The Resurrection of Orthodoxy
Against All Odds, Right Belief Makes A Comeback

There is so little orthodoxy of any kind today,

it would be refreshing to find even some dead orthodoxy.

Gordon Clark[1]

If you want to do the right things, believe the right things. Orthodoxy—‘right belief,’ or ‘right doctrine’—is the source of orthopraxy, ‘right practice.’ The connection between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is so pronounced that Paul assures Timothy that the way to “save thyself, and them that hear thee” is to continue in reading, exhortation and doctrine[2]—i.e., to study and declare the truth of the Gospel. As James teaches elsewhere, good works inevitably flow from good doctrine. You can’t have one without the other.

Not in device nor creed

Of course, in our post-doctrinal age, this is an easier lesson to affirm than uphold. No longer is the individual believer bound by any creed or confession. He is free to believe that the Bible means whatever he wants it to mean—and anyone who challenges his interpretation is, at best, splitting hairs, and at worst, tearing down his fellow Christians. Maybe it hasn’t reached the point where the person who objects to snake handling is criticized for being intolerant toward the convictions of his fellow Christians, but we can’t be far now.

The determining factor is no longer what you believe; it’s whether you’re excited about it—whatever it happens to be. No one is interested in drawing a line in the sand between true and false doctrine. After all, who gets to decide what is true? You have your interpretation and I have mine, and we’ll never know who’s right until eternity (especially if we agree not to try and find out). The Reformation established the priesthood of the believer. Now, modern evangelicalism is working hard to ratify his papal infallibility! In contrast to the Reformed standard of sola Scriptura, we have embraced the catastrophic aberration of “solo Scriptura”: you alone can judge what God’s Word means for you.[3]

So Christians no longer judge the orthodoxy of one another’s beliefs—instead, it’s all about distinguishing between “real” and “fake” experiences.

The “real” Christians are the ones who have an authentic experience, even if they also have a novel understanding of the Trinity (the kind we used to call, with the greatest insensitivity, heretical). They don’t subscribe to this doctrine or that doctrine; they believe in the Bible plain and simple…even if they can’t always articulate what the Bible teaches. To make a long story short, embracing true doctrine and eradicating false doctrine is far less important to us than insuring a satisfied, self-actualized believer.

Critics of these trends in evangelicalism have said that the church “is seriously off base because it has abandoned its evangelical truth-heritage”:

Instead of trying to do God’s work in God’s way, it is trying to build a prosperous earthly kingdom with secular tools. Thus, in spite of our apparent success we have been “living in a fool’s paradise.” [4]

 In other words, the concerns of the modern church are not doctrinal, or even philosophical. They are psychological. And that is just a fancy way of saying that the church is centered around man, not God.

Dead Orthodoxy

But what’s the alternative—othodoxy? In a lot of people’s minds, that’s what got us into trouble in the first place. Doctrine has a way of taking over. It squeezes everything pleasant out of the church’s life and replaces it with endless arguments over the minutiae of the faith. Emphasize doctrine and civilized conversation is replaced by perpetual cycles of vain repetition and doubtful disputation. You don’t have to be doctrinally correct to enter the kingdom, so why not just focus on the Gospel and leave the rest to eternity?

If only Paul had realized this! Writing so early in the history of the church, he couldn’t have realized what a Pandora’s box he was opening when he told poor Timothy to keep reading those books and expounding on that doctrine. If only someone had warned him that orthodoxy kills enthusiasm and doctrine divides—right?

Wrong. Paul understood that the path to authentic Christianity was belief in the truth. If Timothy had watered down the teaching entrusted to him, he would have put himself and his congregation in jeopardy. The only way to experience ‘real’ Christianity was (and is) to obey the whole of Christ’s teaching and to be conformed to His example—which is a legacy of reverence, awe and joy, not shallow emotional highs. The doctrine of Christ is not a system of pointless limitations handed down for the sole purpose of starting arguments around the dinner table. It is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes.

Let’s face it: doctrine does divide. But there’s no reason to be ashamed. Doctrine is the content of our faith. It divides the publican from the Pharisee, the sheep from the goats, the faithful from the lost. If we are unashamed of the Gospel, we should be unashamed of doctrine, too.

Up from the grave

Dead orthodoxy is twitching again. In preparation for revival, God has begun a reformation in His church. Of course, we’ve done what we could to conjure up revival in His absence, just as Abraham and Sarah found a way to fulfill God’s promise for Him. Like them, we have met with disaster. What more could we expect? As inheritors of a Godly tradition from the Reformers through the Puritans and Pilgrims to the great revivals, we have a wealth of doctrinal truth at our fingertips and a myriad of hallowed examples to follow. Abandoning these, we have created a new religion more suited to the times—but now it is time to repent. Trade in this religion of experience for a religion of truth.

Dead orthodoxy—what is it? An altar doused in water awaiting fire from above. God will breathe life into His faithful people. Until then, as Paul says, we must continue in reading, in exhortation and in doctrine to save both ourselves and those who hear us.