Reflections on things that drove me to Orthodoxy, or as some might say, to madness. 

I have been an Orthodox Christian now for some 25 years. I still reflect on my earlier years as a Free Will Baptist and later as a Lutheran and recall many of the feelings and thoughts that sent me in search of the historical Church of Christ. It all began when I was a Free Will Baptist right after I graduated from college and was pastoring my first church outside of Detroit, Michigan. 

 I used to wonder why there were so many different denominations with so many different beliefs. It didn't make sense to me that everyone claimed to believe the same Bible and be led by the same Holy Spirit and yet had so many conflicting and contradictory views of the Christian Faith. It seemed to me that instead of the one Lord, one Faith and one Baptism of the Bible there were many Lords, many Faiths and many Baptisms. I just couldn't reconcile all of this with any sense of integrity or authenticity of faith. “They can’t all be right,” I reasoned, “since they contradict each other.” “And if they can’t all be right which one is the true Christian Faith in its fullness?” I knew it couldn’t be the ones that just started 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 1500 years ago. I finally concluded it had to be the one that could trace its unbroken history, doctrine, faith, worship and practice back to the first century. 

 I used to wonder by what authority our church leaders interpreted the Bible. What made one person's interpretation more believable or more authoritative than the next person who had a different interpretation? By what authority did every Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane say, “Thus sayeth the Lord”? The Bible was claimed by everyone as the final authority but with everyone free to say and do their own thing there really was no authority at all. The Bible was at the mercy of everyone’s interpretation. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes – a clear contradiction of the Bible itself, or at least to someone’s interpretation of the Bible. It seemed to me that everyone had become a little pope unto himself/herself.

 Everyone said, "Oh, we all agree on the major stuff" but I knew we didn't. We disagreed on many major doctrines and practices, things that had a direct bearing on our salvation. Besides, I wondered who determines what is major and what is not? And if the differences didn't really matter why did we separate into thousands of denomination and go our separate ways and hang out our different signs and preach our different doctrines?

 I used to wonder about Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as we called it. By what authority did we say there are no sacraments and these are just symbolic reminders? I couldn’t reconcile this with a number of Bible verses that seemed to attach saving significance to these events. As mere outward symbols they seemed so empty, useless, awkward and even silly. “Why bother?” I asked. It was as though we were children playing house or actors upon a stage. It was all just words with no reality. 

 Everything was based on the individual’s invisible thoughts and feelings. If you felt saved, you were saved. If you felt like you had the Holy Spirit, you had the Holy Spirit. If you felt assured of heaven you were assured. If you felt called to preach, you were called, etc. Everything was so nebulous and unknown beyond what one felt. If you felt like this preacher or that preacher was the right one, he was the right one. If you felt like such and such church had the truth, then it was so. It was all subjective and individualistic and privatistic. There was no real authority beyond the individual’s thoughts and feelings. And few seemed to be bothered by the fact that people’s thoughts and feelings can be very wrong and even demonic even while they are convinced they are from God. We knew the Bible verse about the heart “is desperately wicked and who can know it” but like so many other Bible verses it got lost in the individuals thoughts and feelings. It seemed to me that we had fallen into the same trap Adam and Eve fell into – the autonomy of the individual. 

I struggled with the same issues in regards to worship.  Worship was totally individualistic from the type or forms of worship to how worship was experienced.  People chose churches on the type of worship they liked.  If the preacher was a good speaker and entertainer, people flocked to that.   And everything was based on the feelings of the preacher as to what he preached and the theme for each Sunday.  I grew weary of making up my own forms of worship based on subjective feelings and competing with worldly forms of entertainment.  It seemed that the value and meaning of worship should not be based on the effectiveness of some speaker, the thrill of some entertaining music or the feelings of the worshipper.  I was convinced that the worship of Almighty God deserved more than my flimsy and inadequate words and more than worldly forms and themes.  

 I began to feel I must find the true Church and the true Faith for my salvation. I could no longer trust my feelings or a thousand different feelings and voices all claiming to speak for the same God, by the same Holy Spirit and from the same Bible.