I applaud both Meyer and Kingsnorth in their approaches to apologetics. People come to faith in all sorts of ways, sometimes even illogically. God approaches us through both mind and heart.
I'm not sure why you say that Orthodoxy has no apologetic tradition. The Church Fathers are the basis of all Orthodox theology and they are chock-full of apologetics.
I see what you mean, but in practice that doesn't seem to have filtered down the way that it should. I know of one priest who responded to an offer of help equipping his congregation with apologetic resources by saying, "Oh, we're Orthodox so our kids never ask questions and we don't really need that stuff." Like just assuming it didn't mix.
Well, we had J. Warner Wallace speak at our church and he was received with great interest. It's true that there's so much else to learn about in Orthodoxy (saints, liturgy, history, etc.) that apologetics is a lower priority than in Evangelical churches. But that doesn't mean that it's not part of our tradition. Some of the more philosophical forms are covered in the book I edited with Swinburne.
Dr Michael Heiser (who recently died of pancreatic cancer) has some video on YouTube regarding the fact that Orthodox Biblical study has some merit because being Eastern their source material is naturally Greek & Aramaic where Augustine and other church fathers were basing their Biblical knowledge on Latin. Heiser was an Evangelical scholar but he has an interesting point. Some Orthodox Biblical interpretation does clear up some confusion when I read the Bible as a Western Protestant.
Would be curious for your thoughts on recent series of short (by 2023 standards) conversations between John Vervaeke and an eastern Bishop. Definitely some anti-western jargon but for most part a lucid and (to my admittedly untrained ear) philosophically rigorous account of Eastern resources for alleviating the meaning crisis.0
So looking forward to the rest of this series!
Brilliant.
I applaud both Meyer and Kingsnorth in their approaches to apologetics. People come to faith in all sorts of ways, sometimes even illogically. God approaches us through both mind and heart.
Fascinating. Is this whole series meant to be a intellectual cumulative case for Theism then?
I'm not sure why you say that Orthodoxy has no apologetic tradition. The Church Fathers are the basis of all Orthodox theology and they are chock-full of apologetics.
I see what you mean, but in practice that doesn't seem to have filtered down the way that it should. I know of one priest who responded to an offer of help equipping his congregation with apologetic resources by saying, "Oh, we're Orthodox so our kids never ask questions and we don't really need that stuff." Like just assuming it didn't mix.
Well, we had J. Warner Wallace speak at our church and he was received with great interest. It's true that there's so much else to learn about in Orthodoxy (saints, liturgy, history, etc.) that apologetics is a lower priority than in Evangelical churches. But that doesn't mean that it's not part of our tradition. Some of the more philosophical forms are covered in the book I edited with Swinburne.
That's very cool that you hosted Wallace! It may be that there are divergent "orthospheres" as well.
Dr Michael Heiser (who recently died of pancreatic cancer) has some video on YouTube regarding the fact that Orthodox Biblical study has some merit because being Eastern their source material is naturally Greek & Aramaic where Augustine and other church fathers were basing their Biblical knowledge on Latin. Heiser was an Evangelical scholar but he has an interesting point. Some Orthodox Biblical interpretation does clear up some confusion when I read the Bible as a Western Protestant.
Would be curious for your thoughts on recent series of short (by 2023 standards) conversations between John Vervaeke and an eastern Bishop. Definitely some anti-western jargon but for most part a lucid and (to my admittedly untrained ear) philosophically rigorous account of Eastern resources for alleviating the meaning crisis.0
I have to confess I don't see much there there in John's project.