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
Good enough.
The question wasn't about what "the author" identified as "salvation of merit".
Is it that they do not use that precise terminology? Or is it the concept that terminology does seem in context to be describing?
Otherwise, I'd love to take your word for it, for regarding those whom I have encountered here in the States (and with whom I've discussed such matters) some of those did seem to me to place faith foremost in Jesus Christ ---rather than how He is approached through religious ceremony. Not that He cannot be met with in that way (during course of partaking in participating in "religious ceremony", and church services) but that relationship with Him is not fully dependent upon that. Does that make sense to you?
I just read that “apology”. Ignoring the specific points, let me just say that, generally speaking, the single word that would best describe it is, whether I agree with the points or not, “juvenile”.
He who hears not the Church...
He certainly doesn’t speak for me. In fact, I’ve never even heard of him.
He certainly doesn’t speak for me. In fact, I’ve never even heard of him.
AMEN!
The time for Christians to fight each other has to end as well.
No theologian here, but I'd argue that all we are doing now is making explicit a teaching that was implicitly present in the recognition that a heretical Baptism is still valid.
Is an Episcopalian infant baptized into the Catholic Church? If so, then sanctifying grace was poured into his soul, original sin is washed away, and the child will go to heaven provided, of course, that he does not sin mortally by heresy or some other means.
Hahaha. In the esteemed words of John McClain from the first Die Hard movie, I say to all my Orthodox brethren “welcome to the party pal”!
Enjoy! And just remember, all the non-Catholic/Protestant Christians telling you you’re hellbound are just doing it because they love you. It’s a sacrifice for them truly, it pains them to say it. They certainly derive no pleasure in doing so.
Heaven forbid.
Best post is the 3rd post.
Your difficulty is that you perceive that Catholicism is a denomination like any other. It is not.
It is the Church that Christ Himself founded, entrusted to the Apostles, who then entrusted it to the Apostolic Fathers, the Church Fathers, and down through the ages to today.
And that claim is provable. Because Lutherans did not exist before Luther, Calvinists did not exist before Calvin. But Catholics were present from the beginning.
Perhaps you misunderstood? I was talking about us Catholics whining about how put upon we are.
“Before Vatican II there was never any mention of “imperfect communion” or “full communion” with the Orthodox church or any of the Protestant churches. That’s because it wasn’t Catholic teaching.”
That’s not true. You can look up old books and see that both phrases were used in English in theological discussions. Take, for instance, the following:
“I.S.F. Buckingham, Esq., author of “Memoirs of Mary, Queen of Scots,” and Mr. Newman, were received into full communion with the Roman Catholic church last week at Oscott, having previously occupied an ambiguous position not clearly ascertained.” (Bengal Catholic Herald, Vol. XI, page 330 - Year 1845).
The very fact you have a Catholic publication referring to “full communion” would imply that there is a lesser possibility or position (i.e. an imperfect communion). Also, these ideas certainly have always come up in canon law for baptized persons outside of the Church have more standing than those who are not baptized at all. That can only be because they have an imperfect communion rather than no communion at all. This is discusses on page 146 (c. 96) of New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, by John P. Beal.
Even if it were true that no Catholic council used the expressions “full communion” and “imperfect communion” before 1965, it seems clear to me that it reflects an obvious necessity of understanding, of fact. How else are you going to regard a baptized person, possibly receiving other sacraments, except as in “imperfect communion”?
Exactly.
I must confess that I don’t know what that means. If you replace “church” with “the word”, “Jesus” or “God”, I get it. But as you posted it I don’t get the meaning.
I'm paraphrasing Matthew 18:17:
"And if he refuse to hear them, appeal to the Church, but if he refuse to hear even the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican."
Thanks. Context is everything. :)
When I said "make an example out of you" I was doing so in a positive sense, jokingly referring to doing things properly -- discussing issues, as it were, rather than making things about freepers here.
When discussing individual persons who are in the process of converting to the Catholic Faith that is true (which is what you quoted). However, the Catholic Church has never taught that non-Catholic churches in and of themselves were in partial communion or any part of “the Church” (which is what I was referring to).
Ah ok. Sorry I misunderstood. :)
Here you present it rhetorically, and that presentation shot full of unspoken assumptions.
I've examined the argument (and the various claims) and found more holes in the argument (particularly when exclusivity is included, along with infallibility of so-called Magesterium, those two logically enough needing both exist, and be complimentary, or else everything comes rather unwound) ---than solid support, and have otherwise also enjoyed having the Lord introduce Himself to little 'ol me in very powerful, unmistakable ways. Unmistakable, for my own self, others need not necessarily have the exact experiences with Him as have I...
Oh, well when you are talking about the heretical communities themselves then, yeah, there you have a point. There’s no doubt that these communities have points in common with the Church, but it’s quite telling that the Catechism refuses to extend to them the name “churches”.
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