A prominent US-based evangelical author and broadcaster known as 'The Bible Answer Man' has been formally received into the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Christian Post (CP) revealed that Hank Hannegraaff, who is president and chairman of the Christian Research Institute, was 'chrismated' on Palm Sunday at Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Fellow Orthodox Christian Rod Dreher, the author of the New York Times best-selling book The Benedict Option, welcomed the development. 'What outstanding news,' he told CP. 'Many evangelicals seek the early church; well here it is, in Orthodoxy,' the author said.
'I am sure some will be scandalised by Hannegraaff's conversion but I hope at least some will wonder how someone as knowledgeable about the Bible as Hank could convert to Orthodoxy, and go to a Divine Liturgy to taste and see what it's like.'
Dreher described how 11 years ago, he came to the 'foreign country called Orthodoxy' himself and now cannot imagine being anywhere else.
'The richness of Orthodox theology and worship is incomparable,' Dreher said, and Orthodox life is 'sedimenting love for Christ into my bones'.
Hannegraaff is considered one of contemporary America's leading Christians apologists. Born in the Netherlands but raised in the Christian Reformed Church in the US, Hannegraaff was once strongly linked to D. James Kennedy and the ministry of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida, according to CP.
In 1989, he became the president of the conservative Christian Research Institute, which was founded in 1960 as a Protestant countercult and apologetics ministry.
He is best known as host of the nationally syndicated 'Bible Answer Man' radio broadcast in which Hannegraaf frequently answers questions about Christian doctrine, Bible interpretation, and theological differences between denominations.
He is the author of more than 20 books, including Christianity in Crisis and The Apocalypse Code: What the Bible Really Teaches about the End Times and Why It Matters Today.
Fr. Patrick Cardine, a priest at Saint Patrick's Orthodox Church in Bealeton, Virginia, said that one of the main differences between Eastern orthodoxy and evangelical Protestantism is the nature of the Church.
The Orthodox view of the Church is that it is 'an icon of Christ and the Body of Christ,' he told CP.
'And by physical we mean hierarchical and sacramental ... the expression of her concrete reality,' he added.
Cardine told CP that he was not surprised that Hanegraaf was received into the Orthodox Church in the light of his deep knowledge and study of the Scriptures.
Protestantism, he said, 'is actually much more philosophical and abstract and adheres to theological systems created by men, which tries to take the Scriptures as proof texts to prove those teachings'.
Cardine, who is a former Baptist, noted that since he became Orthodox he was for the first time 'able to actually embrace the Scriptures on their own terms and without reservation,' adding: 'The Scriptures say all kinds of things that Protestants don't really like or believe.'
