I've said it before that if Americans REALLY heard what Orthodoxy is all about:
a loving God, not an angry wrathful one full of laws and retribution
Christ dying to crush death rather than dying to appease honor codes
Adam and Eve expelled to protect them rather than in punishment
leavened bread showing fullness rather than unleavened and lacking
sin as missing the mark rather than sin representing legal fall-out
sacraments as medicine rather than sacraments as legalism
no "system" to be "saved," but a WALK with God to be like our Father
worship with our whole bodies meaning something, not obligations
prayers for relationship, not prayers to stave off
being children of Pascha, not children of Good Friday
Jesus' whole ministry saving, not just one moment of it.....
I think if people KNEW what Orthodoxy taught, you'd have skeptics, atheists, people who believe in God but who are FED UP with hypocrisy and harsh teachings, all of them might come home!
But alas, the WORST thing about Orthodoxy is their inability and lack of concern to spread Christ's Church. I marvel at the breath-taking apathy when it comes to missionary zeal. I look at how Anglicans are trying to church-build and how these Mormons want to spread their faith, and I ask what spiritual fruits are NOT being harvested in our Orthodox hearts to make us treat our church like country clubs? It is 100% unacceptable and silly that anybody should have to drive 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours to get to an Orthodox parish. My church is rich, make no mistake. We spend $$$ like we're printing it in the basement. Father won't bat an eye at spending $75,000 on new iconography for our dome, but could we take that $75,000 and spend it on missionary efforts? Our parish temple has TONS of lovely icons already. When is enough enough? I ADORE icons!!! I just love them! And theologically I see them to be powerful tools! But at what point can we back off aesthetics and other less essential things and iconography, etc. and put our money into the kitty to church-build and spread the word? We speak big words about how wrong those Catholics are with their filioque and liturgical errors and fundamental theological missteps, and we talk about the dangers of Protestantism, but do we put our money where our mouth is?
Mostly what I hear from Orthodox is excuses as to why it won't work. "There aren't enough Greeks or Serbs, Russians, or other Orthodox in that town to start a church." Can you imagine if Blessed Paul, or Sts. Cyrill of Methodius had thought like that? Ay yay yay....
When I've complained in TAW, I've had people say, "look, Gurney, what have YOU done to grow the church, mate!" Well, I've made several overtures to Father that sputtered and died. I've contacted a missionary priest and he played this absurd phone tag with me and email tag for about two months straight before it became clear he wasn't serious! In the end, BISHOPS need to be on board, priests, lay folks, and it just seems there isn't the will.
So between a lack of real missionary zeal coupled with the refusal to break out of the ethnic pandering, we are in some trouble. I credit the internet (which everyone bashes!) with more missionary umph than anything in the past few years!
Last year we had this couple come to our parish to speak in front of everyone at coffee hour to seek donations $$$. They are trying to "re-Orthodoxize" Albania. They want to take all our $$$ and use it to bring Orthodoxy back to that country. I'm sitting there astonished thinking, "uh, DUH, guys, I've been asking for help to build an Orthodox parish in VISALIA, 50 miles from y'all here in central California where there are like 10 Orthodox people out of 125,000 and you're worried about Albania? Hello? Anyone?"
I hope things change. I truly do.
I think my spiritual father knew my American chauvinism three years before it showed
(though to be fair is there such thing as a perfect parish?)
On a more serious note, I think that in this thread we're discussing what will ultimately be, in my opinion, the downfall of Orthodoxy in America: ethnocentrism and a failure to adapt. Yes, for now an American Orthodoxy seems to be taking hold, but will it last? After all, how much of the American Orthodox laity actually consider the old world home (cradle or convert)? This last weekend I was in Baltimore and went to Liturgy at an Antiochian parish of Arabs who acknowledge that they are Americanizing. Heck I, a Heinz 57 Yank, speak, read and write Arabic better than half the Arabs there! Yet, it was the first time since coming to the East Coast where I actually experienced a positive sense of being and "Thank God I'm Orthodox" gratitude. If not for the price of gas and lack of place to stay, I'd go there every weekend because of the lack of spiritual fulfillment in Hampton Roads.
Threads like this that have me thinking that only with chaplains can true American Orthodoxy be found.