Last Friday Paul Edwards, a local religious talk show host and the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, had a conversation with David Crumm and me about David's article in the 21 January 2007 Detroit Free Press.I was "in studio" with Paul, whom I found to be fair-minded, pleasant, knowledgeable and more than able to articulate and defend his beliefs. I think we struck up a good relationship and I hope that I can have many more honest and open conversations with Paul.
If you would like to hear the program, click here. David and I are on the second half hour (minutes 26-63), and near the end of the time I address phone calls from listeners.
4 comments:
It'll be interesting to see what kind of fruit this bears. I hope you go back to do the full hour.
One caller asked about tollhouses; I can only assume the book he referred to was The Soul After Death by Fr. Seraphim Rose--hardly an author non-Orthodox are going to be able to make much of sense of, since most Orthodox I know can barely make sense of him.
Another caller asked about James Cutsinger; I've never heard that he's Orthodox, but I suppose that makes sense. Cutsinger is the secretary for an organization called Foundation for Traditional Studies, and he edited a wonderful book several years ago entitled Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue. It was a collection of papers delivered at something called the Rose Hill Conference, sponsored (I believe) by Touchstone Magazine and hosted at an Orthodox academic institution that sadly went out of business shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, there are wonderful essays by Bp. KALLISTOS Ware, Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, Bradley Nassif, Peter Kreeft, and so on. Well worth reading--in one paper, you actually get a Southern Baptist to admit, "There is no way to make the Bible older than the Church."
Curiously, Cutsinger's current work is on Frithjof Schuon, who was a major influence on Fr. Seraphim Rose in his pre-Christian days.
You and your impending ordination are in my prayers.
In Christ,
Richard
Richard,
Cutsinger was, and may still be, a perennialist, i.e., a follower of Frithjof Schuon, S. H. Nasr, Guenon and others who consider all 'traditional' religions equally valid, with the proviso that Islam, as the 'last' revealed religion, is perhaps the most suitable religion for humanity. It's an obscure grouping which also runs the publishing house Fons Vitae.
You can easily read his troubling views on Schuon at
http://www.religioperennis.org/PSchool.html
among other places.
Best regards,
Michaelk Borussia
Very interesting. He does identify as Orthodox, and appears to spend a lot of time trying to reconcile Schuon with the Orthodox Christian faith. Far be it from me to judge him; I'll simply note that, by contrast, Fr. Seraphim's journey went from Schuon to Orthodox Christianity, and when he became the latter, he pretty much cut himself off from the former (although he did apparently acknowledge that Schuon got him thinking in ways that made him open to Orthodox Christianity).
Thanks for link!
Richard
Sorry to post on an old entry, but the audio link doesn't work anymore.
Also, James Cutsinger is very much a perennialist; he is definitely the most articulate and sincere of them, but I think I heard that he went Melchite awhile back. God willing, maybe he returned to Orthodoxy?
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