www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Byzantine evangelization? Don't make me laugh

On 11/28 Troy Brooks, using the screen name "Churchwork" posted a thread here in the Faith and Worship section of the Forum on the "top 100 Christian forums". Visiting his link, I saw that he was young in the Lord- only a few years. As most conversions occur in the teens and early twenties, I assume he is also young in years. I also saw he is much influenced by Watchman Nee, a Chinese Protestant theologian and martyr of the last century, with whom I have had some familiarity in the past.
Immediately, members of the Forum began attacking him. Some of them had had bad experiences with him on an Orthodox forum [where some of our posters have also had bad experiences]. It is true that the fellow seemed intent more on teaching us than in learning but the way he was treated was scandalous: he was called a "nut case" and "a troll" and while one of our members did tell him that he should become a Byzantine Christian, this was done rather glibly, with no attempt at apologetics or dialogue. Most were quick to ascribe ill intent to him, while I read him as a young zealot who should have been gently challenged and invited to dialogue. Indeed, in my experience those drawn to Nee have tended to be those seeking a deeper Christianity than is generally available in American Evangelicalism. True, Nee's work is wrought with error, but he did achieve a systematic theology, quite an achievement in modern Evangelicalism. And he did die in a communist prison, a witness to his faith in Christ.
After several days of hostility to him, one of the posters asked "Who is this Nee fellow, anyway?" to which another poster -who should perhaps consider changing her screen name to "our lady's slave of rudeness" responded that she didn't know, and didn't want to know. After all their uncivil treatment of Troy, they had not even taken the trouble to find out what he was into!
I am ashamed of all of you who trashed this young zealous seeker.

Now, we often talk of evangelization here on the Forum. We say that our Churches ought not be ethnic or liturgical ghettos, but we must go out into the world and reach people for Christ. But when a young zealot comes to us we insult him and run him off. I have seen Latin Catholics similarily run off- I am not refering to the obvious troublemakers, here to insult and condemn, but honestly curious Latins, who when exposed to our perspective begin asking questions, trying to harmonize what they hear here with the Latin views with which they are familiar. Too often they are treated harshly, and leave with a bad taste.
I can't believe many of you are serious about evangelization when these things happen here. The basis of good evangelization is to know the person you wish to reach, to dialogue and find some common ground, some starting point for the gospel.
I can just see Byzantine evangelization: "Hi, we are Byzantine Christians. We are right and you are wrong. Want to join our Church?"
It's reminiscent of the old Protestant joke about Bad Evangelism: "Hi, have you heard the Good News?" "What's that?" "You're going to Hell!!" ...."Wow man, what's the bad news?"
Byzantine evangelization? Don't make me laugh...
Daniel, disappointed in some of you

Daniel -

I want to laud your courage in posting what you did. It was a direct challenge to the attitudes I was disturbed by as well when I read them on this forum.

Personally, I am invigorated by those who challenge me about my faith as a Byzantine Catholic, especially when I am dealing with honest seekers. Better that they care enough to either hate or believe something than the millions who live in a spiritual void wrought by today's pop culture and rampant secularism and materialism. (You can usually see this type on shows like "Elimi-date" and the like. It's really quite tragic! But I digress...)

In the end, God will judge us on our charity, even in forums like this one where individuals can be depersonalized somewhat in a virtual environment. Remember - it is not just the ideas that we are critiquing. There are people behind them that need to be respected, whatever our differences may be with them. As St. Paul has written - "It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance."

I don't want to be preachy, and even as I type these words I am reminded of the many times I have been guilty of the same thing - in deed and in thought. But if we are to be evangelical in heart, orthodox in faith and catholic in our charity, I believe your challenge to us is a worthy one.

Regards -

Gordo

Daniel,

My conversion came about as you described in the first paragraph. It worked on me.

I know where you are coming from with the jokes.

Jesus' invitation is, "Come and see."

Christ is our peace.

Paul

Daniel, thanks for posting this. What I find somewhat 'annoying' is how a post not specifically about the eastern Church gets the inevitable "what does this have to do with Eastern Catholicism" question. I understand how people don't want the discussion to become sidetracked, however, the idea that some things don't concern Eastern Catholicism is wrong, IMHO. Everything concerns a Catholic (eastern or western) Church. Would anyone question whether the situation in the Ukraine concerns the Roman Catholic Church?

I also think that the 'ban' on discussion of the western rite can seem very offensive to latin Catholics. For example, I have warned a few first time posters that any criticism of the latin rite will be considered to be 'bashing' the RC. It's almost like you guys only want the 'authentic' enquirers, not the dreaded 'fleeing the RC' enquirers. IMHO this is a kind of 'elistim.' The idea being that the byzantine rite is only for the 'chosen' few who are 'called' to it.

Actually, Jennifer, it works both ways. Latin-bashers are not welcome, but paradoxically, neither are Latin propagandists...These things I can understand. It is the Latin seekers who are driven off that bother me.
-Daniel, trying to be fair

IMHO, I think the latin "seekers" are "driven off" because the suspicion is that they aren't "authentic." I understand the suspicion given the history of the eastern Churches. But, in all honesty, every ECC parish I've attended has a sizeable contingent of former latins. If all of them were to go back to their local latin parishes, what would happen to the ECC parishes they support? I won't suggest that the ECC parishes "need" the latins but there (IMHO) should be some appreciation of what they bring to the community.

And along that line, there should be an understanding of why they come to your communities. How many of them are really "authentic?"

Iconophile

Please credit me with a little sense

From his first appearance here I had looked at his Site , I had looked at his posts that I had seen elsewhere and to my mind he was not someone who would be prepared to listen to us.

As for being rude to people - I do not think I normally am - but I do leave that judgement to others.

If you wish to chastise me kindy have the courtesy to do it firstly by PM rather than in public.

I note that I am the only poster you have directly identified.

Daniel,

I don't completely disagree with your basic premise, as I had looked at Troy's site and wasn't too concerned that he was actively seeking to evangelize anyone here. Rather he seems to be pursuing a notion that unity in Christiandom can be achieved (or at least pursued) through some dialogue that he sees emerging as a result of clustering links to Christian web communities on his "Top 100" site. The criteria for being in the top 100 seem to be self-nomination followed by some vetting process administered by Troy and ongoing monitoring by him to assure that a site is sufficiently devoted to biblical discussion and otherwise adhering to what he perceives as marks of a Christian community. (That is vastly oversimplified, I'm certain, but I either found his material difficult to follow or couldn't get interested in it - to be honest about it.)

Having said that, I acknowledge that I acted no more civilly to him than did most anyone else; certainly I didn't welcome him and while I didn't name-call, I contributed to the glib comment about him becoming a Byzantine Catholic.
In that, I was wrong and we all were. We need to step back and re-think how we react to newcomers here, both those with the courage to post and those who choose only to lurk - lest the latter group include folks whose decision to lurk is based on being intimidated by how they see others treated.

However, I understand (and I think you should as well) why folks reacted to Troy as they did, given the rash of hit and run posters - "trolls" in the common parlance - with which the Forum has been plagued lately. Added to that, we've just gotten through the US election, which generated a lot of emotion and are still struggling with more political issues than are usual to this place. None of this makes the treatment of Troy more right, nor does it excuse it, but it does explain it and adds a bit of mitigation. So, in response, one chides - one doesn't wield a baseball bat.

The tack that you chose to take in your description of Anhelyna as one

is, if anything, far more offensive than almost any post of which you are complaining. In my opinion, my brother, you owe her an apology for that remark.

Many years,

Neil

Daniel,

I stand with Gordo and Paul in agreeing with what you've said above. It is, sadly, true of most evangelization that goes on in the web community, Eastern and Latin Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. Hostility, an "in your face" attitude, presentations that might as well be prefaced by "how dumb can you be?" seem to be the hallmarks of those who perceive themselves as evangelists and apologists for their faith. (Apologist - an overworked fad word used lately as a self-descriptor by anyone who ever read a catechism - and evangelist are too often perceived, wrongly, as synonymous).

In this regard, I don't see us as winning any prizes, but I believe we're better than most. Saunter through Catholic Answers (or most any other Latin board), most (if not all) of the Orthodox boards, any of the Protestant boards, our counterparts at CINEast (or the 3 other excuses for EC boards), and you will see that it can (and does) only get worse.

What I perceive to be the difference here is that, unlike most all of those, this is not principally (or even muchly) an apologist site. It functions, to my mind, as a discussion forum. Yes, we debate, and there are points of both inter- and intra-ecclesial wrangling, but more than anything else, we dispense information and doing so is itself a form of evangelization.

Because we (EC/OC/EO/OO) occupy (in the minds of others) a rather insignificant place in the world by reason of our numbers and our quasi-obscurity, those who come here are ordinarily seekers - we are not ordinarily inundated by challengers.

I have to believe that this forum's day-to-day raison d'etre in the minds of most of its members is to better understand the brethren and the theology of their Sister Churches, be those EC or EO, with the hope that such will someday contribute to reunification among us. Additionally, the forum exists to provide information both to the interested and those who are merely curious. We actually do that well.

Many people who are really interested in learning about Eastern Christianity and choose to pursue knowledge in a web-based environment find their way here, somehow. And it's a good thing that they do. Because this board is alive.

I post at 4 other EC sites, 3 of which are adjuncts to Latin boards and offer nothing in the way of discussion, not much more in terms of information; the 4th, CINEast, became such a bastion of malcontent that Tom Whalen has had to return it to a fully-moderated status. Only here can one have a discussion about things Eastern, pursue information about or an understanding of obscure facts and, generally, be answered by someone knowledgeable. (We are the most amazing purveyors of religious minutiae that I've ever encountered.)

However, we need though to understand our own limitations. I don't think that this is generally a place where folks come to say "prove the rightness of your faith (EC or EO) to me!" Nor is it a place where people come to demand that we try and refute the logic of their faith's theological precepts. We may do some of both those things ourselves, within the community, but it's rarely anyone's mission in stopping by and I think when someone comes with that agenda, we react defensively because we're unused to it.

We are more comfortable with the curious and the seekers and that may well be the limits of our role in evangelization, as it exists within the four corners of the computer screen. The other is the electronic equivalent of door-to-door evangelization.

I don't think it is a role to which Catholics or Orthodox are well-suited and I don't know why. I'm not suggesting that we have to evangelize passively, waiting for folks to come to us, but we shouldn't expect that this is going to become Eastern apologetics central. We do need to reach out and draw folks here, casually drop this site's url when you're posting elsewhere, tag it onto messages when you sign guestbooks, make sure that there are references made to it in eparchial newsletters and church bulletins (evangelization also consists of educating those who are of us already, but so often only nominally).

Just some thoughts.

Many years,

Neil

Dear Daniel,

You know I respect you. And you make a number of cogent points.

However, there was NO reason for you to be rude to Angela by making fun, as I see it, of her screen name.

You yourself have, quite rightly, decried personal attacks here. I don't like them either.

But for you to be rude in this way to our Angela (you can disagree with her, I have in the past and she has been angry with me too!), for you to do that is to stoop to the same tactics as those whom you criticize.

You were a seminarian. So you know the benefit of making an apology.

I would hope, Daniel, that you would consider making one to Angela.

I also found it somewhat off-putting that you would mess around with Angela's screen name which she has taken from the writings of St Louis de Montfort and his Slavery of Jesus in Mary.

Anyway, I think we understand each other.

Alex

There is a very definite distinction to be made between those who come to tell US about THEIR church, those who would like to tell us about THEIR church, but with some intention of maintaining a presences, and a dialogue, however unconvinced they may be (people such as Orthoman come to mind, here), and those who genuinely seek. Sometimes, it is difficult for a newcomer to "settle down" from the hostile and contentious tone of other fora. We need to make allowances for such a person, of course. When we say, "It's not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it" to someone, we do need to examine what is in our own hearts. People are often inflamed by anger when they feel something as vital as religion has betrayed them in some way. To those people, iconophile, you are right, the Forum, while better than most, needs to give some prayerful space, and forgive earlier errors.

However, what has been distressingly frequent of late is some members repeatedly citing posters or incidents that they have been in disagreement with in the past, and either making new threads for the purpose of shaming someone, or dragging the comments in to every conceivable post. This is neither exercising restraint, nor forgiveness, even when the post says "I forgave so-and-so for something said in 2002, which I will repeat here..."

There is another case, altogether, and that is the genuine "troll". Churchwork, although a fanatic, was polite according to his lights. However, to suggest that he had in any way chosen to learn from US would be to misread his posts. He asked no questions, and only invited us to his site, to be educated by him, because we were so wrong. That is not someone who wishes to dialogue. Further, iconophile, your post to Anhelyna was appalling. Especially as she HAD taken the opportunity to READ his site, and learn what he stood for. The fact that she did not know about his founder, personally, is irrelevant, as she clearly knew about his philosophy BEFORE she spoke. Anhelyna is one of the more welcoming people on this Forum, and for you to single her out in that manner gives an incredibly poor showing for the religion you profess.

Gaudior, who thinks iconophile owes someone an apology, and also, that we all need to be more understanding toward newcomers...those who want to learn.

Having been cautioned in the past that I was perceived by some on the Forum as being anti-Orthodox, I can safely say that internet bulletin boards like the Forum do have their limits. People sometimes draw conclusions without necessarily asking clarifying questions that could significantly change their initial view. There is no face-to-face communication, no body language to read, etc. So, a degree of tolerance and understanding is much needed for the sake of everyone. Giving the benefit of the doubt is often in order, and seeking first to understand then to be understood often is the best policy here. (And, of course, we have administrators who can stop the music if it gets too load.)

Dear Daniel,

Perhaps there was a way of showing frustration or disagreement with another in a more constructive way than public sarcasm against them? I also think that Angela is owed an apology.

Just a thought.

In Christ,
Alice

Nice to see you back, Alice!

Gaudior, in hopes that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving...

Daniel,

That you are ashamed of some posters and have expressed it means that you have put yourself in a position to judge. Notice how some posters on this forum who are not Catholic or Orthodox are able to have very fruitful discussions because they are polite and respectful. "Churchwork" exhibited qualities of pride, prelest, and he was most definitely NOT a seeker. Byzantine Christians have a right to have a forum where they are not attacked by members of other churches or religions. Jesus and St Paul did not sit around and chat with heretics, but preached the truth to them and left. If you talk to heretics too much you might become imbued with their spirit. It's a dangerous prospect--we have to engage them if they are sincere but if they are not exhibiting openness, they need to be presented with the truth and it is left to the Lord (as Churchwork seemed content to do to us). Churchwork also put himself as a judge over us. So we have Churchwork judging us as in error and you judging us as being rude. Your attack on Angela is ludicrous--she is one of the most sensitive posters on this forum, always kind, and quite polite. You should leave her alone.

By the way, I read Churchwork's website pretty much all the way through and that didn't change my perception. Did you notice he has a section on his site devoted to all the Christian forums he has been banned from with explanations of why they are inspired by the Devil, etc?

Anastasios