<\/a>Source: Acton Institute<\/a> | Dylan Pahman<\/p>\n Last night I attended an engaging lecture at Calvin College<\/a> by Dr. William Abraham<\/a> of the Southern Methodist University Perkins School of Theology. Abraham, whose religious background is Irish Methodist and who is now a minister in the United Methodist Church and the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins, gave a presentation titled, “The Treasures and Trials of Eastern Orthodoxy.” As someone who was once an outsider to the Orthodox Church and is now an insider<\/a> (as much as a former outsider can be, I suppose), I can say that Dr. Abraham’s lecture highlighted many things that I see in the Orthodox Church myself as well as bringing others into focus, in particular five treasures the Orthodox bring and four trials that they face in our current, global context.<\/p>\n Dr. Abraham began with his own background: how had he come to discover Eastern Orthodoxy? Years ago, when he first came to the United States, he experienced something of a scandal: his impression of the Methodism of America was that it significantly differed from that which he had grown accustomed to in Ireland. It was as if they had forgotten Charles Wesley’s rich, doctrine-laden hymns. He met people who did not believe in (or at least did not care about) the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. The scholarly focus was entirely on discussions of method: epistemology and metaphysical questions, which though important failed to say anything positive about the God we worship, the Savior who gave himself for us, and the faith that we have inherited. In his assessment, the liberal Methodism he encountered, however, did not really lack piety — the people he met were quite sincerely religious — but rather they had burdened themselves with an impossible commitment to revisionism. As a result, they were “not only intellectually thin but spiritually hopeless,” said Abaraham.<\/p>\n It was in the midst of a personal, spiritual crisis at this time that he first encountered the Russian Orthodox Slavophile Alexei Khomiakov<\/a>, in particular his work “On the Western Confessions of Faith.”<\/a> Reading this had a profound effect on him. At this point his experience of Orthodoxy was that it was “a spiritual treasure trove.” He attended Vespers, and the services of Great Lent and Holy Week and was especially moved by the Lamentations service of Great and Holy Saturday (observed the previous night on Good Friday), which he described as like an Irish funeral for Jesus. Furthermore, he found that the iconographic tradition of the Orthodox helped him pull away from a purely intellectualized conception of his faith. In particular he mentioned his fondness for an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov<\/a>, who is known to have said, “Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and thousands around you shall be saved.”<\/p>\n Sometime after this he visited Russia and Romania and discovered — as many do — that there are differences between the Orthodox Church on paper and in actual fact. He saw a Church that was (and is still) struggling to rebuild after the devastation of communism, in which many were martyred and many clergy who remained in some cases unfortunately compromised their integrity with the regimes of the day. (Notably, Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow<\/a> later publicly repented for the sins of the Russian Patriarchate during the Soviet era. Earning the trust of the Russian people once again has certainly been a struggle, however.) Nevertheless, Abraham also recounted his relationship with Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas<\/a> of the Orthodox Church in America, saying that he was a true pastor and “a saint.” Thus, while he does not have any idealism about the Orthodox, he nevertheless has seen the tradition in its best light, not only on paper but in reality.<\/p>\n After this introduction he went on to isolate what he sees as five treasures and four trials or challenges of the Orthodox today:<\/p>\n Treasures:<\/strong><\/p>\n From these five treasures of the Orthodox Tradition, he moved to four trials that he believes the Orthodox need to face, not only in the West but simply in our more globalized context in which all of us must interact with one another.<\/p>\n Trials:<\/strong><\/p>\n “You need to face up to these challenges,” said Abraham, “and join the conversation.” On the whole, I would agree. While work has been and is being done in these areas (the work of David Bentley Hart<\/a> comes to mind with regard to Trial #4), we certainly could do a lot more, and living in the West as many of us do will require us to face these challenges, whether we are prepared to or not.<\/p>\n Happily, I can say that nearly every one of these four trials were the subject of lectures at Acton University<\/a> this year. Fr. Michael Butler talked on Orthodoxy, Church, and State as well as Orthodoxy and natural law, Fr. Gregory Jensen lectured on asceticism and consumerism, and Fr. Hans Jacobse’s session on the importance of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn had a clear emphasis on evangelism and apologetics. Those who are interested can stream those lectures at Ancient Faith radio here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Abraham is very right that much more can be done, however. For my part I hope that the Orthodox will have ears to hear his call, not only here at the Acton Institute but through the work of the Sophia Institute in the United States<\/a>, the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris<\/a>, and many other institutions and publications worldwide as well.<\/p>\n\n
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