Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Opinion 185

Think of it this way: the Orthodox Church is the prodigal son, given to exile and dark, eccentric problems.  This exile is not only a literal experience in Orthodoxy, but a spiritual experience, one that is actually a great tool for expressing who Jesus is in the modern world.  There is an Orthodox intuition of alienation, one that can be transformed into: do you feel alienated?  So do we.  Come worship with us, etc. 


The Catholic Church is the older brother.  It done stayed home and enjoys a routine of logical acts of virtuous household behavior.  It's got its act together  (at least on paper- like all well-organized control freaks, it suffers from odd sexual deviations), yet has managed to abstract itself into categorical absolutes, so that it shudders when it even contemplates the messiness of the younger brother.  But hell, this world needs a bit of hard-headed manditory-ness and one of the reason folks are attracted to this older brother is the conclusion that someone has to speak on the Father's behalf and it's not going to be that brother given to idiotic wanderings, meals with swine and pirogi sales.


Biblical scholars are oblivious to the obvious.

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