The Eastern Orthodox Church

I started reading The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware in an effort to get a better understanding of the Eastern Orthodox Church before setting off into the second volume in Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition. The book is both interesting and disturbing.

My fascination with the Eastern Orthodox goes back to a church camp I went to over a long weekend. At the camp we were informed that another camp a short distance away would be sharing our mess hall and that we should be polite and not stare. This didn't make a lot of sense until the other camp showed up and turned out to be an Eastern Orthodox camp that chanted prayers before each meal and whose leaders wore outfits like nothing I had ever seen. I am sad to say that I remember very little regarding our camp, but I remember almost every time that we came in contact with the the Eastern Orthodox. Late in the weekend several of us managed to sneak off and check out the other camp and when we got there nobody else was around and the door to their church was open so we went in. I don't remember anything special about the building, but I do remember the icons on the walls and I especially remember that all of the pictures of the saints and Christ and Mary all bore the distinctive marks of being repeatedly kissed.

Timothy Ware says this about icons:

One of the distinctive features of Orthodoxy is the place which it assigns to icons. An Orthodox church today is filled with them... An Orthodox prostrates himself before these icons, he kisses them and burns candles in front of them; they are censed by the priest and carried in procession.

Now to me this smacks of idolatry, but Bishop Ware disagrees:

When an Orthodox kisses an icon or prostrates himself before it, he is not guilty of idolatry. The icon is not an idol but a symbol; the veneration shown to images is directed, not towards stone, wood and paint, but towards the person depicted... Because icons are only symbols, Orthodox do not worship them, but reverence or venerate them. [emphasis original]

So, I can make an image of Christ or of a saint and I can bow down to it and I can kiss it and burn incense to it, but because I have redefined the word "worship" I can say that I am not an idolater. The second commandment seems to imply differently:

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)

It is interesting that the second commandment almost seems to anticipate that we might redefine the word "worship" and so it doesn't use that word. It says, "You shall not bow down to them." An Eastern Orthodox might respond with this passage:

"Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. (Deuteronomy 4:15-18)

And they might point out that Christ was the incarnation of God and therefore, as opposed to the Old Testament, we have a God which can be seen and touched with our hands, as mentioned in John 1 and 1 John 1:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)

And Eastern Orthodox would say that because of this fact, that God has made himself manifest in the form of a man, to make an icon of Christ is not incorrect because, just as Christ was worshipped here on earth, when he had been incarnated into the form of a man, he can be worshipped through a man-made image of him (because we, as mankind, have beheld him).

Given my limited understanding of the Eastern Orthodox I think that is a fair assessment of their teaching on icons. After all of that, I have to say that I think it is also an example of humans twisting the word of God to say what they want it to say. It is not a new thing to spin words like this and it is not at all difficult to do (for example, it isn't "murder" it is "choice" or "euthanasia"). In fact, we humans do it all the time to justify ourselves. Christ was worshipped here on earth, not because he was a man, but because he is God. He was due worship because there was, within his nature, that which was worthy of worship. Bowing down to an icon of him because he had a human nature misconstrues the object of worship into the human aspect and breaks the fine balance of the incarnation into an overemphasis on the human side. Adding the saints and Mary into the mix further emphasizes the human (although I'm guessing an Eastern Orthodox would say that it is acceptable to worship them as well due to theosis) and degenerates the object of worship into the creation rather than the creator, which is the real source of idolatry:

"Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. (Acts 14:15)

When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man." (Acts 10:25-26)

Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Revelation 19:10)

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God." (Revelation 22:8-9)

Romans 1 makes clear that the worship due the invisible God is not changed as it regards idolatry (spinning "worship" into "reverence" and "veneration" aside):

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:19-25)

This draws the clear distinction between "what has been made" and "created" and who is the maker or the "creator." If I bow before, burn incense to, and kiss an image, even of Christ, I am an idolater because I have made an image before which to bow down. I may redefine this as "veneration" but in the end, the action is the same.

Such a Worm as I

There is a song by Isaac Watts titled Alas! and did my Saviour bleed in which the first verse goes like this:

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

In many songbooks today the "worm" in that verse is replaced by some other term, such as "sinner" or even, "one" so that the verse goes like this:

Alas! and did my Savious bleed, and did my Sovereign die?  Would he devote that sacred head for such a one as I?

In fact, I wasn't certain that the first quote above was actually what Isaac Watts wrote so I looked it up at Christian Classics Ethereal Library and also at Project Gutenberg and the original verse is as I wrote it above saying, "Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?"

The reasons for modifying the song in this way are not the subject of some conspiracy theory.  The theology behind the change is outlined in the Wikipedia page on "Worm Theology."  I said that the theology behind the change is outlined in the page on Worm Theology because although the page purports to be about the theology in the Isaac Watts hymn, it really has very little to do with the hymn and very much to do with the theology in a culture of self-promotion like we live in now.  Removing the "worm" from the song is supposed to be because we are worth so much to God that he gave his son for us and therefore we can pat ourselves on the back.  The first part of the statement is true.  God loved us so much that he gave his son for us, but the back patting is where we go wrong.  When Christ bled and died and devoted "that sacred head" we were worms.  We've got to get it through our thick heads that without the blood of Christ we are not acceptable to God.  Furthermore, removing the "worm" from our songs does not help the sinners of this world appreciate their sinful state.  Not that they would hear the "worm" in the song itself, but the entire idea of removing the "worm" is rampant in the way that we think so that in our preaching we are so often now trying to convince people they are okay at the same time as we are asking them to come to Jesus!  What nonsense!  Why do they need to come to Jesus in the first place?  You see those people carrying John 3:16 signs and many people who do such a thing have whittled down the Bible to just that verse, but now we've gone even farther and whittled down the Bible to half of that verse.  We've managed to get that verse down to "For God so loved the world."  And that is it!  We at least ought to finish the verse:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

And why can't we have eternal life without God giving his Son?  Why were we going to "perish" if God didn't help us?  Because of our sin, that's why!

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.  (Romans 5:10)

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved
(Ephesians 2:4-5)

This is so simple, in fact it is the very gospel itself:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures
(1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

The basics of our sin problem and the remedy for it which is the very gospel itself are undermined by our "I'm okay, you're okay" philosophy.  We do the lost and ourselves no favors by removing the "worm."