EASTERN ORTHODOXY THROUGH WESTERN EYES
(Friday) Eastern Orthodoxy Through Western Eyes
by Donald Fairbairn
Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002, 209 pages
Review by Brad Boydston

This is one of the very best books on Eastern Orthodox Christianity written by a non-Orthodox author. Daniel B. Clendenin's now classic Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective, and the accompanying reader, is outstanding. But Donald Fairbairn, professor of theology and missions at Erskine Theological Seminary, takes things just a little bit deeper.

Fairbairn, who taught in the Ukraine and served as a missionary in other places around the former-Soviet Union, jumps right in and identifies tradition as the apex of Orthodox thought and life. This is a difficult concept for Westerners who emphasize the individual over the group. But tradition as a concept assumes a higher role in a group orientation.

Orthodox tradition, though, is not easily pinned down. There is a level of fluidity that will make analytically oriented Westerners cringe -- at least a little. Tradition can be found in the consensus of the church councils, in the scriptures, in the icons, in the church fathers, in the liturgy -- in short, in the church itself -- the group.

Orthodoxy sees the scriptures as authoritative witnesses only as seen within the context of the church's tradition. "Orthodox theologians have two basic approaches to the issue of relating Scripture and church life. The majority of writers believe that no qualitative distinction exists between the books of the Bible and other facets of Orthodox tradition. However, a few theologians argue for the supremacy of Scripture but point out that only the Church can interpret Scripture properly." (p. 15)

In contrast Evangelicals see the scriptures as being over the church.

Fairbairn points to other theological distinctives which Westerners need to understand if they are going to relate well to their Eastern siblings. For example, and much to the surprise of many Westerners who see the Orthodox Church as fixated on the past, Orthodoxy is primarily a forward looking movement. That is, theologically everything in the present and the past is viewed through the lenses of life in the future age. "In Orthodoxy, tradition is not primarily a deposit of writings given in the past that must be faithfully preserved and proclaimed. Tradition is rather a future life, a future union and fellowship with God, on the basis of which the Church judges present teaching and experience now... The source of theology is the entire community's experience of the life of the future kingdom, an experience that goes by the name of tradition." (p. 20)

The church itself is the mystical entity which is the recipient of God's direct activity. It is the manifestation of God's unity (sobornost) -- a reflection of the unity within the Holy Trinity. In the Evangelical West we see this unity as being a collection of individuals who have had the common experience of new life in Christ. But in the Eastern understanding the source of unity is the sacraments -- the mysteries through which each local parish enters into the whole of the church's sobornost. And it is through the sacraments that Christ is present in the church.

The unity of the church is preserved by the presidency of the bishops over the sacraments. Without bishops a church cannot really even be a church (at least in the fullest sense) in Eastern thinking. For the bishop represents Christ and the catholicity of the church. Again, all of this makes the most sense in the context of the Eastern corporate mindset -- but is a stretch to those of us who are steeped in the individualism of the West.

Fairbairn covers well the other two theological basics in Orthodoxy -- aphophatic mysticism and theosis.

Aphophaticism speaks of the negative priority in theological method. In the West we start with what we know about God and then draw analytical conclusions based on that information. In the Eastern mystical approach the starting point is what is unknown about God. God is not limited. God is not temporal. "Through such concentration on what is not true of God, people eventually reach the point at which they can no longer make negations. In the face of God's mysteriousness, they cannot declare whether some quality is true of him or not." (p. 52) This means that God cannot be reduced to any kind of philosophical description.

Fairbairn explains how this affects the church's understanding of the Holy Trinity and the Person of Christ.

Theosis is the idea of salvation as mystical union with God -- a sharing in the divine energies that radiate from him. (Not to be confused with the mysticism of Buddhism or Hinduism where one empties and loses self.) Originally, the first human beings were created imperfect and with the freedom to pursue perfection or maturity in their relationship with God. However, through the fall the freedom to pursue theosis was damaged and people abandoned their vocation of pursuing life with God.
In the West original sin is often seen as an inherited guilt. In the East it is a matter of being born into a world where it is difficult to pursue union with God but easy to do evil.

It is the arrival of Christ -- the incarnation -- which restores freedom to truly pursue our vocation of unity with God. The death of Christ is the means by which the atoning work of Christ came to a head. It was how Christ broke into the realm of death so that we might be broken out. Thus it is not the suffering of Christ on the cross that is emphasized, as in the judicial models popular in the Western church, but the resurrection is the focal point -- the great climax of the atonement.

This, Fairbairn explains, restores the possibility of theosis. "...the role of the atonement is clearly to make possible our being united to God. Christ did not complete the human vocation for us; he completed it in himself so as to guide and accompany us as we walk the pathway to eternity. Therefore, the purpose of Christ's incarnation and work was to enable people who had lost the capacity for theosis to embark once again on the road to union with God." (p. 85)

Theosis is thus a process by which we become united with God -- not in the sense that we lose ourselves or that we become God but more in the sense that we get to share in the energy that radiates from him. It's a combination of what Protestants have traditionally seen as sanctification and glorification.

The journey to theosis isn't something which one undertakes on his or her own. The saints (especially Mary) are cheerleading intercessors. The sacraments feed us and icons ("depictions of people restored to their proper image of God" -- p. 107) inspire us.

The last third of the book is a discussion of the relationship between Eastern and Western Christians -- an attempt to bring some of the theological summaries of the first two-thirds of the book to bear on the relationship between the East and the West. This is where Fairbairn calls us in the West to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of Orthodoxy -- particularly Orthodoxy as it is practiced on a popular level and the propensity toward nationalism in the Orthodox world.

There are four appendixes -- a bibliography for additional reading, suggestions for Christian workers in the East, the structure of the Orthodox church, and an outline of the Orthodox liturgical calendar.

As I said, this is one of the best introductions to Orthodox thinking that I have come across. It goes deep without becoming overly technical. As such it is a great place to start your education on Eastern Orthodoxy.