Trying To Be Orthodox ... And Not Quite Succeeding: Musings of an Uneasy Orthodox Christian Blogger

by Michael Lomax

This unique book seeks to unravel – through extracts from ten years of one man’s writings – where God seems to want to take His Church, in particular in its Orthodox form, and to ask whether or not we are following.

Michael Lomax entered the Russian Orthodox Church (where he now serves as a deacon) as a ‘westerner’ with wide experience of Protestant and Roman Catholic theology and practice, and a deep knowledge of European cultural history. Drawing on this particular perspective, his writings chart a personal quest to establish a mature basis of faith for critical Orthodox Christians who are increasingly distancing themselves from a seemingly outdated, male-dominated and ‘toe-the-party-line’ structure.

Concerns explored in the book include: the adequacy of the Orthodox teaching, structure and mindset in today’s world; the relevance of the émigré Orthodox heritage; the inter-relationship of religious and political belief; the relevance of the ecumenical endeavour; and ‘traditional’ versus ‘new’ morality.

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Lawrence Osborn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this book. The ‘blurb’ led me to expect that the blog extracts would be given some structure. In fact, the book consists largely of undigested (redacted) blog extracts in chronological order. While those extracts clearly track the author’s growing unease with Russian Orthodoxy (as practised in Belgium), they didn’t really help me to discern ‘where God seems to want to take His Church’ (as it claims in the blurb).