If the Church is truly the ‘newness of life’ - the world and nature as restored in Christ - it is not, or rather, ought not to be, a purely religious institution, in which to be ‘pious,’ to be a member in ‘good standing,’ means leaving one’s own personality at the entrance - in the ‘check room’ - and replacing it with a worn-out, impersonal, neutral ‘good Christian’ type personality. Piety in fact may be a very dangerous thing, a real opposition to the Holy Spirit who is Giver of Life - of joy, movement and creativity - and not of the ‘good conscience’ which looks at everything with suspicion, fear, and moral indignation.
Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (1965).
Read this tonight for class. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Notes
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