Monday, July 11, 2011
Augustine and Orthodoxy
Augustine has bothered me for years because the Old Calendar Greeks I was with called him a heretic; the Russian Orthodox called him "blessed" but not "saint"; Martin Luther found so much ammunition in Augustine for the Reformation that some say Augustine laid down the foundation for the Reformation; and only during the Counter-Reformation did the RC Church reexamine Augustine in a new light. I just now found this article by an Orthodox scholar
In college the one thing I found WEIRD in the confessions is when Augustine wishes that his former heretical Manichean friends could SEE him praying and see his gesticulations and posture and facial expressions and somehow by convinced or persuaded by such theatrical emotionalism. I think that one of the great weaknesses in modern Protestant piety (of certain denominations) is the sudden shallow emotional appeal of a "conversion" or a "profession of faith" that must of necessity be short lived. If you can only be a Christian on stage and in the spotlight then it lacks the substance of a way of life, a daily struggle of working out ones salvation in fear and trembling.
