I'm Orthodox, what do YOU believe?
Being Orthodox can be tough sometimes. Why can't we think of good answers to the tough questions? Most non-Orthodox Christians will be quite friendly and even interested in learning more about our worship and the life of the Church. However, there's that vocal minority of well meaning evangelistically un-Orthodox who bury us with the supposedly end-all questions. For our part, embarassingly enough, we put our heads down and concede defeat in a battle of logics.
Does any of this sound familiar?:
Where is THAT in the Bible?
Why do you worship liturgically?
Why do you worship Mary?
Why do you baptize babies?
Why do you need tradition?
et cetera
There are many reasonable, logical, and even experiential reasons for us to believe in that which we do. Moreover, I'd like to believe that each one of us cradle Orthodox should be able to each look into ourselves and hope that if we hadn't been born Orthodox, we would have found our way into the Church somehow. My proposal is that we Orthodox need to start turning these questions back over on themselves.
Try to answer like this:
What you believe, prove THAT to me in the Scriptures!
If you don't worship liturgically, do you worship spontaneously? Show me in scripture where Jesus prescribes the order for Sunday worship. I don't imagine there was much guitar and keyboard playing there.
We don't worship Mary, but if YOUR Lord and Saviour had a mother who stuck by Him faithfully through His death at the foot of the Cross and onto His Resurrection, how would YOU treat her?
We don't exclusively baptize babies, we baptize everyone regardless of age so they may be buried and Resurrected with Christ. If you don't have a practice of baptizing babies, what would you call your practice? Early teenage baptism?
We have tradition because we have to accept things in the mindset they were handed down to us. Not sure about that? Well try reading A Tale of Two Cities or To Kill a Mockingbird without knowing about the French Revolution or the Segregationist American South. Context can be helpful, unless you think you can para-drop a million native language Bibles over an isolated Pacific island and be able to build a coherent Christian Church.
---
I'm not saying to be snotty, mean spirited, or impatient. However a good Orthodox Christian should be able to stand up and defend his or her Faith when the time calls for it.
-Steve K
Does any of this sound familiar?:
Where is THAT in the Bible?
Why do you worship liturgically?
Why do you worship Mary?
Why do you baptize babies?
Why do you need tradition?
et cetera
There are many reasonable, logical, and even experiential reasons for us to believe in that which we do. Moreover, I'd like to believe that each one of us cradle Orthodox should be able to each look into ourselves and hope that if we hadn't been born Orthodox, we would have found our way into the Church somehow. My proposal is that we Orthodox need to start turning these questions back over on themselves.
Try to answer like this:
What you believe, prove THAT to me in the Scriptures!
If you don't worship liturgically, do you worship spontaneously? Show me in scripture where Jesus prescribes the order for Sunday worship. I don't imagine there was much guitar and keyboard playing there.
We don't worship Mary, but if YOUR Lord and Saviour had a mother who stuck by Him faithfully through His death at the foot of the Cross and onto His Resurrection, how would YOU treat her?
We don't exclusively baptize babies, we baptize everyone regardless of age so they may be buried and Resurrected with Christ. If you don't have a practice of baptizing babies, what would you call your practice? Early teenage baptism?
We have tradition because we have to accept things in the mindset they were handed down to us. Not sure about that? Well try reading A Tale of Two Cities or To Kill a Mockingbird without knowing about the French Revolution or the Segregationist American South. Context can be helpful, unless you think you can para-drop a million native language Bibles over an isolated Pacific island and be able to build a coherent Christian Church.
---
I'm not saying to be snotty, mean spirited, or impatient. However a good Orthodox Christian should be able to stand up and defend his or her Faith when the time calls for it.
-Steve K
posted by street theologian @ 8:58 PM
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home