Christian Liberty
Member

I remember that, and I remember that you made new accounts and came back to CFC a few times.

How's life been going, been a while since we've talked. Can you believe that our CFC days were almost a decade ago?

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music director at the Catholic Church I went to removed all references to God as he and used gender neutral terms instead. Two priest did nothing about it. In the Orthodox Churches that I've gone to not just the priest and bishops would not have put up with that, but neither would the congregation. The reason the Orthodox is Orthodox world wide despite separation by land, language and nationalities is that the congregation wants to be Orthodox.

BTW, these are some generalities. I've been to some good Catholic Churches and luke warm Orthodox Churches but I've found Orthodoxy a lot more consistent but oddly, less rigid at the same time.

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I found there is less of a tendency for people to ask favors in prayer and more to accept God's will and his mercies.

From my understanding, the roots of the schism go back to Augustine. He was a Latin speaking lawyer who didn’t read the Greek of the Desert Fathers. Luther and many other reformers were heavily influenced by his writings as well as Thomas Aquinas.

Also when refering to the teachings of The Church, Catholics tend to see them as coming from the Pope and Cardinals. The Orthodox see The Church as a consensus of everyone from the Fathers to all the Orthodox today led by the Holy Spirit of course. One thing that led me away from the RCC was the

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2 Peter 1:1-11 is our view of Salvation. Yes we are predestined and were are also told to make every effort to confirm our election, so I see it as a mix of Calvinism and RCC. After the schism the Western Churches got hung up on different on bits and pieces of scripture and couldn’t focus on the whole of it. Hell’s Unicorn described Orthodoxy view on soteriology as “primitive.” I couldn’t argue with that. The icons are our family album. The Orthodox way of venerating them is no different than the way we greet each other at Church because we are made in His image. Sometimes I think Orthodox tend to argue too much like Catholics, IMO.

I found there is less of a tendency for people to ask favors in prayer and more to accept God's will and his mercies.

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Here's a quick rundown: This is my understanding of the differences between RCs and EOCs. The EOC’s interpretations of scripture takes its roots from the Desert Fathers from the 1st few centuries. There is less of a legalistic and more mystical take. God is not narrowed down to judge, brother, creator etc. He is all that at once. John the Evangelist who reclined his head on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper, fell to his face in awe and worship in his vision in the Book of Revelation.

Fasting and works are not to fulfil a penance, it is to be closer to God (Actually your questioning about fasting led me to Orthodoxy from the RCC) My understanding of salvation is that I am saved, and my works are to unite me with God-- more to bend my will towards God's.

Sola was the first to point out that he was definitely not an antinomianism. It's funny. It still took me a year to get that in my head. Erowe1 gave the best description of FA. I disagreed only on a technicality. That's when I dropped out of the arguments.

I was an atheist, then RC, and now EOC. The discussions here helped lead me to the EOC. My first intro to Faith Alone was fellow Marines who had sex with anything and said they were save by FA. That's how I argued it. I think what finally got to me was when some RCs were trying to say the good thief was saved by an act of faith because they didn't want to say he was saved by faith. It wasgrace through faith, and that would have saved me hundred of argumentative posts.

Yeah he has my respect.