Creating straw men to knock them down is not a valid form of argument.

As I said - it’s not that Praxis is showing where the “Tradition is incompletely observed.” Rather they are showing how it is observed now in some places: I’d venture most American places, anyway.

I think the straw men break apart in yer point 2, by the way: you can’t prove that the Authorities now are the Authorities then - beyond a faith claim. That is a faith one may or may not share, but one can not in any way prove that sharing that faith is needed in order to be Christian.

1. Larry is right in commenting that the Praxis folks have pointed out the places where the Tradition is incompletely observed. Isaiah pointed out that the fast that the Lord desires includes justice and the poor and not only abstinance.

2. Oddly enough, this goes back to one of your favorite subjects, authority. Essentially the Praxis folks are making a good Anabaptist argument. One, why should anyone’s interpretation have any authority over me? Two, even if you could show that Jesus appointed authorities, you cannot prove that the current authorities have anything to do with the previous authorities. Three, even if you could show that the current authorities are true partakers of the previous authorities, their interpretation could be so wrong that I must follow my conscience, i.e., return to point one.

3. In a sense this is the classic circular Anabaptist argument. However, point four, should anyone point out to you the circularity of your argument, insist that theirs is circular also and therefore (regardless of historical evidences) invalid. If presented with any historical evidences, drop phrases such as, “the victors write history,” in order to invalidate history itself. Having done that, why, one is free to devise whatever one wants since there is no bothersome past to challenge one.

You write:

I decided that either God is God, and there is something to the Tradition I decided that either God is God, and there is something to the Tradition…

I don’t see the connection you are making between “the Tradition” and “God”. God is not the Tradition. I say that or two reasons:

1) on my own I no longer sense that connection: tradition is dead and God is Alive. We use our traditions to keep God in a box.

2) reading it as your writing and knowing you are Not Orthodox, how are you defining tradition?

Oddly enough, I think these guys have looked at the Tradition… I’d go so far to say they’ve examined the Tradition as it was passed on to them - meaning not in books, but as in living communities (the Churches of their youth). Before I becamse Orthodox I read all the books - but that’s nothing compared to how it is practiced. We don’t live up to our propaganda and, point of fact, it’s not the abstract “what should be” that counts but rather the “Is” that one sees on the net and in the practice of one’s parish and fellow parishioners. The books are nice: but that’s not the way it’s always played out.

I’m not familiar with Fauerbach… but then again after 20+years as a Protestant adn 5 years as Orthodox and 10+ years as a Non-CHristian: I couldn’t tell you the difference between the objects of worship. All the parties seemed to be worshipping a deity rather than themselves. The question about valid deity seems more important to me than “Valid Worship.”