Hellenists and Converts, oh my, part 02

Two men behaving badly have clearly exposed some of the arguments going on within the Orthodox Church in the USA, as I mentioned in part 01 of this post. At the same time, both of them have shown, almost crudely, the bad thinking and misunderstandings going on behind the arguments. So, let’s look at them in the hope that unraveling them will help us look at the future of the Orthodox Church.

Let’s go with the priest first and see some of the mistakes he made:

1. He took the worst possible interpretation of events. Note his quote about, “. . . last holdouts of corruption, Byzantine intrigue and phyletism.” He has assumed that the motivation behind decisions with which he disagreed were immoral and sinful in the extreme. He does not appear to consider other possibilities. One of the most important ones to consider is the possibility that the decision making process of people from another culture may not match the decision making process that we use in the USA.
2. He assumes that the continuation of policies that he views as unnecessarily ethnic means that the intention of the hierarchs is to maintain an ethnic Church that is both an “old world embass[y]” and an “ethnic club.” He fails to consider two things, one I will mention in a bit, the other thing are the various declarations of SCOBA and of the Ecumenical Patriarchate itself that show that the hierarchs are quite aware that the long-term fate of the Church in America is to be One American Church.
3. He fails to realize what American-style “plain speaking” sounds like in almost any other culture, and thus fails to realize the enormous insult that he has given to the hierarchs of his jurisdiction.

Now let me make some comments on the points I made above. You need to know two things about my background. One, I was born in another country (and culture) and came here as a child. Two, I served as an overseas missionary for 10 years and had to learn other cultures that were neither mine nor American. Thus, I am quite aware of the conflicts that happen in any Church that is still in the process of “indigenizing.” I am also aware of the pitfalls of inter-cultural communications and relationships. Now let’s look at the above points in reverse order.

I have never understood why there are people who argue that American “plain speaking” means that you should be able to make the most horrendous statements, simply say that you were plain speaking, and suffer no consequences. It does not work even in this culture. But it is certainly one of our cultural myths. It particularly does not work in “face-saving” cultures. There are many cultures in which personal honor is a very high value. Among those cultures are Arab and Turkish cultures. And Greek culture was under Turkey for several hundred years. I also come from a “face-saving” culture. And, I can guarantee you that any Greek reading that article would have reacted with high anger and would have stopped listening. So, here is a common mistake for American Orthodox. You are never going to win over people from Greek (or Latino) cultures by speaking to them in ways that are considered dishonoring in their cultures. You will just shut down communication completely. And, no, you should not expect “them” to be so Christian that they ignore your insult. You need to learn to communicate with people from other cultures in ways that will encourage listening in that other culture.

When I was overseas, I ended up in a region in which I had to “backtrack” from missionaries who had made some adjustments based on their best evaluation. There were arguments between the missionaries and the locals, with the locals feeling that they were ready to fully take over. In fact, they were not. They still needed a few more years of training and experience. It was not easy for me to do some of the retraining, but it had to be done. At the end of my time, a local was appointed as head of the region, and, since I have left, there are several new churches, started by the locals. I know that there is much missionary literature analyzing the many times that missionaries have failed to turn the Church over to the locals. However, I also know that it is true that I had to make the decision to retrain. The Orthodox Church in the USA has really only started to “indigenize” since the 1980’s. Twenty-seven years is not a long time, and the attitudes reflected by that priest show an amazing lack of readiness to take over the Church here. The Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America has indicated that they wish to have an American Orthodox Church. But, the SCOBA bishops also have the responsibility to ensure that those who take over are capable of maintaining the faith once delivered.

During my times as a missionary, I had a most interesting frustration in leadership. The locals kept expecting me to make the decision. No, no, we had not taken away their initiative. But, as a good American, I had been taught that the best decisions are shared, communally-based decisions. And, I kept asking for input. My asking for input simply made me appear uncertain to those in the indigenous culture with which I was working. It was not until I realized that they were a hierarchical culture that I realized that I needed to lead and make decisions. And, you know what? There are ways, even in hierarchical culture, to communicate opinions and dissent. But, those ways are different than in our culture. Arab and Greek cultures are much more hierarchical than ours. If we wish to communicate our opinions to those of our hierarchs who come from another culture, it behooves us to learn how to communicate them in a way that will help us to maintain a dialogue, even if it means that we learn their culture. It also means that decisions made according to their culture are considered decisions, even if we do not agree with the way in which they were considered.

Finally, none of this means that our hierarchs do not make mistakes. One need only look at the letter from the OCA bishops–who, interestingly enough, are American not foreigners–to see how big the mistakes can be. But, it does mean that we need to check our assumptions; we need to check our attitudes; we need to do our cultural studies; we need to hope all things; and, we need to be faithful to maintain the fellowship of the Holy Spirit among all of us, regardless of our cultural background.

Next, I will look at the article written by the layperson.

–MORE TO COME–