An exploration of Eastern Orthodoxy

[JR5]

The below article analyzes Eastern Orthodoxy from an outsider's perspective, concluding that it offers a stability of doctrine, belief and outlook that is attractive to those looking for an alternative to secular liberal materialism, especially as Catholicism and Protestantism seems increasingly infected by such secular liberal materialism. However, it also argues that trends are such that it appears Orthodoxy is unlikely to "win" in the secular realm in the future.

An exploration of Eastern Orthodoxy

A consistent religion amidst a world of change. But is that enough?

neofeudalreview.substack.com

 

[JCSteel]

Looking forward to reading that. My knowledge of Orthodoxy is small but growing- for what's it's worth I think the Orthodox presentation of the Gospel and the beauty of the Sunday Liturgy has all the power necessary to convert men and women, alongside the fasting the Church prescribes to turn us toward God.

 

[Iacobus]

Pretty fair summary for an outside perspective. What I found most curious was the author's belief that "reality is metaphysically infused with malevolence." He didn't elaborate but that contrasts with an idea that Jay Dyer recently exposed me to that I presume is Orthodox (correct me if I have this wrong), the idea that sin and evil in and of themselves do not have ontological substance/existence. Which seems to harmonize exceedingly with Christ being the Light of the World, and that darkness is not a 'thing' in and of itself but an absence of another thing.

I also found his critique that a religion should have a way to falsify itself quite puzzling. That implies that he thinks only scientific beliefs are legitimate to hold? The gentleman also seems to assess a religion against its pragmatic qualities rather than its Truth or lack thereof.

 

[JCSteel]

One casual observation about the Orthodox Church, and I've heard Brother Augustine say this, is that it hasn't been able to compete with the Protestants and Evangelicals in evangelizing. I'd love to get a gospel tract written by an Orthodox Christian, which emphasizes Jesus's defeat of Satan, Sin, and Death.

 

[Rodion]

That wasn’t a bad read, he shares the perspective I had as an atheist which was that Protestantism is the precursor of egalitarianism and modernity. Though when one becomes Orthodox, it’s easy to see how this began in the run-up to the schism with the insanity of the modern world being the “fruit” of the west severing itself from the truth.

The criticisms were what I would expect. The other thing I would add is that the outsider doesn’t experience the life of the Church, and how it changes and softens you. At first I agonised about if my attraction to orthodoxy was just nailing my colours to something that seemed “based” and against modernity.

Now I’ve been living the life of the church and have been to Mount Athos and have let Christ work in me, I have softened a lot and do not even think about such a thing

 

[Christos_NIKA]

One casual observation about the Orthodox Church, and I've heard Brother Augustine say this, is that it hasn't been able to compete with the Protestants and Evangelicals in evangelizing. I'd love to get a gospel tract written by an Orthodox Christian, which emphasizes Jesus's defeat of Satan, Sin, and Death.

In my experience, evangelism and outreach in the Orthodox Church varies from parish to parish. I've been in parishes where it is given high priority and parishes (like my current one), where it is given a backseat...way back. When I have asked priests about the reason for this, I have usually gotten a reply along the lines of "the Holy Spirit will guide seekers to us. Our actions and behavior in life are a stronger witness than anything we say". As a former Protestant who converted, this is a hard pill for me to swallow, but I understand the wisdom in it.

That being said, the historical Orthodox nations were either under the yoke of the Ottomans for 500+ years and/or under the yoke of the jewish bolsheviks for 75 years and couldn't exactly contribute to the global Christian dialogue. The fact that they kept their faith alive domestically in the face of such persecution is a testament to their faith and perseverance.

I think the Orthodox Church is just now coming out of its shell and starting to evangelize, to understand the needs, issues, and questions of Christians and other seekers in other parts of the world that they haven't been confronted with for centuries. While it may be frustratingly "slow" in evangelizing, I think we are going to see amazing things from the Orthodox Church in the next decades.

 

[Iacobus]

One casual observation about the Orthodox Church, and I've heard Brother Augustine say this, is that it hasn't been able to compete with the Protestants and Evangelicals in evangelizing. I'd love to get a gospel tract written by an Orthodox Christian, which emphasizes Jesus's defeat of Satan, Sin, and Death.

An argument could be made that historical success in evangelism is at least partially linked to the evangelists' willingness to bend dogma, syncretize with the local beliefs, baptize without proper instruction, or to bribe/threaten. Would you rather have 1000 nominal Christians who don't worship or even attempt to follow God's commandments? Or 10 Christians who make the Church the center of their lives and dedicate their lives to the struggle of repentance? That's an extreme example obviously but I think there's something going on there. It seems like the author may at least partially hold an evolutionary view where a religion's success & merit can be evaluated at least to some degree by Darwinism & survival of the fittest. Though I don't see where that position can terminate philosophically other than "might makes right/do what thou wilt" or some kind of self-centered nihilism.

As @Christos_NIKA testified, I have also found Orthodoxy's stance of mostly preferring prospective converts to come of their own volition vs via outreach somewhat frustrating. But this policy plus traditionally requiring an extended catechesis and demonstration of disciplined sincerity by the convert does seem to vouch for the commitment of the Church to preserving a community of true believers & strugglers.

 

[Blade Runner]

As @Christos_NIKA testified, I have also found Orthodoxy's stance of mostly preferring prospective converts to come of their own volition vs via outreach somewhat frustrating. But this policy plus traditionally requiring an extended catechesis and demonstration of disciplined sincerity by the convert does seem to vouch for the commitment of the Church to preserving a community of true believers & strugglers.

The topic of evangelism is very difficult with (fallen) humans. I've thought about it a lot because it is a charge of the great commission, but we are who we are in location/geography and time, and we can't forget that. For example, it isn't that the great commission isn't for us, it's that it was given to a group of people to spread the gospel initially and throughout time, so of course it was far more important each year that you go back to the time in which Christ told that to the apostles.

Getting back to the difficulty with it, I think it's because there is a lot of emotionalism in "evangelism". There is also a lot of pushiness that comes with the territory when telling another person that your tradition has the truth, which by definition means that others don't (really), and that also garners defensiveness. While someone, let's say, like Penn Jillette who will tell you that if you think something is that important and it's on a topic that literally might be the most important thing in the world (I agree with this by the way), you should absolutely be sharing it with everyone that you come across. The problem with this is that not everyone has the personality of me or Penn, and/or a desire to debate and find truth, or won't get emotional and defensive when people ask questions, etc. Another way of saying this is that not everyone, and I would argue most, is very secure in themselves as people overall, and certainly as thinkers.

Having said all that, I'm open to hearing a lot of things, but am unsure what the best approach to evangelism is at this point. A lot of the more hands off stuff makes as much sense to me, or more (at this point), as the in your face evangelical protestant approach, to be honest. I would guess that a lot of this has to do with the purely material and spoiled reality that many in the modern or developed world have, which means they have the "luxury" to not have to reflect on many things, which is sorta sad.

 

[Sandalwood Peak]

His criticisms of Orthodoxy are too similar to ones from neopaganism. Not a far cry from "Christians worship a jew".

Its good that he makes the connection that the things currently happening have roots in western philosophy. Something that fellow Christians like to conveniently ignore. Who among Christians disagrees with the harm principle?

The problems with the west are simple. He even makes the first point. White people need to get humbled, the Jews have to be purged, and we have to have a homogeneous society, whether ethnically or enforced through force culturally.

As long those thing are not fulfilled, people will continue to suffer and go extinct.

Trying to figure out how Christianity is weak and how we can "improve" it is Mickey Mouse discourse. It has worked fine for a long time and nothing has changed. Its all an illusion. Everything is as it always was.

A lot of men deceive themselves where they think they live in some new epoch of existence. Then a bunch of wierdos have to "teach" us "AF/BB" even though a 5 year old can make that observation. The best thing a man can do is ground himself. As Anglin says; people need to think about their own death. Escape the fantasy.

 

[Blade Runner]

the idea that sin and evil in and of themselves do not have ontological substance/existence.

I've thought about this over the years and others have better answers for it offhand, but it doesn't really hold in a world where free will exists (and the demons got "locked in" with their will, which we can't really understand but in some fashion continue to influence our existence with their wills and our opening ourselves up to those via our will ... the light and dark example makes sense in terms of substance and absence, but sin doesn't really. Here's why: whether we like it or not, evil is absolutely active in the world. A lot of this forum is commentary on that reality. Now, ulimately, nothing has "true" existence apart from God, that is accurate, but that's more of a quality thing since apparently this evil keeps struttin' its stuff in our time, and the Lake of Fire is a thing in the next age ...

A lot of men deceive themselves where they think they live in some new epoch of existence. Then a bunch of wierdos have to "teach" us "AF/BB" even though a 5 year old can make that observation.

I'm not following this statement, but can guess. Can you explain it more fully? I think you are getting at a bit of the modern person's tendency to think that he's "evolved" due to greater knowledge of the world, or that it can be manipulated in certain ways to garner more comforts or conveniences. I don't know what your abbreviation is either, perhaps that's why I was stumped by the sentences.

 

[Sandalwood Peak]

I'm not following this statement, but can guess. Can you explain it more fully? I think you are getting at a bit of the modern person's tendency to think that he's "evolved" due to greater knowledge of the world, or that it can be manipulated in certain ways to garner more comforts or conveniences. I don't know what your abbreviation is either, perhaps that's why I was stumped by the sentences.

If we look at the premise of the article, we can deduce the overarching philosophical question being asked. The author is exploring whether Christianity can provide utility to modern man to help tackle our current political problems. The author is following a long philosophical tradition in doing so; I can't fault him for that, but the question itself is a doomed exercise in system building where the author tries to combine the macro with the micro to explain away the nature of reality. The nature of reality cannot be understood.

If we look at Christianity strictly from a secular perspective, then it provides two things. It creates community, and it gives man meaning. It has done so for a long time. People are right to notice the waning influence of religion. People are right in noticing general apathy. People are wrong in questioning whether religion, such as Christianity, has failed to overcome a new obstacle born out of modernity. There is no modern problem. The modern problem is the people themselves; they're no good. Human beings didn't get smarter and are now able to refute Christianity. It has survived human questioning already.

We can see that life is cyclical. We can also see that human beings are overwhelmingly reactionary as opposed to proactive. What we're witnessing right now is death—the end of a cycle. God offers us a solution: eternal life, but people choose to dedicate their energy to fighting the cycle instead. Worst of all, they're not fighting it physically, but intellectually. They want to figure out what went wrong, why the wheel came off, and what happened. Their pride makes them believe they can interfere with nature. Nothing happened; all things come to an end, and the process is renewed. I guess some people can feel that, and they're trying to race nature; they want to be part of the new cycle, equipped with new and improved ideas. This is human pride. The funny thing about it is that if people would only humble themselves, they would be allowed to transition. Don't doom yourself to die with the old.

Roosh is a perfect example of the "sin" of over-intellectualization and how it relates to religion. Call it what you want—a coping mechanism. I'm just as guilty as him. There is nothing rational about a man dedicating his life to having sex with women. So we have to ask ourselves, why would a man do that? It's very simple; he, like most of us, was fighting reality. Reality is unpleasant, especially today. It is unpleasant because we have been robbed of our human dignity. If blasphemy is a sin against God, then our human equivalent would be dignity, and we have a right to protect it. Aren't we made in the image of God? We have been robbed of it because this system doesn't allow us to reap the fruits of our labor. It doesn't allow us to defend ourselves. This system doesn't give us a fighting chance. We have to chase unattainable false idols and ideals to feel worthy. Sometimes it looks pretty and noble; sometimes it's awkward and repulsive, like kids trying to be thugs or a man trying to be a "player". AF/BB means nice guys finish last in red pill language; you can guess what the F stands for. If you're in tune with the world, why is that something that needs to be taught? Worse yet, why do you have to orient your life around it?

No, Roosh did not defeat ZOG, but that is not the question to ask. Did Christianity improve his life? It did, and that is its value. Now ask yourself: Does Roosh, through Christianity, have a positive or negative effect on the collective society? Is he improving our situation against the synogogue of Satan? I say yes. What more do you want?

This is why I mention things like a homogenous society. This experiment has failed; let it go. Instead of worrying about how my words can "hurt" minorities, worry about the fact that there is no village to help raise our children.

 

[BrotherAugustine]

Pretty fair summary for an outside perspective. What I found most curious was the author's belief that "reality is metaphysically infused with malevolence." He didn't elaborate but that contrasts with an idea that Jay Dyer recently exposed me to that I presume is Orthodox (correct me if I have this wrong), the idea that sin and evil in and of themselves do not have ontological substance/existence. Which seems to harmonize exceedingly with Christ being the Light of the World, and that darkness is not a 'thing' in and of itself but an absence of another thing.

I also found his critique that a religion should have a way to falsify itself quite puzzling. That implies that he thinks only scientific beliefs are legitimate to hold? The gentleman also seems to assess a religion against its pragmatic qualities rather than its Truth or lack thereof.

Jay is correct that Orthodoxy does not believe evil has substance or being, but the way he presents and applies that idea is not always coherent or aligned with other Orthodox ideas. I would agree with him in the instance that it’s theologically / cosmologically wrong to make a statement such as “reality is metaphysically infused with malevolence.” That would be more of a Manichean or Zoroastrian view, which puts a Cause of Evil on the same level as God (the Cause of Good).

However, sin and evil not having substance does not mean the world isn’t still full of these things regardless of whether they have ontological reality or simply result from people choosing to violate God’s will. The “reality infused” statement may have just been sloppy thinking on the writer’s part, hard to tell just from that whether he was making a metaphysical statement or just an observation of our sinful and fallen world.

 

[Blade Runner]

We can see that life is cyclical. We can also see that human beings are overwhelmingly reactionary as opposed to proactive. What we're witnessing right now is death—the end of a cycle. God offers us a solution: eternal life, but people choose to dedicate their energy to fighting the cycle instead. Worst of all, they're not fighting it physically, but intellectually. They want to figure out what went wrong, why the wheel came off, and what happened. Their pride makes them believe they can interfere with nature.

Yes, good points. I think what we are looking for, those of us who see this fairly clearly, is the transition towards the other side of it and how we might traverse the pain with our fellow man (regardless of his ignorance or foolishness), and arrive in a more steady state, building something different and less corrupt. People cling to many things in their desperation due to not understanding much or not having trust in God. This is a speculation of mine, but a lot of these people are going to perish as a result, just because we've hit one of those critical times in "cycles" that chaos and the elites stoke for greater effect, regardless of if they are successful in their larger plans. I guess we shall see what happens as the old system crumbles.

That would be more of a Manichean or Zoroastrian view, which puts a Cause of Evil on the same level as God (the Cause of Good).

Yes, that seems correct, the error is in suggestion it's more of a duality, as the Zoroastrians claimed. What I was saying was in line with this, as God is the ultimate cause, has a plan, in this plan he allowed departure from goodness to a degree through free will, which He also uses for good. So the other stuff comes into "existence" but does not ever overshadow the eternal plan, it just becomes part of it because free will is an attribute of God and his love. It is a mystery to us for many reasons due to our inability to understand time truly, or infinity, or both - along with many other things that are present (and past and future) in the plane of "being."

 

[Suburban Yahoo]

The topic of evangelism is very difficult with (fallen) humans. I've thought about it a lot because it is a charge of the great commission, but we are who we are in location/geography and time, and we can't forget that. For example, it isn't that the great commission isn't for us, it's that it was given to a group of people to spread the gospel initially and throughout time, so of course it was far more important each year that you go back to the time in which Christ told that to the apostles.

Getting back to the difficulty with it, I think it's because there is a lot of emotionalism in "evangelism". There is also a lot of pushiness that comes with the territory when telling another person that your tradition has the truth, which by definition means that others don't (really), and that also garners defensiveness. While someone, let's say, like Penn Jillette who will tell you that if you think something is that important and it's on a topic that literally might be the most important thing in the world (I agree with this by the way), you should absolutely be sharing it with everyone that you come across. The problem with this is that not everyone has the personality of me or Penn, and/or a desire to debate and find truth, or won't get emotional and defensive when people ask questions, etc. Another way of saying this is that not everyone, and I would argue most, is very secure in themselves as people overall, and certainly as thinkers.

Having said all that, I'm open to hearing a lot of things, but am unsure what the best approach to evangelism is at this point. A lot of the more hands off stuff makes as much sense to me, or more (at this point), as the in your face evangelical protestant approach, to be honest. I would guess that a lot of this has to do with the purely material and spoiled reality that many in the modern or developed world have, which means they have the "luxury" to not have to reflect on many things, which is sorta sad.

The parable of the sower seems pertinent to evangelism. Yes, you do get low quality converts, Jesus even includes them in the parable.

 

[Blade Runner]

The parable of the sower seems pertinent to evangelism. Yes, you do get low quality converts, Jesus even includes them in the parable.

How is it pertinent? Your post just talks about a cohort of the "converts" not about evangelism and how it should or shouldn't be approached nowadays.