2. Respecting the Present (Part III of IX)
Anchored as they are in the Church's Tradition, the Orthodox do not so readily succumb to modern pressures to change doctrine and canonical practice. More than many, the Orthodox Church understands that the most pressing concerns of today are frequently left on the ash heap of history tomorrow.
History is, in part, a display of ephemeral fashions. I think it was Chesterton who expressed something like, "He who today marries himself to the present age, will tomorrow find himself a widower." Churches that find their guidance for life in the modern age find themselves bound to the age and unable to speak a credible witness against it.
The Episcopal Church has endorsed abortion by refusing to condemn it in General Convention referenda. Both the Episcopal Church and my heritage churches accept, and even encourage in some cases, divorce. The Episcopal Church accepts the propriety of sexual acts outside of the marriage covenant of one man and one woman. But all these beliefs are unremarkable to the present age. After all, this is what the present age itself believes. And so the present age largely ignores the Episcopal Church and my heritage churches. The present age certainly doesn't need its beliefs reinforced by these churches. The popular media functions in that role quite nicely. Indeed, these churches only look silly to the present age precisely because they are so far behind the curve. My heritage churches only now are investing thousands and millions of dollars in media equipment. But MTV was on this "cutting edge" of marketing and outreach more than twenty years ago. The present age bought in to indiscriminate sexual activity more than thirty years ago (though personal immorality has been around, oh, since the Fall). The Episcopal Church has only just got around to endorsing it in the General Convention previous to this last one (though individual parishes and dioceses have been doing it for some time).
So here's my question. When the present age--even if only from nostalgia--returns to a marriage as one-man-one-woman-for-life sexuality, as an unbroken lifelong covenant, will these churches take twenty or thirty years to "catch up"? The present age--at least the gen x and younger crowd--seems to be abandoing the ethic of abortion on demand. Will it take those churches who endorse it now twenty or thirty years to finally acquiesce to this development?
On the matter of abortion, the Orthodox Church holds to the ancient texts and canons (dating from the first and second centuries) that explicitly equate with murderers those who give abortifacients or who perform abortions. With regard to divorce, the Orthodox Church only allows it in extreme cases. And in the case of remarriage makes a change in the liturgical celebration of the marriage to indicate this is a concession to human sinfulness and our mortality. In the case of human sexuality, the Orthodox Church has held firm on the historic Church's teaching. In all these cases the Orthodox Church utilizes the Mysteries of Confession and the Eucharist, and much loving pastoral counsel, to assist those who have fallen from the Church's standard, to live lives of repentance, mercy and forgiveness.
And it is precisely this stance, anchored as it is in Tradition, and not subject to the whims and mores of the present age, that enables the Orthodox Church to speak to the world. Because the Orthodox Church has this two-thousand-year expertise in ministering to human beings of all ages, sexes, ethnic groups, and religious faiths, it can say a word to the present.
More to the point, precisely because it can speak against the present age, is the very reason it can show the most respect to this age than can any other ecclesial body (though the Amish run a close second in my view). Anchored as it is in the past, with an unbroken living Tradition, the Orthodox Church is the only ecclesial body that can most consistently and with the most authority say, "Here there be dragons."
Because the Episcopal Church and my heritage churches (ironically in the latter case) are so immersed in the modernist worldview, because they have conformed themselves to the mores and convictions of the present age in so many respects, they have no authority to speak saving truth. They can most certainly, and do, speak the living Truth, but it is with no real authenticity. Much like we teenagers did, the world ignores the "authority figures" who join in its games and try to be "relevant." Afraid to lose their audience by being different, it is because they are so much the same that these, the churches of my previous allegiances, have a message no one takes seriously.
The Orthodox Church knows where she's going, because she knows where she's been and who is her Head. She is willing to be crucified, to be rejected. She has survived Muslim persecution, the savage crusade of her own Western Christian brothers and sisters, and the Communist purges. She knows there are only two ways: life and death. And she is not afraid to die, and dying to live and witness with authority.
And it is this combination of faithfully held Tradition and authentic present witness that evidences the Orthodox Church's consistent theology.
[Please note: Speaking as I must about my previous and present church experiences in light of my attraction to Orthodoxy, I must necessarily and frequently take up a critical stance to many aspects of these experiences. But I have also tried to offer honest and heartfelt positive appraisals where I can.]
Next: 3. Consistency of Theology