A Greek Orthodox believer sent this to our email, which was going around to great applause in Greek Orthodox social media forums. This is Jeff Maples and his daughter, in hell with the Reformers.
Posted on 04/24/2017 6:45:59 PM PDT by NRx
As the owner and president of Pulpit & Pen, I feel that I need to issue a public apology to the Eastern Orthodox community in regards to my managing editor’s recent words. In a series of posts, Pulpit & Pen editor, Jeff Maples, took it upon himself to essentially anathematize the Bible Answer Man, Hank Hanegraaff, and in the process said some hurtful things about an old and revered religious tradition. I would be remiss not to clarify Jeff’s remarks and in the process, make some apologies. I pray that it is received well by all of our friends in the Eastern Orthodox community.
Firstly, we would like to apologize on behalf of Protestants everywhere for overlooking the grave and damning heresies of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, compared to our stalwart protest of Rome. This has been an oversight of Protestants, due mostly to the revival of actual Biblical orthodoxy (you might call it Protestantism) developing primarily in the West, and under the wicked authority of Rome, and not under the Eastern schismatics known by the misleading name of “Orthodox.” While we have rightly called the Bishop of Rome the “antichrist” in our Confessions of Faith, we have overlooked the many antichrists that have gone out into the world and settled in their positions as leaders in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It was not right of us to prejudicially focus on the Western anti-christ church just because they happened to be the ones murdering us for several centuries. In the future, we will strive to explain that anyone who seeks the title of ‘priest,’ (a blasphemous title if ever there were one), lead people into idolatry, claim the sole mediary position between God and man, practice necromantic prayers to the dead, engage in corpse worship, and promote meritorious salvation is an antichrist, every bit as much as the Roman Catholic abomination. We are sorry for leaving out specific condemnations of your religion in our Confessions, as it wasn’t very inclusive of us.
Secondly, we are sorry that many Protestants have stopped protesting, sending the impression that our confessional doctrinal beliefs don’t anathematize you as not only being sub-Christian, but being anti-Christian. We are sorry that men like Albert Mohler, Paige Patterson, Russell Moore and Carl Trueman, all who should certainly know better, seem to have affirmed you in your superstitious and pagan religion. While the Intelligentsia class of evangelicalism are happy to learn about how Rod Dreher’s monasticism fetish might be a valuable tool for fleeing the culture wars, the rest of us failed to speak up loudly enough to challenge them on this, partially because the idol-factory of our hearts are quick to make our own popes out of mere men, and we don’t like to challenge our popes. The fact is, Greek Orthodox men like Rod Dreher have no part in the Kingdom of God on Earth, because they have no part of the Kingdom of God in Heaven, unless they were to recant their idolatry and believe the one, true, catholic doctrine of Sola Fide. There’s no such thing as being “kind of Christian,” and the Trinitarian ontology of the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t undo the fact that trusting in your merit for salvation is just as damning as being a Modalist like TD Jakes or believing in 9 divine persons like Benny Hinn. So, therefore, we apologize for our evangelical leaders who have stopped protesting, even though they call themselves Protestants. Much of your outrage (the thousands of angry, F-bomb dropping emails we have received) is due to the fact you’ve never heard a Protestant say you’re not a Christian. It’s not because Protestant doctrine doesn’t say you’re lost (it certainly does), but because we’ve become a bunch of limp-wristed milksops. Forgive our cowardice.
Thirdly, we apologize for making it seem, should you have perceived it that way, that you’re unchristian because your priests wear dresses and you burn incense. While true religion has little patience for pretentious pageantry, the issue for us concerning your doctrinal apostasy is your denial of Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, and Penal Substitution. The fact that you adorn your buildings in gaudy and sacrilegious, bedazzled idols is second to the more blatant soteriological heresies that damn your soul (although idolatry is damning enough). The fact that you believe that superstitious voodoo oil poured over someone’s head fills them with the holy spirit and brings them back from apostasy is secondary to your hope in your own righteousness for salvation. We (still-protesting Protestants) shouldn’t have focused upon your bizarre, extra-biblical rituals that resemble more seance than Biblical service of worship; we should have focused far more upon your doctrinal beliefs that oppose Jesus and the very Gospel itself.
A Greek Orthodox believer sent this to our email, which was going around to great applause in Greek Orthodox social media forums. This is Jeff Maples and his daughter, in hell with the Reformers.
Fourthly, we apologize for letting you get away with asserting your religious superiority by the age of your church. While it is true that you happen to live in a part of the world that was first affected by the Gospel, your geographical proximity to the early church does not mean that you hold to the doctrines or practices of that New Testament Church. The fact is, the heresies of Gnosticism, Antinomianism, and the Judaizers all predate the Greek Orthodox Church. In fact, the sect of the Nicolatians (founded by an Acts 6 deacon) predates your church considerably. Logic, of course, would not deduce that these groups, because they are older, are right. We apologize for not being more forward in pointing out that Jesus specifically wrote to the Ephesians Church (where there is now the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate) that he would remove the lamp stand (IE the Holy Spirit) from their church for forsaking their first love, the Gospel of Jesus. The Scripture contains a very explicit warning, directly from the dictation of Jesus, that the church that would become Eastern Orthodox would have the Holy Spirit depart it should they continue on their path of abandoning true religion. While the Eastern Orthodox church is older than, for example, churches in other parts of the world, that doesn’t make it better. It just means that the Eastern Orthodox Church has been apostate longer than most churches have existed. Big. Stinking. Deal. You don’t get brownie points for the number of centuries since the Holy Spirit left your building.
Fifthly, we apologize for not pointing out, as you rage in anger that we anathematize you, that you anathematized us first. Like the Roman Catholic apostate church, Eastern Orthodoxy has also declared Protestants to be hopelessly damned for trusting in Christ’s accomplished work alone for our salvation. While the Eastern Orthodox community has ranted and railed with lamenting and gnashing of teeth toward Pulpit & Pen in recent weeks, they seem blissfully unaware that, like many cults, official Eastern Orthodox teaching declares that only they are the one true church and more specifically, they teach that actual Christians like ourselves are damned for trusting only in Jesus. We apologize for not pointing out that your man-made tradition similarly anathematizes, only it does it wrongly. There is no moral high ground of tolerance and open-mindedness that you can confess toward outsiders without denying the official teachings of your church, a church you believe infallible based upon nothing but the amount of time it’s held to its heresies.
I pray that you, as the Eastern Orthodox Community, will receive our apologies charitably. There has been much confusion because of the inability or unwillingness to articulate what Protestants actually believe about those who deny Sola Fide and Penal Substitution. We aim to fix all that, and do better in the future.
There is no justification outside faith alone in his accomplished work. Christ’s accomplished work includes his substitionary and vicarious death in our place, being for us our propitiation.
No amount of smells and bells, chanting absurdities, or calling out the gods of Ba’al and Asherah with much incense-burning, bell-ringing pomp and circumstance will change that.
Cordially,
JD Hall
Can we get an Amen on ending the sickness of islam?
Pay attention folks to the Gospel according to JD Hall! Not sure how many Protestant denominations there currently are because new ones are popping up every year. But as I recall none of them have been around for more than four or five hundred years.
Exactly! Jesus wrote seven letters to seven churches. There were victors in all of them. Even the two about which Jesus had nothing good to say. This is definitely speck in your brother’s eye and ignoring the beam in your own eye territory.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. -- John 13:34-35
I think Mr. Hall could stand a bit more "scriptura" and not quite so much "sola". He seems to be forgetting some pretty important verses.
God, I thank thee that I am not like other men
I know Mr. Hall has had a problem with mercy in the past.
I hope he has the mercy not to fire Mr. Maples for his less than forceful exposition of the dangers of the subject of his essay.
Mrs. Don-o,
Take a gander at the opening post. I wish I could say I’m shocked, but I’m not.
Meh. Whether I’m dumb or not doesn’t matter a hill of beans, because I am not preaching my opinion.
The nasty image that a Greek Orthodox believer sent to them may have triggered this kind of response.
If the Greek Orthodox church believes that Martin Luther is in hell because he preached the supremacy of Christ and the Scriptures, then I can see how the author of this piece would flip out.
I don’t necessarily condone this article; I do understand why he’d write it, though, in light of the nastiness coming from certain Greek Orthodox believers.
It’s a little ironical how up in arms some people get when someone says the same things about them that they say to others. While they talk about love, they spit out hate, profanity and curses all because some guy DARED to criticize a religion that has had and continues to have no compunction about damning those to hell who differ with them on doctrine.
I’m not defending the guy nor would I have said the things he did in the same way, but there’s no getting around the facts that both the Roman Catholic and Eastern/Greek Orthodox churches spared no punches against those they deemed “Protestant” and why there remain distinct doctrinal differences between all three.
Instead of condemning the guy - and conveniently ALL Protestants, why not discuss what he said that was in error about the Orthodox religion? What did he get wrong?
JD Hall seems an idiot, based on this, and doesn’t speak for Protestants.
—
He certainly doesn’t speak for me. In fact, I’ve never even heard of him.
Ignorance of the following:
Matt 7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
1 Corinthians 9:27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.
2 Timothy 2:12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us;
Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
“I don’t necessarily condone this article; I do understand why he’d write it, though, in light of the nastiness coming from certain Greek Orthodox believers.”
These pulpit and pen jokers are the ones that said the Copts aren’t Christians right after those 21 Egyptian Christians were decapitated by ISIS animals. The whole point of doing that was that many Evangelicals and Baptists were calling them Christians and the pulpit and pen pinheads were upset that they were being recognized as Christians by Protestants after they were slaughtered by muslems. The point being that no provocation by Orthodox caused this latest mouth breathing noise. They are upset that some Protestants consider the Orthodox to be Christians. That’s why they are apologizing to Protestants everywhere in this article, all Protestants should have been more vocal in considering them not Christians, like they do the Catholics.
Freegards
According to a few FRomans, Rome's anathema's towards Protestants were lifted some time back, perhaps 1983, if memory serves.
How exactly that occurred I do not know, but it would seem to make sense being as the Latin Church finally (after about 500 years?) got around to looking upon Protestants as actual Christians, making that more official around about Vatican II, and so may have been compelled to address remaining contradictions.
During Vatican II, Rome more or less said there were 'other Christians' not of their own communion, and not of the various Orthodox, yet the Pope was Pope over those 'other Christians' whether those other Christians knew it or not.
I will now prepare myself to be bashed (for not bringing the exact wording, and explaining it all to the suit the tastes of some FRomans).
After re(?) condemning those pesky Protestants, will there still be whine served with the cheese? You know, the usual whining about how put upon poor wittle Cath-o-lics are? I mean, everybody know it's only them who get to hurl anathema and condemnation at others whom profess faith in Jesus Christ (but do not agree with the Latin Church all down the line, theologically speaking).
Oh, I agree that anyone who is ignorant of these verses - especially cherry-picked and partial, out-of-context parsing - would assume that Scripture says salvation is based on our works and not on the basis of grace through faith. There are far more verses that clarify this essential doctrine that we are saved by the grace of God - grace is unearned, unmerited favor - through faith (believing, trusting) in Jesus Christ who died to be the propitiation for our sins. We don't deserve grace. Salvation is the gift of God and not of works, lest ANYONE should boast.
I had to go look that one up. He did not come right out and say that, not as you have just portrayed it.
Did you read why that was said? Not that I necessarily entirely agree with what the writer Gideon Knox said in an article entitled
I think I understand where he was coming from.
It's about what makes a person an actual Christian, rather than what makes a person a member of a certain religious tradition. Towards that idea, he does have a point. Yet another point could be that one should not assume the Copts are one and all not Christians, either. As far as I'm concerned -- if the Lord recognizes them, that's all that counts. Is that O-K with you, if I were to have than kind of opinion, and be willing to extend that in several directions at once?
I'm of the mind that where we are weak --- He (the Lord) is strong.
I may be stretching this too far (it can be stretched too far) but I also think that wherever any of us are wrong -- His righteousness, and His Grace is sufficient to overcome our own lack of perfectly understanding Him. It would all but HAVE TO be that way, or else who is that could be blessed, by Him?
Who could be drawn closer -- if they had to get everything exactly right, and 'do' 'everything right' in order for Him to accept them as His own adopted people & children? It is when we are drawn closer to Him that within ourselves we better understand Him, and can better respond to Him. Does that make any sense, to you?
Nothing, it appears to me. Which makes your comment more suitable as a vanity & nuisance, than as approaching discussion of any real differences between various faith communities.
Paul is not overturned by James. Those writers were not at war with one another...
Best doctrines need to harmonize those two. Christ alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, and faith (still under Grace) shown by works, works towards others, forgiving & forbearing each other, serving one another and their fellow man towards and for the greater good of the kingdom of God, including forgiving and forbearing those whom would persecute/harm themselves.
Which kind of 'works' the rest of the world (that does not put faith in God) thinks unprofitable & foolish.
What many appear to me to miss is that the subject matter James wrote about was still all about faith. I notice too that those whom would tend towards stressing 'works' often in the seemingly next breath go about attempting to impose their own definitions of 'works' that others must follow, and "do" -- lest be anathematized & condemned by those teachers of the works.
I wish I could say he wasn't deliberately mirroring the kind of spittle, pride, boasting, and damning of others (not of their own fellowship) that those of Rome, and increasingly nowadays, many Orthodox also, regularly dish out towards Protestants, but it appeared to me he was, and was mocking it. How's it look? Pretty lousy, huh? The templates he was using were very much like those which the Latin Church for many centuries has employed when writing of those Protestants (that live on their heads RENT FREE, baby, Rent Free!)
I'm not at all shocked it went right past you. Of course it did.
From the article you linked:
Coptic believers are not Christians for the exact same reason Protestants don’t believe Catholics are Christian
From a church that claims its doctrines NEVER change??? I got a chuckle out of the Catechism that sounds kinda weasel-worded with their explanation about that change. It says: "Reformulated positively..." In other words, we know we said before that no one could be saved outside of the Catholic church but what we meant to say was: Hence they could not be saved, who knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse to enter it or to remain in it.(1219/846)
So, if you don't believe that the Catholic church was the only way to be saved, then one CAN be saved according to them if "they seek God with a sincere heart and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation." That sure covers a LOT of different people - some, even, who reject Jesus Christ as God and Savior. It almost sounds like you can be saved WITHOUT faith in Christ at all as long as you do what is right in your own eyes. That really didn't work out too well for folks in Noah's day.
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