At the end of January the Fr. Alexander Schmemann lecture was given this year (2014) by Fr. John McGuckin. Fr. John spoke about the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church and the following excerpt was his conclusion to the talk. He concluded on what the church is today and tomorrow.
I believe, the future
of Orthodox theology is neither Sophianism or Neo-Patristic synthesis; neither
Neo-Palamism nor ressourciement, not Nouvelle theologieor even ancienne
theologie for that matter; not progressivism or conservatism. The future of
Orthodox theology is fidelity to the Gospel lived out in the interim as we
approach the eschaton. We have always known this; and accordingly have always
known that we were supposed to resist the isms and secessions, scholasticisms,
denominations, and all other sorts of factions that mark off a sectarian
mentality from the ecclesial spirit. Now there have been endless temptations of
the Christian church in recent generations to dissect itself in
ever-diminishing circles. The ecumenical movement that once shone so radiantly
in the early post-war years when these Orthodox thinkers of Lossky’s time were
in their prime, excited and energized, is now a squeaking ghost of itself
because of that spirit of divisionism that is rife. Conservative Christians can
hardly speak to progressives. But when we Orthodox are being specifically
conscious about our mode of discourse today, I think we should remember that
the church has always used philosophical method very eclectically to exegete
the Gospel; applying a purely utilitarian principle. It can never wed itself to
any method or school or system except that which Gregory the Theologian calls ‘a
fisherman’s dialectic.’
Orthodox have sometimes
begun to imagine themselves as a denomination alongside other multiple churches
in a pluralist world, and to speak of themselves in that way. But Orthodoxy’s
role is not to be a subaltern in a post-colonial ambit: to appear quaint when
we speak to some putative West, as some putative East. On the contrary, we have
to hold an important line: the church is not a sect. It contains within its
living body, conservatives and progressives, liberal reformists and die-hard
traditionalists, not to mention saints and sinners. Within Orthodoxy those who
want to ‘synthesize’ for the future, and those who want to keep everything
intact as it was in the past, both have to learn the hard reality that it is
only God’s eschaton that makes the correct judgement on what is right and what
is wrong with the Church. The spotless Bride who contains all that is necessary
for salvation in her trousseau, is ever the same (just seen in a different
light) as that annoying baggage that is the Church on earth, which is comprised
of an awful lot of flawed and compromised individuals trying to do their best
to make their pilgrimage to the Kingdom. The Orthodox always attempt to be ever
faithful to the evangelical tradition they have received and which they seek tp
preserve in the canons and the writings of the dogmatic and spiritual fathers,
but above all they are called to live it out, live out that is the
resurrectional presence of Christ, through his Spirit, in the largely unseen
holiness of the ecclesial community.
