Fundamentalism

Submitted November 30, 2004

Orthodox Fundamentalism - A Response To All

Having read the Nicholas Cobb submission entitled “Orthodox Fundamentalism” and the response by Gregory Orloff and David Basaraba, I am reminded of the fundamental difference in mind-set between the historic Eastern Church and Western Church. What has gotten the Church of Rome and its progeny (Protestantism?) into so many dilemmas is a mind-set called “Latin Scholasticism”. It is a mind-set that subordinates faith to rationalism. It attempts to explain everything – even those things best left unexplained.

For example, Latin Scholasticism took the “Great Mystery of the Eucharist” and tried to explain it in physical terms (transubstantiation) and got itself into an endless and irrelevant debate, first with Protestants and then with “modern chemists”. Latin Scholasticism was bothered by the fact that Jesus Christ, being God, could have no original sin but that the Mother of God could because, Latin Scholastics asked, how could someone “perfect” be born of someone “imperfect”. So Scholastics rationalized the humanly perfection of the Mother of God by the, in my view, heretical doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. In their view, they devised a logic which elevated the Mother of God to someone more than mortal and, in my view, by that doctrine, lessened the Incarnation event.

It’s time that Orthodoxy got back to it roots, i.e. the Message and the Word, the way we live and not how we look. Dress, beards, scraggly hair, clean-shaven, and the like are irrelevant. There are no “rules”, as such, in Tradition. Some forget that “Tradition” in the Orthodox Church refers not to worldly, mundane things such as dress and appearance and out-worldly professions of faith. Tradition is described by the Apostle Paul as follows:

"But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ. For He is peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in His own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law. This was to create one single man in Himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace through the Cross, to unite them both in a single body and reconcile them with God. In His own person He killed the hostility... Through Him, both of us have in one Spirit our way to come to the Father" (Ephesians. 2:13-14).

“Tradition means something more concrete and specific than this. It means the books of the Bible; it means the Creed; it means the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils and the writings of the Fathers; it means the Canons, the Service Books, the Holy Icons — in fact, the whole system of doctrine, Church government, worship, and art which Orthodoxy has articulated over the ages. The Orthodox Christian of today sees himself as heir and guardian to a great inheritance received from the past, and he believes that it is his duty to transmit this inheritance unimpaired to the future”.

In other words, Tradition is what we believe, how we should live in interaction with one another. There should be no criticism of those who want to look scraggily and bearded nor of those who want to be clean shaven. To each his own in outwardly appearance. It’s what’s in one’s heart and soul that is important. Having said that, however, Jesus Christ (in His Incarnated manifestation) and the Apostles looked like they looked because that’s how everyone in that time looked. I venture to guess that had it been a different time and place (such as here and now), He and they would have looked more like we do now. So much for “tradition” with a little “t”.

May the Lord and Savior Bless You All During this season of preparation for His Nativity.



Volume 6 Number 49 - Tuesday, December 7th, 2004	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY