Western Orthodoxy?

I like to think of myself as a relatively balanced person. I mean, I can be idealistic at times, even something of a curmudgeon, but I think I usually do come back to reality at some point. Case in point--when we were trying to pick names for our first child, it was almost impossible to agree on a strictly biblical name. The main reason is that I wanted the name pronounced "correctly," not according to whatever warped English spelling and pronunciation had become commonplace. I now realize it was a silly thing. I still like to pronounce names correctly, especially if they're not very well-known, but I'm not going to jump all over someone else for following the norm. I also have what I think is a healthier sense of the fluidity involved. Pronunciations change over time and place, even if they don't move from one language to another. And sometimes it's just an educated guess what's original. Besides, the main point is that we all know what or whom we're talking about.

On the issue of American Orthodoxy, I suppose I have my preferences. I'll freely admit that I was attracted to Orthodoxy in part by the foreignness, or more specifically, the Easternness, of its worship. I don't like the idea of Western rite Orthodoxy--not that I've ever tried it (or have any specific plan to do so). I guess maybe the idea of reviving a pre-schism liturgy is fine (although it seems a bit like the whole primitivistic impulse in many forms of Evangelicalism), but my personal preference says that adapting the Anglican liturgy to make it Orthodox just misses the point. On the other hand, I don't want a liturgy I can't understand. I can appreciate the beauty of listening to it in Slavonic or Arabic, but I'd really rather be able to follow along. Maybe I'll feel differently once I've thoroughly memorized the flow of the services, so I don't need to hear the words to know what's going on. But for now, given the choice, I'll take it in English, thank you. But that just seems like a common sense necessity.

On other points, give me Eastern. Keep your pews and your organs, your shortened services, your heads uncovered, your four-part harmony, and your Westernized icons. Not that I'm particularly judgmental toward those who use such things. I understand the historical reasons for the various adaptations, and I understand everyone's in a different place. I also understand that I could easily get caught up in externals and forget about what's truly important. I'm just saying that, given the choice, I'd rather go old-world. Of course, I also recognize that there's a certain degree of irony. For instance, it's a later development to go back to strictly Byzantine iconography.

I guess I mostly just want to go on record, that for myself at least (and undoubtedly there are other converts and catechumens who feel the same way), the more traditional elements are a draw to Orthodoxy, rather than a turnoff. I worry sometimes that this point might get missed. Consider for a moment the Ark--the new online radio station that's supposed to broadcast contemporary Orthodox music. I somehow missed the "contemporary" part when I saw the announcement and spent a full day trying to figure out what they were thinking. You'd get the occasional liturgical piece, mixed with some contemporary music that I recognized as Orthodox. (I'm using the term "contemporary" loosely here. Evangelical music typically lags behind secular, and to me it seems like "contemporary" Orthodox music lags similarly behind Evangelical. I don't know the copyright dates, but from what I can tell, it's not a positive trend.) That apparently wasn't enough to fill up the time, so you also got a generous helping of Evangelical music, perhaps in some cases performed by Orthodox artists (what do I know?), but perhaps more often performed by well-known Evangelical artists. At least once I figured out what the station was supposed to be doing, I got some sense of the logic--if you can't fill your air time with what you really want, go with something similar--Orthodox but not contemporary, or contemporary but not Orthodox. I personally found the resulting product off-putting and haven't tuned in since.

I guess my next question after figuring out what they were up to was, "Why?" There was a time when I was up to my neck in the contemporary Evangelical music scene, and I remember the continuing battle to justify its existence. One of the favorite arguments you would see or hear (but one that no one I knew seemed to take seriously) was that it was an evangelistic tool. These kids will listen to anything that sounds good, and we might just sneak some words in there that will make a difference. Of course, the strategy only worked to the extent that they really weren't paying attention, in which case it was all quite pointless. Add to that the vague lyrics of many performers, and the incomprehensibility of their singing, and the fact that the quality of the music usually wasn't good enough to get someone to listen in the first place, and the whole thing really starts to fall apart. The plain truth was, the industry wasn't there as an outreach--it was there because Christian kids wanted music like their friends had, and their parents would more willingly take them to concerts and buy them CDs (being a bit anachronistic here) if they could attach a Christian label to it. My gut feeling is that the Ark is someone's bright idea to bring in new Orthodox converts and keep Orthodox kids from slipping away, but I have serious doubts that it's going to do much of that.

The point is, we're not going to win many points by trying to copy what seems popular in Western culture, especially if we start with Western Christianity as our prototype. In that vein, here's a tip. No one likes pews to begin with. If you want to be Western and win friends, go with chairs--movie theater-style, with high backs, soft cushions, and cup-holder armrests would be a good place to start. They're not big on organs either. A guitar would go a lot further and probably cost quite a bit less to install. They also won't know how to harmonize, because they haven't used hymn books in ages, and you don't put sheet music on PowerPoint. I should also dispel a myth about service length. Yes, Westerners are probably used to shorter services than you traditionally get in an Orthodox church. But keep in mind that an Evangelical service typically spends 30-40 min. on the sermon--the least interactive part. If you cut the sermon down to 15 min. and give people something to do through the rest of the service, surely you can take more time at it.

OK, this is getting rather long. I should make some kind of point and wrap it up. All that other stuff is basically my rant, to say that somehow Orthodoxy attracts Westerners without being particularly Western, and it's not always a step forward to become more Western, depending on what "Western" means. I'm sure there are those who are more likely to come to an Orthodox service if it's shorter, or they have a chance to sit, or something else that might be more familiar or less daunting. But there's a point at which this kind of accommodation gets you numbers but doesn't get you Orthodox converts. In other words, if Orthodoxy has to become something it's not to meet them where they are, something Orthodoxy is not may be all they'll ever get. That's not to say that any Westernization is a slippery slope to oblivion; I just think sometimes we need to put in perspective the push to fit the culture.

On the other hand, we don't need to treat church like it's some kind of boot camp, where we're trying to weed out the weak. We don't need to go out of our way to make it difficult. We certainly need to welcome people with love, regardless of their cultural background. We need to be gentle with their human weakness, wherever they are now. And I'm sure that Orthodoxy in America will take on its own local flavor over time. I am, however, in favor of taking things slowly. This isn't pagan Russia with a newly converted emperor. This is a culture that was born out of Protestantism, and a lot of the converts coming into Orthodoxy right now are coming from some kind of churched background. Somewhere we need to draw the line between contextualization and Protestantization, and I'm honestly not sure where that line should go.