Many have noted the recent “Orthodox Renaissance” in Western studies of Christianity. Helpfully, an increasing number of Orthodox writers have produced theological primers for Western Christians. Furthermore, Western luminaries—from Aquinas to Calvin, from Barth to Torrance—have been “rediscovered” for being closet Orthodox Christians (okay, that may be a stretch) who offer their own versions of theosis. My own work has followed this latter trajectory in many senses, although it has focused on another “Eastern” Christianity—that is, the East Asian Christianity of mainland China.

My first monograph, previously reviewed on Orthodoxy in Dialogue by Michael Reardon, offers an examination into three major Protestant thinkers of 20th-century China: Watchman Nee, T.C. Chao, and K.H. Ting. Whilst representing three different theological persuasions, I show all three as having a tendency to speak about union with God—something I argue implicitly comes from the Chinese religio-philosophical teaching of the unity of Heaven and humanity (Tian ren heyi). To try to move this conversation forward, I engage Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas to argue for the value of theosis and related theological themes for Chinese Protestantism.

In many ways my second work, Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018), is a sequel to this earlier work. First, it focuses on the most recent developments of Chinese Christianity in the late 20th century and into the first decades of the 21st century. Second, whilst my first book emphasizes matters related to soteriology—the doctrine of salvation, Chinese Public Theology asks questions about ecclesiology—that is, the nature of the church and its relationship with the broader state and society. Finally, my new study engages in dialogue with two more recent Orthodox thinkers, Aristotle Papanikolaou and John Zizioulas, to offer further constructive perspectives on Chinese Christianity. Read More

Orthodoxy in Dialogue Presents…

One of the extremely complicated issues with which Orthodox parents must contend these days is that of heterosexuality. How do we talk to our kids about opposite-sex desires and relationships and how do we do so with the sensitivity, nuance, and frankness that the topic requires? At the request of Dr. David Ford, Professor of Church History at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, I offer this response to Bobby Maddex’s interview on Ancient Faith Ministries with Dr. Philip Mamalakis, an Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, about how to talk about marriage, intimacy, and heterosexuality with your children.

Early warning sign of possible heterosexuality.

Study after study has shown the alarming frequency with which the active practice of heterosexuality results in a wide range of emotionally, spiritually, and medically disastrous outcomes. Because every parent-child relationship is unique, we cannot propose a one-size-fits-all way for Orthodox parents to warn their children about the dangers of the straight lifestyle. Yet the following list of heterosexual activities and attendant risks should convince all Orthodox parents to protect their kids from growing up to become actively straight. Loving parents must say whatever it takes to scare or shame their kids away from heterosexuality straight into the back of the closet.

Other studies show that a child’s self-awareness of his or her sexual orientation begins to develop very early, usually before the age of ten and often by the age of five or six. While there is no evidence that parents can talk their kids out of their orientation, and much evidence that such kids will become “fragile teenagers” (as one of my correspondents put it) who take their own life, statistics be damned: an Orthodox parent must do what an Orthodox parent must do. We must persuade our children to struggle with their OSA their whole life long and to embrace the joyful cross of soul-destroying loneliness. This is what our loving, merciful God demands of them. Read More

On April 25th, Orthodoxy in Dialogue reprinted an article, “An Increasingly Unorthodox World,” that originally appeared in U.S. News and World Report on the preceding St. Nicholas Day. The article documents the decline in growth of Orthodox Christianity. The author observes that, currently, “Orthodox followers account for 12 percent of Christians worldwide, down 8 percentage points from the levels in 1910.”

This could sound alarm bells for those who see numbers as indicating something about the health of Orthodoxy. While it is debatable precisely what these declines signify, they at least might provoke a useful conversation about how the Church can move forward, avoid extinction, and possibly grow as we move into the 21st century. In this spirit, I would like to propose several points for consideration. They each reflect upon the question, “How might we pass on Orthodox tradition?” These thoughts are preliminary, intended to encourage discussion rather than offer definitive answers.

1) To pass something on, we need to know what it is that we are passing on.

In our current mode, the Church often refrains from making itself understandable. Not just converts, but cradle Orthodox are encouraged to see comprehension of the Church as something fundamentally unattainable. Many people engage in church activities or partake of the sacraments without developing a coherent understanding of how doing so relates to the big picture of spiritual life. We encourage a notion of humility and obedience that makes people shy even to approach the question of why they are doing what they are doing. Parishioners fear that if they develop a rationale that is personally compelling to them, regarding how and why they participate in Orthodox life, it will inevitably be one filled with prelest––with spiritual delusion—or contaminated by Protestantism, Scholasticism, or a variation of some Frankish heresy. The result of our mystification and obfuscation is that parishioners may eventually learn what to think, but not how to think. We haven’t considered them worthy of possessing a means by which they themselves might evaluate the healthiness of spiritual teachings. Read More

On 5-7 May 2018, the 11^th meeting of the Joint Commission for Orthodoxy-Islam Dialogue took place in the capital of Iran. This year its topic was Religion and Environment. The commission holds meetings once in two years alternately in Moscow and Tehran.

In compliance with the decision of the Holy Synod of 7 March 2018, the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church consisted of Metropolitan Feofan of Kazan and Tatarstan, head of the delegation; Archimandrite Alexander (Zarkeshev), rector of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Tehran; Archpriest Lev Semenov, head of the Chair of Theology of the Moscow State Linguistic University, head of the Religious and Educational Centre of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities; Rev. Dimitry Safonov, secretary for interreligious relations of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations; Rev. Alexy Sorokin, acting rector of the Church of the Blessed Xenia of Petersburg in Beskudnikovo, Moscow; Mr. Alexei Osipov, distinguished professor at the Moscow Theological Academy; Mr. Oleg Kalimullin, consultant at the Department for External Church Relations; and Ms. Yelena Dunayeva, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Metropolitan Feofan was accompanied by the rector of the Church of the Holy Dormition in Kazan, Archpriest Alexy Krayevsky.

On May 5, the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church met with Dr. Abouzar Ibrahimi Torkaman, head of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO). The participants in the meeting which took place at the ICRO Centre for Dialogue between Religions and Cultures in Tehran discussed various issues pertaining to the longstanding dialogue between the two religious communities and its prospects. Read More