An Old Draft
I got started writing this back in March of 2013, and re-reading it today I thought that it would be worth posting it, even though I never quite finished it.
Quick disclaimer: I'm not yet part of the Orthodox Church since I haven't yet been chrismated. But I am on that path as a catechumen, so for the sake of these discussions you'll hear me essentially identifying myself as Orthodox. Then again, I'll probably also identify myself as "Western" since that is where I come from. I hope you can follow.
Among converts to Eastern Orthodoxy, "The West" can be somewhat of a favorite punching bag--especially among those of us who come from Evangelical-Protestant-Reformed-ish backgrounds. It's really easy to dis "Western Christianity", because many of us feel frustrated that for so many years we've been following the "wrong" path, almost as if someone has led us astray. Now, I wouldn't actually blame anyone in my past for this, but it's easy to blame "Western Christianity" as a whole. While we do have many issues with the way of thinking that predominates Western Christianity, we can take it too far and make some broad, sweeping generalizations that aren't really true. Kinda like politics. Oops.
When I was listening to a podcast this morning by one of my favorite Orthodox speakers, Matthew Gallatin, I thought heard strains of this "West-vs-East" theme creep in. Matthew said the following:
Life with God in the Christian West is fundamentally a mental activity. In the East, it is a dance—a holy dance, in which we embrace God as a living, moving, literally present partner. He is not way out there somewhere, allowing us to contemplate Him. He is right here, and we are lovingly, repentantly, fearfully, humbly, and awesomely aware of His presence.
I had to pause right there and think for a minute. I'd just finished listening to a few songs on our local Christian music station, Hope 107.9. I don't usually tune in to that station anymore, but I guess Andrea was listening to it when she had my car last night. Anyway, one of the songs they played was "By Your Side" by Tenth Avenue North. I was struck by how in spite of the "non-Orthodoxy" of the band and probably some of the lyrics, the song spoke of an intimate, personal love of God for us. Frankly, most of the songs on Christian radio don't really talk much about theology. They talk about wanting to know God, or being thankful to know him, or struggling to live as he asks. In those lyrics (saccharine as they may be sometimes) I don't hear a "mental exercise". I hear hearts crying out for God. Modern "praise and worship" music is all about that, right? So I really had to take issue with Matthew saying that in the West, Christianity is "fundamentally a mental activity".
Still though, I have to agree that Matthew has a point. Here's what I think: I think that in the West, there are scores of folks who want to know God in a deeply personal way. And that is what all our youth group leaders promise--it's about knowing Christ as "your personal Savior". "It's not a religion, it's a relationship." Right? I think that many Western Christians do truly know Him. Unfortunately though, I think this is often in spite of Western theology and philosophy. My personal struggle has been that I've wanted to know God my whole life (more some times than others, for sure), and yet was not having success through the normal avenues of reading my Bible and feeble attempts at prayer.
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