Ashish Joy

In our cur­rent hermeneu­tic we take part in a mis­placed mod­esty (as G.K. Chester­ton writes of it):

What we suf­fer from to-day is humil­ity in the wrong place. Mod­esty has moved from the organ of ambi­tion. Mod­esty has set­tled upon the organ of con­vic­tion; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubt­ful about him­self, but undoubt­ing about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowa­days the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert him­self. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Rea­son.²

In our post­moder­nity, propo­si­tional truth and con­vic­tional Chris­tian­ity is cur­rently out of vogue. In our faith cir­cles, there is grow­ing dis­trust in what is know­able; con­versely there is a grow­ing unity in what is doable. Right­fully so, unity devel­ops quickly around a cause, project, or action, while indif­fer­ence rises around phi­los­o­phy, the­ol­ogy, or perspective.

Ortho­doxy is our sound­ness of faith with regards to doc­trines of Scrip­ture.³ Ortho­praxy is the the right prac­tice of faith.⁴ In our Chris­tian­ity we need a bal­ance of ortho­doxy and ortho­praxy; they are not mutu­ally exclusive.

A Grow­ing Disconnect

Because of increas­ing super­fi­cial­ity amongst the faith com­mu­nity, and the grow­ing ten­sion between out-of-touch Church cul­ture and a needy and want­ing soci­ety at large, we find our­selves in a quandary.⁵

There are those who live and die by their ortho­doxy, while never crit­i­cally assess­ing their ortho­praxy. Most evan­gel­i­cals would be in this cat­e­gory because they assume their meth­ods work. Because large insti­tu­tion­al­ized faith com­mu­ni­ties equate cor­rect­ness with suc­cess, they insu­late them­selves from tak­ing a crit­i­cal approach to their orthopraxy.

There is also now a grow­ing com­mu­nity of those who live and die by ortho­praxy, while never fully for­mu­lat­ing their ortho­doxy. Most emer­gents would be in this cat­e­gory. They react to the rigid­ity of maligned ortho­doxy and run from know­able, propo­si­tional truth. In this case, iso­la­tion comes in the form of con­ver­sa­tion; they always engage in dis­cus­sion, while never reach­ing a con­clu­sion. Some assert that com­ing to a con­clu­sion is not the point.

Both sides of Chris­tian­ity look to the other as out of touch, and the sit­u­a­tion illus­trates the grow­ing disconnect.

Prac­tice demands Perspective

One day Jesus asked His dis­ci­ples, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter was the only one who answered His ques­tion cor­rectly, and this was Jesus’ response:

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 16:17 ESV

In this inter­change between Jesus and Peter, we see that Peter has come to a propo­si­tional truth, one that has been revealed to him. Jesus cor­rectly attrib­utes Peter’s rev­e­la­tion to the Father. We see that Peter’s per­spec­tive now greatly influ­ences his prac­tice. We read in verses fol­low­ing v.17 that Peter’s per­spec­tive of who Christ is, will affect his prac­tice of being a con­tribut­ing mem­ber of Christ’s church. We see that his per­spec­tive pre­ceded his prac­tice, or we could say his prac­tice demands perspective.

In our Chris­t­ian under­stand­ing, if we are to prac­tice, we must first under­stand our per­spec­tive. It is our WHY behind our WHAT. To do some­thing with­out know­ing why, would be empty action.

Ques­tion­ing but not Neglecting

We now find our­selves at a crit­i­cal junc­ture. If we are to embrace a healthy ortho­doxy, we must war­rant ques­tion­ing. Ques­tions pull to the sur­face what is right and true and use­ful. It is the dynamic ten­sion between cyn­i­cism and blind belief in some­thing. Ques­tions lead to a healthy ortho­doxy.⁶

What can­not be done how­ever is will­full neglect­ing of ortho­doxy. Because it is the WHY, it is the fuel for the fire of WHAT. If the desire for ortho­doxy is extin­guished, then we lose the foun­da­tion to a faith sys­tem, and our jour­ney becomes a reli­gion at best; with empty actions that are not birthed in divine per­spec­tive. We lose our hearts and will even­tu­ally lose our hands and feet.

Won­der begets Worship

Ortho­praxy must be rooted in the won­der of ortho­doxy. The rev­e­la­tion of who God is and what He says to us, enables us to respond in thoughts, words, actions, and lifestyle. To know Christ, the real­ity of who He is enables us to live in Christ and live out Christ; to grow in the rev­e­la­tion of the Holy Spirit enables us to live out in com­mu­nion with God con­tin­u­ally. This thing called faith, is really a divine dance between rev­e­la­tion and response. God reveals, and we respond. The won­der of God begets in us our response of worship.

If ever we come to a place in our ortho­doxy where God is under­stood, and all our ques­tions answered, we will have squeezed all the won­der out of rela­tion­ship. If we ever come to place in our ortho­praxy where our lives do not respond to rela­tion­ship with God, we will have retorted to pro­fan­ing truth­ful and spir­i­tual wor­ship. To grow in ortho­doxy means that we con­tin­u­ally grow in the won­der of who He is and what He has revealed to us. To grow in ortho­praxy means that we con­tin­u­ally grow in our wor­ship back to God (our response). Won­der is the cat­a­lyst for healthy ortho­doxy; wor­ship is the cat­a­lyst for healthy orthopraxy.

Con­vic­tional Ambition

I believe there is a place where humil­ity can drive our ortho­doxy and our ortho­praxy. I believe incar­na­tional and trans­for­ma­tional can be in the same sen­tence as sys­tem­atic the­ol­ogy and bib­li­cal phi­los­o­phy. There is a place where propo­si­tional, revealed truth, as it per­tains to the doc­trines of scrip­ture, can have a bear­ing on liv­ing out the king­dom and being salt and light. May con­vic­tions drive our ambi­tion. May our knowl­edge and under­stand­ing drive us to action and devo­tion. May the won­der of rela­tion­ship with God enable us to respond in wor­ship to Him. May our prac­tice demand perspective.

Ortho­doxy and Orthopraxy…We need both.