Riding Bikes

We had a nice relaxing evening with dinner and then letting the kids ride bikes and scooters at Deb’s parents’ home. I like summer.

Posting from My iPhone

WordPress released their iPhone app, allowing blog posts from iPhones. With that and Twittelator, I can post my thoughts and activities from virtually anywhere, which I’m doing right now.

Fr Stephen & “The Habit of Prayer”

Ahhh… prayer. Who doesn’t struggle at prayer? And underneath that struggle are all sorts of motivations and compulsions, most of them probably unhealthy and distorted.

Fr Stephen has a great post about prayer. But those who read this blog know that I love virtually everything Fr Stephen posts. I was going to post an excerpt from the post below, but all of it was so good and I couldn’t decide what part to post here. So… go read it HERE. Enjoy.

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Happy Independence Day!

It’s about 11 pm and we just arrived home from a full day. We spent the morning relaxing. Then we drove out to my parents’ home to pick up Michael, who has spent the last few days with them. Then we drove home and went swimming at Debbie’s sister’s home. Then we cleaned up, bought food and headed over to Debbie’s parents’ home for a BBQ with them and Deb’s sister’s family. We followed up the BBQ with fireworks!

I’ve posted several photos of the pyrotechnic action below.

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Mandles!

My wife found a great Youtube video. It’s a mock-commercial for Mandles — candles for men. These babies are 1% wax and 99% testosterone. Check out the video below.

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Only Begotten Son

I absolutely love singing this song during Divine Liturgy. I always look forward to it and my heart soars every time we sing it. There is so much beauty, history and faith in this confession.

 

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Aaahhh… Summer!

Debbie’s already posted a couple of times about how summer is progressing for our family. (You can read them HERE and HERE.) I am so glad that she gets a few weeks off this summer. She’s worked so hard non-stop for the last few years. I know she has missed spending leisurely time with our kids. And I know they have missed it with her as well.

I am also enjoying the slower pace. I feel that as I age, my body quickly acclimates to a more relaxing schedule than when I was younger. Yesterday was a good example. I got home from work about 4:30 pm. Debbie and the kids were swimming at their cousins’ home, so I exercised and went for a nice walk. Later, I took Debbie out for Garden Burgers at one of the family-owned restaurants in Glendora. We’ve gotten to know the owner’s wife, who is Greek Orthodox. So while waiting for our burgers, we had a nice conversation with her about fasting (we’re currently in the Apostle’s Fast) and how to help our kids learn the spiritual importance about fasting. During dinner, Debbie and I had a nice relaxing conversation. After we arrived home from dinner, I went out to water the grass in front of our apartment complex. For some reason, the sprinklers haven’t been turning on, so the grass and bushes are like crispy bacon without the cool bacon aroma. So I spent a nice time in the cool evening, watering the lawn and listening to John Grisham’s Playing for Pizza. Then later, Debbie, Michael and I watched a good cowboy movie called Crossfire Trail, which is based off of a Louis L’amour novel.

No stress. No rush. No scurrying to finish homework or scrambling to get to a meeting.

And as I thought about the slower rhythm of summer, it reminded me that we’re also experiencing a slower rhythm at Church. The Paschal season ended on Pentecost a couple of weeks ago. And as wonderful as Lent, Holy Week and Pascha were, I am enjoying the slower rhythm of the Church. It’s as if the Church is making room for all of us to take the victory and beauty of Pascha and to live it out in the world personally — in our normal rhythms of prayer, fasting, family, friends, work, and play. For me, this is what being a Christ-follower is all about — learning to grow into and embody Jesus’ fullness in real life, to become by grace what Christ is by nature. That’s salvation. That’s mission. That’s life. It really is that simple because Jesus is my salvation, my mission and my life. And being in a Church where this is just normal life for everyone is absolutely awesome!

So, I feel like I’m walking through life more thoughtful and contemplative right now. And while there are things I’d like to write about, even feel compelled to write about at times, to do so without restraint would risk engaging in a flurry that is alien to what is best for this moment and season.

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Facebook & Twitter

For anyone who might be interested, I’m on Facebook and Twitter.

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N.T. Wright on The Colbert Report

I just found out that N.T. Wright will be a guest on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report tonight, June 19, 2008. I probably won’t be able to catch it, so I’d love to hear from anyone who does.

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Fr Stephen & “Sacraments: The World as Mystery”

Fr Stephen has a wonderful post on a sacramental worldview. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“Without a truly “sacramental” world-view, the presence of God and of all things holy remain alien to our life and are reached only occasionally and with great difficulty (if at all)…

“There is a vast difference and distinction between a world-view which allows for such things as sacraments and a world-view which understands that all of creation is a sacrament. With the first, one can be religious from time-to-time. With the latter, communion with God is a way of life and the whole of life.

Everything is changed in such an understanding. It is in just such a context (and quoting from Scripture) that we can understand that the Church not only reads the Scriptures, but is itself the Scriptures (see my earlier series on an Orthodox hermeneutic). In the same way we not only eat the Body of Christ, we also are the Body of Christ.”

You can read the entire post HERE.

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Orthodoxy, Reconciliation & the Environment

Last night at St Peter’s, Debbie and I attended the last class in a series on the Eastern Orthodox perspective of salvation. Over the last six weeks, Fr Patrick has been answering three basic questions: 1) What is salvation?, 2) How are we saved?, and 3) Why are we saved? He concluded his series last night by examining the last question. I’m hoping to blog more about it in a future post, but let me give you a teaser — our participation in mission must flow from our salvation. In other words, we are being saved (i.e. transfigured by God’s energies into God’s likeness) in order to be co-laborers and co-creators with God. But again, that topic is for a future post.

Last night, Fr Patrick handed out an address delivered by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who was awarded the Oslo Sophie Prize in 2002. (A quick sidenote: Patriarch Bartholomew is the Patriarch of Constantinople, and is the “first among equals” in the Eastern Orthodox Communion.) In the address, Patriarch Bartholomew speaks to the global environmental issues with profound clarity, demonstrating that Eastern Orthodoxy provides both a proper theological framework and relevant experiential foundation to address the issues of our natural environment (and by extrapolation, other issues of reconciliation and justice within our world).

You can read Patriarch Bartholomew’s full address HERE.

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A Little Color and Life to My Workspace

Debbie and the kids bought me a very thoughtful Father’s Day gift. About a month ago, our technology department moved into a new location. I like my area to be sparse. However, it was a bit too sparse. So Debbie and the kids bought a bamboo plant in a cool vase for me. It’s brought a nice sense of balance, color and life to my cubicle.

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Full & Satisfying Weeks

The kids’ last day of school was this past Thursday. So, the last couple of weeks have been very full. On top of our “normal” weekly routine, we had a band performance, a choir performance, a birthday party, finals, end-of-year trips and parties, and an eighth grade promotion.

Yup. Cathy is moving up to high school. She’s done such a great job in Jr. High and, as you can tell from the pictures, we are all very proud of her.

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Holy Pentecost

Tomorrow is Holy Pentecost for the Orthodox Church. Not surprisingly, Orthodoxy understands Pentecost much differently than Pentecostals and Charismatics. In my past life as a Charismatic Christian, I associated Pentecost and the subsequent Spirit-filled life with zeal and exuberance that often bordered on emotionalism. Not so with Orthodoxy. If I understand it correctly, the Spirit-filled life is one of powerful and profound silence.

Tonight at Liturgy, Fr Patrick explained the Spirit-filled life with the analogy of the Sacramento River. At its headwaters, the Sacramento River is small, shallow and noisy as it bubbles from the ground. As it moves, it gathers water and grows wider and deeper. And as it does so, it grows quieter. When it’s finally at its most powerful and deepest point in its journey, it is silent. So it is with the Spirit-filled life. Pentecost was an explosion of energy and exuberance as the promised Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ followers. But as the Church matured, that initial experienced transformed into an ever-deepening and ever-quieting life as God’s power rooted out sins and passions that divide us and forged divine unity.

Here’s part of a hymn that we sung tonight at Vespers and will sing again tomorrow morning:

“When He came down and confused the tongues,

The Most High divided the nations;

but when He distributed the tongues of fire,

He called all people to unity.

Therefore, with one voice we glorify the most-Holy Spirit.”

Kontakion of Pentecost

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Shawn Ragan & “Prelest”

I am thoroughly enjoying Shawn’s blog. He is a professional Protestant pastor who is willing to walk away from his job and ministry in order to follow Jesus into the Orthodox Church. His posts are very authentic, well-written, and inspiring.

One of his latest posts, called “Prelest,” discusses an issue I’ve faced personally as well. Spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving, are core practices in Orthodoxy. Because of this, it is easy for us who are naturally self-disciplined to take on the mantle of spiritual disciplines with a bit more ease. Add to that my distorted perfectionism, and I can fall prey to the idea that “more is better.” So if praying for 10 minutes every morning is good, then I’m going to shoot for 20 or 30 or 60 minutes. And if I succeed at this, I fall into a second and more devious trap of judgmentalism toward those who can’t or won’t practice spiritual disciplines with any kind of consistency.

Well, all of that is a spiritual deception called Prelest or spiritual pride. And it is demonic. As Shawn explains in his post, if my spiritual discipline is leading toward spiritual pride, demons will actually empower my spiritual discipline. The idea of demons actually empowering my spiritual disciplines so that they further blind and deceive me is absolutely terrifying to me. Simply engaging in spiritual disciplines is not enough for formation. They can actually hurt me if done incorrectly.

Bottom-line, I must remain humble before the Lord in both my knowledge and practice. Jesus alone is my salvation. And I’m reminded over and over that I need the wisdom and nurture of his Church to help me in my journey towards him.

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Fr Stephen & “Is Relationship with God What We Want?”

Things have been pretty busy as we draw to the end of another school year. So I haven’t had much time or energy to blog. But I’m still here.

Since I don’t have much to say, I wanted to point to someone who does. This week, I listened to a podcast that really spoke volumes to me. It’s by Fr Stephen Freeman and is entitled “Is Relationship with God What We Want?” It’s about fifteen minutes long and you can listen to it HERE or subscribe to his podcast at the iTunes store.

Fr Stephen does a fine job examining the word “koinonia” as it’s used in the New Testament. The word doesn’t really mean “fellowship.” Rather, it means “participation” and “communion.” The Church is not a fellowship — an association of like-minded people. Rather, it’s to be participation in one another’s lives, communion with each other.

Anyway, I’m not doing his podcast justice. Listen to it and allow God to speak. 

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Shawn Ragan & “Expressing Yourself”

I wanted to point to a wonderful post by Shawn Ragan and his experience with venerating the icons. You can read his entire post HERE:

This issue evoked mixed emotions in me as our family began exploring Eastern Orthodoxy. I didn’t consider this expression of honor to Christ, his Mother and the family of Saints as idolatry. In fact, I saw this form of reverence as worshipping Christ through the life of a particular Saint, thus expanding my worship of Christ. As Shawn affirms in his post, the lives of the Saints point to Christ, they don’t replace him.

My issue was that I’m a very private person. I had no problem with venerating the icons, but I was uncomfortable with such an intimate expression in front of a roomful of people. I struggled with a similar discomfort as a charismatic when I first began raising my hands during the worship.

But like Shawn’s children, my children embraced it very naturally. And it made me long to venerate the icons even more. So as we prepared to enter Holy Week, I made the decision to die to my personal discomfort and to do what my heart was craving to do. And while I felt nervous and awkward my first time, no one gawked or stared.

And so began a new dimension of worshipping Christ for me that I absolutely love. I love the icons. I love walking through the sanctuary when everyone has left, praying and venerating the icons of Saints who lived and died for Jesus in ways I cannot fathom. I look forward to learning about the lives of many of them and to be encouraged to live more faithfully for Christ.

These Saints are the people Jesus referred to when he said, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” These are members of Jesus’ family. They are the ones who have become truly human in him. And every worship service is like a family reunion as we worship Christ together.

(The icon at the top of this post is the Theotokos of Vladimir.)

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Journeying Home (4) — Where’s That in the Bible?

 

As we began attending St Peter’s, a local Antiochian Orthodox parish, we were immediately confronted with how foreign Eastern Orthodoxy is to western Evangelicalism. In many ways, we discovered profound beauty and holiness that are absolutely missing in most Evangelical churches. Eastern Orthodoxy is incredibly multi-sensory. In Orthodox worship, one smells the incense, sees the icons, candles and vestments, tastes the bread, and chants the prayers and hymns. In addition, one also venerates the cross, icons, and Gospel Book, crosses oneself, makes prostrations, and greets others with a holy kiss, all the time standing through most of the service. When you complete an Orthodox worship service, you not only feel like you’ve prayed and worshipped deeply, but you also feel like you’ve visited an art museum, seminary and a gym. Every part of your being is impacted by awe-inspiring beauty, divine holiness, theological profundity and historical depth. (Debbie and I joked after our journey through Lent and Holy Week that we need to start working out so we’re in shape for next year’s Pascha season.)

But along with the beauty and holiness, we also came face-to-face with concepts and stories that continue to evoke one question, “Where is that in the Bible?” Expressed in that question is a significant clash between a Protestant worldview and an Orthodox worldview.One of the values deeply ingrained in me as a Protestant was sola scriptura, literally “by scripture alone.” This doctrine teaches that the Scriptures are the singular authority in all matters of faith and practice. In this view, the Bible is self-interpreting and the final authority of Christian doctrine. At a practical level for most Protestants, sola scriptura equates to a deep personal belief in Scripture’s final authority. And conversely, a rejection of sola scriptura equates to a similar rejection of Scripture’s authority.

Viewing Eastern Orthodoxy through the lens of sola scriptura can cause many Protestants to conclude that Orthodoxy does not value the Bible. This is an unfortunate and a completely incorrect conclusion.

Orthodoxy values Scripture deeply. For example, when practiced fully, during the course of Matins (morning services) and Vespers (evening services) the entire Psalter is recited each week and twice a week during Lent. The Old Testament is read at Vespers. The Gospel climaxes Matins on Sunday mornings. At the Liturgy, a special Epistle and Gospel reading are assigned for each day of the year, so that the entire New Testament (except Revelation) is read at the Eucharist. It has also been calculated that the Liturgy contains 98 quotations from the Old Testament and 114 from the New. Scripture saturates every Orthodox service because Orthodoxy view Scripture as the verbal icon of Christ. All of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, are first and foremost about Christ. So the Gospel Book has a place of honor on the altar and it is carried in procession at the Liturgy. All of this is to say that Orthodoxy practices a deep respect for Scripture.

While Protestantism attempts to view Scripture by itself, Orthodoxy values, reads, interprets and practices Scripture as part of its larger Holy Tradition. For the Orthodox Church, Holy Tradition is simply the ongoing life of God’s people. It’s the living continuity with Christ, the Apostles and the Church of ancient times. It’s the life of Christ within his Body passed on through the ages.

Unfortunately, the idea of tradition often carries a negative connotation for many western Evangelicals. I used to view tradition as blind allegiance to an old custom or practice that now carried little relevance, meaning or life. But I’m now learning and experiencing the vibrant life of Christ that is Holy Tradition. And within this Holy Tradition, at the most prominent place, are the Scriptures. For Orthodoxy, Scripture and Holy Tradition are not two separate sources of authority. Scripture was written and passed down as part of its Holy Tradition. 

So what forms Holy Tradition? Holy Tradition is composed of Holy Scripture, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, the lives of the Saints, the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Icons, the Church Hierarchy, and the Church architecture. But Orthodoxy also recognizes that not everything received from the past is of equal value. Holy Scripture, the Creed and the doctrinal declarations of the Ecumenical Councils hold a prominent place in Holy Tradition. These are considered absolute and unchanging. The other elements of Tradition do not carry the same authority.

In addition, Orthodoxy recognizes that not everything from the past is necessarily true. At this point, Orthodoxy distinguishes between Tradition and tradition. Many traditions are simply wise and pious opinions, not universal statements of truth. As Timothy Ware declares in his book, The Orthodox Church (much of which this post draws), “It is absolutely essential to question the past.” The Church, as Christ’s Body, must exercise discernment.

In my opinion, the perceived conflict that most Protestants have with sola scriptura versus Holy Tradition is actually a conflict between the private individual’s right versus accountability to the Church.

As with all values, sola scriptura did not emerge in a vacuum. Rather, it was one of the ways the Reformers attempted to correct some of the abusive practices and authority within the Roman Catholic Church (abuses not found in the Eastern Orthodox Church). The doctrine of sola scriptura removes the absolute right of interpreting Scripture from the Church and places it in the hands of the private individual. Consequently, the attempt to correct one abuse eventually led to another — the priority of the private individual exercised in every aspect of the spiritual life. In this light, a person’s interpretation of Scripture is correct simply because he or she believes it’s correct. So at a practical level, sola scriptura implies that the private interpreter is the actual authority in all matters of faith and practice. While Scripture is the source from which the individual constructs his or her private interpretation, it is the individual who makes the final determination of what he or she believes. The individual is his or her own final authority.

So the real issue that many Protestants have with Orthdoxy’s Holy Tradition is not whether Scripture and Holy Tradition are contradicting authorities. Rather, the issue is whether the individual or the Church is the final authority in regards to matters of faith and practice. 

As I have journeyed toward Orthodoxy, I have had to come to terms with this issue. Over and over I have to answer penetrating questions. Will I cling to my own privately constructed theology or consent to the collective wisdom of the Church’s Holy Tradition? Was my interpretation of Scripture that I had forged together from miscellaneous influences and my own limited intelligence superior to the interpretation of the truly Holy, Apostolic, and Catholic Church? Who could I trust to lead me in the way of salvation and toward the likeness of Christ — myself or the Church that has faithfully preserved the Gospel and life of Christ for 2000 years far better than any other Christian expression?

Over the last several months, I have felt like Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord. I now realize that my attempts to wrestle on behalf of my private theology, private piety, and private spirituality was more an act of defiant pride than anything else. And as I have learned to humbly recognize the Church’s authority, I have found her to be like a loving Mother, nurturing me with her fullness, wisdom and holiness in ways I never would have experienced on my own.

And I have discovered that humbly yielding to the Church does not mean blindly and unthinkingly accepting everything. The Church trains us into the mind and life of Christ, so there is plenty of room for critical discernment and personal responsibility for what I believe and practice. But now I do this within an ecclesiology that naturally supports proper belief and practice. And as I do this, I experience Christ’s life.

To be continued…

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Fr Patrick & “What is the Divine Liturgy”

Fr Patrick has a wonderful post on the Divine Liturgy. There are a couple of good lines that stand out for me.

The first one is the quote by Elder Zacharias of Essex:

“The Divine Liturgy is the highest form of prayer in which a sacred exchange takes place. Mankind offers to God ‘his temporal and limited life (in exchange) for the eternal and infinite life of God.’”

Couple this quote by one of Fr Patrick’s:

“Not all prayer is of the same depth—or height.”

This is so true. I’ve been a praying Christian for over 20 years. And no matter how much I pray, my prayers are always a reflection of my own spiritual maturity or lack thereof. In other words, my personal prayers cannot be any larger than who I am. In my earlier years of immaturity, I used to think that written prayers were a sign of spiritual deadness and only spontaneous prayers carried the essential “passion” to be effective.

Now that I’ve grown up a bit, I’ve incorporated Daily Hours and written prayers into my prayer life over the last several years. I cannot explain the added depth and height of praying prayers that have been written and prayed by men and women of greater spiritual maturity and wisdom.

And now participating in the Divine Liturgy every week at St Peter’s adds an even greater dimension. I’m truly entering into the highest prayer of the Church. By praying their prayers, I’m not only being trained in how to pray, but I’m praying in unity with the rest of the Church. I’m participating in actually being part of Christ’s Body, crying out in one voice prayers inspired by the Spirit.

The final line that leaps from Fr Patrick’s post is:

“The Liturgy is better experienced than understood.”

There are events in human life in which experience far surpasses any kind of rational understanding. And one of those moments is the Divine Liturgy. While some knowledge of the Divine Liturgy is helpful in order to participate in it more fully, I have found it much more beneficial to allow the movements of prayer, worship, theology, and beauty to wash over me like waves at the beach.

For those who are interested, Fr Patrick will be posting more on the basics of Divine Liturgy in the near future. These posts will be under the category “Orthodox Christian liturgics.”

You can read Fr Patrick’s entire post HERE.

Priestly Blogging

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Fr Patrick, our priest, has begun blogging. Cathy found this Bizarro cartoon in this morning’s paper that reminded us of him. This one’s for you Fr Patrick. Keep up the blogging!

 

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Oh, I Forgot to Mention…

  …Michael caught a duck.

I was going through the photos on my cell phone and came across these photos. Here’s the back story:

Every Saturday, we have brunch with Debbie’s parents and her youngest brother. Just down the street from one of the restaurants we frequent is a mortuary with a small gated fountain/pond with ducks. The kids walked to the mortuary while we finished brunch. As we were leaving the restaurant to pick them up, we received a call on the cell phone. “Mom! Michael caught a duck! Can we keep it?” One of the ducks somehow got on the other side of the fence and Michael was able to catch it.

I love what his t-shirt says, “This is what cool looks like.” Yup. It certainly is.

We didn’t keep the duck. We released it back into “the wild” of the mortuary.

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Fr Patrick, Fr Stephen, & Personal Salvation

Last night during our inquirers’ class, Fr Patrick spoke about faith’s role in salvation. (Once again, it was a great teaching, especially as he talked about Orthodoxy’s ability to synchronize properly the essential subjective and objective dimensions of faith.) At one point Fr Patrick began speaking about the Protestant emphasis on “accepting Jesus as your personal Savior.” 

In our modern world, “personal” translates into “private.” Scripturally, a private existence is no existence at all. It is self-delusion and self-destruction. There is no such thing as a private salvation or a private savior. Both are oxymorons. True life as God intended, and therefore true salvation into that life, is relational. It is communal. That’s what the Greek word koinonia means — communion, participation.

So Fr Patrick offered a better question that has been echoing in my mind since last night, “Have you accepted Jesus as our common Savior?” As the Body of Christ, we hold Jesus in common as our Savior. Together we are his Body. Together, we commune with him. Together, we participate in him. Together we unite ourselves to him and to each other. Thus, together, we are being saved in him.

So with this resonating in me, I was thrilled to read Fr Stephen’s latest post entitled, “The Orthodox Church and Personal Salvation.” In the post he shares some thoughts regarding a Franklin Graham article and then includes a short article that he wrote on personal salvation. The entire article is definitely worth reading. But his included earlier article is awesome and supports what we discussed during last night’s class. Here’s the majority of the article:

“Thus there is always something of a hesitancy when someone asks (in newspeak), “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” If only we would, it would be truly significant. But in our modern street-wise theology, Christ as personal savior becomes synonymous with Christ as private savior, and as such is no savior at all. For no one and nothing can save the false existence we have created in the privacy of our modern existence. We were not created for such an existence.

“In the story of Genesis - the first appearance of the phrase, “It is not good,” is applied to man - in an existence that is private. “It is not good for man to be alone.” We do not exist in the goodness which God has created for us when we exist alone. The most remote hermit of the Christian desert does not live alone, but lives radically for others and to God. Of all men he is the least alone. No one would take on the radical ascesis of the desert for themselves alone: it is an act of radical love.

“And thus the personal God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, determined that salvation for humanity could only take place as we lived fully and truly into the existence for which we were and are created: the Church. In the Church we do not exist as mere individuals but as members of the Body of Christ. My life is the life of Christ. What happens to me is essential to what happens to all the members of the Body and what happens to the members of the Body is essential for what happens to me. Their life is my life.

“Thus when we approach the cup of Christ’s Body and Blood, we never approach it for our private good but as members of the Body. We are thus enjoined to be in love and charity with our neighbor and to forgive the sins of all - otherwise the cup is not for our salvation but our destruction.”

And then comes the climactic moment of the article:

“The salvation into which we are Baptized is a new life - no longer defined by the mere existence of myself as an individual - but rather by the radical freedom of love within the Body of Christ. To accept Christ as our “personal” savior, thus can be translated into its traditional Orthodox form: “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” And this question is more fully expounded when we understand that the Christ to whom we unite ourself is a many-membered body.”

For me, Fr Stephen’s article drives home two facts: First, Jesus is our common Savior with and through whom we commune together. And second, the Orthodox Church has faithfully preserved and practiced this truth through the ages by its Holy Tradition.

Read “The Orthodox Church and Personal Salvation”

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Father Patrick is Blogging!

Our priest, Father Patrick, has started a blog. He posted his first post today. I’m very excited about what he will write. Every homily he has delivered has been “out of the park.” I am amazed at his ability to make simple some very deep spiritual and theological concepts. The other day, I listened to him explain the Trinity in five minutes in a simple, yet non-simplistic way, that maintained the essential theological nuances. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

So stop by his blog and encourage him to write.

(The picture is of Fr Patrick preparing to baptize our friend, Christina.)

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Journeying Home (3) — Why Eastern Orthodoxy?

As the last five years have passed, Debbie and I concluded that our family needed something more than our home church. While we love our home group and have no desire to end the friendships, fellowship and discussions, we needed some sort of time-tested faith-community that would train us to into the incarnational life we observe in the Bible. However, I simply don’t have the time, energy or intelligence to create something new only to discover in several years, especially at the cost of our children’s spirituality, that it didn’t work.

So while we currently remain committed to our home church, we knew we also needed to seek another Christian tradition for our family’s life and growth in Christ. The spectrum of choices seemed simple — Protestantism, Emerging Church, Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, or Eastern Orthodoxy. However, the only viable option for us was Eastern Orthodoxy. Why?

In a nutshell, the primary attraction I had to Eastern Orthodoxy was its soteriology. For most of my Christian life as a western Evangelical, I lived and operated under the judicial view of salvation that is common to western Christianity. In addition, I had fully embraced the reduced popular version that one hears in many witnessing opportunities. It goes something like this:

“God loves you and has created you for a wonderful purpose. However, humanity rebelled against God and therefore all people are born and live under the guilt of sin, compounded by their own disobedience. We are all guilty of breaking God’s Law and because the wages of sin is death, every human being is condemned to die. But because God loves you so much, he sent his son to die on your behalf. On the cross, Jesus took upon himself the wrath and judgment reserved for you. So if you accept Jesus’ gift simply by believing it in faith, you are forgiven of your of guilt and God now views you with Jesus’ righteousness.”

Or to reduce it further into how most western evangelicals think, salvation means we’re forgiven of all of our sins and as a result, we will go to heaven when we die. This viewpoint focuses primarily on the individual and treats salvation as an event and a commodity regardless of the actual state of one’s life.

After my episode of severe burnout several years ago and during my subsequent theological reconstruction, I abandoned the judicial metaphor as the primary understanding of sin and salvation. I realized that while God was lavish with his love and forgiveness, I really hadn’t been saved from much of anything. As a successful pastor who loved Jesus, I was virtually as broken and screwed up as a human being as I was when I first began following Christ. It was this very fact that forced me to realize that the biblical view of salvation was more organic, relational, and synergistic than legal.

Salvation is the process of restoration to what humans were created to be. Rather than sin being the breaking of God’s Law, the root of sin is the movement from being to non-being. Sin is the distortion of our humanity, of who we are supposed to be as God’s image on earth. This is the glory of which we all fall short. Rather than being truly human, sin makes us subhuman. So the problem of sin is much deadlier and sinister than mere guilt or disobedience. It is the warping, distortion and brokenness of who we are as human beings. It is the full corruption of my mind, heart, body, soul and relationships. In this light, I don’t just need to be forgiven. I need to be healed. I don’t just need assurance of admittance into heaven in the future. I need assurance that who I am in the present is being transformed out of my desperate and destructive subhuman existence and into the image and likeness of God as I was divinely intended to live.

So salvation isn’t primarily about guilt and forgiveness. It’s about brokenness and healing. It’s about delusion and illumination. It’s about distortion and transformation. It’s about death and life in the here-and-now. As a follower of Jesus, I truly cannot say, “I am saved.” I can only say, “I am being saved.”

Christ’s crucifixion has conquered evil, destroyed death, reconciled creation, redeemed the human nature, and released God’s forgiveness. In other words, Jesus has made God’s salvation completely available to all people. But as St Paul exhorts the Philippians, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Salvation is something that is worked out progressively with God.

So if salvation is a lifelong journey of healing transformation in God, then how am I actually being saved? I am being saved by participating in the life of God by communing with Jesus Christ within the life of his people. So not only is salvation an ongoing relationship with God by communing with and following Christ, but salvation is also an ongoing relationship with God’s people. There is no such thing as a private salvation. One can only experience “being saved” within a community of Christ’s followers.

It is very easy to read this and wonder, “Isn’t this works-righteousness?” or “Aren’t you now trying to earn salvation?” And the simple answer is “Not at all.” None of this is possible without God’s grace completely penetrating and affecting all of this. But while salvation is opposed to earning, it requires strenuous effort in synergy with God’s grace. Salvation must be worked out in cooperation with God. It is like going to physical therapy to recover from an accident or surgery. Healing requires effort on my part, not as an attempt to earn anything, but as the cooperative process with my doctors that moves me from my brokenness to my healing.

Or to switch metaphors, the process of salvation is like marriage. I am legally married. But that thought rarely enters my mind. Rather, the last 19 years of marriage have been learning to live in a cooperative relationship with Debbie so that she and I progressively become one. Again, it’s not about earning anything. It’s a relationship of becoming something other than what I was when I began, knowing that what I am becoming is far better than what I was.

What are we becoming? Our salvation is that we’re becoming God’s humanity as he intended. We’re not only being restored into the image of God but growing into the likeness of God. We are growing into the fullness and likeness of Jesus, who was true humanity as we were all intended to become. So we are becoming by grace what Christ is by nature — the very fullness of God in our humanity. And as we become this, the entire Creation is being sanctified. In other words, we are becoming the agents of God’s sanctification and renewal of creation. And this then moves the discussion to mission (but that will have to wait for another post).

So all of this discourse on salvation is simply to say that Eastern Orthodoxy is the only Christian tradition that has this beautiful soteriology built into its tradition, theology, ecclesiology and daily practice and life. We encounter it and live it in every formal service as a church and informal gathering as friends. It is woven into the very fabric of the Orthodox way of life.

While Mark and I have taught this soteriology and our families have tried to live in it all the way back to our time at the Vineyard, through our association with the Emerging Church, and within our experience as a home church, it has only been during the last five months in an Orthodox parish that we have found the natural environment in which this salvation can be fully lived and experienced.

As Mark mentioned in his post, we finally feel at home.

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Journeying Home (2) — From Emerging Church to Eastern Orthodoxy

So we left the evangelical church. Several of us began meeting at Mark and Barbara’s home. Mark and I, disillusioned by the consumerist model of church, desired to create a new kind of community. We wanted this community to be organic, not requiring a building or staff. We wanted this community to avoid becoming meeting-centric. Our hope was that our times together would supplement each member’s personal apprenticeship to Jesus. We didn’t want our members to rely on any structure, program, system or staff in their relationship with Christ. We wanted to purge ourselves from the contemporary Christian ethos of viewing the church as the organization that provides for my spiritual needs. It was out of this vision that I wrote the article “Detoxing from church.” In hindsight, I wished I had entitled it “Detoxing from Consumer church,” since I was actually critiquing the consumerist model of the evangelical church.

We also began acquainting ourselves with the fledgling Emerging Church. Through blogs and relational networks, we discovered others who were leaving the consumerist evangelical church with the hope of developing alternative forms of Christian community. We were encouraged by people with similar stories, who were paving the ecclesiological path into the future. 

Our group developed three simple values — the inward journey, the outward journey and the corporate journey. We hoped to become a community that focused on being formational, missional, and communal. We wanted to be apprentices, becoming like Jesus from the inside-out. We wanted to become ambassadors, living like Jesus in the world. And we wanted to become apprentices and ambassadors by how we lived and worshipped together. One of the statements we adopted was “To embody, demonstrate and announce the fullness of Christ.” Simply put, we wanted to be incarnational. We hoped to learn how to be Jesus’ actual body, the continuing incarnation on earth. Just as Jesus embodied Yahweh, we desired to be sent as Jesus was sent (John 20:21). In fact, we embraced an Orthodox saying, “Becoming by grace what Christ is by nature.”

So our group met, lived, and loved together. We read books together, studied Scripture together, and ate together. At this time, our home church is five years old. I am forever grateful for the experience. After fourteen years of professional ministry, I relearned how to have substantial friendships completely free from any pastoral role. I was also free to engage in theological exploration and discovery that I could not have done on staff at my previous church. And most importantly, our group has shown my family love in very rich and meaningful ways. 

Yet, during these past five years, I have learned several lessons that ultimately turned my gaze toward Eastern Orthodoxy.

I quickly learned that while spiritual formation requires personal responsibility and effort, it is a communal endeavor. During our home church’s first couple of years, even though I knew spiritual formation requires community, I think I overemphasized the individual aspect. To our members, I continued to liken spiritual formation to individual athletic training — one needs to train as an individual in order to be like Jesus and live his kind of life just as one needs to train in order to be a great basketball player. 

However, I learned that just as very few people are capable of mastering a sport simply by training on their own, very few people are capable of mastering God’s life by training on their own. Spiritual formation is a team sport. The “one another” exhortations in the New Testament alone make that clear. Spiritual formation must be learned, practiced and lived at the corporate level. The community’s experience of formation is not supplemental, but foundational to each member’s formation.

This became especially evident as Debbie and I discussed our children’s formation. We obviously wouldn’t expect our kids to train into spiritual formation on their own. They needed guidance from us as parents, which we gladly accepted. But we also realized that they needed some sort of structure to help them experience formation within a community. They needed to worship, pray, study and fellowship in a community. We also felt that they needed formational moments like youth camp and service projects. So after a couple of years as a home church, Debbie and I decided that our family would also attend an evangelical church in order to provide community and structure for our kids. Unfortunately, it got to the point that once a week, we were driving our two younger kids to one church for their children’s program and our two older kids to a church in a different city for their youth program. That got old quick.

In our home church, we knew we needed some sort of structure during our community gatherings to help us be formational, missional and communal. Gathering only to eat, study and talk was meaningful, but also lacked something essential. Specifically, we needed worship and prayer. But I didn’t want us to fall back into singing contemporary worship songs that contained shallow, mishmash theology. Nor did I want us to digress into prayer meetings that were filled with extemporaneous and usually forced and shallow prayers. Communal worship and prayer needed to be deeper in order to be formational.

At first, this was difficult to admit. Because the consumerist structure that we had left was so destructive, I clung vehemently to the concept of a community with very limited structure. And we floundered. We needed structure to steer us as a community into formational worship and prayer. But I dreaded the idea of creating a system upon which we would develop an unhealthy dependence as we had done in the consumer model. Yet, we couldn’t continue without structure. We decided we needed some form of liturgy to guide us.

Since none of us came from any liturgical tradition, we began exploring liturgical components from a variety of Christian traditions. We used the Divine Hours. We used Lectio Divina. We used the Common Book of Prayers. We incorporated Eastern Orthodox prayers. We lit candles. We read from the Revised Common Lectionary. We even created our own prayers. 

And we discovered two things. First, creating liturgy requires a lot of energy and time, something we didn’t have.  Also, this kind of endeavor creates a liturgy that is discontinuous and jumbled. While sometimes meaningful at a personal level, our efforts failed to create a regular structure that supported a formational life. And, quite frankly, I’m simply not smart enough to create a cohesive liturgy every single week. Others in the Emerging Church were developing liturgy, but the results either seemed relevant only to the life of that local community or were pieced together from various sources like we had experienced. We needed something cohesive that was larger than our local context and had a time-proven record of supporting spiritual formation. 

Our liturgical exploration also made us aware to the need for sacraments. We knew Jesus’ Incarnation redeems all of creation and the entire world is filled with his presence. We realized that formation occurs by living one’s whole life with Jesus’ presence in the world. But learning to experience his presence in the world requires special moments of his presence as a community. One cannot experience the entire world as a sacrament without actual sacraments. One cannot view the entire world as holy and filled with Christ’s presence without having special moments that are holy and filled with Christ’s presence. The logical conclusion of Christ’s Incarnation is a sacramental life. But as Protestants, our only regular sacrament was communion. But was it only symbolic or something more? Unable to agree, we left it at “to each his or her own.”

Bottom-line, over the last five years, I have learned that an incarnational life — being formational, missional, and communal — must be supported within a community that has effectively practiced time-proven and life-giving liturgy and sacraments. My family and I need this kind of community, but where would we find it? Our simple non-Protestant choices were Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy. While certain aspects of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism were attractive, their historical roots as well as contemporary issues dissuaded me from leading my family in either of those directions. Also, I had become very attracted to Eastern Orthodox theology over the last several years and had become convinced that they had preserved the biblical Gospel better than other traditions. I was surprised upon reflection that I agreed more with Orthodox theology than I did with Protestant theology. 

So through David’s encouragement, Debbie and I decided in late 2007 to give our family twelve months to explore Eastern Orthodoxy in a parish close to our home.

To be continued…

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Icon of St. Nectarios

Debbie took three of our kids to Matins this morning at St. Peter’s. When they returned home, my oldest son gifted me with a small icon of St. Nectarios that he bought for me. St. Nectarios was a very humble and pious man who, among other things, loved God’s Word, prayer, and graciously endured false slander. He is such a beautiful example of a Christ-filled life, one that I hope I may emulate.

I’m hoping to address the issue of saints and icons in a future post, but I want to say now that one of the ways I feel the Orthodox Church offers the fullness of the Gospel is through the commemoration of the saints. God is alive and truly wonderful through his saints.

Below is a synopsis of his life from AbbaMoses.com:

“Saint Nectarius was born in Selyvria of Thrace on October 11, 1846. After putting himself through school in Constantinople with much hard labour, he became a monk on Chios in 1876, receiving the monastic name of Lazarus; because of his virtue, a year later he was ordained deacon, receiving the new name of Nectarius. Under the patronage of Patriarch Sophronius of Alexandria, Nectarius went to Athens to study in 1882; completing his theological studies in 1885, he went to Alexandria, where Patriarch Sophronius ordained him priest on March 23, 1886 in the Cathedral of Saint Sabbas, and in August of the same year, in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Cairo, made him Archimandrite. Archimandrite Nectarius showed much zeal both for preaching the word of God, and for the beauty of God’s house. He greatly beautified the Church of Saint Nicholas in Cairo, and years later, when Nectarius was in Athens, Saint Nicholas appeared to him in a dream, embracing him and telling him he was going to exalt him very high.

“On January 15, 1889, in the same Church of Saint Nicholas, Nectarius was consecrated Metropolitan of Pentapolis in eastern Libya, which was under the jurisdiction of Alexandria. Although Nectarius’ swift ascent through the degrees of ecclesiastical office did not affect his modesty and childlike innocence, it aroused the envy of lesser men, who convinced the elderly Sophronius that Nectarius had it in his heart to become Patriarch. Since the people loved Nectarius, the Patriarch was troubled by the slanders. On May 3, 1890, Sophronius relieved Metropolitan Nectarius of his duties; in July of the same year, he commanded Nectarius to leave Egypt.

“Without seeking to avenge or even to defend himself, the innocent Metropolitan left for Athens, where he found that accusations of immorality had arrived before him. Because his good name had been soiled, he was unable to find a position worthy of a bishop, and in February of 1891 accepted the position of provincial preacher in Euboia; then, in 1894, he was appointed dean of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School in Athens. Through his eloquent sermons, his unwearying labours to educate fitting men for the priesthood, his generous almsdeeds despite his own poverty, and the holiness, meekness, and fatherly love that were manifest in him, he became a shining light and a spiritual guide to many. At the request of certain pious women, in 1904 he began the building of his convent of the Holy Trinity on the island of Aegina while yet dean of the Rizarios School; finding later that his presence there was needed, he took up his residence on Aegina in 1908, where he spent the last years of his life, devoting himself to the direction of his convent and to very intense prayer; he was sometimes seen lifted above the ground while rapt in prayer. He became the protector of all Aegina, through his prayers delivering the island from drought, healing the sick, and casting out demons. Here also he endured wicked slanders with singular patience, forgiving his false accusers and not seeking to avenge himself. Although he had already worked wonders in life, an innumerable multitude of miracles have been wrought after his repose in 1920 through his holy relics, which for many years remained incorrupt. There is hardly a malady that has not been cured through his prayers; but Saint Nectarius is especially renowned for his healings of cancer for sufferers in all parts of the world.”

 

 

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Journeying Home (1) — From Evangelical to Emerging Church

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve always been searching, even when I didn’t have words to express what I was looking for. Meeting Jesus and becoming his apprentice answered the deepest parts of my questing heart. And following God’s calling into professional ministry for over fourteen years provided wonderful opportunities to fulfill that search.

Yet through it all, I have always felt God calling me to journey deeper and to explore his kingdom. So here I am, standing on the threshold of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ironically, all of my adult education and professional experience have brought me to this place — a place where all of my adult education and professional experience are virtually obsolete and irrelevant. And while that prospect has its own issues to deal with, I have a substantial peace about the next steps. Simply put, I believe God has journeyed with me and shaped me so that I could be right here.

When I first committed to following Jesus, I told him I would go wherever he led me. And if that means following him into a place where everything I’ve learned and worked for must be laid aside, then it is a very simple price to pay in order to journey with him further into his life and likeness.

So how did I get here? 

As an associate pastor in a small Vineyard church, I had fully embraced the business model of running a church. Inspired by men like John Maxwell, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, I strained to create an efficient and effective Christian organization. I spent most of my waking hours trying to design and implement systems for assimilating, training, mobilizing, and reaching people, especially leaders. And on a personal level, I was doing everything I counseled others to do in order to grow as Christians — Sunday worship attendance, small group attendance, tithing, evangelism, daily quiet time, teaching Sunday school, reading the Bible in a year, serving in ministries, praying for people, practicing spiritual gifts and more. 

And yet, something was terribly wrong. I was always stressed, frustrated, and angry. I was consuming caffeine non-stop and taking Tylenol like candy for my constant headaches. The worst thing was how I had learned to create a happy “ministry” exterior to cover up this internal mess. I could be smiling and joking with someone that I was fuming over and he would never know it.

And then I crashed. I had a burnout crisis that is still very vivid in my memory after all of these years. The despair and self-loathing I felt at that moment still haunts me.

I crawled away from that moment completely broken. I could do only one thing — cling to Jesus. I spent most mornings in a local coffee shop just resting in Jesus’ presence. I listened to worship music, prayed, read Scripture and journaled. But these were no longer activities I did to grow as a Christian. They became communion with Jesus. I quickly became aware that I had spent years amassing Bible knowledge, developing organizational skills, and engaging in Christian activities with very little, if any, inward transformation into Christ’s likeness.

I learned painfully that the system one uses is designed to produce the results one experiences. In other words, my broken inner life was the direct result of how I lived my life as a Christian and a pastor. It was because of how I lived my life, not despite it, that I was in such a mess. My theology and my practices were broken. And simply trying to “do better” or “try harder” would ultimately create the same results.

So my focus changed to following Jesus into his likeness and allowing his ministry to be the natural outflow of his character and life within me. I would still do my job as a pastor, but everything began changing. My theology began changing as I realized that virtually every aspect — christology, bibliology, soteriology, eschatology, missiology, cosmology — was distorted and therefore contributed to my ill health. This in turn changed my teaching and preaching. And it changed how I worked as a pastor. I could still do my job, but how I did it and why I did it had changed. Over time I began to sense health.

And over time I began to sense something else.

I was becoming a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I was no longer fitting in the church I helped build and pastor. The lasting changes I was experiencing on a personal level and trying to realize on a corporate level would require a hugely different church paradigm in order to see them reproduced within the congregation’s life. In the end, I probably created more disruption than was necessary.

Through a series of circumstances, God orchestrated my departure for the sake of my health as well as the church’s. Mark, who was also on staff with me at the Vineyard, left as well. We, and a few families close to us, received the leadership’s blessing to go and try to develop something new, a missional community.

To be continued…

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David Feliciano and “Orthodoxy Is For Everyone”

My friend, David, who has been very instrumental in my family’s progress into Orthodoxy, has a post worth reading called, “Orthodoxy Is For Everyone.”

I was with him during the time he initially began exploring Orthodoxy and I had the privilege of attending his and Nicole’s Chrismation service. At the time, I believed I was following God’s calling as an evangelical pastor, so I wasn’t really offended by David’s conversion. I believed that he had his calling and I had mine. Sure he may have believed that he was entering into the fullest expression of the Church and Faith. But I had the surety of my calling. What I didn’t realize then, but do realize now, is that I needed to take a few more turns in my own journey with Jesus to prepare me to enter Orthodoxy. Somehow, Jesus used my obedience to my sense of calling to prepare for where I am today.

And while I haven’t been received into the Orthodox Church yet, I want to echo David’s words:

“My own experiences and beliefs about this living and ancient faith/tradition is that it IS for everybody. It is only foreign in the sense that it is radically Christian and holy, and I believe that it truly is the fullness of the gospel (i.e., the fullness of Jesus’ message and tradition).”

Oh, and Thank You, David, for embodying this radical Christianity and helping us to enter this wonderful Faith.

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Another Thought About Interpretation…

After my last post on Fr Stephen’s post, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic,” I had another thought regarding my pride and biblical interpretation. When I examine Orthodox interpretation of Scripture, not only must I hold my personal biblical interpretations in light of 2000 years of Living Tradition, but I must also hold it in light of Orthodoxy’s 2000-year ability to maintain the true Gospel.

As an evangelical Protestant and then in the last several years of association with the Emerging Church, we talked non-stop about recovering and redefining the Gospel. For various reasons offered by really smart people, it is clear that the Gospel in western Christianity has become overly-simplified, distorted or completely replaced with something else.

This isn’t true of Orthodoxy. I’ve noticed it in my reading of Orthodox theology and have now experienced it firsthand, especially during Lent and Holy Week. And these services, with their liturgy and prayers, are centuries old. They have been faithfully and unwaveringly helping Jesus’ followers enter and live in the Gospel for hundreds and hundreds of years. As much as I enjoy my theological musing and study, I cannot make that claim about my biblical interpretations. So when my doctrines rub up against Orthodox doctrines, I must learn to comply humbly.

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Fr Stephen Freeman & “An Orthodox Hermeneutic”

Christ is risen!

Fr Stephen has written a post worth reading called, “An Orthodox Hermeneutic.” In my short and limited experience with Orthodoxy, I have to admit that a lot of what he says makes sense. Personally, I no longer adhere to Sola Scriptura since it strips Scriptures out of the very context that created them and gives them meaning — the Church and its Living Tradition. In addition both modern biblical scholarship and the teaching from the pulpit are examples of what happens when Sola Scriptura runs its course — every person has an interpretation of Scripture.

Yet, at a deep level, I also struggle with some of what Fr Stephen says. I have my own pet biblical interpretations and some of them are not embraced by the Orthodox Church. In those moments, I have to ask myself, “Can I honestly hold up the interpretative conclusions that I have reached from my limited study before 2000 years of the Church’s Living Tradition and believe that I’m right and they’re wrong?” You see, it boils down to pride rather that correct interpretation. Here’s a bit from Fr Stephen’s post: