This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

I wonder which conversion is more controversial: to Orthodoxy or to the White Sox.

:)

Wait, didn't I already do *the* definitive "Reading Road to Orthodoxy"? Oh wait, I never finished it...

Just don't stick Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Church on it; it's not underground and hardcore enough. It's like saying your favorite Depeche Mode disc is Violator when everyone who is really into the ole' DM knows it's way cooler to say Black Celebration.

Ah, Gabe, my young Hegelian friend. Rabble rouser that you are, I'm afraid that your definition of underground and hardcore are simply heretical standards to the tried and true tradition which one must never question on pain of excommunication. Ware is tradition. Ah, ah, ah. No contradiction. Just calmly accept it in the spirit of peace and obedience that is the hallmark of all that you oppose.

(Just tweakin' you a bit, bro!)

'Course I stole the idea from you. I just forgot it was from you that I stole it. But you jogged my memory, and now full credit is given for my unoriginal (and thus very Orthodox) idea.

In all seriousness, my only problem with the Ware book is that it glosses over a lot in it's history section and apparently raised the ire of ROCOR enough that St. John of Krondstadt's Press actually went out and acquired a pile of copies of the old edition to sell in its stead.

For what it's worth, Pomazansky's Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition offers a lot more substance than Ware without venturing too far down the road of heady theology. Even if I find some of his presentation of heterodox views to be a little simplistic, the distinctions are helpful, especially to those rooted in Western Christian traditions.