Thank you, Steve, for another thought provoking piece. Apologetics has always been difficult to understand for me. This has helped me greatly. As a convert to Orthodoxy, there is so much to learn and unlearn from past experiences….i am 76 years old and continue to be hungry for knowledge of God and His Holy Church. I pray I will KNOW HIM, in HIS energies more and more each day. Our priest uses your Be the Bee series often in sermons and teachings. You are a blessing!
This one really resonated with me and gave me some needed clarity on a few thoughts I’ve been wrestling with as our parish goes through a strategic planning process. Thanks Steve!
Thank you for this! I was reading Fr. Matthew the Poor last night, and this caught me particularly:
“Indeed, welcome to Christianity. Perplexity! You see, the rules of this world are governed by human logic. One plus one makes two. Play the market right and you’ll be a success. Study hard and you’ll pass. But the rules of the spirit are not decided by human logic. One plus one can make just one again; and a thousand years are as brief as yesterday. Everything is flipped upside-down in spiritual life. You must know well that the ministry of the Spirit is not subject to human logic. Don’t ever try to interpret it so.”
I appreciate the challenge(s) of your essays! Keep them coming.
Mar 13, 2023·edited Mar 13, 2023Liked by Steven Christoforou
This is really well done Steve. Thank you for writing and sharing. I’m not very active on Facebook and see things very intermittently, but I’m very glad that I saw and read this. Hope all is well with you.
Thank you for this article, Br. Steve. This is a reminder for me to deliberate repentance, and at the same time you have outlined the three basic steps for internet apologetics. Great job bringing Tolkien's reference into the essay.
I have agree with your article but I'm frustrated. I think this issue wouldn't have occurred if 40 years ago an article went out about how the Orthodox Church should evangelize.
So instead for many of us the only resources we have are online.
I respect your opinion Steve, I believe that you mean what you are saying. It's true that the ascetical life is the most important for all of us. I want to point out however that if it wasn't for the work of apolagetics that many people have been doing online, a good portion of us young people would have never become Orthodox in the first place. The old boomer mentality quite clearly hasn't been as effective at realizing our great commission as have been people like Jay Dyer. It's also somewhat uncharitable to assume that the people you are referring to aren't themselves practicing a spiritual life. Saint Gregory Palamas himself is of course famous for his apolagetic work defending the faith. 15 years sounds like some arbitrary gatekeeping to me.
Saint Ambrose was a catechumen when he was chosen to be Bishop. Saint Agustine wrote multiple books on the faith before baptism even. Saint Benedict in his rule told the elders to listen to the young because the prophets Samuel and Daniel were chosen to by God to judge the priests while being but children. Obviously these are exceptions and we have to recognize the Holy Spirit working through our elders and clergy but some people are called to special purposes.
Please forgive me if this turned into a rant. I feel like you are sort of a bridge between the old boomer ways and the sort of interdoxy sphere that you are talking about. Best of both worlds maybe? A lot of your content was very helpful to me early on. God bless you and your ministry.
This is a big topic and it is true that there seem to be many self-appointed "apologists" who do not have the spiritual experience necessary to acquire a dogmatic consciousness of which St. Silouan speaks. Met Hierotheos of Nafpaktos says in his book on St. Sophrony of Essex, St. Silouan's disciple, that according to St. Sophrony "usually more than twenty years are required from the time when [a man is] baptised as an Orthodox Christian, under the guidance of an experienced spiritual father, before we are certain that he has learnt to live in an Orthodox way and Orthodox dogma has become his way of life." (I Know a Man in Christ, p. 150). Most people do not even have an experienced spiritual father to guide them, and of those who do, how many are obedient to the guidance they are given?
While there are problems with self-appointed internet apologists, your criteria of canonical regularity, accountability, and formative preparation are not the best criteria for discerning between true and false teachers. We have a lot of patristic literature on how to discern between true and false teachers. The laity are "rational sheep" and are responsible for reading the saints and the Fathers of the Church in order to know the Faith, and we are to follow only those teachers on earth who themselves faithfully follow the teachings of the saints and Fathers who were illumined by the Holy Spirit. If priests and bishops teach things which are contrary to the teachings of the saints and Fathers, we are not to follow such teachings even if they are uttered by a patriarch or all of the patriarchs together, regardless of their "canonical" and other credentials.
Historically, there have been many heretics and spiritually damaging teachers who fit the criteria of "canonical regularity, accountability, and formative preparation," depending on how "formative preparation" is defined. Having a bishop to whom you are accountable is meaningless if the bishop is not actually holding those under them accountable for faithfully teaching that which is in agreement with the saints and Fathers. When St. Silouan and St. Sophrony speak of the preconditions for acquiring a dogmatic consciousness, "formative preparation" for them is also not likely what many people today have in mind as almost exclusively referring to some kind of seminary training.
Again, this is a big topic and you are right that there are concerns with self-appointed internet apologists, but it is important to use patristic criteria in evaluating such things.
Thank you, Steve, for another thought provoking piece. Apologetics has always been difficult to understand for me. This has helped me greatly. As a convert to Orthodoxy, there is so much to learn and unlearn from past experiences….i am 76 years old and continue to be hungry for knowledge of God and His Holy Church. I pray I will KNOW HIM, in HIS energies more and more each day. Our priest uses your Be the Bee series often in sermons and teachings. You are a blessing!
This one really resonated with me and gave me some needed clarity on a few thoughts I’ve been wrestling with as our parish goes through a strategic planning process. Thanks Steve!
Thank you for this! I was reading Fr. Matthew the Poor last night, and this caught me particularly:
“Indeed, welcome to Christianity. Perplexity! You see, the rules of this world are governed by human logic. One plus one makes two. Play the market right and you’ll be a success. Study hard and you’ll pass. But the rules of the spirit are not decided by human logic. One plus one can make just one again; and a thousand years are as brief as yesterday. Everything is flipped upside-down in spiritual life. You must know well that the ministry of the Spirit is not subject to human logic. Don’t ever try to interpret it so.”
I appreciate the challenge(s) of your essays! Keep them coming.
This is really well done Steve. Thank you for writing and sharing. I’m not very active on Facebook and see things very intermittently, but I’m very glad that I saw and read this. Hope all is well with you.
Absolutely vital. Incredible article. And timely!
Thank you for this article, Br. Steve. This is a reminder for me to deliberate repentance, and at the same time you have outlined the three basic steps for internet apologetics. Great job bringing Tolkien's reference into the essay.
I have agree with your article but I'm frustrated. I think this issue wouldn't have occurred if 40 years ago an article went out about how the Orthodox Church should evangelize.
So instead for many of us the only resources we have are online.
I respect your opinion Steve, I believe that you mean what you are saying. It's true that the ascetical life is the most important for all of us. I want to point out however that if it wasn't for the work of apolagetics that many people have been doing online, a good portion of us young people would have never become Orthodox in the first place. The old boomer mentality quite clearly hasn't been as effective at realizing our great commission as have been people like Jay Dyer. It's also somewhat uncharitable to assume that the people you are referring to aren't themselves practicing a spiritual life. Saint Gregory Palamas himself is of course famous for his apolagetic work defending the faith. 15 years sounds like some arbitrary gatekeeping to me.
Saint Ambrose was a catechumen when he was chosen to be Bishop. Saint Agustine wrote multiple books on the faith before baptism even. Saint Benedict in his rule told the elders to listen to the young because the prophets Samuel and Daniel were chosen to by God to judge the priests while being but children. Obviously these are exceptions and we have to recognize the Holy Spirit working through our elders and clergy but some people are called to special purposes.
Please forgive me if this turned into a rant. I feel like you are sort of a bridge between the old boomer ways and the sort of interdoxy sphere that you are talking about. Best of both worlds maybe? A lot of your content was very helpful to me early on. God bless you and your ministry.
This is a big topic and it is true that there seem to be many self-appointed "apologists" who do not have the spiritual experience necessary to acquire a dogmatic consciousness of which St. Silouan speaks. Met Hierotheos of Nafpaktos says in his book on St. Sophrony of Essex, St. Silouan's disciple, that according to St. Sophrony "usually more than twenty years are required from the time when [a man is] baptised as an Orthodox Christian, under the guidance of an experienced spiritual father, before we are certain that he has learnt to live in an Orthodox way and Orthodox dogma has become his way of life." (I Know a Man in Christ, p. 150). Most people do not even have an experienced spiritual father to guide them, and of those who do, how many are obedient to the guidance they are given?
While there are problems with self-appointed internet apologists, your criteria of canonical regularity, accountability, and formative preparation are not the best criteria for discerning between true and false teachers. We have a lot of patristic literature on how to discern between true and false teachers. The laity are "rational sheep" and are responsible for reading the saints and the Fathers of the Church in order to know the Faith, and we are to follow only those teachers on earth who themselves faithfully follow the teachings of the saints and Fathers who were illumined by the Holy Spirit. If priests and bishops teach things which are contrary to the teachings of the saints and Fathers, we are not to follow such teachings even if they are uttered by a patriarch or all of the patriarchs together, regardless of their "canonical" and other credentials.
Historically, there have been many heretics and spiritually damaging teachers who fit the criteria of "canonical regularity, accountability, and formative preparation," depending on how "formative preparation" is defined. Having a bishop to whom you are accountable is meaningless if the bishop is not actually holding those under them accountable for faithfully teaching that which is in agreement with the saints and Fathers. When St. Silouan and St. Sophrony speak of the preconditions for acquiring a dogmatic consciousness, "formative preparation" for them is also not likely what many people today have in mind as almost exclusively referring to some kind of seminary training.
Again, this is a big topic and you are right that there are concerns with self-appointed internet apologists, but it is important to use patristic criteria in evaluating such things.