Introducing Orthodoxy in 50 words or less

  • (I am really tech­no­log­i­cally chal­lenged. I found this old post and pub­lished it, but since I didn’t update the date stamp it didn’t come to the top of the posts. I think peo­ple with RSS feed might have found out about it, but for those not blessed with RSS, I thought I should fix my goof. Plus, it’s very timely. I’m lis­ten­ing to “Our Life in Christ” as I type this. Maybe they can impart enough wis­dom that I can get things right this time.)
    All right, I think that by now every­one has vis­ited the excel­lent Ortho­dox radio pro­gram, Our Life in Christ, on the excel­lent 24-hour radio sta­tion, Ancient Faith Radio. And if you’ve heard a broad­cast or down­loaded one via the inter­net, you’ve heard the open­ing of the show. But just in case you haven’t, it’s worth scrib­bling out the quote below on a 3×5 card and hav­ing it in your wal­let or some­thing. I just came across it, and it seems to me the best quick intro­duc­tion of Ortho­doxy you could give to your non-Orthodox friends. Because they’re prob­a­bly not going to stand still for a his­tory les­son — not even The Time­line — and they prob­a­bly aren’t inter­ested in hear­ing about theo­sis, pod­vig and the phil­ioque. So you’re bet­ter off to just say:

    The Ortho­dox Church is evan­gel­i­cal, but not Protes­tant. It is ortho­dox, but not Jew­ish. It is catholic, but not Roman. It isn’t non-denominational — it is pre-denominational. It has believed, taught, pre­served, defended and died for the Faith of the Apos­tles since the Day of Pen­te­cost 2000 years ago.


    Related posts:

    1. Begin­nings and The Big Finale
    2. The Ortho­dox con­vert list
    3. Cra­dle and con­vert Orthodox
    5. Why is faith so difficult?

    March 17th, 2007 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Michelle 03.17.2007

    Thanks for shar­ing that; although, I’m pretty sure that any­one I know would prob­a­bly want to hear more than that. But it is a great jump­ing off point!

    Have a blessed weekend.

  • thanasy bai­ley

    The above does not men­tion the ESSENTIAL fact that the axioms which con­sti­tute the mat­ter and form of the East­ern Ortho­dox par­a­digm are totally at vari­ance (and incom­pat­i­ble) with those
    of either kind of West­ern Chris­tian­ity; see http://www.orlapubs.com/AR/R265.html

  • Grace

    So, right at the end then: “And the axioms which con­sti­tute …” and so on. Bang-o. You’ve gone from 48 words to 72 words. Unfor­tu­nately for me, my non-Orthodox friends and fam­ily aren’t as patient as Michelle’s — mine will turn on the tele­vi­sion if I go over 60 words. If I boiled it down to “We ain’t Roman Catholic,” I might have a chance.

  • s-p

    Thanks Grace. We always appre­ci­ate the “viral mar­ket­ing”. I have to con­fess the con­cept came from Fr. John Fin­ley from the Anti­ochian Dept. of Mis­sions in an ad he cre­ated for a Mis­sion event. We used it with his blessing.

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