The Catholic Evangelical

Orthamerica: Energy & God

2010-12-29T07:08:00.000-08:00

Orthamerica: Energy & God: "In the ancient theology of the undivided church, we find a concept of God that has been lost in the contemporary west. I refer to the concep..."

Oneness & Threeness

2010-12-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

See here.

Orthamerica

2010-12-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

One God, One Mind, One Mision here

Farewell Blog

2010-11-19T06:46:00.000-08:00

Greetings dear bloggers; I started this blog in April of 2009, & since then I have written 155 posts, and the site has seen over 8500 visits. My goal for this blog was to integrate patristic Christian teaching into our contemporary Christian thinking. I hope that the blog has accomplished that goal in some small way.

The time has come for me to shift gears. I am going to move my blogging to a new blog site called “Orthamerica”. In this blog I will focus on describing the orthodox faith of the undivided church, without the additions or subtractions that are common in America’s Christianity. Then, in this blog I will try to imagine what this orthodox faith of undivided church could look like in modern day America, hence the name “Orthamerica”.

Go to the new blog here.

Ruling the Passions

2010-11-11T18:29:00.000-08:00

Since the reformation, and Luther’s rejection of monastic life, western Christianity has considered monasticism to be an expression of Christian living that is to be rejected. As a consequence of this rejection, we in the post-protestant west have lost our understanding of asceticism in general. Below is a short excerpt from an article that explains the central role of asceticism in the life of the Christian.

ASCETICISM

Asceticism is practiced through the will in prayer to God and for life. On account of the centrality of the will if anything is going to change for the better in our lives it is the sin of pride that must be dealt with first if further progress is to be made. Pride places ourselves where God should be. It replaces His rule for ours. It subverts our relationships with Him and others through all manners of self pre-occupation. In short, pride has to be killed. In abject poverty of spirit we need to come to God and "throw in the towel" as it were and surrender ourselves to Him. Then, and only then can we hope to make progress with the other sins.

Sin	Sin's Target	Ascetic Task	Fruit
Pride	Will	Surrender to God	Communion with God
Anger	Control	Humility	Reconciliation, Forgiveness
Envy	Relationships	Thanksgiving	Contentment with God's Gifts
Greed	Possessions	Offering	Attachment to God alone
Gluttony	Food	Fasting	Strengthened body and will to serve God
Lust	Sex	Chastity	Depth in relationships
Sloth	Energy	Work discipline	Human development

From: Antiochian Orthodox UK

Mourners attend funerals of Iraq church attack.

2010-11-10T05:38:00.000-08:00

N.T. Wright: Working on a building | Faith & Leadership

2010-11-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

N.T. Wright: Working on a building Faith & Leadership

How are we to read the bible?

2010-11-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

How are we to read the bible?

“We know, receive, and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church.” Our approach to the Bible is not only obedient but ecclesial. The words of Scripture, while addressed to us personally, are at the same time addressed to us as members of a community. Book and Church are not to be separated.

The interdependence of Church and Bible is evident in at least two ways. First, we receive Scripture through and in the Church. The Church tells us what is Scripture. In the first three centuries of Christian history, a lengthy process of sifting and testing was needed in order to distinguish between that which is authentically “canonical” Scripture, bearing authoritative witness to Christ’s person and message, and that which is “apocryphal,” useful perhaps for teaching, but not a normative source of doctrine. Thus, the Church has decided which books form the Canon of the New Testament. A book is not part of Holy Scripture because of any particular theory about its date and authorship, but because the Church treats it as canonical. Suppose, for example, that it could be proved that the Fourth Gospel was not actually written by Saint John the beloved disciple of Christ – in my view, there are in fact strong reasons for continuing to accept John’s authorship – yet, even so, this would not alter the fact that we regard the Fourth Gospel as Scripture. Why? Because the Fourth Gospel, whoever the author may be, is accepted by the Church and in the Church.

Secondly, we interpret Scripture through and in the Church. If it is the Church that tells us what is Scripture, equally it is the Church that tells us how Scripture is to be understood. Coming upon the Ethiopian as he read the Old Testament in his chariot, Philip the Deacon asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

“How can I,” answered the Ethiopian, “unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:30, 31).

His difficulty is also ours. The words of Scripture are not always self-explanatory. The Bible has a marvelous underlying simplicity, but when studied in detail it can prove a difficult book. God does indeed speak directly to the heart of each one of us during our Scripture reading – as Saint Tikhon says, our reading is a personal dialogue between each one and Christ Himself – but we also need guidance. And our guide is the Church. We make full use of our private understanding; illuminated by the Spirit. We make full use of biblical commentaries and of the findings of modern research. But we submit individual opinions, whether our own or those of the scholars, to the judgment of the Church.

We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated individuals. We say not “I” but “we.” We read as the members of a family. … The decisive criterion of our understanding of what Scripture means is the mind of the Church.

To discover this “mind of the Church,” where do we begin? A first step is to see how Scripture is used in worship. How in particular are biblical lessons chosen for reading at the different feasts? A second step is to consult the writings of the Church Fathers, especially St. John Chrysostom. How do they analyze and apply the text of Scripture? An ecclesial manner of reading the Bible is in this Way both liturgical and patristic. (Metropolitan Kallistos Ware)

The Post Communion Prayer of St. Symeon

2010-11-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

O Thou Who givest me willingly Thy Flesh for food,
Thou Who art fire, and burnest the unworthy,
Scorch me not, O my Maker,
But rather pass through me for the integration of my members,
Into all my joints, my affections, and my heart.
Burn up the thorns of all my sins.
Purify my soul, sanctify my mind;
Strengthen my knees and bones;
Enlighten the simplicity of my five senses.
Nail down the whole of me with Thy fear.
Ever protect, guard, and keep me
From every soul-destroying word and act.
Sanctify, purify, attune, and rule me.
Adorn me, give me understanding, and enlighten me.
Make me the habitation of Thy Spirit alone,
And no longer a habitation of sin,
That as Thy house from the entry of communion
Every evil spirit and passion may flee from me like fire.
I offer Thee as intercessors all the sanctified,
The Commanders of the Bodiless Hosts,
Thy Forerunner, the wise Apostles,
And Thy pure and immaculate Mother.
Receive their prayers, my compassionate Christ.
And make Thy slave a child of light.
For Thou alone art our sanctification, O Good One,
And the radiance of our souls,
And to Thee as our Lord and God as is right
We all give glory day and night.

Throw out the guitars and bring back sacred silence – a liturgical wish-list from a young Catholic

2010-11-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

It is always wise to listen. In our day, it may be especially wise to listen to some of the younger voices in our parishes.

One such voice said: "Guitars (electric or acoustic), keyboards, recorder and tambourines are, I’m afraid, throwbacks to the 1960s and ‘70s and are simply embarrassing today."

A great article is found at this link:

Throw out the guitars and bring back sacred silence – a liturgical wish-list from a young Catholic

A Litany for "All Saints Day"

2010-11-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Litany of Intercession

In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ, let us pray to the Father saying,

O Lord, hear our prayer.

O Lord, govern and direct your holy Church; fill it with love and truth;

and grant it that unity which is your will.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Give us boldness to preach the gospel in all the world,

and to make disciples of all the nations.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Enlighten [N.], our bishop(s), and all your ministers with knowledge and understanding, that by their teaching and their lives they may proclaim your word.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Give your people grace to hear and receive your word,

and to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Bring into the way of truth all who have erred and are deceived.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Strengthen those who stand, comfort and help the faint-hearted;

raise up the fallen; and finally beat down Satan under our feet.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Guide the leaders of the nations into the ways of peace and justice.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Guard and strengthen your servant [N.] our President,

that he may put his trust in you, and seek your honor and glory.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Endue the Congress and the High Court with wisdom and understanding.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Bless all those who administer the law, that they may uphold justice,

honesty and truth.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Give us the will to use the fruits of the earth to your glory,

and for the good of all creation.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Bless and keep all your people.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Help and comfort the lonely, the bereaved [N.], and the oppressed.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Keep in safety those who travel [N.], and all who are in danger.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Heal the sick in body and mind [N.],

and provide for the homeless, the hungry, and the destitute.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Show your pity on prisoners and refugees, and all who are in trouble.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Forgive our enemies, persecutors and slanderers, and turn their hearts.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Hear us as we remember those who have died in the faith of Christ [N.];

and according to your promises, grant us a place in your eternal kingdom with them.

O Lord, hear our prayer.

Rejoicing in the fellowship of the holy Patriarchs, Prophets,

Apostles, Martyrs, The Blessed Virgin Mary, [N.] and all the saints,

we commend ourselves and the whole creation to your unfailing love.

Amen.

Line or Circle?

2010-10-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

The more I expose myself to the writings of the eastern fathers, the more I notice an irreconcilable difference between us and them. While it is certainly true that there is no single perspective that divides us, there nevertheless exists a basic set of viewpoints that are at the core of our differences. In this post I would like to address three points of distinction between us and them for our consideration.

First, contemporary western Christianity is 1] linear, 2] logical & 3] legal in its approach to reality, life, God, & c… In our western minds all things move in a straight line from A to Z, all things are subject to a logic that creates a cohesive and orderly account of God and His kingdom. Moreover, mankind's goal is rooted in getting right, and staying right with others and with God. This threefold perspective is easily seen in the western church’s liturgies, which take us form the entrance sin stained parishioners into God's courts and end in the being sent out as Christ’s emissaries. Our western architecture also illustrates this linear perspective, it is full of angles that point us straight up, out, and away from this world, it tells a story of an outward trajectory. In addition, western doctrine shows itself to be obsessive compulsive about our juridical standing before God, we begin soiled and we end cleansed. Every doctrine hinges on justification.

The eastern fathers on the other hand, come from a diametrically opposite set of views. They are 1] round, 2] relational, & 3] restorative in their approach to reality, life, God, & c… This too can be seen in the eastern liturgies, architecture, and doctrines. In the early liturgies we see nothing linear about them, prayers and litanies occur throughout, several entrances, the priest praying one set of words, the choir singing one song and people running around lighting candles and prostrating. Their buildings are circular in shape, they turn in on the earth, and heaven and earth become one. Their doctrine centers on God becoming man to raise man up to God, the goal is healing the broken sinner. This opposite approach can leave westerners feeling like they entered a three ring circus. However, the point of distinction that should not be missed is that the early east was Kairos focused rather than Chronos focused. Consequentially, the east was larger, fuller, and better able to take in the whole of the faith.

Can these two perspectives ever be reconciled? Perhaps not! However, it is possible to drop a bridge that enables the linear, logical, and legal to cross over into the round, relational, & restorative. The challenge for our failed western experiment will be to learn to fit chronos into kairos.

Shrinking God’s Kingdom

2010-10-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, one our parish families’ asked me to bless an icon of “The Good Shepherd” for their home. I was pleased to see that the establishment of icon corners is taking place within our homes. The concept of icon corners or icons in general does not sit well with those who have grown up in Protestantism. It can be seen by many as a form of idolatry. But why is this the case? It is because of an ignorance of the whole faith of the undivided church. Those who struggle with iconography do not know about the 7^th ecumenical council, its conclusions, its laws, or the connection of iconography to Christ’s incarnation. In short, they misunderstand iconography due to their ignorance of the implications of God becoming man in Christ. How can this be, how can it be that an Anglican, one steeped in liturgy, can be find themselves in this position?

The answer, as I see it, is found in the primary effect of the protestant reformation, and its truncation or shrinking of the faith. While Anglicanism did not buy into the wholesale burning of patristic thought as did many Protestant groups, it did get caught up in the spirit of the age. In one sense it was very profitable to do so while in others not. The profit came in the formation of the “Book of Common Prayer.” In it, the primary daily offices, weekly, yearly, and lifelong liturgies were contained, summaries of the faith and even the liturgies of ordinations. This was ingenious; it presented the people with a summary of the faith, and made it possible for all to pray and study the whole faith.

There was however a downside to the BCP. The downside is that the only practices that were allowed were those in the prayer book. This meant that blessing material things was no longer to be practiced. It meant that much of the seventh ecumenical council and its canons went out the window. There were no provisions for clergy to conduct any service outside the BCP, thus the people forgot the holy tradition left to them by the church. One may say that this problem has been remedied by the newer prayer books and their new rubrics, which permit almost anything, however, that really does not resolve the issue, but merely opens the door to innovations!

Looking back, what should have happened was that the BCP should have served as “the people’s prayer book”, but the church should have retained its English liturgical books revised to match the contents of the seven ecumenical councils. This would have left the populous with a summary of the faith, but not permitted the smaller book to be the sum & substance of the faith. This would have kept Anglicanism from the truncations of Protestantism. History cannot be changed; nevertheless, we must still face the future with eyes wide open. In order to recover the whole faith for Anglicans we need not only an orthodox BCP that is inline with the seven councils, but also orthodox liturgical books inline with the seven councils that contain the whole faith as it was passed on to us.

We could learn something here from the Eastern churches, which have retained that undivided faith. Below is a list of liturgical books used in the Eastern churches, In the East:

Five books contain the ordinary parts of the service:

· The Liturgikon contains the priest's and deacon's parts for the daily liturgical cycle.

The Horologion contains the people's parts for the daily liturgical cycle.

The Euchologion contains the occasional services conducted by a priest, such as the baptism, wedding and funeral services, as well as assorted priestly blessings.

The Archieratikon contains those services conducted by a bishop: ordination, consecration of a church, and so on.

Three books contain the Scriptural readings used in the services:

The Psalter contains the 150 psalms, divided into twenty kathismata, as well as the nine Scriptural canticles.

The Gospel Book contains the specified readings (called pericopes) from the Holy Gospel.

The Apostol contains the non-Gospel readings from the New Testament (the "apostolic writings"), and the readings from the Old Testament.

A single book contains all the hymns which recur in an eight-week cycle throughout the year:

The Octoechos contains the Sunday and weekday hymns in each of the Eight Tones.

Three books contain the parts of the services for the liturgical year:

The Triodion contains the proper hymns and prayers used during the Great Fast.

The Pentecostarion contains the proper hymns and prayers used during the Paschal season, from Pascha to the Sunday of All Saints.

The Menaion contains the proper hymns and prayers for feasts and commemorations on the fixed calendar - that is, those which fall on the same date each year.

Finally, the Typikon provides rules for the celebration of each service, what to do when several feasts fall on the same day, and so on.

These liturgical books used in the worship of the church are the means by which the whole faith is kept intact, and is passed on!

However, in the east, the individual person only needs one book containing only the most important services and the principal feasts is necessary. Such a book is called an Anthologion. This is the Eastern Book of Common Prayer. In the Eastern liturgical set up the benefit of both liturgical books and a BCP co-exist.

BLESS THE LORD (Taizé)

2010-10-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

The Feast of St Francis

2010-10-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

The Daily Office for the Feast of St Francis (click here)

Blessed Francis (1182 – 1226) was an ordained deacon and preacher. He also was the founder of the Order of Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscans. He is known as the patron saint of animals, and of the environment. It is customary for Anglican-Catholic churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of 4 October.

The Day of Angels

2010-09-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

The collect (gathering prayer) for the feast day of Saint Michael and All the Angels:

Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

September 29^th is the day wherein the Anglican Communion of churches remembers & celebrates the ministry of the angels and their chief, the archangel Michael. On this day we pray according to the ancient tradition of the undivided church saying the collect above. The earliest version of this prayer comes to us from the Gregorian Sacramentary, and dates back to the 5-6^th century. Our present version is however from the 1549 BCP, revised by Archbishop Cranmer. The essence of the prayer remains unchanged; however, in true English poetic fashion the prayer elaborates a few points.

Like most collects, this one opens with a piece of great theological truth (dogma) which is to be handed down to the church year by year as we pray it. Hence, in this collect, like all others, we have a catechizing of sorts taking place. The dogma within this collect reminds us that it is God who ordains & constitutes the wonderful ministries of both angels and men. The dogmatic point is that both angles and men are extensions of God’s work, or energies, in the creation.

Like most collects, the prayer moves on to its petition. The prayer pleads with the Lord to allow the angelic ministry of heavenly service and worship, to be used as a help to us here and now in this temporal part of creation. The prayer pleads for the angels to connect us to their eternal service here and now.

In short, today we remember and celebrate that God has indeed appointed spiritual beings he calls “fiery servants” not only to serve Him and worship Him, but to help and defend us to do the same.

Of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire." Heb 1: 7

Catholics, Orthodox, & Anglicans

2010-09-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

QUOTE

Archbishop Kurt Koch, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said in a news conference last week the two churches “will be able to enrich each other,” adding that the “basic principle of ecumenism is the exchange of gifts.”

“The first step is to tell each other individually how we imagine unity would look like. For the Catholic Church, of course, unity without the Bishop of Rome is unimaginable,” he underscored. “That’s because the issue of the Bishop of Rome is not just an organizational question, but also a theological one. The dialogue about just how this unity should be shaped must be continued intensively. Unity means that we see each other fully as sister churches.”

Archbishop Koch added that he thinks Pope Benedict is “thinking in this direction.”

“He’s said to the Anglicans who want to come back that they would be able to keep their tradition and celebrate their liturgy. So he’s said himself that there should be diversity. That will be the second step. It’s far too early ask each other how we can do this together.”

“There are no clouds of mistrust between our two churches,” Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon stressed. “If we continue like that, God will find a way to overcome all the difficulties that remain.”

See the whole article here.

COMMENTARY

Talk of reunification between the three great Christian bodies, catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican, has been moving forward in recent days. A meeting to further this possibility took place on September 27, 2010, and real progress is being made. However, the fact is that the deep differences between the three bodies are much more significant than just our views on the position of the Pope.

Even if all could arrive at an acceptable view of the Papal office, there are still very distinct paradigms in the three groups that if pressed to limit actually present a different God. Overcoming these distinctions will require a great deal of humility by all. At the same time, each group must be ready to rethink their theology. My hope is that each group is willing to return to our common faith, to that which was believed by the whole church, everywhere, & at all times. I t is undeniable that the faith of each group has evolved since the great schism, it will be imperative that each be willing to hold their faith up to the light of the undivided church. Only then can we ever hope to arrive at true unity.

POPE BENEDICT XVI - Westminster Abbey 1/2

2010-09-22T18:14:00.001-07:00

POPE BENEDICT XVI - Westminster Abbey 2/2

2010-09-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

"A Year With The Church Fathers"

2010-09-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

The Anglican Communion: Is it over?

2010-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from an excellent article found "here":

It is now abundantly clear that the balance of power has moved decisively to the Global South (from whence Christianity came). Egyptian Archbishop Mouneer Anis reminded conferees to Entebbe of that fact.

It was made clear to me that many of the Global South leaders see Western Anglican leaders as the "Pharisees and Sadducees" of biblical times - Jewish leaders that Jesus overtly condemned for leading people astray. They believe that archbishops like Jefferts Schori and Rowan Williams have done precisely that.

There is the belief by many African bishops that Jefferts Schori is quite simply not a Christian with any beliefs that are discernibly biblical, while it is thought that Dr. Williams' understanding of the faith and convoluted syntax saves no one and nothing. As one archbishop commented to VOL, "If you cannot explain the gospel to a five year old, what sort of gospel is it that you believe?"

The Anglican Communion will never formally split. There will not be two communions and there will not be a see in Alexandria. What will and is happening is a slow disintegration of the communion, with orthodox Anglican leaders going their own way, refusing to sit down with their liberal Western counterparts, collaborating only with their orthodox counterparts in the West. It is death by a thousand cuts.

To all intents and purposes, a paperless divorce now exists in the Anglican Communion.

(From Virtue Online)

Book Burning Ceremonies

2010-09-10T09:07:00.001-07:00

As much as I despise being dragged into the media malaise of the day, I sense a responsibility to address the promised book burning ceremonies in Gainesville.

It seemed wise to go Holy Scripture first, and to search them for any words of wisdom that might be directed at this event. Look up the word “books” in a concordance and you will find that it appears eight times in the Old and New Testaments. Most of the passages refer to books of scripture; a few address the books used by God in the final judgment; and one addresses a “book burning”. It is found in Acts 19:

Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Acts 19: 18-20

There was indeed a book burning recorded in the New Testament, however, it was not carried out by Jesus, an Apostle, or any churchmen, but rather, by converts who after their conversion saw the great deceit and danger contained in the books they previously believed to be holy.

Unlike this event in the book of Acts, Pastor Jones’ book burning ceremony has all the makings of a 21^st century marketing scheme. This individualistic, and politically motivated “self-appointed protector of the faith,” may have gotten more than he bargained for. The media has not even had to present him as the typical moronic fundamentalist, because he has done a very good job all by himself. His actions present our faith to the watching world as backwater religion for the undereducated that thrive on hate. Sadly, he claims that his reason for the book burning is to demonstrate the hateful nature of Islam, yet, his actions demonstrate the same seed of hatred.

Would Pastor Jones have searched for wisdom outside of himself, and consulted the bible he is supposed to believe in and teach, he might have noticed that “Koran burning,” or any book burning, only has serious meaning when be done by those who have converted to Christianity, and now despise the falsities contained in a book they previously deemed holy. Until the day Muslims burn the Koran due to their conversion, then any Koran burning done by the likes of Pastor Jones has no real meaning, and could even lead to disastrous consequences.

Authentic Christinaity Summed Up

2010-09-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Apostolic Tradition & Spirituality

The preceding year we dedicated our studies to the patristics and compared their teaching to that which is most common in today’s western church. Below are key quotes that shaped our study.

The Fathers

Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important questionamong us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? To which course many nations of those barbarians who believe in Christ do assent, having salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit, without paper or ink, and, carefully preserving the ancient tradition, believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God; who, because of His surpassing love towards His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, He Himself uniting man through Himself to God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again, and having been received up in splendor, shall come in glory, the Savior of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His advent. St Iranaeus of Lyons ca 180 AD

The Vincentian Canon

Some one perhaps will ask, since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this reason,—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters.

For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation. Moreover, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense “Catholic,” which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. (A Commonitory (A Reminder), Vincent of Lerins, 434 AD)

The Seven Ecumenical Councils

The doctrinal decisions and formulations of the seven ecumenical councils between 325 and 787 stand as the formal deposit of normative dogma. One reason for this is that no later actions of any church lay claim to the title “ecumenical.” (Credo, Jaroslav Pelikan, 2003)

The Spiritual Disciplines

My critique then of the three prominent forms of evangelical spirituality, is simply this: they all situate spirituality the self. “I keep the rules”; “I know God in a system of thought”; “I had a born again experience”. In contrast, historic Spirituality situates spirituality in the story of the Triune God, who creates, became incarnate, took my humanity up into his, entered suffering by the cross, and rose from the grave. God drew me up into himself, and did for me what I could not do. He Himself restored my union with Himself. Now having been baptized into that great mystery, I contemplate God’s work for me and the whole world, and I participate in God’s purposes for the world revealed in Jesus Christ. Spirituality is a gift, and the spiritual life is a surrendered life. (The Divine Embrace, Robert Webber)

The Gospel

According to the apostles and the early church fathers the gospel is comprised of the three following parts:

Trinity: The one true God exist in three persons: Father & creator, Son & victor, Spirit & giver of life. There exists within the triune God, a life that is primarily characterized by a communion of love. Hence, God is love.

Incarnation: God the Son took on flesh, and became one of us. So that even after the human race had turned way from God under the enticement of evil (sin & death), the Son might still bring the love of God to us, destroy evil by dying to destroy sin and death (sacrifice), He rose from the grave the victor (Savior), and He gave life eternal to all mankind (the final resurrection).

Restoration: The Son now has the authority to draw all mankind back into God’s Trinitarian family by pouring out upon mankind His life giving Spirit (baptism), which places the presence of God’s power within humans, making those persons incarnations of God (Christians- little Christs), here and now, healing & restoring (saving) them to dwell within the Trinity.

Rex Gloriae

2010-09-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

It is a very difficult thing to promote a parish in a way that is genuinely Chirstian. I have tried to do this in various ways that do not insult the faith, the link below will take you to web page desinged to inform anyone who might be interested about our parish.

Click here

Rebuilding The Ruins

2010-08-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

This summer’s treatment of the historic spiritual disciplines has brought one point of commonality to light, and that point is the shock to westerners that historic Christianity is a mystical religion. Most western Christians know about having a daily bible study and prayer time, which usually consists of reading though a book or books of the bible, followed by some extemporaneous prayers, and this usually leads to general feeling of well-being after wards, but anything beyond that enters into the realm of suspicion. Insert fasting, liturgical prayers, times of silence, kneeling, genufleting, lectio divina, and prayers of the heart into the disciplines the faith, and what we have is another religion. But, why and how did something so common to Christianity for so long become so foreign? There is a trajectory within western Christianity that has made this loss of these ancient Christian disciplines possible.

It began with the victory of Augustinian Neo-Platonism, in the 5^th century. The consequence of this has left today’s Christianity thinking that the goal of a person life is to make it into heaven, rather than to become united to God in body & soul now and after this life. The long term consequence of this is a two story universe, God up stairs, & us downstairs, and our task should we choose to accept it, is to make it upstairs.

This distortion continued in the 10^th & 11^th century by the additions of St Anselm. By way of his orientation towards legal satisfaction, what we now have is a Christianity that is most of all concerned with how man gets off the hook for sin on light of its insult of God’s honor. Christianity lost its focus on why and how God restores humanity to our original design as Christ’s icon on earth.

Move forward to the 12^th & 13^th century and we find the influences of St Aquinas. His influence made Christianity something that must be explainable and definable at every point, in other words, scholastic. For many Christians today, there is no higher form of Christianity than intellectual Christianity. This is a faith that lives in the mind.

Move forward again to the protestant reformation of the 16^th century, and there the west received the same authority that prior to it belonged to bishops and popes. Every individual became the protector of the faith, with the authority to keep, shed, or redesign the articles of faith as each saw fit according to their understanding of the bible.

Go forward again to the 18^th century and find the great awakening; this movement in the Americas and England made Christianity something that must be the result of a personal crisis and catharsis. As a result, one must have had a moment that one can point to when they had their God experience, once having that experience of God no more was needed.

Couple this with the need to feel moral and aligned to God, the social Victorian moralism made its way into Christianity. This moralism shaped the faith into more than just something in the mind and a one time experience. However, the problem here is that there was a focus on a few select sins such as sexual concupiscence, drunkenness, and participation in the things enjoyed by the general culture.

To sum this all up; what we have in the west today is a faith that is dualistic, legal, intellectual, individualistic, based on a one time experience, and sustained by a biased moralism that focuses on avoiding a few specific sins. In short, the trajectory of the western faith has left us with a faith that has almost no relationship to the faith of the early church, and especially its mystical practices of transformation into Christlikeness.

Having exposed these foreign viruses that have attached themselves to the faith, we can see their emptiness, and our need to return to a faith that actually creates real union with God here and now. It is this need that gives the mystical historic spiritual disciplines their place of priority in the Christian’s life. My hope is that the exposure of the above along with the recovery of this ancient practice can help to rebuild authentic Christianity.

The Feast of St. Mary (The Dormition)

2010-08-14T18:23:00.001-07:00

The feast day that we celebrate on August the 15th was originally named “the Dormition” or “the falling asleep” of Mary, the mother our God. It is still called the Dormition in the Eastern Church. Unfortunately, our Anglican tradition stopped celebrating this day in all places except in a few Anglo-catholic parishes for nearly 400 years. It was not until the revisions of 1960 & 70’s that this feast day was included once into our calendars once again.

The collect for this feast day of the “Dormition” stresses 3 points which are perfectly inline with the early church's celebration of this day:

O God, you have taken to yourself the Blessed Virgin Mary,
mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we,
who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

1] This collect confesses that upon her death (Dormition), God has taken Mary to himself. 2] Like the early church the collect addresses Mary as both blessed & still a virgin, & 3] Like the early church the collect uses her earliest title theotokos & translates it as “mother of your incarnate son,” meaning, mother of God!

After having made those 3 assertions, the prayer then beseeches God to help us who have been purchased by the blood of Christ (redeemed) to share in her glory eternally. This then is a prayer that connects us to MARY in a very particular way; it makes her our exemplar!

While ther are many ways that serves as our example, today's gospel (The Magnificat) presents Mary to us as one with great honor, and one who is highly elevated, yet full of humility in the midst of her elevation. Like Mary, the church also possesses the living God within her very body, and is called to go around as servants helping all who are in need, with no pomp or motivation of temporal recompense, possessing all yet poor.

Second, the magnificat presents Mary as an eternal portrait of God’s victorious (saving) work. This is no less true for the church, like Mary, the church is that same portrait. Mary's example to us is to treat our temporality as a fraction of reality. In short, as we face the problems of this life we are to be painting portraits of Christ’s eternal life. The story told by this portrait is life and its problems inbedded in etrnality. More specifically, we see in the magnificat that Mary saw this present life through the eyes of a mystical theologian. By that I mean that she seemed to be living in the end of the ages while even she was here in the middle of the age. We, the church, are to follow her lead and embrace the present knowing that we have arrived at the end of all things. Consider your problems in light of the reality that our time like Mary's will never running out, & you will turn your responses to those problems on their heads! You will live like a saint who already dwells in the heavens; you will live like Mary with God in her, here and now.

Grant O Lord that we, who have been redeemed by Christ’s blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom.

(An excerpt from the Homily on the Dormition 2010, by The Rev Fr. Carlos Miranda)

Tell out my soul (in full)

2010-08-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Orthodox Christian Church's Patriarch Bartholomew

2010-08-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sacred Reading

2010-07-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

One of the most challenging tasks assigned to a parish Priest is found in an oath made during the “Liturgy for the ordering of Priests.” The oath to which I refer says the following:

Will you then give your faithful diligence always so to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church hath received the same, according to the Commandments of God; so that you may teach the people committed to your Cure and Charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same?

The answer given by the priest to be is: I will so do, by the help of the Lord. Doing this however seems to consume much of a diligent priest’s time, thanks be to God that we are not left to our own devices. There are a great many tools and helps in the accomplishment of this task. In my search for helps that pass on the teaching of the church “As this Church hath received the same,” I have found few as valuable as "Touchstone Magazine". When asked for reading material, I usually commend this magazine to all in my parish. The following link will take you to previous issues that may be read in part or in their entirety.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/issues.php

Happy reading!

On The Incarnation

2010-07-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

One of the most important books ever written in the history of Christianity is a work by Athanasius the Great titled “On the Incarnation”. This work, along with several other must read books, is available as a free download in audio format at the Maria Lectrix website. The following link will direct you to the download page:

http://www.archive.org/details/AthanasiusIncarnation

Happy Listening!

Living With God pt 2

2010-07-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

The last 30 maxims are as follows:

Do your work, then forget it

Do the most difficult and painful things first

Face reality

Be grateful

Be cheerful

Be simple, hidden, quiet and small

Never bring attention to yourself

Listen when people talk to you

Be awake and attentive, fully present where you are

Think and talk about things no more than necessary

Speak simply, clearly, firmly, directly

Flee imagination, fantasy, analysis, figuring things out

Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance

Don’t complain, grumble, murmur or whine

Don’t seek or expect pity or praise

Don’t compare yourself with anyone

Don’t judge anyone for anything

Don’t try to convince anyone of anything

Don’t defend or justify yourself

Be defined and bound by God, not people

Accept criticism gracefully and test it carefully

Give advice only when asked or when it is your duty

Do nothing for people that they can and should do for themselves

Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim and caprice

Be merciful with yourself and others

Have no expectations except to be fiercely tempted to your last breath

Focus exclusively on God and light, and never on darkness, temptation and sin

Endure the trial of yourself and your faults serenely, under God’s mercy

When you fall, get up immediately and start over

Get help when you need it, without fear or shame
Maxim 26-30 address the pride of our attitudes about reality, they help us to deal with whole of creation as it really is; life is usually not easy and takes work, but we are warned not to allow our work to shape our whole life; we are encouraged to take on the tough things first because the easy will take care of themselves; we are then helped to see these things as good gifts from God.
Maxims 31-39 teach us to face our pride and to put ourselves in our place: not to aggrandize ourselves inappropriately, & to give others equal time, we are instructed to live in reality & not in the fantasies that clutter our moment by moment thoughts.
Maxims 40-55 point us to the Christ-like life of self-emptying; a life of trial and testing focused on the good of others at our expense.

Each of these maxims is worthy of deep study, & the reason is because they sum up within each one of them a large amount of Christian truth & piety. How wise it would be to take this way of lie, make it our own, & then pass it on to those who come after us. This is the wisdom of the church placed into daily life!

Living with God pt-1

2010-07-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

This is part 1 of 2 posts that will consider Christian spirituality practiced by way of maxims. A “maxim” is a general rule that applies in almost every case in life. Thus, a Christian maxim is not something one is able to formulate unless one has invested a great amount of time to observe life, and an equal amount of time having practiced living with God. I have selected these maxims from Fr. Thomas Hopko’s “55 maxims for Christian living”. As you consider each maxim you will note that Fr. Hopko must have dedicated much of his life to living with God.

QUOTE:

Be always with Christ and trust God in everything

Pray as you can, not as you think you must

Have a keepable rule of prayer done by discipline

Say the Lord’s Prayer several times each day

Repeat a short prayer when your mind is not occupied

Make some prostrations (or kneel) when you pray

Eat good foods in moderation and fast on fasting days

Practice silence, inner and outer

Sit in silence 20 to 30 minutes each day

Do acts of mercy in secret

Go to liturgical services regularly

Go to confession and holy communion regularly

Do not engage intrusive thoughts and feelings

Reveal all your thoughts and feelings to a trusted person regularly

Read the scriptures regularly

Read good books, a little at a time

Cultivate communion with the saints

Be an ordinary person, one of the human race

Be polite with everyone, first of all family members

Maintain cleanliness and order in your home

Have a healthy, wholesome hobby

Exercise regularly

Live a day, even a part of a day, at a time

Be totally honest, first of all with yourself

Be faithful in little things

COMMENTARY:

Fr. Hopko’s 1^st maxim is a summation of all of his maxims; it serves as an all around rule for life at all times and in all situations. It is that thought to which we turn moment by moment.

Maxims 2-6 address our prayer practices, they are simple yet powerful: pray as you can, have a rule for praying, pray instead of daydreaming, introduce your body into your prayers.

Maxims 7-11 take us into the ascetic life that every Christian needs, not to earn points with God, but to force our bodies into submission to love rather than selfishness. (8-9 are particularly hard for us westerners)

Maxims 12 -19 connects the God who dwells in us to the God in the world outside of us (seen and unseen): attend liturgy, confess to another, read the words of others thru whom God has spoken, cultivate a relationship with those in whom God dwells- living and deceased, just be a normal person without making yourself out to be so special.

Then maxims 20-25 address a healthy and honest mind: cleanliness, order, and exercise, live in the here and now, practice full honesty, do as you said and as those who trust you expect.

Christian spirituality does not take a PHD to understand, it is very simple, however, just one attempt at living with these maxims that make God's presence in us visible will quickly reveal just how much we need to be rescued from ourelves. Try it!

Are You Spiritual?

2010-07-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

QUOTE

COMMENTARY

The spirituality that came into existence as the consequences of post-Augustinian thought are as follows: a spirituality of legalism (keeping rules), a spirituality of the intellect (building a theological mind), and a spirituality of personal experience (my relationship with Jesus). Dr. Webber’s observations get to the core problem produced by dualistic Post-Augustinian thought. He points out that the consequence of dualism is to separate God and man. Even in our spirituality, the west turns all its focus on the one doing, or practicing the spirituality, rather than towards God who is Spirit. Note his summary of these systems: “I keep the rules”; “I know God in a system of thought”; “I had a born again experience”. This falls hard on our western psyche, because it exposes our incredible overdevelopment of self-centeredness.

In pre-Augustinian spirituality we find an outward-focused spirituality (extra nos), namely a God-focused spirituality. Consider the way that Dr. Webber identifies the earlier forms of spirituality: God drew me up into himself, God did for me what I could not do, God Himself restored my union with Himself. The focus then is this: because God drew, God did, and God restored, this causes me to respond by contemplating Him and His love for us, and yes even me. As a result of this contemplation, my heart and mind are raised up to Him. As a consequence of this, a desire grows within me to live in His present work, and therefore I surrender myself, I take the gift which is Himself, and deliver Him to the world. This spirituality faces outward; yet, it does not leave me out of the mix, instead, it wraps me up in Him, & as it does so I am launched out into the world. That is Apostolic spirituality!

Pictures of our parish

2010-07-07T20:16:00.000-07:00

Veni creator Spiritus, Inno gregoriano

2010-06-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

The Divine Embrace

2010-06-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

I am a reader, I like to read no less than one to two books per month, I often juggle several books at once, I always wish I could read more, however, more often then not I find that I get only tidbits from most books. Not so with Webber’s “Divine Embrace.” This is one of those books that sums up a lifetime of theological thought. Perhaps because he wrote it on his deathbed, it is just that. I can usually make my way through a book rather quickly, but not this one. Each section and each chapter requires time out to contemplate its content.

If you are a Christian who suspects that our western faith needs some correction, then I strongly recommend this book to you. In this book Webber gets at the heart of our problem, and that is a truncated spirituality that more often than not leads to a schoziphrenic Christianity. He points out many of the errors that the Eastern Church has identified as endemic in the west for centuries. Since he is a western Christian has an advantage, he knows where the bones are buried. He is personally intimate with the symptoms or our illness. Because of this intimacy, he freely quotes authors that have formed the foundation of what is flawed in the west and connects the dots to where we are today, and then drops a bridge back a place where these faults are not presents. If this book is read with a contemplative mind, it will surely leave the reader with a new spirituality, as well as a new appreciation for the early church, its faith, and its practices. In fact, it may even draw you into such a life.

Get Off the Spiritual Rollercoaster

2010-06-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

QUOTE:

The Reformers (& their spirituality), in spite of their return to the church fathers, were still influenced by a more mathematical (rational) view of God passed down thorough the scholastics. By replacing contemplation and participation with justification and sanctification, the reformers set up what was to become a severe problem in the modern era- the separation of spirituality from a relational, lived theology to a spirituality rooted in forensic justification that did not encourage the mystery of contemplation or participation but instead turned spirituality toward intellectual knowledge.

This turning eventually meant that justification became the focus on an intellectual spirituality and sanctification became was turned towards a preoccupation with experience. Reason and experience now in conflict produced two kinds of spirituality among Protestants: the spirituality of intellectualism and the spirituality of experimentalism… Speaking autobiographically he says: the journey into intellectualism and experientialism was never satisfying. It was only an exhausting spiritual rollercoaster. (The Divine Embrace, Robert Webber, 2006)

COMMENTARY:

A person can spend long periods of time sorting out their mind and heart, but, only if one is fortunate, will he find someone who crystallizes one’s own conclusions in clearly. For years I have been focused on discovering the authentic ancient, apostolic faith and practice, and then contracting those discoveries with my previous misunderstandings. Much of my labor has been to overcome the effects of “post-great schism” thinking upon my own Christianity. The separation that began with Augustine’s dualism, mind & matter, the spiritual up there physical down here, eventually led the church to the dichotomy that Webber identifies so clearly in the above statements. His assessment that “the spirituality of intellectualism and the spirituality of experimentalism” are now the norm is right on target. Consequently, like his own experience, most western Christians live on a carnival ride, which he calls “an exhausting spiritual rollercoaster.”

The way off of this rollercoaster is a return to the church father’s spiritual disciplines of contemplating the Trinity, and participating in the Trinity. These two practices employ the whole person and not just the mind, and as a result they bring about within the human precisely what those who go after God through knowledge and experience are seeking. Nevertheless, those who live in world the knowledge and experience will find these practices strange and even scary. In my next several posts I will address some of the contemplative spiritual disciplines as well as the participative disciplines.

Tearing Down the Platonic Gospel

2010-06-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

The last article has led me into several converstaions regarding the side affects of Augustines neo-platonism. One of the most grave affects has been the understanding of the gospel itself. The heart of the gospel or good news of our Lord Jesus Christ prior to Augustine was as follows:

Trinitarian: The first part of the Gospel is the message that the one true God exist in three persons: Father & creator, Son & victor, Spirit & giver of life. There exists within the triune God, a life that is primarily characterized by a communion of love. Hence, God is love.

Incarnational: The second part of the gospel is the message that God the Son took on flesh, and became one of us. So that even after the human race had turned way from God under the enticement of evil (sin & death), the Son might still bring the love of God to us, destroy evil, and win us back into his loving Trinitarian communion. This incarnate Son took evil on He died to destroy sin and death (sacrifice), He rose from the grave victorious over death and as the victor (Savior), and He gave life eternal to all who had mankind. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, eternal life in the flesh has been attained for all humanity (the final resurrection).

Restorative: The third part of the gospel is the message that by the Son’s great victory, He now has the authority to draw all mankind back into God’s Trinitarian family by pouring out upon mankind His life giving Spirit (baptism). This Spirit is now places the presence of God’s power within humans , thus making those persons incarnations of God (sanctification-deification), here and now, healing and restoring them to what they were meant to be (salvation), whole, living spirits that dwell within the Trinity.

The gospel or good news can be summarized by stating that eternal life in God is available to anyone in mankind who desires it, and the only ones who fail to attain it are those who reject it. All has been accomplished; the only thing left for us to do is receive the great gift (faith), and co-operate with God’s work in us (faithfulness), transforming us into Christ likeness. This is the gospel that has been possessed by the church, which the apostles called the ground and pillar of the truth, for two-thousand years. It is revealed in the Holy Bible, it has been taught and explained by the church fathers, it was summed up the three ecumenical creeds, it was articulated in defended in the seven ecumenical councils of the church, and it is this faith which was believed by the whole church, without dispute for one–thousand years. This gospel is the sum and substance of our faith and worship, and it has been passed on to us in our “Book of Common Prayer.”

Demolishing The Platonic Highrise

2010-06-16T16:29:00.000-07:00

This summer I will consider the lost spiritual disciplines of the early church.

QUOTE:

When God through our thinking is turned into an object who in a sense “sits in the heavens”, spirituality takes on a form of dualism. In spiritual dualism, God is no longer the subject who becomes involved in the history of the world. Instead, in dualism, God lives in the realm of spirits, and we humans dwell in the realm of the material. Spirituality in this scheme becomes our effort to transcend our material existence. In dualistic spirituality the spirit within me needs to escape this world.

(The Rev Dr. Robert Webber, The Divine Embrace, 2009)

COMMENTARY

It is usually necessary to tear down a building before a new one can be erected in the same place. Western Christianity, most especially the kind found in Protestantism, has built a rather large edifice in the midst of our western world. This building was built almost exclusively with Augustinian materials, & that means that it is platonic & dualistic at its core. Consequently, the spiritual disciplines of the post–reformation west have been reduced to exercises of the mind. The reason for this is approach to the spiritual disciplines is simple, those who have learned to think in Augustine's way accept that here on earth God cannot be experienced in any other way but in the mind. For this reason, post-reformation spiritual disciplines are only two; one, bible reading, and the other, spontaneous prayer.

This edifice built upon the ground of the mind needs to be torn down, and a new edifice needs to be erected. The new edifice should be one wherein the God of the heavens dwells on earth, and participates in matter. In this scheme, spiritual disciplines are not designed to extract us from matter, but rather to employ matter in the service of God’s life on earth. This means that the spiritual disciplines that will form the new building we will be inherently physical.

The first bricks laid down in this new edifice will be sacramental objects employed in the spiritual discipline of prayer.

Consider the following list:

o Holy Water

o Prayer rope or beads

o Icons

o Incense

o Candles

Historically, all of these material objects were employed in our spiritual disciplines, particularly in the discipline of prayer. They drop a physical draw-bridge between the matter of our life and non-matter of the life to come, making them one. Each makes the heavenly presence of God’s working power, physically present here and now. Thus, prayer is not done away with in this new non-dualistic building, but rather another story is added to it, a physical story.

Turning Philosophy on its Head

2010-06-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

A new article called "the Problem of Goodness," is a great read for those wrestling with the problems created by western thinking. In it, the author turns the argument for the necessary conclusion of the non-existence of God due to evil in the world on its head. http://www.fatherstephen.wordpress.com/

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday After Pentecost

2010-06-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

The Introduction

The theme for this Sunday found in our collect, is Orthodoxy, right praise, and Orthopraxy, right practice. It may even be said that the theme of this season we call “ordinary time” is grasping a life of right praise & right practice, and to take it with our very beings.

In order to explore this theme, I want place our focus on the Old Testament reading from 1 Kings 17:17-24. There we find 2 contrasting views of God, one is wrong & leads to misery, and the other is true & leads to Joy. I would even be so bold as to say that Christian orthodoxy & orthopraxy springs form the second.

The First view of God emanates from our natural “spiritual under development”; perhaps it should best be identified as our natural condition of being spiritually challenged.

This trait by the way is universal, all are born this way, it is on display everywhere and at all times. In today’s world it appears as crass atheism, by that I mean what we find when otherwise normal, intelligent people talk themselves into the non-existence of God. This, by the way, is no small accomplishment, nevertheless because they are developed intellectually, but suffer from an arrested development of the spirit, they succeed at buying into the creation of their own minds.

Historically however, this has not been the case; historically most people were not smart enough to talk themselves out of the obvious. Most people in the past took reality at face value, at least to the best of their ability. The evidence of intelligent design, order, and the incomprehensibility of the world coupled with the immovability of natural physical & supernatural laws has left most persons, even those with the most simplistic of educations with a certain knowledge of God that the so called intellects of our day cannot see.

They still however, suffered from a very common problem, it is the force behind all pagan religions. We can explore this trait more deeply in the testimony of the widow, verse 17 of 1 Kings:

17After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

The setting

The verse begins with after this- After what? The main character in this account is the prophet Elijah, the task assigned to Elijah was to confront idolatry in Israel, namely the idolatry of Ba’al worship. Ba’al can refer to any god and even to human officials; in our text it is used as a substitute for Hadad, a god of the rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the Lord of Heaven. it is in ligh tof this view that we have Elijah praying for no rain, & God answers his prayer by having it not rain for 3 years & 6 months (Lk 4:23), thus showing that He is God over Ba'al.

It is after this drought begins that Elijah is called by God to become a monastic, & to go out to the brook of Cherith, east of Jordan Where in 1 Kin 17: 4 God says: I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.

Elijah then goes out to the dessert like Israel, & like Israel is fed by God with manna & quail. However, due to the drought this seasonal brook dried up, & the prophet must himself live in the evil of the world, experience its hardship & pains, only not without knowing god personally- He knows the character, kindness & love of God. It is at this point that we read in vs 9:

9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you." 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath.

Elijah went to this woman who was in the midst of despair, waiting to die of starvation, & brought to her the presence of the living God, the God for whom Ba’al was a mere shadow, & he brought to her the very provision for life he had in the desert. So then, to summarize this setting, we have a gentile woman in despair of death, to whom Elijah comes and presents her give an unending source of life, the food that God provides.

The Spiritually Challenged

It is at this point that we read our opening verse in context, & begin to understand, in verse 17 the woman complains to Elijah.

17 After this (meaning after all of the good God brought to them) the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

The woman’s son dies, & even though they were only kept alive by God’s grace & kindness, not allowing them to starve to death, she still concludes that this God of Elijah has only come to us to bring death & judgment as the consequence for her moral failings. She says to Elijah, why did you choose to do this to me! Why Me????

The Crisis

The problem we witness here is that of a person dealing with God while having little to no spiritual development. She has created a god in her mind who is not the true God, & consequently she does not know how to relate to him except with fear. The only god she knows is an Angry God! She only knows the God of the pagans, a God who is offended & needs to be appeased for our evil. & in case you haven’t noticed, this God is no stranger to western Christianity, all too often the gospel is presented this way you have offended a Holy God, & if you do not repent, he’s gonna kick your butt, & you will loose, & YOU’LL BE SORRY!!!!

This view of God took a hold of our theology by way of neo-platonism, mostly as expounded by Augustine and His offspring. In this mindset, the most important trait of God is his purity, & if his purity is offended by our lack of it we are deemed his enemies, thus he must be appeased. These folks simply see Jesus as an anger satisfying sacrifice that will keep God from take out his rage upon us. All I can ay to this is that this is an incredible skewing of the God of the bible.

The Spiritually Mature

Conversely, let us compare the woman’s immature relationship to God with that of mature Elijah. Let us consider Elijah response to all of this:

19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.”

First, I would have you notice that he does not go off on a diatribe saying "how dare you say this, don’t know that God is holy, & he has kept you alive up to this point, & you have no right to say these things," no, none of that, instead we read:

And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”

Here we see that Elijah simply took the boy and presented him to God, he prays for him, without accusing God of being angry, yet, acknowledging that all life rests in his hands. Then he turns to the gosple and enacts a typology of Jesus before God - vs 21:

21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”

Elijah covers the body of the dead person; he calls out three times, bringing the ppresence of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit over this child- pointing to 3 days in the tomb, and then he pleads for a resurrection. Now let us look at God’s response to Elijah:

22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.”

We are told the Lord heard Elijah; Life was brought out of death, and he was restored to his former life in his family. Here we have a pre-view or type of the resurrection of Jesus and of mankind. Because of his spiritual maturity, Elijah first treats God as the one who first and foremost loves to do good rather than to judge us for our brokenness, and in doing so he never gets to see the judgment. The woman however, simply treated God as the one who judges evil, & there it ended for her; here we see Elijah being a gospel man- mature in spirit, & the woman, without any spiritual insight only concerned with the legality of it all.

Spiritual maturity is much more than conceptual knowledge, it is experiential knowledge of God’s goodness; notice her response after this experience:

24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Please notice the result; it is Orthodoxy & Orthopraxy, praising God rightly (meaning according to the truth) and acting rightly (meaning according to the truth).

We cannot praise God rightly unless we know his love experientially; & we cannot know his love experientially unless we call upon his love in spite of our unworthiness. If you notice nothing else about our classic Anglican liturgy, please notice the continuous repetition of God’s forgiveness that recurs over & over again. Spiritual maturity can only come to those who finally learn to live with the reality that God knows every one of our flaws, hates them violently, and yet because of his great love for us they are forgiven in Christ. Christ has trampled them down, and to us who were dead, has given life within the mystery of the Godhead.

By Jesus’ resurrection we are presented with the same experience that the widow had. In the resurrection of Christ we have the son of the new Eve (Mary), the mother of the new humanity returned to her. By extension he has been returned to the whole world; why? So that we too can experientially know that God loves to bring us good & not evil, & that God is much more than a judge, he is our savior. It now falls to us, to embrace the true loving God with all of our being over the vengeful God of our natural paganism.

It would only be right at this point to ask, "when did Elijah gain this maturity?" All we ahve to attribute to this maturity is his time learnig to live with God in the dessert; his time as a monastice deliered to him this spiritual growth, these eyes to understand the sacrafice that is acceptable to God. It was then that he expereinced the christ that was to come.

Implication

And just like elijah, only by the experience of the resurrected Christ in the soul, will have the trust necessary to turn all things in this life over to God’s goodness, & then to live out our lives resting in His love.

Only by the experience of the resurrected Christ will we eventually grow enough to be healed from all our spiritual maladies, which are always the cause of our moral failures.

Salvation by faith is totally free, it is a gift from God, but spiritual maturity is hard earned, it is synergistic, and it occurs only within a life lived out with God; knowing the safety of being alone with God due to Christ's provision. Only then can we enter into the strugles of prayer and fasting while fighting against our own delusions. This is how elijah grew, and this is how we must grow!

THAT IS THE WHAT HOLY TRADITION PASSES ON TO US TODAY,

MAY WE BE BOLD ENOUGH TO FACE OUR OWN CONCEPT’S OF THE ANGRY GOD, REJECTING ALL REMNANTS OF PAGANISM, & EMBRACING THE FAITH ONCE & FOR ALL DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS.

What Is Hell Like? Does It Even Exist? NT Wright on 100 Huntley Street (HD)

2010-05-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

Marriage in Ukrainian Catholicism

2010-05-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

Catholic Evangelicals

2010-05-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

QUOTE:

By our Baptism, we are called to be men and women of the Gospel who are Christian disciples by conviction rather than mere Church members by convention. Being Evangelical Catholics requires that we know the Gospel, believe the Gospel, live the Gospel, and share the Gospel with others, and becoming Evangelical Catholics is a lifelong adventure of letting go of the various counterfeit catholicisms of our time (casual, cultural, cafeteria Catholicism) by accepting the liberating truth of the Word of God and living by grace through faith in the Son of God.

Evangelical Catholicism is not meant to be a movement within the Church, still less a sect or sub-set of Catholicism; it simply a way of understanding the vocation of every Christian to be a true disciple of and faithful witness to the Lord Jesus. I offer these principles as a catechetical tool…

The Principles of Evangelical Catholicism

1. The Lord Jesus Christ is the crucified and risen Savior of all mankind, and no human person can fully understand his life or find his dignity and destiny apart from a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. It is not enough to know who Jesus is; we must know Jesus.

2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is divine revelation, not human wisdom, and the Gospel is given to us in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition which together constitute a single divine deposit of faith transmitted authentically and authoritatively by the Bishops in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.

As an Anglo-Catholic I would reword this to say: by Bishops in full agreement with the teaching & practice of the undivided church).

We must surrender our private judgments in all matters of faith and morals to the sacred teaching authority of the Church’s Magisterium if we are to receive the whole Gospel.

(Again I would reword this to say: the dogma of the undivided church instead of magisterium)

3. The seven Sacraments of the New Covenant are divinely instituted instruments of grace given to the Church as the ordinary means of sanctification for believers. Receiving the Sacraments regularly and worthily is essential to the life of grace, and for this reason, faithful attendance at Sunday Mass every week (serious illness and necessary work aside) and regular Confession of sins are absolutely required for a life of authentic discipleship.

4. Through Word and Sacrament we are drawn by grace into a transforming union with the Lord Jesus, and having been justified by faith we are called to sanctification and equipped by the Holy Spirit for the good works of the new creation. We must, therefore, learn to live as faithful disciples and to reject whatever is contrary to the Gospel, which is the Good News of the Father’s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5. The sacred liturgy, through which the seven Sacraments are celebrated and the Hours of praise are prayed, makes present to us the saving mysteries of the Lord Jesus. The liturgy must therefore be celebrated in such a way that the truth of the Gospel, the beauty of sacred music, the dignity of ritual form, the solemnity of divine worship, and the fellowship of the baptized assembled to pray are kept together in organic unity.

6. Receiving the Sacraments without receiving the Gospel leads to superstition rather than living faith, and the Church must therefore take great care to ensure that those who receive the Sacraments also receive the Gospel in its integrity and entirety. Consequently, before Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, and Marriage are administered, there must be in those who request these Sacraments clear evidence of knowledge of the Gospel and a serious intention to live the Christian life.

7. Being a follower of Christ requires moving from being a Church member by convention to a Christian disciple by conviction. This transformation demands that we consciously accept the Gospel as the measure of our entire lives, rather than attempting to measure the Gospel by our experience. Personal knowledge of and devotion to Sacred Scripture is necessary for this transformation to occur through the obedience of faith, and there is no substitute for personal knowledge of the Bible. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

8. All the baptized are sent in the Great Commission to be witnesses of Christ to others and must be equipped by the Church to teach the Gospel in word and deed. An essential dimension of true discipleship is the willingness to invite others to follow the Lord Jesus and the readiness to explain His Gospel. (Jay Scott Newman, a priest of the Diocese of Charleston)

COMMENTARY:

For obvious reasons there is a great deal of movement out of Anglicanism and into other expressions of catholicity, & Fr. Newman is one example. He was raised in the Episcopal Church, & then converted into Roman Catholicism. What is most interesting to me about these converts is the contribution they bring to the church they enter. Because they have obviously have drank from other streams, when that other drinking blossoms we all benefit. One specific benefit that we all receive from these Anglicans is their evangelical kind of Catholicism.

There is a certain kind of fullness in these Evangelical Catholics that is not always visible in other expressions of Christianity.

Notice the motivation for presenting the gospel: no human person can fully understand his life or find his dignity and destiny apart from a personal relationship with the Lord.

Notice the basis doctrine: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition which together constitute a single divine deposit of faith.

Notice the methodology: Through Word and Sacrament we are drawn by grace into a transforming union with the Lord Jesus.

And finally notice the charge: Being a follower of Christ requires moving from being a Church member by convention to a Christian disciple by conviction.

May the Lord bless His church with many more evangelical Catholics!

Pentecost 2010

2010-05-23T15:31:00.000-07:00

There are many things that are quite puzzling about Christianity to those on the outside looking in. This is especially true when we refer to the classic and historic Christianity that we practice in the Anglican-Catholic tradition. We do strange things like process while carrying books, crosses, & incense; we light candles, and all of this while our clergy & altar servers dress as if we were already in the heavens. If this were not enough, we say words that were written thousands of years ago, & we sing songs that span the 2000 (to 3500) year history of the church. And we even celebrate days on a calendar that no one in our country seems to know anything about.

Today, is Pentecost Sunday, & it is a day that belongs to another rhythm of time; a rhythm that can best be described as the by ebb & flow of God’s redemption. This feast day goes back to even before the birth of Christianity; it has its origins in the 15^th century BC, when it was given the Hebrew name, the “festival of weeks.”

We are told about the institution of this feast in the book of Leviticus, 23: 9-16. This feast day had several redemptive events related to it:

1^st, it marked the end of the gathering of the harvest season, thus this day was intended to be a the day of the in-gathering- symbolizing the ultimate harvest.

2^nd, this feast day marked the day that the Israelites received the Ten Commandments from God. The table of commandments served as the constitution of Israel, the day of Pentecost marked the birthday of Israel.

3^rd, it also marked fifty days after the Passover, that day when the angel of death passed over all of the Israelite homes that were covered by the blood of a lamb, bringing life out of death.

So, as you can see, this day of Pentecost was filled with layers of meaning: understanding this, the Greek translators of the Old Testament emphasized the time of the event in their naming of the feast. Since it occurs 50 days after the Passover they called the feast “Pentecost,” which literally means ‘fiftieth”. Nevertheless, it was not until the event recorded in Acts chapter 2, that we find the full meaning of Pentecost revealed. There we find the true gathering of God’s gifts, the people from the entire known world; the formation of the new Israel of God, the church, and the gift of life, the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit coming to dwell inside of humans. The picture painted nearly 1500 years earlier took on flesh. From this day forward there would be a new race of god-men walking the earth. No longer merely sons of Adam, but now sons of God.( Fr. Carlos Miranda, an excerpt from the Homily for Pentecost, 2010)

Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue:

2010-05-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

Pictured (L-R) are: Fr. Timothy Matkin, Fr. Ron Drummond, Metropolitan Jonah (OCA), Fr. Christopher Cantrell, Bishop Jack Iker, Fr. Chuck Hough, Fr. Joseph Fester (OCA), and Fr. John Jordan.

Local meeting to be followed by national conference:

The dialogue committee for our diocese and the Orthodox Church in America’s Diocese of the South met Friday, April 9, in the library of St. Vincent's Cathedral School in Bedford.

It was agreed to hold a joint clergy conference sometime in the fall, focusing on theological developments in the Western Church compared with those that took place in the Eastern Church prior to the great division that was formalized in 1054. The group also discussed how to involve laity in our dialogue, and some interest was expressed in forming a chapter of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius in order to facilitate this.

The first meeting of the national dialogue group between the ACNA and the OCA will be held in Dallas on April 22 and 23. Our diocese will be represented by Dean Ryan Reed of St. Vincent's Cathedral.

Are you saved?

2010-05-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

Blesed Feast of Ascension

2010-05-13T10:54:00.001-07:00

Below is an ancient hymn of the church, arranged by the Taize community. It is beleived to date back to the 9th Century; in it we have the fullness of the apostolic tradition regarding the Holy Spirit translated into language and form that speaks to us today.

Have a blessed feast!

VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS (Taizé) Come Holy Spirit

2010-05-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

Living with Mystery

2010-05-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

QUOTE

For the early Christians, the mystery of Christ was not limited to the sacramental rituals. It touched also upon the morals and everyday life. It was “God’s plan for the fullness of time,” after all, “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1: 10). Thus, in Christ all things become signposts pointing us to God. The things of the earth are not to be despised, but rather sanctified, raised up, made holy by holy use. In the Eucharistic celebration we offer God “the work of our human hands.” In our work we do the same. We do no less in our devotion.

This idea is as old as the church. In the fourth century St Gregory of Nyssa preached a splendid homily about this sacramental principle. He began by praising God for the power he gave to ordinary things; water in baptism, bread and wine in the Eucharist, oil in anointing, and the press of a bishop’s hand in ordination. He noted the common items that God had invested with miraculous power: Moses' wooden staff, Elijah’s mantle, and even the bones of dead Elisha. St Gregory then noted that such a dispensation of power had not only continued in his own day, but increased many times over. (Scott Hahn, Signs of Life; 2009)

COMMENTARY

The concept of mystery has for some time now been seen a fierce enemy, as a race, we are driven to understand, explain, and to master all things. This however is quite counterproductive when it comes to understanding the mind of the early church. Theirs was a mindset not only comfortable with mystery, but one that was particularly comfortable with the significance of the mystery that Christ had changed everyday life forever. Consequently, their goal wats to excell in the use of this mystery in their lives. We may dismiss this comfort by telling ourselves that they were merely ignorant, lacking scientific knowledge. Yet, that one sided critique is totally blind to our own ignorance regarding the mysterious which they knew well. Why do we not have the same sense dedication to this mystery? Professor Hahn carefully points out that at the heart of the mysteries lies the fact that all things are presently being drawn together, & united to Christ our God. Perhaps it is that point that we have missed in our day, perhaps we think that we are bringing all things together by our own abibiltiies.

Hahn then points out that this understanding of the mysteries of God enables us to see the way that God employs & bestows power to ordinary objects; that is a radical thought! Moreover, this power is not something that merely existed in the days gone by, but rather still exists today, even in great abundance. What a blessing it would be to shed some of our present day ignorance regarding these mysteries, and learn that “in Christ all things become signposts pointing us to God.”

Lex Credendi Pt 1

2010-05-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

QUOTE

We acclaim you, holy Lord, glorious in power. Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love. You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that, in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures. When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.

Father, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy. To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.

And, that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all. (1979 Eucharistic Prayer D, from the liturgy of St Basil)

COMMENTARY

Much of the instruction presented by the church to its members has to do with the gospel itself. Although for many it has become a lost practice, the historic churches have enshrined this pedagogy within its prayers. In the above Eucharistic prayer, which is drawn from the liturgy of St Basil, the church tries to teach what the gospel is, how it works, why it is given, & finally its goal. The prayer begins by placing words of praise in our mouths & having us call the gospel the disclosure of God’s wisdom and love.

The prayer first tells us the reason for the gospel:

You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that, in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures.

The prayer quickly reminds us of the human crisis & God’s merciful intentions:

When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.

We are then taken to how the gospel works, & all of our attention quickly turns to by Jesus:

Father, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

The exact means of the gospel’s power we are told is the incarnation of the sinless God, & his message of victory:

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy.

The reason for this gospel is to remake all creation.

To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.

The prayer closes with the goal of the gospel by describing salvation itself:

LEX ORANDI, LEX CREENDI – THE RULE OF PRAYER IS THE RULE OF FAITH

More on Typology

2010-04-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

QUOTE:

As Christianity quickly became a religion of the Greeks and the Romans, certain tensions began to grow between the cultures that the Greeks and Roman Christians grew up with and the Jewish culture and faith that is at the foundation of the thought of Jesus of Nazareth. Paul of Tarsus is the earliest person to try to bridge the gap between the Judaism of Jesus of Nazareth and the culture of the European Christians; to do so, he employed a concept from Roman jurisprudence, "the spirit and the letter", to ameliorate to some degree the legal and ethical strictures of the Torah and the Jewish religion. This concept, as it was applied in Roman courts, made a rigorous distinction between the literal meaning of statute law and contractual obligations and the intent of the framers of that law or contract. So the law might demand that a murderer be punished, but the lawmakers may intend that certain types of murder are universally justified, such as killing an enemy in a war. This concept "the spirit and the letter" would become Paul's principle philosophical instrument for translating Christianity into its European form.

However, this created new problems for later Christians. If, as Paul claims, the teachings of Jesus are sufficient for salvation, then what should be done with the sacred scriptures of the Hebrews? Were they, like the literal meaning of the Torah, dispensible? Bitter feuds arose; books were arguing one point or the other. One Greek writer, Origen, wrote a book detailing the contradictions between the Hebrew scriptures and the teachings of Jesus; he ultimately argued that the Hebrew scriptures should be tossed out of the new religion.

What in the end saved the Hebrew scriptures, or what would eventually be called the "old testament," was a new way of reading these scriptures to harmonize the content of the old testament with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This new way of reading was typology. In Greek, typos means "image" or "model." For instance, if someone paints a portrait of you, you are the "typos" of the painting. In typological interpretation the events of the Hebrew scriptures are "types" of the events of the life and teachings of Christ, that is, the events of the old testament prefigure the events and ideas of the new testament. For example: Not only do the events in, say Jonah , have a literal meaning, say "Jonah was in the whale for three days," they also have a typological meaning, that is , they refer to some aspect in the New Testament, say "Christ was in the tomb for three days." Do you see how this works? It operates on the principle of metaphor: two events are distinct in some way but are also similar in some other way, and the meaning of the one affects the meaning of the other. (Richard Hooker, 1996)

COMMENTARY:

Professor Hooker makes an articulate analysis of the difference between allegory and typology. He points out that a type is an image or a model, just as a law may have a letter & a spirit. Hooker astutely points out that the Old Testament remained of value to the Christian precisely because they saw it as a type. Hooker reminds us that the meaning of the word type is “model,” thus the Old testament when it is understood and interpreted in that light makes perfect sense of the new, and the new of the old. Few examples are clearer the Jesus own words to the generation of his day saying "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Mat 12; 39-40. What Hooker teaches us is that this method is not just a nice innovation, but rather it was first employed by Jesus, then was passed on to the apostles and then to the Fathers, and thus passed clearly pointing out that typology is the standard by which the Old Testament is to be interpreted.

Allegory or Typology

2010-04-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

QUOTE

“Righteous Noah, along with the other mortals at the Deluge, that is, with his own wife, with his three sons, and with their three wives, all of them being eight in number, were a symbol of the eighth day, whereon Christ appeared when He rose from the dead, first in power forever. For Christ, being the firstborn of every creature, became again the head of another race regenerated by Himself through water, and faith, and wood, containing the mystery of Cross, even as Noah was saved by wood when he rode upon the waters with his family” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho, 138 AD).

COMMENTARY

Reading the scriptures with the church fathers often shines a kind of light upon our passages that has a completely different quality about it. To the untrained reader it may appear as though the fathers took liberties that went beyond the natural meaning of the passages. This after all has been the common claim regarding the fathers in the post reformation west. It has been said that the fathers planted the seed for the allegorical silliness of the medieval era. Be that as it may, the fact is that there is quite a difference between the patristic interpretation and the free wheeling innovativeness of later allegorists. This is abundantly evident in the above quote. While some might like to look at the above method of interpretation as allegorical, the reality is that it is not, rather it is typological. The patrisitc method does not invent some disconnected possibility as to what the text might mean (morally or psychologically), but rather what the text means in light of the fulfillment of the redemption procured by Jesus. The patristic method does not compare the rolling away of the stone covering Jesus' tomb with the rolling away of the stone in our lives (allegory), rather it connects the waters of the deluge to baptism and the 8 person to the eigth day (typology). The 21^st century church would do well to learn to read the bible typologically.

New Life

2010-04-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

QUOTE

Is it any more difficult to believe that God can create life out of death then life out of nothing? When compared to miracle of creation, the resurrection does not look so implausible, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”. (Homily on 2 Cor 5:11-15, John Chrysostom ca 350 AD)

COMMENTARY

Our thinking is in more ways than we realize the result of a set of accumulated conclusions that we keep stored in our minds. Unfortunately, these pre-existing convictions are often arrived at sub-consciously & without careful thought or analysis. This faulty process of thinking is what philosophers call “a priori.” A priori thinking works in us as we make observations about a topic and then extend implications of our conclusions to the rest of our thinking. Often however, our a priori conclusions run into an opposing reality, and then we are left perplexed about the contradiction in our minds. It is at this point that our A priori conclusions can really do damage. Many, rather than rethinking their assumptions, simply default to their a priori convictions and write off reality as being erroneous. This is the case with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It s to this dilemma that Chrysostom refers in the above quote. His attack against wrong a priori thinking goes something like: it is obvious that there is design in the creation; hence, their must be a designer behind it; moreover, the designer must have always been, and from his everliving being formed the creation out of nothing; thus, the miracle of creation has behind it an unlimited being who can bring life out of nothingness. When looking at God’s ability to bring life out of nothingness and then comparing it to bringing life out of death, the second seems fairly easy.

In short, if God is responsible for the creation then anything is totally possible for him to accomplish. This leaves the “a priori” skeptic with the insurmountable task of explaining how things came into being without a designer and creator who has the ability to create out of nothing. As of yet there are no answers from the skeptics that can even come close to dealing with that reality. Long before the challenges of modern day science Chrysostom knew this to be so, and thus he points to the obvious, and reshapes his hearer’s “a priori” thinking by the light of God’s truth. When compared to miracle of creation, the resurrection does not look so implausible, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”

Orthodox Music, Divna Ljubojevic - ♫ Bogorodice Djevo ♫

2010-03-18T17:55:00.001-07:00

CREDO - AN ECUMENICAL CANON pt 2

2010-03-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Four additional perspectives for understanding the Ecumenical creeds

Creeds & the Tradition (paradosis)

Few would claim that the bible is easily memorized, however, creeds have & still are memorized; thus, they have always been used by the faithful to pass on the faith. The New Testament scriptures can even be said to be built upon creedal statements. Consider the following:

1 Tim 2: 5-6, For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

1 Tim 3: 16, He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

Phil 2:6-11, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is by way of these creedal statements that the faith was passed on from one place & person to another, it is this that St Paul refers to when he says to the people in Thessalonica:

2 Thes 2: 15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

* The term “tradition” received a bad reputation after the reformation, the NIV uses the term tradition only for negative, while using the term “teaching” for positive, yet both are the same Greek word “paradosis”.

Creeds & the Liturgy (Liturgia)

Throughout the history of the church, one primary means of passing on the faith has been by way of liturgy (prayers, songs, confessions, & creeds). By way of the liturgy, the content of the faith was not only passed on by also put into practice by the people on a day by day, & week by week basis. Therefore, in due time a Christian calendar was established to ensure that the whole tradition as given by the apostles would also be transmitted to the people. The calendar was built upon the fulfilled events of the Old Testament calendar by Jesus Christ. This meant that at Baptisms, just as in the earliest of days the apostle’s creed was said; at Eucharist the Nicene Creed was said, and on special occasions such as on Christmas Day, Epiphany, Ascension Day, Pentecost Sunday and Trinity Sunday, the Athanasian Creed was said. In summary, the means of creeds have had the role of passing on the whole apostolic tradition from the beginning, & therefore, one of the ways that the truth contained in them is as affirmed is by way of liturgical acceptance. At the end of the day, it is only when the whole church embraces their content and their methodology that a creed becomes traditional, ecumenical, & canonical.

Creeds & the Concilliar mind (Catholicons)

The highest and most important form to establish a creed is by way of concilliarity. While many church councils were called during the 1^st millennium, only seven were accepted by all, and thus considered ecumenical and without error. From the 2^nd of these councils came the most influential & important creed, the Nicene Creed (it is actually the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). The council was called to by the emperor Constantine in order to sort out recent disagreements regarding the faith of the church. The emperor needed a united church if his empire was to remain united. Thus in from 318-325, 381 bishops with heir clergy and lay persons gathered to ensure that the traditions that had been given to would not be lost. With many battles between this time and the 2^nd council in 381, the apostolic faith was placed into simple words, and has remained ever since. The proof of its validity was that all embraced it and recognized it as the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

Creeds & the Apostolic Teaching (Pedagoguia)

The apostolic theology found within these creeds addresses the most essential qualities of God the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit; The Trinity, the incarnation, Christology, the scriptures, the sacraments, the salvation of mankind, & the final judgment. In summary, they address what one must believe in order to be saved. The ecumenical creeds therefore, contain, preserve, & propagate the substance & structure of apostolic teaching & theology.

CREDO- AN ECUMENICAL CANON

2010-03-10T12:27:00.000-08:00

The Ecumenical Aspect of the Creeds (Catholicon)

The term Ecumenical is a term used for the 3 creeds: the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, & the Athanasian Creed, as well as for the 7 councils of the church. The quality within them that makes them ecumenical is that they have always everywhere been accepted by all Christians in the western church (they comply with the Vincentian Canon), and thus they have in some form been used in liturgy as well as to fend off heresy. The views & the methodology of every ecumenical product such as the bible, the councils, & the creeds, presents the church with the reality that no one person, or no one denomination, has the authority to make up or to individually define the Christian faith. While the whole truth may be found in scripture, the proper interpretation of its content can only be sure if it is the same as that truth that was passed on to the apostles & from the apostles to the church. The creeds assert that there exist not only Christian facts recorded by the apostles, but that they fit together in an apostolic formula. For any truth claim to be apostolic, it must then come out of the whole church, which is the meaning of the word Greek word catholicons or ecumenical.

The Canonical Aspect of the Ecumenical Creeds (regula fidei)

The role of canonicity:

The church has always needed a rule of faith (regula fidei). “Rule” refers not to a law, but rather measuring stick, this rule is a necessary means employed to measure the validity of all Christian truth claims.

The 1^st rule of faith is the scripture:

The bible the first & foremost measure (canon) for what the church has called apostolic tradition (paradosis). The Bible’s content is deemed by the whole church (ecumenical- catholicons- of the whole) to be the measure by which all other truth claims regarding God are measured. Hence, the role of scripture is to serve as a constitution of sorts to serve the church in its discernment of truth. In short, a claim must be biblical in order to be Christian. While this is true, it is also true that the bible is a large and comes book, one in which one can easily over emphasize some truths and total ignore others. Hence, we need a smaller, more concise rule of faith to deal with Christianity as well as the bible itself.

The 2^nd rule of faith is the 3 ecumenical creeds:

These short statements serve as not only summary of the scriptures, and thus as a grid by which the proper use of the 1^st rule of faith can be determined. In these creeds the church Fathers have spoken with one voice, & delivered that which was given to them (the paradosis) in such a way that Christianity cannot be misunderstood. Therefore, not only has the church identified and gathered together all of the books of the bible & preserved them for the world, but it has also given the world an interpretive grid & summary of the bible’s content (there are other rules of faith also, rules that if left out of one belief system leaves the Christian impoverished).

THEOSIS

2010-03-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

QUOTE:

Although the idea of Theosis is not a new concept to Christianity, it is for the most part unfamiliar to the Western mind. When Christ said, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," this is a call to a life of Theosis.

Theosis is personal communion with God "face to face." To the Western mind, this idea may seem incomprehensible, even sacrilegious, but it derives unquestionably from Christ's teachings. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the messianic dream of the Jewish race; His mission to connect us with the Kingdom of God a Kingdom not of this world. When Jesus said, "You are gods," "be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect," or "the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father," this is to be taken literally. (The True Purpose of Human Life, Archimandrite George, 2006)

COMMENTARY

The above quote asserts that a person experiences salvation when they are moved from the state of corruption (“sin” & “death”) to the state of participation in the everlasting Life of the Trinity. That movement is called “théōsis,” and it is nothing less than the process of salvation itself. The outcome is that a person becomes co-mingled with a part of God that we call His energy. This is the unanimous voice of the holy scripture:

44 For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. 45 For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Leviticus 11:44-45

1 God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: Psalm 82:1

22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.; Romans 6:22

16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 2 Peter 1:2-4

Feeling Abandoned

2010-02-19T09:41:00.000-08:00

QUOTE

Jesus’ apparent abandonment by God was essential to His learning of obedience. We find in Jesus’ death, just as in the testing Job and Joseph, that it is only when God apparently abandons us that He actually saves us. This abandonment made Job a pillar of courage, and made of Joseph a pillar of self-restraint. (The Philokalia, 2: 112, Maximos the Confessor, CA 650)

COMMENTARY

The contemporary western church has in too many instances reduced of the doctrine of “salvation” to the concept of going to heaven when we die. This is tragic indeed; in fact, it is much more Platonic than Christian. This Platonic thinking that has so deeply affected the west; that we have been taught to think that salvation has little to do with the present, & all to do with our eternal spiritual existence.

Maximos the Confessor tells us that salvation is what God accomplishes in us here and now, as well as, what He accomplish for us in for eternity. In Job’s case, what God did in the here and now was to make himself apparently absent from him, in order to produce a pillar of courage in Job. In Joseph’s case, what God did in the here and now was to make himself apparently absent from him so to produce a pillar of self-restraint in him. It is in the producing of the likeness of God that saved them from present evil and eternal death. The very transformation that is salvation, according to Maximos begins here and now.

Of course, this salvation cannot happen apart from faith in Christ, or apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in us. However, the point is that salvation according to the philokalia is much larger than in our way of thinking today. In the mind of the confessor, salvation begins by the learning of obedience.

There are also other benefits to this grander understanding of salvation. For example, since salvation works its way in us by obedience, we can then see why it is that life seems so painful to us in the here and now, in spite of our faith. It is for us, and for our salvation (that is our learning of obedience) that God sometimes stands quietly by us, giving the appearance of abandonment. If God seems absent, it may be that he is forming you into a pillar; it may be that he is saving you here and now.

The Gospel, Live on the Cosmic Stage

2010-02-09T07:36:00.000-08:00

QUOTE:

The Nicene confession that all things were made through Christ teaches us that the cosmos are the stage upon which the Triune God enacts a great drama of communion by sharing the divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with persons who are not God.

At the heart of the divine act of creation is the divine desire to make room for created persons in the communion of the uncreated Persons of the Blessed Trinity through adoptive participation in Christ.

Through the eyes of divine faith, then, the likeness to divine nature that is enjoyed by spiritual creatures with intellect and will, turns out to be a likeness to the divine Trinity enjoyed by created persons, who, in grace, know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as well as one another in them. (Nicene Christianity, J Augustine Di Noia, 2002)

COMMENTARY:

Father Di Noia present us with three very basic foundations necessary for a proper Christian understanding of reality. The first principle is that the main goal of God the Trinity in the act of creation was to receive from that creation, an inter-relatedness to His creatures. In short, God wants to share himself with those whom He has created, and thus He has constructed all things to facilitate that end. This should help us conclude then that the whole cosmos exist with the stage for communion with God in mind.

The second principle shows us that the designed means of entry into this interrelationship for which the cosmos are designed is an adoption by one who is already in the Trinity, the Son, and our Lord Jesus Christ. The point being that while we all walk around on the stage we cal the cosmos, we never enter into the ongoing play as full participants until we become united to Christ by adoption. In other words, there are the stage hands and the actors.

The third and final principle is that the way to see that doorway that leads to adoption is using the eyes of faith. The eyes of faith are the opera glasses by which the play becomes visible. Without rightly adjusted glasses, the whole play will appear as a blur.

Thus, the stage where the play called “the inter-communion of the blessed Trinity” is occurring is the cosmos, the means by which mankind enters into participation in that play come to us by an adoption that we receive from Christ, and this reality only becomes visible through a new kind of understanding, which we know as the eyes of faith.

If the church’s gospel presentation always began this way, our reputation in the contemporary west might be completely different than it is today.

Are Most Christians Un- Christian?

2010-02-01T06:47:00.000-08:00

QUOTE:

Kinnaman, president of the Barna Institute, was inspired to write the book “Un-Christian” when Lyons, of the Fermi Project, commissioned him to do extensive research on what young Americans think about Christianity. Lyons had a gut-level sense that something was desperately wrong, and three years of research paints exactly that picture. Mosaics and Busters (the generations that include late teens to early 30-somethings) believe Christians are judgmental, antihomosexual, hypocritical, too political and sheltered. Rather than simply try to do a PR face-lift, Kinnaman looks at ways in which churches' activities actually may have been unchristian and encourages a return to a more biblical Christianity, a faith that not only focuses on holiness but also loves, accepts and works to understand the world around it. (From Publishers Weekly,
2008)
See the videos below for more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m3Q2lDMRm0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mKfg2mrMP4&feature=related
COMMENTARY:
One need not even read the book to have the claims posted by the reviewer jump out and assault our self-consciousness. The fact is that as each day goes by, we who profess Christ to be our Lord & our savior are increasingly marginalized & thrown into the pile of irrelevancy. The question that must be asked is “why”? The above statements, especially the videos drive home the message that we western Christians have done it to ourselves. When the majority of our population (80 % +) perceives us to be:
1. judgmental,
2. anti-homosexual,
3. hypocritical,
4. too political
5. & sheltered
We need to listen to them, as well as re-listen to ourselves. The danger we face for the moment may be contempt, but the danger that is to follow is total irrelevancy. Last week I had the privilege of listening to Mr Kinnaman deliver a lecture on this topic, & I must admit that it struck a deep chord within me, mostly because it exposed the consequences of the legal gospel embraced by the west since the schism. It seems that the younger generation of evangelicals is all too aware that something is wrong with western Christendom, & is trying to heal it by an Incarnational approach to Christian living; this is great. However, it will prove difficult to accomplish with the extreme level of sectarianism that exists in western Christendom. The fact is that what this new generation needs is a recovery of the true in Trinity and His love for mankind, as well as, a recovery of the incarnation and its implications for mankind. This will require the very body of theology understood & practiced by the undivided church, for that alone is Christianity in its fullness. Perhaps we have finally arrived at that time when Christendom can begin to be healed so that it may begin to heal the world around it. Kyrie eleison!

Predestination????

2010-01-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

QUOTE

What does Holy Scripture mean when it asserts that God “predestines”? The verb itself, proorizo, means “to arrange ahead of time.” In the biblical context, where this verb appears with “foreknow” (proginosko, “to know ahead of time”), the verb signifies the providential arrangements by which He brings people to the grace of the Gospel. That is to say, predestination embraces the mysterious influences that God brings to bear on history, so that all things work together for the good of those who love Him.

This is very clear in the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. God made use of the sins of Joseph’s brothers to predestine—to arrange for—the deliverance of Joseph’s family: “And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God. . . . But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 45:7-8; 50:20).

“To predestine,” as understood in the Bible (where, in fact, the noun never appears) has no reference to any alleged divine decree whereby some people are consigned to heavenly life and others to everlasting damnation. On the contrary, God wills all men to be saved. Indeed, in the Bible, predestination does not refer to any divine decree at all. It is a description, rather, of God’s providential activity in history, working to bring good out of evil.

Nowhere, therefore, does Holy Scripture hint even faintly at a person’s “predestination to hell.” In fact, this repulsive idea does violence to the Bible, in which predestination is always a category of grace, never of punishment. Predestination pertains invariably to the divine call, not the rejection of that call. It is always a description of the divine favor, not disfavor. It certainly does not include God’s arrangements to have someone damned. (Daily Reflections, Fr. Patrick Reardon, 2-13-2009)

COMMENTARY

Many struggle with the concept of predestination. This is due to the fact that the voice that towers above all others regarding this subject in the Christian west is that of John Calvin and his theological offspring. Calvin pioneered a view that assembled a list of passages to tell the story of redemption with the decrees of God as the starting point for salvation. According to Calvin these decrees were made before the foundation of the world, wherein God created two people groups, the elect, and the reprobates. The elect were predestined by God unto eternal life, and the reprobates were predestined unto damnation. Hence, before the creation God had hell in mind for his creatures. This is an expansion of Augustine’s views, which were never taught or embraced as presented by Calvin prior to the reformation.

In the above quote we see quite another approach to the subject, we see a view which does not do damage to God’s character. In this view we are presented with a God who as the scriptures teach "desires all men to be saved." Moreover, we see that this predestination of God is what He does “to arrange events ahead of time” in order that what men who intend evil are actually thwarted and there actions actually turn out for good. Thus, the author points to the account of Joseph the patriarch to demonstrate his point.

What is undeniable is that the God of Calvin, and the God of the author is not the same God; one God is best known for creating justice for evil, & the other is best known for planning to create good out of evil. It is this second God that the church universally confessed when they spoke with one voice, the other is one man's innovation.

English Orthodoxy - The Ten Articles, #2

2010-01-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

QUOTE:

Secondly, As touching the holy sacrament of baptism, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that they ought and must of necessity believe certainly all those things, which hath been always by the whole consent of the Church approved, received, and used in the sacrament of baptism; that is to say, that the sacrament of baptism was instituted and ordained in the New Testament by our Saviour Jesus Christ, as a thing necessary for the attaining of everlasting life, according to the saying of Christ, “No man can enter into the kingdom of heaven, except he be born again of water and the Holy Ghost.”

And finally, if they shall also have firm credence and trust in the promise of God adjoined to the said sacrament, that is to say, that in and by this said sacrament, which they shall receive, God the Father giveth unto them, for His son Jesus Christ's sake, remission of all their sins, and the grace of the Holy Ghost, whereby they be newly regenerated and made the very children of God, according to the saying of St John and the apostle St Peter, Do penance (repent) for your sins, and be each of you baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and you shall obtain remission of your sins, and shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And according also to the saying of St Paul, “God hath not saved us for the works of justice which we have done, but of His mercy by baptism, and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom He hath poured out upon us most plentifully, for the love of Jesus Christ our Saviour, to the intent that we, being justified by His grace, should he made the inheritors of everlasting life, according to our hope.” (The Ten Articles, 1536, Thomas Cramer)

Commentary:

The second of the “Ten Articles” of dogma in the first English reformation, addresses certain points of commonality as well as difference between the more Ancient & Orthodox English view, & the relatively new & prevailing Roman view of the day. Cranmer identifies three points in this article.

He begins by asserting that baptism finds its authority in that which hath been always by the whole consent of the Church approved, received, and used in the sacrament of baptism. It is here that we find the historic catholic methodology for determining dogma in the first millennium catholic church. Cranmer for the 2^nd time in as many articles defers to the Vincentian canon. This is the canon which taught that catholic dogma is that which has been believed by all, everywhere, at all times. This position directly opposed Rome’s view which taught that the church was still receiving revelation from God, and thus what it decided by papal decree and concilliar action could be added to dogma, even if it was new or even if it opposed that which had been believed by all, everywhere, at all times.

Yet, at the same time we see that because it is that which the church had always been believed, the English church like Rome affirmed that Baptism is a thing necessary for the attaining of everlasting life, according to the saying of Christ. This stands in direct opposition to the reformation’s teachings in all other places.

In addition to that point of agreement, we also see that the English church like Rome affirmed the ancient view that baptism brought about spiritual regeneration: the Father giveth unto them, for His son Jesus Christ's sake, remission of all their sins, and the grace of the Holy Ghost, whereby they be newly regenerated and made the very children of God.

In short, there are a great many points of agreement between the English church and Rome, due to the fact that Rome still retained many ancient dogmas & practices that where believed by all, everywhere, at all times. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that there be disagreements due to the innovative freedom that Rome gave herself.

The cry out of Canterbury in 1536 was, “out with that new fangled Roman Catholicism, they're just too revisionist.”

English Orthodoxy - The Ten Articles, # 1

2010-01-12T18:21:00.000-08:00

It is customary for each of the parties within the English Catholic church to argue that their party constitutes the group which truly embodies Anglicanism. I will not try to make such an argument, for it is undeniable that Anglicanism is made of many factions. Nevertheless, it seems that it would be valuable to consider the very first post-reformation doctrinal document put out by the Church of England.

QUOTE

Article 1] The principal articles concerning our Faith.

First, As touching the chief and principal articles of our faith, saith it is thus agreed as hereafter followeth by the whole clergy of this our realm, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people, by us committed to their spiritual charge, that they ought and must most constantly believe and defend all those things to be true, which be comprehended in the whole body and canon of the Bible, and also in the three Creeds or symbols", whereof one was made by the apostles, and is the common creed, which every man useth; the second was made by the holy council of Nice, and is said daily in the mass; and the third was made by Athanasius, and is comprehended in the Psalm Quicunque eult: and that they ought and must take and interpret all the same things according to the selfsame sentence and interpretation, which the words of the selfsame creeds or symbols do purport, and the holy approved doctors of the Church do entreat and defend the same. (The Ten Articles, 1536, Thomas Cranmer).

COMMENTARY

The first of the ten article forms the basis for truth & authority in the Anglican Church, and commits that truth and authority to the clergy of the church for the purpose of instructing and teaching our people. Not only are the clergy to teach those things, but they are to ensure that it is taught in such a way that the people understand that they must most constantly be believed and defended to be true. In short, the opening lines of this article tells us that there exists a repository apostolic tradition, it is in the hands of the clergy, and they are to pass on that same storehouse to God’s people who along with them have the responsibility of retaining it and passing it on.

According to article one, this apostolic storehouse is found in the whole body and canon of the Bible, and also in the three Creeds or symbols, whereof one was made by the apostles, and is the common creed, which every man useth; the second was made by the holy council of Nice, and is said daily in the mass; and the third was made by Athanasius. Amazingly enough, this is not the sola scriptura doctrine of the new thinkers of the day, Luther, Zwingli, or Calvin. Rather, it is the ancient thinking of the British Isles. It is a view that sees the whole body of Holy Tradition as existing in the bible, the three creeds, and the four councils.

Furthermore, the reason all are to believe this is because the holy approved doctors of the Church do entreat and defend the same. In other words, because this is what the whole church has always believed.

What we find here is nothing more & nothing less than a form of Orthodoxy that existed in England in the first millennium. And while it may be argued that the Orthodox of their day (1530’s) held to more than this (7 councils), it could also be said that there is nothing stated here that they would disagree with. Article one is Evangelical, Catholic, & Orthodox, yet, not protestant, not Roman, & not eastern.

Change You Can Count On

2010-01-04T09:07:00.002-08:00

QUOTE

Deification is something that involves the body. Since the human person is a unity of body and soul, and since the incarnate Christ has saved and redeemed the whole person, it follows that our body is deified at the same time as our soul. (The Orthodox Church, Ware, 1963)

COMMENTARY

The west has long ceased to speak of salvation in holistic manner. The prevailing opinion on this side of the Bosphorus is that we have offended a God of perfect character and perfect order by our willful imperfections, hence, God is offended with us and we stand in need of reconciliation with Him (does this sound familiar?).

While there are plenty of verses in scripture one can gather to support this view, the charge of the east asserts that this western view is a truncated and selective understanding of salvation. The east charges the west with focusing on justification, which is in their view only one aspect of the story of redemption. The problem that this creates for the west is that the whole emphasis of salvation is found on how man is to be reconciled with God legally. Thus, it’s all about getting into the kingdom, and getting a ticket that will efficaciously open the doors of heaven. It is due to this reason that most western Christians build their theology around the doctrine of justification.

This edifice built upon justification results in a very strange set of consequences; 1^st, it makes the relationship between God & man primarily legal, & 2^nd, it makes what happens after justification relatively inconsequential. Surely, the west views supports obeying the law of Christ, however, it does not see Christ-likeness as salvation itself.

In order to overcome these consequences the west needs to rediscover the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation, and then to make the connection between those truths and our salvation. Notice the quote above does not fall into this trap. Met. Ware writes, "since the incarnate Christ has saved and redeemed the whole person, it follows that our body is deified at the same time as our soul."

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Cor 6: 19-20

A New Year Meditation

2009-12-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

In light of our upcoming New Year celebrations, I have posted a portion of an article by Fr Patick Henry Reardon, a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

Quote:

Whereas English has only one word for time, other European languages more carefully distinguish between time as instance ("How many times?") and time as sequence ("How much time?").

The ancient Greeks, who thought a great deal about time (among many subjects), also had two different words that we English-speakers are forced to translate with the single word "time." Since there is a very profound difference between those two words, and because time is an important theological subject in the New Testament (itself written in Greek), it is useful to examine this difference.

The first Greek term is chronos, meaning time on the move, time as before and after, time as the future passing through the present and so becoming the past. From this Greek word chronos we derive such English terms as chronic, chronicle, and chronology. Thus, we call an illness chronic if it lasts a long time. A chronicle is an account of events through a sequence of time. Chronology is the itemized, studied measurement of time.

Indeed, measurement is one of the distinguishing characteristics of chronos, which is a quantitative concept. Time that cannot be measured is not chronos. Time in this sense is dimensional, quantifiable; it can be "accounted for."

In addition to chronos, however, the Greeks also spoke of time as a moment, time as occasion, time as qualitative rather than quantitative, time as significant rather than dimensional. This second word for time is kairos.

Strictly speaking, we don't measure kairos. We don't ask someone, for example, "How much Christmas did you have?" We inquire, rather, "what sort of Christmas did you have?" With kairos we employ the category of qualis, not quantum.

The reason that time in the sense of kairos cannot be measured is because it is always a now. A now is obviously indivisible; an instant is, so to speak, too brief to account for. By the time you stop to measure a now, it is already gone. Now is punctuated by a swift, indecipherable passage from this to that. Furthermore, if now cannot be measured, it can also not be counted. It is futile, for example, and probably a threat to sanity, to ask how many nows there are in an hour. Unlike the past and the future, nonetheless, the now really exists. Indeed, now is the only time that does exist. In the strictest sense, "there's no time like now."

Kairos, because it is present, is an icon of eternal life. To experience the now, after all, one must be alive. The dead know nothing of now. Therefore, the now, the kairos, is an icon of the life of heaven. Indeed, eternal life is an everlasting now, in which there is no sequence, no before and after.

Eternity is not a long time. Strictly speaking, there is simply no length to it. Nothing elapses. The infinite is not measurable. Thus, "when we've been there ten thousand years/ bright shining as the sun/ we've no less days to sing God's praise/ than when we've first begun."

(The Rev. Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, 2009; article found at http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/ReardonChronos.php,)

A Christmas Meditation

2009-12-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

QUOTE:

The origins of the title the “Mother of God” are obscure. What is clear is that the first completely authenticated instances of the use of the title came from the city of Alexandria. Alexander (the predecessor to Athanasius) referred to Mary as Theotokos in his encyclical of circa 319, in his defense against the heresy of Arius. It seems reasonable to conclude that this title already enjoyed widespread acceptance in the piety of the faithful at Alexandria and beyond. (Mary Through The Centuries, Pelikan, 1996)

COMMENTARY:

In any study of Mary, in and in particular, in the study of her role in the redemption of the world, one of the issues that stands out in bright colors is that of her titles. Her titles illumine certain areas of theology in very important & unique ways. Even a cursory analysis of these titles teach us about the various aspects of union between God and man.

Mary’s primary title is that of Theotokos, it is generally translated “mother of God”, however, a more accurate translation would be “bearer of God.” As is obvious this title highlights just as much, if not more, about God than about Mary. The whole point of the title is the incarnation of God.

However, there is an addition benefit gained form the title Theotokos, the title also connects her faithfulness to our salvation, thus giving great value & importance to Mary for each and every Christian. For the Christian, Mary’s value consists of her unique co-operative work (energy) with the desires and work (energies) of the Trinity. By this faithfulness, she unlike Eve, (the mother of those who die) becomes the mother of the one who lives forever, & those who live forever in him. And this faithfulness consisted of freely choosing to gestate, bear, & raise, our Lord. The title Theotokos therefore connects humanity to God, first by highlighting the role of human faithfulness in the plan or redemption, and second by highlighting the role of the incarnation.

Perhaps, one of the main reasons that many contemporary Christians have such a truncated understanding of the doctrine of the incarnation and human works is due to their elimination of Mary & her titles from Christian doctrine. Properly recovering Mary, will be the task of this century for the post reformation west.

The Proceeding and Sending of the Spirit, are They The Same?

2009-12-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

QUOTE

We can summarize the chapters 14-16 of John’s gospel by saying that it is the Father who sends the Spirit, but the Spirit’s coming is conditioned by, and is in the most intimate connection with the person of the Jesus, and the completion of his work in his death and resurrection.

We can cite John 14: 16, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (NRSV), or 14: 26 the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. Or also 15: 26, "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf” (NRSV). Here, it is Jesus Himself who sends the Spirit- which is what the west wanted to underline- but, it is from the Father that He is Sent; it is from the Father that the ultimate source proceeds, and that is what the east wanted to underline.

The New Testament witness, expressed particularly by John but confirmed by the other evangelists, is that the Spirit is sent by & from the Father but through the Son. The manner in which the Father and the Son are involved in the sending is described in a way that enables both sides to make a credible appeal to the texts. (Nicene Christianity, Thomas Smail, 2001)

COMMENTARY

The battle between East & West regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit has several layers at which the subject must addressed. One is, who gets to create and change the contents of the creeds of the catholic faith? That layer of concern, I will deal with in another post. In this one I will address the canonicity of each side’s claim regarding the procession of the Spirit. As Smail points out, even a cursory overview of the respective passages in scripture reveal that both sides have valid parts to their arguments. However, in order to get to the root of the debate I want to assert that the solution can be found in making a the distinction between the proceeding and sending of the Holy Spirit. What is meant by proceed is that point from which the Spirit finds its origin and its first sending, and what is meant by sending is the continuation of the Spirit to its originally intended destination.

With this distinction made, it seems that the claim of the east while true may be incomplete. Not being exhaustive does not make one's claims wrong, & no one would argue that the original version of the creed meant to be totally exhaustive. Nevertheless, it can also be said that there is incompleteness in the Original creed's dealings with the final destination of the Spirit. the real question is whether or not it is necessary to be more complete in with this creed.

It is here that the west took some risks. One cannot deny that the west's desires were well founded in that they wanted to assert that the procession of the Spirit stops at Jesus unless Jesus sends the Spirit to the church. This assertion of the west is not only correct, but in their opinion a necessary distinction. However it is here that the west errs. Proceeding & sending are not identical. The Spirit initially proceeds from the Father to the Son, and only secondly does the Son send that same Spirit to His Body the church. Therefore to say that there is a double procession is not completely accurate. Yet it is totally true that the sending by the Son completes the destination of the original procession. In short, the procession is through the son. The west seems to have used a term that caused confusion when it added, and the Son (filioque) to the creed, even though the point they tried to make was valid.

Because of the first layer of concerns, which is authority in the church, I personally do not advocate changing the creed from its original form of 381 (without the filioque). However, I am convinced that if instead of the filoque, the west would have would have inserted, “Who proceeds from the Father to the Son,” there would have been no contention raised by the east, & both sides would have gotten their point across. As it stands however, the term proceeding from the Father and the Son is not completely satisfying, and it can even lead to several dangerous misunderstandings regarding the Trinity's nature as primarily a hierarchy. At the same time, I want to affirm that I agree with the west that addressing the sending of the Spirit by our Lord Jesus is relative and important, because without it the work of Christ is belittled, and truncates thus Trinitarian understanding.

The fact is that the east and the west need each other in order to have the fullness of that faith which was delivered to the saints, and this doctrine is just one perfect example of that truth!