Attacking Straw Men with Half-Truths

Someone just sent me a good example of an orthodox proponent of syncretistic ecumenism following the new ecclesiology of Vatican II: https://publicorthodoxy.org/…/on-ecumenoclasm-who-can-be-s…/

(The ecclesiology of Vatican II is a subject I have studied at length: https://uncutmountainpress.com/…/the-ecclesiological-renov…/).

This article and the new ecclesiology of Vatican II is filled with half-truths and misleading phrases. I wrestled for years and years with the new ecclesiology, its history and development and the book above is the result of this painful struggle. The half-truths of the article which are also found in the thinking of those theologians behind the new ecclesiology (regarding Augustine's ecclesiology, the meaning of "fullness", the action of divine energies of the Holy Spirit within and outside the Church, the rationalistic numbers game re: salvation, the straw man soteriology supposedly presented by the Orthodox, Florovsky's views and the way he is used by ecumenists, etc. etc.) are addressed, analyzed and dissected in my book.

It is too bad that a serious encounter of the Patristic tradition with the views presented in this article almost never happens. The author and the site hosting his views apparently are more interested in presenting a straw man and avoiding real "ecumenical encounters" with the Orthodox - even as they run maniacally into the embrace of non-Orthodox ecumenists.

by Paul Ladouceur

publicorthodoxy.org