May 14, 2012
I’ve just watched this and found it strangely moving. Somehow I expected it to be funny because, well, it’s Steve Robinson. But of course salvation is serious business. I’m posting this here, because I suspect that there are others who may appreciate it. And also, I suppose, because it reminds me of how growing up I found the penal substitutionary atonement theory really revolting but didn’t know what the alternative was… and if anyone else is in that situation I’d like them to watch this.
April 3, 2011
I’ve been thinking a fair bit about relations with evangelical Christians this last week, and I hope that what I say here will not be too offensive. (And I fear that my thoughts may also be somewhat rambling). I suppose that that is in large part because I seem to increasingly realise that what many, perhaps most, people in South Africa understand by Christianity is some version of evangelical Protestantism, even if they have rejected it or moved into some form of post-evangelical consciousness.
Yesterday, during coffee after Liturgy, a non-Orthodox woman present complained at how exclusive we Orthodox are. Admittedly, we had been reacting to certain things and I wondered whether we had been unfair. But others responded by pointing out, quite bluntly, that there really are fundamental differences between Orthodoxy and evangelical Protestantism. I could certainly relate to this as I had had a conversation with a colleague earlier in the week that had left me feeling that the differences are very great indeed. And yet I was also uncomfortable drawing the lines too sharply – after all, I have known thoughtful evangelicals and some things do need to be said with a certain nuance.
Since, then, there was needed a lifting up from death for the whole of our nature, He stretches forth a hand as it were to prostrate humanity, and stooping down to our dead corpse He came so far within the grasp of death as to touch a state of deadness, and then in His own body to bestow on our nature the principle of the resurrection, raising as He did by His power along with Himself the whole human being. For since from no other source than from the concrete lump of our nature had come that flesh, which was the receptacle of the Godhead and in the resurrection was raised up together with that Godhead, therefore just in the same way as, in the instance of this body of ours, the operation of one of the organs of sense is felt at once by the whole system, as one with that member, so also the resurrection principle of this Member, as though the whole of humankind was a single living being, passes through the entire race, being imparted from the Member to the whole by virtue of the continuity and oneness of the nature. What, then, is there beyond the bounds of probability in what this Revelation teaches us; viz. that He Who stands upright stoops to one who has fallen, in order to lift him up from his prostrate condition?
St Gregory of Nyssa,
The Great Catechism, 32
Given a thorough-going faith and love for Jesus Christ, there is nothing in all this that will not be obvious to you; for life begins and ends with these two qualities. Faith is the beginning, and love is the end; and the union of the two together is God. All that makes for a soul’s perfection follows in their train, for nobody who professes faith will commit sin, and nobody who possesses love can feel hatred. As the tree is known by its fruits, so they who claim to belong to Christ are known by their actions; for this work of ours does not consist in just making professions, but in a faith that is both practical and lasting.
Indeed, it is better to keep quiet and be, than to make fluent professions and not be. No doubt it is a fine thing to instruct others, but only if the speaker practices what he preaches. One such Teacher there is: He who spake the word, and it was done; [Ps 33,9] and what He achieved even by his silences was well worthy of the Father. A man who has truly mastered the utterances of Jesus will also be able to apprehend His silence, and thus reach full spiritual maturity, so that his own words have the force of actions and his silences the significance of speech. Nothing is hidden from the Lord; even our most secret thoughts are ever present to Him. Whatever we do, then, let it be done as though He Himself were dwelling within us, we being as it were His temples and He within us as their God. For in fact, that is literally the case; and in proportion as we rightly love Him, so it will become clear to our eyes.
St Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle to the Ephesians, 14-15.
Posts
Comments
A vow of conversation 