@ William G.:

William, I did not say “as a whole.” Those were your words. Based on the record of the New Testament and throughout history that it is likely that at least a large majority of Jews have not believed that Jesus is the promised Messiah. I think that is also true of the vast majority of people throughout history. I don’t think it is specific to a particular group.

I believe that many, many Jews throughout the Roman empire believed. However, I don’t know of any church history book or any Jewish history book that maintains that the Jewish people “as a whole” have believed in Jesus as their promised Messiah.

Perhaps our misunderstanding lies in the meaning of “as a whole.” I read that as a claim that the vast majority, effectively the body as a whole, accepted (or did not reject) Jesus as Messiah. But I think I have possibly misread and misinterpreted what you intended by what your wrote. Perhaps what you were saying is that “not all” did not accept him, but that very many did. If I have misread you, then I certainly apologize.

The irony of this is that what I intended to convey is the opposite of what was actually received, and I understand that now that I have thought about how what I wrote could be misunderstood. I’m thinking maybe I heard something distinctly different than what you intended. If that is so, I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding.

numo wrote:

I hear you, though how could the vast majority of the Jewish population have even heard of Jesus back when Paul wrote Romans?

I honestly don’t know. I think there must have been some premise for Paul’s extended argument in Romans about God’s relationship to the Jews. Why did he have to so forcefully say that God had *not* rejected the Jews? Were some people in the church at Rome starting to believe or teach that God had replaced the Jews in his plan?

Is that what Paul meant by Gentile boasting perhaps? Were the people in the church at Rome misunderstanding Paul’s point to the Galatians and unintentionally going to the opposite extreme to avoid that error? I don’t know, and I’ve heard many conflicting interpretations of this. What I believe and what I know are two different things!

@ William G.:

Thank you for your patient reply. If I understand you correctly, the Almighty is far more concerned with what a person does with Jesus rather than what he or she says they believe about Jesus.

In 1812 one of the Founders of our great Nation, John Adams–lapsed Calvinist and a none, had this to say:

“I am weary of contemplating nations from the lowest and
most beastly degradations of human Life, to the highest
Refinements of Civilization: I am weary of Philosophers,
Theologians, Politicians, and Historians. They are immense
Masses of Absurdities, Vices and Lies. Montesquieu had
sense enough to say in Jest, that all our Knowledge might be
comprehended in twelve Pages in Duodecimo: and, I believe
him, in earnest. I could express my Faith in shorter terms.
He who loves the Workman and his Work, and who does what he
can to improve it, shall be accepted of him.”

I in turn believe Adams in earnest. I believe that our deeds define us and that what we do in the here and now has ripples throughout eternity.

@ mirele:
No worries. I was afraid things might turn bad, which is why i said it.

Gram3 wrote:

Unfortunately, if theologians accept prior traditions uncritically, then those traditions become the basis for yet more traditions. And so on and so on.

I agree that tradition in theology tends to be like entropy in thermodynamics: it always increases. Perhaps the biggest weakness of the appeal to the authority of tradition (with or without a capital “T”) is that it’s very difficult to repeal tradition, and very easy to believe in the sacredness* and infallibility of long-dead generations whose own squabbles and foibles we weren’t around to see.

Consider, for instance, the Reformers’ cry of sola scriptura!!! which quickly morphed into Calvins_Institutes (and other, less famous output), so scriptura didn’t stay sola for very long. Now, of course, we have books about The_Institutes and opinions on the merits of various people’s scholarship on Calvin. And sometimes, the people who are into all this stuff still trumpet sola scriptura, oblivious to the fact that it’s become a cardboard-cutout doctrine that they subscribe to, but have no confidence in.

* That would normally be “sanctity” but I needed something a little more… pictorial.

__

“God Has a Rescue Plan…”

God built a nation from one man,
His kids (Abraham’s) time and time again forgot Him (God),
Yet He would continue to smile upon them and send them kind folks ta help lead them,
Well they killed the messengers, 
Spurned their message, Turned and served other gods,
This did not set well, 
So they were set to bondage,
Then God sent another messenger, His Son, Jesus,
They rejected His Son as well, 
and His message and killed Him too,
Then God scattered them over the face of the earth,
Yet, His Risen Son raised up a man to take His rejected message to the gentile nations,
For the past two thousand years, this has been His fruitful plan, 
One day in the future the offer to the gentile nations will expire, and the door will begin to close,
Please accept His generous offer while there is still time.

OK?

You will be glad you did.

(see your bible for details)

A
T
B

Sopy

🙂

—

Nancy wrote:

My brain is stiff.

On a more serious note. SCIENCE 31 Oct 2014 has a special issue on “The aging brain”: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6209.toc#SpecialIssue Full articles are paywalled but summaries and abstracts can be viewed. These articles are better read by a MD than a physicist no matter how ancient your brain is.

oldJohnJ wrote:

On a more serious note. SCIENCE 31 Oct 2014 has a special issue on “The aging brain”:

I just want to know what to do when system resources are increasingly hogged by background processes causing frequent freezes and instability.

There is an incredible Jewish Temple in my city. I was there a few weeks ago because my daughter performed there with a choir. I was amazed at all the educational courses they offer both in scripture interpretation and Jewish history. If I were a woman of leisure, I would be attending some of the classes they have during the week. They have a woman Rabbi who is also a composer. It was a very interesting place with some beautiful art and artifacts.

I am one of those believers who thinks we should be more educated on our Jewish roots. I am often accused of being a modalist but I am one who thinks Christians can recite the Shema. The Shema does use “Elohim” which can be a plural form of God and ends with the word “ehad”, which is translated into “one”.

What is interesting is “ehad” is used to describe Adam and Eve and their “one flesh” union. They are separate but “one”.

I don’t know but kind of interesting. I have asked some of my Jewish friends about the instances of the use of “Lord of Host Armies” and “Spirit of the Lord”, etc in the OT. So it is not like they are not familiar with different manifestations of the One True God. He still IS the One True God. I feel like Christians don’t really understand that. Especially those promoting ESS.

@ Lydia:

You all know I have been reading Ehrman including the book “Lost Christianities / The Battles for Scriptures and the Faiths We Never Knew” in which he describes some illustrations of early competing groups (plural) of believers including the Ebionites who were Jewish Torah observing believers. His descriptions sound similar to some of the messianic Jews of today in some aspects. This was only one end of the spectrum on the issue, and some of their beliefs about the person of Christ were more than just that, but none the less they were an early competing group. He also describes what he calls the proto-Orthodox who out competed the other groups for converts and with whom Constantine aligned himself, at least politically and perhaps as an actual believer, if I understand correctly.

It is all very interesting, but I am saying this to say that if the proto-orthodox were not seeing many converts to their belief system, some of the Jewish converts were over with the Ebionites. This is an over-simplification certainly, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

What happened to early Torah observing Jewish believers? Apparently some kept Torah and dumped Jesus and some gave up Torah and aligned with the proto-Orthodox. How many? I don’t know.

I am saying that the whole picture of back then is enormously more complex than they told me in sunday school, and far more likely to be true because that does tend to be how people do.

BTW, if you all can get past the fact that Ehrman has gone from fundamentalist to atheist his stuff is well worth reading.

@ Nancy:

Clarification. I have bumbled again. About the comment about getting past ….It was somebody on here, but it was not Lydia, who basically advised me at one point to not read Ehrman. I am assuming there are others who may have heard similar advice and may have passed up an opportunity for something they might find helpful. None of this has anything specifically to do with Lydia.

@ Nancy:

Don’t read Ehrman? Are we not adults?

That was the warning about NT Wright from some of the celebrity Calvinists years back…. which was like an endorsement to me. :o)

@ numo:

I read that years ago and at the time I was very impressed. Perhaps it is packed up in some box downstairs. I will have to see. Incidentally, it was a Jewish co-worker who recommended it.

@ Nancy:
The author’s name is James Carroll – here is a link to the book on Amazon.com.

numo wrote:

I think that where Constantine is concerned, “perhaps” is the operative word. Myself, I do not believe he converted, or if he did, he quite possibly understood Christ to = Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), whom he had previously been devoted to.

I agree with this, although as you said it is my opinion. I also read that he may have been a worshiper of Mithras. The Constantine myth (meaning story that explains) just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I do think that he observed the facts on the ground and decided to make good use of those facts. It was evident that Christianity was not going to be exterminated, but if he recognized it he could use it as a unifying force in his empire. Maybe he was influenced by Helena. I don’t know…

@ Gram3:
also, I suspect that there *is* good historical material available – but that it has never been translated into English. There are huge gaps in. re. church history in the ME, in English, anyway.

@ numo:
being initiated into Mithraism didn’t seem to preclude the worship of other deities, so…

@ Gram3:
But I think it’s important to examine beliefs about specific deities, not just lump them all together and call it “paganism.” That does no justice to the people who believed, nor does it explain what they believed and why.

I guess my background in art/architectural history is showing, since much art and architecture, from ancient times onward, is religious, and gives many clues as to what people believed and why.

@ numo:

I’m open to suggestions for another shorthand expression to describe religions not based on the Abrahamic faiths. You see nuances that I can’t see, though surely they are there. Sometimes I can see commonalities and sometimes I can only see differences. It opens me to mockery from my grown kids. 😉

numo wrote:

@ Nancy:
I think that where Constantine is concerned, “perhaps” is the operative word. Myself, I do not believe he converted, or if he did, he quite possibly understood Christ to = Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), whom he had previously been devoted to.
The book Constantine’s Sword (about the origins of xtian persecution of Jewish people) is goo on this regard, though by no means all-encompassing. I am blanking on the author’s name, but he is Catholic (a former priest) and *very* critical of anti-semitism throughout church history.

Constantine was baptized at the end of his life by an Arian priest, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and this in turn caused one of his sons to severely persecute the Trinitarian party and send Athanasius into exile. However the sainthood of Constantine I was never questioned; all Christian churches that venerate saints (including the Anglicans) have him on their liturgical calendar, and for good reason; while it is true that the relationship between the late Roman Empire and the church was often parasitic, and not the synergistic affair that some Greek nationalists such as Romanides describe (after Constantine, a huge number of saints were persecuted by his successors, including Athanasius, John Chrysostom, whose feast day this is, Sergius and Bacchus, and Maximus the Confessor, who had his tongue sliced off for refusing to agree with the heresy of monothelitism, leading to his death), it is also true that Constantine stopped the systematic slaughter of Christians under Diocletian. His role at the Council of Nicea was primarily that of an arbiter; Arius stated his case, and Alexander of Alexandria stated his; jolly St. Nick then decked Arius and was arrested but then pardoned by Constantine, and all of the bishops except for Eusebius of Caesarea decided Arius was wrong. It is for this reason that Eusebius of Caesarea, not to be confused with Eusebius of Nicomedia, was never declared a saint.

Though he was baptized by Arians, the main contribution Constantine made to Christianity was to stop the Diocletian persecution and convene the council of Nicea, which declared that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. It was not until Theodosius that the Roman Empire began cracking down on non-Christian religions, and Theodosius’s execution of the heretic Priscillian was vehemently opposed by St. Ambrose of Milan.

So, setting aside the inevitable consequences of Christianity becoming the religion of the Emperors (although most of Constantine’s immediate successors were Arian heretics, and Julian the Apostate was a neo-platonic pagan), the question as to whether or not Constantine did well boils,down to two,questions:

Do,you agree that Christ is God incarnate and not a glorified man or created subordinate deity, and do you agree that the Diocletian persecution was a great evil, on a par with the Holocaust, which needed to be stopped? I am entirely comfortable answering yes to both questions, and on that basis, affirming the sanctity of Emperor Constantine the Great as a Christian hero.

Lydia wrote:

@ Nancy:
Don’t read Ehrman? Are we not adults?
That was the warning about NT Wright from some of the celebrity Calvinists years back…. which was like an endorsement to me. :o)

I don’t read Ehrman because life is short, and he is boring. I do read Elaine Pagels however, even though I don’t agree with a word of what she has to say, because at least there is a sort of imaginative richness in her writing, although her conspiratorial allegations against the martyr Ignatius were as offensive as they were silly. But Pagels at least is a Gnostic or quasi-Gnostic, whereas Ehrman is simply irreligious, like Richard Dawkins but less interesting. With Dawkins at least you get interesting philosophical ideas like memetics, and there is a sense that he is consciously trying to be an “Atheist theologian”, whereas Ehrman basically just makes his money attempting to undermine various Christian doctrines.

Among Progressive Christians, I think the most interesting is Bishop Stephen Hoeller of the Ecclesia Gnostica. He runs a superb online library about Gnosticism and early a Christianity, has strong liturgical sensibilities, and is an affable chap. What is more, unlike many progressive Christians, he does not hide his beliefs, but openly proclaims a Gnostic gospel synthesized from various ancient schools of that religion and for the works of Jung, of whom he is somewhat of a devotee. Yet I’ve never seen him engage in any kind of tirade or even a restrained polemic against the Orthodox faith. Thus, whereas I have written polemics about people who have attacked Christianity, I don’t think I could write one against him; on the contrary, I have referred people who are unable to accept fundamental Orthodox dogma to his group. Even though he is technically a heretic, and I’m loathe to call him that, but if one wants to go strictly by the ancient canons and the dogmatic definitions of the councils, that’s what he is, he has not harmed the Christian faith in the manner of people like Mark Driscoll who espouse a theology that is far closer to orthodox Christianity, and who have then proceeded to behave in a manner contrary to the orthodox gospel message.

Much of the ire that Ss. Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Epiphanius has regarding some of the Gnostic sects was prompted by the moral abuses they perceived as prevalent therein. So for example, Irenaeus devotes several pages to attacking a Gnostic leader who was a contemporary of his for defrauding older women. Epiphanius fires a full broadside against the Borborites on the basis of their sexual promiscuity and infanticide, whereas in dealing with the Adamites, who merely worshipped in the nude, he is much gentler. The Donatists and Novatians were regarded as heretical by the fourth century church because they were, if anything, too fundamentalist; they refused to readmit Christians who had lapsed in the Diocletian persecution.

@ William G.:
I think there is more than one flavor of “progressive”; also that it troubles me that you equate what Diocletian did with the Holocaust. As in many things, we will have to agree to disagree.

@ numo:
To clarify, the women were misled into surgery, and did not know what had been done to them until later.

numo wrote:

@ numo:
To clarify, the women were misled into surgery, and did not know what had been done to them until later.

This is actually the normal procedure for forced sterilization. Similar atrocities were even committed in the United States. Naturally the concept of forced sterilization is abhorrent to Christianity; recall that the early church denied the priesthood to men who had castrated themselves on the grounds that they were self-murderers, but not to those who had been castrated against their will. From this canon, canon I of Nicea, we can surmise a Patristic basis for regarding those who practice forced sterilization as being canonically guilty of murder; in the ancient church the penalty for this would have been to be excluded from the Eucharist until one was dying, at which time one could partake of Holy Communion. However, this penalty applied only to the baptized; those who murdered before their baptism like St Moses the Strong were given a clean slate.

@ William G.:
You do realize that there was a progressing development re. ideas about an evil adversary and demons among post-exilic Jews, i am sure. Certainly there wrre all kinds of ideas abroad in Jesus’ day, which were then elaborated on by xtians. Jeffrey Burton Russell’s books on this are very good.

Personally, i don’t think the reptile in the 2nd creation story was Satan. I reccomend this week’s series of post over at Internet Monk to you. Chaplain Mike has outdone himself, and while i suspect you’ll disagree with some of what he says, other aspects will be very familiar to you.

@ William G.:
@ numo:

This is so amazing. Very few people know about the Karaites, and it is so cool to see you interacting about them here. I have found them fascinating for a long time because they reject the traditions and stick closer to the Hebrew scriptures. Unlike the Rabbis, they do not use astronomical calculations for the festivals, just as God said to do.

Victorious wrote:

THC wrote:
I go by Tradition and the Bible
The problem comes in when tradition contradicts scripture. I don’t want to get into the traditions of the RCC that contradict scripture as they’ve been hashed over already (I think), but one just can’t make up rules, laws, and traditions and teach them as though they were ordained of God. That’s the very thing many on this blog try to expose in a number of Protestant churches today.

By the way, bearing in mind that this is an old comment, I just want to address this from an Eastern and Oriental Orthodox perspective. We view the Bible as the most important part of tradition, but have never been willing to play the two against each other. This is because the traditions we regard as dogmatic, like the Holy Trinity, apostolic succession, and the canon of New Testament books, can all be sourced in the corpus of Patristic writings, and we believe the Fathers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit compiled and edited the Mew Testament. Sola scriptura does not meet its own criteria; the oft cited verse in Timothy for example clearly refers to the Old Testament, because at the time it was written, most of what was later termed the New Testament did not exist.

Now from my own analysis of the New Testament, there are only two examples I can think of where a conflict appears to exist between Orthodox doctrine and a literal reading. One would be the “call no man Father” bit, but the popular view is that this was not intended to be taken literally, because if it were, we could not say dad, teacher or doctor without transgressing the literal meaning of that passage. However it is worth noting that Orthodox priests are often simply called “Priest”, and Bishops are called “Master.” Priest for its part is derived from Presbyter; the Roman church later began referring to the Pope as a Pontiff, implying a sacerdotal function, but very seldom in Orthodox writing do you find Priests referred to in a sacerdotal context.

The role of the presbyter is pastoral and iconographic more than it is sacrificial; whereas the Roman church sees its priests repeating the sacrifice of our Lord at each mass, the Orthodox interpretation seems to imply that the priests access the original event across time, and thus do not actually sacrifice Jesus, as it were. It is instructive to compare the changes made to the Tridentine liturgy when it was adopted for use by the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate; the reference a Roman prist makes to offering “a pure, spotless victim” is watered down to “these pure and unblemished gifts.” I would venture to say that the Orthodox Eucharistic theology occupies a via media between the Roman view of the mass as a sacrifice, and the Lutheran view of the mass as a gift; in the Divine Liturgy the priest exclaims “Thine own of thine own, we offer unto thee, on behalf of all and for all,” which seems to suggest that the congregation sacrifices praise, time, bread and wine, and our Lord sacrifices himself, and the redemptive action occurs in the synergistic exchange of these gifts.

The other possible conflict between a literal reading of the NT and Orthodox tradition involves the role of women. Paul expresses a view that women should keep silent in the church, but historically the Orthodox have had female choirs, and at one time women were found in all the orders up to the diaconate. I interpret Paul as referring to a specific disciplinary problem in a specific church; St. John Chrysostom when he was patriarch of Antioch apparently had a major problem with his spiritual sons and daughters flirting with each other, and threatened to erect a wall to separate them. Some smaller Jewish synagogues that lack galleries wound up doing this.

Among some sola scriptura Protestants also there seem to be places where tradition prevails against scripture. Some Protestants are entirely against fasting, celibacy,and asceticism, including the editors of my King James Study Bible, in spite of the examples of Jesus, John the Baptist and Paul. Also most Protestants seem unwilling to take our Lord literally when he says “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” To his credit, Martin Luther valiantly defended this ancient doctrine; lamentably Cranmer repudiated it, but only after having burned someone at the stake for disagreeing with it. He himself died in the same manner. Cranmer was a fine liturgist, but I have no respect for him as a human being; like St. Ambrose, I believe its wrong to kill people because they disagree with you on religious matters. In fact, I believe that was one of the most important, and sadly, one of the most frequently ignored, lessons that our Lord sought to teach us through His crucifixion.

@ William G.:

I think that God can use even unbelievers and/or heretics to accomplish his purposes. Saying that the end of the persecutions, for example, contributes to thinking that the one who ended them ( C) is therefore a believer, much less a saint, may not be quite accurate. There is always politics to consider when talking about emperors and such. To say that the theological conclusions of Nicea can show that Constantine was a saint also is not the only conclusion. Those ideological battles had been raging for a long time, and it was to the advantage of public stability to resolve the issues–again C had political and governing issues to consider. I am going to stick with “perhaps” about C.

And you do know that hoards of us are not convinced about sanctity just because some religious group proclaims it. I know that is important to you, but not to me.

That said, you have a large amount of information and I carefully read your comments.

Nancy wrote:

@ William G.:

I think that God can use even unbelievers and/or heretics to accomplish his purposes. Saying that the end of the persecutions, for example, contributes to thinking that the one who ended them ( C) is therefore a believer, much less a saint, may not be quite accurate. There is always politics to consider when talking about emperors and such. To say that the theological conclusions of Nicea can show that Constantine was a saint also is not the only conclusion. Those ideological battles had been raging for a long time, and it was to the advantage of public stability to resolve the issues–again C had political and governing issues to consider. I am going to stick with “perhaps” about C.

And you do know that hoards of us are not convinced about sanctity just because some religious group proclaims it. I know that is important to you, but not to me.

That said, you have a large amount of information and I carefully read your comments.

I certainly agree that God does work through heretics and persons of other faiths, in a variety of ways. Now consider the Assyrians were generally regarded as heretics; I don’t consider them as such, because they did not actually believe in the dichotomy between the human Jesus and the divine Christ that was condemned at Ephesus, but they were considered heretics because they venerated Nestorius for political reasons; the Assyrians managed to spread the Gospel into China, Tibet and Mongolia. The St. Thomas Christians, or Nasranis, of India, were at one time part of their jurisdiction.

God can also surely work through those who we actually would say are heretics. The Orthodox faith of the early church emerged largely in response to different heresies. For example, the Arian heresy pushed the fathers into defining in explicit language the nature of the Holy Trinity; the pneumato-Machi forced the definition of the Holy Spirit as God and a person of the Holy Trinity in the same sense as the Father and the Son. Nestorius forced us to say that the humanity and divinity in Christ were not separate persons; Eutyches forced us to say that the humanity and divinity in Christ were not confused. Pope Honorius I, who was one of only a handful of Roman popes to be successfully deposed for heresy, forced us to say that Christ has both a human and a divine will. The iconoclasts forced us to say that because God became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and also became visible in the person of the Holy Spirit as a dove and as tongues of fire, depictions of these persons of the Holy Trinity are desirable as affirmations of the goodness of the incarnation. Thus to a large extent, it was the allergic reactions that heresy caused among the faithful that led to the definition of the Orthodox faith as we understand it.

However, heretics also did help to spread the Gospel, even in a distorted sense. The Visigoths and Vandals were first converted to Christ by Arians, and were later persuaded of the proper divinity of Christ by the Roman church before the Great Schism. Mark Driscoll doubtless converted some people to Christianity before his implosion, and some of these people will doubtless remain Christians and progress to healthier denominations. Chuck Smith certainly led many hippies to Christ who could not have connected with our Lord in a more traditional context. I am of the opinion that many of the degenerated abusive churches we discuss on Wartburg Watch are the ripest mission fields; in them are scores of people who have been persuaded to believe in Christ, but who are increasingly aware that their leaders are not acting in accordance with Christian values. Thus, the virtuous Christian denominations can move in in a veritable second wave and perfect the nascent Christianity of these people, and indeed we must do this swiftly, before the cognitive dissonance created by the un-Christian conduct of their pastors alienates them from the faith altogether.

Now regarding Constantine, there is a definite possibility that his actions were conducted for cynical political reasons; I myself regard him as a saint on the basis of “By your fruits ye shall know them,” and I see that Constantine bore good fruit. Anyone who stops a genocide, which is what the Diocletian persecution was, should be regarded as a servant of God, at least in some manner. Thus at a minimum I think we can look at Constantine the same way we look at Eisenhower, Montgomery, Churchill and the other allied leaders of WWII, with the exception of Stalin, who was himself genocidal. In the case of Constantine, he did in fact establish religious freedom in the Roman Empire, which lasted for a while until later Emperors made Orthodoxy the state religion, which was a huge step backwards, and that is also a major plus in my book. So I don’t really care what his motives are. I also certainly do not object to people not venerating him as a saint, but I do think we should regard him in positive terms; the historical records of his reign suggest that he was a merciful emperor, on a par with Marcus Aurelius, and he did stop a number of horrible injustices. I do find offensive the minority of Christians who advocate the view that Constantine was responsible for introducing gross distortions into the Christian religion because, from my reading of history, he did not meddle to any great extent in Christian affairs, other than presiding as a neutral arbiter at Nicea, and then executing the decrees of the council (which banished Arius but put no one to death or torture).

Now that said, some later Emperors did actively meddle in the Christian religion with disastrous effects. Emperor Constans II killed Pope Martin, and had the hand and tongue excised from St. Maximus the Confessor, for the two opposing the monothelite heresy first introduced by Pope Honorius. Emperor Leo III popularized iconoclasm and began systematically destroying images; many scholars speculate that this was done in order to appease the increasingly powerful Islamic caliphate that had conquered much territory from the Byzantines; it is thought that Leo III intended to convince the Muslims that Christians were not idolaters by destroying all images. Around this same time Judaism also became iconoclastic; we know from the excavations of ancient synagogues such as the splendid ruin at Dura Europos that the ancient Jews had icons depicting Moses and the other prophets in their places of worship; what is more the Torah describes in vivid detail iconography to adorn the ark, and later chapters describe in equally vivid detail the divinely ordained decorative motives for the Temple. So it would seem that in the case of Emperor Leo III, out of fear, the Emperor imported an Islamic dogma, a ban on images, and attempted to forcibly impose it on the church, resulting in much suffering.

The Russian Czars were also at times great enemies of the Orthodox church; after Patriarch Nikon’s power grab in the 17th century, the Czars suppressed the Moscow Patriarch and put the Russian church under the control of a government bureaucracy, nominally supervised by the Holy Synod, but really, just another agency. The official church withered, but Russian spirituality remained alive both through the Old Believers and through the emergence of the famed Starets, like St. Seraphim of Sarov.

In general, the experience of Christianity has shown us very clearly that religious freedom combined with separation of church and state is ideal. Consider, for example, the misery caused in England by Henry VIII’s insistance on obtaining a divorce; the Anglican church ultimately turned out to be one of the best Protestant churches, but its journey to that point was one marked by horrible bloodshed; surely it would have been better to allow Catholics and Protestants to coexist in peace, which is happily the situation in present day England. Yet even now, the Church of England is still under state control, and its theological decisions are influenced by the state. In 2012, the church’s internal legislature voted against ordaining women to the episcopate. This infuriated the government; the constitution of the deliberative bodies was altered, and the vote repeated a year later in order to obtain the desired result. Now regardless as to how one feels about whether or not women should be bishops, the manner in which the change was affected in the Church of England was a disgrace, and shows clearly the danger of a lack of separation of church and state. This is not the first time the British Government has used its de facto ownership of the Church of England destructively; in 1928, the revised Book of Common Prayer carefully prepared over a twenty year period, which was a huge improvement on the 1662 BCP, was suppressed by Parliament, yet the members of Parliament who voted in favor of its suppression were, for the most part, not members of the Church of England, but rather, members of other Protestant churches; the majority of Anglican MPs favored the new prayer book.

So thus, I think we can take away from all of this:
– It is certainly legitimate for Christians to debate who is or who is not a Saint; I regard Constantine as a Saint but regard your right to disagree as being equally sacrosanct
– It behoves Christians however not to disparage Constantine, on the grounds that he did put a stop to Diocletian’s attempt to exterminate the Christian religion in its entirety; Diocletian was the Al Baghdadi of his era, and the Roman Empire under his rule was like the Islamic State. Constantine is also to be lauded for introducing religious freedom.
– Religious freedom and a separation of church and state, as opposed to Caesaropapism, is the ideal environment for the healthy functioning of the Christian religion. State interference in Christian affairs, no matter how well intentioned, tends to produce bad results.
– God certainly does work through heretics and unbelievers; he uses them both to help spread the Christian gospel, and also to help orthodox Christians (note the small “o”, by orthodox, in this context, I mean the vast majority of Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Christians who believe in the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Trinity, the 27 book Athanasian canon, the Nicene creed, et cetera) to better define their faith. In addition, while Psalm 95 vs. 5 (in the Septuagint and Vulgate) warns us that the gods of the gentiles are demons, God surely does work through pagan religions to promote His natural law to people who are outside the reach of the Christian faith. Furthermore, Psalm 95 vs. 5 might well be talking specifically about the somewhat nightmarish deities of polytheism, and not about the various conceptions of God one finds in various monotheistic religions such as Sikhism, Mandaeism, the Bahai faith, et cetera.

@ William G.:
Again, i think you have missed the point i was attempting to make, because in no way was i acvusing all Greeks or Rusdians of anti-semitism. In Russia, it persisted under Soviet rule and has come sweeping back into “favor” since the fall of the USSR. There are segments of the RO church w/in Rusdia that are highly anti-semitic. The same is true in Greece.

It is, imo, ver important to confront these things. I cannot go along w/attempts to explain them away. Anti-semitism is also on the rise (politically and socially) in other former Soviet Bloc countries – Hungary and Poland are two of the more egregious examples.

Doug wrote:

William G. wrote:
Furthermore, Psalm 95 vs. 5 might well be talking specifically about the somewhat nightmarish deities of polytheism
You may have the wrong reference here: “The sea is His, for it was He who made it, And His hands formed the dry land. “

Nope, in the Septuagint and the Vulgate Psalm 95 vs 5 reads For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. In the KJV, which is based on the Masoretic text, it’s Psalm 96, and reads idols instead of devils. In the Orthodox Church however we use the Septuagint, as it’s older than the Masoretic text, and as a rule tends to have more explicit Christological references and stronger language. I personally also avail myself of the Douay Rheims translation of the Vulgate and various translations of the Peshitta; the Murdock translation of the New Testament from the West Syriac Peshitta is my personal favorite.

The KJV makes for elegant reading, but the use of a largely unmodified Masoretic text is a limitation; the Masoretes were scrupulously honest but they were Jews compiling an Old Testament for Jewish use, whereas the Septuagint predates the purity of Christ and is the standard liturgical Old Testament used in the Orthodox Church. It also fairly closely corresponds with St. Jerome’s excellent Vulgate, which is of course the standard Bible of the Roman church. Increasingly many Protestants are discovering the treasures contained in the Vulgate and the Septuagint, including those books improperly called apocrypha (which are also included in the Authorized Version, but sadly most KJVs omit them). The Book of Wisdom, written around 60 years before the passion of our Lord, contains a remarkable prophecy of his suffering, in the form of a variant of the Song of the Suffering Servant, and is in my opinion a must-read. My church does not regard Enoch as canonical, but the Ethiopians do, and I think they have a point, because St. Jude apparently quoted it; if read allegorically it can be edifying.

I urge people to own as many Bible versions as possible, with the exception of TNIV and other editions which have been edited to use gender neutral language, or to reflect a particular ideology. The worst offender in this regard is the New World Translation, carefully translated from critical Greek texts by the Jehovah’s witnesses into a plethora of languages, but with one absolutely lethal flaw in the form of an intentional modification to John 1:1 to support their neo-Arian theology. Even Arius did not dare to mess with the text of the Gospel of John, but instead attempted to explain that the Word was God by honor and title, but not by nature; since this ultimately didn’t fly the Jehovah’s Witnesses instead figured they would just change the text. After all, it’s just one word, right? Who will notice? And thus many seekers of Christ have been lead astray into a nasty cult that’s worse than much of what we discusses here on WW.

Gram3 wrote:

William G. wrote:
. Now regardless as to how one feels about whether or not women should be bishops, the manner in which the change was affected in the Church of England was a disgrace, and shows clearly the danger of a lack of separation of church and state.
I agree that the state should not be interfering in church doctrines which do not involve safety, health and criminal acts.
The churches may not be responsible for anti-Semitism, but they certainly have failed to instruct their members and be a witness to the larger society that anti-Semitism is ungodly. The church as a whole has failed in this regard, otherwise how could such rampant anti-Semitism exist over the centuries in Christendom? I believe it is because it serves the interests of those in the churches because they have a scapegoat in the Jews, and they people in the churches want to hear that they are the godly ones.
That was also the case in the churches in the USA over the slavery of human beings. Churches *defended* slavery because they claimed they were defending the Bible when they were just defending their own social and economic interests while assuring slaveholders of their righteousness. The churches that were most conservative in the South were the ones defending slavery the most while secular and some Northern churches promoted abolition and rescued slaves. Even after the Civil War, it was the conservative churches who perpetuated discrimination against black Americans. In my lifetime, I’ve heard the curse of Ham justification.
The same phenomenon manifests today in churches that put women under bondage to human doctrines and traditions that elevate men over women while saying they are not doing that. They say that the men and women who want women’s basic humanity affirmed are the ungodly ones. Like the churches who defended slavery, these churches say they are the ones upholding God’s word while distorting and changing it, and they do that because that is where their social and economic interests lie.
Churches have a duty to be light in their culture and not darkness. It isn’t enough to say that churches are not teaching abhorrent doctrine. They have an affirmative duty to teach truth, but churches like individuals cannot see the log in their eyes because the log makes them feel comfortable and safe and spiritually superior. If they would listen to someone outside their echo chamber, they could learn something from the “ungodly” and not cling so stubbornly to wrong ideas like anti-Semitism, racism, and misogyny that are perpetuated by their traditions.

Well in this respect I have a clean ecclesiological conscience: my non-Southern ancestors prior to the civil war were Methodists, Anglicans and German and Scandinavian Lutherans, all of whom in the mid 19th century were opposed to slavery and were theologically conservative. The Unitarians were theologically liberal and also opposed to slavery, but I have no historic connection with them. The Orthodox Church of today not only does not oppress women, but campaigns against pornography, sex trafficking, and female genital mutilation. The Coptic church in particular has been conducting vigorous efforts to stamp out the practice, in concert with the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Also it should be noted that Gods Word is properly speaking Jesus Christ, as per John Ch. 1; the Holy Scriptures describe the divine logos but are not themselves the Word of God, but rather contain the inspired words of God as spoken by the prophets in the Old Testament, and as recorded by the apostles of the New.

It is true that in the past the Christian church did not properly show Christian love to our Jewish brothers and sisters, but since the holocaust we have realized the need to improve in this respect and I think improvements are being made. The main voices of anti-Semitism seem to be some of the traditionalist Catholics, like the SSPX, which openly campaigns against religious freedom, some liberal denominations like the United Church of Christ which take the tragedy in Israeli-Palestinian relations and turn it into a platform for anti-Semitism, and on the Orthodox side, Metropolitan Seraphim, although in his case he’s not just anti-Semitic; he modified the anathemas read on the Sunday of Orthodoxy to effectively curse every non-Orthodox religion, which is arguably an illegal and un canonical liturgical revision. You cannot pronounce an anathema without an ecumenical council, but he did it and got away with it; such is the very strange world of the Church of Greece.

Note that your friendly neighborhood Greek Orthodox churches in the United States are not part of the Church of Greece; they are an autonomous archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople; in fact, they’re the largest part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Church of Greece for its part is an example of a church that is failing to do its job in terms of moral edification; the widespread use of amulets to ward off the evil eye, and worry beads, both of which are entirely without sanction in Orthodox theology and are accounted as superstition by the Greek Orthodox bishops in North America, suggest that the Church of Greece is fundamentally failing when it comes to catechesis.

Lamentably, because the Church of Greece is autocephalous and can’t be pegged to a specific heresy, there is no legitimate way to compete with it; in the Orthodox Church we believe schism is worse than heresy. My hope is that the continuing growth of the monastic community on Mount Athos will revitalize the Church of Greece by demonstrating a spiritual ideal that is absent in the parish churches, and in this manner piety can be restored and unorthodox superstitions involving amulets and other trinkets exposed as the laughable vices that they are.

@ William G.:
It *is* a “peculiarly Orthodox problem” in many ways. Sorry, but that is how i view it, as do many others. I am not slighting the best adpects of Orthodoxy in saying so. Culturally Orthodox Russia was and still is a place where many hate Jewish people and use them as scapegoats.

I know you donot accept what I’m saying, and that’s fine. But maybe i have reason for saying it that *isn’t* an attempt to malign Orthodoxy. Wextern xtians have been horribly anti-semitic over the course of many centuries; i do not believe Eastern xtians have been sny better in this regard. Contemporary nationalist movements that wed Orthodoxy and anti-semitism are culpable, no matter what.

numo wrote:

@ Gram3:
I think it’s wise to look at the historical context re. England’s break with Rome. People believed jn the divine right of kings, and religion and state wrre *vety* much intettwined. The popes did as much political maneuvering and kingmaking as anyone else – likely more, given their influence.

Mutually beneficial arrangements are always attractive to people whose primary allegiance is to themselves. The Kingdom of Christ is incompatible with the kingdoms of men. The state bears the sword and the pope holds the keys to heaven. Cooperatively they can control people more efficiently than competitively. However, that arrangement became inconvenient for Henry, so the pope had to go. I wonder what English and American history would look like if Henry had not divorced the Pope.

The idea of a hierarchy in the church modeled on king or emperor certainly has had staying power.

@ Gram3:
Good questions.William, i am truly interested in getting your take on them, along with Gram3.

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
It *is* a “peculiarly Orthodox problem” in many ways. Sorry, but that is how i view it, as do many others. I am not slighting the best adpects of Orthodoxy in saying so. Culturally Orthodox Russia was and still is a place where many hate Jewish people and use them as scapegoats.
I know you donot accept what I’m saying, and that’s fine. But maybe i have reason for saying it that *isn’t* an attempt to malign Orthodoxy. Wextern xtians have been horribly anti-semitic over the course of many centuries; i do not believe Eastern xtians have been sny better in this regard. Contemporary nationalist movements that wed Orthodoxy and anti-semitism are culpable, no matter what.

I simply can’t agree with that. If wife beating and anti-Semitism were staples of the Orthodox faith, then why are there no reports of such incidents in the Churches of Finland, The Czech and Slovak lands, Poland, and the various North American jurisdictions?

In Egypt, many Copts in the upper Nile practice female genital mutilation. Pope Tawadros and his predecessor Pope Shenouda, and their bishops, have worked continually to stamp out the practice, which began in the Islamic conquest and was always viewed with disgust by the hierarchy. However changing established social mores and folkways is a lengthy process; look at how long it took the early church to stamp out gladiatorial combat, arguably the ultimate vice, in the Roman Empire.

Your position seems to be that because some Russians beat their wives and are anti-Semitic, the Orthodox Church is inherently flawed, i would counteract that statement by citing the Episcopal Church, USA, where divorces are common, gay marriage is de rigeur, conservative parishioners are driven from the churches they were baptized for refusing to toe the line, and the ECUSA has spent over $40 million in legal campaigns against dissident congregations and dioceses. Many Episcopalian clergy are now advocating for the legalization of polygamous and polyandrous weddings. All of these behaviors were condemned in a general way by Jesus, and in a specific way by St. Paul. And the hierarchy of the ECUSA does them without shame.

The Russian church on the other hand officially disapproves of anti-Semitism and wife beating. The main criticism that one can levy against it is it’s close ties with Putin, but in the Ukraine evidence suggests the Moscow Patriarch is attempting to remain as neutral (perhaps for moral reasons, or perhaps because they don’t want to lose certain precious churches and monasteries such as the Great Lavra to the Byzantine Catholics). Either way, the systematic pattern of open malfeasance that characterizes the Episcopal church is nowhere to be found. Thus, if anti Semitism and wife beating are prevalent in Greek and Russia, I would argue that they are immoral behaviors engrained in the culture, that the church must struggle against. The same is true of FGM among the Copts. For the Copts the situation is particularly delicate; they don’t want to alienate the victims from the church by excommunicating the perpetrator; such an act might just cause the kind of marginal Coptic families that do FGM into Islam, and that would be unfortunate.

In the US, we have our own cultural sins. Abortion, a drug addiction that has turned Mexico into a war zone, and increasingly a lust for profit among a growing segment of business owners, that has the effect of destabilizing the capitalist model on which the American free interface system was so successfully built. Churches like the Roman Catholics, the Continuing Anglicans, the LCMS and WELS, and many conservative Methodist parishes struggling against these horrible sins in the same manner as their Orthodox brethren in Russia.

The Church is not forensically accountable for the sins of its members. What the Church is responsible for is educating the laity in Christian morality, in an effort to secure a genuine sense of right and wrong. As I mentioned previously, Russian Orthodox Priests in the USSR were not known for their homiletics, in part due to the danger of accidentally subverting Communist dogma and being exiled, or worse. However in recent years both the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have taken concrete steps to improve the training of clergy, teaching them to actually preach edifying homilies rather than simply going through the motions of performing the liturgy.

numo wrote:

Henry dumped Rome for pretty deplorable reasons, though.

He did. That is so. On the other hand, if church and state were going to be in bed with each other it would be better to have both of them English.

@ Nancy:
Oh, i agree, but an awful lot of people paid a *very* heavy price for said “reforms,” which were leveled on all English people by the state. Henry anf his cronies made $$$$ from the looting of churches and monasteries during the Disdolution of the Monasteries, and monks and nuns were literally forced out as paupers who had no social service agencies to help them make the transition. Many former nuns ended up in prostitution, for one.

Understand, i really do thinkmthe Reformation was coming to England regardless, but it would have been FAR better if it had not bern brutally imposed on everyone by the reigning monarch and his henchmen, both clerical and secular.

William G. wrote:

monastic community on Mount Athos

numo wrote:

monks who live in isolation on Athos

You may be interested in reading this now old article in which the Vatopaidi monastery of Athos gets a mention…

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/10/michael-lewis-greece-201010

By the way, speaking of Great and Holy Friday, the Syriac Orthodox Church, at the end of the Good Friday service the congregation passes under a ceremonial arch, and drinks glasses of a bitter liquid intended to represent the vinegar and gall offered to our Lord. This is really getting into things quite a bit; my system couldn’t handle it, but unlike some Roman Catholics who literally crucify themselves, it seems to be an acceptable memorial act, that does not run the risk of any physical harm.

The dolorous nature of this service is of course more than made up for with the triumphant Eucharist served on the eve of Pascha, which features processions around the church, and borrows heavily from the joyful Byzantine Pascha.

One other note regarding the Syriacs; many scholars believe that Severus of Antioch originated the idea of a Presanctified Eucharist, and Gregory the Great simply documented how he saw it being served in Constantinople about 150 years later; given Gregory’s enormous respect as a Pope, his description of it may well have caused it to be adapted for use on Good Friday in the Roman Church. The Orthodox regard Gregory the Great as a very important saint, and one of the last really good popes before the Holy See became subject to the political machinations of Charlemagne and his successors.

numo wrote:

I think there is more than one flavor of “progressive”; also that it troubles me that you equate what Diocletian did with the Holocaust. As in many things, we will have to agree to disagree.

The Chief Rabbinate in Israel also does not recognize any conversions done here in the USA by Reform or Conservative rabbis. Also, Reform or Conservative marriages are not recognized in Israel, so many non-Orthodox/non-Haredim Jews go to Cyprus to get married and then come back.

@ mirele:
Yes, a lot of the monasteties – and monastics – were rich, powerful and VERY corrupt. But it isn’t as if the king and his cronies helped the poor with the lands and monies and altar furnishings – they used it for their own purposes, and some became big-time landowners as a result. In many ways, it was a case of “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss” for ordinary people (which would be the vadt majority of the population).

Henry VIII reminds me of Peter the Great, though, in dragging his country into something whether it wanted it or not.

@ mirele:
Yeah. Not sure thst was always the case, though it has long been true that children of a gentile mother and Jewish father are considered illegitimate, with the only remefy being that the mother converts to Judaism.

William G. wrote:

Men are priests in the Orthodox Church basically because of St. Paul’s epistles, and the idea that the priest, acting in persone Christi as he consecrates the Eucharist, should iconographically represent our Lord, which is easier if one shares the same biological sex. Many Orthodox priests wear beards and long hair to further embrace the traditional appearance of Christ as seen in the Mandylion and the icon not made by human hands.

William, I am so sorry about your family emergency. I’ll be praying for you.

When you get a chance, I am interested in why it is necessary for the priest to image Christ. I am granting the office of priest for the sake of argument because I believe that priests are unnecessary since we are a kingdom of priests under the Great High Priest. But let’s grant the necessity of a human celebretory priesthood or however you would characterize it.

To get to the point, if women and men are both called to be conformed to the image of Christ, then I assume that it is possible for women to image Christ well enough. And if women and men are both created in the image of God, how is it that only men can represent Christ? To me it places undue emphasis on one aspect of Christ’s humanity and as a result diminishes what is really important. Is not the Atonement he made more significant than his human gender?

I really don’t get why people have to be reminded of what Jesus supposedly looked like. He is the icon of the invisible God, which to me means that his imaging of the invisible God by definition cannot be physical appearance. His physical appearance was not even described in the Bible. Why is it necessary for people to focus on what to me seems trivial–physical human gender and outward appearance–when they could rejoice at seeing a female priest or a male priest imaging Christ because he redeemed them both equally and restored their imago dei equally?

It is not valid, IMO, to say that priests must be male because priests have always been male. That is circular because it does not demonstrate that they were male because God ordained it. It is undisputed that the vast majority of cultures throughout history have been patriarchal. A male presiding over any gathering would have been considered normative culturally, and a female presiding would have been culturally non-normative if not scandalous. But it does not follow from those cultural facts that God ordained it so.

Male and female are equal in Genesis 1:26-28, and they are both commissioned jointly by God. There was no distinction in priestly “role” despite what the “complementarians” would have us believe. So, how and where did God ordain an exclusively male priesthood? How do you know that a male priesthood is not merely an artifact of human culture that has not been questioned until the past 150 years, and then only in the West?

@ Gram3:
William, i am praying, too. Hope you will update when you can.

@ Gram3:

Thank you for your prayers Gram3. I must apologize for a very long reply, but you asked two questions which are closely related and lie at the heart of Orthodox theology.

It should be stressed that Orthodox soteriological de-emphasizes the atonement; although we so not deny it, we view it as just one part of the supreme sacrifice of love made on our behalf by a God in the person of a his only begotten son. We believe that Christ was the new Adam, and to a certain extent, Mary was the new eve. Christ, by virtue of his divinity and humanity, perfected all facets of the human experience, including death; Fr. John Behr, dean of St. Vladimir’s orthodox Theological seminary, stated eloquently that God the Word, through His death, showed us what it meant to be human. Behr argues that the Christological heresies all revolve around people being unable to accept this; Docetism and Gnosticism (and Islam) say that Christ only appeared to be human but was really just spirit. Arianism and adoptionism say that Christ isn’t really God. Finally, Nestorianism, or the form of proto Nestorianism taught by Theodore of a Mopsuestia and Diodorus says that the human Jesus and the divine Logos are two separate persons linked via a single divine will.

Orthodoxy rejects this, and instead posits that all things were made whole in Christ. The legacy of ancestral sin remains, but we can escape damnation through faith in Jesus Christ, a living faith, as described by St. James, which leads to Theosis, or deification. St Arhanasius wrote that God became man so that man could become god. This does not mean that we will join the Holy Trinity, supplant God or become polytheistic deities in the manner of Apollo, Mercury, Jupiter, et al. Rather it means that through ascetic discipline, we can restrain the passions and participate in God’s uncreated energies. The uncreated essence of God ultimately remains unknown, for it is perfect, infinite and boundless, and these concepts are impossible for humans to comprehend beyond the level of abstract concepts. St Gregory Nazianzus warned that attempting to contemplate the uncreated essence of God can lead to madness, and this by definition includes the concepts of the infinite and the eternal. In my youth beginning around age 6 or 7 I had what could only be described as daymares regarding the idea of the infinite; Methodism offered no help (although it probably would have in the era of John Wesley), and I only found relief to that problem when studying Orthodox theology.

Now, why icons and why iconographic thinking? The answers can be found in the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the second council of Nicea, that determined that to reject icons is to deny the goodness of Gods material creation and the reality of the incarnation. The only limit on Orthodox iconography is that we do not as a rule depict God the Father; in Orthodox theology He is the source of the Godhead, the son having been begotten of him before all ages, and the Holy Spirit, eternally proceeding from him (we reject the Filioque clause inserted by the Latin theologians into the Nicene Creed; in modifying the creed they violated the canons of the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus and confused the role of the persons of the Trinity in such a manner so that the Spirit, who is God and a distinct prosopon, or person, of the Godhead, was reduced to a sort of impersonal force as a result of the doctrine of double procession. Most Orthodox theologians believe God the Father to be invisible, and are uncomfortable with Zeus-like depictions of the a father found in some Orthodox churches, such as the dome of St. Saviors cathedral in Moscow. There was a very lively discussion about this issue on the blog Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy about two months ago.

Orthodox icons are not intended to be realistic; they are stylized in order to depict the spiritual qualities of the saints in question. In many cases, we have only a textual description of the appearance of a saint, and in some cases, no description at all, and in those cases our artists extrapolate an appearance based on known facts of the saints life. If the relics of the saint are extant, that is a major help. Once a definitive look for a saint is established, Orthodox icon painters will always copy that look; Orthodox iconography is not intended primarily as a form of creative expression, like the beautiful corpus of Renaissance religious art; whereas Michaelangelo and Rafael have distinct styles, Orthodox icon painters, many of whom are monks, seek to avoid leaving any marks of personally recognizable as their style. In this manner, as icons wear out over time from having vigil lamps and candles burn in front of them, it is possible for worn out icons to be replaced by new ones

When it comes to Jesus and Mary, we obviously do not have their relics. We have almost no idea what the Mother of God looked like, so in the Orthodox Church we depict her in a generic manner exuding maternal love. The hemispherical half dome in the apse of Orthodox churches usually depicts an icon known as the mercy seat, wherein Jesus as an infant or toddler is seated on the lap of His mother.

When it comes to Jesus we do have more information, but it’s extra Biblical. However it makes sense, so we use it. The Doctrine of Addsi is a legend that the King of Edessa, at the time a city state, wrote to our Lord asking that he would visit him and cure either himself or his son, I can’t recall which, of an infirmity, our Lord replied that he was unable to come in person but would send one of his apostles. After the Ascencion of Christ into the Heavens, Addai, who together with Ss. Mari and Thomas, was responsible for the eastward expansion of the Church, visited Edessa, and the requested act of healing was accomplished, With him Addai brought a cloth bearing the image of The Lord, commonly known as the Mandylion or the Sheoud of Turin. This depicted a bearded Christ with long hair, who had the appearance of a Naziri, much like John the Baprist.

This all seemed logical to the fathers of iconography and in due course this became the standard image of Christ used in iconography. The image of God with a gentle beard is unassuming and comforting, and stands in marked contrast to Arian depictions of Christ, which depicted him as a young, clean shaven man; Google “The Arian Baptistry of Ravenna” for an example of this style. The Arisn Baptistry, in its depiction of the baptism of our Lord, also rather disturbingly appears to show his nether regions, whereas the orthodox Baptistry in the same city depicts our Lord with the familiar facial hair and with a wave providing modesty, if memory serves. Certainly the fact that the Arians favored a beardless youthful looking Christ helped to galvanize support for the bearded Christ we now recognize. One of the oldest images of a bearded Christ is the beautiful and highly anatomically correct icon if Christ Pantocrator at St Catharines monastery in Sinai, which also holds other priceless treasures such as the icon depicting the Ladder of a Divine Ascent, and an enormous shrub the size of an SUV that according to local folklore, was the burning bush observed by Moses.

The Orthodox regard icons as being more than decorative art; they are seen as doorways into the Heavens, through which we can peer at the saints and vice versa. Many icons are known for miraculous effects such as healing powers; icons of St. Nicholas stream myrrh and Imhave in my possession some of this myrrh; it is remarkable stuff. Bleeding icons are regarded as portents of disasters although this is not an official doctrine if the a Orthodox Church. The icons are believed to be mere windows into the subject matter they depict, which is another reason why individual artistic expression is discouraged in the field of iconography. The worship of icons is strictly prohibited as idolatry by the dogmatic definitions of the Seventh a ecumenical Council, and the use of statues as icons is likewise prohibited on the basis that a statue would look too much like an icon, and would potentially confuse the laity.

Regarding the male and female priesthood, we must draw a distinction between the Greek words Sacerdos and Presbyter; the former means an intermediary priest, such as the Aaronic Kohanim, Melchizedek, our our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our high sacerdos, our pontifex Maximus to use the Latin term later shamelessly appropriated by the Pope. Presbyter on the other hand means elder and is the origin of the English word Priest.

The Orthodox Church believes that all Christians are a royal sacerdotal priesthood under the High Priest, Jesus Christ. The Episcopoi, or superintendents, translated into English also as Bishops, are royal sacerdotal pontiffs just like you and me, who by virtue of their office as successors to the apostles, are charged with the duty of vicariously representing our Lord Jesus Cheist, the High Priest, during the consecration of the Eucharist. The Presbyters or Elders, of which the word a Priest is a proper translation, are in turn also members of the royal sacerdotal priesthood, just like us, whose office requires them to vicariously represent the Bishops during the Eucharist, in individual parishes. The Deacons, also royal sacerdotal priests, but not elders/presbyters and thus not priests properly called, were themselves originally ordained to vicariously represent the apostles and later the bishops in distributing alms to the poor.

Thus, in the Orthodox Church, you have the Church Triumphant celebrating the Eucharist in Heaven, with Jesus Christ presiding from the right hand of a God the Father. Then in the Cathedrals, or wherever the bishop happens to be, you have the Church Militant celebrating the Eucharist, with the bishop representing Christ. Finally, you have in the parishes the Elders, or Presbyters, representing the Bishop, who in turn represents Christ.

Thus, it is a hierarchy, but also a bridge between the heavenly realm and the struggling church on Earth. In like manner, the Eucharist is also a bridge across time, for not only does the Bishop represent Christ in Heaven, but also at the Last Supper. Thus when we partake of the a Eucharist, we are entering into communion with the entire choir of saints, that is to say, the entire community of the Christian elect, throughout all of space and time. Who the elect are is a tricky question and different denominations will give you different answers, but of all those who adhere to an orthodox understanding of Holy Communion, namely, the Orthodox, Catholics, Assyrians, high church Anglicans, and a large swathe of Lutherans and Methodists, the official doctrine is that his communion brings us into contact with our Lord, with his disciples in the Cenacle, and with the Christian faithful through the ages of ages.

Now, from an Orthodox standpoint, the fact that the priesthood has always been male, and for that matter, the episcopate has almost always been celibate, is a strong enough reason for us to not change things, We regard the body of traditions we have received through the centuries as holy, and as a rule, even minor changes to it cannot simply be implemented without causing consternation. The implementation of the Revised Julian Calendar in 1922 caused a lasting schism which is only beginning to heal, A fundamental principle of Orthodoxy is that the deposit of faith we have received from previous generations is sacrosanct, and under ordinary circumstances should be regarded as immutable.

However, there is in fact a threefold divine warrant for a male priesthood: firstly, the Kohanim of the Jeiwsh religion were male, as were the Levites who assisted them. Secondly, Christ was born a male, and not a female or a hermaphrodite; thus, iconographically representing him requires one to be male, because icons must be expressions of truth, and for a female to iconographically represent Christ in the Eucharist would disrupt this principle. Because the Holy Tradition of the church has decided, we believe under the influence of the Holy Spirit p, that Christ had long hair and a beard, traditionalist priests, especially Slavic and Athonite priests, will adopt this style of grooming, thirdly, and most explicitly, God does require a male Priesthood through his Apostle St. Paul, who makes it clear that the office of the elder or bishop is reserved to the male gender. The Orthodox Church takes a nuanced view on these passages; we believe it is acceptable for women to reach theology under the leadership of a male bishop or pastor, and we believe that Paul wanting women to keep silent in the church was a remark about a specific problem of pastoral discipline, and thus the use of female Choristers, cantors, readers and in ancient times, even subdeacons and deaconesses, were and are permitted,

At the same rime, we literally take the verse stating that a bishop or presbyter should be the husband of one wife, by saying that our priests must be married before ordination, or remain celibate; they must not be divorced and remarried, except in very limited cases subject to approval by the bishop, where a prior marriage that failed occurred outside of the church and was thus not a sacramental marriage. Such exceptions are exceedingly rare. Additionally, a priest who becomes divorced cannot remarry, nor can a priest who is widowed, without resigning the presbyterial office. Bishops with the exception of Chorepiscopi,mare required to be celibate; Chorepiscopi are found mainly in the Oriental a orthodox churches and are a step above the rank of Archpriest;!they can ordain someone to minor orders but not to the diaconate, Presbyteriate or episcopate. Lastly, to properly ordain a bishop, at least three bishops must jointly lay hands upon the candidate.

John Wesley was secretly ordained a bishop by Erasmus of Arcadia in 1763, but his ordination strictly speaking was irregular as only one bishop officiated, in like manner, several so called wandering bishops such as Jules Ferrette and Rene Vilatte p managed to be ordained by Eastern bishops acting solus, but again, these consecrations are somewhat irregular. Nonetheless, in the Unites States and Europe, one will find a delightful host of tiny little churches that practice surprisingly beautiful liturgical rituals, run by vagrant bishops who nonetheless have a modicum of apostolic succession, Some make a living off of it, some view it as a hobby, almost all are passionate about it Ina spiritual sense, and a few of them are slightly insane. One thing I would love to do in my lifetime is work with the wandering bishops to try to organize as many of them as possible into a functioning church. I should add, despite the fact that most of them are very poor, the wandering bishops do a disproportionate amount of charitable work given their relative poverty.

At any rate, the requirements for the Orthodox priesthood are etched firmly into the ecclesiastical granite that is St. Paul’s epistles, and the ancient tradition of the church. The male priesthood is so ancient and so uncontroversial an opinion among the Fathers of the church right up through the 21st century that it is literally impossible to even contemplate changing; if anyone tried, a schism would occur on a scale unseen since 1054. It would actually be dramatically easier for the Roman Catholic Church to institute female priests, because Roman theology changes over time, and the ability of the Pope to make infallible dogmatic definitions from his cathedra chair at the Basillica of St. John Lateran grants an enormous power for doctrinal revision, The Pope would simply have to couch his ex cathedra declaration in such a manner as to maintain the appearance of consistency with prior doctrines.

In the Orthodox Church however, changes simply cannot be made. Most Orthodox canonists believe that the work of an ecumenical council cannot be negated or modified by a sunsequent council. It is possible for new theological ideas to be introduced, and since the dogma of the Orthodox Church is defined primarily through apophatic statements, there is a surprisingly large realm open to theological speculation. However, there are places where the walls of Holy Tradition converge to form an impenetrable doctrinal fortress of orthopraxy, and the question of the ordination of women as elders and bishops is one of those places. Gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia are among the others; a liberal OCA priest came within an inch of being sacked last week after making a post on the OCAs youth blog suggesting that the church should re-evaluate its position on these; his blog post was taken down and replaced by a post from the Metropolitan of the OCA assuring readers that such changes were not bring contemplated, and a new clergy review board was being implemented to prevent a recurrence. The OCA is interesting as a venue for such a squabble because it is the second most liberal Orthodox Church after the Church of Finland (which despite a clique of dissident clergy, won’t budge on these issues either).

Now, to reiterate, women are not enjoined from leadership roles in the Orthodox Church. St. Helena, the Empress and consort of St. Constantine, personally lead a mission to the largely ruined city of Jerusalem, found the true cross on which our Lord perished, and orchestrated the rebuilding of the city into a destination for Christian pilgrims throughout the holy land,

St. Nino converted the entire nation of Georgia to Christianity, by Georgia, I am of course referring to the Caucasian country and not the US state.

St. Anne of Volograd was a Swedish princess, raised Christian before the East-West schism, who married St. Vladimir the a Great when he was still a pagan. Vladimir then decided to upgrade the religion of Kievan Rus, and sent emissaries to investigate Islam, Karaite Judaism, Roman Christianity and Byzantine Christianity; they settled on the latter having been awestruck by the majesty of services at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. St. Anne certainly played a role in her husbands conversion.

Finally we have St. Mary Magdalene, Equal to the Apostles, not to be confused with Mary of Bethany or the former prostitute who anointed the feet of our Lord; the Orthodox regard Mary Magdalene as having been upright and decent, and consider that she played a major role in spreading the gospel following the glorious Resurrection.

An Old Testament analogy can also be drawn: the Kohanim were male, including the Kohen Gadol,the High Priest, but during the theocracy that followed the death of Moses and Joshua, at least one rather important Judge, Deborah, was a woman. For that matter, the Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon, and whose interactions with him led to the trade and, possibly, direct offspring, that resulted in the emergence of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia. Her legitimacy as a female ruler was not questioned by the Bible. Lastly we have Queen Esther, who saved the Jews from a holocaust at the hands of hammon. For this story, I strongly recommend reading it in the Septuagint; the so called additions to Esther contain accounts of the prayers for deliverance made by Esther’s father, and are very moving, offering a needed religious frame of reference for the story, which can otherwise read a bit like a story of political intrigue rather than a sacred text.

In conclusion, I would urge you to obtain a copy of The Orthodox Church, and a copy of The Orthodox Way, both by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, as these two books do a superb job explaining the Orthodox Church, it’s fundamental theological approach, and it’s interaction with modern society. Also, if you have time this evening, and if there is an Orthodox parish nearby, I would urge you to stop by for Vespers. Vespers is one of the most mystical and haunting Orthodox services, with the church dimly lit by flickering candles, and will provide you with a good insight into what it’s all about; the dazzling darkness of the cloud that descended upon amount Sinai,,in which, freed from the passions, and stimulated by our senses, especially the notice faculty, we can dare to approach the living God. If you do visit an Orthodox parish I would also urge you to take note of the ratio of male to female attendees, and to ask some of the women present how they feel about the male only priesthood. I would be interested to know what kind of response you’d get.

Lastly, there are some breakaway churches that use the Byzantine liturgy,or variations thereupon, but ordain women. There are several in the US; most of these also perform gay marriages. In Georgia, the Evangelical Baptist Church uses a modified Byzantine liturgy and simplified versions of Byzantine vestments, that is known for ordaining women and engaging in liturgical dance. Needless to say, the very formal dance like movements of the Ethiopians aside, liturgical dance is unheard of in canonical Orthodoxy.

@ Gram3:

References to priests or a priesthood in the NT are interesting on this point. I think it is meaningful to sort them into three piles:
 References in the Gospel accounts, or in Acts, to serving Jewish priests (such as Caiaphas). Obviously, this is the Old Covenant priesthood which does not apply in the church.
 References to Jesus himself.
 References to the church collectively, or Christians in general and in the plural.

One can add to this a single data-point in Romans 15, where Paul describes himself as a priest ministering the gospel to the gentiles. But this is the only reference to a single believer functioning as a priest towards other people. And since Paul tells the Romans he was reminding them of the gospel, and writes of his determination to preach the gospel only where no-one has heard it before, then realistically his priesthood is towards the unsaved, and it is more the case that his servanthood (also described in that passage) is towards the saved.

The sometimes-overlooked point in all of this is that we are the Body of Christ collectively, and what we are together represents (or fails to represent) him to the world. The discussion on a nearby thread about appealing to particular generations or demographics is relevant here; in order to fully represent God we need everybody’s gifts, aptitudes, personality traits, etc etc etc. I think one of the historic failures of the Reformed_Thing has been to miss the priesthood of all believers and replace it with the priesthood of each believer.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

in order to fully represent God we need everybody’s gifts, aptitudes, personality traits, etc etc etc. I think one of the historic failures of the Reformed_Thing has been to miss the priesthood of all believers and replace it with the priesthood of each believer.

Thanks, Nick. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

I think one of the historic failures of the Reformed_Thing has been to miss the priesthood of all believers and replace it with the priesthood of each believer.

Nick, check this out. One of the criticisms of neo-cal thinking is just the opposite. A lot of folks under the ole timey baptist system thought we were believing in the priesthood of each believer and changes in emphasis (with some outright discussions of this) seem to have shifted to the priesthood of all believers thus effectively stripping the individual believer of any claim to priesthood in practice.

But I may be way behind the times on this.

@ Nancy:
Yes, Nancy you are right. in the rewriting of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, Al Mohler insisted on adding an ‘S’ to the priesthood of believer.

if I can dig it up I will link to an article about it that is very interesting. not only have we learned that word definitions can have different meanings depending on the audience but that adding an ‘s’ can change everything.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Only collectively can we represent God to humankind. On the other hand, only collectively can we represent humanity (even locally) before God.

Are you saying that humans act as mediators between God and man? That sort of idea is (or used to be) preached against in baptist-ism of old. The idea of that sort of “priestly” function was denounced based on the concept of Jesus as mediator and based on the concept of people having direct access to God. I think the neo-cals may be getting into something like that, however. I read not too long ago an article by a female neo-cal directed at other women saying that the only thing that people ? or maybe only women ? should do was read the bible because the bible serves as a mediator between the person and the Holy Spirit.

I am going to have to check out various ideas about mediation in protestantism.

Gram3 wrote:

@ William G.:
It seems that we keep coming back to the same point of whether tradition governs or Sola Scriptura. In addition the Orthodox seem to view the relationship of the Old Covenant and New Covenant as being more continuous.
I’m assuming your answer to the question of whether or not a particular practice is an artifact of culture or of ordination by God is determined by councils. At the same time, you observe that the societies in which Orthodoxy thrives are relatively traditional societies. Is the reverence for tradition in Orthodoxy a cultural artifact from the culture of the East or is it ordained by God? Of course the question in the West is the opposite, since innovations of all kinds are more well-received here generally, and I’m not by any means saying that is always a good thing.

Well the Orthodox have always rejected Sola Scriptura in part for being unscriptural. Eric Jobe, who is an Orthodox Hebrew Scholar, and Fr Andrew Stephen Dammick on his blog Orthodox and Heterodoxy have published rather withering criticisms of the doctrine; but the basic point that has to be made is that Peter himself tells us that no prophecy is an exposition of its own text, which with sola scriptura invariably leads to thousands of contradictory interpretations and the huge proliferation of Protesstant denominations; if sola scriptura were actually workable than the rupture between the Lutherans and Calvinists should have not occurred. The fact that two people can pick up a bible and draw completely different conclusions for us indicates the need for a living tradition of interpretation based on the exegesis of saints such as the Cappadocians, John Chrysostom, et al, to guide our understanding of the text. Thus the Bible lives at the center of Holy Tradition, which also encompasses the Patristic writings, the sacred liturgy, the fasting discipline, in short, everything that defines the Orthodox way of life. We rely on Holy Tradition to help us interpret the Bible, and also to provide us with metadata about the Bible, to use a software term; Holy Tradition enumerates the canonical books of the Bible, their authorship, and certain details of the lives of their author recorded through hagiography. Modern historical-critical Bible scholars tend to ignore this information, which is lamentable, because while some of it probably is more legend than fact, some of it is true, and all of it is useful in understanding how the church was impacted by these texts. Given also that both Christianity and Judaism consider lying to be a great sin, I make it a point to never assume intentional dishonesty when reviewing this material.

However there is a distinction between Holy Tradition and secular traditions. The use of worry beads, which look superficially similar to rosaries or Orthodox prayer ropes, but have no religious purpose, is traditional among the Greeks, but viewed as a superstitious vice by the church. The same is true of amulets designed to ward off the evil eye, and other bits of folk magic one finds in every culture. For that matter there are some traditions on the periphery of church life that are not a part of holy tradition itself, although they are of a benign nature. In addition, Holy Tradition does not extend to the liturgy in such a way that regional differences in liturgical services are impossible; in the Eastern Orthodoox church there are marked differences between the Byzantine praxis of the Sourhern churches and the Slavonic praxis of the northern churches, and there are also the Western Rite Vicarates which use modified forms of Anglican and Latin Rite liturgy. The Oriental Orthodox have four very distinct liturgical rites for each of the particular churches. Al of these liturgical rites are a part of Holy Tradition, but they coexist, and what is more, they can be modified for purposes of acculturation, for example, by translating them into new languages, composing additional hymns such as troparia in honor of newly glorified saints, and composing new musical settings in honor of newly canonized saints.

Now Holy Tradition is not defined by the Ecumenical Councils. Rather, the councils become part of Holy Tradition by being accepted as ecumenical. There were several Imperial councils, but some of them, such as the Second Council of Ephesus and the Iconoclast Councils which were Ecumenical in scope but not accounted as Ecumenical, in the sense of being received by the church. This approach differs from the Catholic Church, which after the Great Schism came to presume that it could call an ecumenical council, when in fact in the Early Church, you could only call a General Council, and if the decrees of that council were accepted by the entire church, or at the very least, the majority of it (in the case of Ephesus and Chalcedon), then it was retroactively said to be Ecumenical.

This in fact is how things are received into Holy Tradition: through acceptance and use by the church. No Ecumenical council ever declared the Philokalia a part of Holy Tradition (although the doctrine of hesychasm it discusses was approved by the Ninth Ecumenical Council during the Barlaamite Controversy), but the book, by virtue of its brilliant selection of the best Patrisric texts on Monastic praxis, was swiftly received into the Holy Tradition of the Church. The local councils do occasionally explicitly approve or reject budding traditions, and the Quinisext Council, organized purely to address questions of canon law in the Eastern churches, also addressed much of this.

However, on the whole, the nine Ecumenical Councils (seven of which are well known, one of which was accepted by Rome but later rejected after the schism, and the last of which dealt with Hesychasm after the Great Schism) primarily consist of the repudiation of various heresies. The first repudiated Arianism, the second repudiated soft-Arianism, Apollinarianjsm and Pneumatomachianism, the third repudiated Nestorianism and implicitly antidicomarianism, the fourth, Eurryhcianism, the fifth, Universalism and Origenism, the sixth, Monothelitism and Mongergism, the seventh, Iconoclasm, the Eighth, the Filioque Clause, and the Ninth, Barlaamism. Many heresies were not explicitly condemned by the councils because they had already been identified and suitably addressed by the great heresiologists such as Ss. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius and Augustine, and the heresiological works of these saints had already been received into Holy Tradition, making a formal anathema from a council superfluous.

So in general, Holy Tradition is not static but dynamic; occasionally things that were a part of Tradition fall out of use, for example, the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, the Cathedral Office used at Hagia Sophia, and the sung metrical homilies known as Kontakia, although in recent years all of these have been making a comeback. I am of the school of thought that whatever was a part of the tradition of the church that was not explicitly suppressed by a Council (an example being the various ante-Nicene methods of calculating the date of Easter) remains a dormant part of Holy Tradition available for reuse should the church require it. All of our liturgies are ancient, but those forms that fell out of use, when they are revived, tend to draw large crowds and thus help to stimulate church attendance, for example.

Regardless, when something is received by the church and deemed by the Church to be spiritually profitable, it becomes part of Holy Tradition. We believe that the mind of the Church that makes these decisions is guided by the Holy Spirit; the Church is the Body of Christ, and our Lord promised us that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. Thus Holy Tradition is in a sense infallible; certain practices accepted by it, such as older liturgical forms and extinct languages, may fall out of use, but the underlying essence of the Tradition is essentially the equivalent of what the Roman Catholics call the Infallible Magisterium, and the Holy Scriptures, in the form of the Septuagint and the 27 book Athanasian New Testament, are at the very heart of this tradition.

Now, the success of Orthodoxy is not confined to cultures that place a high value on tradition. Finland is home to an indigenous Orthodox population and the Orthodox Church of Finland is one of two state churches, the other being Lutheran. Finland is also a very modern country in every respect, and takes a typically Scandinavian view regarding its various cultural traditions. In general one will find more authentically Scandinavian culture in Scandinavian-American societies than in Scandinavia itself.

For that matter, in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, of which only the latter is noted for being historically a traditionalist culture, and which in recent years has really moved on, abolishing a great deal of British traditions, good and bad, in the name of modernity, the Orthodox faith, though not indigenous, has been very successful at acquiring large numbers of converts. In the US there are many Antiochian and OCA parishes where converts outnumber cradle Orthodox, and many converts have become priests and even senior bishops; the two most recent Metropolitans of the OCA are
converts.

I myself wish to some extent we did not call those we received from other Chrisfian communities converts, because while I do believe the Orthodox Church is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that posesses the Christian faith in its fullness, I believe that most Christians are not Orthodox due to historical factors, and I believe that non Orthodox churches that preach the true Gospel do save people and improve society, and furthermore,that churches which are not formally in communion with the Orthodox can manifest the Orthodox faith; the Anglican members of the Methodist Societies under John Wesley, the Scottish non-jurors, the Czech Utraquists and Hussites, and the high church Anglicans beginning with the Oxford Movement, as well as the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht before it was taken over by liberal theologians in the 1970s and 80s all appear to have practiced a faith that was essentially either Orthodox or very close to it. Martin Luther for his part caused both his churches and those of the Pope to draw closer to Orthodoxy, but some of his doctrines such as Sola Scriptura have proven to be unworkable, and his allergic reaction to aspects of the Catholic error caused him to throw the baby out with the bathwater. As for Calvin, he was a brilliant man but his fundamental ideas, that the church had become essentially paganized and required complete reform, and God foreordaining people to damnation, are almost diametrically opposed to the Orthodox faith, and were condemned as heresy at the Council of Jerusalem.

Oh by the way, since it appears that several of you are Baptists, I feel that I should mention one aspect of commonality between our faith traditions, and that is we baptize by full immersion. However we do baptize infants. There is a procedure for doing this safely and in the entire history of the church only one incident of drowning ocurred, in 2007, at the hands of an incompetent Moldovan priest who was charged with manslaughter.

However the canons do allow for baptism by affusion, although not sprinkling, in the case of someone not healthy enough to be immersed.

In the last the great cities of Europe had dedicated baptistries, which were typically round or octagonal domed structures, used for mass baptisms on Epiphany, Holy Saturday and Pentecost. Some of these, such as that in Florence, are, if memory serves, still operational. I personally love the idea of having one building for baptism and another for the Eucharist, A hobby of mine is designing churches; in my youth I thought about being an architect, and at present Im working on a design for a church with separate facilities for preaching, celebrating the Eucharist, and performing baptisms,

@ William G.:

William, I hope that you have received encouraging news about your family situation and that you can see God’s work in it.

I understand that you object to the proliferation of protestant denominations or even non-denominational independent churches. And I think you believe this is a result of adhering to Sola Scriptura which facilitates this proliferation because of different interpretations of the same textual material.

Might those differing interpretations be at least in part a result of presuppositions which are culturally based? In other words, the deficiency does not arise from a defect in the sufficiency of the text but from deficiency in exegesis such that we read the text in the way that seems right because it confirms pre-existing beliefs or cultural norms or cultural traditions.

I am reading you to say that the remedy for this is for believers to abandon Sola Scriptura and follow Holy Tradition in the Orthodox church or the rulings of the magisterium in Roman Catholicism. If that is true, then what is the explanation for the different traditions in Orthodoxy and the different rites in Roman Catholicism if they stem from the same root? Isn’t Holy Tradition just as incapable of ensuring a conforming or formal unity as Sola Scriptura and don’t we just have different instances of the same phenomenon that look very different?

What is your view of the cause of the Great Schism from an authority perspective, not the doctrinal issue. Was it because Holy Tradition of the church was ignored or overturned?

In your opinion, must unity be visible and conforming or is it possible that the unity of Christ’s spiritual Body might be more spiritual and informal among people who have differing interpretations of the text? Is it possible that the complete treasure of truth might be held in diverse denominations where the underlying unity might be invisible to humans and even appear chaotic but at the same time visible and even ordered from the perspective of the Holy Spirit?

To put it into financial terms, is it possible that God the Holy Spirit intentionally holds his assets in a diversified portfolio instead of only in one asset or asset class, knowing as he does our frame, that we are but dust and subject to at least intermittent failure? Is it possible that the Holy Spirit hedges with different denominations?

@ Gram3:
Is another reason for the proliferation of churches and denominations also due to a tendency for a sound, faithful church to drift into compromise and unbelief as there is a change in generations, causing Christians to ‘congregate’ in a new body where the bible is faithfully taught? Where the minister says what he believes rather than what he doubts. Then, over the course of time, this new body ….

After all, not everything that calls itself church is church, sometimes only the external, empty form is left where Christ was formerly faithfully proclaimed and honoured.

I well remember hearing Dr Matin Lloyd-Jones preach as an old man, and commenting on the creation of the United Reformed Church in the UK from congregationalists and presbyterians by saying that “putting two corpses in the same grave does not produce a resurrection”!! It was in 1975, and I still remember the text: Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah. I don’t usually remember the theme of a sermon that long!

@ William G.:

The question is not whether Holy Tradition causes division, it is whether or not Holy Tradition is sufficient to prevent schism.

If there is only one church available, then all people who want to go to church or who are forced to go to church will go to that church. Therefore, the appearance of unity will exist without the reality of unity. I’m not convinced that corporate hypocrisy is better than open division where people can freely associate with people of like mind.

Let’s assume you are living in America where you can freely choose which church you would like to join. There is a large diversity among the churches, but you have chosen the one that suits your understanding of God’s truth. The people in that church are more-or-less in unity over what they believe, because if they were not, then they could go elsewhere. There would be options.

Now, let’s suppose that changed, and there was only one church available to you, a person convinced of Eastern Orthodoxy, to attend, and that church is very disagreeble to you. That is your only option, along with everyone else who is forced to abandon their consciences as guided by the Holy Spirit and attend the OneandOnly Church. Even though those people are not united in spirit, they *appear* to be united. Does that situation better display the unity of the Spirit than many diverse churches with more-or-less unity among its members?

I argue that the latter case is better because it permits the freedom for people to be led by the direction of their consciences by the Holy Spirit to join with those who are led similarly. If the OneandOnly Church is Eastern Orthodox, then your conscience would be clear but mine would be offended. If the OneandOnly Church had me as the Patriarch or Pope, then your conscience would be offended. We would be at the same church, regardless, but one of us would have deeply offended consciences and therefore would not be unified in spirit one with another.

I argue that the cause for violence occurring along doctrinal divides is not the doctrinal divides per se but the fact that one or more of the parties had the power of the sword, whether formal or informal, along with the will to use coercive force to compel conformity. There is no reason that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc. cannot worship in peace and live their civil lives in harmony so long as they do not desire to compel the consciences of others. To me that displays God’s love and the unity of the Spirit and, indeed, the power of the Holy Spirit to direct his spiritual Body without visible organizational structures.

Yet, for many people during history, there was only the OneandOnly Church, and people were forced to attend it even if their consciences were offended. I don’t think that is a good thing, and I don’t think that blaming violence on differences of doctrine without taking into account the ways that OneandOnly churches of various kinds were allied with the State is quite fair or accurate.

@ William G.:

I need to clarify that when I referred to “corporate hypocrisy” above I did not mean the Orthodox Church. What I meant was any church that had people in it who were either unregenerate or who consciences were offended by the doctrines of Holy Tradition. So, for instance, that would be the case where the Holy Tradition of Southern Baptists was institutionalized. There would be lots of people whose consciences would be offended at that.

Ken wrote:

@ Gram3:
Is another reason for the proliferation of churches and denominations also due to a tendency for a sound, faithful church to drift into compromise and unbelief as there is a change in generations, causing Christians to ‘congregate’ in a new body where the bible is faithfully taught? Where the minister says what he believes rather than what he doubts. Then, over the course of time, this new body ….
After all, not everything that calls itself church is church, sometimes only the external, empty form is left where Christ was formerly faithfully proclaimed and honoured.
I well remember hearing Dr Matin Lloyd-Jones preach as an old man, and commenting on the creation of the United Reformed Church in the UK from congregationalists and presbyterians by saying that “putting two corpses in the same grave does not produce a resurrection”!! It was in 1975, and I still remember the text: Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah. I don’t usually remember the theme of a sermon that long!

This has been primarily a recent phenomena in response to the takeover of mainline denominations by anti-Christian theologies, and the merger of these denominations, leaving behind remnant groups who have adhered to the faith. In such cases I am forced to classify the larger body as schismatic, in that it was the entity that departed from the Gospel. One could argue that the Great Schism of 1054 was the prototypical schism of this sort. Churches like the CCCC, the ACNA and the even more conservative Continuing Anglican churches, the Mission Province of the Church of Sweden, and so on, aren’t really new denominations, but the remnant of collapsed denominations.

Within the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Old Calendarists are somewhat in this boat, however, I am on the fence as to whether their concerns are entirely legitimate, since several jurisdictions continued using the Old Calendar without schism. However the manner in which Old Calendarists were treated by the Greek Government is a shocking violation of religious freedom,,and makes me somewhat sympathetic to their cause. The Russian Old Believers are a similar group that were alienated by the changes to the Russian Orthodox liturgy made by Patriarch Nikon, which was enforced brutally with mass executions in the darkest hour of the Orthodox Church. Some Old Believers developed very strange theologies centered around the idea that Nikon was the anti Christ and the end of the world was at hand, such as the hole worshippers, who worshipped facing a cruciform hole in the east end of their chapels, and the Priest less, who still exist today, and believe that after the Nikonian schism and the death of the last anti-Nikonian priests, there are no valid Christian priests or bishops. Thus all of their services are Readers Services; most Orthodox prayer services can be said without a priest and led by laymen or women, and they exclusively use these services. Their churches have an iconostasis right against the East Wall, with no doors or altar. Most however retain priests and bishops, and many re-entered into communion with the Moscow Patriarch, or moved to other countries and entered into communion with the Orthodox patriarchs of those lands. For example,there was a group in Turkey who fled Islamic persecution, who had some particular rare liturgical books that the Turks confiscated; miraculously, a book with the same liturgies was found recently on Mount Athos.

Now what is shocking is how minor the changes were that led to these schisms. The Old Calendarists believe the revised Julian calendar, which causes the Gregorian calendar for fixed feasts, and the Julian calendar for Easter, to be heretical;’I am unconvinced of this, although I personally prefer the straight Julian calendar, as the Revised Julian calendar prevents a Kyriopascha (literally, The Lord’s Easter), an enhanced Easter celebration, that occurs every 70 years when Easter and the Annunciation coincide, and also in some years the Apostles fast, which begins the week after Pentecost and ends on the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul, ends before it begins as a result of Pentecost occurring after the Julian Easter, and the feast do the Apostles being fixed to the Gregorian calendar. Additionally,the Julian Calendar allows one to focus more in the spiritual meaning of Christmas vs the popular celebration, although I think the appeal of celebrating Christmss at the same time as everyone else is also appealing to some.

It should be stressed however that in both cases, the changes were minor. The Nikonian reform merely consisted of changing some aspects of how the liturgy was served, the music, and the position of the choir, as well as the direction of the sign of the cross, to conform to contemporary Greek practice. The service texts remained unaltered. The Revised Julian Calendar merely changed the date of the fixed feasts; it was a problematic change, but still relatively minor. Yet both caused a massive uproar. The willingness of the Orthodox in the case of the Nikonian schism to literally go to their death over the most minor changes to faith and praxis provides a strong measure of stability; it is at present inconceivable that an Orthodox Church could undergo the kind of de-Christianization that has occurred in mainline denominations such as the ELCA, the Episcopal Church, the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland in the UK, and the. Uniting Church in Australia, among others. Even the sweeping reforms of Vatican II would certainly cause a massive schism.

In like manner, some Baptists,,continuing Anglicans and Mennonites, especially the Amish, appear to have formed a rigid adherence to tradition that prevents destructive changes from being inflicted upon their denominations. I consider the actions of the hierarchy of churches like the Episcopal Church USA to be the worst form of church abuse, worse even than Mark Driscoll; the mainline Protestant churches are basically turning themselves into distribution channels for Christian rock music, and real estate investment trusts. The ECUSA for example has spent $40 million in lawsuits to kick traditionalists out of their parishes in order to retain control of these valuable assets, many of which have been sold to megachurches or converted to office space, lofts, civic arts centers or other uses. The Christian rock music distribution channel is also very lucrative; I believe that while some praise bands are the result of a genuine misguided desire to attract youth, they have largely been promoted for that purpose by commercial interests, and in many cases the change from traditional hymnody to praise band music has alienated people from the mainline churches. Interestingly, I’ve seen studies that suggest it’s not just older congregants who are being driven away; millenials appear to have a strong enthusiasm for traditional hymns and liturgical music. At a local Catholic parish that offers a Tridentine mass, that I sometimes visit, I estimate the mean age of those present is 27, and the mode around 33. Only a handful of attendees are old enough to have attended the Tridentine Mass back when it was the ordinary form of the Roman liturgy (before the Novus Ordo was rolled out in 1969-70). So while some churches do attract people with praise bands, and while I personally think praise band music might be highly appropriate for love feasts and church picnics, it would seem that it’s use in mainline churches has actually been harmful in many cases. One must observe with more than a little cynicism that all the mainline churches in the US are headquartered in Nashville, with the exception of the Episcopal Church,,which is based in a posh headquarters near the UN building,,which the church intends to sell in the near future. My thought is that the mainline churches will continue to lose members and slowly transform into real estate investment trusts, selling off their property portfolio in order to finance various charitable activities. In this manner they can preserve their non profit status, and the administrators can continue paying themselves comfortable salaries and benefits,

There is a real tragedy here as far as Protestantism is concerned, and that is that the non-denominational megachurches that are springing up to replace the mainline churches lack the various systems of governance and accountability built into the mainline denominations. Thus they tend to become havens for abusive and narcissistic pastors like Driscoll and Dever. The enforced liberalization if the mainline denominations was a process that began in the early 20th century in the seminaries with the emergence of the concept of the social gospel; the liberalization of the seminaries was accelerated by the depression, World War II and other factors; seminaries, confronted with a range of social problems, felt the church should attempt to tackle them directly and realize the Kingdom of God here and now, in spite of our Lord saying that it is not of this world. In the early stages, this process was very well intentioned and explicitly Christian; it had allies in the ecumenical and liturgical movements and sympathizers among the likes of Thomas Merton, but as the decades passed, particularly the counter cultural revolution in the 1960s, the movement became increasingly corrupt under the influence of men like James Pike, an Episcopal bishop who rejected the Trinity and other essential doctrines, and who was a genius with regard to the media; he used the threat of organizing a massive controversy in the press to intimidate the Episcopal Church into not trying him for heresy.p, otherwise he souls surely have been deposed. This set in motion a process of progressive ablation of tradition in the mainline denominations, which caused them to shrink against a growing population, and gave rise to the militant atheism and irreligion which permeates so much of the culture of Western Christendom.

In the East, on the other hand, all the churches , Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, were strengthened by the Communist persecution and continue to draw moral strength from the Islamic persecution. There were Protestant churches behind the iron curtain, and their faith was in many cases bolstered, aside from the Lutheran Church in Estonia, which has been slowly dying sadly. In the Middle East, the Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants are suffering together. I believe this shared experience of martyrdom, while tragic, will unite the church and help to revive a living, active faith, because Christians to endure the tribulations of Islamic and militant Atheist persecution historically have, and will continue to, draw strength from the history of Christian martyrdom under Diocletian, so when the clouds lift, we might well expect to enter a brief but blissful period of unity akin to the joyous atmosphere following the Edict of Milan.

Gram3 wrote:

@ William G.:
The question is not whether Holy Tradition causes division, it is whether or not Holy Tradition is sufficient to prevent schism.
If there is only one church available, then all people who want to go to church or who are forced to go to church will go to that church. Therefore, the appearance of unity will exist without the reality of unity. I’m not convinced that corporate hypocrisy is better than open division where people can freely associate with people of like mind.
Let’s assume you are living in America where you can freely choose which church you would like to join. There is a large diversity among the churches, but you have chosen the one that suits your understanding of God’s truth. The people in that church are more-or-less in unity over what they believe, because if they were not, then they could go elsewhere. There would be options.
Now, let’s suppose that changed, and there was only one church available to you, a person convinced of Eastern Orthodoxy, to attend, and that church is very disagreeble to you. That is your only option, along with everyone else who is forced to abandon their consciences as guided by the Holy Spirit and attend the OneandOnly Church. Even though those people are not united in spirit, they *appear* to be united. Does that situation better display the unity of the Spirit than many diverse churches with more-or-less unity among its members?
I argue that the latter case is better because it permits the freedom for people to be led by the direction of their consciences by the Holy Spirit to join with those who are led similarly. If the OneandOnly Church is Eastern Orthodox, then your conscience would be clear but mine would be offended. If the OneandOnly Church had me as the Patriarch or Pope, then your conscience would be offended. We would be at the same church, regardless, but one of us would have deeply offended consciences and therefore would not be unified in spirit one with another.
I argue that the cause for violence occurring along doctrinal divides is not the doctrinal divides per se but the fact that one or more of the parties had the power of the sword, whether formal or informal, along with the will to use coercive force to compel conformity. There is no reason that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc. cannot worship in peace and live their civil lives in harmony so long as they do not desire to compel the consciences of others. To me that displays God’s love and the unity of the Spirit and, indeed, the power of the Holy Spirit to direct his spiritual Body without visible organizational structures.
Yet, for many people during history, there was only the OneandOnly Church, and people were forced to attend it even if their consciences were offended. I don’t think that is a good thing, and I don’t think that blaming violence on differences of doctrine without taking into account the ways that OneandOnly churches of various kinds were allied with the State is quite fair or accurate.

Just so we’re crystal clear on this point, I believe that one of the central messages of the passion of our Lord was the need for religious freedom. Jesus Christ was ultimately put to death owing to the religious intolerance of the Sanhedrin and the indifference of Pontius Pilate, who feared an insurrection, and allowed Christ to be executed even though he believed him to be innocent (I find Pilate a fascinating character; he embraced the moral relativism typical of a corrupt and degenerate society, that one often sees today; he was very much a man with a Postmodern spirit; I also feel very sorry for him, in that fear for his career and possibly his life led him to allow something evil, yet at the same time, that evil thing was a necessary part of God’s economy of salvation. There is one legend of the early church that Pilate became a Christian, and another that he committed suicide, or was killed ignominiously; for my part, I really pray that God had mercy on his soul, because Pilate was a product of a decadent society and a man who was in a sense destined by God to allow a horrible but necessary thing to occur, and to Pilate’s credit, he tried to stop it, but gave up in the face of a mounting insurrection.

Thus, while I do believe that the Orthodox Church is the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, I do not believe that anyone should be compelled to join it; i do not believe that it should be afforded special privileges by the state denied to other churches, and I do not believe that other Christian churches are entirely devoid of grace and on the same level as non-Christian religions. Rather I believe the Orthodox Church possesses the faith in its fullness, and has a duty to disseminate this faith to the other denominations, in order to guide them to a state of increasing holiness, with the hope that in time some of those denominations will chose to be united with us. I do believe people can be saved by being Christians who are not Orthodox; I think that the main advantage of the Orthodox church is the extreme stability in terms of dogma and praxis; since the Orthodox Church more than any other church resembles the dogma and praxis of the fourth century church, which is the earliest period of time where we have sufficient information about the church to be able to reconstruct a reasonably clear picture as to what it looked like, this takes us as close as we can get to the church of the Apostles. There have of course been changes since the fourth century, but these are all improvements on existing things rather than fundamental changes in doctrine: our churches are more beautiful, our liturgical music is vastly superior, while still following in the antiphonal pattern established by St. Ignatius the first century martyr following his famous dream, in which he saw and heard two choirs of angels singing in a pattern of alternation, our iconography is more pervasive, consistent and spiritual, our actual liturgical services are richer and more ornate, and the canon of the New Testament has been finalized. Also, almost all members of the church are literate, and thanks to the internet, Orthodox Christians have vastly improved access to information about the faith.

The Orthodox should be prepared to share this tradition with anyone who wishes to access it, in the hopes that it will eventually lead to unity. This process is in fact occurring with great success. In one highly visible example, large numbers of churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, are now decorated with Byzantine-style icons; I would love to see more churches take up Coptic and Syriac style icons as well. Many Christians outside the Orthodox Church now practice the Jesus Prayer. New monastic communities are emerging in the Protestant churches; in recent years the first ever Methodist monastery, a convent for women, was built in the Northern US (Montana, if memory serves). In addition, there is a renewed interest in Patristics, which is central to Holy Tradition; if the heart of Orthodox Holy Tradition is the Bible, then the Patristic writings are the lungs. This increased interest in Patristics has manifested itself in the form of theological movements such as The New Perspective on Paul, which is really the Old Perspective on Paul, before St. Paul was fundamentally misinterpreted, or to be more precise, read without regard to the historic Patristic interpretation of his work, during the Reformation, leading to disastrous results.

I am such a huge proponent of sharing Holy Tradition with other denominations that, for my part, in collaboraiton with my mother, who has a PhD in music composition and theory, I am working on a series of service books and hymnals for use by traditionalist Protestants, which feature a blend of traditional Protestant and Orthodox hymns, with some Protestant hymns that are dogmatically confusing excised or altered, and that additionally feature Western Rite Protestant liturgies that incorporate Eastern Christian elements; for example, a Holy Communion service that features a set of different Eucharistic Prayers in the manner of the current Roman Missal and the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer, but whereas two of the Eucharistic Prayers in those books are inventions, theoretically based on the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, but in reality, original compositions, the eucharistic prayers in the liturgy I am working on are adapted from the oldest extant Anaphoras (the Greek word for a Eucharistic prayer): the Anaphoras of St. James, St. Mark, the Twelve Apostles, St. Serapion, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, the Roman Canon, and the anaphoras of the Ambrosian and Mozarabic Rite liturgy. The first of these books is intended for use by traditional Methodists and also feature material from John Wesley’s Sunday Service Book and is nearing completion. I hope as part of the project to publish a traditional one year lectionary based on a hybrid of Syriac, Byzantine, Anglican and Latin Rite influence, as an alternative to the three year Revised Common Lectionary which I view as deeply flawed.

Holy Tradition is not sufficient to prevent schism, in the sense that schisms can still occur over differing interpretations of it, or to be more precise, people choosing to depart from Holy Tradition, justifying their departure by a selective reading of that Tradition, just as people engage in Biblical eisegesis to justify schisms, but Holy Tradition if embraced makes a church part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church against which the Gates of Hell will not prevail. Thus, a church that fully embraces Holy Tradition will not disintegrate into a plethora of schisms, and schisms of schisms, like what happened to the Roman Catholic church after the Great Schism; within 900 of the Great Schism, Western Christianity went from being a unified body under the Pope of Rome, to being a disorganized collection of several thousand denominations, sects and cults. In contrast, when one looks at the schismatic bodies that have separated from the Eastern churches there are only seven large ones, four of which share an identical faith and differ only in matters of liturgy or politics (the canonical Eastern Orthodox, the Old Believers, the Old Calendarists, and a grouping of nationalist churches that broke away from the Russian and serbian Orthodox churches, but have not been formally recognized by the canonical churches from which they separated, and then in India, a group of Nasranis who follow the West Syriac rite but are not in communion with the Patriarch of Antioch for political reasons).

There are also maybe 15-20 smaller breakaway churches, such as the priestless Old Believers, the Molokans, and the Doukhobors.

So it would appear that, statistically at least, adhering to Holy Tradition dramatically reduces the number of persistant (as opposed to transient) schisms. There have been many transient schisms in the Eastern Church, and there were many transient schisms in the ancient church; examples such as the various Gnostic sects, the Arians, the Novatians, the Donatists, and the Judaizing Christians come to mind; all of these schisms are extinct, the members of these churches either converting to the united Orthodox Catholic faith that predated the Great Schism, or dying off, or converting to other religions such as Islam.

It should be noted that the Orthodox-Catholics and/or the Byzantines did not exterminate any of them; the Albigensian Crusade may have exterminated the Cathars, but in all probability it didn’t, because there are historical records of the excellent preaching of St. Dominic bringing large numbers of Cathars into communion with Rome, and also the Albigensian indifference to reproduction had the effect of resulting in the attrition of their population (in fact, one reason the Catholics put so much energy into stamping out the Cathars, and the reason why the contemporary Pope at the time described them as more dangerous than Islam, is because of the success with which they discouraged people from having children; the Roman church was terrified the Cathars could trigger a massive decline in the birth rate resulting in the depopulation of large parts of the strategically important Pyrennes, which acted as a natural barrier against an Islamic conquest of France, which had been attempted and stopped 500 years previously by my patron saint, and which in the 1200s remained a real threat).

So in conclusion, Holy Tradition is a gift that the Orthodox should spread around to different churches, because what it is fundamentally is the Gospel as preached by St. Paul and all of the wondrous beauty and mystery that the Good News inspired over the next ten centuries; and Holy Tradition, if adhered to, does reduce the rate of schism dramatically, a fact born out by the sharp disparity between the number of persistent schisms among Eastern churches which adhere to Holy Tradition, and Western churches which do not. The Roman church claims to hold to Holy Tradition, but really, it only hangs on to a fraction of it, and has discarded and replaced large parts of it with other things, for example, by displacing the Platonic philosophy used by the Greek theologians with the Aristotelean logic of the Scholastics under Thomas Aquinas.

Gram3 wrote:

@ William G.:
I need to clarify that when I referred to “corporate hypocrisy” above I did not mean the Orthodox Church. What I meant was any church that had people in it who were either unregenerate or who consciences were offended by the doctrines of Holy Tradition. So, for instance, that would be the case where the Holy Tradition of Southern Baptists was institutionalized. There would be lots of people whose consciences would be offended at that.

Understood; I did not read your remark about corporate hypocrisy in that manner and took no offense; I am highly enjoying this discussion with you, and I feel like we are engaging on a fundamental level even though we have highly divergent theologies. It is plainly obvious we both share a love for Christ and are seekers of the truth. I also appreciate you discussing this with me and praying for me in this hour when I am facing such extreme terror. I did get two bits of good news; one friend of the family will be helping my relative in the morning, and another will be staying with them throughout the week, enabling me to go to the monastery to pray continually starting this evening.

Now, I can understand how some baptists brought up on the idea that scripture alone is sufficient for all things might be offended by the use of phrase “Holy Tradition,” or by the idea of tradition taking precedence. Baptist churches that have sought to import holy tradition into the Baptist faith have generally done so on the basis of describing it as the practice of the ancient church, which it is. Still others, such as the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, which exists in competition with the Georgian Orthodox Church, actively embrace the idea of Holy Tradition; the Georgian Baptists claim that they’re simply reforming the Orthodox church in the same manner that Luther or Calvin reformed the Protestant church. Thus far they remain very small however, because Georgians love their Orthodox church. In the case of several Orthodox countries, your ethnic identity is asserted by your membership in the local Orthodox church, so for example, the Serbians and Croatians speak the same language, but if you’re Catholic, you are Croatian, whereas if you’re Orthodox, you are Serbian. In like manner, to be a Copt, as opposed to a generic Egyptian, you must be a Coptic Orthodox (or perhaps a Coptic Catholic, although there are very few).

I should also say that the Baptist Church certainly does have traditions of its own. The idea that baptism can only be administered via full immersion, to adults, and the idea that the Lord’s Supper is purely a memorial, are both examples of extra-Biblical tradition, and in the case of the latter, Baptist theologians in recent years have had to do some mental gymnastics to justify it. It is much easier to believe in the doctrine of the Real Presence, especially if one believes that this presence is purely spiritual; this is the view held by most Protestants. The view of Lutherans, Anglo-Catholics, Roman Catholics and Eastern Christians that the Eucharist is in some way physically the body and blood of our Lord is difficult to believe in, but it also appears to be the most ancient.

Returning to the subject of Baptist traditions, a lot of Baptist tradition seems to have been developed in conscious opposition to “Popery”, that is to say, the practices of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, which was deemed to have not reformed itself sufficiently. This was slightly tempered by the Regulative Principle of Worship, but that principle is itself strictly speaking extra-Biblical, in that the New Testament only provides minimal guidance on liturgical matters, and the fact that the early church starting as early as the year 53, the approximate date in which the Didache was composed, was using extra-Biblical forms of worship, and the fourth century church that finalized the Biblical canon and declared firmly and unambiguously the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, both of which were embraced Baptists, suggests that the regulative principle of worship itself is purely a tradition, and one that is perhaps misguided. That said, the Cathedral Typikon used at the Hagia Sophia and a few other major cathedrals in the Eastern Orthodox church used psalms and canticles from the Bible exclusively; hymns originated in the Monastic typikon and were later imported into the cathedrals by popular demand, the Cathedral Typikon falling out of use in the century prior to the fall of Constantinople.

In recent decades the fantatic choir Capella Romana has reconstructed it under the direction of musicologist, composer and cantor-par-excellence Alexander Lingas, and not only are their performances of it available on CD, but it is also occasionally used in Greek Orthodox churches on special occasions. So the Baptist idea of a purely Biblical worship experience is not entirely wrong; its just that the Baptists I think pushed too far.

The Baptists do clearly have traditions however; they may not call them traditions, but there are recognizable characteristics of Baptist churches that set them apart from Congregationalists (arguably their closest kin among the major denominations), Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglican and so on. The regulative principle of worship lies at the heart of these traditions, but even here, the baptists may not admit it, but historically they have gone beyond this.

For example, the Bible does not specify details regarding church architecture, other than describing the Tabernacle and the Temple. To follow the regulative principle precisely, Baptists would arguably need to build churches modeled on the Second Temple, which would be doable, given that unlike the first, the Second Temple lacked an ark of the covenant. However, such a design would be highly impractical for Baptist worship; while the temple did contain courtyards for prayer services and Torah lessons, it also featured numerous storerooms, livestock pens, barbershops for ceremonially cutting the hair of Nazaris who had completed their religious vows, and at the very center, altars inside the holies, and surrounding infrastructure, specifically configured to facilitate the operation of the sacrificial cult. Since this sacrificial cult is gone (and the Orthodox believe it will never be returning, for we reject Chiliasm, the idea that Jesus will reign for 1,000 years on Earth and perform sacrifices as described in Ezekiel, instead considering that the millenium refers to the present age in which Christ as the King has opened the door to salvation and theosis in this life for all the nations, and we believe that the animal sacrifices in the temple served primarily to iconographically symbolize the final and perfect sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross), this design would make no sense. Thus baptists use a wide variety of external architectural styles, but there are certain highly obvious Baptist architectural traditions, including the preponderance of the pulpit, the lack of a clearly defined permanent altar table, and in most Baptist churches, a complete lack of iconography; if stained glass windows exist, they tend to be abstract.

Another Baptist tradition which is extra-Biblical is the beautiful and highly unusual hymnography contained in the hymnals Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp. If ever the Baptists adopted Holy Tradition and became part of the Orthodox Church with their own distinct rite, this music would surely be a fixture of it. In fact, I would love to see a Sacred Harp style rendition of some of the classic Orthodox and Anglican hymns and Biblican canticles, such as the Magnificat, the Western favorite Te Deum Laudamus, the Orthodox hymns It is Truly Meet, Let My Prayer Arise, Praise the Lord in the Heavens, and Many Years to You, O Master, among others.

These Baptist traditions are holy in the sense of being sacred, set apart, within the context of Baptism. From a purely Orthodox perspective they are not Holy Tradition, for Holy Tradition is integral, but some of them, specifically the hymnography, could be adopted as part of Holy Tradition if a Baptist church were to be received into the Orthodox church while retaining aspects of traditional Baptist liturgy. The result would still be something very different from the Baptist worship experience as it is now, however.

The Southern Baptists and the Orthodox are very much alike from a moral perspective in that both share a common horror with regards to matters such as gay marriage, abortion, and other sins of our contemporary society. One aspect of moral divergence is that the Orthodox do not frown upon the consumption of alcohol in moderation, since this is described favorably at several points in the Bible (i.e. “Take a little wine for Thy stomach,” and the Septuagint and Vulgate version of Psalm 23 (numbered Psalm 22) reads: The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want…
Thou hast prepared a table before me, in the presence of them
that trouble me.
Thou hast anointed my head with oil, and like the best wine
doth Thy cup inebriate me…

However, the issue of alcohol aside, the morality of the Orthodox and Baptist churches is basically the same, although the Orthodox have a major thing about gluttony; I don’t know if the Baptists view being passionate about food as wrong, but for the Orthodox, the appetite is a passion to be controlled, and thus we have very strict fasting rules; this stands in contrast to our more relaxed attitude regarding alcohol. Of course, to drink alcohol other than communion wine and get even somewhat buzzed during Lent or a fast day would be inappropriate; married Orthodox also as a rule abstain from sexual intercourse in Lent, at a minimum, and often, on all fasting days. I don’t think Baptists fast, although following the regulative principle of worship, one could argue that they might well consider it, given the numerous fasts depicted in the Bible and the very positive spiritual outcomes that tend to be associated with them. But on the core questions of morality, the Orthodox and Baptists stand together, and are further united by a belief in the ideal of water baptism.

However, in all other respects, the two churches are very fundamentally different; in fact, they represent two extreme ends of the Christian spectrum. One could say that there is more in common between the Baptists and the Roman Catholics than between the Baptists and the Orthodox, for the Catholics at least share a similar soteriological model. However, the morality of the two churches is similar, and I think beyond that, the piety of the two churches is very similar, in that both Orthodox and Baptists are passionate about the Christian religion, and very committed to Jesus Christ. Now, the Orthodox would have to say that Baptist traditions are, by themselves, at present, not a part of Holy Tradition; Holy Tradition is integral, and as I mentioned above, some Baptist traditions could be added to it if Baptists joined the Orthodox church, and several other Baptist traditions are taken from it, but the Baptist “distinctives” are themselves not a part of Holy Tradition as the Orthodox define it. Baptists would probably deny that they are a part of any form of tradition, so actually, a point of theological concord may exist here.

One thing I love about Baptists is that there was among Baptists a desire to return to the practices of the early Church. The Baptists were correct in so far as the Roman Catholic Church had drifted away from those practices. Also, strictly speaking, the Orthodox have embellished the worship of the early church with richer music, liturgical art, vestments, et cetera, so that whereas worship in the first century church was a very humble affair, Orthodox worship tends to be a paradise for all the senses (except for the feet, if you are in one of the Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe or Russia that lacks seating; the Russians in particular prefer to stand during church, and have the remarkable ability to stand throughout church services that can last as long as four hours; an Antiochian Orthodox bishop from Syria who visited Russia for Holy Week in the 17th century described in his diary the incredible agony he experienced from standing for such a long period of time, and wrote “Of the Muscovites, surely their legs and feet must be made of iron.” This is definitely a point of acculturation, and in the US almost all Orthodox churches have either pews or freestanding seats, although one can find on the Internet a few nutters who argue that pews are an evil Western invention that threatens the piety and integrity of the Orthodox church.

However, since Baptists do have a genuine desire to follow the practices of the early church, and since, on that basis, they have recovered the doctrine of baptism by full immersion, which the Romans and most other Western churches abandoned in favor of sprinkling or affusion, I do believe that if Baptists commit themselves to the study of Patristics and the early church, and also engage with the Evangelical Baptists in Georgia, who have appropriated and used in a Baptist context large chunks of Orthodox spirituality, they can draw closer to the Orthodox church. I should also add that I do have a special love for baptists, for various reasons: my namesake was the leader of the first party of Baptist settlers in the United States, and in my youth I went to a Baptist preschool. So there is much to Baptism that I do actually love. And since there is now a Baptist church using the Orthodox liturgy, I for one see no reason why there can’t be an Orthodox parish that uses Baptist hymnody.

Nancy wrote:

We must touch the patient, even if he has leprosy, just like Jesus did, and tell him that we will be right there while he introduces himself to God and not to worry but have hope, because we ourselves have been there and done that and there is healing in doing so. Less than that and we have failed in the prime directive.

Thanks so much for your perspective. I gain so much by reading your comments because we have come from such different places and experiences. I always read at least one of your comments each day that makes me think about something in a new way.

I’ll be “touching the patient” in Jesus’ name starting tomorrow, and it will be a challenge for me, and I don’t know how it is going to work out. But you are right about sitting in a church feeling good about everything, and so what good is that. This challenge to live the faith just came up yesterday and the choice was be comfortable or be like Jesus. I would certainly appreciate prayers for this new situation because I do enjoy my comfort and don’t like changes or challenges at this point in life!

Lydia wrote:

@ mirele:
This is not going to be popular but the whole Mary perpetual virgin thing seems to have originated somewhat with Augustine’s beliefs about original sin, imputed guilt, women and sex. Perhaps it’s just because he was a prolific writer and it spread West.

I just noticed I missed this comment. I am afraid you are mistaken; Origen, along with Ss Athanasius, Jerome, Epiphanius and John Chrysostom, all of whom predated Augustine, and St. Ambrose, who baptized Augustine, all believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. St. Augustine for his part is just barely recognized as a minor saint in the Eastern churches; icons of him are extremely rare and were practically unknown before the 20th century, and his theological work is viewed as being of secondary importance. While Augustine is one of the most important Patristic voices in the West, in the East he is insignificant and mistrusted. His writings suggest that humans are saved by the action of God -Monergism, which was condemned at the Sixth Ecumenical Council by implication. Augustine escaped anathema owing to his popularity in the west and his work defeating Pelagianism, The Eastern churches believe that man must cooperate with God in order to be saved, through a synergy between the human and divine will. This concept among Protestants was popularized by Arminius. Augustine is in a sense a proto-Calvinist. Many Eastern theologians believe that an over emphasis on Augustine was responsible for the breakdown of the dogmatic breakdown of the Roman church that led to the Great Schism. Additionally, the Orthodox reject Augustine’s assertion that the sex act is inherently sinful even in marriage, for Paul tells us the marriage bed is undefiled, and the Old Testament in parts appears to glorify sexual attraction and nuptial bliss, for example, in the Song of Solomon. The Orthodox also reject Augustine’s horrid assumption that babies who die without being baptized go to Hell; this again seems unbiblical given the Old Testament concept of the Age of Accountability.

Augustine was a Manichee before he became Christian and lived a morally loose lifestyle. As a result, a pervading sense of guilt permeates his writings. However, he was popular because his works like The City of God provided spiritual comfort to the terrified citizens of Western Europe as the Western Roman Empire collapsed around them and the barbarians took over. As conditions in the west only got worse as the dark ages progressed, the number of people fluent in both Greek and Larin declined, and Ambrose, as the most popular Latin theologian, became disproportionately influential; someone lucky enough to own books and be able to read them might own a gospel book and The City of God or the Comfessions.

Some Orthodox scholars such as the late John Romanides view Augustine as a heretic, but the general consensus is that he was a saint, whose writings contain some value, but he was tremendously overemphasized in the west at the expense of theologians like Athanasius, Basil the Great and John Chrysostom, whose work was far more important. Athanasius gave us our 27 book New Testament canon, helped to draft the Nicene Creed in its original form, and also gave us the Athanasian creed, and several very good books. I would rather spend a minute reading On the Incarnation than an hour reading The City of God.

One last bit that shows some of the flaws in Augustine’s approach; when St. Ambrose was catechizing him in preparation for baptism, Augustine asked for suggestions on reading material to help prepare him intellectually. St. Ambrose suggested he devote the time until his baptism on the detailed study of the Book of Isaiah, on the grounds of it being a nexus of Christian prophecy and morality. However, this was too boring for Augustine, so instead he immersed himself in several classics of Greek philosophy.

While I do respect Augustine as a saint, I will readily admit that if the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary started with him, and was not shared by the likes of Athanasius, Epiphanius and John Chrysostom, I would probably be inclined to reject it as a hagiographic legend. However, the fact is that virtually everyone from Athanasius to Philip Melancthon to John Wesley accepts this doctrine convinced me of it; the only major ancient figure to reject it was Tertullian, but he was a member of a heretical sect called the Montanists who were led by a man who claimed to be the Paraclete; if a baptized Montanist sinned they would be permanently expelled from the group. Forgiveness was a one time thing in their doctrine.

@ William G.:

Thanks for your reply. I hope that you will get some good news in the next week and that you have a refreshing time of prayer.

We will again have to disagree on this point. Though that is what I thought your answer would be, I it is better to let you speak to the issue yourself, since I am not familiar with Orthodox theology, obviously.

@ William G.:
On this, i think it is impossible for us to agree. Judaism is a different religion – then and now. I know that the Orthodox think as you’ve stated, but i honestly am stunned whenever i come across the articulation of this belief. And this is one way in which anti-semitism has found deep roots in many predominantly Orthodox and Catholic countries. You have a fine mind and a compassionate heart; not all of your fellow believers are as sensitive toward other people, I’m afraid.

@ numo:
Numo, I absolutely agree with you on this. Just because the “Bear” may have had neurological origins doesn’t mean God didn’t use it for His glory.

Since the topic of supersessionism vs covenant theology vs dispensationalism (and all the variations at the points of overlap of these ideas) has been brought up, I have tried to read a little bit about it, being neither a historian nor a theologian. One thing I ran into is the idea? fact? that since the late great disaster of the previous century there has apparently been a push in some denominations to rethink their ideas in this area and modify if necessary. Before the baptists went whole hog calvinist, what I heard taught in the area where I grew up was sort of a hodge podge of these ideas. In reading NT Wright not too long ago I ran into his discussion of the continuation of the Abrahamic covenant being not only about the Jews but also about gentile believers who formed part of the promise of blessing the nations through Israel.

I am thinking that considering the current world situation and the current raging theological issues in protestantism this area of theology will be front and center in a lot of discussions.

@ XianJaneway:
Forgive me, but i am a but confused herr – what do you mean about using a hallucination for God’s glory??? Thanks in advance for the clarification.

Sopwith wrote:

  __
Nancy, it is really simple, what Jesus offered the Sons and Daughters of Abraham, they did not want. So after Jesus rose from the dead, He raised up Saul of Tarsus to bring that same  message of eternal life to the gentile nations, which they readily accepted. Some nineteen hundred and eighty-one years and counting…
Talk about patience.

–

That’s simply untrue; many Antiochian and Jerusalem Orthodox, many Syriac Orthodox and Assyrians, many Coptic Christians, many Nasranis of Kerala, who are genetically related to the Kochin Jews, and many Ethiopian Orthodox, are descended from early Jewish Christians and posess the Y chromosome that indicates descent from Aaron. The idea that the Jews rejected Christ entirely is unbiblical, unhistoric, and can be interpreted as anti-Semitic. Enough Christians were of Jewish descent that St. John Chrysostom fought a war of words with synagogue leaders in Antioch over their attempt to convert Judeo-Christian members of his flock to proto-Rabinnical Judaism.

__

“Quibble Run? (TM)”

hmmm…

—> Jesus wasn’t talking about ‘ideas’. He raised up one man, sent him to speak to the gentile nations, which he did do.

They listened…many of them, as many still do today.

(grin)

Believe in Jesus, live forever.

So simple a child can understand it.

Dink!

What is wrong with your cog-nitive t.h.i.n.k.i.n.g?

(bump)

Is it time for you ta go back ta Sunday school, perhaps?

hmmm…

Could b.

Jesus said suffer the little children ta come ta me.

They don’t need Doctor Wright ta do dat.

Sorry.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnk !

No cigar, N’ da fat lady dosn’t sing…Me, Me, Me, Me…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhKTYxDZjao

-snicker-

Sopy

🙂

—

@ Nancy:

Totally agree that this is a complex set of questions or texts that are interrelated and which raise further questions and implications. I think that God provides a schematic of what he planned/plans to do, and the problems come when we try to fill in the schematic with things which God has not revealed but which satisfy our desire to understand God’s ways. We unavoidably read things into the text or attempt to turn God’s schematic into something he never intended but which makes “sense” to us.

The promise was made to Abraham and his descendants forever. Abraham himself was born a Gentile worshiper of idols who *left* those idols and followed God by faith. I think the symbolism here is compelling. God told Abraham that through Abraham God would bless the nations out of which Abraham. So we can’t say that the Gentiles are left out of Abraham’s promise. And neither can we say that they are the *ultimate* intended beneficiaries, either. And neither can we say that the purpose of God’s blessing was *only* to bless the ethnic descendants of Jacob/Israel.

But God also tells Abraham that Isaac is the son of the Promise that he would fulfill through Sarah in a supernatural conception and pregnancy. More imagery that bears on the issue, I think. Sarah would be the mother of son of the Promise and she would conceive a natural son of her husband Abraham, but the possibility of that happening was *only* because of God’s action, so Abraham and Sarah had only a minor role with this miraculous conception.

God did not cast off the Gentile son of Hagar the Egyptian when Abraham sent her away, but provided for both him and her and made him into many nations as well. God would bless them through the son of the Promise though he was not the chosen vehicle for fulfillment of the Promise. God exercised his prerogative to fulfill his promises in his way, and showed by this that he is not bound by human culture where the firstborn, Ishmael, would have been the heir rather than Isaac.

This action by God along with his choice of Jacob over Esau, of course, also defeats the “complementarian” argument that the first “born,” Adam, has rule over the second “born,” Eve. Another important aspect, IMO, of this story is that God later prophetically calls Egypt his son, and I think this points to a future blessing of Hagar and Ishmael’s people and that God has not forgotten them, even though that people would be the oppressors of Jacob’s descendants.

So, to me, it seems that God has a plan to bless both Gentiles and Jews, and he has worked that plan in ways that are unpredictable and even nonsensical by human standards and culture. Neither Jews nor Gentiles can make exclusive claims to God’s favor, and all peoples will strive against God, including Israel, but he is determined to bless them nevertheless.

To focus on “Jew” or “Gentile” is interesting but not the main point which is that God has a plan to bless both through the son of the Promise who is both a son of Israel and also a son of Adam. What we know, I think, is that Jesus is the new/faithful Israel, and he is the new/faithful Adam. What that means is what we talk about.

Gram3 wrote:

@ Nancy:
Totally agree that this is a complex set of questions or texts that are interrelated and which raise further questions and implications. I think that God provides a schematic of what he planned/plans to do, and the problems come when we try to fill in the schematic with things which God has not revealed but which satisfy our desire to understand God’s ways. We unavoidably read things into the text or attempt to turn God’s schematic into something he never intended but which makes “sense” to us.
The promise was made to Abraham and his descendants forever. Abraham himself was born a Gentile worshiper of idols who *left* those idols and followed God by faith. I think the symbolism here is compelling. God told Abraham that through Abraham God would bless the nations out of which Abraham. So we can’t say that the Gentiles are left out of Abraham’s promise. And neither can we say that they are the *ultimate* intended beneficiaries, either. And neither can we say that the purpose of God’s blessing was *only* to bless the ethnic descendants of Jacob/Israel.
But God also tells Abraham that Isaac is the son of the Promise that he would fulfill through Sarah in a supernatural conception and pregnancy. More imagery that bears on the issue, I think. Sarah would be the mother of son of the Promise and she would conceive a natural son of her husband Abraham, but the possibility of that happening was *only* because of God’s action, so Abraham and Sarah had only a minor role with this miraculous conception.
God did not cast off the Gentile son of Hagar the Egyptian when Abraham sent her away, but provided for both him and her and made him into many nations as well. God would bless them through the son of the Promise though he was not the chosen vehicle for fulfillment of the Promise. God exercised his prerogative to fulfill his promises in his way, and showed by this that he is not bound by human culture where the firstborn, Ishmael, would have been the heir rather than Isaac.
This action by God along with his choice of Jacob over Esau, of course, also defeats the “complementarian” argument that the first “born,” Adam, has rule over the second “born,” Eve. Another important aspect, IMO, of this story is that God later prophetically calls Egypt his son, and I think this points to a future blessing of Hagar and Ishmael’s people and that God has not forgotten them, even though that people would be the oppressors of Jacob’s descendants.
So, to me, it seems that God has a plan to bless both Gentiles and Jews, and he has worked that plan in ways that are unpredictable and even nonsensical by human standards and culture. Neither Jews nor Gentiles can make exclusive claims to God’s favor, and all peoples will strive against God, including Israel, but he is determined to bless them nevertheless.
To focus on “Jew” or “Gentile” is interesting but not the main point which is that God has a plan to bless both through the son of the Promise who is both a son of Israel and also a son of Adam. What we know, I think, is that Jesus is the new/faithful Israel, and he is the new/faithful Adam. What that means is what we talk about.

Interestingly enough Gram3 everything you just said corresponds to Orthodox hermeneutics. I would also say that the idea that Eve was of secondary importance by virtue of being created second is not complementarian but misogynistic.

@ Gram3:

That is an excellent point about Abraham and Ishmael. That could get complicated in today’s world scene. I am going to have to read some more about the whole Ishmael thing. Thanks for bring that up, it totally escaped me as related to this topic.

Forgot to say that is why I think that the “Israel of God” refers to believing ethnic Jews, and particularly those who left Old Covenant mandates behind and embraced the New Covenant. I don’t know if the “Judaizers” were infiltrators and false teachers or if they were believing and well-intention Jewish believers influenced by false Pharisee teachers who had assumed the old ways were still in effect and wanted to make sure they fulfilled their duties.

Paul rebuked them forcefully but also appealed to them at the end of the letter where he seems to soften and ends with a blessing on all who are the Israel of God by following his rule that circumcision is of no effect in the new Kingdom. The Israel of God, I believe, refers to ethnic Jews because he is making an argument about leaving fleshly ways behind and not boasting in the flesh.

That particular rebuke makes no sense if Paul was talking about Gentile Christians (or the church as a whole) who had no reason to boast in the flesh (they had neither the sign of the Abrahamic covenant nor the pedigree.) Paul does make reference to Gentile boasting in Romans, so obviously all of us are prone to boasting and elevating ourselves above others. Jews and Gentiles, masters and slaves, males and females are all one in Christ with the old orders and worldly demolished.

I also think that the “Israel of God” expression is used to support the idea that the (predominantly) Gentile church has replaced ethnic Israel in God’s schematic. I think that is incorrect exegesis and incorrect application of the fruit of correct exegesis. It conflates ethnic status with a system of beliefs and practices. I also don’t think it is helpful to insert expressions like “people of God” into exposition or argument and then equivocate on what that means depending on what one is trying to prove when that idea is inserted explicitly or assumed implicitly.

@ Sopwith:
Sopy, i usually like your posts, but i think most of your recent ones on this thread are unkind and rude. There’s no need to zing people, or denigrate the views and beliefs of others.

@ William G.:
William, do you know how to use the “reply with quote” option? If you use it to highlight only portions of another’s post, it works better. Copying entire posts with the reply funvtion kinda defeats the purpose of that option

Lydia wrote:

@ William G.:
Iagree with most of what you said. but I believe that Augustine, because of his language, writings, etc, had more doctrinal influence over the Western church as it spread west.
I am looking at a big picture and using generalities when I know that history is quite nuanced.

Augustine certainly had a disproportionate influence on the Western Church and the result is the somewhat warped nature of Western theology. Augustine lies behind Anselm and Aquinas, and behind Luther and Calvin, and the basic ideas that all sex even in marriage is wrong, that the sole aspect of our salvation through Christ was based on penal substitution, as opposed to Christ trampling down death by death and renewing human nature, and the idea of unbaptized infants not being saved (going to Hell in Augustine, or the invented realm of limbo in Aquinas) are all Augustinian concepts. Additionally the immaculate conception stems from the Augustinian view of original sin; the Orthodox believe in original sin but reject the idea that we are forensically guilty for the sins of our ancestors; rather, we inherit their degenerate condition but are responsible only for our own sins. Thus, we don’t need the immaculate conception to say that Mary was sinless, since in a sense all conceptions are immaculate; people begin sinning when they learn evil from the world around them, but are not necessarily bound to sin; through enormous ascetic effort it is also possible to stop sinning, and through sincere repentance, we can turn away from the active embrace of sin and live in a state of improved holiness, in which we sin less frequently.

@ William G.:
I don’t believe it presupposes that God did any such thing,nor do i think it’s a good way to look at the historical development of either faith. I can’t assume God as First Cause in historical research methodology, any more than scientists can. Matters of individual belief have to be set aside. Btw, that’s one of the big reasons thatmmany of the best scholars of Western religious art have been/still are Jewish.

  __

“Carry on TWW?”

intro: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3T7-VbfYLU

hmmm…

Numo,

EXCUSE ME!

—> This is not a TWW discussion page, but has become a proverbal  Othro D. Willy™  playpen.

-snicker-

Glad you’re enjoying it !

🙂

Last time I checked TWW was not about doctrine, or tradition, et. all, but abuse of the pastoral/church kind, about trends, etc.

This discussion page hath made a mockery of what The Wartburg Watch for six years, has stood for.

Poooooooooop.

(grin)

hahahahahaha

Rise above the ‘noise’ and the ‘confusion”.

Sopy

—

@ William G.:
I hear you, because the same is true of Android, which i use quite a lot these datys

@ Sopwith:
Wow. You are really pushing it, dude!

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
IT simply is NOT the same religion, and the thinking required in order to make xtianity be this absolutely leads to anti-semitism.
I don’t knowv what else i can possibly say. Please, let’s agree to disagree, so that we aren’t at an impasse.

I will agree to disagree with you on this point, because were both vehemently opposed to anti Semitism, and it’s clear that we get there in different matters. However just so you know, what I told you is the official doctrine of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and I do very much hope you don’t write us off as anti-Semitic on that basis, especially given the large number of Jewish Christian descendants in some of our regional jurisdictions in the Near East and India. I would also agree with you that functionally and liturgically Christianity is a different religion, with a different hierarchy of non-sacerdotal priests replacing the hereditary sacerdotal priesthood of Aaron. I myself would liken it to the difference between Sikhism before the Guru Gobindh Singh, and the modern Sikhism under the Guru Granth Sahab, or perhaps the difference in the religion of the Yazidis before the reforms of Sheikh Adi, to their current praxis.

I should also state for the record that Judaism and Samaritanism are my favorite non Christian religions; I feel a sense of brotherhood with them, and one can say with certainty that all three faiths worships The Lord God of Hosts. I also on the basis of liturgical scholarship am certain that our Christian liturgy has Jewish roots; the synaxis, or liturgy of the word, being clearly derived from Jewish synagogue services, with the Epistle and Gospel lectiona corresponding with the weekly Torah portion and corresponding Haftarah. The Assyrian Church of the East features a Bema in addition to an altar and reads a Torah portion, a Haftarah, an epistle and a Gospel lesson, followed by Communion.

@ Sopwith:

I think you are confused about what his thread is about. My understanding is that it is about off topic issues that people wish to discuss as long as all are civil. Is someone not being civil? Is someone being abusive?

William G. wrote:

I also on the basis of liturgical scholarship am certain that our Christian liturgy has Jewish roots;

I heard this from the RCC position when I was in RCIA, basically what you said but in less detail. And the chair where the priest sits down when not doing something specific being modeled on the seat for the leader? president? somebody give me a word! of the synagogue. Like in the bible where after reading from the scroll Jesus sat down to teach. I can’t remember what all they said was modeled on synagogue worship but it was very convincing as regarding the liturgy.

Now, saying “modeled on” is not the same as saying “the same religion” so I am not going there with this. Just talking about similarities of procedure.

@ William G.:
I don’t think the Orthodox are anti-semitic by default, but i definitely *do* believe that people in the O. church have used these beliefs to promote hugely anti-semitic behavior and prejudice. (As i stated previously.) How else can you acvount foe pogroms and “the Jewish question” in both tsarist and post-Soviet Russia? (Anti-semitism was ferocious in the USSR, but the kotives weren’t explicitly religious; now they’ve come roaring back in a religious guise.)

@ Nancy:
Ditto!!!

@ numo:

Totally agree with that. Hagar and Ishmael were victims of Sarah’s and Abraham’s self-will and lack of faith, which I’ve certainly seen in my own life. Repeatedly.

We cannot know how God is working out his promises, but he did make promises to all involved, and we should be very careful about the conclusions we draw from what is revealed.

@ Gram3:
Not just that – slavery, jealousy, revenge and more.

Also, i think following the list of nationalities and ethnicities in Genesis leads to a train wreck. So much of what the wrote is either ideal, symbolic or both. History, archaeology and anthropology (along with genetic studies) tell a different, and far more complex, story. The writers of Genesis had an agenda, after all!

@ William G.:
The other thing is this: you have studied and you know what you’re talking about. Most people would rather not be bothetef; it wouldn’t even occur to many.

The end result is that your view is nuanced and respevtful (especially re. all 3 Abrahamic religions worshipping the same God), but it’s a mistake to assumethat most people are aware of these things. And that allows for a lot of ugliness and dvil assumptions to come in like gangbusters. That’s cettainly what happened in the West; can’t imagine the Eadt is any different in this respect, because people are, well, people.

William G. wrote:

It’s important to view baptism as the normal and definitive mode of Christian initiation

I agree with that statement but I’m fairly certain we disagree about what we are talking about. I agree that the initiatory event in a believer’s life is baptism, but I believe that baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit whereby we are born of the Spirit. It is spiritual in nature. I believe that the physical rite of baptism has great testamentary value to one’s faith (I am baptistic) and is certainly considered an initiation into the organized and visible church. I don’t see where you get from scripture that a physical rite has power in an of itself any more than circumcision had any power in and of itself. Both are outward signs of what God has done or is doing or is going to do.

I hold to a baptistic sacramentology, so I do not believe that the sacraments or ordinances have power in themselves but represent and remind us of spiritual realities which God has done or will do. That is also why I believe that immersion is to be preferred because of its symbolism of the resurrection of the body, but I don’t believe that mode is the most important thing about baptism.

In my view, the only “efficacious” baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, though physical acts are powerful symbols and convey powerful meaning. That is one reason I love baptismal services. It is another reminder that the Holy Spirit is still acting and that one day our mortal bodies will be resurrected.

It is a mistake, I believe, to directly connect baptism with circumcision. Spiritual baptism is analogous to spiritual circumcision because both are the washing or cutting away of the old sinful parts. But it does not follow from that that physical circumcision is analogous to physical baptism. Physical circumcision was a sign of spiritual circumcision *and* the Promised Seed. Physical baptism is a sign that (presumptively) spiritual baptism has occurred and resurrection will occur according to God’s promise.

Physical circumcision was not intended as an entitlement mark of “being in the covenant” because it did not guarantee that any given circumcised individual would be faithful. It was a sign of God’s promise and his future fulfillment of that promise. To fail to circumcise one’s son was a grave sin because it denied the power and truth of God’s promise to send a Seed from Abraham. It brought shame to God’s name, a shame which could only be washed away by a blood sacrifice.

William G, numo, Nancy and Gram ~ have totally enjoyed reading through your on going conversations. Much food for thought.

Albuquerque Blue wrote:

@ Gram3:
In your opinion Gram3, does circumcision still have a Christian religious value or practice to it? I hadn’t thought of it like you put above, as a sign of “spiritual” circumcision.

I think that physical circumcision is a matter of liberty and has no spiritual significance because the Promised Seed has come and the Holy Spirit does what the physical act symbolizes.

But that is not to say that it has no ongoing significance or is somehow ruled out of bounds in any way. I think that if I were Jewish, I would almost certainly want to follow the distinctive pattern for males which God gave, only this time it would be a retrospective act much like the observance of the Lord’s Supper is in part. I think the Lord’s Supper also looks forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb as the ultimate fulfillment of the Passover meal.

It is a permissible but not mandatory tradition, and even valuable as a testament to Jews who do not believe in Jesus as Messiah, IMO. I think that is why Paul wanted Timothy to be circumcised but not Titus. Paul observed Jewish days, but he was clear that they were no longer mandatory because what they symbolized had come.

Physical circumcision also can function for Gentiles as a reminder that Gentiles who believe in Christ are grafted into the Root, the Promised Seed. Symbolism is powerful to communicate meaning, but the symbols do not have power in themselves absent the spiritual reality they represent.

@ Sopwith:
Dear Mr Sopy, do I need to send you some virtual jelly bean pills? To use some Australiana, “please pull your head in”. I don’t have time to read all of WG’s posts, but find what I do enlightening, especially in the context of the current middle-east conflict. Perhaps you are concerned that TWW server space is diminishing, if so, that’s sweet of you. In that case you could follow-up your concern with a donation to the Deebs to keep it all on the road. Ah, but “which road?” I hear you say. Well, while you’re in ponderation, here’s something I challenge you to pull off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6SxZ7FdoA

@ dee:

Probably the cleanest solution is to delete every comment apart from mine. The reason that you should keep mine is that the Lord has revealed to me the secret of true wisdom and truly sound doctrine. Which is that, whilst every other human being who has ever lived merely makes up opinions out of thin air for the sole purpose of justifying their sinful desires, I alone have discovered the secret of submitting my beliefs to the blessed and infallible authority of God’s Perfect and Holy Word, the Biblical BibleScriptures. Thus, my views are not my own, but are faithfully repeated from the Mouth of God himself.

@ dee:

Can’t help you. I have not noticed any problems, and if I had I would not know what to suggest as a remedy. There is something rather peaceful about being oblivious.

Sorry, I was typing when you were answering.

dee wrote:

@ dee:
Never mind. GBTC has figured out a solution!

Er – no, I can still see posts other than mine.

Hey y’all. Hope I’m not forgotten. Coming out of the shadows to ask for prayer for:

– My dysfunctional family. That I continue to learn to set boundaries and keep my eye on what God has called me to do, and not what they want. My mom is a very traditional West African who has been looking at me wrong because I’ve never been on a date (mid-twenties gal here), and she wants her grandchildren. I don’t want marriage or children, and my reactions to the few guys with romantic interests have been awkward to say the least (long story short, I had terrible body image issues growing up).

– that I finish my first grad school semester well. 🙂 It’s been an interesting ride so far.

Dear moderators, move this wherever you may.

@ androidninja:
I’ll pray.

@ androidninja:

That all can’t be easy. Good to hear about going to grad school, and I hope your do well this semester. Keep us posted.

@ dee:

Dee, I suggest simply breaking off the page at say, 30 or 50 comments, with links to the last eight numbered pages, and forward/back buttons, sort of like what you see on forum software like PhPBB for long threads.

I also urge you strongly to not replace the ODP with a forum; what is making this page work and have vitality is the fact that it is one conversation, one thread, which moves in the direction the participants want to take it. If it were a forum with lots of threads you would just have myriad subjects with a handful of replies; it takes a huge community to run a forum, moderate disputes and so on, and would require much more administrative overhead than this, which is just a freeform combox. There would also inevitably have to be rules about which threads could be started and so on. I’m the single thread here, we just have one single naturally flowing discussion that is governed by the consensus of the interlocutors, and because it’s just one discussion, everyone is throwing their entire intellectual weight into it. The other beauty of having one thread is we cannot go off topic; everything is on topic by nature, and the question is solely do people want to engage with what someone is saying. This also opens the door for extended jokes and historical commentary.

I also suggest you turn the moderation cue off in the ODP, because the tone of the conversation is highly civil; instead, if a flame war occurs, just delete the offending posts as needed. For example, even though some were vexed at Soppy, I don’t think Soppy has trolled any, and if another Catholic comes along like THC, let’s let them say their piece. I suggest however the use of a profanity filter. Speaking of which, there was a rather naughty joke regarding one in the expletive laden political comedy In the Loop starring Peter Capaldi, which I have to confess I enjoyed, although I’m not entirely sure if my enjoyment of it was in keeping with propriety. :p

Gram3 wrote:

Nancy wrote:
and the ivy is stronger and more determined than I am.
I think at least this part is serious, or at least it is at my house where the ivy scoffs at Roundup.

If there is only one instance to invoke the teaching of demonology, it surely must be found in the unkillable characteristic of ivy.

Bridget wrote:

If there is only one instance to invoke the teaching of demonology, it surely must be found in the unkillable characteristic of ivy.

You may be on to something there. They say there is a demonic hierarchy, so I think that Smilax rotundifolia is surely directly from the Pit of Invasive Plant Hell and somewhere near the top of the demon org chart. I have never, ever seen anything like it.

@ Gram3:

The problem with what you’re saying about the supercessionist position is that for it to be anti-Semitic, it presupposes that no Jews became Christians, or very few. Covenant theology seems to have been created around the false premise that only those with a covenant with God go to Heaven, and since the Jews rejected Jesus, by and large, but since God made an eternal promise with them, and since the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutherans and some Eastern Orthodox persecuted Jews, the logical way to avoid anti Semitism is to say that Jews are still covered by the Abrahmic covenant.

However, as I have demonstrated, large numbers of Christians of Jewish extraction are members of the various Orthodox and Catholic Churches of Palestine, Iraq, Iran, the Levant, Egypt, Ethiopia and India. I also reject the conventional wisdom that only a small minority of Jews converted: in the New Testament we see accounts of entire synagogues enthusiastically embracing Christian doctrine.

After the Bar Kokhba revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews became less visible in the Roman Empire until the fourth century, whereas the Christians assumed a higher profile. One of the next major events involving the Jews was the attempted reconstruction of the Temple under Julian the Apostate, which was stopped due to fires erupting on the Temple Mount, which some historians believe were due to a natural gas buildup, and some a Patristics attributed to supernatural influence. When St. Helena rebuilt the city, we see a curious lack of attention paid to the Temple Mount; her party was far more interested in turning Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre into a massive cathedral.

The next major incident of Jewish-Chrisrian conflict occurred in Antioch, when St. John Chrysostom engaged in a war of words with Jewish leaders who he felt were trying to proselytize his Christian flock. Now this is highly unusual because Jews, at least of the modern Rabinnical denominations, are not known for aggressively seeking converts, although all forms of the ancient Israelitic-Judaic religion except for the Samaritans will accept proselytes; the Samaritans, who believe in patrilineal descent. Furthermore have bent their rules to marry non-Samaritans from Israel and the Ukraine in order to maintain a healthy gene pool. This to me suggests that the Christian population of Antioch, which was mostly Greek speaking but with some Aramaic speakers, was largely ethnically Hebrew, and the local synagogue leaders were trying to win back Jewish people to the pre-Messianic faith. In the years that followed, the Geonim in Jerusalem and Babylon compiled their respective Talmuds, and the Masoretes, who may have been Karaite, compiled the highly reliable Masoretic text on which the Luther Bible and the King James Bible were based. Many polemics were engaged in between the Karaites and the Rabinnical Jews, with ultimately the latter party winning; the Talmud is believed to be a codification of all of the traditions of the Pharisees, several of which were objected to by our Lord. He did not object to their genuine piety, just to the hypocrisy and self-aggrandizement with which some practiced their religion “Do as they say but not as they do.” Of course, once codified in the Talmud, Jewish practice became characterized by increasing degrees of humility and piety, and also developed excellent systems of education, leading to brilliant philosophers such as Maimonides.

Now, here is some interesting food for thought: the Ethiopian Orthodox consider themselves in large measure to be descended from the Jews, a fact born out by genetic testing. They regard Paul’s epistles as canonical, but seem to consider themselves as obliged to follow the Jewish law on account of their origins, and thus practice circumcision, kashrut, gender separation in church, the removal of shoes in the church, and their altars are consecrated not by an altar stone as in Catholicism, or by an antimension as in Eastern Orthodoxy, or by a tablitho (a wooden tablet) as in Syriac Orthodoxy, but rather by a replica of the ark of the covenant containing tables of the law, concealed behind the iconostasis. The Ethiopians also claim to posess the Ark of the Covenant; it is certain they posess an object that they believe is the ark, although whether or not its authentic cannot be answered without much scientific investigation, which is impossible because only one monk, who agrees to permanently live in the shrine of the ark, is allowed to see it; even the Patriarch or in olden days the Emperor did not have that privilege. So it’s a bit like the Imperial Japanese Regalia; we know it exists, but we don’t know exactly what it looks like or if the legends regarding its acquisition are true, mythological, or something in between. Also from a purely Orthodox theological standpoint it is irrelevant, as we interpret the ark of the covenant as an icon of the Virgin Mary, in that both contained the word of God, the former, the words of His old covenant, and the latter, the incarnate Word, who came to establish the New Covenant “this cup is the New Covenant in my blood, shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.” Both the Ark and Mary were holy and powerful, but Mary, being a woman and thus a sacred life, was infinitely more powerful and holy, but the narrative of the Ark is definitely a mariological prophecy.

However, going back to the original subject, there are 45 million Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, who can be genetically linked to the Jews and who observe the Torah in a manner harmonized with the New Testament. In contrast, there are 16 million practitioners of Rabinnical Judaism, 30,000 Karaites, and 800 Samaritans. The Ethiopian Jews are just one of several Christian populations that claim Jewish descent; the Syriac Orthodox in Palestine, the Antiochian Orthodox, many Copts, and the Nasranis of India. This is not counting Hellenized Jews living in Greece or Asia Minor or elsewhere in the Roman Empire who essentially forgot their Jewish ethnicity in the past 20 centuries. So if we look at the raw data, it would seem that most persons alive today of Hebrew descent are descendants of the early Jewish Christians.

Thus, supercessionism cannot be viewed as anti-Semitic, nor can the doctrine of the Church as the New Israel. That said, the Jews are individuals of sacred worth, and many more of them would likely have willingly accepted Christ as the Messiah had Christians in the past 14 centuries treated them in the loving manner that the Gospel requires, rather than regarding them falsely as deicidal scum, as if deicide is even possible (while it is true that the second person of the Trinity died on the cross, it is according to many theologians impossible for the divine nature of Christ to perish, and thus only the human nature died and resurrected; this is the Theopaschite controversy although it’s one I’m not sure on; Metropolitan Kallistos Ware for example seems to suggest that the Logos experienced death in both natures to the fullest extent; one has to be very careful here to avoid drifting into Nestorianism or Eutychianism).

It’s worth noting the remarkable growth in Hebrew Christian and Messianic Jewish congregations since Christians stopped treating Jews like the scum of the Earth. I reject entirely the Chiliastic prophecy that the Jews will as a whole reject Christ until after the rapture, at which point 144,000 will convert. This is unscriptural nonsense derived from the private revelations of the cofounder of the Plymouth Brethren and marketed with vigor by people like Hal Lindsay and the authors of Left Behind.

@ Gram3:
Gram3 wrote:

@ William G.:
How about using a bluetooth keyboard for commenting?

if I wanted to do that I’d just use my laptop or my desktop. Which sometimes I do, when I have a lot to say and my fingers hurt. However using the iPad by itself is nice in that it lets me pretend Im Captain Picard working away in my ready room. :p

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
The other thing is this: you have studied and you know what you’re talking about. Most people would rather not be bothetef; it wouldn’t even occur to many.
The end result is that your view is nuanced and respevtful (especially re. all 3 Abrahamic religions worshipping the same God), but it’s a mistake to assumethat most people are aware of these things. And that allows for a lot of ugliness and dvil assumptions to come in like gangbusters. That’s cettainly what happened in the West; can’t imagine the Eadt is any different in this respect, because people are, well, people.

Note that I should say that I consider Judaism, Samaritanism and Christianity to worship The Lord God of Hosts, with the Jews and Samaritans merely not having the full story on the exact nature of that God.. Regarding Muslims and the Druze, they do worship the one God, but tend to see Him through a distorted lens that causes them to do horrible things in His name. The Alevi and Bektasi Muslims worship God in a manner similiar to the Jews; a benign manner that embraces loving attributes but with a certain error of identification. Thus we’ve covered 5 Abrahmic religions. Then the Bahai, a sixth Abrahmic faith, also worship the one God, making some of the mistakes of Muslims but in Genral following into the benign category along with the Alevis.

The we have some closely related religions. The Mandaeans are Gnostics who are monotheist and worship John the Baptist, but consider Abraham a false prophet. Their religion exhibits Zoroastrian influence and also the influence of ancient Babylonian paganism. Much of their literature has a polemic anti-Christian and anti-Semitic aspect to it, however, the Mandaeans do repudiate violence explicitly as a matter of faith, which is commendable. The Zoroastrians influenced the Abrahamic faiths and have an honorable code of morality.

The other major monotheistic religion is of Indian origin and may be interpreted as being somewhat pantheistic or panentheisric; I see it as a syncretic reaction of Hinduism against Islam and the Indian Jews and Christians. I refer of course to Sikhism, which emphasizes the ideal of the warrior saint and of charitable service. I definitely feel like Sikhs worship the same God even if the process by which they got there was quite different; their religion is not Christianity and does not contain the Truth, but they seem to be a good, ethical people. Their religion is also almost diametrically opposed to the Jain faith, which is non-Theistic and rejects violence even against the tiniest plants and animals, to the extent possible.

The doctrine of General Revelation shows us that in spite of the gods of the Gentiles being demons (Kali comes to mind almost instantly), according to Psalm 95 v 5 (LXX), the fundamental truths of God will still filter through religions, and non Christian religions can exert a positive moral influence, and most do, to varying extents. I would cite just a few that are unequivocally destructive: voudun, and it’s derivatives, certain occult religions particularly those associated with the “left hand path” and atheistic religions that embrace the cult of self, like LaVeyan Satanism, Scientology,,and militant Islam.

Ken wrote:

Anyone who takes the Christian faith seriously should expect to be given the left boot of fellowship from at least one church.

That is a comforting thought. I think I will stop at one, however. I do not want to letter in church exiting.

Ken wrote:

William G. wrote:
However, I think Anglicanism became a bit too tolerant of divergent opinions, and the result was the emergence of three separate religions that share only a name, and an increasingly disused liturgy: the High Church Anglo Catholics, the Low Church Evangelicals, and the Broad Church Liberals
There is still a lot of truth in that. The evangelical wing, which was a tiny minority in the earlier half of the last century, has grown tremendously largely due to the influence of John Stott, and a group of sound bible teachers whose names are generally unknown, but have had significant influence. A thinking man’s evangelicalism. The C of E in England is as you say inherently split, the denominationall structure still covering this up, but I think it only a matter of time before this becomes untenable. The evangelicals won’t want to finance those theologically beyond the pale. Liberalism is on the wane imo, if only because it has very little substance to it. There is very little point in believing in a God reduced to being an Eternal Reason or that Jesus’ resurrection means little more than some nice, loving ideas continued after his death.
One thing I do like about the C of E is its self-deprecating humour. It doesn’t always take itself too seriously.
I became a Christian in the C of E, proof in any were needed that the age of miracles is not over!

I too love Anglican humor. I have a great love for Anglo Catholics of the Percy Dearmer / Herbert Howells / Healey Willam variety. I also love the variety of low church Anglicans who adhere precisely to the Book of Common Prayer, either the 1662, 1928 UK or 1928 US versions, or the 1962 Canadian BCP (which IMO is the last really profoundly good edition); these low churchmen celebrate Morning Prayer rather than Holy Communion on most Sundays and conduct services wearing a cassock, surplice, red stole or tippet, and a Canterbury cap. They are an endangered species; my understanding is that in the US there are still some in Virginia. Near where I live is a continuing Amglican parish that meets in am SDA church that is apparently formal but low church; checking it out is high in my ecclesial to do list.

androidninja wrote:

Hey y’all. Hope I’m not forgotten. Coming out of the shadows to ask for prayer for:
– My dysfunctional family. That I continue to learn to set boundaries and keep my eye on what God has called me to do, and not what they want. My mom is a very traditional West African who has been looking at me wrong because I’ve never been on a date (mid-twenties gal here), and she wants her grandchildren. I don’t want marriage or children, and my reactions to the few guys with romantic interests have been awkward to say the least (long story short, I had terrible body image issues growing up).
– that I finish my first grad school semester well. It’s been an interesting ride so far.
Dear moderators, move this wherever you may.

I will pray for you. I used to live in Ghana and love the West African people. They do love children however; may I suggest you show her St. Paul’s comments on the benefits of women remaining unmarried, and also the remarks by our Lord on celibacy?

Also, while holy celibacy is holy regardless of the context, you may wish to explore a monastic vocation. Many of the Catholic religious orders demand graduates for vocations and have very important charitable apostolates; some will provide you with postgraduate education. You sound to me like you might be at home in one of the non-cloistered orders that focuses on education and healthcare, or if you love theology, the Dominican order.

@ William G.:
I believe that supersessionism has bern twisted into anti-semitism times without number, and all the early Jewish believers don’t change that one iota.

I am reminded of God’s devlaration of his ways and thought being higher and different thsn ours in Isaiah. I think it’s necessary to look at how and why supercessionism developed, and to not assume that it was a universal belief in the early church. Thinking and reasoning and theologizing has changed, not just in Rome but in Byzantium, too.

Muff Potter wrote:

Luke’s Magnificat

Did you ever wonder about some things in scripture how they knew what was said? Did Mary years later recite it to somebody to write it down? Did Elizabeth take notes? Do you suppose either one of them remembered it word for word because the story is told as a spontaneous event. Or do you suppose nobody had the faintest what went on but they later decided to write a memoir and so wrote this which they thought was consistent with what might have happened? A literary memorialization of the event maybe. Or maybe this did not originate with Mary but was rather something she had memorized and recited at that time but the original has been lost. Any of that could come under the heading of inspiration; I just wonder how it happened–from mouth to pen you know. Like how did anybody know what Jesus prayed in Gethsemane if they were all asleep. Or the private conversation with Nicodemus.

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
I have to disagree with regard to Islam. There is much that is good, even beautiful, in mainstream (moderate-liberal) Islam. I do not believe that extremist groups like the Tsliban, Al Qaeda and the so-called ISIS are truly Muslim.
And yes, some beliefs are evil, but i think that has historically been true in xtianity as well. I can’t see the persecution of the Jews and so-ccalled heretics (by anyone) as being any less awful than some of the things you mention. I cannot believe thst those who have done such evils in Jesus’ name are actually his followers.

I do agree that there is much beauty in Islam. However, Islam did immediately wage an unprovoked war on the Byzantine Empire under the Ummayad Caliphate. Additionally, the inability of Sunni and Shia Muslims to forgive each other after all this time, and the pure unbridled anger you see in some Islamic observances like the Hussaniya memorials for Ali, are truly frightening. That said I do find the Quran a beautiful book and I love many forms of Sufi Islam, particularly the Alevis; the main basis of their religion is to love everyone.

I should at this point mention two of my best friends are Sunni Muslims, and I was the best man at one of their weddings. So having been the best man at an Islamic wedding, I believe that I am qualified to critique Islam without the risk of being an Islamophobe, it is also positively true that the Salafi Islam practiced by the Saudis is a huge distortion, and the Islam of the Islamic State is a distortion of a distortion.

The moderate Islam practiced by the Hashemite royal family of Jordan, who are descendants of Prince Faisal, who you may recognize from his appearance played by Alec Guinness in Lawrence of Arabia, is commendable. Also I value the work of Islamic doctors, philosophers and scientists, who themselves relied on translations of Greek texts provided by Syriac Orthodox monks in Egypt and Damascus; Averroes, Avicenna, Al Kwarizmi, and Sinan did wondrous things, and their work helped facilitate the renaissance.

Lastly, some smaller Islamic denominations are entirely peaceful. The Ismailis led by His Majesty the Aga Khan and the Ibadis of Oman spring to mind.

Probably my biggest gripe with Islam is that, aside from the semahs, or rituals, of various persecuted Sufi sects, there is no really interesting liturgy, other than the terrifying reenactment of Hussain bin Ali’s funeral in the Shia Hussaniyas, which is like a Catholic requiem mass but with violent shouting and cursing, Islam and the Bahai faith emphasize a minimalist of approach to worship which I find unfulfilling,

@ William G.:

I’m not saying that supercessionism means anti-Semitic. I am saying that supercessionism allows for anti-Semitic people to promote anti-Semitic thinking in the church. When someone says that God has rejected the Jews, that is anti-Semitic to the extent that the Jews are singled out for some special sanction by God and to the extent that the rejection of Jesus by the greater part of Gentile Romans or Gentile Turks (speaking anachronistically) gets a pass by elevating the predominantly Gentile church above Jews. That is Gentile boasting that Paul warned the Romans against.

I am a non-supercessionist because I do not think that the church “fulfills” the Abrahamic covenant. I think that covenant, like the New Covenant, is about something much bigger than a man or his descendants or than an organized body of Christians. I gave my evidence above for believing that the church is not the New Israel or the True Israel or Spiritual Israel. Christ is the New Adam, New Israel, True Adam and True Israel. Spiritual Israel is the remnant among Israel who believed by faith in Yahweh in the OT and Jesus in the New Covenant.

Paul does not confuse these categories. He does not use terms like “Spiritual Israel” or “New Israel” to describe the church. Israel in the OT and according to Jesus and Paul consists of all natural descendants of Jacob and that set includes a remnant subset who had faith in Yahweh in the OT and Jesus in the NT. During part of their history, Israel was also a civil kingdom.

The church has nothing to do with family or kinship or civil rule, as Jesus and Paul stated, so it makes no sense to make up a term like “Spiritual Israel” as a placeholder and then put the church in that place and say that therefore the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan.

Because some descendants of Jacob are in the church does not mean that the church has replaced Israel. It does mean that those sons of Jacob are the Israel of God, the real “Spiritual Israel.”

I don’t know how God will work out his plan, but I do know when language is used and inserted into the text to make the text say something that it does not say. If you can show me where Paul or Peter or Jesus said that the church is the New or Spiritual Israel, then I’ll take heed of that. It doesn’t exist, to my knowledge. Most who make that argument do so from Galatians and the “Israel of God.”

The church is a new body made up of Jew and Gentile without distinction. It does not follow from the fact that God is doing a new thing that he has abandoned what he was doing before the New Thing. I think God is able to work two subplots at once without confusing them.

I don’t think we want to talk about Chrysostom’s golden tongue when it comes to anti-Semitism.

You make interesting points, but it would be helpful if you would break your comments into discrete topics. It is hard for me to follow the main line of your thinking amid the words. Just a suggestion for more fruitful discussion of particular topics.

@ Muff Potter:

I hear you, especially about the Magnificat.

What I had in mind was the fierce animosity between people groups in the Middle East based on tribal and ethnic affiliations and *presumed* descent. I just think that a lot of enemies would find out they are really brothers or close cousins for any number of reasons.

I’m happy to let God worry about the genetics if it is important to him.

@ William G.:
I dont think you have seen the Iranian version of mourning for Ali. It is nothing like you describe.

@ Gram3:
The Catholic, Orthoodox and Lutherans who,believe in the physical change of the Eucharist, and the vast majority of Christians who believe in the Real Presence on at least a spiritual level, are simply following scripture, where Jesus himself says that “This is my body” and “This is my blood”, and in John says that the way to inherit eternal life is to eat his body and drink his blood. This shocked a lot of people and alienated many of his disciples, and thus it would be inconceivable for there to not be Christians like Melancthon who attempt to interpret this difficult saying in a manner easier to receive. The vast majority of Christians have accepted the doctrine of Real Presence in at least a spiritual capacity; the Baptists are the only major denomination I’m aware of which rejects it and adopts the Zwinglian / Melancthonic position you put forward, which I feel Martin Luther rather brilliantly demolished by writing in chalk “This is my body” in Latin. The view of the Eucharist being truly the body and blood of The Lord is also ancient; Justin Martyr held it.

I would suggest that to facilitate amiable discourse on matters of divergent religious praxis, that you and I not speculate as to what the other has actually experienced in the practice of our religion, but either accept at face value our respective claims, or accept the sincerity of our convictions without offering rationalized explanations. I will for my part readily agree with you that the real Eucharistic change does not happen in Baptist churches, and the joy you yourself have experienced from communion is surely for the reasons you outlined; I would ask that in the same token, you either accept what the Orthodox, Catholics and high church Protestants believe about our sacraments, or reject it, but not patronize us by offering a rationalized psychological explanation. Also, if ever I have come across as patronizing to you I apologize.

Therefore, to summarize, I propose that you and I agree to disagree regarding the supernatural attributes of the sacraments but also agree not to patronize each other about our interpretations. Thus I will not posit supernatural explanations for occurrences in baptist churches, and you will not offer rationalized psychological explanations for occurrences in Orthodox churches. In making this treaty to facilitate dialogue, we shall not apply these restrictions to our discussions of phenomena outside our respective denominations, or to our conversations with others. Thus, essentially we agree to disagree on the supernatural quality of the sacraments purely within our own confessions and not to rub it in. Does that sound good to you?

I am really enjoying this conversation with you, but the sublime holiness of the Eucharist is sacred to me; I don’t care if you disagree with it, but I won’t be able to enjoy our dialogue if my own faith experience is doubted. Likewise I am sure you would find it highly annoying if I posited a mystical explanation for various faith experiences you had, or attributed events in your own life to supernatural or demonic influence.

I would very much like to discuss with you the difference between the Baptist understanding of the Eucharist and the Orthodox, but I would just like to agree this ground rule with you before we proceed. I would also like to find out why baptists don’t practice anointing with oil as described in James or view it as an ordinance, or if some of them do.

By the way, are you familiar with the work of Stephen R Harmon, the noted Baptist theologian? The focus of his career is on Baptist participation in ecumenical dialogue, the baptist relationship with other churches, baptist ecclesiology and the Baptist denomination as part of the Church Catholic. I very much enjoy his blogs and his books and consider him to be one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, baptist theologian alive today.

@ numo:
Ok, please forget i said that. The tone is all wrong.

Gram3 wrote:

William G. wrote:
Both the Ark and Mary were holy and powerful, but Mary, being a woman and thus a sacred life, was infinitely more powerful and holy, but the narrative of the Ark is definitely a mariological prophecy.
We have been down that road already on this thread, and if you make a claim that something is “definitely” true, then you need to bring some good evidence. The ark of the covenant was a type, but the anti-type is not the body of Mary but the body of Jesus or Jesus himself. Mary bore the God-Man in her body for less than one year, and as Jesus himself said, human family is no longer of primary significance in the Kingdom. Jesus, however, fulfilled and will always be the fulfillment of the Ark of the Covenant.

You do have a point here, The tabernacle and later the First Temple are perhaps better typological representations of Mary, as they contained the Ark, which topologically represented the humanity of Jesus, which contained the Word of God. They furthermore contained it temporarily; the removal of the ark from the tabernacle to be used as a battle standard could be said to prefigure the Nativity, and the use of the Ark to facilitate the parting of the Jordan is referred to in the Eastern Orthodox liturgy for the feast of Theophany, the Baptism of Christ, on Jan 6th, as being an event that represents the baptism of Christ in the same holy river.

@ William G.:
Moharram in Iran is very somber and serious, though also traditionally devoted to making big meals for less fortunate people. There’s a really good documentary about it, though I’m blanking on the title. Will check later today.

@ William G.:
How could anyone maintain minimal physical health in such extreme privation? Yet a favorite person of mine, Julian of Norwich, lived in just the manner you describe. She was altogether exceptional.

William G. wrote:

I am very thankful I am not a fundamentalist, who is obliged to interpret every part of the Bible in a literal manner

Me too. If one is totally limited to literal/historical interpretation then it is apparent that some of scripture is not that. If it is not that then it can be either the sorts of meanings that you are describing or it can be invented nonsense. I am not good with the “nonsense” conclusion at all. That said, and as in your example, some ideas that are presented through other interpretive approaches seem pretty far out at times. I think it is safe to say that we peoples (plural) have problems with the understanding(s) of scripture, and IMO that is one of the things that has caused some of the degrees of theological division among us. We are dealing with writings we did not write which were written in languages and cultures and political situations and such which we do not adequately understand and we must try to deal with this from a position of not being at ease with varying styles of understandings, and mostly then it is just easier to fuss with each other than to struggle our way through all that.

I find your comments informative and beneficial. Thanks for the time and effort you put into this.

Nancy wrote:

William G. wrote:
I am very thankful I am not a fundamentalist, who is obliged to interpret every part of the Bible in a literal manner
Me too. If one is totally limited to literal/historical interpretation then it is apparent that
I find your comments informative and beneficial. Thanks for the time and effort you put into this.

You’re very welcome. I’m trying to share an Orthodox perspective rooted in Eastern mystical theology, which I feel is an authentic representation of the early faith, that most Protestants are either unaware of or have only had minimal contact with. I believe the Protestant focus on preaching the Gospel is extremely important, but without an authentically Christian experience of mysticism rooted in the practice of the Fathers, Christians will potentially drift away or embrace alternate mystical pursuits that are alien to Chrisfianity and potentially harmful, such as yoga, transcendental meditation and so on. I believe that from the beginning there was a mystical, supernatural element to the Christian faith, demonstrated by the life of Elijah, the asceticism of John the Baptist, the 40 day fast of Jesus, and the mystical revelation John the Evangelist had on Patmos. While I don’t think we should aim for the precise experiences mentioned above, the Orthodox faith does teach, following the precepts of Athanasius, that God became man so that man could become god; not as members of the Holy Trinity, but rather, cleansed of the passions and temptations of the devil, we can attain holiness and fulfill the promise of the image of God in which we were created. I don’t presume to know what this ultimately entails; I do not speculate about a Mormon style cosmology, but I do believe that Theosis if attained will lead us to a state of great love, because God is one, and the incarnate Word prayed that we humans may all be one, just as he and the father are one. I believe the way to get there is through the preaching of the gospel, followed by profound repentance and a rejection of worldliness,,followed by a personal effort supported by the Church to pray without ceasing.

Also, while many Orthodox jurisdictions are riddled with pastoral abuse and episcopal corruption, I believe the Orthodox faith can help us to understand the causes of pastoral abuse through the deep ontology of human failures described in the Ladder of Divine Ascent, the Philokalia, and the Russian mystical texts. We can see in abusive pastors unbridled subservience to the passions coupled with prelest, a Russian word referring to spiritual delusion. I also believe that Eastern Christianity provides techniques that victims can use to recover, which can include the Jesus Prayer, the continual repetition of the Psalms, the divine office and various litanies; private counseling with a priest or spiritual elder such as a monk or nun, protected under pastor-penitent privilege, can also offer the distressed the opportunity to unload. Lastly, I believe the ancient canon law of the early church, as contained in the pedalion, if consistently applied in each church, would prevent a large amount of the a use that has occurred; for almost every tragedy reported on the Wartburg Watch I can find a canon that if applied would have stopped it. A few canons are obsolete or contrary to the universal values of contemporary Christendom, but most are applicable today, and the reason some Orthodox jurisdictions are dysfunctional is because they ignore them.

@ Nancy:

Part 2

So, as to the Lord’s supper. The term eucharist is not used. The baptists do not believe in sacraments but rather call the Lord’s supper and baptism “ordinances.” They, like all christianity, recognize the symbolic nature of these acts but stop there. They do not think in terms of the real presence, or any presence, being any different at the time of participation in the Lord’s supper than at any time when “two or three are gathered together…”. So, is the Lord present, yes. Is that specifically because of the bread and the wine (there is no act of consecration of the elements), no. The idea that something is “sacred” is rudimentary at best and suspect at worst, at least in comparison to what I learned of the RCC understanding of the word. Places, for example, are not sacred. No icons or statues or crucifixes, no sacramentals, nothing like that. The closest thing to sacred would be the bible, and that as understood as nearly as possible as a literal/historical document.

Now, the time was when people like gram3 would have been free to investigate and learn and even promulgate various understandings gleaned from scripture, but that time is basically gone. Time was when she would have been teaching an adult SS class but when some people would be saying about what she says “I don’t know about some of it but she sure has a lot of information.” No longer. You toe the line or you get out. This represents a huge change in the culture of baptist-dom.

Gram3, if I am mistaken please jump in here with your take on the situation. I do not know, and I cannot be sure if you ever were baptist, but if so then in my opinion they lost a real asset when they lost people like you. But no, I do come to the same conclusions you do on some things. I do not now nor have I ever thrown myself into the doctrinal fracas at the level that some do for several reasons: my gifts and abilities have alway been in other directions; I have not been interested enough to use what little free time I ever had to acquire the information needed to do so; I have been entrapped and impelled by the angst of humanity and what I think they need is Jesus and not one more doctrinal nicety especially if it only leads to further fragmentation and hostility. You can see how no longer baptist I am. And probably it never was a good fit for me. But I recognize and value the callings of those who see it otherwise and whose calling differs from mine.

Nancy wrote:

William, you asked gram3 about the baptist view of baptism, I believe

My brain has rotted out of my skull. I talked about the Lord’s supper after referencing baptism. And now I don’t even know what you asked in the first place. The baptists think that baptism is symbolic and nothing more, consistent with how they think about the Lord’s supper. They baptize people only at or above the age of accountability, though they do not specify what that age is. Current practice seems to be second grade in school Why they do this makes no sense to me if it is purely symbolic. Any “preparation” for baptism is minimal, a couple of classes and fill in the workbook for a second grader in my family recently. The are adamant about immersion and refuse to acknowledge the validity of any other form of baptism, and recently some have been wanting to add certain doctrinal stances of the baptizing church as requirements for validity. They will not furnish a statement of baptism or membership to the requesting church if a member attempts to join a church of a different denomination. All of this seems utterly absurd to me if they think that it is all just symbolic anyhow.

Sorry about the confusion.

William G. wrote:

I am very thankful I am not a fundamentalist, who is obliged to interpret every part of the Bible in a literal manner; the Alexandrian catechtical school always favored searching for multiple layers of allegorical, prophetic and Christological meaning, whereas the Antiochene school, which was more fundamentalist, and which fled to Nisibis after the Council of Ephesus deposed Nesrorius, emphasized a literal-historical reading.

Maybe you could elaborate on how you determine how to interpret a text. For example, you interpret the Eucharistic passages quite literally, but others like Mary as the Ark you interpret more allegorically, it seems to me.

Nancy wrote:

I do not now nor have I ever thrown myself into the doctrinal fracas at the level that some do for several reasons: my gifts and abilities have alway been in other directions; I have not been interested enough to use what little free time I ever had to acquire the information needed to do so; I have been entrapped and impelled by the angst of humanity and what I think they need is Jesus and not one more doctrinal nicety especially if it only leads to further fragmentation and hostility.

That seems to me to be a good thing! God gifts us differently in the Body, and I hope he doesn’t expect me to do what you have done with your life, because I would not have been able to do that, for sure, because he has not gifted me to do what you have done. That is the beauty of the Body, IMO.

I was baptized in a small SBC church way before megas, and I’ve been in baptisty churches ever since. I am convinced of the Big Picture of baptisty theology, but have no taste for the new trend of ever-refining the points for which I think there is simply inadequate data to reach such certain conclusions.

It seems that you think I’ve not represented Baptist sacramentology correctly. I would really appreciate your perspectives which differ. As you said,, we used to be able to talk about these things in Sunday School and hash/thrash them out. Today, not so much…

Gram3 wrote:

As you said,, we used to be able to talk about these things in Sunday School and hash/thrash them out. Today, not so much…

Isn’t that the truth. It was iron sharpening iron. We thought that it made us all smarter and encouraged us to deeply think about what we believed about things and why.

Now it is dissent and questioning the party line. What happened? Is it as simple as little men with big egos that took over? Is it also that people today tend to question less and feel less comfortable disagreeing than they did back then?

I wonder if is cultural. Not just the church. It seems it has to do with the spread of political correctness and the lack of critical thinking as in: Don’t offend by disagreeing. Don’t rock the boat. Look to the experts for what and how to think, etc. And people these days tend to be very easily offended when there is disagreement of any kind. It is not just church, I am seeing this approach in quite a few places and institutions.

Lydia wrote:

people these days tend to be very easily offended when there is disagreement of any kind. It is not just church, I am seeing this approach in quite a few places and institutions.

Agreed. Politics, education, church, home, and how many other domains. Tyranny of the Professional Experts and willful submission to them by the masses.

@ Sopwith:
Well said Sopy!

@ Bridget:

I think Sopy is putting forth a trajectory of thinking where “highly favored” or “greatly blessed” in Luke 1:28 becomes something via tradition which the actual text does not anticipate or support. It does relate to the discussion William and I were/are having about Mary’s status which I think is unique among women, obviously.

@ Gram3:

That has bothered me and I also do not know why they did that. But since the atonement inspector has not come to my door I still feel free to not let myself be limited in that way.

@ William G.:
i am not convinced that repressing normal sexuality to the degree you suggest is either good or emotionally and psychologically healthy. and i am skeptical about the bliss you speak of. perhaps it is just harder to live as an adult human being – with all that implies – but the a childlike asexuality is not, i think, the way to deal with this.

just opinion, and mine, so fwiw (maybe not very much). but keep in mind that i’ve been celibate for qite a while now, while being a normal human woman, with all that that entails.

numo wrote:

i just don’t have the words to reply to your understanding or rape

I don’t think that we need to get too deep in any discussion of that, but I do think it is good that he brought up the subject. When I was in practice we set up the first ultrasound lab in the county and among other things did OB ultrasound, such as it was in the day. Some of the patients went on to abort (we were not told beforehand who) but most were just regular OB patients. It was a small operation with a small patient base even so. However, we did run into some people who felt compelled or forced to abort but who did not want to. Various reasons and various circumstances. It was heartbreaking. Somehow we have to get past the societal expectation of “required” abortion in various circumstances just as we have to get past a lot of other “required” stuff in other areas. I am not taking a position on anything here except to say that a coerced abortion is a traumatic thing for the pregnant woman.

@ Nancy:

I have a friend who was raped as a teen by a stranger and became pregnant. Her family supported whatever decision she chose. She kept the baby. the family helped her through college and she met and married a wonderful man who adopted the child.

it is an amazing story. I admire her very much because I don’t think I could have done it.

@ Lydia:

When I was in nurses’ training, before Roe, there was a newborn nursery procedure of “do not show.” These were babies who would be put up for adoption for various reasons, rarely rape. I saw a lot of women shed tears over that, but they did what they thought was best at the time.

But to see somebody try to fight for the life of her fetus, and lose that fight, that is another thing. Not talking rape here specifically, just a lot of reasons. I am thinking this may not happen as much any more. Societal expectations have changed some.

People have to make a lot of hard decisions in life.

Nancy wrote:

@ Lydia:

When I was in nurses’ training, before Roe, there was a newborn nursery procedure of “do not show.” These were babies who would be put up for adoption for various reasons, rarely rape. I saw a lot of women shed tears over that, but they did what they thought was best at the time.

But to see somebody try to fight for the life of her fetus, and lose that fight, that is another thing. Not talking rape here specifically, just a lot of reasons. I am thinking this may not happen as much any more. Societal expectations have changed some.

People have to make a lot of hard decisions in life.

A teenage,neighbor friend of mine was literally taken to an abortionist by her father. It was 1967 and she was 17. I can tell you it was a trauma she carried for all her life. She passed away several years ago….never married, no other children. These forced abortions happened more often ( back then ) then many may be aware of.

The Gospel Coalition is expanding and askng for your money in ” partnership”

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/friends-of-tgc-join-a-global-gospel-vision

@ Nancy:
I wasn’t implying what you’re thinking, unless i miss my guess. Have been reading (perhaps too much) about sexual assault over the past couple of days, especially focused on how colleges handle accused rapists. There’s a very troubling opinion piece on this in the New York Times.

Interesting commentary from William G., representing the second lung of the Church. Had I not been put into perpetual moderation for potentially inciting Catholic beliefs, I would have commented here.

@ numo:

Actually, numo, the thing that William said triggered some memories. I doubt that anybody here is in favor of coerced abortion, and I doubt that you are in favor of coerced anything. So I don’t know what you thought that I thought that you thought, but what I thought was that the opportunity had arisen to speak out against coerced abortion. I could tell a story that would rip everybody’s heart out, but it involved a patient so I can’t do that. What I can say is that it was not rape but they tried to coerce her into saying that it was to save face. Sometimes things are not what they seem to be. Just triggered some sad memories.

@ Nancy:
Aww, that’s great!

As for the other thing, i can easily imagine… and do understand how it is when bad memories are triggered. We all have our own scars, and i bet a lot of us have encountered people (some near and dear to us) who’ve been through truly horrific things.

Sopwith wrote:

‘Highly Favored One’ has become (for some) ‘Highly Venerated One’, which has become ‘Highly Prayed To One.’

I can find no basis for this in scripture, can any of you?

Sopy

Respectfully Sopy, I can’t find any ‘scriptural’ basis for it either. But if it makes folks happy and satisfies a deep inner need, how can it hurt? Who am I to say that they’re wrong for doing it? Is Jacob’s God that petulant and insecure that he’d get miffed-off over those who seek audience with the mother of his son?

@ Nancy:

Nancy,,regarding the changes in Baptism, would,I also be correct in assuming that to a large extent the traditional hymns, whether of the general Protestant style , or of more specifically Baptist formats like the shape-note singing of the Southern Harmony have become largely displaced by praise bands performing Christian rock music? That displacement was a key factor that pushed me out of the UMC parish in which I grew up.

THC wrote:

Interesting commentary from William G., representing the second lung of the Church. Had I not been put into perpetual moderation for potentially inciting Catholic beliefs, I would have commented here.

Note that the Orthodox with the exception of His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and some members of his camp, are in general deeply uncomfortable with the recent description by some Popes that Orthodoxy and Catholicism represent two lungs of the church. While our sacramental theology is similiar and while I’d be the first to admit that the Roman church does a better job at charitable works, and while many of us love the Tridentine mass, there are huge differences in theology and praxis that need to be resolved before full communion can be restored.

Also, the Wartburg Watch cannot be accused of anti-Catholicism given the frequency with which HH Pope Rancis is quoted to provide a contrast to abusive megachurch pastors, many of which routinely drop highly inflammatory criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church (which offend Orthodox and Anglicans just as much, most of the time) into their sermons as a way of spicing things up. After all, people love a bit of two minutes hate, and some people take sinful pleasure in the idea that their denomination is going to heaven whereas everyone else will burn in hellfire). It is for this reason that I avoid the minority of Orthodox who equate non-Orthodox churches with paganism, and actively oppose the tiny minority who link Orthodoxy with racial identity (some Catholics have been guilty of this; consider in the Balkans the view that if you’re Orthodox you are a Serb, if you’re Catholic you are Croatian, and if you’re a Muslim you’re Bosnian). One could also cite the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland which boils down to the idea of Catholic Irish vs. Presbyterian Scots. The fact that Christians would take such profoundly un-Christian attitudes towards their brothers and sisters in Christ, and those of other religions who are still a Gods children, is probably the main reason the forces of atheism and secularism are once more on the march.

numo wrote:

William G. wrote:
so they can enjoy motherhood as a consolation for the evil that was done to them
i just don’t have the words to reply to your understanding or rape (etc.) here. Just plain don’t. But I will say that I think you have much to learn, and I don’t mean that unkindly at all.

Actually I think I do have an understanding of rape because a close female relative of mine was violently raped, and while not impregnated, contracted an STD. This was in the 1970s. After being raped she wandered aimlessly around the freeway and was arrested, strip searched and treated like a criminal, adding to the trauma. She did not marry for many years after that. But thankfully eventually did have a successful marriage and children. I became aware of this a few years back while, together with other relatives, helping take care of her after she suffered an acute illness, from which she recovered. The mental image of her wandering the freeway in shock, in tattered clothes, and then being picked up and treated as insane, a drug user or a prostitute by the police, continue to haunt me. I really hope in the US things are better for rape victims these days, but it’s worth remembering in some parts of the Islamic world rape victims can be executed.

William G. wrote:

I should at this time state that he Orthodox view the marriage bed as undefiled, and sexual pleasure within marriage, enjoyed by both spouses in a manner devoid of coercion, abuse or exploitation, is something profoundly holy. Augustine was utterly wrong on this point; while I am naturally uncomfortable contemplating the sex life of my parents, the knowledge that I was conceived as a result of nuptial bliss, and that indeed most children are, proves to me the existence of a compassionate God, who also rewards those women who are the victim of rape, who are properly disposed to accept motherhood, with the concomitant joys it produces. There is a need for increased assistance for rape victims who are pregnant and want to have their baby, so they are not stigmatized, and so they can enjoy motherhood as a consolation for the evil that was done to them. If the situation presented itself, I would personally wed any impregnated rape victim who needed a father figure for their child; note that such a statement should not be viewed as a solicitation of romance. At present I am discerning a monastic vocation and am thus entirely unavailable, just so my remark there isn’t taken out of context. :p

I really don’t know how to respond to this as I don’t feel you are asking anything, but affirming your opinion. I would then only echo what numo said, and say I think you’ve got a long way to go in refining what you’ve said here. I actually hope you keep a snapshot of this and look at it in another five years, then ten years, and see how you would express things then.

William G. wrote:

How could the tabernacle represent that which it actually was?

It did not represent itself. The Tabernacle represents where God meets men/women. That Place of Meeting is Jesus the Messiah. The Tabernacle, like the Ark of the Covenant is a type of the Messiah to come.

Mistakes are made with typology when one insists on a correspondence on details between type and anti-type and when one fails to realize that different types are designed to anticipate different aspects of the one anti-type they all anticipate. The Messiah requires lots of different types to represent even a significant part of Who he is and What He Will Do. Thus the Tabernacle and the Ark represent different things about the same person.

William G. wrote:

A plurality of Christians ask for the prayers of Mary and venerate her as the Mother of God (which she is, in the sense of being the mother of the second person of the Trinity, who is properly called God as well as Jesus Christ, the Son of God,,the son of Man or the Word;

This needs to be carefully nuanced. Mary is not the mother of the Eternal Son’s divine nature. That is why the preferred honorific for Mary is Christotokos rather than Theotokos because that makes a distinction between the Eternal Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, as he is before the Incarnation and after the Incarnation which is the only place where Mary has significance. If you want to find a reason for drift into Mary worship, this might be the place the departure begins.

Also, it doesn’t matter that the majority of self-identified Christians venerate Mary. The vast majority of humans do not worship Jesus the Messiah, yet he is still Lord.

Albuquerque Blue wrote:

Well he is supposed to be a jealous god.

Supposed to and is can be quite contradictory at times and the word ‘jealous’ can be multi-hued.

Some of us have the distinct feeling at some level that type is in the eye of the beholder. If that is the case, (and in the absence of specific biblical statement to the contrary regarding some specific type) then there may be more than one way of looking at it all, and more than one way may have some good points to recommend it.

I admit my bias, because I don’t get it why people want to get into typology in the first place, unless required to by some specific statement in scripture about some specific type. It almost sounds like there is not enough evidence to arrive at a certain position and only by typology can one get there from here. Or, it is a way to link christianity with judaism, but if it is that hard then maybe that particular link is just not there.

Typology lies somewhere near end times prophesy in their use of symbolism which can too easily be misunderstood or for that matter manipulated to fit whatever argument one is trying to make. But as a hobby I think typology is better than end times prophesy. Just my opinion.

@ Gram3:
Or as Turretin puts it-
“Mary is rightly called theMother of God (theotokos) in the concrete and specifically because she brought forth him who is also God. Although this is not expressly stated in he Scriptures, still it is sufficiently intimated when she is called the mother of the Lord ( Luke1:43) and the mother of Immanuel. If the blessed Virgin brought nothing to the person of the Logos (Logou) absolutely considered, still she can be said to have brought something to the person of the incarnate Logos (Logou) economically considered, inasmuch as she gave the human nature which he took into the unity of his person. The title Mother of God given to the Virgin was perverted by superstitious men into an occasion of idolatry, as Paul Sarpi observes. ‘Because the impiety of Nestorius divided Christ, constituting two sons and denying that he, who was born of the Virgin Mary, is God; the church, in order to implant the Catholic truth in the minds of believers, decided that the words, Mary, the Mother of God (Maria theotokos), should be more frequently inculcated in the churches of the East as well as the West. This,ninstituted indeed solely for the honour of Christ, by degrees began to be shared with the mother and at length was referred entirely to her alone.’ (History of the Council of Trent 2[1620], p 181). Although, I say, this most gross error either arose from or was increased by this occasion, it derogates nothing from the truth because the abuse and error of the papists ought not to take away the lawful use of this name” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Volume Two, Thirteenth Topic., paragraphs xi & xii).

Nancy wrote:

not until their bodies can get pregnant and not until they are mothers.

Exactly. Because. the. patriarchy. I reject patriarchal thinking, religious or otherwise. I am not less than. My opinion is not less than. My body is not less than. Nancy, your country has a rich tradition of ‘hitting the road’ (as does mine). My wish for William is that a type of Thoreau or Kerouac? etc (pulling names out of a hat here) is favoured for a while over the Orthodoxy… What I’m trying to say is – ‘put the books down and get out a bit’.

Muff Potter wrote:

I can’t find any ‘scriptural’ basis for it either.

Check out the traditional understanding of the communion of saints. (The baptists have a different take on it.) And of course there is Mark 12:27 and Matthew 22:32 and Luke 20:30 for the idea that God is not the god of the dead but of the living, for all are living to him.

In RCIA, and based on these concepts, they told us that their thinking is that if it is alright to ask somebody to pray for you, then whether they are still in the flesh (living) or whether they have died but are alive to God, one can ask them to pray for you either way.

I don’t really see a good argument against that, if that is as far as it goes. It is certainly not conjuring up the dead or dealing with familiar spirits or such. And Jesus certainly made a dogmatic statement about the way in which the dead are not dead.

@ William G.:
I have a reply to you that’s on the back burner. Please check back.

@ numo:
btw, I totally agree that she is the Theotokos, but don’t care for “Mother of God” – still, we have limited options to express this properly in English, which is one of the reasons most of us run into trouble over the title.

Nancy wrote:

It almost sounds like there is not enough evidence to arrive at a certain position and only by typology can one get there from here.

This has definitely been the case with some things. And societies can be attuned to particular modes of expression, symbolism and allegory. The Middle Ages in the West saw a huge upturn in allegory, and it was in vogue in literature (very much so), art (including secular), and… theology.

In fact, C.S. Lewis’ little book The Allegory of Love is a standard text for people studying medieval lit, for this very reason. In his field (medieval and Renaissance lit), he was uncommonly gifted and insightful, and his works on literature are very highly regarded.

THC wrote:

As far as Mary as Theotokos. Is Jesus the eternal Son of God? Is God the eternal Father? Is the Trinity eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

The Eternal Son, the Logos, did not come from the womb of a woman. Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, was God Incarnate who was born of a woman. That is why I said that I do not care for Theotokos because it implies that the Eternal Son was born of a woman. That is messed-up Christology.

Nancy wrote:

Some of us have the distinct feeling at some level that type is in the eye of the beholder.

It can if used without some discipline. I think that looking into imagery used by God to point to the Messiah is very interesting because it is hard for one person to manufacture fulfillment of all of the typological pre-figurings of the Christ. I think that God has written his story with words and with pictures and drama which are contained in those words.

If you only knew how ironic all this is coming from me, the one who is always cautioning against typomania and parallelomania. Typology like wine is good in modest and disciplined doses.

@ Gram3:
i don’t favor this term, which is more about ancient Christological controversies than what I was trying to point out. I mean, it opens a whole can of worms.

but that’s just me.

William G. wrote:

but it’s worth remembering in some parts of the Islamic world rape victims can be executed.

I’ll rephrase that, ‘it’s worth remembering in some parts of the Islamic world FEMALE rape victims can be executed’

@ Gram3:
It is more about him being divine and human from the get-go, which was a big topic for argument during th early Christological controversies. The standard xtian position is stated in the Nicene Creed.

@ Nancy:

But the Eternal Son was not human from all eternity and was not born. As you point out, Philippians 2 shows that change. The incarnated Son was born as the God-Man. And I totally agree that it is scandalous and absurd if it is not true! It is a stumbling stone and even a whole stone wall to many. Without faith, it makes no sense.

I’ll have to look up background on Theos.

Here’s another page with info on theos:

http://biblehub.com/greek/2316.htm

Gram3 wrote:

William G. wrote:
How could the tabernacle represent that which it actually was?
It did not represent itself. The Tabernacle represents where God meets men/women. That Place of Meeting is Jesus the Messiah. The Tabernacle, like the Ark of the Covenant is a type of the Messiah to come.
Mistakes are made with typology when one insists on a correspondence on details between type and anti-type and when one fails to realize that different types are designed to anticipate different aspects of the one anti-type they all anticipate. The Messiah requires lots of different types to represent even a significant part of Who he is and What He Will Do. Thus the Tabernacle and the Ark represent different things about the same person.

My point is that the Tabernacle IS where God met humanity and accepted the sacrifices and liturgical worship of the Levitical Priesthood. The tabernacle cannot represent what it is; that’s like saying my car represents a car.

But let’s go with that analogy. My car IS a car, but it represents freedom and mobility. It is also a known fact that car designers and many enthusiasts view cars as phallic symbols, so that’s another layer of representation which I for one prefer to avoid, but it is there thanks to advertising and the unnecessarily elongated hoods of most modern luxury and sports cars.

In like manner, the Tabernacle was a place of meeting between God and His people; that was its nature and it’s function. Read Christologically however, the tabernacle, by virtue of containing the ark, can be viewed as a metaphor for Mary, and is so cited in some Orthodox hymns about the Theotokos. Likewise, the tabernacle also represents the human body, which is a tabernacle or temple of the Holy Spirit. Orthodoxy hymnody also extrapolates a Marian symbolism in Noah’s Ark, and in several other places in the Old Testament where God came to dwell Ina finite location.

Now setting aside the antidicomarianism that seems endemic to much of the Baptist faith, which is lamentable, because I have found a good relation with Mary helps one to understand the ideal of service to God, which we see in Mary’s obedience to the most frightening of demands (remember, under Jewish law St. Joseph could have had her stoned; it was no accident that God chose as a husband for Mary a kindly man of advanced years who was disinclined towards vengeance), there is also much Christological treasure elsewhere in the Old Teatament.

To not read Abrahams abortive sacrifice of Isaac as a Christological prophecy would be in my mind shocking, although incredibly in my youth my Protestant teachers of religion never stressed this. One can read the meekness of David in his youth as a metaphor for the humility of Christ, and proof positive of “blessed are the meek”, to not read In the Song of Solomon a statement about the desire of the soul for God as much as a celebration of nuptial bliss, reduces the work to erotic poetry. The parting of the Jordan is explicitly referenced, as I have said before, in the Orthodox service for Theophany, that is to say, Epiphany, which historically celebrated the baptism of Christ rather than the visitation of the magi.

Actually the primary source typological references in the Old Testament denoted by Orthodox fathers is found in the hymns, the various Kontakia, Troparia, the nine odes of the Matins canon, and the very long service that consists entirely of a sung devotional hymn coupled with a bidding prayer known as a paraklesis or akathist. In the Syriac Rite similar content is found in the Husoye, which are three part prayers; I would translate Husoyo as Great Collect; each one consists of a Proemion or preface followed by a Sedro or body, and they often close with an Etro or prayer of incense. These prayers are functionally similiar to the Collects, which form the main type of bidding prayer in the Latin and especially the Anglican Book of Common Prayer; the main equivalent in the Byzantine rite being the numerous Litanies. At any rate, the Eastern hymns, especially the Kontakia, Troparia, the Canon of Marins and the Akathistos, together with the Husoye and the complex Matins hymns of the West Syriac Rite, and the Praises from the Coptic Vespers, are the main treasure trove of Biblical typology, and most of these assorted hymns and prayers are over a thousand years old.

The Orthodox Study Bible in its annotations also does not fail to note all of the typological connections accepted in Byzantine Holy Tradition. In fact, whereas my King James Study Bible alternates between useful historical notes and worthless Calvinista remarks “Christianity is in no sense an ascetic religion” and premillinerian Chiliastic prophecy of the sort that drove the plot of Left Behind, the annotations in the OSB are almost entirely references to typology. I keep both Bibles in active service because the KJV is a more elegant read than the NRSV the OSB uses, and the historical commentary and maps are useful in an attempt to gain historical context.

I really wish I could find a KJV that was a true Authorized Version, with the Apocrypha, which I love (especially Wisdom ch. 2) and annotations based on the commentaries of the great Anglican divines, like the two Bishops Lightfoot, Wesley, Hooker, Cranmer, and if they wrote anything relevant, Dix and Dearmer. I shall ask around to see if there’s a good Anglican Study Bible. Of course a dyed in the wool Anglican would just tell me to read the lectionary of the BCP together with the Collects (which I actually have done, in working on my upcoming Traditional Methodist Worship). As an aside, since Wesley was secretly ordained by the Greek Orthodox bishop Erasmus of Arcadia, and since Wesley’s soteriology and Trinitarian theology was essentially fully Orthodox, I have long desired to set up within the Western Rite of the Orthodox Church a Methodist Use, and to get Wesley declared glorified as an Orthodox apologist to the West. After all, if Isaac the Syrian, who was a Nestorian under an anthems of the Third Ecumenical Council can be a saint, then why can’t Wesley, who was under no Conciliar Anathemas, and who was actually received into our Holy Orders, albeit irregularly? However it’s a long shot; the modern day UMC causes most of my Orthodox friends to break out in a rash.

@ THC:

Of course not. The point is that The Eternal Son *became* human, and Mary gave birth to him. He was not a human prior to the incarnation. After the incarnation, the Son is both God and Man, and I don’t believe those are separable natures. Mary did not give birth to the Word, the Eternal Son, and it is not necessary to separate Christ’s two natures to say that Mary did not give birth to the Eternal Son in eternity past.

@ Gram3:
This seems really interesting, but I’m very lost on a lot of this discussion. Can anyone cliff notes or direct me to what the whole christological (spelling?) and born of Mary thing is about? It seems like a very inside baseball sort of thing, and my curiosity is thus peaked.

William G. wrote:

In like manner, the Tabernacle was a place of meeting between God and His people; that was its nature and it’s function. Read Christologically however, the tabernacle, by virtue of containing the ark, can be viewed as a metaphor for Mary, and is so cited in some Orthodox hymns about the Theotokos. Likewise, the tabernacle also represents the human body, which is a tabernacle or temple of the Holy Spirit. Orthodoxy hymnody also extrapolates a Marian symbolism in Noah’s Ark, and in several other places in the Old Testament where God came to dwell Ina finite location.

A tabernacle as a thing is a temporary dwelling. The temporary dwellings occupied during Sukkot are tabernacles. So there is the aspect of temporariness and dwellingness. If that were all we knew about “Tabernacle,” then I might consider your view of Mary as the anti-type of the Tabernacle.

But we know much more than that. Sinful man did not meet God in Mary’s body. One might speculate that the Eternal Son’s nature met Jesus’ human nature in Mary’s body, but we don’t know that from the textual data. Jesus’ human body was not sinful, but that would be the only sense in which “man” might be considered to be meeting God in Mary’s body. So that point of correspondence doesn’t make sense.

In any case, that is nothing like the meetings that went on between sinful man and God in the Tabernacle which was highly regulated.

If you want to say that the fact that the Ark was located at times within the Tabernacle, then again the correspondence with Mary’s body eludes me.

So, to summarize, my understanding of your view is that the Tabernacle is a type of Mary because it contained, at times, the Ark which typified Christ and that Mary’s body is where God met man. If there is more, then please elaborate, but I don’t see how to get to Mary as anti-type without starting with Mary as anti-type and looking for correspondences.

Now, the body of Christ on the Cross is indeed where sinful man met God in the person of Jesus Christ. That’s where the Sacrifice occurred. That is where the tablets inside the Ark were finished and where Aaron’s budding rod kept is the Ark was revealed in the Branch from the stump of Jesse. That’s when the veil was torn. When looked at holistically, I don’t see that kind of powerful correspondence between the Tabernacle and Mary’s body.

@ Albuquerque Blue:

Sorry, ABQBlue, I don’t understand exactly what you want to know. The nuances of Christology certainly are inside baseball, except we’re trying to figure out the rules from an incomplete rulebook. Hence the desire for an Umpire. 😉

Nancy wrote:

William G. wrote:
There is a distinction between worship and veneration.
I am confused here. You use the word veneration, which Wiki says is english for dulia. But the catholics use the word hyperdulia for Mary, and also use the word veneration. On the continuum of dulia, hyperdulia and latria where do the orthodox stand regarding Mary?

I am going to address your question regarding dpulia, hyperdoulia (a concept which I believe, from my research, is alien to Orthodoxy), and latria, or for those of us who prefer to speak English, veneration, hyper-veneration and worship. I prefer to use non-English terms in the discussion of theology only when there is no one-word English translation, in the hope that the foreign word may eventually become a widely understood loanword, perhpas with some anglicization, like Trinity, Liturgy, Episcopal, Pastor, and Priest/Presbyter. Because the English church was part of the Western Rite, some theological concepts of the Eastern church, and indeed some associated with Catholicism, were never translated out of Greek or Latin and incorporated into the English language directly. Now, to address the main question asked by Nancy:

Hyperdulia refers to the enhanced veneration the Catholics provide to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I shy away from this term, because while the Orthodox do venerate Mary more than the other saints, I would be uncomfortable with the idea that the veneration of Mary is of a different nature, character or ontological category than that afforded to the other saints. What is more, I cannot find in any of my Orthodox theological texts the use of the term hyperdoulia; it would seem the idea of a three-tiered system of veneration, hyper-veneration and worship is unknown to the Holy Orthodox Church.

In Orthodox theology, Latria, or worship, is due only to God. Dulia, in different degrees, but not, from everything I’ve read, in two different grades, that of ordinary veneration and extraordinary veneration, or doulia and hyperdoulia, is offered with increasing levels of devotion to icons (or to be more precise, the subject matter they depict), to the unfallen angels who serve God, to the creation of God, to clergy, especially bishops, as the representatives of Christ and his Apostles, to monks and ascetics, on account of their personal holiness attained through great hardship and sacrifice, to the choir of the saints, and to the virgin Mary. We also, in explaining veneration to Protestants, commonly point out the veneration of ancestors and elder relatives that occurs in families, and I consider this a valid form of dulia as well.

Latria however, which is to say, worship, can only be offered to God, in the three persons of the Holy Trinity, separately or together, because God alone has the power to answer prayers and to save us from damnation on the dread day of judgement; God alone is responsible for our existence and that of the universe around us, and God alone is the unchanging and incomprehensible being of three persons existing in an eternal union of pure love, the font of all grace, from whom all blessings flow, to quote the hymn popularly known as The Benediction or Doxology, taken from the Old Hundredth, one of John Calvin’s more profound contributions to Western Christianity.

Some poorly catechized Orthodox do pray to Mary or even to the icons, but in doing so, they violate the theological definitions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council and unwittingly anathematize themselves. Such superstitions interpretations surfaced due to the suppression of catechesis and preaching in the persecuted Russian church during the USSR, but are now being corrected, and I believe most Orthodox understand that in venerating icons, we are showing honor to the saints they depict, and also where they depict our Lord Jesus Christ, to Him. When Orthodox pray to the Virgin Mary, she is not the “final destination” of their prayers, but rather, they are praying for her to pray or intercede on their behalf. An example can be found in the congregational or choral response to the First Antiphon (Psalm 102/103, “Bless the Lord, O My Soul,” is “Through the intercessions of the Theotokos, Savior, Save Us.” This in my mind epitomizes the Orthodox approach to praying with Mary and the other Saints; we ask them to pray with us, just as we ask those among the living to pray with us. After all, should not the prayers of the choir of Saints in Heaven be just as effective as those of our friends on Earth, some of whom may tragically not be accounted among the righteous at the day of judgment?

*As an important but off-topic liturgical aside, the Psalm 102/103 “Bless the Lord O My Soul” is not to be confused with the longer Psalm 103/104 of the same name; the confusion is made worse by the fact that the numbering is different between the Masoretic text and some versions of the Septuagint, and the Vulgate and most other versions of the Septuagint; just as the Catholics use the Vulgate and in the lectionary, the Vetus Latina, the Eastern Orthodox use the Septuagint consistently in liturgical worship, whereas lamentably, the Syriac Orthodox use the Peshitta only when worshipping in Syriac, and use a hodgepodge of random Arabic and English bibles the rest of the time. I should also add that the Eucharistic lectionary and the Psalter in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer are not from the King James Version but from a mix of older English translations and work by the BCP compilers. However, the BCP Psalter follows the Masoretic text both in content and in the division of the Psalms.

The Orthodox Psalter is based on the Septuagint, and divides the Psalter into 20 Kathisma, or Sittings, each of which is divided into three Stasis, or standings, because at the end of stasis, the congregation stands for “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.” It is recited weekly, except in Lent, when it is recited twice weekly. I have created configurations of it that follow an annual, monthly, and six day format.

The Roman Catholics used to recite the Psalter weekly, but now do it monthly. The Anglican Psalter is also divided thus, with psalms divided between Morning and Evening Prayer for each day of the month, and rubrics for what to do in months shorter than 31 days. The Copts in theory recite the entire psalter daily, but few monks actually do this; at many monasteries, a deacon or priest will assign each monk a psalm to read during each of the seven prayer services; however, there are some monks who memorize the entire psalter and recite it throughout the day, in a devotional practice similiar to the Byzantine use of the Jesus Prayer, or the Catholic use of the Rosary or Lectio Divina.

I strongly suggest that all Christians try to read through the Book of Psalms at least once a month. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer is ideal for Protestants, because it divides the Psalms into those for Morning Prayer, and those for Evening Prayer; one member of the family can get up early and take breakfast by themselves, and read to the others the morning Psalms at the breakfast table, whereas the evening psalms can be recited by the family together as part of bedtime prayers. The Orthodox Study Bible conveniently provides rubrics for waking and bedtime prayer, and a lectionary to accompany them; the Book of Common Prayer also provides a lectionary for Morning and Evening Prayer containing an Old Testament and a New Testament lesson. If any family can find it in them to say Morning and Evening Prayer in their entirety, with the two scripture lessons and the appointed Psalms, according to the BCP, or alternately make use of another prayer book with its own scheme of psalms, hymns, and readings, I believe they will be the stronger for it. I also strongly advocate attending midweek church services whenever they are available.

@ Gram3:
While i don’t have the ability to elaborate on the Nicene Creed’s statements about the nature of Christ + the incarnation, i would again suggest that you look it up and maybe read something about the issues under debate at the Council that its name refers to. Should either help or be endlessly confusing; maybe a bit of both!

@ numo:

I reject Nestorianism and Arianism, though it may not seem that way. I think it is an error to divide the human and divine natures of the Incarnate Christ as if he were some mythical creature. I think it is an error to say that the Eternal Son was a created person and that he is of one nature and substance with the Father and Holy Spirit. I don’t think any of the Persons of the Trinity have either more or less of the attributes of divinity than the others.

Nevertheless, something happened at the Incarnation when the Eternal Son was incarnated or made a man by the Holy Spirit in the body of Mary, in the words of the creed. How to describe something that is revealed but which does not make sense from a purely rational perspective. Of course, why would we expect it to be?

Nancy wrote:

I admit my bias, because I don’t get it why people want to get into typology in the first place, unless required to by some specific statement in scripture about some specific type. It almost sounds like there is not enough evidence to arrive at a certain position and only by typology can one get there from here. Or, it is a way to link christianity with judaism, but if it is that hard then maybe that particular link is just not there.

The Early Fathers used typology for two reasons: in Luke, it says that Jesus opened the Books of Scripture, meaning the Old Testament, to the Disciples, and showed them how all of the books spoke of Him. On the basis of that, the Fathers were eager to demonstrate what Luke was talking about. Given that the Disciples were the teachers of the Apostolic Fathers, like Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp, and the Apostolic Fathers were the teachers of the later Patristic authorities, we can safely assume that at least some of the typological exegesis either came from the mouth of our Lord, or was made apparent to the Apostles gathered in the Cenacle on the basis of the enlightenment they received by Him. However, what I think Christ revealed more than anything else was the idea that the Old Testament primarily talks about Him and His ministry, and therefore, the art of typology is finding ways in which the Word of God is manifest in the Holy Scriptures that predate His incarnation. It is a process involving allegory, analogy and imagination, and when done right, the results of good typology are fairly blindingly obvious.

To put it another way, if the Old Testament is primarily an account of the relationship between Israel and God, and not a prophecy of the Incarnation of the Word, its usefulness to Christians is secondary. I feel like some Protestants have bought into that notion, which is why we see lots of little pocket Bibles distributed by the Gideons that contain the New Testament and the Psalms and Proverbs, but not the Old Testament. Now I myself have one of those, carried by a soldier in one of the wars, and I consider it holy and important; it also has some beautiful prayers in an appendix, and I will say that for a Christian, if one is pressed for space, carrying the Gospel and the Psalms and Proverbs is acceptable; the Psalms contain in poetic form the essence of the Old Testament message, and the Proverbs are a font of Divine Wisdom, all of which points to Christ. However, if these books were absent, and only the New Testament were present, I would have no use for such a book.

It is worth noting that for the earliest Christians, the phrase “Holy Scriptures” referred to the Old Testament. Until the books of the New Testament were written, and eventually elevated to be on a par with the Old Testament, and eventually set in a canon, a process that took four centuries, the earliest Christians had to rely on the Old Testament and the oral testimony given by the Apostles to acquire an intellectual understanding of God. The Gospel, while not explicitly found in the Old Testament, can surely be implicitly found therein; is not the Book of Exodus more than just the literal history of the flight of Israel from Egyptian bondage, but also the process of our lifelong journey from the oppression of the World, ruled by the False God of the Devil, here represented as Pharoah, into the Promised Land of Heaven, a journey that we will survive only through a profound faith in, and obedience to, our Lord and Shepherd, a faith possible only by His saving Grace? Is not God in this life unapproachable but for the few like Moses who ascend Sinai through fervent repentance, and even then, is his uncreated essence not visible or comprehensible, but rather, a cloud of dazzling darkness? And can we not trust that in our hours of desperation, God will provide for our needs, just as he fed the Israelites with manna from heaven?

This is why I personally believe the Bible consists of equally important and inseparable layers, including literal historical accounts, moral instruction, allegory, and prophecy, both explicit prophetic statements uttered by the Prophets, in the manner of “Thus saith The Lord,” and implicit typological and iconographic prophecy. While I do believe in the Big Bang and in evolution, I also believe that Adam and Eve were real persons and the events depicted in Genesis actually happened; its also interesting to note that the progenitor of the theory of the Big Bang was a Catholic priest, astronomer and physicist, who was attacked by physicists like Einstein who believed the universe to have always existed. Later Einstein was forced to admit that Msgr. Lemaitre was right, and that the universe did not have to agree with the expectations set forth for it by physicists.

So just so were clear, I do interpret all portions of the Bible traditionally interpreted by the early church in a literal manner as literal; only those portions that were always held to be allegorical do I view in the same light. Thus, when our Lord said “This is my Body,” I take him for his word. However, where I differ from fundamentalists is that I do not feel obliged to reconcile apparent conflicts between different books of the Bible, or hold all sections of the Bible to a journalistic standard. The Canticles in the Gospel of Luke, even if truly sung (which I must consider possible) were clearly included as poetry to explain the emotional states of the dramatis personae, as much as anything.

@ Gram3:
It isn’t confined to either Nestorius or Arius. Those early church guys loved to get into philosophical/theological disputes, and it really doesn’t get interesting until you begin to get into the arguments, who did what, which regions were dominated by X kind of thinking – and which groups hired “protection.” (Not joking; that really happened.)

I guess Philip Jenkins’ The Jesus Wars is a pretty decent book to start with, though i fault him for trying too hard to “popularize” a lot of the knottier material. (He is good, but i don’t like that kind of “i’m gonna dumb this down for the masses” approach in general, for many reasons.)

numo wrote:

i fault him for trying too hard to “popularize” a lot of the knottier material

Getting into the philosophical weeds is just not going to happen at this point, mostly because my synapses, or at least the ones I still have, are really “knotty” resulting in frequent mental shorts.

Trinity? Seriously, I’ve got nothing. Never seen a satisfying explanation of how to fit it together.

Gram3 wrote:

@ Nancy:
Here’s Strong’s for theos:
http://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_2316.htm
Just scanning this, to me theos generally refers to God in the Godhead sense or God the Father when it refers to Jesus as the Son of Theos. I can’t say it is universal in the Bible, because I haven’t looked at every instance, much less in context. I think that the Greek word itself means god, and perhaps that is the origin of the term theotokos. William probably knows that.

Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are God; the Nicene Creed declares Jesus to be “Very God of Very God.” In the Syriac Orthodox Church, many prayers are addressed to Jesus Christ, ending with “Who reignest together with Thy father, and the Holy Spirit, now, always, and forever.” Jesus is also fully Man, but in praying to Jesus, we pray to his divinity, or his divine nature, in Chalcedonian terminology, whereas when we depict Him in iconography we show his human nature.

The fact that Jesus IS God, and not merely the Son of God, is demonstrated by John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the Word.

This to me illustrates the extreme danger of Protestants exclusively using the phrase “The Word of God” to refer to the Bible. Jesus is the Word of God, moreso than the Bible; the Bible would be more properly called “The Words of God.” The Bible describes God the Word, but is not literally, page for page, the Word for God. In the United Methodist church the official doctrine is that the Bible contains the Word of God, but is not literally the Word of God in every page, and I think this is an equally apt way to explain it, but it could be clearer if it were to say, “The Bible contains words spoken by Word the God, the second person of the Trinity, incarnate as Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and also the words of God spoken by the Prophets through the Holy Spirit.”

Sopwith wrote:

…let me get this straight, we come from monkeys, and we pray to dead people.

Actually Sopy, I reject the evolutionary paradigm in favor of intelligent design with Almighty God as master designer, artisan, and magician. Wanna know the kicker? I also reject the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and the doctrinal follow-ons which grew out of it.

I have adopted a Jewish view of sin, namely that sin is an action (or inaction) and not a state of being. In other words, I don’t believe I’m a sinner until I actually do something wrong in real space-time or fail to act in order to prevent something wrong in real space-time.

Mary the mother of Jesus is not dead Sopy. Her legacy is immortal and beloved by many, myself included.

@ numo:
I’ve been following for a while, but I confess I don’t really get what the disagreement or differing positions on Mary are really about. Is it an important thing to Christianity or kind of just a traditional thing that varies between Christian faith traditions? My background in Christianity is Assemblies of God, various non denominational and generic Protestant and Mary really wasn’t covered much beyond being Jesus’ mom.

Muff Potter wrote:

Sopwith wrote:
…let me get this straight, we come from monkeys, and we pray to dead people.
Actually Sopy, I reject the evolutionary paradigm in favor of intelligent design with Almighty God as master designer, artisan, and magician. Wanna know the kicker? I also reject the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and the doctrinal follow-ons which grew out of it.
I have adopted a Jewish view of sin, namely that sin is an action (or inaction) and not a state of being. In other words, I don’t believe I’m a sinner until I actually do something wrong in real space-time or fail to act in order to prevent something wrong in real space-time.
Mary the mother of Jesus is not dead Sopy. Her legacy is immortal and beloved by many, myself included.

The word used for sin in the New Testament is hamartia, which means missing the mark, in other words, failing to live up to our full potential as children created in the image of our Father. Thus your view of sin comes close to that of the Orthodox Church; we believe in original sin to the extent that the fall causes us to in this life fall short of our God-given potential, which is why we die, but we are not forensically responsible for the transgressions of our forefathers. Thus Pelagius was wrong in that due to the degenerate condition of mankind, it is not possible to avoid sinning or attain salvation apart from Divine Grace. However we also hold Augustine to be in error in saying that nothing we do pleases God and it is only by Divine Grace that we are saved; rather Grace opens a door through which we can walk and progressively cast off the burden of sin through repentance.

It is possible to repent of sin and live in a state of increased holiness. A swindler can have in a flash of insight the realization he was wrong; he can then engage in repentance by making amends to his victims and beg the forgiveness of God, and if he holds to this course and does not relapse, which is possible through divine grace, he can live in a state of increasing holiness.

There was a touching James Cagney film where Cagney played a mobster who went into hiding by entering a monastery. He came to love the holiness of the place and the brethren so much that, after one final bit of “action” to protect them from a racketeer, he renounced criminality, explained his past, and was accepted as a brother.

In real life this happened, when the murderer and highway man Moses the Strong renounced sin violence and became a leading monk, eventually becoming an Abbott. He is accounted a saint in the Eastern Churches and as one of the Desert Fathers.

Albuquerque Blue wrote:

@ numo:
I’ve been following for a while, but I confess I don’t really get what the disagreement or differing positions on Mary are really about. Is it an important thing to Christianity or kind of just a traditional thing that varies between Christian faith traditions? My background in Christianity is Assemblies of God, various non denominational and generic Protestant and Mary really wasn’t covered much beyond being Jesus’ mom.

Mary is essentially important in the economy of salvation, and a person of inordinate spiritual importance, for by her the Word became Flesh, and she was physically closer to the incarnate God than any other human, having succored and raised him as a child. The Orthodox hymns regarding her emphasis the paradox of her containing in her womb God which cannot be contained. It is for this that in the Magnificat in Luke Ch. 1. Mary prophecies that “All generations shall call me blessed.”

Protestant churches that downplay the Theotokos do a disservice to their congregants because in Mary we have a woman who obeyed God perfectly, who ordained the unimaginable sorrow of watching him die on the cross, and who then experienced the unimaginable joy of the Good News of his resurrection. The Council of Ephesus was almost universally upheld by the magisterial Protestant churches.

Gram3 wrote:

William G. wrote:
I feel you are teetering perilously close to Arius, who dared to say that Christ was a creature, God only by honor, created at the beginning of creation, and thus not fully divine, and in that manner was subject to change while the father remained immutable.
That is not likely since I’m one of the main critics here of the effective Arianism of Grudem and Piper and the entire CBMW cult.
I am fully Chalcedonian. Christ/Messiah is fully divine, therefore Christotokos does *not* deny or diminish the deity of Christ.

The Council of Ephesus defined Nestorianism, and Nestorius himself defined it, as refusal to affirm that Mary was Theotokos. Note that I am not accusing you of heresy. I myself have a close relation with the Assyrian Church of the East, commonly known as the Nestorian Church. However you cannot claim to be fully Chalcedonian without adhering fully to Ephesus, since the acts of the Council of Chalcedon explicitly uphold the dogmatic teaching of the first three Ecumenical councils in their entirety.

Your Chalcedonianism is in fact that of Nestorius, who claimed that Chalcedon taught what he was teaching all along. This gave further impetus to Pope Dioscorus of Alexandria rejecting Chalcedon as Nestorian. I myself have great sympathy for the Assyrians and the Oriental Orthodox, and wish the Tome of Leo had not been written. However Nestorius needed to be deposed; the Persian bishops ostensibly aligned themselves with him in order to avoid being persecuted by the Sassanians (the Zoroastrians could be quite violent back in the day).

Gram3 wrote:

William G. wrote:
Consider this: do you believe that Jesus Christ was God Incarnate? If so, how did he become incarnate?
I believe, according to the Nicene Creed, that Jesus Christ was Very God of Very God, begotten of the Father before all Ages, and became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. Thus, the Nicene Creed implies that Mary did give birth to the Incarnate God, and was in that sense the Mother of God.
Yes, I believe the Nicene Creed. You use “became incarnate” which indicates a change took place at the Incarnation. By using the expression “in that sense” you are properly qualifying the expression “Mother of God.” The problem is that when that qualification is missing, the expression “Mother of God” can take on meanings that I don’t think you believe but which are the natural implications of the unqualified expression “Mother of God.” That proper qualification is explicit in the term “Christotokos.”

Alas I’m afraid were going to have to disagree, because Christ is God and the words Christ and God can be used interchangeably. The word Theotokos cannot be understood by any theologically literate person as meaning Mother of the Holy Trinity because any properly catechized person (which you are) knows that God the Father is unoriginate. The fact that the term Theotokos can be misinterpreted by the theologically illiterate is not grounds for suppressing its use, because failure to use this title is an implicit denial of either the unity or the divinity of the Word of God. Christotokos is entirely inadequate because it literally means “Birth giver to the anointed”, and various Monarchians such as Arians and Ebionites who denied the divinity of Christ but not his status as the Messiah (which translates literally as Christ) can use it without flinching. For that matter, the Chanad Jews who believe their late Rebbe was the Messiah could use it, as could those Jews who believed Bar Kokhba was the Messiah.

Christ does not imply divinity, merely annointing. It can even be used in a non Messianic context.

In fact, since Orthodox Christians are anointed after baptism with the holy Chrism (note the common stem with Christ), you could refer to the birth mother of any baptized Orthodox Christian as a member of the Christotokoi.

I will concede the title is not as specific as it could be; my Greek is not good enough to propose in that language a more specific title, but in English if we were to say Birth Giver to God the Word, that would be more precise and still theologically acceptable.

However, owing to the lack of explicit divinity, or even in a non-traditional Christian context, implicit divinity in the word Christ (for the Jews generally believed and believe the Messiah will be an anointed human), the word Christotokos is entirely inadequate to express the role of Mary in giving birth to God incarnate. If you think Theotokos is too general, I can understand, but if you think Christotokos is in any sense compatible with a non-Nestorian Christology, you are making a logical and linguistic error, and I beg you as a friend to at least admit that Mary is the Birth Giver of the Incarnate Word of God.

@ William G.:
Thanks William.

By the way, I should add that I consider both the crypto-Nestorian portion of Christendom and the Cyrillian portion of Christendom to be fully Christian and theologically workable. My loathing for the Christological controversies of the Fifth Century and the damage they did for the church prevents me from calling the crypto-Nestorians heretics; I would call them heterodox, only in the sense that their beliefs are different from those of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox.

Many of my favorite Christians of recent centuries fall in the crypto-Nestorian camp, including the Anglican divines who compiled the Book of Common Prayer and the Authorized Version, and most recently, Rev. D. James Kennedy, a Presbyterian who I much admired for his superb oratory. While I cannot agree with the crypto-Nestorian party on matters of Christology or Mariology, I believe the difference to be arcane enough to escape the notice of most of the faithful, which is why so much of this discussion has involved myself and others explaining to gram3 the highly complex implications of the term “Christotokos.”

The problem with crypto-Nestorians is not what they explicitly believe, which tends to be fully in line with Orthodoxy, but the implications of their belief. Their main reason for rejecting the Cyrillian position is based upon the fear that Theotokos might lead people into thinking that Mary created God, but in fact, this fear is unfounded, and the denial of the term Theotokos implicitly rejects the divinity of Christ or requires the use of the ungainly Nestorian model of Christology, which introduces an unnatural separation into the second person of the Trinity.

The correct answer in my opinion is proper catechesis. Teach children of at least 7 or 8 years of age that Mary is the Theotokos, and immediately go on to explain that that does not mean that she was the mother of the Holy Trinity, but only the mother by whom the Son of God became incarnate. Then quiz them on it until they can articulate the Orthodox position flawlessly. There is also something to be said for rote learning; I recall reading of a Catholic priest recently who successfully comforted a grief-stricken relative of someone who had passed away by asking her the answer to a question that had been drilled into her in Sunday school; she instantly recalled and provided the answer, and in so doing addressed her own concerns and grief and obtained comfort. Not sure if that would work for everyone, and I am against Sunday school being something imposed upon children in a manner that bores them or oppresses them; the old model of frightful nuns in full habits armed with rulers forcing children to memorize the Nicene Creed in Latin is not something I would want us to return to. However, in religion, rote memorization of certain phrases can provide a means of access to certain inherently relaxing concepts; think of the Lord’s Prayer, for instance. The Scientologists exploit this fact by using an entire system of rote memorization (“word clearing” in Scientologese) for mind control, but their system does produce some degree of euphoria among its participants, which is why Scientologists who get started in the system tend to stick around until their funds are exhausted.

William G. wrote:

However it’s a long shot; the modern day UMC causes most of my Orthodox friends to break out in a rash.

Although I am a participating member of a Methodist Church, and although the people there are “my kind of people” I also break out in a rash with some of what the faith and practice includes (and omits–mostly omits) and in all probability I will follow my children over to the “episcopal church in the catholic tradition” as they call themselves.

@ Nancy:

Part 2

This argument, as you have plainly demonstrated in your comments, is not basically about Mary; it is about Jesus. It is too bad that some people (in my experience catholics) have let themselves slide into excesses of marian practices, and if I am correct the RCC itself recognizes this, at least there was some talk about this during the time of the second vatican council much to the consternation of some of my co-workers at the time. How convenient though for some excessive practices on the part of some catholics to become the avenue through which some protestants de-emphasize what the term theotokos says about Jesus. And we all know that such thinking is incorporated into some protestant ideas about Jesus. If you have not heard it at your church from the laity I certainly have heard it at mine. For example: no sacraments (for the baptist tradition); what Jesus said about demons was deceptive since there is no such thing, no miracles that Jesus did since there really is no such thing, no ideas which are essential having been proclaimed by Jesus himself (the claimed legitimacy of questioning everything), an antinomianism which blends into anything goes. And why? Because somehow they find a way to say what you are saying (but which I hope you do not mean) that christos is not theos, almost but not exactly. They do not say that is what they think (you are the first actual person I have heard say that) but what they do say and do is consistent with that idea. I believe that is a mistaken perception of the incarnation.

And I think that this almost but not quite type of thinking is not limited to thinking about Jesus but can also be seen in thinking about the Holy Spirit. That is a different discussion. I have long thought that something is terribly amiss in some protestant thinking at the very heart of the issue of who and what is God. I do not think that some protestants are actually trinitarian in the way that historic/traditional christianity has understood that concept. The words are the same, the understanding of the words seems different. I keep saying “protestant” but my knowledge of high church liturgical protestantism is so limited as to be pathetic, so I really mean the protestantism which I have known.

So I guess there is no turning back at this point. After watching this conversation it is undeniably evident to me that I am more like the semi-catholic high church episcopalians of my children and grandchildren, and I need to go ahead and make that move. Frankly, I don’t look forward to that, but gram3 has convinced me that indeed what I have thought regarding protestantism is how it is, and I am not that. And let me say that there are a lot of people sitting on protestant pews who also are not that. It is just that I personally need to act on what I obviously believe.

Dr. Walter Martin had the same confusion about Mary as mother of the Trinity instead of mother of the second person of the Trinity. It’s really an interesting debate with Fr. Mitch Pacwa, which you can watch on Youtube.

Poor Cristology leads to poor Mariology. And visa-versa. Actually the RCC (and Orthodox) emphasis on Mary actually defends and uplifts that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God. It in no way diminishes it. Because if Mary isn’t the Mother of God, Jesus isn’t God, and we have no hope for salvation.

William G. wrote:

Your use of before and after terminology regarding the incarnation is problematic, however. Remember, God lives outside of time, for him, the concepts of past, present and future have no meaning. He is eternal and unmutable. Many Orthodox theologians believe that it was Christ who was the angel who appeared with the three youths in the furnace in Babylon, and some believe Christ was Melchizedek the Priest, to cite two examples of pre-incarnational theophanies which may have been Christophanies.

The Incarnation happened during history, so I don’t understand your objection to saying that straightforwardly. The Triune God exists outside of time, but clearly can enter time as we know from the Incarnation.

William G. wrote:

That’s not how I read Philippians 2, nor do I believe it to be a Patristic interpretation. Many believe that Christ used His divine nature to perform miracles such as raising Lazarus, and ultimately himself, from the dead. In addition, we must understand that scripture itself, in Malachi, says that God is unchanging, and in Hebrews, that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This implies a lack of change.

Yes. He maintained the ability to take up what he laid down as described in Philippians 2. There is nothing inconsistent there. The nature and attributes of deity remained his, but he laid them down while retaining at all times the right to take them up again. The immutability of deity cannot mean that functional changes are ruled out, since obviously the Incarnate Word chose not to exercise all the prerogatives of deity except when he *did* choose to exercise him as at the raising of Lazarus. A King who voluntarily chooses to live as a pauper does not necessarily forever give up the right to resume ruling whenever he chooses. And then to resume living as a pauper. He retains all rights.

William G. wrote:

Now, we can say that the humanity of Christ was subject to change; if it were not, Christ would not be fully human. The Orthodox view is that Christ has a human nature and a divine nature, a human will and a divine nature, united in one hypostasis and one person.

Yes. Regarding the rest of your comment, I am not concerned with what Nestorius did and why. I believe, though cannot prove, that the Incarnate Word had both a human will and a divine will. This is an inference I draw from Jesus’ remark “nevertheless your will be done.” I don’t see how it is possible for the Triune God to have multiple wills, so if Jesus struggled with following the Father’s will, then I conclude he must have had a human will. But that is an inference.

William G. wrote:

I fear that strictly speaking, you may be anathema, under anathema 1 of 12 issued by the council:

1. If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is the mother of God (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh, let him be anathema.

If you think that what I have written is anathema, then so be it. The councils are neither infallible nor authoritative. The above canon is properly qualified, but I do not believe that I am required to confess a certain word for Mary’s status with all of the wrong ideas that word might convey, which, as you pointed out, requires catechesis to overcome.

Nancy wrote:

So who was born, some man who used to be the eternal son but is not that any more? It is core doctrine and belief of christianity that Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnate eternal son, eternally begotten, the second person of the Trinity, co-equal with the Father, of the same essential being as the Father. Anything less than that and there would be no reason to say that his death is sufficient propitiation for the sins of the entire world.

The one who was born is the God-Man, the Incarnate Word. He is the Eternal Son, but he was not born of a woman in eternity past. I’m not sure where the disconnect lies. I fully affirm the hypostatic union. The Eternal Son took on human flesh and I think also took on human nature and a human will, though that to me is an inference.

I understand that you think I am denying Christ’s deity by preferring a word which, to me, excludes the misunderstanding that even William acknowledges might arise from theotokos. That is not what I’m doing, though I see why some might think so.

I am making a statement about Mary and not about Christ’s divine nature and equality with God. I am not saying that Mary did not give birth to the Incarnate Word. I am *excluding* the possible misunderstanding of Mary being the mother of either the Triune God or the Father or of the Holy Spirit or of the pre-Incarnate Son.

If one uses the term theotokos, then one must instruct against that error. If one uses the word Christotokos, then one must affirm Christ’s deity. Either way, clarification may be needed. Put another way, denying a particular honorific to Mary does not entail denying the deity of Christ. I don’t think that Christ’s deity is a live issue in orthodox Christianity today, though it certainly was in the early centuries of the church. I do think that marian veneration or worship is still a live issue, even to the point that John Paul II considered her the Co-Redemptrix.

I also am very mindful personally of the mistaken belief of Israel that Messiah would be an anointed human and not God. They wanted to throw him off a cliff because they well-understood that claiming to be the Son of God is claiming equality with God, and that did not fit with their monotheism.

I suppose it may come down to how one best avoids creating erroneous belief whether that belief is that Mary had something to do with generating the Eternal Uncreated God or whether people might believe that Jesus Christ is not divine. Obviously I’ve said something that communicates something different that what I intended, which was merely to put Mary into proper perspective with respect to the Trinity.

Nancy wrote:

If Jesus was less than his pre-incarnate self, then “less than” has become a part of the trinity and therefore a part of humanity if we carry the imago dei.

I don’t believe that the Incarnate Word is less than the pre-Incarnate Word. The point was that the pre-Incarnate Word was not human but took on human flesh at a point in history. How that happened, I don’t know.

THC wrote:

Gram3 wrote:
Mary did not give birth to the Word, the Eternal Son
What did she give birth to?

Woah, I didn’t even see this quote. Again, as THC asked, if Mary did not give birth to the incarnate Word of God, then who did she give birth to? There are two possible answers: a non-eternal demigod, as in Arianism, or a Nestorian Christology, as reflected in these two anathemas:

5. If anyone dares to say that Christ was a God-bearing man and not rather God in truth, being by nature one Son, even as “the Word became flesh”, and is made partaker of blood and flesh precisely like us, let him be anathema.

6. If anyone says that the Word from God the Father was the God or master of Christ, and does not rather confess the same both God and man, the Word having become flesh, according to the scriptures, let him be anathema.

Note that I am not quoting these anathemas at you gram3 to accuse you of heresy, but rather to warn you that you are deviating from the Chalcedonian faith that you claim to posess. If you want to be a Chalcedonian Christian, you have to, in the words of the Council of Chalcedon, adhere to Ephesus. Specifically, the Council of Chalcedon’s Confession of Faith reads:

Council of Chalcedon wrote:

Therefore, whilst we also stand by

—the decisions and all the formulas relating to the creed from the sacred synod which took place formerly at Ephesus, whose leaders of most holy memory were Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria we decree that

—pre-eminence belongs to the exposition of the right and spotless creed of the 318 saintly and blessed fathers who were assembled at Nicaea when Constantine of pious memory was emperor: and that

—those decrees also remain in force which were issued in Constantinople by the 150 holy fathers in order to destroy the heresies then rife and to confirm this same catholic and apostolic creed.

—The creed of the 318 fathers at Nicaea.

—And the same of the 150 saintly fathers assembled in Constantinople.

And Ephesus in turn proclaimed as dogma the anathemas described above.

Thus, it seems to me you are accepting the Tome of Leo, but in a Nestorian sense, because you are rejecting the actual dogmatic definitions of Chalcedon, which explicitly base themselves upon the proceedings at Ephesus.

Nancy wrote:

@ Nancy:
Part 2
This argument, as you have plainly demonstrated in your comments, is not basically about Mary; it is about Jesus. It is too bad that some people (in my experience catholics) have let themselves slide into excesses of marian practices, and if I am correct the RCC itself recognizes this, at least there was some talk about this during the time of the second vatican council much to the consternation of some of my co-workers at the time. How convenient though for some excessive practices on the part of some catholics to become the avenue through which some protestants de-emphasize what the term theotokos says about Jesus. And we all know that such thinking is incorporated into some protestant ideas about Jesus. If you have not heard it at your church from the laity I certainly have heard it at mine. For example: no sacraments (for the baptist tradition); what Jesus said about demons was deceptive since there is no such thing, no miracles that Jesus did since there really is no such thing, no ideas which are essential having been proclaimed by Jesus himself (the claimed legitimacy of questioning everything), an antinomianism which blends into anything goes. And why? Because somehow they find a way to say what you are saying (but which I hope you do not mean) that christos is not theos, almost but not exactly. They do not say that is what they think (you are the first actual person I have heard say that) but what they do say and do is consistent with that idea. I believe that is a mistaken perception of the incarnation.
And I think that this almost but not quite type of thinking is not limited to thinking about Jesus but can also be seen in thinking about the Holy Spirit. That is a different discussion. I have long thought that something is terribly amiss in some protestant thinking at the very heart of the issue of who and what is God. I do not think that some protestants are actually trinitarian in the way that historic/traditional christianity has understood that concept. The words are the same, the understanding of the words seems different. I keep saying “protestant” but my knowledge of high church liturgical protestantism is so limited as to be pathetic, so I really mean the protestantism which I have known.
So I guess there is no turning back at this point. After watching this conversation it is undeniably evident to me that I am more like the semi-catholic high church episcopalians of my children and grandchildren, and I need to go ahead and make that move. Frankly, I don’t look forward to that, but gram3 has convinced me that indeed what I have thought regarding protestantism is how it is, and I am not that. And let me say that there are a lot of people sitting on protestant pews who also are not that. It is just that I personally need to act on what I obviously believe.

Note that most Protestants, including traditional-minded Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists affirm the Holy Trinity, as do even low-church Anglican/Episcopalians. For that matter, so do Baptists and Congregationalists. Many of the above affirm the Council of Ephesus. However, among some low church mainline churches there is a disturbing lack of Trinitarian emphasis; when I was growing up Methodist the Trinity was mentioned as doctrine but not really described; it wasn’t until I read Metropolitan Kallistos Ware that I came to understand the Trinity as three persons sharing a union of perfect love and a single substance. Marriage, family life, and church life, in Orthodox thought, all should be icons of the Holy Trinity, indeed, human society should be an icon of the Holy Trinity, “That they may all be one, just as you and I are one.” In Orthodoxy we believe God desires union with us; while we cannot become a part of the Trinity, we can enter into a union of perpetual love with God, which we call Theosis or deification, by which we will become gods in the sense of existing in a union of love with the uncreated, consubstantial and life-giving Trinity, by which we were made. However, Kallistos Ware argues the future of the human race will be one of continual improvement, for God is perfect, and humanity will continually climb this blissful gradient towards ever greater godliness for all eternity. I find this a very positive vision of humanity; we will never find ourselves in a situation where there is nothing more for us, because God is infinite, and in uniting ourselves to Him, we will never exhaust His infinite love.

Catholics on the other hand hold the mere vision of God as the supreme objective of the Christian faith, the Beatific Vision, which is supposed to convey supreme bliss. This presumably derives from “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” whereas Theosis is derived from verses such as John 10:34. Alas many Protestants take a kind of superficial view of Heaven, ignoring the dreadful day of judgment, and assuming they will instantly be uplifted into a sort of supernatural suburbia the main joy of which is reunion with one’s deceased relatives and living for all eternity in a state of perfect luxury. This is not to say that we will not meet some or all of our relatives in the world to come, or that the Jesus was speaking purely of the eartly church, or in similitudes, when he said “In my father’s house there are many mansions,” or that John’s vision of the world to come is not at least in some sense grounded in reality. However, reducing Heaven to a sort of celestial country club is a profoundly uninspiring vision. I suspect many are attracted to Mormonism because the idea of fathering new planetary civilizations is at least more fulfilling than the idea of engaging in recreation for all eternity.

Gram3 wrote:

Yes. Regarding the rest of your comment, I am not concerned with what Nestorius did and why. I believe, though cannot prove, that the Incarnate Word had both a human will and a divine will. This is an inference I draw from Jesus’ remark “nevertheless your will be done.” I don’t see how it is possible for the Triune God to have multiple wills, so if Jesus struggled with following the Father’s will, then I conclude he must have had a human will. But that is an inference.

The Orthodox position is that the second person of the Trinity has two wills, a human will and a divine will, the human will proper to His human nature, and the divine will proper to His divinity. However, to say that the human nature is not properly God is to divide the human nature from the Divine nature, and to reject the doctrine of the Incarnation, as St. Cyril the Great pointed out.

In other words, if God the Word did become incarnate, and took on human nature, that human nature must by definition be hypostatically united to the divine nature in one person, or God did not actually become incarnate, but merely manifested a human avatar, in the manner of Hinduism. This throws a wrench in the doctrine of the atonement, in the doctrine of recapitulation, and in all other modes of soteriology, aside from the most disagreeable model wherein God punishes the human flesh for our sins, like a pupeteer taking out his wrath on one of his puppets.

So just so we’re clear, I have nothing but love for Gram3 and I do believe Gram3 is trying to adopt an Orthodox viewpoint on this, but has to get to grips with the Council of Ephesus, and also understand that the Anathemas contained therein are not curses, and the Council was not seeking through its actions to make her life miserable, on the contrary, the work of the Council was to save souls and ensure the proper teaching of the Christian faith.

Thus, I beg Gram3 in all humility to read the following material:

On the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius:
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm

Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, by St. Cyril of Alexandria
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/cyril

The Proceedings of the Council of Ephesus:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/EPHESUS.HTM#11

The Proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon:
http://www.legionofmarytidewater.com/faith/ECUM04.HTM#2

The Books of Isaiah (in its entirety), Malachi, Tobit, the Wisdom of Solomon ch. 2-3, Matthew ch. 1 – 3, Luke ch.1 – 3, John ch. 1-2, and ch. 5-6, Hebrews, and the Apocalpyse of John.

And the following titles not easily found online:

The Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Way, by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
The Panarion of St. Epiphanius of Salamis
The Church of the East, Apostolic and Orthodox, by Mar Barwai Soro (for the perspective of the “real Nestorians”; some of this material can be found on nestorian.org).

Also, as a bit of a footnote, regarding the perpetual virginity of Mary, check out:

Church History, by Eusebius
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2501.htm

Against Helvidius, by St. Jerome
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3007.htm

Gram3, once you have reviewed in detail those works, I would like to discuss this issue with you further. If you require assistance in accessing some of the works I cited not in the public domain, let me know, and I can help you find a copy via a library or buy you a copy.

In like manner, if you have any material you would like me to read in considering your position, please let me know. As we are both scholars of the Bible, suggesting that either of us reread the entire thing would be inappropriate, but if there are specific chapters you feel reinforce your position, I will be willing to read them, cross checking them between my Septuagint-based Orthodox Study Bible, my Masoretic-based KJV Study Bible, and online copies I use of the Aramaic Peshitta (Lamsa and Murdock translations) and the Douay Rheims translation of the Vulgate. In like manner, any articles you have defending the use of “Christotokos”, especially in a pro-Chalcedonian context, and especially of Patristic origins, I would very much like to see.

Until then, I fear we are destined to go around in circles, and the result will be the domination of this blog. That said, I am of course prepared to read and answer to any of your replies to my recent posts, but once we finish this round, lets leave it at that until we both have a chance to study the respective material, shall we?

I would like to personally propose an alternate, and perhaps less controversial topic of discussion, that being a general query to those reading: how do you feel about the Book of Common Prayer?

I’m Orthodox, and I love it, aside from a few parts which are overtly Calvinist, such as the Black Rubric in the 1662 edition. I can find no fault with the proposed 1928 Deposited Book, or the 1662 Canadian book, and my only gripe with the 1928 American book is that in Morning and Evening Prayer, it omits my favorite part “O Lord Make Speed to Save Us; O God Make Haste to Help Us,” which sounds particularly fine when intoned by the priest.

There is a fantastic index containing all of the different editions of the BCP, with the exception of that used by the Reformed Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Anglican Ordinariate “Book of Divine Worship”, here: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/bcp.htm

It should be noted that in the United States, all editions of the Book of Common Prayer are in the Public Domain; the Episcopal Church always historically released them as such, although in recent years they have not released into the public domain their newer liturgical materials, which is in my opinion rather typical of their new money-grabbing attitude. I very much hope the ACNA publishes its forthcoming BCP in the Public Domain. In England, the copyright for the 1662 BCP is held by the Crown, and only the Crown Publisher, which I believe is presently the Press of the University of Oxford, can legally publish it or the King James Version of the Bible.

There is an Orthodox prayer book compiled by the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate, called the St. Andrew Service Book, which includes the Anglican communion office and morning and evening prayer, together with an Orthodoxified version of the Tridentine mass, all translated into vernacular English. It can be found with a wealth of other resources, including Orthdox Prayers of Old England, which is used by the ROCOR Western Rite, and the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgies of Ss. Basil, Mark, John Chrysostom and Peter, here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140528190309/http://www.allmercifulsavior.com/Liturgy/Liturgics.html

Lastly there is John Wesley’s Sunday Service Book, a recension of the Methodist Book of Worship. I’m working on creating an expanded version of this featuring additional liturgies, for example, for Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday, which Wesley omitted, taking them from the BCP. I view the project as my parting gift to Methodism. Wesley’s text is here: https://archive.org/details/amernorfm00wesl

For my Traditional Methodist Service Book I have borrowed some services from the wonderful prayerbook composed by the great Congregational minister Rev. John Hunter, who wrote one of the most beautiful liturgical books I’ve seen, Devotional Services, available here:
https://archive.org/details/devotionalservi00huntgoog

It is clearly inspired by the Book of Common Prayer, but features a more diverse collection of services, and some really lovely prayers, litanies and exhortations. it lacks the detailed lectionary of the BCP. Hunter believed that Congregationalist pastors should be free to use his book as the basis for their services, without adhering to it precisely, in the way Anglican priests were expected to follow the BCP, and like John Wesley he viewed ex tempore prayer as having a place in the liturgy.

In addition to my in-progress book of traditional Methodist liturgics, I am considering writing a more general book targeted at evangelicals and Protestants. It would reflect in a subdued way my Orthodox faith, but the main goal of it would be to get evangelicals and Protestants off of the highly defective Revised Common Lectionary (which omits crucial texts such as 1 Corinthians 11:27-32) and back onto a traditional one year lectionary.

@ William G.:

William, you keep misrepresenting what I am saying. Clearly Mary gave birth the the Incarnate Word. However, she was not present in eternity past when the Eternal Son before he was incarnate, the Logos, clearly was. You are making my point much more complicated than it is.

Calling me Nestorian and anathema does not make it so. At the time these controversies were taking place in the church it was useful to say theotokos to affirm the absolute deity of Christ, equal to the Father and Holy Spirit as opposed to merely a human person or whatever the particular heresy at hand was.

Now, however, that particular issue is settled within orthodoxy. It is no longer a live issue. However, the matter of unwarranted veneration or worship or however you wish to characterize it of Mary is a live issue. Therefore, in our historical context, I think it is unhelpful to use language which can be misleading because “theos” can say *more* than we want to say. If you want to use it, then OK.

I believe that Mary should not be the lens through which we view Jesus, but rather the reverse. I am Christocentric because God chose to reveal himself through his incarnate Son, not through the mother of his incarnate Son. I *do* believe that some Protestants have gone too far and have denied her the honor she is due for her obedience.

Somehow, a very simple point has been turned into me denying the deity of Christ. That is simply not true. Using the name “Jesus Christ” in no way denies his deity. By that same reasoning, saying that Mary is the Christotokos does not deny his deity. Should we start referring to Jesus as Jesus Theos so that we do not deny his deity?

Just because that term was used historically in a controversy about a totally different point does not make it mean something that it does not mean today when Christ’s deity is settled orthodox theology.

Gram3 wrote:

William, you keep misrepresenting what I am saying. Clearly Mary gave birth the the Incarnate Word. However, she was not present in eternity past when the Eternal Son before he was incarnate, the Logos, clearly was. You are making my point much more complicated than it is.

I can assure you any misrepresentation is unintentional; God forbid that I should distort what you are saying. i am not interested in having theological debates with myself; I have learned that that practice is rather tedious and of minimal spiritual benefit. I have, on that note, wrestled endlessly with my conscience over the subject of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon and at one point came close to rejecting both of them, because of my belief in the Orthodoxy of the Assyrians and Oriental Orthodox. Ultimately I decided to embrace them, on the grounds that the Assyrians do not actually believe in a Nestorian Christology, but like you, do refuse to say “Theotokos”, which in my opinion is to their detriment, and the Christology of the Oriental Orthodox is complimentary to that of Chalcedon; if you read them as compatible, you affirm that Chalcedon is non-Nestorian, and that the Oriental Orthodox are non-Eutychian. There is also the very shadowy figure of Pope Leo I lurking in the background of both councils; I believe he may have incited Cyril to take an abrasive rather than a conciliatory tone with the Persian bishops, in order to diminish the power of the See of Antioch; this failed when Antioch and Alexandria made peace, and their treaty of rapproachement is in the Acts of the Third Council. As for the Persian bishops, their schism did save their church from being exterminated by the Sassanian Empire as a seditious Byzantine influence.

I agree with you entirely in stating that Mary gave birth to the incarnate Word of God, who is God in his own right; as much as God refers to the all-holy, consubstantial and life-giving Trinity, it also refers to the persons Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit individually. This is because they are distinct persons who are all properly God, by virtue of being coeternal and consubstantial, whereas in the case of human beings, each human is an individual with one person. The word person is taken from the Greek “Prosopon”, meaning face, and much of Nestorian Christology played upon the concept of Christ having a human face and a divine face. Later today I’ll look up in my book on Nestorianism and outline for the record the precise Christologies of Theodosius of Mopsuestia, who I do think should be regarded as a saint on account of his friendship with St. John Chrysostom, and should not have been anathematized posthumously by the Fifth Ecumenical Council on account of his error; nor should Origen have met the same fate; people should only be anathematized individually in their lifetime; I am not a huge fan of the work of the Fifth Council, although in denouncing Apokatastasis it did us a service by keeping us close to the actual text of the Bible.

What I don’t understand is why, since you agree that Mary gave birth to the Word of God, and since Jesus is properly God, and since we all have made it clear that we understand that Mary did not create the Holy Trinity, you will not refer to her as the Birth Giver of God? I myself say “Theotokos” in the presence of mixed company, where some know theology and some do not, rather than “Mother of God”, lest those who have not been properly catechized be led astray. However the obscurity of the word Theotokos by itself prevents its abuse, since in order to find out what it means, one must Google it, and all online articles on Wikipedia, the Orthodox Wiki, the Orthodox Information Center, and other oft-referenced to sources are very clear to express the Orthodox understanding of the concept.

Gram3 wrote:

Calling me Nestorian and anathema does not make it so. At the time these controversies were taking place in the church it was useful to say theotokos to affirm the absolute deity of Christ, equal to the Father and Holy Spirit as opposed to merely a human person or whatever the particular heresy at hand was.

Again, just to be crystal clear, I am not personally pronouncing an anathema on you, for I lack the power to do that, and I accept your desire to reject Nestorianism as sincere. I merely pointed out that according to the canons of the Council of Ephesus, Anathema 1 does apply to you as long as you do not refer to Mary as Theotokos. I didn’t write these anathemas, and since I am neither a priest nor a bishop, I also don’t enforce them.

I maintain that it still is vitally useful for the Church to affirm the absolute deity of Christ, because this doctrine has once again been under attack since the rise of the Socinians in the 16th century. The Unitarians in the 18th century, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and some Adventists in the 19th century, and the Polytheistic Mormons represent the more visible critics of this doctrine, but its also worth mentioning many Protestants are consciously undermining this doctrine. I know of several priests in the Episcopal Church, USA, who have denied or de-emphasized the divinity of Christ from the pulpit; one could argue even the Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Shori has consistently downplayed the Divinity, the Incarnation, the Passion and the Resurrection of our Lord. In fact, this has been going on since the 1960s, when Bishop Robert Pike denied the divinity of Christ and the Trinity and got away with it, by using his media connection to intimidate his brother bishops into not conducting a heresy trial against him in accordance with the canons of the Episcopal Church. Within the United Church of Christ and the other mainline churches, the situation is equally bleak. I know of Methodists and Lutherans of the ELCA who believe it is their mission in life to undermine the belief of their congregations in the Divinity of Christ, the Holy Trinity, and other doctrines of Christianity. In response to this assault on the fundamental tenets of Christianity, the use of Orthodox terminology such as “Theotokos” is needed more than ever.

Gram3 wrote:

Now, however, that particular issue is settled within orthodoxy. It is no longer a live issue. However, the matter of unwarranted veneration or worship or however you wish to characterize it of Mary is a live issue. Therefore, in our historical context, I think it is unhelpful to use language which can be misleading because “theos” can say *more* than we want to say. If you want to use it, then OK.

I agree that the overveneration of Mary is a live issue, but its confined to the Roman Catholic Church and is primarily a problem of internal discipline; we can prod them from the outside but they have to fix it. In the Protestant church the main problem is a lack of belief in the divinity of Christ and a lack of proper veneration for Mary in any sense. Lastly I should point out that the Roman Catholics seldom refer to Mary as the Theotokos; the term is only commonly used only in the Byzantine Rite Catholic churches. To the extent it is used, the Catholics are conforming with the apostolic faith of the ancient, pre-schismatic church. Some Catholics also properly refer to her as Mother of God, usually with the correct understanding. However, the Catholics that worship Mary tend to refer to her as Our Lady of Guadalupe/Lourdes/Fatima/Amsterdam, the Brown Skinned Virgin (a particularly offensive title given to the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe that strikes me as introducing a racial aspect to Mary; although it is entirely possible her skin tone was brown, it may also have been white or even black; recall the Beta Israel, the black Jews of Ethiopia; while it is highly unlikely given their isolation from the rest of Jewish society, it is possible that Jesus exhibited traces of that ethnicity; what is more, I daresay the skin color of Jesus and Mary is utterly irrelevant, and speculation on it can only lead to Racism), the Queen of Heaven, Mediatrix of All Graces, Queen of Peace, and most blasphemously, Co-Redemptrix. None of these titles were sanctioned by the Eight Ecumenical Councils held by Rome and the Orthodox before the Great Schism. So if you want to take a stand against the heresy of Collyridianism, which is to say, the worship of Mary, as defined by St. Epiphanius of Salamis, then object to those titles, and not to the title of Theotokos.

Gram3 wrote:

I believe that Mary should not be the lens through which we view Jesus, but rather the reverse. I am Christocentric because God chose to reveal himself through his incarnate Son, not through the mother of his incarnate Son. I *do* believe that some Protestants have gone too far and have denied her the honor she is due for her obedience.

I agree entirely, and maintain the Orthodox Church is itself Christocentric; we venerate Mary but do not use her as a lens with which to understand Christ, for example, through the mysteries of the Rosary Prayer.

Gram3 wrote:

Somehow, a very simple point has been turned into me denying the deity of Christ. That is simply not true. Using the name “Jesus Christ” in no way denies his deity. By that same reasoning, saying that Mary is the Christotokos does not deny his deity. Should we start referring to Jesus as Jesus Theos so that we do not deny his deity?

I do not believe that you have any intention of denying the divinity of Christ, or of separating His divine and human natures. However, because Christotokos can be used to refer to Jesus without acknowledging his divinity, it, by itself, was deemed inadequate by the Council of Ephesus to express the role of Mary in the incarnation. The main problem isn’t so much the use of Christotokos, but the refusal to concede that Theotokos is a valid description of Mary. If you can concede that Theotokos is a proper description for Mary, you escape the anathema of the Council of Ephesus, vindicate yourself from even the faintest whiff of Nestorianism, and validate your theological Orthodoxy. The decrees of Ephesus do not forbid the use of Christotokos, they merely anathematize those who regard Theotokos as an inaccurate statement.

Gram3 wrote:

Just because that term was used historically in a controversy about a totally different point does not make it mean something that it does not mean today when Christ’s deity is settled orthodox theology.

The problem is that that is simply not the case; the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is under constant attack in the mainline Protestant churches, and is furthermore neglected in many conservative Protestant churches, where pastors frequently fail to properly explain the doctrine of the Trinity. Most of the Methodist pastors in my youth failed entirely in this regard. So the problems faced at Ephesus, while certainly dormant for about 1,100 years, have, since the Protestant Reformation, resurfaced, in the form of churches of the Radical Reformation that have questioned the Trinity, and more recently, in churches dominated by liberal Theologians who want to radically reinvent Christianity into an entirely new religion dominated by the Social Gospel, just as people like Joel Olsteen want to reinvent Christianity as a religion about the Prosperity Gospel; two sides of the same coin, in which God is changed into a metaphor for an ATM machine, the difference being that for liberal Christians the ATM machine is composed of a consubstantial union of all humanity and creation, that forms a new pantheistic God of which Christ is made a central teacher, along with Buddha and other popular figures of New Age spirituality, whereas in the Prosperity Gospel God becomes an ATM machine in the sky. You and I are both conservative Christians and we need to work together to combat this heresy.

Gram3 wrote:

I certainly agree with you about the circles and dominating this thread. I intended to merely make a straightforward point about language. It is crystal clear that you are concerned for my lack of knowledge and my soul. Respectfully, you are presuming way too much and are totally misinterpreting what I have been saying and anathematizing me as a bonus. That has never happened in my entire life, including by Catholic family who go beyond what you have said about Mary and certainly should have recognized my problem.

To reiterate one last time, I have NOT anathematized you nor accused me of heresy. You asked if you were anathema for denying that Mary was the Theotokos. I truthfully answered that according to the Assyrian Church of the East, of which I have very close relations, and at which I frequently take communion, and into which I have been invited to serve as an ordained priest, should I desire, the answer is “No”, whereas according to the Council of Ephesus the answer is “Yes.” The anathema was pronounced by Ephesus, not by me.

As far as I can tell, you are, as far as your faith is concerned, fully Orthodox, and the only area where you have diverged from the mainstream of Christian thought is in matters of terminology. I am a proponent of ecumenical reconciliation between the Assyrian Church of the East and the other Christian churches, and I believe this reconciliation can be facilitated on the substance of faith, i.e. what you actually believe, rather than the language used to express it. It has become abundantly clear that you believe that Mary bore the incarnate Word, and thus, while you are reluctant to say Theotokos, you believe in the doctrine of the council of Ephesus implicitly.

You made only one remark in this entire conversation which troubled me, and that is where you apparently said “Mary did not give birth to the Word, the Eternal Son”, but since then you apparently reversed that statement, and in so doing affirmed your essential Orthodoxy. Your faith as far as I can tell is entirely correct in its inclination and orientation, and I wish there were more Christians like you. In fact, if every Christian in the United States had the robust, living, Biblical faith that you possess, we would be a greatly blessed nation; I have been to a country like that, Ghana, and that country is the only country in West Africa where things are actually getting better, on account of the faith of the people in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now, can we please possibly talk about Liturgy? Since we have established, through some effort, your adherence to the Apostolic faith, I would really really love to have a conversation with you about my favorite Christian subject, which is worship.

In particular, I’d love to talk with you about:

– Whether you have encountered Book of Common Prayer, both the older editions and the watered down 1979 edition, and what you think of them.
– What Baptist worship was like in the past, and how it has changed for the worst
– What, to you, the defining characteristics of Baptist worship, especially Baptist hymnody, are, and should be?
– Did most Baptist churches have organs back in the day?
– Do you know of many/any churches where the hymnals used are the Southern Harmony or the Sacred Harp?
– Would Baptists object to using a lectionary of scripture readings arranged throughout the calendar year, and forms of worship taken from the most ancient Christian sources, such as the Euchologion of Serapion, the Anaphora of Hippolytus, and the Divine Liturgies of Ss. James, Mark, Peter, the Twelve Apostles, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and Athanasius, and the Roman, Ambrosian and Sarum liturgies?
– Would baptists be willing to use a prayer book that contained a service of infant baptism, provided the prayer book also specified a service of adult baptism, and recommended full immersion, and did not in its commentary take a stance on the Baptist/Paedobaptist divide, other than to explicitly say that the book was intended for members of both camps to use as they felt guided by the spirit?
– Do most Baptist churches use liturgical colors, i.e. change the hangings on the pulpit, the communion table and elsewhere in the sanctuary, to reflect the changing time of year?
– What vestments do Baptist ministers wear, if anything? Is a Geneva gown with preaching tabs considered acceptable?

William G. wrote:

I agree that the overveneration of Mary is a live issue, but its confined to the Roman Catholic Church and is primarily a problem of internal discipline; we can prod them from the outside but they have to fix it.

What exactly is the “right” veneration of Mary? This aversion to “seeing Jesus through Mary’s eyes” as you are against is really a non-issue to me. It’s trumping up charges that really aren’t there.

I get that Orthodox and Protestants stand arm in arm when it comes to rejecting the later councils and rejecting the authority of the pope.

I am just surprised that an Orthodox Christian says the RCC worships Mary. Why say that when it isn’t true?

@ William G.:
I think that a taste of Jewish interpretations of Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot would be good for you, at least as far as understanding that there are indeed not only other interpretations of this vision, but also that the OT was never intended to serve as a typological blueprint for xtians. It is what it is, ad it was not written by or explicitly for xtians.

I think we xtians as a whole tend to undermine the integrity of the OT by *not*seeing it first and foremost as the Hebrew Bible.

@ Gram3:

I have on reflection come to the conclusion that your reasoning on the word Christotokos may be helpful in promoting reconciliation between the Syriac Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East, which are divided by the Nestorian schism but which believe a compatible Christology. Would you be interested in writing a guest article for my blog summarizing your position on this issue?

numo wrote:

I think we xtians as a whole tend to undermine the integrity of the OT by *not*seeing it first and foremost as the Hebrew Bible.

We try to deconstruct and the reconstruct portions of the OT and use that as the authentication for some of what christianity believes. We were, it seems, trying to appropriate somebody else’s religious history because we were starting from scratch with our own.

This is something that one can do with clothing. Take a garment, completely rip it apart at the seams and then use the fabric to re-cut and re-sew a new garment. Then you tell all your friends and family, look at my new dress, I made it out of my old dress. My mom and her sisters used to do that during the depression and war years.

Doing that with fabric is a great idea. Doing that with religion can get dicey.

William,

While I find church history fascinating and especially the early councils, I fear you have fallen into the same trap the YRR have fallen into with it. You seem to allow it to inform your beliefs. I fear that is a black hole. There is so much we can learn from them and especially how some wrestled with the hard questions early on. But at some point they became avenues for power, war and violence against those who dissented.

Church history is a long time evil bloody mess. We can learn from that, of course, but I fear we often learn the wrong things from it. It is one reason I am allergic to the word “orthodoxy”.

Let us never forget Christianity at its heart is about a relationship with a living Savior. It is not about perfect doctrinal points even though I very much enjoy discussing that and find it all very interesting.

Lydia wrote:

Let us never forget Christianity at its heart is about a relationship with a living Savior.

Indeed. But if that is understood to mean only an individual personal relationship, then I have to part company with that idea a bit. It seems to me to be also a relationship between Jesus and the church. And a relationship of conqueror and defeated between Jesus and the forces of evil. And an internal relationship between the persons of the trinity (which the calvinists are trying to get involved in) which must be understood to the limited degree which we can in order to maintain the concept of one god. Not to forget the relationship between God and his creation, a hot issue with some people. It looks to me like God did not quit the field in any of these dimensions of relationship.

Which I think is pretty much in line with what you seem to be saying. I just wanted to spell out a little my take on that.

@ Nancy:
I was quoting from The Catholic catechism, not articulating my belief. I hold to the Reformed Sola Scriptura

William G. wrote:

and how by contemplating Mary’s place as the throne of God, we discover our own place as adopted sons and daughters of God, joint heirs with Christ in His Eternal Kingdom.

Note the veneration for Mary is used to point the way to Christ

First, thanks to Dee for deleting comments about words we should not use in discussions with one another. And, William, I want to correct the record in that I did not ask you my status WRT Ephesus or any other Council, and I know that because it makes no difference to me.

We don’t know that Mary sits at the Throne of God. Nor do we need her to do so in order to discover that we have the full adoption as sons and are joint-heirs with Christ. Paul tells us that.

Similarly, Mary is never described as being the pointer to Christ. First “Elijah” in the OT and then John the Baptizer who came in the spirit of “Elijah” is the Pointer to the Christ. We know that from Matthew.

Again, we should honor Mary for her radical obedience, but we do not do that by ascribing things to her which are not her doing.

Gavin White wrote:

Here on earth we routinely ask others for prayers. Instinctively, we turn to holy people for their prayers because they seem nearer to God. Why should we stop asking saints for their prayers after they die? If we believe they are in heaven, would not their prayers be even more effective?”

Perversely logical but unscriptural.

Seen this kind of logic before. Never is it questioned whether “holy people” are actually nearer to God but merely asserted that the seem to be, so why not ask them to pray for us. Nevermind that praying to people who have left to be with the Lord is neither modeled nor prescribed in the Bible where prayers are only offered to God.

Lydia wrote:

On another note, they go to a NON Calvinist private school. But a “world view” class uses a text that quotes nothing but determinists. I spoke to the teacher and she had no idea who many of the quoted were. One was Rushdooney!

It’s a good thing you questioned that! Most people don’t know who Rushdoony was, and they don’t realize how truly awful his ideas are. They hear “Christian worldview” and don’t understand that he has taken Van Til and Kuyper to the next level, and his disciples and ideas are embedded in the homeschool movement and also in Christian education.

They also don’t know that the CREC is infiltrating some Christian schools in much the same way that the YRR are infiltrating churches.

@ Gram3:

It would seem so. Now some of us also think there was the influence of a contingent of believing Jews in the early church, and they may have had some influence beyond just circumcision, law, and holy days that Paul talked about.

I know, I know. We have been there and done that and no need to do it again. It just seemed pertinent to the current issue.

Gram3 wrote:

They also don’t know

Tell me this, in your opinion. How much is due to “they don’t know” and how much is indicative that they might agree with what is being said? In other words, how effective is this movement in actually convincing people?

Nancy wrote:

Take a garment, completely rip it apart at the seams and then use the fabric to re-cut and re-sew a new garment. Then you tell all your friends and family, look at my new dress, I made it out of my old dress. My mom and her sisters used to do that during the depression and war years.
Doing that with fabric is a great idea. Doing that with religion can get dicey.

I’d go further – I think doing this with religion is inherently dicey.

The problem with Rushdooney is if you take many of his quotes out of full context they sound great. so who knows if the publisher was just looking for quotes to affirm a certain idea or if they are adherants? Same with Packer. I have read his “Knowing God” several times and find him a brilliant thinker. I don’t agree with him, of course. I did learn a few years back his wife is egal and attended an egal church which meant they did not go together. I thought that was interesting.

As to the idea of a “worldview”, I hate that sort of thinking. I do not subscribe to a “worldview”. A “worldview” in the sense they mean it is not the same as seeking Truth in reality. they want good little comrades.

I am not interested in persuading people to see or have a “Christian worldview”. I am only interested in helping them to have a relationship with a Living Savior where I can and that is through love, justice, mercy, etc.

Lydia wrote:

A “worldview” in the sense they mean it is not the same as seeking Truth in reality. they want good little comrades.

Amen to that.

Gram3 wrote:

So, viewed from that perspective, what Mary did *and* what noble Joseph did were truly astounding in that context. That is the kind of honor that Protestants have withheld from both of them, and I think we have missed a valuable lesson in their example because we don’t fully appreciate the consequences of what they were asked to do and what they did, not just once but throughout their lives.

Great comment Gram, lotsa resonance here, like string tuning to open ‘a’ on the oboe. Let me be clear concerning a comment I previously made about Mary:

I commented that Mary’s legacy is immortal and beloved by many, and that it includes me too (sans the extremes of Catholic doctrine).

Protestant inerrantists can try and minimize Mary all they want but they will never succeed in subtracting even one electron of mystery and magic from her person. And if they want a model for what a ‘real man’ is?, Joseph fits the bill in spades.

@ Lydia:

If you take a look at the Coalition on Revival, you’ll see some familiar names, like Packer and Rushdoony and some other folks who were working together on the same projects. I think the chickens of the late 1970’s and 1980’s are coming home to roost in unexpected places and ways.

Take a look at the CoR documents, and you will see the ideas promoted by many of the Gospel Glitterati.

William G. wrote:

By the way, there is one respect in which I wish the Roman Church would increase its Marian devotion, and that is to authorize the color blue as the liturgical color of choice for use on all feasts of Mary and Bodily Powers, such as the Feast of St. Michael.

This is where you lose me. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but colors of vestments seems so trivial to me when it comes to Mary.
I understand that you don’t accept any Marian apparitions. That’s OK, even in Catholicism. It isn’t something that one must dogmatically accept. As far as the assumption of Mary, I also think it is a somewhat trivial matter whether she died first or was assumed prior to death like Elijah. To make it into a “women’s issue” just seems out of place.

Queen of Heaven is actually something very real in the Bible. In the Old Testament, the mother of the king was the queen, not the wife. Revelation 12 shows us that “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” As far as being immaculately conceived, it’s not that you don’t believe that Mary was born without original sin, you just don’t think *anybody* is born with original sin. Is that correct?

@ Lydia:

We’ve just been in different places at different times, and I knew some church people who were/are involved in political issues and office at the time, so I was more aware of it. Exchanging information is one of the many valuable things that happen here, IMO. If you get a chance, look at the names involved in the documents and committees. Quite a cross-section of evangelicalism.

I am profusely sorry gram3. When you posted:

Gram3 wrote:

So am I anathema because I use a term which means “Christ-bearer” instead of “God-bearer?”

I thought you were asking me what the Council of Ephesus would have said.

I really can’t aploogize for this enough; I did not mean to hurt your feelings, and furthermore I literally can’t anathematize you.

Here is a fun fact: I have been invited to go to an Assyrian seminary. They, like you, say Christotokos. If I do go, I will find myself under an anathema.

Here is another fun fact: there were lots of rival councils to the seven “official” ecumenical councils, plus lots of canons that proscribe anathema as a penalty. You and I both are probably under 20 or 30 anathemas now at a minimum.

I am in general not a fan of anathematization. I have huge issues with the Fifth Ecumenical Council because it declared Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia anathema, long after they were dead, which to me seems to be cursing them. Like when the Pope ordered Whxlidfes body exhumed and desecrated. I think the most churches should do is ask that people who present themselves for the sacraments agree with their doctrine.

Gram3 wrote:

Revelation is a very Jewish text. The woman pictured is more likely Israel, not Mary, and the twelve stars are the 12 sons of Israel.

Church tradition records that Mary lived with John until her death in Ephesus; also the twelve sons of Jacob/Israel can be seen as a typological prophecy of the Twelve Disciples. Also, I don’t recall the Bible ever referring to Israel as a woman, given that God gave that name to Jacob, a man. Jerusalem was referred to as a woman, like Babylon, but not Israel the nation, that I can recall. Revelation is a very Jewish work, and John was according to the NT her Jewish foster-son appointed by Jesus to look after her. If that same John wrote the Apocalypse, which he did according to tradition, it seems logical he and his fellow disciples, and his adoptive mother, would figure into his vision.

@ Lydia:

By the way Lydia, if I might ask, what is a YRR? I am unfamiliar with the acronym.

I really don’t think that there is anything wrong with vestments, though I do remember a church fight in a little baptist church over whether is was alright for the choir to wear choir robes. Some various more or less religious arguments were put forth.

The episcopal church of my peeps has various sorts of garb for people with various functions in the mass. One thing that has to just grab one is the vast amount of white fabric on so many people. At first I had to wonder if I had died already and did not know it, seeing all that white fabric floating around. After having decided that I was alive I began to wonder how much all that white fabric cost the church in the first place. Then I had a delightful idea. There was a time not too long ago when the KKK greatly diminished in number around here. Maybe they auctioned off their excess hooded garments at a reasonable price. Easy enough to recut and resew and repurpose something like that. Rather like taking part of the collar off men’s white dress shirts and wearing them backwards for children as angels in the christmas program. Wouldn’t that be neat? For the church to “redeem” old KKK stuff? Just a thought.

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
Young, restless and Reformed.

Well, I can assure Lydia that’s not me. While I’m 29, my poor health makes me feel a lot older; I pray that I can keep my digestive system stable enough to become a priest and get a few years in at least, but I am not holding my breath. I had a case of influenza that was particularly bad and resulted in fibrosis of some internal organs, which is very unpleasant. Nor am I restless; I love the Orthodox church, but I also love other churches, and desire to find ways for us to live together in harmony and defend Christianity from the vocal minority who insist it is an evil force holding back society. That means undertaking the unsavory job of persuading abusive pastors and megachurch cults to either shape up, or alternatively, to denounce them as non-Christian; also the abuse in the mainline denominations needs to stop. I commend the PCUSA for allowing dissenting congregations to leave, and lament the ECUSA spending $40 million, which could have been spent on charity, suing to keep ahold of the buildings of dissident congregations, and also setting a policy not to sell buildings to ACNA, which has resulted in valuable historic Episcopal churches being turned into office space, which is so sad. Lastly, the Orthodox church is probably the least reformed church in existence; Calvinism was formally repudiated at the Synod of Jerusalem in the late 17th century, and the Orthodox church really hasn’t changed much since the fall of Constantinople to the turks. The changes that have been made since that day are very well documented, for example, without the Hagia Sophia, the Cathedral Office fell into disuse until recently, when the brilliant musicologist Alexander Lingas created a fantastic choir called Capella Romana, which has managed to record a very large chunk of it and other ancient Byzantine music. They also record newer Orthodox music, with a special focus on English language compositions, and recently released an album entitled Arctic Light, which is a recording of Finnish Orthodox music; I rather desparately want it but its not on iTunes yet. I’m considering ordering the CD.

Now by the way, some Christians, including those of the Federal Vision school, advocate that the church should continually reform itself. I myself believe that we should constantly figure out ways of making new churches more beautiful, and creating beautiful music for use in them, while at the same time preserving our architectural, liturgical and musical heritage, however I personally am of the view that theology itself does not need to evolve, it just needs to be explained anew to each successive generation. However, I believe the tension between people who believe in the Federal Vision concept and the Orthodox, who believe the exact opposite, is good for the Church; we challenge them to justify change, and they challenge us to justify the lack of change. Without these challenges, we would just be on auto-pilot.

@ William G.:
Lutherans wear the surplice over street clothes, generally speaking. A lot of C of E people wear cassocks, but here in the US, not so much.

@ numo:

True story follows. At the local episcopal church that I referenced, the priest is a pistol. He owns a cassock, but that is about it for the cassock. Except when he got called for jury duty. He showed up in his cassock. Needless to say he was not seated on any jury that week.

Nancy wrote:

@ William G.:
And evidently you don’t think that is a bit over the top. Well, if one considers it an art form it probably can be tolerated. But I like the simpler way of the current pope. However, the minute he shows up in those red slippers I reserve the right to change my opinion about him.

I believe the more beautiful the vestments are, the less we will notice the individual priest. It functions kind of like the doors of the iconostasis. The priest must disappear so that Christ can appear, to use an old adage. Since ordinary men are infinitely less holy than Christ, we adorn them in beautiful garments to symbolize the kingship of our Lord. Consider, if Driscoll wore a mitre, a chasuble, a stole, a maniple and other accoutrements, people would not notice his face as much and he would have been indistinguishable from his other pastors. If Pope af rancis truly wanted to humble himself, he would don the black cassock and purple sash of a diocesan bishop. Orthodox bishops wear identical Eucharistic vestments differing only in whether the pectoral cross is complimented by one or two pangias (icons of Christ not made by hand and Mary), and sometimes wear only their pectoral cross for reasons of humility.

The street dress of both Orthodox and traditional Catholic priests is also very humble. A black cassock or exorason, with a birettas or skoufia and a silver pectoral crucifix of small dimensions. Arch priests get a gold pectoral cross and sometimes wear a mitre in the services, but not an omophorion.

Google Krista West; she is tailor who has lovely website about Orthodox vestments and wrote a nice book entitled Garments of Salvation. For Western Rite vestments the Polish company ars sacra has a beautiful website and good prices. The Indian maker of Syriac vestments is financially struggling and their site has been down for a while, but I pray and expect they will survive; once this awful war is over new vestments will be needed by the Guatemalan priests who joined the SOC.

William G. wrote:

By the way Lydia, if I might ask, what is a YRR? I am unfamiliar with the acronym.

Just butting in, if you look under “Categories” in the top right corner of TWW, there is a category devoted to Young, Restless, Reformed. See http://thewartburgwatch.com/category/restless-and-reformed-yrr/

@ Nancy:
Ha! 😉

@ THC:
Sorry THC but your tradition usurps Scripture at every turn.

William G. wrote:

Please understand Lydia that I am a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which strives to as closely as possible adhere to the ancient practice of Christianity in the context of a living tradition.

William, I am so sorry to hear about your health problems and so young!

I am probably a bit touchy about “tradition” and “orthodoxy”. I don’t see anything inherently evil about either but they can turn into that because of serious error that can lead to TULIPS worm theology and other things that have simply worn me out.

I am coming to the conclusion fast that most of Protestantism (and Catholicism) have institutionalized Platonic thinking.

I usually cite Augustine because he is a known entity and that is where we tend to trace the teaching on the
concept of “original sin” which turns humans into perpetual sinners who cannot help it and have no choice. Even those supposedly Born again. Our very existence is sin in that “tradition”.

That is what I mean by orthodoxy and tradition. Taking what I see as error and turning it in orthodoxy and tradition. Most of that comes from the councils, creeds, etc.

Same with penal substitutionary atonement theory. God as the cosmic child abuser which is considered orthodoxy in most Protestant Churches. Which is also fits nicely with ESS.

so, needless to say, I am a bit allergic to all the citing of councils and creeds, etc, from being around YRR for the last 10 years. Because that is all they do. that is their defense of what is orthodoxy.

I just think it can get us off track if we are not careful. It is very interesting and I never thought I would be researching the Council of Orange when it came to discussions on Pelagius. But that is what it comes to these days to have discussions in certain groups about ordo salutis, Sovereignty, Grace, etc.

BTW: I would be interested in your take on Pelagius. I realize most of his writings were destroyed and what we know about him comes mainly from his detractors. The more I read, the more I liked but I am far from my research being exhaustive, if you know what I mean. I am an amateur at all this stuff.

Gavin White wrote:

@ THC:
Sorry THC but your tradition usurps Scripture at every turn.

I would agree that the lens from which I interpret scripture is tradition. Absolutely true. You do as well from your “fill_in_the_blank” tradition from your church. Mine happens to be from the Catholic Church.

I think what you are really saying is that your interpretation of Scripture is different than mine. That too is correct. I would bet that other non-Catholic churches would also fall into that category for much of how you and they interpret scripture.

@ THC:
I don’t fill in any blanks. Scripture is complete.

THC wrote:

When you are feeling better I am interested in knowing your perspective on Orthodox heterodoxy (an oxymoron, I know). My research into the Orthodox Church before becoming Catholic has led me to conclude that the teachings between the various Orthodox Churches differ, to some extent, like Protestant communities. There also seems to be some circular reasoning (from an Orthodox perspective) as to what is considered truly Orthodox coming out of even the early councils.

There is the Eastern Orthodox Church, which consists of a number of different churches including the Russians, the Greeks, the Antiochians, the Serbians, the Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Georgians and the Finnish, among others, in communion with each other, who share a common faith although occasionally have minor disagreements, usually relating to matters of a political nature, the Eastern Orthodox Old Calendarists, who are not in communion with the “canonical church” over the issues of the new calendar and ecumenism, which they consider to be heresy, but which are mostly in communion which each other. Then there are the nationalist churches who are in schism because of a refusal to acknowledge the primacy of the autocephalous bishop of the jurisdiction in which their country is located; the Macedonian Orthodox, Montenegrin Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox are the three main examples these. They sometimes enter into communion with each other. There is no fundamental difference of theology with them, just a dispute over who should be in charge.

Then there five Oriental Orthodox churches, of the Armenians, Copts, Syriacs, Ethiopians and Eritreans, who broke away from everyone else at the Council of Chalcedon because of a refusal to accept the Tome of Leo, because it contradicted the formula of St. Cyril the Great, who taught Christ had one nature; and who are in communion with each other, and finally, in India, there are a few breakaway churches from the Syriac Orthodox Church who are not in communion with each other or Antioch, who separated primarily due to a combination of meddling from the British colonial authorities and at times a certain indifference to the affairs of the Indian church by the Patriarch of Antioch, which has since been corrected. The most aggressive of these also exploited political tensions in the Syriac Orthodox church to form an ethnically Syrian breakaway diocese in Europe, and a breakaway ethnically Syrian parish in Los Angeles. There is, like with the nationalist Orthodox cited above, no theological disagreement, merely a dispute about who should be in charge.

Finally, the Assyrian Church of the East, an Eastern church that is sometimes called Nestorian, itself underwent a schism along tribal lines in the 1960s. The smaller party, the Ancient Church of the East, undertook missionary activity in the Phillipines and is active in Australia, but is critically endangered by the Syrian war, as is the larger. What separated them was the last hereditary Catholicos switching to the Gregorian calendar; they themselves have now adopted the Gregorian calendar as part of the process of reunification, but this will likely take a while, because again, the lingering question remains, who gets to be Catholicos? Its sort of like the so called “Great Western Schism” that occurred near the end of the Avignon Papacy.

THC wrote:

Lydia wrote:
I usually cite Augustine
I love Augustine! Especially when he talks about the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Jesus. “Christ held Himself in His hands when He gave His Body to His disciples saying: ‘This is My Body.’”
Awesomeness!

You know who I love: you, Nancy, Numo and Lydia for being so nice to me when I’ve been so sick, and for putting up with me and giving me something to do to pass the time. I’m about to try to drink a soda; pray that this works (I haven’t been able to ingest food for just over 24 hours, but my confessor has authorized me to break the Eucharistic fast; if this works I’ll give it a shot, if it doesn’t, I’ll see if I can have the Eucharist, and if that doesn’t work I guess I’ll be spending Sunday night in the hospital.)

THC wrote:

Mine happens to be from the Catholic Church.

I don’t know if you will “get it” what I am about to say, but I think that some folks who read here will, so I am going to say it. As I have said, I spent the better part of three years going to catholic mass and attending RCIA classes at the church. (Disclaimer: “the better part” is obscuring a more complicated picture which is of no import here.) I did not convert, for some seriously big (to me) reasons. However, I have seen some issues on both sides of the fence that might be worth bringing up.

I get the strong impression that did it ever, through whatever circumstances, come to pass that a choice had to be made between the catholic church and Jesus, some (most?) catholics would keep the church and kick Jesus to the street (perhaps with regrets) but do it just the same.

Prior to this I had come to the strong impression that if the choice were between the bible and Jesus some (most?) evangelicals would keep the bible and kick Jesus to the curb.

Example: In the hierarchy of importance of important things, and listening to what Jesus said, which is more important, defend your doctrine or love your neighbor as yourself? Talking attitude here, not nuancing “what is doctrine and is trashing you neighbor for the sake of doctrine an act of love?”

This is not a matter of dogma, doctrine, interpretation, teaching and such, it is a matter of attitude. To me it comes through loud and clear in some of the comments right here, sometimes yours, sometimes others, sometimes mine. We need to cut this out-the attitude thing. Why would anyone be interested in some Jesus person who turns his followers into what we sometimes sound like we have become? Not I.

Nancy wrote:

Example: In the hierarchy of importance of important things, and listening to what Jesus said, which is more important, defend your doctrine or love your neighbor as yourself? Talking attitude here, not nuancing “what is doctrine and is trashing you neighbor for the sake of doctrine an act of love?”

The point can be made that the vigorous, but angry, defense of doctrine within a church is an act of love. One of the Desert Fathers said that even to raise someone from the dead, if done in anger, would be sinful. The manner in which churches like Mars Hill treat those with concerns about doctrine is unacceptable.

At the same time, I am not a pietist. I believe doctrine saves and doctrine matters; in some Quakers and Unitarian Universalists, we see churches without doctrine, and I just don’t see that we can be the salt and light of the world if we practice our religion like that.

As far as the ODF concerned, I see this emerging as a place for Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox to explore their religious heritage and those of other Christians and to learn from each other. That we may imitate Christ, I propose we agree voluntarily to three Cardinal rules:

– We should not generalize our fellow members faith traditions as being evil, a threat to Christianity or as destroyers of souls. We can and should critique their doctrines, but we should not attack the sincerity of devotion of the members of those traditions, highlight examples of human perfections we all share as being peculiar to such persons, characterize those traditions, or attribute values to those traditions that they reject. For example, the Oriental Orthodox deny being Monophysite, so let us accept them at their word for it.

– We should not track our interlocutors on a personal level in any way. If someone is annoying, for example, if I get distracted and go off on a tangent about the liturgical commemoration of St. Barsinifius, we should feel free to ask ourselves to get back with the program.

– All requests for prayer from accepted congregants should be admitted, and such orayers offered in accordance with the normal forms of liturgical or ex tempore prayer used by our respective congregations. However, performing acts that some may consider occult, such as casting a spell or performing a proxy baptism, should be avoided.

In this manner, the ODF can be a place where Christians who disagree about our faith can discuss our disagreements while demonstrating the Golden Rule. In this manner, we will be a witness to the love of Christ, through our passion for knowing and teaching the truth about He who is Truth, and our abiding in his commandments.

We might liken ourselves to Jewish Yeshiva students perhaps, who have heated arguments with their study partner as a means of learning, and then pray together, Only we can one up the,m by turning down the heat, and striving to avoid anger in our intercourse with one another,

I have a question for the musicians. I just got back from church (episcopal mass) and I heard something I had not heard before and do not understand. Maybe somebody will tell me what this was. And yes, I have slung myself into a learning curve, so bear with me.

The choir was singing five (5) parts (at least), 2 male and 2 female and a descant (at one time) for sure. It definitely had an a cappella sound to it, except that the organist was playing. Say what? Well, it did. The organist was playing in a way I had never heard. The organ would do (rather inconspicuously) only one note for several measures, and then perhaps a different but still solitary note for several measures and so on. It did something similar to the sound that a drone string on a dulcimer does. Almost like it is there but you don’t notice it. The total effect was some kind of awesome.

Is there a name for that?

Gavin White wrote:

Gavin White on Sun Nov 23, 2014 at 04:54 AM said:
@ THC:
I don’t fill in any blanks. Scripture is complete.

Strictly speaking Gavin, when Christ held the bread in his hands and said “This is my body”, he was telling the truth, on at least a symbolic level. My own exegesis is that he was speaking literally, even if the real presence is spiritual, which it may be, although I personally believe it to be physical. For at Pascha (the original word for Easter, which means Passover: the Durch say Passen for example, Easter was a pagan festival in Britain that was displaced by Pascha but we kept the old name), we in the Orthodox Church say “Christ our paschal lamb is slaughtered! (1 Corintians 5:7). The Passover lambs were, and in the Samaritan religion, still are, eaten.

When we combine this with the Institution Narrative, which appears in 1 Corinthians 11 and all three Synoptics, the statement of our Lord to eat his flesh and drink his blood in John6:54, the proto-Anaphora in the Didache, and the description of the Eucharist in the Apology of Justin Martyr, this suggests that the early church believed that Christ was really present in the Lords Supper, at least spiritually, and that partaking of this was a key part of the church collectively obtaining salvation through participating in Christ’s sacrifice. Now it is possible the idea of a physical presence was not universally agreed on; the ancient Anaphora of Hippolytus has a weak epiclesis leaving open the door to a purely or mainly spiritual presence.

Tha ancient anaphoras of the Twelve Apostles, St. James and St. Mark, and that of the Euchologion of Serapion, the oldest extant complete bishop’s service book, from the fourth century, have strong epiclesises; in fac St. Mark following in the Alexandrine liturgical style has two of them. St. Basil in its Cappadocian/ Byzantine format, known to,scholars as ByzBAS, equivocates a bit in the epiclesis,,but it’s Egyptian counterpart, used in the Coptic church and known as EgyBAS, is unequivocal. The strongest epiclesis is that found in CHR, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, as it exists in Byzantine and Syriac recesnsions.

Curiously, the Roman Canon, the Anaphora of the Latin Rite, has always had a weak epiclesis. In the West, liturgical theologians believed that the Change was accomplished primarily by the Words of Institution, whereas in the East, the Change occurred with the prayer to the Holy Spirit requesting it (the Epiclesis). Martin Luther thus omitted the Epiclesis from his liturgies probably because he saw it as superfluous, whereas Cranmer retained it. The Scottish Episcopalians or Non Jurors , who were strongly influenced by the Eastern Orthodox, put in their Communion Office the strongest epiclesis ever to appear in a liturgy derived from the Roman Rite, and this in turn made it into the liturgy of the ECUSA; the Scottish, in agreeing to ordain Bishop Seward, demanded the Americans follow Scottish liturgical norms, and after some fierce resistance, these ultimately made it into the 1789 American BCP.

Nancy wrote:

I have a question for the musicians. I just got back from church (episcopal mass) and I heard something I had not heard before and do not understand. Maybe somebody will tell me what this was. And yes, I have slung myself into a learning curve, so bear with me.
The choir was singing five (5) parts (at least), 2 male and 2 female and a descant (at one time) for sure. It definitely had an a cappella sound to it, except that the organist was playing. Say what? Well, it did. The organist was playing in a way I had never heard. The organ would do (rather inconspicuously) only one note for several measures, and then perhaps a different but still solitary note for several measures and so on. It did something similar to the sound that a drone string on a dulcimer does. Almost like it is there but you don’t notice it. The total effect was some kind of awesome.
Is there a name for that?

What you are hearing is called a pedal (not to be confused with the pedal-keys) or in Greek an ison. It sounds like they may have been singing a piece inspired by Byzamtine Chant. In Byzantine chant one or two basso singers with huge lungs traditionally do the ison, and the note changes infrequently in the piece. Some Greek Orthodox churches (who together with the Romanians are the primary users of Byzantine chant; rpthe Slavonic churches use a very different Russian style) have organs largely to supply the ison, but some Greek Orthodox composers like Tikey Zes, who I am listening to right now, incorporate the organ I to their work broadly. This is controversial because there are a distressingly large number of nutters in the Orthodox Church who think organs are EV0L. I think they’re indispensable for congregational singing and the lack of them is why we have to let the choir do most of the work; attempts at increasing congregational singing have thus far not worked too well. The Russian Orthodox Old Believers sing everything as a congregation, but their hymns are in a very simple system known as Znameny Chant, which is again unrelated to Byzantine and lacks a pedal or ison.

The popularity of Byzantine Chant, like that of Gregorian Chant and Slavonic church music, has been on the rose in recent decades, and more and more Western composers are incorporating it into their work. You are particularly likely to have heard such a work at an ECUSA parish with a good music program; the Episcopal Church is unbeatable when it comes to music, which is why it’s self destruction breaks my heart.

If you can find the name of the piece you heard, please share it with me so that I can hear it. By the way, here’s an idea for you all: the Deebs have a great echurch program. I have a vast library of church music on YouTube playlists, and Internet Radio is still possible with some caveats. Perhaps I should launch an eevensong; a collection of assorted Church music following the rubrics of Anglican evensong, for each Sunday, but with no sermon or theologizing; just ancient and modern church music in the traditional, non-praise band style.

@ numo:
a lot of Persian classical music uses drones as well. There are so many immigrants (and 2nd-3d generation descendants of immigrants) from Iran, the Arab world and Turkey in Europe now. It’s no surprise that younger people would incorporate things from the popular and classical music of these traditions into their music.

As for way-out 20th c. classical music using pipe organ, there’s composer/organist Charlemagne Palestine (and yes, that was his real name).

Lydia wrote:

I am coming to the conclusion fast that most of Protestantism (and Catholicism) have institutionalized Platonic thinking.
I usually cite Augustine because he is a known entity and that is where we tend to trace the teaching on the
concept of “original sin” which turns humans into perpetual sinners who cannot help it and have no choice. Even those supposedly Born again. Our very existence is sin in that “tradition”.
That is what I mean by orthodoxy and tradition. Taking what I see as error and turning it in orthodoxy and tradition. Most of that comes from the councils, creeds, etc.
Same with penal substitutionary atonement theory. God as the cosmic child abuser which is considered orthodoxy in most Protestant Churches. Which is also fits nicely with ESS.

Lydia, take a look at this article: http://www.omhksea.org/2013/03/the-divine-liturgy-of-saint-john-chrysostom-used-by-the-ukrainian-lutheran-church-and-its-missing-elements/

It discusses the changes the Lutherans made to the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. What is interesting isnt so much what they left out, which is predictable (intercessiins to Mary and the Saints), but what they put in: Pastor: Beloved in Christ, the Lord! Because you wish to come to the Lord’s Supper and partake of the most holy body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, I call on you seriously to consider whether you will indeed be worthy participants in such a great and holy Mystery. Three things are necessary for a worthy reception of the Lord’s Supper, to which you should direct your attention: First, you are not to take lightly your sins, in which you were conceived and came into this world, and which you have committed in thought, word or deed, secretly or openly, but instead you are to recognize that you have justly deserved God’s wrath, and his temporal and eternal punishment. Such a recognition should move and awaken in you a sincere sorrow that you have previously led such an evil life, and that with your transgressions you have so often offended your Heavenly Father. Second, you should recognize this truth, that by your own deeds and merits you cannot blot out your sins and transgressions, and neither can you earn God’s forgiveness. The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is the only sufficient ransom for our transgressions, and for the cleansing of our souls. Rest in this hope and faith, and with tears of sincere repentance call on God, your Heavenly Father, and implore him that for the sake of Christ, and his own great mercy, he will forgive you your sins and transgressions.

They had to bolt on a general confession that explains penal substitutionary atonement because the Orthodox don’t believe it, and completely foreign to the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which is about 1150 years older than Lutheranism.

Compare the authentic Liturgy here: https://web.archive.org/web/20131227033713/http://www.allmercifulsavior.com/Liturgy/Priest%20Liturgy%20John%20C.pdf

Thus, what you historically called Orthodoxy we would call heterodoxy, and most hardcore Calvinists and many Lutherans view us as unregenerate idolaters. 🙁

Nancy wrote:

Prior to this I had come to the strong impression that if the choice were between the bible and Jesus some (most?) evangelicals would keep the bible and kick Jesus to the curb.

I think the attitude you’ve described stems from the belief that the only way you can ‘know Jesus’ and ‘know the Lord’ is through the Bible, and more specifically, through the missives of Paul. I’ve seen more of Jesus in the following photo essay than I have in all the Epistles of Paul combined.
Here’s the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/14/just-when-you-think-youve-seen-it-all_n_6154606.html

Muff Potter wrote:

Nancy wrote:
Prior to this I had come to the strong impression that if the choice were between the bible and Jesus some (most?) evangelicals would keep the bible and kick Jesus to the curb.
I think the attitude you’ve described stems from the belief that the only way you can ‘know Jesus’ and ‘know the Lord’ is through the Bible, and more specifically, through the missives of Paul. I’ve seen more of Jesus in the following photo essay than I have in all the Epistles of Paul combined.
Here’s the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/14/just-when-you-think-youve-seen-it-all_n_6154606.html

I disagree entirely. Paul’s account of Jesus that of the four gospels. The oldest records we have of Jesus are the epistles of Paul, Peter, Jude and James, and possibly John. Paul’s accoutning of the Last Supper and other accounts in the life of Jesus are consistent with those in the Gospels, and in the Gospels Jesus himself spoke out against sexual immorality, without going into as much detail as Paul. If it weren’t for Paul, one must also stress, Christianity would have remained a Jewish sect. If one does believe that Jesus is God, and that Jesus told the truth when he said the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church, then Paul’s status as the apostle to the Gentiles of the Roman Empire is beyond question.

What is more, people who attack Paul as being hateful are fixating on a few verses, and ignoring the majority of Pauline epistles that express the Apostles love and devotion to his flock. Paul is actually much less severe than Jesus; most of the love of Jesus is conveyed through his miraculous deeds, but His words tend to be either intentionally obfuscated parables designed to transmit information selectively, or threats of the dire consequences that await the unrepentant. The “Woe unto you” statements, et cetera. Jesus. As God, is clearly love, but also a consuming fire; even as he heals the sick he warns the people of the dire consequences that await them if their sins are unforgiving. It is impossible to read through any of the Gospels without feeling convicted of ones sins. This is good.

Paul, in contrast, is a mere man, a horrible sinner, with the blood of Stephen the Illustrious Protomartyr on his hands. He was forgiven. He has committed himself to non violent, loving exposition of the a Gospel aided by the Holy Spirit. Some of his epistles were written as the date of his beheading approached. Many of them, such as Philemon, are pure expressions of brotherly love. Ephesians comes to mind as a book known for comforting people.

This is not to say that Jesus is mean and nasty, and Paul good and loving. That would be absurd. But the idea of Paul as having distorted Christianity is either false or irrelevant, on textual grounds: the Pauline epistles predate most of the other writings in the New Testament, including the four gospels. The Jesus Seminar foolishly believed the agnostic Gospel of Thomas to predate the others and in particular to be more useful than John, but scholars now mostly agree it dates from the Third Century. If memory serves, at one point it refers to a religious leader of the second century, which dates it. Thus, if Paul distorted the words of our Lord, it would be naive to suggest that any of the Gospels are free from this distortion, given that they tend to correspond with Paul’s accounts, and given that Paul in his epistles mentions both Mark and Luke, and Luke reports having been a companion of Paul in the Acts. Indeed the correspondence between Luke and the other Synoptic Gospels, and in a different way, with John, and Luke’s authorship of Acts, which contains the Conversion Narrative on the Road to Emmaus, have the effect of linking all New Testament writings to Paul, creating a system of co dependence and cross verification.

Also, the general harshness of the words of our Lord compared with the softness of those of Paul dispel the notion that Paul was a nasty theological Scrooge trying to impart anger and venom into the Gospel.

Lastly, given the integral web of dependencies between the Pauline Epistles and the rest of the NT, which flow through the nexus of Luke-Acts, if Paul was distorting the faith, surely someone would have tried to stop him? Some argue the Epistle of James was such an attempt, but if it was, it can only be described as feeble. Consider in contrast the vigorous efforts made to defeat Simon Magus. Of course some scholars have tried to work around this by claiming Paul *is* Simon Magus, but at some point we just have to roll our eyes and move on, since the idea that Luke would lionize Paul overtly by covertly smearing him under a pseudonym after Paul was dead, added to all of,the other assumptions required to pit Paul and Jesus against each other, is fantastically improbable. It takes more faith to believe in that than it does to just believe in the New Testament as written!

If Paul did influence the shape of Christianity, and the NT says he did, then it was almost certainly with the approval of the other apostles, a very large number of whom had known Jesus personally and were thus equipped to discern the authenticity of Paul’s apostolate.

@ William G.:
Also, thank you for pointing out the reality of Westetn adherence to Aristotle. I don’t see the things many ascribe to Plato in what Plato actually wrote, though goodness knows, i have a lot to learn there. Neo-Platonism is a different animal, and i think Plato would have been astonished at the way in which many Neo-Platonists took off with his ideas and used them to create an overarching metaphysical universe. ISTM that Plato was neither a dualist nor especially concerned with the things that began to preoccupy later, Hellenistic period philosophers.

I think a lot of the stuff floating around in the xtian blogosphere that blames Plato is very inaccurate and not at all based on the reading and study of either Plato or Aristotle.

It’s like trying to interpret all of Shakespeare through modern retelings of his work, rather than actually getting into the actual texts of his plays.

Fwiw.

I will readily agree that Part is difficult to listen to. I suppose I trained myself to enjoy atonal polyphony via Anglican Evensong and the works of Herbert Howells, Healey Willan, et al. My favourite contemporary church music composer is Roman Hurko, a Ukrainian American Byzanrine Rite Carholic whose settings of Vespers, the Orthodox funeral service, and the Divine Loturgy of St. John Chrysostom are both glorious and entirely traditional. They have a predominantly Ukrainian Slavonic flavor with a faint hint of older Byzantine styles. They are frankly better IMO than the vespers and liturgy composed by Tchaikovsky, and on a par with Rachmaninoff. I say this as a man who considers Sleeping Beauty and the 1812 Overture the zenith of their respective genres. What makes good secular music does not always make good church or military music; I love marching band music, and in my experience only specialist band composers are any good at it, with the notable exception of Beethoven. Everyone else failed to varying extents; marches are all very similiar, and the excellence of a March lies in subtle detail.

Ecclesiastical music differs from secular music in that it has to at least be accessible to the choir, it frequently has to work with ancient texts that don’t rhyme, such as the Canticles in Luke and hymns like Te Deum Laudamus and O Gladsome Light, and they must conform to the traditions of their respective liturgical rite. The Slavonic Byzantine style is the least restrictive, whereas the Byzantine is the most. No new melodies are being composed in the Syriac and Coptic Rites that I am aware of. This is not necessarily bad. Their music is beautiful, West Syriac being my very favorite when sung live by a good pair of choirs,, it varies by region and is endangered by the Islamic persecution, and there is no desire or need to add to the repertoire. I would go so far as to say that the Syeiac and Coptic rites have attained perfection without stagnation. Where new music is needed is Western classical settings of the hymns that will be palettable to Western ears: I once played the recessional hymn Haw Nurone, which is reminiscent of the cries of a muezzin at a mosque, for some Mormon missionary girls, and they were scared. And that’s my favorite hymn! “The Lord whom Seraphs fear to look at, you behold in bread and wine on the altar…”

By the way, St. Ambrose, who,baptized Augustine,,and told him to study Isaiah in preparation for Baptism, an instruction Augustine ignored, wrote this in De Sacramentiis:

“Although the figure of the bread and wine be seen, still, after the Consecration, they are to be believed to be nothing else than the body end blood of Christ.”

The Eastern Orthodox love Ambrose but in the case of Augustine, he is just a minor saint. He cannot be considered the rightful heir to Ambrose, for he tended to ignore his elder and disagree with him. His,theology is filled with guilt from his worldly exercises, yet, for example, in his views on the Eucharist, bears a faint whiff of his Manichaean Gnostic upbringing. The indifference in the East to Augustine represents the fundamental point of divergence between Oriental and Occidental theology.

@ numo:

From what I can gather–and I am speaking in generalities– is that Aristotle and Plato differed in how they viewed the idea of “forms”. Plato thought they existed far beyond basic human understanding. Socrates thought they could be discovered within the natural world.

That is a big difference when we get into practicalities and human life.

I view Plato in terms of taking the Pagan mentality (which goes way back, of course and was his life) and turning it into a sort of Gnostic school of thought that spread. He is just more well known. He very much believed that the masses needed Philosopher kings who have special knowledge and more enlightened to lead them. (sound familiar?) He was born quite wealthy into a philosopher king type of family and was afforded a good education for that day and time. He was very much into a caste system society with women and slaves very low in the caste. He had a view that the material world was evil and that only the spiritual world was good but it could not be fully known especially by the masses. That might sound familiar to some, too.

Again, speaking in generalities, Augustine, a Manichean, seemed to agree with that pagan line of thinking with *his* idea of original sin in which he implanted the notion of imputed guilt. We are born sinning. Our very existence as material beings is sin. This is part of the arbitrary god problem. The angry god that must be appeased as all humans are born evil and guilty.

I see the “philosopher king” mentality all over the trajectory of historical Western Christianity thinking until the Puritans died out and slowly it started to change when some sparks in history of individual worth. (We are going back to pagan thinking, I think, where we are being convinced that we cannot discover and “know” truth. We must be told)

I do think, speaking in general terms of course, this thinking is totally anathema to Yahweh’s relational intention for His creation all the way back to Genesis. (which I do not read as literal) I believe His intent was for His creation to grow in wisdom from HIM and He is our King. Jesus Christ was proof of this as the perfect Israelite and Rescuer.

I know we differ in how we approach this because I have often read you saying things such as “they are only being human”. I have a different view as in being fully human is when we reflect God as His image bearers. We are less human when we do evil to others. I think the fact that God became Flesh proves how valuable and worthy humans are in His sight. And how capable they are in making choices as adults.

Calvin, the lawyer, it seems systematized it all. But I have heard many say that today’s Neo Calvinists are nothing like Calvin. I beg to differ. There are different as far as infant baptism, the sacraments, etc, but I think the foundational principles of Calvinistic bent toward authoritarianism is more intact with this generation of Neo Calvinists. I think they get him right based upon what is regarded as historical Calvinism which ebbs and flows in history. I realize that TULIP was not Calvin’s but a shortened explanation to his exhaustive and verbose Institutes. Which I think is pure Gnosticism and presents a god that is arbitrary and unknowable and I need a philosopher king to explain it to me.

The bottom line for me is that when anyone trying to be a spiritual leader pleads special knowledge in spiritual matters that they believe the average adult Christian is not able to understand or grasp, that is a variation of pagan thinking. Gnosticism. To me, discipleship is different than leadership.

From Creation, I believe God intended a personal relationship with His creation. I see that theme all over the trajectory of scripture.

Lydia wrote:

I know we differ in how we approach this because I have often read you saying things such as “they are only being human”. I have a different view as in being fully human is when we reflect God as His image bearers. We are less human when we do evil to others. I think the fact that God became Flesh proves how valuable and worthy humans are in His sight. And how capable they are in making choices as adults.
Calvin, the lawyer, it seems systematized it all. But I have heard many say that today’s Neo Calvinists are nothing like Calvin. I beg to differ. There are different as far as infant baptism, the sacraments, etc, but I think the foundational principles of Calvinistic bent toward authoritarianism is more intact with this generation of Neo Calvinists. I think they get him right based upon what is regarded as historical Calvinism which ebbs and flows in history. I realize that TULIP was not Calvin’s but a shortened explanation to his exhaustive and verbose Institutes. Which I think is pure Gnosticism and presents a god that is arbitrary and unknowable and I need a philosopher king to explain it to me.
The bottom line for me is that when anyone trying to be a spiritual leader pleads special knowledge in spiritual matters that they believe the average adult Christian is not able to understand or grasp, that is a variation of pagan thinking. Gnosticism. To me, discipleship is different than leadership.
From Creation, I believe God intended a personal relationship with His creation. I see that theme all over the trajectory of scripture.

You just defined Eastern Orthodox theology in a nutshell, right down to our common identification of Calvinism with crypto-Gnosticism. I felt like I was reading Kallistos Ware or any of the bloggers at Ancient Faith Radio.

@ Lydia:
And, as you well know, I am most emphatically not a Calvinist. I don’tsee any point in getting into all that.

You’re jumping a few thousand years from ideas about Greek city states – very idealistic ideas at that – to Gnosticism and then Calvin. There are a lot of problems re. what you’re leaving out, as William G moted above re. Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica, not to mention the Renaissance, humanists like Erasmus, and mwny other things. It just isn’t as simple as you’re making it out to be. I realize that there are somebloggers who advocate whst you’re saying, but again, so much is left out of the equation, and i thinkmit all leads to misleading conclusions.

Ss for what i might say, ???? I am puzzled by that, because i believe in sin, and also that evil mars us, badly. But we are still made in God’s image.

@ Lydia:
Finally, i would like to ask that we just agree to disagree. We actually do agree on many things, but are approaching life and many questions from different POVs, and that’s fine. I don’t think either of us will be able to change the other’s stance, and lobbing the same arguments back and forth isn’t productive.

@ numo:

I did not view it as lobbing arguments and am sorry you view my responding to your comment that way.

numo wrote:

@ Lydia:
But Plato himself was not a gnostic.

Plato influenced the Gnostics, but he also influenced the Orthodox. Primarily his philosophy of substance, nature and personhood was relied on by the Ecumenical Councils. His ideas about God were used by Psuedo Dionysius the Aereopagite and St. Maximus as a starting point for apophatic theology and concepts of God as the unmoved mover, et cetera. However in all cases Plato was regarded as a righteous gentile whose,views were subordinate to both the Hebrew prophets and the Christian apostles; Plato was used to help interpret the language of scripture, but not as a source of divine revelation in his own right.

The Gnostica and Neo Platonists on the other point used Plato as the starting point of their theology, as a source of revelation, from which their cosmologies were extrapolated.

Thomistic theology retained the use of a Greek philosopher to help understand the meaning of the revelation of the Old and New Testaments, but replaced Plato with his more rationalist successor Aristotle and his Islamic interpreter Averroes. Transubstantiation as an explanation of the Eucharist is an essentially Arisotlean concept rooted in the ideas of imperceptible but definitive substance and purely perceptual accidents. A minority of Orthodox scholars embraced transubstantiation but most were content to regard the Eucharist as a mystery or paradox beyond human understanding; something to be done and not contemplated.

The Orthodox in internal dialogue refer to all the sacraments as mysteries, and Orthodox sacramental theology conveys the sense of them being otherworldly God-ordained means of conferring uncreated grace and enabling participation in the uncreated energies of God. The operation of the mysteries is perhaps as incomprehensible as the uncreated essence of God itself. Knowledge of them at a deep level can perhaps be found by the hesychasm with much searching, and hinted at bu apophatic language.

I cannot emphasize enough: the Eastern churches are mystical in nature; they reject the human desire to understand everything in logical terms and admit paradox. They exist to facilitate participation in the ancient mysteries and to facilitate ascetic praxis where a direct experience of God can be obtained. They stress reason primarily as a means of controlling the passions; freedom from temptations that overpower us, allowing our mind to operate in a purely rational mode without unwanted intrusions of emotions, but rather basking in the light of uninterrupted divine love, and reflecting this love onto other humans, is viewed as the ideal mode of existence. The basic assumptions, and the ultimate objectives, of Eastern Christianity, are almost entirely alien to the considerations of most Calvinists. Yet we get a lot of Calvinist converts.

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
I was thinking more of his orchestral works, like Fratres, which has (imo) been over-played and over-recorded. That said, my exposure to his music has mainly been via the many recordings of his works made on the ECM label. ECM has a certain aesthetic that runs through everything they put out, in terms of how sound is recorded and mastered. I’ve heard one too many of their jazz and “world music” recordings by artist that i like end up sounding flat and same-y. Their mastering and produvtion is so pristine that, to my ears, it ends up sucking the life out of the pergormances. I really like the *idea* of their contemporary classical projects, but have run into the same wall re. the actual recordings. So *if* i can listen to some of Part’s pieces that have been recorded for other labels, my thoughts might vchange.
I have a lot of CDs of different kinds of plainchant and early liturgical music, so it’s not the Eastetn liturgical bent that puts me off. It’s Part’s Minimalism that gets to me, or has so far. I like his ideas as ideas, but the music I’ve heard – not so much.
If you have any listening suggestions, please post them! I would be grateful for that, and for your insight, since you’re at home in yhe worlds of liturgical music in a way that I’m definitely not.

I have to confess firstly I am not an audiophile. Unless the sound quality is horrendous I put up with it. As I see it nothing can match the sound quality of a live performance. Most of my listening is on a Bose 3 piece speaker system connected to the rear audio out on my Sun Ultra 24 workstation, which has a surprisingly good integrated audio card,,the best Ive seen in any PC. The audio port on the front I/O board is rubbish, though. The sound quality is lighters better than on a Mac Mini, and light years better than the leaky sound cards on my IBM workstations, where moving the mouse causes interference. Dell PCs also have decent enough sound ports in my experience. I also own iPods and find them as a computer enthusiast too cute to resist, and I enjoy curling up with my iPad and listening on my iPod nano. Why not use the iPad? My Ebook collection is massive, and the place,ent of the headphone jack results in the wire getting in the way. Also it’s not as cute as a tiny 6G iPod nano with its funky low res display, which has such a low refresh rate it you can exceed it while scrolling on the tiny digitizer. I am not a fan of the old style scroll wheel interface that iPods used to have, and I never owned an iPod with a hard drive. So,thus, when it comes to recording quality, if it sounds ok on my speakers and my red and blue iPod nanos (my music is thematically divided between them; Slavonic Orthodox on the red iPod, and Geegorian and Byzantine chant on the blue, with Anglican used on both for spacers, then that’s all I need.

Now in terms of album recommendations:

For classic Byzantine Chant, the Monks of Simonopetra record the standards.
For classic Gregorian Chant, Cantores in Ecclesia Dei (albums 1, 2 and 3)
The best Renaisaance recording I have is Byrds masses for three, four and five voices by the Westminster Cathedral Choir.
The 5 CD set of Herbert Howells by the Collegiate Singers is definitive.
For Slavonic music, the monks of Valaam, the compositions of Roman Hurko, the recordings of Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev,,who is a composer in his own right as well as the head of the Deparment of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Capella Romana are the masters at the most obscure and endangered parts of Byzantine chant, like Vespers at the Monastery of St. Catharines in Sinai, which the Muslims want to destroy, and the cathedral office. They also do a great job showcasing the work of contemporary Orthodox composers like Tikey Zes and English language Orthodox composers like Michalides. Lay Aside All Earthly Cares is a comprehensive collection of Slavonic-style English language Orthodox music, and When Augustus Reigned is a pan Orthodox collection of Christmas carols. The Divine Liturgy in Byzantine Chant in English is as the name implies, and was recorded to prove to critics that Byzantine Chant works as well in English aaa it does in traditional Orthodox languages like Greek, Arabic and Romanian.

Do visit my YouTube channel, The Least of Pilgrims. You will find a comprehensive set of themed playlists. The highest quality material is in Eucharistc Meditations.

@ William G.:
William, thanks muchly for this clear explanation re. the way in which xtians have used Greek philosophy to help understand the world. I honestly don’t see how it coukdbhave been avoided, since all educated people in the Eastern Mediterranean basin knew of these ideas – and in the absence of modern ideas about physics and the like, these ideas also helped people make sense of the natural world around them. I do not see Plato’s work as harmful; it is far-reaching and reflects his way of looking atthe world. Nor do i see (as i think was hinted at in a previous post) any connection between his philosophy and belief in the gods and goddesses of the Greco-Roman pantheon. Plato and other philosophers certainly were concened with ethics, and readers don’t have to agree with them in order to appreciate what they had to say.

Btw, i am much more inclined to view the sacraments the way you do, paradox/Mystery beyond our human understanding. I’ve read more than i care to about transubstatiation, consubstantiation, and what we Lutherans call sacramental union (which looks very much like consubstatiation,but i believe there are some subtle differences). At any rate, the many, many debates over this seem to me mostly a waste of time and words and energy that could be better spent on other things.

Thanks Numo and Lydia. I love our conversation we have here and I think we are beginning to have an emerging consensus. I do miss gram3, I really wish she would pop in and comment on her article; I still feel like rubbish after unwittingly appearing to give her the bell, book and candle treatment.

On the subject of typology and typological representation in the Old Testament, which we have debated with vigor, take a look at this Orthodox perspective, which is also interesting in light of numo’s reluctance to believe in some of the more unusual occurrences in the Orthodox Church, like Fr Lazarus being pushed off a precipice by a demon in the form of an ethereal bear: http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/11/23/doubt-modern-belief/

Numo, I would really like to see your take on that article in light of our discussions.

@ numo:

You have totally lost me.

@ Sopwith:

(Ed.delete: Let ed. make decision about commenting style) No Christian church since the Syriac Gnostic sect known as the Borborites, whose rituals were so shockingly obscene that some have accused St. Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote the current version of the Nicene Creed, of fabricating their existence, has encouraged idolatry, magic, or ritualized bloodshed. They did not practice necromancy however. There was a Russian cult that preached self immolation and eventually removed itself from existence in this manner.

I’m not going to get into a Rome vs Orthodox debate with you THC because that would be destructive to,the spirit Im trying to cultivate on this forum, which is based on the idea of the exhange of new information. There are plethora of Orthodox rebuttals of,the keys argument, a plethora of Protestant rebuttals, a plethora of rebuttals or rebuttals, and so on, to the point where I expect the CDF should publish an instruction ” Ad Nauseum, ad infinitum.” summarizing the key points. The book Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy by Fr. Stephen Dammick represents the primary Orthodox invective on the matter.

What I am more interested in doing is exploring constructively the interesting approaches our two faiths have towards liturgy and ascetic prayer. I want to know more about the Rosary and Lectio Divina. I’d all like to know about what kind of fasting lay Catholics do these days. Likewise I’d like to know if through Byzantine Rite Catholicism you have attempted the more,severe fasts of,that rite or,the Jesus Prayer. Do,you go to a TLM parish? If not, what pattern of Eucharistic prayer utilization does your priest use, and do the people clap at the end,of the services? I find the clapping baffling; I’m not necessarily opposed to it given the miracle that just happened, but I know of no other mainstream church where people do this; certainly it doesn’t happen in most Episcopal Churches following the 1979 BCP, which of liturgies in use in the US most closely resembles that of the Novus Ordo.

Also Is love to discuss the traditional liturgies with you. I am looking for a good recording of the music of the Ambrosian Rite. I’ve noticed the boys choir of the Duomo in Milan has a distinctive squeaky sound that is elegant in a different way from the softer voices of English boys choirs. The manner in which the male clergy and choristers annunciation the Latin and Italian is also much more robust. Is this a pan-Italian characteristic or a specific style of the Milanese liturgy? I love the open top thuribles. I doubt you’ve had any experience with this rite sadly; I need to find so,e devout Catholic from Milan to give me the low down on it I suspect.

@ Sopwith:
Just curious – were you raised Catholic?

Sopwith wrote:

  __
Wartburg,
  Can the practice of the ‘Marian Dogmas’ be scripturally classified as a type of idol worship?
–

The Orthodox disagree with the immaculate conception and some notions of the assumption but would say no. The scriptures do not preclude veneration. Idolatry occurs when Mary is worshipped. Where Rome would cross the iconographic Tiber would be in pronouncing the “fifth dogma” and declaring Mary co Redemptrix, making her an object of worship in her own right.

Some statues of Mary are used idolatrouslt by poorly catechized Catholics, but we have to draw a line between the official beliefs of the Roman church, and the diversity of interpretations of that belief, which range from left leaning Cafeteria Catholics, to hardcore traditionalists, to people in Latin America with an incredibly profound Marian devotion specifically to our Lady of Guadalupe, which in fairness to everyone, was the image that sold Christianity to the Aztecs. I do think making an issue of her skin color though is wrong; Mary could have had a variety of skin tones; the Assyrian ethnic group which consists of many descendants of Jewish Christians is fair skinned among its Syrian and Turkish members, with the Palestinian, Persian and Meaopotamian Assyrians having a darker complexion, and Lebanon being a bit in the middle.

One reason why I think God selected the Jews as the nation to bring forth His son was their geographical location allowed them to be in the crossroads of the old world, while bearing an accidental resemblance to the indigenous inhabitants of the new. There are black jews, brown jews, white jews, and so on, and this is beautiful, because it means that Jesus, as the matrilineal descendant of King David, embodied the entire human race, crossing all barriers of petty physical differentiation. Christ then proceeded to abolish all national distinctions chiefly through the apostle Paul. There is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

William G. wrote:

Where Rome would cross the iconographic Tiber would be in pronouncing the “fifth dogma” and declaring Mary co Redemptrix, making her an object of worship in her own right.

This is where we really diverge William. The problem is, I believe, you are using fear mongering by saying this. First, it isn’t a dogma. Even so, if it were, rightly understood, it doesn’t create a worship of Mary any more than Theotokos does, or venerating icons.

Your vexation of the Roman Catholic Church around issues you disagree with is perplexing to me. You talk about seeking ecumenism here, but turn around and vilify Rome for things you don’t like, which you know Protestants here will react to. Is this your motive? Why not JUST speak for the Orthodox Church, or are you willing to cut off your nose to smite your face?

@ William G.:
Iirc, the reason that the Virgin of Guadalupe is depicted as a typical Mexican woman is that that is how she looked to Juan Diego, the man who believed that she appeared to him.

I think the Indians desperately needed this; everything had bern taken from them by the Spanish conquerors, and an awful lot of them were forcibly converted. On a personal note, i have no problem with artists depicting Christ, Mary etc. as African, Asian, Native American and so on – if salvation is for all, then we need to see it depicted as such. Goodness knows, Europeans were never shy about turning Christ, Mary and the whole cast of Biblical characters into blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned people. Those depictions cast a long shadow, and part of the shadow is the denial of Jewish people and Judaism and the reality of Jesus’ Jewishness. Rembrandt worked with models from the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam for his depictions of Biblical subjects, but I’m not aware of any other major artist who chose to do what he did.

THC wrote:

You talk about seeking ecumenism here, but turn around and vilify Rome for things you don’t like, which you know Protestants here will react to.

How is he “vilifying” Rome? I don’t see that treatment in his words. He disagrees with some of Rome’s beliefs, but so do many here. In the same way, many disagree with some of the Orthodox stances. Are you sure that you’re just not reacting to your own strong inclinations toward Catholicism and sensitivity to the subject? It reminds me of myself when my mama bear instincts arise. It can be difficult to be objective to what I might be hearing when it concerns things dearest to me 😉

numo wrote:

Those depictions cast a long shadow, and part of the shadow is the denial of Jewish people and Judaism and the reality of Jesus’ Jewishness.

That is so true.

numo wrote:

Rembrandt worked with models from the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam for his depictions of Biblical subjects, but I’m not aware of any other major artist who chose to do what he did.

Interestingly most icons, if not all, whether Coptic, Byzantine, Ethiopian, et cetera, are painted with only earlier icons as references. The idea is to depict the spiritual dimension, which is why they are so styled; some Syriac icons are almost diagrammatic. However the icon of Christ Pantocrator is anatomically realistic, perpahs painted using a human model, depicting Christ with different expressions on each side of his face to reflect His divinity and humanity, His love and His justice, and this depiction of Christ, which seems to lie behind our standard conception of Christ with a beard and so on, is very Jewish looking. But we have to remember that even in 1 AD the Jews were extremely ethnically diverse and were, for that matter, so far as we can tell, a colorblind society, in that Beta Israel existed then and now,,and Moses for his part took a wife of a darker skin tone. This is commendable, and it helps to,establish Jesus as coming froma central, intermediate and undifferentiated position in human ethnicity. I would hazard a pious guess that if we had the bloodlines of all humans available for analysis we would find Christ In a position of approximate equidistance, as I do personally accept the story of Noah and the Biblical genealogy it presents. However my faith does not depend on it and to the sense science differs Iam untroubled; it almost feels like none of my business. What I am opposed to is all forms of,racial,discrimination. Thrillingly both the Coptic and Greek Popes of Alexandria, in addition to making peace with each other, have gone on major evangelization campaigns across Africa with huge success, particularly in countries in danger of Islamizations or where the stability of the Muslim to Christian ratio is threatened by the continuing decline of the indigenous African faiths such as Voudun (which is a truly unpleasant faith; whereas I weep at the possible extinction of the Mandaean and Yazidi faith, the fact that Voudun practitioners are converting to Christianity and even Islam in droves is a very good thing, if one has any knowledge of the nightmarish impact of Voudun in West Africa, which I have, first hand. Although I worked in telecom, we could see the poverty, avoidable illness and needless taking of animal life, including endangered species, that Voudun caused, and this is not a case of some colonial Imperialistic condescension; Voudun originated in Benin and spread across West Africa but is a distortion of the beautiful traditional religions of people like the Ashante, which believed in a creator deity and embody a deep respect for nature and the preservation of natural harmony and order, whereas Voudun usurps this and introduces chaos through the idea that humans can, by killing animals, have the animals send messages to deities like Thron who will then reconfigure the natural order, viewed in the ancient Africanreligions as sacred, into a new form more acceptable to the Voidun practitioner. Voudun is done almost entirly by people seeking personal gains and unlike the indigenous faith, lacks a strong element of prayers for the community or the welfare of others. It is in fact one of only two indigenous religions anywhere in the world that I have reacted adversely to, the other being the cults of human sacrifice in Mexico and Central America. Of course Christians had their own Flower Wars in the crusades,and Joel Olsteen and the word of faith movement seem to be creating a sort of sanitized Christian Voudun that like the original, is centered on the cult of self, but does not entail sacrificial rites or fetishes (so far).

Nancy wrote:

I publicly repent of bringing up the issue of you-know-who in the first place. I should have known better. I am without excuse. I will not do it again, and if I slip and fall in this area I will again repent.
That last idea of “if I…again repent” I got from the corporate confession of sin from the liturgy of the “high church” bunch with whom I worshipped this past Sunday. I give myself about six months of basic learning curve (since I am not starting from scratch) and by then I hope to have gotten the essentials lined up more or less. We shall see.

Though I have no idea what you are repenting of, it sounds like you had a nice Sunday! So congrats for that. I am all for high church services. It’s lamentable that in Anglicanism what was once considered low is now high; basically traditional low church Protestant worship in the United a states, in which I was raised, is being killed off as organs are replaced by praise bands, and I think,that’s tragic.

On another note, I am going on a four day monastic retreat tomorrow, so I’m breaking the Wednesday fast to have turkey today. Since in the monastery I expect to eat very little. Morning prayer starts at 4 AM and continues until 8 AM, then there’s rhe Eucharist around midday followed by lunch, then Vespers at a Sunset, then Compline and the Midnight Office. So all in all, up to twelve liturgical hours per day. As I’m not a monk but a guest I a, not obliged to engage in any of the obedience a, but I might try my and, as my goal is to among other things discern whether to be a monk or pursue the married state and remain in the world.

On this subject by the way THC, I really want to avoid a charicature of Cafholic monasticism. While it is true that some Catholic Mystics reported experiences the Orthodox find disturbing, many Orthodox have found in the works of Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross, among others, a compatible approach to mystical theology. In particular, the warnings those saints together with Ignatius de Loyola sound about the dangers of seeking mystical experiences, and the importance of novices actively fleeing from supernatural visions should they occur, due to the possibility of these being illusions of a natural or demonic origin, is entirely compatible with Orthodox monastic experience. There was at one time a Benedictine monastery, Amalfion, on Mount Athos, which I would love to see reopened, and at present the Western Rite Orthodox have a few small monasteries, more sketes or hermitages really, the most famous of which is Christminster; thus far these have all been Benedictine or Columban. Ss. Benedict and Columba and indeed my Benedictine namesake William are accepted as Orthodox saints and Columba in particular has become popular among the growing Orthodox population in Western Europe, for his holiness and his love of nature.

So I do think Orthodox and Catholic monasticism, particularly in its older and more severe forms, are compatible. The difference seems to be that some mystical experiences of Catholics the Orthodox would reject at all times; surely the children of Fatima would be as vulnerable to deception as a novice? What I think the Catholic Church needs to do to align itself monastically with Orthodoxy is de emphasize the visions, and emphasize instead the virtue of the religious vocation as an end in itself, and assimilate the Philokalia and Hesychasm into its mystical practices as a means of installing an additional barrier against the kind of ecstatic, uncontrolled visions like Fatima, which seem to an outside observer to be distractions from, rather than echoes of, the Gospel message. It should be stressed that the entire Philokalia is cross referenced against scripture and was written by bishops and advanced and learned monks who were intimately familiar with the Bible and used it as a canon for evaluating the legitmacy of their own experiences; St. Nicodemus compiled these writings into an anthology to produce a Biblically cross-referenced “operations manual” for the spritual life of monks and laity alike. The three possessions of the Pilgrim in the famous 19th century Russian devotional classic The Way of the Pilgrim are his prayer rope, his Bible and his Philokalia. I do think that John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila and their work can be assimilated into this, and the Imitation of Christ could benefit from an Orthodox interpretation; likewise the more diverse range of Catholic mystical practices would function better under the strictures of Athonite rigor. This is what I am most interested in exploring with you in dialogue: the reconciliation of western and Eastern forms of Christian prayer.

@ William G.:
Many thanks for the recs, William! I’m not an audiophile, but I have ears (and am a musician, albeit very much an amateur). I think the problems I mentioned about ECM recordings are evident even with so-so headphones and speakers. I certainly don’t have an elaborate setup, and mostly rely on streaming music from Rdio.com and Spotify these days, in glorious lo-fi sound. 😉 I have 2 of the old HD iPods, but mainly use them in my car. They’re no longer being made, and I am fond of them, even though it’s possible now to get better sound quality from relatively cheap flash memory players, like those made by Sansa. With an SD card, you’re good to go…

Will check your YouTube channel as well.

__

Muff,

Hey,

The ‘difference’ might be as simple as dat Jesus taught His ‘disciples’ ta pray: “Our Father…” ?

Sopy

—

@ Sopwith:
Maybe if nobody is harming anyone, it’s best to just leave them to it? That’s my take, fwiw.

numo wrote:

@ William G.:
if you read my comments on the NAR threads, you’ll understand more about my “reluctance” to believe in things like the devil in the form of an ethereal bear than I possibly have time to articulate here.
There’s nothing – afaik – that obliges you to believe everything that an EO priest or monk says about things like ethereal bears. Just nothing. I made the same mistake (swallowing everything, being very credulous) during my teen years (and later) as a charismatic. I have come to view 99% of those things as rank supersititon, and many other things besides, which I’ve written about on the NAR threads.

Indeed so, Numo, but if you recall I myself have witnessed disturbing peculiarities. It should also be noted that Fr Lazarus recounted the ethereal bear attack story to get Coptic youth to remember to pray or make the sign of the cross when threatened, something which, in that case, he forgot to do. When I experienced peculiarities including a formless black cloud approaching me, the sign of the cross vanquished it. I have no doubt the Lord’s Prayer or any other Chrisrian invocation should work.

I am opposed to pastors who try to scare Christians about demons. The capacity of demons to inflict direct harm is minimal and mainly a concern for clergy. The primary way in which Christians are harmed is failure to control the passions of lust , gluttony, avarice, pride, wrath and so on. These passions prevent rational thought and cause us to behave in ways that are stupid and self destructive; every act of human-originated evil in the world can be traced to someone yielding to the passions rather than remaining in control of their faculties and behaving with reason and prudence. Fear is a passion and if someone is terrified that demons will attack them, they will not tithe.

In the case of the experiences of myself and Fr Lazarus, the message is, in the highly unlikely event you see anything unusual and disturbing, or even angelic, make the sign of the cross and pray that it be removed. If it is of demonic origin it will be vanquished even if you haven’t tithed. There is no Biblical requirement to give 10% of your income, the Jews actually paid a lower rate, and strictly speaking Christ exhorted us to sell everything and give it to the poor, so the idea that we are somehow accursed unless we violate 90% of Christ’s commandment is laughable. However the unfortunate realities of the world are also why our Lord expressed a willingness to forgive those who retain material possessions. However, St. james reminds us of our obligation to be charitable, when he taught that faith without works is dead.

We must not lose sight of the fact that this life was given to us for repentance, and only through our literal Exodus from the world and its trappings, will we reach the Promised Land that is the World to Come. This pilgrimage across Sinai requires us to alienate ourselves from various carnal excesses and to learn to love Christ above all other things, even our relatives. As we move away from the passions, which is where most of us falter, the spiritually advanced then tend to experience more direct attacks from demons. However unless you’re a monk in a monastery or a bishop, you are are unlikely to to experience such things; a Christian living piously in the world can reasonably expect to experience at most two or three unpleasant events that suggest the direct action of fallen angels; the bulk of evil they will deal with will be the result of themselves or other humans yielding to temptation. By making people excessively afraid of demonic attacks, fraudulent pastors distract them from the real danger of temptation. In fact, by instilling a fear of the dire consequences of not tithing, they stimulate the passions that relate to money, causing devout Christians to neglect their moral duty or even behave unethically to respond to the financial burden this tithing inflicts.

There is in the mainline Protestant churches a dangerous trend to ignore or downplay all but the most extreme evils, and especially to downplay personal failings which in the past would have been the subject of reproach. This is as big a failing as the NAR banging on about tithes and demonic possession. Christians who aren’t repenting with tears over their sins, and fighting not to sin, because they’ve been distracted by stories of demons by modern day indulgence peddlers, or because they’ve been led to believe they are without sin and have nothing to repent for by various “feel good” pastors at both mainline churches and megachurches who preach the Gospel of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism rather than Christ Crucified, are in a state of extreme peril, and we must pray for them. Indeed one reason I am contemplating a monastic vocation and going on a retreat tommorrow is my conviction that the best hope for saving the Christianity is to get more people praying for it, and as a monk I can do that continually and without worldly distraction. The odd ethereal bear is a small price to pay, and in my case I doubt I’ll rate more than an ethereal opossum attack. The degree of unpleasantness seems proportionate to the holiness of the ascetic, which is why most monks do not encounter the kind of sustained Wagnerian assaults encountered by St. Anthony.

It should be stressed also that those who chose to follow the path of John the Baptist and our Lord into the wilderness, and remain there, do not do so because it is the only way of obtaining salvation. Rather they do so because freedom from those things that cause them to sin that exist in “the world”, really, in secular situations where one is a part of the mainstream of society dealing with the temptations it offers, is eminently desirable. A monk who lives within the protective enclosure of a monastery has put a wall between himself and the filth that dominates our culture which allows for prayer to be pursued as a primary vocation.

Some of this may sound a tad Buddhist. The concept of general revelation teaches us that while Christianity alone has the revealed Truth in the person of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word and Son of God, most other religions contain portions of the truth, either because they are distortions of Christianity or Judaism, e.g. Mormonism, or because God loves all humanity, contrary to the belief of Calvinists, and those who are particularly gifted intellectually or morally will be able to discern to a certain extent various truths about Him, His natural law and so on. The Buddhists correctly identified impassioned behavior as the cause of human suffering, but confused by the inherited framework of the Dharmic religions, they incorrectly identified love as a passion, by associating it too closely with the actual passions of lust and possessiveness. Thus, Therevada Buddhism and certain other forms of Buddhism, notably Chan or Zen Buddhism, are unable to conceive of a loving creator God, and instead reject all material creation as an illusion to be escaped from into the peace of oblivion.

Within the Christian religion, we regard Love as the supreme good, and properly understood, our sinful inclinations are what impedes us from fully and properly executing this love. All thee of the major variants of Christianity agree that repenting and turning away from this sin is eminently desirable and allows for the exercise of virtue unimpeded. In the Orthodox faith we believe this process leads to deification and is the way of salvation, a concept rather alien to Protestantism, but rooted in the faith of the fourth century Church. Our basic theory of demonology is that demons tempt us to sin, and as we, through the asceticism which all Orthodox who are able engage in (we fast more than half of the year to varying degrees) develop the ability to resist temptation and eventually learn to despise the sin itself, demons will only then attempt to frighten us or physically attack us as a means of discouraging us, but they cannot kill us, and their attacks can in each instance be either withstood or, more commonly, entirely suppressed, through prayer.

I do not suggest you attempt to verify this teaching on your own, but simply join with fellow Christians in fleeing from sin. The warnings that are put out there are there for those who are highly exposed to such an attack, and the average good pious Christian will not likely suffer such an attack. For example, most of us retain a love of fine food or wine throughout our lives, and demons will try to tempt us until our last breath via that vector, and indeed I know of two very sad stories where wonderful old gentlemen passed away in restaurants eating those things which their advanced age had rendered unsafe. However, the majority of us, without kicking the temptation, will resist gluttony or drunkenness with varying degrees of success until our expiration. As long as any of the basic temptations remain however, demons will not as a rule do anything more than stimulate them. However if a monk learns to despise these things then the demons must instead try to terrify him. In like manner demons attack clergy in macabre ways to attempt to thwart their vocation or confuse them.

If you are not a monk or a cleric in one of the ancient churches, however, these incidents are simply unlikely to befall you; the incident that occurred to me happened after I comitted to a vocation and had begun the long discernment process to figure out the correct one. In addition, I have found that many Protestant clergy do not report the same kind of activity as their Orthodox and Catholic counterparts. So I can entirly understand from a Protestsnt point of view writing off such activity altogether. I would not expect to hear of a Unitarian or Presbyterian minister with stories of this kind of thing. Without wishing to appear to deprecate those churches that lack a strong ascetic discipline, since I do believe virtuous Christians with sincere faith, and indeed virtuous people of other religions, can reasonably hope for salvation, I believe that authentic experiences of demons are almost exclusively limited to two categories of people: those who engage in the occult, and those who either are, or have resolved to become, monks, nuns, or clergy of any rank or type (including cantors, readers and subdeacons) in those Christian denominations such as Orthodox, Roman Catholicism and high church Anglicanism, which posess an exceptionally strong emphasis on ascetic discipline. However the possibility of being attacked by demons such as the Ethereal Bear that descended upon Fr Lazarus should not scare people away from religious vocations; the attacks of demons are ultimately laughable, and at the end of the day, Satan himself is a pathetic creature, who traded luminous divine splendor for eternal damnation, and whose desire for the human race to share in his suffering will ultimately be thwarted through the grace and compassion of our Lord.

@ numo:
Apologies for the many typos!

Fwiw, I’ve never been martied, though that’s more a function of how things worked out than choice. I’ve been celibate for a *long* time, and you know what? It’s OK by me. I don’t need to be a nun, you know? God is here, in my life, right now. (You already know, i think, that i lived in a small convent for a while, and have great respect for the women i knew there, who were kind enough to invite me to be with them.)

@ Numo

…thanksgiving is a bad time ta be a bird?

hmmm…

His eyes are upon da wee sparrow…

(smiley face goes here)

Sopy

—

  __

“Da New Wartburg, ‘High’ ?”

intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUD-Bapn1HY

hmmm…

Oh! goodie !

  —> We get ta ‘visit’ funny little 501(c)3 blacked robed ‘middlemenz’ in widdle dark boxes, telling um our tallest secrets, pray’in ta proverbial-dead-people, while chew’in on make-believe-jesus’ every sab-bath?!?

hmmm…

blink, blink,

soundz like super fun.

(grin)

hahahahahahahaha

;~)

Exit Music: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHKCSV1Ydl4

🙂

—

@ William G.:
I never said anything about the Orthodox re. practical ministry, nor did i intend to imply anything in the least derogatory. My mind was on enclosed orders vs. orders that help people in matetial ways. The nuns i lived with belonged to an order that was focused on health care and education, though there have been many changes in the intervening decades.

Honestly, i see being a priest as a good thing for you, William, though your depiction of monastic life (especially that of anchorites) gives me cause for concern. But your pov may well change in times. I had an idealized view of nuns and clergy until i lived with the nuns and found out that they’re just as human as the next person, you know? No better, no worse, but with a particular focus and dedication. And all of them down to earth at that. Priests and monks: same deal.

@ William G.:
I *am* concerned about your statements re. “escaping into” xtianity and living in a “parallel world” that is somehow better or purer because of its isolation. We all take ourselves wherever we go, whether it’s the boardroom or the monastery, and being behind a wall on Athos is no guarantee of sanctity. Some of the people who do worst at trying to live as religious are precisely those who are attempting to use the convent or monastery to escape day to day life in the wider world (for whatever reason). They usually end up leaving within the 1st year or two, and most American-based religious have pretty rigorous psychological screening protocols in place these days that help keep those folks who are running away both out in “the world” and getting whatever help they need to deal with the things they’re fleeing. Imo, genuine vocations are rare.

As for creating a parallel society, numerous xtian groups have tried it and most have failed miserably. I’ve been involved in a couple of attempts myself, back in yhe 70s, and somehow lived to tell the tale without utterly despairing of my belief in God. But a lot of my former peers haven’t been able to hang onto that, and frankly, I’m not at all sure how i did. Abusive, closed groups are dead-ends for faith and hope in most cases. You need only look to the fallout from the Culture Wars to see the extent of the damage. Every generation repeats these cycles, because people of every generation invariably think they can reinvent the wheel and don’t yet have enough life experience to realize that it isn’t possible.

By *no* means am i intending to disparage those who have genuine vocations. But we, being human, tend to make the same mistakes our predecessors made. I wish i had known whwt i know now at 20 or so… not that i can claim to actually know much now! But the process of living tends to season and temper a person. That has as much to do with learning to live with change – and loss – as anything else. I can never go back to being the woman i was prior to the death of my father, nor, in all honesty, would i want to. That was the 1st death of someone very close to me that i was to experience, and it changed me irrevocably. (I don’t like grief, though it’s inevitable; i *do* believe that learning what it’s like to grieve and survive has made me more understanding of other people, and more able to support them, however little i might actually be able to do to alleviate their suffering).

Just some things to think about. Not definitive by any means!

@ William G.:
In the Directory for the Publick Worship of God, attached to the Westminster Confession of Faith, you will find a section on ‘Publick Solemn Fasting’ in times of danger and extremity. It was and remains a communal activity and is, in my view, a better demonstration of being ” in the world, but not of the world”. It’s not an escape into anything, salt loses its savour if it is not sprinkled.

@ Nancy:

Part 2

Here is the interesting part. Here is what is going on. Forget trying to make everything demons and forget the psychological/emotional stuff, that is not it. The brain is getting mixed signals from the inner ears on each side of the body. Usually the information from the two inner ears is consistent. If the left ear tells the brain that the head is turning to the right, then the right ear also tells the brain that the head is turning to the right If one inner ear is dysfunctioning, however, the brain gets mixed signals and basically “panics” (that is not the right word exactly). In the recovery process the brain “compensates” for the contradictory information it is getting (could be described as reprogramming) and carries on. In the meantime the other avenues for perception of relationship to the environment needed for balance (vision and proprioception) continue to function and that facilitates both bodily function and also brain compensating processes. So they say, the process may take weeks to months, and sometimes the brain decompensates and the process has to be gone through again, but sometimes not. And they say, don’t try to avoid all the symptoms, go ahead and let the brain get all the input information it needs to facilitate compensation.

Hear me now: this is not demonic. I understand how those who tend to think in those terms would get this wrong since the experiencing of it is terminally weird, but this is not supernatural. This is the brain doing what it can in the face of a malfunction in a part of its necessary systems to experience the environment. I am not going to preach about this, but I do want to say that not everything that would play well as some spiritual story of a demonic attack is that. I suspect that many of the stories that people tell of the supernatural are not that. I believe in the supernatural, I just do not believe in all the stories that are told. about it. Oh that more true believers would quit being afraid of demons and also quit being afraid of science/medicine. Some of them would be much better off.

@ Nancy:
Oh Nancy, that’s awful. I have had terrible panic attacks that feel a bit like that, like the dimensions have gone wrong somehow.

Get well soon & keep fighting those inner ear demons 😉

@ Nancy:

Sorry you had that experience! Are you home and feeling better?

I had a day much as you describe many years ago. It was awful. I had to stay in bed and not move my head otherwise I would be bouncing off walls and hanging over the toilet. Day two was much better with a bit of weakness. No lasting effect for me and I’m praying the same for you. It never crossed my mind that demons could be involved. I was on vacation at 8,000 feet instead of sea level. I thought it might be altitude sickness. But since we were on day four at these heights, I ruled that out.

I’ve also had the ocular migranes. Never thought they were visions of anything heavenly or demonic. Just knew I’d better get home and in bed within 20 minutes or I’d be stuck wherever I was with a massive, vomit inducing headache for 3-6 hours. Had those nasties for 4 or so years. They stopped as suddenly as they started. I was praying for their end though. I also had a thorough medical evaluation including brain scans to rule out tumors and such about a year in with the headaches.

@ Nancy:

I’ve gotta chime in with Numes, Beaks, and Bridget here. Hope you’re feeling better. You are highly valued by all of us here at TWW! Good take on the supernatural by the way, more often than not, the bad stuff you’ve described happens in and of itself by purely rational means, with no connection whatsoever to demons, ‘unresolved sin in your life’, or anything else the fearful and ignorant can conjure up.

@ William G.:

the Whirlimg Dervishes

I believe you are speaking of the Mevlevi order of Sufis, which originated in Persia, but has found its fullest expression in Turkey. They have very elaborate and beautiful music which is played as a prelude to the ceremonial whirling, during that part of the ceremony, and after. It is very stately and measured and grave, and in no way some kind of unbridled, crazy “trance” ritual. The placement of each man on the floor during the ceremony possibly (according to some scholars) represents that of the planets and stars in the heavens. The whirling is *not* done to facilitate the kind of “holy roller” phenomenon that can be found in some Pentecostal and charismatic churches. It is intended as a means of communion with God, and of worship of him.

There are many different Sufi orders (brotherhoods is another name for them, but there are a few that admit women as well, and some womens’ Sufi orders) throughout the Islamic world, and they exist in both Sunni and Shia Islam – in fact, Sufism began in Iran, and its greatest poets were Iranian. Their work forms the core of Iranian literature, and some of them have become popular in the West in recent years – Rumi, to name one.

Everyone focuses on the “whirling dervishes,” partly because their ceremonies look pretty spectacular, and partly because there are performing troupes that stage “ceremonies” for tourists in Turkey, and some that tour the world. Their music, afaik, is authentic, but it is all staged, and many parts of the actual ceremony are left out.

Most Sufi orders that I know of seem to concentrate on chanting the name of God, or singing, with measured percussive accompaniment. They are not seeking to be like people at a rave – they are seeking communion with God.

I really think it’s important to put Sufism into its proper context, which is Islam as a whole. In Saudi Arabia, since the Kingdom has Wahhabi religious leaders, Sufism is frowned on, though I have no doubt that ceremonies take place in private. But I also suspect that adherents run risks in doing so – just as Muslims from sects other than Wahhabism are often persecuted in Saudi Arabia.

It’s not just xtians who go through it in the Middle East, as we are seeing with the Yazidis and other religious minorities in areas in the the control of the so-called Islamic State.

Nancy wrote:

About spending Thanksgiving in the ER

Nancy, hugs and to your ongoing healing, and to your courage in getting help when you were on your own. I have taken a ‘medical note’ out of your book in case this ever happens to anyone around me.

Patti wrote:

Did the doctors give you any advice on prevention?

No, but there is quite a bit of information about this condition on line.

@ Ken:
What do you mean by “dabbling in the occult or some similar activity”? This is a sincere question, btw. I think evangelicals are far too quick to label unfamiliar religious/philosophical beliefs as “occult,” regardless of whether they have anything to do with ocvultism or not. At least, that’s been my experience, and my own narrative of things i’ve been around has changed significantly dueto being able to look at “the occult” as something other than a catchall phrase for anything that isn’t specifically approved by evangelical xtianity.

I’m especially interested in what you mean by “some similar activity,” btw.

@ Ken:

My point was related to the recent discussions about Morris et al and that type of thinking regarding demons. I have heard people make statements in which the top of their differential diagnosis of any weird thing is “demonic.” I tried to give what was hopefully a vivid description of an experience which was off the chart weird at the level at which I experienced it and which was not supernatural, thereby trying to show that leaping on some supernatural explanation for something, no matter how weird, is not always wise.

And there are people who do that, as we have recently discussed in a recent post. I disagree with them, and I was trying to give a recent and vivid illustration of why I disagree with them.

By the way, for those curious, I will say I have found the monastery extraordinary. Superficially it is a farm conjoined with a hotel and four churches, on weekends filled with throngs of euphoric pilgrims. However, below the surface one can perceive what the monks are up against: all temptation seems magnified, all physical frailty intensified and every night I have had nightmares. The devil I believe is more active here, attempting to compensate for the increased holiness and reduced temptation.

I read in the library, and then purchased from the bookstore, a fantastic compendium of patristics. I wept when I read St. Mark of Ephesus and had a good laugh when reading St. Athanasius, who I have come to regard as a dear friend. The thought occurred to me that Orthodoxy, Carholicism and those forms of Protestantism which promote Patristic continuity, especially high church Anglicanism, can be understood as Christianity presented in narrative form from the time of Christ until the present, through generations of successive saints. I embrace the so called apocryphal books of the Old Testament because I believe there was no rupture or discontinuity between the religion of Moses and that of Christ, and the 500 year gap that exists between the last canonical book and Matthew 1:1 is bridged by these works, such as The Wisdom of Solomon, which in its final form dates from around the time of the downfall of Marc Antony. In like manner, I embrace the continuity of patristics, the apostolic succession and so on, because I believe there has not been a rupture between the Church of Paul and the Church today. There is a continuing narrative that stretches from Genesis 1:1, or John 1:1, through the present, and into a future described throughout the Bible using metaphor and analogy, the interpeetarion of which will become clear when that future is arrived at, if not retrospectively, if one dares to assume the perseverance of the linear motion of time.

THC wrote:

William G. wrote:
if Mary is declared co redemptrix the status of Catholics as Christians could be disputed.
Well, you can join the Protestants then, and many of them have already beat you to it.
For me, the visible unity of the Catholic Church is attributed to Christ setting up the hierarchy of Bishops under the successor or St. Peter, the Pope. You just can’t find that same unity in the Orthodox Churches.
I do believe at some point all Orthodox Churches and Protestants will return to the Catholic Church. I can assure you, though, it won’t come at the expense of repudiating any dogmas. I hope the Orthodox do come home again.

The Orthodox and Catholics are actively working on reunification. We agreed to Ravenna, and the dialogue is meaningful, unlike for example ARCIC, which has become an expensive farce for both Canterbury and Rome since the ECUSA decided to ordain women in 1979. It is unlikely but not impossible that Mary will be declared co redemptrix, but if a Pope were to do that, it is highly likely that the ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox would collapse.

The Orthodox are not Protestant and we are not Catholic. We interpret the Petrine primacy as having been distributed to the patriarchs of Rome, Alexandria, the see of Mark, and Peter’s other see, Antioch, and to furthermore be something that is dependent on the Protos maintaining the ancient doctrines. In some respects Ss John XXIII, John Paul II and HH Benedict seem to be Orthodox bishops de facto if not de jure, or perhaps vice versa. Certainly much of what they said was pleasing to us. However the bitter sectarian violence in Yugoslavia and now the Ukraine is an impediment as far as Byzantine relations are concerned.

As far as the Oriental Orthodox are concerned there are fewer barriers to unity. Joint Christological declarations have negated the Chalcedonian schism. Pope Tawadros made haste to Pope Francis after his inauguration and showered him with awesome Coptic souvenirs. The Copts who I love very much stock the worlds best Christian gift shops. So I think with very minor effort reunion with the OOs can happen and is likely to precede reunion with the Byzantines. A handful of Erhiopians are against the reunion but you have no canonical Oriental jurisdictions continuing to denounce all ecumenical dialogue as heresy, whereas you do among the Byzantines. I think the status of the Byzantine Catholic jurisdictions is eating at many Byzantines ; internally within the Roman church the Byzantines have increasingly been a force for Orthodoxification, promoting hesychasm, the essence/energies distinction, and a third way alternative to the present bitter internal divide between the Kasperite “Spirit of Vatican II” faction and the Thomistic traditionalists such as HE Raymond Cardinal Burke.

Embracing an Orthodox approach internally would I think solve this schism; the once-remarried could take communion, but the fasting discipline would be ratcheted up to a level exceeding that of the old Latin Rite. The Orthodox fast for most of the year; if all Catholics did that then questions about remarried couples would seem less relevant. The physical weakness produced by the fasting disciplines that most Eastern Catholics now observe, if introduced into the Latin Rite, would cause a profound quiescence and make the tensions subside. This would also help to engender a restoration of full communion.

I think given the multi faith nature of modern Europe, if the Orthodox ever lost hope in the process of,reconciling with the Pope,,they would simply ordain their own Bishop of Rome. At present such a Bishophric does not exist, the Orthodox continue to avoid stepping on Roman jurisdiction, and assign their bishops in Western Europe to titular sees such as Diokleia and Sourozh. The Roman church has in part reciprocated by abolishing certain Latin Rite Patriarchates in the East.

One thing that does frighten the Orthodox is the liturgical decline in the wake of Vatican II. There have been isolated cases of this spreading into Byzantine Catholic parishes. Of greatest concern is the Melkite Bishop in Venezuela who says the Divine Liturgy versus populum, without an iconostasis, and with a praise band. A reform of the reform in the Latin Rite and the enforcement of liturgical canons in the Eastern Rites will profoundly help.

What matters to the Orthodox is the unaltered transmission of the ancient faith. The ruling bishop is important, but of greater importance is that the faith of Ss. Athanasius, Cyril, and Pope Gregory I be preserved. A systematic process of reconciling post-schism Catholicism with that faith will precede a reunification; the sanctity of Gregory Palamas, Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, Seraphim of Sarov etc must be accepted by Rome, and Rome must explain to,the Orthodox how specific Catholic doctrines can be reconciled with their doctrines.

This process is not impossible. I can’t imagine Protestants and Cafholics ever being able to agree on the Papacy, Soteriology, mystical theology, et cetera,,whereas in the case of Rome enough similarity exists to where reconciliation seems possible.

The Orthodox Church is the second largest “denomination” after the Roman church and has continually rejected certain aspects of Protestsntism since the 17th century. That said, Anglicanism at times has drawn very close to us; if I had to guess I would say a plurality of converts to Orthodoxy are former Anglicans.

For my part, I increasingly desire the widest possible dissemination of Orthodox doctrine across denominational lines. This is why I support the Byzantine Catholics efforts at an internal conversion. I would like to see the Orthodox accept Protestants at our seminaries and provide liturgical service books and Patristic materials for their use. Our stance is that doctrine must be aligned before communion can occur, and the best way to do that is to teach Orthodox ideas to the non Orthodox who desire communion with us, and this will facilitate that reconciliation.

On another note, a monk confirmed that my experience of increased temptation and nightmares was a demonic attack intended to interfere with my pilgrimage, and that such attacks are particularly horrible for the novices. He anointed me and gave me oil for further use if needed, and provided additional instruction, and I feel better. The specific manner in which each nightmare preyed upon specific fears of mine according to him is a classical form of attack. It seems the biggest advantage to being in a monastery is the continual presence of fathers who have fought and won spiritual battles and can advise you on tactics. I should say to THC I strongly suspect from what I know that most traditional Catholic monasteries are similarly equipped and operate on essentially the same basis. One difference seems to be the lack of religious orders; some of the monks here are hermits living in a Carthusian manner, some are like Benedictines focused on hospitality and some are like Friars of various orders running small parishes as far away as London. Parishes that can’t afford a married priest get a hieromonk, and a tiny minority of hieromonks become abbots, archimandrites and bishops; all secular priests are married. However those monks who don’t want to go outside can remain in the monastery. Which I suspect would be preferred even by those who do leave.

@ Nancy:

I know I’m late to this part of the thread. Nancy, so sorry you had that experience. I can so sympathize. I considered the possibility that I was possessed or oppressed before being diagnosed with several inner ear disorders, one of which has only been imaged fairly recently with the teeninesy slices of the best new CT machines. The inner ear can make one feel totally out of control or even disconnected from the world, but it is so hard to diagnose or even understand unless one has experienced it personally. Hope you are much better and have some meds to help calm your vestibular system and for nausea.

William G. wrote:

the liturgical decline in the wake of Vatican II

this is a baffling statement to me. Could you explain what you mean by “liturgical decline in the wake of Vatican II”? Serious question, not trying to be difficult here! (Though who knows, I might indeed be that anyway. ;))

@ William G.:
You’re sounding like Chrysostom, and that really troubles me. He hated Judaism and Jewish people; to me, he is one of the worst and most vicious anti-semites in all of church history.

As for the religion of Moses being the same thing as Orthodox xtianity, only insofar as Moses worshipped the One True God. There is a *huge* lot of stuff that happened between Moses’ time and that of Jesus’ earthly life, and i deeply distrust these claims. Remember what Paul said about branches from wild olive trees being grafted into an already existing tree? Jesus was Jewish. So were most of his earliest followers, including his own mother. I cannot understand why people assume that God took this out of the picture, because it is there, right donw to Paul’s taking a Nazirite vow and the scriptures of the early churvh (pre-NT) being the Hebrew Bible.

You can try and erase or reinterpret all this and much more, but i urge you to think critically and not just read sources that all present things from the same angle. I don’t thinkmGod required that you put your brain on the shelf when you converted – and while i realize that likely sounds harsh, i am trying to get you to think outside the box, even if only a little bit.

@ numo:

Let me again remind all that I had a close encounter of the religious kind with some serious baptist fundamentalists, but I have never actually been that, not by a long shot. By serious baptist fundamentalists I mean people who consider Liberty U to be wildly liberal and therefore off limits. And for the general public, LU is indeed wildly liberal according to some BF standards. I say this to put into context what I am about to say.

Reading what William is saying about the things which one ought to avoid because of lurking spiritual dangers, I have heard all that already within BF circles. That and more. I did not hear much talk about supernatural spiritual dangers (demons for example) but rather about the dangers of “compromise” and being led astray and the danger of compromising one’s “witness.”

I had a real life experience with dealing with this sort of thinking. A few decades ago the Sikhs built a temple in the Raleigh/Durham area, and a Sikh surgeon invited me and some others to the open house which was to include food. For some reason he made sure to tell us all that the food had been offered to idols (his terminology not mine.) Until that moment I did not think they used that term as contrasted with some Hindus on staff. And he had been made clear that it was not a religious ceremony but rather an open house. Anyhow, I was going to go because I thought it a good opportunity to see what they do and also because it would have been the polite thing to do. But one of my own employees who had been invited was having real trouble with the food offered to idols thing and asked me about it in front of other people, two of whom were current or former BF people. They were all convinced that christians should not go to the event. Based on what Paul said about this exact sort of situation (though he was talking about food in a private home and not a temple and about not actually knowing about the offered to idols thing) and based on the degree of disturbance of these other people, I did not go. Had it not been for the “weaker brethren” I would have gone since it was not a religious ceremony for the visitors but simply an open house as it had been made clear to us, and since no one would have been required to eat anything. But based on the BF preoccupation about what something might look like and what somebody might think I chose to simply not go. I hate that. I would like to have gone. I/we did eat with this family in their home and nobody talked about offering anything to anything. We just had some really great Indian food.

A similar situation happened when a Hindu pediatrician moved to a new home and wanted to show it off to co-workers. I don’t blame her for that-it was nice and nicely done. One room in the house was dedicated to their household idol (again “idol” is the word she used) and set up replete with idol and canopy and colored fabrics and flowers. Very impressive. She wanted us to move on around the room (like in a gallery more or less) and told us to take off our shoes to show respect (for the idol? or the god of the idol?) The issue for me was what to do at that point. I did not take off my shoes or enter the room, but I did extensively compliment the hostess on her home in general and her hospitality. In this case I would not have taken off my shoes even if there were not “weaker brethren” around since it had been explicitly explained as a gesture of respect for the idol itself, not for the hostess, and not just an Indian cultural thing.

A third event was the funeral for the two sons of an Egyptian muslim urologist. The deaths were accidental and tragic, and the whole community loved these people. The funeral was at the local methodist church and was a muslim ceremony, mostly in English. At one point the entire congregation was invited to stand as a gesture of respect and recite certain muslim prayers. The entire congregation stood, but the only person reciting the prayers was a Syrian orthodox surgeon who had been worshipping with the episcopalians in our town. We all showed respect but we did not participate in the prayers-respect for the family, for the dead children, for the muslims conducting the ceremony.

I don’t have any problem with the decisions of people who would have done otherwise in any of these situations, nor do I care what anybody thinks of my/our decisions. We none of us ever thought that we would actually be in these sorts of situations, but in our town there had been active recruitment of international physicians, so there it was, decision time mostly without time to think about it before hand.

As for the other things to be avoided that William talked about, I do think that there are some professing christians who have no really solid christian belief basis and for whom some things are best avoided. As to the principle of avoiding some marginal things, I think that is a good idea to an extent, depending on a number of variables. As to avoiding the whole world, I think that it is better to try to become mature in belief than to try to hide from everything. In fact, I think that “go ye in all the world” explicitly precludes excessive separation practices, at least for the majority of people.

@ numo:
I need to vlarify something. “Daven” = “pray” in Yiddish, while “davening” is an Anglicization of the word. Many Orthodox bow frequentky, or rock forward and back whole reciting prayers, and it is that aspect of davening that i was comparing to the prostrations required by the Eastern Orthodox churches.

I cannot even fathom how saying Jewish prayers could be in any way understood as opening oneself to ungodly influences.

dee wrote:

Did you know that Jesus and Paul were standing before a huge rock temple with niches cut into the rock for idols?
https://bible.org/seriespage/peter’s-confession-and-christ’s-church-matthew-1613-20

So I read that link and of course it is written from a Protestant perspective. One thing to note is that it said, “All the text would be saying is what the rest of the New Testament affirms, that Christ established His Church on the apostles.”

It was Peter, who was singularly given the keys of the kingdom. None of the other apostles were given the keys. That is important. The Church was to be built on Peter. The analogy is to a prime minister of the kingdom in the Old Testament who was given the keys to the city. He actually wore huge keys around his neck.

As far as infallibility goes, Jesus said, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Since God cannot bind error, the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching error, and is infallible when she teaches something to be bound by the entire church.

numo wrote:

I cannot even fathom how saying Jewish prayers could be in any way understood as opening oneself to ungodly influences.

I see no problem with most of what goes on in a Jewish synagogue, as far as I know. I was invited once but could not go. Now if they had as part of some prayer thanks to God that they were not christians, I would listen but not participate in that of course. We have got to get past anti-semitism, and the fact that we are not doing that fast enough is a black eye on christianity, I am thinking.

numo wrote:

William G. wrote:
the liturgical decline in the wake of Vatican II
this is a baffling statement to me. Could you explain what you mean by “liturgical decline in the wake of Vatican II”? Serious question, not trying to be difficult here! (Though who knows, I might indeed be that anyway. ;))

Specifically I was referring to the Novus Ordo or Pauline mass, and what is more, the unauthorized abuses of it, like the infamous clown masses. The Pauline mass is in general a gross simplification of the Tridentine, and many Orthodox fear that full communion with the Roman church would see the Divine Liturgy similarly stripped of certain so-called accretions and repetitions (“Again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord…” being oft-cited), that the Byzantine or Slavonic chant would give way to popular hymns and praise band music, and that vesture would likewise be similarly simplified. It should be stressed that, with the exception of the use of Old Church Slavonic and Koine Greek in Russia and Greece, the Orthodox as a rule use either the vernacular or a fluid mix of the vernacular and a liturgical tongue, or two vernacular tongues and a liturgical tongue in the case of the Copts and Syriacs; a Coptic service in America will use Coptic, Arabic and English.

This, I think the Orthodox and many Catholics would be happier if the average Latin Rite service used a mix of Latin and the vernacular, had some Gregorian chant, and essentially used the Tridentine rubrics. This is in fact what the reforms of Vatican II specified; Cardinal Bugnini greatly exceeded his mandate and worse, many of his ideas were then implemented as ecumenical standards, such as the three year lectionary. The old Roman lectionary closely resembles the old Anglican lectionary and the old Orthodox lectionaries; whatever its faults, it is an ancient system that operates in a manner that one can trace to the early Church. In the distant past Palestinian synagogues used a three year lectionary of Torah readings as opposed to the Babylonian annual cycle that is now used universally, but the Christian lectionary has always followed a one year cycle.

dee wrote:

@ William G.:
I am glad that you found comfort in your visit.
Could you try to be a bit more careful in how you express your point of view? We have people from different faiths who visit this blog an i want them to feel as comfortable as you have felt in expressing yourself.

I do have to apologize profusely on this point.

Just so we’re clear, I do not believe the ancient canon prohibitng clergy entering synagogues to be applicable today, and I do not think it wrong for Christians to visit welcoming Jews to see how they worship, and to, for example, visit the Western Wall.

I would like to elaborate specifically what I was referring to regarding Jewish prayer. Firstly, I would think it wrong for a Christian to visit a non-Messianic synagogue in preference to going to a church. Going to a Messianic Jewish congregation on the other hand is equivalent to going to church. Secondly, like many Jews, I believe the Kabbalah to be a departure from the ancient practice of Judaism, and incompatible with Christianity in so far as its conception of God as a series of emanations that require reunification, and its conception of the liturgy as theurgy, seems to depart from the literal interpretation of the Old Testament and to be irreconcilable with Christian doctrines regarding the nature of prayer, the relationship of God and man, and the Holy Trinity.

Thirdly, and most importantly, there is a prayer in most Orthodox services called the “eighteen”, which in ancient times contained a litany of eighteen blessings. Around the first century AD, coincidentally with the split with Christianity, a nineteenth clause was added, which amounts to a curse against heretics. Many scholars have interpreted this prayer as being in opposition to Christianity. I am opposed to liturgical cursing in general; I would not attend an Anglican commination, am uncomfortable with the way in which some bishops such as Seraphim of Pireaus conduct the Sunday of Orthodoxy services, and I would not personally say the nineteenth clause in general. I agree with the Assyrian Catholicos Mar Dinkha IV that curses do not belong in prayer books; and I lament their prevalence in many ancient Christian liturgical rites.

This specifically is what I was referring to when expressing concerns about Christian participation in Jewish religious services. However, many reformed and conservative synagogues have omitted the clause in question. Where hostility towards Christ or Christians does not exist, fellowship should exist, and we should remember furthermore that most Jews who resent us in modern times have rather good historical reasons for doing so, for example, the deplorable treatment of Jews in the Roman Ghetto by the Papal State.

I should also stress that the despicable violence committed by Christians against Jews due to blood libel, alleged anti-Christian references in the Talmud, et cetera, represents, to me, utter apostasy from Christianity. I cannot consider such actions anything but anti-Christian in nature.

I have come to the point where I cannot personally join in prayer with anyone outside the Church regardless of religion. However, at the same time, I cannot endorse any hostility or cruelty to non-Christians.

Ken wrote:

I’ve heard testimony from those I would reasonably trust that sexual perversions, being born out of wedlock, involvement with other religions can open the door to oppression, but I can’t claim any direct experience of this and must be careful of letting my talk exceed my walk.

I know of no Patristic view that persons born outside of marriage are prone to demonic activity. The fourth century church baptized such infants in the same manner as those born within wedlock. So your caution on that point seems warranted and commendable.

Nancy wrote:

And yes these people practice open communion so I participate in the Eucharist with people who believe the same thing about the Real Presence that the RCC does.

Let me clarify that statement. It is my understanding that individual episcopalians are varied in their beliefs as to what Real Presence means, some holding to transubstantiation almost identical to what the RCC believes, and some not that at all. It is my understanding that they differ on the validity of the episcopal priesthood, or not. So it is possible that an individual episcopal person may hold to a belief in transubstantiation at the same time that a catholic may deny that this is what is going on at the episcopal church based on validity of the priesthood. In any case, the episcopalians practice open communion for any validly baptized christian, so all sorts of opinions (apparently) may be kneeling at the altar rail, including the almost idential to catholic and the far from catholic.

Hey, they can do what they want. I just wanted to clear up what sounded like an inaccurate dogmatic statement on my part. Like I always say: things are complicated.

@ Bridget:
It was ‘can’ rather than ‘will’. What struck me at the time was that the bible teacher saying this, who clearly had some experience of pastoral deliverance ministry, was making the point we cannot sin and get away with it. Disobeying the commands of God, whether to avoid direct involvement with the occult, or more general disobedience, such as ignoring the biblical sex ethic, can make us vulnerable to spiritual attack.

This is completely different from looking down on those who happen to have been born out of wedlock – after all, this is hardly their fault. It’s something it appears Jesus was subjected to.