THE CONVERSION OF HANK HANEGRAAFF AND SOME NEW COMMENTS (more new comments added below)
The recent conversion of Hank Hanagraaff to EO has caused waves in the Evangelical world. Ministries such as Alpha and Omega, Wretched, AIG, Pulpit and Pen and others have analyzed this at length and I don't think I could add much at this time.
The one positive side effect of Hank's unfortunate situation, however, is that it generated a greater interest toward understanding what EO is, and Western Evangelicals are forced to acknowledge and address it. This trend also brought some more visits to this blog, and, as usual, reactions vary. One visitor, for example, felt the information was very beneficial:
“Brother, thank you. I read your blog. I had some misgivings about EO traditions and theology, but hearing about them from somone [sic] like you, who knows all about EO was truly enlightening. What I was looking for was right in front of me in Scripture, namely Jesus Christ alone. God bless you, brother. My confusion is gone.”
This is a wonderful testimony, and I praise God that he has used this blog to bless the reader above.
Some comments, however, were not so gracious.:
"Whoa! That's sure some convincing work you've got going on there that proves just how deluded the Eastern Orthodox are--a couple of weird icons, some calendar issues that are WAY worse than the modern day refusal to use A.D. to mark the current century. Man, I am so GLAD I found this site! I nearly paid attention to this ridiculous nonsense. WHEW! Oh, the next time you want to blaspheme the Cross, why don't you use one of your nice shiny Evangelical ones, MKAY? Again, the Lord rebuke you." (before leaving the comment above, the same reader wrote in saying only “The Lord rebuke you”, hence the “Again” in the last sentence)
The comment above came from an anonymous reader who did not leave his/her email address, so I am showing the comment here and taking this opportunity to give a quick response, as I would have in private .
Dear reader,
thank you for chiming in. I am not entirely sure what to make of your email. On the one hand you say that you “almost paid attention to this ridiculous nonsense”. On the other hand, it appears that, by your own admission, you paid enough attention to read at least three articles that you referenced, and you also took the time to write and share your impressions. However, by using internet tracking tools, I can see that you visited just about every single page, and spent about 25 minutes during your second session. So, I’m not convinced you’re entirely honest, even in your sarcasm. You actually wrote in twice, so obviously the existence of this blog bothered you enough to give it some attention, and write a rebuttal. But, judging by the emotional tone of your email, usually used to cover the lack of arguments, and by the fact that you offered absolutely no actual counter-arguments, I would say that you have no arguments to offer, and that fact bothers you. Instead you resorted to downplaying the issues and declaring them unimportant.
You even tried to use the issue of the A.D. designation as a sort of a red herring, thus making it look like I stress over marginal things, whereas in reality the issue you are bringing up is much more important. The problem with this logic is that, to the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no controversy among believing Christians over whether the designation A.D. should be used or not. Only non-believers challenge this. On the other hand, as explained in the article, the EOC has split multiple times over the use of the calendar. More so, anathemas have been declared over it. How is this an irrelevant issue? The answer is, it’s not. But it’s ridiculous and irrational at its core, and poses an apologetic nightmare for the EO, so the best solution is to yell it into unimportance when the non-EO bring it up. But, the issue remains, and it’s not going anywhere any time soon.
Finally, when you say that I “blaspheme the Cross”, and that for this purpose I should instead use a “shiny Evangelical one”, I suspect you are referring to the cross I used for the page header. I have no intention on blaspheming the Cross of Christ. I put my faith in the righteousness imputed to me by the sacrifice the Lord has made on that cross. It is the EO who actually blaspheme the Cross, by denying the penal substitutionary atonement, and I intend to cover that in an article I hope to publish this week.
Thanks again for writing. I shall keep you in my prayers and I wish you every blessing.
Alex
The one positive side effect of Hank's unfortunate situation, however, is that it generated a greater interest toward understanding what EO is, and Western Evangelicals are forced to acknowledge and address it. This trend also brought some more visits to this blog, and, as usual, reactions vary. One visitor, for example, felt the information was very beneficial:
“Brother, thank you. I read your blog. I had some misgivings about EO traditions and theology, but hearing about them from somone [sic] like you, who knows all about EO was truly enlightening. What I was looking for was right in front of me in Scripture, namely Jesus Christ alone. God bless you, brother. My confusion is gone.”
This is a wonderful testimony, and I praise God that he has used this blog to bless the reader above.
Some comments, however, were not so gracious.:
"Whoa! That's sure some convincing work you've got going on there that proves just how deluded the Eastern Orthodox are--a couple of weird icons, some calendar issues that are WAY worse than the modern day refusal to use A.D. to mark the current century. Man, I am so GLAD I found this site! I nearly paid attention to this ridiculous nonsense. WHEW! Oh, the next time you want to blaspheme the Cross, why don't you use one of your nice shiny Evangelical ones, MKAY? Again, the Lord rebuke you." (before leaving the comment above, the same reader wrote in saying only “The Lord rebuke you”, hence the “Again” in the last sentence)
The comment above came from an anonymous reader who did not leave his/her email address, so I am showing the comment here and taking this opportunity to give a quick response, as I would have in private .
Dear reader,
thank you for chiming in. I am not entirely sure what to make of your email. On the one hand you say that you “almost paid attention to this ridiculous nonsense”. On the other hand, it appears that, by your own admission, you paid enough attention to read at least three articles that you referenced, and you also took the time to write and share your impressions. However, by using internet tracking tools, I can see that you visited just about every single page, and spent about 25 minutes during your second session. So, I’m not convinced you’re entirely honest, even in your sarcasm. You actually wrote in twice, so obviously the existence of this blog bothered you enough to give it some attention, and write a rebuttal. But, judging by the emotional tone of your email, usually used to cover the lack of arguments, and by the fact that you offered absolutely no actual counter-arguments, I would say that you have no arguments to offer, and that fact bothers you. Instead you resorted to downplaying the issues and declaring them unimportant.
You even tried to use the issue of the A.D. designation as a sort of a red herring, thus making it look like I stress over marginal things, whereas in reality the issue you are bringing up is much more important. The problem with this logic is that, to the best of my knowledge, there is absolutely no controversy among believing Christians over whether the designation A.D. should be used or not. Only non-believers challenge this. On the other hand, as explained in the article, the EOC has split multiple times over the use of the calendar. More so, anathemas have been declared over it. How is this an irrelevant issue? The answer is, it’s not. But it’s ridiculous and irrational at its core, and poses an apologetic nightmare for the EO, so the best solution is to yell it into unimportance when the non-EO bring it up. But, the issue remains, and it’s not going anywhere any time soon.
Finally, when you say that I “blaspheme the Cross”, and that for this purpose I should instead use a “shiny Evangelical one”, I suspect you are referring to the cross I used for the page header. I have no intention on blaspheming the Cross of Christ. I put my faith in the righteousness imputed to me by the sacrifice the Lord has made on that cross. It is the EO who actually blaspheme the Cross, by denying the penal substitutionary atonement, and I intend to cover that in an article I hope to publish this week.
Thanks again for writing. I shall keep you in my prayers and I wish you every blessing.
Alex
COMMENT 05-02-17:
you've completely missed the real reason why 'protestants' 'convert' to the Eastern Orthodox faith - theology. You need to address that before this website carries any useful weight.
(It's easy to find serious muck-ups in 2000 years of history, 99.9% of the faithful during that history being uneducated and from a pagan background - not difficult or anything to be proud of. There are far far worse stories told of the protestant and non-denominational Christians, including modern evangelical churches and Christians, which are driving modern people away to atheism and agnosticism. Also, have you studied the reformation yet? - because there's nothing here to reflect how the EO can possibly be worse than the Reformation...) also I notice that you do not have the openness or courage to show any of the comments that are sent to your site. Christ is the Truth - not a church, philosophy, tradition or culture - Christ leads you to the Truth and that is why many many Christians are drawn to the Orthodox Church, because it helps them to become authentically Christian (Christ followers) as described in the NT... equally the benefit of your site is a good warning not to base your faith on the church, it is as Christians following Christ that we make up the church as it is... and Orthodox teaching has a lot to help non-Orthodox Christians who can't make sense of the faith that they were taught because it doesn't make sense because its full of non-Christian ideas. Check out all the websites complaining about how their non-Orthodox church messed up their faith. For example the damaging heresy of TULIP. I also wonder whether you were properly taught your Orthodox faith in Serbia, because I observe that many people that were born into Orthodoxy have a very limited understanding of their Christian faith - again where the 2000 year old persecuted Orthodox church has struggled and needs to improve. Perhaps that's why your website is so 'lite' on useful information about Orthodox faith?
RESPONSE 05-05-17:
I appreciate your comment, and apologize it took me a couple of days to post it and respond.
"Meatier" theological issues of EO have not been a part of my focus so far, one reason being that they are very well addressed in the book I linked here. It documents the main non-Christian ideas that crept into EO, and have become an essential part of it. As "lite" as it might be, I am humbled that God did use it to help some see that the EOC cannot be the "one true Church". However, as providence would have it, I have just published an article dealing with one of the central issues of Christianity where EO contradicts the Bible, but also some of the "fathers" they hold as authoritative (article available here).
I submit to you that those who trade Evangelical theology (at least its very core) for the EO counterpart have not deeply studied the Scriptures, or have decided to turn a blind eye to many serious discrepancies, and trust Tradition over the Word of God. How can someone be more authentically Christian if they follow traditions that bluntly contradict the apostolic teaching??
Is belief in total depravity a heresy? The Bible teaches it, the EOC denies it. Did Jesus die in place of sinners? The Bible teaches it, the EOC denies it. Whom do we trust? These are core issues.
Like many before, you have tried to downplay the issues I addressed, implying they are unimportant, and that errors are easy to accumulate in an uneducated formerly pagan environment over 2000 years. You counter it with bad experiences individuals had in Protestant churches. However, this reasoning is wrong on many levels. Your defense is to make excuses, and try to make the other side look worse by comparison. But the only comparison we should be making is to the teachings of the Bible.
I never attacked EO on the basis of errors made by average believers who lacked education, or even for incidents caused by individual members of the clergy. Those abound in every religious environment, and it would be pointless to argue on this basis. The problems I point to were introduced into EO practice on an official level. As I said below, it takes a synod to declare someone a saint. When that someone is an unrepentant murderer, thief, adulterer and possibly even a pedophile who happens to come from a "saintly" family, and has given the church much money, can we say that the bishops in that synod were led by the Holy Spirit in making such a big decision, or that perhaps there were ulterior motives? It takes at the very least a priest to consecrate an icon, and if no bishop corrects a blasphemous image of St. Christopher over 1500 years across the entire EO world, but lets the already paganism prone parishioners sink into darkness even more, this becomes a systemic problem of the entire body.
You also introduced a red herring, by bringing up the problematic events that took place during the Reformation. These events are not part of the Protestant teaching or tradition. The Bible is. Those events have no bearing on the principles of the Reformation. The EO, on the other hand, have to account for officially recognized and celebrated "saints" such as St. Simeon of Serbia known for killing non-EO, or Constantine who was known for violent behavior, and never even received a valid baptism, yet was given the title "equal to the apostles". No Protestant theologian is given the status EO saints get so that comparison is invalid. If I were to argue based on the atrocities the Russians committed in Asia and Poland "in the name of EO", you would be right to bring this point up as a counter-argument, but as it stands the two care not comparable.
"Far worse personal stories" are again something you can encounter in every environment, and throwing that statement by itself is no argument. I never shared my own "horrible experience" with EO, for the simple reason that I think that arguing principles has much more value than my personal experience. That's what the blog is about.
It strikes me as odd that you would bring up how certain people claim being protestant drove them into becoming atheist/agnostic. By the same token, you can argue that EO drove entire nations into atheism. Virtually every EO group chose communism in the 20th century: Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Romanians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, Georgians... Stalin even studied to be an EO priest! EO probably holds the world record in the number of atheists produced!!
You also implicitly accused the clergy of the Serbian EOC (as well as that of other EOCs) of being an incompetent bunch when it comes to teaching the faith. I will wholeheartedly agree with you, they are terrible even at teaching their own heresies. But, I would say I was a notable exception as I took above average interest in the whole matter, attended services, Sunday school, bought as many theological books as I could afford, visited as many monasteries as I could... If you would like to test this, though, feel free to write back and leave your contact info, so we can email back and forth.
Kind regards,
Alex
you've completely missed the real reason why 'protestants' 'convert' to the Eastern Orthodox faith - theology. You need to address that before this website carries any useful weight.
(It's easy to find serious muck-ups in 2000 years of history, 99.9% of the faithful during that history being uneducated and from a pagan background - not difficult or anything to be proud of. There are far far worse stories told of the protestant and non-denominational Christians, including modern evangelical churches and Christians, which are driving modern people away to atheism and agnosticism. Also, have you studied the reformation yet? - because there's nothing here to reflect how the EO can possibly be worse than the Reformation...) also I notice that you do not have the openness or courage to show any of the comments that are sent to your site. Christ is the Truth - not a church, philosophy, tradition or culture - Christ leads you to the Truth and that is why many many Christians are drawn to the Orthodox Church, because it helps them to become authentically Christian (Christ followers) as described in the NT... equally the benefit of your site is a good warning not to base your faith on the church, it is as Christians following Christ that we make up the church as it is... and Orthodox teaching has a lot to help non-Orthodox Christians who can't make sense of the faith that they were taught because it doesn't make sense because its full of non-Christian ideas. Check out all the websites complaining about how their non-Orthodox church messed up their faith. For example the damaging heresy of TULIP. I also wonder whether you were properly taught your Orthodox faith in Serbia, because I observe that many people that were born into Orthodoxy have a very limited understanding of their Christian faith - again where the 2000 year old persecuted Orthodox church has struggled and needs to improve. Perhaps that's why your website is so 'lite' on useful information about Orthodox faith?
RESPONSE 05-05-17:
I appreciate your comment, and apologize it took me a couple of days to post it and respond.
"Meatier" theological issues of EO have not been a part of my focus so far, one reason being that they are very well addressed in the book I linked here. It documents the main non-Christian ideas that crept into EO, and have become an essential part of it. As "lite" as it might be, I am humbled that God did use it to help some see that the EOC cannot be the "one true Church". However, as providence would have it, I have just published an article dealing with one of the central issues of Christianity where EO contradicts the Bible, but also some of the "fathers" they hold as authoritative (article available here).
I submit to you that those who trade Evangelical theology (at least its very core) for the EO counterpart have not deeply studied the Scriptures, or have decided to turn a blind eye to many serious discrepancies, and trust Tradition over the Word of God. How can someone be more authentically Christian if they follow traditions that bluntly contradict the apostolic teaching??
Is belief in total depravity a heresy? The Bible teaches it, the EOC denies it. Did Jesus die in place of sinners? The Bible teaches it, the EOC denies it. Whom do we trust? These are core issues.
Like many before, you have tried to downplay the issues I addressed, implying they are unimportant, and that errors are easy to accumulate in an uneducated formerly pagan environment over 2000 years. You counter it with bad experiences individuals had in Protestant churches. However, this reasoning is wrong on many levels. Your defense is to make excuses, and try to make the other side look worse by comparison. But the only comparison we should be making is to the teachings of the Bible.
I never attacked EO on the basis of errors made by average believers who lacked education, or even for incidents caused by individual members of the clergy. Those abound in every religious environment, and it would be pointless to argue on this basis. The problems I point to were introduced into EO practice on an official level. As I said below, it takes a synod to declare someone a saint. When that someone is an unrepentant murderer, thief, adulterer and possibly even a pedophile who happens to come from a "saintly" family, and has given the church much money, can we say that the bishops in that synod were led by the Holy Spirit in making such a big decision, or that perhaps there were ulterior motives? It takes at the very least a priest to consecrate an icon, and if no bishop corrects a blasphemous image of St. Christopher over 1500 years across the entire EO world, but lets the already paganism prone parishioners sink into darkness even more, this becomes a systemic problem of the entire body.
You also introduced a red herring, by bringing up the problematic events that took place during the Reformation. These events are not part of the Protestant teaching or tradition. The Bible is. Those events have no bearing on the principles of the Reformation. The EO, on the other hand, have to account for officially recognized and celebrated "saints" such as St. Simeon of Serbia known for killing non-EO, or Constantine who was known for violent behavior, and never even received a valid baptism, yet was given the title "equal to the apostles". No Protestant theologian is given the status EO saints get so that comparison is invalid. If I were to argue based on the atrocities the Russians committed in Asia and Poland "in the name of EO", you would be right to bring this point up as a counter-argument, but as it stands the two care not comparable.
"Far worse personal stories" are again something you can encounter in every environment, and throwing that statement by itself is no argument. I never shared my own "horrible experience" with EO, for the simple reason that I think that arguing principles has much more value than my personal experience. That's what the blog is about.
It strikes me as odd that you would bring up how certain people claim being protestant drove them into becoming atheist/agnostic. By the same token, you can argue that EO drove entire nations into atheism. Virtually every EO group chose communism in the 20th century: Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Romanians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Russians, Georgians... Stalin even studied to be an EO priest! EO probably holds the world record in the number of atheists produced!!
You also implicitly accused the clergy of the Serbian EOC (as well as that of other EOCs) of being an incompetent bunch when it comes to teaching the faith. I will wholeheartedly agree with you, they are terrible even at teaching their own heresies. But, I would say I was a notable exception as I took above average interest in the whole matter, attended services, Sunday school, bought as many theological books as I could afford, visited as many monasteries as I could... If you would like to test this, though, feel free to write back and leave your contact info, so we can email back and forth.
Kind regards,
Alex
IN RESPONSE TO SOME OF THE COMMON OBJECTIONS
Some EO believers wrote and tried to give a rebuttal. I would like to address their kind responses. I will keep expanding this list as more objections come in.
1. “These issues are unimportant.”
Several people wrote and said that these things just do not matter. Let me explain why I would beg to differ.
The doctrine of icons and saints are not peripheral ones, and the issues I specifically mentioned are a direct challenge to their validity. The creation of icons is, according to numerous sources, a heavily scrutinized process, where the artists spend time in prayer and fasting, consult their spiritual mentor, and have a priest or a bishop consecrate the icon. The act of consecration is what seals it as legitimate, and, to my knowledge, cannot be taken back. None of these actions are taken lightly or considered unimportant. None the less, the icons of St. Christopher I displayed on this blog were made and never refuted or banned by any synods or bishops.
Similar rules apply to the issue of saints, except to canonize a saint you need more than a local priest, you need a synod, meaning that the level of control has to be top notch. In spite of that, we got saints who are pedophiles, murderers, adulterers, robbers, and even "fools for Christ". These saints are portrayed on icons in many local churches, and some of their mummified bodies are on display for pilgrimage and veneration, so to discard them as "unimportant" because of their inconvenience is to go right against the Tradition.
2. “The icons of St. Christopher are a marginal phenomenon and are generally not accepted”
I would agree that they should not be accepted. But marginal? That’s a bit dishonest. Sure, there aren't that many depictions of him when compared to the number of Jesus and Mary icons, but Christopher is a relatively minor saint, so we would not expect his depiction to be as common as theirs. However, his icons were made for about 1,500 years in a geographical area ranging from the Middle East to the Russian Far East, meaning that they appeared in virtually every branch of the EO church. Considering those factors declaring them “marginal and generally not accepted” is contrary to facts.
3. “St. Milutin was a Medieval king, and as such did nothing out of the ordinary”
Some say that Milutin was just a Medieval king, and his actions were normal for his time, so we have no right to judge him. But let’s look at it this way. During Hitler’s reign in Germany, thousands of Roman Catholic Priests and Protestant ministers had no courage to speak out against the horrendous crimes of the Nazis and condemn them. Such were the times. Turbulent. Right?
Unlike them, Friedrich Bonhoeffer spoke out, and did the right thing despite the danger he knew he was putting himself in. Today, we hail him as a hero, as his inspiring acts stand out from his peers whose cowardly silence leaves them in the dust.
An EO saint is supposed to be an example of a deified individual. He is supposed to stand out by his Godly choices in spite of his time and culture. Milutin did none of this. And yet, the EO church hails him as an example we should follow, and a man we should pray to. If they did this, how can we trust them on the more important doctrinal issues that stem out of their decisions and traditions, but are not found anywhere in the Scripture?
4. “The church made a mistake in these areas and I refuse to venerate such icons or saints”
I wholeheartedly agree. However, if you are an EO there is a problem – you don’t get to pick and choose. One comment said that if his church displayed these icons, he would not venerate it and would tell the priest to remove it. I don’t think the priest would remove it, quite the opposite. It is nice, however, to see people express some critical thinking and not submit to authority without question.
I'd like to point out, though, that this attitude of picking and choosing was what lead me away from EO and into Evangelicalism.
1. “These issues are unimportant.”
Several people wrote and said that these things just do not matter. Let me explain why I would beg to differ.
The doctrine of icons and saints are not peripheral ones, and the issues I specifically mentioned are a direct challenge to their validity. The creation of icons is, according to numerous sources, a heavily scrutinized process, where the artists spend time in prayer and fasting, consult their spiritual mentor, and have a priest or a bishop consecrate the icon. The act of consecration is what seals it as legitimate, and, to my knowledge, cannot be taken back. None of these actions are taken lightly or considered unimportant. None the less, the icons of St. Christopher I displayed on this blog were made and never refuted or banned by any synods or bishops.
Similar rules apply to the issue of saints, except to canonize a saint you need more than a local priest, you need a synod, meaning that the level of control has to be top notch. In spite of that, we got saints who are pedophiles, murderers, adulterers, robbers, and even "fools for Christ". These saints are portrayed on icons in many local churches, and some of their mummified bodies are on display for pilgrimage and veneration, so to discard them as "unimportant" because of their inconvenience is to go right against the Tradition.
2. “The icons of St. Christopher are a marginal phenomenon and are generally not accepted”
I would agree that they should not be accepted. But marginal? That’s a bit dishonest. Sure, there aren't that many depictions of him when compared to the number of Jesus and Mary icons, but Christopher is a relatively minor saint, so we would not expect his depiction to be as common as theirs. However, his icons were made for about 1,500 years in a geographical area ranging from the Middle East to the Russian Far East, meaning that they appeared in virtually every branch of the EO church. Considering those factors declaring them “marginal and generally not accepted” is contrary to facts.
3. “St. Milutin was a Medieval king, and as such did nothing out of the ordinary”
Some say that Milutin was just a Medieval king, and his actions were normal for his time, so we have no right to judge him. But let’s look at it this way. During Hitler’s reign in Germany, thousands of Roman Catholic Priests and Protestant ministers had no courage to speak out against the horrendous crimes of the Nazis and condemn them. Such were the times. Turbulent. Right?
Unlike them, Friedrich Bonhoeffer spoke out, and did the right thing despite the danger he knew he was putting himself in. Today, we hail him as a hero, as his inspiring acts stand out from his peers whose cowardly silence leaves them in the dust.
An EO saint is supposed to be an example of a deified individual. He is supposed to stand out by his Godly choices in spite of his time and culture. Milutin did none of this. And yet, the EO church hails him as an example we should follow, and a man we should pray to. If they did this, how can we trust them on the more important doctrinal issues that stem out of their decisions and traditions, but are not found anywhere in the Scripture?
4. “The church made a mistake in these areas and I refuse to venerate such icons or saints”
I wholeheartedly agree. However, if you are an EO there is a problem – you don’t get to pick and choose. One comment said that if his church displayed these icons, he would not venerate it and would tell the priest to remove it. I don’t think the priest would remove it, quite the opposite. It is nice, however, to see people express some critical thinking and not submit to authority without question.
I'd like to point out, though, that this attitude of picking and choosing was what lead me away from EO and into Evangelicalism.