:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Thursday, January 15, 2004 ::

A Question About Salvation

Rachel asks a question that, depending on how one understands the word "salvation", will result in very different answers:

"If a Christian is deliberately continuing in sin and is not at all repentant of what they are doing, is their salvation at risk?"

Typically in Western Protestant thought, you are saved *in order* to have a relationship with God. With this assumption, Rachel's question is a tough one to answer.
In Orthodoxy the relationship *is* salvation itself. Thus, to our ears the idea of perpetually refusing to repent and be healed of one's passions is de facto a refusal of salvation since repentance is, in a sense, salvation itself.

(Check out John's blog where he has been posting excellent excerpts from Bishop Ware's book "How are we Saved? The Understanding of Salvation in the Orthodox Tradition.")

This difference in definitions and experience in regards to salvation is a good example of what some of us are talking about when we note the paradox of how similar, yet how far apart Orthodoxy is from the rest of Christendom.

Update: Huw responds to this post with a letter from Miss Manners

:: Karl :: 10:06:00 AM [Link] ::