Quote:
Originally Posted by HERn
I know I'm late to this discussion. I really benefitted from the complete paragraph from which this small quote was taken..."Out of all forms of Christianity it is the Orthodox Church which remained more closely tied to early Christianity." But, I must ask how early? The age of the apostles, or the age of the church fathers?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
with one of Berdyaev's quotes:
"... Orthodoxy is that form of Christianity which suffered the least distortion in its substance as a result of human history. ... Out of all forms of Christianity it is the Orthodox Church which remained more closely tied to early Christianity."
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Early being Church Fathers. The "Orthodoxy" movement of the first 4 centuries repressed anything speculative or "gnostic". Then the Great Schism cut off even those Fathers who were "spiritual". Then the Great Reformation cut off even more. And so forth. All of these supposed "recoveries" (acc. to the Bretheren/Nee school) arguably were distortions. They turned from the lens of history, and could not see that they were moving further and further from the early church, because they either ignored or didn't know about the early writings.
A case in point is the Orthodox Ethiopian Church, which alone preserved the Enochic writings (until they were discovered in Qumran in 1947). Obviously, authorship and canonicity aside, 1 Enoch had an influence in early church thinking. But it got submarined in the tides of historical events. Only one single branch of the Orthodox Church preserved this important writing.
People like Calvin, with thier "sola scriptora", had no idea how distorted their thinking and behavior had become. They simply had no point of reference beyond their own logic. That also holds for Nee's "Normal" Church. He really had no idea what was normal, beyond his own supposedly logical constructions. Ostensibly Nee read every Christian work, from the first centuries up, which was worth reading. That is patently absurd. When you step back and look at that, Lee's hagiography of Nee has almost no trace of objective reality attached to it. It is wishful thinking at its worst.
And I write as an avowed Protestant, one who's neither Orthodox nor interested in joining their fellowship. I am simply talking about the early writings, i.e. the witness of the ages. If you dig, there is an unbroken stream of witness. Nee didn't have access. Even now we are only unearthing the fringes of it. Much has been lost, probably for good. But what Nee had access to, in 1925, is rather thin. He had no idea what "normal" was. Really no idea. But his ideas, unfortunately, were enough to throw off the Western yoke, establish a rapidly growing movement, and allow him to teach, "everybody get in line", and "hand over", and "deputy authority", and so forth. So ignorance didn't hold him back at all. And when you see his frantic wriggling when the Commies showed up, it was clear what kingdom he was building. He really had no idea what he was doing.
For instance, when they registered with the government. I asked why and they said, "You have to." Where in the NT does it show this?