East and West

 East and West

 

            If we look at the tension of competing truths in the Church, where do we see the biggest division of all? Quite likely it is between the East and the West. Here we see one of the main examples of conflicting thought and worldview among Christians.

            The Eastern Orthodox Church has actually believed this sort of stuff for centuries regarding humanity’s inclusion in Christ. But then again, they have a much higher tolerance for mystery and non-linear thinking.

            American revival religion has a very low threshold for mystery. If you can’t answer everything in a two-sentence Facebook post, it must be heresy. Just when we think something is simply black and white, we miss that the Lord wants to open our eyes to Technicolor.

            Western thinking, although it prefers analytical, rational bullet points is not altogether bad. We need the linear as well! We need both math and mystery. The Bible came to us in Greek and Hebrew for a reason. Eastern and Western thought need one another, just as you need a right and left side to your brain.

            The point here is to give you a quick little history lesson. Most of my readers are undoubtedly Western, so I want to expose you to a different way of seeing.

 

 Augustine and Athanasius

 

            A lot of our Western theology (both Protestant and Roman Catholic are Western) traces its roots primarily back to one guy … Augustine.

            I have been to St. Peters Basilica in Rome several times. It is the largest and undoubtedly most beautiful church in the world. If you move toward the front of that church you will notice four absolutely massive pillars. Upon them are carved the four main doctors of the Church. Any historian who looks at the first centuries beyond the apostles will recognize these four men as the biggest movers and shakers of the early Church.

            Two men are from the West – Augustine and Ambrose. Augustine was the theologian of the two.

            But there are also two men carved from the East – Athanasius and John Chrysostom. Of these two men, Athanasius was the theologian.

            So you basically have two theologians who set the foundational course of Christian thought: Augustine in the West and Athanasius in the East. These were the two main theologians of the Church age beyond Paul.

            What does this have to do with you? Maybe you’ve never even heard of Augustine. Well it has a lot to do with you, because a lot of the mindsets you’ve picked up sitting in the pews every Sunday trace all the way back to Augustine. This doesn’t mean everything you learned was wrong. But you may have seen things from a one-sided perspective. Luther, Calvin and all the evangelical world was highly influenced by Augustine.