Is Being Orthodox A Paradox?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.Here is this week’s question:Dear Dave and TA:I just talked to a man who recently joined the Orthodox Church.He said he had been going to a charismatic church for years, but felt it was too shallow.He now believes that he has joined the original church and has experienced a spiritual richness and depth he has never known before.What can you tell me about the Orthodox Church?

Tom:

Dave, I would like you to start off with a conversation that you had some time ago with an Orthodox priest asking him just some simple questions.

Dave:

Yeah, that happened to be in Romania.He was the head priest in this Orthodox church, and I went in just playing like I am the Philippian jailer.Well, how do I get to heaven?Well, he says, You’ve got to pray.Well, I said, How much do I have to pray?Well, you’ve got to pray a lot.I said, How much is a lot?Well, you’ve got to pray every day, all day, you know, and so forth.Well, I said, Can I ever pray enough to know that I am really going to get to heaven?He said, No, you couldn’t possibly pray enough, and you can’t know whether you are going to get to heaven or not.That’s what those sects, those Baptists teach.Anyway, Tom, I won’t go on further with the conversation.I visited—you and I are going to be in Russia in a few days, I wish we could do I, but we won’t have time.But I visited the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church, a couple of hours drive outside of Moscow, and I talked to the priests and monks there.What they teach is:Yes, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, but He opened the door, He is the door, but He’s at the top of a long stairway.You’ve got to climb up on your knees to get there.Now the other priest, interestingly enough, in Romania, not in Russia, he didn’t mention baptism, he just mentioned prayer.And I saw them under the priest’s robe praying, coming there and repenting and so forth.By the way, our conversation in Romania was interrupted when a young couple who had just had their civil marriage, came to have their religious marriage be blessed by the priest, and I saw them shell out about a month’s wages to this man.But anyway, the monks in Russia told me, Well, you have to be baptized.And I said, Well, I have been baptized.Well yeah, but not by an Orthodox priest.Oh, I have to be baptized by an Orthodox?Well, absolutely, you can’t get to heaven.Well, but I don’t even know—I live in a little town in Oregon, I don’t even know where there is an Orthodox church, in relation to that.Well, you’re going to have to find it, and you have to go there and you have to get baptized.And then—no matter how far away it is, and then you have to live, keep the commandments.And I said, I don’t think anybody can keep all the commandments without ever breaking one.Well, if you break one you’ve got to go back to where you got baptized and then, you know, the Orthodox church, and you have to confess your sins to the priest.I said, Every time I sin, I do something wrong, I have to make that big trip?I don’t even know where it is, it might be hundreds of miles away, and to go back and get forgiveness from the priest?Absolutely!Tom, it’s a kind of a hopeless religion, and it is not the original church!

Tom:

Dave, why do you think that many evangelicals are now moving in that direction?Let me give you a little recent history in this.In the early 1970’s there were the top speakers for Campus Crusade who started their own quasi Orthodox church, it was called the Evangelical Orthodox Church, and men like Jack Sparks, John Braun, Pete Gilquest, and so on.

Dave:

I knew these men, Tom.

Tom:
Yeah, and they were big names, I mean, it wasn’t some guys who got an idea, and they brought many of the leaders from Campus Crusade and started their own church, as I said, the Evangelical Orthodox Church.

Dave:

Frankie Schaefer.

Tom:

Right, this is Francis Schaefer’s son, turned to the Orthodox church.What’s the deal here?You gave, not just an official opinion of priest outside of Moscow you mentioned, and so on, but if you look at Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodoxy, Russian Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, and so on, you basically gave an example of what they believe.

Dave:

Tom, it’s the Catholic church, with very few exceptions, at 1054 they had a split between the Catholic church in the West, headquartered in Rome, and the Eastern Orthodox church in Constantinople, Istanbul now, because they would not accept the pope in Rome as the pope, the head of the church, they wanted their patriarchs and so forth to be the heads in various places.So that’s when it split, 1054 AD.Until then it was the same church, they are practically the same now.They honor Mary, if possible, more highly, they do allow their priest to marry but not their monks.But they believe in salvation by works, they believe salvation by baptism.It’s not biblical at all, but these men say, Well yeah, but see, this was the way it started, and now all these Protestants have split off, and the Catholic church split off.Well, the Catholic church would say that the Greeks split off.But anyway, so we want to get back to what it originally was.Now, the only way to get back to what it originally was is go back to the Bible and see what the Bible says.But these men have put their hope in the office of the priests, the tradition—see, they go by tradition.They brought this tradition down, and the icons.

Tom:

Liturgy.

Dave:

Exactly.

Tom:

It’s been called in some circles, “bells and smells” in other words, those things that really appeal to the flesh.

Dave:

It’s not in the Bible, and Tom, we go by the Bible, that’s why we say, search the Scriptures daily.Why do we go by the Bible?That’s where you learn about Jesus Christ, this is where you learn the gospel, and this is our authority and we will stand on that, not what men have done with it with their traditions that they have set up since.