Tag Archives: Kallistos Ware

General

Following Those Before Us

Our journey through the darkness of life is a lot like a blundering trip through the woods at night. The circumstances of life will sometimes force us to strike out into the unknown though we may want to stay where we are. We may even start off walking on a familiar path only to find ourselves lost in confusion far from any recognizable landmarks. At some point during these times of wandering we will most likely stumble across some type of marker left behind by those who went before us. And when we do stumble upon a marker, it can be hard to know which direction to go.

Luckily for us, some of the people before us kept a record of what they did and what the Lord did around and through them. We call this record the Bible and it was written over approximately 1,500 years by at least forty different authors. Within its pages we find life and encouragement to keep walking into the darkness of the unknown. We can read about a farmer named Gideon who nervously stepped out in faith and followed the Lord’s command. Or we can hear how a few fishermen, a tax collector and some backwoods nobodies changed the course of human history. Furthermore when we are awakened in the night by a thought provoking dream, we can open up the Scriptures and read about Joseph and his dreams. In reading these stories, we can build up our faith and courage as we see how God worked in and through average folks just like us.

In addition to reading the ancient stories, we can also talk to those around us. Years ago when I was in my late twenties I found myself lost in the darkness of life surrounded by lots of new concepts about God and life. As I pondering these things, I realized that I needed some help before I could fully embrace them. Looking around me, I asked some women and men in my church who I perceived were further along the ancient path to join me for coffee. Gathering together, we allowed ourselves to be completely honest with each other and ourselves. No concept or issue was off the table as we all wanted fully vet the new concepts we were learning. If the ideas were not in line with the person of Jesus and the Scriptures, then we didn’t want to walk down that path. This monthly “Kingdom Coffee” group soon became a guide for us as we traveled through the darkness of life.

It is easy for those of us in the United States of America to forget about the value of community. We are surrounded by an individualist society with a high value being placed on the views of the individual. And while there is some good that comes out of such a society, we must also recognize the value of belonging to a faith that is bigger and older than any of us. “We do not read the Bible as isolated individuals,” Bishop Kallistos Ware of the Eastern Orthodox Church reminds us, “interpreting it solely by the light of our private understanding, or in terms of current theories about source, form or redaction criticism. We read it as members of the Church, in communion with all the other members throughout the ages.”[1]

Theology, after all, is the “ongoing conversation among those whom the God of the Bible has encountered in Jesus Christ.”[2] And in thinking about the community of believers, we must not limit ourselves to only those who are currently alive. Christianity, we must always remember, does not belong solely to the living but also to those who have confessed Christ throughout the ages. Accordingly there is wisdom in listening to and learning from both those who have walked before us in history as well as those living around us at this moment. It is a both/and concept in which we seek the counsel of others even when we are tempted to isolate ourselves.

[1] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 110.

[2] Stanley Grenz, John Franke. Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 233.

Book Reviews, Theology Thoughts

“The Orthodox Way” by Bishop Kallistos Ware

I was first introduced to Kallistos Ware’s book The Orthodox Way on September 2, 2006 when it was given to me after a chance meeting with an Eastern Orthodox priest. This priest, whose name I do not know, gave me five books about the Eastern Orthodox Church after briefly taking to me in a hotel restaurant in Los Angeles. Of the five books the priest gave me, Ware’s The Orthodox Way stood out because of its spiritual depth and simple prose. Twelve years later I can honestly say that this book changed the course of my life by introducing me to the path of the mystic.

The book itself isn’t that long, just six short chapters bookended by a prologue and epilogue. The purpose of the book is to introduce the reader to the “fundamental teachings of the Orthodox Church”[1] without being exhaustive or too technical. Rather, Ware lays out “some of the decisive signposts and milestones upon the spiritual Way.”[2] He does this by addressing six different facets of God as noted by the chapter titles: “God as Mystery,” “God as Trinity,” “God as Creator,” “God as Man,” “God as Spirit,” and “God as Prayer.”[3]

Though each of these chapters are packed with amazing gems, the first chapter, “God as Mystery,” was the one that had the most lasting impact on my life. The overall gist of this chapter is that God cannot be known strictly by intellectual reason or as the “conclusion to a process of reasoning.”[4] Rather, knowing God means knowing him as a person who loves and cares for us. Faith in God is, after all, “not logical certainty but a personal relationship”[5] that embraces the presence of doubt while still embarking on the journey.

At the time of my first reading of The Orthodox Way, I was an associate pastor of a small church and a graduate of Vineyard Leadership Institute (a two-year Bible and leadership training program). The temptation to logically figure out God was strong both because of my previous studies and the demands of the church. Through this book I was able to “embrace the mystery of God without having to understand everything.”[6] It gave me the freedom to embrace the unknown while still using my mind and intellect for the glory of God. As St. Gregory of Nyssa (one of the great intellectual Church Fathers) said, “God’s name is not known; it is wondered at.”[7]

Another gem within Ware’s book is his liberal use of quotes from the Church Fathers and Orthodox service books.[8] Most of these quotes were placed before and after each chapter, though he does sprinkle them throughout the body of the chapters. It was through reading these quotes that I was introduced to the Desert Fathers, although it would be years later before I fully realized the spiritual wisdom of these passionate followers of Jesus.[9]

Time does not permit me to expound on the other gems lying within the pages of Bishop Kallistos Ware’s book The Orthodox Way. For far too long the Protestant church in the United States of America has ignored our sisters and brothers in the East. The time has come for us to learn from the Eastern Orthodox Church for “they have a rich heritage of following God and seeing things that we have never seen.”[10]

 

Endnotes

[1] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 9.

[2] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 9.

[3] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 5.

[4] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 16.

[5] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 16.

[6] Joshua S. Hopping, “Embracing The Mystery Of God”, Wild Goose Chase (blog), September 24, 2010, accessed February 19, 2018.

[7] Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs, quoted in Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 14.

[8] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 10.

[9] Joshua S. Hopping, “Simplicity and Self-Sacrifice: Lessons from the Desert Fathers” (final paper, St. Stephen’s University, 2016), Wild Goose Chase (blog), released in three parts on November 9th, 11th, & 13th, 2016, accessed February 19, 2018.

[10] Joshua S. Hopping, “Embracing The Mystery Of God”, Wild Goose Chase (blog).

Theology Thoughts

No Simple Answers

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Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller

There is a myth that is so pervasive and widespread that most of us believe its lies without thinking. What, you may ask, is this myth? It is the myth of common sense. Or, to use different words, it is the belief that people everywhere have the ability, wisdom, and understanding to come to the same conclusion as we would or do the same thing that we would do in a given situation. After all, some things are just plain common sense. Or so the argument goes.

The problem with this chain of thought is that everyone on the planet has a different way of seeing the world. We are all unique beings with our own experiences, abilities, thoughts, and actions. Taken together, it means that there is no such thing as “common sense” as we all have our own sense of the world around us.

True, as some might say, there are some shared cultural events, precepts and beliefs. After all, societies work specifically because of shared cultural norms (i.e. attitudes and behaviors that are considered normal with a culture, such as how one is to greet each other). However I would argue that just because we might agree on broad cultural norms, this doesn’t necessarily equate to having a common sense that is shared among humanity.  The world is too large and too multifaceted for such a phenomenon.

I highlight this myth because it shows how strongly the desire is within us for simple answers. We want a simple world with simple answers to simple questions.  We desperately desire a world that is easy to understand and easy to move around in with folks who see things the same way as we do. Reality, however, isn’t so simple or nice. As C.S. Lewis once remarked, “Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect…Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed.”[1]

So what should we do? If reality really is complex and strange, as it seems to be, then how do we approach things? How do we move forward through the darkness of the unknown while surrounded by paradoxes and oddities? To quote C.S. Lewis once again, the answer is to “leave behind all these boys’ philosophies – these over-simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simpler either.”[2]

Accordingly let us stop trying to reduce the complexity of this world into simple answers. Let us be honest with ourselves and others and acknowledge the complexity of the world in which we live.  And in doing so, let us also recognize the complexity and mysterious wonder of the Creator. He is not a simple being who can be described in simple terms or made to dance to the tune of our thoughts and desires. The focus of Christianity, Bishop Kallistos Ware reminds us, is not to “provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.”[3]

God is God. He is beyond our thinking and understanding (e.g. Ecclesiastes 11:5, Isaiah 55:8-9, Psalm 145:3, 1 Corinthians 2:11). Try as we might, our words and simple descriptions of him will always fall short of fully capturing the wonder of who he really is. Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century church father, put it this way: “Anyone who tries to describe the ineffable Light in language is truly a liar – not because he hates the truth, but because of the inadequacy of this description.”[4]

 

Footnotes:

[1]C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 48.

[2]C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, 48.

[3] Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 14.

[4] Gregory of Nyssa. On Virginity, quoted in Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Way, 24.