What is the Church?

The Church is not a creation of creeds or confessions. Neither is it an organization of those who hold certain truths to be self-evident. Rather, the Church is a living organism—Christ Himself animated by the Holy Spirit in the lives of the saints and faithful.

As a living organism, the Church is not bodiless. It is the body of Christ. And as the body of Christ, the Church has a human “nature” as well as a “divine nature.” In other words, the Church on earth and the Church in heaven are one. Moreover, there is truly an identifiable, material organism called “The Church.” So the organizations called “church” are not (á la Plato) cheap copies of an ideal Church in heaven. Neither are they some sort of outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual fellowship of believers. Rather, there is one identifiable communion of churches that is the ongoing continuation of those 3000 whom the Apostles baptized on the first Pentecost Sunday.

This belief in the true visible Church is necessary for two reasons. First, it is christologically necessary. The Church confesses that Christ is both human and divine. It knows no other Christ. While it may speak speculatively or chronologically about a pre-incarnate Logos, the Church does not know (gnwsis) a pre-incarnate Logos. Rather, the Church knows only the One who is both eternally begotten of the Father and born of the Virgin Mary. Hence, His body, which the Church is, must also have both aspects of the human and divine. Not human in the sense that the body of Christ is found in unidentifiable believers scattered in disparate communions; but human in the same sense that Christ is human—in a discernible, visible body.

To the world the true Church looks like (and regrettably often acts like) all other mortal and flawed organizations; yet Christ also looked like a mortal and flawed person since He was capable of suffering, endured wounds and died. But to faith the Church is seen to be no different than Christ: of the Father animated by the Spirit; mortal yet immortal; receiving sinners and living with sin, yet holy and perfect; flawed yet infallible; suffering yet glorified. But above all, the Church is seen to be one. Not one by virtue of what will be, but one in being and in truth. Not one because here and there people have determined to be “church” or “church-like,” but one because there is one communion of bishops to whom the faithful have been sacramentally attached. This, then, is the true Eucharistic fellowship: not pockets of places where the Gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered, but the intercommunion of bishops who rightly divide the word of Truth Himself.

This belief in the true visible Church is necessary not only christologically, but also soteriologically. If the church is only those who have determined to be “church” and who have gathered themselves and called for themselves ministers who will do “church,” then salvation comes not from the Father through the Son in His Spirit. Rather, salvation comes from the ground up—from those creatures who have located or formed or gathered together to do what the Lord has said.

Please do not misunderstand. It is necessary for Christians to obey the Lord; and obedience is the way of salvation. However, the Lord’s mercy precedes obedience; and God’s spirit comes before forming, establishing and doing; and the Father’s love begets, sends and bestows His Life through those whom He has chosen. Were it otherwise—were “churches” the building block of the Church—then it would be possible, and in fact probable, that the gates of hell would prevail. But the Lord has guaranteed that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church (Mt 16.18).

Principle Issues: The "One" Book (or "How to Become Orthodox")

For more than 20 years I was interested in Orthodoxy. During this time I read many books about Orthodoxy. I also read critiques of Orthodoxy, and I read the Fathers of the church. Like many others, during these two decades I was thinking that one book--or the "right" series of books--would convince me either to accept or reject Orthodoxy.

You see, there is this temptation to believe that one can read his way into (or out of) Orthodoxy. In fact, that temptation persists not just concerning Orthodoxy but concerning most religions, whether they are Christian or non-Christian. The thought is that, when we're searching, we'll stumble along the right book, the right set of words or the right argument that will make everything click. It's not unlike trying to conjure a vision so that you might believe. But vision conjuring is putting God to the test. And reading yourself into Orthodoxy is forcing the Church to be an academic endeavor when, in fact, she is body of Christ animated by the Holy Spirit in the lives of the saints and faithful.

If one pursues the course of reading one's way into the Church, then one may end up very knowledgeable about Orthodox teachings, but not yet understanding the Church or her life; and so not yet Orthodox. It's rather like reading one's way into a family or believing that taking a class in "being a good sister or faithful husband" will actually achieve that end.

Let me suggest, then, that the better way is to understand the purpose of books and teaching as these relate to the Christian faith and life. Books, catechesis and instruction exist not to impart a body of knowledge so that one might become convinced or perusaded about the correctness of a belief. Rather, books, catechesis and instruction are provided to help explain what one has already experienced in the body of Christ. The liturgy is, most chiefly and commonly, this experience of the Church. So books, catechesis and instruction in the faith exist to explain the what, the how and the why of the catholic and godly living that is the liturgy. Or, put more simply, one ought to attend regularly an Orthodox worship service (Byzantine or Western rite) and allow various Orthodox books (like those by the good Bishop) to explain why the Church worships as she does.

So when asked "What one book [or author; or series of books] influenced you to become Orthodox," I increasingly give this answer: "The Liturgy. When I began praying the hours and celebrating Mass without editing the prayers, without trying to 'Lutheranize' them; when I took them at face value and prayed them as they were given, then I began to understand the catholic faith--which, in turn, led me to embrace Orthodoxy as the one true Church."

Incidentally, my decision to pray the Western liturgy without emendation was coupled by my decision to read the Fathers the same way. So when I began to read the Fathers the same way--not forcing them to speak 'Lutheran' but embracing them (foibles and all) in their own context--then I began to see that the inadequacy of the interpretations I had preached, the teachings I had taught, and the phrases I had learned and used. And, at the same time, I began to understand more clearly not only how the Church spoke and what she meant, but even more importantly how the Fathers truly intersected with the liturgy.

Admittedly, this took a while. But not nearly as long as the 20 years of "interest."

Principle Issues: Theosis, Justification & Sanctification

My good friend at Lutheran Enigma has left a "teaser-post" in which in promises a "series of blog posts under the title 'Sanctification, Third Use of the Law, and Theosis.'" His fear is that the "primacy of justsification" is sacrificed by those who embrace the patristic principle of theosis; that one can "go down the path of theosis away from the primacy of justification."

As he ponders and constructs these posts, I make bold to offer my friend a few suggestions:

* A definition of the term "primacy of justification" would be helpful. In other words, how does justification take primacy over sanctification, especially considering that several Lutheran theologians describe the two concepts as two sides of the same coin.

* On the surface it is easy to think that the patristic/Orthodox view of theosis is a subcategory of the Western/Lutheran view of sanctificatio. However, it is not; and, in fact, has many aspects that line up nicely with the best understanding of justificatio.

* In the Lutheran Book of Concord, it seems that what drives both justification and sanctification is Christology. Christology is also key to understanding theosis. I suggest that this is the "common ground" and, therefore, a good place to begin.

* It took me a while to understand that the patristic/Orthodox view of theosis is not a dogma or doctrine (one bit among many; one spoke in the wheel), but rather is something akin to a governing or foundational principle. In this regard, theosis is akin to Christology; and, in fact, I will be so bold as to state that theosis is simply Christology applied (potentially) to every man. (Of course, the essence/energy distinction is crucial in understanding this claim correctly.)

The above point did not become clear to me until I read more carefully and understood more fully the key writings of St Maximos the Confessor and the issues at stake in the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils. Until then, I willingly conceded the premises my friend has staked out; namely, that theosis is simply a Greek term for a different or fuller view of sanctificatio.

Principle Issues: Books Along the Way

More often than I can count, I've been asked to recommend books that I found useful as I contemplated becoming Orthodox. More often than not, the inquirer is looking for only a few noteworthy books. Moreover, the inquiry presumes that one can read his way into the Church. One can't. For the Church is not an academy or library; rather, she is a living organism, a body. Therefore, what is key is not knowledge but relationship; and not the letter, but the Spirit.

Nevertheless, knowledge and letters (i.e., books) are not unimportant. For they help clarify the relationship and articulate the organism. Or, to say it another way, while faith does not require understanding, understanding forms and informs faith.

As I've pondered the question in order to give a reasonable and cogent answer, I have reviewed the past five years and determined that there certainly are many books that have been most helpful. But I keep coming back to three in particular--the three that I am certain formed my understanding of and stoked my desire for the Church. These three are: the English Missal, the Anglican Breviary and daily selections of homilies from the Church Fathers.

During the five years leading up to my chrismation, I daily read these three books as a celebrated daily Mass at the Lutheran congregation that I served. During that five I period, I gradually drifted away from trying to "Lutheranize" these texts by careful editing (as had been my arduous practice), but rather to let the propers, Psalms, hymns, prayers, and fathers speak for themselves, earnestly endeavoring to understand their context while determining that I was not smart enough to correct self-perceived mistranslations or accretions but humbly attempting to hear and learn from these texts. In Lutheran parlance, I no longer exercised a magisterial but a ministerial use of reason concerning the liturgy and the fathers.

I am convinced that this use of these texts, more than anything else, led me in time to the understanding that, while I miraculously and wondrously exercised the grace of the Holy Spirit through preaching and the Sacraments, I did so outside of the Church--much like the man in Mark 9.

As I stated above, along the way many other books, articles and discussions were helpful. But these three texts--the Scriptures in the liturgy, the Scriptures in the breviary, and the Scriptures interpreted by the fathers--were, for me, the most formative in my "journey."

Principle Issues: Orthodoxy and Confessional Documents

For several years, I was frustrated in my attempts to locate the "confessional documents" of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy has catechisms, systematic theology books, councils, canons and statements as well as church fathers. Some time ago, I read a list of "confessional documents" supplied by Bishop Kallistos Ware and thought I had finally found what I was looking for--only to be told that the list was not the list I wanted, and then to read Bishop Kallistos more carefully to learn that he himself did not claim what I hoped he had claimed.

Gradually, in time, I began to understand two key principles. First, Orthodoxy has no central body of "confessional documents" because it does not have a central hierarchical authority. This does not mean that Orthodoxy has no authority. It's authority is the authority of the Spirit of Christ, whose Word is enshrined in the Scriptures yet comes alive in the myriad chronological, historical and pastoral contexts of the Church.

Second, the closest thing that Orthodoxy has to a body of "confessional documents" is the liturgy. In Orthodoxy, the liturgy is inviolable because it is understood to be not of human origin but of the Spirit. (NB: "Liturgy" in Orthodoxy refers not exclusively or legalistically to the texts or rubrics.) Hence, as I once heard said, what is in the liturgy is what is to be believed. This puts the liturgy on par, then, with the various "confessional documents" common in post-reformational western churches.

On this latter point, the following words by the late Jaroslav Pelikan have proven quite helpful.

14.1 The Ambivalence of the Orthodox Church Toward "Symbolical Books"

Several factors in Christian history have often led to the issuance of confessions of faith, including the challenge from a hostile environment, the crisis of doctrinal schism, and the necessity of indigenization. A review of these would show that they have been at least as powerful within Eastern Christendom since the schism between East and West as they have been in the West, even in the West since the Reformation with its plethora of confessions. And yet, during most of the history of Eastern Orthodoxy, those factors did not produce a vast corpus of confessions of faith, as they had done in the early church and as they went on doing in the West especially during and since the Reformation, but only a select few statements of faith that became more or less official (and usually "less" rather than "more" official). As a result, to a degree that would not be true of most other communions that have official confessions, it is possible for two scholars almost exactly a century apart to speak about the "identity" of Orthodoxy without so much as mentioning these statements of faith. (399-400)

...

14.2 The Liturgy as the Church's Preeminent Confession of the Faith

A principal reason for this ambivalent position of "symbolical books" within Eastern Orthodoxy lies, however, in the distinctively Eastern versions, articulated in a special way in the Philokalia, of the inseparable connection between "the rule of prayer [lex orandi]" and "the rule of faith [lex credendi]." That connection has been important throughout Christian history, across the various boundaries of denomination and confession, also in the West. But interpreters of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, whether sympathetic or critical, are agreed on the proposition that within Eastern Orthodoxy The Divine Liturgy According to Saint John Chrysostom is an especially forceful illustration of the universal principle of lex orandi lex credendi; as noted earlier, it differs from the liturgies of other traditions, including even The Book of Common Prayer of Anglicanism, by being accorded a special position among the Eastern Orthodox confessions in the standard published collections of "symbolical books." Anastasios Kallis...introduced his edition of the liturgy with the explanation: "The identity of Orthodoxy consists neither in a doctrine nor in an organizational system, but in the correct praise of the Triune God, which has its center in the celebration of the Eucharist, or simply in the Liturgy, through which the one congregation assembled in the name of Christ becomes his body, his church." (405; emphasis added)

From Credo by Jaroslav Pelikan

Principle Issues: Understanding Mark 9

The following item is excerpted from the "Reflection" published in this week's edition (28 January) of The Observer, the weekly bulletin/newsletter of St George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Troy.


In the Gospel according to Saint Mark, St John the Theologian tells Jesus that he and the other disciples have seen a man performing miracles. This man is not an apostle or one of Jesus’ disciples. St John says, “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbade him.” (Mk 9.37) It appears that St John and the others are irritated by this man because they tell him to stop. But Jesus offers this surprising reply: “Do not forbid him. For there is no man that doth a miracle in my name, and can soon speak ill of me. For he that is not against you, is for you.” (Mk 9.38) What Our Lord is saying is that this man, who is not part of the apostolic company, is still working and speaking by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And with His reply, Our Lord demonstrates His mercy and compassion toward those who know of Him but may not yet walk with the Holy Apostles.

We may understand that St John and the other apostles represent the Holy Orthodox Church. For the Church rightly claims to follow the teaching of the Holy Apostles and to walk in the same Faith that they taught. In other words, the Church is in the apostolic company—in communion with those holy men who walked with Our Lord. The man who performed miracles but was not one of the apostles or disciples—we may understand that he represents all those who know of Christ, who speak of Christ and offer His holy sacraments, yet not within the Holy Orthodox Church. In other words, we may understand that the Holy Spirit is with this man, even though this man is not in the Church. Why and how this is done is something we cannot understand. It is strange to us. Yet it is also wondrous. It is a mystery.

If this is how we understand this brief episode in St Mark’s Gospel, then we may see something else. The Lord desires this man to be with the Holy Apostles—to join their walk with Him. And so perhaps in His reply, Our Lord is telling St John and the others to go fetch this man, let him know about the Church, and bring him in. Then he will no longer need to cast out devils independently, but may work and speak by the Spirit within the warm embrace of the Holy Orthodox Church.

This interpretation helps illustrate how I, and some members of the parish I served, saw ourselves during our last months as Lutherans. We rejoiced that the Holy Spirit had not abandoned us. And so, by the Lord’s mercy, we celebrated together the holy mysteries. However, we became increasingly aware that our celebration was apart from the Church. We and our families knew of the Holy Apostles, and yet we become convinced that we were not in the apostolic company. We did not fear that we were against the Lord and His Church. But we also came to believe that we were not yet in the Church. So we felt like they were on a life-raft in the midst of a great storm-tossed ocean.

By the mercy of God, we were finally able to see our way into the Holy Orthodox Church. This mercy of God was demonstrated in many ways during our journey. Most particularly, we have seen it in the gentle kindness of Bishop MARK, the sturdy generosity of Father Joseph, and the warm embrace of the parishioners of St. George. And it is these concrete manifestations of Our Lord’s compassion that give us the courage, the confidence, and the hope to form a Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church on the west side of metropolitan Detroit.

Principle Issues: An Ambling Preamble

In "Chronicling a Journey," I address autobiographically and chronolically the events that led me to tender my resignation as a Lutheran pastor. Running concurrently with that series, I also wish to describe some of the significant theological issues with which I wrestled during the past 20+ years. Even though I endeavor to present them in a consise manner, none of what I shall describe came quickly, easily or lightly; and some are issues with which I continue to struggle. But now the struggle has shifted--from considering to living, from internalizing to enacting, from believing to doing.

Because of the deep-seated and slowly germinating nature of these wrestlings, it would be wrong to characterize these issues as "ah-ha moments" or "break-throughs." In other words, at no point did I one day wake up or read a book or hear a well-turned phrase or stumble across a thought and then conclude, "I know what I must do." Rather, despite my bold (read: prideful) and often reckless public and private utterances, it was really only a few days before I offered my resignation that I was truly settled and at peace with what I had figured would eventually happen.

As I will describe these issues, I ask you to believe me when I assert that my intent and sincere desire is not to persuade, rebuke or lead one to doubt, but to illustrate; and perhaps to enlighten those who were close enough to see some of the inner angst.

For lack of a catchy title but with a desire to categorize them easily, I shall simply call these occasional posts "Principle Issues."