There is a disturbing trend defining the Orthodox Church in the present moment, to which the politics of translation evident in the new version of the Creed is a symptom: there are Orthodox Christians who feel the need to be diametrically opposed to forms of thought that emerge outside of the Orthodox tradition, especially if these forms of thought challenge a particular understanding of Orthodoxy. Various feminist forms of thought challenge the role of women in the Orthodox Church, even raising the question of the theological justification of excluding women from ordination. Rather than listening, the response is normally to dismiss feminism as antithetical to Orthodoxy because of its so-called modern, secularist presuppositions.
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However, self-identification vis-à-vis the proximate other was not always the way Christians defined themselves. It is often thought that Christians opposed themselves to the Roman Empire, when, in fact, they eventually became proud Romans, affirming all that was good in the empire—laws, culture—even while they exerted Christian criticism against the Roman Empire’s injustices. The Fathers of the Church rejected pagan religions, but they absorbed all that they thought was good and correct in pagan philosophy, Greco-Roman rhetoric, literature, art, hymnody, architecture, and ritual, to name only a few areas of ancient culture. Moreover, the logic of diametrical opposition is simply not theologically consistent with the logic of Incarnation in which God’s presence is discernible throughout creation, certainly beyond the boundaries of the Orthodox Church.
As Orthodox Christians, we have nothing to fear; and, since we have nothing to fear, we should be open to questions, challenges, and even insights from non-Orthodox forms of thought. At least some of those “modern” insights would not be so new, but would echo the wisdom of the Greeks and the intention of the Fathers as expressed in our Creed.
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