My Journey To Orthodoxy

My journey that finally brought me home to Eastern Orthodoxy started many years ago started in 1992 when I was at Moody Bible Institute. It was then that I first visited an Orthodox Church. As for any first time visitor coming from a Protestant background, it would be hard to capture the experience in any one word except different.

Even at that time I could articulate that Protestants had thrown out too many babies with the Reformation bathwater. What bothered me the most was the Protestant abolition of the the sacrament of confession. James 5:16 was so clearly missing. Some groups, realizing the loss, started incorporating a form of it into men's groups, but the fact is that it could never take off because it ran contrary to individualistic Protestant values. Knowing nothing about Orthodoxy at the time, I remember going to Roman Catholic priests and begging them to receive my confession, but they refused because I lacked sacramental communion with them.

In 1996 I converted to Calvinism, and I won't deny the emotional stability that it brought to me. At last I had a relatively old document (The Canons of Dortrech) that could give me a sense of rootedness. But I still did not how to pray, much less how to live. Around this time through the ministry of Leanne Payne, I was introduced to the Anglican Communion and liturgical prayer. I began praying the Book of Common Prayer. It was very meaningful to me, but I only could practice in isolation. The fellowship I kept did not generally value liturgy.

I would run across articles or patristic writings that would remind me that there was something more than Protestantism, but I was too entrenched to ponder it deeply. In 2001 an interest in Orthodoxy flared again, and I read a couple books introducing Orthodoxy. I also visited a couple Orthodox churches, but there were none near where I lived and besides the non-English liturgy was not accessible to me, so I again put it aside. Eventually, I moved to China, where the spiritual desert compelled to me keep digging wells deeper than Protestantism. I took a 5 day retreat at a Roman Catholic monastery in Taiwan. God spoke to me while there, but I did not feel a leading toward Rome.

When I went back to the mainland, I decided to retrench in the Reformation since I could find no better alternative. A friend introduced me to the free online courses at Reformed Theological Seminary. I started eating at the table of Westminster. I read, memorized, and meditated on the Westminster Standards, looking for a sense of rootedness. It was good while it lasted, but I needed something deeper. I went back to the Book of Common Prayer, but that well had already dried up too.

About this time I was taking a course on Church history at RTS. The professor's goal was to get to Rome as soon possible so that he could turn toward Wittenberg, but he could not just completely ignore 1,000 years of history, so we visited Byzantium. And that it where I came face to face with the early church. And I no longer could deny that the early church had little resemblance to Protestant Christianity. This was not necessarily welcome information because all my friends and family and everything I had known was Protestant. But I had to face the discrepancy. I began researching Eastern Orthodoxy with desperation.

I discovered the Horologion, which provides a structure for the ancient Christian practice of praying at fixed times of the day and began praying it as best as I could with no guidance. I devoured these podcasts:   

• http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/eastwest
• http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/ourlife
• http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/orthodoxyheterodoxy
• http://ancientfaith.com/specials/lutheran_colloquium.

I wrote many emails seeking guidance but kept getting refused because of my physical location. Finally, one Father Dionisy in Hong Kong responded favorably. He put me in contact with another Orthodox believer named Christos in Xiamen. Christos and I started meeting every Sunday morning to pray matins, and he began to catechize me. I continued to read voraciously, but these were the really important reading materials at this point:

• The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware, and
• The truly devastating Sola Scriptura: In the Vanity of their Minds by Fr. John Whiteford

At this point I took a trip to Hong Kong to meet Fr. Dionisy and to inquire how to proceed toward conversion since I lived in a country where this faith was illegal, and it cost $300 to take an international flight to the nearest Orthodox Church. He said that he would accept my time as a Protestant as my catechumenate, and that I could convert whenever I felt that I was ready. He alerted me to the fact that I would have to publicly renounce Calvinism, which gave me significant pause, and lent me two books both by Fr. Peter E. Gillquist:

• Coming Home: Why Protestant Clergy are Becoming Orthodox and
• The captivating Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Faith

I went home and searched my soul for the courage to publicly renounce that thing that had given me identity for 16 years: Calvinism. I read everything I could find here: http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/inq_reformed.aspx and just could not make the leap. Finally, The Original Gospel by Fr. James Bernstein got me over the hurdle. I realized that the primary attribute of the God I had been worshiping was wrath, not love. And so that is the reason I had reduced the glorious Gospel from a Christlikeness-creating love relationship with God to a wrath eliminating juridical transaction. I was ready, so I contacted Fr. Dionisy again, and he invited me to be christmated on January 6, 2012 (Christmas Eve on the Julian calendar).

I began to prepare for chrismation by participating in the Nativity Fast. I typed my life confession since Fr. Dionisy's first language is Russian, and he was concerned that he would not be able to understand me if I confessed orally. I was sad that I would be chrismated with no friend to witness it, so I asked Christos to accompany me to Hong Kong, and he agreed. So we went to Hong Kong together. Around 6 p.m. on January 6, 2012, I received the sacrament of confession for the first time. Then around 8 p.m. I received was chrismated. Shortly after midnight, I received the sacrament of Eucharist for the first time. And then at 1:30 a.m. January 7, 2012, the feast began and went on until 3:30 a.m.

Although my chrismation was the culmination of a long journey in itself, I realize that it was just the beginning of another journey. But the prospect of this continuing journey no longer scares me because now I know that the God whom I worship is love, and I know that He has lovingly provided me with the Holy Tradition of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church to support me along the way.

How to Think of Those Who Have Fallen from the Faith

This is a difficult question​ for me because it has implications for my brother, who​, when younger, was a very passionate Christian, but who died after he fell away from the faith. Being raised in a "once saved, always saved" church, my family members too​k​ comfort in ​their doctrine of eternal security.​  It seems that their doctrine is naive because it overlooks Scripture that indicates that perseverance is a condition of final salvation. For example, Colossians 1:21-23 says, "And you ... he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard...." This makes stably and steadfastly continuing in the faith a condition of being presented holy and blameless at the last day.​ Also, Hebrews 3:14 says, "We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." Again, the evidence of having an interest in Christ's blood is holding confidence in him firmly to the end.  At the end of the day, whether a person once had salvation and lost it, or never had it in the first place, is a less important question. The important question is whether the person who has fallen away from the faith currently is in a state of grace.

There is no definitive way to know the answer to this question because we cannot see a person's heart. However, as humans, it is impossible to have conversation or interaction with someone without having preconceptions or making assumptions. So as pastors we have to strive through prayer to have our assumptions informed by objective evidence while at the same time maintaining a willingness to change our assumptions if we uncover new evidence. So, for example, if I am talking to someone who formerly was a passionate Christian but now shows little gracious fruit, I would start from an assumption that he has not yet been experienced the grace of regeneration. If he pointed to his past laurels of praying a sinners prayer or other good works, I would acknowledge them as good thing but focus him back to the present, emphasizing the verses above as well as the things that Murray discussed concerning 1 John on page 101.​ At least in my religious tradition, there is a habit of looking to one's past evidence of grace rather than one's current evidence of grace. In consideration of texts like this one from Ezekiel 18:24, this is really incorrect: "But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die." We need to stress the persevering aspects of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints in order to fight widespread self-deception.

The Interrelatedness of the Design, Nature, and Extent of the Atonement

The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement teaches that Jesus offered up himself as a sacrifice to vicariously satisfy divine on behalf of sinners. When considered together, the nature and design of this atonement necessarily decide its extent, i.e., that it was for the elect and only the elect that Christ died. Let's first consider three aspects of the nature of the atonement: its objectivity, it vicariousness, and its actual effectiveness. The atonement effected an objective change in the relation of God to those for whom Jesus died; it did not merely effect a change in the attitudes of those people. Romans 5:10 says, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” From God's perspective, Jesus' death caused a group of people to objectively transition from a state of enmity to a state of friendship. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Again, Jesus' death caused a group of people to objectively transition from a state of dominion by Satan to a state of ownership by God. In addition to being objective, the atonement was also vicarious. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” The means by which Christ objectively effected a change in God's relationship with certain people was by becoming a substitute curse-bearer for those people. The third aspect of the atonement, its actual effectiveness, is illustrated both by the above verses as well as by Galatians 1:4, “[W]ho gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of God.” The effect of the atonement was not just a possible or conditional deliverance but an actual one. The decretive will of God was the driving force behind the deliverance, so it was impossible that the deliverance had some contingency. In short, by means of his vicarious sacrifice for a group of people, Christ actually and objectively effected a change in God's relation to that group of people.

This naturally lead to the question, “What is the identify of this group of people for whose sin Christ vicariously paid?” Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and his continual intercession really are two sides of one atonement coin, and Jesus drew clear boundaries around those for whom He interceded in John 17:9, “I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” It would be irrational for Christ to intercede for those for whom He did not die, so we can conclude that He died for those whom the Father gave Him. And Christ said to those whom the Father had given Him, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). Thus, we see that the identify of those for whom Christ vicariously suffered is the elect of God, and Christ objectively and actually effected a change in God's relation to these people alone.