Well I first learned of this book in relation to this Orthodox convert testimony (which is well worth reading even though its obviously biased etc. for the EO)


"From First Baptist to the First Century"
By Clark Carlton


http://www.buzzle.com/boards.asp?board=238&message=150582



Anyway I really love the book. Great insights even though I agree with Fr. Carlton that it can be a challenging read (taking multiple readings or a slow deliberate reading in order to grasp some of the author's points in some areas)



http://www.amazon.com/Being-Communion-Personhood-Contemporary-Theologians/dp/0881410292

Well was going to put this Fr. Carlton quote in my previous post but my edit time had expired...



"After reading Being as Communion, everything else I had read about Orthodoxy fell into place. No matter what book I read, every author came back to the central theme of Trinitarian love. I then realized that Orthodoxy is not a set of propositions about God or even a well-planned theological system; it is an organic whole-a seamless garment. Orthodoxy is in the fullest sense Truth, that Truth which sets man free! Archimandrite Vasileios, Abbot of the Iveron Monastery on Mt. Athos, sums up the wholeness of Orthodoxy quite well:

Theology does not have a philosophy of its own, nor spirituality a mentality of its own, nor church administration a system of its own, nor hagiography its own artistic school. All these things emerge from the same font of liturgical experience. They all function together in a Trinitarian way, singing the thrice-holy hymn in their own languages ... There is one spiritual law, which has power over both heavenly and earthly things. All things flow and proceed from the knowledge of the Holy Trinity. All things emerge from the font which is the life of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: from baptism in the death of Jesus.17"

Hmmm....

It has been added to my Amazon wishlist

I plan to read it with Heidegger's "Being and Time" and Aquinas' "Being and Essence."

Terry

I just ordered this book. I'll make a solid study of it sometime in the summer.

Terry