Orthodox Book Series: “The Orthodox Way” by Bishop Kallistos Ware (Part 1): The Journey

Over the next month or two, I have decided to do a series of book analyses on a number of books that have had a tremendous impact on my spiritual journey. For those who might not know, my spiritual journey (in very broad brushstrokes) has looked like this: I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois (i.e. the heart of Evangelicalism) and went to an Assemblies of God church up through high school. During my last year in at Wheaton Christian high school, after reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, I encountered a major spiritual turning point in my life, when I really made the choice to think through my own faith and follow that path wherever it led. Halfway through my senior year, I left that Assemblies of God church and started attending Willowcreek Community Church and continued to attend there throughout my college years.

During those years, and into my 20s, I started reading books on spirituality by the Catholic Monk Thomas Merton and really dove into the poetry of T.S. Eliot, which reflects a deep Christian mystical tradition. In my mid-20s, while attending Regent College, I experienced and fell in love with the liturgy of the Anglican compline service. I still remember my first thought as I stepped into Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, British Columbia for the compline service first time: “This is the first worship service I’ve ever been in.”

After I graduated Regent and before I started my first teaching job in California, I was back at my parents’ house for the summer of 1997. While at a local bookstore, I came across Christian History Magazine—that particular magazine was devoted to Eastern Orthodoxy. In a way I cannot fully explain, I was transfixed by it. Call it what you want—a calling, maybe—but I found myself drawn to Eastern Orthodoxy. For the few years, I started reading more and more books about Eastern Orthodoxy, The Orthodoxy Way, by Bishop Kallistos Ware made a particular impression on me. When I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 2003, I attended a Greek Orthodox church for the first time. I remember my distinct thought upon entering that church as well: “I’m finally home.” After the liturgy, I went to Starbucks and wrote this short poem down:

I know in my heart I am a wise man from the east.
I know I will journey there, to that communal feast.
I must walk upon the sacred sun’s journey.
I must travel unto that ancient eastern county.

A couple of years later, I joined the Orthodox Church. A few years later, though, in 2007, I moved to Alabama, where there isn’t an Orthodox church within 70 miles. Consequently, I now attend a Methodist church, but still view myself as Orthodox. The extent of my Orthodoxy, though, is rather limited to my own personal prayer life and my own reading.

All that said, I thought it would be a good exercise to look over some of the most influential books in my spiritual life and share my thoughts and observations. Hopefully, I can inspire some people to read these books for themselves. The first book I want to look at is The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware. Not even 150 pages, The Orthodox Way is, in my opinion, one of the best introductions to the heart of Orthodox Christianity. When I first read it, probably 20 years ago, I found myself constantly thinking, “Yes! That’s what I’ve always thought about that!” It was as if all the spiritual formation that had been going on inside of me, that I felt but could not yet fully articulate was being clearly articulated before my eyes on the page. The Orthodox Way expressed in writing what I had come to know in my spirit.  With that, let’s begin with the prologue.

The Prologue: Signposts on the Way
Kallistos Ware begins his prologue with a quote from Father Georges Florovsky, the first part of which immediately caught my attention the first moment I read it: “The Church gives us not a system, but a key; not a plan of God’s City, but the means of entering it.” The reason it caught my attention was that that description was so unlike what I had been taught while growing up. For most Evangelicals, it seems that the focus on “going to church” or “witnessing to friends” tend to be to make arguments that provide all the answers that will be able to rationally convince wayward sinners of a number of things on the Evangelical Christian checklist: Jesus rose from the dead, miracles happen, as well as a few other arguments. In any case, if you grew up in Evangelicalism, the clear message was simple: “Bring your unbelieving friends to church, we have the answers. The Bible is the answer book.” It was all rather cold and rationalistic to me.

Even as a kid, something just seemed wrong with that kind of presentation. Don’t get me wrong, ever since I was in 3^rd grade, I loved reading the Bible (albeit at that time, it was a really cool illustrated Bible), and I’ve ended up teaching the Bible for a living. But I simply never saw it as presenting some kind of systematic checklist of doctrinal points. I always saw it as telling a story of God in in history and providing—yes, a key—to entering to that story. And I suppose that is why I never really felt at home in the Evangelical world (or cared much for cold, systematic theology)! For me, the Bible was an invitation into a spiritual journey that had to be travelled.

That idea of Christianity as being a journey is the very first thing Ware emphasizes in his prologue: “We are on a journey through the inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the hours of our watch or the days of the calendar, for it is a journey out of time into eternity” (7). Interestingly enough, that line reminds me of the song Secret Journey by The Police:

Upon a secret journey, I met a holy man
His blindness was his wisdom, I’m such a lonely man
And as the world was turning, it moaned itself in pain
“This does not seem to touch you,” he pointed to the rain

You will see light in the darkness, you will make some sense of this
You will see joy in this sadness, you will find the love you miss
And when you’ve made your secret journey, you will be a holy man

In any case, the emphasize of Christianity as being a journey has always struck a chord with me. In keeping with this, Ware points out that one of the first names for Christianity (as mentioned in the Book of Acts) is, not surprisingly, The Way. And that is why, as Ware writes, “Christianity is more than a theory about the universe, more than teachings written down on paper; it is a path along which we journey—in the deepest and richest sense, the way of life” (8).

With that in mind, he writes that the only real means of discovering the true nature of Christianity isn’t through cold, logical calculation and intellect (although the Christian faith certainly does require our logic and intellect). Rather, “we must step out upon this path, commit ourselves to this way of life, and then we shall begin to see for ourselves” (8). Although actual doctrine and teaching is certainly important, none of it will matter much if one doesn’t personally step out on that path and make Christianity an actual lived experience. As Ware writes, “For the Orthodox themselves, loyalty to Tradition means not primarily the acceptance of formulae or customs from past generations, but rather the ever-new, personal and direct experience of the Holy Spirit in the present, here and now” (8).

Conclusion Thus Far
Ever since I was a little kid, I always viewed Christianity much more of a journey to be travelled than a list of propositions to mentally check off. When you think about it, this motif of a journey is hardwired into our very souls as human beings. Whether it is The Secret Journey by The Police, or the entire story of The Lord of the Rings, or so many other stories involving journeys that we human beings just gravitate towards, there is something deeply embedded in the human heart that sees life as a journey. And, as Orthodoxy puts it, Christianity is a journey that involves an ever-deepening relationship with God Himself. As I look back at my life, I notice a number of signposts on my spiritual journey, and that’s the thing: I would have never gotten to those signposts that pointed me further down the road if I had insisted on treating Christianity as nothing more than a checklist of propositional truths on a piece of paper. Oh, there certainly are truths to discover on the way, but they won’t be discovered if you never take those first steps on the journey.