Understanding Russian Orthodoxy

This week one of my good friends was ordained to be the pastor of a Russian congregation in Eastern Atlanta, so naturally we had some Russian guests who were not evangelicals. Again my thoughts were taken back to the growing interaction between Western Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy. In essence there is a great need to understand the Christian East, the culture, the language, the world view and the religion. For a Baptist, it's almost like having Lutherans over for dinner: you know that there are similarities, and you are keenly aware that there are differences, but what are they? One of the best resources on the subject is a book by James Payton, Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2007).  Its stated purpose is to “introduce Western Christian reader to some of the distinctive perspectives and emphases of Eastern Orthodoxy in a way that facilitates understanding and appreciation” (15). Payton contends that Orthodoxy has been “shaped by significantly different questions” (12) than those that have shaped Western Christianity. In fact, he places a large emphasis on what he suggests has been a vastly overlooked half of Christian history, the Eastern half, but he also gives a brief survey of Western reactions to Orthodoxy’s suppositions. Having lived in a predominantly Russian Orthodox environment for 13 years, I can attest to the contrasting starting points that make up the eastern and western theological matrices.

Payton lays the groundwork for discussing the larger distinctions between the Eastern and Western church. It could be argued that he writes this book from a western perspective with a sole intent of making a western protestant at least aware of Eastern Orthodoxy or the Eastern Church but not to critique it. I would go so far as to say that they attempt is more to help westerners understand Eastern Orthodoxy, and it is not a reciprocal conversation. Perhaps more accurately, he attempts to see where Eastern Church might inform western theology and thereby gain an appreciation for how the East has developed; therefore, he ends each chapter with lessons that western Christians could learn from the East. His book could be praiseworthy on the sole basis that it links the beliefs of the Eastern Church with its historical development, but as a theological survey it also has merit. This book is best served as a survey of how the historical development of the East and West affected specific doctrines like Trinitarian theology, harmatology and soteriology. Whenever I'm asked to name a good resource for Americans going to serve as missionaries in Russia, I always mention this book as one of the best primers for understanding the larger culture.  

Payton believes that the East and the West have formed their theologies in two radically separate spheres. They have been influenced by their environments and thereby been crafted by those influences. The West, for example, he shows to be influenced by a very legal-oriented Roman mentality, something that he contends thereby affects our understanding of God from a legal mindset. Therefore the court room genre of justification as evidenced in all of our literature from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries up to today affects the way we make presentations of the plan of salvation from a legal perspective. Because the west has a very rational mindset, we tend to approach our theology from a different definition of theology from the East. Payton posits that the West tends to approach theology within categories for understanding God and theologies are built upon logical arguments that must be defeated or proven. 

The East is different. Thought processes are not typically linear nor progressive. Instead they are crafted with more of an aesthetic goal; thus, to the westerner they might seem more circular or haphazard. Perhaps a better, albeit over-simplistic, example would be to say that Russians enter into a conversation with the goal to experience the conversation, whereas an American would enter the same conversation in order to come to some agreement or decision. Similarly, the foundation for Russian theology is more of an experience than a dogma, and often the greater study of God is not confined to logical human arguments that place parameters on the Creator. 

            Payton introduces his book by listing four preliminary thoughts serve to guide this discussion on the historical divergence of Eastern and Western Christianity. He says that each side has differing questions regarding theology. He dislikes the term Eastern Orthodox and would prefer to call Eastern Christianity simply Orthodox. To Payton, Eastern Orthodoxy is Eastern Christianity. And he defines Western Christianity simply on geographic terms. Payton deals with theological issues like doctrines of God, mankind, original sin, salvation, church, and authority; yet he does so from a historical developmental perspective. If Payton’s desire is to give Western Christian thinkers an appreciation for Eastern Orthodoxy, then he achieves his goal. If his purpose is to help the West to become acquainted with those main topics that surround Eastern Orthodox thought and why they became the way they did, then he also succeeds. It is not Payton’s stated goal to convince in either direction, but he does desire to create an atmosphere for dialogue whereby the West and the East can learn to appreciate each other. Payton’s book, although a survey of a historic journey from the early church into what we see today as the Eastern Church, creates a platform for discussing the differences and appreciating them for how they originated.

            In many ways, Russians living in America have become affected by their interaction with a new worldview. Some have taken on the step-by-step framework that western society has built. Others have recoiled into a fortress of Russian Orthodoxy, complete with nationalistic traditions and impatience toward outside theologians. Whenever Russians and Americans do have a dialogue about God, I have found it enriching for mutual discipleship and giving greater definition to our limited perspectives.