Category: Weblogs

Here are some great quotes on prayer that are worth reflecting upon that I extracted from Fr Stephen’s post on prayer:

Prayer is a matter of love. Man expresses love through prayer, and if we pray, it is an indication that we love God.

Only if prayer is living communion with God does it make sense to strive for unceasing prayer. The commandment to “pray always” is tantamount to saying: “Live!”

Indeed prayer is the sound (whether spoken or not) of God within us.

Steve Robinson points to a great Lenten reflection worth reading. Take a few moments and enjoy it HERE. Here’s a little sample.

“This Lent I am going to attempt to walk through life like I walk through church in hard soled shoes, or in the kind of shoes that squeak on the polished wood floor. I am going to try to walk softly, deliberately, prayerfully aware of the noise I am making, prayerfully aware of how my actions resonate with and disturb others; I will be quietly ashamed and a little embarrassed.”

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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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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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:

“Thus it is that the Church itself is the proper hermeneutic of Scripture – having been written by Christ, ministered by the apostles, not with ink, “but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” Thus, to a certain extent, to say that the Scriptures are the Church’s book is a tautology. Either the Church is that epistle, written in the fleshy tables of the heart, or it is not the Church at all. It is partly for this reason that Orthodoxy sees the interpretation of Scripture as something that does not take place apart from the Church nor without the Church, but in the midst of the Church, which is herself the very interpretation, constantly echoing the Word of God in her services, sacraments, and all of her very life.

“It is, of course, the case that there are things to be found within the Church that are not “of” the Church, but are things to be purged, to be removed, to be met with repentance. Indeed the life of the Orthodox Church is only rightly lived as a life of constant repentance. “A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 50 (51):17.”

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As a newbie to Eastern Orthodoxy, I’m trying to learn stuff as fast as I can. Well, this week is Bright Week. For Orthodox, Bright Week begins a time of celebration that lasts until Pentecost. And during this period, because of the reality of Jesus’ resurrection, Orthodox do things a little different. Below is a list of things that are done during Bright Week. I first heard this list on the Orthodixie pocast. Mark was able to find these items through the This Side of Glory blog.

• During Bright Week, our prayers in church and at home are sung and not read as we sing all week the feast of the risen Christ: Christ is risen!
• During Bright Week, we do not read from the psalter at home or in church for the prophecies have been fulfilled: Christ is risen!
• During the entire Paschal season there is no prostrating or kneeling permitted in church or at home for we stand with the resurrected Christ: Christ is risen! [Ha! I did remember that one. Hooray!]
• During the Paschal season we begin all of our prayers at home and in church by singing the troparion of Pascha: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!”
• During the Paschal season and extending to Pentecost, we do not pray “O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth…” for the Comforter comes on Pentecost. Christ is risen

Christ is Risen! Truly he is risen!

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Fr Stephen has a great post today about the “reality” of hell. Throughout much of my Evangelical life, I had simply embraced the assumption that heaven and hell were places. It wasn’t until I began my theological deconstruction and reconstruction several years ago that I began to realize that neither were places at all. Heaven is something much more. In fact, one of the many beautiful things that has drawn me to Orthodoxy is their understanding of heaven and hell. Here’s a quote from Fr Stephen’s post:

“But in Orthodox spiritual terms I would say that hell is a massive state of delusion, maybe the ultimate state of delusion. It is delusional in the sense that (in Orthodox understanding) the “fire” of hell is not a material fire, but itself nothing other than the fire of the Living God (Hebrews 12:29). For those who love God, His fire is light and life, purification and all good things. For those who hate God, His fire is torment, though it be love.”

The very fire of God — his light, love and purification — is heaven or hell. for those who love God, his light and love are heaven! But for those who hate God (and this is the amazing thing), his very love and light are hell!

Some thoughts from one of Fr Stephen’s subsequent comments from the same post are also worth noting:

“I don’t think of them [heaven and hell] in terms of places but in terms of our relationship with God. We use place metaphors for that’s what we know, but the reality of heaven certainly transcends anything we currently think of as place. I do not mean to describe them as merely figurative either.

“But neither can they be somehow compared as having a comparable existence. It might seem like something for a philosophy class, but it is also something for a theology class, at least as we know theology in the Orthodox Church.

“Literalism is the bane of Scriptural understanding. Not that there aren’t plenty of “literal” things described. But many times we have to push beyond the literal to arrive at the truth. At least this is the case in many of the Eastern Church fathers.”

Heaven is not a destination that I hope to get to when I die, nor is hell a destination I want to avoid. Rather, heaven is ultimately my participation in God, who is the fullness of being, life and reality. 

Take a few moments and read Fr Stephen’s post in entirety HERE:

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Fr Stephen has a wonderful post about the Orthodox perspective of salvation as transformation rather than a forensic salvation. One of the points he makes is that because salvation is transformation, it takes a lifetime and requires constancy. As Fr Stephen puts it, at its core, a life of transformation requires “just showing up.”It’s a great post and you can read it HERE .It’s this kind of stuff that attracted me to Orthodoxy in the first place.

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Since posting on the Orthodox view of Scripture, I have found myself thinking a lot about the subject. Also, thanks to those who commented on that post. The comments have posed some questions for me that I’m hoping to resolve over time.To move forward in this process of resolution, I will be posting responses and thoughts to a book my friend, David, gave me to read. It’s called, The Mystery of Christ, by Fr. John Behr. Fr. John teaches courses in patristics, dogmatics and scriptural exegesis at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.I began reading the book casually, but I’ve decided to start over and use Fr. John’s book as the material for some blog posts over the next few weeks. His book challenges us to approach theology as the early disciples did — by viewing Scripture retrospectively with Christ’s passion as the primary hermeneutic. He writes in the preface:

“But it is a stubborn fact, or at least is presented this way in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that the one born of Mary was not known by the disciples to be the Son of God until after the Passion, his crucifixion and resurrection… Thus, to speak of the ‘Incarnation,’ to say that the one born of the Virgin is the Son of God, is an interpretation made only in the light of the Passion.”

I have enjoyed and have been challenged by what I have read so far in Fr. John’s book, so I’m looking forward to blogging my responses and thoughts to it over time. If you would like to read a synopsis of the book, there is a three-part review at Oozerdoxie (a collection of Orthodox bloggers who also post at theooze.com ):PART ONEPART TWOPART THREE

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I was reading a new blog post by Fr. Stephen that is challenging the way I view Scripture. If you’re really interested, you can read the whole post HERE . But let me give you a quote:

“The Scriptures, as used in the Orthodox Church, are decidedly the Church’s Scriptures, and cannot be rightly read apart from the liturgical and ascetic life of the Church.“Literalism is a false means of interpretation (hermenuetic) and is a vain attempt to democratize the Holy writings. If they can be read on a literal level, then everyone has equal access to them and everybody has equal authority to interpret them. Thus certain forms of Protestantism, caught up in the various modern theories of the Reformation, sought to do to the Scriptures what many sought to do with their governments. Kill the princes! Kill the priests! Everyone can be his own king, his own priest. Smash the images and any claim to authority. Of course these extreme forms always failed quickly, to be replaced by some version of moderation.“Thus the Scriptures are not purely democratic – some interpreters are more equal than others.”

Fr. Stephen’s post causes a “Yeah!… Hey, wait a minute!” reaction in me. One of the things I have struggled with as a Protestant is how anyone with a Bible can interpret it and make it say whatever they want it to say. I’ve lost count of how many small group discussions I have attended where I have inwardly cringed when someone said, “Well, what this means to me is…”And a similar dynamic occurs at the academic level, where attempts to discover the author’s original intent based on critical study can be incredibly diverse and even contradictory.The legacy of Sola Scriptura in western Protestantism is tragic. Anyone can believe Scripture says what they want it to say and then find someone to validate that belief. I mean, just watch any National Geographic or History Channel special around Easter or Christmas. All it takes are a few talking heads with letters behind their names to concoct some ridiculous theory to explain the biblical stories. Or skim the titles at any Christian books store and you’ll find Scripture being used to support basically any topic.So, I find myself agreeing with Fr. Stephen’s idea, “Thus the Scriptures are not purely democratic – some interpreters are more equal than others.”But I also find myself reacting to his ideas. As one who has spent my entire adult life learning to interpret and teach Scripture, the idea that “The Scriptures, as used in the Orthodox Church, are decidedly the Church’s Scriptures, and cannot be rightly read apart from the liturgical and ascetic life of the Church” is a very foreign, and quite frankly, frightening concept to me. Or, his statement later in his post, “The authority to speak about Christ is given to those whom He has chosen and ordained” really stirred up some reaction in me.Now I’ve learned that when I react strongly to something, the first questions I need to ask are “Why am I reacting so strongly to this? What is this exposing in me?” In this case, the answer is very obvious: Pride. I don’t like to be told what to believe. I like the fact that I have learned the skills to interpret Scripture and wrestle with Scripture to yield interpretations different than the popular versions of Christianity.Now it’s not all pride. Part of it is a response to having been taught false ideas by well-meaning Bible teachers in the past. Part of it is having been trained in seminary to approach theology with a critical and even a skeptical eye. But a good part of it is pride — my interpretations are the result of my hard work, my study and my skill.So I know I need to do several things: First, I know Fr. Stephen’s post rings true. Scripture must be read, studied and lived in the liturgical and ascetic life of the Church. So probably the most important action our family must take is finding a parish in which to immerse our lives and to begin experiencing Scripture.Second, I need to seek some counsel about whether it is possible to merge both a liturgical life in Scripture with a “critical” study of Scripture. Or to come to grips with the fact that they may be diametrically opposed to each other.Third, I need to bring my exposed pride before my Lord so that he may save me from it. I need to deal with the possibility that not everybody, including myself, has the equal authority to interpret Scripture and that I may need to yield to those whom God has ordained to teach me. This scares me more than I want to admit. And once again, I find myself praying, “Lord, have mercy.”

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 One of the things I want to understand better as we explore Orthodoxy are icons. Although I’ve read a little bit about icons, I know virtually nothing about them. And yet I sense that they will provide my family with a depth of spirituality that we’ve been lacking in our evangelical lives.I came across an article by Susan Cushman, via Father Stephen , that in my opinion, offers a wonderful introduction to icons and their spiritual beauty. The article is called, “Icons Will Save the World,” and not only contains some ideas worth exploring and thinking about, but also links to some books that seem promising.In her article, Susan Cushman quotes Henri Nouwen, who explains why he chose to meditate on icons rather than on the artistic masterpieces of Michelangelo or Rembrandt. He writes:

“I have chosen icons because they are created for the sole purpose of offering access, through the gates of the visible, to the mystery of the invisible. Icons are painted to lead us into the inner room of prayer and bring us close to the heart of God.” 

Personally, when I look at icons, I sense that they are doors, but doors that presently remain closed to me. But like doors that promise to open into rooms filled with light, warmth and unknown wonder, I look forward to the day when they will swing open and snatch my breath away with what lies behind them. And beyond that, to learn to see humans and the entire creation as icons of God.But some may ask, “Why are icons so important?” Simply put, icons are expressions of the Incarnation. The invisible and boundless God became visible and embodied. This is a powerful declaration. In Genesis, God spoke over his newly formed creation, “It is good.” Yet through Christ’s Incarnation, he declared even more loudly over a broken creation, “It is still good!” The Incarnation climaxed God’s mission that began in Genesis 1 and which Paul summarizes in Ephesians 1:9-10:

“With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” 

Heaven and earth are still meant to be fused and merged together. Human beings are this reality as we become the temple of God, his presence on earth. But it doesn’t stop with human beings. All things on heaven and earth are to be reconciled together and gathered up in Christ. And icons are one way in which this occurs. Icons of Christ, his Mother and the Saints somehow merge heaven and earth together. And as we enter into communion with God through them, we can be envisioned and energized for a life pleasing and worthy of Christ. As Susan Cushman states in her article:

“The icons are visions of what we can become if we allow God to penetrate every aspect of our lives. Those who attain this God-likeness to the fullest extent recognized by the Church are saints. Their lives, their stories, lift us up to be all that we can be — as we are transformed by God’s grace and love.” 

I have much to learn in Orthodoxy. But I excitedly anticipate a liturgical life, a sacramental life, a iconographic life — and ultimately through them, an Incarnational life.And even though icons are presently a mystery to me, I resonate and long to experience the last sentence of Cushman’s article:

“No wonder the Church celebrates those wise bishops of the Seventh Ecumenical Council who proclaimed iconography to be an ordinance and tradition that is not something extra, something added to the life of the Church, but as Chryssavgis says, a necessary expression of the reality of both God and the world.” 

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