Why I am Orthodox

Posted on March 1, 2010 
Filed under Opinion

Would you call yourself ‘Orthodox’? Rhys Bezzant, at Ridley College in Melbourne explains why he insists on using that label for himself –

“I am an Orthodox Christian. In a place like Melbourne, calling myself Orthodox could of course easily be misunderstood: people might think I mean Greek or Russian or Serbian Orthodox. Calling myself Orthodox is however more than tracing an ecclesiological line back to Eastern Europe. 

To some ears, taking on this label will sound so arrogant, the assumption being of course that there are people who call themselves Christians who are not Orthodox, but rather heterodox, or heretical. If you don’t associate the word with arrogance, you might instead make the connection with being so very old-school, showing attachment to a world of theological precision, confessional debates, and scholastic refinement, and ask whether such claims can still be made in a post-modern world?

And I understand too the well-founded concern of Christians, who argue that using the word Orthodox makes Christian faith more complicated or puzzling for those who have no Christian pedigree, commitment or even interest: why use this word when it is strangely foreign, both in its etymology and its range of meaning? Can life as a Christian be commended to the watching unbelieving world when we still apply labels as obscure as this? If you have been swept along by the Dan Brown-Da Vinci Code brouhaha you will of course have extra ammunition to put me in the Opus Dei box: defending a lost cause against all rational attempts to expose the evil cover-ups perpetrated by the Church in its earliest years. Why am I still happy to call myself Orthodox? What is an Orthodox Christian in the first place?

It is not just that I am happy to be called Orthodox – I insist on it. This is a tag I wear proudly. I want to be associated with those Christian leaders of the fourth and fifth centuries who came together in a number of remarkable assemblies from all parts of the Roman Empire to establish what it was exactly that they did or did not believe about the nature of God and the person of Christ, to whom they had turned for life, and life abundant.  These forebears rejected the notion that the Son of God was at any level merely a creature, for which I am eternally grateful: I can have confidence that my salvation is not acquired by someone trying to lift me up to God, but rather is secured by the one through whom the whole creation came into being and condescended to enter this world to rescue me – this is a secure place for me to stand.

Our brothers and sisters of the first few Christian centuries also rejected the idea that Jesus had an incoherent subjectivity, with God-ness and human-ness vying for control within the person of the man from Nazareth, leaving us never to know which side of his character at any given moment had the upper hand – a comforting place for me to rest.  They rejected the claim as well that the Spirit of God was somehow less God than either the Father or the Son; rather they argued that he makes us holy, which is the prerogative of God alone.  God could be both involved in this world and remain distinct from this world – gloriously unique amongst ancient worldviews.

Our problem is that we like to think of the modern world (and ourselves!) as nearing the high-point of human progress and consequently being on the top of the pile or at the climax of human development. However we must be wary of chronological snobbery. The leaders of the early church were at times obstreperous and blind to the weaknesses of their own culture, but they also had intelligence, insight, integrity and an intuitive capacity to defend what sometimes appeared the indefensible, giving us much needed examples to imitate. What an extraordinary privilege to be the recipient of their work in defending the Gospel of the Kingdom by establishing the doctrine of the Trinity.  If being Orthodox means being assured that our salvation is achieved by God the Holy Trinity, then I certainly want to be counted amongst their number.

My joy is not merely that I want to pitch my tent with those ancient Christians, who so bravely fought the fight for faith in the Son and the Spirit being of the same substance as the Father. I want to remind my brothers and sisters in every church, and onlookers of none, that Christians despite denominational distinctives have so much in common. My joy comes in inviting contemporary Christians from all over the world to come to pitch their tents with me, to celebrate in a world of theological discord our shared conviction that the doctrine of the Trinity is the jewel in our crown, a glorious truth worthy of the devotion of our lives, a sure defence against the confusion of competing worldviews, and the beacon which guides us in our disagreements: we have yet so much to talk about.

There are very few Christians in the world today who cannot together say the Creeds. They are worth saying still for the challenge they put before us to aspire to Christian unity. And this will never be achieved if we acquiesce in the modern notion that truth claims need only be verified locally, appealing to private judgement, personal preference, or secret illumination of the divine. Tracing our family tree back through history to the very earliest attempts to maintain the spirit of unity in the bond of peace protects me from my blind spots and is a robust antidote to the ailments and prejudices or our own age. If being Orthodox reminds us of the extraordinary unanimity of the majority church in the first centuries after Christ, I want to fly that flag.

And strange as it may seem, I want to wear the epithet of Orthodox for evangelistic purposes. There is something positive and precious I want to offer the world. What I believe is not a novelty but rather something which goes back to the very roots of the Christian movement itself and is worth preserving and presenting to this generation. With something as valuable as the doctrine of God handed over to us as a gift, I want to make sure that no one is able to scratch or damage the deposit entrusted to us for the sake of others. It is simply not the case that all people of faith share common assumptions about religion. The most basic and distinctive of Christian doctrines, our doctrine of God the Holy Trinity, the Father revealed through the Son and by the Spirit, the goal of history being the Son’s glorification of the Father, sets us apart and gives us something unique to say.

We have a Gospel to proclaim which the creeds and councils of the undivided church of the first five centuries learnt at great cost to protect and pass on to us without defilement or stain. When unbelievers around us today get a glimpse of the beauty and wonder of the Orthodox treasure, and learn that what we actually believe about God is of undying significance, should anything stop us from explaining how they might grasp hold of life which is to be found in God alone? I am sorry that the word Orthodox is so odd, what with its ‘x’ and Greek-based derivation. I am however not sorry about what it stands for: being part of a community that stretches back to antiquity in the common confession that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

I am of course aware of the challenges that Christians meet today as we stare down the resistance of the dreg-ends of the Enlightenment project. We have a tarnished record of two Christian millennia of mediocrity and mistakes, which seems to eclipse in many moderns’ minds the great achievements of the Christian church. We also face rival conceptions of Christian truth expressed through Gnostic, Platonic and anti-supernaturalist worldviews. Science and engineering, consumption and self-expression, sport and screens all provide alternative and often persuasive accounts of my reality or yours. I understand as well the challenges we have faced in the course of Christian history to reform the beliefs and practices of the church, to enliven Christian discipleship and piety, and to develop new models of ministry for new worlds growing up around us. We may need to understand ourselves in new and different ways as history progresses.

It is not that I think Orthodox is the only tag I want to wear. Being Orthodox ought not to paper over the significant differences which Christians must honestly face. Being Orthodox does not speak adequately to every pastoral concern or evangelistic encounter I face. Nevertheless, being Orthodox is simply the foundational platform from which I fish, and upon which I build my ministry. It is here that I begin my conversations with Christians of other communions and confessions, or begin my dialogue with people of good will from other faiths or none. Despite ongoing technical debates in theology and long-suffering antagonisms, the achievements of the early church do provide us with encouragement that we can yet honour the Lord Christ in disputed areas of conviction, either by persevering to gain understanding, or by resisting to guard the good deposit. We just have to honestly search the Scriptures, our hearts, and Christian history.

– Rhys Bezzant, Ridley College. (With thanks to the Ridley College website.)