Persecution of the Orthodox Church

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

This week, we had an opportunity to have a very impressive lecture from Father Luke Veronis from Holy Cross Seminary, dealing with a brief history of Orthodox Church, particularly focusing on the last 100 years. He especially depicts two realities of Orthodoxy during the last century. The first reality is the Orthodox diasporas leaving their homeland to the other land for seeking the better life. Because of their vulnerability, diaspora people (or immigrants) articulated the survival mentality within Orthodox Churches so that they built their own communities which are consisted of very ethnic and homogeneous groups. As a result, the Orthodox Churches are throughout the world but isolated within each ethnicity. The second reality Father Luke especially highlights is the persecution and martyrdom under the communism. What surprised us is the persecution history of Armenian Orthodox. After acknowledging us that there were 20 million martyrs under the pressure of USSR, he states that what happened during the great persecution means a lot for the Orthodox Church today. It implies to us that the more they had persecutions, the more they concentrated on the holiness and purification of their faith. Lastly, Father Luke emphasized the mission history of the Orthodox Churches by saying that the Orthodox Church has many exemplary missionary figures who reflected distinct missionary characteristics from their contemporary Western counterparts throughout her 2000 year tradition. However, he was pitiful for the fact that Orthodox Church’s missionary tradition is often unknown in Western circles.

The initial reflection came from the administrative structure of the Orthodoxy. Unlike Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy has the autocephalous structure by countries except the case of the ecumenical council under one authority. Our group agreed that Orthodox polity seems similar to that of Methodist (or Anglican) or Presbyterian. However, one of us pointed out that it looks like very “foreign” because they give an impression of being rather exclusive and inwardly-focused, but the talk dispelled some of that impression. The interesting thing for all of our group was that from Orthodox perspective they think Catholics and Protestants have much more in common than Eastern and Western churches do. Rome likes to pretend the Orthodox are the schismatics, but from their point of view they are the original.

Then, our discussion turned to the persecution issue. The pitiful story was that despite the extensive and distinctive missionary activity with translation, respect for culture, and indigenous leadership, all stopped since persecution had set in. On the other hand, one pointed out that the persecution history is the basis of Orthodox potential for the revival because it keeps the Orthodox Church alive. For instance, the number of converts is pretty amazing, especially in light of statements that they don't proselytize or seek converts. A Korean student supported this idea that one of many reasons explaining the rapid growth of Korean churches is very the persecution and martyrdom. We concluded that it doesn't actually seem possible to extinguish Christianity by directly persecuting it or suppressing it.

Lastly, we were talking about the Orthodox theology. One highlighted that theology of Orthodox is very mystic, spiritual, and holy, and the experience of persecution might have purified their faith. Another student stated that Orthodox theology is more compatible with creation care and ecological ethic. But, due to the time limit, we had to stop at this point.

Gun Cheol Kim, discussion moderator

Theological implications of the shift of Christianity

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Lead by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

On Wednesday, September 22nd, our small group gathered to reflect on the shifting center of gravity for Christianity. The discussion, in particular, focused on the theological implications of the shift of Christianity to the South and to the East.

The initial observation was that Christian theology is undergoing cross-fertilization. People are seeking to do theology in a specific context, but they are cognizant of a larger, global dimension to their theology.

Another member added that the changing face of Christianity has meant a change in power. The student admitted there is no direct evidence of that assertion (yet), but felt the change was in part masked by the fact that theological power in the South and East is not connected to political or economic power. Thus, it is hard to recognize the theological power of Christianity in the Global South when we are fixated on money and might.

One student challenged the idea that theological power is shifting with the numerical growth of Christians in the South and East. Why, it was asked, do many Christians from the Global South continue to receive their training in the Global North, or from people trained in the Global North? Perhaps the “theological center” of Christianity has is still firmly fixed in the North.

In response, it was observed that “theology was developed in the West and North part of the world,” and thus explains why many people from the Global South traveled to study in the North. However, the student continued, even that trend is changing. In Korea, for instance, many students from South East Asia choose to pursue advanced theological degree there, rather in than in the Global North (although it was acknowledged many Koreans still receive their advanced training in the United States and Europe).

The conversation moved back toward the intersection of different theologies. One student shared from personal experience: When I was in Korea my understanding of the Trinity was based on love, obedience, and union. In America, we focus on the unique quality of each person and interconnectedness of the three persons. At first this relationship was really confusing and even produced cultural shock. Sometimes it seems Americans don’t stress the qualities I was taught enough, however I think the church of Christ must work together across cultural lines. I can say that considering different perspectives has led me to a broader understanding of the Trinity.

With one minute left for our allotted time, the question was asked, “Will the emergence of theologies in the Global South further divide, or unite Christians around the world?” Perhaps the division in our responses provided the real answer: two believed Christians would be more united through the cross-fertilization of theological perspectives; three felt the exacerbation of local differences would further divide the Christian community.

Daryl Ireland, discussion moderator

Demographic shift of Christianity

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Lead by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

This week’s lecture was about the demographic shift of Christianity from 1910 to 2010 and its implication to Christian theology. To calculate the central point of Christian gravity each year and to look at the ramification of the accumulated points is not merely a meaningless thing. The trajectory consisted of the Christian center implies what happened in Christianity as a world religion throughout the history. In a nutshell, the center of gravity has moved from the global north referring to the white European dominance to the global south such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America that used to be recognized just mission fields. Accordingly, global Christianity has moved to the demographic makeup of the time of Christ. As a result, the urgent task the contemporary Christianity faces is to recapitulate the Christian theology from non-western perspectives, i.e. the globalization of Christian theology through the vernacularization. With acknowledgements from the lecture and the required reading, our group discussed over these questions.

1. What insights did you gain from the lecture?

• I could better realize the implications of global Christianity. Changes are either good or potentially good. The Western mind is not the be-all and end-all. (Amy)

• Religious education from different cultural perspective penetrates the traditional concept of Christianity. (Edward)

• Missionaries from the West are still constructing theology. The benefit of this is the abundant of theological resource, but the bad thing is the western imperialism and paternalism. For example, Christology is to see Christ as a healer rather than to have the western view propagating theological landscape. (Sam)

• To calculate Christian gains and losses by the number of immigrants is problematic. It is much of over generalization to think the immigrant is gain and emigrant is loss because in Asian context, there are many immigrants of other religions. (Earl)

2. What do you think about the theological implications of the demographic shift between the north and south?

• Theology affected by the change caused by intersection between Christianity and other faiths. The vitality is at the boundaries. Theologically three things go together: conservatism, communal outlook and supernaturalism. (Sam)

• Christian theology is so far the monopoly of the western white men. The demographic change pushes us to adopt other views on Christianity. The integral view by having diverse scopes is the very implication. (Gun)

• I can see that huge variety of preachers had already changed Christian communities very much. (Edward)

• There is a tendency to see old views as bad and newer views as good. Theologically it isn’t necessarily so. (Sam)

• Methodist issues the same argument. (Amy)

• The theological implication of the demographic shift refers to what incarnation of the Christ means. It is vernacularization or indigenization of Christian theology. Just as the painter draws a picture with diverse colors on the canvas, Christian theology as a world religion must reflect all colors from all people. (Gun)

Gun Cheol Kim, discussion moderator