ROD DREHER: The Orthodox Trojan Horse.

Conservatives within Orthodoxy can point to the freefall of the Catholics after Vatican II as a warning against naive optimism in allowing for modernization in a world where (to quote Marx) everything that is solid melts into air. They may also look to the Episcopalians, where the jettisoning of tradition and the refashioning of their faith according to the values of secular modernity has coincided with the church’s steady collapse.

But Orthodoxy does not exist in a vacuum. It is a church made of up human beings who live in time, and it should not expect to avoid the controversies shaping the broader culture. In the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), there is awareness of a liberal vs. conservative culture clash between the old-line Orthodox in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, where Orthodoxy is historically and numerically stronger, but in decline; and the convert-heavy Orthodoxy in the South and West, which is the only place the OCA is growing. The key issue, as it always is: homosexuality. . . .

The truth that Orthodox Christianity offered a respite from the culture wars ripping apart other American churches is fast becoming non-viable.

If it becomes non-viable, then it was never a truth. On the contrary, it instead is discovered to have been a falsehood all along. Orthodox Christianity seemed to side-step the culture war not because of any peculiar quality it possessed, but because it wasn’t deemed to be important enough to undermine.