ORLAPUBS P. R178: DIDDLE & DAWDLE ON ECUMENICS

DIDDLE & DAWDLE
ECUMENICAL CONSULTANTS
ADVISORY TO THE ORTHODOX ON
HOW TO LOSE GRACEFULLY
AT ECUMENICS

     1. If you wish to ensure that the Orthodox will be the losers in ecumenics, as appears to be the case, begin by recognizing non-Orthodox bodies a having the guarantees of Grace. Treat this as a polite concession, one that is a necessary preliminary before getting down to the business of what an interfaith meeting is all about. Why insist on honesty and upset others by refusing such a concession? How could business proceed--the important thing--if that concession were not made? Why fight it? It may be illogical to agree in advance when a meeting is being held to try to find agreement, but that's ecumenics for you. So just make sure that the bodies present are all recognized as "sister churches."
     2. Once that vital preliminary is out of the way, do not be so brash as to demand an equal playing field in which the Orthodox paradigm with its specific premises and terminology are accorded primary or even just equal status with the static Western paradigms invented a dozen centuries later--and lacking the New Testament and Patristic relation of dynamis and energy. (Aqinas's operatio and actus cannot convey the Greek idea.) Wouldn't "energy" sound like one is trying to be "modern," "scientific," and all of that? Not that Orthodox "energy" is opposed to the science of matter and time (development) the way most Western outlooks (other than process theology) are . . . or even that it would look bad in ecumenical circles to seem modish and up-to-date . . . But such a course would abandon the Orthodox ace in the ecumenical hole--the cherished status of coming across as mystifyingly "mystical"--which is inevitable when the playing field is, as always, so tilted against Orthodox premises that Orthodox ideas come across as either gobbledygook or at least as something other than what the Orthodox mean. Isn't it better to come across as "mystical"? That course has got some advantages in a murky world sometimes attracted to "exotic Eastern" ideas.   Even though what the Orthodox say will appear to be incoherent mystification in the vocabulary of either Western paradigm, isn't that a pretty gracious way of facing its inevitable defeat, of living with the status of being ever the loser in interfaith discussions?
     3. In line with the foregoing, don't insist that all topics, questions, and answers be couched in Orthodox conceptuology with Orthodox terminology. Instead of that, go along with a lot of background music about being nice to one another that has nothing to do with the objects of the exercise. If this has often been the method tried at other meetings, why try to change it? What chance have you got to get others to treat you as an being more than mystical exotics? What difference does anything make? Haven't you always tried to play on a field in which Orthodox goals are uphill and Western goals are downhill? What place would there be for a modern hero like St. Mark of Ephesos?
     4. Don't seek to explain; stress unintegrated lists of allegedly common doctrines (however different the import of the verbal formulas may be in the various paradigms); and don't dwell on differences! By no means seek to account for differences or look for coherent relationships among items agreed on--say, using an explanatory approach like that found in Mary the untrodden portal of God (Zephyr [2000], e.g. pp. 67-71) by Geo. Gabriel.
     5. Let intercommunion with Latins and certain Protestant bodies be the means that paves the way for doctrinal unity. Why insist on the integrity of doctrinal unity as a prior necessity for unity in practice? Would that make sense to most delegates? Wouldn't they see the Orthodox the way the Latins saw St. Mark--just a rigid interferer with the smooth course of smothering the Orthodox?
     6. Forget not that it would be rude not to "worship" with the other bodies in joint services and to invite them to services served by the Orthodox. Phooey on canon law; if the hierarchs can get around it, why are the lesser lights so afraid of doing so? Why construe being polite and not making waves as servile, let alone as betrayal-shmetrayal? Joint-Worship is in the same ballpark as point 1 above.
     7. Don't insist on a preference for working toward uniting Christian believers; uniting "churches" is the name of the game. Just ignore proselytization by Protestants and Uniatism by the Latins; don't you realize that if you should make an issue of these things, you will be giving up the right and duty of the Orthodox to proselytize others--not that that wouldn't look good at such meetings, but it does go too much against the Evangelical grain and the respect of the faithful for the command of our Savior--the Orthodox faithful might balk.
     8. In summary, don't go around embarrassing others to no purpose by pointing out that Orthodoxy is the only Christian Faith still at home in the original Greek-language energy paradigm of the Apostles and Fathers. How would you feel in someone did that to you--especially if you were one of those bodies having numbers much smaller than the Orthodox on the face of the earth? Ignore St. John of Damaskos's admonition that "truth must be preferred to absolutely all else--even life itself; it is desired to be lived with, and dying for it is preferable to living without it," as well as the heroic (and stubborn) examples of St. Athanasios the Great, St. Mark Evyenikos, and St. Gregory Palamas; It's better just to be good guys and "fit in," isn't it?   Has that ever failed to win others over?

MEMO FROM DIDDLE TO DAWDLE---DISCOVERED BY A JANITOR AFTER IT HAD BEEN ACCIDENTALLY DROPPED ON THE FLOOR BY A FILING CABINET

Since Western Christians who realize that recognizing the uniqueness of the Orthodox paradigm would leave them with no purchase, slipping and sliding on the late-manufactured syrup of their second-millennium paradigms--whereas the Orthodox would plainly be standing on solid ground--there is consequently no chance that Western Christians will ever concede equipoise to Orthodox axioms and premises in any interfaith gatherings, let alone discuss paradigms openly. The Latins, who are not stupid, and Protestants, who may or may not grasp the underlying causes of differences, do nevertheless realize that, if they should ever discuss paradigms--paradigms' content, historical origins, etc.--they would hardly have a leg to stand on. How could one choose a thought framework derived from the Muslim Aristotle in the Middle Ages in preference to the original Greek-language framework of the early Christians? For such reasons, our job as consultants has got to be to lull the Orthodox into facing the inevitable with as good grace as possible. This should be easy enough, since many or most of those Orthodox inclined toward ecumenics as currently practised seem to be either blind toward the real situation (which is hard to fathom) or for other, unknown reasons come out looking as though they have no real notion of what emasculates their chances of coming out just merely even. At all events, this scotoma lies at the basis of the Orthodox delegates' very realistic fearfulness toward the certain prospect of coming out losers in each successive interfaith encounter. It is paradoxical that this fear does not drive them away from such get-togethers but draws them on, like confessors facing defeat in a noble cause. Our job is actually helped by the fact that the participation of many of them in ecumenics as currently practised is sincere; many of them would reject the idea that what they are doing is selling out the traditional Faith. This conviction will help us to lubricate their slide with the least chagrin into their inevitable defeat, provided we base our strategy on taking advantage of those feelings by doing what we can to confirm and laud their conviction that they are well-intentioned.

The main thing at interfaith conferences--in view of the certainty that the Orthodox will come out losers, as always--is to maintain polite and friendly contacts as well as a high profile for the Orthodox delegates in the eyes of the religious world. Isn't it more important to please the world and seem important in their eyes? Those aims are what it's about isn't it? Interfaith meetings should be filled with sweetness and light.