THE PROBLEM OF THE CHURCH

Fr. Stephen Freeman has writting a compelling entry to his blog "Glory to God For All Things" entiltled "The Problem of the Church."

I recommend this to you in the same spirit of my current work on the Church.

There are some practical applicatiuons to all this "theory" that I hope to continue exploring with you in the near future.

ECCLESIA PRACTICUM

As I have pondered the Church during Great Lent, I have come to appreciate that words can be quite beautiful but it is the practice of the words that reveal authentic beauty and Truth.

Just as God's wisdom found its zenith in the enfleshing of God in Christ, so we, who are called to perpetuate this physical presence of God in the earth, must also enflesh the truths we say we believe.

This past weekend I had the joy of speaking at a parish in the Chicago area. This is a vibrant parish led by one of the most authentic parish priests I have ever met. He was brilliant, fatherly, and wise. He has been the parish priest at this parish for over 40 years. That kind of pastoral care by a good man can't help but profoundly affect his congregation.

What struck me was the congregational singing and the genuine affection the people had for one another. The most amazing thing about this was that the congregational singing was in a language other than English (not glossolalia. I avoid revealing the language so as not to predjudice the reader).

After the service, the priest asked me if I had been offended by the lack of English in the service. A few years ago I would have probably said "yes," but something struck me as I stood with these fellow Orthodox believers in the Divine Liturgy. I was expereincing their communal life in that moment of corporate worship. I was in a "church." This was more than theory. This was real life. I found myself "participating" in worship at a much deeper level than I had expereinced in many other highly ethnic congregations.

The reason for this is that these people were together. They were expressing their common life together in such a way that an "outsider" would not expereince as offputting.

Had this just been the "choir" singing the hymns and providing the responses, I would have been offended. But the reason would not be so much the language issue as a theological issue. Orthodoxy is NOT a spectator's sport. We participate. This is one of the practical applications of Persons in Communion - the persons of the Church all participate in the life of the Church. This is first seen in the Christian family, then extended to the local parish, then to the diocese, to the archdiocese, to the nationa church, and ultimately to the world.

This participatory nature of authentic "ecclesia" is best summed up by the Apostle Paul when he wrote: "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:11-16, emphasis mine)

To the extent that our parishes are participatory parishes then they are expressions of an Orthodox ecclesiology. To the extent that they are not participatory then, well....

Next - The Second Practical Application of an Orthodox Ecclesiology!

PERSONS IN COMMUNION

In St. John 17 our Lord Jesus prays what New Testament scholars have called the "High Priestly Prayer," and in this prayer, our Lord, before He goes to the Cross, asks the Father that His people "may be one as We are." (John 17:11)

In fact, Jesus asks the Father to make His disciples one as He and the Father are one three times, once in John 17:11, then again in 17:21 and 17:22. Three times the Lord asks the Father to make His people one like the Father and the Son are one.

No wonder a clear, faithful, and patristic understanding of the mystery of the Trinity is necessary before anyone can appreciate the mystery of the Body of Christ.

So, the standard of the Body of Christ, the Church, is set by Christ Himself. The goal, the work, the path, the point of the Church is to experience the unity that the Father and the Son have experienced forever. This is the invitation to "mere" mortals. This is the adventure and the purpose of the Church, to be one as the Father and the Son are one. This level of unity is not simple agreement on a cause or goal, but goes beyond an association to the heart of mystery and awestruck wonder.

It is no mistake that it was contemplating this prayer of Jesus on behalf of His Church that first got me to abandon the notion of Church as the assembling of individuals to learn how to be Christian, or get "fired up" for the Lord.

No, nothing less than a willingness to jettison this "small" vision of the Church will help us see the grandeur and majesty that we are each called to experience as persons in communion in the Church.

This means the Church is not some accident of eschatology, or some parenthesis in God's timetable, but the very reason Christ came to the earth, to establish His Church, His mystical Body, His Kingdom on earth. It is this majestic understanding of the Church that makes sense of the salvific work of our Lord Jesus to redeem humanity and conquer death.

To enter into this vision of the Church requires me to also re-evaluate my own anthropology. What is a human?

It was coming to see a distinction between "person" and "individual" that began to open my own soul to this divine mystery of the Church. It was as I began to apply the patristic understanding of the Trinity to anthropology that a clear distinction was made between being an individual and being a person.

Metropolitan Zizioulas in his book "Being As Communion" declares that the very heart of authentic personhood is communion, that one cannot be an authentic person outside of a communion relationship. the metropolitan draws this from the mystery of the Trinity and the divine Persons in Communion. The Father cannot be eternally the Father without an eternal Son. The Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father and His Personhood is bound up with His relationship between the Father and the Son. The divine Persons are known and know in relation to each Other.

This gets a bit esoteric for me at times, but the heart of this is the incredible message that we, created, humans are invited by God's grace to experience this kind of communion between each other and with the Holy and life-creating Trinity.

And it is precisely this invitation, this "Good News", that makes sense of Christ's birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and second coming. All of His salvific work is tied up in moving us from disconnected, cut-off, dead and dying, slaves to our own selfishness, to the deifying communion of His eternal, new Life.

Standing on the precipice of my own self-centered ego, I confess a fear of looking too long at this mystery. It is still too bright for me, and this truth judges my own struggles with self-deception, hiding, and fear of being "taken advantage of." My self-schisms, my own disjointed heart is manifested in the disjointed relationships around me, ultimately seen in my continual struggle to be "in communion" with Christ and His Church.

I confess this subject is getting the better of me. I was hoping to make these works a few treatise on ecclesiology, but Great Lent has captured me and insisted that I risk honesty for my own salvation. It is the Church that I need. It is the Church that I must attain. It is the Church that will be to me my Anchor and Salvation. It is the Church or the hell of eternal fragmentation in my own soul and in my relationships with others and, ultimately, my relationship with God Himself.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples." (John 15:1-8)

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Thanks to Fr. John at his blog Conversi ad Dominum for this great link!

Signs of the Times

Now all we need is an Orthodox sign to add to the dialogue!

Enjoy and a blessed Lent to you all.

B

THE ASSEMBLY AND THE TRINITY

As I have worked on a few thoughts about ecclesiology, I have become overwhelmed by the absolute necessity of a patristic understanding of the dogma of the Trinity as foundational to any discussion of the Church.

But not dogma from a rationalistic or purely academic posture. Actually the Orthodox understanding on doing theology as primarily doxalogical and liturgical is also fundamental to beginning to grasp the patristic understanding of the Church.

In other words, we have to pray the Trinity to begin to appreciate just why this dogma is foundational to any understanding of ecclesiology.

I will go so far as to say that until we treat theology as primarily a doxalogical reality, we will be constantly tempted to reduce these theological truths to mere rational propositions. Which, in turn, will place us as more likely to miss the point of the dogma of the Trinity all together.

Having said that, please note the corporate nature of this way of doing theology. A wise Orthodox theologian once said "You never pray alone." In the very practice of communal prayer and worship we see a hint of the foundational nature of the Trinity in understanding the Divine Mystery of the Church. It is this Orthodox commitment to the ecclesia that both reveal and challenge.

It reveals the nature of the oneness of the dogma of the Trinity in the sense that each Person shares completely the Divine Nature. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, not three gods, but one God in three Persons.

However, the unity of the Trinity does not rest in the one Divine Nature, but the One Father. There is one God because there is one Father. The oneness of God rests on the Person of the Father, not on the impersonal distinction of divine nature.

Another saint reminded us that we can "neither confuse the Persons, nor divide the Essence." And here again we see the foundational nature of the Trinity on the theology of the Church. As persons in communion with Christ and one another, we all share the common human nature, but the uniqueness of our persons are not swallowed by this common nature.

In a mystery, in the Church, we each form parts of the Whole without losing the uniqueness of our person. Very much like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are both One and Three, we also, when entering the Church, participate in a mystery in this divine communion.

I want to say a great deal more on this, and I confess that this may be a subject beyond my abilities, but it has captured my imagination and I want to see where this takes me. Your wisdom and correction are greatly appreciated.

A POTTERHEAD

By way of explanation, the two widgets to the left are my homage to the last Harry Potter book coming out on July 21st (Yes, I have pre-ordered) and the 5th movie coming out a week before.

I have enjoyed the Potter series of books and find them to contain not only entertaining work but insight into virtues seemingly missing from today's world.

Not meant to start a flame war over the value of Potter books, just a short comment about why I've added these countdowns to my blog.

B

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH

As I have begun researching for a few articles on the Church and Orthodox ecclesiology, I have come to one over riding conclusion - the absolute necessitty of an Orthodox understanding of the mystery of the Holy Trinity is the very foundation of Orthodox ecclesiology.

Lossky wrote:

The Trinity is, for the Orthodox Church, the unshakable foundation of all religious thought, all piety, of all spiritual life, of all experience. It is the Trinity that we seek in seeking after God, when we search for the fullness of being, for the end and meaning of existence. . . . If we reject the Trinity as the sole ground of all reality and of all thought, we are committed to a road that leads nowhere; we end in aporia, in folly, in the disintegration of our being, in spiritual death. Between the Trinity and hell, there lies no other choice. . . . The revelation of the Trinity shines out in the Church as a purely religious gift, as the catholic truth above all others.

So, the revelation of the Holy Trinity is absolutely essential if we are going to understand the Orthodox teaching of ecclesiology. In fact, Orthodox presupposes an Orthodox view of the Holy Trinity as the foundation of all theological discussion.

What do we mean when we say "the mystery of the Holy Trinity?" Well, it isn't a puzzle to be solved, or a riddle to be deciphered. When we say mystery, we are saying "the more we know, the more we recognize that there is more to know."2 God will always be beyond us, but we can know Him in a personal way. An ancient Orthodox saint (St. Isaac the Syrian, 4th century) said, "By love, God can be held, but by thinking, never!"

Does this mean there nothing we can reasonably know or understand about God? Of course there is.

There is an understanding we can receive when it comes to the great mysteries of our faith. But it is not based on or limited to our rational faculties. It includes our powers of reasoning ("Be transformed by the renewing of your mind"—Romans 12:2), but it far transcends them. It is an "understanding," a "knowing" that comes from love and trust, from a living communion with God, Who alone is Truth, the creator and sustainer of our minds and reasonings.

Don't be scared by the use of the word mystery. It is used to humbly proclaim that we don't (and can't) know every thing about God. Some mysteries have been revealed (Eph. 3:2-6), and some will be revealed. God can never be completely known and understood by human minds; we will be learning about him unto the “ages of ages.” A little-known Christian layman, Minucius Felix, wrote in A.D. 218:

He cannot be seen, for He is too bright for sight; nor can he be grasped, for He is too pure to touch; nor can He be measured, for He is too great for the senses. He is infinite and cannot be measured; and how great He is, is known to Himself alone. Our heart is too narrow to understand Him; and therefore we take His measure worthily by saying that He is immeasurable.

Although God is mysterious, He has revealed Himself to us. In theological terms, we say God is transcendent and immanent—He is both far away and near. Bishop Kallistos Ware sums it up best:

These, then, are the two "poles" in man's experience of the Divine. God is both further from us, and nearer to us, than anything else. And we find, paradoxically, that these two poles do not cancel one another out: on the contrary, the more we are attracted to the one "pole," the more vividly we become aware of the other at the same time. Advancing on the Way, each finds that God grows ever more intimate and ever more distant, well known and yet unknown—well known to the smallest child, incomprehensible to the most brilliant theologian. God dwells in "light unapproachable," yet man stands in His presence with loving confidence and addresses Him as friend.

That is why the mystery of the Holy Trinity is said to be the model of conversion (metanoia) and a cross for humanity. No one can come face to face with this blessed Truth and not fall down in worship. It is like Isaiah when he saw the Lord high and lifted up. The only proper reaction is awe-struck adoration. This Great Mystery forces prideful man to repent (to change his mind). We are called, when confronted with this Great Mystery, to change our minds, change our habitual ways of thinking, and be converted.

Here is the foundation of ecclesiology. The Church as the Body of Christ is directly related to how we view the Holy Trinity.

More to come.

ACCEPTED

Well, gentle reader, I have just received my acceptance letter from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA. It looks like I am definitely Boston bound this Fall.

I confess I am filled with trepidation at the prospects of uprooting my little family and heading north to the People's Republic of Massachusetts, but I am more fearful on not following through with this to finally explore this calling to the clergy I have had since I was a boy.

Not only will this Southern born and Southern bred convert be entirely too far above the Mason-Dixon, but I will also be among a group of Orthodox Christians I had always tried to avoid - the Greeks.

I had believed all the horror stories about the Greek Archdiocese I heard before my conversion. How they were so ethnic, so insular, and would swallow me whole. It was the equivalent of the "Bogey-man" stories I was told as a child to keep me from wandering into the woods near my home. The stories worked.

But now I find myself married to a beautiful Greek girl, attending a GOA parish here in Ft. Lauderdale, regularly speaking in GOA parishes across the country, and now about to attend the GOA seminary in Boston.

How did this happen?

I think, (pray) it happened for two specific reasons.

First, I believe God desires me to abandon attitudes that are primarily based on fear. To be sure, I have found examples of all the bad behaviors and backward attitudes I was warned about concerning the Greeks, but I have found many more examples of just the opposite among these dear people. I have found genuine Orthodox faith and zeal for the faith that is not solely about preserving an ethnic heritage. I have discovered in even the most "Greeky Greek" parish people who come up to me after I speak and tell me "we need more challenges to grow in our faith." God has me here among a group I had feared would be nothing more than an ethnic social club to reveal to me my own ethnocentric attitudes and my own poverty of heritage.

Second, I believe God placed me among the Greeks to help me develop a true Orthodox mindset. Say what you will about the ethnicity of the Greeks, but when a Greek or Greek-American gets the faith, it is a solid and consistent Orthodox mindset. Now this may very well be true of a Russian or Arab mind as well, but I wouldn't have been as surprised by that as I have been when it comes to the Greeks.

It turns out the Greeks are their own harshest critics. Those among them who see the beauty of the faith and then see the average person in a parish as so ignorant of their faith, truly seeks ways to remedy this sad spiritual poverty. More than once, I have heard accurate and unvarnished critiques from Greek Orthodox laity and clergy alike. They know their problems better than anyone else.

However, I have also spent the past 4 years of my life working in a pan-Orthodox media ministry and have discovered that if it weren't for the Greek Archdiocese, so maligned among other jurisdictions, there would be no OCMC. There would be no IOCC. And there would be no OCN. None of the other Orthodox jurisdictions have supported the work of OCN like the Greek Archdiocese and average Greek Orthodox laypersons. If I could get the other jurisdictions to proportionally give toward this ministry like the GOA has given, we would be much further along than we are as a national media ministry.

So, does the GOA have problems? Of course they do. Are they too ethnocentric? No more than other parishes with a particular dominance of a particular ethnicity, including convert parishes who are more interested in creating another ethnic clique out of our American experiences.

For my salvation, God has graciously led me to serve in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. By God's grace and in His time if He gives me the grace of the priesthood, I will serve a GOA parish. If God is merciful, it will be in the Metropolis of Atlanta, so I will not have to be exiled from my beloved South too long. I am grateful to the Greek Archdiocese for its support and I will not bite the hand that feeds me, nor will I reject the authentic Orthodox witness and the potential for much more that I have happily discovered here among the Greeks.

May God grant many years to my beloved Metropolitan ALEXIOS and may his tribe increase!

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE

I have a confession to make. I have been allowing life to interfere with my blogging. Sorry for the lack of updates! :-)

I am enjoying working on the articles about the Church. The more I contemplate this awesome mystery, the more I find that I have to learn. The divine mystery of the Church is meant for my salvation. It isn't meant to create an organizational structure for some utilitarian reason. It is meant to be an icon of Christ and His Kingdom.

More on this later.

As I am researching these articles, we are in the middle of the launch of The Ark, our new 24 hour radio outreach on the Internet. It is very much a work in progress.

Some have questioned the very idea of "contemporary Orthodox Christian music." I understand their concerns. I came from a Christian world dominated by "Jesus is my girlfriend" music. It was sappy, sentimental, and shallow, Yuk! However, I also remember contemporary music that drew me to adore God.

As for contemporary Orthodox Christian music, we are learning all the time of sincere and thoughtful Orthodox Christian musicians who are attempting to use the depth and beauty of the "sublime theology" of the Church to craft songs that reveal Orthodoxy to a generation of people who have never had it before. This music can be a bridge for folks who have never heard of the Orthodox faith. It can also be a bridge to nominal Orthodox people who are still ignorant of the treasure they were born in to.

At the very least, it is an alternative for our Orthodox people to the stuff they are bombarded with every day.

Some may suggest that we do nothing but bask in the rich liturgical sounds of the faith at all times, and I welcome their voice, but perhaps there is more to be said here.

I'd like to hear from you about this. What dangers do you see? Is there a chance that some converts from Evangelicalism are over reacting to something that reminds them of the world they left? Is there anything in contemporary music that can be redeemed by the faith?

Maybe you have other questions. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Just make sure they are respectful and helpful.

Barnabas

SHARE THE LIGHT SUNDAY

While I work on my articles concerning the Church, I wanted to update the site about something happening in our Orthodox churches here in America.

As some of you know, I am the development director for Orthodox Christian Network. OCN is a SCOBA agency that is responsible for creating a national, sustainable, and effective media witness for the Church here in the US. We currently produce and syndicate the weekly half hour radio program called "Come Receive The Light" across the country (soon to launch in Houston in February!).

Our SCOBA hierarchs have declare the third Sunday in January national "Share The Light Sunday" for all our Orthodox parishes across the nation. Here is an excerpt from their recent Encyclical:

But the day and age in which we live offers us so many ways to effectively communicate the message of faith to our neighbors and families. We live in an age when communication technologies have expanded our ability to raise awareness of our Orthodox faith as never before. Technologies like the internet, podcasting, cell phones, as well as TV, radio, and print, challenge us to take advantage of these new tools to obey the command of the Savior. These
technologies are already being used by many to communicate to our children and grand children, and those messages, some good and some not so good, are affecting our lives every day. Where is the sweet, balanced, and salvation bearing voice of Orthodoxy in this modern cacophony of messages?

It is because of this unprecedented opportunity to serve the local parishes through media that we have set aside the third Sunday in January as Share The Light Sunday. This year it falls on Sunday, January 21, 2007, and we urge each parish to enthusiastically participate by passing a special tray on this Sunday to help us build a national, sustainable, and effective media witness for our Orthodox Churches.

Let us together take up these valuable talents and use them faithfully to serve one another and this nation, and together we will hear from our Lord “Well done.”

Here at OCN we are also excited to be launching The Ark on this same Share The Ligth Sunday. The Ark is going to be a 24 hour internet radio outreach that will feature contemporary Orthodox Christian artists like Fr. Peter Jon Gilquist, Fr. Justin Matthews, Jimmy Santis, Eikona, Monica Matthews, and Ron Moore. For too long these talents Orthdoox musicians had few outlets to help us contextualize the beauties of Orthodoxy for this music-centered culture.

You will be able to hear The Ark on our web site receive.org. I hope you'll listen and give us some feedback about our initial efforts.

We are working hard to use media in constructive and challenging ways to raise the awareness of Orthodoxy in the lives of everyday Americans, and to support the faithful as they live in a culture all too often shaped by the exact opposite of Orthodox Christianity.

Please pray for OCN this weekend that we will be faithful to the Master with the talents He has given us.

AND THEY WAITED

Dear Ones,

Please forgive the lack of updates. Life has been interfering with my blogging.

I do hope to have something later this week on the Church. Thanks for visiting and thanks for commenting. This is both educational and edifying to me.

B

SEEKING AND FINDING THE CHURCH

George Barna has just released a new "Barna Update" about house churches as oppossed to conventional churches.

In this most recent study by Barna, he continues his crusade to highlight what he calls "new forms of the Church" that he suggests is the wave of the future (see his book Revelution: The New Church: Understand It).

Having had my "home church" phase, I'd like to suggest that this phenomenon occuring now is simply another symptom of the perpetually weak ecclesiology to be found in Evangelicalism. This ecclesiological weakness is a constant preassure on Evangelicalism to find the "new way" to do Church. This eternal "tail chasing" in an attempt to keep up with cultural and sociological shifts means that the ground is always shifting under the Evangelical's feet.

What motivates this perpetual search for the Church? I believe many of these sincere believers are looking for authentic Church. Every new "reform" movement in modern Evangelicalism had at its heart a desire for the Church. From the "Body Life" movement of the 60's and 70's, to the "Shepherding movement during the "Jesus Freak" years, to the ebb and flow of popularity of "house churches," seeking believers intuitively understand that there is something wrong with current church life.

This unease with the Church experience of many Evangelicals is primarily a theological problem.

A recent talk given by Terry Mattingly entitled "So What Do Converts Want, Anyway?" really gives language to what many Evangelicals are struggling with when it comes to church life. These concerns are really what sends a good number of converts to the Orthodox Church from Evangelicalism.

But at the heart of this longing is a theological issue: Where is the Church? Perhaps even a more elementary question is being asked: What is the Church?

These struggles may manifest themselves as a longing for intimacy, a search for genuine accountability, or even a desire for a sense of significance. Believers will seek to satisfy this sense of loss by trying "new forms of church." They will seek answers in estatic expereriences and religious fervor. They will change denominations, churches, even cities, trying to scratch the "itch" of the Church.

Some will settle on some form of expereince that at least "helps." Orthers will, tragically, conclude that there is no such thing as "Church" and will give up the search.

But the answer lies in a willingness to discover that which has always been true - the Church established by Christ, built on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets, and birthed at Pentecost is an observable, tracable, and avaiable reality today. It will require some effort and humility, but we can know where the Church is and what the Church is!

I'd like to write a few articles in the coming days concerning ecclesiology. The good news is we are not left to our own devices. We can learn about how the Church has known Herself through the centuries, and we can flee to the arms of this indispensible Mother.

As a wise father once said "You cannot have God as your Father without the Church as your Mother."

BEHOLD ALL THINGS ARE MADE NEW

Exterior journeys often reveal the need in my own heart for interior, spiritual journeys, and this road trip I am now completing is no exception.

But lately I've been dwelling on the passage in 2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Here we are at the end of one calendar year and at the beginning of another and I am longing for "newness." This longing is both a desire for escape (bad) and renewal (good). I long for newness to escape the effects of all my "oldness," my old ways, passions, and attitudes - all a result of my own slavery to survival as opposed to true life. My selfish desire is for a "clean slate" so I can instantly escape the consequences of my past behavior and sinfulness.

But St. Paul is talking about a new kind of "newness." He means a newness that is rooted in a relationship with Fire Himself. It is an invitation to the Divine Furnace of unconditional love. It is a challenge to enter "into" Christ, to "dare to call upon God as Father and to say - Our Father Who art in heaven..." This "newness" is a place of perpetual "newness," a place where I AM new eternally in Christ, a place of eternal renewal. Every event, every behavior, every thought, attitude, and action is always new in this Fire.

Terrifying, isn't it, and compelling.

To enter this newness will mean "old things" MUST pass away. They must become what they are - death. They must be allowed to be dropped as the weights they are and to rot and decay, because they have the fatal flaw of the fallen - they are disconnected from eternity, and any attempt to bring them with me will doom my own journey into this "newness."

Here I stand at a new year. This moment is new. It has never existed before and when it is passed it will never exist again. Only that which shares in Christ - The One New Man - will be able to pass from this fleeting moment into eternity. All else will participate in that death that is the second death.

I am invited by Christ to enter Him and His eternal newness. This will be a lifelong journey and it will cost me everything I have and am. Far from being some magical, instantaneous transfer, this will be an eternally new entering with every choice, every thought, and every prayer. Perpetual hope and challenge, but without even a whiff of despair because He loves me more than I, myself, know how to love.

Come, all the brave among you, let us enter the Furnace of this newness with fear and joy.

Happy New Year!

SIGN UP FOR EMAILS

If you look right below my stat counter logo, you will notice a new serivce here at Sober Joy!

It's FeedBlitz.

If you add your email in the box provided, you can have the posts from Sober Joy emailed to you when they are updated.

I hope this makes keeping up with the blog easier for you. Let me know what you think.

Barnabas

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITLE CHRISTMAS

Well, gentle reader, the Powell family is off on a visit to extended family to celebrate the Birth that changed the cosmos.

I will be forgoing updating for the next several days but will renew our little visits after a short holiday break.

By the way, thank you for coming by and thanks also for those who've requested republication permission for church bulletins and papers. Please feel free to use what you wish with proper attribution to my little slice of the blogosphere.

I beg your prayers as we travel and rest assured you remain in ours.

Once again to Bethlehem, dear ones, with an expectant eye toward the eastern sky.

Merry Christmas,
Barnabas

LOOK HOW SMALL GOD HAS MADE HIMSELF

We are almost at the Manger. Soon we will hear the joyous announcement that "Christ IS born!" Soon the time for feasting will have arrived. Soon, the Bridegroom will return and His Bride will have made herself ready!

Soon!

Until then, please join me in contemplating the "smallness" of God. Read Fr. Stephen's post and let's consider our need for smallness and weakness.

It is said that the angels of heaven peered over the edge of heaven the day Jesus was born and looked into the manger. One angel turned to the other and said “My, look how small God has made Himself.”

A blessed Nativity to you all.

Barnabas

O VIRGIN THEOTOKOS

The icon above was instrumental in helping me overcome a very Protestant mindset about Mary.

And, as usual, it was in answer to the question Christ put to His disciples that brought me to this epiphany: "Who do you say that I am?" If Jesus is fully God and fully man, then His mother is Theotokos, as the 4th Council at Chalcedon declared.

And if Jesus IS God in the flesh, then the womb of this woman was "more spacious than the heavens." I truly love the theology tied to the Incarnation and Mary precisely because it fills up my realization of Who Jesus IS.

Evangelicals worry that devotion and contemplation of Mary will detract from Jesus, and this is a danger, but since when did we allow truth to be sacrificed for "safety?" Doing theology is inherently dangerous. We handle truths that are always too big for us, any of us. We deal with the "fire" of the Uncreated energies of God Himself. It is always dangerous to do theology. Always!

But that authentic danger should not keep us from the sublime theology that expands our souls and calls us to deeper faithfulness to Christ.

And the danger is not diminished if we retreat to perceived "safe" positions. In fact, the danger there is that we will open the door to a watered down Christology just as we were working hard to "protect" our devotion to Jesus alone.

But Christ is never concerned about devotion and honor shown to His Mother. In fact, His last act from the Cross was to give her as mother to all His disciples when He entrusted her care to St. John. In that act Jesus shared His mother with all His disciples through the ages.

Thankfully, some Evangelicals and even some Pentecostals are re-discovering the value of Mary in devotion and honor. A TV preacher I heard recently was strongly admonishing his audience to remember the faithfulness of Mary, and the fact that she was the most unique woman who ever lived. He commented that Jesus was "with" the disciples, but He had been inside Mary. That bond lasted right up to Calvary's cross. As he put it: "From the Manger to the Mountain." But then this Pentecostal preacher added something else that brought tears to my eyes.

He went on to talk about the day of Pentecost and how the Holy Spirit descended on all the Apostles. He said for them it was a first time experience having the Holy Spirit overshadow them and fill them, but Mary looked around and said "I know this Presence."

This certainly is a less theologically precise way of saying deep theological truths, but the very fact that it is being said at all is such a source of joy.

As we approach the Manger, dear ones, let's stop and sing with the Church:

O Virgin Theotokos, Rejoice, O Mary full of grace.
The Lord is with you.
Blessed are you among women
And blessed is the fruit of your womb
For you have borne the Savior of our souls

Holy May, Mother of God, pray for us that we too might conceive in our bodies the Lord Jesus, and that we might also attain unto God. Amen

ARE YOU SAVED

I want to draw your attention to a wonderful article on Fr. Stephen's blog entitled "Are You Saved."

It has generated quite a discussion and I find the talk about the Orthodox view of salvation very encouraging.

The contemporary reduction of all things theological to the size of a bumper sticker creates so many problems for us. This reduction, all in the name of simplicity, has so stripped the Christian message of meat as to leave nothing left but the memories of past glory. We must reject the temptation to minimize our theology.

It is difficult and it is hard and it is dangerous, but this theology is the ultimate human work, so it should be challenging. Let's do the work, folks.

Please stop by and learn.

WHERE IS THE CHURCH

Former Lutheran pastor John Fenton, has a thought provoking article on his blog about his journey to Orthodoxy.

In it he is asked the question "Where is the Church?"

For me, this is a fundamental question that has a real answer.

You see, for me, my own spiritual journey brought me to the same place. For years I believed the Church was "invisible" made up of all those who claimed Jesus as their Savior and had accepted His lordship over their lives.

While this pietistic theory of ecclesiology seemed to serve me well, it eventually has to end in heresy because the Church IS the Body of Christ. Christ is fully God and fully man. He was visible and real during His earthly ministry, and His Body still maintains these characteristics of reality - visibility and authenticity.

To suggest otyherwise is to toy with the heresy of docetism.

Ecclesiology is the "undiscovered country" for most of Protestantism, and specifically Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism.

When one confronts the issues related to this primary question "Where is the Church?" one will begin to see other issues become clearer.

Ultimately, this question, as with most other questions of theology end up with the Person of Jesus Christ. All heresies somehow attempt to distort Who Jesus Christ is or to deny Him. The issue of ecclesiology is no different. A weak ecclesiology WILL result in a weakened Christology, and that "corruption" will eventually make its way into the everyday lives of believers.

What we believe theologically always incarnates itself in our behavior. That's why we will come to the final judgement as either "sheep" or "goats." What we already "are" will only be revealed there, not imposed there.

Lord, have mercy.

THE FIRE FAILS

As I have said previously, I am convinced the modern Pentecostal movement offers the Christian Church a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the timeless faith of the Apostles and the balance of mystery and rationalism that has all but been lost in the Christian West.

However, I also believe that Pentecostalism is a system of theology that cannot and will not bring anyone to the fullness of the faith "once for all delivered to the saints."

This is not because Pentecostal people are "bad." It isn't because Pentecostal or Charismatic theology is "wrong" or "evil." It is because the underlying theological foundation for Pentecostal and Charismatic theology is poverty stricken. It is simply too weak to bear the weight of the fullness of the Apostolic faith.

Coming as I do from a Pentecostal background, that word "Apostolic" holds a particularly pregnant meaning. Unfortunately, my understanding of "apostolic" was quite deficient during my days as a Pentecostal.

In fact, the very tendency in the West to break off into "factions" and "denominations" is particularly strong among Pentecostals. This revealed itself early on in the movement over the issue of water baptism. Being cut off from the wisdom of the Church these sincere believers embodied all that was wrong about the Protestant innovation of "Sola Scriptura." They did not have access to the wise understanding of the Trinity preserved in the Church so they mistook the trinitarian teaching for tri-theism and reacted against what they perceived as a heresy.

But this so-called "new issue" demonstrates the first theological poverty of Pentecostalism: A poverty of communion with the saints.

Since Protestantism tends to reduce the Christian faith to certain theological propositions, the Pentecostals allowed this reduction full flower in their attempts to "recapture" the power of the first century Church. Feeling no sense of connection with their fellow Christians throughout the ages, the Pentecostals only care for those first century believers that they see as their true heritage. They are also willing to adopt other heretical groups through the centuries that seemed to bolster their notions of ecstatic experiences as THE theological stamp of approval.

This lack of connection with the Church through the centuries meant that the Pentecostals were left to their own devices and fell into many, if not most, of the heresies of the past.

The second poverty of Pentecostalism is the rank individualism that permeates the entire movement. this again is a flowering in the Pentecostal movement of the general poverty of Western Christianity. Individualism reduces faith to "me and Jesus got our own thing going" and reduces Church to either a religious pep rally or, worse yet, a Christian self-help group. Worship is measured by how it made me "feel" rather than what it reveals about the Uncreated God. Hence Pentecostals and Charismatics tend to measure their spiritual growth by their experience of "victory" in their personal lives. But the narcissistic weakness of this religious poverty guarantees a perpetual spiritual "kindergarten" for these believers.

One of the unintended consequences" of this gross individualism is the "cult of personality" that naturally arises when a dependence on individual abilities is emphasized. Pentecostal groups are usually founded on some strong personality who has the gift of gab and a flare for the theatrical. Unfortunately, "the arm of flesh will fail you" and the cultural landscape is littered with the sad lives of men (and some women) who simply could not maintain the fevered pitch expected of them from their loyal following. The stories of emotional, psychological, and event physical manipulation, all for "God's glory," are simply too numerous to mention.

Another poverty that I see in Pentecostalism is the weak theological dependence on ecstatic religious experiences. This true hunger in the soul of a person for an authentic and intimate experience of the presence of God cannot be truly satisfied with self-centered religious phenomena. In fact, much like sweets ruins your appetite, so the spiritual "cotton candy" of shallow ecstatic religious experiences, brought on as much by psychological peer pressure as by anything divine, deaden this good hunger and eventually creates an almost narcotic dependence on these less than satisfying religious events.

Interestingly enough this emphasis of emotional experiences not only leads to a kind of religious addiction, but also feeds other physical desires as well. Most Pentecostals do not like to talk about the strong minority of sexual weaknesses that tend to dominate many Pentecostal and Charismatic sub cultures. This emphasis on keeping the emotions heightened at all times, or reducing worship to experiencing a religious "high" tends to reinforce a lack of physical discipline. Recent events are the exceptions that many times prove the rule.

Finally, the greatest poverty I see in Pentecostalism is theological. While this is changing, Pentecostalism has traditionally been suspicious of theological training. Seminary instruction was considered suspect, and a reliance on the education of the "Spirit" was more valued. But beyond that there is a real and debilitating "historical amnesia" among Pentecostals that impoverishes their religious education. There is so much wisdom preserved in the Church that is simply unknown to most Christians nowadays and that ignorance is dangerous. It means there are generations of believers who will have to learn all over again lessons already learned by their brothers and sisters of the past. What you don't know CAN hurt you.

There are hopeful signs. A recent Pew Poll found that speaking in tongues, a strong distinctive of Pentecostalism, is waning. Post-graduate work is becoming not only acceptable among Pentecostals but expected. And whole new denominations have formed by Pentecostals and Charismatics wanting to overcome the inherent weaknesses of their own shallow religious traditions by discovering the wisdom of ages past.

For me, however, the natural home for Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians is the Orthodox Christian Church. Here there is a trustworthy "fireplace" for the Pentecostal "fire." Many are surprised to hear me say that it was my Pentecostalism that prepared me for my journey to Orthodoxy. In Eastern Orthodoxy there is a comfort level theologically for paradox and mystery. As opposed to the West where rationalism has been allowed free reign, Orthodoxy's emphasis on the present work of the Holy Spirit provides a theological balance for a sterile theological rationalism that may excite the mind but leaves the soul cold. Pentecostals and Charismatics will discover in Orthodoxy the wisdom necessary to avoid all the pitfalls so often present in the world of Pentecostalism. There are theological remedies for and spiritual medicine that provide authentic healing and spiritual health for those weary of the eternal search for the everlasting "goose bump."

Pentecostalism reveals the primary spiritual poverty of the West. This is its greatest gift to the Christian world. But we cannot remain ignorant of the fatal weaknesses of Pentecostalism without condemning generations of sincere believers to a life of a perpetual "spiritual kindergarten."

So, to all my precious Pentecostal and Charismatic friends, I say to you what Philip said to Nathaniel: "Come and see!"