Two recommended videos: Fr. John Fenton on the Western Rite of the Orthodox Church / Sebastian Morello in conversation with Dr. Iain McGilchrist

Gratis post

As I tend to do, I draw your attention to two videos that, I believe, will be well worth your time (and certainly much better for you than 99% of what passes these days for entertainment or, for that matter, the news). Both are free for viewing on YouTube. They are quite different from one another. The first is — in my opinion — a sterling example of pastoral theology in action, and the second is a conversation that branches out in various interconnected directions.

(Photo from the website, The Orthodox West.)

The first conversation is with Fr. John Fenton, an Orthodox priest in the Western Rite under the Antiochian Patriarchate. As a former Lutheran pastor, who also has taught Roman Catholic theology, and is deeply conversant with Patristic and Orthodox theology, he is able to speak all three theological “languages” and draw out of them both their dissimilarities and — more frequently — their similarities. One senses from his insights and manner that he is a contemplative pastor, capable of guiding others proficiently. He exemplifies what Martin Thornton, the renowned Anglican spiritual writer, meant when he defined “spirituality” or piety as the application of creedal and dogmatic theology to our everyday lives. In other words, theology isn’t a series of abstract propositions to which we assent and then have done with it; rather, it’s the ongoing impartation of the incarnational reality that shapes our intellects and actions. In short, all theology should be pastoral in nature. If it fails in that, it has no value whatsoever (and I will be coming back to this very topic in a forthcoming post). Even the great councils of the Patristic Ages, despite the unfortunate disputes and acrimony that attended them at times, had as their chief aim the needed refinement and fuller understanding of the knowledge of the Triune God, in whom we place our trust, and the Lord whom we seek to love and follow more closely. Fr. Fenton shows us, through his conversation, how that can be done effectively.

In the process, he also dispels the silliness one hears too frequently in anti-Western polemics among Orthodox neophytes who have assumed, unbidden, the mantle of “defenders of the faith” — one of the numerous plagues of “religious” podcasting and video apologetics — as well as their mirror reflections among wannabe Catholic “apologists” against Orthodoxy on the other side of the divide. Fr. Fenton quietly and intelligently demonstrates that such polemicism is based on what’s more apparent than real, typically rooted in theological ignorance, and so caught up in abstractions and misinterpretations as to appear foolish to those with longer, deeper spiritual experience and practice. He doesn’t need to say any of this explicitly; he simply is an example — again — of pastoral theology (the only theology that matters, I stress once more) at its most effective.

Here is that video:

The second video is quite another kettle of fish. The subject matter ranges from discussion of the brain and consciousness to culture and civilization. Sebastian Morello (the author of the recently published and quite fascinating book, Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality) converses with Dr. Iain McGilchrist — who probably needs no introduction here — in an elegantly filmed and even leisurely video. (One may recall a previous video I posted on this page, in which Morello conducted a similar stimulating interview with Bishop Erik Varden in Trondheim, Norway.)

Here is the description of the video below, followed by the video itself:

“Sebastian Morello… travels to Scotland’s Isle of Skye to meet psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist. An unfortunate temptation for intellectual conservatism is that of only ever reacting against those forces of so-called ‘progress’ which aim to repudiate the civilisation that conservatives cherish. The imperative is not only to defend our civilisation but offer a positive case for the humane and meaning-driven future we want to build… This… episode, [filmed] over the course of several days, explores many topics among which are neuroscientific findings, spirituality, and the future of Western Civilisation.”