Tuesday, 06 March 2012
-
Lazar Puhalo and the Heresy of Morality
I just saw a video a friend posted on Facebook featuring former Eastern Orthodox Archbishop Lazar Puhalo. I appreciate the grace-filled God that he presents in the video and the historical context for the strongly held beliefs of the western church. Here's a few quotes from the video:'Morality as a legal code becomes a heresy because it becomes a substitute for a life in Christ.'
'When you moralize a social issue you have no hope of solving it.'
'Manipulate people to follow my particular brand of morality...this is something that Jesus Christ never did. He reached out to touch others with a co-suffering love.'
'Western Christianity tends to be in tension with science because it was formed by Aristotelian rationalism and the dialect of the Roman law court (scholasticism).'
'So long as we realize that we (Churches and denominations) are offering models of reality and not concrete reality, then we can adapt to new knowledge and new understanding.'
'Sin is an illness that needs to be healed. Passion means suffering, and passions are inner human sufferings that are so intense it leads people to do things that separates them from God, therefore sin.'
'The mystery of redemption is a mystery of the co-suffering love of God with mankind, it has nothing to do with juridical justification. Christ did not die on the cross to satisfy the justice of an angry God.'
'Christ takes upon himself our suffering. He identifies and reaches inside our suffering in order to heal it. The whole ministry of Christ was a healing ministry not a juridical ministry.'
'The juridical idea of atonement which was a novel doctrine, only came about around 1100's...was completely unknown in the church before that. [It] was based by Ansolm of Canterbury on the fact that there had to be a legal act and a legal response, ie there had to be a dialectic of the law court involved in redemption.'
'Who's to blame for the current judgmental Christianity? A bit of it is the blame of Ansolm, a great deal of it is the blame of Augustine of Hippo...and of course Tertullian, who was a lawyer. In the West these people are considered Fathers of the church, we (Eastern Orthodox church) don't consider them anything like that.'
'The only way she (the woman caught in adultery, Jn 8:11) could have fulfilled [Jesus'] request that she go and sin no more is that He had penetrated her heart with a special grace, a grace of co-suffering love and healing.'
What do think of the concept that the reason the church is in tension with science is because the church has forgotten it's merely offering an interpretation of reality (or truth) and not absolute truth? Or what do you think of the idea that merely 'missing the mark' of relationship with God is a sin, and sin is an illness to be healed through the co-suffering love of God -- not more discipline?
RecommendRelated Posts
Post a Comment
- Back to revelife's Revelife Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in revelife's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
About the Author
-
- From: god_stories@xanga
- Name: Larry Brother
- Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- About Me: A story is being written every day. A story of love and relationship and danger and adventure. A story about romantic relationship at a time of epoch war. A story about God, the spiritual war He wages, and the millions and billions of people He loves...not anonymously, but intimately! This story is about His favorite one...ME!! Of course you are too!
Stats: This Week All Time Posts: 0 3 Views: 0 3309 Comments: 0 86 View all posts by god_stories@xanga
Comments (25)
A fascinating perspective...I want to watch and see where he is coming from.
The Church Fathers had the benefit of being steeped in the Greco-Roman way of reasoning. Reasoning is how human beings pursue the truth. So the Church Fathers, under the influence Gospel teachings became powerful evangelists.
From the post it is easy to see that Pahulo is expressing opinions that spring from irrationality and falsehood. His view of morality demonstrates that perfectly.
He poo poos morality as a legal code when it was God Himself who gave mankind morality. He says that morality cannot be used to solve social issues. Nothing could be further from the truth.
For it is reason informed by morality that guides us to justice.
Further, science is a result of the Christian idea of God. So his claim that there is tension between Christianity and science is false.
Pahulo may be a good man, but he is a failed intellect who no longer possesses the ability to preach the Gospel.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway@xanga - I agree whole heartedly with the basics of what you comment.
very insightful. i have been looking into Eastern Orthodox traditions a lot lately.
Apart from trusting in Jesus Christ as our substitute, we are already condemned...
John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does
not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the
name of the only Son of God.
Apart from trusting in Jesus Christ as our substitute, the wrath of God remains on us...
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
All of us have sinned, and each one of us is judged guilty and is condemned before a holy God. Because God is a holy and just God, in order to be consistent with His nature, He must punish sin. Evil cannot dwell with God, and He hates all evil doers (Psalm 5:4-6). However, in His great love, grace and mercy toward mankind, God sent Jesus Christ to become sin for us. Jesus hung on the cross in our place, took the punishment we deserved and appeased the wrath of God toward sinners. Jesus Christ was the perfect, spotless Lamb offered up in the place of sinners and punished in our place for our redemption. He came to give His life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). Apart from faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice, we remain dead in our sins, sons of disobedience & children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3) and eternally separated from God (Eph. 2:11ff).
Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Hebrews 2:17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
There's NO salvation apart from faith in the necessary, perfect, complete and all-sufficient penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus, that which Isaiah prophesied...
Isaiah 53
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
If what you believe to be the gospel doesn't include this doctrine, then your gospel is no good news at all.
I Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures...
@naphtali_deer@xanga - I had tried commenting on this post before it became a front page item. Really I couldn't pin the author of this post down on sin (which in his replies, he called a "trivial matter") I think it's much too complicated to be from God. The wisdom of men is foolishness to God and the gospel then seems foolish to men....it is too simple. Sin is a very great problem and could only be settled by a much greater God. Otherwise, as you pointed out, men are condemned before they begin if they have not believed and understood their lost condition without Him.
@quest4god - There was quite a lot of other stuff in this post, but as soon as I saw that cardinal truth patently discarded, i.e. - penal substitution rejected, then all the other matters take a secondary position. If we've not got the fundamental doctrines right, then what have we got? Nothing at all! If there's no reconciliation to God through the atonement of Christ, then we can't even begin to talk about anything else.
Here's the link to the video, which was not included in the post above, if you'd like to hear the quotes in full context
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RaDTWZIXfLU
@naphtali_deer@xanga - It would take a lot of explaining as to how what seems so obviously heretical and at odds with all that Christ is and all He has done in reconciling the lost to the Father could possibly be turned around to be truth. I am not smart enough to go around the bush,following all the rabbit trails without losing my way....I don't think I'm supposed to either. How can all that man-centered gobbledygook honor Christ?
@sometimestheycomebackanyway@xanga - Sorry that the original post didn't include the link to the full video and without that it seems you've misunderstood the ArchBishop. Check it out...I'll be interested to hear if your perspective changes after you watch it.
So for example, he doesn't poo poo morality, but suggests that if moral rules become the basis of my religion...and not actual relationship with God (through prayer and other spiritual disciplines), than we don't get what Jesus promises...a life in Christ and intimacy with God.
Also I think the ArchBishop is merely speaking out his observation of western society when he notes the tension between science and religion, eg creationists vs evolution.
I'll be interested to hear more of your thoughts after you listen to the video...please consider an update.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - wow, awesome articulation (with Biblical references) of modern American evangelical apologetics (from what I know of it), truly!
So I wonder if there's any way that what you've shared and what ArchBishop Puhalo says can both be 'true.' I'm not being flippant when I say that...it seems what both you and he share have value. I've come to know God more intimately by allowing competing 'models (or understanding) of truth' to wrestle within me. The Greek word 'syniēmi' translated as 'understanding' in most Bible verses means, 'to set or bring together in a hostile sense, of combatants' (see Mt 13:13 when Jesus talks about his use of parables for an example).
While the concepts Puhalo raises about atonement were not as interesting to me as other thoughts, your exploration of it is so thanks for the invitation to consider this. So a thought or two comes to mind as I explored in context the verses you've shared. Many of the verses talk about a 'belief' in Jesus or God as foundational to life and freedom (from condemnation, etc). I wonder if how one thinks about 'belief' isn't at root to the difference between what you advocate and what the ArchBishop shares.
Jesus' anger is talked about in only a few places in the Gospels (and if we know Jesus, we know the Father, Jn 14:9). He is angry at their unbelief (mk 3:5), 'the hardening of their hearts.' So what does belief mean for you? It seems belief to some is to speak a one time prayer of salvation, join a church, and be a moral person. For others it is walking humbly and prayerfully, seeking with fear and trembling actual relationship (in the midst of two-way conversation) with a living God as the only means for a soft-heart...and abundant life. For some its both.
I don't think you and ArchBishop Puhalo are very far apart in your faith (in fact I think its the same)...if all the verses you shared are true and only this statement is not completely accurate....
There's NO salvation apart from faith in the necessary, perfect, complete and all-sufficient penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus
Jn 3:16...doesn't include belief in atonement, morals, or even a prayer of salvation...only Jesus.
@quest4god - Hey Norm, I'm sorry I've not had a chance to reply to your message from the other night. I felt honored by your willingness to offer me your time and insight into more of your story. I'll reply to your message.
regarding your comment here, honestly I feel a bit ganged up on without any specific arguments to respond. I feel judged by you that my thoughts about sin (perhaps about God) reveal that they are not from God.
It seems possible to me that I can hold a different image of God than you and yet God is big enough to encompass both our views. And perhaps even more hopeful...that the image we each hold of God may expand as we explore together as brothers in Christ, the God we've each uniquely come to know.
I appreciate you (from our past conversations) and yet wonder about the God you serve at times...as I sense you do of me, but I trust that you are firmly in God's hands. Perhaps you may come to trust the same of me as I hope we continue in relationship!
Thanks, Norm, I'll be in touch!
@Lovegrove@xanga - I wonder if your thoughts would change if you listened to his comments in context in the video. Posted the link to the video in a comment...be interested to hear your thoughts if you listen to the video.
@GreekPhysique@xanga - Thanks, I was totally fascinated too! btw - here's the link to the complete video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RaDTWZIXfLU
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - I never knew any of this about Eastern Orthodox...it's interesting. There's an Eastern Orthodox seminar near where I live and I ran into a seminarian at the Home Depot one day. He said the denomination is growing in members like crazy...he was this red headed American of Irish descent!
I'm currently a member of a non-denominational evangelical church, but very interested in what God is doing throughout His church.
If you'd care to share, what's the coolest thing you've discovered about that tradition?
@god_stories@xanga - two things. and keep in mind, my research hasn't taken me any further than Wikipedia :p
1. it appears that they don't believe in original sin. meaning, while Adam and Eve's actions made us more likely to sin (and brought sin into the world) we are not guilty for what they did.
2. their view of Hell is different. I'm just going to copy and paste, because it's easier:
"The Eastern Orthodox church teaches that Heaven and Hell are being in God's presence[29][30] which is being with God and seeing God, and that there no such place as where God is not, nor is Hell taught in the East as separation from God.[31] One expression of the Eastern teaching is that hell and heaven are being in God's presence, as this presence is punishment and paradise depending on the person's spiritual state in that presence.[29][32] For one who hates God, to be in the presence of God eternally would be the gravest suffering.[33][34][35] Aristotle Papanikolaou [12] and Elizabeth H. Prodromou [13] wrote in their bookThinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars that for the Orthodox: "Those theological symbols, heaven and hell, are not crudely understood as spatial destinations but rather refer to the experience of God's presence according to two different modes.""
@god_stories@xanga - those two probably intrigue me the most, because i basically find that those beliefs speak to me more.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - On my way to bed, but you inspired me to do a quick search about atonement and there's apparently been different views throughout history. Check out the 4 primary theories of atonement on Wikipedia (don't trust WP always, but provides one perspective).
...and here's more on the moral atonement theory held by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Seems an ages old conversation...to which we've joined. G'night and God bless you.
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - interesting...with admittedly only very little information, I get the sense the Eastern Orthodox Church is perhaps closer to the doctrinal beliefs of the early church. Thanks for responding!
Thanks for sharing the video. I'm Orthodox <3
I want to watch the whole video before I say anything.
@god_stories@xanga - Thanks for your responses.
Re: John 3:16 - you said we need to believe. Well, yes, but belief always has content. As James reminds us, even the demons believe and tremble, but they aren't saved.
John 3:16 reminds us that we are all perishing:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
Belief in Jesus means we must believe we are perishing apart from Him. And then the question comes, Why are we perishing? We are perishing because we are all born with Adam's sin nature, we are all judged guilty before God and are under condemnation. We are alienated from God, and the wages of our sin is death. Sin must be paid for, and God has told us that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. In His mercy, God sent Jesus so by faith in His blood sacrifice might be saved from our sins. (See Romans 5.)
In John 3:16 you see Jesus, the unblemished, spotless, sinless Lamb of God, Jesus, who was sent: "He gave his only Son..." John the Baptist declared: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Jesus' sacrifice for sinners was pictured in the Passover Lamb, whose blood provided protection from the destroyer. "The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:13). And in the same way, believing in Jesus' death in our place provides eternal life to all who will believe. I Cor. 5:7 "... For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
If you look through the OT, you see it all looking forward to coming of Jesus Christ to save His people from their sins (that was the proclamation of the angel of the Lord to Joseph in Matthew 1:21). The book of Hebrews wonderfully spells out how the OT types and symbols pointed to and are all transcended by all-superior priesthood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look to Jesus' own words, you see how His life was all leading to going to Jerusalem to die on the cross to redeem sinners. The Gospel call to the world centers on belief on the death of Christ to save us from our sins: "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..." That's the primary issue: we need forgiveness and salvation from our sins, and there is no other name by which forgiveness and salvation comes but by the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12).
Re: moral influence - many, many men and women have lived and died, and many of them certainly had some impact on the cultures in which they lived, but Jesus Christ stands uniquely above them all. Who else was God come in the flesh? Who else lived a sinless life? Who else bore the wrath of God in our place? Who else died for the sins of men, to take the punishment we deserved so we might be pardoned and receive forgiveness of sins and be counted as righteous in the eyes of God and escape God's just wrath? Who else is the one mediator between God and man? Who else is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world? Who else can regenerate dead souls? Who else can provide fallen men with a new nature and a new heart to replace their sin natures and hard hearts? Can I do that for you, or, can you do that for me? Could Gandhi or Mother Teresa? No, of course not. Man's problem from the beginning has been sin, and our sin is what separates us from God. And apart from the salvation that God provided in His Son, there is no salvation. The wages of our sin is death. Jesus was sent to deal with that in a way no one else could. No other man could accomplish what He has done. No other sinner could die for another sinner. Sin is our primary problem, and until we are given grace to see that, we will have no correct view of Christ and the atonement, and we will continue to be blinded to the glory of Christ becoming a curse for us to redeem us from the curse of the law. So long as we don't see our problem is rooted in our sin, we won't seek a Redeemer from sin, we won't see we have a need to be saved from our sin. And we'll go ahead and follow Jesus just as we would follow another person. And that's a reproach to the blood He shed on Calvary to save sinners, plus it leads many people straight into hell, for they have a false assurance.
Re: Jesus' anger/wrath - Jesus IS coming to judge the living and the dead (e.g. - Acts 10:42, II Tim. 4:1, I Peter 4:5). Many people look at God and Jesus, and they only think of His love, but God is also holy and just. Look at the picture of Christ in Revelation 1, and see John's response there. And in Revelation 6:16 we read about the wrath of the Lamb. Jesus Himself spoke quite often about judgment and hell. I'd encourage you to read through the Gospels again.
Psalm 2:12 Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Re: Pharisaical "belief" and abundant life - I hear you. But we can only have true abundant life as we begin to understand the work of Christ on our behalf, as we study and contemplate the work of Christ on our behalf:
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!
It's only then we begin to see depths from which God pulled us by sending Jesus to die in our place, how God showed mercy to us while we were dead, while we were sinners, not only a sinner, but the chief of sinners, and at that point, we begin to dance around the throne of grace, awestruck, "But I obtained mercy!" "I'm a child of the King!" "A debtor to mercy alone, Of covenant mercy I sing!"
I Timothy 1:15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
And it only then we have that wonderful combination: Psalm 2:11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. And at that point, grace truly begins to become amazing, as John Newton wrote.
Or, as Paul wrote in Romans 5:
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 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. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Through Christ we receive the reconciliation! There's nothing more important or vital. Apart from being reconciled to God, what do we have? All the rest of Christianity springs from that gift of reconciliation, and God's name is magnified through that gift of reconciliation. Revelation 5:9-14; Colossians 1:18.
Formed on Aristotelian rationalism? ... And then disrespecting Augustine (who had so many platonic influences)? ... Not that theology is wed to philosophy, for she is a mere handmaiden who has served us well many times, but an Orthodox to deny Augustine a proper place in the hall of faith would be like a Protestant dissing Athanasius.
Methinks EOrtho isn't as historic as it claims.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - http://www.orthodoxchurchhistory.com/ check out Augustine. Orthodox start off from Genesis total different than calvinism they work forward from scripture not backwards from systems of theology
@naphtali_deer@xanga - http://www.orthodoxchurchhistory.com/