OUR HOMECOMING

January 2008

For about five decades I have been concerned with and involved in religious freedom and the lack of it in what is now the former Soviet Union and its satellite countries. In the early 1970s my wife Cheryl and I worked with a team that brought millions of Bibles, New Testaments and other Christian literature into these communist countries. Our contacts in these countries included Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Then in 1991 we began living in Russia, and sadly witnessed how this spirit of cooperation was being poisoned by a flood of unprepared, self-styled "missionaries" who were trying to "win all those communists for Christ," totally unaware of the fact that Russia has been a Christian country for over 1,000 years. By the late 1990s the spirit of cooperation and toleration went out the window.

You may wonder, "Why doesn't everybody just get along with each other over there in Russia, the Ukraine and those 'stan' countries?" We in the West have religious toleration, so why don't they? The historical roots go much further back than the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. In the Eastern Church more attention is paid to two things: unity and doctrinal purity. in Eph. 4:3-6 we read - "being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all." Many other Bible texts stress the oneness of the Body of Christ. The Eastern Church believes that "one body" means one visible, united Church. In contrast, Paul writes in Gal. 5:20 that "strife... divisions, heresies" are works of the flesh, right along with gluttony, adultery and drunkenness, and he writes, "those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (v. 21). So strife and division are just as serious "mortal" sins as is heresy. When Western toleration is taken to the extreme that all viewpoints are equally acceptable and true, we've crossed the line into approving of strife, divisions and heresies.

In America, if we disagree with others in church, we often will simply start a new church, a new denomination, or a non-denomination. But because strife and divisions are just as serious sins as heresies, the Eastern Church looks upon "sectarians" who split away from the Church as just as sinful, even though they may have fairly orthodox doctrines, as "heretics" whose doctrines may deny the Trinity (Molokans, United Pentecostal Church, Witness Lee movement, etc.) or deny the unique God-manhood of Christ (Arianism, Nestorianism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons). And because the tsar or emperor was blessed by the patriarch or pope as the protector of the Church, the clergy could call upon state power to put down both "sectarians" and "heretics." The enforcement of Church teachings with state power was gradually diminished in the West after the Protestant Reformation, but there has never been a Reformation in the East. So that explains, at least partially, why there's a lack of religious toleration in the former USSR.

Have you ever noticed what Phil. 4:4-7 tells us about Enthusiasm, Efficiency and Effectiveness?

Enthusiasm: Phil. 4:4 - "Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, Rejoice!" The word "enthusiasm" comes from Greek "en theos" - "in God." If we try to find happiness in material things or merely human relationships, we will eventually be disappointed. But we can find true happiness, joy, only in God. We need enthusiasm in order to get anything done. Psychologists tell us that without a healthy emotional-volitional state people can't make rational decisions: emotionally flat, "labile" people simply flip-flop around: "Should I do this, or maybe that? I don't know, I just can't decide." Only the Lord can give us real joy, "en-theos-iasm," the emotional charge we need to get going in the right direction.

Efficiency: Phil. 4:5 - "Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand." Some modern translations put "gentleness" in place of "moderation" but I firmly believe that "moderation" is the correct translation of the Greek "epieikes" - simply look at the context, verses 11-13, where Paul writes about living a moderate lifestyle. Moderation or efficiency means to "lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us" (Heb. 12:1), not being overloaded with excess baggage. In order for cars to run efficiently, they should be kept tuned up, but first of all they must be built with a strong enough frame, yet as light as possible in order to get good gas mileage. Similarly, we should keep our bodies in shape, "tuned up" by sufficient rest and the right kind of exercise, but also shed those extra pounds that drag us down, make us tired and inefficient, and eventually cause breakdowns. We should also shed the extra baggage of too many material possessions: each added thing requires time and resources to maintain it, polish it, clean it, etc. Often, "less is more" - having fewer things gives us more time for what is realling important: fellowship with God and with other people.

Effectiveness: Phil. 4:6-7 - "In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus." It's quite possible, you know, to have efficiency without effectiveness. Efficiency is doing things right, but effectiveness is doing the right thing. You've doubtless heard of the husband driving the family on vacation down the wrong highway. He was being very efficient, getting great gas mileage, but was on the wrong road. Being anxious about this, that and the other thing, chasing down every rabbit trail of worry and fear, "What if such-and-such? I'd better take care of it!" - such excessive anxiety, messing around with little secondary details that could just as well be left alone, wastes time and keeps us from doing the main thing, worshipping and serving the Lord. When I was a systems analyst, I learned the rule: "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." How can we avoid the rabbit trails and keep on the main track? "The peace of God... will guard your hearts (emotions) and your thoughts (reason)." The Greek word for "guard" is "phroureo" - "to be a watcher in advance." Like an advance scouting party or a lookout, the Holy Spirit knows in advance, beyond our understanding, what's coming down the road in the future, and He can guard and guide us in making the right decisions, if we listen to His voice and let Him guide us.

The right thing, the main thing is worshipping and serving the Lord, so what's the "effective" way, the right way to do that? Let's take a look at James 1:22-27. James, the brother of Jesus, writes, "But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the word, this man will be blessed in what he does." So how do we worship and serve the Lord? By doing what the Lord says, not merely singing hymns, listening to sermons or reading the Bible, but by applying the Word of God to daily life.

The last two verses, 26-27, tell us - "If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." The Russian word for "religion" here is "reverence," which stirred my curiosity about what the original Greek word is. It's threskeia, which means ceremonial service of religion, various observances practised by the Egyptian priests, such as wearing linen, practicing circumcision, shaving, etc. It is derived from threomai, to mutter forms of prayer, and every time it is used in the NT it carries a negative connotation. If our religious habits and rituals, whether praying, fasting, singing hymns, preaching, listening to or reading the Bible, do not lead us into practical ministry to orphans, widows and other needy people and into leading a holy and pure life, that kind of religion is worthless. James apparently got his idea for this text from the Old Testament, Ezek.33:30-33. The prophet Ezekiel says that people come to hear the word of the Lord, just like listening to someone sing or play a flute, simply for entertainment, but they don't do them.

This James was the one who presided at the Council of Jerusalem, when the Apostles and Early Church were debating whether Christians must observe the Law of Moses, see Acts 15:5-21 especially 19-21, where he said, "Therefore my judgment is that we don't trouble those from among the Gentiles who turn to God, but that we write to them that they abstain from the pollution of idols, from sexual immorality, from what is strangled, and from blood. For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath." So the Gentiles didn't have to observe the whole Law of Moses, just basic morality and cleanliness, but the Jewish Christians could continue to attend the synagogue and practice its religious rituals. The heart of the issue isn't how to or whether to observe religious rituals or not, but to lead a holy and pure life, and as St. Paul adds in his description of this event (Gal. 2:9-10), "to remember the poor."

"For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath." What does this mean? Do you remember when Jesus was asked why His disciples didn't wash their hands before eating? It was the same sort of question: should followers of Jesus observe the whole Law of Moses? Jesus replied that the Pharisees require all sorts of ritual washings - cups, plates, etc., - and tithing of mint, dill and other spices, but they skip over the really important things such as kindness and mercy to the poor and needy. He summed it up by saying, "These things you should have done, and not leave the others undone" (Luke 11:42).

Do you see the similarity in these two passages? Both Jesus and James are trying to tell us that observance of religious ritual isn't necessarily wrong. Jesus says that in our desire to get down to the essence of the Gospel - faith, kindness and mercy - we should not leave these things, i.e. rituals, undone! James says that it's OK for Jewish Christians to continue with their ritual form of worship in the synagogues on the Sabbath! In fact, when we study Church history, we see that Christian worship from the very beginning carried over many of the forms and rituals from the way Jews worshipped in the temple and synagogue. Christian worship was liturgical from the very start. So it's not an either-or proposition: it's not either have faith, kindness and mercy or liturgy and ritual; it's a both-and proposition: we should both practice faith, kindness and mercy, and retain liturgy and ritual.

Every Christian confession has its traditions and rituals, it's just that some are only a few decades old and others are 2,000 years old. Tradition doesn't trump Scripture in Orthodoxy, rather, Scripture is the foundation of Tradition. Every Christian confession has its tradition, its way of interpreting what the Scriptures mean. Calvinists study and follow the writings of St. John Calvin, Lutherans study and follow the writings of St. Martin Luther, so too Orthodox study and follow the writings of St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Basil the Great, etc. These are some of the Church Fathers who wrote commentaries on the Scriptures and together agreed on what makes up the canon of New Testament Scripture. If Protestantism rejects as "corrupt" the Church Fathers and their authority to interpret Scripture, it must also reject these same Church Fathers' authority to determine what is Scripture. Protestantism thus undermines its own hypothesis of "sola Scriptura" that rejects the historical Church's interpretation of Scripture.

Sometimes, however, these innovations or new traditions go off on a tangent, and thousands or even millions of people can be led down the wrong path. It seems that Bill Hybels has now realized that things are not right at his Willow Creek Church, but will he and the movement he started find the right path now? Rather than trying to "re-invent church" every Sunday to keep things exciting and keep the crowds coming, how about returning to how the Church has been worshipping for the past 2,000 years? Here is an article describing this situation:

FIRST-PERSON: A shocking confession from Willow Creek Community Church leaders
By: Bob Burney
Original article can be found here, http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?Id=26768.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP)--If you are older than 40 the name Benjamin Spock is more than familiar. It was Spock that told an entire generation of parents to take it easy, don't discipline your children and allow them to express themselves. Discipline, he told us, would warp a child's fragile ego. Millions followed this guru of child development and he remained unchallenged among child rearing professionals. However, before his death Dr. Spock made an amazing discovery: He was wrong. In fact, he said:

"We have reared a generation of brats. Parents aren't firm enough with their children for fear of losing their love or incurring their resentment. This is a cruel deprivation that we professionals have imposed on mothers and fathers. Of course, we did it with the best of intentions. We didn't realize until it was too late how our know-it-all attitude was undermining the self assurance of parents."

Oops.

Something just as momentous, in my opinion, just happened in the evangelical community. For most of a generation evangelicals have been romanced by the "seeker-sensitive" movement spawned by Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago . The guru of this movement is Bill Hybels. He and others have been telling us for decades to throw out everything we have previously thought and been taught about church growth and replace it with a new paradigm, a new way to do ministry.

Perhaps inadvertently, with this "new wave" of ministry came a de-emphasis on taking personal responsibility for Bible study combined with an emphasis on felt-needs based "programs" and slick marketing.

The size of the crowd rather than the depth of the heart determined success. If the crowd was large then surely God was blessing the ministry. Churches were built by demographic studies, professional strategists, marketing research, meeting "felt needs" and sermons consistent with these techniques. We were told that preaching was out, relevance was in. Doctrine didn't matter nearly as much as innovation. If it wasn't "cutting edge" and consumer friendly it was doomed. The mention of sin, salvation and sanctification were taboo and replaced by Starbucks, strategy and sensitivity.

Thousands of pastors hung on every word that emanated from the lips of the church growth experts. Satellite seminars were packed with hungry church leaders learning the latest way to "do church." The promise was clear: Thousands of people and millions of dollars couldn't be wrong. Forget what people need, give them what they want. How can you argue with the numbers? If you dared to challenge the "experts" you were immediately labeled as a "traditionalist," a throwback to the 50s, a stubborn dinosaur unwilling to change with the times.

All that changed recently.

Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study's findings are in a new book titled "Reveal: Where Are You?," co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings "ground breaking," "earth shaking" and "mind blowing." And no wonder: It seems that the "experts" were wrong.

The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Hybels laments:

"Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn't helping people that much. Other things that we didn't put that much money into and didn't put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for."

If you simply want a crowd, the "seeker-sensitive" model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it's a bust. In a shocking confession, Hybels states:

"We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become 'self feeders.' We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own."

Incredibly, the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their Bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth.

Just as Spock's "mistake" was no minor error, so the error of the seeker-sensitive movement is monumental in its scope. The foundation of thousands of American churches is now discovered to be mere sand. The one individual who has had perhaps the greatest influence on the American church in our generation has now admitted his philosophy of ministry, in large part, was a "mistake." The extent of this error defies measurement.

Perhaps the most shocking thing of all in this revelation coming out of Willow Creek is in a summary statement by Greg Hawkins:

"Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he's asking us to transform this planet."

Isn't that what we were told when this whole seeker-sensitive thing started? The church growth gurus again want to throw away their old assumptions and "take out a clean sheet of paper" and, presumably, come up with a new paradigm for ministry.

Should this be encouraging?

Please note that "rooted in Scripture" still follows "rethink," "new insights" and "informed research." Someone, it appears, still might not get it. Unless there is a return to simple biblical (and relevant) principles, a new faulty scheme will replace the existing faulty one and another generation will follow along as the latest piper plays.

What we should find encouraging, at least, in this "confession" coming from the highest ranks of the Willow Creek Association is that they are coming to realize that their existing "model" does not help people grow into mature followers of Jesus Christ. Given the massive influence this organization has on the American church today, let us pray that God would be pleased to put structures in place at Willow Creek that foster not mere numeric growth, but growth in grace.

Bob Burney is Salem Communications' award-winning host of Bob Burney Live, heard weekday afternoons on WRFD-AM 880 in Columbus , Ohio. This column originally appeared at Townhall.com. Reprinted with permission.

Perhaps what we need is to return to the concept of "The Ministry Driven Church" - the title of my doctoral dissertation, now expanded and updated, which you can download for free at www.agape-biblia.org/ministry. In examines what St. Paul wrote in Eph. 4:11-13 - "He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints to the work of ministry, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." The task of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is to prepare the saints - every Christian - to do the work of diakonia-ministry.

"Innovation," "freedom," "moral relativism" and "tolerance" have become the watchwords of our modern culture. What happens, though, when people really believe that everything is relative, when freedom means that you can do whatever you want, and that you should tolerate every viewpoint because no one viewpoint is any more true than another? We can see the logical absurdity of modern culture in the phrase, "Everything is relative, and that's the absolute truth!" You see, without something, at least one Thing, being absolute, we have no fixed point of reference that other things are relative to. Yes, many things in human cultures are relative, but relative to what? Everything can't be relative to everything else, that's a logical absurdity. We can't simply get along, we can't think rationally without some reference to an Absolute. Have you ever noticed how popular it's become for people to exclaim, "Absolutely!" - even though they profess not to believe in God? People crave an Absolute, yet they don't want to acknowledge their dependence on Someone greater than themselves. But this problem isn't a new one, it existed way back in Old Testament times, in the Book of Judges. You may recall when a young man named Micah stole 1,100 pieces of silver from his mother, he apparently felt guilty and confessed it to her:

"His mother said, Blessed be my son of Yahweh. He restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother; and his mother said, I most assuredly dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make an engraved image and a molten image: now therefore I will restore it to you. When he restored the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave them to the founder, who made of it an engraved image and a molten image: and it was in the house of Micah. The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." (Judges 17:2b-6)

Did you notice how she (mis)used the name of Yahweh? "Blessed be my son of Yahweh" and "I most assuredly dedicate the silver to Yahweh." But in spite of referring to God's name, she had a graven image - an idol - made from some of the silver. The telling phrase, however, is right at the end: "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Without a king in Israel each person was a king unto himself and did whatever he wanted, made up his own cafeteria-style religion by combining the name of Yahweh with idolatry, and believed that was just fine!

When people really believe and put into practice the idea that everything is relative, that every man can do that which is right in his own eyes, pick and choose off-the-shelf parts of various religions and philosophies for his own custom-made belief system, then everything begins to fly apart. Isn't that where we're at today, with the disintegration of Western civilization? We heard about a Russian family that had immigrated to the U.S. and came into a mega-supermarket for the first time. After several minutes they ran out screaming, "Too many choices!" When we have a preconceived idea of what we want, we can zip into the 50-foot-long "crackers" aisle and target those soup crackers we need. But for someone who's accustomed to maybe six or eight different kinds of crackers at the most, too many choices is simply overwhelming.

We have a similar situation in modern Christianity: the notion of "sola fide" ("faith alone") has come to mean that all you need to do is to say "I believe in Jesus" and you're on your way to heaven, no good works necessary - they're even frowned upon; and the notions of "sola Scriptura" and "the priesthood of every believer" have come to mean that each believer can interpret the Bible however thinks is correct according to his own "custom-made Christianity," his syncretistic belief system, because he believes he has the Holy Spirit to guide him. This idea arose in the Protestant Reformation when Luther reacted against the authoritarianism and abuses of the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. But today everyone can be a pope unto himself, thinking that the Holy Spirit gives him the right to interpret the Bible however he pleases.

The notion that we are free to reject instituional authority, whether that of church or state, is even embedded in the U.S. Declaration of Independence: "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive... it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. ...It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government...." However, we must ask ourselves two ultimate questions: what is the true source of authority, and how is it preserved from becoming corrupt?

The Early Church developed mechanisms to maintain purity of doctrine and holiness of those in authority. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't "all sweetness and light" in the Early Church: Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, had been a great theologian and compiled what is believed to be the first harmony of the four Gospels. But toward the end of his life he became a Montanist and believed that because each Christian has the Holy Spirit to guide him, therefore he, Tertullian, could make pronouncements that were just as authoritative as Scripture. For this, a council of bishops pronounced him a heretic and anathematized him. Here is what one of my seminary textbooks, Early Christian Doctrines (J.N.D. Kelly), says about this:

The influence of Montanism, an ecstatic movement which originated in Phrygis in 156 and whose founder, Montanus, and his chief associates believed themselves to be vehicles of a new effusion of the Paraclete, worked in the same direction [to move the Church toward recognizing a set list or canon of inspired Christian Scriptures]. In the 'oracles' of their prophets the Montanists saw a revelation of the Holy Spirit which could be regarded as supplementing 'the ancient scriptures' (pristina instrumenta). From now onwards, therefore, it became a matter of immense concern to the Church that the New Testament, as it was coming to be called, should be credited with he right number of books, and the right books. Tertullian, for example, defended against Marcion the inspired character of the four Gospels in their integrity and of Acts, as well as of thirteen Pauline epistles. He also recognized Hebrews, attributing it to Barnabas, and both 1 John and Revelation (pp.58-59).

Like Irenaeus again, as we have already seen, Tertullian [earlier] insist[ed] that the Church is the unique home of the Spirit, the sole repository of the apostolic revelation, with its teaching guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops. But these ideas underwent a radical transformation when, about 207, he joined the Montanists, and for the visible, hierarchically constituted Church we find him substituting a charismatic society. He is even prepared at this stage to define the Church's essential nature as Spirit. Such being its nature, he claims, it must be pure and undefiled, composed exclusively of spiritual men. This rigorist strain in him, which had always been present, was thus given full rein, and he could argue that there can be no difference between clergy and laity, since authority belongs to those who possess the Spirit, and not [only] to bishops as such. (p. 200)

So here you see several strands of thought:
1) Montanism was a heresy that insisted on Spirit-filled "true believers" having the authority to speak as oracles of God, equally inspired as the accepted Scriptures;
2) Thus the distiction between past or present ordained clergy and other believers was done away with;
3) The response of the Church was to insist on the inspiration and authority of the apostolic Scriptures and the apostolic succession of bishops;
4) The correct interpretation of Scripture is only guaranteed by bishops in historic succession from the Apostles.

This is why I say that because "sola Scriptura" teaches that all we need is the Bible, it implies that each and every believer can read, understand and interpret Scripture for himself, and thus it is an incipient form of the Montanist heresy that Tertullian eventually fell into. If we suppose, "We are pure and undefiled Spirit-filled believers, so we don't need to submit to the interpretation of Scripture given by holy men of God who have preceeded us, the bishops and theologians of the Church throughout all of Christian history - they were corrupt anyway - we're more inspired and smarter than they were," and suppose that every believer can rely on "sola Scriptura," we open ourselves up to falling into heresy. Holy Tradition is by definition the correct interpretation of Scripture. Consider how many modern Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses think that they can interpret the Bible with no reference to any outside authority, or speak in tongues and prophesy "in the Spirit" with inspired authority equal to or even superceding the Scriptures. Thus the same sort of heresies keep cropping up today as happened back in the first centuries of Christian history: "He who does not learn from the mistakes of history is bound to repeat them."

How can we restore the simplicity, unity and harmony that once existed in early Christianity? The Holy Spirit speaks through the consensus of the Church throughout the centuries, "that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all." No single Church Father, bishop, patriarch or pope by himself has the authority to speak for God in a way that is binding for all Christians. The source of authority is God the Holy Spirit speaking through the whole Church throughout history. How should we properly interpret the Scriptures? For the first couple of centuries after Christ, people believed that the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles were all they needed. But inevitably various heresies arose, such as Docetism (Christ was only a spirit and merely appeared to be man), Gnosticism (Christ was a demigod in a panoply of demigods that lead up to the top god), Arianism (Christ was not divine, but a creature like us) and Nestorianism (the man Jesus was two persons, a human Christ and the divine Logos, which dwelt in the man). Do any of these heresies sound vaguely familiar, like today's relativism or sects? So finally in A.D. 325 the First Ecumenical Council came together in the city of Nicea, then again in A.D. 381 the Third Ecumenical council met in Constantinople and formulated by consensus of bishops what is known today as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed:

This is the only Creed that is confessed by Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics alike (Catholics are dropping the filioque phrase). It is thus the only Creed that is capable of uniting all Christians. It declares clearly that God is One, and consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It emphasizes that Christ is both fully God and fully man, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and that only by believing in His virgin birth, His death on the Cross and His resurrection can we have eternal life in the world to come. And in this Creed we confess the unity of all true Christians in one Universal Church. You might have noticed, by the way, that it doesn't begin with "I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God" or a similar phrase as is found in many Protestant confessions of faith. Why? Because the Nicene Creed actually predates the final approval of the New Testament canon by the Council of Carthage in A.D.397, seventy-two years after the First Council in Nicea.

The word "Catholic" that is sometimes used instead of "Universal" doesn't refer to the Roman Catholic Church, but rather to the real, visibly united body of believers through all space and time (not an imaginary or virtual "Invisible Church" that one can pretend to belong to, so that he doesn't have to go to church but can play golf on Sundays!), and also refers to the fullness of truth and worship that is to be found in the united, visible Church. This is not to say that there are no true Christians and no true worship outside of the visible Church. Rather, "We know where the Church is [in spite of the tares among the wheat], but we do not know where She is not," as many Orthodox theologians have stated. There is much that is good and true outside the Church, but the fullness of truth and worship is only to be found in Her, the Bride of Christ, Who is Her Head.

So confessing the Nicene Creed together is the first, giant step toward Christian theological unity. But how can we achieve practical unity? It would be too much to ask for all true Christians to suddenly abandon their institutions and join a unified Church. But would it be too much to become like a little child, to become a servant and begin to minister to orphans and widows, to the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind? Would it be possible to Construct the Conditions that Create Christian Community? I believe the answer is "Yes!"

This is what Cheryl and I have been working and striving towards for the past several years: to restore the historic diakonia-ministry to the handicapped, widows and orphans in order to construct such a Christian koinonia-community, where Christians serve one another in love, where they don't bite and devour one another, bad-mouthing and tearing down the secondary, culturally-relative differences of others in the Christian community. Instead, "speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, Christ; from Whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part, makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:15-16). It's time for Christians to grow up and live together in peace, don't you think?

When I was president of our InterVarsity chapter at University of Colorado in 1966, I was asked to consider joining InterVarsity staff, but I declined because, as I explained to them, InterVarsity isn't the church, it can't baptize new believers or serve communion, so where do people go after they come to Christ through InterVarsity? Often they never find their way into church membership. Later, about 12 years ago, an article called "The Church Is Visible and One" began to drastically change my thinking. The author, Patrick Barnes, was a participant in our "Evangelical-Orthodox Conference," an online discussion group I founded and led for a few years beginning 12 years ago. At that time I couldn't accept all their positions, sometimes stridently expressed. Nonetheless, that article started me thinking. Perhaps I'm a "late bloomer," but at age 64 I finally have come to the conclusion that if the Orthodox Church is indeed the original and true Church, then other so-called churches and parachurch organizations just aren't - there can be no room for a relativistic view that somehow all "churches" are okay, and so I must make haste to join the true Church. At first I began to believe that Orthodoxy was just one of the available options, but in the past year I've come to see that it is the only real option.

"The true Church" does not necessarily mean perfect, i.e., that all of the teachings by all of the Church Fathers have always been 100% true and correct: it is a divine-human organism, and the human side has human faults. Rather, it is true in the sense of genuine. Jesus Christ said He would build His Church, singular, one, not 20,000 different denominations and confessions, all called "churches." The Orthodox Church is the "real deal." For example, we often call a photocopy machine a "xerox" machine, even though it might be made by Panasonic or Kyocera, etc. The off-brand companies may even have improved and/or simplified some aspects of the technology. They make copies almost like a real Xerox machine, and maybe even faster. But they're not one. Only a Xerox is a Xerox. Only the Orthodox Church is the Church, other "churches" are treating the word as if it were a generic name.

In the same way, the Orthodox Church makes people into Christians. There are doubtless Christians outside the Church, just as there are people who get well outside of hospitals. But the Church is the hospital for healing the disease of sin through the "medicines of immortality" - the sacraments. Salvation is a life-long process that requires devotion and work to make it stick. Other Christian confessions may also try to make Christians, and even faster - "more copies per minute," but their simplified technology means that often "the toner doesn't stick" - even if they pretend it does, the image of the original is marred or totally gone. The end goal of salvation is theosis or sanctification, becoming transformed into the image of Christ. But with their simplified doctrine of "Just believe in Jesus, raise your right hand, and you'll go to heaven when you die, guaranteed!" there's no need to seek holiness, without which no one will see God (Heb. 12:14).

The popular Evangelical doctrines of "once saved always saved" predestination, "sola fide," "sola Scriptura" and "the priesthood of every believer" may attract lots of new converts, but because these ideas appeal to human ego, they often lead to presumption and pride which in turn lead to a downfall. How many evangelical pastors, missionaries and parachurch leaders do you know of who have fallen into mortal sin? I can name at least half a dozen, some whom I've known personally. But does their denomination or organization excommunicate them, or even just remove them permanently from leadership, as the Early Church did? Most often not: "Well, Joe, once you're saved you're always saved, so we'll just counsel with you a few months and then you can get back into leadership." What a horrible message this communicates to rank-and-file members! "If he can get away with it, then so can I - let's do it, sweetie-pie!" So there is a need for some kind of authoritative structure, some sort of ecclesiastical control.

The issue of ecclesiastical control is twofold:
1) Is Scripture the ultimate authority, and if so, who or what is the reliable interpreter of Scripture? and,
2) Does a centrally-organized religious hierarchy necessarily imply a centralized ownership of its congregations' buildings?

1) About Scripture's authority: for a long time I've been troubled by the doctrinal statements of Evangelical churches and mission organizations (including that of Pioneers, the mission we formerly worked with - I had a discussion with their top leadership about it but got nowhere). The first article of faith in all these creeds go something like this: "I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired, inerrant Word of God and is the ultimate authority for faith and practice." Then follows, in second, third, fourth, etc. place, "I believe in God the Father," "I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God," "I believe in the Holy Spirit" and so on. What this implies is that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are subordinate to the Bible! In place of an infallable Pope, evangelicals have an inerrant paper pope, the Bible. In actuality, however, because every believer can interpret the Bible as he believes the Holy Spirit is leading him, each believer becomes an infallable pope unto himself. But when we look at the ancient creeds, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed or the Apostles' Creed, there's no mention of the Bible at all. I have come to believe that the Bible and the Church both only have an authority that is derived from the triune God, Who in Christ said - "All authority in heaven and on earth is given unto ME," and "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but they testify about ME."

So if God in Christ is the ultimate authority, how was that passed on? That authority was passed on to the Apostles in a conciliar form of leadership, and from them to their immediate successors, such as St. Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, St. Polycarp, and so on and on. On the way to his martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius wrote - "Obey your bishop!" Obviously he had no vested interest in that statement because he knew he was about to die. In the early Church and in the Orthodox Churches today, there is a collective, conciliar form of leadership in which all the bishops share an equal degree of authority and an equal vote, whether they are called bishop, archbishop, metropolitan or patriarch. It was the conciliar agreement of bishops in the fifth century that finally determined the canon of Scripture. This came after the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was fully formulated in the councils of A.D.325 and A.D.381. So the authority of God in Christ is first and ultimate, and the authority of Scripture as interpreted by the universal councils of bishops is secondary, in terms of both logical and historical priority.

2) Regarding a centrally-organized religious hierarchy having centralized ownership of its congregations' buildings, I've been pondering this alot lately. It's a very complex, thorny issue. As you know, evangelical congregations tend to each own their buildings and land. This gives them a sense of independence and freedom from denominational domination, if they even belong to a central denomination. But this independence often leads to doctrinal and liturgical "experimentation," wandering through the wilderness of theological thought, down the rabbit trails of centuries-old bygone heresies, and into denominational and intra-congregational disputes and splits. Our former church is currently going through this wrenching process and is just about falling apart at the seams. Often I think, "If only they had a bishop who could be called on to come and make peace between the warring factions, this infighting would stop!" But centralized ownership of buildings and land has led throughout history to its own set of problems. What if there could be a mixed form of property ownership?

It would look like this: individual members and families in a given congregation own parts of the property in the form of cooperative apartments, and the Church or denomination owns the central meeting hall (nave and sanctuary) plus office / classroom space and the land. This gives the members a sense of ownership and responsibility, having "bought into" the property, it greatly reduces the local congregation's cost for the property, and still allows for some central control in order to have the "muscle" to resolve doctrinal or ethical disputes that might arise. If families strongly disagree with these decisions, they can simply sell and move out. They don't lose all the material resources they've poured into the congregation over the years.

But ecclesiastical and doctrinal authority should not extend to all of secular society, only to the Church. I believe in religious toleration in secular society, because having one state-enforced religious confession only brings unity at the price of unbelief. True belief can't be forced, or else it leads to unbelief. How many nominal Christians in Europe's Middle Ages truly believed? How many nominal Muslims today truly believe? From what I've read and heard, many secretly do not believe in Islam, but are afraid to admit it openly for fear of reprisals, even death.

So religious toleration by the state needs to be carefully framed something like this: "The state must uphold freedom of religious belief, confession and practice, and cannot enforce only one or a few religious confessions, because this would lead to unbelief. But this does not mean that the state upholds the idea that all beliefs are equally valid, or that only unbelief is valid, rather, it means that the state upholds the individual's right to be wrong, because the freedom to choose one's own belief system inherently includes the possibility of making a wrong choice." God is one, not many. But which one? That's our choice, but the right to choose includes the possibility of being wrong.

Just think: if your viewpoint is that the Holy Spirit gives you insight to understand the Scriptures as you believe is correct, what would happen if you told your friends at your church that you see fit to interpret the Bible in a strictly Orthodox or Roman Catholic fashion: would your church tolerate your viewpoint? Probably not, because you see, all churches have their traditions and methods of Biblical interpretation. It's just that the Evangelical-Pentecostal-Charismatic tradition of Biblical interpretation is not quite as old, only about 50-100 years old. Nevertheless, the "evango-pente-matic" tradition is a very real tradition, with very real (if informal) rules or canons of Biblical interpretation. They go something like this: "You can believe the Bible means whatever you think the Holy Spirit tells you, with the exception that you must not accept the authority of older creeds or traditional churches outside of our loosey-goosey association. You must not believe that it means just one thing in particular, rather, anything in general, whatever you think at the moment. You must be tolerant because all interpretations are equally valid."

Perhaps my above prose is "loosey-goosey," not as formal as Alister McGrath's, but my idea is similar to his. I googled his latest book, Christianity's Dangerous Idea, and found this quotation:

The "dangerous idea" lying at the heart of Protestantism is that the interpretation of the Bible is each individual's right and responsibility. The spread of this principle has resulted in five hundred years of remarkable innovation and adaptability, but it has also created cultural incoherence and social instability. Without any overarching authority to rein in "wayward" thought, opposing sides on controversial issues can only appeal to the Bible — yet the Bible is open to many diverse interpretations. Christianity's Dangerous Idea is the first book that attempts to define this core element of Protestantism and the religious and cultural dynamic that this dangerous idea unleashed, culminating in the remarkable new developments of the twentieth century. At a time when Protestants will soon cease to be the predominant faith tradition in the United States, McGrath's landmark reassessment of the movement and its future is well-timed. Replete with helpful modern-day examples that explain the past, McGrath brings to life the Protestant movements and personalities that shaped history and the central Christian idea that continues to dramatically influence world events today.

Each Protestant has as his working hypothesis the "right and responsibility" to interpret the Bible as he deems correct. But the result today is "cultural incoherence and social instability." Why only today, and not back when St. Martin (Luther) and St. John (Calvin) issued their anti-papal bulls? Because although they were anti-establishment, there was still a strong historical consciousness of respect for Church authority. They made use of that respect for authority when they issued their proclamations. But five centuries of Protestantism has led to the situation today of almost no respect for authority, virtual anarchy - theological and moral - even among evangelicals. A former online student of mine belonged to a United Pentecostal church, which denies the real Trinity, redefining it as modalism. One of my theology textbooks from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Readings in Christian Theology, vol. 2 (Erickson), contains four articles by various theologians on the Virgin Birth, and only one of these authors believes in the Virgin Birth! Another required reading for a course I took at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was A Wideness in God's Mercy (Pinnock) which advances the idea that there is no hell, no eternal punishment of unbelievers. John Stott, InterVarsity's icon of evangelicalism, also came to that position toward the end of his earthly life. No doubt he has changed his mind by now.

So much for today's theological relativism among so-called evangelicals. In the realm of moral relativism we have a lack of consensus about the sanctity of human life, so you can have pro-abortion and pro-life members of the same evangelical church. You can have members of the same evangelical church who are pro-gay-clergy and anti-gay-clergy. Female clergy is not even an issue any more, it's accepted. If a pastor or parachurch leader commits adultery or extortion, his denomination or organization might just rap his knuckles and then let him return to his former position after a few months. In my opinion, theological relativism has led directly to this moral relativism. What a person really believes determines how he will act. Homosexuals have anywhere from dozens to hundreds of sexual liasons in their lifetimes, including some with children, so it is only a matter of time before Protestant churches that have allowed homosexual clergy will be plagued by child molestation and lawsuits alleging child abuse by these same clergy, just as is happening now in Roman Catholic parishes.

A good article my wife Cheryl found recently at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/januaryweb-only/101-52.0.html is entitled "Do Evangelicals Have a Future?" It examines these and similar themes. It seems that evangelicalism has come to the end of the road. It concludes -

Consumerism and relativism stand out as dominant cultural trends that seriously threaten the future of evangelical theology. When evangelicals over-contextualize their message in response, they strip the gospel of its transformative power. "To begin with, in our competition to be culturally 'more relevant than thou,' we have often forgotten that 'what you win them with is what you win them to," Jeffrey says. No few problems with discipleship can be traced back to this problem. The Baylor University professor goes on to observe, "Perhaps it is not too much to say that our 'old, old story' has been too frequently overshadowed by the glitzy show-biz media we have tended to use to proclaim it."

What church does not experience these dual problems of theological and moral relativism? What church does not try to be "culturallly relevant" by adopting rock music: guitars, drums and a "worship team" of jiggly-wiggly guys and girls bopping and weaving in front of the congregation? What church neither revolts against authority, nor has an "infallible" human authority, a pope, for others to revolt against? It's the Orthodox Church. This is why Cheryl and I are becoming Orthodox: we have become catechumens of the Antiochian Orthodox Church. This is the very first Church to the Gentiles, the oldest Christian Church in existence today, planted by Barnabas and Saul in A.D. 38, and the Church where these Apostles launched their missionary journeys from. So many thousands of Protestants have fled to the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the U.S., that it has grown four-fold in the last 20 years, and today the majority of the members and 80% of its clergy are former Protestants. Other Orthodox Churches in the U.S. are also growing rapidly and attracting many disillusioned Protestants. Give an ear to http://www.ancientfaithradio.com/ - the manager of this Orthodox Internet radio network was formerly the manager of Moody Bible Institute's radio network and the announcer for Focus on the Family's radio program.

The Orthodox Church has been around for 2,000 years, and the Evangelical movement has been... well, that describes it, "has been." It's falling apart, disintegrating. What started as "sola fide," "sola Scriptura" and "the priesthood of the believer" has now devolved into an individualistic "just Jesus, my Bible and me" and "I have the freedom and responsiblility to decide for myself how to interpret the Bible and how to behave." What started as Lutherans led to Calvinists, Anglicans, Presbyerians, Methodists, Baptists... now hundreds of Baptist denominations and altogether about 20,000 denominations and un-denominations of every imaginable flavor, several denying age-old Christian beliefs such as the Trinity, the divinity and virgin birth of Christ, etc. and each having virtually no regard for Christ's command and prayer for unity. "If you disagree with or just plain don't get along with other believers, just start a new church or denomination."

It simply won't do to say, "I don't accept tradition, I only believe the Bible." We all read the Bible through the interpretive lens of our respective traditions. We gather together with like-minded people, for example, if you were to begin spouting forth JW interpretations of the Bible in a Baptist church, they would rather unceremoniously and quickly give you the "left foot of fellowship" out the door!

In order for a newer system of Biblical interpretation to unseat the older ones, it must try to discredit the older ones. The problem is, the typical Protestant anti-hierarchy arguments are anachronisms - they are projecting onto the Early Church Fathers and Councils of A.D.100-800 the dictatorial control and corruption of the Roman Papacy of A.D.1500, the time of Luther's "Reformation" (actually, it should be called 'the Protestant Revolution" because although Luther tried at first to reform the Roman Catholich Church, he got the "left foot of fellowship" and then led a revolution against it). Orthodoxy is more than just an archaic form of Catholicism with funny hats. It is Original Christianity, no longer in its infancy but grown up by a few hundred years, yet still the same entity.

Regarding the authority of Church leadership and attempts by ordinary ("carnal") believers to usurp it: read Numbers 7:6-9 where certain clans of the Levites were to transport the Tabernacle but only the sons of Kohath should carry the Sanctuary, next read Numbers 12, where Aaron and Miriam revolted against Moses' authority, and then read Numbers 16:1-3 where Korah, a descendant of Kohath, led 250 Israelites who tried to revolt against Moses and Aaron's authority, saying "You take too much on you, seeing all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and Yahweh is among them: why then lift yourselves up above the assembly of Yahweh?" This is exactly the same issue as the misuse of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers -- "We're all holy, we're all kings and priests, so why should we be under those leaders who put themselves above us, over the Church?" ("assembly" = "kahal" in Hebrew, translated "synagogue" in the LXX, from which we have "ekklesia" = "coming together" or "assembly" = "church").

You know, of course, what happened to Korah and the other Levites with their families: the earth opened up and swallowed them alive. Then fire came down from the Lord and consumed the other 250 Israelites (vv. 23-35). But notice the very next thing that happened: the children ("carnal" ones) of Israel said to Moses, "That's not fair!" (vv. 41-42, my paraphrase), and Moses had Aaron take incense and intercede for the Israelites (vv. 46-48, see also v.21) so that the Lord would not destroy the whole nation, but even at that over 14,000 Israelites died.

St. Paul uses these and similar incidents in 1 Cor. 10:1-10 as examples of the Israelites' grumbling and revolting against Moses and Aaron's authority. Then in vv. 16-12 he begins writing about taking communion at the Lord's Table vs. communing with demons. Paul also touches on the issue of authority in 1 Cor. 11:1-16 (v.10 - "exousia" = "power" or "authority"), concluding with "we have no such custom," i.e. of people contending about authority of ordinary believers to eat meat sacrificed to idols, or contending about authority of women to pray or speak in the assembly with their heads uncovered. So the context of chs. 10 and 11 is about order in worship vs. grumbling and contentiousness by people who are trying to falsely assert authority. Then St. Paul continues on the theme of communion at the Lord's Table in ch. 11:17-34. But look carefully at how he begins this discourse: he writes, "You harbor divisions and heresies among you, so when you assemble for worship, you can't call it the Lord's Supper" (vv.17-22). What were the kinds of divisions and heresies and heresies he was just writing about in chs. 10 and the first part of 11? Those of carnal believers grumbling against authority!

Notice how Paul begins ch.11, urging people to follow him, then he mentions how man's head is Christ, and Christ's head is God. He is writing about the divinely-appointed authority structure. Every man has authority to pray or speak, but it comes under the authority (headship) of God, Christ and the Apostles, Paul's in this case. Now let's skip ahead a bit to ch.12 where Paul writes about the various spiritual gifts. Look at vv.27-31: what is the first gift? Apostleship (v.28)! Here we see a definite order or priority or hierarchy of gifts. Christ ordained the twelve Apostles, then He commissioned them (Mat. 28:18-20) to make more disciples by baptizing, teaching and showing them how to minister. There's a definite order here: first a person believes and is baptized, then he is taught - discipled, shown ("observe") how to do what Jesus showed His disciples to do. This takes time, a new believer isn't ready or able to go out preaching the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, cleansing lepers or casting out demon ("this kind only comes out by fasting and prayer" - spiritual disciplines that a believer must learn by building godly habits).

First, note in Acts 1:20 when the remaining eleven Apostles were deciding how to replace Judas - "For it written in the book of Psalms, 'Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein,' and 'his bishopric [Greek: episkope] let another take.'" From this it is clear that the Apostles considered their office as that of a bishop. Next, look carefully at 2 Tim.2:1-2 - what kind of people does Paul command or commission Timothy to disciple? Men who are faithful (true to the true faith) and able to teach others. Not everyone has these gifts of faithfulness to true doctrines and the ability to teach. Paul selected and ordained Timothy to make disciples, and told him what kind of people to select and train, not just any and every believer can make disciples, and not just any and every believer can be a good disciple. Some are new believers, others are carnal believers who may be spiritually ungifted, morally disabled or just plain contentious and argumentative ("avoid those kinds," Paul writes elsewhere).

In 1 Tim. 4:14 and in 2 Tim. 1:6 Paul reminds Timothy of the spiritual gift given him by the laying on of hands, and in 1 Tim. 5:22 he instructs Timothy to be careful whom he (Timothy) selects to ordain by the laying on of hands. So Paul passed on his apostolic authority, his spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:28) to Timothy, and instructed him to be careful about whom Timothy would ordain (1 Tim.3:2-13) to the presbytery and diaconate: faithful men who are able to teach, not just any believer. Similarly, Paul appointed Titus as bishop in Crete so that Titus would ordain presbyters (later shortened to "prests" = priests) in every city (Tit.1:5), giving Titus lists of qualifications for the office of presbyter and for the office of deacon. This certainly looks like there was an established hierarchical authority in the New Testament Church!

I don't mean to say that all Protestants are schismatic, sectarian anarchists or heretics, but why settle for just part when we can have the whole? Some Protestants have a liturgical form of worship and pictures of the saints on their walls or stained glass windows, some Protestants emphasize the importance of personal faith while other Protestants stress the need for good works, some baptize infants and others only baptize teenagers and adults, and still others stress the idea that Baptism and the Lord's Supper are not "merely symbolic," but real acts of God's grace that play a role in our salvation. The Orthodox Church has all of this. The fullness of Christ is to be found in the Church that He established 2,000 years ago. I will, however, continue to love my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ, and always look back fondly at Evangelicalism as my "alma mater."

Worshipping in an Orthodox Church is like a glimpse into eternity in heaven - it's heavenly. And the purpose of coming to an Orthodox Church is to worship God, to literally bow down before Him, that's the central part, not to listen to a lecture, i.e. sermon, or to seek a "spiritual experience" feeling. You confess your faith according to the Nicene Creed in every liturgy. Better get used to liturgical worship now, you'll be doing it for all eternity in heaven, if you get there! So that's where we're at now, our final destination. No more "loosey-goosey" theology or worship for us. We have come home.

I've been developing a bibliography on Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy, and I plan to write a book entitled Examining Orthodoxy in the near future. You can get a copy of this bibliography as well as several files in PDF and MP3 format on my website at www.agape-biblia.org/orthodoxy/.

Your fellow-servant,

Robert Hosken
 

Head Editor, Russian Agape-Biblia