Against the Ortho Bros

An ongoing phenomena that is growing in American Christianity is protestants turning to Eastern Orthodoxy as an answer to their issues with Protestantism. On the one hand I certainly am sympathetic, Protestantism can be very schismatic, provincial, and immature in its theology, ecclesiology, and worship. These are all undeniably true and they are tragic, a lot of these problems are frankly baked into the cake of Protestantism itself. That being the case, many American Protestants have begun to look wistfully to the East for something solid, something timeless, something with more authority. I am here to raise my voice and simply state that this is a blunder on their part.

It is a blunder for many reasons, in this brief writeup however it is not my intention to dig into the theological issues per se as to why Eastern Orthodoxy is problematic, if that’s what you are looking for look elsewhere, that’s not my concern here. Rather my focus is more on the cultural and behavioral expressions I have seen amongst Western men who become Eastern Orthodox, hereafter to be termed Ortho bros. Putting it that way should give the reader a hint of what I see as an obvious problem, I will proceed by addressing some of these issues.

Becoming Eastern Orthodox Necessitates a Rejection of Western Christian Culture

This is probably the most obvious cultural issue when it comes to someone becoming Orthodox, it is at its core a rejection of Western Christian culture. It is the rejection of the West that draws people into Orthodoxy, as they take on a foreign identity with little known rites, customs, language, and theology. It is foreign, it has a mystique about it, it has ancient liturgical worship, its own pantheon of saints, and visible practices, this leaves many with a thrill at the thought of, "If my Baptist parents could see me now!" but more on that in a bit.

That really gets to the motive, Baptist culture is largely shallow and lacking in rich worship and traditions, this is all true. So, the allure of Orthodoxy is in its higher liturgy, worship, and sacred mysteries. But are there no Western churches that exemplify this? Do not the Lutherans and Anglicans have robust liturgical worship? Do not the Catholics and their liturgies and worship have nearly everything the Orthodox churches have but with better art? Why does one need to go to the East for this? They don't. So why?

Again, it's almost a gnostic thrill of being an ecclesiastical bad boy thumbing his nose at all of Western Christianity, and joining the secret "inner ring" of real Christians (more on that in a bit). That's what's wrapped up in all of this and it needs to be trotted out front and center, when someone becomes an Ortho bro he is rejecting Western Christianity as a whole.

This is really close to the core of what is happening when a Western Christian turns to Eastern Orthodoxy, they are rejecting their family. What is a culture other than the familial inheritance we have been given by those who have gone before us? For better or worse those of us in the West have an ecclesiastical heritage, there are bright spots, there are warts, and there are scenes over which we look with shame and embarrassment. This is our family history, we are a part of this story. A story that involves masses, monks, popes, reformers, schism makers, heretics, cult leaders, etc. Our family legacy may not be perfect, no one but a complete fanatic would argue that it is perfect, but it is just that, our family legacy.

Our current place in the history of the Western Church is a low point and full of weakness. Do we abandon our family when it is currently desperate for faithful sons to lead her out of this present darkness? What should we think of sons that turn their backs on their family when things are going poorly?

That being the case I find the impulse to look to completely foreign ecclesial bodies, with foreign languages and customs, foreign stories, and completely foreign saints, I find such an impulse to be odd at best, ungrateful and unfaithful at worst. The analogy that comes to my mind is an American guy who grows up in the American Presbyterian church and eventually comes to the conviction that the Korean Presbyterian church is where it is at. You may have seen some, the signs are written in, well, Korean. He takes on Korean culture, starts learning Korean, starts wearing Korean outfits, begins disparaging American Presbyterian theologians as lightweights, and talks glowingly of Korean theologians. He even refers to the sacraments not by their English names but in Korean (like saying “Theotokos” for the blessed virgin), because it more closely captures the profundity of the sacraments, or something like that.

I dare say some form of this is what is going on with Western Christians who become Ortho bros. The analogy is meant to be goofy to show how goofy it is when a man rejects his own Christian culture to embrace a foreign Christian culture. They are rejecting their familial home and embracing the foreign and exotic. It is a rejection of their mother church.

This is my big criticism of Ortho Bros here, it is cultural. For a Westerner to embrace Orthodoxy he has to turn his back on his own culture and embrace another. I personally have heard Ortho Bros talk glowingly of trips to various Eastern European countries almost with the same affection a Zionist premillennial evangelical speaks of a trip to Israel. They talk of trips to places like Georgia and the feasts and deep worship that exists there and how refreshed their souls are during their visit. It’s become almost a pilgrimage, a return to the motherland. A motherland that none of the Ortho bros have any ancestral connection to. This is strange to me.

Anecdotally speaking, some friends of mine locally have a men's club where we periodically get together and toast a great Christian man from history. The thrust of this group is to be "little c" catholic and honor Christian men from all traditions and to have faithful Christian men from all traditions and denominations attend to eat together, drink together, and celebrate our common Lord together. Some Ortho bros came to this for a time, conversations would take place, mugs of beer would be hoisted, laughter would be had. Then they stopped coming. Why? I can't help but think this is because they've rejected all the faith traditions represented at the meeting, they don’t really see us as part of the same family. How can an Ortho Bro honor someone like C.S. Lewis for example? 

The reason they can't will become more obvious with the next point.

It's More than Just Another Denomination, Great Schisms and What Not

For a Protestant or Catholic (Latins as they call us) to become Orthodox they have to renounce their former Christianity before the mighty perfection of Orthodoxy, that’s not hyperbole, that’s part of the deal. Also, they often will be encouraged to be rebaptized, it depends on the priest and/or bishop’s position on the matter. They also will have you anointed with oil, they call it something else of course, Chrismation or something, I frankly don’t care what they call it because I am a Westerner and that isn’t my culture. But there it is, you have to renounce your former Christianity and likely will have to get rebaptized. This is because your original baptism didn't count. Your original baptism didn't count because it wasn't done by the Orthodox church.

You tracking dear reader? If all of the above is the case, and it is, then what does that say about Protestant churches? They aren't really churches. What does that say about their members? They aren't really Christians. You see why they would have a hard time hoisting a glass to toast C.S. Lewis as a great Christian?

Talk about schismatic. For Ortho bros fleeing the schismatic nature of Protestantism they've leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire. I recall a friend who was going Orthodox telling me how it would be a year before he was allowed to take communion, despite having been a baptized communicant church member for decades. This is because for the Eastern Orthodox your church isn't a church and your sacraments are just fictions, most of them don’t seem to have the testicular fortitude to just flatly state it like that, but this is the logical conclusion of their position.

This warm hospitality isn't reserved just for Protestant converts though, it in many cases extends beyond Protestants and Catholics to other Orthodox denominations themselves. They don't even like each other is my point, there is a great deal of infighting amongst the various wings of Orthodoxy. They exert a great deal of energy fighting over who is the true church and whose sacraments are actually efficacious.

My point here is that in seeking to escape from the schismatic nature of Protestantism, the Ortho Bros turn East naively unaware of the schisms within the East itself and embracing the division of the East exerted toward the West.

I'm Orthodox! Look at Me! So Edgy, So Different!

This final point will focus simply on the behavior I have noted amongst Ortho bros, nearly universally the behavior I have noted is thick palpable pretentiousness. Likely this is largely a phenomena unique to Western men who have rejected their Protestantism and turned to the East, but there it is, gobs of pretentiousness. If you've been around the block a bit with these guys you'll know it's almost like talking to a vegan or someone who does Crossfit, you know very quickly that they are Orthodox through some pretentious overture made as they signal their Easternness to all around them.

What am I talking about? Well, it can be as simple as randomly crossing themselves backward during a simple prayer at a corporate prayer event, it can be a gigantic wooden cross being worn on the outside of a shirt, or it can reach the heights of a guy showing up to a school children's play decked out in Ortho robes with a giant wooden cross on his chest like he is ready to hoist up an icon for the crowd to venerate. Personally, I can attest that these sorts of things occurred not a few times at my children's Classical Conversations group where one of the dads from a co-op family would regularly make school events an opportunity for him to show up dressed all weird and trying to signal "I'm Orthodox! Look at me! Behold and tremble you low church Baptists! You have no idea the deep magic I wield!"

Meanwhile, every level headed onlooker was likely only thinking how he must not have gotten enough attention as a child.

Every time this guy showed up to events the pretentiousness was palpable to the point of nausea. He of course was a former Baptist and was training for the priesthood or something, the ridiculous behavior reached its zenith when he showed up to the kids' presentation day all decked out in black robes and wearing a giant wooden cross. Why couldn't he take a couple of minutes to change before showing up? Oh, that's right because then he couldn't rub his Orthodoxy in the face of the normie Protestants at the event. I couldn't help but think of how obnoxious that was for his kids, "There's dad again, making everything about him." Kind of like a loud parent at their kids' sports game constantly trying to annoy and pick fights with other parents all under the pretense of “cheering for my kid”.

If this guy was a one-off I would happily write it off as a random moron, but this sort of pretentious attention seeking behavior has been repeatedly observed by myself in my interactions with Ortho bros over the years. Again, it’s often like someone who loves to talk about their fad diet, they think it makes them intriguing, but to those on the outside looking in, the behavior simply makes them tiresome.

There are blog posts and reddit posts with titles like “Protestant Mother Found My Icons”, yeah because you wanted them to be found, you think it’s edgy to blow raspberries at the Christianity of your parents, grow up.

Also, it's not exactly honoring to the saints if you're using their icons as pawns in your petty attempt to trigger your normie parents or co-workers. But hey, what do I know, I am just a dumb Protestant who doesn't understand the deeper magic from before the dawn of time.

Conclusion

I’ve kind of dumped on the Ortho bros here, to be clear I don’t have any deep seated beef with the Orthodox church, they are Trinitarian Christians who can cheerfully confess the Apostles Creed and as such I consider them brothers in Christ. Unfortunately, in most cases I doubt the sentiment goes both ways, and that's a problem. Eastern Orthodoxy is a great and faithful expression of Christianity, for men in the East, if you are in Georgia, Russia, Belarus, Estonia, etc by all means embrace your church, stand up for her. However, for Western men to go to Orthodoxy strikes me as a form of unfaithfulness to one’s own history and culture. As such, particularly for Western converts, Orthodoxy is often accompanied by an avalanche of pretentious attention seeking overtures, the “Let me freak out my normie mother with my icons” or “I’m going to wear a giant wooden cross to my brother’s Baptist retreat and cross myself backwards all the time during prayer times.” That sort nonsense.

Really at the core of my gripe here is that the Eastern church is just that, it’s Eastern, it’s not our story as Western men, it’s part of the great story, it’s a part of advancing God’s kingdom, it’s just not the West’s story.