Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
Hoping I can look at this more later. No time to read. Conference. Exams to grade.
But good work. This looks like a wonderful post!
I wonder if this effect would be as strong if the rituals in question didn’t also have a hefty dose of local superstition.
I don’t have much to say about this, but I’ll tag @Skipsul in.
Part of all of it is the pleasure and shock of getting a brand new take on something you thought was completely familiar and explained.
Your idea I think is true to some extent, but the opposite effect can also be true. I have seen people reject the Baptist and cling to the Orthodox Church to protect their folk beliefs.
In the case of people that convert all the rituals of the Orthodox Church tend to lose their luster. The meaning of the liturgy, the cults of the Saints and the role of Icons are all part of mainstream Orthodox theology and not “folk beliefs” but their meaning tends to fade when you have accepted the nature of Christ in the way that the Baptist explain it.
In the same way those same things come alive for people that convert the other way!
Skipsul will see my post, he follows me so I am sure he will check it out. But just in case @skipsul
I’ll not jump in, as I was savaged in the thread on Catholics.
First, I think the boys wanted her to bury that gold necklace so they could come back later and dig it up….I was snookered out of a gold and diamond ring that I inherited when I tried to sell it on eBay and someone in Eastern Europe sent me a legitimate looking check (from a Texas bank owned by the Chinese! I kid you not – I called the bank). It was a fake check and it bounced back in 2009 – the bank says it “happens” all the time…..ok – I don’t want to talk about it…..
I worked for a few months as an admin to a Greek Orthodox priest – in his 80’s. He was adamant how lost his Orthodox flock were. He went against the grain – apparently at one time he was groomed to be a bishop here in the US and upset so many people, they ostracized him instead. He created a church here in the US, wrote books, was a staunch supporter of Israel and the literal interpretation of the Bible. His biggest beef was the people did not know the Bible.
So when you describe how the priests you met allow for these superstitions etc. I wonder how much they are missing when they leave the church – how they live in the real world (the flock). So much corruption and cyber-breaches come out of these countries. I worked with a fellow from Romania who was full of stories like that. Our IT guy confirmed that. Does it really make any difference one denomination over another? I feel like the priests and ministers are selling the people short – Bible studies, clear understanding of the faith, and strengthening the faith mean more today than ever, especially on how you live your life when you walk out of the church.
When did that happen? I missed that one….
Brian W:
I notice that you’re most familiar with Orthodoxy in four formerly Communist countries, with America listed fifth. I would expect the Orthodox churches in former Communist countries to have particular difficulties along the lines that you reference, due to the long submergence under Communist tyranny. I understand what you mean when you say a “generation” has passed since the fall of Communism, but this means 30 years, and that’s not a very long period for recovery if most of the adults had lost both their understanding of the Faith and regular religious practice. Thirty years seems a pretty short time to me now — though it seemed a long time to me in 1990, when I was 22 (. . . it was a very good year . . .).
Have you observed the same issues among the Orthodox in America?
My other thought is to agree with your observation that the sad ignorance of the Faith is hardly unique to Orthodoxy. It takes on different forms in America, and my experience is concentrated among lapsed Catholics and Protestants, if “lapsed” is the right word. There are two phenomena at work here: (1) some people self-identify as Catholic or Christian or with a particular Protestant denomination, while never having understood it in any meaningful way; and (2) some people were raised in a particular church, but have fallen away and are uninterested.
Thank you for this excellent and interesting post.
Great post.
Recently I have been watching some You Tube clips by Church Militant (a.k.a. Michael Voris). Voris is a staunch Catholic who lives in the Detroit, Michigan area.
I have found his You Tube clips very interesting.
Voris criticizes Protestantism very directly, saying that Protestantism is either a stepping stone towards atheism or is equivalent to atheism. Voris argued, on the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth, that Luther caused the rending of Christianity.
I can almost see his point. If you believe that Jesus gave Peter “the church,” then if one squints just a little one could see all protestant churches as “false churches.” At this point one might want to just have the Baptists, the Methodists and the Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox folks all join hands and sing “Kumbaya.”
I agree with the post here in that peer pressure plays a huge role in how people select their faith. The thinking goes, “Well, my uncle is a pretty smart and moral person. He sees no problem with this church denomination and this faith ritual. Why should I think that I have more knowledge than he?”
When I attended various churches in my 20s and 30s and even into my 50s, it seemed that even if the church pastor said something that didn’t sound quite right, it was impolite to publicly disagree. Often times a pastor would comment on an issue that the pastor really didn’t have any specialized knowledge of. One time, during the 1995-1996 government shutdown (Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole versus Bill Clinton) the pastor at a large non-denominational church said to his congregation, “You want to dismantle government.” No, we didn’t. We wanted to reform it. Then I thought, “If he is willing to wing it during a Sunday church service on a topic he isn’t up to speed on, why should I trust him when it comes to what he says about biblical issues?”
We are social by nature. So, we don’t like rocking the boat and prefer to go with the flow. We also don’t like dramatic change. Don’t expect churches to be serving gluten free communion any time soon. People like consistency in a world of uncertainty.
Now, full disclosure, I am what might be called a soft atheist, meaning that I believe that while there might be a God or multiple gods, as I observe the world with my senses, God seems to be superfluous. Laplace allegedly was asked by Napoleon, as Laplace was showing how planetary orbits were stable, where God fit into Laplace’s view of the solar system. In a response that is likely apocryphal, Laplace replies, “I have no need for that hypothesis.” That’s roughly where I come down. But of course I could change my mind. Also, even if there is a God, it’s hard for me to know what he likes and what he dislikes.
The popular theory is that Republican pastors do that all the time. Those Baptists, those Texans, those inerrantists–they should open their closed little minds, lighten up, and rediscover a bigger church and a nicer Jesus!
And here you show an important truth. Even if Baptists, Texans, inerrrantists, and so on need to do this, so do Methodists, New Yorkers, and non-inerrantists.
Dude: Baptists, and Evangelicals in general, are in a complete mess over basic bible literacy and theology. What else are we to make of the latest survey by LifeWay Research for Ligonier Ministries?
Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.
Evangelical respondents in 2018
Finding:52% of evangelicals agree
God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Finding:2018: 51% agree vs. 42% disagree
2016: 49% agree vs. 43% disagree
Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.
Finding:2018: 78% agree vs. 18% disagree
2016: 71% agree vs. 23% disagree
That is true about me and it is mostly true about the Orthodox countries. Greek Orthodox are not really different however they were not under Communism exactly. You do get to a deeper point however all Orthodox churches have been oppressed by the Muslims for 300 years or more with the sole exception of Russia. Russian Orthodox were suppressed for 70 years by Communism but never by the Muslims. All the other Orthodox countries were oppressed by Communism except Greece. This long history of oppression does impact Orthodoxy deeply and helped shape the Orthodox identity into a kind of ethnic identity. Some Georgians told me that they wondered if Americans could even be Christians because our blood is all “mixed” and we don’t know where they are really from. It is one of the reasons that Orthodox Christians do so little evangelism today.
Have you observed the same issues among the Orthodox in America?
Brian’s Law is that Religious freedom in American makes all faith’s better. Orthodox in America operating in our environment develop deeper arguments rooted in wonderful Orthodox theology and build better reasons for their practices and traditions. For instance in every country I have been the defense of Icons starts with, “Well because Jesus is really angry with us….”
I have never heard an Orthodox person in America start the defense of Icons by explaining how Jesus is full of wrath towards us.
In the countries where Orthodox is dominate they don’t have to come up with good arguments and rely on social pressure and cultural power. This is not good for the faith.
It can. That depends on the time place though. For instance in my missions work I asked a table of full of 24 youth leaders how many of them had “Christian” parents. The context was faithful practicing Christians Orthodox or Baptist and only one leader raised their hand. Everyone else either had only one believing parent or none. So they were not becoming Baptist Christians from social or family pressure. They often came to faith in the face of strong pressure and mild violence and maintained their faith despite the severe strain it put on their family relationships.
This is actually a weakness in Protestant churches. Pastors have to carry such weight and legitimacy to make the Protestant churches run that many men don’t live up to expectations or crack under the pressure and harm the witness of the faith by opining on things they know very little about.
Thank you for sharing. For real, thanks.
The main difference here is that a Protestant in America might be ignorant of the Bible he or she is not shocked to learn something is actually in the Bible they are more likely to be slightly embarrassed to not to know that.
We would read Biblical passages and the first reaction from the nominal Orthodox would be: That is a fake Bible! Who published that? Is this a trick?
So the ignorance is common but the reaction to finding out something new is different between the two cultures.
So why do you imagine Baptist clergy are so poor at imparting basic theology in America? Why are their flocks so ignorant? And are they really embarrassed anymore?
Oh, yes. Just like journalists. You read something they write in an area where you have expertise, and you know they are wrong. But read something about a subject where you know little or nothing, and what they say seems plausible. You have to pick your church and minister well. Our minister died, still active at 84. Finding a new minister who knows what should be known and has no other issues is difficult.
Would you consider a lead-pastor and a plurality of Elders who are all deeply committed to a life-time of study (of Scripture) in order to teach/preach the whole message of salvation from Gen-Rev, expecting God to grant results in granting eternal life, yet fully embracing their duty to be trained in hermeneutics/exegesis/application, to have a “weakness” for bringing half-baked personal opinions to the pulpit? I’m asking because I am reading through Paul Mairs annotated Eusebius, and the early church, and those leaders still alive that were disciples of Polycarp, the protege to the Apostle John and for several centuries knew Scripture assigns the church and the civil government roles in the world, and the institute of the Church and civil government were separate for reasons obvious to them, but, from the story you shared about some Church (acting as the church) was taking on the role of civil government, then if I were an outsider, I think I’d be confused too.
I don’t think that is a Baptist problem is a problem throughout all time ans space with religion. The Basic theology is there for all to see and learn but most people don’t think about it and when you hit them with a question they give the wrong answer.
It is like polling many political issues take abortion for instance. A majority of all people say the would like keep Roe and not see it overturned. Asked if they would like to ban abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy a majority of those same people think that is a good idea. To ban abortion after 20 weeks would require overturning Roe. So the same people that would like to keep Roe would also like to overturn it. Perhaps we have not talked about abortion enough in the US? Perhaps it is a low profile issue? Why would people want two totally contradictory outcomes?
I think it is the same with religion. If a you took all those people that think Jesus was a created being and put them in front of their pastor and the pastor said that Jesus was not created but had always existed just like God the Father all those or nearly all those people would agree with their pastor and deny believing anything else. I would say a large percentage of the people responding to the poll just aren’t thinking the question through because it is a subject they rarely think about.
Sure I think they are. I was in a small group recently and we were having a discussion about what we would do if a large group of Wiccans came to protest our church. If I explained the context this would make sense but I don’t want to give the context right now so just go with it. One lady in the group said, “Well that is why I carry a gun in my purse if those crazy witches came I would know what to do.” I gently walked her through what Jesus would have us do with a large group of pagans were to show up at our church and why firearms would not be necessary or desired. As we talked her embarrassment grew and I allowed her to save face and walk back her own comments and to joke about them. It was very good for the whole group. So yes I think the embarrassment is there but in a day of very strong tribal politics we don’t challenge each other enough. If I had not brought up the Wiccans we would have never know this woman’s reaction to them would have been so unchristian.
Arius would be pleased.
I am not sure I understand fully what you are asking here but let me answer this way. Due to the structure of the Protestant church in general but Baptist churches in particular the Elders and Pastor or Deacons have to carry a lot of weight for their congregations. We don’t refer back to the great teachers of the church or thousands of years of a teaching ministry or tradition. Many believers get their basic theological education and the legitimacy of their own faith from the teaching of the local pastor and leaders. That responsibility is very heavy. The Congregations often do this to their pastors by relying on them to do everything for them. Also Pastors are not all gifted the same and those different talents and abilities mean that not all Pastors are experts on everything in the same way but are often asked for their authoritative opinion on things they don’t know that much about.
Some churches do better minimizing this weakness other churches do not but the weakness is there. That is what I was trying to convey anyway.
Forgive me but could you say more specifically what you are referring to here. What story was I sharing about this subject? I may simply be dense but I am catching what you are referring too.
Sorry bout that. I started out asking you about a story with Bob Dole and a pastor addressing “reforming the (civil) gov, then I got too wordy thinking I needed to explain the context of my question was genuine study of early church. Thanks for responding, I’m always interested in people’s attitudes toward how a Christian can be an actively good citizen without misdirection the biblical purpose of the church, yknow?
Btw, thanks again for your reply. I understand what you meant now. Agreed re the expectations put on pastors/elders/deacons. I’m doing what little I can to support The Masters Academies that are being planted to get quality training to indigenous church leaders where it’s mostly dangerous to own bibles or have Christian church
Ahhh yes. I see. One of my big concerns out there today is that there is not enough thinking being done, or pastoral care given to being a Christian that interacts with politics in today’s America. Bruce Ashford is a find theologian working on these issues that you might want to check out. Also there is good podcast Countermoves that is excellent on these topics. Another podcast Room for Doubt also covers some of these topics with Center Left and Center Right Christians. Countermoves is hosted by a major fan of William F Buckley so that is a more a Center Right podcast, but in both cases the podcasts are talking for a Christian perspective first and politics are a secondary issue.
I think the church in general has not been doing a great job giving Christian on both the right and the left very good guidance about how to bring their Christian values into politics, in a healthy way.
There’s a lot to unpack in here. I cannot, of course, speak for the state of affairs in Georgia, or of its church, and this is why I should note something: each Orthodox jurisdiction is autocephalous – meaning each patriarchal jurisdiction is ultimately responsible for its own affairs. And (speaking somewhat for myself, but also to a degree for others I’ve known), Georgia is eccentric in its praxis and church life even by Orthodox standards. I’d be very wary of extending issues you have with Orthodoxy, as experienced in Georgia, as necessarily indicative of Orthodoxy everywhere else. And I should note that much of what you note as problematic would be things outside of dogma or doctrine, and in the realm of custom and culture.
That being said – there is much that one encounters even here in the US that is very “old world”, particularly in immigrant-heavy churches, that is problematic in Orthodox churches. I know of a priest (not local) who absolutely forbids the evil-eye amulets and symbols within his church – they’re older than Christianity (ancient Persian), and pagan to boot. And yet at the local Greek church, what did I see for sale during their annual Greek Festival? Evil eye stuff. A local Serbian church conducts its liturgies in Slavonic, and so had a number of Bulgarians attending (Bulgarians are not Slavs, but the ancient Bulgar language, a proto Turkic one, died out a thousand years ago, and they speak Slavic today). Then the Serbian patriarch issued a statement to be read one Sunday, commemorating some ancient battle between Serbs and Bulgars where the Bulgars lost badly, using language utterly offensive to Bulgarians. Half the congregation actually walked out during the service, and they all go to another church across town. Not a smart move there.
But we all carry with us old habits and practices we may not understand or ever even notice, including into our churches – Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, all do this. I’ve noted a number of Americanisms in American Protestantism over the years – beliefs carried in and amalgamated, biblical interpretations, and so forth – that, much as the local customs and superstitions of Georgia can pollute Christianity there, such Americanisms pollute Christianity here. Rapture fervency has been one such, a sort of Protestant Gnosticism (this world / this body / this life doesn’t matter, Heaven is my real home) has been another, and we should all be honest in recognizing that Prosperity Gospelism is a uniquely American contribution to the catalog of dangerous heresies (USA! USA! USA!).
But I don’t judge Protestantism based on its eccentric Americanisms, and I’d be leery of judging Orthodoxy on its Georgian ones.
Most of the world’s Orthodox (outside of the Middle East) are still coming out of a kind of shell-shock from centuries of abuse from not just Muslims, and Communists, but also from even western Christians (Protestants and Catholics both). The Iron Curtain cracked just 30 years ago, and when it did, before the Orthodox natives could even find their sea legs, they were flooded with well-meaning American Protestant missionaries, which to them felt like yet another foreign invasion (Yay, the Russians are leaving! Oh, wait, now the wealthy Americans invade, when we don’t even have the money to reopen our own churches?). Doing foreign missions work for a long time was secondary to trying to rebuild their own local churches, and re-catechize their own people.
But this is changing quite rapidly, and Orthodox missionary work abroad, while still comparatively small, quite enthusiastic.
That’s unfortunate. Some of the best treatises on iconography were written centuries ago in Orthodox lands still free, and they never went with “Well because Jesus is really angry with us”. The 7th Ecumenical Council (700s), which was largely to settle the issue of icons, did not use that language.
It should be noted that for much of history in Orthodox countries, reading the Bible was a bit of a challenge. By the time of the printing press, the Turks had mopped up the Balkans. So church life was conducted as it always had been with the Bible available mostly only to clergy, being too expensive (or too difficult to obtain, due to oppression) for more than a few people to own one. Changing that habit has been a priority in many places, but old habits die hard. If you wanted to hear scripture, you had to attend services.
Lay people receiving the Eucharist regularly was another practice that had to be brought back. Due to Muslim or Communist oppression, and the difficulties of even getting to any church at all, people were told just to try and receive it a minimum of once or twice a year. After a couple generations the habit was set, and people had actually forgotten that this was an exception granted by the bishops, and thought “it had always been this way”. It took some courageous clergy to one day tell their people and their bishops (who had also forgotten), that regular communion was necessary and normal. Cultural memory is a funny thing.
With an emphasis on “Healthy”. This is a huge problem. I have come to believe that the Evangelical entanglement with the Republican party, for instance, has been massively damaging to Evangelicals (as the Babylon Bee likes to frequently mock). When people assume that to be an Evangelical means to also be a Republican, and that to be a Republican also means to be an Evangelical, the ability to preach the gospel to all people is hamstrung (and the party loses credibility with Catholics, Jews, etc.). Mind you, I know many Evangelical churches do try to stay out of politics, but as Protestantism is so splintered it’s very difficult for them to avoid being tarnished by, say Jerry Falwell Jr. (whose own theology is, umm, mixed) running his mouth off. It’s not entirely their fault to be in this pickle, but blame here matters little – the damage needs to be repaired.
But you could just as easily point to Tsarist Russia – the entanglement between church and state there was toxic too. Peter I and Catherine II did massive damage to the Orthodox church in their times, and when the Bolsheviks took over, their massacres of priests were seen not just as being anti Christian, but also anti Tsarist. Again, not entirely the Church’s fault for Peter’s takeover centuries before, but the damage in the end was terrible.
The reasons these work is because they sound right. They are trick questions.
The first one is pretty accurate from most people’s daily experience. Most people do not encounter horrendous sin on a regular basis, even if they believe that they need Jesus in their life and Jesus will save save them from their sins.
The second one has been drilled into us by the popular culture. Also, the religions listed are all monotheistic faiths with a lot of similar concepts.
The last one deals with Trinitarian theology, which is mind-bogglingly hard to understand. It is the quantum physics of theology. Since we are no longer butchering each other over the difference of a few Greek letters, this is much less of a concern for most people. People see Jesus alongside First and Greatest, and click yes.