You had better practice what you trumpet!

From yesterday’s post, Fr. Huw made the following comment:

But this only attacks half the problem… if there is a place where our (and I speak in the first person here, on purpose) hypocrisy haunts us most, it’s in our trumpeting of “one right set of doctrines” when paralleled with our self-righteousness. Essentially we say “LOOK! I Hold the Right Doctrines unlike you heretics!” and they turn around and say, “look, you’re a sinner…” I think the right teaching of religion would, somehow, turn that focus around. The first word from a preacher should be “look, I’m a sinner. Forgive me….”

He is completely right, of course. And it brings us the problem of apologetics. On the one hand, it is very appropriate to make a defense of the faith. Saint Justin the Martyr was the first of the Church’s great apologists–after the Apostles–but there were many other after him. Saint Peter, in one of his epistles, calls us to be ready to make a defense of our faith at any time. Our Lord Jesus warns us that we shall be dragged before many authorities and that the Holy Spirit will give us what to say at that time. History shows a consistent parade of people giving their apologetic witness before authorities right before being sentenced to death. And, that is where the term martyr comes from. Martyr does not mean one who dies for the faith. Martyr is a Greek word meaning witness. When we call someone a martyr we mean that he/she was a faithful witness.

But, on the other hand, the defense of the faith of the martyrs would not have worked, would not have had the evangelistic effect that it had, if the lives of those martyrs had not demonstrated true holiness and humility. When you read some of what Saint Justin the Martyr wrote to the Emperor, you read missives written with obvious respect and with a gentleness that is just not common nowadays. Many of the martyrs were known for lives that were admired by their pagan neighbors. In fact, we even have a complaint by one of the Roman Emperors about how the Christians were doing more social work in one section of the Empire than the empire itself.

Frankly, had the martyrs either been hypocrites or simply obnoxious, people would have cheered their being thrown to the lions and not begun to convert to Christianity the way they did. We Orthodox do need to say that we have faithfully held on to the doctrines of the Fathers. But, if we cannot also show that we have faithfully held on to the attitudes, virtues, and love of their neighbor, that the Fathers also showed, then modern people might be easily pardoned for not believing us.

A final thought: Many “Christians” in America are not being persecuted for their Christianity. We are being rejected because we are frankly obnoxious. It is not that the world hates us because the world hated Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is how we console ourselves. Many in America dislike us because, frankly, we are worthy of dislike. Let me make an Orthodox call to all of us. Let us, indeed, return to the doctrine of the Fathers. But, let us also return to the attitudes, virtues, and love of neighbor that the Fathers also showed. And, if you seriously return to both the doctrine and the practice of the Fathers, then please do come home to the Orthodox Church. We could use your leaven.

From another blog:

The Christian faith uses words – but the force of the words is found in the reality from which they are spoken. A single word from a saint can bring a sinner to repentance. The most correctly stated argument from an unbelieving life may have little effect, none at all, or even be deleterious to those who hear it.