A Protestant meets Eastern Orthodoxy.

We just finished our first Eastern Orthodoxy class, and I’m left with a lot of questions.  After it ended, Marit and Julie and I immediately headed to one of the cheap little bakeries on Main Street to sit and talk (and eat pastries, yes).  I found myself getting really excited as our conversation flowed, so I figured I’d try to chronicle a couple of those thoughts.  I have the sneaking suspicion that I’ll look back on this post at the end of the semester and smile fondly at my naïveté, but I’m willing to take that.  For now, a few premature thoughts on what it’s like to be a Protestant studying Eastern Orthodoxy.

I would consider myself a Protestant, by the way.  And that’s not just because it’s the Christian tradition I’ve grown up in (that’s definitely how I arrived at Protestantism, but it’s not why I remain there).  I would prefer—in an act of attempted purity of faith, I suppose—to simply call myself a disciple of Jesus, but I realize that my discipleship is steeped in culture and tradition, so I may as well identify that.  I’m a Protestant.  (There, I’ve confessed.)  :)  But there are many things I appreciate about other religious traditions.  I have learned about the greatness of God from people who believe differently than I do: through witnessing the spirituality of Buddhism in Vietnam, through admiring the faithfulness of Muslims in Bosnia as their call to prayer rang through Sarajevo from the mosques, through observing Seder with a Jewish friend… I have learned over and over that God is a God who is much bigger than my preconceived notions of Him, and can be known in ways far beyond my limited experiences with Him.  And I’m thankful for the diversity of my Christian family—for Catholic brothers and sisters and the strength of their tradition; for the ways they have filled much of history with the Gospel; for the strength of their sacraments and the way those sacraments have sometimes changed the world (I’m thinking of how the Eucharist became a counterpoint against torture during the Pinochet regime in Chile… tangent, sorry).  I identify with so many parts of Orthodoxy—its appreciation of beauty and culture and the tangible, physical world; its recognition of the faithful, encouragement of the community, and value of personal piety.  There is wealth there, lots of it.  There is truth there, lots of it.  After all, God is bigger and greater than all I ever knew Him to be. 

But I still identify strongly with Protestantism.  Though it sometimes has sold itself to political agendas, denominational divisions, and lusting after wealth and power (especially in the West, or America [the only culture from which I can really speak, ‘cause though my mom is Canadian, I grew up in the States]), there is strength in its tradition.  I’m painting in really broad strokes, and I know there are lots of exceptions, but in my experience with Protestantism, there is an emphasis on a personal knowledge of God and His Word and a call to daily discipleship that I think is really important.  Personally, I appreciate the emphasis on the authority of the Bible for Christian life.  I need to be reminded, sometimes, of the harder words that Jesus speaks.  I’m all about His promise of life abundant; I love it when He says His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  I resonate deeply with the calls to social justice and to environmental stewardship and to grace and forgiveness and pacifism and all the other rather radical, semi-hippy-feeling callings that Jesus gives to His disciples.  But when He says He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (and I rejoice!), He follows that with the statement, “and no one comes to the Father except through me.”  Honestly, I don’t like that part of His message nearly as much.  But in the Protestant churches I’ve grown up in, I’ve been taught how to hold those two things in healthy tension.  (Which, in my understanding of its implications for Christian life, means far more emphasis on the grace and love and following of Jesus, and far less about the judgment.)  I know that my experiences in the American Protestant Church are, unfortunately, far from the norm.  That saddens me.  And sometimes infuriates me.  But I have to remember that it’s my family—and even if my family is sometimes dysfunctional, it remains my family.  There’s hope for grace and redemption even in the most messed-up families.

All of that leads me to my point.  (Ah, you’re probably sighing. She has a point?  I do!  Hold on just a little bit longer!)  I’m a self-proclaimed Protestant.  But I think we have much to learn from the Orthodox church.  In just one class, a few of those things became apparent to me, so I’m going to put them out there for any other Protestants who are curious to learn more from our brothers and sisters in the faith.  Ready?  Here we go.

First, as Dana explained today, Orthodoxy emphasizes that we can’t have right belief without right action.  It’s like 1 Corinthians 13 says—if I do all sorts of good works and know everything about everything (OK, it’s a Kelly paraphrase), but have not love, it means nothing.  In the Western church, we have a tendency to focus on right belief.  Students at my Christian liberal arts college (myself included) spend a lot of time staying up late debating doctrine.  Too few of us (myself still included) pour as much passion into making sure every single one of our actions is in line with the Truth.

Second, there is a strong emphasis in Orthodoxy on fasting.  The Eastern Orthodox tradition recognizes our materiality as created human beings, and acknowledges the importance of our physicality.  But with that high esteem also comes an increased emphasis on asceticism (a healthy one, I believe, especially in wealthy and consumerist Western cultures).  Self-discipline through fasting and other practices is vital to help us control our passions and reorder our priorities.  The American Protestant Church, I dare say, could use a reminder of our materiality.  If we learned how to see the physical world with spiritual eyes, we might see our abundant wealth more clearly and know better how to use it.

I could go on.  We’re reading a great book (The Spirituality of the Christian East by Tomaš Špidlík).  It sometimes confuses me; sometimes I disagree; other times, I agree heartily and am convicted.  I’ll close with a quote from that text, one which reveals the necessity of living what is revealed to us, and gradually being sanctified (and perhaps, in fact, truly “working out our salvation”) through that life.  Ahem: “The ‘incarnation’ of Scripture presupposes a reaction by the one who is acted upon, a permeation, a perichoresis…..”  Man, that’s exciting.