Gosh this is really illuminating. Comer was a teacher at the nondenominational church I went to for a year, but eventually I ended up entering the process of converting to orthodox Christianity, because well…. Heresies don’t lead to good places.
I can recall him teaching things like the need to pray to work with god to establish his kingd…
Gosh this is really illuminating. Comer was a teacher at the nondenominational church I went to for a year, but eventually I ended up entering the process of converting to orthodox Christianity, because well…. Heresies don’t lead to good places.
I can recall him teaching things like the need to pray to work with god to establish his kingdom among us… I would sum up comers view, though maybe I’m also influenced by the broader church’s view, as something like: God is the person beyond who loves us dearly and if we just reach out to him we will meet him. Thus we should pray to try to enter a relationship with him where we hear him speak to us directly and guide our actions in the world, and feel the “presence of the Holy Spirit.”
In contrast, I quickly learned that this is a very very heretical view once I started coming to the Orthodox Church. God is not a person — he is three persons, one essence, and everywhere present. He’s not completely inaccessible — but no, he will not speak to us in prayer. The Orthodox Church teaches that this is more often than not demonic deception, as God has laid out his word in the Bible, he has no need to speak to us in this way. If we want to feel his presence, we must first give up our sin, so we can be transformed in holiness and likeness to him. The fruits of the spirits come as holy replacements to the passions.
It’s sort of a reversal: Comer recommends seeking God out through spiritual experience, the Orthodox Church sternly warns against this—stressing that god grants us salvation, the process of healing, through the church and through giving up our sin. Its honestly more and more scary as I think about it 😓 nauseating, really
Gosh this is really illuminating. Comer was a teacher at the nondenominational church I went to for a year, but eventually I ended up entering the process of converting to orthodox Christianity, because well…. Heresies don’t lead to good places.
I can recall him teaching things like the need to pray to work with god to establish his kingdom among us… I would sum up comers view, though maybe I’m also influenced by the broader church’s view, as something like: God is the person beyond who loves us dearly and if we just reach out to him we will meet him. Thus we should pray to try to enter a relationship with him where we hear him speak to us directly and guide our actions in the world, and feel the “presence of the Holy Spirit.”
In contrast, I quickly learned that this is a very very heretical view once I started coming to the Orthodox Church. God is not a person — he is three persons, one essence, and everywhere present. He’s not completely inaccessible — but no, he will not speak to us in prayer. The Orthodox Church teaches that this is more often than not demonic deception, as God has laid out his word in the Bible, he has no need to speak to us in this way. If we want to feel his presence, we must first give up our sin, so we can be transformed in holiness and likeness to him. The fruits of the spirits come as holy replacements to the passions.
It’s sort of a reversal: Comer recommends seeking God out through spiritual experience, the Orthodox Church sternly warns against this—stressing that god grants us salvation, the process of healing, through the church and through giving up our sin. Its honestly more and more scary as I think about it 😓 nauseating, really