(Eastern Christian as in theology from the non-Latin west. Not Eastern Orthodox per see, even though I have read many EO writers, books, articles and been very positively affected by that Church Tradition). This was originally a Facebook post, actually the start of a series but I think I got distracted by Apologetics work I was doing at the time that I didn't continue with it. I might keep going or maybe repost other similar stuff I've written in the past if folks are interested.
I kind of fell into it. Was a part time Seminary student at Fuller Theological, and in the nondenominational Protestant Charismatic movement. As a kid I had been raised in conservative Lutheran churches growing up and spent 6 years attending a Southern Baptist parochial school, prior to attending 6 years of parochial school of my original Lutheran church (Kindergarten through 5th grade).
As a Seminary student my dreams were to bring some professionalism to the charismatic movement. In the Charismatic movement I gained a few positive things, most notably there was a vibe of "Be all that you can be!" like the old Army recruiting slogan of the 1980s-1990s. Charismatics very much wanted every believer to figure out what their spiritual gifts were and to be doing some kind of ministry in the church.
The spiritual gift/ministry preoccupation of the Charismatics was a huge plus, because in my younger years I had been bored to tears with endless sermons on Sola Fida, aka "you cannot earn your way to heaven." It basically was kind of like beating a dead horse. It seemed that pastors, especially one in particular had only two sermons. The other sermon was essentially "hold on! things are sometimes rough here, but they will be awesome in heaven".
It also seemed that people in this environment often did not grow a lot. I closely follow the work of Biblical Semiticist, Michael Heiser. I love his saying "I am done protecting people from their own Bible!" Which relates to pastors and other people ignoring the harder parts of the Bible, especially the verses that reference ancient near eastern customs, iconography etc. that seem weird and bizarre to modern people today. "If it is weird, it is important", Michael Heiser also says and I agree.
I recall one vivid example of what Heiser spoke of as a kid ,myself, on the last few hours on the last day of the school year of the 4th grade. We had finished our lessons, and cleaned our school room, and we had nothing else two do as we waited to start our Summer Vacation, so the my teacher told us to read our Bibles as we waited for 3 p.m. to arrive. So I did that, but I wanted to read something that I had never heard before, or didn't know anything about. So I flipped through my Bible, and realized I more or less was acquainted with everything. I knew the good stories about Abraham, King David, Solomon, the book of Genesis, the captivity into Babylon, and the return to Israel. And the same sort of thing was also true concerning the New Testament concerning Jesus, the Apostles, the Book of Acts, saint Paul and his epistles and the Catholic epistles, until I came to the book of Revelation....
I was amazed when I ran across the book of Revelation. Wow I don't remember hearing anything about this! This was a really cool book, that had plagues and monsters! At the time, I really loved monsters, and I still do. Anyway, I was really excited by my discovery and asked my teacher why I had never heard of the book of Revelation before. And she said, "Oh that book is too hard to read, you need to be really educated to read it, or at least read one of our Bible study guides written from one of our Bible scholars to be able to understand it." But her speech did not disuade me at all. I read through the entire book and was fascinated by its surreal content.
I kind of fell into it. Was a part time Seminary student at Fuller Theological, and in the nondenominational Protestant Charismatic movement. As a kid I had been raised in conservative Lutheran churches growing up and spent 6 years attending a Southern Baptist parochial school, prior to attending 6 years of parochial school of my original Lutheran church (Kindergarten through 5th grade).
As a Seminary student my dreams were to bring some professionalism to the charismatic movement. In the Charismatic movement I gained a few positive things, most notably there was a vibe of "Be all that you can be!" like the old Army recruiting slogan of the 1980s-1990s. Charismatics very much wanted every believer to figure out what their spiritual gifts were and to be doing some kind of ministry in the church.
The spiritual gift/ministry preoccupation of the Charismatics was a huge plus, because in my younger years I had been bored to tears with endless sermons on Sola Fida, aka "you cannot earn your way to heaven." It basically was kind of like beating a dead horse. It seemed that pastors, especially one in particular had only two sermons. The other sermon was essentially "hold on! things are sometimes rough here, but they will be awesome in heaven".
It also seemed that people in this environment often did not grow a lot. I closely follow the work of Biblical Semiticist, Michael Heiser. I love his saying "I am done protecting people from their own Bible!" Which relates to pastors and other people ignoring the harder parts of the Bible, especially the verses that reference ancient near eastern customs, iconography etc. that seem weird and bizarre to modern people today. "If it is weird, it is important", Michael Heiser also says and I agree.
I recall one vivid example of what Heiser spoke of as a kid ,myself, on the last few hours on the last day of the school year of the 4th grade. We had finished our lessons, and cleaned our school room, and we had nothing else two do as we waited to start our Summer Vacation, so the my teacher told us to read our Bibles as we waited for 3 p.m. to arrive. So I did that, but I wanted to read something that I had never heard before, or didn't know anything about. So I flipped through my Bible, and realized I more or less was acquainted with everything. I knew the good stories about Abraham, King David, Solomon, the book of Genesis, the captivity into Babylon, and the return to Israel. And the same sort of thing was also true concerning the New Testament concerning Jesus, the Apostles, the Book of Acts, saint Paul and his epistles and the Catholic epistles, until I came to the book of Revelation....
I was amazed when I ran across the book of Revelation. Wow I don't remember hearing anything about this! This was a really cool book, that had plagues and monsters! At the time, I really loved monsters, and I still do. Anyway, I was really excited by my discovery and asked my teacher why I had never heard of the book of Revelation before. And she said, "Oh that book is too hard to read, you need to be really educated to read it, or at least read one of our Bible study guides written from one of our Bible scholars to be able to understand it." But her speech did not disuade me at all. I read through the entire book and was fascinated by its surreal content.
