Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition

by Rowan Williams

In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and a noted scholar of Eastern Christianity, introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations we take for granted.

Taking in the world of the great spiritual anthology, the Philokalia, and the explorations of Russian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discussing the witness of figures like Maria Skobtsova, murdered in a German concentration camp for her defence of Jewish refugees, and the challenging theologies of modern Greek thinkers like John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, Rowan Williams opens the door to a 'climate and landscape of our humanity that can indeed be warmed and transfigured'.

This is an original and illuminating vision of a Christian world still none too familiar to Western believers and even to students of theology, showing how the deep-rooted themes of Eastern Christian thought can prompt new perspectives on our contemporary crises of imagination and hope.

Genres: Religion, Theology, Christianity, Spirituality, Philosophy

256 pages, Hardcover

Published June 24, 2021

About the author

Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is an Anglican bishop, poet, and theologian. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from December 2002-2012, and is now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Chancellor of the University of South Wales.

Reviews

[Vikçéltibér · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly brilliant book by Rowan Williams. On a par with On Augustine in many ways but with elements of his other, more devotional work, such as Silence and Honey Cakes and Ponder These Things. He has an amazing ability to combine highly intellectual and academic work with a razor sharp insight into the actual truth and illusion. In this book he focusses on Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Liturgy, the Philokalia, the Desert Fathers and occasionally Buddhism. Just one of many great quotes from the book here:

‘If the gospel is more than another ideology, another theory, this is where we must begin, conscious of the fact that the Christian ‘interruption’ does not offer solutions to discrete problems, or positive experiences to offset doubt and suffering. Clément quotes a Russian Christian interviewed for a television programme during the Soviet era who, asked if Christianity made her happy, replied, ‘You’re not a Christian so that you can be happy, you’re not in the Church to be happy but to be alive.’

[Fred Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more. It is a given that books by RW are challenging and often difficult. I picked it up because it discusses Evagrios Pontikos and the Philokalia, but that becomes a sideline after the first chapter. The chapters on liturgy and on Russian theology are far and away the best part of the book. It is obvious that RW pieced together a number of chapters, lectures, etc. While there are some overarching themes, the book really lacks coherence as it wanders from topic to topic.

[Derek King · Rating 4 out of 5]

How many books has Rowan Williams read, anyway?

[Noah Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best theology books I’ve ever read. It is dense and challenging for me, being pretty new to the eastern territory and certain of the dialectics in modern theology that Williams presumes knowledge of. But it was so rich, deep, profound, or whatever other expression there is for lots of substance that is both spiritually and intellectually fruitful.

That substance covers just about all the central theological and philosophical topics: Trinity, Christology, Eucharist, anthropology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and more. This range, along with the complex ways that all these areas interlock with each other, is both the strength and the difficulty of the work.

It would take a lot of work for me to thoroughly integrate the insights from the “Philokalic tradition” as Williams presents it into my Aristotelian ways of thinking about anthropology and ethics and Protestant ways of thinking about theology. But I think it could be done, and I hope to work it out someday.

[Chrystal]

Made it through the Introduction and Prologue. Clear as mud.

[Josef · Rating 3 out of 5]

From a theological point of view this is probably a 5 if you are a scholar. I tried to read it from an enjoyment and spiritual growth point of view and found it hard going. I definitely got a couple of nuggets which I am still reflecting on.

[Denys Bakirov · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a pivotal book.
In the first chapter on Philokalia, Rowan mends the divide between the Orthodox spiritual tradition and a certain more world-oriented and political theologies of the latest decades (Eucharistic theology). This is done by reading Philokalia as teaching a way of seeing and perceiving the world in a certain manner that does justice to what is at hand.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is was a book that was just too hard for me. I don't have enough context for eastern orthodox Christianity. I got it as an audiobook because of someone's recommendation, but that was a bad format for me.

The chapter on the Holy Fool was incredible and was largely about Laurus, the novel by Eugene Vodolazkin as the main illustration. That is a novel I loved and have read four time and so I got that chapter and it really did give me new insight into a book I know pretty well.

That chapter was worth the time I put into the book. But overall, it is a book I can't recommend.

Rowan either seems to write wonderful introductory books (his Being series or his Lenten lecuture books or his Narnia book are great examples) or he writes very dense theology. I am just not the right reader for his theology books.

[Knut Kåre · Rating 3 out of 5]

En god del interessant og artig, men også en del som blir litt "jålete", dvs. at ganske tradisjonelle diskusjoner pakkes inn i en (for) avansert og høyttravende drakt. (Dette skrives med forbehold om at Williams opererer på et nivå jeg intellektuelt sett ikke er i kontakt med og at jeg derfor ikke oppfatter hva han egentlig formidler...).

Jeg likte aller best kapitlet om hellige dårer. Det var en fascinerende diskusjon om "dåren" som med sin oppførsel snur våre hellighetsforventninger på hodet og dermed lærer oss noe viktig om hellighet.

[David Willey · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. I made it to the last couple of chapters before stopping. This was between 2* and 3* - at times this was a thought-provoking read, but if Williams's project was to incisively introduce Eastern thought to the West, I was unconvinced. How he hoped Eastern thought would inform the West was never quite clear, and I wasn't convinced that he understood Catholic thought enough to justify the intervention, or even to be really clear on what the intervention was. Perhaps I just wanted a longer book, but I don't actually think that's true...

[Scott Rushing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a challenging book for Protestants. He assumes that the Western church lives in winter (an assumption I share), and that renewal could come by looking toward the theological and liturgical practices of the Russian Orthodox Church. I was already partial to that argument prior to picking up the book, and now I am further persuaded.

[Adrian Worsfold · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am reading this now, doggedly. I do have MA in Contemporary Theology and Ph.D in Sociology of Religion. So I'm not starting from ignorance.

First of all, you have to try and read some incredibly difficult sentences to take it in. In the end, I just plough through and hope.

As I get to understand it, it becomes repetitive! He seems to be saying the same thing over and over again. It is that the human person can only be fulfilled in the communicative community of the Trinity, through the logos of Christ, and anything else is limited.

But it starts to look like a fantasy, highly dependent on the trinitarian construction, whereas it is a mythology. The parallels with Buddhism are mentioned, but Buddhism is more direct and programmatic. So as this repeats, it starts to look like it stands or falls on what the Church Fathers made (rather than the Bible, for example). I sat up when (is it page 114) Williams accused Maurice Wiles of literalism over Adam and sin based on a mistake, whereas this sort of huge claim regarding Christ in the balance sheet is as equal - and Wiles was more sensitive to evolution directly and science that Williams ignores. Williams goes on instead about solidarity, but the solidarity of sinlessness relies on the myth of Christ and all that, as if he did intervene in history in a way Adam apparently did not. In other words, Williams wants it both ways and criticises those who think the Christian myth has encountered a few problems in the last few hundred years.

Buried in Orthodoxy as if (actually) modern thought doesn't exist, despite the use of recent Orttodox theologians, the question has to be asked about the fruits of any of this, from the Philokalia onwards. Do we see the effects of all these traditions? Well, we see Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox, thinking that people who kill and bomb in Ukraine can have a shortcut to salvation, and he thinks Putin is the best thing since sliced bread. Yes, there are priests and theologians opposing him, but they are very quiet. Orthodoxy may produce the odd 'saint' but it's not a fantastic record for an institution that takes the cup of power.

This is a book about a huge fantasy creation, a castle in the air. Rowan Williams has some interesting observations online and in some writings, but this is difficult and fantastical and less and less convincing the more he repeats himself. I prefer the critics, the simpler writers or those who try harder to communicate.

Many will be attracted by the title, but like those who bought 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking, they won't have a clue what he is on about.

I might try a more detailed essay/ review somewhere. In the meantime, people who disagree might argue on why I get it wrong. Don't argue from doctrine, because the world runs differently - but then I suggest it is all about having it, as I suggest, both ways as if the Trinity works and is credible.

[T.]

Review here: http://farefwd.com/index.php/2022/06/...