Book Review: The Church, Tradition, Scripture, Truth and Christian Life
Reviewed by John Reese Franklin
Hierodeacon Gregory, The
Church, Tradition, Scripture, Truth, and Christian Life: Some
Heresies of Evangelicalism and an Orthodox Response. Etna,
CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1995. Pp 54.
I wish that all Evangelicals would read this
book. Hierodeacon [now Hieromonk] Gregory has done a masterful
job of defending the Orthodox Church through an honest and
contextual use of Scripture, just as Evangelicals are wont to
support their polemical ramblings against Orthodoxy through a
misuse of the Bible. He sets the entire tone of the book when he
states that: "Orthodoxy is the very criterion of
Christianity established by the Lord Jesus Christ Who said:
‘I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it’ (St. Matthew 16:18). This Evangelical
promise of the Savior must always be the touchstone of any
apologetic presentation of our Faith in these turbulent days of
political ecumenism...."
The author divides his book into two sections:
one, an exposition on the Church, Tradition, Scripture, and
Truth; and the other, a discussion of the Christian life as it
centers around the spiritual Traditions of the Fathers,
the Cross, the Mysteries, and the Theotokos. In the
first section, he contrasts Evangelicalism and its Reformation
doctrine of sola Scriptura with the true Faith of the
Orthodox, which is based not only on Holy Scripture, but on Holy
Tradition, the Holy Fathers, the Œcumenical Synods, and the
spiritual authority by which the very canon of Scripture was
decided in the Early Church. Father Gregory points out that
Evangelicals somehow think that the Bible "dropped out of
Heaven" and that there is a gap in Grace between the
Ascension of Christ and the time that Luther nailed his theses to
the door of the church in Wittenburg in 1517. He portrays with
precision their sin of bibliolatry, a peculiarly
Protestant form of idolatry which always reminds me of a cartoon
I once saw of prim and proper Evangelical churchgoers quietly
sitting in their pews, all intensely staring at a large pulpit
Bible.
Father Gregory also gives us clear evidence
that the sin of bibliolatry, of blind obedience to
Scripture and a disdain for the Church to which it belongs, leads
to a distortion of the basic teachings of the Christian Faith,
which have been fully handed down to the Orthodox Church by
"Scripture in context," that is, by the Bible as it
reflects the Faith and life of the Church. I remember hearing of
a Protestant Evangelical who was agonizing over the question of
whom he should marry. He decided to open the Bible for an answer.
The first thing that he read was, "Grace unto you." He
thus concluded that he was supposed to marry a woman named
"Grace." In precisely this way, Father Gregory points
out to us, Evangelicals use the Bible for their own ends, each
individual becoming an exegetical "Pope," as it were,
and thundering forth with prideful orations on his self-serving
interpretation of the Bible, ignoring Holy Tradition, the
Fathers, and, indeed, the Church. In this process, Church
teachings are rendered ineffectual and soon disappear. Finally,
the author also demonstrates that outside Holy Tradition not only
is Holy Scripture improperly employed and understood, but the
Church itself is lost. Quoting St. Nectarios of Pentapolis, he
avers that "Sacred Tradition is the very Church; without the
Sacred Tradition the Church does not exist. Those who deny the
Sacred Tradition deny the Church and the preaching of the
Apostles." In other words, unless one recognizes Holy
Tradition, he does violence to the Bible and rejects the
Church of Christ. The Biblical "theology" of the
Evangelicals is not only an assault on Scripture, but a total
denial of the Church, since without the Church the Bible could
not exist. The spiritual authority of the Church is one with that
of the Bible and the two things cannot be separated: "The
truth of the Gospel, therefore, holistically incorporates the
Church, Tradition, and Scripture into a Christocentric Gestalt,
for True Orthodox Christianity is the way, the truth, and the
life."
In the second section of his book, Father
Gregory points out that the Bible itself cannot be understood
without a knowledge of certain spiritual traditions,
that is, of certain Christian customs and beliefs that rise out
of the Church and bind us to God. Without Holy Baptism,
Chrismation, Holy Communion, and the Church’s other
Mysteries, one cannot understand Holy Writ. The enlightening and
enlivening spiritual traditions of Christianity alone give flesh
to Scripture. Without devotion to the Theotokos, one
cannot understand the meaning and importance of virginity.
Without attachment to the Cross of Christ, in which there is
literal power, one cannot interpret or understand St. Paul’s
references to this powerful weapon against the Enemy. And without
the daily practices of Orthodox Christianity—fasting,
prayer, and spiritual exercise—, the deeper message of the
Bible is lost. If bibliolatry, the ascendency of personal
interpretation, and a rejection of the Church produce spiritual
delusion, the Evangelical’s separation from the vivifying
Mysteries and spiritual traditions of the Church
constitutes an ontological blindness, such that he adds to the
delusion of his prideful personal opinions an encompassing
darkness: an inability to respond to Truth and to its attractive
nature.
The spiritual life is serious business, wherein
we confront things of eternal consequence. Father Gregory’s
book very clearly tells us that we must choose between the errors
of human religion—in this instance, Evangelicalism—and
the Truth of Orthodoxy: between God and Mammon and between the Word
of God, Who enlightens, and the empty words of personal
Biblical exegesis. It is not an easy book and it makes no
compromises. And therein lies its power.
This review originally appeared in Orthodox
Tradition, Vol XII, No. 4, pp. 57-59.
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