I should probably introduce myself...

Howdy y'all! This is not my first post (I just put that up over in the Creation vs. Evolution board), but I should probably introduce myself.

My name is Steve Allen. I was raised as an independent, fundamental Baptist in Frederick, MD. My education was a combination of private and home school. After that, I attended and graduated from ('06) Golden State Baptist College in Santa Clara, CA with a BA in Pastoral Theology. Then I was the pianist for Pastor Mike Ray in Napa, CA for three years.

After that, I became Eastern Orthodox, which I am still. (I help with the chanting and sing in the choir.)

A Reformed Baptist acquaintance of mine who is looking into Orthodoxy mentioned this forum in one of our conversations, and I thought I'd join up. I'm not here to fight or argue, or even really to talk about Orthodoxy unless you ask, and even then I'll probably prefer PM's. I'm here mostly to lurk, frankly, but I'll probably share things we might all appreciate from time to time. .... quotes, memes, etc.

I love the Scriptures, particularly the Psalms, Isaiah, and Hebrews. And James, and the letters of John, and Ephesians, and ... well, the list goes on, right?

I met and married my wife in 2014, and we have two children (so far). She was Church of God before, and now Orthodox with me.

We currently live and worship in Mesa, AZ.

I'm into Science Fiction & Fantasy, the Church Fathers, tabletop gaming, music (both playing and singing), all things ancient, Church History, guns, and martial arts/self defense.

I work from home as a database and website programmer and business consultant.

I think that about covers it! Ask me anything....no guarantees you'll like the answer, but I'll do my best.

 

@InTheLight I'll take a look! Always interested in recommendations.

 

Well, since you asked (Matt. 5:24) ...

The short version (which I'm not defending it here, just outlining) is that the claims of the IFB movement with respect to their spiritual ancestry didn't hold water, especially when compared with their own (much more correct, frankly) ecclesiological claims, so I went and found the Church whose claims did.*

I examined, in detail, the claims of The Two Babylons, The Trail of Blood, Martyr's Mirror, and other such books and pamphlets, including the history of each of the groups listed in those and claimed as progenitors by Baptists. When the details are in view, the claims that they were somehow "proto-Baptists" become individually laughable, and while the narrative is nice the details tell a quite different story. Even when you limit the comparison to "follow the Scriptures only" -- well, suffice it to say that even there the details betray the narrative.

So why did I not join Rome? you might ask in response. Many do, after all. In short, because the ecclesiological claims of Rome do not match up with the Scripture. (On this, I still agree with the IFB, and with largely the same set of objections, and then some.)

The following document was not formational to my conversion -- I found it after the fact -- but it does do a good job of outlining things ecclesiologically.

And in learning the doctrine of the Faith as received in the Church I found, I can truly say (and gladly!) that I've never found more depth and interconnectedness in the Scriptures -- all of them. (Not just the bits people like to underline.) I've never seen and known Christ so clearly. And all without having to do hermeneutical gymnastics to get around some pretty obvious stuff, either.

So long story short -- the things I was taught by my IFB pastors and teachers to love and expect about Christ and the Church and the Scriptures, I found, completely, not in IFB-dom, nor even in Protestantism generally, nor in Rome, but in Orthodoxy. And so here I am.

Thanks for asking!

----

* Of course, you might object that I lost the "independent" part, and that's partly true -- totally true, in fact, in the sense that IFB's use it. However, the "independent" part is nowhere found in Scripture anyway -- the Scripture in fact shows the local churches to be interdependent and conciliar, not independent -- so no big loss there. (This was something that bothered me even while I was still solidly IFB!)

 

Thanks everybody for the warm welcome!

 

Thanks, @Salty!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

Uh .... oops. I forgot to link the document! haha

Here you go.

The Church is One