We are none
too eager to criticize Mrs Shellie Tomlinson, ‘The Belle of All Things
Southern’, since she is one of the few who actually portrays, before a rather big
audience, traditional Southern culture in a good light. Yet her recent book on Christianity is
precisely why the Church in the West is in such dire straits right now. The Christianity she encourages us to follow
in Finding Deep & Wide is contrary to the Apostolic Faith, as it
instructs us to reject rules, struggles, and so forth and simply leave it to
God to transform us: Man’s contribution
to his salvation in her scheme is rather passive. From her web page about the book:
Let Shellie Rushing Tomlinson illuminate
the path that leads you away from formulaic, duty-bound Christianity towards a
deep and wide life spent joyfully surrendered to Jesus. With her signature
Southern warmth and humor and poignant storytelling, Shellie retells familiar
Bible stories and recasts them in a grace-filled way that will help you see the
life Jesus offers you so freely. Her honest, heartfelt, and often hilarious
stories of family life in Louisiana reveal Shellie’s own journey from being a
rule-following Christian to discovering “the joy of dying to all that trying.”
In Finding Deep and Wide, Shellie invites you to stop trying to please God and
be beautifully transformed by Him instead.
https://belleofallthingssouthern.com/finding-deep-wide/
Father
Spyridon, an Orthodox priest in England, warns us against this sort of ‘salvation’:
We can have lofty thoughts about God. We
can have feelings and believe that these feelings somehow represent faith. BUT
Do not put your trust in feelings. They are things of psychology and emotion.
They are generated within ourselves. That is not faith. Our feelings are not to
be trusted. Our faith is a matter of obedience to the commands of Christ. It is
about turning and receiving His grace to be part of His Church. To be a living
part of his body through baptism and chrismation. To be a living part of the
authentic Church of Christ. So, let us not be fooled by the teachings of man
and the philosophies of our age. Protestantism is of the age. It is a recent
invention of man. Let us not be fooled. Let us not be taken away by these
Protestant philosophies. For the gate is narrow and few will enter.
https://www.patristicfaith.com/orthodox-christianity/the-gate-is-narrow-few-will-enter/
The full
video from which the quote is taken is only about 12 minutes and well worth the
time to watch.
In support of
what Fr Spyridon says, consider just a couple of passages from the New
Testament that are very explicit about the need for Christians to work hard for
their salvation:
25 Every athlete exercises self-control in
all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
26 Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; 27 but I
pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be
disqualified.
--I Corinthians 9:25-7, https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/bible/1-corinthians.html
34 And he called to him the multitude with
his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his
life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will
save it. 36 For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit
his life? 37 For what can a man give in return for his life?
--St Mark’s Gospel 8:34-7, https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/bible/mark.html
You cannot
make something pleasant out of ‘pommeling’ and ‘subduing’ the body, out of
‘taking up the cross and following Christ’, out of crucifying the selfish will
and unruly passions. But that is the
authentic Christian path of salvation.
That does
not mean there will be no joy or any other good experiences during this
life. Far from it. But we only gain them by accepting and
undertaking toils with humility and gratitude, and by working through them with
patience and thankfulness to God, not by rejecting them for an easy, feel-good,
phony Christian life.
As the Holy
Fathers say, ‘Give blood and receive the Spirit’. Fr Pavle has a very good short video on that
saying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6LlO434Dg
‘For behold,
through the Cross joy has come into all the world’ – resurrectional hymn for
Sunday Matins, https://www.oca.org/reflections/fr.-steven-kostoff/for-through-the-cross-joy-has-come-into-all-the-world;
there is no joy without suffering.
We
appreciate Miss Shellie for a lot of things, but on this one she just ain’t
right.
--
Holy Ælfred
the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to
the Union!
No comments:
Post a Comment