Benjamin, any chance you can give specific links to your articles of contrast on Eastern and Western Christianity? Would love to read them. The part about cherry picking is right on target as far as Western Christianity is concerned. I always called it 7-11 Christianity as it is convenience store shopping and is why I left the Western Church to dabble in neo-paganism, freemasonry, esoterics for about 25 years before discovering that Eastern Orthodoxy even existed. As far as we Eastern Orthodox are concerned, we are rather dogged in our dogma. The beauty of our outlook is, if we can't explain Scripture, we just chalk it up to not undertsaning the Mystery of it. Lame, eh, but at least we have an out when it is above our heads.

Not sure if you are familiar with Luther Adams or Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School but they both speak to the rising tide of Christian Fascism that we are seeing right now. Now, I must present the disclaimer that we Orthodox are guilty of many atrocities in our own right (think Serbia in the modern era). There are misguided and misdirected individuals in every society, religion and race.