There’s no such thing as…
In a recent comment thread over at Love & Blunder, someone made a comment about the danger of “dead orthodoxy.”
This bothered me, and after a little bit of pondering/thought, I figured out why.
There’s no such thing as “dead” orthodoxy.
Orthodox, in the theological context, means “right teaching” — how could “right teaching” be dead?
A seeming theme for blog entries I’ve been reading today is one of words being co-opted/corrupted, such that their original meanings don’t apply, at least in common parlance (e.g., “evangelical”). “Orthodox” would seem to be another, as it has been (at least in common parlance) stripped of almost all positive connotation. Only in the context of that corruption, then, could it be used in conjunction with “dead”.
It’s almost like damning it with faint praise. “Well, they’re not practicing outright heterodoxy (after all, we shan’t be, gasp, judgmental!), but neither are they ablaze with really true stuff like us…” It strikes me as a way to minimize/marginalize those who wish to earnestly follow what God has given, without innovation, while raising as an example those who have applied man-made “improvements” & methodologies.
And, as is quite often the case with lies, it has been repeated often enough so as to become viewed as true & accepted wisdom.
But it still doesn’t make it true.
-ghp
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Yep, Glen, you are absolutely right. In my younger days I thought people attending a worship service in a calm and orderly fashion must have a dead faith! That’s what my hip and cool youth ministry associations seemed to imply. It’s quit a discovery to realize that I was wrong about so many, many things! If lies get repeated enough, they slowly become one’s basis for truth.
Mary