Eastern Orthodoxy

[colinlindsay]

Philothei - PLEASE!!!
I can't find the energy to read all of that.



Also, Rick Otto - would Bradfordl consider you a dangerous compromiser for giving argument room to OE contributers. Maybe in Bradfordl's schema of apostasy, you are the door that lets it in.

 

[Rick Otto]

I was both wondering, & hoping not to go there myself, colin.
I think he is still a little new to it & I remember how [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ed off I was at all the other interpretations for a few years after discovering Reform Theology. I couldn't believe how confused & manipulated I had been, and it was hard to be civil about something that means so much being so twisted.
After a few years of goin' round after round in argument, my sense of humor began to return, and that needed some re-socializing as well.
I used to get moderated so hard & fast here when I first joined, that I stayed away for a couple of years before comin' back. My sense of fun returned one day & the idea of havin' a CF character seemed appealing.
You can probably still get a vague sense of my critical views, lookin' at my CF character.

He's all in the here & now about it.
I believe it takes time & helps if the people I talk to get to know me a little, hopefully making what I say a little more digestable & less likely to be immediately dismissed.

 

[orthedoxy]

Matt 17:1After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
4Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."

5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"

6When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7But Jesus came and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don't be afraid." 8When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

Here is Jesus and the disciples talking to the dead.
Were they Idolaters?
You know Martin Luther was an Idolater since he prayed to the saints. Do Calvinist agree that Luther was Idolater?

 

[orthedoxy]

Unwal and Rick
Do you believe Arminians (who believe you have to choose God and Jesus died for everyone but only people that choose Jesus will be saved) are teaching salvation by grace through faith?

 

[Rick Otto]

You know Martin Luther was an Idolater since he prayed to the saints. Do Calvinist agree that Luther was Idolater?

This Calvinist will.
Idolatry can be committed figuratively to, just like when you look on bacon & eggs with lust, in your heart you've already committed breakfast.

 

[Ceridwen]

I don't know the meaning of that term as used here.

This is what "Owned" means:

 

[cajunhillbilly]

Funny picture

 

[bradfordl]

This is what "Owned" means:

Still confused, then. Who "Owned" who here? Who is the scribbler and who's the scribblee?

 

[colinlindsay]

Rick Otto - I believe it takes time & helps if the people I talk to get to know me a little, hopefully making what I say a little more digestable & less likely to be immediately dismissed. > >

I suppose I've crossed from being for most of my Christian life too subservient to people's opinions and then through anger with them and myself for trying to harmonise the unharmonisable and now I'm coming out into the 'live and let live" frame of mind.

But, people in church are often so individual, or do I mean individualistic? So precious, so eccentric, so unobservant of the Body, so lacking in common sense (or common hygiene)

For example, Joe cornered two ladies after church. He told them they didn't understand the story of the woman with the issue of blood because they didn't have a Jewish mindset. (which he did)

Last Saturday he asks me and another to pray for him that he doesn't go down into depression (he's rather hyper and is on pills)
He doesn't see that his perfectionist attitude towards Scripture, and the fact that he only sees his 'Shalom' in understanding Scripture, means that he doesn't understand that it's his project that is causing the depression. He ignores doctors who say he needs to 'get a life'. Maybe he needs to become more of a social / somatic animal and feed his soul instead of seeking to impress people with his priviledged insights.

 

[Rick Otto]

Yeah, I can dog that... live & let live.
I saw atheist-Jew "Elaine" on Seinfeld, asking her 'religious' boyfriend why it doesn't bother him that she doesn't believe. He says, "Because I'm not the one goin' to hell."

That guy you mention is one of the reasons I don't miss church.
There's several valid ways of lookin' at him. Some people are damaged goods and represent a maintenance problem that only gets better or worse, sometimes depending on a legitimate need for medication which is tricky in the neurotransmitter area.
I see a possible mend in getting the parts of himself involved, communicating with each other.
The part of him that needs people to pray for & support him should be getting that from the part of him that wants to correct people & set them straight.
They could become great friends & he could stop being his own worst enemy.
Does that make any sense?

 

[colinlindsay]

Live and let live - am I really that laid back?
I just know that after 20 years in evangelicalism I recognise that my opinion probably is as valid as everyone else's, even and especially those that have had the pulpit. I've realised how much personaliity and background has determined the flavour of our theology.
A man who has never been able to experience the presence of forgiveness of God has preached a message of insecurity and unsettlement for so long at our church, compounded by all the polemics he's found on the internet. If he's not careful he will go into the desert.
We should all take ourselves less seriously and maybe we'll discover more sanctified mental health.
Talking of which, you remember that guy (I don't even want to say his name again) who I quoted as a pro-Israel dispensationalist on this thread and again on the consensus of the church thread that you gave me a reputation for, Rick?
Somebody on his behalf seems to trawl through message boards looking for his name and then getting them prioritised on search engines. So MY name and these threads appear on google immediately if you type his name and Eastern Orthodoxy.
How can you do that? Is your own message THAT important? I suppose if you think we are surrounded by apostasy then yes.

 

[Rick Otto]

LOL! "I gave you a reputation for"?
Sorry.
You're right. Humor can be helpful.

 

[colinlindsay]

This thread has gone to sleep.
Maybe we've just exhausted ourselves from the conflict and hair-splitting. I don't suppose much building of the Body has occurred either across the denominations.
I would like to have had more on sola scriptura and just why such a belief will in practice always lead to divisions.
Anyway, back to Joe. Every Sunday he has something to say to me.
An announcement was made (I think this may be almost a legal requirement) to invite people in the congregation to train as first-aiders.
Whereupon Joe squirms in his seat for 5 minutes than shouts out. "We don't need first-aiders, we just need faith that Jesus will heal us"
He's on his way unfortunately to people not wanting to sit next to him in church.
But he's shown me that every theology is ungirded by presupposition. Of the 2 patterns of intercession he takes the "Whatever you ask for in prayer" one rather than the "praying as seeking for God's will" pattern.
Both of these are in tension in the scriptures.
The problem is that Joe is unwell himself. His theology gives him no release but he can't let it go.
Some of us think that, because Joe is sincere, this may be a form of religious mania.
I think I'm learning rather to experience the peace that passes understanding.
And yes, Rick, I'm not about to judge you for not attending church at present. It's all very appealing.
You asked Bradfordl to "be nice".
Why should he? Does Scripture not warn us about the coming apostasy, even that people will mascarade as "angels of light". Nice people maybe are the purveyors of serious error.
Well I can't live under that paranoia - can anybody, unless they have the hugest ego that believes they are indeed right.

 

[Rick Otto]

quote=colinlindsay;This thread has gone to sleep.

R.I.P.

Maybe we've just exhausted ourselves from the conflict and hair-splitting. I don't suppose much building of the Body has occurred either across the denominations.

If it hasn't killed us, it made us stronger.

I would like to have had more on sola scriptura and just why such a belief will in practice always lead to divisions.

For both good & bad reasons I reckon.
Good is the advantage of differeng perspectives where both are right. We are naturaly divided in our individuality, so I'd expect some in perception/interpretation as well.
Bad isn't so much in the division itself as in the consequences, I'd venture.

Anyway, back to Joe. Every Sunday he has something to say to me.
An announcement was made (I think this may be almost a legal requirement) to invite people in the congregation to train as first-aiders.
Whereupon Joe squirms in his seat for 5 minutes than shouts out. "We don't need first-aiders, we just need faith that Jesus will heal us"
He's on his way unfortunately to people not wanting to sit next to him in church.
But he's shown me that every theology is ungirded by presupposition. Of the 2 patterns of intercession he takes the "Whatever you ask for in prayer" one rather than the "praying as seeking for God's will" pattern.
Both of these are in tension in the scriptures.
The problem is that Joe is unwell himself. His theology gives him no release but he can't let it go.
Some of us think that, because Joe is sincere, this may be a form of religious mania.
I think I'm learning rather to experience the peace that passes understanding.
And yes, Rick, I'm not about to judge you for not attending church at present. It's all very appealing.
You asked Bradfordl to "be nice".
Why should he? Does Scripture not warn us about the coming apostasy, even that people will mascarade as "angels of light". Nice people maybe are the purveyors of serious error.
Well I can't live under that paranoia - can anybody, unless they have the hugest ego that believes they are indeed right.

Well, if nice guys finish last, & last shall be first...
I have a knack for "street math".
I think "Hebephrenia" was the clinical term for religious mania. I feel it overwhelm my cerebral cortex when I start getting close to any church. I hate the obsessive hyper vigilance & self- critical mind set I get sucked into. It has such a fatalistic feel.
Mania can can be de-escalated by re-establishing the connections to reality. I would ask Joe about the health & happiness of his family, how work is going, cars are running, etc. God's providence is applied with less controversy & counting those blessings is more fun than commiseration.
A person can sometimes be embarrassed by their own grandiosity when they become aware of it.

 

[colinlindsay]

< < I feel it overwhelm my cerebral cortex when I start getting close to any church. I hate the obsessive hyper vigilance & self- critical mind set I get sucked into. It has such a fatalistic feel. > >

Interesting - tell me more.

< < Mania can can be de-escalated by re-establishing the connections to reality. I would ask Joe about the health & happiness of his family, how work is going, cars are running, etc. God's providence is applied with less controversy & counting those blessings is more fun than commiseration.
A person can sometimes be embarrassed by their own grandiosity when they become aware of it. > >

Joe and others I've often asked about their jobs (if they can hold one down) or their families (if they can support wife and children), hobbies (they don't have such things).
It's almost as if they can only find satisfaction (even if only temporary) if they are searching into God's things by laying out fleeces continually, savaging out meanings from the Biblical text, or basically being religiously intense and dismissive of ordinary concerns.
I know what worldly psychiatry would advise.

Now, not eveybody is like Joe. But a lot of this translates into mask-wearing and other forms of strutting for the rest of us.

Jesus said we should wash feet. I fancy saying this to preachers who say that they HAVE to preach the word (like unto Paul, Woe is me if I don't....). Funny how easy it is for it to become addictive and ego-serving.

An example of foot-washing for the modern age would be to sit and listen, without comment or condemnation or even 'solution'.
Like the footwasher, who is taken for garnted, the listener receives no kudos and is subservient to the needs of the speaker.

As Ghandi observed, Christians talk a lot....

 

[Rick Otto]

Indeed they do, and I don't need comiseration. I don't want to ba "whine-bibber".

That fatalistic feel I get is from the inevitable works based judgements that get leveled:
How active is your participation in church activities & programs.
Do you & what size, tithe?
Am I keeping a "right spirit"?
I suffer paralysis by analysis, feeling like I'm under a spiritual microscope being viewed alternately by God & the congregation.
What I wear, length of my hair, choice of chair, etc.
I know it's mostly my own paranoia & conscientiousness in overdrive, but it is reflexive in that situation so I avoid it.
And i avoid the restrictiveness of the situation itself.
Not much time is allowed for interaction. It isn't conducive to institutional operative efficiency in material terms. The needs of the institution tend to marginalize the needs of the institution except where they legitimize the institution's existence.

 

[heymikey80]

There are people in many congregations that are not strong in their faith, and perhaps you would find some who do this. But on the whole, I think even most but-nominal Orthodox do not regularly attend other churches.

I think you'd find a number of once nominally Orthodox people in Protestant churches.

Not at all. But really, the point is that there is only one Orthodox church; there are thousands of Protestant churches, and it is because of sola scriptura.

Which isn't really true either. Through splits the Orthodox church is not one, either.

It just doesn't like to talk about those splitted-off churches. It only likes to talk about those it wants to identify ideally as "the Orthodox".

And they're not particularly consistent either. As I've cited on this board, there're some who hold to views that are not broad, that sound rather like substitutionary atonement.

To the living Bride of Christ . No different to how you pick your leaders really.

Calling everyone else outside the Bride of Christ isn't a great way to understand what Jesus said about such things. Lk 9:49-50

And He did - by oral tradition and the Bible.

Which oral tradition doesn't trace itself to the earliest church, and so we dispense with it. You don't. Ending up with the argument, particularly the one swirling around icons.

Certainly, and like we say, we only make icons of those with physical manifestations, such as Christ, who became man, the Holy Spirit, who appeared as a dove at the Baptism of Christ, the saints, who were men, or angels, who appear in visible form.

But of course the visible form of the icon was never ordained by God. The manifestation of God by Christ Himself was ordained by God. So was Christ's ascension into Heaven. His image is no longer on earth, and His icons are not so designated as an image for this time.

In point of fact there is an image of Christ designated for this time. And it's not an icon.

The only way in which God the Father is ever represented in Orthodox iconography is as one of the three messengers who visited Abraham, whom we believe represent the Holy Trinity.

And um, you're saying you're allowed to represent Jesus and the Father in imagery which you set apart as holy and venerate. On what grounds? That the Church has always done so? Then tell me where one of the Apostles did so. Tell me where the Apostolic pattern is to make an image, set it apart as holy, and venerate it.

 

[heymikey80]

No... it [sola scriptura] does logically eliminate it [other sources of truth]. That's precisely the purpose of it.

It is not the purpose of it. It is an accession to the fact that we're not perfect interpreters, and neither was the church's historical experience or tradition. It wasn't for Judaism. It isn't for the Church.

To use historicity and tradition as pointers to the truth and not the truth itself -- that's the purpose of sola scriptura.

As for churches built on traditions, there are thousands. You're one among many.

 

[colinlindsay]

One reason why I'm sympathetic towards liturgy and Orthodoxy is that Joe wouldn't be given the latitute to do His Own Thing in church.
Much of it is to do with the fact that he considers that he is an intellectual and God has said He approves of operating only on this level. This is his ministry, if you like.
We have open times in the service where people can read big passages of scripture and do some exhorting.
Joe has probably the biggest bible in the congregation and the most ear-marked amd book-marked. He rustles away in it continually, even during the worship. (He makes a point of not singing the choruses with 'I' in them too often.)
He has a loud voice and is very well enunciated. You can't hide, nor can you distract yourselfwith your own bible-study.
He compained this morning that in the songs and hymns heaven is mentioned too many times. We need to understand that we as believers are not going to heaven. We will be clothed with new bodies and walk the new earth. It's all to do with incarnation.
Most of us have been around for ages. We know about this. Why don't WE cause a fuss? Maybe because there IS some scriptural latitude for going to be with Jesus and in a conscious state.
It's just we see sensibly that it's not about swapping bible verses. He believes that our reformed presuppositions makes us fail to understand that the NT is a Jewish book and we need Jewish theological mindsets and ideas to correctly understand.
I instinctively know he's wrong but I'm not going to argue with him.
Maybe you Calvinists think we should engage in the doctrinal hothouse he relishes.
I think we should take him aside and give him some parameters to speaking out in the service.

 

[Rick Otto]

Colin.
have you shared your observations with the pastor?
Sounds like Joe has taken the congregation hostage to some degree. Maybe the pastor needs to direct Joe to a hotter house, doctrinaly speaking.
Maybe you could plant a seed of freedom from his Hebephrenia by showing him understanding isn't so dependant on mind-frames.
Ro 2:14 - For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
And maybe you can get him to relax his false standards a bit with this observation about the down-side of the "Jewish mindset":
Ga 6:13 - For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.
Running to Orthodoxy to avoid Joes might be an over-reaction.