McDonald's and the Church, by analogy

[Shawn Lazar]

I was trying to think of an analogy to help me, as an evangelical slowly moving towards Orthodoxy, to better understand the gravity of the claim made by Orthodox to be the one true church founded by Jesus Christ. Tell me what you think.

Imagine a situation where a person named John in, say, Losotho, finds an old menu for McDonald's, from sometime in the 1950's. John looks at the pictures and the descriptions of the food and says to himself, 'My that looks good. Let's see if I can do that.' So he gathers up what looks like the right ingredients, some meat, some potatoes, et cetera, and tries to make what appears to be a Big Mac. It looks right to him, and it tastes pretty good, so he then he decides to open up a restaurant and to call it 'McDonald's' just like the menu he found. People like the food and his business tends to grow.

But then one day John travels to the US on business in order to promote his new restaurant only to find a whole chain of McDonald's restaurants already in existence. When he inquires about this he meets Peter, a McDonald's executive, and finds out that McDonald's is a restaurant chain founded in 1940 by the McDonald brothers in California. Moreover, all true McDonald's are related to this original organization in virtue of the legal and historical connections between the original restaurants and the franchises across the country. In other words, Peter says to John, your restaurant, while well meaning, is illegitimate. John insists that he has been faithful to the original vision of McDonald's because he's serving the same fare from the 1950's (as near as he could make it). But Peter insists that John's McDonald's is only an illegitimate imitation, adn that if he truly wanted to be a part of McDonald's he would have to become a franchise owner...

Well.... I haven't worked out all the details in my mind, but would you say this is an accurate picture of the Orthodox view of the church vs. the evangelical view? I mean if (a) the menu = the Bible, (b) the food = the doctrine and practice of the church, and (c) the restraurant = the organization of the church, is my analogy close to the truth of the Orthodox view?

Cheers,
Shawn

[Andrew]

I don't know if this is too harsh, but I think a better analogy is that the Orthodox Church is a living, breathing body, while evangelicalism is what happens when a person who picks up a medical textbook without any training in medicine and tries to piece together a human person from the materials he has around him.

We view the Church as a divine human organism. It is flesh and blood of the Godman Christ. It is the communion of the Holy Trinity.

[Jerry Peach]

Greetings in Christ,

I pray you wisdom in your inquiry into Orthodoxy. I too went through a investigative journey when i began to question the Protestant viewpoint and was looking for the Church that most ressembled the early Church. Orthodoxy fit the pattern the closest.

As to your analagous story I see one flaw in your story; I really don't see any replicas of the receipe around. If there are any they must likely be community church's that studied early church history and began to practice apostolic liturgy and such. Some of what your really speaking about is apostolic succession. And it is the belief of the ancient churches (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, etc.) that the tradition of the Church can only be taught by someone who was taught it themselves, so the full and complete receipe couldn't be made up without the proper teachers. The body and traditions of the Church inform us of the apostolic succession. It's like attempting to make the most sophysticated technological machine without ever going to college to learn engineering. Some of this can't just be read about but has to be experienced, as well.

God's Blessings on you.

[Rick H.]

Dear Shawn,

Umm . . . I dunno. The McDonald's analogy seems to paint the reformers as a bunch of stumblebums who were completely ignorant of the writings of the apostles, church fathers, and the saints.

While I am not too sure how you are defining the protestants (which I am guessing you are referring to here), or as Andrew has mentioned the evangelicals, based on my primary source reading of some of the individual reformers, it is clear that these men were very learned and devout men. In fact, possibly with the exception of working to print the menus in a language that the people could read for themselves (English, German, etc.), initially, the last thing most of these men desired was to construct something new, a new organization/body.

I appreciate your thinking here, but I would say time for another cup of coffee :) and a clean sheet of paper.

However, if we would try to come up with a metaphor for the 'Evangelical Movement' that exists today, then we would have to come up with something like motorcycle doors (or as some of my truck driver friends might suggest 'dispatcher brains'). Because in reality there is no such thing as an Evangelical Movement today. At one time there was an Evangelical Movement and Coalition . . . okay, I've got it . . . here's one that is better than motorcycle doors: When I spray a plant/weed in my backyard with RoundUp (a non-selective broadleaf herbicide), then, so to speak, that plant/weed is dead--it just doesn't know it yet. So, I would say that if we move from the genus or place of origin of "Evangelicalism" to its present day reality, I would say, as above, they (as one unified tribe) are dead now, but most of them just don't know it yet.

I wonder if that one was too harsh Andrew?

And, then there is Neo-Evangelicalism, or better yet Neo-Orthodoxy ;) . . .

Thanks for this thought question Shawn, it's coming up on midnight here so I'll go away now :)


In Christ,
Rick

PS Since it is getting late, I am feeling the need to use my disclaimer:

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[Shawn Lazar]

Thanks guys. I will go back to the drawing-board. I guess when I think of evangelicalism I'm not really thinking of a movement linked to the Reformers.

Most of the Protestant churches in Europe and North America (the various Anglican, Presbyterian, Reformed, and Lutheran churches) are more or less apostate now, not even believing in the essentials of the faith such as the Trinity, Christology, miracles, etc.

I'm thinking more of the kind of small evangelical church you might encounter in the US, the ones where its really clear that people are just making the faith up as they go along: the Independent Reign of God Church Inc., or the Miracle Healing Centers, et cetera. Yah, taking issue with the Reformers would probably be a different hill of beans. I'll think about it some more.

[Owen Jones]

I doubt one will find any serious references in Orthodoxy to Jesus as the founder of a new religion, or founder of our church. Perhaps one more knowledgeable than I can expound on the meaning of ecclesia in the one Biblical reference I can think of.

[Celinda Grace]

Shawn,

I was going to write a reply when you first posted this but have been busy. I am also a Baptist on the journey towards Orthodoxy (although even the Orthodox who are more mature will admit that they too are still on a journey toward Orthodoxy it is a lifelong pursuit) and was asking questions exactly like this a few months ago. Here are some of the things I have found out.

1) I think that if you walk into the resteraunt of Orthodoxy one of the first things you will notice is that the 'management' is entirely different from the Protestant Church. The OC is based on a Christ-like discipleship model. From the outside it looks a lot like an institution, from the inside it looks more like a family. The spiritual mentors are called fathers and mothers by way of expressing the fact that there is a strucutre of relationships based on love and trust rather then a dictatorial type authority. I highly recommend some of the threads here on Spiritual fatherhood.

2)Also if you bite into the food you will find a 'flavor' (ie experience) in Orthodoxy quite distinct from that in the PC. In fact one difference is that Orthodoxy does not try to sell itself on looks (ie-knowledge about God), but rather invites everyone to taste and see that the Lord is good.

3)There is in Orthodox doctrine a much more Incarnational mindset. Everything is wrapped around participation in Christ and seing Christ in and through the Church. Christ did not die for us rather --we die with Christ and are raised with Him.

I like to use this quote from Watchman Nee's to capture the essence of this aspect of the OC. Also see the thread about Aquiring an Orthodox Mindset (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3920)


"It is altogether wrong for us to think that we can experience anything of the spiritual life in ourselves merely, and apart from Him. God does not intend that we should aquire something exclusively personal in our experience, and he is not willing to effect anything like that for you and me. All the spiritual experience of the Christian is already true in Christ. It has already been experienced by Christ. What we call our experience is only our entering into his history and his experience."

4) The liturgical service of the OC is geared toward bringing one into the presence of God rather then the PC emphasis on teaching about God or stirring up a desire for God in the worship songs.

5) The sameness of the liturgy is geared toward drawing one into the common mind and experience of the communion of the saints present and past. The key here is communion of mind and spirit as opposed to self-expression.

6) Rather then personal testimoney people are encouraged to read the lives of the saints. This way one gets an example of what a life fully dedicated to God and a person fully renewed in the Spirit looks like and we can know what we are striving toward. The PC has hardly any idea of what a life sanctified by the Spirit looks like. The OC has 2000 years worth of exampes to draw from -this provides a pretty good protrait. We tend to honor evangelists who preach the gospel or theologians who have studied the gospel rather then those who have fully lived the gospel.

This is just a start. What I have found is that since the OC is primarily geared toward experience rather then knowledge the best way to learn about it is to actually take a bite. Find a parish and try some services, talk to the parish priest, read some lives of the saints, etc. Hope this helps.