General and Miscellaneous.(Light from the Christian East: An introduction to the Orthodox Tradition)(Book review)

Light from the Christian East: An introduction to the Orthodox Tradition. By James R Payton. Jr. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2007. Pp. 240. $22.00 paperback. ISBN 978-0-830-82594-3.)

James Payton's book is designed to introduce Orthodox thought and culture to an audience of evangelical Christians who, for a variety of reasons, may he unfamiliar with that large and rich Christian tradition or may have inherited sets of prejudices about it that the author wishes to address. He broaches the subject head on: how many evangelicals simply know Orthodoxy as a "suspect" tradition that has at its heart devotion to the Virgin Mary, sacraments, monasticism, icons, relics, and incense? How far removed it all seems from the standard thought patterns and religious practices of American evangelicalism. Payton has years of experience of ecumenical dialogue with Orthodox}', and an obvious and vibrant empathy with his subject. He presents the tale of Orthodoxy simply as that of the origins of Christianity: its traditions not so much ethnically peculiar, but more as the foundational line of Christian faith. Overall, one reads this book and learns much about the basics of dogmatic theology. The author, on numerous occasions, presents the Eastern traditions as something that may, in fact, assist the evangelical today to gain a helpful set of new perspectives on fundamental matters such as the interpretation of St. Paul, the concept of redemption, or the nature of the Church. He begins with a brief and rapid account of church history from an Eastern perspective. How unusual it is to hear the account of the rise of Christianity to the Renaissance period, with not even a mention of the Reformation. Church history has been so often simply "Western Church History," as presented, that this account (however rapid and partial) comes with striking freshness. There follows in the second and third chapters a general discussion of how Orthodoxy differs in style and approach from the more familiar Western traditions of theological thought. The author places emphasis on the preference for apophatic (what may be briefly described as "turning away from speech" and the favoring of quiet reflection on mystery, or theology witnessed in prayer and doxology) rather than ...