April 13, 2018 Show with Dr. Jack D. Kinneer on “Eastern Orthodoxy: What Separates It From Rome & the Reformation?”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday. On this

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Friday the 13th, 13th of April 2018, and our guest and topic has nothing to do with the fact that this is

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Friday the 13th and superstitiously viewed as a dangerous and wicked day.

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It has nothing to do with that. I am thrilled that we have our guest on today for the very first time.

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He is one of the very few Protestant apologists or theologians that is thoroughly knowledgeable on the area of Eastern Orthodoxy.

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I had a dear friend, Larry Carino, who years ago on the old

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program when we were broadcasting out of WNYG and WGBB in New York, he had been a guest on the program and at least one of those occasions discussed

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Eastern Orthodoxy. But Larry is spending eternity with Christ now and I am in part paying tribute to him through this broadcast today on Eastern Orthodoxy.

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I hope his dear widow Jackie Carino is listening today and I just also miss you

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Jackie and I hope I get the chance to fellowship with you at some point in the near future. But Jack D.

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Kinnear is adjunct professor of New Testament Studies teaching Greek and New Testament exegesis along with general epistles and revelation and director of the

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Doctor of Ministry program at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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He's also associate pastor at Pioneer Presbyterian Church, which is a congregation in the

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PCA denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the late

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Dr. R .C. Sproul's Ligonier Ministries, and he is the author of How to Grow in Christ and contributing writer to Order in the

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Offices, Essays Defining the Roles of Church Offices. Today we are going to be discussing

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Eastern Orthodoxy, what separates it from Rome and the Reformation, and it's truly my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Trippin's Iron Radio, Dr.

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Jack D. Kinnear. Well, thank you. I'm pleased to be with you today. And I'm going to give our email address out right away for any of you who wants to join us on the air with a question of your own.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Let's say you are starting to develop an interest in joining the

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Eastern Orthodox Church and you don't want to draw attention to your identity. Perhaps you are already an

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Eastern Orthodox individual and are having questions about your own theology or whatever the case may be that may compel you to remain anonymous.

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We would understand that and we will grant your request, but other than a personal and private matter, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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Well as I typically do when I interview first -time guests, Dr. Kinnear, is

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I have them give a little bit of a background description of their religious upbringing, if any, and what providential circumstances the

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Lord used to draw you to himself and save you. I was raised in a family that was attending church on a regular basis, and so I heard the gospel from my youngest years.

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I actually have no recollection of not believing, only a recollection of various episodes in my childhood and adolescent years as I understood what that faith meant with greater depth and seriousness.

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And any particular denominational or theological background of that family upbringing? Well my mother was part of the

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Brethren Church, but I was initially raised in a

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Baptist Church my very young years, and then in a congregation of the

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United Church of Christ. Huh, well that's quite a switch over to being in a conservative denomination like the

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PCA and also teaching at a seminary that is run by the

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Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America known as the Covenanters.

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How did you discover and embrace Reformed theology and get drawn into Presbyterianism?

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In one sense I grew up into it, in the sense that the congregation that I was a part of in the

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United Church of Christ was an old German Reformed congregation, so I grew up in a liturgical setting, and that liturgy informed and structured my thinking and faith, and it was only in my teen years that I began to realize that the pastor of the church didn't believe what we said in the liturgy, that he was, we would call him a theological liberal.

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And that's what eventually led me to make the transition to a conservative

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Presbyterian congregation. Well the thing that is really unusual about your background is that you trained or studied at an

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Eastern Orthodox seminary, and you did so without even being a member of the

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Eastern Orthodox religion. You attended St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York, and can you tell us why on earth a

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Protestant would attend and study at a theological seminary like St.

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Vladimir's? Well first of all, it's not all that odd in academic studies to choose to study at an institution very different than where you did your first graduate degree, just because you don't get locked into only seeing things from one perspective.

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But more importantly, myself and another minister were pursuing studies in the history and theology of worship.

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We were looking for a locale in which we could continue those studies with someone who was well -versed in the early centuries, and that's what we found at St.

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Vladimir's. So we went there to study that general subject area as our main concern, obviously secular things as well, and we went there not with any intention of becoming members of the

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Orthodox Church or having doubts about our own Protestant convictions. We went there to study the early history and theology of worship, and it proved to be a very, very interesting place to study.

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The faculty were very warm and inviting. Occasionally the students were a little awkward with two Protestant ministers present, but all in all it was a very good experience.

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Now were you permitted to receive any degrees since you never complied with their theology?

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Yes, I have a doctorate ministry degree from St. Vladimir's. Oh, wow. That was the program in which we were allowed to do our research.

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Wow, that's that's utterly fascinating. Now is that a common thing? Do you know of other Protestants, and specifically theologically reformed

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Calvinistic Protestants, who have received doctorates or who have been educated at an

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Eastern Orthodox seminary or institution of higher education? As far as I know, the other minister and myself were the only two who did that.

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There may have been others, but I didn't know that. There were other Protestants who had studied at St. Vladimir's, but they were not coming from a conservative reform position.

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Right, they were mainline, I'm assuming. Yes, of some sort. Right. Well, there is so much ignorance about Eastern Orthodoxy, not only among your average person or even average

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Christian, but even among those who are academically trained and have their own doctorates and so on, and perhaps even specialize in apologetics, and might be even very well versed in Roman Catholicism and other things.

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But Eastern Orthodoxy seems to be one of those religions that is very mysterious to those outside of its communion, and probably within its communion as well, but even more so those outside of it.

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And if you could tell us something about this religion, because there are a lot of people that would probably assume that Eastern Orthodoxy is just Roman Catholicism with a different accent, and they might know enough to realize that the

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Eastern Orthodox don't use three -dimensional statues in their veneration. They have icons and paintings and so forth, but no three -dimensional statues.

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But I don't know how much farther than that the average person's knowledge might be. In fact, even that might be a surprise to many of our listeners.

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But let's go back to the beginning. When did the split occur between Rome and the

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East, and why? Well, the Great Schism occurred over a thousand years ago, but the split was developing over the centuries.

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I think it's perhaps best to start with asking, how would someone who was well -informed of his own

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Orthodox religious tradition, how would he describe his understanding? Not, how would we critique it, but how would he understand it?

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I think you have to start by saying, first of all, that no Eastern Orthodox person calls himself Eastern Orthodox.

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He calls himself Orthodox. Eastern is the label we put on it. And for those who are members of the

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Orthodox Church, well -educated in their own tradition, they understand the

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Orthodox Church to be the original Church, founded by Christ and by his Apostles.

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And they are the unbroken succession of that Church from the days of Christ and the

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Apostles. And they understand the Orthodox faith as they teach it today, to have been the faith taught by Jesus and his

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Apostles. Again, handed down by unbroken succession. So the

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Orthodox don't view themselves as, in any sense, defined by the

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Roman Catholic Church. They are not, like we are, the result of a controversy within the medieval

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Roman Church. The Reformation came out of the medieval Roman Church in the controversy over a variety of truths that I'm sure you've discussed at great length on this program.

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But the Orthodox never were part of that medieval

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Western Catholic experience and are not defined by it. They're defined by their own tradition.

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And that means that for them, the Orthodox Church is the only Church. It is the

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Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. So if you go to an Orthodox liturgy and you hear the

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Nicene Creed, they're talking about themselves when they say that they believe in the

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Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. And that every other

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Church, including Rome, has broken off from them, has left them.

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And someday, those who have fallen away, broken off, engaged in schisms, will return and rejoin the one

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Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. So they have some kind of a post -millennial hope, then. Well, I wouldn't put it in those pleasant terms.

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I know, I was kind of saying that tongue -in -cheek. Yes. But their expectation is that they are the true

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Church, the Apostolic Church, and that eventually those of us who have drifted away may well drift back.

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So the Orthodox do not define themselves over against Roman Catholic theology, or over against Protestant theology.

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So what is the Orthodox faith? Well, it is that tradition rooted in the scriptures of the

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Old and New Testaments, along with the oral tradition of the Apostles, as it was passed down, and as it was affirmed and clarified in the

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Consensus of the Fathers, and by the seven ecumenical councils, and as is received today by the

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Consensus of the Faithful. In other words, there exists nothing in Orthodoxy like the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. A brief, you want to call it a brief, very precise statement of belief.

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You want to understand Orthodoxy, you need to read the Fathers, you need to read the Councils, and then you need to experience the sense of consensus as to what the

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Fathers and the Councils teach that is contemporary Orthodoxy. Now I'm assuming, since you are a

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Protestant and a Reformed Protestant, and a Reformed Protestant who is a professor at a very conservative

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Presbyterian seminary run by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, that you don't necessarily agree with all of that description.

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I mean, I'm assuming that you don't believe that the Eastern Orthodox Church has faithfully represented, and accurately represented, the ancient

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Church, the Church of the New Testament era, apostolic era, and the

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Church beyond the apostolic era, and even within the patristics,

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I have read a number of Reformed historians who would say that although no denomination, either

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Roman Catholic or Protestant, could claim the Fathers as their own, they appeared to have, soteriologically, have been universally much more on the side of how the

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Reformers and how theologically Reformed Protestants today view the gospel. Now do you agree or disagree with that?

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That is to look at the perspective from the presumption of the correctness of the

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Reformation, and I'm not, and I obviously agree with that, I'm a Protestant. The Orthodox are immersed in the theology and the writings of the ancient, primarily

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Greek, fathers. And as a result, they are going to have themes, concerns, perspectives, that they're going to share with Protestants, because Luther, Calvin in particular, were readers of the

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Fathers and influenced by them. So you have the Reformers reading the Fathers, not always agreeing with them at every point, but reading them, appreciating them, learning from them.

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And you have the contemporary Orthodox reading, learning from, appreciating the Fathers. There's bound to be some points of contact, perhaps, overlaps of perspectives that result from that.

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But the Orthodox do not see Christianity from the set of presuppositions that we

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Reform Christians see Christianity from. And therefore, when we have overlap, it is, on the whole, rather superficial.

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In other words, I had a professor say to me when we were discussing these sorts of matters, he said, well,

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I believe in justification by faith, but I don't see what the big issue is. That's a very insightful comment, because Orthodoxy does not share with Protestants certain foundational perspectives about the fundamental nature of religion.

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Christian religion, not religion in general. And as a result, we will end up looking like we're close to each other but the more we talk, we realize that we're using the same words, meaning something very different by those words.

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Yeah, the same vocabulary, different dictionary. Right. To give you an example, in Reform circles, we use the word synergistic as a very negative term.

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To be synergistic is to try to understand salvation is somehow partly the work of God and partly the work of man.

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And we would say that no, salvation is monergistic. It's God's acting alone.

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It's God's grace entirely. So the word synergism is a negative term in our circle.

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But for the Orthodox, Mary's consent to the angels' statement that she would bear the

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Son of God is for them synergistic.

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So there's a term that is very negative in our circles and very positive in their circles, and we have to be aware that when we're discussing theology with folks from that tradition that we may at first think we're hearing the same word, but it may have very different meaning.

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Well I'm going to go to some of our listener questions and then we'll move on to have you go through some of the major doctrines that separate

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Eastern Orthodoxy from Rome and from the Reformation. But first of all let me go to a listener and she is in Gardnerville, Nevada.

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In fact, I have to give honor whom honor is due because this listener, Jennifer in Gardnerville, Nevada, is the one who recently gave me an extra incentive to to find a expert on Eastern Orthodoxy so that we could discuss this issue today.

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I had been thinking of doing this for a long time because, as I said earlier, my friend who is now in eternity with Christ was the only person

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I knew who had such a urge me through email to to find someone.

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I set out to do so and then fairly quickly, I was surprised how fairly quickly, I located Dr. Knier, our guest today.

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But we have a Jennifer in Gardnerville, Nevada, who says, could you elaborate or explain the role of baptism by an

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Orthodox priest concerning salvation? And what is the ability of an ordained priest to baptize even if they deny

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Orthodoxy? Well, for the

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Orthodox, the only valid baptism is the baptism performed by a priest of the

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Orthodox Church. And it is expected that the act of baptism conveys with it the spiritual grace that is represented in baptism.

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But not quite in the way that a Roman Catholic would formulate that. A key idea that is hard to get a hold of for someone first bumping into Orthodoxy is to recognize that Western Roman Catholic theology, scholastic theology, is profoundly based in Aristotelian philosophy, and in the distinctions in Aristotle's metaphysics.

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And so the doctrine of transubstantiation requires the distinction between the essence of something and the attribute of something.

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So the bread in the mass in the Roman Catholic Church continues to have the accidents of bread, but it has the essence of the body of blood of Christ.

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The Eastern Church is rooted not in Aristotelian philosophy, but in Platonic philosophy, in Plato.

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And so in Plato you don't have the accident -essence distinction that we take for granted in our discussion of Roman Catholicism, and therefore there's a different mindset that's happening when the

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Orthodox discuss matters like this. And in Plato, every existing thing partakes to some extent of that, of the idea of that thing, the form of that thing, eternal in heaven.

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And so for the Orthodox, the outward signs and activities of the

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Church are all extensions of the reality of the heavenly

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Church and the heavenly Christ. That's why you can kiss an icon, because the icon is a representation of Christ, or of one of the saints, and that icon has a relationship that is metaphysical with the thing it represents, so that the honor that you pay to the icon passes on to the original.

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So in what way would that be different? So in Orthodoxy, the bread in the

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Lord's Supper is bread, but it's also the body of Christ. And if you could repeat, if we can even understand it with our finite minds, how is that different from transubstantiation, the

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Roman Catholic Church's view? Transubstantiation depends on the idea that the body and blood, that the bread and wine, were of one substance, one essence, one substance, and through the ordination of the priests, passing down through the disciples and the bishops, the substance of the bread and wine was changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, but the accidents or appearances of the bread and wine remain.

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Now that's transubstantiation, and that depends on this accident -substance distinction that we derive from Aristotle.

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But in the East, you don't have that distinction. Instead, you have the idea that the bread and wine represent

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Christ, and therefore in some way partake of who

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Christ is. It almost sounds like it's closer to the Lutheran view.

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No, what you're trying to do is you're trying to put Orthodoxy in categories that didn't exist with Orthodoxy and Baptist ideas.

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Right, well I obviously didn't mean that they knowledgably or consciously were imitating

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Luther. Both Calvin and Luther are working to resolve a problem that is the result of the

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Western idea of transubstantiation. The language of the

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Orthodox is vague and imprecise compared to the language of Roman Catholicism.

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Right. Because you don't have a pope who says this is the way it is and disagrees immediately to go to hell. And you don't have like something as detailed as the

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Council of Trent or anything like that. What you don't have in Orthodoxy is anything even approaching the teaching office of the

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Pope in official dogma, because the Council of Trent ultimately takes its authority from being authorized by the

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Pope and approved by him. And you don't have anything like a

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Westminster Confession of Faith or the Belgic Confession or the

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Scots Confession with form circles. You have nothing like that where the

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Orthodox got together and formulated all of these things and put them in precise wording and then said don't you dare disagree with how we said this.

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That doesn't belong to Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the tradition of the fathers and the councils understood by the consensus of faithful.

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And so you can find passages in the fathers where they speak of the bread and wine as if it is the very body and blood of Christ.

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And other passages where they speak about the bread and wine as if it were bread and wine. And the

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Orthodox don't try to resolve that. They don't need to resolve that because they are Platonic and not

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Aristotelian. All they need to say is that somehow in the mystery of it all, the earthly elements partake of the heavenly reality.

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And we are going to go to our first break right now. By the way, thank you Jennifer in Gardnerville, Nevada for submitting that excellent question and also thank you for planting the seed that this interview even take place today.

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And you have won, by virtue of your question today, a free copy of the book How to Grow in Christ by our guest

28:41

Jack D. Kinnear. It has nothing to do with our subject by the way, Eastern Orthodoxy. Perhaps Dr.

28:47

Kinnear, if you could, since we are giving this booklet away, could you let our listeners know in summary form about How to Grow in Christ, this book that PNR Publishing has provided for us today?

28:59

Yeah, it's actually a study guide in which students look up Bible verses and learn fundamental truths about Christian faith and Christian life.

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And it was done years ago, initially for an adult Cynical class, a young adult

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Cynical class. Went into print, got translated into multiple languages, and still is out there being used as a beginning study guide.

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Well we thank PNR Publishing for providing us with these copies and we thank CVBBS .com,

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our sponsors, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, for shipping this book out to Jennifer in Gardnerville, Nevada.

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So please make sure we have your full mailing address, Jennifer, so CVBBS .com can ship that out to you first thing on Monday.

29:48

And we're going to our first break, as I said, and if you have any questions, there are some of you already waiting to have your questions asked and answered, so please be patient.

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But if you'd like to get in line and ask your own questions, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Don't go away,

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We are now back with our guest today, who is one of the few thoroughly knowledgeable Protestants on the area of Eastern Orthodoxy.

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His name is Dr. Jack D. Kinnear. He is adjunct professor of New Testament studies and the, let's see here, he's teaching

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Greek and New Testament exegesis along with general epistles and revelation and director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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He's also the associate pastor at Pioneer Presbyterian Church in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. We are discussing

36:13

Eastern Orthodoxy, what separates it from Rome and the Reformation. Just out of curiosity, Dr.

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Kinnear, how far from where Pioneer Presbyterian Church is was the actual launching of Ligonier Ministries, which eventually made its way to Florida?

36:31

Well, Ligonier Ministries' home location was actually about seven or eight miles south of Ligonier.

36:39

It was in the Ligonier Valley, but it was not in Ligonier, the town itself. Okay. And just one minor detail correction.

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I'm no longer director of the Doctor of Ministry program. As I've had some health issues,

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I just this summer turned it over to another professor. Oh, okay. And I forgot to ask you, well,

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I should say I forgot to get an answer from you on the second part of Jennifer's question.

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Jennifer from Gardnerville, Nevada. She says, what is the ability of an ordained priest to baptize even if they deny

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Orthodoxy? For instance, I know that the Roman Catholic Church accepts as valid the baptism of even

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Protestants, as long as it's done in the Triune formula, the

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Trinity, in the name of the Trinity. What's the situation there? And I assume that's what

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Jennifer is, where she's, what she's getting at in regard to this question. But if you could answer as best as you can.

37:44

Well, there's been some re -approach between Orthodoxy and the Roman Church. So I want to speak about that.

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But if you are a Protestant and you become Orthodox, you will be baptized by an

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Orthodox priest. Because our baptism has no validity in their eyes. We are not a church.

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Wow. Remember, from the Orthodox perspective, the

38:07

Orthodox Church is the unbroken and continuing church founded by Christ and the

38:13

Apostles. And everybody else is a schism. Wow. So they would also baptize or re -baptize, depending upon how you want to look at it, a

38:24

Roman Catholic convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. I cannot say that for certain.

38:30

It's been a few years since I've looked into that matter, and there's been some re -approachments between those two communities. So I don't know that that's true.

38:36

I do know that it's true with Protestants. Okay. And we have a similar question from Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Low Island.

38:48

Ronald says, does the Church of Rome recognize the Eucharist of the Eastern Orthodox, and do the

38:55

Eastern Orthodox permit non -Orthodox people to receive their

39:02

Eucharist? Like I said, there's been some re -approach between the

39:08

Roman Church and the Orthodox Church, and I have not followed that.

39:14

It was not of interest to me, and I would engage in other concerns. However, it is the case that if you are not baptized by an

39:26

Orthodox priest or your baptism is not regarded as valid, then you are not welcome to take the

39:37

Lord's Supper, as we would call it. When I was studying St. Patrick's, it was very clear that we were visitors watching what was occurring.

39:50

We were not to participate. In fact, they told us the story of a mainline

39:55

Protestant who was studying with them a number of years earlier, who willy -nilly took the bread, and they were all kind of like, whoa, you're not allowed to do that.

40:05

That was a shocking thing for them. It's hard for us in the West to get a hold of this idea, but the

40:11

Orthodox do not view themselves as part of a broader Church in which they are a legitimate, perhaps even the most

40:18

Orthodox form of the Church.

40:23

They regard themselves as the Church. And if you're not part of the Church, then you're not part of the

40:29

Church. That's a very different mindset than what we have in Protestantism, where we recognize the

40:37

Church existing with a variety of denominational variations and labels and what have you.

40:46

We have Ellie Mae. Ellie Mae was the name of my first crush as a young boy.

40:59

She was Ellie Mae on the Beverly Hillbillies. And I can vividly remember

41:07

Ellie Mae Clampett. But the question that we have from Ellie Mae in Chandler, Arizona, not the same

41:12

Ellie Mae, Dear Mr. Arnzen and Professor Kinnear, I can't tell you how much

41:20

I appreciate the topic the two of you are discussing today, since it seems very few individuals want to or are equipped to discuss

41:27

Eastern Orthodoxy. Regarding the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church, is it possible to track significant change in its theology and doctrine since the

41:39

Great Schism, and why or why not? And she has a second part of that question, so if you want to begin with the first.

41:47

Again, it's very difficult to answer that question because it's asked from a

41:54

Western perspective. Has there been a change in doctrine? Because you don't have the precise creeds that we have in the

42:04

West. It is the case, though, that we can observe different viewpoints and perspectives, different understandings as we move through time with the

42:17

Orthodox. But Orthodoxy is very broad, and so you can take a slot of time, a certain period of time, and because it's a big community, you can find diversity within that same time range as well as development or declension, depending on how we view it, over time.

42:40

And that's true not just of doctrinal ideas, but it's true of the development of the liturgy over time, which changed significantly as it moved through history.

42:56

And remember, to be Orthodox is not to have an extensive, precise creed like the

43:05

Westminster Confession as your summary of what you believe. To be

43:11

Orthodox is to accept the consensus of the Fathers and the ecumenical councils and to be part of the liturgical life of the

43:24

Church. So the Orthodox is to partake of the divine liturgy, participate in it as a layperson would participate.

43:36

And the person who does that is Orthodox, even if he's not particularly precise on this idea or that idea, because Orthodoxy is not in the first place a structured system of doctrinal ideas set forth with great clarity and precision and to which complete assent is required.

44:02

That's a Western way of seeing things. In the East, to listen to the

44:08

Fathers, to read the ecumenical councils and agree with them, to partake of the liturgy, that is what it means to be

44:15

Orthodox. And so a typical ordinary member of the

44:25

Presbyterian Church in America or the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America or a number of other conservative,

44:32

Reformed and Presbyterian denominations, you can go and ask any member who's been around for some years and doesn't have some intellectual limitations on certain doctrinal questions and they'll be able to give you at least approximately close answers.

44:52

Because we teach that, we emphasize it. You can go to someone who's Orthodox and ask them questions and they're not going to even know what you're asking.

45:03

Because to them, Orthodoxy is the experience of a liturgy as it is then lived out in all the cultural manifestations of it in the various ethnic groups that are

45:14

Orthodox. And sometimes there's a fair amount of clarity of idea, sometimes there's not.

45:24

Years ago, Bumpkins was a man who was Orthodox. This is why he studied St. Vladimir's.

45:30

And we were chatting. I was speaking to him about religious matters.

45:37

And I said, well, at least we have in common the

45:42

Our Father, using the Roman Catholic way of referring to the Lord's Prayer. He said, what's that?

45:51

And I said, you don't know the Our Father. He said, no, I'm Greek Orthodox.

45:57

The liturgy's in Greek. I don't know what it means, but I'm Orthodox. The man was baptized

46:07

Orthodox. He would believe what the priest said. He said, this is what we believe. I agree. He would consent to it.

46:14

But he was uninformed in a way that is unthinkable for us. On the other hand, you can meet folks who are

46:21

Orthodox who are studious readers of the Fathers and very, very conscious of the formulation of ideas.

46:32

You get this broad range. And you can find

46:38

Orthodox people who are serious

46:43

Bible readers and whose own understanding of things, at least, is in the same ballpark on certain matters as Protestants, because they're reading the same books.

46:55

And others whose whole experience of the Bible is through the liturgy and through the reading of the lectures, well, not reading, actually chanting, the chanting of the lessons in the liturgy.

47:08

And one of the developments in Orthodoxy is that by the time the Orthodox liturgy gets into its rather stable form in the 5th and 600th, the

47:21

Old Testament lesson has fallen out. And so, if you go to an

47:27

Orthodox church, there will be an official reading, well, chanted, and a gospel reading, it's chanted.

47:33

But you would never hear the Old Testament read. Wow. In ordinary morning liturgy.

47:39

Now, it exists. It's out there. It's in the lectionary. If you go to all of the other services that are available, if you're part of a monastic community, yes, you're going to encounter it.

47:48

But if you're just a Sunday -only Orthodox person, you can spend your whole life going to church regularly and never hear the

47:59

Old Testament texts read to you. It's a different experience than what we have.

48:07

Yes. Well, thank you very much, Ellie May in Chandler, Arizona. Please make sure we have your full mailing address in Chandler, Arizona, because you have also won a free copy of How to Grow in Christ by our guest,

48:19

Jack D. Kinnear. Once again, this booklet has nothing to do with Eastern Orthodoxy.

48:25

It just happens to be written by our guest today, and PNR Publishing was kind enough to provide us with these copies to give away.

48:34

Let's see here. We have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas.

48:44

I am so looking forward to hearing the rest of this program. I have a precious nephew who flipped from Pentecostal to strict

48:54

Roman Catholic to Eastern Orthodox. Do you have any advice on counsel to him in regard to these moves that he has made?

49:08

Well, that's always a hard question without knowing the person. Let me segue on that and say that in talking with people who have left

49:17

Protestantism for Orthodoxy, and I studied with the

49:22

Orthodox, had no intention of becoming Orthodox and was never enticed to go that direction.

49:28

It was purely an academic experience for me. Orthodoxy has certain appeals, one of which is its profound sense that the

49:43

Orthodox Church is a church over against Protestantism, which is splitted into a whole lot of, a whole lot's a bit of a mild word, into thousands of denominations with all sorts of little distinctions separating them.

49:58

Orthodoxy has a sense of other -worldliness, of being separate from the culture, whereas very often in Protestant circles, we try to be as in tune with the culture as we can without violating our ethical principles.

50:21

And so we want our music or worship to be the music that is the popular music of the day.

50:28

A few decades behind, but that's the way it is. We want to use the contemporary expressions and speech of the day.

50:41

Very common in even Reformed circles today is the pastor's up front, and he's wearing a sports shirt, open collar, no tie, with one of those built -in, almost invisible mics, just walking around the stage talking, projecting things on the screen.

51:02

I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm not criticizing that. I'm just saying that's the experience of many in Protestantism.

51:09

When you go into the Orthodox world, you go into a different world. Music is different. The language of expression, even if it's

51:16

English, the language of expression is different. The mannerisms that are expected and performed are very different.

51:22

The garbing is different. The building looks different. Everything is, for a

51:27

Protestant, very spiritual, very other -worldly, very mystical. And for some, that's a great appeal.

51:35

What kept me from it was I was an avid student of the Scriptures, in particular my expertise, the

51:43

New Testament in the original Greek, and I kept hearing what the Orthodox said, and saying, yeah, but Paul says, or yeah, but John says.

51:53

And it was the conflict between my reading of the original language text of the

52:00

New Testament and what the Orthodox were saying. The New Testament taught me that it doesn't connect.

52:07

I mean, I can read the text. I can analyze the text as literature. I can see what it says. And, yeah, I think

52:12

Chrysostom is correct here, but I think Gregory of Narnia misreads the text, and for these reasons.

52:19

So how do you approach someone who is bouncing around? The only way to approach them is to get them into the text of Scripture and study it together and see what does this say.

52:33

Well, we're going to our midway break right now. And, in fact, Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, actually just asked a very similar question.

52:42

Perhaps when we return, if you have any additional things that you think are drawing factors that are drawing those who are non -Orthodox into that religion and actually converting to that religion,

52:58

Gordy in Mechanicsburg asks, in your estimation, what is the attraction to Eastern Orthodoxy that some have seemingly abandoned the faith even among the

53:07

Reformed camp? Perhaps you could even especially focus on those who have left historic

53:16

Reformed Protestantism for Orthodoxy when we return. But if anybody else would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Don't go away.

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01:06:13

Before I return to our guest today, Dr. Jack D. Kinnear, on our subject matter of Eastern Orthodoxy, I just have a couple more announcements to make.

01:06:24

The Spirit of the Age and the Age of the Spirit is the theme for this year's Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology.

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It's going to be held at two locations, neither of which is Philadelphia. We have the first location where it's going to be held starting today, actually, through the 15th at the

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Jack D. Kinnear, the PCA, Presbyterian Church in America. That's in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a lot closer to Philadelphia, a lot closer to me as well.

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The speakers at this Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology include such names as Daniel Aiken, Richard Gaffin, Daniel Hyde, the most powerful preacher on the planet

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Earth alive today, I believe, Conrad M. Bayway, pastor of Cubuata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, who is my guest on Wednesday of this week,

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Richard Phillips of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina, who we've had on this program many times,

01:07:36

Jonathan Master and David Murray, who have both been on this program, and Scott Oliphant, the only of the whole roster that I have not yet interviewed, and I look forward to interviewing him if at all possible.

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01:10:03

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line. And that's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest,

01:10:10

Dr. Jack D. Kinnear, on the subject of Eastern Orthodoxy. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:10:17

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

01:10:22

USA. For those of you who just tuned us in, Dr. Jack D. Kinnear is adjunct professor of New Testament studies, teaching

01:10:29

Greek and New Testament exegesis, along with general epistle and revelation at the

01:10:35

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's also associate pastor at Pioneer Presbyterian Church, a

01:10:43

PCA congregation, or Presbyterian Church in America congregation, in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.

01:10:48

He's the author of How to Grow in Christ, and also a contributing writer to Order in the

01:10:55

Office, Essays Defining the Roles of Church Offices. Today we are addressing Eastern Orthodoxy, what separates it from Rome and the

01:11:02

Reformation. And before the break, another listener asked about those things that seem to attract non -Orthodox individuals into the religion of Eastern Orthodoxy.

01:11:14

I can add something specifically myself, and perhaps you can comment on it. I was raised

01:11:21

Roman Catholic, but my father's side of the family was Episcopalian, until my father, when

01:11:27

I was in my mid -teens, converted to Catholicism. But the

01:11:33

Episcopalian side of my family, the church that my grandmother, my father's mother, attended, right in the town where I was raised,

01:11:48

St. Mary's Episcopal Church, the priest there, because of the liberalism that has plagued the

01:11:56

Episcopal Church, and because of the fact that he is an Oxford movement Episcopalian, he is a lot more

01:12:04

Roman Catholic than Protestant. But for some reason, he is very seriously considering converting and bringing the church into Eastern Orthodoxy rather than into Rome.

01:12:16

But if you could comment on that situation, what kind of relationship does

01:12:21

Eastern Orthodoxy have with the Anglican and Episcopal Church in regard to welcoming converts, especially converts in the clergy, what needs to be abandoned by them, and so on, and what is accepted by the

01:12:34

Eastern Orthodox when such a conversion takes place, and also give us some other reasons why you believe people are leaving what we would call historically and biblically

01:12:46

Orthodox Protestant groups in favor of Eastern Orthodoxy. Well, there are a number of perspectives, and of course it varies from person to person, so it's not like there is an answer that fits everyone.

01:13:01

There are folks who have made the transition to Orthodoxy because they found the appeal of the aesthetics, the liturgy, the otherworldliness, the mysticism to be enthralling, and their experience of Protestantism was one such that they wanted those things.

01:13:25

Others have moved into Orthodoxy because of the Orthodox sense of the

01:13:32

Church as authority.

01:13:37

It's very different in Rome. In Rome, the Pope speaks with the authority of Christ when he speaks at the cathedral, and everyone submits to it.

01:13:48

In Orthodoxy, the faith is the faith of the Scriptures, the fathers, the exegetical creeds, the consensus of the faithful, and so the

01:14:00

Orthodox believer does not need to answer every question. He doesn't need to have an adequate argumentation for everything.

01:14:11

He can simply rest in the consensus of the faithful, and there are some in Protestantism, conservative

01:14:20

Bible -believing Protestantism, who find the mental burden of justifying everything by some argument from some text of Scripture to be just overwhelming, and Orthodoxy appeals to them.

01:14:40

Orthodoxy does not have a number of things that are reasons for the

01:14:48

Reformation and that distinguish Protestants from Catholics. So Orthodoxy, while it recognizes the primacy of Peter and his successors, the bishops of Rome, understands that primacy as a first among equals to the other patriarchs.

01:15:09

Orthodoxy does not acknowledge the infallibility of the Pope and insists instead on the infallibility of the

01:15:14

Church and her tradition. Orthodoxy has no doctrine of the

01:15:21

Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary. In fact, they have a feast called the Feast of the Dormition of Mary in which the

01:15:28

Church will celebrate the death and burial of Mary. Wow. So, if you're a

01:15:34

Protestant and you are drawn to a high -church, liturgical, mystical, sacramental kind of piety,

01:15:47

Orthodoxy doesn't have with it all of the baggage that the

01:15:52

Roman Church has for Protestants. You don't have to deal with the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of Mary, and you don't have to deal with a number of things.

01:16:08

And hence it was a lot easier for Hank Anagraph, for instance, to become an

01:16:14

Eastern Orthodox person. And there's such breadth within Orthodoxy that you can be rather Protestant and still be

01:16:23

Orthodox. Or, as a professor said to me about a group of people who had moved as a whole community into Orthodoxy, he said, well, they'll be

01:16:33

Orthodox in two or three generations. He recognized that they were still in the mental world of Protestantism and Western religion and not part of the

01:16:47

Eastern experience. And it would take them time, literally generations, for them to fully enter into what it meant to be

01:16:56

Orthodox. And so, you know, I talked with one person who was interested in Orthodoxy, went to it, and he was terribly troubled by liberal higher critical studies in the

01:17:11

Gospels. And he was very focused on trying to find what's called the ipsum obverba of Jesus, the very words of Jesus.

01:17:19

And because he couldn't find that, because his New Testament studies left him with this uncertainty.

01:17:26

He found Orthodoxy appealing because it provided this certainty of the consensus of the faithful and of the fathers and the priests.

01:17:36

So there are a lot of various perspectives. But then, on the other hand, while a group does this, we're still talking about a teeny minority of the people who are

01:17:50

Anglican or Baptist or Presbyterian or what have you. I mean, there's no massive movement into Orthodoxy that is leaving our churches, you know, as empty buildings with no one in the padded chairs.

01:18:04

Because we're all modern Churches and we don't need peace anymore. They're probably, as far as I can see, unless there's some

01:18:11

Eastern Orthodox programs that I'm totally ignorant of, the Roman Catholic Church seems to be doing a more aggressive job using the media to not only draw those that left there back, but also to lead in new converts from Protestantism and other places into the

01:18:28

Roman Catholic Church. I don't know of any Eastern Orthodox television program, for instance, that is doing that.

01:18:34

Right. It's out of the cultural perspective of the

01:18:43

Orthodox to do that. They are the true Church and will eventually come back. There isn't this...

01:18:51

They are not in crisis because we're not with them. All right? So when a

01:18:59

Protestant goes to the Roman Church, or many other

01:19:05

Reformed Christians, for example, that's a crisis. How could they do it? How could they leave the faith?

01:19:11

My faith is threatened by that to some extent. The Orthodox don't feel that way. They've been what they have been for millennia and they're doing just fine.

01:19:21

And we'll all eventually come back to this. Oh, so when somebody leaves the Eastern Orthodox Church, are you saying that even families aren't typically in an uproar, like a

01:19:31

Roman Catholic family might be? No, no, no. A family would be distressed by that. But they've left the

01:19:43

Orthodox Church simply means they're no longer regularly attending the Divine Liturgy and they are now going to some other cult kind of church.

01:19:56

But they're still Orthodox. Huh. They were baptized. By the way, thank you

01:20:03

Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. And since you are so close to CVBBS .com

01:20:10

in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, why don't you swing by on Monday and pick up your free copy of How to Grow in Christ by Jack Deaconere, which will be waiting there for you.

01:20:20

And please remember that this booklet has nothing to do with Eastern Orthodoxy. It just happens to be written by our guest today,

01:20:27

Jack Deaconere. We have Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who has a question for you.

01:20:36

She wants to know if liberalism has invaded Eastern Orthodoxy with the same magnitude as it has

01:20:44

Rome. No.

01:20:52

Because the Orthodox can absorb a fair amount of higher critical views of the text of Scripture within their idea of the

01:21:05

Scriptures, the Fathers, the Creed, the Consensus, the Faithful. So, will you find

01:21:13

Orthodox professors in the Orthodox seminary who would perhaps question the authorship of the following pastoral epistles?

01:21:25

Sure, you would. I encountered that. But for them it's not quite the crisis it is, either for Roman Catholics or for us.

01:21:34

Oh, you know something, I forgot to have you answer a question that I asked in regard to my grandmother's

01:21:44

Episcopal priest who is considering conversion to Orthodoxy, and in effect this priest was my father's priest before he became a

01:21:53

Roman Catholic. What will he have to abandon by becoming an

01:21:59

Eastern Orthodox priest? I mean, keep in mind, he is not a 39 Articles Protestant Episcopal minister.

01:22:05

He is a high church, Oxford movement, Tractarian, Puseite Episcopalian.

01:22:14

He's very Romish, but very conservative, which is why he wants to leave the

01:22:20

Episcopal Church USA. He is just disgusted by the apostasy and liberalism.

01:22:25

And instead of becoming a 39 Articles Anglican or becoming a Roman Catholic, he is considering Eastern Orthodoxy.

01:22:32

So do you know specifically what he might have to give up as a high church Episcopalian entering into Eastern Orthodoxy?

01:22:40

From what you're explaining to me, not a whole lot. It's not so much what he's giving up as what he's embracing.

01:22:48

In other words, he doesn't have a lot to give up in the first place. Right. So it's not as if he's got a profound doctrine of justification by faith, and it's central to his preaching and teaching.

01:23:03

And now that's going to get sidelined. He's not there in the first place. He's really into the experience of God, in quotation marks, through liturgy, through the worship experience.

01:23:17

Now, does he have to have an identical Eastern Orthodox liturgy, or can he incorporate some of his

01:23:24

Episcopalian liturgy in there? No, no, no. He will follow the liturgy of the church.

01:23:31

Okay. There's no question. In fact, if you bump into a Roman Catholic congregation that is

01:23:39

Byzantine Catholic, those were folks a long time ago who accepted the authority of the

01:23:47

Pope, but the negotiation allowed them to keep their liturgy, which is essentially the same liturgy that you'll find in an

01:23:55

Orthodox church. And the Eastern liturgy is very, very different than the

01:24:00

Roman Mass. They are, as an experience to observe them, apples and oranges.

01:24:13

And so many people who are going to Orthodoxy from some kind of Protestantism are attracted to the liturgical experience, to the sacramental experience, and they're not so much giving up as they're embracing it.

01:24:37

Because what is the Haggis Anglican trying to be? He's trying to be not a Calvinist, which is the roots of the

01:24:44

Anglican Church. Right. Historically, as I mentioned. And he likes, appreciates the experience of liturgical worship in the sense of a fully written -out, liturgical view -based, complex expression of the assembly.

01:25:10

And Orthodoxy has all of that and more. Because there's not just the

01:25:17

Sunday Divine Liturgy. There are other services that are available to fill yourself with that whole experience.

01:25:29

We have... Oh, by the way, you have also won a free copy of How to Grow in Christ by Jack D.

01:25:36

Kinnear. So please make sure we have your full mailing address so we can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to us.

01:25:44

Compliments of not only PNR Publishing, but also compliments of CVBBS .com.

01:25:50

We have John in Bangor, Maine, who asks... I have two questions.

01:25:55

The first is I had heard that one of the main reasons for the divide between East and West came about over a difference of opinion on what day to celebrate

01:26:08

Easter. And the second question is, which is much more important...

01:26:14

What of the other major dogmas of Rome do the Eastern Orthodox either accept or reject?

01:26:21

I am thinking, first and foremost, of the sacrament of penance and purgatory, which is attached to it.

01:26:33

Oh, that's a good question. Almost everything that is distinctly medieval in Roman Catholicism is not part of Orthodoxy.

01:26:45

So there is no doctrine of purgatory in the

01:26:52

East. There is no doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary. There is no doctrine of the inheritance of original sin.

01:27:02

And if there is no need for the Immaculate Conception of Mary, or not from our conception sinners, then

01:27:09

Mary didn't need to be born in a special way to avoid that contamination. Oh, the Eastern Orthodox deny original sin.

01:27:18

They deny the Roman Catholic idea of original sin. Original sin for the Orthodox is a bad example of Adam and Eve that we all follow.

01:27:26

Oh, but it's still more of a Pelagian understanding. The origin of an inherited and corrupt nature is

01:27:33

Western. Huh. So they're more Pelagian in that area. And of course, we're thinking about Augustine.

01:27:41

And Augustine is referred to among the Orthodox as the Beloved Heretic. Why do they call him

01:27:46

Beloved? Beloved because he's one of the fathers. So they actually accept him as a father. But they're not really crazy about this theology.

01:27:59

You mentioned they deny the Immaculate Conception and Assumption. What about the perpetual sinlessness?

01:28:05

They don't teach it. It's not part of their experience yet. We deny things that developed in medieval scholastic theology.

01:28:17

As Protestants, there are things that developed in that period from the 700s through. We say, no, no, this is wrong, this is incorrect, this is bad.

01:28:26

The Orthodox are simply not part of that. They're on a different stream. They were going their own direction. And they never developed many of these ideas.

01:28:35

Because the Orthodox have no profound sense of God's holiness, of his wrath against sin, and of the need for forgiveness.

01:28:47

It dominates Western thought. In Orthodoxy, the fall of Adam, this is from Athanasius, but I'm paraphrasing.

01:28:59

I don't have a quote from him. Athanasius describes the fall of Adam in much more flowery language as the loss of the contemplation of God for the contemplation of things, which is a thoroughly platonic way of viewing things.

01:29:15

So in Orthodoxy, death is not the divine wrath, this is on man the sinner.

01:29:24

Death is the natural consequence of the loss of communion with God because of one's fascination with material things.

01:29:37

If there's no sense of the wrath of God against sinners, then there's no real emphasis on the need for deliverance from that wrath, or pardon for sin, or for what we poorly translate in the

01:29:52

Greek as justification. The Greek verb that we translate as justify in the

01:29:58

Palmian text is really better translated as to acquit or to pardon. And they have no great sense of that.

01:30:07

The Orthodox are not consumed with the question, how may I be forgiven and reconciled to God?

01:30:13

They are consumed with the question, how may I partake of the divine nature and become like God in as far as the creature can be like the creator?

01:30:25

And when we come back, there's just a couple of things that we still didn't have answered in regard to John from Bangor, Maine's question.

01:30:34

And this is our final break, it's going to be a much quicker break. If you want to join us on the air with a question of your own, do so now or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:30:42

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away,

01:30:48

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01:34:22

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01:34:28

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01:34:35

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

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01:35:03

Pastor's Study is going to be added to the program lineup in the very near future, God willing. So I just wanted to give my big welcome again to Pastor Bill Shishko.

01:35:12

In fact, I'm wondering, Dr. Kinnear, do you know Pastor Bill Shishko? Because I know that you used to be in the OPC as well.

01:35:18

Oh yes, I know him. He's a wonderful man. Oh yeah, he's a dear brother of mine.

01:35:24

I've known him since the 1980s and we have maintained a friendship all these years. Going back to John in Bangor, Maine, I believe it was, he asked if the day that we celebrate

01:35:37

Easter, the difference that the East and West has over that was a cause at all of the split between the two.

01:35:44

All that, the reason for the split is multi -century complex analysis.

01:35:57

And differences like that were a part of it. Obviously the change in the formula of the

01:36:05

Nicene Creed in the West was the, you know, the axe that felled the tree, the swing that felled the tree.

01:36:15

But from the 4th century or 5th century on, the

01:36:20

West and the East are growing apart. And then you have this revival in the

01:36:26

Carolingian era of the writings of Aristotle and then the whole new direction that that takes theology in the

01:36:36

West. The two groups are pulling apart in a variety of ways, liturgically, conceptually, philosophically, and then in terms of doctrinal development.

01:36:51

All of that is part of it. And so the rapprochement that's now happening between Rome and Orthodoxy is going to be a long, slow process of working through all of those complex factors.

01:37:06

And, you know, I mean, there were some of the language problems. The West was

01:37:12

Latin -speaking and the East was Greek -speaking, and there was a fair amount of miscommunication. It's getting across issues as you change languages.

01:37:24

The difference in the experience of worship is profound between East and West.

01:37:32

Now, as a Protestant, I'm not particularly comfortable with either, but a

01:37:42

Roman Catholic doesn't go to an Orthodox church and say, oh, this is like being home. I know what this is.

01:37:48

Or vice versa. So was the

01:37:55

Eastern part of it short? But was it the big thing? No. It was just an aspect of a multifaceted, pulling apart of two church traditions that are different than Protestant church traditions because these church traditions were fully acculturated.

01:38:16

They produced whole cultures, whole societal and cultural orders, whereas Protestants jump around various cultural orders and live in it.

01:38:33

So I have students at the seminary who are Chinese and students at the seminary who are

01:38:38

Japanese and who have been from Northern Ireland or from Scotland, from Canada, but we're all

01:38:50

Reformed. And our cultural differences aren't very significant because our

01:38:56

Reformed faith has not so structurally ordered the culture in which we're a part of that we feel there's differences.

01:39:04

But to be Orthodox is not just to ascend to doctrines. It's to be part of the worship, sacramental life of the church, and its extended expressions in the culture of which it is the center of all.

01:39:23

And so it has to do with food and clothing and manners of speaking and addressing people and marriage customs.

01:39:34

All of that is part of what is to be Orthodox. And so Romanism in Europe produced the same sort of fully acculturated religion, whereas Protestantism, for a variety of reasons, never quite got that far before it splintered and before we ended up with the circumstance of a multi -church culture, which is what you have in colonial

01:40:10

America. And, of course, that multi -church culture turned into a multi -religion culture in the 20th and 21st centuries in America where we have not just varieties of Christians, but varieties of anything and everything, all of which get to share in the common culture, but have their own little distinct religious thing.

01:40:32

The Orthodox are not like that. Their religion and their ethnic culture are wedded together inseparably.

01:40:41

Well, John in Bangor, Maine, please make sure you give us your full mailing address because you've also won a free copy of the booklet

01:40:47

How to Grow in Christ by our guest Jack D. Kinnear. And, again, this has nothing to do with Eastern Orthodoxy.

01:40:53

It just happens to be a book written by our guest. We have

01:40:58

C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, You've already mentioned that the

01:41:05

Eastern Orthodox do not accept the Immaculate Conception of Mary or the

01:41:11

Assumption of Mary, but what about her perpetual sinlessness and perpetual virginity?

01:41:17

Oh, sure. They would acknowledge that Mary was perpetually sinless and a virgin.

01:41:27

Now, did she become sinless? Remember, there's no doctrine of original sin in the sense of a corrupted nature that we inherit in Orthodoxy.

01:41:38

Right. Do they believe that she was always obedient, though, that she never sinned? She was always obedient, yes.

01:41:43

Now, you have to keep in mind that Mary assumes the role she assumed as a result of the

01:41:50

Christological controversies. In Orthodoxy, the references to Mary are primarily centered around the affirmation of the divinity of Jesus.

01:42:06

And so Mary is regularly addressed as, in the Greek, theatakos, the God -bearer.

01:42:11

Because in the controversy with Arius, the Arians could affirm that Mary bore

01:42:17

Christ in her womb, Christatakos. But they could not affirm that Mary bore

01:42:24

God in the womb. And so, in the liturgy, there are references to Mary as Otheatakos.

01:42:34

And that's the high point. Mary bears God, the Word, in her womb.

01:42:40

And as a result, she has this place of incredible dignity in Orthodox liturgy and piety.

01:42:49

But at the same time, you don't have this prevailing sense of a corrupted nature and of the need to be forgiven again and again and again and to struggle with sin.

01:43:08

That's so much part of the Western experience. And so there's no prayer like the prayer to Mary in the

01:43:16

Western Church. Oh, you're saying that they do not, in their devotion, pray to Mary?

01:43:22

No, no, no. Really? I did not say they do not pray to Mary. I said they don't pray to Mary the way the

01:43:29

Western Church prays to Mary. How would they pray differently? They address her with titles of honor and respect.

01:43:43

So it would be basically like they would pray to any other saint, perhaps? Yes. Although more exalted.

01:43:50

Okay. But there's no, quote unquote, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

01:43:56

Right. That's Western. Right. Orthodoxy is not consumed with the question of the reconciliation of sinners to a just, holy, and angry

01:44:08

God. That dominates the West, and it is not absent, but it is certainly not focused in the

01:44:17

East. Hmm. You know, it's amazing that they have not become more liberal with that mindset.

01:44:27

That seems like a huge gateway to liberalism, that whole theological perspective. Well, they are certainly influenced by higher critical

01:44:37

Biblical studies. But to be

01:44:43

Orthodox is to accept the consensus of the scriptures, the fathers, the ecumenical councils, and of the saints throughout history.

01:44:55

Now, having said that... So there are just things that they're immune to.

01:45:03

No, there's no pressure in Orthodoxy or women's ordination, at least not...

01:45:10

It's not going to happen. Against the traditions of the Church. The thing that is paradoxical about what you're saying about Eastern Orthodoxy is there is a strictness that exceeds even

01:45:26

Rome, on the one hand, and yet a vagueness and ambivalence, on the other hand, that those two things usually don't go hand -in -hand.

01:45:35

How much of a difference exists amongst clergy and theologians within Eastern Orthodoxy?

01:45:41

Are there ivory tower arguments that go on constantly? Are there differences at all that we see between even congregations?

01:45:51

Because of the fact that they're not as confessional and creedal as either Rome or the

01:45:58

Reformation and its heirs, it seems like that would also be an open door to a lot of division, even if they get along in spite of those divisions.

01:46:08

No, no, no. No, because you see, to be Orthodox is not to consent to a set of doctrinal formulation.

01:46:16

It is to... to submit to and participate in the liturgical, sacramental life of the

01:46:24

Church. But what about those opinions that arise in the minds of different...

01:46:29

The Orthodox or academics who are discussing matters can disagree with each other on lots of issues we think would be reasons for division.

01:46:43

But they're going to show up to the Divine Liturgy and share it together, and they're both Orthodox. Because those issues that we think define don't define them.

01:46:56

It's a different mindset. And that's why when you interact with the Orthodox, in my experience, what

01:47:05

I have to always go through is, you know, let's go read the New Testament together and see what it says.

01:47:12

And they'll say, well, the Fathers say it means this one. Yes, but look at what the text actually says. Let's see how ideas develop in this writer.

01:47:22

Let's learn the usage of the terms he uses. Oh, and let's notice this, on this particular issue of faith justification.

01:47:29

Well, you know, Christendom has some things to say that are very helpful here that are almost

01:47:35

Protestant -like. Isn't that interesting? Because, again, to say that the

01:47:42

Orthodox believe in the consensus of the Fathers is not to consent to the notion that there is a consensus among the

01:47:49

Fathers. The Fathers readily disagree with each other. And we see that when we study them.

01:47:58

And so, as I was speaking one time with an Orthodox professor at the seminary, he said, well, how do you, as a

01:48:09

Protestant, deal with what the Fathers say? And I said, which of the

01:48:15

Fathers, they don't always agree with each other. He looked at me and said, well, yeah, you're right. He's an academic.

01:48:20

He recognized that. That there's variation within the Fathers. And, like I said,

01:48:32

Augustine is the beloved heretic. He said, well, the Fathers, and yet, they are not going to get down that whole road of original sin and of divine predestination.

01:48:42

That's just unthinkable to them. Although you will find, of all examples, in John of Damascus, who is a 700th era defender of the icon, the iconoclastic controversy, you'll find in his writings statements that you would think came from Calvin on God's sovereignty.

01:49:05

Because the Fathers have diversity within them. But as long as you hold to the consensus, as long as you share in the liturgy, as long as you accept that the

01:49:15

Orthodox way of doing things is the only true, real, Christian, apostolic way to do things, then you're

01:49:22

Orthodox. We have, since you just were mentioning some of the patristics, we have

01:49:31

Eric from Champaign, Illinois. He asks, are there any works of Chrysostom that you know of that have not yet been translated into English?

01:49:42

He has about three questions, and that's the first, about Chrysostom. Off the top of my head,

01:49:50

I haven't looked at that for a while. I would probably misspeak, but I just can't answer that. Okay, I don't know if you can answer these other two questions, because they're both about Chrysostom or Chrysostom.

01:50:01

But he says, besides his deception of his friend, Basil, do you know of any other instances in which

01:50:08

Chrysostom advocated trickery or ends justifying the means? No, but then

01:50:16

I'm not a specialist in Chrysostom's work, so I, again, that's not an area

01:50:23

I have pursued. I've worked with portions of Chrysostom where I've looked at his, at how he's translated and would argue that there are some famous passages that are sometimes brought into debate where the standard translation of the fathers doesn't really do a good job.

01:50:44

I mean, another example of that is Cyril of Jerusalem. Cyril of Jerusalem. Cyril of Jerusalem writes a book on the sacraments called the

01:50:52

Mystagogical Catechesis. And if you read the standard English translation of it, boy, it sounds awfully medieval.

01:50:58

But if you read the Greek text, in light of the language of the New Testament itself, you say, wow, it really isn't nearly as Roman Catholic and medieval sounding as the

01:51:13

English translation makes it sound. But, again, that's something

01:51:18

I have tinkered with. It is not an area that I have devoted extensive studies to.

01:51:26

Because I've been teaching New Testament Greek and New Testament interpretation so that's where I've been focused.

01:51:32

Right. We have, oh, by the way, Eric, you've also won a free copy of How to Grow in Christ by Jack Deaconere.

01:51:40

Make sure we have your full mailing address in Champaign, Illinois. We have

01:51:46

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, I have heard that the

01:51:52

Eastern Orthodox believe that the redemption of sinners was accomplished at the

01:52:00

Incarnation and not on the cross. Is this true? That's too simplistic of a statement.

01:52:08

The rejection of sinners was accomplished in the Incarnation and on the cross for the Orthodox. And in the

01:52:15

Resurrection. They would never tear the story apart like that and say that Jesus saved us by His Incarnation, but not by His death.

01:52:24

Jesus saved us by His Incarnation and death, but not by His Resurrection. They would never do that. Someone in the

01:52:31

West might do that. They would, you know, I could see a Protestant saying, well, you know, it's not the Incarnation, it's the death of Jesus that matters.

01:52:37

But not in a sense. But not a Orthodox. But keep in mind, the death of Jesus is not understood in Orthodoxy the way it is understood in Protestantism as the satisfaction of divine justice.

01:52:56

You will find that idea in Christianism, but you will find Gregory of Narnsia, clearly unable to come to a conclusion for whom did

01:53:04

Jesus pay the ransom. It can't be Satan, but it couldn't be God Himself, so we don't really know.

01:53:12

But anyway, we're redeemed. Remember, redemption is not deliverance from the wrath of God, this is upon us because of sin.

01:53:21

It is deliverance from the distortion of our own humanity, and the descent into death that comes from the loss of the contemplation of God for the contemplation of saints.

01:53:32

And Jesus, by His Incarnation, begins to restore us to the contemplation of God.

01:53:40

And that continues throughout His whole ministry, His miracles, His death and resurrection. We have

01:53:48

Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, and he asks, Is there a major distinction between the

01:53:55

Coptic and Oriental Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox? There is a distinction, and there has been some rapprochement between those groups.

01:54:10

And I know that something has happened in the last number of years, but I have not been involved with studying that.

01:54:19

My time with Orthodoxy was in the past, and in recent years,

01:54:25

I have not been tuned in to that matter. I've been busy with other things.

01:54:36

By the way, both of our last listeners that asked questions, you are each getting a free copy of How to Grow in Christ if you give us your full mailing addresses.

01:54:46

Well, I'd like you in about three minutes' time just to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:54:53

Well, I want to say to those who are Protestant that you need to be a

01:55:06

Bible Calvinist and not a creed Calvinist. That is to say, you need to be deeply engaged in the study and the experience of the

01:55:16

Scriptures, in particular the New Testament in terms of this comment, and learning to think and understand things as the writers of the

01:55:27

New Testament express things. When you do that, then you can see the extent to which the

01:55:32

Fathers correctly and the extent to which they incorrectly understand the New Testament. That's what kept me from being intrigued toward Orthodoxy.

01:55:43

I always felt, not necessarily emotionally felt, but intellectually perceived that the

01:55:51

Fathers didn't always get the point of what the New Testament writer was saying. So I had to decide, who was

01:55:57

I going to believe? Was I going to believe the Fathers or was I going to believe the

01:56:03

Apostles? That wasn't a hard decision to make. So be Bible Protestants.

01:56:10

Be devoted to the study of Scripture and the practice of what it teaches us.

01:56:18

When you talk with the Orthodox, if you have the occasion, focus on the

01:56:23

Scripture, on what the New Testament actually says, on the text. You will find that on the whole, with exceptions,

01:56:31

Orthodox people tend to be not Bible readers and not well versed in Scripture. And so there's great opportunity to take their own book to them and say, let's see what it says.

01:56:45

And I'm assuming, from what you've just said, that there is great reason for concern in our day and age for rampant ecumenism, where theology seems to be dismissed as either rather unimportant or at least not nearly as important as quote -unquote friendships and politeness and so on, where people don't really blink an eye about someone becoming

01:57:14

Eastern Orthodox or leaving it. This is something that we should be very concerned about, isn't it? Yes, it is.

01:57:20

And I think, again, I'll go back to my focus, is that what we want to become are, if you will,

01:57:27

Bible ecumenism. That is to say, we sit down with the other Christian who comes from different traditions, where there are real differences, and we say, let's read

01:57:37

Scripture together and see what it says. Let's investigate it. Let's study it. And out of that comes,

01:57:44

I think, true ecumenical effect, people coming together because they see what the

01:57:51

Bible actually teaches. Amen. And of course, we have to be clear when someone believes a false gospel, we have to, out of love, make them aware of that, regardless of how they may react to it.

01:58:05

Agreed. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all of your contact information.

01:58:12

I know that the church where you pastor, Pioneer Presbyterian Church in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, has a website which is www .pioneerpca

01:58:20

.org www .pioneerpca .org www .pioneerpca

01:58:25

.org And also, Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where you serve on the faculty.

01:58:33

That website is www .rpts .edu www .rpts .edu

01:58:39

www .rpts .edu And of course, if you want to purchase the book that we have been discussing today, or that we've been giving away,

01:58:47

I should say, How to Grow in Christ, by Jack D. Kinnear, you can order that through our sponsors,

01:58:53

CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com. It is a publication of PNR Publishing, and CVBBS .com

01:59:03

has thousands of books in stock by PNR Publishing.

01:59:09

And if they don't have that one, they will order it for you. Well, I want to thank you so much, Dr. Kinnear, for being my guest.

01:59:15

I look forward to you returning to our program. By the way, do you have any further contact information that you could share?

01:59:22

I think the best way to find me would be to feed us through the seminary through the church. Okay, great. And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions today.

01:59:31

And perhaps even more especially, Jennifer there in Gardnerville, Nevada, for coming up with the excellent suggestion to cover

01:59:39

Eastern Orthodoxy on Iron Trap and Zion Radio. I hope you all have a blessed and safe and joyful weekend and Lord's Day.

01:59:48

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.