How an Icon Brought a Calvinist to Orthodoxy: A Journey to Orthodoxy

christianity.com ^ | Robert K. Arakaki

[MarMema]

they wanted practical spiritual counsel

And this, I think, is the chief surprise for those who enter the Orthodox church. I recall quite fondly this exact feeling of my own....

We are about practical spiritual counsel, emphasis on the practical.

[MarMema]

See post number 152 above....

[MarMema]

Also see the Reader's post above -

"In Baptism we are buried with Christ to rise with him (one reason that the Orthodox Church insists on immersion except in emergency circumstances when sprinkling will suffice: to preserve the symbolism of burial). The West understands Christ as defeating sin, thereby freeing us from Death. The Orthodox know Christ defeated Death, thereby freeing us from sin (which came into the world through Death as the words of the Holy Apostle Paul tell us, when rightly divided, contrary to the misinterpetation given by Blessed Augustine)".

[ThomasMore]

The warning against eating of the Tree of Knowledge was like a warning on a canister of poison gas. Having opened it, mankind must now live in an environment poisoned by sin and death (by evil, for before that only good was known), but the descendants of those who opened it are not guilty of opening it any more than my son is guilty of my sins.

I'm not sure I agree with your analogy, regardless, here is the more precise Catholic understanding.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,²⁹⁵ original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

What was poisoned by sin and death was the original holiness of Adam and Eve and as a consequence, all mankind! Not just the environment round about man. Again the Church states...

402 All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: "By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."²⁸⁹ The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men."²⁹⁰

403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the "death of the soul".²⁹¹ Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.²⁹²

The following quote tells me something quite contrary to your analogy TRD.

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".²⁹³ By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.²⁹⁴ It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

[MarMema]

here is the more precise Catholic understanding.

Thank you for making the exact point for Conservative. More precise = more defined-by-man = more western, and less of the Orthodox church.

[MarMema]

The following quote tells me something quite contrary to your analogy TRD.

Exactly. It is contrary because the Reader's analogy represents the Orthodox church, while your quote represents your church.

Once again, making my point for me.

[Titanites]

Thank you for making the exact point for Conservative.

Oops. Don't look now, but exact is a synonym for precise.

[MarMema]

Don't look now, but exact is a synonym for precise.

That's ok because I made it. And I am only a human.

[George W. Bush]

In Baptism we are buried with Christ to rise with him (one reason that the Orthodox Church insists on immersion except in emergency circumstances when sprinkling will suffice: to preserve the symbolism of burial).

We Baptists also insist on immersion, a Baptist distinctive among Western churches. Many evangelicals and others appear to have followed our reasoning from scripture in this matter.

So, Baptists should be pleased to note that baptism by immersion is an ancient practice among the Orthodox. Not that it would matter otherwise. Merely that it makes a good point when debating the baptism issue with the 'sprinklers' and 'pourers'.

MarMema tells me you immerse three times. We Baptists are more efficient, accomplishing the same task in a single immersion. ; )

MarMema asked me about Baptist distinctives recently. I made a long-winded reply via FReepmail, focusing on baptism as it is how Baptists were given their name. She has my permission to forward it to you if you are interested in reviewing it, though not as an ecumenical exercise. We can leave that sort of thing to Rome. Let the Orthodox be Orthodox and the Baptists be Baptists. I merely thought you might be interested. Personally, I was delighted when MarMema mentioned you Orthodox were immersers. I had thought we Baptist types were alone against Rome, Protestants and Orthodox. So I actually learned something from the exchange, a rare event indeed for a Baptist.

[katnip]

The Icon you posted is beautiful.

It is very, very similar to the Icon that my Pastor gave to me the night I was chrismated last November.

The words written in the bible on mine says....

"Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit"

Thank you for the lovely post.

[MarMema]

It is very, very similar to the Icon that my Pastor gave to me the night I was chrismated last November.

The words written in the bible on mine says....

"Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit"

Had to ping OP and Woody on this one.

[MarMema]

Well we do accept baptism from other jurisdictions, though,
not something I agree with, but there it is.

[CCWoody]

I was just about to ask why you were not at church tonight, but then it occured to me that I shouldn't think like a Protestant.

Woody.

You Might Be an Arminian If....

You think that "Calvinism" is arrogant for saying that God elects some and not others, but you think you are really humble for saying that God elected you because He knew you'd think He was a pretty swell dude for offering you a life preserver even though you were only in the shallow end of the pool anyway, and that in your niceness, you'd accept His offer of your own "free will".

[George W. Bush]

Well we do accept baptism from other jurisdictions, though, not something I agree with, but there it is.

Well, there is no great harm in that, given what I understand of your theology. We Baptists would re-baptize anyone if they had only been baptized as infants. We adhere to believers' baptism only as I mentioned in FRmail.

In the case of the Orthodox, I can't see why you'd have a great theological difficulty in accepting baptisms from other denominations. Your baptisms are a bit more like the ordinance of baptism we Baptists practice than they are like the sacrament of baptism that Rome believes in. At least, that is my understanding.

Perhaps you'd just like a uniformity of baptism among the Orthodox community. I can understand that. It would be no great harm. And we Baptists would commend it since you'd mostly re-baptize adult believers who converted to Orthodox. So, by all means, baptize them as believers. We Baptists will sleep better at nights.

[drstevej]

I went back and bought the icon. When I bought it, I wasn’t thinking of becoming Orthodox. I bought it because I thought it was cool, and as a little gesture of rebellion against the heavily Reformed stance at Gordon-Conwell.

 

Not all icons are spiritually compelling!

[Romulus]

I know you don't mean to offend, but that image does so. There are some things one simply doesn't joke about, and this is one of them.

[drstevej]

It was not intended to offend.

[Romulus]

I realise that. But please understand that, besides being icons calling the faithful to reverence (something this image mocks, whether unintentionally or not), icons are carefully-evolved expositions of precise theological ideas.

The icon parodied here is the "Hodigitria" -- "She who shows the Way" -- and abuses a specific icongraphic tradition that can be traced back 1,500 years, to the Antiochian Church. The message of the icon is not sentimental but theological: a reflection on the human mother, presenting her Son -- human but also divine, and thoroughly Sovereign. The icon's name derives from the fact that Mary always points us to Jesus, serving as guarantor of His humanity, by Whose incarnation history acquires meaning, direction, and purpose.

If you still do not grasp the pain experienced by Catholics on seeing this abuse of a sacred image, please imagine how an evangelical would respond to faux-bible verses being misappropriated and distorted for some worldly end: "For God so loved the world that he sent them all Harry & David fruit baskets for Christmas" -- that sort of thing. It's wrong.

[drstevej]

***"For God so loved the world that he sent them all Harry & David fruit baskets for Christmas" -- that sort of thing.***

Honestly that does not offend me. The magazine that produced the cover often lampoons things that I believe deeply. I don't get offended.

I am a Calvinist. Consistently Calvinism is Lampooned on Free Republic. That does not frustrate me unless the person is deliberately trying to distort and is unwilling to debate the points fairly and objectively.

I am also a Dispensationalist, which gets slammed consistently. The following Door cover slams dispensationalism.

http://www.thedoormagazine.com/doorstore/backissues/images/063.JPG


Again, my intent was not to offend.