Class on Journey to Reality - Chapters Seven and Eight on Participation and the Bible

Today Fr. Anthony covers Chapters Seven and Eight from Dr. Zachery Porcu's Journey to Reality,  "The Life of the Church" and "The Bible and the Church."  Enjoy the show!

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Journey to Reality
Chapters Seven and Eight
You are What You Do (Including Eat)
10/29/2025

As creatures, we were made malleable.  It was built into our design so that we could grow towards perfection eternally.  While this is a characteristic of the entire cosmos – and every member of it – it has a special purpose for us.  We are the shepherds, farmers, and priests of the cosmos.  The system is designed so that as we become better, we are able to shepherd or grow the cosmos from one made good – that is to say made both beautiful and beneficial into one that is even better; that is to say even better and more beneficial.

This malleability is built into us.  Alas, we have left our true home, so that malleability leads to malformation.

Let’s talk about the malleability.  The way Dr. Porcu puts it is that we become what we do.  Much of my own work reflects on the way our rituals form us.  These rituals are embedded within a culture, and living within that culture shapes us into members and bearers of it.

A few weeks ago, we talked about how we live in a materialist, secular, and consumerist culture.  Living in it means that we automatically participate in its rituals.  These develop within us a certain way of thinking, acting, and relating to other people, God, and our environment.  How could it not?

The unfortunate thing for us is that our primary culture is imperfect and reifies its imperfections into our way of being.  I propose that the answer is not really to actively oppose it – as in some kind of culture war – because doing so before we break out of its conditioning is just going to ingrain its patterns more deeply into our hearts. 

Rather, we must find a new way of living.

This new way of living should come with its own rituals that will gradually get enough traction to lessen the hold that the majority culture has on us and replace it with its own. 

To the extent that we must participate in the old rituals, we should reframe our participation in a way that resonates with our new life rather than our old one.  We have to give them new meaning, so that, eventually, even these old ways of doing things can work with our new rituals to deepen the hold that our new way of life has on us and on our minds and how we relate to God, other people, and the environment.

Some rituals, such as pornography, fornication (i.e., sex outside marriage), and driving slowly in the left-hand lane on the expressway, cannot be redeemed and so they have to be avoided.

It will take discernment to figure out how to best engage in this process, so this way of life should involve developing a community that is all focused on the same sort of new life.

Now let’s go through chapter seven, “The Life of the Church.”

Quotes for discussion:

“[Y]ou don’t have to do anything, but if you want to become something, you have to participate in it.” (77)

“Sacramentally, the purpose of attending church services is to participate in a higher spiritual reality.” (70)

“[N]othing is ‘just’ physical.  Objects and actions have intrinsic, spiritual meaning.  Everything is participatory… [I]f the physical and the spiritual can’t be  separated, then imitation is always participatory.  … You can’t participate in something physically without also participating in its spiritual meaning.” (72)

“[As Orthodox Christians, our] goal is to imitate, and therefore participate in, a spiritual reality through the physical ritual.  And the spiritual reality that sacramental Christians are trying to imitate through their liturgy is nothing less than heaven itself…. This is why sacramental Christians call their liturgy the “Divine Liturgy.”  To participate in it is also to participate in the exact same cosmic liturgy that the angels perform around the throne of God…. [W]hen you step into a sacramental church space that’s correctly imitating the heavenly liturgy, you are stepping into a small bit of heaven itself – you are participating with the angelic powers in a higher spiritual reality.” (73)

“Sacramental Christianity is not just about doing a particular set of actions; it’s a whole way of life.  One way to describe this life is as participation in what the Church calls “liturgical time.” (75)

“[T]o be sacramental is not merely a matter of attendance, nor is it merely about thinking a certain way or performing certain ritual actions; it is a lifestyle… [G]oing to church and participating in the sacraments is about living out the idea that the physical and the spiritual are bound up together, and that you encounter them together through participation – not just in church, but in everything you do and are.” (77)

“You can’t become healthy by sitting at home and reading a lot of articles about health.  You don’t become a member of a family by skipping family gatherings in order to sit at home looking at pictures of past family events.  If you want to be a part of something, you have to live it.” (77)

“[Y]ou don’t have to do anything, but if you want to become something, you have to participate in it. And in sacramental Christianity, the thing you’re participating in is the higher spiritual reality of the arche’ Himself.” (77) 

Chapter eight, The Bible and the Church

 “[T]he Bible is not the source of Christianity.” (77)

“The Bible is not a scientific of historical document in the particular sense that modern people mean this.  It’s important here to distinguish between truth and fact.  Facts are those things that are objectively verifiable…. But even though facts are verifiable…, they have no deeper meaning.  Truth, on the other hand, includes facts but goes beyond them to encompass the deeper meaning of reality itself.” (77)

“As modern people we tend to care only about facts [read whole section] … even over meaning.” (77)

“There are plenty of mistakes and errors in the Bible that have been thoroughly documented… The Bible is about truth, and truth is higher than fact. (78)

“From the very beginning, ancient Christians recognized three levels of biblical interpretation: the literal, the moral, and the spiritual (what they called the typological). (78).

“But how do you know which passages in the Bible have a literal meaning and which don’t, or which have both?  How do you know what the correct typological meaning is?” (81)

“To really read the Bible with the mind of the Church requires that you have a certain kind of formation – not just intellectual but spiritual.” (84)

“And just as you can’t really understand the Bible’s true depths without participation in the life of the Church, so too the whole life of the Church [resonates with] imagery from the Bible.”

“The Bible… is not merely read or memorized, but lived and experienced.  Or, to put it another way, being reconnected with the arche’ is not something you do only in your mind.  It’s a new kind of life, and it must therefore be lived. 

Questions for Discussion

What are some of the new rituals that a commitment to living the Orthodox Way gives us, and how do they help transform our thinking and way of relating to others?

In addition to pornography and fornication, what are some of the rituals that you believe work against our new way of life?

What are some of the things that we have always done that can be given new meaning and help us become better Christians?

Are you concerned that the book claims that there are errors in the Bible?