If Christians Enjoy Making Assertions, Why Speak with Them?

Asserting the Source of goodness for all: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

 

“…and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.” – Philemon 1:6

Christians, as the 16th century reformer Martin Luther liked to remind us, are those who assert things and even enjoy doing so! So how can this play out in our relationships with others without our being totally obnoxious or even dangerous? (OK, I’ll admit, as someone who has at times alienated family and friends, maybe I am not the one to be writing this). Especially when we increasingly live in a world where there are non-Christians who also are very forthright that they assert, and others who shy away from the fact and even deny that they do this (they are not ideologues like you!), preferring to talk about approaching everything in terms of being “working hypotheses subject to testing” (think of that most amiable of atheists, Steven Pinker).

You know, “truth”, but never truth and especially not Truth.

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a colleague about… conversation. During it, I had basically asked him whether he thought it was ever appropriate to go into a conversation quite sure that you are right and the other persons is wrong, and with a desire to help that person “see the light”. He said, in part, that the main purpose of going into any conversation is to learn something, and that this is a “newly developing paradigm” which is opposed to what he sees as the predominant way of communicating: conversation at someone with the intent to change minds which are seen as pliable and weak (to illustrate his point, he talked about war propaganda in the West – things like this).

Here is what I said in reply:

I see the purpose of conversation, in general, as being to love my neighbor, who bears the image of God. This means, in general, not going into a conversation to learn something for myself, but to listen to them and to respond accordingly in love. If I learn something – or if I am able to more explicitly articulate the nature of God’s love for them – that is an added bonus.

Of course, we are still attracted to certain persons and want to start conversations with them because of our curiosity to learn – true enough. Other times, we are happy to have other “excuses” to start a conversation with this or that person we find attractive (and here, having a dog or a baby can help). But the Christian “stand” is to realize that God, in the midst of all of this, throws all our “conversation partners” into our path, and we dare not discriminate against any human being.

Thanks for helping me to realize that, to articulate what I know (for what I know is what I have yet to be shown is false).

The answer I gave here dovetails with another conversation I had this past week with a student, which kind of expands on the “posture”, or “stand”, I describe above. Stacie said the following:

This last week of class was interesting for me.  I work in child protections which in its self can be heart wrenching.  Thinking about government and God was something that I have always learned to separate.  However, I do my job because the love that God gave me for children and families; well I guess people in general.  Many times when walking downtown and seeing an elderly homeless man I see the eyes of Jesus. That may sound strange but I feel that it’s my responsibility to help these individuals.  I think that it’s important for us to get back to the basics.  Christianity is something that needs to be lived on the inside and outside.  I think that if we follow in God we will be better leaders and be better equipped to handle the situations that seem hopeless.

Holding the urge to speak here about how “social justice is not the Gospel” (believe me, in the class I do talk again and again about how the Gospel is first of all about what I Corinthians 15 says it is… Christ’s rescue of sinners from sin, death, and the devil through His death and resurrection) here is how I answered her:

I agree with you. Christ is in all. He is distinct from us, as He is our Creator, but He is in you and me and everyone else. In Him, we are told, “we live and move and have our being” (see Paul in Acts 17). That does not mean that all believe and are saved, but that His love moves all of us and anything that is good in life is to be attributed to Him.

I think my default orientation should be to be a “little Christ” to my neighbor. To come to them and love them with His strong love. I am to imitate Christ and to be Christ’s hands and feet and mouth to them. This responsibility starts with my own church, which, I thank God, includes my immediate family. It then means my friends and closest neighbors, particularly those who are fellow believers, and radiates outward – to include the whole world. Still, love is concrete and should start closest to home. It is easy to “love” my abstract “neighbor”. Love should never be content to have loved enough, in terms of the intensity of our love or the number of those we love.

Why such an active orientation? It is better to give than to receive, Jesus said. This is the kind of person that we want to be. All this said, we must receive! There is a time to realize we must just stop, shut up, and receive. We must receive from our neighbors, as they love us – with material and emotional assistance, but particularly with spiritual assistance – as they give us God’s life-giving word. If we are not first receivers we not only have nothing to give, but we die. It is really good to receive Jesus through words – and a big part of this is receiving these words from the saints of old as well – particularly those saints who God used to write the Bible.

With all of this said about being an active giver I note that I don’t feel like I excel at this by any means, even sadly, with something as simple as “lending an ear” (my wife will tell you…). And there are even some times I feel like I can basically only receive… and cry out: “Lord save me/us!”

And by your pulling me aside and reminding me – asserting to me! – that “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!” you love me.

That is why I need you to speak with me – and to me.

FIN

 

Image: Christ True Vine {PD-1923}

 

35 (or 33) Christian Theses (and Core Assumptions) About the Character of God, Man, Language, and Interpretation

“It is impossible to revere the Scriptures more deeply or affirm them more completely than Jesus did.”—Kevin DeYoung

For discussion. What would you take out? What would you add?:

1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4)
2. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” (I John 4:16)[i]
3. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (I John 4:10)
4. “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (I Cor. 1:18)
5. Language – communication with those who address us or whom we address in order to talk to or about one another, the world, the variety of goals therein, etc. – is from God and is a great gift of His love.
6. Operating under the assumption that there is a Divine Being who is responsible for the cosmos, it makes perfect sense to think that this Divine Being would take appropriate measures to clearly communicate with His creatures.
7. Communication exists primarily for the sake of love between persons, particularly the Creator and the crown of His creatures, man.
8. Johann Gerhard’s statement, “God has communicated his entire self to you. Communicate also your entire self to your neighbor”, is well said.
9. While we communicate by a variety of largely non-oral means, God chooses to give us certainty of His gracious presence for us through simple and humble things like His words to us (also bread and wine).
10. Not only are appointed ministers of the Gospel told that “he who hears you hears me”, but “if anyone speaks, let him speak the oracles of God”, that is, words, which are “at work in you believers”. (I Thes. 2:13)
11. In fact, “The word… is a living and life-giving instrument of the Spirit; it is in and of itself light, life, power, as many, many Scripture passages explicitly and implicitly make clear”. (Wenz, Armin)
    

    Was any of the N.T. God’s will? “Christ never wrote a word. Christ never commanded his disciples to write a word. They were commanded to go forth, preach the gospel and to Baptize.” — Father Stephen Freeman

12. At work in us, words shape and change us, either in the direction of maturity, as God desires, or immaturity, as His enemy the devil desires.  It is through language that God reveals Himself to us and calls us by name.[ii]
13. More specifically, the key purpose of communication, specifically but not limited to oral language, is that it enables us to share, intelligently navigate, pursue goals in, and enjoy the world and with other persons, present as well as past (i.e. remembering).
14. Such is God’s design:  all things were created first and foremost for us human beings to inhabit and share together in communion with Him.
15. This is not to say that truth in language is unimportant – it is always important, even as technical accuracy is not always needed nor even desirable.  To say “the sun rises” today still, post-Galileo, still does not strike us as wrong or in need of adjustment.  This holds true for both oral and written communication, for example.
16. What is more important – the basis for beneficial communication – is that persons be true, hence acting truly.[iii]
17. Providentially, speech and the written word are especially critical for making clear to human beings what may be known about God, humanity, and God’s creation – as well as knowledge of our salvation: what it means to be justified before God and to live as His people.
18. Usually – and sadly – when one hears about how we must articulate the “living reality” of Christian faith and an “organic-historical view” of the same, the real and substantial core of historic Christian proclamation is in the process of being removed.
19. As regards the matter of proper interpretation of God’s word, man cannot avoid being an interpreter of what he hears, and yet, by the Spirit, he gladly acknowledges that the criterion of God’s word is not himself but God’s self.[iv]
20. Passages like Rom. 3:19-20 instruct us that when we hear God’s word it is not the time for us to be emphasizing how we are inevitably interpreters of the words of others (perhaps even testing them against other things we know and are confident are true).
21. The “validation” of God’s word is never subject to our evaluation of its truthfulness to any degree whatsoever.  Nor is the establishment of God’s word in any degree based on our critical evaluation of it.
22. Re: most modern theological hermeneutical approaches: “By principally making the interpretation [of the Christian Scriptures] dependent on an existentialist preunderstanding, which is supposedly “universal” to modern man, the result is not communication with the author of the message.  Instead the result is nothing but a monologue with the reader.” (Wenz, Armin)[v]
23. As God unfolds the Christian message before us, particularly from the Holy Scriptures (not a “dead letter in need of an external light”[vi]), much can be learned about the specific nature of the world He has created, including the crown of His creation, humanity.
24. As regards the Christian Scriptures in particular, “Truths that might not be understandable or plausible, when seen in the light of preunderstanding [i.e. something like Plato’s anamnesis], receive their plausibility when seen in the light of their specific, that is, canonical context.” (Wenz, Armin)
25. “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” (Mark Twain)
26. “…when [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me…” (John 16: 8, 9)
27. “[God] has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30)
    

    Bart Erhman, mountain or molehill? The latter: highly respected by the world, but nevertheless easily dismissible.

28. “To join the human race is not merely a consequence of our biological birth; to become human is to answer, to become a language-maker ourselves, an activity that presupposes an interlocutor.” (Bade, David, linguist)
29. We have no right to assert when that answering begins or has not begun. We should always error on the side of caution, assuming that it begins, in some real sense, when what we call “biological life” begins.
30. We can responsibly speak about the meaning of the words persons speak to us.  For example, “what do you mean by that?”
31. Related to this, as regards the idea of “dialectic”, Abelard’s teacher Rosylyn was wrong to insist on what some have called “vocalism”: the idea that dialectic deals with words and not things.
32. And yet, in addition to saying “…mean by that?” we also say “What do you mean?”, rightly putting the focus on the person and his intended meaning.  And it is even more important to recognize and understand the persons involved – the wider context of the relationship, and, in fact, the meaning of the relationship.[vii]
33. To say this is not to say that the world of non-persons – perceptible but uncommunicative or less communicative objects – is unimportant.  It, of course, is critical.
34. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” (I John 4:16)
35. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4)
    

    “God’s Word is like bread, intrinsically possessing nutritious power that does not depend on whether it is eaten or not.” – Abraham Calov

Additional food for thought:

For more on the issue of the perspicuity of the Scriptures, listen to this White Horse Inn podcast. To see how what a “behind-the-times” piker Karl Barth was see this post. For more about biblical hermeneutics, listen to this Just and Sinner podcast interviewing Pastor Rich Shields and see this post about Luther, Zwingli, and the Hermeneutical Principles of the Lutheran (Christian!) Church. For thoughts about the self-attestation of the truth and “self-authenticating” nature of the Christian message and its relation to evidential and rational considerations, see my series on TSSI (i.e. the “testimonium Spiritu Sancti internum” or internal testimony of the Holy Spirit).

FIN

Notes:

[i] This is truly what it means to start on a high note, rightly praising and exalting love, and strongly exhorting and enticing with the highest and most perfect example. If you talk all day about love being the most precious and most perfect virtue, it is as nothing compared to what John says: “God himself is love.” Accordingly, if you wanted to give a fitting depiction of God, you would have to come up with a picture that is sheer love, as if the divine nature is nothing but a fiery furnace and heat of such a love that fills heaven and earth. Conversely, if you could draw and depict love, you would have to come up with such a picture that would not be artful or human, not even angelic or heavenly, but that would be God himself. (Vol. I, Wittenberg ed., on 1 John) Luther’s Bible Treasures, Lutheran Press, Minneapolis, 2015

[ii] Some quotes from non-theologians exploring this more from a simple human perspective:

“Out of a thousand cares, impressions, and influences which surround, flow around, and beset it, a child gradually stakes out its borders as an independent entity. Its first discovery on its own, therefore, is that it is neither world, nor mother or father, nor God, but something else. The first thing that happens to the child–to every person–is that it is spoken to. It is smiled at, entreated, rocked, comforted, punished, given presents, or nourished. It is first a “you” to a powerful being outside itself–above all to its parents. …Hearing others say that we exist and mean something to them, and that they want something from us, precedes our articulating that we ourselves exist and our articulating what we ourselves are. We develop self-consciousness by receiving commands and by being judged from outside.” (Rosenstock-Huessy,  quoted in David Bade, unpublished paper)

The linguist David Bade comments: “[in] Rosenstock-Huessy’s insistence that language is in its origin and [sic?] always the call of one to another, then rather than referring to language as a thing out there he is always referring to a community of speakers teaching us their language that we might make it our own, voices not within our brain but from the world around us who guide us into the world we make together “towards an unknown future.” It is the speaking community, not a linguistic system, that teaches us and guides us…

For Rosenstock-Huessy, our language is always a response to a prior call from another: we listen to the past and speak now towards the future. His understanding is also in marked contrast with the “scientific” linguistics of Max Müller who argued that “Languages can be analysed and classified on their own evidence … without any reference to the individuals, families, clans, tribes, nations or races by whom they are or have been spoken” (quoted on p. 16, Bade, unpublished paper)

Rosenstock-Huessy again: “Nature” is an abstraction from the saturated-with-language-world, the world minus speech. “Nature” is the result of a subtraction. It is a misleading word, because it seems innocent, a primordial sound, an “a priori.” Yet this is to get everything upside-down for in our actual experience voices call us into life first of all, and water, earth, and wind may concern us only after membership in society and participation in language securely lash us above the abyss of nature. (Rosenstock-Huessy, quoted in David Bade, unpublished paper)

[iii] “true” can also mean good things like being genuine, authentic, sincere, caring, firm in allegiance, loyal, steadfast as well. For example, we speak of true feelings, having a true interest in another’s welfare, or being a true friend. Here, in this sense, it seems to me that “real” could serve as a synonym of true. See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/true

[iv] For example, these statements from Fowl, in his book “Engaging Scripture”, are problematic: “…theological convictions, ecclesial practices, and communal and social concerns should shape and be shaped by biblical interpretation” and “Biblical interpretation will be the occasion of a complex interaction between the biblical text and the varieties of theological, moral, material, political, and ecclesial concerns that are part of the contexts in which they find themselves.” (p. 60).

As an alternative to this way of putting it, I recommend something like the following:

In the midst of the regular human act of listening (or reading), proper interpretation of the Christian Scriptures in man’s imagination in these last days is a gift of God given by the Holy Spirit, has Christ as its focus, and no longer interprets particular books of the Scriptures in, to some degree, the light of the contemporary circumstances of the church within the world, but now interprets contemporary circumstances in the church within the world primarily in light of the whole of the Scriptures, as the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to interpret Scripture, in line with the legitimate oral tradition bound by the rule of faith (i.e. interpretation is conformed to the articles of faith, the loci, or “seats of doctrine”) and attested to by miracles, i.e. those performed among men by the Triune God

[v] And in the context of an scientifically naturalistic understanding of the world, even infused with some kind of pantheism or soft theism, doing theology from an existential framework is simply a stepping stone towards shifting or adapting “universal” understandings – antithetical to God’s eternal law and gospel.

[vi] Because of God’s providence and the personal power of the Holy Spirit who is always ready to speak to mankind, we cannot responsibly say otherwise than that God’s Word is like bread, intrinsically possessing nutritious power that does not depend on whether it is eaten or not (Calov) – this means that the Scriptures as well must always be seen as a spiritual, effective and sacramental power (Wenz, Armin)…

[vii] “When we answer, we neither repeat merely what the first speaker has said nor do we start in our own language.  … To articulate, then, is a highly complicated act that implies both: identity and variation. Without identifying ourselves with the language as it stands, and as we find it, we cannot say our word, and without varying and deflecting this material in a specific direction that is constituting a new situation created by our own choosing, our entering the ring of the speaking folks would be useless.  … the irresponsible way of using ready-made slogans and judgments in mere repetition without making them ourselves here and now, under our own name, is a vilification of language.” (Rosenstock-Huessy)….

The linguist David Bade comments again: “Barthes, Harris and Rosenstock-Huessy might all have agreed that the unsponsored language of slogans was politically irresponsible and destructive of human relationships, but Rosenstock-Huessy went so far as to insist that in authentic speech there are not only no repetitions but “Es gibt keine Synonyme. [There are no synonyms.]” (Rosenstock-Huessy).”

My note: all interesting thoughts worthy of reflection: but to avoid an infinite regress here, we must assume some common ground somewhere – where we can, in a very real sense, begin to understand one another and the things we choose to speak about because we begin to really understand the words that are being used.

 

Should you Trust Father Freeman’s View of the Reformation? (or, Why Consider Confessional Lutheranism before Eastern Orthodoxy?)

Confessional Lutheran Pastor Weedon, describing his almost-conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy: “waking up from an enchantment – a beautiful dream – that wasn’t real”

Update: My latest post regarding Father Stephen Freeman’s approach towards the Reformation is Questions some Eastern Orthodox Christians can not abide  Further, the full paper that contains the graphic below about the prevalence of patristic literature in the 16th century is here. 

****

I would venture that the Eastern Orthodox blogger Father Stephen Freeman is one of the foremost evangelists for Eastern Orthodoxy in America today. This is why, in my opinion, he should be effectively answered – so that those Protestants seeking for alternatives would know that there is much truth they will be deprived of if they embrace his views as Gospel.

Father Freeman has put up yet another rhetorically powerful post arguing against the typical Protestant view of the Bible. In the past, I have responded to him about issues like this here, here, and here (and Father Kimel at Eclectic Orthodoxy here). Unfortunately, he lumps all of Protestantism with the Reformation, calling our case “the tired rhetoric of the Reformation”. Actually, as a child of the Lutheran Reformation – which I submit was in fact a revival of patristic theology (a sneak peek at this below with more later this week) – I of course agree with some of Father Freeman’s key points (UPDATE: I would like to emphasize that I often have tried to find common ground with the E.O. – see my series “If all theology is Christology how wide the divide?  A reflection on Lutheranism and Eastern Orthodoxy“).

Writing against one of his Reformed critics Professor Michael J. Kruger, Father Freeman raises some strong points that would seem to counter-act most views of the Bible as “book”:

Kruger’s first points are to take me to task for arguing that “books” themselves are late inventions and contending that the Bible was not therefore thought of as a “book.” He indeed cites some early codices from the late 2nd or early 3rd centuries – but gives examples that actually reinforce my central point. He notes examples of bound gospels and an example of bound epistles. What he cites are precisely what we would expect: liturgical items. The Orthodox still use the Scriptures in this form – the Gospels as a book (it rests on the altar), and the Epistles as a book (known as the Apostol). They are bound in such a manner for their use in the services of the Church, not as private “Bibles.” These are outstanding examples of the Scriptures organized in their liturgical format for their proper use: reading in the Church.

16th c. Lutheran Martin Chemniz on Irenaeus’ view: “By the will of God, they began to commit to letters… not a contrary, not a different, not another doctrine, but that very same doctrine that they preached orally.” (Examination, p. 80)

(this said, we would also note reasons given not only in the N.T. books themselves but in church history as to occasion for their composition, i.e., things like safeguarding [see Luke1] the truth, to provide a statement and summary of the faith in writing [memory is frail], and it was necessary to counter heretics)

With this valid point, Father Freeman is off to the races in making other points that most Confessional Lutherans would be quick to agree with:

All of the “lists” that are cited in the notion of the evolution of the Canon are lists of what the Church reads. And the Church reads them in her services as the Divine Word of God, just as the Church herself is the Divine Body of Christ, just as the Liturgy is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, etc. The “Canon” of Scripture is as much a statement about the Church as it is about the Scriptures.

But all of this is lost, because for those who have reformed themselves out of communion with the historical faith and practice of Christianity, the context has been forgotten. They do not understand statements about the Church because they have forgotten the Church.

Yes – for example, as I heard recently from a commenter on one of my posts: “whenever you talk to a Calvinist about the early church fathers when it comes to the sacraments, they always seem to balk a little bit.”

Father Freeman: “The Church is the Scriptures and the Scriptures, rightly read, are the Church.” As those who don’t talk like this we would add that the Church, like the Scriptures, should be as God’s voice.

We serious Lutherans can even see the point of the following statement, with a word of caution about the kind of veneration (this can simply mean “to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference“) he has in mind:

Those who canonized the Scriptures venerated the Mother of God, honored the saints, prayed for the departed, believed the Eucharist to be the true Body and Blood of Christ. They were the same Orthodox Church that lives and believes today. You cannot honor their “Canon of Scripture” while despising the lives and Church of those who canonized them.

Speaking of “the very American reform community from which Kruger criticizes my Orthodox teaching”, Freeman gets in a really powerful zinger here (yes, please see the post for original context):

The Bread and the Wine of the Eucharist was universally believed to be the very Body and Blood of Christ. These men ate God (using the language of St. Ignatius of Antioch). Yes, the Scriptures are theopneustos (“God breathed”), but so is every human soul….

The Orthodox have never said that blacks do not have souls. 

(nor have Confessional Lutherans for that matter).

That said, on the other hand, Father Freeman says things like this:

….we acknowledge that the Scriptures cannot be rightly read outside of and apart from the life of the Church.

“It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”

While this is no doubt true insofar as it comes to understanding the Scriptures for all they are worth, we would want to emphasize, along with that great theologian Mark Twain, a key point (see pic)

Further, eager to distinguish His Church from all the children of the Reformation Father Freeman says:

The Scriptures are not “above” the Church nor the Church “above” the Scriptures. The Scriptures are “of” the Church and do not stand apart from the Church. 

…and later adds that

The championing of the Bible as the Word of God “over the Church” is a ruse. It is and has been a means of exalting culture and private fiefdoms over the proper life of the believing community, disrupting the continuity of faith.

An informed confessional Lutheran response is that all of this is all terribly simplistic. First of all, Father Freeman has heard me make the case that the Lutheran fight to preach as they saw fit – particularly at Magedburg in 1550 – simply cannot be seen in this way (see my comment to him about this here).

Second, let’s take this matter of the Scriptures – and I will begin by trying to emphasize common ground.  I would guess that we can agree that the Church ultimately comes from the Word of God, period – this really cannot and will not be disputed. We ultimately arise in both creation and redemption from the Word. The Church and the Word are always meant to go hand in hand, but, when conflict arises, the Church must submit to the Word from which it finds its life.

16th c. Roman Catholic W.D. Lindanus (1588): the nature of the Word of the Gospel abhors writing letters! (in Chemnitz, Examination, p. 75)

Of course, some Protestants of the Neo-Orthodox variety might want to, strictly speaking, limit the idea of the “Word of God” to the Person of Jesus Christ. Other Protestants, like N.T. Wright, are seemingly content to make sure Jesus Christ is the main focus of the church when it comes to speaking about “words”:

“When John declares that ‘in the beginning was the word,’ he does not reach a climax with ‘and the word was written down’ but ‘and the word became flesh’… scripture itself points… away from itself” (Wright, Scripture, 24, quoted on 136 of Peter Nafzger’s These Are Written)

Here is where we confessional Lutherans are keen to point out that we are not just talking about the Church living from the living Word Jesus Christ – but also “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” – words of Spirit and life that proceed from that Word’s mouth. In this view – which we fiercely contend is true – the Word includes but is it not limited to the Scriptures – in fact the oral or preached word, as Father Freeman says, is always to be seen as primary. I think that Father Freeman would be with me up to this point. Nevertheless, more must be said.

Wright not quite right.

Back to N.T. Wright for a moment: he is right because the good news is indeed not so much that God has given us His written word, but that He has given us the incarnate Word. Further when he says that the Holy Spirit does give us the incarnate Word through the written word (have Mark Twain and I lost Father Freeman at this point?). On the other hand, Wright goes wrong when he forgets to mention not only that the Scripture does in fact point to itself (Isaiah 8:20, Acts 17:11), but that it also points to the incarnate Word who points us back to the written word – particularly as it regards His fulfillment of its Divine prophecies (see Luke 7:18-23 in particular but also all throughout the New Testament – also note my recent series on the significance of this matter)!

I would appreciate it if Father Freeman would speak specifically to these things just mentioned in that previous paragraph. Why is this so important? I have noted this before, so I will not belabor the point: for Lutherans, “Sola Scriptura” simply means that if a conflict arises between the wider Church and its Scriptures, the Scriptures, properly interpreted, must certainly correct the Church.* (see this post, which features a very practical question) Today’s Church cannot contradict yesterday’s Church, assuming that it was in harmony with, and did not contradict the Scriptures. Based on all the reading I have done in this area, this is what the Fathers of the Church always taught.

A question for Father Freeman: Was any of the N.T. God’s will?  Acts 15:28 only?  “Christ never wrote a word. Christ never commanded his disciples to write a word. They were commanded to go forth, preach the gospel and to Baptize.” — Father Freeman

I must point out further realities that Father Freeman’s powerful rhetoric obscures:

“those who champion “God’s un-changing Word” and claim to be under the authority of the Bible cannot point to even two decades in which they have remained the same.”

I know Father Freeman knows that confessional Lutherans today all uphold the 1580 book of Concord, so I am puzzled as to why he thinks such blanket statements are responsible in any sense at all (see my own post where I emphasize this matter vs. Protestants myself).

Father Freeman is eager to have persons believe that Eastern Orthodoxy is the True Church of God on earth. Before any take that jump however, let me recommend listening to these videos from Pastor Will Weedon, a devout and beloved Lutheran pastor who got right to the edge of converting to Eastern Orthodoxy before turning away… Why could he not jump? Why, perhaps, should you not jump? Everyone who thinks that modern Eastern Orthodoxy is immune to good, sound criticism not just from the Scriptures but from their own spiritual fathers owes it to themselves and others to check out this video.

.

I highly recommend watching these highly engaging and informative videos (part 1 can stand alone if you can only watch one). They are, quite simply, amazing. If you currently feel like Orthodoxy might be the only option for you but still have misgivings for some reason (as someone who was attracted myself I can guess what these might be), I am quite sure you will not be disappointed.

VDMA-Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum. “The Word of the Lord Endures Forever.” (1 Peter 1:24-25) The breed cannot vanish.

For his part, Father Freeman largely operates as if the confessional Lutheran church does not exist – and in fact, from his point of view, we are indeed a “vanishing breed” (many of the young people here at this fine talk would no doubt contest that). He has said on numerous occasions that the struggles of Luther and the other Lutheran Reformers are of little interest to him. It makes me very sad to hear such a respected and prominent voice of Eastern Orthodoxy say this. For when you listen to Pastor Weedon – who, incidently, has great affection for the Eastern Orthodox – I submit you will see something beautiful – something beautiful that absolutely demands be paid attention to.

In fact, I think it’s just as Father Freeman ends his article:

You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. (2Co 3:2-3 NKJ)

And now…. what’s this about the Lutheran Reformation being a revival of patristic theology? You’d better believe it. If Pastor Weedon’s remarks are widely true about the 21^st century Eastern Orthodox church (where they are more “about venerating the icons of the fathers vs. actually reading what they wrote”) this really cannot be said about the 16^th century Lutheran reformers and many of the faithful who followed in their train. Stay tuned for more soon…

In the meantime, here is a hint of what we are talking about. It is jaw-dropping stuff:

FIN

*Again, we do agree that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth, as the Scriptures say, but also that staying with the divinely revealed faith once delivered to all the saints means perpetually fleeing back to the Scriptures to test all things, particularly those things that seem wrong or unfamiliar (Isaiah 8:20, Acts 17:11)!

Picture of William Weedon from his blog ; Father Freeman pic from hesychastic.wordpress.com ; others: Wikipedia

 

Lutherans are *not* boring: why Lutheran Pastor William Weedon did not become Eastern Orthodox

There are few men I respect as much as Pastor William Weedon.  The man is knowledgeable, passionate, and kind to a fault.  Not to embarrass Pastor Weedon too much, but when I talk about sanctification and holiness, his name comes to mind (and another Lutheran saint in particular, Pastor Kurt Marquart).

In a recent post by Anthony Sacramone of the Strange Herring blog, he spoke of how Lutherans are boring, and I gladly linked to that post.  Now, I found on his blog the two videos in this post featuring Pastor Weedon.  It them, he is talking with a group of Lutheran pastors about how and why he almost left Confessional Lutheranism for Eastern Orthodoxy, and this is not boring in the least.

If you are curious about this topic, you’ll want to give this talk a listen.  If you are not that curious, you may also want to give it a try.  Pastor Weedon is a very easy man to listen to – and I must say, a very fine apologist for Lutheranism.

He talks about “waking up from an enchantment – a beautiful dream – that wasn’t real”.*  What does this mean?  Check it out.  If you don’t have time for both parts – and I strongly recommend both parts – part 1 can certainly stand alone.

FIN

*You’ll also hear an interesting line about venerating the icons of the fathers vs. actually reading what they wrote.