Rick H.
10-07-2007, 06:18 PM
Dear All,
I have been cleaning out my attic, garage, and garden shed for the past few weeks. I am determined that this time I will be successful at organizing all of my stuff!. But, I share this with you to mention that, in a box full of things, I found an article yesterday. It is one that I clipped and saved from the newspaper about six years ago. One, that my priest wrote, about a year after he arrived in the US, it was published in the local paper in 2001. I set this article aside until I could read it again, which I just did.
The opening line of the article caught my attention as I read it again:
Christianity is not just "another religion." Indeed, we may go even so far as to say Christianity is not a religion.
My priest did his post graduate degree in England, studying under John Zizioulas. I wonder if we hear any Zizioulas in this next quote from the article as he claims that as local groups of Christians come together to celebrate the fact of the resurrection of Christ we celebrate:
. . . a fact of history that has consequences for the whole cosmos.
And, then he goes on to say:
Christianity, then, is not a religion in any ordinary sense of the word. It can never be subordinated or put to the service of any one thing: society, personal gain, psychological needs, political parties, government, or even church authorities.
Look at that word one more time please . . . "subordinated."
And, he continues in the article:
We use our mind for everything else, but we don't use our mind to learn about the faith. We use the excuse that it's all one big mystery anyway--so how can you begin to understand it? The result is a very passive attitude toward the faith . . .
After reading this my mind went to something that Matthew S. had written once before:
But to the larger question: yes, there is a great deal of room for intellectual questioning and philosophical reflection in the Orthodox tradition. Our patristic corpus is filled with the writings of individuals who cannot but be considered masters in these arenas: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus Confessor, Athanasius of Alexandria, Symeon the New Theoloian, Gregory Palamas, Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, Leo the Great, to name but a few. All of these men wrote works of intricate philosophical investigation and endeavour, and not one among them preached that 'faith' equates to 'simply accepting without thinking'.
And, then I started to consider such concepts as subordination and constraint/limiting as it relates to freedom and anxiety (and not least the Spirit of Life), as well as both speaking theology and living theology, and the thoughts of George Papademetriou came to mind next:
It is basic Christian doctrine that the Holy Spirit may act wherever and whenever. Presuming to constrain the activity of the Holy Spirit - to limit God Himself- is not the way. Orthodoxy recognizes and accepts the mandate to seek Truth and to follow the Holy Spirit wherever He leads,
And, all of this is a way of moving towards a discussion that will hopefully aid us in our understanding of an Orthodox theology of freedom--as presented from within the Eastern Orthodox schools of thought. In fact Zizioulas's thinking of the dilemma of freedom as love or freedom as negation may be a good way to begin to develop a discussion of a theology of freedom as seen in the Eastern Orthodox Church of today, as well as in the view of the church fathers to be sure. Or possibly, some of you see some key words above that inspire other directions/vehicles to get this new conversation up and running.
And, I would think that it would be more than reasonable to consider the opposite of a theology of freedom which is a theology of anxiety. In fact, how can we not do this (hence the title of the thread). So as we begin to unfold this new topic, it should be noted that this will not be a short and quick conversation, so for the impatient at heart, please consider yourself forewarned as we move forward one step at a time, God willing.
In Christ,
Rick
I have been cleaning out my attic, garage, and garden shed for the past few weeks. I am determined that this time I will be successful at organizing all of my stuff!. But, I share this with you to mention that, in a box full of things, I found an article yesterday. It is one that I clipped and saved from the newspaper about six years ago. One, that my priest wrote, about a year after he arrived in the US, it was published in the local paper in 2001. I set this article aside until I could read it again, which I just did.
The opening line of the article caught my attention as I read it again:
Christianity is not just "another religion." Indeed, we may go even so far as to say Christianity is not a religion.
My priest did his post graduate degree in England, studying under John Zizioulas. I wonder if we hear any Zizioulas in this next quote from the article as he claims that as local groups of Christians come together to celebrate the fact of the resurrection of Christ we celebrate:
. . . a fact of history that has consequences for the whole cosmos.
And, then he goes on to say:
Christianity, then, is not a religion in any ordinary sense of the word. It can never be subordinated or put to the service of any one thing: society, personal gain, psychological needs, political parties, government, or even church authorities.
Look at that word one more time please . . . "subordinated."
And, he continues in the article:
We use our mind for everything else, but we don't use our mind to learn about the faith. We use the excuse that it's all one big mystery anyway--so how can you begin to understand it? The result is a very passive attitude toward the faith . . .
After reading this my mind went to something that Matthew S. had written once before:
But to the larger question: yes, there is a great deal of room for intellectual questioning and philosophical reflection in the Orthodox tradition. Our patristic corpus is filled with the writings of individuals who cannot but be considered masters in these arenas: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus Confessor, Athanasius of Alexandria, Symeon the New Theoloian, Gregory Palamas, Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, Leo the Great, to name but a few. All of these men wrote works of intricate philosophical investigation and endeavour, and not one among them preached that 'faith' equates to 'simply accepting without thinking'.
And, then I started to consider such concepts as subordination and constraint/limiting as it relates to freedom and anxiety (and not least the Spirit of Life), as well as both speaking theology and living theology, and the thoughts of George Papademetriou came to mind next:
It is basic Christian doctrine that the Holy Spirit may act wherever and whenever. Presuming to constrain the activity of the Holy Spirit - to limit God Himself- is not the way. Orthodoxy recognizes and accepts the mandate to seek Truth and to follow the Holy Spirit wherever He leads,
And, all of this is a way of moving towards a discussion that will hopefully aid us in our understanding of an Orthodox theology of freedom--as presented from within the Eastern Orthodox schools of thought. In fact Zizioulas's thinking of the dilemma of freedom as love or freedom as negation may be a good way to begin to develop a discussion of a theology of freedom as seen in the Eastern Orthodox Church of today, as well as in the view of the church fathers to be sure. Or possibly, some of you see some key words above that inspire other directions/vehicles to get this new conversation up and running.
And, I would think that it would be more than reasonable to consider the opposite of a theology of freedom which is a theology of anxiety. In fact, how can we not do this (hence the title of the thread). So as we begin to unfold this new topic, it should be noted that this will not be a short and quick conversation, so for the impatient at heart, please consider yourself forewarned as we move forward one step at a time, God willing.
In Christ,
Rick