Saturday, December 25, 2010

Becoming Orthodox by Peter E. Gillquist

One of the first books I read when I was exploring Orthodoxy was Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Christian Faith by Peter E. Gillquist. This book chronicles the spiritual journey of several pastors who had been involved in the evangelical group Campus Crusade for Christ. They wanted to develop a church that was as close as possible to the New Testament church. Each one researched a different area--worship, church history, doctrine--and then they combined their research and tried to recreate the early church. What they discovered was that the early church was exactly like the Orthodox church of today. In 1986, hundreds of parishioners were chrismated and became Orthodox during one large service. The book is incredibly readable.

The story is told in this series of videos, called "A Journey to the Ancient Church":