Greetings from Greece

Here are a few reflections on not just theorizing about the other lung (which is important), but breathing with it.

After visiting Orthodox monasteries in Serbia, I've been spending another two weeks at the Prodromos Monastery in northern Greece. Interestingly, the best way to understand the way things happen here comes not from studying patristic thought as much as from experience in charismatic churches or reading Susan Howatch novels. This is a place of dynamic, long stretches of worship and gifted spiritual advisors who know what you say before you say it. Try to engage the abbess here about theology and she's likely to give you a cautious look, pointing you to experience of the liturgy instead. Echoing Maximus the Confessor, she suggests that theology is best understood as an exercise to remove obstacles to the life of prayer.

One mistake in my first visit both here and at Athos was not to engage enough in the liturgy. This year I've tried to go as often as possible, which is often, at times wearyingly so. My first stint involved a repentant realization that as a Protestant, I am but a catechumen in the Orthodox church. To protest this status as "uninclusive" seems to require an oblivious disregard of one's own shortcomings and sin. Should one not convert, catechumen status seems the most reasonable position in regard not only to the Orthodox, but Catholic church as well - whose competing claims should be more than enough to scramble any hasty conclusions. No, one doesn't get the eucharist, but catechumens do get some blessed crumbs that fall from the table which are more than enough.

The nuns invited us closer the next few times to see more of what was happening. The chandeliers spin like the cranks of a giant divinization machine in the Saint factory. The nuns, all dressed in jet black, blend into the darkness so that it's easy to bump into them, and they all line up to prepare for the great entry of Christ's body and blood through the gates - a perfect a parable of the Second Coming. It's also no small privilege to worship next to the tomb of Gennadius Scholarius, the first Orthodox patriarch after 1453, who once worshipped here as well.

Over time I grew more relaxed. When lost in the quandry of competing ecclesiologies, the theme of the Kingdom of God is of no small assistance, and is of course of certain canonical authority. To collapse it into the ecclesial structures of Orthodoxy or Catholicism requires a massive leap of faith in either direction that I'm not willing to take, but in Christ I participate in the Kingdom. The reading for that night seemed to justify such inclinations.

The liturgy is where divinization happens. One begins to slowly get lifted up into it, which is certainly helped by the polished singing and a downright evangelical priest who ended the liturgy with a tearful yet joyful sermon.

There is more liturgy to come, and more research on the near-biblical landscape (sheep, goats, figs, sparrows, cattle, thorns, vines). In conversation with some of my fellow researchers our conversations are not unheated. We're certainly not all Christian, which is alright. The nuns welcome as all. At one point we discussed trendy pomo theorist Deleuze's theory of the rhyzome as an agricultural paradigm for intellectual headway. But I the liturgy and landscape is getting to me. I'll see Deleuze's rhyzome and raise him a vine. Christ is all in all.

the other lung

In the "I must decrease" department, may I refer you to these excellent remarks by Daniel Siedell on theology and art. He ends with the need to understand the 7th ecumenical council. What I fine idea. So, greetings from the land of Orthodoxy (Christendom's second lung), specifically Serbia, from where I write. Studying Byzantine art history has its rewards.

Belgrade was amazing. Made me want to protest the war (Clinton's war that is). And incidentally, it is possible to go see the Duomo in Milan on a layover. Sporadic updates to come.

9.5 Theses

Apostles of Ambiguity, this is just too much. I have heard my Tetzel. Where is my Wittenberg door?

1. I'll say it again: He who marries the spirit of the age will soon become a widower. Do those who married postmodernity realize their spouse is in a nursing home?

1.5 Christians who cater their theology to accommodate deconstruction are comparable to sub-rate CCM bands who copy Green Day five years after they've ceased being cool. They'll sell, but to a subset of evangelicalism who want to be "relevant" - which is the only group they'll ever be relevant to.

2. Yes Paul said he sees through a glass darkly - but he still saw. Don't forget to keep reading.

2.5 Paul did not end his speech at the Areopagus by saying "the Unknown God" is a great idea, sorry I bothered you. Nice statue. Can I have a copy?

NEW! 2.75 At least John Shelby Spong holds a position.

3. If you're reacting to a bad experience with evangelicalism, I'm sorry. Please, stop, take a deep breath, and learn the tradition instead of reacting to a truncated (but vivid) fragment of the Christian heritage. Learn, forgive, move on. You can do it.

NEW! 3.5 A new translation has revealed what was actually the last temptation of Christ. Returning our Lord to the temple mount, Satan said: "Obfuscate whatever remains of classical church teaching in American Evangelicalism and you'll get a book deal, multiple panel appearances, and an exponential increase in blog traffic."

The offer was declined.

Revised! 4. Yes, God is at work in the world already. That doesn't mean the church needs to be like the world. The best thing the church can do for the world is to be the church, not regurgitate graduate school seminar room talk from 1985.

NEW! 4.5 Wrestling with the difficult questions of the Christian life (the eternal destiny of non-Christians, the reliability of the Bible, church hypocrisy, etc.) does not constitute a movement. It's called normative Christian maturation. It is risky business, but followed through, opens into holy mystery and stronger, more nuanced faith. Abandoned, this process can lead to faith's termination. Perpetuating those questions indefinitely, however, is another thing entirely: Frozen adolescence.

NEW! 4.75 POP QUIZ! What is wrong with the following Biblical quotation? "Seek and you shall seek."

Revised! 5. Protestantism can find hope by clinging to its birthright, a passionate focus on the written Word of God, the unique, authoritative avenue to the Word of God in Christ. Protestants are an order of the written Word (in very sad condition) within God's woefully divided church. Our guide in stewarding this threatened charism is not the "spirit of protest" but the Holy Spirit. There's a difference.

NEW! 5.5 Tom Oden is right: "A center without a circumference is just a dot, nothing more. It is the circumference that marks the boundary of the circle. To eliminate the boundary is to eliminate the circle itself. The circle of faith cannot identify its center without recognizing its perimeter."

Revised! 6. Yes, we all know what big words like hermeneutics mean. The answer to the dilemma that the science of interpretation poses is not chaos, nor a license for whatever you want the Bible to mean, but the definitive community of interpretation of the historic church. No, this does not answer every question, but it rules many fruitless questions out.

6.5 Speaking of big words, consider this one: "And." It's especially helpful when confronted with polarizing rhetoric shortsighted enough to suggest one must choose propositional/factual truth or narrative/aesthetic truth.

7. It does not "puncture the hegemony of logic" to deny the central tenets of the Christian faith. The central tenets of the Christian faith do a fine job of that already. It is not humility to deny what God has done by impenetrable obscurity masquerading as "nuance." It is pride.

7.5 To correct abuses of rationality (which are legion) by neutering epistemology is like correcting poor carpentry by outlawing tools.

NEW! 7.75 The most radical postmodern epistemology appears numbingly Newtonian next to the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 8: You can't know this kind of knowledge (verse 3), this Knowledge knows you.

8. Heresy is boring, not exciting because it eviscerates mystery. If you're attracted to heresy because it makes you feel naughty then that's kinda creepy. If you're attracted to it because you don't want to "limit God," then the religion that serves a God who became a particular first-century Palestinian Jew might not be for you.

NEW! 8.5 If religion without doctrine suits you, consider Shintoism.

9. Negative (a.k.a. apophatic) theology is not a new idea. What's new is removing it from its context withing positive theology and until it leaves you without a Gospel.

9.5 And by the way, apophatic theology does not apply to ethics.

That no car ride go silent again

There is an extraordinary amount of information out there, I'm thinking specifically of University Podcasts. A few lessons emerge:

1. Relax, the offerings of the world's Universities aren't really that exciting.
2. The need for communities of learning and conversation, a.k.a. actual friendship, persists.
3. However many courses are offered for free, you still can't beat the Teaching Company, and they're worth the price. I can't even begin to describe how good their new American History course is.
4. In light of a proliferation of information, having a broad organizational/filtering component such as Christian faith is not as much narrow as it is necessary.
5. You still need people to guide you through the morass. May I recommend the esteemed philosopher Roger Scruton on Religious Freedom, and Harvard's Owen Gingerich on a lifetime of wisdom regarding Science and Faith which nicely summarizes his book.

Please consider further recommendations solicited.