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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 280.042
EAN num: 9780310235392
ISBN number: 0310235391
Label: Zondervan
Manufacturer: Zondervan
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 302
Printing Date: November 01, 2004
Publishing house: Zondervan
Sale Popularity Level: 155509
Studio: Zondervan
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A fascinating look at both Eastern Orthodoxy and evangelicalism to uncover similarities and differences in the two traditions.
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Rated by buyers 
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I'm giving this book five stars because of the very first section. Nassif does an incredible job at showing how Eastern Orthodoxy is basically the epitome of the criterion for Evangelicalism, as defined by Evangelicals. The scheme he uses is the Bebbington quadrilateral, which may be becoming dated, but is still quite useful. The other sections are hit or miss, but Nassif covers most of what anyone would need to know for such an introduction to the dialog.
Rated by buyers 
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THREE VIEWS ON EASTERN ORTHODOXY AND EVANGELICALISM is one of Zondervan's "Counterpoint" books, where theological issues are debated by all sides of the issue. Here the "Yes" position is taken by Bradley Nassif (Orthodox), the "No" position is taken by Michael Horton (evangelical) and Vladimir Berzonsky (Orthodox), and finally a "Maybe" position is argued by George Hancock-Stefan (evangelical) and Edward Rommen (Orthodox). Each of the participants makes an argument, is rebutted by the others, and then offers final words. As one might guess, the Orthodox argue that their churches have been "evangelical" in a sense all along and one merely needs to stress those facets of their own tradition. The Evangelical commentators argue against Orthodox from several viewpoints. For Mr Horton, Orthodox's view of justification, which he sees as nebulous, is a major problem. Mr Hancock-Stefan, though he argues "Maybe", says that the traditions aren't really compatible at all from what he sees as a tradition of church and state oppression of evangelicals, and suggests that the Orthodox should just cross to the other side.
As an Orthodox Christian, I was unhappy with the book. For one, it is simply unwise for the Orthodox to approach the evangelicals at all in debate. The inroads that evangelicals have made into Orthodox countries such as Romania have resulted in serious damage to local spiritual and cultural life, and Orthodox synods (such as those of Iasi and Jerusalem) have repeatedly condemned them in no uncertain terms. But beyond that, the biggest problem with this debate is that the editors did not set one specific definition of evangelicalism to work with. The EO commentators write in response to that non-confessional evangelicalism that has become mainstream over the last century, which doesn't even look back to the early Protestant reformers, let alone the Church Fathers. However, Michael Horton, writing from a Reformed perspective, answers every critique of this evangelicalism by proclaiming how the Reformed churches are different, how they look back to Calvin, and how Calvin looked back to the early Fathers. Mr Horton seems to have entered the discusion with the assumption that his partners in debate would be speaking to him of his own tradition. A second problem is that the evangelical commentators don't really seem to get Orthodoxy at all. That's only to be expected, since they happily remain evangelicals, but it makes their entire treatment of Orthodoxy very frustrating to read. The insistence by evangelicals that the Orthodox Church does not stress a personal relationship with Christ is pure slander, for the importance of the so-called "Jesus prayer" is known even by the least theologically educated Orthodox layman. Mr Horton seems to think that agreements in doctrine between the Reformed tradition and Orthodoxy actually amount to something, but as the Reformed tradition simply lacks the continuity back to the day of Pentecost that the Orthodox Church can claim, it's all quite meaningless to pile up similarities.
Rated by buyers -
Books comparing rival theological systems should primarily be about translating across schemes. This is what people want in reading these kinds of books. They are in one view and they want to understand the other view. To effectively meet this end, one has to be familiar with both sides, that is, one has to know how to speak the language of the other guy.
Unfortunately this isn't accomplished. While the two Orthodox writers give a basic overview of Orthodox teaching, they fail in two basic ways. First, they fail to grasp the language and system of their Protestant interlocutors and therefore do not adequately address their objections. They show a very superficial understanding of Reformation theology. Second, they fail to get to the heart of the differences which lie in Trintarian theology, Christology and theological method. A much more effective exposition and hence argument could have been made.
The Protestant participants suffer from the same kinds of problems plus others. The baptist contributor forcuses on abuses mainly in the Russian jurisdiction. This is hardly a fair tactic, for the abuses, theological, moral or administrative are anecdotal, that is, they are limited to his experience. Second, considering that the Russian Church was practically exterminated by the Soviets, it is understandable if its laity/clergy who were prohibited from learning the Bible or going to seminary are ignorant of basic Christian teaching and moral praxis. In fact the baptist contributor ultimately confesses ignorance as to what the real issues are between Reformation and Orthodox soteriology, indicating that he shouldn't even be a participant.
Horton's contribution is better but suffers from the same general failure to grasp the theological system and langauge of the people on the other side, and thereby mount and effective critique. Granted that the Orthodox representatives failed to give an adequate articulation of the Orthodox view of justifiction, it certainly wouldn't have been hard to find one. There are a number of such articles readily available in Orthodox scholarly journals. (See for example, Church and Justification. An Orthodox Approach to the Issue of Justification and Collective Faith, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 28 (1983)). And Horton follows his usual modus operandi of tarring people with positions that they do not affirm. For example because he isn't familiar with understand the Orthodox teaching on faith, he simply denotes it as the same teaching as Roman Catholicism, specifically the idea of "implicit faith." Horton makes this kind of move on a number of occasions, reducing Orthodox teaching to Catholic teaching to make it easier to criticize. In point of fact though, the Orthodox while having some superficial similarities to Catholicism, understand things differently because they have a different Trinitarian theology, Christology, soteriology and anthropology. Horton shows nothing more than a superficial understanding of Orthodox theology because he simply hasn't done any substantial reading in it, as is evidenced in his use of only a few fairly popular sources and his constant inability to draw the appropriate conclusions.
If you are coming from an Evangelical/Reformation background and you want to understand Orthodox teaching from the inside out, below are some works that will save you time and money in the long run.
An abosolute must is Joseph Farrell's Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor, which is an analysis of Maximus' theology and ends with a comparison with Augustinianism. Hard to find, but well worth it. Maximus is a central theological figure for Orthodox theology. Just as it is not possible to understand western theology apart from Augustine, so it is not possible to understand Eastern theology apart from Maximus.
Farrell's translations of the Disputation with Pyrrus and Photius' Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit are short, inexpensive and packed with information. Farrell knows how to translate ideas and spell out the conceptual connections.
John Romanides, Ancestral Sin, is a helpful exposition of the Orthodox teaching on anthropology, and the Fall and a critique of western conceptions.
John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, is also a must to understand the centrality of Christology to Orthodox theology and how the Orthodox understand Christology.
Meyendoff's, Salvation in Christ: Lutheran-Orthodox dialog, is also helpful, though somewhat overly optomistic.
Michel Barnes, The Power of God, and David Bradshaw's, Aristotle East and West are both vergy good works and should be read together-Barnes first, then Bradshaw.
Richard Haugh's Photios and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Contoversy, is short but very helpful.
Henri Crouzel's Origen. Origen is one of the most important figures in Christian theology, ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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This book gets four stars because of both the great idea of comparing the two Christian traditions and Bradley Nassif. The other authors were very unprepared for the book. Michael Horton does the best job of the evangelicals but still gets some aspects of Orthodox theology wrong. Vladimir Berzonsky was the worst writer by far because he equated all evangelicals with Anabaptists in their theological views (particularly with the Sacraments). This is not his fault though, because the book itself does a horrible job explaining what evangelicalism is.
The two evangelicals are (I think) Baptist and Presbyterian (or Reformed), but there are huge differences in these traditions, and I am truly shocked that none of the writers were Confessional Lutherans even thought the historical meeting between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Lutheran scholars of Tubingen is brought up in nearly every chapter. This means no writer defends the view of Lutherans that the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper have the real presence in them after they are blessed (with the exception of Dr. Nassif who also understands that the term usually applied for this which is Consubstantiation is a very poor term nearly no competant Lutheran and/or Episcopal scholar uses)!
Nassif also used the best methodology in his analysis of doctrine (that of Christological Maximalism) thus showing many views, particularly of the Sacraments (if I may dare call them that) in the evangelical churches were argued over in the past by councils who found such views contrary to the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation which all branches of non-heretical Christianity accept.
My review should not be seen as a praise of just the Orthodox. Nassif happens to be an Orthodox writer who was at one time an evangelical and it shows in the quality of his presentation (even though I would say he should have made his position a maybe). The worst writer, Berzonsky both commits the aforementioned oversimplification but he also made it seem as if all the differences between the two were the lack of tradition (which in some ways I agree with), but also the denial of the council in which the iconodules won over the iconoclasts, which not all evangelicals would disagree with (i.e., not all evangelicals are iconoclasts.....i.e. me).
Overall I think that the book should have been much longer and should have been much more thought out by the last four writers. Nassif gets the gold medal....everyone else needs to repeat Seminary, or really read and try to understand either "The Orthodox Church" by Bishop Kalistos Ware (and the Philokalia for the mystically minded) or Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" (and Luther's Large Catechism and the Book of Concord).
This book is worth it for the very first chapter. The responses are just kissing up to each other....usually :-).
Rated by buyers -
Increasing interest in the Eastern Orthodox is helped immensely with this book's publication. The three views pertains to five authorities giving their opinion as to comptability between Eastern Orthodoxy and evangelicalism. One says yes, two say no, and one maybe. You'll have to read to figure out who lines up with which compatibility assessment.
What is good about the exchange is the format of major essay by one, than the others react. This is excellent format and provides salient interaction to occur. Nuances are discovered and brought out, allowing the interested reader to explore.
What salient differences provided here include: different authority of tradition and resultant view of Scriptures; totally different view of original sin; resultant divergent views of Apostle Paul's theology; resulting in different anthropology, esp. image and likeness issues which result in different soteriology.
The two as Horton points out are not really that close, other than outstanding agreement on Trinitarian issues, outside of filoque.
What is lacking in this otherwise well done volume is limited confessional reaction from Reformed evangelical side, but realization that having Lutheran/Roman Catholic/Arminian etc., would be a huge and tiresome volume. For Lutherans, Issues Etc. just had an excellent interview in month of August, 2005 which can be listened to on their archives with Eastern Orthodox spokesman.
This provides a good base to go from. Good sources cited for followup to the interested.
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