The Journey to Orthodoxy 10 Jan 2007 07:31 am
Good news that is really good news.
Good stuff on Fr. Stephen’s blog today. Read it all here, and here’s a few quotes:
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My contention was (and is) that the popular preaching of American Protestantism, had winnowed the gospel down to a few graphic images, easily preached and repeated. Those images were a caricature of the substitutionary atonement and a simplified version of Christian initiation (â€accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviorâ€) that came to be the stock of popular American evangelical preaching. Just think, American campuses were inundated with the “four†spiritual laws. Imagine trying to convey the Orthodox faith in four anything.
My further contention has been that what was once true of Upstate New York is now descriptive of an entire culture. America is the Burnt Over District. Most Americans, if they have heard a version of the gospel, have heard a very truncated, often caricatured version.”
and:
“When I first read Vladimir Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church (when I was in college), I wept. I do not recommend it to others as the book to start with in exploring Orthodoxy. But I wept because it was the first time I had ever heard the good news that actually sounded like good news. I wept because I was discovering that everything I had always hoped was true was not only true but was actually the Orthodox faith. What I heard in Lossky was my first account of union with God as taught in the Fathers. It wasn’t the mystery of it, but the simple goodness of the teaching that God became what we are that we might become what He is. The imagery of union with Christ was largely new to me (having been raised in Southern one-sidedness).”
on 10 Jan 2007 at 9:51 am 1.Sarah K. said …
Wow. I was reading an article about theosis this morning. Sometimes the similarities beween your faith and mine amaze me- though the differences can be quite striking as well.
on 10 Jan 2007 at 2:42 pm 2.Dr. Hibiscus said …
Very interesting! I find intriguing (and disturbing) the idea that Christianity is somehow diminished by simplification down to “merely” substitutionary atonement and acceptance that Jesus is the Lord and Savior. The roots of the protestant church rest in the idea that the Catholic church came to focus way too much on things that were outside of these simple (but profound!) ideas, and that the church became an institution unto itself, rather than a vessel for growing a relationship with God.
While clearly there is more to a Christian life than these fundamentals, they ARE fundamentals and form the foundation for all else.
on 05 Mar 2007 at 3:24 am 3.Coops was here said …
Exploring Atonement…
So, over the next [I don’t know how long] I have decided to do a series on Exploring the Atonement.
Being the seasoned theologian and all (sarcastic), I thought it would be a fantastic topic to get to know better - especially since I’ve hea…