Why are so many Evangelicals becoming Orthodox and not Roman Catholic?

[a_priori]

I’ve studied some Orthodoxy, and have some Orthodox friends online… and I can definitely feel the appeal to that. I’m more mystically inclined anyways. A mystical understanding of faith is about the opposite from your average Evangelical, where it’s all about the hard facts, the nuts and bolts… and heaven forbid there’s any grey areas about anything.

As an Anglican… Evangelicals make my skin crawl sometimes, which is one reason being in the Anglican Communion/movement concerns me, because Evangelicals are on the resurgence in Anglicanism, especially in the Global South (and in the UK, though to a lesser extent in the US). The triumphalism and sometimes, fundamentalism, in it all can be creepy.

I asked an Anglican from New Zealand one time, an Evangelical pastor that said that those who don’t believe in Jesus go straight to Hell after they die (and if I questioned this absolute truth, I must be a heretic), what he’d do for a hypothetical mother that he encountered, if she had a son that had died, and they were irreligious… what would he tell her? Would he pray for her and her dead son? He said he honestly hadn’t thought about it. I told him and I wouldn’t have a problem praying for them, that I found nothing unbiblical or heretical about it. He had issues with the idea of praying for the dead in the first place, something that seems more common among Evangelical Anglicans. It’s actually part of the 1979 liturgy here in the US, and sometimes part of the 1928 liturgy. So there’s sometimes an anti-sacramental/anti-catholic tone there.

I agree with what you say here. I was a very active evangelical for over 30 years. It is a safe cocoon but it is too rigid to be the only answer. From my personal frame of reference, evangelicalism is tantamount to Newtonian physics. Things are tied up in a neat little bow. It gives us what we need. If you do this, then God will do that. It is full of quid pro quo with the Almighty. But then cracks appear. What about the Sacramental nature of historical Christianity? What about the rest of the world? How is it that two well-intentioned people can sit on a log, armed with Sola Scriptura, and arrive at mutually-exclusive truths? Is truth derived from the best intellectual argument when a Calvinist and an Arminian go toe-to-toe? Etc., etc.

On my road to Orthodoxy and then to Catholicism, I began thinking differently. For me, just as it turns out that Newton’s time and space are mutable after all and Quantum Mechanics has thrown causality out the window, it became necessary think differently. Perhaps General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have a philosophical analog that might inform a worldview that is consistent with Christianity? Or, more appropriately, since God created all things, perhaps GR/QM point to something spiritual?

Since in the Quantum world there is no certainty but merely areas of higher probability and areas of lower probability, perhaps faith is like that. I am Catholic solely because, for me, it is an area of higher probability in a sea of competing dogmas. I believe there is truth everywhere but that Christianity in general and Catholicism specifically contain the highest concentration of truth and that God’s ultimate revelation came in the fullness of Christ. This doesn’t presuppose that the Hindu is completely devoid of any truth. This view also does not militate against the notion that God is personal.

It turns out that there is a great contiguity between the Greek concept of Logos and the Chinese Tao. The diehard religious fundamentalist views the world as if he were standing two inches away from a Monet and claiming to understand the painting. It doesn’t work that way. As with a Monet, one has to “step back a few feet” in life in order to see the from the proper angle.

Plato saw truth as well within his frame of reference with his realm of the Forms. To him, man was once in a high place and ended up in a low place. Now his mission is to get back to the high place. This is the Judeo-Christian skeletal system.

Anyway, thank you for your comments.

 

[Daedelus76]

It turns out that there is a great contiguity between the Greek concept of Logos and the Chinese Tao. The diehard religious fundamentalist views the world as if he were standing two inches away from a Monet and claiming to understand the painting.

Have you read "Christ: the Eternal Tao"... it's from an Orthodox perspective, but it's a good book?   It's interesting how they had icons and murals of Pythagoras, Socrates, Cybil, etc. in Byzantine churches.

I just don’t see Christianity as so exclusive. Jesus said “whoever is not againts us is for us”. I see Christianity and the message of Jesus as “Good News”, not bad news to dump on people, and especially in this day and age, the Evangelical guilt-heavy thing doesn’t sell, with people thinking more relationally. As one traditional Anglican I knew said, “the world needs more Christus Victor”.

 

[a_priori]

Have you read “Christ: the Eternal Tao”… it’s from an Orthodox perspective, but it’s a good book?

I read it years ago and I should probably pick it up again.

I just don’t see Christianity as so exclusive. Jesus said “whoever is not againts us is for us”. I see Christianity and the message of Jesus as “Good News”, not bad news to dump on people, and especially in this day and age, the Evangelical guilt-heavy thing doesn’t sell, with people thinking more relationally. As one traditional Anglican I knew said, “the world needs more Christus Victor”.

It can get one into trouble in these parts but, although I believe in the truth of Christianity, I do believe there is truth elsewhere. What do we do with what we have been given? That’s the question, IMHO.

 

[Kathy2004]

Here is a good article from Catholic Online about an Anglican Priest converting to RCC:

catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=33838

I hope you enjoy it!

Kathy

 

[Religio71]

I went to All-Night Vigil at the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) cathedral in DC this weekend. It was SO amazing. Everyone was walking around lighting candles, lots of the sign of the cross, tons of incense (the priest/deacon (not sure) would cense the icons, then would cense the entire church), and everything was sung. There were a lot of parallels with practices in the Latin Rite as well, such as censing the people (though usually this will occur from the sanctuary, and not amongst the people), bowing before and after that, being blessed by the Gospels, etc. It was just a completely different experience. They were also anointed with oil at the end. The symbolism was great too, such as having the lights off throughout, but turning them on for the reading from the Gospels, then turning them back off. They also make the sign of the cross whenever the Trinity is mentioned. We both also make the sign of the cross when entering and leaving, though Catholics do so with holy water.

ok done rambling.

 

[Religio71]

this is where I went:

youtube.com/watch?v=-PLNzBvWQXY&feature=channel_page

 

[Kathy2004]

I went to All-Night Vigil at the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) cathedral in DC this weekend. It was SO amazing. Everyone was walking around lighting candles, lots of the sign of the cross, tons of incense (the priest/deacon (not sure) would cense the icons, then would cense the entire church), and everything was sung. There were a lot of parallels with practices in the Latin Rite as well, such as censing the people (though usually this will occur from the sanctuary, and not amongst the people), bowing before and after that, being blessed by the Gospels, etc. It was just a completely different experience. They were also anointed with oil at the end. The symbolism was great too, such as having the lights off throughout, but turning them on for the reading from the Gospels, then turning them back off. They also make the sign of the cross whenever the Trinity is mentioned. We both also make the sign of the cross when entering and leaving, though Catholics do so with holy water.

ok done rambling.

Sounds like a very holy night!

I have read some about Metropolitan Jonah, who is also a convert. I also saw him on EWTN’s coverage of the Pro life march at Washington DC a few months ago. I was very impressed with his speech.

The only non-catholic Orthodox Church I have been to is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It was very interesting. The men and women sit on opposite sides of the Church. The priest goes into a holy of holies sanctuary with prayers, chants and incense. I was a new Catholic at the time and went on an invitation from a college counselor who converted from United Methodist.

I had read in Acts about Phillip and the Ethiopian convert and was wondering if a he went back to evangelize and start a church. The next day I had a meeting with this counselor. He had a calendar on his wall that looked Catholic but had black figures in it with writing that looked Egyptian to me. When he left the room I had a closer look as he returned to the room and explained that he went to an Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Of course it is very ethnic and also very Judaic or law abiding.

God is amazing!

Kathy

 

[Hesychios]

I went to All-Night Vigil at the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) cathedral in DC this weekend. It was SO amazing. Everyone was walking around lighting candles, lots of the sign of the cross, tons of incense (the priest/deacon (not sure) would cense the icons, then would cense the entire church), and everything was sung. There were a lot of parallels with practices in the Latin Rite as well, such as censing the people (though usually this will occur from the sanctuary, and not amongst the people), bowing before and after that, being blessed by the Gospels, etc. It was just a completely different experience. They were also anointed with oil at the end. The symbolism was great too, such as having the lights off throughout, but turning them on for the reading from the Gospels, then turning them back off. They also make the sign of the cross whenever the Trinity is mentioned. We both also make the sign of the cross when entering and leaving, though Catholics do so with holy water.

ok done rambling.

A very good description of your experience.

If there is a deacon available it will usually be he with the censor (although in the short Pascha You-tube video it is the bishop with the censor, flanked by two deacons), also the congregation will not allow the censor to pass behind them, but will turn to face toward it. All the icons are censed, and also the people for they too are icons of Christ.

…and Orthodox are more likely to drink Holy Water than cross themselves with it

 

[Peter_J]

A very good description of your experience.

If there is a deacon available it will usually be he with the censor (although in the short Pascha You-tube video it is the bishop with the censor, flanked by two deacons), also the congregation will not allow the censor to pass behind them, but will turn to face toward it. All the icons are censed, and also the people for they too are icons of Christ.

…and Orthodox are more likely to drink Holy Water than cross themselves with it

Not to get off topic, but my first experience of drinking Holy Water wasn’t in an Orthodox or Eastern Catholic church, but rather it was when I went to Lourdes. (Sorry, I get I did get off topic. )