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CHRIST IS RISEN! SO... WHAT NOW?

 

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When I thought up the title for this article, I searched the Internet to see if it was unique: turns out I found four articles and several videos with almost the same title! I wondered: what were Christ's disciples thinking just before and right after His crucifixion and resurrection?

In Matthew 20:17-28 we read how hugely they misunderstood what was about to happen. He told them straight out: "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock, to scourge, and to crucify; and the third day He will be raised up" (verses 17-19). Nothing could be clearer to us than this blunt statement, but we're thinking from our 21st-century viewpoint, we have likely heard this story hundreds of times.

The disciples, however, couldn't comprehend what He just said: they were following Jesus as the Messiah who would ride into Jerusalem on a white stallion, start a revolution in Jerusalem, overthrow the Roman occupation army, and liberate Israel from opression. Right away, James and John put their mother up to asking Jesus if one of her sons could be Prime Minister and the other Secretary of Defense in His new kingdom. He replied: "Guys, you don't know what you're asking for. You're going to get killed or exiled." He told them: "I didn't come to be an earthly ruler, I came to serve, and to give My life as a ransom for many."

Then He rode into Jerusalem on a little, young donkey. He shook things up by driving the moneychangers and animal sellers out of the Temple. He healed the blind and sick, he confronted the pharisees, the chief priests and the scribes several times as if He was forcing them to play their hand, to work out their plot to have Him killed.

Next came the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Peter blustered saying how bold he was, how he would never deny Jesus... and within just a few hours Peter denied Him three times. All of the disciples except John ran away, effectivly denying Him too – only a few women and John stood with Him as He was nailed to the Cross and executed. After three days, when He rose from the dead, the disciples were dumbfounded, they couldn't grasp what their own eyes saw: He was alive again! How could this be? Thomas doubted until he saw the wounds in His hands from the nails, then said: "My Lord and my God!"

But Peter and some of the other disciples went back to their old jobs: fishing. Jesus encountered them there with a miracle catch of fish, and restored Peter to his apostleship. Even after 40 days when He was seen by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, including over 500 people at the same time, as He was about to ascend into heaven some of His disciples still doubted. Others asked – "Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel?" They still didn't get it! He told them – "It's none of your business to know the times or seasons!" (That's the literal translation from Russian.) "Your business is to preach the Good News everywhere, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all over the world!" (Acts 1:1-8).

In the rest of Acts ch. 1, it seems that they were finally beginning to fathom what they were supposed to do: they rolled dice to select Matthias to replace Judas who had betrayed Christ "to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place" (verse 25). Notice that they called it "ministry" – "diakonia" in Greek: the task at hand was to be servants, as we just read in Mattew ch. 20. And they recognized the importance of apostleship as servant-leaders. This was the start of apostolic succession down to this present day, not to be princes or prime ministers, but to be servants.

Then came the Day of Pentecost: like a bolt of lightning, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and the rest of 120 people in the Upper Room, and they received power from on high to preach the Good News in languages they hadn't learned: Jewish people in the crowds that day from all over the Greco-Roman Empire heard the Apostles in their own languages! The Great Commission was beginning to be fulfilled!

So... what now? What about you and me? What are we supposed to do about Christ's Resurrection? St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians ch. 15, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, there's no resurrection, the only meaning of life is to "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (verse 32). Do we go back to our jobs as before, like Peter and the others who went back to fishing? No, there's no going back to "life as usual" anymore. Not to decide is to decide not to. There's no "I abstain" vote – an "abstain" is the same as a "no" vote. Either we vote "yes" to Christ, deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Christ, or we effectively deny Him and "eat and drink," to go back to fishing around for meaning.

You can read the rest of our newsletter at https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC-News/a-n_2025-04-26.htm, and share it!

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GOLDILOCKS PROTESTANTISM

 

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The article "Goldilocks Protestantism" in the March 31, 2025 issue of First Things magazine excellently portrays the current state of Christianity. Brad East, the author, is an associate professor of theology at Abiline Christian University, which is associated with the Churches of Christ movement.

This movement is an attempt to restore New Testament Christianity. I'm familiar with this "Restoration Movement" because my wife and I began our missionary service in it. The Churches of Christ attempt to restore some of the basic elements of early Christianity, including baptism performed immediately after confession of faith in Christ as a necessary part of salvation, and celebrating the Lord's Supper every Sunday.

But this is just one of the many flavors of of post-Reformation religious bodies. Our own lives illustrate the current state of Christianity because we have sampled several flavors, moving somewhat painlessly from one to another as if there were only minor, non-essential differences between them. However, this points to the fatal flaw of relativism: any flavor will do, Christianity's current state.

The "Goldilocks Protestantism" article divides current Christianity into two categories: the "catholic" (in the sense of one true and universal Church including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican), and the other group being the "evangelicals." The former has authoritative Saints, the Creed, liturgy, bishops, ordained priests. icons, sacraments, and infant baptism. In 2007, my wife and I finally found our spiritual home in Orthodoxy. The evangelicals have none of those, just the Bible: "sola Scriptura." What then of today's Lutherans and Calvinists – heirs of the earlier "Majesterial Reformation" that rejected Rome's absolute authority of the pope, doctrine of purgatory, and sale of indulgences (none of which are found in Orthodoxy), but retained much of the former traits? Sadly, those Majesterial heirs are less than 10% of global Christianity and are fading fast, often taking up the traits of the evangelical majority which is descended from the "Radical Reformation" that rejects all of the "catholic" traits. The article raises four issues:

First, as described in The Democratization of American Christianity by Nathan Hatch, the leveling or democratizing effect the Age of "Enlightenment" or "Reason" that placed human intellect over the authority of revelation and Church. Second, evangelicals will not adopt the Majesterial traits: "They believe in populist biblicism.... The lack of tradition is a feature, not a bug" per the article.

More from this article: "Third, there is a structural instability at the heart of the Reformation vision that undermines any attempt to strike a durable middle path between catholic and evangelical Christianities. My term for this problem is Goldilocks Protestantism. Heirs of Calvin and Luther don’t want to give up, for instance, Nicaea or infant baptism or the necessity of ordination for the administration of the Supper. Neither, though, do they want a ­magisterium or bishops, saints or icons. Not too high, not too low. Just right. This approach is finally unsustainable."

Fourth, the Majesterial Protestants view themselves more aligned with the Radical evangelicals, even if they wished the Radicals to be more Traditional. They can't go back to the Roman Catholics whose Majesterium they have rejected. It just will not happen, so they are withering.

The basic issue is the rejection of the primary authority of "the Church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), and instead placing the New Testament as the sole canon ("measuring rod" or "yardstick") of the truth. No, the Church, the foundation, existed for nearly 400 years before the New Testament canon was recognized. The problem with the latter view is the question of interpretation: who decides how to interpret, how to give the meaning, of the New Testament Scriptures? Since the Reformation, the idea has spread that "any cowherd or milkmaid" can correctly interpret the Scriptures, that is, the absolute authority of the individual believer. Once you reject the Church's authority and accept democratization, you're on the slippery slope of no return.

But the New Testament itself gives the clue to solve this puzzle: "knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation, just as no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20-21). "Holy men of God," in other words, the Saints of the Church. Notice the words "just as" – they indicate a connection between the previous phrase and the next phrase: in the same way that holy men of God were moved by the Holy Spirit to write the Old Testament Scriptures, so also now it takes holy men of God - the saints - to interpret the Bible for us, not a private interpretation by any Tom, Dick, or Harry who might or might not have even a two-year Bible School education.

So if there is just one true Church, what about the moral and ethical problems in it? And what about all the post-Reformation denominations? We must acknowledge that the Church, like the denominations, is populated by human beings who retain the sin-stained fallen nature. It is not yet the "glorious church without spot or wrinkle" (Ephesians 5:27), but will be. The truth will come out, and evil will be expunged. So we must distinguish between doctrine and practice: the Church's doctrines that have been decided by Councils of saintly bishops of the Church over the centuries, including doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation of God in Christ, His rising from the dead, the Creed followed by the formation of the New Testament canon, etc., and on the other hand the errors of sinful and sometimes heretical humans.

"Heresy" is from the Greek word for "choice" – once you place the idea of choice and democratization above all else, your individual freedom of choice becomes the reigning principle over against any established truth and authority, and thus today we have tens of thousands of denominations and un-denominations, each with its own flavor of doctrines and practices. As the saying goes – "I'm not a complete idiot, there are some parts missing!" Some denominations just have a few parts missing but are fairly close to the true Church and converts can be received by Chrismation (annointing with holy oil) and renunciation of former errors. Other denominations are sects that may deny the Trinity, the pre-eternal deity of Christ, His sacrificial death and resurrection, etc.: such converts must be baptized in the name of the Trinity and then be Chrismated to join the Body of Christ, the true Church.

So many times these days I've heard people say – "I have my own religion" or "I have my own beliefs and practices." This is the "Goldilocks" approach: a little of this and a little of that, not too hot and not too cold, choosing beliefs that simply justify one's own ideas and behavior, leaving the door open to all sorts of wierd sectarianism and justifying a selfish, immoral lifestyle. There's no need for humble repentance because "I'm OK, you're OK" – anything goes. The most important thing for such people is self-realization, rather than self-denial and taking up one's cross to follow Christ, crucifying our little egos. During this time of preparation for celebrating the greatest event in human history – the Resurrection of Christ – let us turn from these self-centered beliefs and behaviors, and turn in humble repentance before the crucified and resurrected One!

You can read the rest of our newsletter at https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC-News/a-n_2025-04-05.htm, and share it!