Timelessness or conservative?

[Anglian]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I suppose that everyone who regards themselves as a conservative Christian is used to being told that we are old-fashioned and time bound, and that we should be more up to date. My own Orthodox Church is often at the receiving end of such words. I found, recently, a response which I wanted to share with those who post here.

Orthodoxy does not accept such a time bound view. It does not look to the past so much as live in the awareness of the eternal ‘now’ of the undivided Church in heaven and earth, in which modern Christians are contemporaneous and in communion with the saints and Fathers of earlier ages.....Freedom from fear is the hallmark of the dynamism of the Spirit. The Orthodox keeper of Tradition is not someone who clings to mediaeval beliefs through fear of letting go of what is no longer seriously tenable in the present age. He or she is a person who recognizes from experience certain truths as central to the gospel message and way of life, and is not afraid to remain faithful to them despite ridicule or persecution. [Gillian Crow “The Orthodox Vision of Wholeness” in Andrew Walker and Costa Carras Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World London, SPCK, 1996:9]

Peace,

Anglian

 

[dead2self]