Tony asked me to list my ten favorite theologians. I thought this would be easy. I've been thinking about it the last couple of days, so here it goes. This is not in order of how favorite the ten are, but chronological listing of ten theologians. I'm not going to stop and defend my choices because that would take the rest of the class, but you probably can guess a good many of them, but I think this is, this is what I would do. Certainly, a gustant has to be first. Probably read the gustant as much as I read anybody. The second was a hard choice, but I put Bernard of Clareville from the Catholic theologian in the medieval period for a lot of reasons that I won't go into now. Third choice was not very hard, Luther, and the fourth was very easy, John Calvin. The fifth was Jonathan Edwards. The sixth, you may not have guessed because I did not talk as much about him, but I'd love to read John Newton, the evangelical pastor in England, author of Amazing Grace, particularly his letters, Cardaphonia, letters of the heart, his letters of spiritual counsel, some wonderful theology in John Newton. Then B.B. Warfield, for instance, has to be pretty high on my list, Warfield, although I'd love to put in Dr. Alexander in the Hodges, too, but chose Warfield for the 19th century, Abraham Keifer, the Dutch theologian, and then back to Princeton for Gresham-Hen. Then my last choice was fairly easy. Francis Schaefer. Schaefer had tremendous impact on my life as a young Minister, both by his teaching here at Covenant, by my visits to Switzerland, long walks that I had with him in the mountains of Switzerland. One time in my life, I made the mistake of trying to sound like Dr. Schaefer, and I did quite understand what he was talking about all the time, but I said anyway, and people then didn't know what I was talking about. Schaefer has a unique way of expressing himself, so if you read Francis Schaefer any of these theologians, really let them percolate through your own heart and spirit, and so don't just try to sound like somebody, you want to sound like yourself, but to be nourished by some of the great people of the past. Okay, that's my talk to him. Thank you, Donnie, for suggesting that. The final exam you'll take during normal exam times, it's really not a final exam, you know, it's just the second exam in this course, so it doesn't cover the whole course. It just goes back to, well it covers a good bit of it, it goes back to item 27 of those 100 most important things, and the format will be just like the first exam. Two questions with half a page each space for answers, and then turn it over and some short answer questions that you can write in a word or two, it won't take you any longer than it took you to do the first one, so don't expect to stay there all day doing this exam. You will get in and out pretty quickly. Same format, and just be sure that you were prepared for the items in the syllabus. This morning when I went to my mailbox, I found this little thing. First, I thought it was a very small timeline, but I couldn't find any dates on it, so it turns out to be just a little small rabbit. I don't know why it wasn't my mailbox, but it's cute little rabbit,
but timelines are due today, so the box is over here, always some unusual items, I've noticed already, one, here's a timeline that I'll be wearing, pictures, and dates, and all sorts of interesting things, here including a picture of Terry Wilson,
and Martin Luther King, and David Calhoun, okay, so please let me have those today, if you don't have your timeline or paper here, give it to my Secretary Debra Kim, or put it in my mailbox administration building. Lecture 37, heaven and earth are filled with eyeglory, eastern orthodoxy. I'm going to come today to talk about the eastern orthodox church, full title, the full name of that church, is the holy orthodox Catholic, apostolic, eastern church. Christianity, as you know, is divided into three major traditions, the Catholic tradition and the Protestant tradition and the orthodox tradition. The Catholic church and the Protestant church are largely western in their origins, but now worldwide of course, the orthodox church comes from the east and the orthodox church also now is a worldwide church. The orthodox church, sometimes we call it the eastern orthodox church, occasionally the Greek orthodox church, although Greek orthodox church is really only one church, and a family of churches known as orthodoxy. These churches make up a family of 13 independent self-governing churches, each has its own head or patriarch or archbishop or metropolitan, there is no pope, there is no one head of the orthodox church as there is of the Roman Catholic church. The patriarch of Constantinople is esteemed as the ecumenical or universal patriarch, but that is a title of honor, not of power. Patriarch of Constantinople cannot direct the orthodox church of the other churches. He has special honor, but no control over the other orthodox bodies. Today in the world, they are perhaps close to 200 million eastern orthodox adherents. Many of those are in Russia, perhaps as many as 100 million orthodox believers in Russia. There are at least 6 million orthodox Christians in the United States. So we try to think of eastern orthodoxy, it's interesting to attempt to get some way of getting the heart, the feeling, the pulse of this great body of Christian people. He sometimes said that Catholics elevate Peter and so emphasize authority, our Peter on this rock, I'll build my church. And it said that Protestants elevate Paul and so emphasize theology, justification by faith, some of the great teachings of Paul and Romans and elsewhere. And it said that the orthodox church elevates John and so emphasizes love and humility. It was probably a grain of truth and all of that, although I expect that each of those traditions tries to emphasize authority, doctrine and love, but certainly one of the marks of the orthodox church is its piety. That is so often expressed in self-emptying or humility. There are many orthodox monks not in orders like we have in the West in the Catholic Church, but independent houses of monks throughout the East. And one of the great themes of monastic life in orthodoxy is self-emptying or conaticism as it's called. So love, humility can be looked at as a theme of the eastern church. It's also said that eastern orthodox people like to debate things, debate theology, debate issues in ecclesiastical life, one of the most important spokesman for orthodoxy today is Timothy Weyer. When he became orthodox, took the name Calista's Weyer and he has written a number of books on orthodoxy and is known as one of the most outstanding spokesman for the orthodox tradition. He tells the story that he was once in Greece and he tells about the fact that one of the features of the Greek people in modern times, orthodox people, is an enthusiasm for ecclesiastical controversy. He said on a recent occasion in Central Athens, I was delayed by a massive traffic jam. This was caused as my taxi driver explained by a riot of unemployed theologians. Well, that could happen in Athens, as suppose we would say, though, that in the West we've had our share of theological controversy too and debate both in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Protestant Church. Certainly an important feature of eastern orthodoxy is its emphasis on worship, its law of beauty and liturgy and transcendence in worship, and that's why I have taken the title of this lecture from the orthodox liturgy, heaven and earth, our fill with a glory, a Protestant once asked an orthodox priest exactly what it was that his church believed, the priests replied that it would be better to ask not what we believe but how we worship. And I think that probably does get close to the heart of the orthodox attitude toward Christianity. Let's begin with a prayer from the orthodox liturgy. I'll read the words as they appear in the syllabus and we will pray these, as we think of, eastern orthodoxy in this lecture. Let's pray. It is proper and right to praise, bless, glorify, thank, and worship the in all places of your dominion. For thou art God inepible, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, ever existing, and always the same, thou and I only begotten side in thy Holy Spirit. Thou hast brought us from non-being into being, and when we fell thou raised us up again, and thou didst not cease doing everything until thou leadest us to heaven, and grants us thy kingdom to come. For all these things we thank thee, and I only begotten side in thy Holy Spirit. For all things of which we know and of which we do not know for benefits of parrot and unseen, that have been besowed upon us. Holy, holy, Lord of Sabea, heaven and earth are filled with ey glory. Praise the Lord in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Amen. As we take a quick look at orthodox history, we have to go back to the date 1054. The date in western church history is undoubtedly 1517. Martin Luther nailed the 95theses to the church door in Vittenburg, which is the symbolic act that wrote the western church into two parts, but the church had already divided prior to 1517. It divided in 1054. And that's the date that orthodox people will think about and talk about, and argue about, not 1517, actually the orthodox, see Protestants and Catholics two sides of one western coin. It's not that much difference. We think there's a lot of difference. And there is a lot of difference in many ways. But in the orthodox tradition, they see themselves as the continuing orthodox church, the church of the apostles, and that the western churches have departed from that tradition in various ways. The original patriarchs or leaders of the orthodox church were in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, patriarch of Jerusalem, and of Antioch, and of Alexandria, and then of Constantinople, New Rome, founded by Constantine. Let's see, move the capital from Rome to what was to be called now Constantinople. That patriarch, so already said, became the ecumenical or universal patriarch. The theory in orthodoxy is that these patriarchs and these churches under these patriarchs have parallel jurisdiction. One is not above another. The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople has that honorary position of prestige, but his power is the same as that of the other patriarchs in eastern orthodoxy. Does mean that sometimes these patriarchs clash as in recent months, the patriarch of Constantinople has carried on quite a struggle with the patriarch of Russia, of Moscow, Russia, in order to see who is going to bring under his jurisdiction certain of the churches in eastern Europe. The date is 1054, patriarchs, originally four, now five, as we'll see later, with the patriarch of Russia. He mentioned several important theologians in the eastern church. Certainly, in any list, would come Simeon, the new theologian, as he's called, it's in the 10th century. He's called the new theologian. That's really quite a title of honor for him in orthodoxy. The theologian was Gregory of Nazionza, one of the great capitalsians. He's referred to in the Greek church in the eastern church as the theologian. And when Simeon is called the new theologian, it brings him alongside of Gregory of Nazionza, is one of the important theologians in orthodoxy. Like so many of the orthodox theologians, Simeon was a poet. We don't usually think of theology and poetry going together. Perhaps it should go together more than it does in the west. But in the east, if you read theology, you feel like you're reading poetry. For instance, here is a little bit from Simeon, the new theologian speaking to God, how in your essence, totally divine, do you mingle yourself with grass? You, the light, are joined to the grass in a union without confusion and the grass becomes light. It is transfigured yet unchanged. That's theology. You see how western theology appears rationalistic to the eastern mind, rationalistic, logical when eastern Christians are used to reading Simeon and other theologian poets. St. Gregory Palomast was another theologian of importance in the eastern church. He lived in the 14th century and was especially involved in what is called the Hesicist controversy, the 14th century. That word Hesicist means silence or stillness. This controversy had to do with how one prays, how one approaches God in prayer. The Hesicist developed a very precise method of prayer. Their method was silence with the constant invocation of the name of Jesus, sometimes called the Jesus prayer, particularly in Russian church history. The Jesus prayer would go something like this. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me. And the Hesicists attempted to pray by their one level silence, but on the other level, constant repetition of those words. So they were praying without ceasing by saying over and over again to Jesus prayer. That was to lead to a vision of the divine light and not only illumination, but in some way as we'll see in a moment identification with God that approach to prayer has become an accepted pattern in many eastern Orthodox churches and with many eastern Orthodox people. If you tried to find a book, apart from the Bible, to epitomize eastern orthodoxy, what would that book be? You know, with Roman Catholic Church, I think we would turn pretty quickly to Thomas Aquinas, not one book, but a lot of books, to epitomize Catholic theology and the Reform Church, probably right away to Calvin's Institutes. But in eastern orthodoxy, there is no one book like that, like the Institutes, or like the theology of Thomas Aquinas. But a collection of writings known as the the low calia, that word means the love of the beautiful. Actually, this is a big book. In fact, in English translation, four or five volumes, perhaps as many as 2,000 pages, and not all of the last of those volumes has been translated even today. But most of the the low calia is available in English now. What that book is, simply this, it's a collection of texts going back to the fourth century all the way through the 15th century, orthodox texts compiled by a man named Nicodemus of Athos, published in the late 18th century. And that collection of texts brings together the choices, spiritual writings in the history of Eastern orthodoxy. It's like devotional writings. Some of it sounds more like theology, some sounds like poetry, some sounds like spiritual devotional writings. Eastern orthodox church doesn't make much of distinction in those categories. So you have these large volumes of works collected by Nicodemus that represent the church, spiritual life of the church. Probably not many of us are going to read too much of that, but if you plant a minister in Eastern Europe or Russia or Ukraine, it would be good for you to know these writings and to spend time trying to absorb the spirituality of the low calia. So we go on with the history of the orthodox church. We need to look next at Moscow, the third Rome, one of the great dates or events in the history of Eastern orthodoxy, of course, was the conversion of Russia, Ukraine and Russia around the year 1000 as these vast territories and large numbers of people were converted to Christianity about that time and to the specific Eastern form of Christianity, not to the Latin Roman form. The conversion of Russia around 1000, 1000 years ago, the orthodox church certainly took a further move to the East, and as I said earlier, perhaps as many as half of all the orthodox people in the world today are Russian orthodox. There's no Russian saying, which is this, what good is a road that doesn't lead to a church that shows something of the importance of the church and the orthodox church and the life of the great land of Russia. Russia became even more important for the orthodox world when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. That meant that the homeland, the center, the spiritual center of orthodoxy for thousand years was now under the control of Muslims. The great church of Justinian, the church called Hagia Sophia, the Holy Wisdom, became a mosque. Today I think of museum, but no longer that Christian church that it was built to be. The patriarch of Constantinople still lives in Constantinople, but the orthodox church that he serves directly is very small, just several thousand people. Who are still orthodox members in what is now the land of Turkey. So despite the importance of Constantinople in the history of the orthodox church, the new center became Rome, became the new Rome as it was called, the third Rome, which was Moscow. Rome was the first Rome. Constantinople was the second Rome, and Moscow was the third Rome. Two Rome's at Pauline. The third stands according to one of the 16th century orthodox teachers, a fourth there shall not be. It's the orthodox view that the church is in a sense moved from Rome, Constantinople, even though that's still as part of the orthodox church, to the third Rome, which is Moscow. The fifth patriarch was added in 1589, patriarch of Russia. In the 17th century, there was a sism of some of the orthodox people in Russia who called themselves Old Believers. If you read the novels of Dostoevsky, you'll come across these Old Believers. They were orthodox people who felt that the orthodox church was being too much influenced by westernization and by liturgical changes that represented more the Roman Catholic practices. And so some of the orthodox became Old Believers as they are called. Timothy Weir describes them this way, rigid in their outlook and excessively nationalistic, they yet embodied much that is genuinely admirable in the piety of holy Russia. Peter the Great came the ruler of Russia. He abolished the Moscow Patriarchate for some years. There was no Patriarch in Moscow and Peter the Great replaced that person with the Holy Synod, which more and more was an arm of the state. So gradually orthodoxy became a kind of department of religion. Of the Russian state, the state then ruled the church until 1917. The Patriarchate was restored in 1917, but that was date, of course, when linen and the Bolsheviks came to power with all their calculated hostility to religion. Perhaps 50 million people were killed. 50,000 priests vanished. Hundred monasteries were closed, sixty seminaries were closed, and almost all the churches were closed. When you think of the history of orthodoxy, it really is a history of suffering because first the Muslims overran the Eastern Mediterranean and Constantinople, and then the Communists attempted to obliterate the orthodox witness in Russia and Eastern Europe. There is a lot of debate as to the conduct of the remaining orthodox leaders during the Communist period. It's well documented that the orthodox leaders did compromise with the Soviet state. The question is, was that necessity or was it capitulation? But with the fall of communism in the last decade, then there has been the beginning of a new day for the Eastern Orthodox Church. And for all believers in Ukraine and Russia, whatever church, although we do have some concerns that particularly in Russia now, there might be new restrictions that would give the orthodox church the control over other religious groups within the country. Some years ago, friend of mine, Dr. Glenn Kinnack, who was pastor at First Pestiturian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, went to Ukraine, made many visits to Ukraine over the last several years to minister in an evangelical church, called a Baptist church, although that word is used more for evangelicals in Ukraine and Moscow than strictly speaking Baptist, although I suppose the people are Baptist, but it's nice to think of a First Pestiturian Church assisting an evangelical church in Benitza, even if that church is called Benitza Baptist Church. But on one occasion when Dr. Kinnack came back to Columbia, he said this about his visit to the church there in Ukraine. How mistaken the communists were, when they allowed the older women to continue worshipping together. The communists thought, we'll wipe out religion, but we don't have to worry about these old women. They won't do any harm. They can continue to worship, but we'll put our emphasis on the young people and try to prevent them from becoming Christians. It was the older women who were considered no threat to the new order, but it was they whose prayers and faithfulness over all those barren years held the church together and raised off a generation of men and young people to serve the Lord. Yes, the church we attended, the Baptist Church in Benitza, it's a beautiful magnificent building very much in the Eastern Orthodox style, our architecture. Yes, the church we attended was crowded with these older women at the very front. This was in 1992, for they had been the stalwart defenders and maintainers of Christ's gospel, but behind them and alongside them and in the balcony and outside the windows were the fruit of their faithfulness. We must never underestimate the place and power of godly women to them go the laurels in the church in Ukraine. And I didn't want to give this lecture and omit that point because all along I've been trying to emphasize that sometimes the Facatin people of history whose names we don't know play a very major role in the advancement of God's kingdom. Then these older women of Ukraine who prayed and believed God during those dark years or heroes of church history as much as the people that I've named those older women don't appear in the 100 most important things, but perhaps they should. Let me talk just briefly about Orthodox distinctives. One, of course, is the Bible. That's a distinctive for every Christian church, but the Orthodox do not view the Bible the way Protestants do. It's not so, uh, scripture to the Orthodox that's impossible to have the Bible alone. It's impossible and it's not desirable. Scripture has to be interpreted comprehensively according to the church's rule of faith. So alongside of scripture there is tradition which becomes scripture rightly understood or the church is understanding of the Bible. The Bible is the final authority, the Orthodox will say, but not the sole authority of Christian truth. It is the scripture is the supreme expression of God's revelation which finds fuller expression in tradition, namely the seven ecumenical councils, the writings of the fathers and the liturgy. Perhaps the most simple way to see Orthodox teaching on this is to say that infallibility for the Roman Catholic Church resides in the Pope. We saw that last time since Vatican I said for that dogma the Pope is infallible and he teaches ex-Cathedra infallibility for Protestants resides in the scripture. Scripture alone is infallible and infallibility for the Orthodox Church resides in the church. It's the church that is infallible. Not the Pope and not the Bible alone. The Bible is infallible but the Bible cannot stand alone. It must be brought into the life of the church and interpreted by the church and that interpretation of the church is the infallible word God. The second Orthodox distinctive is deification or what the Orthodox call theosis, the deification of human nature as the goal of the Christian life. It is the central theme, the chief aim, the basic purpose, the primary religious ideal of Orthodoxy. You won't hear Orthodox people saying you must be born again. They will say you must become one with God. You must be united with God. You must experience falsists. That teaching is based on scant biblical evidence although there are some texts that could be used to support this such as second Peter 1.4 so that you may participate in the divine nature in John 10, 34 and 35. Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law? I have said your gods and that material, that idea is supported to some extent by some of the quotations that the Orthodox can draw from the early church fathers. By the way, the great hero of the fathers in Orthodoxy is, of course, not a gust in, he said, Western rationalistic thinker, but Athanasius of Alexandria. And Athanasius the hero of Nysia wrote, God became man so that men might become gods. Suppose a very one sentence would summarize the idea of satireology in the Eastern church who would be that sentence. A modern Greek Orthodox theologian has put it this way, we are each destined to become a god, to be like God himself, to be united with him. Now that is not pantheism. Human nature is not lost. God is always separate from us. We are not absorbed into him. It is more, I think, a relative rather than an absolute transformation. Deification is lightness and union with God. How does one obtain this theosis? Well it's not easy. And certainly grace of God is there, but also human effort is required. Great deal of vigilance, bodily aestheticism, fasting, vigils, and so on, contemplation and prayer. The science of stillness, detachment from the world, and the false glitter of this life by God's grace and by our constant effort, we can move toward theosis. If we avail ourselves of God's grace and lead a life of spiritual vigilance, we can hope for the glorious attainment of lightness to God in so far as this is possible for man. And then there is in orthodoxy a deep sense of the divine mystery in worship, love and cultivation of art is part of worship. You go into an orthodox church, you're struck with the fact that there are pictures everywhere in gold leaf, beautiful colors, Mary and the saints. The orthodox love the icons. There was an icon of classic controversy that we studied about in medieval church history back in the eighth and ninth centuries, but that was settled in favor of the icons. The icons are instruments of worship in orthodoxy. In the West, I think, as we think of the church and the theology of the church, we think of books and we think of texts, we think of words. In the east, the orthodox people think of icons and they think of music. They think of liturgy. You can see a kind of difference. They are that has made it so hard for the orthodox and Western Christians to really understand each other. And all of this leads to another important point in orthodoxy, and that is mystery. A pathaticism, which is a big word that means the dark. We tend to like to escape the dark into the light, find answers to our questions. I think the eastern mind much prefers to leave the questions and live in the dark with flashes of light occasionally, but the darkness and the mystery is important for the eastern orthodox mind. Gregory Palimus, in talking about God, said it this way and you can see something of the mystery that comes through in this quotation. God is both being and non-being. He's everywhere and nowhere. He has many names and he cannot be named. He's ever moving and he is immovable. And in a word, he's everything and he's nothing. Western theology to the mind that would produce a definition of God like that is going to seem too logical and too rational. And I won't even get to the last lecture. You know, there was one. Yet to come, future of Christianity, which is probably just as well because I'm a historian and not a prophet.