A crisis of faith turns from crisis to research. Research often times retreats from the actual to the mystical and from the magnanimous to the maniacal. Our difficulty reckoning the mystical nature of the Triune God with the pragmatic necessities of the everyday becomes greater than an average saint can bear. How can man contemplate the depths of God’s immutable attributes when there are babies screaming in the background, taxes to be paid, and a wife that needs attention? Is it possible to both engage the culture with relevant and practical material yet remain honest to the orthodox and mystical moorings of historic Christianity?

            It seems that this is the preoccupation of many if not all of my friends seeking to find their way in this ambient culture. It is for this reason that I found myself this morning in an Eastern Orthodox Church as a spectator and fellow saint. In recent years I have stumbled upon friends (and at times ventured this way myself) who jaunt off in search of the Historical Church. You might have read or remember Albert Schweitzer running this way and that to no avail on pilgrimage to find the Historical Jesus. It seems that my generation has been enticed by German theology to abandon the quest for the Historical Jesus and embark on another quest; one to find the historical Church. I met up with just one of these friends this morning who (for a time) it seems has been drawn in by the beauty, historicity and mystery of Eastern Orthodoxy. Who wouldn’t be? I will forego the description of what happened there and let it suffice to say that what I witnessed was more biblical and Christ centered than most of our cities Mega churches. This is the crisis of our day. When protestant churches failed to subscribe to the regulative principle of worship issued in the 17^th century we were left vulnerable to the same Roman error we fought to correct. For the last two centuries we have been continuing to allow the entropy of sin to undo the great work of revival our reformers paid for in blood. This is why the emerging generations having never been trained in ecclesiology are running after anything that feels and looks authentic and old.

            The Eastern Orthodox Church is arguably the oldest Christian expression being practiced today. The liturgy used in many of their churches is from 200AD penned and implemented by St. John of Chrysostom. In no way can we take these facts lightly. Many of their adherents and priests are pious and humble saints who seek to worship Christ. In contrast at a number of the local Mega churches in our city (and for that fact at many of the new contemporary churches) the liturgy was penned 5 years ago by a church consultant , and the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross, sacred architecture, the Lord’s supper, creeds, the Bible, and precise theological distinctives have been abandoned. If this is the logical outcome of Protestantism abandoning the extra biblical modes of worship advocated by the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox, then we will pay grievously for our error on the Day of Judgment.  I contend however that this is not the logical outcome of Protestantism, but rather this new watered down religion is of the same man made ilk that brought us fourteenth century Roman Catholicism. Why do men run after the Historical Church? Why are men researching and pining after these traditions that have been forsaken? Within the heart of the believer there is a groaning too deep for human words that the Holy Spirit births out of a need to worship God the right way. Perhaps this parable will suffice to explain our condition.

            A thirsty woman comes to the well of the contemporary church and drinks a Coca         Cola Christianity; she drinks and drinks and drinks only to find herself dehydrated     by their caffeine and nervous from the high-fructose-corn-syrup. She is still    thirsty. In a last ditch effort she sees a menu that offers the coffee and tea of       sophisticated Orthodoxy or maybe the beer of Roman Catholicism, and she begins to drink and become filled. Over time the name Jesus, the image of Mary, and the             pride of History intoxicate her to the point of illness. What this woman needs in not cola, tea, or beer but the bread of life and the wine that bubbles up to living          water.

            The Reformers and Puritans knew that Rome would never be that Living water as long as it was cut or diluted by the traditions of men. They knew that the Anabaptists could never create new traditions apart from scripture. They knew that if we are to truly be spiritual it will not be found in the trappings of mannish pomp and ritual but in the essential nature of scriptural disciplined worship. In this way we will avoid both errors that of popery, and that of pragmatism. In this way we can with grace and mercy love our friends into the truth, and help them avoid the trappings of error. The regulative principle of worship is a much forsaken dogma that can and will lead Christ’s true church out of the maze of American revivalism, and prevent us from repeating the errors of Eastern Orthodoxy. As our friends abandon the seeker churches, in search of something mystical and old let us have faith that worship advocated in the scriptures alone will yield to them the Way the Truth and The Life.