On the evening of December 10th, the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Hellenic College Holy Cross welcomed several prominent Baptist and Orthodox theologians to campus to commence the 4th Baptist-Orthodox Colloquium proceedings. Borrowing its theme from the recently published Orthodox social ethos statement, For the Life of the World, this gathering sought to explore opportunities for pursuing common Orthodox and Baptist witness in realms of social life which global developments in modernity have thoroughly impacted. Discussion sessions held throughout the day on the 11th focused specifically on matters about human sexuality and the role(s) of women in the family and church, economic justice and migration, and ecumenical relations.
The colloquium’s co-conveners, Dr. Elizabeth Newman and Rev. Dr. Brandon Gallaher, shared the honor of delivering a keynote address. In her remarks, Dr. Newman, an Adjunct Professor of Theology at Duke University Divinity School and Union Presbyterian Seminary, offered a grave exposition on the insidious threat posed to humanity and the natural world by the entrenchment of an exclusively rationalistic and mechanistic worldview. Citing such strange bedfellows as C.S. Lewis and Martin Heidegger, she painted our present human condition as diminished and enslaved to an anti-life mentality informed by the very industrial techniques and technologies that have provided us both great material abundance and a faulty sense of dominion over nature. Dr. Newman argued our salvation lies only in the recovery of a truly Christian ontology, an “Incarnational ontology,” that embraces the world as Creation and situates humanity within it as its priests and stewards. Building from this premise, Rev. Dr. Gallaher, an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Exeter and an Orthodox priest, expounded an exalted Orthodox understanding of human personhood which, perhaps counterintuitively, flatly rejects the kind of domineering, anthropocentric myopia decried by Dr. Newman. Borrowing heavily from St. Maximos the Confessor and the Russian religious philosophers, Rev. Dr. Gallaher described human personhood as an “ecclesial and eucharistic” vocation of cosmic proportions. The personal journey of deification—the simultaneous acquisition of transfiguring grace and the “cutting away” of fleshly ascesis—unfolds as we grow to become “priestly reconcilers” of Creation and participants in the ongoing reality of the Incarnation, working gradually to dissolve the present disunity of body and soul, male and female, individual and society, and so forth.
These opening statements generated lively commentary and discussion. Participants generally welcomed the recovery of an “Incarnational ontology” and were particularly intrigued by an Orthodox understanding of theosis as outlined by Rev. Dr. Gallaher. The feasibility, however, of applying an essentially “monastic” Orthodox spiritual approach to the everyday lives of the modern laity was called into question. This objection struck at the very heart of the quandary Dr. Newman and Rev. Dr. Gallaher sought to address: namely, how do we reconnect social engagement and spirituality in the modern world? While all who were present certainly agreed that the divorce of social concern from spiritual life is unfortunate and frankly counterproductive—breeding morally thin social justice activism on the one hand and arid exercises in navel-gazing on the other—articulating a common approach to their reconciliation proved difficult. Baptist speakers mainly highlighted effective congregation-level models of social engagement while stretching to recognize the unique contributions of certain “saintly” individuals. Conversely, Orthodox speakers offered up countless saints as paragons of socially engaged spirituality but struggled to identify communal manifestations of Orthodox assiduously serving the “liturgy after the liturgy.” Ultimately, both groups acknowledged that the social obligations placed upon us by our theological convictions cannot be unmoored from the inner struggle for holiness. In other words, we need both active communities and pious people, vibrant churches and vigorous saints, to fulfill the Gospel vision.
As in most ecumenical encounters, a charitable but candid investigation of differences in emphases revealed both commendable and underdeveloped aspects of Christian truth in each tradition; discussion sessions held on the 11th clarified this in a mutually edifying manner. In general, Baptist participants brought a greater diversity in perspective to the table. Their ecclesiology enables experimentation and differentiation at the congregation level, affording their communities greater flexibility to respond to modern social realities (to admittedly mixed results). This is unlike the hierarchical structure of the Orthodox Church, which tends to move at the pace and direction of its clergy (for better and for worse). Of course, an Incarnational ontology would necessarily appreciate the ubiquitous life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit. Judging by their fruits, the Spirit works through both ecclesiastical models despite their shortcomings. Nevertheless, we are each personally endowed with “God-given tools for acquiring the Spirit,” according to Rev. Dr. Gallaher: “obedience, humility, and repentance.” In light of our present ecclesiastical situations, perhaps we should also add “patience” and “hope”.
Author: Benjamin Malian, First Year Master of Theological Studies (MTS), Hellenic College Holy Cross School of Theology