KINNET ALEX

P. de Conincklaan 8 ; B 8.200 Brugge , Belgium

Tel/fax: 050/315741 E-mail : alex.kinnet@skynet.be

Bruges, 10-11-2002

The unique source of Truth

World concepts
1. Truth:

Truth is what is absolutely and eternally true.

A simple definition easy one to use and a concept, which, although strongly contested
continues to be widely used in the Christian churches.

However, the truth is always an expression in a human language of what we, mortals,
have experienced or told to us.
That communication process made it has already a subjective presentation on itself.
Another, important, aspect is that when it comes to the higher aspects of life, truth no
longer is absolute. It is basically a human expression of a partial, subjective vision; also it
can be an interpretation of an experienced fact. Consequently truth is never a mirror of
the related fact; more it isnt a factual thing; it is a description in words.

So Truth is certainly never fully contained in definitions.

Obviously this will generate quite fundamental problems.

2. 2.000 years of Christian Gospel:

Those two thousand years do give us a most fascinating picture, if not what Truth is, at
least of the living Body of Christ- the Christian Communities- where the H.Spirit keeps
His fire burning and His inspiration active despite all human resistance.

Those 2001 years allow us to understand what Jesus Christ has meant for the past
generations and how they have met the living Christ in His Words en Deeds.
This was only possible as those words and signs could be , in all times and cultures ,
understood properly.

Already from the early stages in the second Testament Scriptures one can distinguish
sharply the Jewish and the Hellenistic mother soils. The process of contextualisation that
those differences in culture and concepts required wasnt an easy one as is testified by
the Scriptures themselves. There is more variety than unity in the concepts, organisation
and ethical concepts within those first Christian generations.
The later established big Church fabricated later on with much struggle and contests
her content of faith. She did develop this from the living traditions and was even using
non-biblical concepts. She was therefore vividly accused of modernism by the sectarian
churches that remained very conservative, traditionalists as they were sticking literally to
the old concepts given by tradition.

Personally I have no problems in accepting the fact that the dropping of the Jewish
connection was the precondition and the main reason why our Christian theology/faith is
what it is still up to this day.
Onwards the second till the fifth century the Greek and Middle East church fathers were
literally forced to find a common language, which could connect their biblical disclosure
and Hellenistic background. The disclosure came via the First Testament Scriptures and

1/conversion/tmp/scratch/367366513.odt
the circulating Christian writings (in the second century the canon of the Second
Testament Scriptures was virtually fixed). Their formal Greek philosophical education and
basic views were the second part that constituted their particular heritage and world.

Quite different from the Biblical thinking those church fathers, mostly converted, had total
different focus points, acquired philosophical systems and consequently used other
images, metaphors and looked at the transferred Gospel with complete other eyes and
questions. They were not solely facing the challenge of the transmitted testimonies and
rational thinking. Also for their flocks they could only speak using their language and
concepts.
They also had to formulate replies rooted in the daily, practical and worldly experiences.

The strong neo platonic schools as well as the fact that they regarded the Scriptures as
the sole source of knowledge about man and God were two main factors that
characterised their results in terms of formulated theology, exhortations, letters, sermons
and their daily practical lives.

There were though numerous different schools all over the Greek Konia world. Thus the
discussions were virtually part of daily life and gave a mosaic of different beliefs with as
special focus on the, at that time highly discussed, ontological abstractions and
references such as: body, soul, person, and nature.
All the church fathers tried to safeguard in their concepts and struggle the full humanity
and Godlikeness of Jesus the Christ. This of course with different discourses and accents.
Slowly they shifted the interest of the soteriological aspect what Jesus Christ did for us
(the main issue of the Second Testament Scriptures) to those unsolvable problems in
terms of ontological concepts who Jesus was.

It is still in those terms that we officially in the Church speak about God and Jesus Christ.

This normative thinking though (quite different from the present day language and
concepts), started slowly in the IXX and XX centuries to be an historical relict and a death
language.
This despite the fact that this highly venerated and proper language, developed by the
church fathers at that time, was developed to nourish and guide in order to create a living
faith.

We face another disturbing fact: The upholded doctrinal thinking is centuries away from
the way of thinking and speaking as used the Second Testament Writings.
So we may claim that the present doctrinal systems are as strange from the world of the
Second Testament as from ours to day in the western world and the other civilisations on
this earth.
How come?
For reasons that in the past century our knowledge has changed drastically the distance
is far larger for us to day than what it was in the patristic times.
This is of course not in the least suggesting that those formulations were not correct. On
the contrary they were the firewalls, the protective walls that kept the main issue- God
and his commitment, His Entering in our history and our human perspectives- safe for
basically wrong concepts. Those firewalls were needed in those particular times as we
will need firewalls for our particular time. To keep the metaphor going: the defence walls
were created in function of the means and tactics of the assaulter. Today the weapons
used are quite different and more sophisticated so we will have to create other firewalls.

Thus the old ways must sometimes be dealt with properly so that as a Christian and as
Christian communities we can still preach a Good Tiding.
Orthodoxy isnt concerned basically with keeping strictly the human aspects of our
Christian Faith, it is basically concerned with the just an proper reply in cult, praise,
private and social life that makes the coming of the Kingdom of God closer. It has
therefore undergone drastic changes in cult, content of faith and organisation be it that
for many historical reasons this stopped as from the 15 the century.

2/conversion/tmp/scratch/367366513.odt
2. Main purpose of Christian faith:

If we ponder on those aspects we have first of all to deal with the fundamental issues of
our Christian faith.
Is it not, in its essential core, the looking for and finding of God in words and signs by
which the community celebrates the presence of the Living Lord? This particularly in
listening to the Scriptures and their relevancies to us, by the Table union so that we
participate at the Work of Salvation and the Body of Christ. By doing so to receive the
Grace, love and strength to be freed from brokenness and emptiness and to find in God
our eternal/full perspective as a person, as a community. To realize the preaching of the
Good Tiding all over this world and the service of the Brother in our daily practical life.
In other words to constitute that community of love, the New Israel, the New Covenant,
the kingdom of God, to realize in our personal, community and world the eternal/full life
which is already given to us.

If those are indeed the fundamental issues than we can go back more at our ease to the
old conceptional concepts, ponder them seriously in dialogue, standing firm in the rich
soil of our Traditions and our place in this world.

By trying first of all to understand them properly and use them properly in the preaching
and teaching.
Next to find the real issues, content and make a differentiation with their temporarily
packing, translation. To end up in finding new ways if need be, to formulate new or
reformulate old answers to the questions and burning issues of the many different
communities to day.
Let us not forget that we basically transmit not the content of faith but a living Content of
Life.

3. Fundamentally changed horizons:

Let us consider now some of the more striking differences created rightfully or wrongly,
the last centuries. Differences mainly to observe in our western civilised world.
Shifts that in my opinion can lead the Christian faiths and particularly the Orthodox
Churches, into a fundamental structural crisis.

There is no weighting of importance of the individual aspects and their interrelationship

would require of course a very thick book.

1. The Christian faith particularly the high churches- has formed a clergy that
serves mainly for the sacrificial rites. This of course because it took over from
other religions that all had the universal idea that God(s) require sacrifices to give
redemption. Also because it became a social evidence and many times the official
state religion.
2. The concept of serving a community turned into a ruling attitude. This was the
result of copying the priest hierarchy of the Jewish Temple structure on one side
and the administrative, political structure of the Byzantine Empire. (The latter
enforced by the Ottoman occupation)
3. The Church became a giant institute that is a sort of ennobled life insurance
company, who took the relationship between people and God in their hands and
monopolized it.
4. The Reality is still seen by the Orthodox churches from a neo platonic point of view
and the truth about mankind, creation, God are all found, solely, in the Bible and
the Church. The hierarchy is the safeguard of this Truth and unity. All be it that it is
the whole community that can guarantee the right direction in the expression of
faith.
5. Above situation is however, since centuries, the clash area by excellence. The
Church dogmatic, overall authority and knowledge clashing with human
intelligence, the growing scientific and human knowledge and the growing insight
that the Bible isnt exactly an historical biography of the world and the exact
words of God.

3/conversion/tmp/scratch/367366513.odt
 More and more areas proved not to be what the churches have upholded.
The church has fought a tremendous battle and has but very reluctantly give way
to evidences and started to keep a distance from their former dominating position.
6. We see that church Traditions often were sealed up in closed systems of truth and
still largely remain in the same position hoping that the faithful disregard the
worldly knowledge.
7. By that attitude the hierarchies condemn the faithful to live in two separate
worlds. The world of faith and the world of facts. So as religion and human
knowledge arent dealing with the same world and reality.
8. Transmission of Gods Message- his Revelation to us is not done by miraculous
ways but through human ways and means and by using a human language and
forms. This is plainly stated itself in the holy, inspired Scriptures. This is a modern
concept also created by the scientifically analyses and study of the content of the
Bible.
9. The inherited and still preached image of God for most of the present day
Christians is the God of Power and Might acting as the Judge who must be feared
and who is the Deus ex Machina for this world and human life and problems.
10. The dogmatic formulations, a much-debated compromise at the patristic time,
reflected the concepts of those days and were formulated as a mystery. Though
officially, corrected by a negative theological approach, those dogmas too often
are presented as eternal Truth. Any new ontological speech to day must be
framed in those concepts, concepts that became to the worldly faithful a
mysterious language. Unfortunately with them we cannot bridge the mystery that
God is with our present approach of all reality, included God and his involvement
in our history. We cannot deny that our liturgy, with its poetic language and the
use of antic forms and images is though a very powerful and rich heritage when
properly used and when properly corrected by the preaching of the Gospel.
11. Too little room is given to other approaches and no room at all for the basic ideas
of the try and error method that are commonly used to day but are not allowed by
the official church leaders for the inner world problems. Thus a growing loss of
faith by quite large numbers of intellectual people.
12. The social impact of the churches, exercised for and in the name of Jesus Christ, is
loosing its power and impact. This isnt accepted at all by the clergy whose
functions and roles are systematically changed and emptied also. Unfortunately
the Christian Faith has turned too often into a private spirituality whereas the
Christian community should truly act and proclaim as the New Covenant Members
of Gods family, already participating in the fullness of Gods Life and Love.
13. The horizon of the human laic development and knowledge and the church and
her Message are getting in a steady deepening separation and this at a
tremendous speed lately. They have become two separate worlds.
14. Christianity has to face the challenge of an obvious conclusion that Jesus Gospel
and the church faith arent strictly spoken, no longer needed for the liberation and
development of the individual and the human communities. For man, God is no
longer needed and of no use for daily life as humanity has developed ways and
means to realize what in the past was expected from an intervention of God. Live
after dead is also no longer a main concern.
For many and accordingly the commonly preached message humanity is self-
sufficient.
15. Christ relevancy to the world and us isnt perceived any more like it was
considered before and the community
of followers of Jesus is often turned into religious practices and rites.
16. All church definitions, theological as well as the language used in the daily
services and cult have been formed in the neo platonic and Aristotelian mould.
They have become a Gnostic language; only accessible and understandable for
illuminated people. Rites and cults have been developed centuries ago and
unaltered by time and wear-out, were meticulously regulated for a way of life
centuries ago and based on a strict hierarchical structure, a copy of the in place
staying political system.

4/conversion/tmp/scratch/367366513.odt
 Needless to say and ask how come that this expression is getting lesser and lesser
attendance and impact the more that this antique liturgical language is still
common practice and only understandable for the clergy and the old generations?

17. Too slowly do we come to understand that the changes in worldly concepts and
the more detailed historical insights have an impact on what we will say and think
on God, Jesus, the church and their specific relevancies and actuality for us and
the world to day?

The list of items, which do present to day a serious challenge to us Christians of the
Orthodox traditions, can be endlessly filled up with other aspects.
All of them need carefully consideration and rethinking, translating into the presently
used languages
Those basic issues cover all aspects and not only the content of our Faith, its liturgical
expressions and languages, the structure and functioning of the Christian
communities.
It is not only requiring a proper historical insight in the development of the Christian
Story, a proper insight in the Scriptural sources but also a firm and humble stay in the
Tradition of our communities.
Remaining as a Christian community in constant communication, open to the action of
the H.Spirit and with a pastoral commitment and the zeal to preach the Relevancy of
the Good Tiding to the people of our world to day with the firm intention to form a
community which can reflect the Body of Christ, in other words which can give
glimpses of what it is to be Gods Children.

3. What do we perceive?

A firm and systematically rejection to consider those challenges and questions.

From the hierarchical position basically no support and time is given to let those
aspects be the subject of a conciliary debate so that pastoral consequences and
usable answers can be conceived and given in proper time.
An organically growth and adoption that was common in the early churches is still
forbidden and combated vigorously.

A fundamentalist point of view results in an overwhelming and non-Scriptural desire to

remain in the old positions and old structures. Considered as willed by God Himself
that historical conditioned situation is given eternal value thus making Christianity
and particularly our Orthodox Tradition a musuem value.
One has come to consider an historical concept, language and form and expression as
the last and everlasting form and expression.
All is said, all is done and all has to remain. The H.Spirit has ceased His work and we
are the custodians of a holly, sacred and fixed Tradition.

The People of the Way do seem to be sclerosed in an autorithive, reactional system

whose basic concern is its survival and maintenance of its positions and ways and not
the preaching of the Good Tiding and the freeing of humankind of its brokenness to
bring it to Gods Life.

The eternal Truth put into a deepfreeze.

No longer life giving food to our world.
Having lost its appeal and bereaved of its active element.
Keeping it to the established flock and with no concern for the preaching to the world,
which is still in need to know its creator and its main source of Life.

As an Orthodox community we are turned into ourselves, closed to the world and with
no concern to the present world.
Forgetting that Jesus required from those who are following Him an active attitude for
the world and the fellow man and a trust in the H.Spirit who will give us the right
answers to the always newly formulated questions and challenges of our world.

5/conversion/tmp/scratch/367366513.odt
 Alex Kinnet
November 2001

6/conversion/tmp/scratch/367366513.odt