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.
And in regards to suffering, God also has many wonderful prescriptions for comforting us and reshaping us spiritually during times of suffering, which build our faith and trust in Him, like this one in Philippians 4:
4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Don’t be anxious! The Lord is always nearby. Rejoice in Him, while praying and giving thanks to Him, and He’ll give you His peace in return and you’ll begin to see the purposes for what you’re going through.
AMEN!!!!
The Orthodox Church—the original Church founded at Pentecost—gave us the Scriptures—by the Grace and Power of God!!!!
And the New Testament Scriptures witness to ALL of the Holy Mysteries of the Orthodox Church!!!! They are ALL Biblically-based!
Moreover, every Divine Liturgy includes readings from Scripture (I myself—unworthy though I be—am a Orthodox Reader), and a Biblically-based sermon by the Priest!!!!
But the center of Divine Liturgy is the reception of Christ’s True Body and True Blood!!!!
http://stgeorgegoc.org/pastors-corner/fr-ricks-sermons/jesus-is-the-bread-of-life
That also is attested to by Scripture!!
No one ever gets baptized into a Baptist group...That's a Catholic thing...
“Stephanie believes that God chose to make salvation through that method through the, let’s call it “Mary method””
But the “Mary Method” disagrees with scripture. That isn’t hating on Mary, just an observation that God could find SOMEONE. It didn’t have to be Mary.
For many Christians, Luke 1:46,47 is plainly understood and not open to interpretation.
Yes, Mary is unique. She is the Lord's mother. She is rightly due honor and veneration in the church and in heaven. However, nowhere does the scripture show that she is a co-redemptrix or that we need a co-redemptrix.
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" - 1 Tim 2:5
There is a significant difference between an intercessor and a mediator. Jesus is the ONLY mediator between us and the Father but we have MANY intercessors. You do ask your brothers and sisters to intercede (pray) for you, right?
Orthodox Christians doe NOT hold that Mary is co-redemptrix. That is a Roman Catholic extrapolation we do not teach.
I suppose that's "possible" in the most extreme sense of the word -- God certainly gets to make the rules, not us -- but the clear message of the Bible in that in reality, the way God has ordered it, nobody is saved except through the Cross, which means that nobody is saved except through the Incarnation, which means that nobody is saved except through Mary.
That's not a "lost soul," that cause-and-effect logic.
That's in the Orthodox liturgy, not the Roman liturgy (which barely even mentions Mary).
But in point of fact, God set it up so that it depended on Mary. (And of course, in other ways, on different people and things.) It depended on Mary in a unique way, because Jesus received his human nature from Mary. Since Jesus' death on the Cross presupposes and requires a human nature ... qed.
Not attempting to speak for the Orthodox here, but it is Catholic dogma that Mary needed a Savior.
And also that she had one.
The ones that can hear us...The live ones...
Wouldn't Catholics be bummed after having died they found out none of those they prayed to for intercession were even there???
Now here's a real Catholic mystery...Their popes and cardinals and the rest of them claim heaven and hell aren't really places...They are a state of mind...A state of their mind...Kinda like the Twilight Zone...Their individual heaven may not be like any one else's heaven...How do they get someone to intercede for them who isn't anywhere other than their own state of mind???
I have faith in Jesus Christ but it takes far, far more faith to believe in the Catholic religion...
Mary had one purpose...And that was to provide a sinful vessel with corrupt blood to provide Jesus with a corrupt flesh that would deteriorate, feel pain and be tempted to sin...Didn't have to be Mary...Could have been any female in the same bloodline...
We aren't saved by trusting in the corrupted flesh of Jesus...We are saved by trusting in God/Jesus...
Jesus is God...Among other things He was manifest in the flesh so that we could see him...Interact with him on a human level...God did not need to become flesh for us to be 'saved'...
Then Mary was not sinless as the scriptures tell us...
I have faith in Jesus Christ but it takes far, far more faith to believe in the Catholic religion..
But, this thread is NOT about the Roman Catholic Church. To Protestants and others Orthodoxy may LOOK like Catholicism but there are significant differences. We don't have a pope or cardinals. We do not teach that Heaven and Hell are states of mind.
Jesus, in debating with the Sadducees (who denied the resurrection), made the point that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the God of the living, not the dead.
Those who repose in faith are alive to God. Of course, the saints are not omniscient. The only way they can hear our requests for intercession is if God makes it known to them.
Besides, if we are wrong in thinking they can intercede, God hears those prayers!
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