Fundamentalism or Tradition

Traditional, secular, and fundamentalist—all three categories are contested, yet in their contestation they shape our sensibilities and are mutually implicated, the one with the others. This interplay brings to the foreground more than ever the question of what it means to think and live as Tradition. The Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, in particular, have emphasized Tradition not as a dead letter but as a living presence of the Holy Spirit. But how can we discern Tradition as living discernment from fundamentalism? What does it mean to live in Tradition when surrounded by something like the “secular”? These essays interrogate these mutual implications, beginning from the understanding that whatever secular or fundamentalist may mean, they are not Tradition, which is historical, particularistic, in motion, ambiguous and pluralistic, but simultaneously not relativistic.

Contributors: R. Scott Appleby, Nikolaos Asproulis, Brandon Gallaher, Paul J. Griffiths, Vigen Guroian, Dellas Oliver Herbel, Edith M. Humphrey, Slavica Jakelić, Nadieszda Kizenko, Wendy Mayer, Brenna Moore, Graham Ward, Darlene Fozard Weaver

Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and a Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scholarly articles on Orthodox theology, as well as co-editor of ten volumes.Demacopoulos George E. :

George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University. He is also a Co-founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He serves as a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and as President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America. He is the author of five monographs and dozens of scholarly articles of the history of Christianity in the premodern period.Appleby R. Scott :

R. Scott Appleby is the Marilyn Keough Dean of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. He also serves as lead editor of the Oxford University Press series “Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding.”Asproulis Nikolaos :

Nikolaos Asproulis is deputy director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies (Volos, Greece) and Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University (Patras, Greece).Gallaher Brandon :

Brandon Gallaher is senior lecturer of systematic and comparative theology at the University of Exeter. He is also a deacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and served at the Eastern Orthodox Holy and Great Council as a Theological Subject Expert in the Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office (Crete, 2016).Griffiths Paul J. :

Paul J. Griffiths was born in England and, since 1983, has held academic positions at various US universities, including the Warren Chair of Catholic Theology at Duke University (2007–18). In 2019 he retired from academe.Guroian Vigen :

Vigen Guroian is professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia and senior fellow of both the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan, and the Center on Law and Religion at Emory University.Herbel Dellas Oliver :

Dellas Oliver Herbel is a full-time chaplain for the Air National Guard. He received his PhD in historical theology from Saint Louis University in 2009.Humphrey Edith M. :

Edith M. Humphrey is William F. Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and executive secretary of the Orthodox Theological Society of America. She is the author of eight books and numerous articles on topics as diverse as Christian Spirituality, apocalyptic writings, and C. S. Lewis and has started to write children’s novels.Kizenko Nadieszda :

Nadieszda Kizenko is professor of history and chair of the history department at the State University of New York, Albany. Her first book, A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2000), won the Heldt Prize from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies.Mayer Wendy :

Wendy Mayer is professor and associate dean for research at the Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity. She is also a research fellow in Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa.Moore Brenna :

Brenna Moore is a professor of theology at Fordham University. She is a specialist in the area of modern Christianity, with a focus on Catholic intellectual and cultural history in twentieth- century Europe. Her most recent book is Kindred Spirits: Friendship and Resistance at the Edges of Modern Catholicism (Chicago, 2021), in which she explores a community of Catholic artists and thinkers who responded creatively to the far-right surges of xenophobia and nationalism in the mid- twentieth century. She is a longtime volunteer at the Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service and serves on their board of directors.Ward Graham :

Graham Ward is Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. He is the author of How the Light Gets In: Ethical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).Fozard Weaver Darlene :

Darlene Fozard Weaver is professor of theology at Duquesne University, where she leads the Center for Catholic Faith and Culture. She is the author of The Acting Person and Christian Moral Life (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011).Aristotle Papanikolaou (Edited By)
Aristotle Papanikolaou is Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture and Professor of Theology at Fordham University.

George E. Demacopoulos (Edited By)
George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University.

Christian tradition eludes precise definitions and comprehensive formulations for the simple reason that it is a living thing, encompassing every dimension of spiritual life and aspiration. Religious fundamentalism emerges only when tradition has begun to die or has suffered assault. The secular age is a crisis for Christian communities not merely because it entails a cultural rejection of Christian tradition, but because it corrupts the tradition from within with the beguiling but deeply destructive “fundamentalist option.” The essays in this collection explore the crisis with rare depth and insight.---David Hart

A rich collection of essays examining the complex relation between tradition, secularization and fundamentalism within Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. It illuminates the varied forms of renewal and reformulation of Orthodox Christian thought in our contemporary global age."---José Casanova, Georgetown University