[drstevej]

So icons are the barrier between Calvinism and Orthodox? No need, I guess, to deal with issues like the doctrine of salvation or Scripture when you feel the "power of an icon."

This account rings hollow. I doubt whether he understood Calvinism. If he did this article is missing some giant steps in his journey!

Ping to the swarm for comments.

[CARepubGal]

I am lost for words. What part of Sola Scriptura did this fellow miss?

[MarMema]

So icons are the barrier between Calvinism and Orthodox? No need, I guess, to deal with issues like the doctrine of salvation or Scripture when you feel the "power of an icon."

I would say the larger barriers are western "Augustinian" issues which we Orthodox reject.

The particular icon you find offense with was in place at the dome of the Hagia Sophia in 537 AD. Still a favorite of mine, I think it has probably been around long enough to influence more people than simple humans such as you and I.

[Romulus]

Icons are far more than symbol; they're theology. Like Scripture, icons remind us of the Incarnation of the Word, but icons aid in inviting the viewer into a deeper and more vivid contemplation of this truth and and where it leads. As orderly and beautiful images, they remind us of the reasonable Logos who imparts meaning to creation -- to the "cosmos" that is (in contrast to chaos) both orderly and beautiful. ("Ego eimi Phos kosmou," says the Lord -- "I AM the Light of the world."). Even beyond the theology of beauty, icons are an immediate and accessible representation of ecclesiology, of the Church as those joined through perfect communion in Christ. Finally, in their head-on confrontation with the viewer, icons drive home the theology of personhood -- the theotic link between man reborn in Christ who comes to know and be known by God, and the inner life of the Trinity.

I too started by thinking of icons merely as austere and venerable images, a call to piety. But I've discovered that no one concerned with the theology of the body, with serious interest in ecclesiology as the Body of Christ, or with the Logos who imparts and restores right order in the universe, can be indifferent to the inexhaustible spiritual richness they contain.

[Sci Fi Guy]

This account rings hollow. I doubt whether he understood Calvinism. If he did this article is missing some giant steps in his journey!

I agree, His talk about how moved he was by seeing fathers take their children up for communion in an orthodox church seems a little phoney. Like he was shocked to see that anyone other than his group, might have religious devotion, or good family relations. I guess it's a good thing he was not invited to visit a mosque, or maybe he'd be changing his name about now.

Plus his "Biblical Studies" on the issue seems a little on the light side. It appears that he made up his mind to switch and is now trying to justify it.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that he was invited to the orthodox church by then girlfriend, now wife.

[Conservative til I die]

This account rings hollow. I doubt whether he understood Calvinism.

Yeah, that's it. He must have been an idiot, that's why he left the Calvinist doctrines behind.

[irishtenor]

It looks just like the Jesus I remember... :>)