What, then, are we going to preach? What would I preach to my contemporaries “in such a time as this”? There is no room for hesitation: I am going to preach Jesus, and him crucified and risen. I am going to preach and to commend to all whom I may be called to address the message of salvation, as it has been handed down to me by an uninterrupted tradition of the Church Universal. I would not isolate myself in my own age. In other words, I am going to preach the “doctrines of the creed.”
Father Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, 11*
The opening chapter of Father Florovsky’s Bible, Church, Tradition is entitled “The Lost Scriptural Mind” and originally appeared as an essay in The Christian Century in 1951. It begins by addressing the question of what gospel Christian ministers are called to preach – and of how they can be sure that what they preach is the same gospel originally delivered rather than an accommodation to the whims of a particular age. This is a serious problem precisely because “Most of us have lost the integrity of the scriptural mind, even if some bits of phraseology are retained.” (10) Scripture is seen as written in an “archaic idiom” that has to be “demythologized” in a continual process of “reinterpretation.” However,
… how can we interpret at all if we have forgotten the original language? Would it not be safer to bend our thought to the mental habits of the biblical language and to relearn the idiom of the Bible? No man can receive the gospel unless he repents – “changes his mind.” For in the language of the gospel “repentance” (metanoeite) does not mean merely acknowledgement of and contrition for sins, but precisely a “change of mind” – a profound change of man’s mental and emotional attitude, an integral renewal of man’s self, which begins in self-renunciation and is accomplished and sealed by the Spirit. (10)
Writing in 1951, Father Florovsky referred to the “intellectual chaos and disintegration” of the age and argued that the only “luminous signpost” we have in this context is the “faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” He is not unaware that this faith is considered obsolete and archaic and that the “doctrines of the creed” are a stumbling block for many. However, he points out that the early creeds were deliberately scriptural, and he argues that “it is precisely their scriptural phraseology that makes them difficult for modern man.” (11)
Moreover, in contrast to those who view the traditional language of the creeds as “antiquarian” or “fundamentalist,” Florovsky points to “their perennial adequacy and relevance to all ages and to all situations, including ‘a time such as this.’” (12)
“The church is neither a museum of dead deposits nor a society of research.” The deposits are alive – depositum juvenescens, to use the phrase of St. Irenaeus. The creed is not a relic of the past, but rather the “sword of the Spirit.” The reconversion of the world to Christianity is what we have to preach in our day. This is the only way out of that impasse into which the world has been driven by the failure of Christians to be truly Christian. Obviously, Christian doctrine does not answer directly any practical question in the field of politics or economics. Neither does the gospel of Christ. Yet its impact on the whole course of human history has been enormous. The recognition of human dignity, mercy and justice roots in the gospel. The new world can be built only by the new man. (12)
To be continued…
* This is the first post in a series in which I hope to blog my way through Father Florovsky’s Collected Works, of which this book forms the first volume. Like the other volumes, it is out of print and only available at exorbitant prices on Amazon. However, there are PDFs floating around on the Internet, which I would encourage interested readers to track down.
Note: Given my recent blogging history, I am a little hesitant about announcing this project too loudly, lest I do not manage to keep it up. I am doing it primarily because I need to get back to some serious theological reading, and blogging has helped me with that in the past. But I hope that it may also be helpful to others. Much of my blogging simply consists of summarising books, although I may also comment now and then (and will probably comment on some things raised in this post when I complete the chapter in the following post). But I think that, particularly with Father Florovsky’s works, making summaries available and encouraging people to read the actual works, and any discussion that may ensue from that, could be rather worthwhile…
May 12, 2015 at 8:40 pm
What is interesting to think about is the intellectual milieu in which Florovsky was moving in at the time. He would have recently moved to NYC and been moving around in the same hallways as Niebuhr and Tillich. Demythologizing would have been at its height if I am not mistaken? Publishing this in the Christian Century at that time, mighty interesting.
The resonances feel different to me now. It seems the attempt to translate the message of the Gospel for a secular age has come to mean something different than what it meant for those struggling with the new existential philosophies coming out of Germany at this time. Not correlation, but not exactly Barthian either…. I think this is where Fr Matthew Baker’s work was going to be so important – Florovsky as a hermeneutical theologian.
May 12, 2015 at 8:57 pm
Yes, indeed, plus his involvement in the WCC. In many ways, this chapter struck me as very geared to a Protestant audience, which of course it was given that he published it in the Christian Century. I think that comes out even more strongly in the second half of the chapter (liberalism vs Barthianism) and some of his comments on ecclesiology also struck me as rather time bound.
I’ve been thinking perhaps I should do another post just summarising the rest of the chapter and then do a separate one with some comments. Don’t you want to do something too??? I’d love to hear more about Fr Matthew’s thoughts on Florovsky as a hermeneutical theologian…
I’d originally thought that I should provide a bit more background on Fr Florovsky first, but decided that if I were to do that I might not get to blogging at all! But if other people contribute stuff as we go, it would be great…
May 12, 2015 at 9:00 pm
Time bound yes, but also not as time bound as the opposition.
I am hoping one day to write something a bit more substantial about the work Fr Matthew was doing…
Let’s just jump in to Florovsky. I will begin reading.
May 12, 2015 at 9:14 pm
Sorry, I didn’t mean that his ecclesiological thought was time bound, but rather that the context he was reflecting on was. But I must still get to that in the next (and possibly following) post.
Yes, read – and write, please!! I just hope that I can keep up 🙂
May 15, 2015 at 11:08 pm
The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky Volumes 1- 4 can be found at:
1. BIBLE, CHURCH, TRADITION: AN EASTERN ORTHODOX VIEW
VOLUME ONE http://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/rr/lode/florovsky1.pdf,
2. CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE, VOLUME TWO http://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/rr/lode/florovsky2.pdf,
3. CREATION AND REDEMPTION VOLUME THREE,
http://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/rr/lode/florovsky3.pdf,
and 4. ASPECTS OF CHURCH HISTORY VOLUME FOUR http://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/rr/lode/florovsky4.pdf .
They can be downloaded and read on your PDF reader or iBooks on an iPad.
May 16, 2015 at 9:21 am
Thank you for those links, Father Raphael.