Adventures in Orthodoxy: The Marvels of the Christian Creed and the Audacity of Belief

"Adventures in Orthodoxy" is a very good book, and I hate to be the lone dissenter from the 5-star reviewer's club, but I have to, on two counts. But first, a few words of praise. I give the book top marks for making Christian apology and theology not only reasonable and rational, but human and charming. Some of the arguments against the tired old cliches of non-believers are done with such simplicity and wit that they seem like they would have to win over even the most jaded atheist. But we all know they won't, and that's one reason that I can't say the book is a complete success. I can't imagine any non-believer I've encountered actually reading through this book. It seems much more like the kind of book that a Christian would read in order to load up on the ammo of apologetics. Which isn't a bad thing, of course, but it makes one consider the title "Adventures in Orthodoxy" anew. It becomes obvious that what is really meant is that "Evangelistic Essays for Catholics." And it's at that point that the author loses that fifth star completely. As an Orthodox woman, I was very offended at the flip dismissal of the Orthodox Church. When the author launches into the chapter that's an all-out advertisement for the Catholic Church, he obviously is talking with gusto about something that he feels deeply. Bravo! I love my faith as well, and if I ever write a book about why I believe that the Orthodox Church is the one true Church, I am certain to offend many Catholics. So I don't fault the author for that. What I fault him for is for not even attempting to make a decent case against the Eastern church. To think that you can sum up and dispatch the Orthodox faith by saying it's "too ethnic" is either intentionally erroneous or pitifully misinformed. I am an American convert in an Antiochian Orthodox Church. MOST congregations in American Orthodox churches for the past 20-30 years have been converts, and I am never so free to be completely and fully American as I am chanting Byzantine hymns from the sixth century. I have been in Greek, Russian, Serbian and Arabic Orthodox churches, and at no time have I felt the unseen "boundaries" the author propounds. Perhaps I should've expected that I would be offended by a Catholic apolgeia. Alas, the book was given to me by a well-intentioned friend who didn't realize that the 'orthodoxy' in the title was not ... well, Orthodox orthodoxy. Hence, I give the book four stars. I will keep it on my shelf in case I ever do find a non-believer that might sit still for one of his essays about a point of faith. But I'll also keep it on my shelf to make sure it doesn't end up in anyone else's hands. Like the author, I am sick of people assuming they know everything they need to know about my faith based on outdated information and assumptions. Unfortunately, that's what the author has done here. And incidentally, I would invite anyone who hasn't attended an Orthodox service to give it a try. If all you know about O

The creeds of the Church can seem to the outsider (and even to many within the Church) to be dry, dusty relics of a bygone era. Carefully formulated statements of belief in precise Greek or Latin are as antiquated in the minds of the average citizen in our post-modern landscape as a suit of armor. After all, isn't this stuff just so pre-Vatican II? In Adventures in Orthodoxy, Dwight Longenecker demonstrates just how wrong this assumption of our times can be. Far from orthodoxy being dull, it is the beliefs of those who reject it that cling to unimagianitive opinions and miss what Chesterton referred to as "the thrill of orthodoxy." It is the heterodox who cannot fathom anything beyond their own dull material existence and reject the possiblilty of things unseen. It is the heterodox whose minds are closed to the possibility of God's miraculous intervention in this world. It is the heterodox who cannot accept that the creator of the universe would become one of them. It is the heterodox who cannot understand a love so great that the Alpha and the Omega of existence would shed His precious blood to redeem our fallen race. Amazingly, Longencker does not make the case through exercises in logic but in appeals to the soul. As he examines each line of the Apostles' Creed, it is the conscience and not the syllogism that is his tool. In countering the representative of the cynical man of our times (the man from Missouri) with the man of faith, he shows it is the former and not the latter who clings to a dry, dusty relic. In reducing the world to the purposeless motion of that which can be experienced, the man from Missouri has surrendered any frame of reference from which to judge that which is good, beautiful, and holy. In its place he has placed ever-changing subjective standards that can do little more than express the passing fads that momentarily catch the fancy of the people without feeding their hunger for the eternal. As Longenecker points out numerous times, the beliefs of the Christian faith in its fullness make no sense to those who have been raised on a diet of purposelessness and despair. Yet once one has put aside their initial reservations and accepted its surface contradicitions, nothing will ever make sense again without it. This might not be the right book for those who are seeking a detailed theological exposition of the fine points of the creeds. But for those Christians who mouth the words without thinking each week or wonder what's the big deal, Adventures in Orthodoxy might just be the medicine they need.