I was good all night. Not one hand chopped nor an eye gouged!
I stumbled on the article linked below early this morning. My initial reaction is that the writer ought just to become Orthodox and be done with it, but you folks might find it interesting. Much of what he says is surprisingly insightful coming from an American Protestant, though I may be being unfair since the flood of converts to Orthodoxy we are seeing especially here in No. America is predominantly made up of evangelicals, many of them former seminarians so maybe your co-religionists know, or are open to more than I had imagined.
http://www.ovrlnd.com/GeneralInformation/Oden_Method.html
Oden seems to make much of consensus and the the assembly of some body of belief and practice that Western, Eastern, Reformers can sign off on so as to present a more unified, and therefore effective, face to the unbelieving world.
Not an unusual or original idea, perhaps the depth and “systematic” aspects of his efforts are.
He mentions two subjects that I would comment further on: The first is what is oft called the “Grand Commission” of Matthew 28:19,20, which evangelicals have taken as their marching orders to convert the world.
The second is the idea that such conversion or efforts to do so would expand the ‘kingdom of God on earth’.
That ‘Grand Commission’ made every Christian a preacher, a minister of the word, primitive Christianity was not a light to be hidden under a basket and thus that light was spread far and wide with the hope of reward for obedience to that commission under trial, even to the point of death.
From what Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:8,9)it's clear some wanted their reward, the king part of ruling as ‘kings and priests’ (Rev. 20:4-6) without the nastiness of having to die and wait.
In contradiction of Peter's admonishment (1 Peter 5:1-4) they weren't going to be overseer's but “Bishops” and wear that “crown of glory” now.
But preaching the word, the Good News, to an oft times hostile world, is humbling work and However is whole world going to be converted and establish God's Kingdom on Earth if it has to be done one convert at a time?
Instead of Jesus’ “Caesar’s things to Caesar’s and God's things to God”, why not enlist the power of the state and meld the interests into a thousand year reign of the church enforced by the state. The Kingdom of God established with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other.
Neither ‘traditionalists’ nor ‘reformers’ can disavow their “Fathers” practices, one because they can't error, the other because it was indispensable to their very existence.
Of these a new consensus orthodoxy is to be formed? That's scary!!