Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. Colossians The Eastern Orthodox church rejects the Bible's teaching that man is in spiritual bondage due to the corruption of his nature through the fall of Adam. Therefore the Eastern Orthodox church also rejects the doctrine of the imputed guilt of all mankind, having sinned in Adam. Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that men are guilty only for their own sins rather than being already under condemnation as a consequence of Adam's fall, before they have done any good or evil of their own.
Authentic Christianity, in contrast, declares the doctrine of original sin and the guilt of all men in Adam, and the necessity of the person and work of Christ as the Second Adam who redeems them from that condemnation:.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned - For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.
And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. Romans Like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy teaches the necessity of confession of sin to a human priestly mediator in order for the individual to maintain his salvation, and teaches that the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice for confessed sins in addition to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
Constantine had once controlled the entire Mediterranean perimeter, and as a result, Christianity flourished. But Islam's conquest of this same area eventually isolated the Eastern Christians centered in Constantinople from their counterparts in the West centered in Rome. Theological disputes combined with these geopolitical and cultural factors to divide the Christian East and West. The East allowed some priests to marry, while the West required celibacy.
In the East the local parish priest could administer the sacrament of confirmation; in the West only the bishop could. When celebrating the Eucharist, Catholics mixed the wine with water, while the Orthodox did not. The West used unleavened bread, the East did not. Differences over clerical beards, the tonsure, and fasting also exacerbated the growing deterioration of East-West unity. Two theological controversies drove the final wedge between Catholic and Orthodox Christians: papal supremacy and the so-called filioque controversy.
The collapse of the Roman Empire created a power vacuum that was increasingly filled by the growing power of the Roman papacy. Orthodox Christians were more inclined to appeal to the ecumenical councils than to a single bishop to settle theological matters.
They conceded a special honor to the Western papacy but insisted that the bishop of Rome was only the first among equals. The so-called Photian Schism brought this matter to a head. In Photius was appointed as Orthodoxy's new patriarch at Constantinople, replacing Ignatius, who had been exiled and later resigned his duties. Ignatius's followers, however, refused to acknowledge the transition, and eventually both Ignatius and Photius appealed to Pope Nicholas in Rome.
Nicholas reversed the decision, reinstating Ignatius and deposing Photius. For Eastern Christians, this was yet another Roman encroachment upon their autonomy. Indeed, in a letter of , Pope Nicholas made it clear that he intended to extend the power of the papacy "over all the earth, that is, over every church.
Photius then branded the entire Western church as heretical for inserting the phrase "and the Son" filioque into the Nicene Creed. Originally the creed read that the Holy Spirit proceeded "from the Father"; a later Western interpolation why, where, and by whom are not known , ratified at the Council of Toledo , added filioque to indicate that the Spirit proceeded from the Father "and the Son.
Worse, they considered the interpolation to be theologically untrue and a threat to the doctrine of the Trinity. Much like a divorce where numerous and complex problems fester for years and then coalesce around a single event, the defining moment for a distinctly Orthodox identity came with the Great Schism of Schisms had already occurred in the Christian church, and others would occur later, but the Great Schism was the first of such major consequence. Without waiting for a response, Humbert exited the church and declared, "Let God look and judge.
Rome accused the "Greek heretics" of trying to "humiliate and crush the holy catholic and apostolic church. Any vestiges of hope for unity after the estrangement of were dashed with the pillage of Despite efforts at reunification, to this day the Catholic and Orthodox churches remain estranged.
Most Protestants would experience an Orthodox liturgy as something strange, even exotic. I will always remember my first visit to an Orthodox church in Russia. Even before entering the church one is taken aback by the unusual architecture-the glittering gold onion domes that sparkle like diamonds on a sunny day. Once inside, a Western Christian experiences sensory overload: the near absence of chairs or pews, dim lighting, head coverings for most women, icons and frescoes covering almost every inch of space on the walls and ceiling, a massive and ornate iconostasis separating the priest and the worshipers, the smoky smell of incense and hundreds of candles burning in memory of the dead, the priest resplendent in his ornate vestments and enormous beard, and worshipers repeatedly prostrating themselves, kissing the icons, and making the sign of the cross.
Indeed, what Protestant converts to Orthodoxy have often sought is not only a conscious continuity with the historic, apostolic past, but also a richer experience of God's majesty and mystery through a more liturgical worship setting. These are worthy pursuits that can be fulfilled in the Orthodox Church.
But about this pursuit we can make several observations. Liturgically, the Orthodox ethos of a formal worship setting will attract some Christians, but to many other vibrant movements within evangelicalism it will have little if any appeal. One thinks, for example, of those committed to full ministerial status for women, the centrality of lay ministry and spiritual gifts, charismatically inclined groups, seeker-sensitive churches attempting to reach baby boomers or Generation X'ers with novel worship formats, and so on.
Evangelicals focused on social ethics may also find little comradeship in Orthodoxy, as there is nothing in Orthodoxy comparable to the body of Catholic social teaching, for instance. These Protestant movements, important in their own right, are liturgical light years from Orthodoxy. Further, rote liturgy can stultify as well as edify, which is one reason why many people prefer more informal or personal worship settings.
What are we to make, for example, of the Orthodox liturgy in Russia today, which is recited in ninth-century Slavonic, a language very few Russians even understand? Further, Protestants have long enjoyed rich liturgical traditions of their own see, for example, Bard Thompson's classic Liturgies of the Western Church.
If a richer liturgical life is what a believer wants, converting to Orthodoxy is hardly necessary. Similarly, Protestants like Thomas Oden, Donald Bloesch, and others have shown that one need not join Orthodoxy to immerse oneself in the patristic past with joy, gratitude, and a sense of accountability to that "great cloud of witnesses" of the last two millennia.
Oden, for example, who delights in referring to his theological method as "paleo-orthodox," is now working on a comprehensive patristic commentary on the whole Bible to be published by InterVarsity Press.
Thumb through Calvin's Institutes or a volume of John Wesley's Works and you will see our Protestant forebears thoroughly engaged with patristic tradition. As with liturgy, conversion to Orthodoxy is hardly a prerequisite for a renewed engagement with apostolic tradition.
Beyond the recovery of history and liturgy, there are deeper and more important questions. By joining Orthodoxy one inherits a theological package that includes central elements that have traditionally troubled many Protestant evangelicals and omits doctrines many evangelicals consider nonnegotiable essentials of vital Christianity.
Upon joining the Orthodox Church, converts vow to "accept and understand Holy Scripture in accordance with the interpretation which was and is held by the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church of the East, our Mother.
Four important areas deserve ongoing dialogue. The church. To be Eastern Orthodox is, above all, to stake a bold and unapologetic theological claim as the one true church of Christ on earth, which alone has guarded right belief and true worship in absolute identity and unbroken succession with the apostolic church.
It is precisely this exclusivistic assertion that some Protestant converts, in search of the "true, New Testament Church" have found so beguiling. Inherent in this claim, of course, is the charge that both Catholics and Protestants have lapsed from the true faith into error, if not outright heresy. But the claim to be Christ's one, true church remains the clear Orthodox position. This should trouble evangelicals as well as other Protestants , especially when it is combined with the Orthodox idea of who constitutes the church and how one enters the church.
Is the church made up of those who have been "regenerated" by infant baptism in an Orthodox church institution, or by those who have experienced new birth and been justified by grace through faith? True, Luther and some other Protestants have not viewed baptismal regeneration and justification by faith as mutually exclusive. But whether a non-Orthodox person can even be saved is an open question in Orthodox ecclesiology.
Over coffee one day I asked an Orthodox priest whether I, as a Protestant theologian, might be considered a true Christian. His response: "I don't know. While this exclusivism is not unique to Orthodoxy, with this self-understanding it is easy to see why the Orthodox Church in countries such as Russia is extremely unhappy about Western, Protestant missionary incursions.
At the meeting of sseoe, Orthodox representative Stanley Harakas said that the Orthodox, who have lived for 70 years in Russia under Communist oppression, are in a state of weakness, unable to rebuild churches and barely able to educate their parishioners.
Going even further, the church says Mary is the "Mother of the Church — it is in Her person that the Church glorifies motherhood.
To glorify Mary in this way is nothing short of blasphemy, as God does not share His glory with anyone see Isaiah Again, this is very Catholic. The Orthodox church equates church tradition with scripture, including erroneously holding that water baptism washes away our sins, at least initially.
To quote official church teaching:. Finally, the Orthodox church venerates i. As a Christian raised in Turkey, Elpidophoros has experienced structural oppression in ways that most Americans can only imagine. The problem is that too many Americans—too many Orthodox Americans—do not want to imagine it. We would rather deflect, deny, and ignore because we fear that genuine equality for black men and women would only come at our expense.
Archbishop Elpidophoros understands the urgency of the present moment. History has shown that Iakovos was right to have marched at Selma. It will also prove Archbishop Elpidophoros right for walking in Brooklyn. George Demacopoulos is the Fr. Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity.
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