Topic: Q & A: Bishop Kallistos Ware on the Fullness and the Center

[Jetavan]

Christianity Today Q & A with Bishop Kallistos Ware:

Some friends who have joined the Orthodox Church talk as if the Orthodox tradition was fixed very early and handed down without change. You treat tradition in a much more dynamic way.

You're quite right that I think tradition is dynamic. I recall the definition given by the great Russian Orthodox theologian, Vladimir Lossky: "Tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the church." Clearly, tradition is life; it's not a fixed formula. Still less is it writings in leather-bound volumes. Tradition is life, and it is the life of Christ present in the church through the Holy Spirit. It is not simply fixed doctrines, but the continuing self-understanding and self-criticism of the Christian community.

What keeps that dynamic self-understanding from going off the rails?

Holy Scripture as it has been understood in the church and by the church through the centuries. With that understanding of Holy Scripture, we would appeal particularly to the fathers and the saints.

Tradition is not a second source alongside Scripture; clearly normative for us Orthodox is Scripture as interpreted by the seven ecumenical councils. But tradition lives on. The age of the fathers didn't stop in the fifth century or the seventh century. We could have holy fathers now in the 21st century equal to the ancient fathers.

[PeterTheAleut]

How does this relate to Orthodox-Protestant dialogue?

[Jetavan]

How does this relate to Orthodox-Protestant dialogue?

Bishop Kallistos Ware talks here about evangelicals "sheep stealing" in Orthodox countries, but he also talks (elsewhere) on what evangelicals and Orthodox can learn from one another

Earlier this year, Ware lectured at North Park University and Wheaton College about what evangelicals could learn from the Orthodox and what the Orthodox could learn from evangelicals. Christianity Today editor in chief David Neff interviewed him during that visit.

[Volnutt]

It's not sheep stealing if they truly think Orthodoxy is false and vice versa, is it?

[Jetavan]

It's not sheep stealing if they truly think Orthodoxy is false and vice versa, is it?

Well, it wouldn't be sheep-stealing in the eyes of those who see Orthodox as non-Christians.

But lots of, say, Baptist churches don't see other Baptists as Christian, so there you go.

[Volnutt]

True.

[primuspilus]

Well, it wouldn't be sheep-stealing in the eyes of those who see Orthodox as non-Christians

I did missionary work in Eastern Europe when I was a Baptist missionary (Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Russia)  and I can tell you that most fundemental baptists (and other permutations of Protestant fundamentalism) think the Orthodox and Catholics and pretty much anyone else who do not use the "Sinner's Prayer" for salvation are not christians. We were trained that they were works for salvation only.

So bishop Ware talking about Protestant sheep stealing is very accurate, because I took part in it.

primuspilus

[Volnutt]

Well, it wouldn't be sheep-stealing in the eyes of those who see Orthodox as non-Christians

I did missionary work in Eastern Europe when I was a Baptist missionary (Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Russia)  and I can tell you that most fundemental baptists (and other permutations of Protestant fundamentalism) think the Orthodox and Catholics and pretty much anyone else who do not use the "Sinner's Prayer" for salvation are not christians. We were trained that they were works for salvation only.

So bishop Ware talking about Protestant sheep stealing is very accurate, because I took part in it.

primuspilus

I had a feeling that was true of Baptists, actually. I guess the two Assemblies of God and Four Square churches I grew up in were just... weird. We were all told RCs, despite some failings, were our brothers in Christ (though I did hear some ignorant comments outside sermons like, "They think crossing themselves will save them").

[primuspilus]

Now that I understand a great deal more, I do regret what took place there. But we were told all kinds of very irrational things about RC's, EO's, Anglicans, etc.

primuspilus