“Thinking Orthodox” Book Analysis (Part 2): What is “Phronema” and what is so distinctive about Orthodox Christianity?

Before I begin my actual analysis of Eugenia Constantinou’s Thinking Orthodox, I want to give a quick overview of the book as a whole. The book is divided into three parts.

Part 1 is entitled The Orthodox Phronema and it consists of five chapters. The long and short of Part 1 is (a) to discuss and explain what Phronema is (spoiler alert: it is “mindset”—more on that in a bit), and (b) to discuss how the Eastern Orthodox phronema is different from the Western phronema of both Catholicism and Protestantism.

Part 2 is entitled Orthodox Theology and the Shaping of Phronema and it consists of six chapters. In this part, Constantinou talks about how Orthodoxy views theology, and how Tradition, Scripture, and the Church Fathers all help shape the Orthodox phronema.

Part 3 is entitled The Application of Orthodox Theology and it consists of four (rather long) chapters which focuses on theological discernment (when to speak and when not to speak), and theological dangers (both conceptual and spiritual).

At this point, I am leaning toward not covering Part 3, not because it isn’t good, but because it is really rather straightforward and practical—maybe I’ll devote one post to it. We’ll see. For now, let’s delve into Part 1 by looking at the first two chapters.

Chapter 1: The Distinctiveness of Orthodox Christianity
So, what does make Orthodox Christianity distinct from Catholicism and Protestantism? As soon as one asks that question, the natural response and attitude to most who are reading this going to be something like, “Okay, let’s list the differences in doctrine and practices so we can analyze them.” And that very response, Constantinou suggests, is the fundamental difference and key distinctive between Orthodoxy and Catholicism/Protestantism. Indeed, when it comes to the key tenets of the Christian faith, there really aren’t that many major differences. If you go to a church where they recite the Nicene Creed, well—that’s core Orthodoxy!

Rather, Constantinou says the key difference is precisely in the mindset “Westerners” have when they come to the Christian faith. When they try to understand Orthodoxy, they try to do so according to very “Western” categories of thinking. For example, if you go to a Calvinist and ask, “What’s Calvinism?” that person will probably explain TULIP to you and proceed to explain the rationale for the “Five points of Calvinism.” There is a set definition that (the Calvinist thinks) can be rationally and logically deduced and proven. When someone with that kind of mindset comes to Orthodoxy, that person gets frustrated because Orthodoxy doesn’t fit into that kind of thinking. It doesn’t trot out exact definitions and proofs to analyze.

To highlight this, Constantinou brings up the challenge that many Western converts to Orthodoxy often face. As soon as they embrace Orthodoxy, they become rather zealous about trying to prove to the “rightness” of Orthodoxy and how Catholics and Protestants have gotten it all wrong…and here are my arguments to prove it. That attitude/mindset, Constantinou says, shows that that “new convert” has yet to truly develop the Orthodox mindset. The Orthodox mindset obviously takes Christian doctrine and practices seriously, but it isn’t obsessive about it. As Constantinou says, “it is essentially relaxed. It is not rigid, not demanding, not stressed, but calm. Anxiety and obsessiveness are qualities of the world, but our relationship with Christ results in freedom and inner peace. This is reflected in our phronema (mindset)” (16).

If I can put it another way, when you approach the Christian Faith as an object of study, you are going to obsess over “getting it right” so you can get all the right answers to the test for which you are “studying.” That tends to be the attitude and mindset of Western Christians (both Catholics and Protestants): “What’s the formula I have to know? What information do I need to understand so I can prove to others that I’m right? What are the right answers and how can I now defend them?”

Constantinou says this mindset in the West has led to an over-intellectualization of the Christian faith and has led to a distortion of the faith and a proliferation of “amateur theologians” (who can be seen every day on the internet!). She cites four main factors that have contributed to this:

• We live in the information age, where everything is instantly available to us at our fingertips. We have a lot of information, but we never really take the time to contemplate any of it. Because we can cite stats, we think we know a lot more than we actually do. As Constantinou says, “The internet is a ‘mirage of knowledge’ with an inexhaustible supply of ‘facts’ to confirm any bias” (20).
• Similar to the first point, the accessibility to education leads people to believe that since they’ve taken a class that they are more intelligent than they really are. They may have more facts, but they lack common sense.
• There is also a lack of piety. Orthodoxy insists that true knowledge of God cannot be attained without living a virtuous and pious life, but in the West, where knowledge is equated almost exclusively with information, facts, and intellectual arguments, the value of piety is ignored.
• Finally, the over-intellectualization of the Christian faith has led to the assumption that anyone can theologize.

Now, in a sense, everyone does theologize, in that everyone has some sort of idea or opinion about God. But Constantinou doesn’t really mean that. Rather, she is talking about the danger of reducing the Christian faith to a set of logical precepts: “Western society and culture emphasize reason and science as the foundation of all that can be truly known. This promotes the belief that one can comprehend or explain anything if one simply devotes one’s mind to the task and is able to find the correct words to define the subject at hand” (22).

And so, what makes Orthodox Christianity distinct from Catholicism and Protestantism? Quite simply, it doesn’t view the Christian faith that way.

Chapter 2: What is Phronema?
Now, I’ve already mentioned that the Greek word phronema essentially corresponds to one’s mindset. Constantinou goes into more detail to show just how crucial this is to the Christian faith by briefly citing various New Testament passages like Romans 8:5-6 (“…those according to the flesh have their minds on the things of the flesh,”), Philippians 2:2-6 (“…have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ…”), and I Corinthians 2:16 (“the mind of Christ”). The goal of the Gospel, the goal of the Christian faith, isn’t just to get enough information about Christ so you can make a convincing argument to atheists. It is for people to be transformed and conformed to the mind of Christ.

If I can put it this way: Information is just information, and anyone can amass facts and information. The Gospel, though, isn’t primarily just about conveying information and facts. (Or, if I can take a little poke at the young earth creationist Ken Ham, it isn’t about finding the answers in Genesis!).It is about restoring a relationship with God through Christ. Therefore, the Orthodox Christian faith is understood, not so much as a set of logical proofs and precepts, as more of a way of life that transforms believers from being natural men with a “wordly” and hostile mindset to being Spiritual men who have the mindset of Christ. And the way to be transformed and conformed to the mind of Christ is to take part in the apostolic Tradition of the Church.

This is where it gets tricky, challenging, and kind of frustrating for Catholics and Protestants with a “Western” mindset. They’ll see what I just wrote and say, “Okay, but what does that mean? That’s too vague! How do you prove it’s true? You have to have a good argument in order to win converts, right?” As Constantinou says, “The Western phronema expects, even requires, definition, guidelines, and explanations. This is a product of developments in the West during the Middle Ages. Tradition, phronema, and so many aspects of Orthodoxy are inexplicable and indefinable. Perhaps this is why Orthodox Christians rarely attempt to articulate the nature of phronema” (34).

Ironically, though, what Constantinou is describing regarding the Orthodox mindset reminds me of something my professor Gordon Fee said when I was at Regent College. When it came to the question of whether or not someone was a Christian, there is always the question, “How do you know?” Is it saying the sinner’s prayer? Is it knowing certain doctrines? What? Gordon Fee kept it pretty simple: How do you know if someone is a Christian or not? Bring him into the Church and find out! That is what I feel Constantinou is getting at. Being a Christian isn’t so much a matter of getting all the right information (although, that obviously is a good thing!), but rather about getting involved in the life of the Church and being conformed to the mind of Christ.

Granted, that still might be a bit too foggy, so in chapters 3-4, Constantinou takes the time to tease out the differences between the mindset in Western Christian tradition (chapter 3) and the mindset in the Orthodox Christian tradition (chapter 4).

A Brief Word to End This Post…
I said in my first post that I’ve felt, even though I grew up within Evangelicalism, that I always had somewhat of an Orthodox mindset all along—that’s why I never felt like I “fit in” with my Evangelical subculture. Something always just seemed a bit “off,” and when I discovered Orthodoxy, I just felt I was at home.

I say that because sometimes converts to Orthodoxy get a bit too zealous and suddenly convey this attitude that (as Constantinou mentions) that still displays a very “Western” (dare I say “Fundamentalist”) mindset that says, “I have all the right answers now—all you Catholics and Protestants are heretics!” That is something I never understood. In my opinion, one doesn’t have to be an official member of the Orthodox Church to be a Christian. You’re not a heretic if you’re Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, Catholic, or whatever. In fact, in keeping with the theme of the book, I don’t even think having an “Orthodox mindset” is the exclusive property of only Orthodox Christians.

As I look back on my life, I can think of numerous people who, though not Orthodox, nevertheless displayed (in my opinion) a true Orthodox mindset. C.S. Lewis was an Anglican, and his book Mere Christianity really started me on my own spiritual journey. Once I had become Orthodox and had the opportunity to teach Mere Christianity in my high school Bible class, I couldn’t help think, “Lewis might have been an Anglican, but he really was Orthodox!” And as I look back at some of my professors, like Gordon Fee—he was an Assemblies of God Pentecostal his entire life, but man, he displayed an Orthodox mindset!

And even my parents—pretty much Evangelical Wheatonites and members of the Assemblies of God Church I grew up in—their attitude about what it means to follow Christ (and how they didn’t get wrapped up the typical Evangelical topics of obsession) displayed a very Orthodox outlook on the Christian faith. Quite frankly, I think that screwed me up a bit for awhile, because I assumed that all Evangelicals were as sensible as my parents! Therefore, when I walked into two different Evangelical buzzsaws regarding Genesis and the creation/evolution debate, I was absolutely blindsided.

But hey, you live and learn! In my next post, we’ll look at chapters 3-4 in Thinking Orthodox.