Christianity in Russia

People will argue that the Orthodox Christianity in Russia really is not a legitimate religious practice, but simply a cultural one.  That people there are not really Christians because the religion with which they identify is identified with only because it is the culture of their country, not their personal faith.  But to argue as such really misses some important points.
Yes, it is true that the Christian Orthodox faith is the culture of the nation of Russia.  And I cannot overemphasize just how valuable that is.  Those in the US cannot conceive of or understand what this means.  The USA was founded on rugged individualism and religious freedom.  But both of these things are contrary to the Christian faith, but in different ways.  We are not rugged individuals.  The Christian is part of the body of Christ and should be involved in a very regular basis in the life of the church.  This means weekly communion (at least), and living the calendar of the church.
The situation in Russia has that as its lifeblood.  While it may be true that many there do not practically live out the Orthodox life, what is true is that that life of community and church as center is.  I have heard that the common, everyday Russian, when walking by a church, will cross himself, religious or not.  This is amazing.  This means that even the non religious, regular guy on the street, has reverence to the church in his blood.
The very positive end to this is in the massive power of influence the church will have on the lives of people.  The church is not viewed as a small sliver of ones existence, that is given a cursory nod, maybe once a week, or maybe even just on Christmas or Pascha (Easter).  For many Americans, religion is relegated to a personal relationship with Jesus, that may or may not involve church attendance, but is definitely something that is kept to ones self. 
In Russia, the church is the ebb and flow of life.  In smaller towns, this is seen even in the architecture of the city.  The church is actually the center of town.
It really comes down to what is central, what is foundational, what is the basis of society, even at the subconscious level.  Russia has retained that foundation of church, even through the horrors of the Soviet era.  Unfortunately, America, if it had it at one time, has walked far away from that kind of foundation.

2 Timothy 3:1-5

For some reason, this passage came to mind this morning, and I have been thinking about it all day,  especially verse 4, where we are told that men will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. So I thought I would share some thoughts on the passage.
The apostle Paul, the author here, is writing to Timothy, a young pastor of a first generation church.  Timothy is of Jewish heritage and his church is a mix of former Jews and Gentiles.
As the chapter starts, Paul is explicit,  "in the last days men will be....." First things first.  We must not stumble on the meaning here.  We must not miss the Jewish elements so prevalent here.  As Jesus had fulfilled all the requirements of the old covenant,  it is passing away and will soon (in the original readers context) disappear.  And this has happened with every single other instance of covenantal judgment for covenantal unfaithfulness, so too now with the Jews rejection and crucifixion of Jesus.  God's ultimate act of love for his covenant people only resulted in their final rejection of him.  So now, the covenantal judgment will fall, death will come upon those who have rejected the new covenant head,  Jesus.
These are the last days of which Paul speaks.  The time of the old covenant and the Jews is coming to an end.
Paul gives a list of what the lifestyle of these people will look like: lovers of themselves, lovers of money,  proud, blasphemous, etc., etc. I want you to notice a couple of things here.  First,  these are men guilty of blasphemy.  Blasphemy only makes sense in a religious context.  As verse five says, these men have a form of godliness but deny it's power.
These are the Jews of whom Paul speaks.  These perilous times are referring to those people who claim a very religious life, yet live a life of selfish debauchery.
Two things must then be asked.  One,  what is meant by "lovers of pleasure"?  On one hand,  who alive is not a lover of pleasure?  Which one of us does not look forward to sleeping on a comfortable bed, in a warm house,  driving to work in a climate controlled car to work in a climate controlled office?  We choose from a myriad of culinary possibilities, the possibilities unparalleled at any time in history.  We wear comfortable clothes,  are meticulously clean, healthy and well rested.
Is this what Paul is talking about? Not specifically. It is important to recognize that we cannot compare our lifestyle with that of previous centuries.  What is normal and balanced for us today, would be sheer opulence  200 years ago.  We must look at comparative context.  Paul here is talking about a heart issue.  Paul is talking about the loves that direct our lives.  Do we live for pleasure?  What is on our mind, when we are not preoccupied with the necessities of life? Are we focused on scrumptious meals,  luxurious vacations,  mindless entertainment,  the opposite sex? Is our life and the money we earn focused on the pleasure and entertainment of the this temporal life?  This is what Paul is talking about.
Second,  what do we do about it? We need to wake up.  We need to step back and look at what WE are doing and spending.  Don't look at anyone else, don't compare yourself to anyone else. Where is your heart?
Paul tells us to turn away from such people.  If you are one of those people, Paul is telling you to change.
Perilous times were coming for people such as these in Paul's day.  The same will only be true for men in our day, or any day.  While temporal judgment is no longer hanging over us, we do still have the final judgment ahead.  This is not a judgment for sin,  Jesus already took that upon himself.  This is a judgment of responsibility.  What have we done with the life, love and power that God has given us in Jesus Christ?  Have we squandered it all on trinkets and empty entertainments?  Have we spent all of our time distracting and pleasuring ourselves?
The responsibility of the gospel is right in front of us. Don't miss it.

Balance

An interesting point was made the other day that really set some things in order. It was the idea of not glorying in our successes. That phrase should sound odd. Of course, I am not suggesting that we glory in failure. The idea that I want to suggest is that of balance.
Much of how we handle our successes or failures has to do with our view of sanctification.  Our natural response to a successful endeavor is usually happiness.  So far, so good.  But another fruit of success can often be pride.  Especially in the realm of temptation.  If we successfully ward off some form of temptation,  we may immediately be tempted to think highly of ourselves and our spiritual maturity.  Which will immediately lead to a fall into some other sin. Usually because we are nowhere near as holy as we think we are.
But on the other hand,  when we fail, we may be tempted to give up and consider ourselves beyond forgiveness. So where is the balance?
When we successfully avoid any particular temptation,  yes, we should be pleased that we resisted sin.  But we should immediately respond with thankfulness for God's continued intervention and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We only succeeded because of the grace of God. We need to make it an automatic response of caution and attention.  We need to learn to know ourselves,  where we are weak.
And on the flip side of this, when we fall into sin, the only thing God wants from us is repentance and confession.  We fall down and we immediately get up again and keep working at holiness. Instead of beating ourselves up, we need to recognize why we fell and not make that same mistake again.
Repentance, confession and humility.

Interpreting circumstances

Interpreting circumstances is a dangerous endeavor, especially when they are our own.  It is a fairly common practice in Christendom to try to interpret those things taking place around us.  We hear things about God doing this or that or not doing such and such, for some reason.  But the problem is our own extreme limitations, and our tendency to be selfish.  The human life is such short period of time, our own experiences and understanding of history is so incredibly limited and our overall vision of the current state of all things puts us in a position where we really cannot speak with any authority or understanding, when interpreting how circumstances appear or ought to be.

In most situations, we simply do not have enough wisdom or understanding to be able to say, “X is best” or “Y should have gone like such and such.”  But this is not about being fatalistic.  Because the very foundation of who we are is built on love of God and love of neighbor, we must strive to live out that command to love, in the best way that can.  Our understanding may be limited, but we must still act according to principle and conscience.  And when things don’t go the way that we think they should, we must have faith in the love and direction of God.  We are never assured of understanding any particular circumstance. 

We are required to have faith.

Covenants identity and details

One of the arguments that modern evangelicals post against covenant theology is that of identity.  They say,  "God called the Israelites his people. He would not leave them just in order to embrace a different bunch of sinners."
But then it occurred to me. God didn't leave the Israelites, they left him.  There is a  regular pattern in covenant theology.  Each time the current leader of the covenant dies, the rest of the people fall into horrible sin.  Judgment them upon falls, God raises up a new leader,  leads  some of the people through that judgment, and gives more details of his covenant.
This is exactly what has happened with Jesus Christ.  Jesus took the identity of Israel upon himself,  suffered the judgment for Israel's horrible sin,  but God raised him up and lead the few faithful Israelites through that judgment.
He has now given them/us the New Covenant.  God didn't turn his back on the Jews.  He provided a way for them to pass through the judgment against the Old Covenant unfaithful.  Those that listened and followed the new covenant head came into new life and the New Covenant.  Those that didn't turned away from his offer of salvation.

Consideration of worldview

I would like to try to combine a few thoughts that have been plaguing me as of late, of which I have written here.  Some groups within the Christian fold claim that no one can be genuinely happy unless they are a Christian.  And that if someone claims otherwise, they are simply lying because they do not want anything to do with God.
But I have a hard time with that.  I know a pretty wide range of people, many of whom are not Christians, and they seem to project an image of happiness or contentedness.  Maybe it is all a facade, but it would impossible to prove.  Here are my thoughts.
When a child is growing up, his parents communicate to him, both consciously and unconsciously, that things are important, what things are to be sought after and what things are not important.  The child then begins to think on his own, and in most cases, will follow in the path that his parents have started for him.  If he grows and is successful, according to the standards that have been set for him, by his parents and his culture, he will have a sense of accomplishment and contentedness.  Sometimes, upon achieving that goal, or at least hovering around that goal, if some level of spirituality is not included, the child will realize a sense of something missing and will seek out that missing spirituality.
But here is the hard part.  When a child achieves the success that parents and culture have set for him and there is included a sliver of morality/spirituality, there is a fuller sense of accomplishment and therefore no need to seek anything further.  They have achieved what they were raised to achieve.
But this level of temporal accomplishment is far from what the historic church has always held as valuable. Being comfortable, wealthy, healthy and distracted is possibly the greatest foe to achieving holiness.  But if that goal of holiness has never been communicated, but something else, with a sheen or morality is in its place, that holiness will not be pursued or understood as valuable.
This is why the modern form of American Evangelicalism is failing in America.  No need is seen for pursuing holiness, when happiness is already present, when the pre defined goal has already been achieved and the shallow, relatively ignorant and short sighted religiosity is incapable of answering the attacks of critics.
It is easy to stay distracted when the world is at our fingertips, when we are comfortable and when the goal that has been fed to us our entire lives is already in hand.  The church needs to respond.

Interpretive Framework

Protestants handle the Bible just like Muslims handle the Qoran, like Buddhists handle the Book of the Dead and Hindus handle the Bhagavad Gita.  As if all we have is a collection of letters from a now practically absent God, who will return at some unknown future time, to judge us all for what was written.

The Orthodox Church handles the Bible as one aspect of how God communicates to us.  We now serve a living, present, active God, who leads his objective church, by his Holy Spirit.  The Church recognized, canonized, and interprets the Bible.  It is handled and understood properly only within the framework of the church. 

This is why the Protestant world is fragmented.  There is no final authority to whom appeal is made in understanding Scripture.  It has all been reduced to private interpretation.