The Draw of Eastern Orthodoxy: Maybe Baptists Should Consider Putting the Word “Baptist” Back in the Church Name

A young man recently started on a journey to find God and a biblical place to worship. His friends were investigating Eastern Orthodoxy because it has an extremely prominent representation on Youtube. As he began visiting evangelical mega churches and asking about the differences, he was met with vapid answers.

“Well, we are just glad you are showing an interest in religion.”

“Maybe our church isn’t for you, and Eastern Orthodox is a better fit.”

Evangelical church leaders are treating the Orthodox Church like it is another denominational option and not what it actually is—another religion altogether. Three articles might help us wrap our brains around what is happening right now with young men especially.

Why young men are leaving traditional churches for “Masculine” Orthodoxy.

This article in the NY Post explains the explosion of interest in the Eastern Orthodox Church among young people. Its conclusions are eye-opening.

They are longing for a stable church—not a church that keeps changing with the culture. This is especially true for worship issues. Choirs were swapped for worship bands. I doubt many of these young men have fundamentalist convictions about music, but they do not want to see self-centered, commercialized music in church. They view evangelical worship as “feminized.”

The concessions evangelical churches are making to the woke world also trouble them. They might be thinking more culturally than biblically, but their cultural thinking is rooted in biblical data. They see the abandonment of traditional morals for the sake of the present culture as weak.

They like the intensity of Orthodoxy. Committed intense prayer, long fasts. It feels like serious religion rather than the casual way evangelical Christianity is often held. Here is what one young man said.

 “Modern Christianity … has become very watered down,” Wee Sit said. “People go to church on Sunday, they sing a few songs, they listen to an hour-long sermon that seems more like a TED talk, and then they go home, and they just go on with their lives.”

Hank Hanegraaf left for Orthodoxy in 2017.

This thinking is not new. Hank Hanegraaf joined an Eastern Orthodox Church in 2017 and still is on the radio and podcasts now directing young men to Orthodoxy. Hank Hanegraaf had a Charlie Kirk style ministry before Charlie did. He took questions from the radio audience and always answered with scripture. The problem with Hanegraaf’s conversion to Orthodoxy is that he is conceding the primary tenet of his former and present ministry—sola scriptura. Lutzer explains it here.

But in embracing the Orthodox faith, he has turned away from a basic tenet of the Protestant Reformation, Sola Scriptura—meaning that the Bible alone is our source of spiritual and doctrinal authority. Along with Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy accepts tradition (though not the authority of the pope) as an equal source of revelation along with the Scriptures.

What we can learn from this as historically fundamentalist Bible-Based Baptists.

Stand for the truth without apology.

We cannot and must not give in to the political and cultural pressures of the world. We must stand for the Bible and biblical truth. We need to work hard to defend it and answer the questions that young people have. We cannot ignore their concerns or just let them walk away happily. We cannot fear their disapproval, but we also must not cast disapproval on them because they ask. There is no place for theologically lazy church leaders.

Worship reverently.

Worship should be theologically based not only in its content but in its style. If we have theologically based worship, it will not waver with every new fad or style of music or entertainment that comes along. Worship is not entertainment. Corporate worship is a body of believers collectively bowing in submission to the Holy God of the universe. We do it in reverence, thanks, submission, awe, and love. Worship that is intended to simply entertain the worshipper is very much like idolatry.

Take your faith seriously.

Biblical Baptists must avoid the reputation of being casual Christians. We must not be legalists who consider the self-punishing practices of monasticism as an acceptable part of New Testament Christian living, but we must not meld with the wickedness of the world around us either. Kenneth Myers argued in the late 1980’s that modern evangelicalism had lost its savor. Rather than being in the world but not of the world, evangelicalism built its own Christian copy of the vapidness of the culture, effectively make them “of the world but not in the world.”[i]  What we believe should impact how we conduct ourselves in the world.

We should live reverently, holy, sacrificially, and with an eternal mindset.

Commit to your identity.

Consider putting the word “Baptist” back in your name. It might be one way to reclaim historical identity. Young people are not looking for generic churches. They are looking for churches whose doctrine has stood the test of time. Our heritage as Baptists does not begin with the Reformation. It traces back to the earliest New Testament Church on the planet. I am not talking about a step-by-step historical chain like the Baptist Briders do, but a heritage of faith based upon defendable New Testament Baptist distinctives, not governed by tradition, the Pope or other outside authorities. It is a mistake to ignore the heritage of obedient Christianity that stretches back to Christ and the first church in Jerusalem. It is foolhardy to represent a congregation and its worship as something dreamed up in the last few decades.

Most of the cults in the world today were concocted in the last 250 years. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches developed their present practices between to 300 to 1200 AD—hundreds of years removed from Christ. Our faith should have more appeal than Eastern Orthodoxy—if we have the courage to claim our history and identity. We don’t believe what we believe because we were first, but because what we do is rooted in the New Testament alone—not changing church traditions. The Bible—above all things—never changes.

True Baptists are primitive in doctrine and practice. We are fools to be faddish. Dump the smoke and flashing lights—whether modern evangelical or Eastern Orthodox style.  Neither was found the Church of Jerusalem, Antioch, or Ephesus during the age of the Apostles. That doesn’t mean we have to root ourselves in the 1950’s either.

Baptists need to know who we are, why we believe what we believe, why we do what we do what we do, and do it without apology.

Jesus did not call us to be trendy.

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Audio version of this article: The Draw of Eastern Orthodoxy: Maybe Baptists Should Consider Putting the Word “Baptist” Back in the Church Name

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[i] Kenneth Myers, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, Crossway, 1989. Chapter 1.