"Christians Only": A personal Commitment

[ollie]

"CHRISTIANS ONLY": A PERSONAL COMMITMENT


Dan Petty



The quest for pure, unadulterated Christianity is a worthy challenge. Many brave souls have risked rejection, ostracism -- even death -- to question established forms for the sake of truth. The desire for a purer form of Christianity has led some to pay a heavy price.

The leaders of the Restoration Movement who rejected denominationalism and preached the unity of all believers based on "the Bible and the Bible alone" were first prepared personally to face the challenge. Undenominational Christianity did not come without a price tag.

Nor does it come cheaply in any age. True discipleship has always been costly. The most important quality for would-be disciples is not intelligence, education, or social prestige. Neither is it a unique spiritual insight or moral stamina. Above all, it calls for a personal commitment to Christ that supercedes all else.

To get to the heart of the matter, Jesus emphasizes the unqualified, uncompromising love for Him that is necessary for discipleship by telling us to "hate" mother, father, family -- even our own lives (Luke 14:26-27). It is a matter of comparison, of course, but the degree of personal loyalty that Christ requires cannot be misunderstood. Certainly this loyalty also excludes all other pretenders: all "different gospels" or those who would preach them are divinely anathematized (Galatians 1:6-9). Christ is the cornerstone of the church (Ephesians 1:20), and is jealous of its purity. Personal preparation to plead undenominational Christianity means arming oneself with Truth (Ephesians 6:14).

It also means removing all hindrances to the task. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will not allow any human relationships to stand in the way (Luke 14:26-27). Even family ties must come second. Religiously speaking, Jesus Christ shares our loyalty with no one. Family relations are dear to us, and praised in God's Book, but our soul's salvation -- and that of our our loved ones -- is the pearl of great price.

We must also remove the hindrances of creedal beliefs or religious traditions which we may have inherited. The teachings of men are vanity in worship (Matthew 15:9). In Colossians, where the issue was false teaching, Paul admonished, "Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize..." (2:18-23). Don't be robbed of your greatest legacy, your soul's salvation, by something that someone has concocted.

Indeed, do not allow men to stand in the way in any form or fashion. To adhere to any man -- whether apostle or apostate -- is to be, in Paul's words, "carnal" (1 Corinthians 3:1-4). The same promotes divisions among Christians (1 Corinthians 1:10-14). Be realistic enough to know that there will always be the problem that "men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:28-30).

Perhaps the greatest hindrance to overcome is self. And the threat is most unexpected, which is the genius of the devil. "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12). Confident assurance in our relationship with the Lord is one thing; closing our eyes to the possibility that we might be wrong is another. A false pride that "we" have all the truth could end up being our downfall. The day we decide we have all the questions answered, and in our satisfaction, are no longer capable of genuine study of where we stand in the light of the gospel, is the day that we are ready to be defeated in the quest for pure Christianity. "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!" (2 Corinthians 13:5).

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6303/ntchrist.htm

[Tercel]

Hi Ollie,

Firstly, the link you give at the bottom of your post does not link to the source of the article posted, but to another article where the author appears to be denying Sola Fide. The article you posted may be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6303/ntchrist.htm

Some comments on the article...


The quest for pure, unadulterated Christianity is a worthy challenge. Many brave souls have risked rejection, ostracism -- even death -- to question established forms for the sake of truth. The desire for a purer form of Christianity has led some to pay a heavy price.Certainly the Truth is a worthy prize. However we are told in no uncertain terms that those who are teach others should be very careful and that those who lead children astray have it coming to them and that those who preach a different gospel are anathema. Perhaps this should make us think VERY carefully before teaching others to reject "established forms" in favour of our own beliefs. What the words "established forms" means to me is that many many dedicated, spirit-guided, and knowledgeable Christians have approved of them. To throw out "established forms" in favour of your own opinion is to set yourself above all other Christians - effectively claiming you're more inspired than they are - God has shown you the truth but withheld it from other believers. It's effectively the claim that you are the real Pope, speaking God's truth infallibly. It is effectively putting your man-made teachings above the teachings of the spirit-guided Church.

Now I do not say that we shouldn't question established forms! By all means, submit your opinions to others in the body of Christ! Write books about your thoughts, but be humble with your suggestions and not a cause for division. If your opinions have merit, others will see it and agree. If they don't, you will be rightly ignored. This is how the body of Christ has worked - not all Christians have agreed about everything! Rather, each new idea and it has been critically analysed by the Body of believers. Many of the saints suggested ideas we would now say were wrong and many of their ideas have been accepted throughout the Body of Christ.


The leaders of the Restoration Movement who rejected denominationalism and preached the unity of all believers based on "the Bible and the Bible alone" were first prepared personally to face the challenge.I’m sure their heart was in the right place – unity of the Church is to be prized greatly. However, I have four problems with what they are basing this unity upon.

1. The contents of the Bible are the subject of church teaching. While supposedly rejecting church teaching in favour of “the Bible”, these people are submitting to that very same church teaching by accepting a Bible whos contents have been defined by that very same church teaching.

2. The contents of the Bible are not a point of Christian unity. Different churches have taught different Bibles. Who’s Bible is this “unity of all believers” going to be based on?!

3. “The Bible and the Bible alone” is fairly blatant Sola Scriptura. It’s perhaps the distinguishing features of Protestantism. Trying to build up “the unity of all believers” based on a doctrine only one particular group holds is not exactly a good way to endear yourselves to the rest of Christianity. What are Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox, Nestorian etc Christians supposed to do? Say “Oh, yes the Protestants are right, we’re just going to drop all our beliefs in favour of accepting theirs so we can have unity of all believers.” Fat chance. Would you drop your beliefs in favour of theirs?

4. Unity based on the Bible is meaningless – it actively destroys Christian unity of doctrine. If we say that Christianity is based on “the Bible and the Bible alone”, then what do we preach, what do we do? Unless there is interpretation of “the Bible says XXX” then believing “in” the Bible is just a nice abstract but completely pointless belief. Should we go around preaching to non-Christians the words “the Bible and the Bible alone” or should we preach the Gospel and the Christian message of salvation?

Of course we should teach the latter, yet it is precisely that issue which the Church has so divided itself in the last half-millennia. To ignore the issue in favour of “the Bible and the Bible alone” doesn’t actually solve the differences between Christians as to what salvation is and what it is from. For example, the single biggest reason I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy after an Evangelical upbringing was because I became convinced that the Evangelical paradigm of “salvation” is totally, completely, and utterly, wrong. Sola Fide is wrong (so I am amused to see Petty’s other article arguing this!), Original Sin is misunderstood, Heaven is misunderstood, Atonement theology is completely wrong, the nature of Sin is misunderstood, the nature of Salvation is misunderstood. :teeth:

But the Evangelicals have decided what they think the Bible says, (even if the rest of the Church has always thought something different) so they’ll stick to that no matter what. My point is that when the word “gospel” means two completely and utterly different things, there can be no true unity.


The most important quality for would-be disciples is not intelligence, education, or social prestige. Neither is it a unique spiritual insight or moral stamina. Above all, it calls for a personal commitment to Christ that supercedes all else.This is true... but from my own experience I must critically comment that a little bit of intelligence and education would not go amiss and that sincerity is not enough – people can sincerely believe things which are entirely wrong and that does not make them right.


We must also remove the hindrances of creedal beliefs or religious traditions which we may have inherited.Except that one of those traditions is a definition of the contents the Bible... I don’t see you removing that inherited “hindrance”! (The secondary reason for my conversion was a realisation of this)


Don't be robbed of your greatest legacy, your soul's salvation, by something that someone has concocted.Why should we then accept Protestant beliefs which took one and a half millennia before they were concocted, rather than accepting the Christian Tradition stretching back to the apostles and ultimately to Christ Himself?


Be realistic enough to know that there will always be the problem that “men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:28-30).Indeed, the Church has dealt with its fair share of heresy over the years... Docetism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Monolithitism, Iconoclasm... etc.


Perhaps the greatest hindrance to overcome is self. And the threat is most unexpected, which is the genius of the devil. “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Confident assurance in our relationship with the Lord is one thing; closing our eyes to the possibility that we might be wrong is another. A false pride that “we” have all the truth could end up being our downfall. The day we decide we have all the questions answered, and in our satisfaction, are no longer capable of genuine study of where we stand in the light of the gospel, is the day that we are ready to be defeated in the quest for pure Christianity. “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (2 Corinthians 13:5). :thumb:
Agreed! :rockon:

[ollie]

Tercel:

"Hi Ollie,

Firstly, the link you give at the bottom of your post does not link to the source of the article posted, but to another article where the author appears to be denying Sola Fide. The article you posted may be found at:"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6303/ntchrist.htm

Hi, Thanks for discovering my mistake. I corrected my previous post. I can't comment yet on your reply to the article, but hope to soon.

Thanks,
Ollie

[ollie]

Yesterday @ 08:05 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=165809#post165809)
Tercel:
Hi Ollie,

Firstly, the link you give at the bottom of your post does not link to the source of the article posted, but to another article where the author appears to be denying Sola Fide. The article you posted may be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6303/ntchrist.htm


Some comments on the article...

Certainly the Truth is a worthy prize. However we are told in no uncertain terms that those who are teach others should be very careful and that those who lead children astray have it coming to them and that those who preach a different gospel are anathema.
True.


[quote]Perhaps this should make us think VERY carefully before teaching others to reject "established forms" in favour of our own beliefs.
Hi,

It should never be ones own beliefs seperate from God. It should always be God's will taught.


What the words "established forms" means to me is that many many dedicated, spirit-guided, and knowledgeable Christians have approved of them. To throw out "established forms" in favour of your own opinion is to set yourself above all other Christians - effectively claiming you're more inspired than they are - God has shown you the truth but withheld it from other believers. It's effectively the claim that you are the real Pope, speaking God's truth infallibly. It is effectively putting your man-made teachings above the teachings of the spirit-guided Church.
What if the established forms are apostate or a schism and not in accordance with God's will? But man's will or what he thinks it should be.


Now I do not say that we shouldn't question established forms! By all means, submit your opinions to others in the body of Christ! Write books about your thoughts, but be humble with your suggestions and not a cause for division. If your opinions have merit, others will see it and agree. If they don't, you will be rightly ignored. This is how the body of Christ has worked - not all Christians have agreed about everything! Rather, each new idea and it has been critically analysed by the Body of believers. Many of the saints suggested ideas we would now say were wrong and many of their ideas have been accepted throughout the Body of Christ.[quote]
Did not this happen within the church and the result was "the reformation"? Was not the established church at this time a blatant contradiction to the very Bible they later claimed to give to the world. This established church mocked and adulterated the very word they said came through them and was of God.

[quote]I’m sure their heart was in the right place – unity of the Church is to be prized greatly. However, I have four problems with what they are basing this unity upon.
Many hearts can be in the right place, but many are not and they become caught up in the world and work for their personal worldly agendas and take many unsuspecting hearts with them because they simply don't use the Bible to see if their word agrees with what God has revealed to man through the Holy Spirit, the Bible.

1. The contents of the Bible are the subject of church teaching. While supposedly rejecting church teaching in favour of “the Bible”, these people are submitting to that very same church teaching by accepting a Bible whos contents have been defined by that very same church teaching.
There is no other, revealed from God, word other than the Bible which the church teaches. It is its sole authority. Nothing else is needed. It is complete in Christ.


2. The contents of the Bible are not a point of Christian unity. Different churches have taught different Bibles. Who’s Bible is this “unity of all believers” going to be based on?!This unity of believers can be found in all the translations I have read. Salvation and redemption back to God through faith and obedience in Jesus Christ


3. “The Bible and the Bible alone” is fairly blatant Sola Scriptura. It’s perhaps the distinguishing features of Protestantism. Trying to build up “the unity of all believers” based on a doctrine only one particular group holds is not exactly a good way to endear yourselves to the rest of Christianity. What are Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox, Nestorian etc Christians supposed to do? Say “Oh, yes the Protestants are right, we’re just going to drop all our beliefs in favour of accepting theirs so we can have unity of all believers.” Fat chance. Would you drop your beliefs in favour of theirs?
One cannot hold the doctrines of men, but the doctrines of Jesus Christ. The unity comes from following only the authority of God as revealed in the Bible. The doctrines of men that make up the individual differences of man's religions are not recognized by God. His will be done!


4. Unity based on the Bible is meaningless – it actively destroys Christian unity of doctrine.
The Bible says otherwise:
Ephesians 4

1. I Therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
2. With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
3. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5. One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
7. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
8. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
9. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
10. He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13. Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
14. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
15. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.


If we say that Christianity is based on “the Bible and the Bible alone”, then what do we preach, what do we do? Unless there is interpretation of “the Bible says XXX” then believing “in” the Bible is just a nice abstract but completely pointless belief.
"POINTLESS BELIEF"? Salvation and redemption to God Through His Son Jesus Christ is "pointless belief"? Preach God and His gift to man through Jesus Christ.




Should we go around preaching to non-Christians the words “the Bible and the Bible alone” or should we preach the Gospel and the Christian message of salvation?
What is in the book is what Christians preach. The gospel and the Christian message is complete in the Bible. One needs nothing else to teach of God, His Son, His people, His salvation and His overall plan for man.


Of course we should teach the latter, yet it is precisely that issue which the Church has so divided itself in the last half-millennia. To ignore the issue in favour of “the Bible and the Bible alone” doesn’t actually solve the differences between Christians as to what salvation is and what it is from. For example, the single biggest reason I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy after an Evangelical upbringing was because I became convinced that the Evangelical paradigm of “salvation” is totally, completely, and utterly, wrong. Sola Fide is wrong (so I am amused to see Petty’s other article arguing this!), Original Sin is misunderstood, Heaven is misunderstood, Atonement theology is completely wrong, the nature of Sin is misunderstood, the nature of Salvation is misunderstood. :teeth:
Why do you refer to yourself as converting to "Eastern Orthodoxy"? Why do you take Christ out of your conversion?
Why not just say I heard the gospel of Christ and believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Salvation is through Jesus Christ not an organization.



But the Evangelicals have decided what they think the Bible says, (even if the rest of the Church has always thought something different) so they’ll stick to that no matter what. My point is that when the word “gospel” means two completely and utterly different things, there can be no true unity.
Perhaps the contradictions of the actual actions of the "rest of the churches" with what the claimed inspired word,( the Bible), says, led them to thinking something here is hypocritical. These established churches do one thing and the Bible they claim they gave the world says something else. Why do they not follow their own Bible but instead make it up as they go along to perpetrate their own worldly agendas using religion to control.


This is true... but from my own experience I must critically comment that a little bit of intelligence and education would not go amiss and that sincerity is not enough – people can sincerely believe things which are entirely wrong and that does not make them right.
True one should open up their Bibles and see if the things man is saying be true. If man's word contradicts the Bible which is already God's revealed word through the Holy Spirit and the man preaching or teaching claims to have had His word revealed to him through the Spirit, then the contradiction tells one something is wrong.


Except that one of those traditions is a definition of the contents the Bible... I don’t see you removing that inherited “hindrance”! (The secondary reason for my conversion was a realisation of this)
The Bible does have contents and they can be defined. ???


Why should we then accept Protestant beliefs which took one and a half millennia before they were concocted,
One should not.


rather than accepting the Christian Tradition stretching back to the apostles and ultimately to Christ Himself?
The Bible reveals how it truly was in the first century. Man has since adulterated this pattern of God for His ekklesia.



Indeed, the Church has dealt with its fair share of heresy over the years... Docetism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Monolithitism, Iconoclasm... etc.

:thumb:
Agreed! :rockon:
Simply because of man following man and not God.

[Tercel]

Thanks for the reply Ollie,


It should never be ones own beliefs separate from God. It should always be God's will taught.That’s nice in theory. In practice though we have the issue of how we know God’s will. The figure that floats around is that there are 24,000 Protestant denominations. I’m a tad skeptical about the size of that figure but still there certainly are quite a few different Protestant groups who all claim that they know God’s will better than the other groups. Logic suggests that God doesn’t have that many different wills, nor does He will such division. Obviously then people are having great difficultly knowing and teaching God’s will.


What if the established forms are apostate or a schism and not in accordance with God's will?I don’t see how established forms can be “a schism”. As for whether or not established forms are “apostate”: I wonder how you could truly know? Sure, you could think that established forms are illogical or non-scriptural, but unless you truly believe you are more intelligent than the rest of believers or more infallibly guided by the Spirit in your interpretation of Scripture then how would you have any surety that you are right and the rest of the Spirit-guided Church is wrong? (Such an opinion seems rather prideful and egocentric to me.) Hence why I suggested earlier that the appropriate course of action if you feel the Church is doing something wrong is to humbly submit your opinions to the rest of the Church and allow other believers a chance to comment on it. If you truly believed Jesus when he said that the Spirit would guided Christians into unity and truth then you must surely accept that if your ideas are truth then the unified Church would eventually accept them. Similarly if you break the unity of the Body of Christ by using your ideas to cause a schism it doesn’t say much good about the extent of your Spirit-filledness.


Many hearts can be in the right place, but many are not and they become caught up in the world and work for their personal worldly agendas and take many unsuspecting hearts with them because they simply don't use the Bible to see if their word agrees with what God has revealed to man through the Holy Spirit, the Bible.

There is no other, revealed from God, word other than the Bible which the church teaches. It is its sole authority. Nothing else is needed. It is complete in Christ.If I did not make it clear in my earlier post: I do not agree with this. The Christian Church has assuredly not taught the sole authority of the Bible as God’s final revelation to man. That doctrine of Sola Scriptura is a Protestant invention which is a mere 500 years old. The doctrine that the Bible is the sole authority was an invention of men who needed a new authority when they rejected God’s established Church. It is a heresy invented by schismatics to justify themselves.
There are two primary reasons why Sola Scriptura fails:

1. It self-defeats. It is not found in the Bible – it is a church teaching. According to Sola Scriptura all doctrines must be evidenced and supported from the Bible. Yet the doctrine itself cannot be supported from the Bible, and is instead a teaching developed by the Protestant churches. Hence by Sola Scriptura, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is inadmissible and not allowed to be a doctrine.

2. The contents of the Bible are church teaching. You said: “The Bible does have contents and they can be defined. ???” Yes, it does. Your Protestant Bible contains 66 books. Do you think a list fell out of heaven or something? The books in the Bible were by no means uniform among the early church – each church used different books as they saw fit. Most churches standardised the books of their Bibles after a series of church councils and Papal declarations on the subject in the 4th century. In the Reformation it seems the Reformers moved the Apocrypha out of the Old Testament and into an appendix and did the same to several of the New Testament books. The Roman Catholics in response reaffirmed the Apocryphal books as valid but missed out three of them by mistake. Later Protestants would re-included the New Testament books that had been appendixised but continued to consider the Apocrypha non-canonical.

Today there are 5 main different lists of Bible books in use in the world:
The Protestant Bible which you are familiar with. The Roman Catholic Bible which includes the shorter Apocrypha. The Eastern Orthodox Bible which includes the longer Apocrypha. The Pe[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]ta (Syrian Bible) which doesn’t include 5 New Testament books that are in our Bibles. The Ethiopian Bible which includes books in its New Testament not found in our Bibles.
Back to what I said before: The contents of the Bible are church teaching. Hence church teaching must be accepted in order to have a Bible and hence Sola Scriptura must inevitably be non-consistently applied.


The established Church rejects both Sola Scriptura and the idea that the Bible is God’s complete revelation. Remember that Jesus sent the Spirit to guide us into truth. Ignore Jesus if you will, but the Church teaches that the Spirit has been active through the millennia guiding the Church and growing it in maturity. The Church was once like a child, but now due to God’s providence and guidance it has grown into an adult. Remember the parable of the Mustard seed? Well that small mustard seed – the kernel of the Christian faith that was laid with the Apostles (or perhaps Abraham if you wish), has grown and grown until now it is a great tree reaching out to all the world. The Bible is not the complete revelation of God but rather our foundation on which to grow. Everything that Christians have been inspired to write about God throughout the centuries forms a part of the inspired Christian Tradition and it is to this authoritative growing God-guided understanding that we look to. The Bible forms a central part of this Tradition. But you must remember that it was members of the Church who wrote the Bible, members of the Church who declared which books would be in the Bible, and members of the Church that use the Bible. The Bible is part of Tradition, part of everything the Church -under God’s guiding hand- has been inspired to do and say throughout the millennia.


There is no other, revealed from God, word other than the Bible which the church teaches. It is its sole authority. Nothing else is needed. It is complete in Christ.It is ironic that you say that the Bible “is complete in Christ”, when the Bible uses this same language about the Church. eg “The church is Christ’s body, the completion of him who himself completes all things everywhere.” (Eph 1:23) and it was Paul’s earnest desire that he might help to make men “complete in Christ” (Col 1:28).


Unity based on the Bible is meaningless – it actively destroys Christian unity of doctrine.

The Bible says otherwise:
[Ephesians 4:1-16]Yes, I am familiar with that passage. Can you explain your point?


Tercel: If we say that Christianity is based on “the Bible and the Bible alone”, then what do we preach, what do we do? Unless there is interpretation of “the Bible says XXX” then believing “in” the Bible is just a nice abstract but completely pointless belief. Should we go around preaching to non-Christians the words “the Bible and the Bible alone” or should we preach the Gospel and the Christian message of salvation?

Ollie: "POINTLESS BELIEF"? Salvation and redemption to God Through His Son Jesus Christ is "pointless belief"? Preach God and His gift to man through Jesus Christ.
What is in the book is what Christians preach. The gospel and the Christian message is complete in the Bible. One needs nothing else to teach of God, His Son, His people, His salvation and His overall plan for man.Tercel:
My point was that Christians disagree greatly about just what the Bible says. 24,000 different interpretations apparently. In practice, there are certainly enough different views to be getting on with. Is Calvinism true or is Arminians? Is Young Earth Creationism true or is Evolution? Is it okay to believe that the Bible has some errors in it. etc. How we answer such questions affects how we preach the gospel, it affects what answers we give to the questions of unbelievers, which affects how likely they are to convert. (Although obviously the last is inapplicable to Calvinism!)

But it gets much bigger than that: The very meaning of the Gospel is at stake. The Gospel the Evangelicals preach is a different gospel to that which the established Church (and in my opinion, the Bible) preaches. As I said, this was my primary reason for my conversion to Orthodoxy. Paul anathematises those who preach a different gospel. I don’t for a moment think you are hell-bound for preaching your “gospel” – most Evangelicals are simply misguided and have simply believed what their church has taught them and interpreted the Bible how their church has taught them. However the fact remains that it is a different gospel. If “unity of all believers based on the Bible” means accepting your “gospel”, then you’ll please excuse us if we refuse to have a bar of it.

Furthermore you say that “One needs nothing else to teach of God, His Son, His people, His salvation and His overall plan for man.” But the only subject there is any unity between Christians on here is “His Son”! (And only because there was so much disagreement about that in the early church that it took 6 universal councils to settle the issue, and you doubtless accept the decision of these councils without knowing it.) We disagree about God, we disagree about His people, we disagree about His salvation and we disagree about his overall plan for man.


Why do you refer to yourself as converting to “Eastern Orthodoxy”? Why do you take Christ out of your conversion?
Why not just say I heard the gospel of Christ and believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Salvation is through Jesus Christ not an organization.Because I am not talking about my conversion to Christianity. I am talking about my conversion from Evangelical Protestantism to Eastern Orthodoxy. With this conversion I was a Christian before it and a Christian afterwards. I felt I could no longer justify calling myself part of a group of schismatics and heretics who have divided the Church and corrupted the Gospel.

We have the same end in mind: We both want one undivided Church providing unity for all believers. But our methods of achieving that goal are different. The difference between us is that you look for unity “based on the Bible” (which as I have argued is not a good foundation for such unity) which you hope will result in us all getting together and declaring our Christian unity and ignoring our differences. (I think you’re living in fancy land there pal and ignoring reality) Whereas I have simply taken the -in my opinion- more practical step of reducing the number of Church-dividers by one. To split the body of Christ is truly an atrocious thing. At the end of the day I had to ask myself what grounds I had for doing it.

Back in the day, the Roman Catholics used to sell salvation. You could buy your way towards salvation. That is a completely false Gospel: That is what upset Luther. Guess what? The Roman Catholics don’t do that any longer. The original reason for schism is gone. If Luther was alive today he would probably be Roman Catholic. Is the Roman Catholic church perfect now? I don’t think so. Yes there are many things that could be improved about it! Yes I agree with lots of Protestants when they list things wrong with it! But you must ask yourselves: Are those problems serious enough to warrant dividing the Church? How would I feel if I had to answer to Christ about my actions on this issue on that Last Day? Anyway, isn’t it better to be part of the Church and use that authority to reform it from the inside than to criticise it from the outside?
If you really object to Roman Catholicism too much, you can always become Orthodox Catholic like me. The Roman See split off from the rest of the Church (ie The Sees of Constantiople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem: “Orthodox”) in 1054 for those who don’t know their Church history, largely over the question of the authority of the Pope (ie the Romans thought their Pope had more authority than the rest of the Church was willing to accept), but the two churches have moved in quite different directions since.


Why do they not follow their own Bible but instead make it up as they go along to perpetrate their own worldly agendas using religion to control.That might once have been true during medieval times, but hardly today.


Hope that helps you understand where I’m coming from.
God Bless you...

[JohnShepard]

My comments on two quotes:


Back in the day, the Roman Catholics used to sell salvation. You could buy your way towards salvation.

I am a Catholic convert from Protestantism. I almost converted to Orthodoxy. I love all Christians.

I believe the quoted statement is false. The use of Indulgences is not a salvation issue. Remember that Martin Luther's initial complaints about the Catholic Church involved indulgences. To read the Martin Luther's 95 theses:
http://www.ctsfw.edu/etext/luther/theses/theses_e.asc


Unity based on the Bible is meaningless – it actively destroys Christian unity of doctrine.

Our unity as Christians is based on the fact that we are Christians, it is based on the essential doctrines which we have in common. For example: Unity is based on our view that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God. Unity is based on our belief in the doctrines of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the need for salvation, that there is such a thing as original sin which destroys our fellowship with God, that Christ died so our sins can be forgiven, that we must accept God's gift of the grace of salvation through faith.

Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholics are not united by the doctrines with which we disagree, but with those with which we agree.