Mission and Identity - a Conflict? Really?

I came across this in Ad Orientem, but John over there got it from Eirenikon, and the original is from the blog of a Traditional Anglican priest, whose group is seeking communion with Rome.

The Christian world has been torn between relevance to the world and its specific identity…

This is a problem that is intrinsic to Christianity. If a religion is to expand and assume a missionary vision, then it must be prepared to compromise its identity and inculturate. Western Catholicism is a missionary religion and addresses itself to the world. Eastern Orthodoxy, like Judaism, is a vast “monastery” and keeps its identity by keeping the infidel out and at arm’s length. The latter vision is coherent if it considers, like Jansenism and Calvinism, that the majority of humanity is nothing more than “hell fodder”.
…

The Orthodox, like the Roman Catholic traditionalists (especially the sedevacantists) have come to this [a negative stance toward ecumenism] out of an instinct for survival. We traditional Anglicans also to an extent, because we can only survive by our difference from secular humanism. When you look at the historical pattern, we can begin to understand. All this is to say that I understand those Greeks who have had enough of relativism and liberalism. But, where is the love and charity or the will to share the Gospel with the world as Jesus asked of his Apostles?

???

This alleged conflict must belong to someone else. For Orthodox Christians, there simply is no conflict between maintaining the Church’s identity (Christ) and missionary endeavor (Christ’s work).

For us, the word “catholic" asserts that Christ and His worship and, yes, His way of life are relevant to and appropriate for all men in all places and in all times, “For All Sorts and Conditions of Men”. Christ should form and inform a culture; He is not to be formed by it.

Nor do we keep the infidel out; plenty of us are unfaithful daily and hourly, and not a few, constantly, willfully, and egregiously. We have the wheat and the tares all flourishing among us. The Church is right where an infidel belongs; it is a hospital to treat our infidelity. I wouldn't presume to know for sure, but many Church buildings might perhaps be empty if purged of all infidels.

What we do keep out is false doctrine. We are not syncretists. Syncretism is not love; keeping pure the saving doctrine is.

Where’s the love? The missionary work has been slack for a while, unfortunately, for numerous serious reasons, including severe persecutions (Communism), but not from lack of love. Come see; among the Orthodox you will find love such as you never found before, nor ever can find anywhere else.