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Spiritual masters of the Eastern Orthodox Church mysticalhesychast tradition
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Which Church is the True Church of Jesus Christ?
By Author Eli Kittim
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The Decline of Christianity
Christianity has become a speculative art. It has created over 38,000 denominations as well as thousands of seminaries and Christian universities all over the world in an effort to promote its speculative and largely anthropomorphic doctrines. What’s more, academic faculties have hitherto bestowed higher degrees to qualified graduates who are deemed “knowledgeable” in doctrinal and pastoral matters. And so the theological baton has been passed from teacher to student seemingly ad infinitum.
In the seminary or the academy everyone has an opinion, and so there are, naturally, a wide variety of viewpoints and many different schools of thought. However, there can only be one truth, if it exists at all. So, which view is correct in any given case? Well, we’re living in the post-modern era of relativism, so take your pick. Both Christian methodology and epistemology are equally informed by currents in academia (i.e. interdisciplinary studies), so much so that doctrinal issues are beginning to reflect the modern culture more and more, from liberation theology and feminist theology, to even queer theology and trans-gendered theology.
What ever happened to the concept of one church, one body, one Lord, one spirit, one faith? (Eph. 4.4-6). Whatever happened to Paul’s appeal “that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose”? (1 Cor. 1.10 NRSV).
——-
A State of Theological Confusion
This state of affairs is primarily due to the fact that we have lost sight of who is a true Christian, and who is not. We can no longer differentiate between a nominal Christian and an authentic one. We don’t even know what constitutes a real Christian and what is the criteria for meeting that requirement. And we certainly don’t know who’s telling the truth. Fake news, false narratives, and the spread of misinformation have affected every aspect of Christianity. So, because we can’t tell the difference between what is true and what is false, we generally classify Christian doctrines into various levels based on their popularity. We decide which pastor to listen to according to their social status, academic degrees, reputation, experience, popularity, book sales, and the like. Or, we walk into a particular church simply because of how it makes us feel. These are not valid reasons for attending church, for following a particular denomination or pastor, or for assenting to their doctrines and believing in their creeds. That’s why modern Christianity has lost its direction and has gone so far astray that it no longer represents the teachings of Jesus Christ. It only represents human inventions, speculations, and secular academic endeavours. Sadly, modern Christianity doesn’t have a clue about the revelation of the New Testament (NT) or about its main object of study: Jesus Christ. Second Timothy 4.3-4 reads:
For the time is coming when people will not
put up with sound doctrine, but having
itching ears, they will accumulate for
themselves teachers to suit their own
desires, and will turn away from listening to
the truth and wander away to myths.
——-
True Christians Get their Information Directly from God
There are only a few regenerated people in this world who know the *truths* of the NT, and this is due to their intimate knowledge of, and personal relationship with, Jesus! These all share the exact same knowledge of Christ! For them, the truth does not vary. Their knowledge is identical without the slightest variation as to the basic truths of the faith. They are all one, united in one faith, under one spirit and one lord. How is that possible, you may ask? The information they receive does not come from seminaries or academic universities, or from books or distinguished scholars. No. It comes straight from the mouth of God (Deut. 8.3; cf. Mt. 4.4). How can that be, you ask?
In the Old Testament (OT), there is obviously a divine communication that is revealed between God and humankind, particularly when the prophets declare categorically what “the LORD says” (cf. Jer. 23.38; 1 Kgs 12.24; Ezek. 20.5; Amos 5.16). This OT divine communication is also promised to the NT believers who will be regenerated in the Spirit (Jn 16.13):
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will
guide you into all the truth; for he will not
speak on his own, but will speak whatever
he hears, and he will declare to you the
things that are to come [ερχόμενα].
So, the process of salvation, or regeneration, has everything to do with knowledge and truth! It is the dividing line or the threshold between authentic and false Christianity. And that makes all the difference in the world. People are confused about what salvation is. For instance, there are all sorts of scholarly debates between those who hold to “easy-believism” and those who adhere to lordship salvation. There are those who think they are saved, when they’re not. For example, pastors often tell people, who answer altar calls, that they have been reborn simply because they made a profession of faith. Joel Osteen is a case in point. Other folk think they can go on sinning because all they are required to do is to believe, according to their interpretation of Scripture. Steven Anderson, the pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, is such an example. But God is not the author of confusion (1 Cor. 14.33). And, unfortunately, most people don’t know what authentic salvation in Christ really is. If people have believed lies, then the truth will necessarily seem false to them. So they react negatively by portraying true salvation as if it were evil, unbiblical, untraditional, or even revolting. However, if you reject true salvation, your Christianity is as fake as you are. Your pseudo-religion is nothing more than a bad caricature of Christianity. Just listen to one of Paul Washer’s sermons. There is only one way for you to know the truth and become a part of the one true church of Jesus. And that is by understanding the *process* by which you can be saved!
Every church and every ministry teaches something different, and most of their teachings are completely foreign to the NT. It’s reminiscent of Paul’s stern warning to the church of Corinth (1 Cor. 1.12, 13) that began to split into various divisions or denominations:
each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I
belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’
or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been
divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or
were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Paul explicitly condemns this fragmentation of church doctrine and says it is not of God. Accordingly, 1 Timothy 4.1-3 is prophesying of what is to come:
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later
times some will renounce the faith by
paying attention to deceitful spirits and
teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy
of liars whose consciences are seared with
a hot iron. They forbid marriage and
demand abstinence from foods, which God
created to be received with thanksgiving by
those who believe and know the truth.
——-
A Soteriological Crisis
Why all the splinter groups and all the contradictory doctrines? Because we lost touch with spirituality. In other words, we lost touch with God. We can no longer hear him. We can no longer communicate with him. Why? Because we’re suffering from bibliolatry! The Bible is not an end in itself. It’s supposed to lead us to Christ. Yet we have become idolaters, Bible-worshipping Christians with no spirituality whatsoever, as if the Bible alone had the capacity to transform us into Christ. As if the Bible has replaced Christ. Hence the reason for Jesus’ caveat in Jn 5.39:
You search the scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal life; and it is
they that testify on my behalf.
We’ve also created new doctrines and man-made traditions. The various doctrines became officially mandated during the successive councils of the church. Thus, all the denominations are in error. They exist without NT authority. Consider what Christ will say to the fake Christians on Judgment day (Mt. 7.21-23):
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,'
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only
the one who does the will of my Father in
heaven. On that day many will say to me,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your
name, and cast out demons in your name,
and do many deeds of power in your
name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never
knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'
But what exactly does it mean to do the will of Christ’s father? Does it depend on us, forcing our will to conform to his, through repetitive behavioural acts? No. It means to surrender your will to God so that you can say with Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2.20). Then, divine obedience becomes natural and automatic. But, unfortunately, that’s not what we’ve been told by the religious authorities. We’ve been taught to think that we’re Christians on our way to heaven. In other words, there’ll be upright people——people who even claim to believe in Jesus——that will be lost on the day of judgment! But what is the soteriological standard against which all other theories are measured? Notice the criterion that God uses: “I never knew you.” So, we must try to explain, then, how it is that God “knows us.” Answer: if we surrender our life to him, he will know us personally and intimately in a deep, unitive, and mystical sense. In short, he will permanently become an integral part of our lives (Jn 14.23):
Those who love me will keep my word, and
my Father will love them, and we will come
to them and make our home with them.
But how can you make this happen? How can you become a part of the true church? Some say by “obedience,” while others claim you only need to “believe.” But they are both wrong because both of these Pelagian premises are based on you saving yourself through personal works. In this scenario, Jesus becomes utterly irrelevant. So, that’s not it. The answer is, you have to be transformed! Notice in the undermentioned passage that Jesus inflicts “vengeance on those who do not know God” and who, therefore, disobey him. The text prophesies the final consummation (2 Thess. 1.7, 8),
when the Lord Jesus is revealed from
heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do
not know God and on those who do not
obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Most churches claim that all you have to do to be saved involves rote learning and habitual religious exercises. For example, the Church of Christ says that you have to obey the Gospel by hearing, Believing, Repenting, Confessing, and being baptised. And then you’ll be saved. How wonderful. How convenient. How painless. All man-made, all based on one’s own efforts, and the greatest thing of all, no spirituality is necessary, and there’s no need for a change of heart or a radical renewing of the mind (Rom. 12.2). By the way, when Paul speaks of baptism, he’s not referring to the immersion in water but to a painful baptism into Christ’s death that regenerates the believer “in newness of life” during the dark night of the soul (cf. Acts 19.5-6). He says in Rom. 6.3, 4:
Do you not know that all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death? Therefore we have
been buried with him by baptism into death,
so that, . . . we too might walk in newness of
life.
So, congregants are being deceived into thinking that they are saved, when they are not! Church leaders will typically quote a few out-of-context verses about belief in Christ and his resurrection, and, if you meet these criteria, they’ll tell you that you’re good to go. You’re saved. This is downright nonsense! How pathetic has been the fall of so many people who were not properly trained or educated on the nature of salvation within the Christian faith. No wonder so many of them have left the faith and have turned to atheism, profoundly disillusioned with the form of Christianity that could neither solve their problems nor offer any meaning in the face of today’s postmodern world.
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You Will Know the Truth, and the Truth Will Make You Free (John 8.32)
As Paul reminds us, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom. 8.9). So, how do we do our part in order to allow this transformation to take place and to invite the Spirit into our lives? There are many methods. However, one of the most effective means of doing so is by way of “stillness,” which is traditionally known as a prayer of silence! From a phenomenological perspective, this Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” requires a transcendent existential experience. This involves a deep meditation in which the mind leaves all knowledge behind and passes into a state of transcendent *unknowing* where the “intuition of naked truths” is “conveyed to the understanding” (John of the Cross. “Ascent of Mount Carmel.” Trans. E. Allison Peers. [Liguori: Triumph, 1991], p. 182). The point is that we’re not going to get there by discursive thinking but rather by “being,” in the existential sense!
Thus, being obedient is not enough. Being morally upright or having good intentions is not enough. Being a descendant of Abraham is not enough. Salvation is not based on a biological birth, but on a birth from above. In short, we must be born again (Jn 3.3):
Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the
kingdom of God without being born from
above.
See my article: How Are We Saved? https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/624396009262415872/how-are-we-saved-is-it-simply-by-belief-alone-or
Modern Christianity is a Joke
Eli Kittim
On their podcasts and platforms, Christians are constantly talking about God, Christ, and the Bible, explaining the gospel, debating about theology and prophecy, while assuming to know what scripture teaches, right down to the last detail. And yet none of them know what they’re talking about or what’s really going on (Rom. 3:11). Yet they all have millions of followers flocking to their social media platforms to hear them speak, and they’re deceiving all of them (intentionally or unintentionally) with lies and misinformation. But this has already been prophesied. In fact, Matthew 24 and 1 Timothy 4:1 clearly state that the end-times will be characterized by global deception, as many false prophets and teachers will arise and mislead many. Paul himself knew that after his departure Christianity would eventually decline and become a church of heretics (Acts 20:29). All that has happened. Most teachings today are about the Nephilim, aliens, and ancient civilizations.
All the biblical doctrines that are being taught today——whether at the university, the seminary, or in social media platforms——are false. Why? Because they have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. None of these so-called pundits have received any revelations from God in the manner that Paul describes (see Gal. 1:11-12). To preach things based on personal guesswork or mere speculation is not the same as teaching according to the Holy Spirit. John 14:26 says that “the Holy Spirit … will teach you all things.”
It’s gotten so bad that even the Pope is now teaching that it’s a dangerous heresy to have a personal relationship with Jesus outside the church. A Facebook friend of mine——a Christian apologist by the name of Marcia Montenegro——has gone so far as to condemn any attempt to open your mind and spirit to God through the prayer of stillness (which btw is still used in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches), denouncing it as a so-called satanic practice that opens your spirit to demonic influences, even though that is precisely what the Bible requires in order for rebirth and salvation to take place. How else can God transform your carnal nature unless he recreates your identity? (Eph. 4:22-24). How can God live within you and create a new operating system unless the old one is deleted? How else can you receive the Holy Spirit, who changes your personality, turning a sinner to a saint, as it did with Paul? Romans 8:9 says categorically and unequivocally:
“if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,
they do not belong to Christ.”
Then there are the nominal Christians. These are Christians in name only. They pretend to be Christ-like but act like demons. I know a few well-known Christian writers and bible prophecy teachers who have privately sent me viruses because I criticized their views. People would be surprised to know that Richard H. Perry did such a thing when i criticized his view that George Bush represents the white horseman of Revelation. I obviously had to block him. Another famous lawyer turned author by the name of Mark L. Hitchcock took me by surprise when he reported me to YouTube, which resulted in google permanently shutting down my platform. And he did this just because I complained that his YouTube channel was deleting all my comments and articles. As a result, I ended up losing all my videos and all my content that had been running on the web for the past 12 years. I was aghast that someone of his stature would resort to this. That was so mean. It completely took me by surprise. I didn’t see that one coming. This type of spitefulness is uncharacteristic of Christian believers. Their fruits bear no love. I seriously doubt whether such a person is in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. Needless to say, I have lost all respect for him. I obviously blocked him, too. Good riddance!
Christianity has gotten so bad that Christian pastors are preying on crippled children, promising to heal them if they sow a financial seed to the ministry. People like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, and more recently, Kathryn Krick, all falsely claim to heal people suffering of serious disorders. Then you have YouTubers who are openly deceiving people, claiming that God speaks to them. Troy Black is a case in point. He has half a million victims, I mean subscribers, who are being lied to on a daily basis.
Not to mention the multiple scandals involving priests and pastors who are texting pornographic materials to their congregants and have inappropriate relations with them. Some pastors are even teaching that you don’t even need to believe in Jesus in order to be saved, while others, like Steven Anderson, are claiming that you don’t need to stop sinning, but only to believe in Jesus. Some Christian writers are teaching that you don’t even need God or Jesus, and you certainly don’t need to hear from them or even experience them personally. All you need is to read the Bible. There are some well-known pastors, like Justin Peters, who teach this doctrine. Not to mention those scholars, like David Bentley Hart, who claim that all people will eventually be saved, whether they believe in Jesus or not. But how exactly are we saved? Does anyone know? A well-known pastor, named Ken Raggio, recently posted on Instagram that “God changes us from sinner to saint … by … divine discipline. As we OBEY the Word.” This is totally and completely wrong! We cannot save our selves by ourselves. That’s why we need a savior. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for washing their hands but not cleansing their heart, showing that their legalism and discipline was totally ineffective in changing them from within. That’s why he said to Nicodemus the Pharisee: you must be “born again” (Jn 3:3). Only God can recreate us (2 Cor. 5:17). We are not saved by works or through personal efforts and behaviors.
And the core doctrines of modern Christianity are all wrong. The modern Christian faith centers on certain core beliefs regarding the historical birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But these events haven’t happened yet. According to the Bible, they will take place in the endtimes (see Isa. 2:19; Dan. 12:1-2; Zeph. 1:7; Lk 17:30; Acts 3:19:21; 1 Cor. 15:22-24; Gal. 4:4; Eph. 1:9-10; Heb. 1:1-2; 9:26b; 1 Pet. 1:10-11; 1:20; Rev 12:5; 19:10d). My chief objection is that the TIMING of these events is totally wrong. This is all based on a misunderstanding of Greek and a misreading of genre.
The internal evidence supports my view. It’s in both the Old and New Testaments! Zephaniah 1:7 declares that the Lord’s sacrifice will occur during “the day of the Lord” (not in antiquity). Isaiah 2:19 says that people will hide in caves when “the Lord … arises to terrify the earth.” Similarly, Daniel 12:1 puts the resurrection of the anointed prince just prior to the great tribulation. I can prove it with detailed exegesis from the Greek text. The LXX (Dan 12:1) says παρελεύσεται, which means to “pass away,” & the Theodotion has ἀναστήσεται, meaning a bodily resurrection in the end-times. In the following verse (12:2), the plural form of the exact same word (ἀναστήσονται) is used to describe the general resurrection of the dead! In other words, if the exact same word means resurrection in Daniel 12:2, then it must also necessarily mean resurrection in Daniel 12:1! Acts 3:20-21 similarly says that Christ will not be sent to earth until the consummation of the ages. First Corinthians 15:22-24 also tells us that Christ will be the first to be resurrected in the end-times! Revelation 12:5 tells us that the messiah is born in the end times, and the next verse talks about the great tribulation. Galatians 4:4 says that Jesus will be born during the consummation of the ages, expressed by the apocalyptic phrase τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου, which is defined in Ephesians 1:10 as the end of the world! First Peter 1:20 says that although Christ was foreknown before the creation of the world, he was initially revealed “at the final point of time.” It’s supported by Hebrews 1:2 which says that Jesus speaks to mankind in the “last days,” not in antiquity. And Hebrews 9:26 says EXPLICITLY that Jesus will die for the sins of mankind “once in the end of the world” (ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων)! Revelation 19:10 also informs us that the TESTIMONY to Jesus is prophetic (not historical). Read Acts 10:40-41 where we are told that Jesus’ resurrection was based on visions because it was only visible “to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God.” Similarly, 1 Peter 1:10-11 says that the New Testament prophets “predicted the sufferings of the Messiah” in advance (cf. Isa 46:10).
This short video will clarify everything I’ve said so far:
A Biblical Greek translation of the New Testament that changes everything we thought we knew about Jesus
A Different Worldview and a Different History; Catholicism and Orthodoxy
The Roman Catholic Scholastic thinker Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) wrote in his massive work, the Summa Theologiae, that theology is the "highest scientia" since a high degree of rationality is required to understand the most important and complex philosophical concepts about God. The universities that developed during the Scholastic period in the Christian West were intended to teach students how to deal in this "science" of theology through rigorous conceptual analysis. Theology was considered to be the preeminent Scholastic endeavor, a good thing in many ways. Yet, as a result of the high regard for logic and rationality in medieval Roman Catholicism, those who studied and taught (the "doctors") came to be more highly regarded than the monks and nuns (the "religious") whose main vocation was to pray.
Theology began to be expounded by scholars outside of the context of prayer, pastoral ministry, and liturgical worship. Pelikan traces this specific change in the West through the changing job description of the theologian. He notes that, between AD 100 and 600, most theologians were bishops; from 600 to 1500 in the West they were monks. But after 1500, Western theologians are university professors: "Gregory I, who died in 604, was a bishop who had been a monk; Martin Luther, who died in 1546, was a monk who became a university professor. Each of these lifestyles has left its mark on the job description of a theologian." After the sixteenth century in the West, the task of theology increasingly became separated from its earlier moorings to the worship of the community and the spiritual disciplines.
From an Eastern Orthodox point of view, knowledge of God comes only from an encounter with the God who has revealed Himself: "What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them" (Rom. 1:19). Thus, theology can never be separated from prayer, worship, and contemplation of the Holy Trinity. Metropolitan Ware affirms that all true Orthodox theology is mystical: "Just as mysticism divorced from theology becomes subjective and heretical, so theology, when it is not mystical, degenerates into an arid scholasticism, 'academic' in the bad sense of the word." That is to say, Orthodox mystical theology guards against either unacceptable extreme: subjective and heretical, or arid and academic.
- A Basic Guide to Eastern Orthodox Theology, Eve Tibbs