Biblical orthodoxy

The news that a former FIEC-affiliated church has now become Eastern Orthodox (click here to read the article) is an interesting development.

It is a not untrodden path. One of the most influential Orthodox figures in the UK of the last century, the late Kallistos Ware, grew up in an evangelical home; and some while ago, Peter Gillquist, a former leader in Campus Crusade for Christ, led a whole group over to Orthodoxy in the USA.

Earlier this year, the Telegraph reported that “young, single men are flocking to the Orthodox church [in the USA] after discovering the ‘masculine’ Christian religion through online influencers.”

In explaining its decision to leave the FIEC, one of the leaders of what was Hope Church, Halifax, now St Hilda’s, said: “We came across clear statements in the Bible that were contradicted by the teaching of our evangelical tradition.”

In other words – evangelicals are less genuinely evangelical than we claim. We might instinctively smart, but it is a challenge to be welcomed: are we genuinely following Scripture, or just following the latest teaching fashions of well-known speakers at the big conferences we attend?

Yet, at the same time, ultimately we are evangelicals because we want to be faithful to what we believe is the theological framework Christ Himself has given us. It is He, who, after all, tells His hearers they “are in error because [they] know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22v29), and warns against “nullifying the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7v13). Hence, Sola Scriptura.

But, truly, let us be careful to “test everything” and then hold fast to what is good (1 Thess.5v21).