Top Ten Things I Love About Not Being A Mormon Anymore: A Response

[Spammer]

Thank you for the interesting and informative information about the Orthodox Church. I can understand from your point of view how the LDS Church may appear to "make yourself holy by keeping the rules." My experience is that we are every bit as intent on preparing ourselves to be a holy place that freely and willingly cooperates with the Spirit in deciding how clean we want the inner vessel to be. The apparatus for doing that may differ between us (perhaps not as much as you may think), but we are seeking the same end to love God and our neighbors.

 

I agree the approaches are very close. The only difference that I can see is that the LDS Church seems to believe that there are certain things that must be avoided to avoid offending the Spirit and lists of such things are compiled and turned into worthiness checklists. IMO the difference derives from our different beliefs about the nature of God. We Orthodox do not believe God can be offended, made angry, grieved, or upset. God is dispassionate and impassible. We also believe that God is infinitely holy and that none of us are worthy to stand in God's presence, no matter how hard we try or how high our level of achievement on the human scale of moral perfection.  This changes everything and alters what is meant by a system of rules.  It also moots the need for worthiness checklists.  The only appropriate answer to the question of "are we worthy to enter God's holy temple" is "No."

For us, the problem is the insufficiency of attaining to worthiness by our own efforts.  The point of rules isn't to establish criteria for our personal worthiness.  Instead, the rules are guidelines to help us in cleansing the inner vessel and make us a temple of the Holy Spirit. Since God is dispassionate, the problem with doing certain things like not paying a 10% tithe or drinking wine or going to a Rated R movie isn't that God gets upset and withdraws his Spirit. Nothing we do changes God. Rather, it's the effect those things might have on us that matters and the effect varies by person.  The problem is ours and that's where Orthodox spirituality places its emphasis. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with anything in God's creation. Everything was created good. Nothing in the material creation in itself is intrinsically good or bad.  Compiling lists of strict rules governing how we use those materials is for us the way of the Pharisee. The Pharisee is the one who enumerates rules, checks them off, and declares himself to be worthy.  This is spiritual delusion and tends toward pride.  This is precisely where the Pharisees went wrong and explains why I think a spirituality that incorporates spiritual checklists are dangerous.  With list in hand, it's too easy to think yourself righteous and judge others, as lists necessarily focus only on the externals.

 

I'll try to better explain how we Orthodox view rules.  Each of us is attached to a different range of objects and our passions are tied to those objects rather than God. The goal of Orthodox spirituality is to help us identify those objects and labor to make God the center by detaching ourselves from the objects that excite our passions and distract us from God. Ascetic practices and "rules" are only intended as disciplines, general guidelines, to help us achieve this goal.  This is the same thing as cleansing the inner vessel/turning ourselves into a temple of the Holy Spirit.  The extent that God is not our center determines the extent of our separation from him. Anything that increases that separation is sin. Material objects are neutral and can be used to either reduce or increase that separation. The effect of that use varies by person.  Thus, for example, some people cannot drink wine or go to a movie without exciting their passions and replacing God with false images and idols. Others are able to enjoy wine and movies while retaining God as the center. Some can easily pay 10% and they ought to pay a lot more. Money is their idol.  Others can barely afford 1% after paying bills and setting aside minimum living expenses and God isn't bothered that someone pays so little. If that person makes a hard sacrifice to even pay that much, then he has paid a full tithe and reaps the spiritual blessings. God isn't offended by wine or the content of movies or how little money you pay in your offerings, and isn't impressed by avoiding wine, movies, or paying millions of dollars. He is dispassionate and changeless. The spiritual benefit of every action is governed solely by whether it is done for the glory of God and whether it is an act that assists in slaying the ego, restraining the passions, and cutting off your own will. How that is to be accomplished is up to each person individually and each of us will know in our heart whether our actions are having the intended effect. No one else can possibly know the effect that something in the material creation has on our souls.  That is why we are commanded not to judge.  There is no one size fits all set of rules.  Of course, as we one by one strip away all objects we're attached to instead of God, we'll naturally lose interest in all worldly things, including movies and music.  That still doesn't mean there's anything intrinsically wrong with them and no strict rules should be devised governing their use.  Some things, of course, are of a nature that they are intrinsically bad and apply universally (e.g., porn, adultery, murder, lying, stealing). These are the things about which God has issued specific commands through his Son.  All of them can be referred to the two highest commands of loving God and our neighbor as ourself.  In everything else, i.e., material objects and activities that are neither good nor bad, we are completely free and it is inappropriate to attempt to devise a system of rules governing their use.  The only requirement is to always keep in mind the spiritual effect of using such things the wrong way. But even if we use them the wrong way or break a formal commandment (the result is always the same - we have failed to love God and our neighbor as ourselves), God does not get offended.  The only thing that's happened is we have increased the distance between ourselves and God through our own efforts. 

 

A quote from St. Anthony the Great (4th Century) might better illustrate what I'm trying to get at with all of this:

"God is good, dispassionate, and unchangeable. But one who regards it reasonable and true to affirm that God does not change may well wonder, therefore, how He rejoices over those who are good and turns away from the wicked; and grows angry with sinners but becomes merciful to those who honour Him. To these it must be stated that God neither rejoices nor grows angry. For to rejoice or to grieve is passion. Neither is He honoured by gifts for then He would be conquered by pleasure. The Divine neither benefits nor suffers because of human affairs. Thus, He is good and beneficent only and, being always the same, never harms anyone. So if we remain good, by this likeness to God we are joined to Him. And if we become wicked, by this unlikeness to Him we are estranged from God. It is not that He grows angry, but that our sins do not permit God to shine within us, and they bind us to the demons that torment us. But if we should gain the loosing of our sins through prayer and good works, it does not mean that we have honoured God and changed His mind toward us. Rather, through these actions and our return to the Divine, we have healed our wickedness and thus are able to enjoy the goodness of God again. Therefore, to say that God turns away from the wicked is the same as saying that the sun hides itself from the blind."

The question of whether doing something is good or bad thus depends on whether doing it makes you more or less blind and that's a question that only you can answer. Any particular material thing affects people differently based on the objects each is attached to in place of God. This is why there are no worthiness checklists with strict rules governing the use of material objects in Orthodoxy. I think that and the fact that we're never to consider ourselves to be worthy to attend the temple is the main difference between our two traditions.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Spammer

[Spammer]

I'm not sure i'm understanding you so i need to ask, how is personally answering whether or not you are worthy to enter the temple different than it being entirely up to you on whether or not you are worthy to participate in your church?

IMO, the problem isn't being asked whether you're worthy to enter the temple (presenting yourself at the chalice in our tradition is tantamount to making the same declaration). The problem is the fact that 1) none of us, no matter the level of moral perfection we may attain through our own efforts, is ever worthy to stand before the face of God in his temple. How can the highest possible degree of moral perfection attained to through personal effort by a finite, sinful creature ever be compared to the infinite holiness of God? The only possible answer to the question of personal worthiness should always be "No"; and 2) the fact that in Mormonism there's an official checklist focusing on externals that governs a bureaucratic determination of worthiness to stand before God, along with the issuance of an official worthiness certificate lasting for one year. Worthiness in this system is a bureaucratic decision, not the result of being made holy by God through the action of the Spirit - the only possible way in our belief that we can attain to true holiness and worthiness.

I tried to explain the potential spiritual dangers associated with such a checklist-based approach in my response to Bernard above. IMO, it short-circuits our ability to properly understand our condition. It can turn us into Pharisees. In short, worthiness to stand before God has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God transforming us to make us holy and able to withstand His presence. This makes the forensic and juridical spirituality of checklists and rules completely beside the point and potentially even spiritually harmful, as it can increase the temptation to pride and considering yourself to be righteous. This is also why the Orthodox reject the Catholic system of merits and indulgences. No amount of accumulated 'points' brings us any closer to bridging the gap between the finite and the infinite. None of us can bridge that gap through our own efforts. It is a gift of God. That's why we're never worthy to stand in his presence in this life and why the answer to the question of whether we're worthy must always be "No". Being allowed to stand in the temple before the veil is a privilege and we don't deserve it. Despite our sinfulness, God still invites us to his banquet. He is compassionate and merciful. He is our Father and we are all his Prodigal Sons and Daughters. He receives us even though we deserve to be treated like servants. We must never forget this.

Regarding sin, I agree that we have the same definition - anything that spiritually separates you from God. However, what I mean by being left to your own devices means that you do not have the Spirit implanted within you. In our tradition, this divine seed is only implanted at baptism, sealed by Holy Chrismation, fed and nurtured by ascetic practices and by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, the medicine of immortality. Those outside the of the Body of Christ (the unbaptized) do not have the divine seed implanted within them and are thus, by definition, left to their own devices as they work out their salvation. No amount of moral perfection saves you. Attaining to moral perfection by your own efforts (if such is possible) is not the same as deification and only the deified are able to withstand the presence of God. That only occurs through the action of the Holy Spirit and only the baptized have the divine seed which begins the transformation planted within them. I'm sure you can deduce the implications. For the unbaptized, no matter the level of moral perfection attained, no matter how clean the inner vessel, without the planting of the seed the transformation will not begin. Of course, we also believe that God will save whom He will save. He will transform and deify whom he will deify. But knowing what we know, we are left with no excuse. We are commanded to join ourselves to the Body of Christ, engaging in asceticism to cleanse the inner vessel, so the process of transformation can begin within us. Those who do not know Christ will be shown great mercy and their righteous efforts will make them a law unto themselves. For the baptized, during this process we are to focus exclusively on our own sins, comparing ourselves to no one, not even the worst sinners in human history. Comparing ourselves to the wicked might lead us to think highly of ourselves. No. God is the only standard. We're not graded on a curve. Compared to the holiness of God, we're all in the same sinking boat. We're to consider ourselves to be the first of sinners and we confess that fact at every liturgy before receiving the Eucharist. None of us knows who will be saved, especially whether we will be saved. We trust to God's mercy that all will be saved and we pray for the salvation of others constantly, as we pray for our own salvation. There's an Orthodox saying that applies. "When a saint gets to heaven, he will be surprised by three things. First, he will be surprised to see many he did not think would be there. Second, he will be surprised that some are not there whom he expected to see. Third, he will be surprised that he himself is there."

I don't know if I answered your questions.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Spammer

[Spammer]

This seems to be the crux of the matter, for the OP as well as the gun club analogy.  People may chafe under rules or organization, but the doctrine is that those things are there to help and enable.  Maturing in the gospel includes recognizing the rules and organization for what they are — as well as what they are not.

 

I agree.  A problem only arises when rules are interpreted less as warnings and guidelines and more as benchmarks that separate the worthy from the unworthy.  It's all too easy to keep the rule and view yourself as belonging to the former category and rule-breakers as belonging to the latter category.  We must be careful to avoid such pride by comparing ourselves only to the holiness of God, compared to which none of us are worthy.  Comparing ourselves to others or measuring our performance against a checklist only paves the way for a potential fall.

[Spammer]

Friends, you'll likely have noticed that I've spent a lot of time editing my recent posts. I'm normally an incessant fiddler with things I write, seeking to be as clear and accurate in what I'm trying to communicate.. I also worry that the way I'm communicating my views might offend. Please forgive me if I seem intolerant or critical. This is not my intent.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Spammer

[bluebell]

IMO, the problem isn't being asked whether you're worthy to enter the temple (presenting yourself at the chalice in our tradition is tantamount to making the same declaration). The problem is the fact that 1) none of us, no matter the level of moral perfection we may attain through our own efforts, is ever worthy to stand before the face of God in his temple. How can the highest possible degree of moral perfection attained to through personal effort by a finite, sinful creature ever be compared to the infinite holiness of God? The only possible answer to the question of personal worthiness should always be "No"; and 2) the fact that in Mormonism there's an official checklist focusing on externals that governs a bureaucratic determination of worthiness to stand before God, along with the issuance of an official worthiness certificate lasting for one year. Worthiness in this system is a bureaucratic decision, not the result of being made holy by God through the action of the Spirit - the only possible way in our belief that we can attain to true holiness and worthiness.

 

I think i get what you are saying.

 

I also think though that part of this is an issue of semantics.  Yes, LDS use the word 'worthy' but it's what we mean by the word that really matters, right?

 

Do you believe that when LDS use that word we are saying that we are worthy to stand before God of our own merits?

 

And why we use the checklist is also more important in understanding how LDS feel about temple recommends than that one exists, isn't it?

 

Do you believe that when LDS ask and answer the questions of a temple recommend interview that they believe it's purely external and bureaucratic and has no bearing on the state of the soul and the relationship of the person with their Savior?

 

I tried to explain the potential spiritual dangers associated with such a checklist-based approach in my response to Bernard above. IMO, it short-circuits our ability to properly understand our condition. It can turn us into Pharisees. In short, worthiness to stand before God has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God transforming us to make us holy and able to withstand His presence. This makes the forensic and juridical spirituality of checklists and rules completely beside the point and potentially even spiritually harmful, as it can increase the temptation to pride and considering yourself to be righteous. This is also why the Orthodox reject the Catholic system of merits and indulgences. No amount of accumulated 'points' brings us any closer to bridging the gap between the finite and the infinite. None of us can bridge that gap through our own efforts. It is a gift of God. That's why we're never worthy to stand in his presence in this life and why the answer to the question of whether we're worthy must always be "No". Being allowed to stand in the temple before the veil is a privilege and we don't deserve it. Despite our sinfulness, God still invites us to his banquet. He is compassionate and merciful. He is our Father and we are all his Prodigal Sons and Daughters. He receives us even though we deserve to be treated like servants. We must never forget this.

 

If i am understanding your above statement, in your religion, you do not believe in the need for a Savior or the Atonement?  

 

You did not mention Him or the need for an Atonement at all in the above paragraph but only said that God invites us to His banquet because He is our Father and He loves us.  The Savior imparting His righteousness to us, and enabling us thru His grace to try to be obedient to God's commandments and worthy to return to God again doesn't seem to have any place in your religion.  Is that accurate?

 

Regarding sin, I agree that we have the same definition - anything that spiritually separates you from God. However, what I mean by being left to your own devices means that you do not have the Spirit implanted within you. In our tradition, this divine seed is only implanted at baptism, sealed by Holy Chrismation, fed and nurtured by ascetic practices and by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, the medicine of immortality. Those outside the of the Body of Christ (the unbaptized) do not have the divine seed implanted within them and are thus, by definition, left to their own devices as they work out their salvation. No amount of moral perfection saves you. Attaining to moral perfection by your own efforts (if such is possible) is not the same as deification and only the deified are able to withstand the presence of God. That only occurs through the action of the Holy Spirit and only the baptized have the divine seed which begins the transformation planted within them. I'm sure you can deduce the implications. For the unbaptized, no matter the level of moral perfection attained, no matter how clean the inner vessel, without the planting of the seed the transformation will not begin. Of course, we also believe that God will save whom He will save. He will transform and deify whom he will deify. But knowing what we know, we are left with no excuse. We are commanded to join ourselves to the Body of Christ, engaging in asceticism to cleanse the inner vessel, so the process of transformation can begin within us. Those who do not know Christ will be shown great mercy and their righteous efforts will make them a law unto themselves. For the baptized, during this process we are to focus exclusively on our own sins, comparing ourselves to no one, not even the worst sinners in human history. Comparing ourselves to the wicked might lead us to think highly of ourselves. No. God is the only standard. We're not graded on a curve. Compared to the holiness of God, we're all in the same sinking boat. We're to consider ourselves to be the first of sinners and we confess that fact at every liturgy before receiving the Eucharist. None of us knows who will be saved, especially whether we will be saved. We trust to God's mercy that all will be saved and we pray for the salvation of others constantly, as we pray for our own salvation. There's an Orthodox saying that applies. "When a saint gets to heaven, he will be surprised by three things. First, he will be surprised to see many he did not think would be there. Second, he will be surprised that some are not there whom he expected to see. Third, he will be surprised that he himself is there."

 

Got it.    

 

There's not really much that you said that as a Mormon i disagree with.  

 

[Spammer]

I think i get what you are saying.

 

I also think though that part of this is an issue of semantics.  Yes, LDS use the word 'worthy' but it's what we mean by the word that really matters, right?

 

Do you believe that when LDS use that word we are saying that we are worthy to stand before God of our own merits?

 

And why we use the checklist is also more important in understanding how LDS feel about temple recommends than that one exists, isn't it?

 

Do you believe that when LDS ask and answer the questions of a temple recommend interview that they believe it's purely external and bureaucratic and has no bearing on the state of the soul and the relationship of the person with their Savior?

 

 

No, what I'm saying is that I think there's danger in using language that leads you to consider yourself to be worthy.  I can see how this can be viewed as semantics, but in my mind the perceived hairsplitting is really a case of balancing on the edge of a knife and our opinion of ourselves determines whether we fall off towards pride and self-regard or towards humility.   Our spiritual practices should help us to fall in the right direction.  There's a difference between 'being worthy enough' and being 'actually worthy'.   If the Savior declares us 'worthy enough' to enter the temple or receive Him in the Eucharist, that's not the same thing as actually being worthy to stand in His glorified presence.   For the Orthodox, this is a crucial distinction that is all too  easy to forget or ignore.  None of us is truly worthy to stand before Christ, the fount of infinite holiness, until He makes us holy through the Spirit.  Humility requires that we continually remind ourselves of the infinite distance between us and Him and it seems to me that being declared and certified as worthy in an annual bureaucratic process might help us forget this central fact of the Christian spiritual walk.  

 

You have to understand that our view derives from what we believe about the nature of God.  There is a vast, unbridgeable gulf between finite creatures and the Uncreated Light.  It's one one thing to go to church and the temple and stand before that Light which we know through faith is there, if invisibly.  It's another thing to have the veil torn away and literally be brought directly into that Presence to stand nakedly before Him.  If that were to happen, without first being transfigured in Christ through the Spirit so that we can withstand that Light, we will be burnt to a crisp (to use an extremely crude metaphor).  For the Orthodox, that's what hell is.  Hell is not a place but a state of being.  Hell is the experience of being brought to stand in unmitigated fashion before the glorified Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father, without being ready; i.e., without Christ first bridging the infinite gap between us and Him by making us holy (theosis).  There's nothing we can do, no matter the heights of moral perfection we attain through our own efforts, to bridge that gap on our own.  The gap results from the Fall. The incarnate Son of God through his atonement united his divine nature with our human nature even unto death, healing our nature, destroying death by death, thereby making it possible for us to have the divine life planted within us at baptism, be resurrected, and divinized.  What we do to attain to theosis is to prepare the vessel by nurturing the seed in cooperation with the divine action of Christ working within us.  Without that assistance, no matter how much we water, prune, and care for the seed it will not grow.  None of us can bridge the gap by our own efforts.  All of us are unworthy and until we are first divinized we are utterly unprepared to stand in the presence of God.  Except for those who are already in that state, it's better to just drop all use of the word 'worthy', IMO.  It's all too easy to begin to think highly of ourselves when, in reality, unless we're already divinized we're still infinitely far from being truly worthy.  This is the reason why the Orthodox don't hold worthiness interviews and issue 'communion recommends'.  Instead, every single time we approach the chalice we first chant the following in unison:

 

"I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. I believe also that this is truly Thine own pure Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood. Therefore I pray Thee: have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance. And make me worthy to partake without condemnation of Thy most pure Mysteries, for the remission of my sins, and unto life everlasting. Amen.

Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord in Thy Kingdom.

 

May the communion of Thy Holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of soul and body. Amen. "

 

Note that we pray to Christ, acknowledging ourselves to be the first of sinners, then ask Him to make us worthy to partake.  We pray in this way because we know we really aren't worthy to partake.  We acknowledge our sinfulness and unworthiness and approach the chalice anyway, with fear and trembling, as the priest chants to us when he first brings the Holy Gifts out to us from the altar - "With faith and in the fear of God, draw ye near".  It's amazing to us that, despite our unworthiness, Christ still invites us to his table.  For us, the spiritual walk is all about continually reminding ourselves of this fact and, like the thief on his won cross next to Christ, confessing our unworthiness and asking God for mercy.  Our model is the prodigal son, not the elder son.  I hope that better explains what we believe.

 

If i am understanding your above statement, in your religion, you do not believe in the need for a Savior or the Atonement?  

 

You did not mention Him or the need for an Atonement at all in the above paragraph but only said that God invites us to His banquet because He is our Father and He loves us.  The Savior imparting His righteousness to us, and enabling us thru His grace to try to be obedient to God's commandments and worthy to return to God again doesn't seem to have any place in your religion.  Is that accurate?

 

 

I completely and utterly failed to communicate what we believe if I led you to ask whether we believe in the need for a Savior or the atonement.  Everything we believe as Orthodox Christians centers on Jesus and His atonement.  Without that action, which restores us to the pre-Fall angelic state, we would be eternally cut off from the life of the Holy Trinity. Everything I've described that happens to us as we seek to grow closer to Christ and attain to the mystical union with Him is only made possible because He became man, united his human nature to ours, healed that nature and destroyed death through His death and resurrection, and set us on the path to theosis beginning with our baptism.  All spiritual benefits deriving from our ascetic practices (prayer, fasting, almsgiving) come to us from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.  To facilitate our transformation, the Savior offers us His deified Body and Blood in the Eucharist, the medicine of immortality.  We take Him directly into ourselves and He works on us from the inside out.  All things move and have their being in Christ the Logos of the Father.  He is the agent that sustains the creation from moment to moment and the Author of Life.  Our liturgical twelve-month calendar is centered around the Savior and the events of His life.  During Great Lent, we imitate his forty-day fast as we prepare ourselves for his Resurrection on Easter.  During Holy Week we attend services that allow us to directly participate in the events of the last week of His life.  For us, they aren't events in the distant past.  As the eternal God entered time to effect His atonement, those events simultaneously occurred in time and in eternity, meaning that they continue to occur in every moment of time.  We can participate in those events mystically and we do so in a formal way during Holy Week.  We participate in the other events of His life throughout the rest of the year.  

 

Yes, for us Jesus and what He did for us is the center of everything.  As baptized Christians, we have Him in the center of our beings, not that I live the kind of life that reflects that fact.  I'm sorry I led you to believe that He isn't the center of our faith.  I pray and ask Christ for mercy.  Lord have mercy.

 

 

 

Edited April 25, 2014 by Spammer

[Bernard Gui]

 

 

 

No, what I'm saying is that I think there's danger in using language that leads you to consider yourself to be worthy.  I can see how this can be viewed as semantics, but in my mind the perceived hairsplitting is really a case of balancing on the edge of a knife and our opinion of ourselves determines whether we fall off towards pride and self-regard or towards humility.   Our spiritual practices should help us to fall in the right direction.  There's a difference between 'being worthy enough' and being 'actually worthy'.   If the Savior declares us 'worthy enough' to enter the temple or receive Him in the Eucharist, that's not the same thing as actually being worthy to stand in His glorified presence.   For the Orthodox, this is a crucial distinction that is all too  easy to forget or ignore.  None of us is truly worthy to stand before Christ, the fount of infinite holiness, until He makes us holy through the Spirit.  Humility requires that we continually remind ourselves of the infinite distance between us and Him and it seems to me that being declared and certified as worthy in an annual bureaucratic process might help us forget this central fact of the Christian spiritual walk.  

 

I appreciate the heartfelt information and testimony you have shared.

I would point out that a more appropriate comparison would be between the LDS chapel 

and the Orthodox temple, rather than with the LDS temple. 

Edited April 27, 2014 by Bernard Gui

[Spammer]

Actually, whether in an Orthodox church or in an LDS temple, that is where the Holy of Holies is believed to be located. It is the most holy place.  I think the comparison is apt.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Spammer

[bluebell]

 

I think i get what you are saying.

 

I also think though that part of this is an issue of semantics.  Yes, LDS use the word 'worthy' but it's what we mean by the word that really matters, right?

 

Do you believe that when LDS use that word we are saying that we are worthy to stand before God of our own merits?

 

And why we use the checklist is also more important in understanding how LDS feel about temple recommends than that one exists, isn't it?

 

Do you believe that when LDS ask and answer the questions of a temple recommend interview that they believe it's purely external and bureaucratic and has no bearing on the state of the soul and the relationship of the person with their Savior?

 

 

No, what I'm saying is that I think there's danger in using language that leads you to consider yourself to be worthy.  I can see how this can be viewed as semantics, but in my mind the perceived hairsplitting is really a case of balancing on the edge of a knife and our opinion of ourselves determines whether we fall off towards pride and self-regard or towards humility.   Our spiritual practices should help us to fall in the right direction.  There's a difference between 'being worthy enough' and being 'actually worthy'.   If the Savior declares us 'worthy enough' to enter the temple or receive Him in the Eucharist, that's not the same thing as actually being worthy to stand in His glorified presence.   For the Orthodox, this is a crucial distinction that is all too  easy to forget or ignore.  None of us is truly worthy to stand before Christ, the fount of infinite holiness, until He makes us holy through the Spirit.  Humility requires that we continually remind ourselves of the infinite distance between us and Him and it seems to me that being declared and certified as worthy in an annual bureaucratic process might help us forget this central fact of the Christian spiritual walk.  

 

You have to understand that our view derives from what we believe about the nature of God.  There is a vast, unbridgeable gulf between finite creatures and the Uncreated Light.  It's one one thing to go to church and the temple and stand before that Light which we know through faith is there, if invisibly.  It's another thing to have the veil torn away and literally be brought directly into that Presence to stand nakedly before Him.  If that were to happen, without first being transfigured in Christ through the Spirit so that we can withstand that Light, we will be burnt to a crisp (to use an extremely crude metaphor).  For the Orthodox, that's what hell is.  Hell is not a place but a state of being.  Hell is the experience of being brought to stand in unmitigated fashion before the glorified Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father, without being ready; i.e., without Christ first bridging the infinite gap between us and Him by making us holy (theosis).  There's nothing we can do, no matter the heights of moral perfection we attain through our own efforts, to bridge that gap on our own.  The gap results from the Fall. The incarnate Son of God through his atonement united his divine nature with our human nature even unto death, healing our nature, destroying death by death, thereby making it possible for us to have the divine life planted within us at baptism, be resurrected, and divinized.  What we do to attain to theosis is to prepare the vessel by nurturing the seed in cooperation with the divine action of Christ working within us.  Without that assistance, no matter how much we water, prune, and care for the seed it will not grow.  None of us can bridge the gap by our own efforts.  All of us are unworthy and until we are first divinized we are utterly unprepared to stand in the presence of God.  Except for those who are already in that state, it's better to just drop all use of the word 'worthy', IMO.  It's all too easy to begin to think highly of ourselves when, in reality, unless we're already divinized we're still infinitely far from being truly worthy.  This is the reason why the Orthodox don't hold worthiness interviews and issue 'communion recommends'.  Instead, every single time we approach the chalice we first chant the following in unison:

 

"I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. I believe also that this is truly Thine own pure Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood. Therefore I pray Thee: have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance. And make me worthy to partake without condemnation of Thy most pure Mysteries, for the remission of my sins, and unto life everlasting. Amen.

Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord in Thy Kingdom.

 

May the communion of Thy Holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of soul and body. Amen. "

 

Note that we pray to Christ, acknowledging ourselves to be the first of sinners, then ask Him to make us worthy to partake.  We pray in this way because we know we really aren't worthy to partake.  We acknowledge our sinfulness and unworthiness and approach the chalice anyway, with fear and trembling, as the priest chants to us when he first brings the Holy Gifts out to us from the altar - "With faith and in the fear of God, draw ye near".  It's amazing to us that, despite our unworthiness, Christ still invites us to his table.  For us, the spiritual walk is all about continually reminding ourselves of this fact and, like the thief on his won cross next to Christ, confessing our unworthiness and asking God for mercy.  Our model is the prodigal son, not the elder son.  I hope that better explains what we believe.

 

If i am understanding your above statement, in your religion, you do not believe in the need for a Savior or the Atonement?  

 

You did not mention Him or the need for an Atonement at all in the above paragraph but only said that God invites us to His banquet because He is our Father and He loves us.  The Savior imparting His righteousness to us, and enabling us thru His grace to try to be obedient to God's commandments and worthy to return to God again doesn't seem to have any place in your religion.  Is that accurate?

 

 

I completely and utterly failed to communicate what we believe if I led you to ask whether we believe in the need for a Savior or the atonement.  Everything we believe as Orthodox Christians centers on Jesus and His atonement.  Without that action, which restores us to the pre-Fall angelic state, we would be eternally cut off from the life of the Holy Trinity. Everything I've described that happens to us as we seek to grow closer to Christ and attain to the mystical union with Him is only made possible because He became man, united his human nature to ours, healed that nature and destroyed death through His death and resurrection, and set us on the path to theosis beginning with our baptism.  All spiritual benefits deriving from our ascetic practices (prayer, fasting, almsgiving) come to us from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.  To facilitate our transformation, the Savior offers us His deified Body and Blood in the Eucharist, the medicine of immortality.  We take Him directly into ourselves and He works on us from the inside out.  All things move and have their being in Christ the Logos of the Father.  He is the agent that sustains the creation from moment to moment and the Author of Life.  Our liturgical twelve-month calendar is centered around the Savior and the events of His life.  During Great Lent, we imitate his forty-day fast as we prepare ourselves for his Resurrection on Easter.  During Holy Week we attend services that allow us to directly participate in the events of the last week of His life.  For us, they aren't events in the distant past.  As the eternal God entered time to effect His atonement, those events simultaneously occurred in time and in eternity, meaning that they continue to occur in every moment of time.  We can participate in those events mystically and we do so in a formal way during Holy Week.  We participate in the other events of His life throughout the rest of the year.  

 

Yes, for us Jesus and what He did for us is the center of everything.  As baptized Christians, we have Him in the center of our beings, not that I live the kind of life that reflects that fact.  I'm sorry I led you to believe that He isn't the center of our faith.  I pray and ask Christ for mercy.  Lord have mercy.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for clarifying.  

[Bernard Gui]

Actually, whether in an Orthodox church or in an LDS temple, that is where the Holy of Holies is believed to be located. It is the most holy place.  I think the comparison is apt.

That's not a term LDS commonly use in reference to their temples. A far as I know it only exists in the Salt Lake Temple and

does not serve the same purpose as that of the ancient temples or as you describe the Orthodox temple. I'm open to correction, though.

 

A question about the Fall....

If Adam had not fallen, where would we be?

 

EDIT: I will move this to another topic

Edited April 28, 2014 by Bernard Gui

[Mustard]

Very nice @thatjimguy