The debasement of theology

[The Liturgist]

Alas, this footnote would not fit in the initial post:

* One of the most interesting of the UUA parishes which sitll identifies as Christian is King’s Chapel in Boston, which was unique among those churches caught up in the revolutionary fervor of the late 1780s and the “Enlightenment” in that it was Anglican, and like the Methodists and the Episcopalians, it had been cut off of Episcopal support from the Church of England, meaning no new priests would be ordained for service in the newly independent colonies. The Methodists and Episcopalians dealt with this issue in different way, with both denominations managing to establish a new hierarchy of bishops to replace the Church of England bishops who were no longer willing to support them. King’s Chapel, on the other hand, decided to become nominally Unitarian, nominally Congregational, but to do so in a manner intended not to offend those who were attending who had Trinitarian or Anglican beliefs. Thus, they retained the use of the Book of Common Prayer, but created their own edited version, which was modified to remove explicit references to the Holy Trinity, by replacing “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” et cetera, wherever it appeared, with, “Through our Lord Jesus Christ”, which is widely used liturgical phrase in the West, and one which could encapsulate both views.

However, these days, the church is more clearly liberal and more obviously Unitarian, although in theory it could have non-Unitarian members (I think it does have a few, who are liberal Christians who might otherwise be UCC or Episcopalian but find it more convenient).

This church stands in stark contrast to Park Street Church, which is the last remaining traditional Congregationalist church in Boston, and to Old North Church, which is a national monument but which has an Episcopalian congregation which is usually characterized by fairly moderate and inoffensive preaching, especially by Bostonian standards. Indeed, even King’s Chapel is pleasant to listen to compared to the intensely political rhetoric that passes for a sermon at Old South Church, which is a beautiful Congregational church the architecture of which has strong Byzantine influences (although I had an interesting debate with another member, @bbbbbbb , about the actual classification of it - like me, @bbbbbbb is a scholar of church architecture and is also very familiar with the history of reformed churches in the Northeast, and will probably have something interesting to add here. I can’t recall the architectural style @bbbbbbb classified Old South Church as - it may have been Brick Gothic, although I don’t think so; the overall appearance of the church has much in common with Italianate churches with some degree of Byzantine influence such as one might expect to find in Venice or Ravenna, whereas when I think of Brick Gothic, the beautiful cathedral in Gdansk with its carillon of many bells, playing lovely Lutheran hymns and Polish tunes that echo across the serene Gothic harbor, stirkes me as the apex of the Brick Gothic experience. Although, I would note that Westminster Cathedral in London is Brick Gothic-revival, but with Byzantine influences.

At any rate as @hislegacy has expressed an interest in Puritanism, the closest thing to an authentically Puritan church existing in a historic colonial city in New England is probably Park Street Church, although really, Park Street Church represents a Congregationalist Calvinist church that was founded by the Puritans but compared to them, is quite liturgical. Also, the Puritans required parents to baptize their infants, whereas Park Street Church, like many mainline denominations including the United Methodist Church, allows parents to either baptize their children or have them dedicated in the Baptist tradition, to facilitate a future credo-baptism.

And Park Street Church is liturgical, with an organ and instrumental music and vestments, whereas the Puritans rejected such things, instead worshipping with A Capella exclusive Psalmody (the Bay Psalter was widely used by the Puritans in New England, but I have been unable to find any recordings of performances of the Psalms following its pattern - I have not even been able to find an example of a Presbyterian or Baptist church that engages in Lining Out during the singing of the Psalms, although I have heard it exists. The closest I have been able to get is in some of the square note singing that eventually formed into the distinctive Southern Harmony used by the Baptists in the Deep South, and the metrical psalters used by the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland and in North America, which are quite good, and which set the Psalms to well-known four part chorales, some of which were originally composed for that purpose, most notably the chorale known as the “Old Hundredth”, which is most commonly used in Protestant churches for the “Doxology” hymn, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”, which in LCMS parochial school, we would sing at the end of every school day - this chorale dates from the late 15th century and was used by the Calvinists in Geneva to sing Psalm 100, which was arranged for use with it by John Calvin personally, if memory serves.

Interestingly the Continental Reformed churches were liturgical, insofar as they had set forms of prayer for Holy Communion, Morning and Evening Prayer, despite a strong emphasis on preaching as the center of worship. It was the Scottish Presbyterians under John Knox who rejected the idea of requiring specific wording at all services, and instead simply required a specific order of worship to be followed, but with the actual prayers said, based on approximate instructions, by the minister, in an extemporaneous manner.

I myself have always preferred written liturgical prayer, in that, as those who have heard me try it can attest, I am notoriously bad at ex tempore prayer, but also, I find many of the liturgical prayers to be extremely beautiful, and I don’t see why i should re-invent a wheel so expertly cast by the likes of St. John Chrysostom or St. Basil the Great or St. Ephraim the Syrian, but I do understand the appeal of ex tempore prayer in terms of the flexibility it offers, and with liturgical prayer one either needs to memorize it, or else develop a method for reaching for a prayer book and finding the most appropriate prayer at solemn occasions that might arise unexpectedly in a calm and deliberate manner, as opposed to fumbling through it, but fortunately, the more one uses a prayer book, the more one remembers, and the less one is reliant on the fleeting abilities of eyesight (I am blessed in that my vision remains extremely good, although I had a bit of a scare earlier this year, which turned out to be due to a combination of a blood pressure medicine, an eye infection and an allergic reaction, but it was an important reminder of the impermanence of those physical abilities we take for granted).

 

[The Liturgist]

This statement struck me as very noteworthy. I was once, quite a while ago, on the board of what was thought a well-established local church, that voted overwhelmingly to hold a funeral [the actual words used] for itself. I never quite learned the internal motivations of the other voters -- finances were not a concern -- but other text of this conversation may have finally educated me.

I find that truly shocking, even by the depraved standards of postmodern theology. Could you explain exactly what they did, and what the aftermath was? And could you provide us with additional information on it? It would be interesting if you were willing to share the name of the church and the specific circumstances, and any newspaper coverage, but if you are reluctant to do so for reasons of privacy, I completely understand.

But whatever you can share regarding the incident, I would be interested in.

 

[chevyontheriver]

* The other part of the Prussian Church in North America, the Lutherans, who form the LCMS and LCC, two of the three churches in the US and Canada that are in altar and pulpit fellowship as members of the International Lutheran Council, along with the AALC, which has different origins. The LCMS/LCC came harrowingly close, within inches I should say, nay, within micrometers, of becoming a liberal mainline church, but there was a traditionalist crackdown in the 1970s against all odds at the Concordia University. A group of disgruntled liberal seminary professors tried to draw out the controversy by forming the Seminary In Exile, or Seminex, which sounds like a brand name for a courier or sanitation company, but they were unsuccessful, and eventually threw in the proverbial towel, and as an indication of the new traditionalist direction the LCMS was headed in, ...

I was at Washington University when the imbroglio at Concordia happened. My dorm looked out to the west towards Fontbonne College and beyond that Concordia Seminary. I could see the top of their bell tower. I listened often to their Vespers on their low power radio station. Anyhow, I was hearing a lot about their problems after a large chunk of the professors left and a large chunk of seminarians too. The joke was that the last person out of the seminary had to turn the lights out. To it's discredit St. Louis University lent Seminex space for their operations after those professors stormed out of Concordia. I knew one seminarian that stayed at Concordia and one theology student at SLU so I got a little peek at the behind the scenes happenings. Sad situation. Probably necessary. I wish the LCMS could have moderated a bit on their stand on evolution, but overall I would have sided with Concordia against Seminex if I was a Lutheran. It was a definite turning point. Had it not happened I think the LCMS would have been an ELCA look-alkie by now. My opinion anyhow. And, if I had to be a Lutheran it would be a LCMS church I'd be found in. Second choice would be WELS, but their dogma seems to start and end with creationism against evolution. The LCMS is IMHO more solidly traditional.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Concordia in Ft. Wayne is now viewed as the seat of orthodoxy in the LCMS as is Concordia in St. Catherine's Ontario for LCC.

 

[The Liturgist]

Concordia in Ft. Wayne is now viewed as the seat of orthodoxy in the LCMS as is Concordia in St. Catherine's Ontario for LCC.

And St. Catharine’s Monastery in Sinai is the seat of orthodoxy in the Sinai Peninsula!

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

I find that truly shocking, even by the depraved standards of postmodern theology. Could you explain exactly what they did, and what the aftermath was? And could you provide us with additional information on it? It would be interesting if you were willing to share the name of the church and the specific circumstances, and any newspaper coverage, but if you are reluctant to do so for reasons of privacy, I completely understand.

But whatever you can share regarding the incident, I would be interested in.

I can try. It was indeed one of the most shocking moments I have witnessed in a church. I will not give names except mine and Sweet Lori's, so as to avoid shaming anyone else.

Sweet Lori and I had joined probably five years earlier, 1998 I think. We had been seeking a church in which we could be more useful than the one in which I had been baptized, and this one was quietly but clearly encouraging to us, I play piano and she sings. When we visited, they had an extremely devoted, excellent, but aged organist who had been a pianist, but whose arthritis prevented her from playing piano anymore. They invited us to stay, we prayed and discussed and accepted the next week, and two weeks later, she passed on, and we were then the only ones prepared for the jobs. Thus we found ourselves locked and loaded. They offered me a weekly stipend (very traditional in these parts for church-pianist), but I did not accept, first because I did not consider myself good enough yet at their kind of music (hymns mostly, mixed with some more recents), and second because I perceived a leading against by the Holy Spirit.

This was a church of perhaps 40-50 usual attendance, probably three or four times that on Christmas Eve. The building could seat probably 200 in the sanctuary, but that includes the wraparound balcony which had not been used in probably fifty or more years. It was located in what was once quite a swanky neighborhood, the very opposite by the time we got there. Built in the 1920's I think. Two-thirds of the weekly attenders, and probably a much larger proportion of yearly attenders, were of the original families.

One of the strange aspects of the church, was confidence within its own leadership was very low. Finances were excellent. In board meetings, over and over again, certain outspoken miserables would bemoan the finances of the church, passing out documents with numbers to encourage agreement with their positions. Initially, I took the documents at face value, but then more data came out, I questioned, sought the raw data, and proved the antithesis. When this church's board voted to hold a funeral for itself (I was the only dissenter!), it had twelve years of operating funds in its bank accounts.

I still do not know much of the contents of the minds of the others on the board of that church. But in that year -- 2002 or close -- though having met and listened to many in Christ, of many different churches in the USA, I had met only one churchgoer locally, except my sweet wife Lori, who was not demoralized and dispirited, by depowering in the public square. Certainly the preaching of that church ran accordingly. Always the bemoaning, always the "retake" where any prior taking was a violent fiction contrary to that which the Lord has said. In other words, echoing almost all (not quite all) of the so-called Christian radio of the times. So my current theory is, they had taken in that view of church and world, hook, line, and sinker, as enormous numbers of others have. They believed as they were taught, that any joy they could justify in Christ, had to be in that vain national "christianization" once so dominant in public schools and public square. They saw their favorite fruits rotting on the vine of this world. They were taught to confuse the vine of this world with the True Vine of Christ the Lord.

I do not know whether or not they actually held a funeral service for themselves. I was not going to stay for that, and Sweet Lori was agreeable, we got out of there; there were a few that sought and received our counsel before and after. It is possible that by leaving immediately, a helpful message may have been delivered. Some months later, there was a weird assembly to which I was invited, in which it was presented that another local church had bought the building. There was not a high truth level in that assembly. The church that had been, scattered. The new one was entirely a birth from the buyers. The buyers had zero relationship to their neighbors, kept it that way for years, and there was a "clean slate" mentality, a weekly gathering to give food was ignored, despised, and cut off. I believe eventually there was some improvement in the relationship to the neighbors. How much I do not know. It has been a long time.

To the best of my knowledge, there was literally zero media coverage of any kind, formal or informal, newspaper or other. I think it all was placed under as strong a hush as they could manage, not the least bit because the pastor and his wife and family, left (legally, paperwork in order) with quite a large amount of the purchase price of the building. The weird assembly seemed to me like a session of "this is what we are telling people, let's put on a happy face". I knew just one other attendee. He and I left as brothers and friends. The others were not interested in us.

I have discussed this very little, except for a few specially chosen refugees and friends, and of course Sweet Lori. But now decades after, it seems potentially helpful to relate in this way. May God bless you all!

 

[The Liturgist]

I can try. It was indeed one of the most shocking moments I have witnessed in a church. I will not give names except mine and Sweet Lori's, so as to avoid shaming anyone else.

Sweet Lori and I had joined probably five years earlier, 1998 I think. We had been seeking a church in which we could be more useful than the one in which I had been baptized, and this one was quietly but clearly encouraging to us, I play piano and she sings. When we visited, they had an extremely devoted, excellent, but aged organist who had been a pianist, but whose arthritis prevented her from playing piano anymore. They invited us to stay, we prayed and discussed and accepted the next week, and two weeks later, she passed on, and we were then the only ones prepared for the jobs. Thus we found ourselves locked and loaded. They offered me a weekly stipend (very traditional in these parts for church-pianist), but I did not accept, first because I did not consider myself good enough yet at their kind of music (hymns mostly, mixed with some more recents), and second because I perceived a leading against by the Holy Spirit.

This was a church of perhaps 40-50 usual attendance, probably three or four times that on Christmas Eve. The building could seat probably 200 in the sanctuary, but that includes the wraparound balcony which had not been used in probably fifty or more years. It was located in what was once quite a swanky neighborhood, the very opposite by the time we got there. Built in the 1920's I think. Two-thirds of the weekly attenders, and probably a much larger proportion of yearly attenders, were of the original families.

One of the strange aspects of the church, was confidence within its own leadership was very low. Finances were excellent. In board meetings, over and over again, certain outspoken miserables would bemoan the finances of the church, passing out documents with numbers to encourage agreement with their positions. Initially, I took the documents at face value, but then more data came out, I questioned, sought the raw data, and proved the antithesis. When this church's board voted to hold a funeral for itself (I was the only dissenter!), it had twelve years of operating funds in its bank accounts.

I still do not know much of the contents of the minds of the others on the board of that church. But in that year -- 2002 or close -- though having met and listened to many in Christ, of many different churches in the USA, I had met only one churchgoer locally, except my sweet wife Lori, who was not demoralized and dispirited, by depowering in the public square. Certainly the preaching of that church ran accordingly. Always the bemoaning, always the "retake" where any prior taking was a violent fiction contrary to that which the Lord has said. In other words, echoing almost all (not quite all) of the so-called Christian radio of the times. So my current theory is, they had taken in that view of church and world, hook, line, and sinker, as enormous numbers of others have. They believed as they were taught, that any joy they could justify in Christ, had to be in that vain national "christianization" once so dominant in public schools and public square. They saw their favorite fruits rotting on the vine of this world. They were taught to confuse the vine of this world with the True Vine of Christ the Lord.

I do not know whether or not they actually held a funeral service for themselves. I was not going to stay for that, and Sweet Lori was agreeable, we got out of there; there were a few that sought and received our counsel before and after. It is possible that by leaving immediately, a helpful message may have been delivered. Some months later, there was a weird assembly to which I was invited, in which it was presented that another local church had bought the building. There was not a high truth level in that assembly. The church that had been, scattered. The new one was entirely a birth from the buyers. The buyers had zero relationship to their neighbors, kept it that way for years, and there was a "clean slate" mentality, a weekly gathering to give food was ignored, despised, and cut off. I believe eventually there was some improvement in the relationship to the neighbors. How much I do not know. It has been a long time.

To the best of my knowledge, there was literally zero media coverage of any kind, formal or informal, newspaper or other. I think it all was placed under as strong a hush as they could manage, not the least bit because the pastor and his wife and family, left (legally, paperwork in order) with quite a large amount of the purchase price of the building. The weird assembly seemed to me like a session of "this is what we are telling people, let's put on a happy face". I knew just one other attendee. He and I left as brothers and friends. The others were not interested in us.

I have discussed this very little, except for a few specially chosen refugees and friends, and of course Sweet Lori. But now decades after, it seems potentially helpful to relate in this way. May God bless you all!

Was this church affiliated with a denomination?

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

Was this church affiliated with a denomination?

It had been with the Disciples of Christ until shortly before we arrived, and may have still been on their rolls. Not an active member in any sense though.

 

[The Liturgist]

It had been with the Disciples of Christ until shortly before we arrived, and may have still been on their rolls. Not an active member in any sense though.

Well that denomination, in addition to having a number of very normal Stone/Campbell related Protestant churches, did for a time have some oddities. No doubt the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ are chagrined by the fact that initially, before he declared himself to be God and took his cult into a more extreme phase, Jim Jones was an ordained minister with them, and his initial church in the Hoosier state was formally affiliated with the Disciples of Christ.

That’s the sort of problem which can arise when a denomination expressly rejects the idea of following a Creed - most Stone/Campbell parishes agree with the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, but by not adopting it formally, they open their denomination up to people with wacky heterodox theology, or in the case of Jones, to a psychotic heretic who would eventually persuade his entire congregation to commit suicide, so that arguably was the greatest failure of oversight and safeguarding in the history of Christianity, in that he would never have been able to form his cult had he not first enjoyed the legitimacy of being a mainline Protestant pastor (the initial members of the People’s Temple in San Francisco as it rejected Christ in favor of Jim Jones were people who had joined his church when it was ostensibly Christian, some of them from when it was apparently just another Disciples of Christ parish in Indianapolis.

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

Maybe. Creeds don't seem to be saving quite a few churches from various forms of decline.

 

[The Liturgist]

Maybe. Creeds don't seem to be saving quite a few churches from various forms of decline.

Most Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East , all of which use* only one creed, the original, unaltered version of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, is not in a state of decline, but is now receiving more converts than it ever has before, at any time (conversion was not uncommon when I joined in 2014, but now, people are joining in droves), and also has a very high reproductive rate, both among members of traditionally Orthodox ethnic groups such as Copts, Antiochians, Slavs, Georgians, etc, with the exception of some of the Greek population (and likewise the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America is the only Orthodox jurisdiction in North America that is shrinking), and among converts.

It is always a good sign when a church is filled with children, which most Orthodox churches are.

*By use, I mean only the NIcene Creed of 381 is recited in the liturgy and referred to as a Creed. However, the original version of what is sometimes called Quincunque Vult or the Athanasian Creed, which was not written by St. Athanasius but is partially based on some of his writings (it would be strange for St. Athanasius, who led the prosecution of the Arian heresy at the Council of Nicaea, and advocated for the use of the Nicene Creed, to write another), again without the filioque, that is to say, the assertion that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Son and the Father, which was an innovation that first appeared in Spain in the sixth century, is included in some of our Psalters (books containing the Psalms, which we pray), and other service books, for the doctrinal edification of readers. Likewise, the Apostles Creed is not offensive to us, although we do not use it, except perhaps in the Western Rite Orthodox churches (it was originally used as a baptismal liturgy in the Roman Church in antiquity, before being popularized as a sort of secondary creed in the Middle Ages that would be read at weekday services and during the divine office). Additionally all of our hymns are rich in church doctrine, and some of them are so expressly dogmatic and have such brevity, that two of them, Te Deum Laudamus, which is more widely used in the West but we also have it, and particularly, Ho Monogenes, Only Begotten Son, have a kind of creedal effect. Anyone comfortable singing the hymn Only Begotten Son in their native language is someone who adheres to an entirely correct Christology, without Nestorianism or other errors.

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

Well that does give me some perspective There are a rather large number of churches here in Kansas, but very very few orthodox of any variety:

orthodoxkansas.org Homepage

Webpages and links for Orthodox Christian parishes and organizations in Kansas

orthodoxkansas.org

Sweet Lori and I have been serving for several years now in a church which is as you describe it, lots of learning, hymns and songs with doctrine not mindless bliss, many polite (!!), respectful (!!!), and generally happy (!!!!) children, and the leadership does hold to exactly one of the historical creeds. Westminster Lesser if I remember the name right, not certain. I don't go near creeds other than when necessary, because the Holy One has prepared me a bit different than some, possibly having something to do with my first birth and education among the Jews; but given your input, I will think that for many, an accurate creed is helpful this side of Heaven.

I do wonder if the liturgy of John Chrysostum is entirely universal in all orthodox churches, as I was told a few years ago. I have never seen it nor read its content, and I'll imagine its truth level is high, given many reports -- but there is another writing of his which would require my nonparticipation in anything lauded in his name.

 

[The Liturgist]

Well that does give me some perspective There are a rather large number of churches here in Kansas, but very very few orthodox of any variety:

orthodoxkansas.org Homepage

Webpages and links for Orthodox Christian parishes and organizations in Kansas

orthodoxkansas.org

Sweet Lori and I have been serving for several years now in a church which is as you describe it, lots of learning, hymns and songs with doctrine not mindless bliss, many polite (!!), respectful (!!!), and generally happy (!!!!) children, and the leadership does hold to exactly one of the historical creeds. Westminster Lesser if I remember the name right, not certain. I don't go near creeds other than when necessary, because the Holy One has prepared me a bit different than some, possibly having something to do with my first birth and education among the Jews; but given your input, I will think that for many, an accurate creed is helpful this side of Heaven.

I do wonder if the liturgy of John Chrysostum is entirely universal in all orthodox churches, as I was told a few years ago. I have never seen it nor read its content, and I'll imagine its truth level is high, given many reports -- but there is another writing of his which would require my nonparticipation in anything lauded in his name.

The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is used by all the Eastern Orthodox churches for most of the year as the main Eucharistic service, either following Matins (which is typical in Greek, Antiochian and Romanian churches) or with Vespers, Compline and Matins celebrated as Vigils the night before (which is normal in Slavic churches, although some Serbians use the other approach) - there is also the very similar Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, the Presanctified Liturgy, and the Divine Liturgy of St. James, which is older and quite different from the others, and rarely used (but some churches celebrate it annually on his feast day, October 23rd).

Netween the churches there are variations in music and minor details as to how it is used.

The Coptic Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox however do not use the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and while it theoretically exists in the Syriac Orthodox Church I have never seen them use it. Also obviously the Western Rite Orthodox do not use the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but rather use services similar to traditional Lutheran or Anglican liturgy. Likewise, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East do not use that liturgy.

The writing you speak of which I assume you are referring to is the writing of St. Chrysostom concerning the Jews, but there are complications with that writing which make it much less actually anti-Semitic than most people realize. For example, it is a fact that the Church in Antioch consisted, and still consists, of a very large number of persons descended from early Jewish Christians (in fact by now, due to intermarriage, anyone you are likely to meet who is ethnically Antiochian or Syriac Orthodox, including the Syriac Orthodox in India, who are largely, in many cases exclusively, descended from the Kochin Jews of Kerala, is probably at least partially of Jewish descent.

Before joining the Eastern Orthodox Church I felt compelled to investigate this issue, which I did, and I might well post my article on CF.com, but suffice it to say, I found myself surprised by the actual circumstances.

But if it were a show stopper for you, the obvious solution would be to go to a different church such as the Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean or Armenian churches (the Coptic Orthodox church have had the most experience of any Oriental Orthodox churches in receiving converts and have quite a large number, and parishes in Los Angeles where English is used, as well as St. George’s Mission in England), or a Western Rite Orthodox church, or the Assyrian Church of the East.

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

And yet more perspective! Very glad to have it, TL. Thank you very much. I would very much like to read that article.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Maybe. Creeds don't seem to be saving quite a few churches from various forms of decline.

Creeds are but a standard. If the standard is not applied as a standard, but only as a suggestion, decline is I think inevitable. One can have the greatest canon law imaginable, but it needs personnel to apply the rules. Without that it's all empty words. And then anything goes. And usually everything does.

 

[The Liturgist]

And yet more perspective! Very glad to have it, TL. Thank you very much. I would very much like to read that article.

I shall try and find it for you.

 

[zippy2006]

And then there's Bishop John A. T. Robinson's enormously influential book Honest to God (1963), in which he argues that 'religion' doesn't belong in the modern world:

It's quite helpful to have this stated outright, because it is always lurking beneath the surface.

But if Christianity commits suicide the consequence is that diverse political religions and Islam will fill the empty space.

Yes, and we see this happening.

What's difficult here is separating the wheat from the chaff within the churches. You are citing theologians, after all, and tracing things back even to Luther.

Sound religion and inferior religion are like communicating vessels. The former endorses transcendence and the latter immanence.

Sure, but it's worth remembering that a religion like Islam is a great deal more 'transcendent' than Christianity, and as such it abhors the Incarnation.

 

[The Liturgist]

Sure, but it's worth remembering that a religion like Islam is a great deal more 'transcendent' than Christianity, and as such it abhors the Incarnation.

Well, Christianity differs from Islam in that we worship God rather than an idol, and God is a trinity of three uncreated, coeternal persons in an eternal union of infinite love - sharing in the unoriginate nature of the Father, which is transcendant to the point of being incomprehensible and inscrutable to humans, however, God the Son, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son and Incarnate Word of God, who put on our human nature and united it personally and hypostatically with His divinity without change, confusion, separation or division, reveals the Father to us, and furthermore, God the Holy Spirit while being a spirit makes God present for us by convicting us of sin, indwelling in the faithful, who receive the seal of the Holy Spirit when received into the church (in Orthodoxy via baptism and chrismation, known as confirmation in the West, but we do it immediately to infants following their baptism, and then give them the Eucharist so they may partake of Christ immediately).

Thus, in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christianity, and for that matter in Byzantine Rite Catholicism, particularly in the US where it has been freed from the Latinizations that characterize it in some parts of Europe, God is transcendent in His essence, but immanent in His uncreated energies. We cannot know or comprehend God in the unoriginate divine nature of the Father, but we can know God the Father through the Son, who reveals the Father to Us, and through the Holy Spirit, who having sent Christ our True God into the world was himself sent into the world to impart the uncreated Grace of the Father to us in the Holy and Life Giving Sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation, the Eucharist, Reconciliation, Holy Unction, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and through the other blessings such as the Great Blessing of Water on Theophany and the consecration of altars and churches, by the same Lord Jesus Christ, who reigns together with Him in the unity of the unoriginate essence of the Father,, three coequal and coeternal persons, the Son begotten before all worlds, and the spirit eternally proceeding from the Father, yet always and ever one God, now and ever and unto the ages of all ages.

And the essence / energies distinction did not originate, as some say, with St. Gregory of Palamas, who rather used it to explain and defend the Hesychasts such as St. Symeon the New Theologian, and used Aristotle to this end in a departure from the Orthodox norm of relying on Platonic philosophy, and so in this respect was very much the Byzantine counterpart to St. Thomas Aquinas, but rather, the essence / energies distinction dates back to the Cappadocian Fathers: St. Basil the Great, his best friend St. Gregory the Theologian, his younger brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, and other relatives, who together with St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Ephrem the Syrian, were the most important divines who worked primarily in the fourth century (I regard St. Augustine, who was famously baptized by St. Ambrose, and St. Vincent of Lerins, St. John Cassian, St. Cyril the Great and St. Celestine as primarily fifth century divines, and St. Jerome was not so much a scholar of divinity as he was a brilliant translator on a par with the unnamed translators of the Syriac Peshitta, and likewise St. Anthony the Great, the founder of the religious life as we know it, was a theologian, but not a scholar of divinity, with St. Athanasius serving as his biographer.

I would also say St. Epiphanius of Salamis was a brilliant scholar of orthodox doctrine, whose catalogue of heresies, the Panarion, is one of three great encyclopedias of ancient heretical cults, along with Against Heresies by the second century theologian St. Irenaeus of Lyons (who Fr. John Behr of Oxford, formerly dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, and the successor to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, regards as the first recognizable scholar of theology, the first divine, to use the 17th century English term for a scholar of sacred theology, in the academic sense that we see repeated continually, and St. John of Damascus, who quoted the Panarion of St. Epiphanius of Salamis in his Fount of Knowledge was the greatest dogmatic theologian of the Patristic era, whose work came the closest of anyone before St. Thomas Aquinas to constituting a systematic theology, and which has been the prototype for subsequent Orthodox works of dogmatic theology - I would note the Orthodox have never written a work of systematic theology, but rather I believe we found the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, the portion of the Fount of Knowledge that deals with dogmatic theology, as representing the ideal model. But nonetheless no one would deny the Summa was an amazing intellectual achievement, and the various Reformed Systematic Theologians such as John Calvin and Karl Barth with their Institutes and Church Dogmatics are following in his footsteps, clearly. Roman Catholics also regard St. John of Damascus (St. John Damascene) as the last Patristic theologian, before the beginning of the Scholastic period, but Orthodoxy never had a Scholastic period of theology, and does not regard the Patristic era as ever having ended, interestingly enough.

Islam naturally errs because Allah is as much an idol as anything one would find in a Hindu temple or Buddhist stuppa.

 

[Teofrastus]

It's quite helpful to have this stated outright, because it is always lurking beneath the surface.


Yes, and we see this happening.

What's difficult here is separating the wheat from the chaff within the churches. You are citing theologians, after all, and tracing things back even to Luther.


Sure, but it's worth remembering that a religion like Islam is a great deal more 'transcendent' than Christianity, and as such it abhors the Incarnation.

Certainly not! Islam has no longer an otherworldly orientation but has become increasingly worldly over time. Today Islam must be understood as a secular ideology in opposition to the Western form of secularism, that is, Liberalism. Mahmoud Pargoo ("Secularization of Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran", 2021) explains that sharia originally had an otherworldly goal, but is today understood entirely in secular terms. As a way of adjustment to modern scientific materialism Muslim reformers sought to provide a new foundation for Islam by invoking sharia as an exemplary means of achieving civilization and progress, as well as worldly superiority relative to the Europeans. The Muslim elements in Iran are mostly ornamental. Iranians today acknowledge that they are the most materialistic people in the world.

The spiritual dimension carries no meaning for Muslims in general. This is borne out by the Australian imam Mohammad Tawhidi, who says that 95% of all Muslims aren't true Muslims: Aussie Imam makes SHOCKING confessions about Islam. Already Tocqueville's travel diaries from the 19th century testify to the depravation of the Muslim world. He says that it would have been better if they had stayed Pagan.

 

[zippy2006]

Certainly not! Islam has no longer an otherworldly orientation but has become increasingly worldly over time...

Do you have a definition of "transcendence" that you are using to say that Christianity favors transcendence and everyone else does not? If not, your claim seems rather ad hoc. For example, does transcendence = otherworldliness? On that basis perhaps folks like Elon Musk or Gnostics favor transcendence?