Orthodox men love church, says Frederica Matthewes-Green. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an article she had written after dialoguing with one hundred Orthodox men who had converted to Orthodoxy as adults to find out what drew them in.

It's no secret that in most Protestant churches, females make up a larger portion of the congregation, often significantly. This was one of the reasons Matthewes-Green decided to find out why Orthodoxy bucks that trend. What she discovered was very interesting. Look at some of the responses below. It is especially noteworthy, I think, that many of the men commented on the challenge of Orthodoxy:

"It's the only church where you are required to adapt to it, rather than it adapting to you."

"Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it's also about overcoming oneself. I am challenged in a deep way, not to 'feel good about myself' but to become holy. It is rigorous, and in that rigour I find liberation."

"Guys either want to be challenged to fight for a glorious and honourable cause, and get filthy dirty in the process, or to loaf in our recliners with plenty of beer, pizza, and football. But most churches want us to behave like orderly gentlemen, keeping our hands and mouths nice and clean."

"Christ in Orthodoxy is a militant, Jesus takes Hell captive. Orthodox Jesus came to cast fire on the earth. In Holy Baptism we pray for the newly-enlisted warriors of Christ, male and female, that they may ‘be kept ever warriors invincible.'"

"...‘the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay’ has almost nothing to do with the Eternal Logos entering inexorably, silently yet heroically, into the fabric of created reality."

"Men get pretty cynical when they sense someone's attempting to manipulate their emotions, especially when it's in the name of religion. They appreciate the objectivity of Orthodox worship. It's not aimed at prompting religious feelings but at performing an objective duty."

A lot of the things these men say they like in Orthodoxy could be true of Protestantism as well. The problem, though, is that many churches have changed and have adapted too much to modern culture. But a Protestant church that is true to its heritage and tradition does require you to adapt to it. I mentioned the Book of Common Prayer the other day; worshipping in a church which uses the BCP presents a challenge that you need to adapt to. Protestant faith is serious and difficult and demanding; Jesus said that if anyone was to follow him they needed to first lay down their life (Matt. 16:24-25). We are called to be holy too, and learning to submit to Christ's Lordship over all of your life is a difficult process. Early Protestants saw Jesus as a strong and powerful King; the tender, soft Swedish Jesus is a modern invention. Protestant worship isn't about feelings and emotions and it does require participation.

But it's not difficult to see that in many churches this is not the case anymore. So, maybe we need to change something. Maybe it's not about coming up with new ways to challenge men, but returning to more classical forms of faith and worship. Maybe instead of dumbing everything down, we make men wrestle again with words and phrases that take some work to understand. Maybe instead of making worship as comfortable as we can, we make them kneel once in a while or stand for prolonged periods of time. Maybe we get them thinking hard about being disciples of Christ, as workers, as husbands and fathers, as citizens, as sports fans. Maybe we don't allow them to be passive and train them to teach or to lead in prayer or to mentor young men.

Christianity should be hard work. It should be challenging. It requires us, after all, to surrender everything to Christ. If men are not learning that in our churches, then something is wrong.

As children innocently prepare their costumes and empty bags or pillowcases for an enjoyable evening of collecting candy, evangelicals will be battling the forces of Satan on two fronts tonight: boycotting Halloween, and gathering together for a few rousing rounds of Rome-bashing.

Now, I don't enjoy Halloween (specifically what American culture has made of it), and have no problem with those who wish to abstain from participating in it; there are many good reasons not to. However, I am sure there are many doing so tonight who have no idea what they are actually boycotting. They prefer to ignore all that history and instead seize on to the opportunity to celebrate another day which nicely coincides with this awful pagan holiday—Reformation Day.

Lest I sound too cynical, let me note that I am, indeed, very thankful the Reformation happened—I am glad that the doctrines of grace were recovered, I am glad that the abuse of power by corrupt church leaders was curtailed, and I am glad that I did not have to pay for St. Peter’s to be built pay for my relatives to be sprung from purgatory. The Reformation is most certainly something to be thankful for. But one question continues to linger in my mind—would we even celebrate Reformation Day if it didn't conveniently fall on the same night as Halloween?

We might ask why we need a special night to celebrate the Reformation. On the one hand, it seems to be the equivalent of using Valentine's Day to tell your wife that you love her. As your love for her should be manifest each day, shouldn't our rejoicing in God's saving grace be something we do each day? This grace should pour forth from the preaching of the Word and we should taste it in partaking of the Lord's Table each Sunday. Do we really need a specific day to commemorate this?

Moreover, Martin Luther's act of nailing the 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg was not the monumental act of defiance that many make it out to be. He only intended to raise a discussion about various issues concerning the Catholic Church with his academic peers. Luther's innocent action exploded into the major events that followed only because some random guy grabbed the piece of paper off the door, translated it into German, and sent copies of it all throughout the country. Do we need to a special day to remember that autumn day in 1517 when Luther walked up the stairs to the door of the Wittenberg church and made known his desire to have an academic discussion with his colleagues?

Hardly. So what is it, then, that evangelicals end up celebrating on Reformation Day? To be sure, there are those who will understand and acknowledge the theological implications of the Reformation. But for others, Reformation Day is, for all intents and purposes, a day to celebrate the disunity of the church. That, to me, is certainly not worth celebrating.

For some reason, people seem to forget that while Luther ultimately made the move to break from the Roman Catholic Church, he did not do so immediately. He spent years in agony deciding whether or not to leave the church he knew as mother and to go against Christ's call for unity in the body of believers (John 17:20-26, 1 Corinthians 1:10). People also forget that Luther was not the first Reformer, and that there were many who went before him who also tried earnestly to reform the church from within. Separating from the church was never the intention of these men, yet their valiant efforts to remain united seem to go unheralded. Instead, we prefer to celebrate the Protestant break from Rome, the second-most definitive and drastic split in the history of the church (the first being the Great Schism of 1054).

Am I advocating a return to Rome? No. Do I think the church will ever be one this side of our Lord's return? Of course not. Am I thankful for the work of the Reformers? Absolutely—I count it a great privilege to be rooted in the theological heritage they left us. But we can't forget that the Reformation also produced a lot of collateral damage. When you have to start constructing graphs that look like the one below (and this is just the American Presbyterians!) something is terribly wrong. And it is nothing to celebrate.O Lord, make us one as You are one.

Rob Moll wrote an article for Christianity Today last year called "Scrooge Lives!", a rightly judgmental and provocative piece demonstrating that Christians don't just hold on tight to their purse strings—they lock them away in impenetrable safes. Because of this, the Church's mission is seriously hindered.

That American Christians don't give is nothing new, but some of the statistics he presented were staggering and downright depressing. Be sure to read the article for yourself. Below, I've posted some of the most mind-blowing figures.

• American Christians—[defined as] those who say their faith is very important to them and those who attend church at least twice a month—earn more than $2.5 trillion dollars every year.
• If these Christians gave away 10 percent of their after-tax earnings, they would add another $46 billion to ministry around the world.
• American Christians could realistically increase their giving by $85.5 billion each year.
• The median annual giving for an American Christian is actually $200, just over half a percent of after-tax income.
• In absolute terms, the poorest Christians give away more dollars than all but the wealthiest Christians.
• $10 billion would sponsor 20 million children for a year, and just $330 million would sponsor 150,000 indigenous missionaries in countries closed to religious workers.
• $2.2 billion would triple the current funding of Bible translation, printing, and distribution. $600 million would be enough to start eight Christian colleges in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

So, dear Christian who just spent $80,000 on a new Cadillac Escalade (justifying your purchase by sticking a Jesus fish to the back door so that you can "witness" as you drive around), did you know that that same $80,000 would put 36 indigenous missionaries in countries closed to religious workers? Should we even mention what could have been done with the money spent on that 5,000 sq. ft. house in the suburbs? Of course, Paul said not to muzzle our individual rights (1 Cor. 9:3-12)...didn't he? And that it doesn't matter what we give so long as our conscience is satisfied (2 Cor. 9:6-15)? What about James, who said we should look after ourselves (James 1:27)? Or Jesus, who said we can carry on as before and follow him (Matt. 16:24-28)?

The Reformer, Martin Luther, said, "There are three conversions necessary—the conversion of the heart, of the mind, and of the purse." It seems that last one might just be the hardest.

Let's take a cue from Tim Keller and be honest here. We're talking about nothing less than idolatry.

If you know me personally, you might have sensed the urgency in the last post. For those of you who don't, and who did not pick up on it previously, I should note that I wrestle with how to think through and work toward the unity of the Church so much that I almost feel the effects of the struggle physically. It wears me out mentally, and I feel the tension in the pit of my stomach.

But then again, the pain I feel on account of the brokenness of the Church far outweighs the tension I feel, making it seem relatively tame and bearable.

And so I'll continue to struggle with it.

It is not uncommon in the circles I travel in to see very rigid boundaries marked out as to what constitutes orthodoxy, those outside of the walls being excluded from fellowship with those inside. This sort of exclusivity that forces everyone else to think within your predetermined categories is not only absurd, it is sinful. Bavinck, from the fourth volume of his Reformed Dogmatics:

It [cannot] be denied that the endless divisions of the confessors of Christ offer the world an occasion for pleasure and scorn and give it reason for its nonbelief in the One sent by the Father, inasmuch as it does not see the unity of believers (John 17:21). As Christians we cannot humble ourselves deeply enough over the schisms and discord that have existed all through the centuries in the church of Christ. It is a sin against God, in conflict with Christ's [high-priestly] prayer [for unity], and caused by the darkness of our minds and the lovelessness of our hearts.

Given this, he writes, it is understandable that many Christians would make fervent attempts to unite the Church. However, this is then usually accomplished through violent means, or by some sort of syncretism and fusion. Ultimately, the power to bring the Church together as one does not reside with us.

The failure of all those attempts has something to teach us. History, like nature, is a work of God; it does not take shape apart from his providence. Christ, by his resurrection and ascension, became king at the right hand of God and will remain king until he has put all his enemies under his feet [1 Cor. 15:25]. He reigns also over the divisions and schisms of his church on earth. And his prayer for unity was not born of unfamiliarity with its history nor from his inability to govern it. In and through the discord and dissension, that prayer is daily heard and is led to its complete fulfillment. The profound spiritual sense in which the unity of his disciples was understood by Jesus necessarily excludes all violent and artificial attempts to introduce it. Christ, who prayed for it, is also the One—and he alone—who can bring it about. His prayer is the guarantee that it already exists in him and that in due time, accomplished by him, it will also be manifest in believers.

But while we know this to be true, it certainly does not give us an excuse to neglect seeking unity now. Our task is not to erect barriers, but to tear them down. Faithfulness to Christ requires it.