We love and appreciate the vitality of faith and evangelistic fervor Evangelicals and Charismatics bring to the Christian faith.  There is a strong devotion to the Word of God and the Apostolic witness of the New Testament church that is vital for any Christian community.  But with these faith communities also come various errors: "Faith" teaching, unbalanced and extreme emphasis on various aspects of the "Charismatic" or "Pentecostal" experience, overemphasis on emotional "highs" in worship, and narrow theologies that do not intelligently deal with the world around us are all errors.  Unfortunately long term exposure can be hazardous to your spiritual health.

Some times these communities take up cues from the culture that undermine the long-term spiritual health of their people.  This is often experienced as a sort of spiritual exhaustion.  Market driven models of church growth often miss the entire point of the gospel and create a shallow spirituality, leaving people spiritually thirsty.  This thirst is manifested by a continued drive to find the next new trend that will breathe life into the community, like the new books and programs pushed by the latest publisher and mega-church pastor.  For those who have been in the Evangelical or Charismatic circles for some time you know what we are talking about.  This impuse for the new is also experienced in a spirituality that is dependent upon emotional experience - charismatic worship services, prophetic ministers, healers, or itinerant teachers that all promise a special "impartation".  And so you bounce along from one service to the next looking to fill your spiritual tank.  Even worship can seem to be exhausting as people try to "bring down the anointing" of God as if He had to be wrestled to earth.  And the focus often moves from honest adoration of God to the fulfillment of some personal emotional/spiritual need.  Worship becomes focused on us rather than God and at that point ceases to be true worship altogether.  The focus of worship is God.

Did you ever think that there must be more to your spiritual life than this? Consequently lot's of people leave these churches hungry for a deeper spirituality and stability.  Orthodoxy is the answer.  If you are looking for spiritual depth the tradition is a bottomless well for the spiritually thirsty.  Contrary to what many Protestants think Orthodoxy does not deny miracles, the prophetic, or true worship, it just lives these things out radically differently.  Miracles and prophetic words are simply not the primary focus in Orthodoxy.  Instead the focus is on participation in the life of Jesus; personal transformation through spiritual exercise, worship, and right living.  Our emphasis is on genuine spiritual formation that is sustainable.  It is on the liturgical life of the worshiping Church gathered to put glorifying God first, not our emotional needs.  The spirituality of Orthodoxy is much more rigorous and genuine but it is effective in cleansing us from sin and changing us into His image.  We call this Theosis.  Still coming home to Orthodoxy presents a lot of challenges.  Have some questions? Here are some thoughts from a sister parish for you to consider:

Did You Know ?

That the CHURCH*, and 100% of the men (with no exception), who discerned which 27 Books would make up the New Testament, were Orthodox Christians, who believed whole-heartedly in, practiced, and even died for their faith and belief in:

§ The Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist (Communion)

§ The 7 Sacraments as actually imparting God’s Grace

§ Infant Baptism

§ Church Government of Bishops & Priests all possessing un-broken Apostolic Succession

§ Intercessory Prayer of the Saints

§ The Perpetual Virginity of Mary (actually Luther, Calvin, & Zwingli did too)

§ Were Evangelical & Charismatic

Did you also know, that the New Testament and its 27 Books were not Canonized officially as Scripture (the Bible) until the end of the 4th Century and into the 5th Century by this same Church?  This is a fact. 

The Holy Scriptures are a product of the Church, they flow from and out of the Church's very Tradition; as do the Doctrines of the Trinity, Human & Divine Nature of Christ, etc...

Scripture and Tradition

Don’t they contradict one another?

For early Christians, there was no false dichotomy such as we see today between the Bible and Holy Tradition. In the intensity of unimaginably crucial battles for the Christian Faith, when forces within and without were threatening to tear apart and silence forever the message proclaimed by Christ and passed down through His disciples, the Church looked gratefully to both Scripture and Holy Tradition to find balance and to maintain equilibrium. It was never an "either/or" option. Both Scripture and Holy Tradition were received as having been given to the Church by God Himself, the source of all wisdom, through the direct operation of the Holy Spirit.

The battles of our own time are no less fierce than those of the Church's early history. In the midst of a fragmented and hopelessly divided Christian proclamation of the early twenty-first century, with nearly 38,000 protestant groups and individuals claiming to know the true meaning of Scripture, yet disagreeing radically with one another and often proclaiming new and dangerously novel doctrines, the battle for faith is, in fact, intensifying on a daily basis. What will be the outcome of this tremendous struggle?

Thank God, there is still time for a return to the balanced and Spirit-filled understanding of the Holy Scriptures, as guided by the light of Holy Tradition. If we are willing to lay aside our modern prejudices and return to the consistent and clear message of the Bible, understood through the clarifying lens of Holy Tradition, our chances of surviving the current crisis increase tremendously. In fact, the very gates of hell will not prevail against us.

So, what does the bible say about tradition?  Doesn’t it condemn the traditions of men?  Let’s take a look:

The Bible does condemn the traditions of men:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human traditionand the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”Colossians 2:8

Undoubtedly some of the toughest language in all Scripture directed toward this aspect of tradition can be found coming from the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself in Matthew 15:3-9. He calls the Pharisees "hypocrites" for nullifying the commandments of God through their phony traditions, and then goes on to castigate them by quoting Isaiah's prophecy, "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."

The traditions of men are those traditions that nullified the truth of God’s Word.

But, the Bible also commands us to follow Apostolic Tradition

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions, just as I passed them on to you.” (1 Corinthians 11:1-2b)

"Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditionswhich you were taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work"  (2 Thessalonians 2:15-17)

“We command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us" (2 Thessalonians 3:6)

The Church followed Saint Paul's instruction to Timothy, "the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2)

The word tradition means, literally, "to hand down.”  Holy Tradition speaks of a careful passing on of correct belief and worship from generation to generation.

What are we trying to say?

That tradition, like the Bible itself, can be perverted and twisted into some thing unimaginably ugly and godless, if that is the intent of those who are using it. But if we as modern Christians have false preconceptions that go beyond that realization, and tell us that all tradition is evil, or that tradition is something to be avoided like the plague, we need to take a second look at Scripture itself. As we have seen, the early Church had no such hang-ups about tradition, although they were most definitely concerned about differentiating between Holy Tradition and the traditions of men.

The Orthodox Church is the original Christian Church, the Church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ and described in the pages of the New Testament. Her history can be traced in unbroken continuity all the way back to Christ and His Twelve Apostles.  The Orthodox Christian Church alone has maintained un-changed the original Christian Faith and tradition.

One writer has compared Orthodoxy to the faith of Rome and Protestantism in this basic fashion: Orthodoxy has maintained the New Testament tradition, whereas Rome has often added to it and Protestantism has greatly subtracted from it.

Most Protestant churches do not even have a published Catechism (the official teachings of the Church) and will find out that many people in the pews and even pastoral staff hold radically different beliefs in critical doctrinal areas.  Christ and the Apostles intended for all Believers to have the whole and complete Christian Faith, with nothing watered down, taken away or added.

I invite you and your parish to consider the authentic, historic and un-changed original Christian Church; the Church that gave us the New Testament and all the essential doctrines of the Christian Faith.  Come home to Orthodoxy.

*Note:  There was just one Church, there were no denominations…no Protestants.