Orthodoxy: believing in the right way.
23 Jan
So today I’m in the mood to tackle some theology. Let’s jump in.
Orthodoxy is generally defined as “right belief.” So, for example you may hear someone say, “Yeah, I’m an orthodox Christian.” Which means they consider themselves to be a “normal” Christian: whatever that means exactly. I have struggled with the term “orthodox” when it’s aligned with Christianity, because it always begs the question… orthodox according to who: the Roman Catholics, Charismatics, Southern Baptists, Episcopalians, the Mormons? Orthodoxy as right belief seems to have fractured the church. Everyone keeps disagreeing, calling each other heretics, and then splitting off as the “true” church, only to have the process repeated on them some years later.
One of the truly traumatic aspects of attending Bible College, as I did, is that you realize there are an awful lot of gray areas out there, places where answers don’t come easily. You find that the clarity of Sunday School is quickly replaced by the uncertainty of a very big God, in a very big world, where very smart and sincere people really disagree with each other over some rather important things.
The more I looked around the more clearly I knew, this isn’t working. Yet, the thought nagged me. If right belief isn’t the thing to identify Christians… what is. I mean if you start throwing right belief out the window aren’t you sort of left with a mess. What else could there be other than wrong belief. I could already hear the apostle Paul scolding me for not holding onto the “true faith.”
I was left hanging.
A few months ago I came across the book “How Not To Speak of God” by Peter Rollins. In it he voices a similar dilemma and then offers a possible solution.
“Instead of following the Greek-influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief, these chapters show that the emerging community is helping us to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the Orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way- that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial, and Christlike manner. The reversal from ‘right belief’ to ‘believing in the right way’ is in no way a move to some binary opposite of the first(for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief); rather, it is a way of transcending the binary altogether. Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world…
Orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little; indeed, it will allow us to sit back with our Pharisaic doctrines guarding the ‘truth’ with the purity of our interpretations. But orthodoxy as believing in the right way, as bringing love to the world around us and within us… that will cost us everything. For to live by that sword, as we all know, is to die by it.”
Wow. Obviously some huge implications. I think it’s worth wrestling with.
Right on man! That is some pretty deep stuff, and it’s true that it is easy to live the kind of comfortable Christianity we are so used to today. To live by the sword of the Word is most certainly to die by it. It’s like in James 1:27 which says, “Pure and undefiled religion is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
To be unspotted in a pretty radical idea considering the attitude in most of the church today that we live as close to the edge of the world as we can, rather than try to get away from it.
I may have misinturpreted this post, but it seems to me that you are suggesting that there is no black and white, or maybe more so that we should not focus on it. If that is the case, then I must heartly disagree. Think it is the grey areas that matter not when it comes to faith in CHrist, but soley the black and white and these are simple:
Christ died for us, rose for us, to bridge the gap between God and man.
Other then that, what truly matters, does it truly matter that some of us attend churches were tongues are thought to be nothing more then babble? Does it matter that some of us attend churches that teach electronic music is not right? No, because if the message of the sacrifice of christ is being taught and taught as it should be in all it’s glory, in all it’s pain, in all it’s anguish and beauty, then it matters not whether I believe in tongues or not? You are right to say so many branches have been made but if the root of the tree is the same, what does it matter?
If I am wrong and you are not saying that, then I am sorry that I misunderstood.
In Acts ch. 2 we find the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” concerning who Jesus was, what He said and did, and the eternal significance this held for those who believed. Even in Jesus’ own lifetime, “some called Him John the Baptist; others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
Much of the New Testament is composed of the apostle Paul’s attempts to expose and discredit false teachers, specifically the Galatian Judaizers, who required the circumcision of Gentiles before they could enter into the Christian community.
Many of the early creeds put forth by the church fathers(Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, etc.) were composed to combat Gnosticism, which denied the bodily existence of Jesus, His death, the very notion of a resurrection, and in some instances claimed Jesus fathered a child by Mary Magdalene.
I mention these things to dispell the myth that there was ever a “golden age” of Christian unity, and that schisms and denominations only entered the history of the Church with the Protestant Reformation and the revival of serious theological study.
There have always been wolves in sheeps’ clothing, and there was never a time when Christians have not attempted to delineate just what exactly they believe, on down to the smallest minutia, in reaction to prominent falsehoods taught by whatever deceivers happened to be in vogue.
My question is: Is this not a good thing? After all, when I walk into the doors of a church, I hope they have a statement of faith I can read, so I will know just what I am claiming to believe by entering into a covenant community with them. I don’t want to find out I’m a Mormon five years into it.
It seems to me that Mr. Rollins, when he says, “bringing love to the world around us and within us will cost us everything”, means that it will cost us, specifically, our doctrine. He sets them up the heart and the head as diametric opposites; this needn’t be so.
He says right belief will “cost us nothing”. Not so. It will cost us church members. Truly, our beliefs divide us.
But they also unite us. The leftovers. The remnant.
Hey Kyle,
Thanks for contributing to the conversation! I really appreciate you taking the time to leave thoughtful comments. You rock man
I wanted to address the question you asked, “Is this (Christians attempting to delineate what they believe) not a good thing?”
I think it is a good thing to do. I have beliefs. You have beliefs. We all have to wrestle through what we believe about Jesus, the kingdom, the Bible, church, etc.
What I think Rollins is hitting on is the posture in which we hold those beliefs. Do we hold them in an open, humble, and “willing to listen and learn” manner, or do we hold them in a dogmatic, arrogant, and close minded posture?
I think the phrase “believing in the right way” isn’t trying to communicate that beliefs don’t matter. That’s why the word “belief” is still included in the statement. However, what I think is of ultimate importance is who we are. Are we loving, Christlike people? I think this is why Rollins states that “orthodoxy as right belief will cost us little.” Because talk is cheap. It’s easy to say “I believe such and such about Jesus.” Yet, as he also states it’s another thing entirely to “bring love to the world around us.” That, like the Aids worker serving the dying will cost us everything.
I think at this point I see the beauty in defining a Christian as a way of being in the world, as opposed to believing certain things about the world.
C.S. Lewis gives a beautiful example of this in his book The Last Battle. Check out an excerpt here at an online blog I found.
Thoughts?
One of my favorite writers, long deceased, wrote a great line once: “The purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close around something solid.” Presumably, so that he may be nourished by it, for man does not live by bread alone.
In other words, some doctrine just cannot be held in an “open, willing to listen and learn” manner. I certainly hope you are “dogmatic and closed-minded” on at least a few points of your faith, Brett. Otherwise you simply do not hold to it.
If you disagree here, or revolt against this statement in any manner, then Rollins is influencing you in a way that goes much deeper than the posture in which we hold our beliefs, and you may have renounced the beliefs themselves.
Read my next sentence slowly and thoughtfully please.
Just because he still includes the word “belief” in his redefinition of orthodoxy as “believing in the right way” rather than “right belief” does not mean he isn’t trying to do away with “right belief” altogether.
He is setting up “right belief” and “believing in the right way” as mortal enemies, and he is making it perfectly clear that he is choosing “believing in the right way”.
Ghandi was not a Christian. Unless the AIDS worker believes certain things, he is not a Christian. John Lennon was not a Christian, even though some people sing his songs in church.
And I feel obligated to point out to you, niether nonviolent resistence, nor social work, nor songwriting will save a soul. Believing the Gospel will.
I’ll be honest. I think you are treading on dangerous ground when you say things like “At this point I see the beauty in defining a Christian as a way of being in the world, as opposed to believing certain things about the world.”