharist.

Bringing the two together, I want to write a commentary on the Divine Liturgy interpreting it as a subversive act of resistance. Exploring how its materials, texts, gestures, movements use the languages of power, materiality, majesty, kingship, and transcendence to subvert  "normal" notions of power and authority, in order to praise the kenotic God who humbled Godself and became human.

anniversary

I preached my first sermon on Sunday, August 6, 1978, in the United Methodist church of Lyons, Kansas. The congregation, my captive audience, took it well. ;-) I preached on the Transfiguration, which remains one of my favorite narratives in the gospels.

I have to admit that I miss preaching. I have been invited to preach in the Divine Liturgy a couple of times here in Finland; there is a tradition of lay preaching in Orthodoxy as there is in Methodism.

It cannot be emphasized enough: sacrament and preaching are not opposed. To use a common patristic metaphor, the table of the Word is as important as the table of the Eucharist. Unfortunately, in few places today does that balance actually appear. Another way to put it is that sermon and Eucharist require each other.

Today is the feast of the Transfiguration. What does the Transfiguration really mean? Perhaps in the Transfiguration narrative there are overtones of the angelic transformation one finds in I Enoch, perhaps echoes of the translation of the prophet Elijah, the face of Moses shining after his meeting God, the glory of God on Mt. Sinai.  However, unlike either Enoch or Elijah, Jesus doesn't leave the earth - yet.  It is the revelation of something previously hidden, something that leaves its witnesses awestruck and prostrate on the ground . . . prefiguration, sign of hope for some, sign of fear for others. Cause of trembling for all . . .

liturgy and ecclesiology

Big topic, brief post.

At its core, the Liturgical Movement was about ecclesiology. Christian liturgy articulates a particular vision of the church - every Christian liturgical tradition does this. One of the central arguments of the Liturgical Movement was that liturgical practice reflected ecclesiology. Problems in liturgical life were more than problems with texts and practices; they reflected ecclesiological problems.

I'm not suggesting a simplistic one-to-one correlation between the two. Rather, I'm saying that questions about liturgical practice ultimately have to do with ecclesiology.

Schmemann, White

I mentioned the Liturgical Movement in an earlier post. Alexander Schmemann and James F. White were two of the most influential theologians of the Liturgical Movement for North American audiences and beyond. Both sought to address the problems of contemporary liturgical practice in their respective traditions, and argued ceaselessly for a return to the roots of Christian liturgical practice. I was privileged to count Jim White as a teacher and a friend.

Both were vilified by those in their churches who saw their work as a threat to the liturgical status quo. On the Orthodox side, one still hears dismissive remarks about "Schmemannism," and I can still remember a United Methodist district superintendent sarcastically describing a United Methodist Sunday service in which the Eucharist was celebrated every Sunday as "worship a la James F. White." The irony in both cases is that both Schmemann and White were not advocating their personal, idiosyncratic views of Christian liturgy; they were arguing for a return to the deepest sources of Christian liturgical tradition in the practice of the churches of the apostles and their successors.

The vision of neither Schmemann nor White has come close to being fulfilled. We may have renewed liturgical texts, but so much of the heart of the church's liturgical life remains unrenewed. Texts can be changed - much more difficult to change the way the church lives its life.

Perhaps the time is coming for a second Liturgical Movement?

Shestov, philosophy

A short post tonight, I'm beat. Yesterday I was reading some of the work of the Russian philosopher Lev Shestov. This post isn't about Shestov per se (another time soon, I hope).

But reading Shestov made me think about the place of philosophy in teaching for the church. Some might say that "ordinary" church members don't need to think about philosophy or ponder their own worldview. However, if the church doesn't help its members to do this, others certainly will. The church might not like the results.

there is no despair

I've mentioned Reb Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810) before, here and elsewhere. I recommend Arthur Green's biography of Nachman to anyone interested in issues of religion and modernity.

Nachman went through a crisis of faith in the last year of his life, as he lived among advocates of the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightment, and opponents of Hasidism), dying of tuberculosis. In mid-August 1810, a few months before he died, he emerged from the depths. On Shabbat Nahamu he taught his disciples, as was his custom. From Green's study:

[His disciple Nathan related that Nahman taught:] 'Why do you come to me? I don't know anything at all now. When I teach Torah, there is some reason to travel in order to be with me. But why have you come now? I don't know anything now; I'm just a simple person.' He kept on in this manner, repeating two or three times that he was just a simple person who knew nothing at all. He then said that he lived now only by virtue of his one time journey to Erez Israel.  From this he went on to explain the whole awesome matter of how he sustained himself, in time of 'simplicity,' by his journey to Erez Israel . . .

The zaddiq therefore must go down and fall into this state of simplicity, and become a truly simple man for some time. In this way he brings life to all the simple ones, whoever they may be . . . All of the simple ones get their life through him, each in accord with how near he is to holiness, and to the zaddiq . . .

The main thing is this:  It is forbidden to despair! Even a simple man who cannot study at all, or one who finds himself in a place where he is unable to study, or the like, should in his very simplicity be strong in worship and in the fear of God. Even at that very moment he is receiving life-giving sustenance from the Torah, through the great simple one, the great zaddiq, who has himself undergone that simplicity and therefore can sustain them all.

Even he who stands on the very bottom rung, God forbid, or in the very depths of hell, may God protect us, should nevertheless not despair. He should fulfill the Scripture:  'Out of the belly of the deep I cried' (Jonah 2:3), and be as strong as he can.  Even he will be able to return and receive the Torah's sustenance, by means of the zaddiq. The main thing is to strengthen yourself in whatever way you can, no matter how far you have fallen. If you hold on even just the slightest bit, there is yet hope that you will return to God . . . .

After the teaching he became very joyous, and told the people to begin singing 'Azamer bi-Shevahin immediately . . . Afterwards he spoke with us, very happily, and with an awesome and wondrous grace. He sat through the meal with great joy, talking with us and strengthening us greatly . . . Then he shouted from the very depths of his heart:
'Gevalt! Do not despair!'  He went on in these words:  'There is no such thing as despair at all!'

He drew forth these words slowly and deliberately, saying: 'There is no despair.' He said the words with such strength and wondrous depth that he taught everyone, for all generations, that he should never despair, no matter what it is that he has to endure.

- Arthur Green, Tormented Master:  The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (Woodstock, Vermont:  Jewish Lights Publishing, 1992), 264-265.

expectations

If we were to ask church members - not necessarily only ones who show up on Sundays - what they expect to get out of the Sunday liturgy (I mean this in a broad sense to include both the Divine Liturgy and forms of Sunday service in Protestant and Catholic churches), I wonder what we would learn.

Putting the question that way is crass and even offensive, I know. We worship God out of thanksgiving, gratitude, acknowledgement. However, in a consumerist culture I think this is the approach many people take to their liturgical participation.

ecosystem

The answer to the question "are the clergy allowed to worship too?" will not be found in a new or better "spirituality of ministry" or "theology of the priesthood." We have to think more broadly and ask ourselves what has happened to the life of the church that such a situation could arise in the first place.

cultural

It doesn't take much searching to find theological critiques of "cultural Christianity," which for convenience I'll define as a social phenomenon in which people belong to a church primarily because of cultural, national, or social identification.

If I understand the critique correctly, it goes something like this: when church membership becomes something one acquires not out of personal commitment but simply because it is the thing one does if one is a member of a given society, then the church has lost a vital element of its life (what that element exactly is depends on the critic). Often the expression of cultural Christianity takes the form of an expectation that the church is there to provide a kind of spiritual service (baptism, weddings, funerals) to anyone regardless of their commitment to church outside those life-cycle events. The situation here in Finland differs legally  from that in the United States, in that the Orthodox Church of Finland and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland are both established churches. And yet, in at least some parts of the United States there are de facto established churches. Not in the legal sense but in historical and cultural senses.

However, today I don't want to focus on cultural Christianity per se, but rather upon its effects on clergy. What kinds of tensions emerge between vision and (for want of a better term) the "everyday"? (I'm thinking of the Finnish word arki here.) Or, perhaps more accurately put, between living with the knowledge of what one's tradition teaches about the existential meaning of being in Christ, and the equally weighty knowledge that many if not most church members are content with far less?

 

overburdened

Sometimes I think we load the Sunday liturgy with too many expectations. We treat it as if it were the only place we go to encounter God.

This is a distorted view. The Sunday service alone cannot bear the burden of sustaining a Christian's life in God. There must be more, of which the Sunday service is a part, a critical element to be sure, but still only a (privileged?) moment in a continuum. This is true for every member of the church, clergy and laity alike.

are clergy allowed to worship, too? Or: liturgical dispositions

I've been conversing with a friend of mine about the question of how the clergy themselves are able to worship when they are involved with so many aspects of the Sunday service. Although my friend belongs to a mainline Protestant church, I think the issue he raises can be found among clergy of a wide range of Christian traditions.

A standard definition of liturgy is "the work of the people," an idea rooted in the Greek word leitourgia. Unfortunately, what is the offering of praise and worship to God by the entire body of Christ has too often become merely an event to attend and observe. A show where the church's members expect to see the clergy do "their thing." That is, to do the work of worship for them.

In a sense this is understandable. Clericalism is deeply-rooted in the church. In addition, worship often is thought of largely in terms of things that are usually thought to take professional training (such as preaching, exegesis, playing and leading music).

There's also the issue of the basic meaning of a professional clergy for the spiritual life of the church. The existence of a professional clergy can - and has - fostered the expectation that they are the ones paid to be "religious" and embody the practices and values that rightly belong to all church members.

There is also in some traditions an unfortunate confluence of revivalism and secular traditions of spectacle and entertainment that shape expectations of what one expects of worship. Thus clergy become alchemists of religious experience, expected to construct worship that will produce the desired (and expected) feelings.

No wonder that in such a liturgical setting it would be difficult if not impossible for clergy to feel that they too are able to worship God.

I don't mean this post to do anything but muse a little on this problem, and maybe also to sketch the direction of future posts about it. So briefly . . .

First and foremost, there is the matter of the clergy's own spiritual life in general, and of how their liturgical role or roles form part of that life - or not. More fundamentally, we need to ask how clericalism has eroded and even destroyed the spiritual life of clergy.

There are deep liturgical issues at work here too.  Not simply questions about what worship is all about, but also about the relationships between worship and the nature of the church.  I also wonder about how deeply the liturgical movement really took root in the churches. Not just the Protestant churches, but in the Orthodox church as well.  Was all that work for naught?

There are wider issues of spirituality, ascetical theology, whatever you want to call it - but I need to think further before I can formulate something more precise.

does it have to be neo-Platonic?

Why not a form of Pragmatism? Or Personalism (it's been done before: read Berdyaev)? Or some variety of Existentialism? Simply because the Fathers used forms of Platonism (and Stoicism, for that matter) doesn't mean we're obliged to do the same.

I'm aware that this isn't a new thought. It still bears repeating.

perennialism

There's much to be said for at least some forms of perennialism. If I understand it correctly, perennialism claims that there is a kind of universal divine wisdom leading to salvation, and that salvation can be had by following any of the great world religious traditions.

However, a person has to choose a tradition within which to live, practice, learn, grow. All paths lead to God, but one still must choose a path. This is very different from a pick-and-choose approach to wisdom.

And yet, where it is modern is its meta-stance (if I may put it that way) towards all religious traditions. Some would criticize, and perhaps rightly so, the idea that one can stand somehow above all religious traditions and come to the conclusion that they are all equally valid paths to God.

Does perennialism stand or fall on this question? I don't think so.

losing catholicity

The Apologists argued in the second century that the Christians were a new people God had brought into being through Christ. The old divisions of people into nations no longer had any force in Christ. This argument, of course, goes all the way back to Paul. It is a foundation of the catholicity of the church.

Yes, I know - and I've mentioned it earlier - that Orthodox theologians in the twentieth century not infrequently contrasted Orthodox "catholicity in depth" with Catholic "catholicity in breadth." I think that argument was more about defending Orthodoxy's dubious embrace of nationalism, and scoring points against Catholicism, than positing a genuine ecclesiological principle.

Orthodoxy today needs to discover catholicity "in breadth." And in terms of this understanding of catholicity, what applies to the church as a whole equally applies to its theology and those who teach it. When the church in any particular place rejects ideas - and teachers! - because they come from someplace else in the world, because they are "foreign," the church denies its catholicity. It degrades itself, becoming a servant of the old tribal gods of nation, language, people, blood.

surviving the desert

This is the tentative title of a book I've decided to begin. It's "practical theology" in the sense that it will be about the uses of theology in times of alienation from, estrangement from,  disillusionment with, the church. Think of it as a work of what some traditions call ascetical theology. For surely it is a severe discipline to come to terms, creative terms, with the discovery that the garden of the church harbors a desert as well.

theology of transition

What would a theology of transition look like? Pastoral care, social and economic analysis, a revisiting of the meaning of work and human giftedness in an era of scarcity.

A. Roy Eckardt on the Resurrection

If I remember correctly, the United Methodist theologian A. Roy Eckardt (1918-1998), late in his career, reaffirmed the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, after having denied it in earlier writings (within the context of post-Shoah  Christian theology).

This is from his For Righteousness' Sake (1987), p. 310:

If it is so that God is on the side of the poor against the rich, and of Jews against their persecutors, what may we say concerning a conflict between the Sadducees and the Pharisees? We are given to understand that the Sadducees insisted that there is no resurrection (e.g., Matt. 22:23) - contra Pharisee teaching. To introduce a light note (and perhaps therefore an especially serious one):  We are advised that the One who sits in the heavens is not above laughing certain parties to scorn (Ps. 2:4). What would be a better joke on those reactionary Sadducees than for God to raise her own Pharisee-liberal Son from the dead! She would be having a go at one of her dearest truths, and would also be giving at least a few of her people a foretaste of the things that are to come. Maybe best of all, she would be reminding the Sadducees exactly what she thought of them, meanwhile assuring her good friends the Pharisees that she was on their side . . .

double-edged

Orthodoxy today still wrestles with the anti-Judaism of the Fathers. I made the following point at a summer school session once nearly six years ago, and it was predictably not well received then. Likely it won't be now either, but I still think it's important to say:

Supersessionism cuts both ways. If Christians claim that the church has replaced Israel (the people, not the nation-state) in God's plan, I don't see how they can deny Muslim claims for the finality and perfection of the revelation to Mohammed.

I may we be repeating a point made by Muslims in Christian-Muslim debate in the middle ages. I don't know enough about the subject to say.

not common knowledge?

Today I read an article in the Guardian about the forthcoming book by the retiring Archbishop of Canterbury. In it he criticizes the drive toward ever-greater production and consumption in modern-day capitalism. The article portrayed this critique as something new. What's so new about it?

purpose, goal

No, this isn't about teleology, at least not in the classic sense. ;-) My dear sister, who is extremely knowledgeable about all things having to do with online presence, asked me recently what the goal of my blog was.

I'd never really thought about it in those terms. But she's right: there ought to be some kind of driving purpose behind this blog, one that I can articulate to others - to my potential audience, as it were.

I write in advocacy of a catholic interpretation of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. As an Orthodox Christian I have been disturbed by the narrow way in which some in the Orthodox world today interpret Orthodoxy.  I think that a catholic view of Orthodoxy is not only possible and supported by the tradition itself. It is a necessary interpretation of Orthodoxy if Orthodoxy is to be able to live out its vocation today.  I know that I've just begged a lot of questions here, and raised others. I hope to address as many of them as possible in this blog.

I'm contrarian by nature. I don't fall into line easily, and I find myself raising uncomfortable issues others think are best left alone. I also have the bad habit of wandering outside the boundaries of the discipline or disciplines in which I was educated. I mistrust boundaries, borders, and party lines. My first instinct is to make connections between fields rather than build walls around them. I think that when it comes to doing theology, more things are fair game than people realize.

I'm also a populist. I distrust elites and I value education. Truth is great, and we do not need to fear it, wherever it is found.

face

I've been returning to Levinas in the past few months. From the perspective of Orthodox theological traditions, seems to me that his concept of face has a lot of potential in the areas of pastoral care, ascetical theology (i.e., spirituality), Christology, and of course ethics underlying it all. There have been several Protestant and Anglican theologians who have explored Levinas's ideas for more than ten years now, but not many Orthodox so far.

Gillet, Christian spirituality, reunion

I've quoted this text many times in several different contexts, but not so far in a blog. It's from the introduction to Lev Gillet's ("A Monk of the Eastern Church") little 1968 book, Orthodox Spirituality (pp. viii-ix). It's prophetic. To my knowledge there is no comparable statement by any other Orthodox theologian.

Gillet says:

It cannot be too often repeated:  there is no chasm between Eastern and Western Christianity. The fundamental principles of Christian spirituality are the same in the East and in the West; the methods are very often alike; the differences do not bear on the chief points. On the whole, there is one Christian spirituality with, here and there, some variations of stress and emphasis.

The whole teaching of the Latin Fathers may be found in the East, just as the whole teaching of the Greek Fathers may be found in the West. Rome has given St. Jerome to Palestine. The East has given Cassian to the West and holds in special veneration that Roman of the Romans, Pope St. Gregory the Great (our Gregory Dialogos). St. Basil would have acknowledged St. Benedict of Nursia as his  brother and heir. St. Macrina would have found her sister in St. Scholastica. St. Alexis, "the man of God," the "poor man under the stairs," has been succeeded by the wandering beggar St. Benedict Labre. St. Nicholas would have felt as very near to him the burning charity of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Vincent de Paul. St. Seraphim of Sarov would have seen the desert blossoming under Father Charles de Foucauld's feet, and would have called St. Therese of Lisieux "my joy".

In the same way the Eastern Church can value the achievements of "evangelical" Christians. She can acknowledge and honour  all that is so deeply Christian - and therefore "Orthodox" - in such men as (to name only a few) George Fox, Nicholas Zinzendorf, John Wesley, William Booth, the Sadhu Sundar Singh . . . .  A genuine and intense spiritual life is the shortest and safest way to re-union.

pressing needs

What is the area of contemporary life that most cries out for theological analysis? Technology? Anthropology in the context of networked life? Economic injustice? Ecclesiology? Spirituality?

Even as I write this, I feel a certain unease. Is "theological analysis" really what is needed? If we take the phrase in the sense of examining a problem through the lens of a theological system or structure, I would have to answer no.

But if we mean by theological analysis a view of contemporary problems from the perspective of the journey of drawing near to God and our neighbor in love, then maybe the answer is yes.

theology without names

Some years ago an Orthodox student of mine expressed the wish that an Orthodox theologian would write theology in such a way that nobody could tell that it had come from an Orthodox pen.

I sympathized with the wish then, and I sympathize with it now.  Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible. It's impossible to write from a neutral perspective. It's a truism, but still worth repeating:  we all write from the place or places we inhabit - mentally, spiritually, traditionally, emotionally, geographically.

I think that my student's desire was for an Orthodox theologian to write in a non-sectarian way. In other words, to write from a catholic perspective. This I think is possible. It's not only possible, it's necessary. There is still a debate within Orthodoxy about the meaning of catholicity. Unfortunately, that debate has been shaped by nationalism and the desire to articulate a distinctive identity in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

I think it was Afanasiev who famously defined Catholicism and Protestantism in terms of A and not-A. I wonder, though, if Orthodoxy hasn't become the "not-A." That is, we have defaulted to self-definition in terms of negation.

ecclesiology, Rosenzweig

For whom or what does the church exist? That the entire world become Christian? I don't think so. To answer this question, we must ask a prior question: for whom or what do the Jewish people exist? Franz Rosenzweig offered an answer in The Star of Redemption. My point here is that the question of ecclesiology requires Christians to answer the question about the Jewish people. Without reference to that prior question, ecclesiology is at best incomplete; at worst, defective.

impetus

Where is the impetus for people of different Christian traditions to gather together to pray together? There is none that I can see. It is a radical act that goes against the grain of our contemporary tribalism. Sometimes I think Soloviev was right, that such an act will happen only when the churches find themselves against the eschatological wall, as it were. At the end of the world, in other words. If I embraced a realized eschatology, I would feel my back against that wall here and now.

Mariazell

Visited Mariazell today, the most important pilgrimage site in Austria. In the aula of the basilica was a poster commemorating a visit by the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew. The visit was in 2009 or 2010, I think.

Such visits are important, I know. They are signs of the progress of ecumenical dialogue at the highest levels. Would an Ecumenical Patriarch have felt himself able to pay a visit to Mariazell sixty, or even fifty, years ago? I doubt it, though I'm happy to be corrected.

But do the Orthodox and Catholics here pray together? Not just once in a while, but regularly?

more on the 30s

Economically at least, we don't seem to have learned much from the 1930s. Socially or societally either. With some economists warning of a new Great Depression with its attendant social upheaval on the horizon, I read the news these days with a sense of dread.

Yes, I know that the second decade of the 21st century is not the 1930s. However, have we really learned, theologically and ecclesially, what it requires to live faithfully in an age of economic and social alienation, deprivation, and greed?

30s

The economic conditions we face today are more like than unlike the 1930s. Maybe it's time to revisit some of the theologians from the 1930s - perhaps their time has come. I'm thinking of Bonhoeffer, St. Maria of Paris, Bulgakov, Berdyaev.

welcoming the stranger

One of the negative side-effects of church as subculture is the lack of welcome for the stranger that can result. To take in the stranger is not a matter of social etiquette. God commands it of Israel, and Christ makes it a criterion of eschatological judgment in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25, a pericope much used in the Byzantine tradition).

Taken together, the gospels contain a tension between the command to Christ's disciples to love one another, and the command to love the stranger.

Mobility, war, economic and social violence have made our age the age of the stranger.

for whom is it?

I understand the importance of education when it comes to doing theology. Yet I still wonder for whom theology really exists, and who are its proper practitioners. Must one have a doctorate in theology before one can possess genuine theological insight? I don't think so. But at the same time, genuine theological insight implies the ability to think within the tradition one inhabits. That habit of thought is not acquired overnight. Does this habit of thought not ultimately come down to the "mind" which was in Christ according to the author of the kenotic hymn of Philippians 2?

esoteric

I'm aware of an academic discipline of western esotericism studies. But is there really a practiceable tradition there? Or does anyone claiming to practice a western esoteric "tradition" essentially have to create one for use today? I'm aware that, in one sense, all religious or spiritual traditions do that - it's unavoidable.

letting go (cont'd)

To be sure, the kenotic strain in Orthodoxy isn't the only one. The nineteenth-century embrace of nationalism, and the ensuing heresy of phyletism, prevent any easy or unequivocal identification of Orthodoxy with a theology of divine self-emptying.

To say this is to acknowledge the challenges contemporary Orthodoxy faces.

letting go

In the context of the ecumenical movement, it was a mistake for the Orthodox to put themselves forward as "the church of the Fathers" and as one of the so-called "ancient churches." Such designations allowed the Orthodox to be marginalized.

Even outside the context of the ecumenical movement, I think a kenotic approach is truer and more fruitful. Do we have the courage to let go of such designations so that we can embrace the One who emptied himself?

Dirty words

For not a few Orthodox, "ecumenism" and "ecumenical" are theological four-letter words, to be equated with heresy, capitulation, falsehood, deception. For me, those two words evoke not dread and hatred, but sadness.

I grew up in the heyday of both the Ecumenical Movement and the Liturgical Movement. I remember the sense of hope and optimism that both engendered, at least among some. But both seem spent, left behind in the search for the latest enthusiasm-generator for the churches. Did either movement achieve its aims? I doubt it.

For all who are cold

The Revelation to John contains this charge against the church in Laodicea:

I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.(Rev 3:15-16, NRSV)

In other words, there is a place for those who are cold. I know of no thorough discussion of what it might actually mean to be "cold." Or what it means that Christ wishes that the church in Laodicea were either hot or cold. At first glance, you might think that those who are cold will suffer a negative judgment. But the people who will be spit out (or, as some translations have it, vomited out) are not the cold, but the lukewarm.

What place is there in the church for those of us who are cold? What does it mean to be cold, in terms of spiritual life, in terms of the way the church is in the world?

sic et non

Following up on the what I'd begun to say about the place of "practical theology" in Orthodox theological education.

It seems inevitable that we have to accept the way that a modern university chooses to divide the disciplines it embraces. We don't have a choice about that. The alternative would be to establish a separate theological school. That's not in the cards here, at least as far as I can see.

But what we do have a choice about is how we define what "practical theology" is. I must admit that the division into practical and systematic approaches to theology has always made me uncomfortable, even before I became Orthodox. It's not just that that way of seeing things appears to elevate systematic theology above the "mere practitioners." It's also that it gives the false impression that theology has nothing to do with how the faith is practiced, lived out, made flesh and bone.

Better not to do theology than have that happen.

So what do we do instead? We must fight the "practical-systematic" division at every step of the process of theological education. Can we rely on the tried-and-true reply so often made by Orthodox, that theologia in Orthodox traditions really has to do with the contemplative vision of God? I don't think so, though that argument is important.

I suggest a different approach. As the mystery of the Incarnation lies at the heart of Orthodox Christianity, I think that a more fruitful approach today would be integral, embodied, contemplative, centered on the person in her and his unity and wholeness.

No Abelard

Rereading my post on practical theology and Orthodox theological education, I see that I've concluded the post with what some might take as an ironic or witty reference to Abelard's Sic et non. The reference was unintentional.

Unintentional, but maybe not pointless. Abelard seeks to resolve unresolved questions in the writings of the church Fathers. I don't think Abelard's project is possible these days. Ambivalence, ambiguity, contradiction, tension:  these are the norms, not the aberrations, of thought today. In saying this I'm not yearning for a return to an era of univocal responses to theological issues. The tensions have always been there; the question is, how do theologians and the church interpret them.

 

 

holiness and publicity

I don't recall off the top of my head if it's The Diary of a Russian Priest or one of Alexander Schmemann's works that contains this observation, but noticing a photo of Thomas Merton gracing the cover of his little book on contemplative prayer, it came to mind. That is, that if today one really wanted to adopt the life of solitude and prayer so extolled by the Sayings of the Fathers, one would not enter a monastery but take up a boring, menial job such as a bank teller that would allow one to pray continuously while doing the mechanical tasks of that job.

How attractive would such a life be? Not very, I imagine. It doesn't come with the accoutrements of an exotic community or lifestyle, or a culture different from the world around it. It doesn't give us an option to flee to, from our ordinary lives. It embraces the tedium of modern life in its quest for solitude in which prayer can grow. It is the spiritual equivalent of the high-wire artist working without a net. In such a bare life, one stands exposed to everything that can stunt or kill love and prayer. Surprised that I mentioned love here? The stereotype of the contemplative is one of a person cut off from the world, pursuing their own spiritual adventures. But the goal of contemplation is love, as Merton himself reminds us. Love itself is the door to the vision of God.

David Foster Wallace's last novel, The Pale King, comes to mind here as it's been called a book about boredom and transcendence.

First thoughts

Hi, and thanks for stopping by.

I decided to start this blog as a way to jump-start my writing in the area of Orthodox Christian practical theology.  I'll be thinking out loud here more than presenting finished arguments.

Is there really such a thing as Orthodox practical theology? I think that the division of theology into "practical" and "systematic" is more a product of Protestant and Catholic theological education than it is a hard-and-fast categorization of theology in general. And that even within Protestant and Catholic theology, this distinction doesn't hold.  That is, in the history of Christian theology there have also been Protestant and Catholic theologians who, I think, would also challenge this way of thinking about theology. John Wesley comes to mind on the Protestant side, and any of the contemplative theologians in the history of Catholic theology.

This division into "practical" and "systematic" serves more the interests of academic turf definition than the actual functions of theology in the church.  It also has unhappy consequences for the life of theology in the church:  it introduces a false barrier between "thinkers" and "doers." It is largely meaningless in the history of Orthodox theology until the twentieth century and the rise of Orthodox theological education modeled on Protestant and Catholic schools of theology and seminaries.

Is it a division Orthodox theologians must accept as one price of being able to function in the context of modern theological education? No and yes.