Orthodox and Anabaptist Understandings Regarding Original Sin

[ohio jones]

As an aside, I'd be interested in reading about how the Anabaptist understanding of sin deviated from the spiritual predecessors of historic Anabaptism. In other words, did believer's baptism follow a change in understanding of the teaching of original sin?

This blog post from Dwight Gingrich might be helpful:
Which Came First–Original Sin or Infant Baptism?

[Coifi]

Interesting question. I think at least part of the urge toward believer's baptism came from ecclesiology not theology but I can't say if that was definitive. If my memory serves Sattler wrote/taught a significant amount about a pure church, that is a church composed only of regenerated believers. He used the analogy of an entire bolt of cloth being rendered useless by a single bad thread.

Interesting. Who is Sattler? Can you provide some context to this? It sounds very much like the common evangelical understanding of the Church or a Calvinist understanding of the Church.

From Robert Friedmann's The Theology of Anabaptism:

Thank you for providing these quotes. I'll read more closely and probably use these (and other provided quotes) as source material to directly address Ernie's initial question.

This blog post from Dwight Gingrich might be helpful:
Which Came First–Original Sin or Infant Baptism?

This addresses my question, thanks! Of course, now I have more, but I'll have to save that for another thread.

Of course, I think the doctrine of the Church will inherently be wrapped into my eventual answer. Baptism as the initiation into the Body of Christ and thus, into the saving work of Christ, necessitates an understanding of what it is we are being saved from. It's almost as if all points of theology are related and affect one another...

[barnhart]

Interesting question. I think at least part of the urge toward believer's baptism came from ecclesiology not theology but I can't say if that was definitive. If my memory serves Sattler wrote/taught a significant amount about a pure church, that is a church composed only of regenerated believers. He used the analogy of an entire bolt of cloth being rendered useless by a single bad thread.

Interesting. Who is Sattler? Can you provide some context to this? It sounds very much like the common evangelical understanding of the Church or a Calvinist understanding of the Church.

The context was the meeting which produced the Schleitheim Confession in 1527. Michael Sattler was warning against allowing compromise with the state on the issue of baptism. As a former weaver he used the analogy of compromising the strength of the cloth by a single bad thread to illustrate the danger of compromise with the state of the issue of baptism.

[JayP]

I went back and read this. I was totally confused by what the point was, and where folks were going. The Orthodox do not use the term Original Sin

[MennoSimons1998]

I went back and read this. I was totally confused by what the point was, and where folks were going. The Orthodox do not use the term Original Sin

Hello to you Jay and everyone in here, a decade ago, I seriously thought of being baptized in either an Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Church shortly after I became a Christian, as a result, a very large portion of what I know about Christianity as a whole comes from Orthodox sources, so I have read a lot of material about their beliefs and theology (that I still respect and hold dear to my heart despite me now being a Protestant who disagrees with them), tomorrow or after tomorrow I will write a response to this, I am unable to do it right now given that it is very late at night where I live, and I am occupied with other stuff, but my comment will come soon, stay tuned!

[barnhart]

I have never had clarity on what the Anabaptist position on "original sin" even is.

It might become clearer if you study the Catholic position, you might discover the things you don't believe.

[JayP]

I went back, reread and then the linked article by Gingrich….which I confess made me laugh. Now, Even as a Catholic, I am not particularly strong on Augustine. But when the guy says I haven’t actually read Augustine but I am going to show you where his thinking is wrong…. I think to refute someone you need to read what they wrote.

What baptism does (which clearly varies on if you believe in the concept of sacraments) depends what you think of original sin, grace, sacramental is, etc. one thing that has always puzzled me about Orthodox practices is doing baptism and confirmation together. I mean, regardless of what you think about them, why have two separate sacrament IF they are done together. Doesn’t that make just one? If cheesesteaks ALWAYS come with Fried onions and mushrooms, well…..those aren’t options

Ok, the cheesesteak doctrine is not as well developed as I would like it to be

[MennoSimons1998]

I went back and read this. I was totally confused by what the point was, and where folks were going. The Orthodox do not use the term Original Sin

Hello to you Jay and everyone in here, a decade ago, I seriously thought of being baptized in either an Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Church shortly after I became a Christian, as a result, a very large portion of what I know about Christianity as a whole comes from Orthodox sources, so I have read a lot of material about their beliefs and theology (that I still respect and hold dear to my heart despite me now being a Protestant who disagrees with them), tomorrow or after tomorrow I will write a response to this, I am unable to do it right now given that it is very late at night where I live, and I am occupied with other stuff, but my comment will come soon, stay tuned!

I went back, reread and then the linked article by Gingrich….which I confess made me laugh. Now, Even as a Catholic, I am not particularly strong on Augustine. But when the guy says I haven’t actually read Augustine but I am going to show you where his thinking is wrong…. I think to refute someone you need to read what they wrote.

What baptism does (which clearly varies on if you believe in the concept of sacraments) depends what you think of original sin, grace, sacramental is, etc. one thing that has always puzzled me about Orthodox practices is doing baptism and confirmation together. I mean, regardless of what you think about them, why have two separate sacrament IF they are done together. Doesn’t that make just one? If cheesesteaks ALWAYS come with Fried onions and mushrooms, well…..those aren’t options

Ok, the cheesesteak doctrine is not as well developed as I would like it to be

Hello again everyone, sorry for taking too long to return, but anyways, here it is:

An issue that complicates dialogue and understanding between Western Christians (that includes Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Anabaptists) and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians, is that their theology did not undergo the same development that it did in the Western world, we are Westerners trying to understand and interpret an Eastern mindset and worldview that differs from ours by reading translated books and listening to Westernized Anglo converts to Orthodoxy, all while applying our Western language and Western worldviews to it, something that complicates the matter further, is that just like all churches in existence, Orthodoxy has a ton of internal disagreements and theological differences among them, despite their claims of being united and unchanged since the Apostles.

The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches were not influenced by Augustine like how Western Christendom was, so they do not hold the same views of sin that Western Christians do.

In a simplistic way to describe:

1. Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christianity view sin in therapeutic and medical terms (and not in the forensic/judicial term of the Western-Augustinian view), they treat sin as more of a disease that can be healed over time, instead of an inherited fallen condition.

2. They indeed do not hold to "original sin" of the Roman Catholic and Protestant views, "ancestral sin" is the preferred term, they view that we did not inherited the sin of Adam and Eve, and nor are we guilty of their sins, what we inherited from Adam and Eve, was the negatively affected and imperfect world with death, suffering, etc. that we live in, that Adam and Eve are responsible for, so we only inherit the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin, but not their sin itself, we are only responsible for our own sins that we freely choose to commit in our lives.

Anabaptist sects have different views of sin varying by denomination, so I cannot generalize them.

Fun fact: I seriously thought of becoming Eastern Orthodox back when I was 18-19, shortly after I became a Christian, I was trying to get as far away from anything vaguely "American" (me being raised in Americanized Neo-Pentecostal/Pseudo-Baptist cults were one of the reasons why I became an atheist when I was 14), so a very large portion of almost everything that I know about the basics of Christian theology, history, church fathers, saints, etc. comes from EO sources.

Even though I am now no longer seeking to become Orthodox, and I now actively disagree with many of their tenets, I still hold deep respect with Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, particularly for their their beautiful liturgy and worship, which is uncompromising in not adding modern contemporary additions to their traditional liturgy (also a thing that I admire the Old Order Anabaptists for)