- Dec 9, 2005
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I'm not thinking of quitting the Church - where could I go? It's that maligned and misunderstood Chesterton (OK, and Lewis) that made clear to me what I would have to go back to. They keep me from walking even though I feel total spiritual burnout. Or as Peter said, "Where can we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life."
Leaving TAW would be easy, though. Right now I feel a real sense of futility here. People come in teaching seriously un-Orthodox doctrine, and most members don't recognize or care, AFAICT. The days when we were united enough to establish our sub-forum rules and declare some subjects as dogmatically certain and unchallengeable (non-controversial topics) appear to be over. Any challenge of or attack on ideas can be construed as an attack on the person (as a person), meaning we can't challenge heresy in TAW, I guess. I've never had such a feeling of schism in TAW before, and the underpinnings of it came out in the evolution thread. Some people really don't get that if we deny the authority of the Church - or make it so that that authority has zero effect on our practical beliefs and attitudes in daily life, so that we pick and choose what we will accept and what we won't - we do what Adam did: unwittingly cut ourselves off from communion in a most practical sense, one in which we cease to be of one heart and mind with the saints, where we stop trying to put on the mind of the Church, and instead assert the supremacy of our own minds, and come to think and believe things at which they all would cry anathema. And there is no one in more danger of that than the intellectual, the mentally rich.
I suppose I should have seen it coming. The ultimate authority that rules CF is not the Church; the rules are designed on a foundation of pluralism to reflect the divided nature of the Christian world at large, so naturally that can be used to undermine any attempt to maintain a truly Orthodox atmosphere. So at some point TAW will be de facto un-Orthodox, just another harbor for pluralism, which a few members have openly advocated and not been admonished by everybody else. So schism is an inevitable result. If we don't agree on the authority of Holy Tradition, or even what that is, we can hardly avoid it.
Leaving TAW would be easy, though. Right now I feel a real sense of futility here. People come in teaching seriously un-Orthodox doctrine, and most members don't recognize or care, AFAICT. The days when we were united enough to establish our sub-forum rules and declare some subjects as dogmatically certain and unchallengeable (non-controversial topics) appear to be over. Any challenge of or attack on ideas can be construed as an attack on the person (as a person), meaning we can't challenge heresy in TAW, I guess. I've never had such a feeling of schism in TAW before, and the underpinnings of it came out in the evolution thread. Some people really don't get that if we deny the authority of the Church - or make it so that that authority has zero effect on our practical beliefs and attitudes in daily life, so that we pick and choose what we will accept and what we won't - we do what Adam did: unwittingly cut ourselves off from communion in a most practical sense, one in which we cease to be of one heart and mind with the saints, where we stop trying to put on the mind of the Church, and instead assert the supremacy of our own minds, and come to think and believe things at which they all would cry anathema. And there is no one in more danger of that than the intellectual, the mentally rich.
I suppose I should have seen it coming. The ultimate authority that rules CF is not the Church; the rules are designed on a foundation of pluralism to reflect the divided nature of the Christian world at large, so naturally that can be used to undermine any attempt to maintain a truly Orthodox atmosphere. So at some point TAW will be de facto un-Orthodox, just another harbor for pluralism, which a few members have openly advocated and not been admonished by everybody else. So schism is an inevitable result. If we don't agree on the authority of Holy Tradition, or even what that is, we can hardly avoid it.