How could they forget!?
Posted on 10/26/2020 6:10:50 AM PDT by Cronos
Evangelicalism was not enough for Joel and Stephanie Dunn, though they come from several generations of Baptists.
And in desperate pursuit of God, they wound up amid candles, incense, beautifully-painted wooden icons, and Divine Liturgy — in the communion of saints whose lives they now say have provided the medicine for their sin-sick souls.
For the Dunns, things came to a head in 2016 when they realized that their current faith tradition, Southern Baptist, was inadequate. They were received into the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2018. Having been in the church for over a year, they were catechized for about that long in an Antiochan parish in northern California, a parish reportedly "bursting" with new converts from Protestantism.
..."Orthodoxy is not transactional. It's not 'I say a prayer, and now I have a card that gets me out of Hell and gets me into Heaven.' But rather it is being brought into the church life. And in the church life, you can be transformed through the graces that are presented within the spiritual gymnasium that is the church," he said.
...The couple started reading Mathewes-Green's book, Welcome to the Orthodox Church,
"As an evangelical, I always had this mindset, and it may have just been me and not what other people teach, but the idea was that I could remove whatever it was about me and put Jesus in there,” Joel said. “But Orthodoxy flips that around. God doesn't want to remove you from yourself and have Jesus there in place of that; He wants to heal you from all that is wrong with you so you can be who He created you to be.”
Stephanie added, "What really struck me about the Eastern Orthodox Church is in the story of the Good Samaritan. The church is seen as the hospital. Christ is the Good Shepherd. He comes along and picks me up, wounded from sin and my passions and brings me to the hospital for the soul, the church."
...Orthodox Christians understand icons to be windows into Heaven, pictures of the indwelling Christ in people.
The Dunns came to believe, particularly given the heavy emphasis on the Incarnation, that the faith traditions they grew up in were largely Gnostic, that the spiritual realm didn't really ever intersect with reality.
"Orthodoxy is not like that. Every service incorporates all five of your senses. It incorporates your body. You're standing up, sitting down. You're smelling incense. You're singing and hearing bells," Joel said.
During the Divine Liturgy where Eucharist is served, they came to believe they were in this sense of timelessness where they are with the church in Heaven and there have been accounts of seeing angels and Christ come in on the throne.
"The sense of being surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses, the icons do so much to remind us of much of that, that we are surrounded by these people and that we can ask for their intercession," Stephanie said.
...God revealed Himself to us in the form of Christ but the problem is that with all these different denominations, especially within evangelicalism, it mostly rests on Sola Scriptura and lacks tradition, she noted.
"Tradition is what gave us Scripture. Scripture is part of Holy Tradition; it's not the whole of it. That's not all that the Apostles taught. We want to know ‘what else did they teach?’ When Christ revealed Himself to us, He also showed us how He wanted to be worshiped and it looked a lot like Jewish worship."
Today, Joel asks evangelicals to "give Mary a chance."
Asked to expound on what he means by "give her a chance,” he elaborated: "Revere her in a way you haven't before because she provided the Savior."
"And there is a reason that she has been venerated since the beginning of the church and I don't fully understand her role and it's uncomfortable to ask for her intercessions at times, but at the same time, she is the one praying and interceding on behalf of all of us to her Son. And it is through her prayers that most of us come to know Him."
"I grew up my whole just thinking that Mary was just some random chick that just happened to be there at the right time and right place and it's just not so. The history of the church has put her in a place where she should be and if evangelicals could give her a chance, it might open up their world to her."
Stephanie interjected, "Our salvation is not possible without her. And He chose to make it that way."
Joel continued, "And we say in the Liturgy, 'Theotokos (Mother of God) save us’ … If you don't understand that during the Liturgy, we transcend space-time as we know it. We're telling her, ‘Accept what the angel is telling you, accept this child because it is through Him that we shall all be saved.'
"And don't be so literal about everything. Everything is not literal. God didn't set it up that way. We're not computer programs, we're people."
Orthodoxy is daily lived repentance to the glory of God, the Dunns emphasized.
"The most transformative aspect of this whole thing for me has been to see suffering not as something that God — I used to think 'why does God allow this, I did all these things right, this stuff keeps happening, I can't handle it.’ And then you hear of other people who have horrible thing after horrible thing happen,” Stephanie said.
But within Orthodoxy, suffering is seen as a tool, she explained.
Then that chucks out 99% of the "e"s
That is simply your biased interpretation, contrary to the testimony of the superior commitment of evangelicals, versus having an ineffectual faith. It is Catholics who most testify to "easy believism," which is what Rome effectually teaches every time she manifests that she considers even proabortion, prohomosexual public figures to be members in life and in death.
Which actually is an argument against you, unlike listing heretical "evangelicals," since it is you who is preaching a particular church which makes Teddy K RCs to be your brethren
Do you need Evangelicals like the Oneness Pentecostals who say that the Trinity does not exist?
Small minority they, and so what? Their existence does not impugn my argument that your convert was the equivalent of your "poorly catechized Catholic.
I wonder who is going to break it to this couple that they’ll have to give up their assurance of salvation promised to them by God (like in I John 5:13 among LOTS of others)? They call it a “sin of presumption” where they went.
There may very well have been a fallen angel with that name, but the name was supposedly given to a first generation Titan. 🤗
Good chance they never had any assurance in the first place. Now, they REALLY don’t have any. 😁
“ I wonder who is going to break it to this couple that they’ll have to give up their assurance of salvation promised to them by God (like in I John 5:13 among LOTS of others)? They call it a “sin of presumption” where they went.”
———————
Traded in for candles, idols, rituals, and Mary.
Bad trade!
Indeed!
I stand corrected, it was a Nepilim, who were called the Titans.
“ Stephanie interjected, “Our salvation is not possible without her. And He chose to make it that way.””
Yep. The lost soul is lost in blasphemy.
Thanks for your post.
I wonder, has the Catholic got Pachamama? Is that demeaning to their Mary? Or will the ORG blend the two for effect, the way the ORG has done with so much paganism inveigled to Catholicism?
Would not the person have to keep repeating the classes until he/she gets a passing grade?
You got me on this one!
I had to look it up: https://www.google.com/search?q=Pachamama&rlz=1C1AVNC_enUS560US607&oq=Pachamama&aqs=chrome..69i57.1908j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Please! Saint Pachamam is our newest indigenous saint!She will join our pantheon of Roman Catholic demigods and demigoddesses.
This is all a perfect example of how our sacred tradition works to sanctify paganism and pretend it is Christian!!
Catholic Dude
Hail Mary!!
How could they forget!?
Without Magic Thinking there could be no Catholicism That’s how the Magicstearingthem maintains control of the adherents.
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