The extent to which we love

What needs to differentiate Orthodox from non-Orthodox in America is not the extent to which we can be “Russian” or “Greek” or “Lebanese,” nor is it the extent to which we can be be stranger and weirder than anyone else. Rather, differences should be the extent to which we have such loving parishes that our young ladies wouldn’t consider having an abortion because we are our own social support system, the extent to which we support IOCC and local charities, the extent to which we pray for people, the extent to which we love.

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Really, billboards? Really? “This blood’s for you” with a picture of a chalice? Come on. We’re not going to win that one people. Budweiser will always be more popular. Is the Gospel a less consumed competitor of Bud? Or of Coca-cola? The same holds with “trinket evangelism,” in which we print icons on anything with a surface size of at least two square inches. It’s all just about “the Great Commission”? Yes, but only if you realize that Great Commission has a liturgical context. As soon as you do that, I think you’ll pause before marketing Orthodoxy as mere commodity.

Fr. Oliver Herbel reflecting on Self-Ghettoization and Trinket Evangelism in the Orthodox Church.