Thanks for the clarification. I took your statement below…
“… these are the longer and more well established churches and thus there are some good reasons to look to them for examples of Christian belief as opposed to the evangelical churches which sometimes are a bit erratically variant and short lived – just being honest as an evangelical myself…”
…to be a more monolithic sort of pronouncement. Thanks again for the update
What? I didn’t say that. I didn’t imply that.
Yes. This crisis was quite pronounced among the new religions like the Pilgrims fleeing to America. They emphasized and made central the conversion experience and didn’t quite know what to do with the second generation.
The same thing happens with every new religion, church, movement – a rite of passage in their development. They have to change quite fundamentally in this transition. And it tends to become part of the hidebound nature of older churches/religions, as religious experience becomes religious dogma. For some evangelicals this results in churches that last only one generation. Some even expect the next generation to found their own church.
Creeds, dogma and tradition within the Church are (or should be) dynamic and contribute to the well-being and spiritual growth (way of life) of the congregations. These also provide a platform for discussion and debate. Otherwise, they loose their value.
You are so naive here.As if anyone can prove anything about Jesus natures or the trinity or other theological falacies.You guys are arguing over a dogma which even the church Fathers couldnt prove and some couldnt even agree on certain things. Get your heads together
The creeds unite most Christians around the world.
As I understand it, this kind of argument/discussion is much less like proving two triangles are congruent and more like arguing about which description better describes the literary character Huckleberry Finn. The basis for arguing are the clues in the text. The difference, I think, is Jesus is believed by Christians to be a living presence in their lives. But they still look to the Bible to decide who is right.
I tried to think about what you wrote and probably did not fully catch your message.
Creed is meant to be a fairly stable expression of what we believe. We can change the expression and argue about the details but if we change the contents we have changed what we believe. A dynamic creed would be an expression showing dynamic contents of the faith, a faith that changes through ages. That would give the message that we believe this now but perhaps not after some time.
Tradition is something that can be more dynamic but many tend to take it as fixed. An important question here is what do we mean by tradition?
If tradition is just a traditional way of doing things, without being strongly tied to creeds or dogma, then tradition can and should be dynamic.
The greatest problem with creeds and fixed dogmas, for example those declared by church councils, is that humans may understand things wrong and nail this false understanding to something that must be believed by future generations - believe or risk your salvation. There should be a correcting mechanism - like saying were sorry, the previous council did not understand things correctly and we have to change the conclusions. In the younger denominations this may be possible but I do not know if this is possible or happened in the older denominations, for example in the RC church.
There you nail it. The council might not necessarily wrong, but their interpretation of the scripture is not necessarily the only valid interpretation of the scripture. There should be a wiggle room for those who might disagree with their interpretation. Especially today since the bible is readily available and widely read by commoners like us. There should be an openness in revisiting those so called orthodox doctrines and perhaps there might be more than just one valid interpretation or perhaps to walk back and treat them as mysteries undefined by the Bible.
Happens all the time! All through church history. “Councils can err and have erred.” It’s harder to change Roman Catholicism because they have the notion of papal infallibility, etc. but they can and do make changes. Look at Vatican II. One pope declared that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic church. A later pope declared that Protestants have never really been totally separated from the RC church.
That has happened. Look at the Protestant Reformation.
I am uncertain as to how mystery is removed by creed, dogma, and tradition, but as a general response - the Christian faith is often spoken as a Way of Life. We grow into persons who follow Christ, and this is a dynamic process, and it is within this context that we may understand creed, dogma, and tradition. Most of the denominations (or at least those I may have come across) agree with a Way of Life, and evangelicals often talk of ‘born again Christians’. Thus, we have similar outlooks in many respects. I view the Christian context as based on, derived from, and referred to, Scripture.
By dynamic, I mean that each member of the congregation undergoes change and growth in understanding, behaviour, and faith. The creed and tradition, and authoritative teachings, are provided to the Church for that reason. Thus, Orthodoxy as I understand it, encourages questioning, discussion, and even disagreements if these involve searching scripture and further study, especially Patristic writings (a great deal of dogma is the result of extensive discussion and writings). All of these aspects become complicated and can cause friction if some in the congregation are not motivated by a search for truth, but instead are greedy, envious and seeking self-promotion.
A general discussion would show that over time denominations used creed to distinguish themselves from other denominations, and the various practices became traditions for them. Wikipedia provides:
A creed , also known as a confession of faith , a symbol , or a statement of faith , is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets.
The earliest known creed in Christianity, “Jesus is Lord”, originated in the writings of Paul the Apostle.[1] One of the most widely used Christian creeds is the Nicene Creed, first formulated in AD 325 at the First Council of Nicaea. It was based on Christian understanding of the canonical gospels, the letters of the New Testament and, to a lesser extent, the Old Testament. Affirmation of this creed, which describes the Trinity, is generally taken as a fundamental test of orthodoxy for most Christian denominations, and was historically purposed against Arianism.[2] A shorter version of the creed, called the Apostles’ Creed, is nowadays the most used version in Christian services.
Some Christian denominations do not use any of those creeds.
Dogma pronounces authoritative teachings. From the internet: Dogma became the traditional term for truths believed to be indispensable to the Christian faith. The question of what precisely counts as dogma is bound up with questions of pronouncement and reception. The most widely recognized source of dogmatic formulations is the ecumenical or general councils of the church, but Christian communities vary in the number of councils they recognize as ecumenical. Short of dogma, considerable authority accrues to broad patterns of stating and practicing the Christian faith that have maintained themselves over time and space. They appear comprehensive and coherent, even though minor shades of difference are not excluded from their expression.
The Eastern Orthodox churches detect a “common mind of the fathers” ( consensus patrum ), which allows for some variety of contribution and emphasis among the Fathers.
Christian tradition is a collection of traditions consisting of practices or beliefs associated with Christianity. These ecclesiastical traditions have more or less authority based on the nature of the practices or beliefs and on the group in question. Many churches have traditional practices, such as particular patterns of worship or rites, that developed over time. Deviations from such patterns are sometimes considered unacceptable or heretical. There are certain Christian traditions that are practiced throughout the liturgical year. Tradition also includes historic teaching of the recognized church authorities, such as Church Councils and ecclesiastical officials (e.g., the Pope, Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop of Canterbury
Great post, @GJDS ! People might not know what mystery means in a religious sense. It doesn’t mean ignorance! Instead, mystery increases as knowledge grows.
btw, I’ve been meaning to ask you this: is your Divine Liturgy said or sung? Or can it be either? My church has both said liturgies and sung liturgies.
Yes, you are correct - I would add that ignorance often leads to superstition.
Some Liturgical material from EOC can be found on the internet. Our service is chanted by the priest. I have attended other Christian services where everyone joined is songs (many years ago) and found the singing uplifting and was a wonderful way to feel involved with everyone at the service.
I hate to go in length concerning this example that I am about to give since there is a long thread about the topic of trinity somewhere. Though my main objection about orthodox doctrines are mainly toward the nature of God which I thought should remain mysteries. One specific example of this is the doctrine of Trinity. The doctrine that is accepted in most denominations of the churches. If we look at the bible, this relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not clearly defined. Many verses that defined the relationship between the Father and the Son are not that clear, let alone the relationship between the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. This of course created tension in the early church and yet unresolved even during the time of Paul and the Apostles. The doctrine of Trinity gives definitive relationship of One God in three persons. ( I am not going to go into detail of the doctrine). However, the term “trinity” itself is not laid out in the bible. The concept “one God in three persons” is foreign in the bible. I personally like to treat this relationship as a mystery as I could not bring myself to accept this foreign concept about God that was invented by the ingenuity of some bishops and yet mere men. Alas, if you don’t believe in Trinity, then you are into heresy. Mind you that I understand the struggle at that time to reach the concensus of this doctrine and I respect that and perhaps it was necessary for that time and perhaps not. Perhaps I am into what you called as bible purist. Whatever is not taught clearly in the bible should be treated as such. There are of course other examples concerning the nature of God such as the dual nature of Christ. These things of God are beyond us. We can only embrace what had been revealed in the Bible. That is my point.
I believe everyone who declares him/her-self Christian would agree with this. The Bible reveals God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. My question to you is, “what clarrity do you need, or if none, what does the doctrine of the Trinity say that would contradict Biblical teachings?”
Again, I ask, how does the doctrine remove the mystery, since Orthodoxy says we cannot know the essence of God?
The phrase ‘orthodox doctrines in the bible’, let alone ‘some’, is multiply problematic. The bible is full of beliefs, the NT more so than the OT (although who and what was Melchizedek?!) of course. They were certainly conformed to. But rarely in the main. What the authors of the OT actually believed and what they wrote in their literature is a very broad and open spectrum spanning thousands of years of evolving tradition standing on pre-literate shoulders going back a hundred times that. What did ‘Daniel’ believe? Let alone ‘Moses’? The NT has acute beliefs held by the putative authors. Above all Paul. A few other less prolific letter writers. James. Peter. Junia. Jude. And last in time Quelle, Mark, Luke, Matthew and John(s?). None of these beliefs were common, orthodox, at all in the cultures of the time. Yet the orthodoxy of those cultures fed the tiny minority beliefs. Including of their main subject.
Peter had some incredibly strange doctrines. That Jesus preached to demons in Noah’s day. That the Holy Ghost assassinated Ananias and Sapphira. As did Luke re Herod. These beliefs became orthodox as the Church grew and remain so to this day. Should we let them stay mysteries? Because if we do, what we’re actually saying is that we should let them stay dogmas; incontrovertibly true. Like the damnation of all LGBTQ? folk based on the traditional, anachronistic, decontextualized dogma of two Pauline verses. The pre-existence of Christ and the Holy and Undivided Trinity. All irrelevancies that mysteriously distract from the true religion, orthodox doctrine, in the Bible from Moses on.
Not sure if you read my post or if you understand my point. It seems we are not talking at the same tune.
I have read your posts,and I concur with “It seems we are not talking at the same tune.”
My favorite liturgy is the beautiful Exultet, which is part of the Easter Vigil. It’s very ancient. I imagine you have something like it?
Yes, there is more in common than we often realize. We have common roots and lower trunk, common biblical scriptures. Reformations did not start from the hope to be fully separated, the motivation was to get rid of teachings and practices reformers thought were against the original teaching - a return towards the old teaching instead of inventing something new and different.
History has lead us to the situation where merging of all churches and denominations is impossible. There are too influential disagreements about some matters of faith. Yet, we can think that we all are part of the catholic church, common universal body of Christ. In this, catholic means ‘common’, not the name of RC church or ‘catholic churches’.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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