Reevaluating Our Beliefs - Part 2

In Part 1 I (Andrea) laid the groundwork for the long answer to the question "How long did it take you two to reevaluate your beliefs? It seemed rather quick." I ended saying I decided to see what the Orthodox church had to say about Calvinism and Arminianism. A quick and dirty Google search took me to a forum where the answer to the question "Does the Orthodox church believe something closer to one or the other?" appeared to be they believe both, depending on each individual and his needs and situation. Which is something we'd said, in jest, at the time of the discussion in Bible study. That itself was pretty awesome, actually, since it implied that God's salvation was not just one-size-fits-all (again, I find myself not fitting molds lately, so this was appealing.) ***I have since learned this is not the best way to describe Orthodox salvation theology, but I'm giving the play-by-play, so bear with me.*** Suffice it to say I was intrigued, at least.

Then another time at Bible study we were discussing communion and how we didn't know if the bread and wine really became the body and blood of the Lord in a mystical way. Joe brought up John 6:

⁵³ Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (NIV)

Directly after this in the passage a bunch of people stop following Jesus because this teaching is too hard. Jesus asks those who remain, "Are you leaving too?" Then Peter replies, famously, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know you are the Holy One of God." There it was, in black and white. I don't know why I hadn't remembered that part before. I had remembered the "This is my body...this is my blood" but also knew Jesus spoke metaphorically in too many other places for that to be the proof-text. Adding John 6 however was much more convincing. That night Joe let us take home a couple little books that treated the same subject well, he said. One of them was West of Jesus: The Bible's Answer to the Protestant Departure from Orthodox Belief by Anthony (a Protestant-turned-Orthodox monk who goes by that, his baptismal name, only now.)

Me being me, however, I didn't just open to the chapter on the sacraments. I read it cover to cover. All 100, easy to follow, easy to read pages. And was blown away.

I grew up being taught "Sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia." My church history classes in college began with the Reformation. I feel silly to admit that I never really thought much of that. It boggles my mind but I guess I assumed the church had been so off track since the apostles died that only with Luther could it begin to regenerate. So I was shocked to learn there was a Church that had not gone the Roman Catholic route (that did indeed need reforming by Luther's time!)

At this time another stream of my faith history came into play, that also began at college. Prompted by questions from classmates I began to look into the differences between the Lutheran denominations. I was appalled at what I found. The most conservative American group is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). The next is the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). The least conservative is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). So, in describing how each is different from the others, stay with me now:

• The WELS said the same things about the LCMS as the LCMS said about the ELCA.
• The ELCA said the same things about the LCMS as the LCMS said about the WELS.

WHAT?! And just to be funny (she says caustically) there is now another group, the North American Lutheran Church that fits between the ELCA and the LCMS. And this, of course, doesn't even begin to address what Lutheran churches have to say about any other denomination. I am sure you get the idea that this bothers me greatly.

But what is a Protestant to do? The Bible is the "only" or "final" source of authority so one must just read it and pray for guidance and go where the Spirit leads. I read a book that put this in what was meant to be an encouraging light. It was something to the effect of, "The moment you take final interpretive authority away from the church you are going to have as many interpretations as there are people reading. So it is the duty of each Christian to search out the group who he feels is interpreting the Bible the best and fellowship with that community of believers." I resigned myself to that, since, I assumed, the church was just in it for the power and wanted to boss people around.

So back to a few months ago. I read West of Jesus and it was as if a blindfold had been removed. Of course the Bible has to be interpreted and who better to have the final say in that interpretation than the successors of the apostles?! Duh!!! Jesus prays for unity in John 17 and it was suddenly clear to me that the current state of Protestantism is not the unity he was praying for. :-(