In this Sunday’s Epistle Reading, Saint Paul is writing to the
Church in Rome (Romans 10:1-10). Paul wants them to
understand how religious fanaticism damages Christianity.
Of course, he knows what he’s talking about, because, before
he became Saint Paul, he was raised to be a fanatical Jew—
Saul the Pharisee. He was so fanatical that he was willing to
persecute Christians. When it came to faith and theology, he
was a well-educated man...trained at the feet of the best and
most famous teacher of his day, Gamaliel. Saul the Pharisee
was brilliant! Yet as much as he thought he knew about the
faith...his perspective was myopic. He was absolutely sure
he knew who God was and how God worked...and yet, what
he knew made God far too small.
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Fanatic faith is a weakness of faith in God, trusting more in the form. The person,
gripped by such an obsession, who senses enemies to their idealism, is a very dangerous being, always becoming
the persecutor. True “Orthodox Christianity” rejects such fanaticism.
Have you heard the phrase, “You can be sincere, and still be sincerely wrong?” That’s the problem with this group
of people Saint Paul is talking about in this Sunday’s Epistle Reading. In 10:3-4, he says, “For, being ignorant of
God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they failed to submit to God's righteousness. For the law
is fulfilled in Christ, so that everyone who entrusts their spiritual wellbeing to faith in Christ may become
righteous.” They work to make themselves righteous by following the Law, but reject the Person to Whom the
Law points: Jesus Christ. Saint John Chrysostom encapsulates Paul’s point here, saying, “There is only One
righteousness, which finds its fulfillment in Christ...Even someone who has failed to keep the Law properly will
be righteous if he has Christ...but the person who does not have Christ has also made themselves a stranger
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Thus, over the centuries, while our theology hasn’t
changed, there have been changes in canons (some of which
actually contradict each other), changes in care over pastoral
situations, changes in new hymnology being added, changes in
which the faith is communicated, and changes in
liturgy...essentially changes in form.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware does a good job of summarizing for us the Orthodox understanding of holding too
tightly to a particular form, “True Orthodox fidelity to the past must always be a creative fidelity; for true
Orthodoxy can never rest satisfied with a barren ‘theology of repetition,’ which, parrot-like, repeats accepted
formulae without striving to understand what lies behind them. Loyalty to Tradition, properly understood, is not
something mechanical, a dull process of handing down what has been received. An Orthodox thinker must see
Tradition from within, he must enter into its inner spirit. In order to live within Tradition, it is not enough simply
to give intellectual assent to a system of doctrine; for Tradition is far more than a set of abstract propositions