by Joel V Webb | Jun 5, 2026 | Orthodoxy Matters, Sacraments, Theology & Practice
What is reality? And if we have lost the picture of it in the Christian context, how do we return?
This question and more are handled by Zachary Porcu in this very easy to read and understand, yet deeply profound book. While coming from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, the nature of the topic is still immensely applicable to any believer in any context.
Out of the gate, Porcu sets the stage of where we are currently at. For the most part, many in Western Christianity while truly believing in Christ as Lord and Savior, are in every other respect, functioning secular materialists in their worldview and theology. One thing I have appreciated as I have studied the Eastern Orthodox world more is their intention in ensuring that the way we understand and experience reality is in line with the ancient worldview of the early Church rather than the development that culminates from 19th Century German philosophy. This way of seeing the world does not delineate between the spiritual and the physical as we are so use to. Instead, these two realities are intertwined in an inseparable way that was commonly understood in the ancient world, and by the first followers of Christ.
This way of looking at things has led to many unintended consequences. Rather than seeing how Christ may work in a comprehensive way in all things, we either find ourselves in a tug of war between Christ working individually through salvation, or through society to being about the perfect recreation as He intended. This tension between what can be boiled down to the political left and right, are ultimately incorrect in their ultimate assessment, because again, they are looking at the world, and her problems through the lens as a modern secular materialist.
So what is the answer?
Sacramental Christianity. This word might scare some who come from low-liturgy backgrounds, or have fundamentalist tendencies. Porcu makes the excellent point that the way God now, following the ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit does not just interact with us in a spirit-to-spirit way, as many in the modern west act. Because of the incarnation, God coming in the flesh, that means that He also interacts through what we would call the physical, and this is through sacrament.
Rather than just looking for that “feel good moment”, sacramental Christianity is about knowing that God works through the means of Grace He has instituted in the Church. The primary focus of this is of course Eucharist (Communion, or the Lord’s Supper). As we journey to understanding the Christian faith is more than just a set of beliefs, but a participation in an ongoing story, we then see how we are empowered to follow Christ as we engage in the life of the Church.
Now, I will note, Porcu does list the seven primary sacraments of the Orthodox faith. As a Protestant, I affirm the two sacraments of Baptism & Eucharist. Yet, I do believe that the others on the list may provide similar sacramental benefit, as they are all involved in engaging us in receiving from Christ.
Through the book he uses a simple analogy. Being a electrical unit that needs plugged in to work. At baptism, the believer is plugged into the wall. And then as we participate in sacrament through the life of the Church (primarily Eucharist) it is the electricity that flows to power us. This can help us see the ongoing work of Christ in our lives, rather than always focusing on the one time salvation experience that we are trained to look for.
The focus of Sacramental Christianity is to retrain our minds and worldview, to see existence as the early followers of Jesus would have. Rather than being dulled by materialism and secularism, we are awakened again to a world charged with the presence of God, where heaven and earth are not competing realms but interpenetrating realities. This shift is not merely intellectual—it is deeply formative. It calls us not just to think differently, but to live differently, to recover practices that reorient our desires, our worship, and our understanding of what it means to be human. In many ways, this is a call to repentance at the level of imagination—a turning away from a flattened, disenchanted view of the world toward one that is alive with meaning, mystery, and divine presence.
Porcu’s strength is in his ability to take what could be an abstract philosophical and theological discussion and ground it in the lived experience of the Church. He is not simply arguing for a different framework; he is inviting the reader into a different way of inhabiting reality. That invitation is both challenging and hopeful. Challenging, because it requires us to unlearn deeply ingrained assumptions shaped by modernity—assumptions that have quietly catechized us into seeing faith as private, inward, and largely disconnected from the material world. Hopeful, because it offers a more coherent and holistic vision of the Christian life—one that refuses to reduce salvation to a moment or faith to mere cognition, but instead presents it as an ongoing participation in the life of God.
One of the most helpful contributions of the book is how it exposes the inadequacy of the categories we often use to talk about Christian life and mission. The common dichotomy between “personal salvation” and “social transformation” begins to break down when viewed through a sacramental lens. In a sacramental worldview, Christ is not working in competition between individual hearts and societal structures, but is redeeming and restoring all things in and through His Body, the Church. This reframing helps dissolve some of the ideological tensions that have come to define much of modern Christianity, particularly in the West. What we often interpret as theological disagreement may, at a deeper level, be the result of a shared but unexamined commitment to a secularized understanding of reality.
For those in pastoral ministry, especially within low-church or revivalist traditions, this book serves as a helpful corrective without being unnecessarily polemical. It does not caricature Protestantism, nor does it demand an abandonment of evangelical convictions. Instead, it gently but persistently presses us to consider whether those convictions have been unintentionally narrowed by a secular framework. It asks whether our emphasis on conversion, for example, has been detached from incorporation into a sacramental community, or whether our understanding of grace has been reduced to an internal experience rather than a lived, embodied reality mediated through the Church.
Why this book matters for Protestants
For Protestant readers in particular, Journey to Reality is valuable not because it argues for Eastern Orthodoxy, but because it exposes a blind spot many of us have inherited. Much of Protestant theology, especially in its modern expressions, has been filtered through post-Enlightenment assumptions that subtly reshape how we read Scripture, understand salvation, and practice the Christian life. The result is often a sincere but truncated faith—rich in conviction, yet thin in sacramental depth and cosmic vision.
Porcu’s work helps Protestants recover categories that are not foreign to our tradition, but foundational to it. The Reformers themselves held a robust view of the means of grace, even where they disagreed with Rome or the East on their number and nature. John Wesley, in particular, spoke of the sacraments as “ordinary channels” through which God conveys grace—language that resonates strongly with the vision Porcu presents. In this sense, the book can serve as a retrieval tool, helping Protestants reconnect with aspects of their own theological heritage that have been neglected or overshadowed.
Additionally, this book provides a needed corrective to the tendency toward individualism that pervades much of Protestant practice. By emphasizing participation in the life of the Church, it calls believers out of a purely personal or privatized faith and into a communal, embodied reality. This is not a denial of personal conversion, but a deepening of it—situating it within the ongoing life of worship, sacrament, and discipleship.
It also challenges the reduction of faith to intellectual assent or emotional experience. In many Protestant contexts, the Christian life is often measured by what one knows or feels. Porcu redirects attention to what God is objectively doing through the Church, inviting believers to trust in and submit to those means of grace even when subjective experience fluctuates. This can be especially grounding in seasons of doubt, dryness, or spiritual fatigue.
Perhaps most importantly, Journey to Reality helps Protestants see that recovering a sacramental worldview does not require abandoning core commitments to Scripture, justification by faith, or the authority of the gospel. Rather, it invites a fuller integration of those commitments into a way of life that takes seriously the Incarnation—that God works not only through words and ideas, but through matter, bodies, and created realities.
In that sense, the book is not a threat to Protestant identity, but an invitation to deepen it.
In that sense, Journey to Reality can function as a bridge text—helping Protestants recover a richer sacramental imagination without requiring full agreement with every aspect of Eastern Orthodox theology. As someone who affirms two sacraments rather than seven, I still found Porcu’s broader point compelling: that God’s grace is not limited to internal or invisible means, but is communicated through tangible, embodied practices that shape us over time. Even where there is theological disagreement, there is still much to be gained by wrestling with the vision he presents.
Another notable strength is the accessibility of the book. Porcu avoids overly technical language without sacrificing depth. His use of analogy—particularly the image of being “plugged in” at baptism and continually energized through participation in the sacramental life of the Church—is simple but effective. It provides a helpful way of understanding the continuity of the Christian life, pushing back against the tendency to overemphasize a one-time decision while neglecting the ongoing means by which God sustains and transforms His people.
This also has significant pastoral implications. In many of our contexts, believers struggle with assurance, spiritual dryness, or a sense that their faith is stagnant. A sacramental framework offers a different approach. Rather than constantly looking inward for evidence of spiritual vitality or chasing emotional experiences, it directs us outward—to the concrete means of grace given to the Church. It roots the Christian life not in fluctuating feelings, but in the steady, objective work of God through Word and sacrament.
At a broader level, Porcu’s work invites us to reconsider what we mean by “reality” itself. If reality is fundamentally sacramental—if it is created and sustained by God, and continually bearing His presence—then the Christian life is not about escaping the world, nor merely managing it better. It is about rightly perceiving it and rightly participating in it. This has implications not only for worship, but for ethics, vocation, and daily life. Work, relationships, creation care, and even suffering can be reinterpreted within a framework where God is actively present and at work.
Of course, readers from different traditions will engage the book in different ways. Some may find certain claims overstated or wish for more nuance in areas of theological disagreement. Others may feel a tension between Porcu’s presentation and their own ecclesial commitments. Yet even where one does not fully agree, the central thrust of the book remains valuable. It raises questions that many of us have not been trained to ask, and it challenges assumptions that have long gone unquestioned.
Ultimately, Porcu reminds us that Christianity is not simply about escaping the world or fixing it through purely human means. It is about participation in the life of God, made available to us through Christ, and continually mediated by the Spirit through the life of the Church. To return to reality, then, is to return to this participatory vision—to see, receive, and live in a world where God is truly present and at work, not just in extraordinary moments, but in the ordinary rhythms of sacramental life.
This is a short book, but it carries weight far beyond its length. It is accessible enough for the average church member, yet substantive enough to provoke deeper theological reflection and meaningful pastoral application. I would especially recommend it to pastors, teachers, and thoughtful laypeople who sense that something is missing in the way faith is often practiced in the modern West. For those willing to engage it seriously, Journey to Reality offers not just a critique, but a path forward—a way of recovering a fuller, richer, and more faithful vision of the Christian life.
by Joel V Webb | May 28, 2026 | Orthodoxy Matters, Theology & Practice
I think all of us are familiar with the words of Christ from Matthew 7:20, “Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” We all understand what is being presented, what we produce tells us what we are all about. This too can be said about the kind of disciple that the Church produces. A great example of this is to just look at someone’s pet. So often, the type of person someone is can be seen in their pet. How are they trained, are they skittish, aggressive, shy etc…
My hope is that this is all of our goals in life. The purpose of the Christian life is to be the image of God. To do what we were created to do and look like our creator. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition this theology goes under the name of theosis, “becoming like God”, or “deification.” In my own Methodist tradition we call this Entire Sanctification, or Perfect Love, where the love of Christ is made so thoroughly in us that while we are not perfect in our performance (still being a fallible human), our love, intention or bent has been wholly shaped towards Christ.
This goal, I believe, is the fullness of the Christian life. Not some shallow “fire insurance” joke, where we just skip outta going to hell, but the actual purpose or telos of our creation, to be like the one who made us and loves us. And, by extension of all of this, I believe that this is the mission of the Church. That above everything else is to produce saints—those that look like Christ.
A particular practice that I have picked up last year, when talking about certain people from the Bible and Church history, is to use the honorific “Saint” in front of their name. This title recognizes how that person imaged Christ through thick or thin, and set an example for all of us as to how to follow Jesus no matter what. The fruit of their lives is that they are remembered and known as a saint, one who became like Christ.
The Church is not called to produce leaders as its primary end, but saints, and that distinction shapes everything about how we do ministry.
But what happens when we in the Church forget what we are about? What do we forget, whether in language or action, our purpose and mission? Sure, we know we are to produce something, but what? In recent months I have been confronted with the tacit proposition that our goal is to produce leaders, and it is then through those leaders who produce disciples. For those who have the vision to produce leaders who then make other leaders and disciples, I have no question of their motives. They love Christ and love His Church, and have the best of intentions to grow the Kingdom. They want to see a next generation embrace following Christ and spreading the Gospel to a world in desperate need of His healing.
Where the disconnect comes in is how we go about doing it. There’s a lesson for us to be learned in our day. The methods of leadership development, coaching, advertising and structuring look attractive. They work in the business world, shouldn’t they work in the Church? But the question we need to ask is not, “do they work”, but rather, “is this what we should be doing?”
I spent time in the real estate world in the area of development. I’ve attended countless leadership development and coaching sessions, conferences and seminars all about building your sphere of influence, inspirational ability, sales pipeline, talking points and the like. Those things work, and they are good when you are trying to sell something. These events are crafted for the sake of moving people towards the skills they need to do their work well. And it does work. But is it for us in the Church?
We in the Church are in a completely different sort of work. We don’t sell. Through Christ we shepherd immortal souls. We are not out there trying to invigorate people to get excited about the next initiative. We are called to faithfully preach the Word, and administer the sacraments, knowing that through the power of the Holy Spirit we will be transformed to look like Christ.
During the height of Norse pagan conquest of Anglo-Saxon England, it was the missionary work out of Iona and Lindisfarne on Holy Island from faithful servants like St. Columba and St. Aidan that saw the ravaged land of England and boldly took the Gospel, slowly but surely reconquering the land for Christ as it had once been. These missionary monks were from Ireland, and had been trained by those influenced by St. Patrick, who himself had been from Roman Britain and went and evangelized and converted Ireland for the Gospel.
The entire time, their work was something totally unlike that of how those around them were conquering. While the pagan Vikings conquered England by the sword, these monks emulated Christ and boldly proclaimed the Gospel, even if it meant their death.
It is totally understandable. The Western world is tough right now for the Church, especially denominations. And I am not in a position of leadership outside of my local parish, so I don’t fully understand the perspective or the pressures. But what I do know is the difference in the work we are doing. Yes, we need structures and processes. We need to plan and strategize. But how we in the Church go about that is not acting as if we are dealing with a business that sells widgets and gadgets. Our task is good stewardship in what we have been blessed with. But the product of our work is not leaders or initiatives. It is saints.
How we go about the work of the Kingdom matters—not just that we are doing the work. Sure, we can dress up business models, leadership pipelines and development, growth initiatives and the like. And they might work for a time. We might see raging success and things happen. But in the end, is that work producing results…or is it producing saints? I firmly believe the Church is called to multiply and grow. Yet, the question sits in my mind: what are we multiplying, and how are we doing it?
Leadership is not the telos of the Church; sainthood is. Leaders may be necessary, even beneficial, but they are not the end for which the Body of Christ exists. The Church is not called to produce influence, scale, or organizational success, but to form people who bear the image of Christ in holiness and love. Leadership, rightly understood, emerges as a byproduct of sanctification; those conformed to Christ will often guide and shepherd others. But when leadership itself becomes the goal, we risk substituting competence for communion and effectiveness for faithfulness. The true measure of the Church is not how many leaders it raises up, but whether it is forming saints whose lives radiate the life of God.
When we forget to see the ends to which we are called, we can get lost in the means of going about it. When we get sidetracked by the methods and structures of how someone else operates and try to import it into our world, we start losing the plot to why we even exist. Sure, St. Aidan and St. Columba could have inspired the reconquest of England by Christians. But they knew that wasn’t their way of going about things. They embraced that their task was souls.
We are called to that same task today.
by Joel V Webb | Apr 16, 2026 | Orthodoxy Matters, Theology & Practice
Whenever we open up the book of Revelation we immediately put on the glasses of “THE END OF THE WORLD!”, and in doing so we interpret everything that St. John writes is speaking to some future event(s) that will happen in a certain way. And while yes, there certainly are parts of Revelation yet to happen (in my view we are in-between chp. 20 & 21) that have yet to take place at the final consummation and the restoration of Eden throughout the whole world as we who are redeemed are raised to life in new resurrected bodies..
But what if in only at looking at Revelation this way is actually pigeon-holing the vision that St. John received. That by assigning only future value to what is written in the words of the strangest and most mis-understood book in Scripture we are missing out on the beauty and strength that the Holy Spirit has for the Church as we continue as faithful workers in the harvest field until He comes again?
I propose, rather than seeing the images as just future events, we instead look at Revelation as a rallying call for us here and now. Not just as a description of events in the first-century back then, or a future-century ahead of us…but rather as an immensely captivating stained-glass kaleidoscope of what we as believers living here and now are called to participate in. Revelation is not just an image of the end, but actually of the beginning that started in Acts 2 and carries on to us today through to Christ’s coming again.
The picture that St. John paints are not of literal future literal bowls, trumpets, beasts and destruction; but rather as prophetic and otherworldly icon of the worship of the Church as we join in endless worship of the Creator, Sustainer and Savior. The call to this kind of worship is to be faithful in the face of whatever the devil and world throw our way. Not as a get outta dodge at the last moment.
The Throne and Living Creatures
Revelation 4:2-11 (NIV) – At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. 4 Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.” Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
Imagine the transcendent majesty of God’s throne, resplendent in jasper, carnelian, and an emerald rainbow encircling its glory, surrounded by a vast crystal sea and flashes of lightning that proclaim His eternal power. At its center stand the four living creatures, lion, ox, man, and eagle (the 4 images associated with each of the Gospel accounts), covered with eyes signifying divine omniscience, each with six wings veiling their forms as they ceaselessly intone, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” In reverent response, the twenty-four elders, clothed in white robes and bearing golden crowns, prostrate themselves, casting their crowns before the throne while declaring, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” The early church fathers, such as Irenaeus, interpreted these creatures as emblematic of animated creation itself, representing noble wildness, faithful servitude, rational humanity, and swift spiritual insight, united in perpetual praise around the divine presence. This vision models the Church’s priestly vocation: vigilant, Trinitarian doxology that shapes our earthly liturgy, inviting believers today to join heaven’s ceaseless anthem with eyes attuned to God’s holiness amid the world’s distractions.
The Slain Lamb
Revelation 5:6-14 (NIV) – Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praised and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.
From this sovereign scene emerges the Lamb, standing as though slain yet radiant with seven horns of perfect power and seven eyes, the seven Spirits of God, taking the sealed scroll from the right hand of Him who sits upon the throne. Instantly, myriads upon myriads of angels encircle in thunderous acclaim: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Their voices swell as every creature in heaven and on earth, under the earth and in the sea, echoes back eternal “Amen,” while elders and living beings fall prostrate in clouds of incense-filled worship. Early interpreters like Victorinus of Pettau regarded this as the unveiled mystery of the gospel following Christ’s Incarnation, where the Lamb’s sacrificial triumph shifts creation’s praise from Creator alone to the Redeemer who conquers through blood. This Christocentric liturgy typifies the Church as the Lamb’s Bride, empowered to sing the “new song” of salvation in our sacraments; it calls us to Eucharistic participation today, savoring redemption’s foretaste and anticipating the great marriage supper of the Lamb in heavenly consummation.
The Global Multitude
Revelation 7:9-17 (NIV) – After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
Before the throne and Lamb appears a great multitude that no one could number, drawn from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing robed in white with palm branches of triumph, their voices united in exultation: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!” Angels, elders, and living creatures encircle them, ascribing blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might forevermore, revealing the blood-washed throng eternally shepherded, hungering and thirsting no more beside the river of life. The patristic tradition, linking this to Ezekiel’s life-giving river and Pentecost’s tongues of fire, understood it as the sealed Church emerging victorious through tribulation, the full harvest of souls waving palms in eschatological joy. This image embodies our present calling as a diverse priesthood in creation: conformed to heavenly citizenship now, our worship becomes a defiant conqueror amid chaos, embodying Pentecost’s promise until the final victory when every knee bows and every tongue confesses the Lamb’s reign.
A Call to Worship
These three prophetic images of the throne’s living creatures chanting Holy, holy, holy, the slain Lamb receiving universal blessing, and the global multitude waving palms in victory offer just a glimpse of the breathtaking beauty the Holy Spirit unveils through St. John. They reveal Christ’s Church, from the Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost in Acts 2 to His glorious return in Revelation 22, perpetually joined in cosmic worship of the Lamb who was slain yet now reigns victorious forever on heaven’s throne.
Read Revelation this way; as Sacred Scripture truly intends and the glasses of fear and end-times dread shatter. In their place rises wonder, enchantment, and holy awe at God’s matchless beauty who He is: the Creator enthroned, rainbow-girded, eyes ever watchful. And what He’s done: redeeming us through the Lamb’s blood to sing the new song with every creature in sea and sky. This vision doesn’t paralyze; it propels. Our worship becomes defiant Hallelujahs! amid tribulation’s seals, trumpets, and bowls, faithful labor in the harvest fields where souls still ripen for the kingdom. We preview the throne-room marriage feast, robed in white, palms raised, as the Bride made ready.
Church, this is our calling now: to live these heavenly patterns on earth. Next week: How is Revelation’s worship reflected when you gather to hear the Word, receive the Sacraments and go into the world as a faithful witness of Christ our Lord?
by Joel V Webb | Mar 10, 2026 | Orthodoxy Matters, Theology & Practice
One of the prayers I think every Christian prays for that echoes the words of Christ from St. John’s Gospel, chapter 17: “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” (v.21). Where things get sticky is what we all mean by “one.” If you are a Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican, your ecclesiology (theology of the Church) differs from that of your run-of-the-mill Evangelical or Baptist. For the traditional Christian, the Church is often visualized as an ark (like Noah’s ark) that is sailing through history, with people getting on and off as time passed. Whereas, in a low-church understanding, “the Church” is not a single entity, but a blueprint found in the Bible that is made to be reproduced. Because of these different understandings, the answer to the prayer to “be one” looks different.
In the New Testament, the Church is described as a body—many members, but one life. The image St. Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 12 goes far beyond metaphor: it is the reality of what the Holy Spirit does with the people of God. There aren’t multiple bodies of Christ, only one. When we are baptized, we are joined not merely to Christ but to one another, across all ages, cultures, and nations. Congregations are expressions of that one Body, not separate bodies with their own identity. To be a Christian, then, is never an individual or local affair—it is to belong to something both visible and historical.
But the Church through time has not always lived that reality well. It has divided again and again—sometimes for tragic reasons, sometimes for necessary ones. In truth, some divisions have been like emergency surgeries: painful, but at times necessary to save life. Others, however, have been the result of human ego, political pressure, or differing cultural forms. Once the crisis passes, though, the call remains the same—to heal what has been torn.
Take, for example, our own Methodist heritage. John Wesley never intended to start a new church. A lifelong Anglican priest, he described the Methodist movement as an effort “to reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land.” Methodism in its origin was not a schism—it was a renewal movement within the Church of England. Lay preachers, class meetings, and field preaching were ways to reawaken the life of grace in ordinary believers. It was only after the American Revolution, when Anglican clergy were scarce and Wesley reluctantly sent Thomas Coke to ordain new ministers for the colonies, that Methodism took on a distinct ecclesial form—the Methodist Episcopal Church. Even then, Wesley saw Methodism as a continuation of the one Church, not a replacement for it. The split was pastoral and practical, not theological.
A century later, the Free Methodist Church emerged from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1860s. The reasons were morally serious and historically necessary: a stand against slavery sympathizers, a desire for “free seats” when pew rentals had become a social barrier for the poor, and a concern to preserve holiness preaching when the larger body was becoming formal and complacent. B. T. Roberts and others didn’t separate to rebel, but to stay faithful to the Spirit’s movement within Methodism itself. The goal was not to leave the people called Methodists—it was to keep their original fire alive.
This is where we must recover a patristic vision of the Church: not as disconnected islands of believers floating independently through time, but as one unified body moving inexorably through history under Christ’s headship. The early fathers—like Ignatius, Irenaeus, and Cyprian—taught that the Church is a single, organic reality, handed down from the apostles, growing and correcting itself across generations. Splits may scar the body, but they do not create new bodies; the one Church persists, calling her wounded members back into communion. For low-church Protestants, this doesn’t mean hierarchy or ritualism—it means seeing our local assembly as a vital part of that ancient, living organism, linked by baptism, creed, and Scripture to every faithful Christian from Pentecost to today.
But the question we must ask today, with gratitude for those who came before us, is whether the reasons that once made divisions necessary still remain. The Church of England that Wesley knew is not the same as the Anglicanism that exists today. Interestingly, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been deeply shaped by the kind of Spirit-led, Scripture-centered renewal that Methodism championed in the eighteenth century. Anyone looking at ACNA congregations can see strong echoes of early Methodism’s heartbeat—biblical preaching, small-group discipleship, evangelistic zeal, and a hunger for holiness. In a sense, Wesley’s children have helped their Anglican mother recover her vitality. Perhaps that mutual influence is a sign that old wounds might be ready for healing.
Likewise, within Methodism itself, we find new alignments forming. The rise of the Global Methodist Church (GMC) represents a desire to reclaim both scriptural faithfulness and Wesleyan integrity. The brokenness that once split Methodism in the nineteenth century over moral and doctrinal drift may be resolving in our own time through renewed clarity, holiness, and mission. If the theological and moral crises that once necessitated fracture have given way to faithful reform, then perhaps it is time to ask not how to multiply more branches, but how those branches might graft once more into one living tree.
Christian unity doesn’t mean uniformity. It doesn’t mean abandoning our distinctives. It means recognizing that the Body of Christ is one—not only across geography, but across history. It means realizing that our hope lies not in our denominational franchises but in our shared participation in the life of Christ. If the Free Methodist, the Global Methodist, and the Anglican find themselves proclaiming the same gospel and pursuing the same holiness, perhaps it is time to start praying and working toward a visible unity that testifies to the world: Jesus truly is Lord.
Our divisions may have had their reasons, but when those reasons die, so should our excuses for staying apart. The Church is one Body, sailing through time like an ark on God’s mission of redemption. It’s time for those who have stepped off along the way to start rowing toward one another again—until the ship of the Church, battered but unsinkable, carries us all home together.
by Joel V Webb | Dec 10, 2025 | Orthodoxy Matters, Theology & Practice, Uncategorized
Modern Christians love to sing about “tradition” when Tevye belts it out in Fiddler on the Roof, but many of us grow uneasy when the same word comes up in church. We instinctively feel the pull of Tevye’s point: tradition gives shape, identity, and continuity to a people; take it away, and everything wobbles. Yet when it comes to the Christian faith, we often imagine we can live on “Bible alone” in a way that somehow bypasses tradition altogether. The irony is that, just like the villagers of Anatevka, we already live by powerful inherited patterns—ways of worshipping, reading Scripture, praying, and organizing church life—that were handed down to us, even if no one ever called them “tradition.”
One of the cornerstones of the Protestant Reformation was the reclamation of Scripture as the central infallible rule of faith. Meaning that no matter what, Scripture is the ultimate authority in all things of faith and practice. As someone in a tradition downstream from Anglicanism, we see this in Article 6 of the 39 Articles (which are the confessional and theological foundation of Anglicanism, and were as well for early Methodism), “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”
And I agree with this. Scripture is essential and of all importance because it is to us a direct revelation of God. Yet, from this also stems a primary frustration. For some Protestants there is always that ‘dirty word’ hiding in the corner…tradition. Like many, I grew up believing that tradition is bad, if not evil, and that tradition is what keeps people away from God. Whenever tradition came up, it always had something to do with those Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, or other Christians who dressed funny, and certainly didn’t worship “in the Spirit”, because they were all bound up by their traditions.
Well, for anyone who has known me the last several years, you know I now have a very different answer. Tradition is not bad. Ironically, WE ALL HAVE TRADITION! The question we often fail to ask is, “do I acknowledge my own traditions”. Because, if we don’t, we are actually more controlled by those traditions than we realize, because they are hidden. And this is the fatal deceit we Protestants often fall prey to. We think tradition is bad, and that tradition is not an authority.
But again, we can’t get away from the truth that tradition is always going to be there. And here’s the other thing we must realize. Interpretation of Scripture outside of tradition is just as likely to lead us into heretical teachings that it is into orthodox ones. Just ask Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, Ellen G. White, and the list goes on. As Protestants we must have tradition, otherwise we will continue into an endlessly featuring web of church splits and every more specified denominations over small matters of interpretation.
Now, this is not to say there are no reasons for separation. There certainly are. But when we fail to understand that tradition is authoritative, sometimes we look to as a rule of interpretation, it can help us in maintaining true Christian unity.
Over the last few years, I’ve come to see that tradition, properly understood, is not a rival to Scripture but a servant of it. The great creeds and confessions of the Church were not written to replace the Bible, they were written to safeguard its message, to offer faithful summaries of what the Church across time and place has understood Scripture to teach. When we recite the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, we are not adding to the Bible; we are joining our voices to a two‑thousand‑year chorus of believers who have wrestled with the same questions, doubts, and heresies we face today.
At its simplest, tradition functions like a set of guardrails on a mountain road. It does not confine us; it keeps us from tumbling into error while still allowing for movement, discovery, and growth. It gives us perspective—reminding us that the Church did not begin with our generation, nor with the Reformers, nor even with the apostles, but with the eternal purpose of God carried out through time. When we cut ourselves off from that inheritance, we risk spiritual amnesia.
The irony, of course, is that the Reformers themselves were deeply traditional. Luther and Calvin constantly appealed to the early Fathers—Augustine, Chrysostom, Athanasius—not because they thought those writers were infallible, but because they knew that faithful interpretation does not happen in a vacuum. “Sola Scriptura” never meant “Solo Scriptura.” The former places Scripture at the center of authority; the latter isolates it from the Church that bears witness to it.
Many modern Christians assume they have escaped “tradition” simply because they don’t follow a written liturgy or historic creed, but that does not mean they are tradition‑free; it just means their traditions are invisible to them. The way a church structures its services, chooses its music, teaches about salvation, organizes leadership, and even dresses on Sunday are all patterns that have been received, repeated, and defended over time, that is, they are traditions. When these homegrown traditions go unacknowledged, they are rarely tested against Scripture or the wider wisdom of the Church, and so they can quietly harden into non‑negotiable identity markers. The more Protestants distance themselves from historic Christian tradition; creeds, catechisms, classical liturgy, and a common sacramental life, the more each community is forced to invent itself from scratch, which only accelerates fragmentation, doctrinal confusion, and church splits. If this trajectory continues, the body of Christ will become increasingly divided into isolated tribes, each mistaking its own unexamined habits for pure, tradition‑less Christianity, rather than humbly receiving and discerning the tested traditions that once held believers together.
Healthy Christian tradition is not just anything that has been done for a long time; it is the Church’s tested, communal wisdom about how to believe and live the gospel under Scripture. Good tradition gathers up biblical teaching in stable forms—creeds, catechisms, liturgies, patterns of discipleship—that help ordinary believers confess the faith clearly and avoid well‑worn errors. At the same time, because Scripture remains the final norm, even long‑standing practices and assumptions must stay open to correction and reform. Naming this explicitly helps people see that the choice is not between “Bible or tradition,” but between unexamined, private traditions and accountable, Scripture‑shaped ones.
If tradition is to be received and discerned wisely, it has to be held by more than isolated individuals; it belongs to the Church as a concrete, visible community across time and space. Councils, confessions, agreed forms of worship, and recognized teachers are ways the Church has historically said, “This is what we together hear in Scripture,” rather than leaving every question to personal improvisation. When the gathered Church, under the Word and in dependence on the Spirit, tests and hands on tradition, it offers a shared framework that can restrain fragmentation and correct local excesses. Recovering this sense of the Church as a real, tradition‑bearing body helps modern Protestants move from “me and my Bible” toward “we, the Church, listening together to the Scriptures,” which is where genuine unity and faithful reform become possible.
Ultimately, the goal is not to exalt tradition for its own sake, but to love and know Christ more faithfully. Scripture is God’s Word written; tradition is the Church’s memory of how that Word has been lived and confessed. We need both if we are to remain rooted and flourishing in a fragmented world. Perhaps the way forward for Protestantism is not to abandon its Reformation principles, but to deepen them—to see in the Reformers not just critics of the past, but faithful heirs of a much older and larger communion of saints.
by Joel V Webb | Nov 21, 2025 | Orthodoxy Matters, Theology & Practice
One of the perennial issues of discussion, disagreement, and consternation in modern Christianity is how to solve a “problem” like the book of Revelation (cue The Sound of Music). It is one of the most talked-about and also one of the most misunderstood books of the Bible, precisely because of what makes it so beautiful. It is mysterious, symbolic, imaginative, and at first glance feels opaque enough that Christians often fall back on whatever interpretive framework they inherited. And for many in the Western church, that inherited lens is some version of the dispensational, end-times schema popularized by the Left Behind series.
Recently, a parishioner asked me how to understand Revelation, and I realized quickly that a simple five-minute conversation wouldn’t be enough. The questions behind Revelation are not only about interpretation but about imagination. We need to untangle what the text actually says from the assumptions we bring to it. And this is difficult, because for many Christians even those who do not personally identify as dispensational, our cultural imagination has been shaped by that system. The idea of a seven-year tribulation, an individual Antichrist, a secret rapture, and a sequence of future political events culminating in Armageddon often feels like it “must” be biblical because we’ve heard the system so often and so confidently.
But when we slow down, open the Scriptures, read Revelation in its own historical and literary context, and listen to the witness of the early Church, we discover something surprisingly simple: Revelation is not about decoding a timeline. It is about unveiling the triumph of Jesus Christ and the call for His people to remain faithful in a world that often opposes the Lamb.
It is striking that the book opens not with a puzzle but with a blessing: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy” (Revelation 1:3). The early Church never treated Revelation as a secret codebook but as a proclamation, prophetic imagery meant to comfort persecuted Christians, strengthen their worship, and remind them that the Lamb reigns even when Rome seems unshakable.
This is precisely how the earliest Christian writers approached the book. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, did take Revelation seriously as prophecy, but he always tied its hope to the victory already won by Christ. He wrote, “The name of our Lord… is the faith which brings salvation” (Against Heresies 3.18.7). The point is not prediction. The point is fidelity. Origen, commenting on Revelation’s imagery, said that the visions “are to be understood spiritually” and that the book “reveals what Christ has done and is doing” (Commentary on John 2.2). Even Augustine, often accused unfairly of over-allegorizing, was simply following the pastoral instinct of the Church before him when he said that Revelation displays the reality that “the Church is always under trial… yet is always victorious through Christ” (City of God 20.9).
For the early Church, the primary message of Revelation was not fear of what might come, but confidence in what has already come: the Lamb who was slain now stands (Revelation 5:6). Christ’s victory is not future, it is the very lens through which the future must be seen.
This is also why the historic Church never taught a seven-year tribulation. That idea simply does not appear anywhere in Revelation. It emerged from a very particular reading of Daniel 9, developed in the 1800s, in which dispensational writers “paused” Daniel’s 70th week and moved it thousands of years into the future. No Christian writer, east or west, taught this before the modern period. For the early Christians, the “tribulation” was the reality of discipleship in a world that crucified Jesus and still resists His reign (cf. John 16:33). As Tertullian wrote, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”—not because the Church awaits a future seven years of horror, but because tribulation is the normal environment of faithful witness.
Likewise, the idea of a single end-times Antichrist figure does not come from Revelation either. The only place in Scripture that uses the word “antichrist” is the Johannine epistles, and there John says plainly: “Many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18). It is a category, people and powers opposed to Christ—not a cinematic villain. Revelation’s beast imagery is not about a future political leader waiting in the wings; it is prophetic imagery about oppressive empire, idolatrous power, and systems that stand against the Lamb. Early Christians knew this. Victorinus, the earliest commentator on Revelation (3rd century), wrote, “The beast signifies worldly kingdoms… opposed to the Church” (Commentary on Revelation 13). Not an individual. Not a future dictator. A system. A pattern. A recurring reality in history.
In other words, Revelation is not predicting a future empire in exact detail, it is revealing the spiritual nature of all empires that wage war against the Lamb (Revelation 17:14). And the Lamb wins.
Even the Reformers and later theologians continued this historic reading. Luther was initially suspicious of Revelation, but even he insisted its purpose was to “reveal Christ and testify to Him.” Calvin did not write a commentary on Revelation, but he preached from it confidently, saying, “The sum of all prophecy is that God in Christ reconciles the world to Himself.” John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, reads Revelation as a symbolic depiction of Christ’s ongoing victory and the Church’s call to endurance. Wesley wrote, “The sum of this book is that God governs all things by His providence, for the good of His people.” He never once suggested an end-times timeline, a seven-year tribulation, or a single Antichrist figure.
It is important to say this gently and pastorally: the dispensational approach is very new. It arose in the 1830s through John Nelson Darby, was popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible, and became mainstream in America only in the 20th century. That does not make dispensationalists bad Christians, many of them love Jesus deeply. But it does mean their interpretive framework is not the standard Christian reading and should not be assumed as normative.
This brings us back to Revelation itself, the text, the imagery, the hope. When we set aside the pressure to decode it, Revelation becomes astonishingly clear: the crucified and risen Jesus is the center of all history. The visions unveil not chaos but order; not fear but faithfulness; not despair but triumph. Revelation tells us that the powers of this world may roar, but they are doomed to collapse. The martyrs may seem forgotten, but they stand before the throne in glory (Revelation 7:9–14). The Church may feel besieged, but she is protected by the Lamb who walks among the lampstands (Revelation 1:12–13). The dragon may rage, but it has already been cast down (Revelation 12:7–10). Babylon may boast, but she is fallen before the word is even spoken (Revelation 18:2). Heaven’s cry is not “fear what is coming,” but “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 5:12).
Revelation is not announcing that Christ will win someday. It is announcing that Christ has won already.
And because He has won, the Church can be faithful even when the world looks like Rome, even when suffering feels heavy, even when the powers rage. Faithfulness is the call; worship is the weapon; perseverance is the witness. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28).
When we read Revelation in continuity with the early Church, with the Reformers, with Wesley, and with the whole sweep of Christian interpretation before the 19th century, we discover that its message is not a coded warning but a cosmic proclamation: Jesus reigns. The Lamb has conquered. The nations will be healed. And God will dwell with His people.
Revelation is not a puzzle to solve but a vision to behold. And when we behold it, without the unnecessary weight of modern timelines—we find precisely what John intended his hearers to find: courage, clarity, and the unshakeable hope that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ” (Revelation 11:15).
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