Why is Protestantism in disarray?
Commonality? Why would the Church negotiate anything? When I became Orthodox, after 44 years spent as an Evangelical Christian, I did not sit down with the priest and try to find areas of commonality. I recognized the disarray of Protestantism. I admitted to the shifting sand beneath my feet of my own particular denomination (it had changed its emphasis so many times over the course of my own life within it). I knew that what we called worship was little more than a make-it-up-as-you-go-along thing. We formed worship committees to try to re-invent the worship wheel.. to infuse new life into an otherwise dead service. Choruses projected on a wall... worhip bands.. audio-visual presentations... it all resulted in the same thing... an inner awareness that something was wrong.
Communion was little more than a trip down memory lane and since it was little more than a symbolic ordinance, why even bother with it? In truth, some denominations have discarded it entirely (Salvation Army to name one).
Baptism was little more than a public testimony. Nothing of substance happened. How we could believe this in the face of so many scriptures to the contrary and so much of the Church's teachings down through two millennia is still a source of wonder to me.
No... I came recognizing I needed something more. I did not come to water down Orthodoxy by seeking to get it to accept some of my practices. I did not come to sit in judgment upon the Church. I came with questions... asked them... searched out the answers provided by reading, praying and talking with many others. But I never presumed to look for commonality. I looked for truth and I looked for what was missing in my life. After an intense struggle over several months, I was received into the Church. That was a little over thirteen years ago and I've never regretted that decision for a solitary moment.
The Church is not about to negotiate anything, Dan. It "is" the Church. It can demonstrate this historically and experientially. No other Body has suffered such martyrdom as the Orthodox Church and yet continued on... unabated. It is divinely protected and will continue so until the Bridegroom returns for Her.
