Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy Quotes

“Orthodoxy is marked by sobriety, not by emotional enthusiasm. It is also marked by a quite “ordinary” persistence in living the humble, consistent life of Christ, not by seeking out extraordinary experiences, especially supernatural ones.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems through the Lens of the Ancient Christian Faith

“Most of the time, we are concerned with the truth. A cashier has to make sure he knows the exact change he's giving. A nurse has to apply just the right amount of medication to a patient. A mathematician checks and rechecks his proofs. A jury listens closely to all the facts to sort out the truth in a trial. A history teacher has to get the names and dates right. A scientists publishes work for peer review to make sure everyone gets the same results. In all of these cases and more, what's important is not opinion. What's important is the truth. Yet it seems that when it comes to questions of religion and spirituality and the accompanying moral questions, we suddenly become relativists. The truth doesn't matter. Instead of asking who God really is, we say, 'Who is God to you?' Instead of asking what it means that God became a man, we say that it's okay for some people to believe if they want. Instead of asking whether God expects something from us or has any divine commands for us, we judge religious expectations by what we want, by whether a religion fits into our lifestyle. The pursuit of objectivity goes out the window, and subjectivity reigns.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“I think one of the mistakes many of us (including myself) make when speaking with atheists, agnostics, or any person who does not share our faith is to believe that we can argue them into seeing the truth. I do not believe this is possible. I have never known anyone who was successfully argued into a true, lasting faith.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“So I would like to suggest that the great spiritual battle of our time is not a struggle between believers and atheists. Rather, it is a struggle between pride and humility. We expect and even demand humility in most areas of life—what really matters is what is objectively true, not what any of us might think is true. Our opinions are not what is important. Yet when it comes to ultimate questions about ourselves and the nature of existence, about the meaning of life, we set aside humility and place ourselves at the center of the universe.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“As an Orthodox Christian who is trying to love his brothers and sisters and wishes them to know the love and salvation of God, I do what I can to nudge folks into that border country. But I also try to remember that the critical part is played by both God and the person himself. The only authenticator of the Gospel is the One to whom it points. And once it is authenticated within the human person, it is up to him either to act on it or not. Conversion is always an act of the human will and also always a miracle. The truth of the Gospel is made apparent through divine intervention.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“If the true Church was really lost at some point, how can you know that your version of it is a true restoration? Falling back on sola scriptura does not solve this problem, since all the descendants of the Reformation, divided into hundreds of denominations and tens of thousands of independent congregations, all claim to be simply teaching the Bible.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“Because of the divorce from the historic Church, Evangelicalism has sought for a new way to satisfy the need for materiality. This is why such believers have welcomed pop music and rock-n-roll into their churches. It is why emotion is mistaken for spirituality. It is why sentiment is substituted for holiness. Sincere feeling is the authenticator. Instead of icons of Christ, whose piercing stare calls you to repentance, the Evangelical can go to a Christian bookstore and buy a soft-focus, long-haired picture of Jesus. He’s a “nice” Jesus, but it is hard to believe that He is God.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“The category of validity allows for ecclesiastical lines to be crossed, even if there is no communion between ecclesial bodies. It allows Rome to recognize “valid” sacraments even outside its own self-understanding of the Church (i.e., the Church is only the Roman Catholic Church): Eastern Christians who are in fact separated in good faith from the Catholic Church, if they ask of their own accord and have the right dispositions, may be admitted to the sacraments of Penance, the Eucharist and the Anointing of the Sick. Further, Catholics may ask for these same sacraments from those non-Catholic ministers whose churches possess valid sacraments, as often as necessity or a genuine spiritual benefit recommends such a course and access to a Catholic priest is physically or morally impossible. (Vatican II, Orientalium Ecclesiarium, 1964) For the Orthodox, communion and all the sacraments exist only within one ecclesiastical communion. That is, Orthodox Christians may only receive the sacraments from Orthodox clergy. Likewise, Orthodox clergy may only give the sacraments to Orthodox Christians. (In cases of emergency, non-Orthodox are welcome to convert in order to receive the sacraments.)”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Exploring Belief Systems through the Lens of the Ancient Christian Faith

“The greatest weakness of solus Christus is that it subtracts from the fullness of Christ in His Body, the Church, not only by pitting the clergy against the laity and ignoring the role of the departed members of the Church (the saints), but by suggesting a disjunction even between the Head (Christ) and the Body (the Church). If we isolate Christ “alone” and pay no attention to how He saves us through and with other members of the Body, then we are in essence discarding ecclesiology, or at least greatly reducing it.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“One of the principal problems with sola gratia is that grace is understood as something other than God Himself. In Reformation theology, grace is “unmerited favor,” an attitude in God, often contrasted with His wrath. For Orthodoxy, grace is uncreated—that is, grace is God, His actual presence and activity—His energies. But if grace is merely “favor,” then union with God (theosis) is precluded. The distance from God sometimes found in Roman Catholic theology is retained in Protestantism.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“Sola scriptura is the most important defining and distinctive doctrine for all of Protestantism. With this principle, any doctrine or practice may be “proven” from Scripture, depending on how one reads it. On this principle all the Protestant denominations were founded. Without it, the question of ecclesiastical authority comes into play, and the believer finds that he has to be obedient to someone else’s interpretation of the Scripture.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“The most damning charge against the doctrine is that it changes the words of Christ Himself: “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (John 15:26). Jesus did not say, “who proceeds from the Father and the Son,” but only, “who proceeds from the Father.”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape

“In the 1970s, the Russian Orthodox hieromonk Fr. Seraphim Rose famously said that he believed that there was a spirit in the Charismatic movement (which was then having a small impact in a handful of places in Orthodoxy), but that he believed that it was not the Holy Spirit. That is, he suggested that its origins were demonic: The “charismatic” texts themselves make it quite clear that what is involved in these experiences—when they are genuine and not merely the product of suggestion—is not merely the development of some mediumistic ability, but actual possession by a spirit. These people would seem to be correct in calling themselves “spirit-filled”—but it is certainly not the Holy Spirit with which they are filled! (Fr. Seraphim Rose, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, 157)”
― Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Finding the Way to Christ in a Complicated Religious Landscape