A discussion starter
It is the assumption of those (mostly evangelical & charismatic Anglicans) who are protesting against the entry of the LesBiGay agenda into the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. and the Anglican Church of Canada that they are “the orthodox”. But are they?
Let us begin at the beginning. To be orthodox is an attribute, character or quality of the ancient Churches of the East and West. And it is a name which the patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople and Alexandria specifically used, being known as jurisdictions of The Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic church. Though the ancient Church in the West, centered on the See of Rome, did not ostensibly use the word orthodox in its self-description it nevertheless claimed to be so.
According to the Early Church and the teaching of the Fathers, orthodoxy belongs necessarily in the first place to the Church as Church, as God’s Household and People. Orthodoxy is an ecclesial, corporate and community concept. Therefore a believer in the Lord Jesus can only be orthodox by participation in the life, worship, confession and witness of the local expression of the one Body of Christ, the Household of God. Orthodoxy is bestowed upon him by his fellowship and participation in mind and heart in the local church that is orthodox as a microcosm of the catholic, orthodox Church of God.
As the local jurisdiction of the one Church confesses the true Faith and worships the Almighty Father through Jesus Christ the Mediator in spirit and in truth, so it is orthodox, holding right doctrines and worshipping aright within the One Catholic Church. Converts to Jesus Christ baptized and received into the local church are taught the Faith and in embracing Christ and His Faith become orthodox Christians.
To be orthodox , to confess the true Faith and to engage in right worship also has required the Church over the centuries to identify heresy and heterodoxy and to anathematize the heretical teachers and their false teaching. The Church was called to be pure in both doctrine and life for Christ’s sake. By its nature, heterodoxy is the doctrine of a faction or of a particular person and his devotees. In contrast to orthodoxy as God-revealed truth and right worship, heresy is an opinion!
Naturally, while the word orthodox pointed first and foremost in the first 1,000 years of Christianity to that right doctrine and worship which are the possession of the Church as one Church , it came to be used in a derivative sense as a description of individual persons or societies who, being in the Church, sought to make a clear stand from there for orthodox teaching and against heretical and heterodox teaching.
After the Reformation of religion in the sixteenth century and the break-up on the Western Church into national Protestant Churches in northern Europe, the latter claimed to be orthodox in their teaching and they produced confessions of faith claiming to set forth that orthodoxy. Here we note that the primary ecclesial reference and meaning of orthodoxy is retained even though it now points in a limited sense within a national church or a specific province to the right confession of the Faith by a specific national Church.
In modern times, the West has witnessed both the development of individualism and since the 18th century of a tremendous variety of competitive Protestant denominations and groups. Thus the original meaning of orthodoxy as a corporate concept, the right faith and worship of the one Church, has been pushed into the background and almost forgotten; and its secondary meaning as relating to a bishop, clergyman or layman as an individual has become the primary one for Protestants, perhaps also for many Roman Catholics.
Apparently now in 2004, orthodoxy is seen in evangelical circles as a minimal confession of faith which believing Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and others Protestant Christians can all embrace and sign. It is usually seen as being a list of doctrines (as in the charters and statements of Evangelical Colleges and Movements) supposedly based upon Scripture. If one accepts them all or most of them then one can say, “I am orthodox.” Thus orthodoxy is said to belong to a movement, a specific local denomination or congregation, a college faculty, or an individual Christian. Therefore, as a concept, it is freed from most of its historical ties and is seen as somehow existing out there -- belonging to the Church Invisible and based on a free-standing Scripture? In fact it is a kind of a product which each person freely chooses in whole or in part out of a set of options on sale in the religious supermarket of the churches of North America.
Thus when you look at one of the American or Canadian liberal old-line/main-line denominations and ask about its orthodoxy, you run the risk of confusion unless you define your terms carefully. You can look back to the 16th or 17th century origins and see its original Confession of Faith (e.g., Augsburg or Westminster) & Constitution and say that is has the foundation of orthodoxy, thus in some ways it is orthodoxy still. You can then look at its pronouncements and resolutions and decisions since the 1950’s and you can say that officially and empirically it is heretical and heterodox in that it has embraced novel doctrines of God, Christ, salvation and morality. Further, as a member of this apostate denomination, you can then use the modern evangelical definition of orthodoxy and claim to be orthodox yourself as an individual, for you can claim to hold in a general way the content of the original Confession of faith of this denomination or as a group you can produce a new one which you judge to be “evangelical & biblical”.
However, if you apply to a modern liberal denomination the original meaning of orthodoxy as a corporate character belonging necessarily first of all to a jurisdiction or diocese or province of the one Church of God, then you have problems indeed. As a member of a modern jurisdiction (e.g. the ECUSA), which officially has set aside its standards of right doctrine and worship and morality, and has deliberately adopted modern liberal standards and which, further, has also changed the nature of its Ministry, you cannot genuinely be orthodox (whatever be your own opinions) for you participate at various levels in what which is obviously not an orthodox church. As a member of this sick body, you have to confess – strictly speaking -- that you share in the sickness and unless and until the jurisdiction itself restores orthodoxy to its life and worship and teaching, you cannot be orthodox yourself --- you can desire to be so, you can work to be so, you can work to be so but you cannot be so truly.
The most anyone can claim for himself as a Minister or member of the ECUSA or the Anglican Church of Canada, within the context of the American supermarket of religions, is that “I am would-be orthodox” desiring to be truly orthodox by belonging to a genuinely new [or wholly renewed], orthodox province or jurisdiction of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of God.
The initial way to true orthodoxy of doctrine and worship is through penance and confession of sin and a readiness to recognize that even reformers within a diseased province share in that disease. Professions of superiority and of being free from the stain of the disease of heresy and immorality are a sure recipe for staying within the power of the disease. Lord have mercy upon us!
[See further, L.R.Tarsitano & P.Toon, NEITHER ORTHODOXY NOR A FORMULARY. The Shape and Content of the 1979 Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church, available from www.anglicanmarketplace.com or from 1-800-727-1928.]
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
No comments:
Post a Comment