Regenerated and Baptized

Jivanta-dharma, like orthodox Christianity, forms a subset of Chraista-dharma. Within orthodox Christianity, one may find the Baptist tradition. Likewise, within Jivanta, one may find the Baiptiza-sampradaya, the sampradaya analogous to the Baptist tradition in orthodox Christianity. (One should note that Jivanta and orthodox Christianity are not mutually exclusive; neither are the Baptist tradition and the Baiptiza-sampradaya.) One of the distinctive practices of both the Baptist tradition and the Baiptiza-sampradaya involves the baptism of believers:

While Baptists owe much to the great doctrinal legacy of the mainline reformers, our ecclesiology most closely approximates the Anabaptist ideal in its emphasis on the church as an intentional community composed of regenerated and baptized believers who are bound to one another and their Lord by a solemn covenant. One of the most important contributions which Baptists have made to the wider life of the church is the recovery of the early church practice of baptism as an adult right of initiation signifying a committed participation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In many contemporary Baptist settings, however, baptism is in danger of being divorced from the context of the decisive life commitment.

The baptism of believers, so integral to Baptist practice, has several layers of meaning. As a distinctly orthodox Christian practice, baptism signifies the entrance of the believer into the Christian community. As part of Baiptiza practice (and, thus, as part of Jivanta), baptism symbolizes the realization of radical non-duality. Baptism by sprinkling or by pouring does not as fully embody this radical non-dualism as does baptism by full-immersion. In full-immersion, the non-duality is complete, utter, without remainder. To be baptized in full-bodied immersion is to participate in the foreshadowing of one's future, and yet already ever present, advaitic and full-bodied realization.

Peter's Rock

One of the most controversial passages in the New Testament is the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus refers to Peter as (in Aramaic) "Kephas" and (in Greek) "Petros", both words meaning, roughly, "rock".

Matthew 16:15-18:

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

The Orthodox, the Catholic, and the Protestant differ on the significance of this passage. Specifically, the Catholic believes that this passage conferred upon Peter an authority given to him and him alone, an authority that contained within it, in seed form, universal papal jurisdiction and papal infallibility. The Orthodox maintain, one, that the papal office is not equivalent to Peter the Apostle, and, two, that the Bishop of Rome (the "Roman" Pope, not to be confused with the Pope who is Bishop of Alexandria) is "one among equals", lacking both the power to coerce other bishops (a power that is part of universal papal jurisdiction notions) and the guarantee of papal infallibility. And Protestants side with the Orthodox, in general.

From the perspective of the Heart, any one of these positions can be, and are, true. In fact, each can be affirmed to be as true as any other. To say that any position can be affirmed just as well as any other, does not mean that the material implications of any one position would be the same as any other. If a bishop believes in universal papal jurisdiction, then that bishop should be prepared to encounter the exercise of papal authority. That bishop might lose his own power, authority, or wealth even.

However, the Heart is not limited, nor constrained, nor bound, by worldly authority. The Heart is not affected, if the Pope is infallible or not, or has universal jurisdiction or not. The Heart does not seek power, authority over others, or wealth. Thus, from the perspective of the Heart, any one of the three positions regarding the Pope is equal to the other two.

The Heart interprets the passage in a different way. The "rock" that Jesus referred to, was Peter's faith and trust -- in other words, to Peter's own recognition of the Heart. The Church that Jesus was to build, would be founded on this Heart-recognition, which is not limited to Peter, but belongs to all. This rock is clear, pure, and perfect. In fact, this rock can be compared to a lustrous diamond, indestructible, and adamantine. In the Tibetan tradition, this rock is known as vajra, the indestructible diamond, clear and empty, and yet reflective, of imperfections. This vajra is bodhi-citta, the Heart of Awakening. Peter recognized bodhi-citta, the mind of enlightenment, and Jesus affirmed Peter's recognition. This Awakened Heart, though dormant in many, can be awakened by many means, within many different religious-political-authority structures, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, just to limit ourselves to Christian examples. The point of Jesus' acknowledging Peter's "rockness" was not to make Peter (or a Pope) into an idol, no more so than the Father's acknowledgment of Jesus as His "Son" was meant to make Jesus into an idol. Instead, Peter was meant to be an example from which others could learn the universal truth that the Heart could manifest unexpectedly, anywhere, anytime, and to any person.

Protestant Theosis

He deigns in flesh to appear,

Widest extremes to join,

To bring our vileness near,

And make us all divine;

And we the life of God shall know,

For God is manifest below.

Made perfect first in love,

And sanctified by grace,

We shall from earth remove,

And see his glorious face;

His love shall then be fully showed,

And man shall all be lost in God.

-- Charles Wesley, Hymn #5, Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord, 1745

Fr. Hopko on Dialogue

CC.com: Yesterday you said Orthodoxy was not just one denomination among many. What is the dialogue with evangelicals trying to accomplish, or how do you make that point to evangelicals who do see Orthodoxy as one of many denominations?

Fr. Hopko: I deal with that issue in Speaking the Truth in Love also, because dialogical is the way that it's done. You encounter, you speak, you have to listen in order to relate, so there's always a missionary dimension to dialogue. But it's also a dimension of testimony, it's also a willingness to have yourself tested. Okay, you think that we're wrong -- say why. Let's talk about it.

If we're all Christians, we all love Jesus, we all want the truth, and we don't agree about what that is, we'd better talk about it, and try to have enough dialogue so that we know what we actually disagree about! John Courtney Murray once said, "We don't know enough about each other even to disagree accurately." We've been separated from the Latin West for 900 years!

However, there are all these dangers. The danger could be exactly toward denominationalism. Even at Trinity Western the other night, when an evangelical who doesn't have a concept of the historical church and the sacramental church says, "I agree with everything you said," sometimes I'm tempted to say, "No you don't!" Because if you're inventing worship every week, and you don't believe that there's a church in history or that it all started in reality in the 16th century, you don't believe what we believe!

Now, the fact that we quote the Bible and talk about how Jesus saves us, you might relate to and believe in it, but the minute you come to how you access it, how it becomes yours, how you live it out -- I still think that there are incredible differences between evangelicals and Eastern Orthodox. Because for us, the Church is part of the gospel. Let me put it this way: The gospel implies the Church.

Fr. Florovsky used to talk about ecumenism in time, as well as in space. Who are you with in the past? You name any century, and we'll tell you who our guys were, and we'll tell you where we think the Church was, and we'll tell you where we think it wasn't, at least not in its fullness, where it became defective. In the early Church, we're with the so-called Catholics and not with the Gnostics and the Montanists. After the 4th century, we're with Athanasius, Basil, Gregory and the Nicene communities. In the 5th century, we're with the Chalcedonian communities, and in the later centuries, we're with Photius as against the papacy.

We have a history that we deeply identify with. We speak about Gregory and Basil as if they were our contemporaries, because mystically they are -- they are! And that's one thing that I think evangelicals, at least in their organic traditions, don't relate to.

In fact, a lot of times, as a matter of fact, they don't even know about it. They don't have the foggiest idea who these people even are. I've met United Church of Canada people who didn't know what the Nicene Creed was, and they were at a [World Council of Churches] Faith and Order Commission meeting representing their church! Seriously.

Then they say, "Why do you need it, it's Greek philosophy, it's old-fashioned, no modern person can relate to it." I remember in Russia once, I was there at a meeting exactly on the Nicene Creed, with Catholics and Protestants from all over the world -- it was an international meeting, sponsored by the Faith and Order Commission -- and the English-speaking Protestants were always on my case every day, because I could speak English, about, "Why do you do this, this is irrelevant, la la la."

And then we went to St. Sergius monastery outside Moscow, and there were all these people -- it was under Communism still -- the blind, the lame, all these people were out there in the middle of the night singing and singing, and these Protestants were out there looking at them and they're crying and saying, "I never saw such a piety," and then they said, "By the way, what are they singing?" and I said, "Well, they're just singing the outdated Nicene Creed that no one knows anything about." [laughs]

They were singing the Nicene Creed! And these people were just arguing that it's irrelevant, nobody cares about it, nobody knows what it is -- well, the one thing you had to do if you were Orthodox was to memorize the Nicene Creed and to know how to sing it. So that's the kind of thing that people find shocking.

I remember Desmond Tutu and his wife were at one service, and I heard her lean over to him and say, "I didn't know white folks could sing like this." So that's what the meetings can hopefully overcome and produce, some kind of new understanding of things, not caricatures.

Bridges Across the Divide

Not too many people know how large an influence the Catholic tradition had upon the Protestant evangelical author of the best-seller The Purpose Driven Life. The current interest in Catholic spiritually among Protestants stems from many reasons (as the excerpt below from The National Catholic Reporter, 15 December, 2006, shows; registration and subscription necessary to see the whole article). The trend of the Protestant, especially Reformed, tradition has been away from orality, away from the senses, away from contemplation, away from mysticism. Yet, if the Protestant experiment is to survive, it must retrieve these essential elements, elements that are truly 'universal', or 'catholic' (from the Greek, 'kata holos', 'relating to the whole').

Rick Warren, evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., told NCR that classical Catholic spiritual literature had a strong impact on him in writing The Purpose Driven Life, his Christian advice book that was on The New York Times Bestseller List for 174 weeks.

In 2005 this book made headlines when Ashley Smith, a 26-year-old hostage of the Atlanta Courthouse killer notified police that her captor wanted to turn himself in, claiming that during her captivity she read to the killer Brian Nichols from The Purpose Driven Life.

Newsweek magazine called Warren one of “15 People Who Make America Great,” an award given to people genius or passion, devote themselves to helping others. Christianity Today dubbed him “America’s most influential pastor” in a 2002 cover story.

Warren gives away 90 percent of his income to charities. His church is attended by as many as 20,000 on Sundays and carries 80,000 on the rolls. Elements from Catholic spirituality are a feature of many of the church’s Sunday workshops and classes, he said.

With roots in the Southern Baptist tradition, Warren said he has depended upon concepts from his readings in Catholic spirituality to form his own vision for his church.

“The idea of dying to self is a strong theme that comes from classical Catholic spirituality, as well as the instruction to learn to pray without ceasing. In St. John of the Cross we find the notion of the soul’s dark night, emphasizing the importance of how you handle those times when God seems absent or silent. Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, is a Catholic spiritual classic I have found useful. How does a book last 500 years?”

From the early church fathers and mothers through the monastic traditions and up to Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton, Warren said these traditions and writings have all ministered to him.

“Fr. Nouwen’s concept of the ‘wounded healer’ has informed my pastoral career. Here was a man who clearly struggled with his faith. His authenticity comes through.”

Warren quoted St. Augustine’s famous sentence, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you,” saying he believes that longing for the transcendent God is the source of his congregation’s interest in spirituality.

“People have tried everything. They realize there’s a hole in their hearts, knowing instinctively there’s more to life than just the material. There’s a spiritual yearning that all the technology and gadgets in the world can’t satisfy.”

In the classes taught at Saddleback Church, Warren said, six different ways to meditate are presented, along with instructions on how to fashion a daily devotional time. “We teach prayer, fasting, solitude. These are tools and resources for reaching out, for accomplishing our mission.”