Bob Letham on Orthodoxy

Just finishing Bob Letham's brilliant and accessible Through Western Eyes: Eastern Orthodoxy -- a Reformed Perspective (Christian Focus).  Typical of Bob's style -- awesome learning, accessible writing, and a fine critical exposition of the history and theology of Orthodoxy which is careful and honorable throughout.   It gave me much food for thought, especially on the matter of icons (I'd never thought of the photographs of the great Hugh Miller and R S Candlish in my office as icons before....).

Here's a taste:

`The Orthodox Liturgy is full of Scripture, far more than the starvation rations prevalent in evangelical circles..... In Orthodoxy the whole Psalter is read through once a week, and twice in seasons such as the Great Fast.' (p. 163)  

`The Orthodox service is long.  It is not something hastily cobbled together, with an eye on the attention span of the congregation or with a view to boosting the box office records.  It has been centuries - millennia - in the making.  It is not a short pit-stop to fill the spiritual tank, interrupting the important rush of modern life; it is the meeting ground between heaven and earth, time and eternity, and so the clock is put in its proper place.'  (pp. 165-66).

`The Eastern Church... places theology (correctly in my judgment) in the context of the church, the believing community, since the Bible was given to the church in the first place.  While literary, historical and theological aspects must all be integrated, and critical judgment cultivated, this must be rooted ecclesially, in faith, recognizing that we must share in the same reality established by Jesus and actualized by the Holy Spirit.' (p. 179).

The book is a great read, and Bob's way of using Orthodoxy as a means of sharpening the reader's own understanding of the Reformed tradition is a piece of classic pedagogy.