Why I'm still not Orthodox (pt 2: mysticism)

If you missed the first installment, you can check it out here. This time I'd like to take up where I left off by sharing some of the things I've been learning about personal relationship with God from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

One thing that can be quite confusing in a dialog between Orthodox and Protestant believers is the two ways that the term "salvation" is used. In Protestant usage it commonly refers to justification, and thus it is stressed that "salvation is by grace, not works." What this specifically means is that justification or redemption is by grace not works. Of course just about everyone would agree that we need to respond in faith to this. So is that a "work"? No, because works are about earning and merit, and even if we accept a gift (the response of faith) we are still not meriting it. So far so good. On the Orthodox end "salvation" commonly refers to sanctification and so the emphasis is on our participation, our praxis, what we do. Again, just about everyone would agree that we do need to participate in our sanctification, through a life of obedience to God, devotional life, repentance, and so on. We do not do this to earn God's favor, we do this in God's favor, as a response to grace.

Both of these uses of the term "salvation" are legitimate, the Protestant "getting saved" type and the Orthodox "work out your salvation" (Phil 2:12) variety. But since one side is speaking about justification/regeneration (the inception) and the other about sanctification/deification (the continuation/fulfillment) using the same word it can get pretty confusing and lead to a lot of misunderstanding. Put in relational terms, we need to enter into a relationship with God (regeneration), and we then need to grow in that relationship (sanctification).

What I appreciate about Orthodox theology is that it is very much focused on the experience of a lived relationship with God. As Vladimir Lossky has said, "all theology is mystical theology". What that means is that all theology needs to be connected to our living it, to our being in a real transforming relationship. Theology always needs to be joined to praxis. In the end, the real meaning of "orthodox" is not "right doctrine" but "right worship" (as in doxology). Now of course we also find in the Orthodox tradition its share of head-theology entrenched in lots of metaphysics and formulas. One common categorization scholars make is between two schools in Orthodox thought - one of the "head" and one of the "heart". We find this same tug of war in the evangelical church as well of course, and what we need is a balance. We need to be smart about stuff, we need to use our brains, but we need to also have our feet on the ground and have our theology be practical. This sense of "pietism" (I see that as a good word) is very present in orthodoxy. We can see it in ancient writers like the author of the Macarian Homilies, or Symeon the New Theologian, and we can see it in contemporary theologians like Kallistos Ware. Bishop Ware writes that, "All genuine theology must be mystical theology – something based upon a personal experience of God granted in prayer, upon a conscious awareness of the Holy Spirit."

What I find absent in all of this, as I mentioned in my previous post, is a lack of focus on being born again in the Orthodox church, or in other words, a lack of the initial expereince of regeneration. Not just as an assurance of forgivness for a guilty conscience, not simply as a judicial requirement, or as an end in itself, but as a way of entering into new life and lived relationship with God as a way to begin living in grace, in the Spirit. The Orthodox understanding of salvation lacks this experiential beginning, this initial experience of God's indwelling presence and love to begin our participation of growing in God and through God. This expereince of "assurance", of God's indwelling presence and love, (which clearly is the end goal of ascetic praxis and mysticism in the Orthodox faith) was what turned the world upside down for Luther and Wesley (and for me), and I just don't find it in Orthodox writing. That is, I do find them speaking of our pursuit of union with God as the end of ascetic struggle, of experiencing this intimacy with God after struggle and seeking. I think that is all good. But what is missing is how we begin that pursuit of God with God. How we, as Augustine said, at the same time taste of God, and yet hunger for more, how God allows us to experience his love and nearness, and that this embrace makes us long for more. A pursuit we do not embark on on our own, but with God and through God. "I tasted, and now hunger and thirst. Thou touched me, and I longed for Thy peace."

Now I certainly think we can learn a lot from the emphasis of the Orthodox on sanctification. But I also think it goes both ways, and that there needs to be a discovery of the relational transformative expereince of a born again conversion experience in Orthodoxy. New birth in conversion is often rejected by Orthodox Christians who associate it with a legal end, rather than as a relational beginning (Ware for example takes this position). But from the shared relational perspective of our two traditions, this initial experience of the indwelling of the Spirit calling out within us “Abba, Father” is vital, not only because of the transforming assurance of knowing who and whose we are, but because union with God is something that begins and ends in the Spirit, lived together with God, through God, and in God. Despite the emphasis on experience in Orthodox theology, that personal experience of the indwelling of the Spirit previous to, and thus as the cause and means of ascetic struggle, is missing in Orthodoxy.

Why I'm still not Orthodox (besides the silly hats)

Pretty much all of my theology is very much in line with the Eastern Orthodox church. For example I have an understanding of sin as bondage and sickness rather than as transgression. As a result, I have an Orthodox 'transformative' understanding of salvation rather than a Western 'judicial' one, meaning that the real object of salvation is God effecting an inner change in us. Again, the model of atonement I have is an Orthodox one of recapitulation, rather than appeasement. In other words, the need for the atonement was not to satisfy a need God had for punishment, but rather to recreate in us the image of God that we had lost, and to free us from the bondage of sin. I also share with the Orthodox church the focus on theosis - our participation in the divine life which changes us into the likeness of Christ. In that sense I see salvation not as a one time act, but as a growing relationship with God. I also think the Orthodox church is right in their understanding of original sin, not as inherited guilt, but as our inheriting the consequences of living in a sinful world.

So if I agree with the Orthodox church on original sin, recapitulation, theosis, and the relational transformative focus of salvation, why am I not Eastern Orthodox? Besides my not liking silly hats, tacky bling-bling, and zz-top beards of course (see the above picture). There are a few reasons. the biggest one is that I feel my roots are deeply in the Evangelical church. That same focus on transformation and theosis can be found in Wesley, and it can be found in Luther too. Luther writes that God pours Christ into us so that "he is entirely humanized (vermenschet) and we are entirely divinized (vergottet)". A clear expression of theosis. As a result Luther says in his Commentary on Galatians, salvation entails a real change in us, not just a legal one, "These changes are, so to speak, not verbal; they are real. They produce a new mind, a new will, new senses, and even new actions by the flesh." As I've argued before, I also believe that Luther represents one of the most clear and lucid expression of the Orthodox understanding of Christus Victor out there. So everything that the Orthodox church says, I also see as being completely compatible with Evangelicalism, particularly the central thrust of Evangelicalism rooted in Lutheran Pietism, revivalist Methodism, and the relational-transformative focus of Pentecostalism. That 'Pentecostal-flavored' branch of Evangelicalism is without a doubt (ie statistically) the largest and fastest growing part of Evangelicalism world-wide. What it is at odds with (as am I) is a certain brand of Calvinism. But that's a big can of worms I don't want to open right here. What I want to focus on is Orthodoxy.

I think by biggest beef with the Orthodox church (beside those hats which I just can't seem to get over) is their lack of focus on being born again. Luther (and Wesley) stress both our need for justification, and our need for sanctification (which is the same as theosis). That means that while we do need to enter into a life-long transformative relationship with God (sanctification), we need to enter into that relationship. Leaving that out is like talking about the importance of married life, but never mentioning the need to get married. And even bigger than that, it is absolutely essential that we know that the whole point of theosis - and I mean here an Orthodox understanding of theosis - is that it is not done through our works, but through grace. We need to be sanctified through God living and working in us. That is not something that we work our way into. The whole point of getting "saved" from this transformative model is that God enters into our lives and embraces us unconditionally (that's what grace means). We need to enter into that relationship with the God who is there, active, communicative, and real.

Yes, the focus needs to be on relationship, instead of on a legal transaction. Yes, this means an ongoing transforming relationship, and not a one time experience. Yes there are many experiences in that deepening relationship with God beyond conversion. Yes, yes, yes. But if may speak personally, I was not raised to know God, and I did not know that you can really know God's love first hand in a living relationship. When I encountered Christ it turned my world upside-down. So I'm really big on conversion. Not on making people feel guilty or bad, (that's where I think Luther and Wesley get it wrong), but on letting people know that they can really know God personally, that they don't need to work and strive to get there, but that God can enter into their lives and change everything, because being loved does that to you. God loves us in all of our brokenness and ugliness and lostness, and that experience of being loved by the God of the universe changes everything, it changes you.

Now while that relational-ontological experience of conversion is so much in line with the Orthodox big picture of salvation, that experience is something I just never hear the Orthodox church speak about. I don't ever hear it preached, I don't encounter it in any of their theology. If anything I hear it being de-emphasized, denied, and rejected, usually in the form of rejecting a cartoon caricature of the worst and most trivial form Evangelical conversion. But the very fact that their understanding of conversion is only in this negative cliche form does reveal a lack of a deep first-hand understanding of that experience.

Now I don't want to say that this silence means that this experience is not a reality for the Orthodox. But I do want to break the silence. It really does not make any sense. It's absence is completely at odds with the whole thrust of their own theology. And it is a non-negotiable deal-breaker. There are other things that bug me too - their lack of healthy self-criticism (this is changing), that women are excluded from leadership (this is not), and yes, those goofy hats. But above all I see the biggest lack in their silence about justification - about our need to enter into a relationship with God through being born again.

check out part 2