Debate: Adrift on a Raft of 'Sola Scriptura'
Brad Barnes
April 1, 1997
Though I do not wish to be uncharitable toward my brother, I must say that I find in Kevin Offner's essay a surprising lack of understanding of the Orthodox point of view. Unfortunately, I can agree with him on very
little, except perhaps his observations on the failure of modern evangelicalism and his identification of the question, What is the church, as critically important to our times.
On the latter I do applaud him, for this is typically the question that drives Protestants to either Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. It also has a lot to do with the issue of authority. The question of the Church was certainly the catalyst in my own journey, especially after reading the Ignatius Press edition of Thomas Howard's delightful book Evangelical Is Not Enough. In the postscript he reflects on the steps that took him from Canterbury to Rome by saying that it was "the same old story which one finds in Newman, Knox, Chesterton, and all others who have made this move. The question. What is the Church? becomes, finally, intractable; and one finds oneself unable to offer any compelling reasons why the phrase one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, which we all say in the Creed, is to be understood in any way other than the way in which it was understood for 1500 years."
If Howard introduced the question to me, the hammer that drove home the nails came, ironically, from yet another encounter with a Roman Catholic book. To this day Yves Congar's monumental Tradition and Traditions remains the most important book I have ever read besides the
Bible. It thoroughly convinced me that the Bible, tradition, and the church are one majestic tapestry woven and preserved by the Holy Spirit. Thus, I commend Mr. Offner for pinpointing one of the ...
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