Beyond Orthodox and Orthopraxy

Ortho - from the Greek 

orthos

 ("right", "true", "straight")

Dox - from the Greek 

doxa

 ("opinion" or "belief", related to 

dokein

, "to think"

Much of the church focuses on the "right belief" of the parishioners. Many of the conversations I have with people are rooted in what is orthodox Christian thought and what is not. The current state of the Church places a premium on orthodox thought. The thing is orthodox thought is not just the idol of the Church but of our world. We have a desire to ensure that people have the right thoughts on things. 

This is not a "bad" thing, but when orthodoxy is out of balance with orthopraxy (p

rax - from the Greek 

praxia 

"action", "activity") then things get a little weird. This imbalance can be seen when members of the Church will preach love but stand stand on corners and condemn the "heretics" (heresy - from the Greek 

hairetikos

 meaning "able to choose"). 

Arguing orthodox thought happens in the world of science as well as the debate of climate change rages on or the debates of the mysteries of the world continue to perplex the mind.

The church spends a lot of time getting people to orthodox thought. For instance, the church teaches people that it is a good thing to give of their time, talents gifts and service to the world. The belief that giving is a good thing is "orthodox" in Christian thought, and the church is a place to instill that idea into the minds of people. 

In order to ensure that orthodox is not out of balance, there is orthopraxy - which has come to mean "doing the right things". It is not enough to intellectually know about the importance of giving, but if you want to be a Christian you must

actually

give. It is in the doing of faith that faith is given flesh. It is the whole, "It is not what you say but it is what you do" mentality. Orthopraxy is meant to be a counter-weight to orthodoxy.

But like all weight and counter-weights, this creates a dichotomy that ends up pitting one against the other. So you have people in the church that place the importance on ensuring people have the right beliefs and then there are people who are not concerned with beliefs but are invested to ensure we are doing right actions. Christians talk about the balance between "faith" and "works".

The problem is that Christianity is not dualistic in thought or deed. What sets Christianity apart is the Trinitarian nature of our understanding of God. This is the Good News of Jesus, there is a third way that is not being held up in this conversation between orthodoxy and orthopraxy and it is this third way, which breaks the dichotomy of faith and works, that will be the topic of the next post.

Analog and Digital

Many people talk about the differences in being a "digital native" and a "digital immigrant". This difference is more than just how savvy one is with technology but seems to speak to a way of viewing and engaging the world.

In the style of Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a digital immigrant if you are giving directions to a location rather than just giving a physical address - you might be a digital immigrant. Or if you print out emails - you might be a digital immigrant. 

Digital native/immigrant language is not very helpful to me because it seems to categorize people by age. If you are less than 35 years old, you are a digital native. Older than that and you are an immigrant. But being a native or immigrant has little to do with age and more to do with worldview. 

I have met a number of young people who are savvy with technology and yet think very analogically at the same time I have met much older people who do not know snot about technology but think much more digitally. 

To this end, I find it helpful to talk about digital thinking and analog thinking.

This is not an essay on the full definitions of analog and digital thinking, but one point of divergence seems to be rooted in how each thinker deals with change.

There are a great number of people who identify the church needs to change - it is the nature of that change that  is the point of tension. Analog-ers want the church to change by just being better at what we are doing. We need to be better teachers - so we try to use video and twitter while preaching. We need to be better at selling ourselves - so we get involved with every social media we can imagine. We need to be better at managing the money - so we higher consultants to help with a stewardship campaign.

On the other hand, there are the digital thinkers who also identify the church needs to change, but not in the same way. The church does not need to just do what we are doing only better, but we need to do things differently. We need to change the way we preach not just do it better. We do not need to be better signs but build better people. Stewardship campaigns are no longer serving the purpose of helping people be better stewards, rather they are pledge drives with Jesus language. 

Analog thinking leads to a place where we build church buildings because we want the church to be around forever. Digital thinking leads to a place where we build the kingdom because we know the church is not what we are called to build.

These are just some basic thoughts that are not original and others around the world have already pointed out that how we address change is not generational but more worldview specific. It is the job of the digital thinkers to learn how the analog thinkers address change because it is the digital thinkers who are calling into question the sustainability of the current systems.

Quick question - do you think the church needs to be better (more efficient, greater communication, etc.) or do you think the church needs to be different (new language, different focus, etc.)?

Dr. Seuss and Ethics - Repost from Buzzfeed

As a child I was captivated by a short Dr. Seuss cartoon tape we had at our home. It had Cat in the Hat, The Sneeches and The Zax stories on it. And the past couple of weeks I have been telling my son bedtime stories and he loves the Sneeches and the Zax. 

In a news amalgamator I use, I came across this little post in which Buzzfeed renamed some Dr. Seuss classics. 

I did not want to lose these and so I posted them here to share with all seven people who run across this blog. 

Enjoy.