This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Conversion, Terminology and Orthodoxy

I've been thinking about Christopher's reply to my post on convertitis:

I think we should drop the word "convert" from our vocabulary. Too often, this gives the impression, even to ourselves, that we've joined a different religion. The fact is that we believe that this Tradition we've embraced is the fullness of the Christian tradition. Contra some untraditional traditionalists, western Christians are, in fact, Christians. I did not become a Christian when I became Orthodox.

I'm extremely sympathetic to this view. Despite how frequently I use the terms "convert" or "conversion" to describe my journey from the Restoration Movement churches of my youth through Anglicanism to Orthodoxy, I almost never do so without that experience of an inner twinge. There are certain things about calling oneself an "Orthodox convert" that just seem to communicate the wrong things. After all, I never spoke about my becoming an Episcopalian as a "conversion." If I speak about my journey to Orthodoxy in this way, don't I run the risk of either seeming to claim that my family or friends aren't Christian, or that Orthodoxy itself is perhaps not Christian--at least in the way Christianity is known and experienced in the U. S. setting (which is the only setting I have any experience of)?

I very much take Chris' point. And for the record, I do not think my non-Orthodox friends and family are not Christian, nor, I hope, would my non-Orthodox friends and family think that somehow I've ceased to become Christian by becoming Orthodox. And it's probably a good thing that I find another way to communicate what I'm saying than by using the terms "convert" and "conversion" to speak of my present experiences in Orthodoxy.

Still, I'd like to make a case for the use, at least occasionally, of the terms "convert" and "conversion."

Our english word "conversion" comes from the Latin conversio or conversatio, which is translated "way or manner of life," or "monastic life." And even our English word carries this connotation, for when we think of someone "converting" we think of them "turning their life around" and taking on new practices.

And if there's anything that's true, it is that the way of Life in Christ that is given us in the Tradition is a way of life in marked contrast to not only the secular U. S. society in which we live, but even a marked contrast to the way of life of much of Protestantism.

Don't misunderstand. I know that conservative evanglical Protestantism still adheres to much of the beliefs and articles of Faith handed down from the Apostles to our own day. Doctrines like the Trinity, the divine and human nature of Christ, the foundation of our salvation in his death, burial and resurrection, the reality of the Kingdom of God, and so on. I don't in any way impugn the apostolic beliefs of my Protestant brothers and sisters, and the courageous stand they often take against a society and culture out to marginalize, ridicule and oppress them. And as Evan, I think, responded on one of the posts, there may well come a day when these Protestant brothers and sisters of mine will be some of the few non-Orthodox allies we have. May the Lord keep us all faithful.

But beliefs are not exactly the same thing as a way of life. They are necessary to a particular lifeway, but they are not sufficient on their own to produce that lifeway. That is what Tradition is for. It not only says, "Here's what you are to believe" but also "Here's how you live what you believe." I learned an awful lot about fasting when I was a young man in Bible college. And I sort of cobbled together a way of fasting that sort of made sense and sort of helped me. But in reality, it is the lifeway of fasting given by the Tradition that has brought my belief and my life together as one. (I don't know why I keep mentioning fasting, as opposed to other more important Christian practices, but it is an easy example to use. Please forgive me.)

I could go on and proliferate further examples, and no doubt many readers of this post could provide better ones. But my point here is that, in this process of becoming Orthodox that I have been in for a couple of years now, it's not so much that I've changed many of my core beliefs--though certainly I've had to do some of that--but it is most definitely the case that I have had to change my way of living.

This is the "heart" of Orthodoxy: one must experience a "conversion," a change in one's manner of living. I can't do it on my own. Indeed, it is incredibly dangerous to my spiritual state if I were to try to take on Orthodox living on my own. No matter how much I read, no matter how close to correct are the practices I might be able to take on, I still would be missing that most essential of ingredients: the mentoring of the Holy Church of God. A mentoring that not only gives right beliefs and proper practices, but most importantly, brings them together in a living unity which we call salvation. One does not learn how to be saved from books. One learns how to be saved by living with those who themselves know how to live their salvation with fear and trembling. And one can only live deeply and meaningfully with those faith mentors by becoming part of their family.

This is why, for my friend Tripp, if he takes the time to read this, I need to become Orthodox. It's not enough to cobble a little bit here, a little bit there from various traditions in the Church. It's not enough to believe rightly on "the biggies" of the Faith's vital doctrines. Christianity is a way of life, and Orthodoxy has preserved that way of life intact, without alteration, change, division or separation over the last two thousand years. The Orthodox will teach me how to be a Christian, in the fullest, most real possible meaning of that word.

It is in this sense, then, that I am a convert. Pray, then, for me, a sinner who needs conversion.

Posted by Clifton at February 3, 2005 05:31 PM | TrackBack