Atonement?

[JM]

Hi folks, could you direct me to an online EO explanation of the atonement please?

Thank you.

jm

 

[jckstraw72]

this is pretty tight: What Christ Accomplished on the Cross

 

[JM]

Thank you, I'll read it now....

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

To put it succinctly, Orthodoxy holds to the most ancient views on the atonement held by the Fathers. Christ's redemptive work on the Cross/rising from the tomb is all presented from the angle of defeating death. Christ is fully God-fully Man and He dies. But death cannot hold the God-Man. Jesus ransoms us from death. It's about recapitulation, rescuing, going where we cannot go leading us out. To rescue us Jesus must take on EVERY aspect of humanity, including its demise. But that demise cannot be permanent for Him.

The West focuses more on the blood, making God happy and appeased with sacrifice, winning back honor and covenant, pacifying an angry wrathful Lord. For the East, we are people of the empty tomb, with the Cross being a powerful and tragic checkpoint to the ultimate victory over death. For the West, the emphasis is on the Cross and the blood, less on the empty tomb I'd say.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I would only add that I we view everything Christ did as atoning. the atonement goes from His Conception in Mary's womb to Pentecost. we look to all of His ministry

 

[JM]

I was listening to Ancient Faith radio and the Priest badly misrepresented the Western view, he presented a stawman to his congregation, it was pretty bad. I see some of it being repeated by others in the Eastern Orthodox denomination so I thought I'd check here on the forum.

Thanks

 

[Ignatius21]

I was listening to Ancient Faith radio and the Priest badly misrepresented the Western view, he presented a stawman to his congregation, it was pretty bad. I see some of it being repeated by others in the Eastern Orthodox denomination so I thought I'd check here on the forum. Thanks

Can you provide a link to the podcast?

 

[ArmyMatt]

I was listening to Ancient Faith radio and the Priest badly misrepresented the Western view, he presented a stawman to his congregation, it was pretty bad. I see some of it being repeated by others in the Eastern Orthodox denomination so I thought I'd check here on the forum.

Thanks

and the Western view is a many varied thing

 

[JM]

and the Western view is a many varied thing

Not in a confessional sense. It really isn’t as varied as one might thing.

It’s not my forum to argue in so I will not.

Thank you for your help.

jm

 

[ArmyMatt]

Not in a confessional sense. It really isn’t as varied as one might thing.

I dunno, ask a Presbyterian and then an Episcopalian and you will get two very confessions concerning this.

 

[JM]

I dunno, ask a Presbyterian and then an Episcopalian and you will get two very confessions concerning this.

ArmyMatt, that is true of every denomination including the Eastern Orthodox. The view from the pew may be different from the ecclesiastical position. When I attended a Greek Orthodox church they assured me they were just like the Roman Catholics except for the Pope and Marian dogmas. The emphasis in my response was on church confessionalism. The Anglican 39 Articles are a simpler version of what you find in the Westminster. The Westminster, London Baptist, Savoy, etc. are all in agreement on the atonement. I believe that is why you good folks refer to the “Western” view of the atonement and the “Eastern” view…because the West is united in one confessional voice on the issue of the atonement.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

JM, if you're going by the 39 Articles, I think that's a mistake. The 39 Articles in Anglicanism haven't been normative for CENTURIES! high-church Anglicans disregard them utterly and most areas of Anglicanism have basically relegated them to being in the appendix of the BOCP. They are only required of Church of England clergy to uphold, and even then it's loosey-goosey!

The Anglicans have varied views of the Atonement from the ransom/recapitulation/conquest of death view of Orthodoxy to an Anselmian honor model all the way to the hardcore Calvinist variety. You go from the John Stott's of Anglicanism all the way to the N.T. Wright's of that communion, and trust me, they don't all jive! Heck, Calvinists all over the world condemn NT Wright as a sell-out for his "new views on Paul" and atonement, etc.

In Catholicism there is much speculation and wriggle room as well! I know some "Stabat Mater" type Catholics who are obsessed with the bloody aspect and the sacrificial model and some who sound Orthodox focusing on Christ overcoming death by death. Some have adopted this Baptisty style "Jesus took a bullet for me that was meant for me!" angle. Many folks consider the best way to reform Catholicism is to get back to squares---return to the ancient views of Atonement over the post-Medievel bloody models and barbarian-influenced honor codes.

To say the West is united in their views on just about ANYTHING is a huge mistake imho. I know your argument is that the West is united confessionally, but even that isn't accurate. And even if it were, it's all about praxis and real-time belief. A church can confess something, but if nobody holds to it, well....Look at the U.S. government. Our "official" laws about immigration ARE strict! They're pretty much zero tolerance! But do you know ANY politicians who fight for it and keep to it and states that really enforce those laws? Our government encourages illegality with immigration and wants it! So the confession and the real confession, well, I'd argue there's a massive disconnect.

 

[JM]

JM, if you're going by the 39 Articles, I think that's a mistake. The 39 Articles in Anglicanism haven't been normative for CENTURIES!

Ministers being ordained in the Anglican communion are still bound to make an oath of subscription to the Articles. It is intellectually dishonest to swear an oath one is not willing to uphold and that goes for the men you mentioned. It’s also not the churches fault the Oxford Movement, wanting to head back to Rome, rejected them. They were ordained after having made an oath to uphold them.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[ArmyMatt]

yes but within Eastern Orthodoxy, we are all the same dogmatically. even within certain Protestant sects, they are very different, and many don't even agree with their own founders (even if their denomination goes back less than a century).

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Not true at all, JM, my brother. Priests ordained in the CHURCH OF ENGLAND are bound to the 39 Articles by oath, not all priests in the Anglican COMMUNION! I was an Episcopalian for about 5 years before my diocese left TEC and joined the ACNA. In neither jurisdiction did they require any such thing with relation to the Articles.

The Oxford Movement was a desire to bring back much of the piety of Catholicism jettisoned during the chaos of Edwardian England as guys like Cranmer and his ilk created things like the black rubrics and went around England smashing sacred images on a rampage. You seem to imagine Anglicanism as essentially 100% Calvinist, which it never was. Yes, Martin Bucer and Cranmer and Ridley, Latimer, etc. were all definitely smitten with Calvinism and predestination (ugh), but MANY in Anglicanism were always "high church" as well as sympathetic with their Catholic roots. Hence the support for Queen Mary when she ascended. It was the Elizabethan Compromise that brokered the crazy, delicate, messy balance of making Anglicanism a 'bridge church' straddling two worlds---Protestant and Catholic. Some regions were more on the Catholic end, some were stark, empty, dry, and as low church Protestant as the nearest Baptist church. But by the 19th Century guys like Newman were especially keen to move the church much more in the Catholic direction.

So if the Anglican Church was never a hard and fast "anything" confessional, and the 39 Articles (which were formally 6 Articles then 42 Articles, then really just up in the air, well, I wouldn't take them too seriously. To try and make Anglicanism sound uniform, organized, and some kind of hard and fast philosophy is to totally not understand Anglicanism at all! It's the wibbly-wobbly blank check approach to Christianity in Anglicanism that MADE ME LEAVE IT!

Thanks be to God I was called to Orthodoxy by the Spirit!

Ministers being ordained in the Anglican communion are still bound to make an oath of subscription to the Articles. It is intellectually dishonest to swear an oath one is not willing to uphold and that goes for the men you mentioned. It’s also not the churches fault the Oxford Movement, wanting to head back to Rome, rejected them. They were ordained after having made an oath to uphold them.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[~Anastasia~]

Not true at all, JM, my brother. Priests ordained in the CHURCH OF ENGLAND are bound to the 39 Articles by oath, not all priests in the Anglican COMMUNION! I was an Episcopalian for about 5 years before my diocese left TEC and joined the ACNA. In neither jurisdiction did they require any such thing with relation to the Articles.

The Oxford Movement was a desire to bring back much of the piety of Catholicism jettisoned during the chaos of Edwardian England as guys like Cranmer and his ilk created things like the black rubrics and went around England smashing sacred images on a rampage. You seem to imagine Anglicanism as essentially 100% Calvinist, which it never was. Yes, Martin Bucer and Cranmer and Ridley, Latimer, etc. were all definitely smitten with Calvinism and predestination (ugh), but MANY in Anglicanism were always "high church" as well as sympathetic with their Catholic roots. Hence the support for Queen Mary when she ascended. It was the Elizabethan Compromise that brokered the crazy, delicate, messy balance of making Anglicanism a 'bridge church' straddling two worlds---Protestant and Catholic. Some regions were more on the Catholic end, some were stark, empty, dry, and as low church Protestant as the nearest Baptist church. But by the 19th Century guys like Newman were especially keen to move the church much more in the Catholic direction.

So if the Anglican Church was never a hard and fast "anything" confessional, and the 39 Articles (which were formally 6 Articles then 42 Articles, then really just up in the air, well, I wouldn't take them too seriously. To try and make Anglicanism sound uniform, organized, and some kind of hard and fast philosophy is to totally not understand Anglicanism at all! It's the wibbly-wobbly blank check approach to Christianity in Anglicanism that MADE ME LEAVE IT!

Thanks be to God I was called to Orthodoxy by the Spirit!

I know I recently posted questions on this site and elsewhere, since I didn't get too far in getting a handle on Anglican theology. I was interested because there are some Anglicans I highly respect, and I find them to give well-reasoned responses. At one time I had seriously considered a Continuing Anglican Church when I thought it might be a possible compromise between my husband and myself. But the rector didn't seem to want to give me concrete answers concerning what they believed. And the Anglicans I have spoken to seem to be of the opinion that there really is no consensus of what constitutes a body of Anglican theology. Which surprised me, but coming from Anglicans themselves, that is all the answer I get.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Agreed. It's too "blank check" for me. There is an old saying that everyone from Mother Theresa to Mao Tse Tung could claim to be an Anglican in good standing! They range from Calvinist hardcores to traditionalist Catholic types to super liberals who are for women's ordination and gay rights wearing rainbow robes but loving the Catholicky worship and statues to "broad Church" types who kind of like a little of both. I knew one couple at my old parish who, when you asked them what they are, they as Anglicans would answer totally differently! Kim would say "I'm a catholic Anglian!" and her husband would say, "Protestant till the grave all the way!" :o

My priest at my old Anglican parish used to call me the "idol worshipper" as an ongoing joke because of my affinity for sacred art. When he called me that in his office on day, I raised an eyebrow, made an "a-hem" and gestured to the wall behind him by the window where he had.....A PANTOKRATOR ICON!

We had an ongoing book study at St. Paul's. We were reading "Knowing God" by JI Packer and when we got to the iconoclastic nonsense in that book about the evil of ANY images of saints, Christ, His Mother, or ANY sort of imagery, the crazed way that book laid out sacred images, I was fed up. My priest just LOVED IT! He talked about iconoclasm with glee. That bugged me.

ANY YET....his best friend, our bishop (God rest his soul!), was SUPER DUPER Catholic and he would encourage sacred art, loved high church style worship, etc. HUH?



Anglicanism was too bipolar for me. No firm theology at all. But I must say, Catholicism is headed in that SAME direction! Why do you think I get nervous when I hear the liberal oddities going on in TAW that do NOT sound Orthodox! Panic button!

I know I recently posted questions on this site and elsewhere, since I didn't get too far in getting a handle on Anglican theology. I was interested because there are some Anglicans I highly respect, and I find them to give well-reasoned responses. At one time I had seriously considered a Continuing Anglican Church when I thought it might be a possible compromise between my husband and myself. But the rector didn't seem to want to give me concrete answers concerning what they believed. And the Anglicans I have spoken to seem to be of the opinion that there really is no consensus of what constitutes a body of Anglican theology. Which surprised me, but coming from Anglicans themselves, that is all the answer I get.

 

[prodromos]

Yes, it always bugged me when I was Anglican, that a member of the church could be a complete heretic and still remain an Anglican in good standing (cough Bishop Spong cough).

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

(cough cough) Spong
(cough cough) Presiding "bishop" Schiori
I better quit this! If I keep naming the heretics, I'll cough so much that I'll vapor lock! The list in TEC rises every day! Anglicanism is in ashes right now. I can't fathom how traditional, more conservative Anglicans stick with it.

Yes, it always bugged me when I was Anglican, that a member of the church could be a complete heretic and still remain an Anglican in good standing (cough Bishop Spong cough).

 

[Ignatius21]

Ministers being ordained in the Anglican communion are still bound to make an oath of subscription to the Articles. It is intellectually dishonest to swear an oath one is not willing to uphold and that goes for the men you mentioned. It’s also not the churches fault the Oxford Movement, wanting to head back to Rome, rejected them. They were ordained after having made an oath to uphold them.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

Could you please name the podcast you heard on AFR that you thought misrepresented the Western views of atonement? I'd like to listen to it before commenting here.

Thanks!