Nothing guarantees readers or gets people excited like large theological terms. Hope your blood is going already! This past spring at the 2007 Wheaton College Theological Conference, Tony Jones, the national director of the Emergent Village presented a paper called, “Whence Hermeneutic Authority?”. Tony’s appearance there caused a bit of unneeded stir, but apart from the politics and silliness of his presence at the conference I have spent some time the last couple of weeks digging through his paper. My buddy Dave and I have had an ongoing email and phone conversation about it as well, because the ideas he brings up are important to consider, especially in the context of what they mean for the emerging church. So let me summarize a bit of a far more in depth conversation and hopefully you will engage with it yourself.
Jones’ paper is all about the nature of orthodoxy, how it is created, how we use it, and just what it’s nature is. He says, “Orthodoxy is a happening, an occurrence, not a state of being
or a state of mind or a state-ment.”At the heart of his paper is a belief that orthodoxy is not a statement of beliefs that we use to evaluate people, instead it is what happens as the church lives out their faith, as we become the incarnation of our faith as Jesus came to demonstrate true faith and understanding of the true God through his own incarnation. (At least that is my understanding of his paper. I am sure someone else can summarize it better.)
To put it in another way, it seems to be a reiteration of the statement that faith is something you do not something you believe. Jones is emphasizing the connection between true orthodoxy and orthopraxy, what we believe and what we do. They can not be disconnected. The real debate about his ideas is whether or not there is a set criteria of beliefs that make up the orthodoxy of our orthopraxy. Jones believes that we never achieve real orthodoxy because our theology, our understanding of God is never perfect. We live our faith out in an effort to understand God, acknowledging our inability to ever fully understand God. He seems to believe that orthodoxy can’t be a statement, it is a life we live.
Jones has some great ideas in his paper but seems to go too far. The problem with his questioning of orthodoxy is that at the center of our faith there are a set of beliefs that haven’t been called into question and aren’t rooted in context or culture. These beliefs are a litmus test for our faithfulness, but only so much as they empower and motivate us to faithful living.
I encourage you to read the paper, (2007-wheaton-theology-conference-tony-jones.pdf) it is though provoking. I really like Tony, I have had the chance to meet him a couple of times at emergent events and I think he is a gifted theologian. He has taken some hard shots from critics, and much of it has nothing to do with his work. Check out his blog, it is good. Maybe next week Dave and I will have a podcast discussion about the paper and share some more thoughts about it.
If you made it through all of that good for you. If not, the next one will be shorter. Peace.
October 9, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I was waiting for him (Paul) to comment on that one.
Lord, have mercy on us!
October 9, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Why were you waiting, Maggie?
Do you also think it strange that Christians would utilize Jung’s/Philemon’s psychological archetypes given the Christianity-hating, astrology-loving, seance-conducting, horoscope-reading, occultic, neopagan associations of Jung?
Just who is Philemon anyways?
October 9, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Don’t care much or know much about Jung. Regardless of his craziness his personality profiles seem to have quite a bit of truth in them. There are certainly many others that have taken his work, expanded up on it and used it to study human behavior. Is there some danger in this I am missing? Don’t get me mad or my ENTP might become an ENTJ!
October 10, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I just knew you’d have something to say about it, Paul. My psychic told me.
The only Philemon I know is a guy who was called to humble himself and accept his slave as his brother in Christ.
October 10, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I typed an elegant well thought and provocative response to this topic yesterday, but for some reason it didn’t send, so here’s the ugly stepsister of my first response:
First, I want to recommend Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Creed to anyone who wants to read a good book on how the creeds of the Church shape the Church’s orthodoxy and orthopraxy. I have a hunch that Jones has read this book because he makes a reference to unicorns in his paper that is very similar to a unicorn reference in Johnson’s book.
Now, a few thoughts from Jones’ paper:
Jones seems to be saying that “event” should be the language of orthodoxy. From what I can tell, the Nicene Creed and other formal creeds of the Church are event-based orthodoxy. “Maker of heaven and earth.” “Begotten of the Father before all worlds.” “Was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary.” “The giver of life.” “I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.” The Creeds are remembrances of events stated as orthodoxy. Our entire belief system is based on a story of God’s work in the world; past, present, and future. Since our orthodoxy is based on an ongoing story, there must be some room for that story to expand and be shaped by the orthopraxy of the Church of today.
Jones also seems to be arguing that orthopraxy trumps orthodoxy because it is less prone to relativism. Yet, what God deems as right practice for me is different from what right practice is for you. To one Christ says, “Sell all your possessions.” To another he says, “Sell half of your possessions.” Both seem equally prone to relativism because while scripture may be infallible, the interpretation of it has proven to be a very difficult task. If you think it’s not, you are probably missing something pretty huge about the whole thing and should probably pray for God to humble your heart and open your mind to the larger reality and nuance of Jesus’ words and Israel’s story.
It also seems that Jones (and those arguing against him) want to pick either orthodoxy or orthopraxy as primal and more important than the other, but can we really have one without the other? If Jones needs to make direct reference to scripture to validate his argument for orthopraxy as being orthodoxy I would suggest he go to James 2:14-26. Yet, Jesus had many things to say about “right practice” without “right belief.” Seems to be an orthoparadox afterall.
October 12, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Jones also seems to be arguing that orthopraxy trumps orthodoxy because it is less prone to relativism. Yet, what God deems as right practice for me is different from what right practice is for you. To one Christ says, “Sell all your possessions.” To another he says, “Sell half of your possessions.” Both seem equally prone to relativism because while scripture may be infallible, the interpretation of it has proven to be a very difficult task.
Shay,
Are you referring to the story of the rich young ruler from Mark 10, here?
If so, I think the point is being missed. Jesus is definitely no establishing a general orthopraxy for all to follow in Mark 10 with his answer to the rich young ruler. In fact, more to the point of our subject, Jesus is pointing out the lack of orthodoxy in the rich young ruler’s beliefs in regard to salvation.
The rich young ruler came to Jesus calling Him good (Mark 10:17). Jesus asked the young man why he called Him “good” because only God is “good”. This exchange is an indication that the rich young ruler is missing the point that Jesus is God.
The rich young ruler is looking for salvation via works and obedience to the law and is missing the point that salvation is only through a simple, child-like faith (see passage just before the rich young ruler’s story) in Jesus Christ (who is God).
The rich young ruler tells Jesus that he kept all of the commandments, but Jesus, knowing the man’s heart, cuts to the matter (have no other gods before me) and asks him if he wishes to be perfect, attain salvation through the law, then give up your idol of money and love of the world.
Unfortunately, the rich young ruler walked away, apparently, not understanding who Christ really was and what was really required for salvation (a lack of orthodoxy that lead to a lack of orthopraxy).
Orthopraxy always begins with orthodoxy (see Philippians 1:9, and several other New Testaments concerning right “knowledge” of God).
And James 2 does, in no way, establish orthopraxy over orthodoxy. It only states that there is no real faith if the good works are not a by-product of said faith. In other words, real orthodox faith leads to proper action on the believers part. The absence of the the good works as an indication that true faith does not really exist.
October 12, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Maggie,
LOL!
I am glad that you do not know Jung’s spirit-guide, Philemon (who Jung described as a lame old man with horns that visited him and gave him his knowledge).
Dr. Richard Noll, author, clinical psychologist, and Associate Professor of Psychology at Desales University, wrote books about Jung (The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung and The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement).
In his works, Noll cited that, among many other things:
Jung “believed that Christianity was a Jewish cancer, a ‘foreign growth’ imposed on the Germans (such as himself), which cut them off from their biological and spiritual roots and made them ill.”
Jung intentionally developed his “psychology” as a religious cult, centered on voelkisch traditions and Mithraic sun worship, with himself as the saviour (“Aryan Christ”) at its center; and the Jungian movement remains today only a cult of personality.
October 12, 2007 at 4:38 pm
So, no Yoga and no Jung. Fine with me.
October 12, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I’m with you Maggie…
No Yoga (it can’t be divorced from the precepts of Hinduism and done in a Christain context…and what about the confusion of the practice being a stumbling block to some?)
And no Jung.
October 12, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Greg,
Did you ever find the audio link to Jones’ comments about MacArthur’s alleged Gnosticism?