Predestination and Grace

A friend of mine posted here and here recently on the issue of Eastern Orthodoxy's stance on Predestination and Grace. Click through to read his full posts.

I find it hard to agree with him, but he puts things out for everyone to examine.

He quotes from a gathering of Eastern Patriarchs that issued a statement [though not a conciliar statement]. From this Synod came the Confession of Dositheus.

“We believe the most good God to have from eternity predestinated unto glory those whom He has chosen, and to have consigned unto condemnation those whom He has rejected; but not so that He would justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause.”“But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other.”“And we understand the use of free-will thus, that the Divine and illuminating grace, and which we call preventing [or, prevenient] grace, being, as a light to those in darkness, by the Divine goodness imparted to all, to those that are willing to obey this — for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling — and co-operate with it, in what it requires as necessary to salvation, there is consequently granted particular grace.”“This grace co-operates with us, and enables us, and makes us to persevere in the love of God, that is to say, in performing those good things that God would have us to do, and which His preventing grace admonishes us that we should do, justifies us, and makes us predestinated.”“But those who will not obey, and co-operate with grace; and, therefore, will not observe those things that God would have us perform, and that abuse in the service of Satan the free-will, which they have received of God to perform voluntarily what is good, are consigned to eternal condemnation.”“We believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which works through love, that is to say, through faith and works. But [the idea] that faith can fulfill the function of a hand that lays hold on the righteousness which is in Christ, and can then apply it unto us for salvation, we know to be far from all Orthodoxy. For faith so understood would be possible in all, and so none could miss salvation, which is obviously false. But on the contrary, we rather believe that it is not the correlative of faith, but the faith which is in us, justifies through works, with Christ.”“But to say, as the most wicked heretics do and as is contained in the Chapter [of Cyril's' Confession] to which this answers — that God, in predestinating, or condemning, did not consider in any way the works of those predestinated, or condemned, we know to be profane and impious.”

No one wants to be called a Heretic. Nobody likes it because it sounds like a denial of genuineness or scholarship or sincerity or that the said Heretic is not actually a Christian. I am reposting his stuff here because the ACNA has been challenged by the OCA, via His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah, to eschew our Reformed Heresies. This will most likely be the very last one to drop...if it ever does.

I simply cannot read the Anglican Collects from the Book of Common Prayer without feeling the strong tap on the shoulder from Orthodoxy and Catholicism....Synergy!

Horton hears "according to who?"

Here is the latest article asking the "age old question" of authority. If you don't subscribe to Modern Reformation just email me and I'll send you a .pdf of the thing.

Be sure to read the full response to the Michael Horton's comments here. Bryan Cross's response in the journal is truncated due to space.

Girl, you have no idea...

"I believe in a wounded yet holy Catholic and Apostolic Church..."

A friend attended the local seminar by Ephraim Radner. Radner's ecclesiology centers around the idea that woundedness, or division, is the foundation for the Church's being. Wow, that's strange, the Nicene Creed states that Oneness, or Unity, is one of the four marks for the Bride of Christ.

Protestant scholars have the tendency to eschew Creedal language. They shoot the arrow first, then draw a target around the entry point. We are divided...so that must be a good thing! Let's build an ecclesiology around that chaos and then erect covenants to hold us together (cough, because the unity of Christ's person obviously isn't cohesive enough to do that).

"honey, are you wounded?"

"Girls, you have no idea"

Theological Defense of Plagiarism

In his former treatise Dr. Griffiths dropped a bombshell on me near the end of the essay. Did I just understand that he advocates plagiarism? Since reading that volume I have shared those notions with many of my colleagues--professional, clergy, and laity. Not one of them escaped the tendency to drop their jaw to the ground! For how could a Priest suggest such anti-nomianism?

Thankfully, Dr. Griffiths has published the refined and expanded version of his thinking on this. If you are not a fan of Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, or John Henry Newman then this is probably not the book for you. You will find their fingerprints within, for sure.

Now I have just realized that I missed reading another one of Dr. Griffiths' books. Oh, the stuff of reading.

Pelikan brief

In his last chapter of The Vindication of Tradition Jaroslav Pelikan describes our task in the Church as that of an Olympic long jumper. He contrasts our task with the standing-long-jumper.

The latter try to jump from a standstill. They ignore the terrain behind them and leap forward with awkward footing. Alas they cannot get very far.

The former begin their jump at...the beginning. They do not ignore the centimeters [read centuries] of the course up to the launch pad. They traverse the entire length before they jump.

He sums it all up with a quote from Goethe:

What you have as heritage,
take now as task;
For thus you will make it your own!

St. Ignatius on Discipleship, part 4

Discipleship and martyrdom

Some erroneously contend that Ignatius yearned for death.¹ For Ignatius, discipleship entailed death. Suffering was the natural path of following Jesus Christ. Death was the natural end of suffering. Therefore to be a true follower of Jesus Christ, death should be welcomed just as our Lord ‘set his face toward Jerusalem.’ One writer says of Ignatius, ‘the “self” does not really come into being until it suffers; suffering is not simply something that happens to a person. Rather, it is the means of achieving real selfhood ²’ while another feels that being a disciple had nothing to do with suffering or martyrdom.³ But Ignatius firmly decries that position by stating so often that Christ’s suffering is to be followed. One could further state that real discipleship does not come into being until one suffers. For example, Ignatius writes that he is not yet ‘someone’ and would not be until he was perfected in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3.1), i.e. until he was martyred. ‘Perfected in Jesus Christ’ is his way of saying, ‘I followed Him to the end, suffering as He suffered, dying as He died, demanding nothing but God's glory above self gain.’ Ignatius’ theology is not shrunken into the kernel of a quest for personal redemption.⁴ Rather his personal goal was to perfectly follow the Lord Jesus in life, suffering, proclamation, shepherding, and death. Ignatius understood pain not as something to be avoided but as providing a benefit—union with the divine Savior of the world.⁵ In the incarnation, the Son embraced human flesh and human suffering , so Ignatius would not shy from his own upcoming suffering. “It is not a question whether he would appear as an individual of abnormal psychology today, but whether he was such to his own contemporaries.⁶” Perhaps this vivid approach to death is clouded by our distance from his situation. Perhaps his contemporaries could identify with his resolve. He had a foreboding and earnest desire to become a martyr, and wished for nothing more than to seal with his death the truth of the gospel to which he had borne such a loud and convincing testimony for so many years.⁷ He would be a disciple to the death. Christ’s suffering is his essential message, and Christians’ acceptance of suffering is the sign of their commitment to his message.⁸ Death was a means to bring unity for St. Ignatius [where ever would he get such an idea, wink]. His community suffered from persecution and disunity. Some assert that Ignatius was the cause of the civil unrest. They claim that is why he was arrested. But just as our Lord was innocent of the charges against Him, I am compelled to think that Ignatius was falsely accused too. The Empire under Rome could pull off such a fraud. Ignatius followed Christ in death for the sake of unity, as we shall see from his own comments about death and suffering.

Magnesians 1:2. ‘ . . . In him enduring every abuse of the ruler of this age and escaping, we will meet God.’ Here Ignatius connects the idea of suffering to discipleship by using the word ‘enduring.’ Usually he speaks of ‘attaining God.’ Here though, he uses the term ‘meet God,’ rather than ‘attain.’ This could mean that martyrdom was not on his mind, but rather living sacrificially. But the allusion to Christ’s suffering at the hand of the ruler of this age and ascending to the father cannot be overlooked.

Magnesians 5:2. ‘ [God]. . . through whom, unless we willingly die into his suffering, his life is not in us.’ Here he speaks of us imitating Christ’s death. Does Ignatius imply that we die a martyr’s death in order to prove our faith? Perhaps this language implies our dying by embracing the inevitable suffering connected to Jesus Christ’s new life. In any case this is an allusion to Christ’s suffering in the context of our imitation.

Trallians 4:2. ‘For while I love to suffer, I do not know if I am worthy.’ Somehow Ignatius connects the concept of suffering to that of worthiness. ‘Worthy’ occurs over thirty times in these brief seven epistles. Most of the occurrences speak of being ‘worthy of Christ’ or ‘worthy of God.’ Does that not sound like being an authentic disciple? While it could be a self-deprecating expression, his use of it referring to others seems to suggest that our connection is contextual.

Trallians 10:1. ‘But if . . . he (Jesus Christ) [only] seemed to suffer, why am I bound? And why do I pray for battle with wild beasts? Then I die for nothing.’ This verse speaks of Christ’s passion in light of our suffering in a new way. He confronts the idea of false teachers’ saying Christ did not really suffer by arguing that his present bondage is directly related to Christ’s real suffering. In other words, he would not risk personal injury were he not certain that Christ suffered as an example. He even disputes with the Docetists in mind of being an imitator, a true disciple.

Romans 2:1. ‘ For if I am a word of God, but if you love my flesh, I will be a voice.’ This enigmatic expression is unclear. What is clear is that he asks again that the Roman Church not interfere with his plight, lest his message, and his faithfulness to God, be somehow diminished. So his suffering must be a ‘word’ and his rescue merely a ‘voice.’

Romans 4:3. ‘Not like Peter and Paul do I give you instructions. They were apostles, I am a convict. They were free, but I am till now a slave. But, if I suffer, I will be a freedman of Jesus Christ and will arise, free, in him.’ This is another clear passage where Ignatius relates suffering to the goal of his Christian life. He almost hinges the idea of his resurrection to his personal martyrdom.

Romans 6:3. ‘I long after the Lord, the Son of the true God and Father, even Jesus Christ. Him I seek, who died for us and rose again. Pardon me, brethren: do not hinder me in attaining to life; for Jesus is the life of believers. Do not wish to keep me in a state of death for life without Christ is death. While I desire to belong to God, do not ye give me over to the world. Suffer me to obtain pure light: when I have gone thither, I shall indeed be a man of God. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of Christ, my God. If any one has Him within himself, let him consider what I desire, and let him have sympathy with me, as knowing how I am straitened.’ He again requests no help from the believers in Rome. But now he says that Christ is the life of believers. Somewhat platonically, he affirms that life begins in death and if they help him stay in this world, they actually hinder his coming to life. He also does not consider this a personal quest alone. Isn't he asking us to consider his path, to sympathize with him...perhaps to suffer with him too.

Philadelphians 5:1. ‘ In whom being bound, I fear much, for I am as yet incomplete.’ Again Ignatius describes his faithfulness to Christ as incomplete because he has not yet died for the Lord.

Trallians12:3. ‘My bonds, which I carry about with me for the sake of Jesus Christ (praying that I may attain to God), exhort you,’ and ‘And do ye also pray for me, who have need of your love, along with the mercy of God, that I may be thought worthy to attain the lot for which I am now designed,’ and Philadelphians 5:2. ‘But your prayer to God shall make me perfect, that I may attain that to which I have been called, while I flee to the Gospel as to the flesh of Jesus Christ.’

Philadelphians 7:1. ‘For though some would have deceived me according to the flesh, yet the Spirit, as being from God, is not deceived. For it knows both whence it comes and whither it goes.’

Smyrneans 4:2. ‘For near the sward is near to god, next to wild beast is next to God. Only in the name of Jesus Christ, to suffer jointly with him, do I endure all things, and he, the perfect man, empowers me.’

Smyrneans 9:2. ‘If you endure all things on account of him, you will reach God.’ This is an echo of the exact same statement in the other letters.

The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Acts 5:41. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. Romans 8:17. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.2 Corinthians 1:5-7. To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2Cor. 12:7-10. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10. Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the Church. Colossians 1:24. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, 2 Timothy 1:8; This is my gospel, ⁹ for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. ¹⁰ Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 2:9. This is my gospel, ⁹ for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. ¹⁰ Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.1 Peter 4:12-19; To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed, Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.5:1,9. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Hebrews 2:10; Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 5:8; Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 10:32.

This long list of scripture supports the idea that Ignatius was within the biblical bounds when he wrote anticipating his own suffering and death. The central text is the 2 Cor. 12:7-10 passage. It boldly states that in suffering, Paul gladly boasts in his weaknesses. Strange it is that we cannot easily establish this connection. Perhaps it is our own desire for personal prosperity and well-being that blinds us to Ignatius’ proud statements about his own death. In short, suffering and death were not foreign to the biblical writers or to the Apostolic Fathers. Ignatius represents perhaps the most scriptural view of death-as-an-end-to-discipleship within that group⁹ of early Christians. Moderns might not apprehend his claims immediately. But rather than dismiss him as fantastic, we do better to ask, "who is out of step with whom?"

1 A. A. K. Graham, “Their word to our day, IV. Ignatius of Antioch,” The Expository Times 80 (Jan. 1969): p.108.

2 Judith Perkins, “The “self” as sufferer.” Harvard Theological Review 85 (July 1992): p.264.

3 Daniel N. McNamara, “Ignatius of Antioch on his death, discipleship, sacrifice, and imitation,” (Ph.D. diss. McMaster University, 1978) p. 247.

4 Willard M. Swartley, “The Imitatio Christi in the Ignatian letters,” Vigiliae Christianae 27 no. 2 (1973): p. 102.

5 Judith Perkins, “The “self” as sufferer.” Harvard Theological Review 85 (July 1992): p.263.

6 Frederick Augustus Schilling, The mysticism of Ignatius of Antioch, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1932), p. 72.

7 John Gambold. The martyrdom of Ignatius: A tragedy. ([Philadelphia?]: I. Ashmead & Co. for J. Wright, 1832), p. 17.

8 Judith Perkins, “The “self” as sufferer.” Harvard Theological Review 85 (July 1992): p. 263.

9 Some of the pseudepigraphal writings actually do push the envelope with fantastic stories about martyrdom and other strange ideas about Christology. If our devoted Father Ignatius had done that, the Church would have condemned him a heretic.

Why St. Ignatius?

St. Ignatius, Bishop and Martyr of Antioch, was the focus of my senior paper at seminary in 2002.
Let me tell the story of why I chose him to research, and why that changed me.
For the sake of keeping it brief, one needs to read the short letters of Ignatius. There are but 7. Okay, now that you've done that read on. Either in 2000 or 2001 I completed a course in the Early Church Fathers. During that seminar-style class, every student had to produce a presentation on a character from that period. All the big names were already chosen--NO that's not true! It was simply by chance that my group assigned Blessed Ignatius to me.
When I presented material for his 7 letters I knew what kind of reaction I'd get. You see I went to Dallas Theological Seminary, finishing in 2002. The standard evangelical seminary student cannot be prepared for the shock of St. Ignatius. [that fact btw was an initial chisel for me to question the evangelical claims-more on that soon] Some of the students literally gasped aloud at the content of the Bishop's letters! [Okay it's time for you to go read them-gotcha] He, quite like N.T. Wright describes St. Paul, sounds more like a fanatical terrorist than a gentle shepherd to the 21st century Western ear. I knew my classmates would misunderstand him, but it was my job to explain him to them. That is very complicated.
First, the DNA of protestants is to distrust every notion after the death of the last Apostle. Ignatius' sick descriptions must have confirmed their disdain. [surely you've gone and read him by now!] Really, it's in the DNA. They don't teach that at most evangelical seminaries! But it lingers under the surface, controlling assumptions as we study the Bible, Theology and History. The Church, say they, held its breath until the reformation when the 'true' faith was recovered by (insert the father of your protestant tradition). So Ignatius' advice to the earliest believers must have been skewed because he never mentions 5 solas...just one.
Second, Ignatius is incredibly Catholic. Yea, that Ignatius. Chances are you know him by that reputation. He is the one who championed the local Bishop being central to true Christianity. Protestants don't operate with Bishops, so that sets his teachings at odds with something they hold dear--democratic or representative leadership. 'Bishop? Hmmm...catholics don't understand the Bible like the Spirit enables me to do so.'
Third, Ignatius is not romantic, but rather graphic. He never mentions having, or inviting, Jesus in your heart...or being His private friend when you are alone. He seems to enjoy the fact that he will go to the circus, though. Only, this circus will be his end... his flesh and bones food for animals. That presents another hurdle for protestants. We don't seek martyrdom...rather victory! God forbid that we should make sacrifices. In our worldview a willing scapegoat makes no sense [except for baby Jesus]. Protestant evangelicals don't make the crucial connection that my thesis will demonstrate.
That thesis posits that St. Ignatius contains the vital link for us to read both the New Testament [mostly SS. Paul and John] and the rest of the early Church. That link is what we would call discipleship. So when I had to find a paper topic later on, St. Ignatius just screamed at me from a previous semester. 'Come follow me! Find out why I've been misunderstood, neglected, and cast aside for other glamorous figures.'
Posts that follow will be the sections of the paper in much the same style and method as originally done. I have not changed the paper much, preferring to stick to the expectations of the course to which the paper belonged. I would not approach the topic just this way if I were to do it over. That will wait for another day.

Troll Under the Bridge

This was written in response to things-as-they-are where I work. It is a place where happy evangelicals dutifully work for the salvation of every soul, usually oblivious to any other expression of Christianity. This usually comes out vividly when students write for on-campus newspapers about their summer missionary activities. I wanted to submit this to said newspaper, but I think it's much to threatening for that audience.

Troll under the Bridge

When we are young and impressionable, the big folks like to tell us fables, myths, and legends to pique our imagination. Those tales most often have a purpose too. So it is with the proverbial troll that lives under the bridge. Perhaps there was a widespread desire to keep young children away from bridges. Bridges are not safe for young kids-that is easy to imagine. More likely it was to protect the ‘kids’ from what was beyond the bridge. So it may have been common to protect our cubs by fear. "You know," goes the tale, "there is a troll under the bridge that will scare you/eat you/kill you/molest you. So stay far away from that bridge." We don’t need to know what a troll is to be afraid of the bridge. It works…both ways. We are saved by fear and enticed to imagine.

Then we grow and learn how the world works. There are no ‘boogy men’--at least not the imaginary kind. And that troll never has been caught by our eager eyes. We grow up to feel safe about ‘our world’ and physically safe from the danger of the bridge, er uhm the troll. Maturity leads us to ditch the myth but no one really ever tells us it's a myth. No one ever sits us down and says, "we just wanted to keep you safe and close, so we made up the story of the troll." Forget the Viking stories that we crib from, we simply use tales as best suits us.

I write this because of my great angst about evangelicals’ collective, deep-rooted fantasy. It's somewhat like the troll story I describe, but much more sinister. Whether it be the ‘Church of Christ’, the ‘Methodist Church’, or the ‘Roman Catholic Church’ we prevent our kid-goats wandering too far from the reservation by fear. We protect them by branding the other guys as heretics, cults, or anti-Christs. And this works too. I am particularly beleaguered by the attitude we foster about the Roman Catholic Church. I wish I had a dime for every time I heard the ole line about the Catholics being idolaters, magic peddlers, anti-Christs, and a vast cult bent on usurping the "true" gospel. Many coins would be from my own pocket, sadly. If I banked those dimes I could do a lot of good.

Imagination is a good tool unless we forge it with prejudice or stereotyping. I’m now convinced that’s what we’ve done with the Catholics. We’ve painted them with our own imaginative ignorance. We, in fact, weaken our own view of God’s power when we portray the Catholics as so very influential that they can prohibit the ‘true’ gospel from peoples’ comprehension. In other words, the legend is too weighty to stand up under the smallest scrutiny. All those ‘things’ adorning the gospel are imagined by evangelicals to cloud the truth and veil the Lord from the people. Most prejudice is simply ignorance. What we miss is that all the ‘adornments’ point to Him.

While I had hurled insults at Catholics, I had never stepped inside a Catholic Church in my life. So it is with many of us. Oh, I know, many people embrace Christ ‘personally’ after having been Catholic much of their lives. Others have a sprinkling of Catholic experience because of mixed family ties. In this latter case I bet they still operated with fear and prejudice when they attended that wedding, or that Baptism. I remember once in my college years being afraid that something would happen to me while attending a Church outside my approved list. Good grief! (Shocking as it may be, Dallas Seminary was not on that list either!) Remember what that troll will do to you!

But the more sinister aspect of our prejudice is doctrinal. We simply do not understand their system. We fearfully and ignorantly reject their Episcopacy, Sacraments, Veneration of Mary and Saints, etc. The best we can muster is, “We don’t need to know what they believe to be sure that they are wrong.” Yet, you cannot disagree with an unknown. Students of history are urged to suspend judgment until they learn history’s content. That doesn’t mean to chuck judgment entirely, but you must have the facts first. Only then can you discern. In fact, then you must discern. Be not afraid of the truth, but neither be unmoved by it. You are at seminary to learn, to forge the habits that will fuel your future. If your time here is only spent learning how ‘wrong’ others are, are you not becoming a prejudiced servant?

Fear keeps us out of the woods like the 2^nd generation of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. We feel comfortable at the encampment, secure on the reservation. We don’t want to confuse our younglings with crucifixes, statues, smoke, tradition, stained glass, creeds, chants, wafers, alcohol, icons and beauty. We envision what terrible direction those things will lead their imaginations! Children are better served sitting and staring at the hymnal or the back of bro. Bob’s head. Or worse, we remove them from our company and let somebody else tell teach about the most important action in all creation, namely worshiping God. Even worse still, we remove them from worship for play and activity because they don’t understand everything that’s going on…they are stupid and unable to have, much less cultivate, faith. And they should never take communion for we are not ‘sure’ they ‘truly’ ‘believe’ in our ‘fill-in-the-blank-doctrines-necessary-for-true-spiritual-relationship-with-Jesus’. Yep, those Catholics are truly deluded and misguided.

Evangelicals champion the gospel. That name is from the Greek word for gospel, for goodness sake. Yet the gospel isn’t naked. It never has been. It has been clothed and adorned with beauty, tradition, order, dignity, and many other Catholic things. Neither are its recipients bare. We like to think that we are: that God wipes our slates clean at conversion, tabula rasa. Some folks get very near apostasy before they realize that grace’s landing strip needs maintenance. It is not tabula rasa, but tabula humanae. The human mind is vast. God created it that way. But today evangelicals usually see grace only as a heart and soul issue. I hope that you will engage your mind such that you fulfill your Lord’s summary of the Law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” Regarding our estranged brethren in other Churches, I hope you will struggle to honor Jesus’ words concluding the summary, “And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these to commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.” This is especially true if you have family devoted to the Catholic Church.

Those of us that consider ourselves students of The Book would do well to appreciate the entity that for centuries preserved our Book. We would do even better if we considered their preservation of Scripture at least as authentic in devotion to Christ as our modern accretions. I implore you to move beyond folklore to fact. Call a cease-fire between those that damage one another. Most of all, carefully avoid friendly-fire. We have enough to battle with Islam and secularization crowding out anyone that bears the name of Christ. Sadly, most of us would simply rather believe in the truth of our own making. We much prefer the safe fantasy world that our masters confined us within.

Orthodox? You keep using that word...

C. Michael Patton, a classmate of mine back in seminary days, has a conversation going on about the kind of Orthodox we claim to be. I have pointed my readers to his blog before. When I posted on my choice to seek orders in the Anglican Church, he was kind enough to point his readers over here, and besides I read his blog daily--Usually good reading (but then, not all posts are Michael's!).

Chime in over at Parchment & Pen.

Kind of reminds me of that famous quote from Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. "
Classic.