Category: Calvinism

Reflecting on the Reformation

I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do not understand why it is part of the church year. Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.

(Stanley Hauerwas)

Coincidentally, on Halloween/Reformation Day, I began listening to a two-hour podcast, Perspectives on the Church Fathers, featuring two notable guests. I finished it on Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damien (All Saints Day, if you’re into that Western Christian stuff).

So what’s the coincidence?

In this two-hour edition, host Kevin Allen speaks with two early Church scholars—Reformed Christian James R. Payton, Jr. (editor of the newly published A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today) and Orthodox Christian Bradley Nassif (a leading expert on the relationship between Orthodox and Evangelical Christians)—about the Church Fathers, including who they are, what they taught, and their significance in the Evangelical and Orthodox church traditions.

(Podcast Description, hyperlinks added) Protestant Payton is well enough acquainted with the Fathers of the Church that an Orthodox publisher published his book. And both Nassif and Payton agree that the Reformers had a solid appreciation of the Fathers and retained catholic views on most Christian doctrine.

I remain skeptical about even the original Reformation. I accept the dark view that it was a schism from an already-schismatic group, the Roman Catholic Church. It seems to me that it threw Pandora’s Box wide open, as, for example, Luther was already fighting the Radical Reformation before his death, and today’s debased, rootless American Evangelicalism is heavily influence by radical reformation ideas.

When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

(Hauerwas) There’s a lot of anathematized religion in America. Read the whole Hauerwas piece for confirmation.

But I’ve been reminded by the podcast, by a commenter to a recent blog, by my older brother’s catholic-minded Lutheranism, by the semi-historicity of Calvinism that attracted me 35 years ago (in contrast to the largely ahistorical Evangelicalism I’d been immersed in for a decade-plus), and by the re-appropriation of the Fathers by serious-minded Protestants, that some greater respect may be due than I’ve been giving.

And I’m reminded by Hauerwas that the ethnic labels remaining on American Orthodox jurisdictions give rise to a suspicion – not entirely unwarranted – that the catholicity of Orthodoxy is flawed. Ouch!

Yeah, yeah: I know how it came about. But I know how the Reformation came about, too. There comes a time when historical explanation falls short of contemporary justification.

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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Sunday, 9/29/13

  1. An Orthodoxen at WYD
  2. Infallibility (and another useless doctrine)
  3. Putin the cultural conservative
  4. Corruptio optimimi pessima
  5. Admiring “Jesus,” albeit an imaginary one
  6. A Protestant Pope?
  7. First (and last) Miley Cyrus thought
  8. Pope Francis and Right-Wing Catholics

Continue reading “Sunday, 9/29/13” →

Sunday Thoughts 8/18/13

I don’t know that I’ve ever repeated a blog before, but I stumbled across this Saturday evening, and it still expresses what I think.

I’m writing for Evangelicals, so don’t be shocked if you “don’t get it” coming from somewhere other than Evangelicalism.

  1. I am a former Evangelical. I was on the conservative end of 1950s and 1960s Evangelicalism, which by today’s standards would be “Fundamentalist.”
  2. What I was taught at home and in the Evangelical Covenant Church of my childhood didn’t match what I was taught in a Wheaton-affiliated Evangelical boarding school in my adolescence; which didn’t match what I was taught at Wheaton College for 40 semester hours; which didn’t match what I was taught at John Brown University; which didn’t match what I was taught in IVCF and through InterVarsity Press when I went to Bradley University; which didn’t match what Campus Crusade was teaching when I dabbled over there; etc.
  3. Everyone claimed that their version was simply Biblical.
  4. Have you noticed, by the way, that all the Hal Lindsey/Late Great Planet Earth crap, very mainstream Evangelical, has proven to be false prophecy? The same fate awaits “Left Behind.”
  5. Seeing Evangelical disagreements (and extra-Biblical taboos and shibboleths) lowered my enthusiasm, but I knew nothing better than Evangelicalism and toughed it out.
  6. Through diligent reading, I stumbled onto Calvinism, which was better and brought back much of my enthusiasm. I then considered myself maybe sorta kinda a fringe Evangelical.
  7. Through dumb luck, I later stumbled onto Eastern Orthodoxy, where I’ve been for 14 years [now 16+] and [where] I expect to die.
  8. Orthodoxy is the continuation of 1st millenium Christianity; it never adopted indulgences or the other stuff that led to the Protestant Reformation. Darn shame (and long story how) y’all didn’t come back to Orthodoxy then instead of starting new “churches.”
  9. I’m not alone in journeying to Orthodoxy.
  10. You’re a little old to become Orthodox because all the cool kids are doing it, aren’t you?
  11. You’re not too old to be uneasy with the contradictions and inherent foibles of Evangelicalism, and to go to a better, saner place, are you?
  12. You really don’t need the Sisiphean task of fighting Evangelical entropy, do you?
  13. If Evangelicalism isn’t based solely on the Bible, its boast and claim to fame (and disagreements among Evangelicals pretty well proves that it’s not), what is left of Evangelicalism?
    • What good is it?
    • How, if you know that returning to historic Christianity is an option, dare you not investigate in depth?
  14. If you are a disenthralled Evangelical, who is still is drawn to Jesus, you really need to look into Orthodoxy.
    • You may say “Wow! This is it!”
    • Likelier, you’ll say “Wow! This is kinda beautiful, but really strange.”
    • If you say the latter, it’s only because you’ve been in historically strange worship for too long. (I believe that if some Christian were teleported from the first millenium to your Evangelical Church at 11 am Sunday, he would not know it was a Church. Nothing he expected from Church would be there.)
  15. If you’re still enthralled with Evangelicalism, God bless and have mercy on us both.

Suggestion: Put on your Sunday best, get out the Yellow Pages, and look for “Churches – Orthodox.” Do it today.

Forgive me for any offense I’ve given by my many snarky comments about Evangelicalism. I’m trying to find the magic words that will disenthrall a reader or two, so they can discover what I’ve discovered.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.