Toward an Orthodoxy of LIFE

John Wesley, as quoted by AW Tozer in the Preface to his marvellous book 'The Pursuit of God", asserts that:

Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions,yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is proof of this.'

If what Wesley says is true, then the church (at an institutinal level at any rate) has managed to get somewhat unbalanced over the years in terms of its mission and its raison d'etre.  If orthodoxy ought to be a 'slender' part of Christian life and faith, then it seems to me that we have somehow turned it into a most un-slender part indeed.  If Christianity were a delicious and deep-filled pie (and why not?)  then that which Wesley suggests should be a mere sliver, we have somehow expanded into a bloody great wedge.  In some cases, we have mistaken the slice for the the whole blessed pasty itself. My question, is, brothers and sisters: in our hunger for right belief, are our eyes bigger than our tummies?

Personally, I find the endless debates and anxieties about orthodoxy (my own debates and anxiteties very much included) increasingly hard to swallow.  In trying to live as a Christian, and help others to do the same, I get really down at times when I look at the history and denominational 'map' of the church.  This is not to say that I have figured it all out and can offer a perfect, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all model of Christain life and fellowship which I'm ready to wheel successfully out where other, lesser mortals have failed.  (yeah, and I've also fugured out what kind of church JESUS would go to.  Clue: he wouldn't go to yours).   But in seriousness, the question I would ask, humbly, is this:  has all the breath and ink and pixels we as Christians have ejaculated into the world over questions of orthodoxy actually been that successful in bringing people closer to the transforming power and love of God?  

Another thing I'm puzzled about is this:  were (are) all the endless church splits, and sub-splits really about defending orthodoxy anyway?  Or were they just about an inability to love one another with the kind of love Christ loved us?  Were they about the pursuit of right doctrine?  Or were they just an acquiesence to kind of world-weary pessimism about the ability of human beings to just GET ALONG WITH ONE ANOTHER?  I don't know.  Perhaps a mixture of noble ideals and dirty selfishness - that's what life can feel like at times - praise God that he is able to lift us out of the mire of ourselves!

Orthodoxy - believing the right stuff - I think exists to provide the solid stage upon which the vibrant and exciting theatre of faith is played out.  Remove the stage altogether, and you have a hard time putting on a play.  But if the wooden boards of the stage itself, knots and repairs and woodworm holes and all,  become the primary meaning and focus of the acting experience, then it is a dull play indeed.  In fact it's just a bunch of people staring at the floor.  And what of the theatre-goers - those non-Christians who peer at us as we play out our part in God's story.  Will they see people nit-picking over the wording of creeds and arguing over the finer points of dogma, or will they see people living life, and living it in all its fullness?


I worry that when, as Christians, we are too concerned with believing the right things that we either then put our feet up in self-satisfaction once we think we've figured it all out, or else insist that others toe the line, which we insist is THE line, the one and only line, and and more right than anyone else's.  Both seem like blind, Pharasaical alleys to me.  I think we need to be more concerned with having the right relationships with the right people at the right times to right the wrongs of this world - and the world unseen.  This is what I mean I think by an 'orthodoxy of life'.  It's not (just) our belief that is right, but our lives which are right.  You're not a disciple of Christ because you believe the apostles' (or some other) creed.  Even the Devil believes the right stuff about God, as Wesley reminds us (and isn't that just DEVASTATING?  Even scarier, is that the Devil may even have a fuller understanding of theology than any human who has ever lived.  How else would he be able to lie so effectively?)  No, you are a disciple of Christ because you know him and love him and pick up your cross every day and follow him.  Belief is something you do with your brain.  Faith is something you do with your soul.


What was Jesus' attitude to orthodoxy?  I think it was ambiguous (or was it? haha)   He upheld the Law of Moses and followed its signposts to holiness, and yet he downright broke the Law when, in the circumstances of REAL HUMAN LIFE, it contravened the higher, more essential Law of holy love for God and man.  And I think Jesus remained ambiguous about orthodoxy in order to teach us to lift our eyes to that higher Law - the one which Paul said was written on our hearts -  which isn't really a Law at all of course, it's a Person, a mystical encounter, a hyper-reality of love.  How can this be all about right belief?  Right belief may lead us to the water (and do so crucially) but it is not the water itself, and on its own, it certainly doesn't have the power to make us drink.   The Kingdom is surely a LIVED-OUT thing, not a codeified, abstract, mechanised, systemic thing.  It's a living, breathing, messy, paradoxical, glorious, long-suffering thrill-ride of a thing.  It's all our best dreams and all our worst nightmares all at once, half-told by our grateful sobs and wholly, and silently understood by the ever-patient ear, and the ever-loving arms of the Father of Eternity.


Tozer uses Wesley's assertion as a springboard for a call toward a more geniune thirst for the life-changing presence of God (at least that's what I think his book's about - I was dazzled by it and I need to re-read it).  Francis Thompson's poem, The Hound Of Heaven (subject of a future blog, because it's blowing my mind at the moment!) portrays the same relationship, but with God as pursuer.  Both I think, resonate with a generation which is just plain WEARY with doctrinal squabbling and is hungry and thirsty for true righteousness.


Is there a revival of mysticism happening right now?  I hope so.  I need one.  My own faith seems to insubstantial, so sickly, so fickle.  Oh, Lord, drive me, drive me, into your terrible and life-giving presence!