Declaration of the Life
What steps do we need for salvation? How do I win chess games? Playing chess with grandmasters and tournament winners is entertaining. I squish the boasters and the gamblers. Grandmasters and tournament winners are a different phylum. The chess figurines dance around their mind with orchestrated routines that would embarrass 18th century redcoats. Even the drummer boys. I am their foil, because my talent is an eye for talent. I know what steps will bear good fruit, but I don't know how they will do so.
"Let's go back to the basics", says the Protestant declaring her faith, but insisting that she is a nondenominational Christian. Humbug at a hotdog stand. Nonsense on a high-rise. There is no such thing as nondenominational Christianity.
There are 23,000 denominations calling themselves Christian. Some differences are significant, and some trivial. Look for the creed at the bottom of this post. If this prayer of faith is not affirmed by one of these denominations, they are not Christian. A Christian believes that Jesus is Christ. Neither metaphorically, nor after the father. This is orthodoxy.
Frank Schaeffer is an orthodox Christian born into a Protestant household. His parents helped grow the evangelical movement, and he helped bring people into orthodoxy with his writing. Here is a clip where he tells his story.
It is strikingly similar to my own.
I was baptized and confirmed in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church before I reached three months on this plane. I was never coerced into attending church services, when I was of speaking age. Church was the pleasant place where friends and family could be found. Until age 12 I was receiving Holy Communion. Three of the four expected sacraments were under my belt. Penance remained. Boringly, I rebelled against my faith, and doubted God's existence. I thought I was atheist for a couple of years, but I got over it. It's hard to say there is nothing there when you feel His eyes watching your every move.
Mr. J was one of the many bible teachers I had at my Lutheran Middle School. But, they did not grow up in a trailer park and play Christian hip-hop for their students. He was the cool bible guy. They canned him, battered tambourines with no emotion, lied, cheated, and were loose of the tongue with racial slurs. This environment reminded me that Christians were not special. They are humans. This left a taste in my mouth that I assume feces would, upon licking. Nevertheless, His will be done, I still felt Him.
Calabasas, California is an anomaly if you look at the percentage of Jews that exist. They are about two fifths of one percent of the world's population. Somehow my high school was almost fifty percent Jewish. Not one of them was a believer. The faults I witnessed in middle school were manifest tenfold in high school. Atheism was the standard. The arrogance of atheism led me to a skeptical outlook for a year. My aunt gave me a present one day- I put it around my neck
"Hey is that a swastika around your neck?"
"I'm black."
"So, is it a swastika?"
"Even if it was a swastika, the origin is a representation of peace. But, it's not. It's a cross."
"I've never seen a cross like that."
"It's an orthodox cross- equal on all sides."
Not to long after this conversation, we studied orthodox crosses in my history class. The lord works in mysterious ways.
I chose Pepperdine University, because I had strengthened my faith in Christ, and sought others whom had as well. Still, I attended no church. Bible reading was a sporadic habit. But, I did have assigned readings for my religious general education courses. Passion was as present as high school seniors on ditch day. Language seduced me at a prepubescent stage, and I used my devotion to her to allow God to remove my blindfold. Paul said
Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me. Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel. 1 Corinthians 14:11-12
Devotion led me to learn the Ge'ez alphabet, and become literate in Amharic. Forgoing the rudimentary texts I had lying around the abode, I bought an Amharic bible- the equivalent of teaching someone English with the King James Bible. The proverbial birds were hit not with a stone, but a meteorite. I learned the lord and Amharic. Paralleling my exposure to revealed theology, I spent much of college in the western tradition of the philosophy of religion. The arguments for God are valid, and sound. The kalam cosmological argument, the design argument, and the controversially simple ontological argument. The skeptics' and atheists' arguments cannot be taken seriously without bringing into doubt sense experiences that the sane do not consider debatable.
Postmodernism's tenability rests on a truth that is blown out of proportion more oft than not. Humans have a limited understanding of existence. It's not that we cannot know anything, nor that we cannot have knowledge of the divine, nor is truth's existence ever to be questioned. Absolute truth, and absolute love exist. These ideas are the impersonification of God. Seeking his love revealed through truth, I scoured the internets like a ravenous vagrant in a trash bin. My Protestant friends wanted me to join them, and in Ice Cubian fashion told me to, go to church! Quick witted retorter that I am, I spit the word right at them
Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.
Matthew 18:20
Serious studying of church history led me to conclusions that sent me back to the orthodoxy.
Protestantism deviates from the more complete worship handed down by the apostles
Catholicism holds the Roman bishop in higher esteem than should be
2 leads to dipping into matters that the church should not
The divine liturgy, and serving church members is an imperative
Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox are essentially the same. Eschew Chalcedon.
I am Ethiopian and American. I fuse the seemingly contrary- Eastern mysticism and Western philosophy. Following the orthodox worship of Christ, and drinking logic supplements to help develop the spiritual muscle. I don't know the specifics of God's plans, but I have faith that his will should be followed. The general idea is readily accessible to all of us.
Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.
John 14:6