Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith (Orthodox Profiles, #4)” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith

(Orthodox Profiles #4)

Rico Vitz (Contributor)

3.93 · Rating details · 14 ratings · 2 reviews

The Orthodox Church is one of the largest religious groups in the world. Yet, it remains an enigma in the West, especially among those who mistake it either for a Greek version of Roman Catholicism or for an exotic mixture of Christianity and eastern religion. Many, however, are coming to recognize the Orthodox Church for what it is: a worldwide community of Christian disc ...more

Get A Copy

Paperback, 369 pages

Published November 1st 2012 by St Vladimirs Seminary Press

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Turning East, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Turning East

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.93 ·

Rating details

· 14 ratings · 2 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith (Orthodox Profiles, #4)

Sep 08, 2013 Christopher rated it liked it

Turning East is a collection of "conversion stories" by 16 philosophers who entered the Orthodox Church. With the exception of three (one of whom teaches at an American university), all are from the United States. One notices that to some degree they come from a shared community, as not only does the bioethicist H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. contribute his conversion story here, but several other contributors mention coming to Orthodoxy after meeting Engelhardt.

These stories are fairly varied. With Turning East is a collection of "conversion stories" by 16 philosophers who entered the Orthodox Church. With the exception of three (one of whom teaches at an American university), all are from the United States. One notices that to some degree they come from a shared community, as not only does the bioethicist H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. contribute his conversion story here, but several other contributors mention coming to Orthodoxy after meeting Engelhardt.

These stories are fairly varied. With a few converts, it feels like they just happen to be philosophers as a day job, but they don't refer much to philosophy in their conversion stories. Some chapters here seem indistinguishable from earlier conversion story collections like Coming Home, instead of a specifically philosophical enterprise. Conversely, other contributors assume the reader has a firm grounding in the field and cite the literature heavily in making their case.

Strikingly, some contributors hold views that are the very opposite of others’. Richard Swinburne, for example, believes that natural theology is a productive enterprise and a way for Christians to hold their ground in secular academia. Other contributors, however, claim that reason alone cannot guide one to the truth, and any attempt at arguing for ethical principles that is not grounded in an experience of Christ means compromising one's faith and taking on the values of the secular world.

That said, the book does feel very shackled in its choice of mainly Americans who refer to no philosophers later than Heidegger. There is absolutely no attempt here to grapple with e.g. the French structuralists or post-structuralists, except for the final contribution by Jeffrey Bishop that cites Foucault. The inclusion of, say, a few European converts in lieu of the most lightweight chapters here would have brought a fuller picture of the confrontation between Orthodoxy and philosophical schools today.

While the Orthodox Church is a single church, the history of Eastern European and Levantine immigration to the United States and Western Europe has led to a large amount of overlapping jurisdictions. Convert stories often refer to entering one jurisdiction rather than another, and the non-Orthodox reader unfamiliar with church administration may be confused. I was pleasantly surprised by how the converts here do not mention their jurisdictions at all, presenting Orthodoxy as the united body it ultimately is. ...more

flag Like · see review

Feb 09, 2013 Kristofer Carlson rated it really liked it

Shelves: orthodoxy

This is a fascinating book. Each of the philosophers provides some rationale for being Orthodox, finding in Orthodoxy a way to resolve --- or at least come to grips with --- the antimonies that are all around us. While this is no formal apologetic for Orthodoxy, yet it is interesting to find Western intellectuals coming to terms with the limitations of materialism, rationalism, and the academic method. One common theme is that the Western model of philosophy is purely intellectual, whereas for t ...more

flag Like · see review