The Side of American Orthodoxy that Orthodox are Loath to Admit
Embryo Parson Posted on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at 02:02PM Blog article from the author of Turning to tradition: Intra-Christian converts and the making of an American Orthodox Church. Fr. Oliver has approached me to be a source for an article he plans to write on converts to Orthodoxy who leave the Orthodox Church. His blog article here also speaks to that phenomenon, though it is chiefly concerned with Greek Americans' widespread abandonment of the Greek Orthodox Church. Some highlights:
A recent Pappas Post article has highlight that 90% of people in America with Greek heritage are no longer Greek Orthodox. It has been making rounds amongst Orthodox and seems to be stirring up some amount of surprise. Frankly, I’m not so sure it should surprise us. It may surprise us because in many Greek parishes Greek heritage is emphasized. It may also surprise us because Orthodox literature since the 1980s has tended to overemphasize (in some cases simply exaggerate) the movement of converts entering into American Orthodoxy. Converts have been a significant movement within Orthodoxy. Given my most recent book on this very topic, I would be the last person to deny that. However, if one reads the introduction even in there, one will realize that Orthodoxy brings in about as many as it loses. Our growth, to be blunt, seems statistically insignificant. That there is growth may be a good thing, but we also need to be honest about the losses. So, if we’ve done our research, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn of losses. . . .
If we Orthodox can set aside our triumphalism for a few moments, I think we’ll find that what is happening in such cases speaks to a truth. I also think that we have before us the elephant in the room. People are leaving our church and are leaving in droves. My prediction is that unless we get another large convert movement into Orthodoxy, we will find our gains in the 1980s and 1990s were simply the “one step forward” to our “two steps back.” We even have a seminary of a particular jurisdiction with a monastery and I have been told that in terms of numbers and participants, it is a shadow of what it used to be (even while still functioning well enough over all for the moment). This is not just a Greek problem. It is an American Orthodox problem and the solution is not to make Orthodoxy an increasingly niche religion.
Trouble in paradise. In a previous post, I noted Orthodox theologian Bradley Nassif's acknowledgment that there is a signficant exodus of converts to Orthodoxy from the Orthodox Church. He speculates that as much as 50% or more have either reverted or gone on to something else. It will be interesting to see if Herbel can confirm or correct Nassif's metrics in his forthcoming research. As his new blog article suggests, however, the exodus of converts is only one worry, since there appears to be a rather significant exodus of cradles as well.
Reader Comments (35)
Cappelane, I believe that Paul sets forth a fully formed and informed covenant theology in Ephesians, especially in chapters 1-3. The problem is that we have failed to fully grasp his meaning over the centuries, with a few noteworthy exceptions. The preaching of the resurrection of Jesus is recorded for us in Acts, and in every instance but one it is linked explicitly to David's covenant, while Abraham's is taken for granted, assumed, and referred to as a given. The OT promises of the new covenant frame the resurrection explicitly in terms of the Abrahamic covenant, see Ezekiel 11 and Jeremiah 31.31 ff..
In short, the work of Christ in his death and resurrection can only be rightly understood when it is placed within this existing framework of Abraham and David. (Forgive me if you already know all of this).
Coming back to my original comment, the Orthodox Church is in truth the Novel Church, because they know nothing of this and have replaced it with an entirely new and invented content of apostolic succession and a "New Israel" rather than "Old Israel with new branches". When they speak of Tradition they are in fact speaking of Invention, because the older tradition of Abraham and David, and Jesus' fulfilment of them, are hidden from them in their hubris.
This all leads back to the assertion of the English Reformers that the Church of England is older than Rome in that it had restored a more ancient faith as found in scripture.
Roger, Which "English Reformers"? The Anglicans from the 16th century? Or the Presbyterians from the 17th century? The CofE soundly rejected the attempted English Presbyterian Settlement. And the CofE rejected both the WCF and WC! The English Presbyterians became part of the dissenters in England, including Baptists and others, who only achieved toleration in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
No Christian Church rejects the idea of God's covenant history with his children and his Church. The idea of baptism being tied to the covenant is one held by all of Christendom. I pull out my Orthodox Study Bible. Under the discussion of Holy Baptism it talks about both the old and new covenant. Just like Ursinus (see Q. 294 in his Longer Catechism). And the concept of "God's Covenants" is discussed in the OSB (see p. 361). Our covenant is the Gospel, Christ, and the sacraments. Just as Ursinus said. There is no discontinuity.
Richard
OK. So I was right after all, you are not coming at this from the same angle. You are in the Orthodox church.
First, the English Reformers never means the Puritans and the Presbyterians of the 17th century. It refers to Tyndale, Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, and a few others.
Second, the old covenant mentioned in your OSB is Moses, not Abraham and David. I do not include Moses in the covenants of promise, because it is a different kind of covenant. That is not what I mean by covenant theology, and it is not what Paul or any other apostle or prophet meant. It certainly has its place in history, but is not a covenant of grace. Christians do not inherit Moses in any way, but they do inherit Abraham and David. Moses was only for the Jews, ever, and then only for a short time, that is, until Christ appeared, and now he has been utterly abolished as a covenant. He plays no part in our salvation.
You see then that our understanding of these things is not the same. I had a lengthy correspondence with one of the men involved in the OSB, in particular, the Letter to the Romans, and he certainly did not know what covenant theology is.
Roger, Just so we're clear, the discussion in the OSB about God's Covenants with man involves the following: Noah, Abraham, Moses, the renewal of the Mosaic covenant under Joshua, and David. In addition, it discusses the prophets Ezekial, Jeremiah, and Isaiah as relates to the new covenant, that is fulfilled in Christ. ALL Christian Churches are covenantal. The Christian covenant is in, thruough, and with Christ.
Roger duBarry,
Some confusion here sir! I am a fairly low church Anglican. Really. http://www.graceanglicanonline.com/ I am the burly man in the surplice 20 seconds into the welcome video.
Here is my Anglican vitae
http://rtbp.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/late-to-the-party-in-more-ways-than-one/
I take the Articles seriously. I believe the church is wherever the Gospel is preached and the Sacraments are duly administered. I believe the EO have a bad habit of often muddling the former.
I also don't buy their claim of being the one true church.
I only commented here as I thought the Westminster Catechism was a fairly straight forward and easy to understand 17th century summary of reformed covenant theology. I did this for the benefit of the EO gentlemen who asked about early articulations of such. Apparently it was not early enough for him, and my obtuse post only confused you. I obviously did not write clearly and sincerely apologize.
Richard, Good to know that as an Anglican you appreciate the Anglican 39 Articles. I'm rather shocked to see the English Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechism of same being extolled here as somehow legitimately expressive of true Anglican theology. It most certainly is not and never has been! The murderers who slew Archbishop Laud and King Charles I knew exactly what they were doing: destroying the Anglican Church and State and replacing it with a completely different and foreign Presbyterian Church and State (by way of Geneva, Holland, and Scotland). I can't imagine any Anglican wanting anything to do with the Westminster divines, their theology, and the political and military alliance they forged to (temporarily) destroy the Anglican Church of England.
And being from the mid-17th century, there is nothing ancient about the WCF or Catechism. It isn't a traditional exposition of Western Christendom, including in England. (One would be far, far better off using the more irenic 2nd Helvetic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism.)
And, yes, we EOs certainly could benefit from better preaching. Esp. in the Greek Church. But I've often encountered magnificent preaching in both the Antiochian and Russian (OCA) Churches.
And, sadly, I've encountered some thoroughly lifeless and boring Anglican preaching over the years at various continuing Anglican churches. You may know the type. Where the priest steps up to the pulpit, pulls out his script, takes out his glasses, and then proceeds to read some dry dissertation (oft times discussing some arcane point or other that revolves around translating from the original language), apparently attempting to impress us with his erudition, but essentially being gospel free.
Richard, no apology necessary at all.
Michael, regarding the WCF, it is typical of Western theology on all points except for the Puritan distinctives like the Regulative Principle. The English Civil War was not about religion but politics. The religious views of both sides were identical otherwise. Both sides were Augustinian on election and Reformed on sola fide, and they agreed on the efficacy of the sacraments. The Puritans generally disliked having one form of liturgy imposed by law, and they had an irrational hatred of surpluses and wedding rings.
Their opposiiton to bishops came from their anti-king ideology, because they saw them as ecclesiastical nobility, and they identified nobility with monarchy, so it had to go. They did not just abolish the monarchy, but the nobility too. The area where I live in Dorset used to belong to a particular noble family who had their lands confiscated under the Commonwealth, then restored by Charles II, and now lost to successive Socialist governments, who are the true heirs of the Puritans.
Yes, the Puritans were murderous regicides, but they were not heretics.
I agree with you on the dire state of preaching in all churches.
Roger, Saying the English Civil War and Revolution of the 1640s-1650s "was not about religion but politics" is the same silliness that has American Southerners say our Civil War of the 1860s "was not about slavery but about tariffs and federalism". In the 17th century the English Church and State were ONE (up until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 makes legal provision for non-Roman Catholic dissenters). There was NO separation. So the English Presbyterians knew exactly what they were doing when they destroyed the Anglican Church and State and replaced it in toto with a completely new Presbyterian Church and State. The WCF & WC are the essential foundations for this new understanding. And that was why it was repudiated by the restored Anglican Church and State.
The atypicallness of the WCF in regards to historic Western Christendom is so obvious! Here in America around 1903 the Presbyterian Church rejected those radical parts of it. See the Book of Confessions for our mainline united Presbyterian Church. The WCF is there. But notice the asterisks and corresponding rejections of entire sections of it. And it was soundly and completely rejected by the Anglican and Methodist Churches around the world.
The WCF is to Anglicanism what kryptonite is to Superman! Deadly. Wielded only by her enemies. And to be avoided at all costs.
Roger, As regards the English Civil War of the 1640s, I'll let the English historian Charles Carlton have the last word for me:
"That the English Civil War started, continued and ended as a war of religion should not surprise us." [From his book, Archbishop William Laud (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), at p. 205.]
See also his book Charles I: The Personal Monarch. Or H.R. Trevor-Roper's Archbishop Laud, 1573-1645 (2nd ed. 1962).
If you want to see a confession of faith that is far more congruent than the WCF with historic Western Christendom within the Reformed Church, see Bullinger's far superior 2nd Helvetic Confession (1561/1566). Erudite, peaceful, and comprehensive. It is in the American Presbyterian Book of Confessions. Unlike the WCF, without any rejections or reservations! If only the Reformed hadn't wandered off into the Genevan, Dutch, and Scottish wastelands.
Michael
History is open to interpretation, as every historian will tell you. If you believe what you do about the Civil War, then that is fine. My own experience of the WCF, which is quite extensive from having to discuss it with real Presbyterians, is that in its doctrine it is almost indistinguishable from classical Anglicanism on every essential point. If you wish to dispute it then that is quite alright.
I personally feel that it is a step down from the BCP religion of the Reformation CoE, in several small and subtle ways, which is why I do not endorse it. I believe from my own reading of the Civil War, and having read some of the Puritans, that they differed religiously in trivialities that they thought of as major things, such as wedding rings and surpluses. Their main issue was the monarchy and everything that went with it.
Presbyterianism is not an entirely different religion from the BCP, but you are free to disagree.
Michael,
I agree with everything Roger Du Barry said the English Civil War being much more complicated than Laudians and Regicides. Many devout men or the time, such as Richard Baxter, are hard to pin down as either "Anglican" or "Presbyterian". Baxter opposed the conflict, was a parliamentary Army Chaplain, assisted in the Restoration of Charles II, tried to develop a compromise liturgy, was offered a bishopric, but ended up thrown out as a dissenter. Baxter is kind of a microcosm of the period. CS Lewis wrote that the whole mess could have been quietly settled by mature saintly disputants in private, rather than the battlefields.
Roger & Richard: As to the English Civil War, our own personal opinions matter hardly a whit. I'd love to see you cite some recognized historian(s) who agree with your statement that it wasn't a conflict over religion. I cited one. Who is both English and a recognized expert in the field. Where are your citations? (CS Lewis hardly qualifies. What was his background? Medieval poetry?)
Roger, Your personal opinion about the relationship between the WCF and Anglicanism (including 39 Articles/BCP/Hymnal) is merely that, one opinion. Can you cite any recognized expert in the histories and theologies of the Anglican and Reformed Churches who agrees with you that the two are essentially congruent? History alone--reflected in the clear rejection of the WCF and its catechism during the restoration--conclusively rebuts the bald assertion. And if the American Presbyterians were rejecting large parts of the WCF by 1903, I don't see how anyone could argue that the WCF is somehow more in tune with Anglicanism than the Reformed Church. I realize that the WCF has made a comeback in the later 20th century for those Reformed who are aggressively "Calvinistically" oriented, but that comeback has NOT involved any national Anglican Church around the world or continuing Anglicanism in the USA. If anything, Anglicanism around the world has become LESS, not more, Calvinistic in the 20th century. CS Lewis being a great example!
Michael
To find out why I say that Puritanism and historical Anglicanism are identical in every major doctrinal point except for perhaps the Regulative Principle, read Hooker's reply to the Puritans, written in the 1590s. I do not include episcopacy, surpluses and wedding rings in the list of important points.
Am I correct in deducing from your post that you are objecting to the fact that the Reformational CoE was Calvinistic? It seems to me that you share the modern view that nothing could be less welcome than acknowledging the fact that the Articles are Augustinian, or perhaps Calvinistic, to the core. Is that correct observation?
Roger, I thought we were discussing the WCF and its "Calvinism". It certainly is NOT Anglican. And Bullinger's 2nd Helvetic Confession is both more faithful to historic Western Christendom, in general, and the original Reformational Reformed tradition, specifically.
As for the Churches of England say from 1520-1590, about all one can say is that it embodied many different theologies. Depending upon Monarch, Archbishop, and Parliament. Starts off Roman Catholic. Embraces some of Lutheranism. Retreats back toward Roman Catholicism. Then moves more toward Bucerian Reformed. Then back to RC. Then the settlement. That pretty much lets everyone believe whatever they want to believe about the CofE. The 39 Articles are both a religious and a political settlement. Moderate, broad, and sufficiently vague. (My "favorite" personage of the era is probably Bishop Stephen Gardiner. Talk about a mess! Somehow loyal servant of the Henrecian Settlement and Rome?)
Whether in England or Holland, the rise of an aggressive form of "Calvinism" (thank Beza and his followers?) always has a reaction. Thus comes along Arminius. And similar thinkers in England. But the two arise so close in time and are like point-counterpoint. The original point-counterpoint in this area, soteriology, was probably Melanchthon (see his Loci Communes 1543/1555/1559) vs Calvin (Institutes 1559).
I always laugh a bit when discussing Calvin and the Reformation and even the Reformed. John is a 2nd generation Reformer. He makes his first important (if still minor) appearance with his Institutes of 1536, which essentially just ape Melanchthon's Loci Communes (started 1521). John comes well AFTER Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Bucer, Bullinger, Oecolampadius, Capito, and other 1st generation Reformers.
I think a far stronger case can be made that the CofE as embodied in the 1552/1559 BCPs and 42/39 Articels is far, far more "Bucerian" than "Puritan". Which is why Cranmer invited him to live and teach in England after the Lutheran princes were defeated in the 1540s. Bucer, the ecumenical humanist, who like Melanchthon worked so tirelessly for (re)union. Both had a high tolerance for theological ambiguity in non-essentials and a dislike for pushing certain areas of theology too hard (e.g., predestination). And ultimately both Melanchthon and Bucer were rejected by their own faith communities. Yet interestingly when I read the 39 Articles and 1552/1559/1662 BCPs I see the mind and hand of each present.
Have you ever studied the ecumenical work of Melanchthon and Bucer in the 1540s? With RCs, Lutherans, and Reformed. See the attempted Reformation in Cologne and Archbishop Wied. The Regnesburg dialog. And Melanchthon's Leipzig Interim of 1548 (with its allowance for much RC-desired adiaphora, though not as much as the Augsburg Interim from earlier in 1548).
Michael, you asked for the name of an authority that says that the WCF and Anglicanism are almost identical, and I gave you Hooker. The Puritans that he disputed with had exactly the same issues as the WCF men fifty years later, down to using the same terminology. You need to read Hooker for yourself to get the point, not dismiss him with a wave of your hand. The Puritans had the same theological issues from the late 1500s all the way into the 1650s.
Do not write a review until you have read the book.
Concerning Luther, I would say that he is my hero. I learned sola fide by reading and studying his lectures on Galatians, as well as his book against free will called The Bondage of the Will. I get all of his theology, even his argument for consubstantiation, although I part with him there. So, yes, I know Luther very well.
Your argument that the CoE was all over the shop theologically from the 1540s and fifty years on simply does not hold up. I would agree that certain men has differing ideas, but the BCP and the Articles remained the same, as they do to this day. The CoE has in them an unchanging standard that the opinions of individuals can be measured against. Also, everyone knows that the CoE of that time was very "Calvinistic", meaning that they were Augustinians to the core who only differed from Luther on the Supper. That's it.
The official teaching of the CoE has remained unchanged from that day to this, established by an Act of Parliament that is still in force. The sad fact is that no-one today knows what that teaching is, because they do not read it or study it. Notwithstanding this state of affairs, Anglicanism is set in stone theologically speaking in the BCP 1662.
When you say that Presbyterianism is not Anglicanism you need to tell me what you mean by that. Are you speaking theologically, or are you speaking of adiaphora like bishops and certain cultural expressions like surpluses and liturgy? I think that you mean the latter, while I am speaking of the former.