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Matthew came to realize that these differences cannot be ignored as superficial. Protestants hold contrary opinions about the very nature of God. They hold absolutely contradictory notions about how people are saved. Making the problem worse is the fact that Protestants arrive at these various interpretations of truth by applying the same doctrine: sola scriptura, the belief that “the Scriptures alone” determine truth.
Eventually, Matthew came to admit that as an evangelical Protestant, he could never be assured that his particular beliefs about God were true. Sola scriptura obviously provides the basis for many contrary interpretations of Christian faith. What it doesn’t offer is a way of determining which of those interpretations is correct. Matthew faced up to the fact that for an evangelical Protestant, the truth about God can never be anything more than just a disputable personal opinion. God is simply whoever you believe Him o be. Matthew could no longer accept that God would leave His children so divided, confused, and unclear about Him.
So, he embarked upon a spiritual journey that led him into the study of philosophy, which in turn led to an encounter with the writings of the early Church Fathers. From his study of the history and teachings of the early Church, Matthew came to understand that Christian truth is not discovered through personal interpretation of the Scriptures. Finding out the truth about God is instead a matter of learning what Christians have believed about Him from the beginning of the Christian faith. As St. Vincent of Lérins put it, the true faith is “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.” For a Christian, then, truth is historical, not theological.
Matthew began to study the faith of the early Church in earnest. He saw that while Roman Catholicism has retained much of that faith, it also had made changes and additions to it. Protestantism, on the other hand, has thrown out the bulk of those early Christian beliefs and practices. He discovered that Roman Catholics and Protestants alike were led into these errors by their adoption of a rationalistic approach to faith. In the Western world, relating to Christ has become primarily a matter of thinking about Him.
But Matthew learned that the early Church related to Christ in a different way. Its life centered upon the immediate experience of the Presence of Christ. This experience of Christ is not achieved through studying and theologizing. Rather, it is made possible by participating in the various sacraments of the Faith—most especially, in the Eucharist.
Eventually, Matthew determined that there is only one place where the Early Church’s sacramental life has been preserved without additions, changes, or subtractions. Only in the Eastern Orthodox churches has the unaltered fullness of the Ancient Christian faith remained intact. In 1997, Matthew, Alice, and Kaci were received into the Orthodox Church.
Matthew has recounted the steps on his journey into Orthodoxy in Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells. The book details the self-contradictions that he discovered within Protestantism. It also presents the case for Eastern Orthodoxy, defending many of those Early Church doctrines and practices that many contemporary Protestant evangelicals question: liturgical worship, formal prayer, veneration of the Virgin Mary and the Saints, infant baptism, and the literal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
These days, Matthew is hard at work traveling, speaking, and presenting his weekly Pilgrims from Paradise podcast on Ancient Faith Radio (www.ancientfaithradio.com). He’s also busy on his next book, entitled One: What It Means to be a Christian. The projected publishing date is late spring or summer 2008.
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