When the Homily is about Immunology

The Effect of Church History

A recent post by Palmer makes reference to a book written by a friend of his entitled Water, Faith and Wood: Stories of the Early Church's Witness For Today. You can read the entire forward (written by Kevin Rains) Here. These good folks (Mark Palmer and Kevin Rains) are a part of the postmodern alternative church movement (hopefully this title sits well enough with them) in which we see house churches, intentional community, and just an overall rethinking of the typical protestant understanding of how church should look. Initially I was going to put “new” in front of the word postmodern, but this doesn’t really work. Recall that Fr. Peter Gillquist – amongst many others - was/were doing something very much like this in the 70’s (and throughout the last 500 hundred years for others) – but that’s beside the point. Being introduced to this book has really got me thinking.

Many a convert to the Orthodox Church will tell you that a reading of early Church history sealed their fate. So, what is the difference between the platform we jumped off of (which led us to the Orthodox Church), and their platform (which led them to this post-mod model of church)? I cannot say for certain, but I have an analogy in mind.

In a nutshell my analogy would be thus:

Two treasure hunters. One hunter is seeking a "lost" chest full of cut diamonds, rubies, necklaces, gold coins, rings, and other invaluable trinkets. The other hunter is panning and digging for gold, silver, and diamonds in the rough – from which they will form and mold their own jewelry. One believes the treasure exists in the present and in ready to go form, while the other believes the treasure exists but must be pulled forth from the dirt and reformed (hmmm…hehe…perhaps not the best word to use?)

Ecclesiology, I’m convinced, is the key. I should very much like to read Mr. Smith’s book. Kevin Rains’ introduction is chock full of phrases which ring familiar to us Orthodox converts, one in particular where he writes: …the gulf between the practices of Christ followers in the first few centuries and my own practices was enormous. Then to my horror, I started to actually believe that they were right and I was wrong! Sound familiar?

I’m full of questions! Will the post-mods begin affirming the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist? The efficaciousness of Baptism? Will they fast on Wednesdays and Fridays? And the most burning question: What will they do with the ecclesiology of Sts. Ignatios, Irenaios, and Cyril (to name a few)?

Alas, the platforms from which we jump, I think, will color our response to the writings of the Early Church. Will we pick and chose what we deem to be "good" and "bad" therein? And if so, isn't this just a clinging to the modern protestant hermenuetic which we are trying to escape to begin with? Certainly we cannot expect to perfectly mirror the Church in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd centuries – that would be a bit naive (I mean, unless Christianity becomes illegal and persecuted as it was then – of course some of the “underground” liturgies in the Soviet Union sure looked familiar to my readings of early ecclesial history!) As with any organism, extreme environmental conditions tend to bring changes: hence when the persecutions ended and subsided for a time, meeting secretly in homes naturally died out. We see this attitude clearly in the New Testament itself: the early Church continued to go to the Temple for worship – until doing so endangered their life! I am constantly wondering out loud to my house church friends: Did the early Christians meet there for theological reasons, or utilitarian?

Yes, an organism changes (Was Darwin right? Slow progressive steps that are hardly perceivable to the human eye - sure sounds like Orthodoxy), but does the organism ever cease to exist and thus need to be re-created from historical surplus?

The platforms from which we jump is literally our understanding of the question: What is the Church? If the treasure already exists, why are you digging? And if it doesn’t, where’s my shovel?