Abstract
With the publication of The Orthodox Reality: Culture, Theology, and Ethics in the Modern World, Vigen Guroian has produced the crowning achievement of his project as an Orthodox ethicist engaging contemporary western culture. The volume displays the mature thought of an Eastern Christian scholar who for decades has rigorously pursued critical conversations with voices in American religious thought from many points on the theological compass. Guroian models the vocation of Orthodox scholars in the West to dialogue constructively with Protestants, Catholics, and others in a fashion characterized by integrity, charity, and intellectual rigor.
The volume’s introduction presents a brief retrospective on how Yoder, Hauerwas, and Schmemann have influenced Guroian’s thought, as well as commentary on the ongoing importance of Constantine and the Byzantine inheritance for envisioning Orthodoxy’s engagement with the world. The question of Christianity’s relationship with culture looms large in the volume with Guroian viewing culture as “humanity’s artistic response to God’s action in Jesus Christ to renew the world” (13). A genuinely Orthodox vision transcends simplistic accounts of the culture wars and construes the fulfillment of the creation “soteriologically, sacramentally, and eschatologically” in a way that does not relegate the relevance of theological concerns to certain circumscribed areas of life (18). Even as Guroian rejects the identification of the Orthodox faith with any nation or ethnicity, he cautions against American Orthodoxy becoming “a sectarian refuge or a fortress from which to wage the culture wars in the broader society” (76). Such a move would ultimately serve a secular agenda that falls short of the implications of “the Eucharist [which] renders human beings fit to make culture itself sign and image of the kingdom of heaven” (16–17).
The book addresses matters that Guroian has analyzed in his many previous publications, such as the challenges that secularism presents to Orthodoxy and the resources for sustaining a distinctive vision of marriage and family in Eastern Christianity. He builds upon earlier treatments of these topics to advance fresh insights, for example, on Chrysostom’s understanding of the vocation of parents to guide their children toward theosis. He contrasts “the office of the child” with developmental and postmodern understandings that fail to convey the deep spiritual gravity of childhood, which the Christian never outgrows. By providing accounts of marriage, parenthood, and childhood that are so deeply grounded in Orthodox theology and liturgy, Guroian provides a solid basis for criticizing the easy acceptance of secular accounts of these matters which impoverish the witness of many Christian communities today. Readers of any theological stripe will benefit from wrestling with his provocative interpretations of the regrettably little-known resources of Eastern Christianity for framing the moral life.
As in previous writings, Guroian does not flinch from addressing the failures of Orthodox Christians to embody the teachings of their faith, especially in the scandal of overlapping ecclesiastical jurisdictions that underwrite nationalistic or ethnic views of the church. Guroian’s concerns range beyond the visible boundaries of Orthodoxy, as he draws on Armenian liturgical and theological resources to articulate an understanding of papal primacy that could provide a basis for further conversation with Rome on the meaning of primacy and headship. In an especially illuminating chapter, Guroian places love in a trinitarian context that informs his account of marriage and family, and also unites agape and eros in the restoration of the human person in the divine image and likeness in Jesus Christ. The book concludes with reading lists from courses in Orthodox theology that provide helpful guidance for scholars, clergy, and students who want to begin drawing on the intellectual resources of Eastern Christianity.
The Orthodox Reality is an engaging, readable volume that will appeal to a broad audience and serve well as a text in college and seminary courses. While this book will surely not be Guroian’s final publication, it sums up and advances several characteristic themes of his distinctive project. Anyone wanting to take the pulse of Orthodox ethics and cultural criticism in America simply must read it.