How much weight does orthodoxy hold for you?
With post-modernity seemingly having its way among many circles within western Christianity I generally see two approaches of "deconstructing" (and presumably reassembling) our faith:
1) disassembling our current belief structures and attempting to "start from scratch."
2) a reinvestigation of what the Apostolic Church believed.
I'm sure there are more approaches than these and you can feel free to add them to the comments below, but these are the ones I've seen most often.
Which of these do you lean toward? Why/why not?
I believe that orthodoxy has a certain amount of weight. By this I mean that the foundational, central beliefs of the church throughout the past 2,000 odd years have a certain amount of authority.
Yes, of course, different denominations have various "distinctives" or unique beliefs that set them apart from other denominations. There are a lot of these: child-baptism vs. believer's baptism; just-war vs. pacifism; hierarchical vs. congregational; etc... There are lots of different "distinctives" and they are of varying significance. All of them are "Biblical" in the sense that they are based on a certain interpretation of the scriptures.
But that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about orthodoxy. I mean catholic (small "c") orthodoxy; universal orthodoxy. There are certain beliefs that 98.2% of the church has always believed (yes, I just made up that percentage). I could list off some of the things that I think are included in this category, but in the name of participation and interaction I'll ask you instead:
What beliefs do you think fit into this category?
The reason why I have great faith in Christian orthodoxy is because I have great faith in the Spirit of God. I believe that God is guiding His church in order to accomplish His goals for His church. After all, Jesus Himself said "... I will build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt. 16:18).
No, this doesn't mean the church is infallible. Obviously there have been mistakes made, from the mildly disappointing to the near catastrophic, but in the midst of it all God continues to move and to guide His Bride. After all, when things get too out of line events like the Reformation happen which bring us back... which bring us closer God's intention for His church.
All of this is to say that when I see people going out and trashing the church or tossing aside orthodoxy as if it has no significance I can't help but think: don't you have any faith in God's guidance of His people and His history? Can you really set yourself against or above 20 centuries worth of Spirit guided followers of Christ?
But that's just my take.
What do you think?
5 comments:
Orthodoxy is a good starting point, but all things must be examined and weighed against Yahweh's word. We must ensure that we are not putting traditions before scriptures
"See to it that no-one makes a prey of you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary matters of the world and not according to Messiah" Col 2:8
Sometimes orthodoxy must be tossed out the window when you discover that Yahweh's definition of evil is different than our definition of evil.
Well said.
Would I be out of line to add a touch of nuance to what you said and include that Orthodoxy might need to be adapted/tweaked if we discern (as the Spirit leads us in our interpretation of the Scriptures) that YHWH's definition of GOOD is different than our definition of good?
Not at all, that goes without saying. I hope you don't mind my saying, though, that as a pastor you must be somewhat biased and naturally have great faith in orthodoxy. otherwise you wouldn't have a job as a pastor. Let's say hypothetically, in your prayer and reading Yah's word, you discovered a great discrepancy between what the scriptures say, and the orthodoxy of the BGCC and Martensville Baptist Church. Something major....like the Sabbath (hypothetically). Could you continue in your position if you believed that it is actually contrary to Yah's direction to worship on sunday? Could that orthodoxy be tweaked or adapted? Would you maintain the status quo in the name of othodoxy and 20 centuries of tradition, or bring the word to the congregation and risk losing your job? Adherance to orthodoxy puts us in a very uncomfortable position when it DOES need to be tossed out the window.
Interesting comment above. Thanks.
Tim?
My apologies on the tardiness of this response, I had a busy weekend with family in town. Good times.
Anyway, that is an awesome question. In my opinion, my being a pastor has nothing to do with how I would approach something like that. Obviously I can only speak for myself in this matter (other pastors may feel differently) but as I was a 'regular lay-person' (whatever than is!) for part of my adult life I can honestly say that I would approach that type of situation the same way as a 'lay-person' as I would today as a pastor.
How I believe these sorts of issues should be dealt with is presented in the post I just did ('Changing Orthodoxy'). So, in short, I believe someone who is troubled with the current orthodoxy of a given congregation needs to approach the leadership (Pastors, yes, but also the 'board'). These are the leaders put in place by the congregation as lead by the Holy Spirit. Then due process (as outlined in the new post) should be followed.
I'll leave it at that for now, otherwise I'll probably just end up repeating stuff from the new post.
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