Evangelicalism itself was once considered an alternative to Christianity.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nYou remember the Reformation, right? When Luther and his buddies (Actually, they weren\u2019t all his buddies. Many fellow Reformers hated Luther), decided the church needed a bit of change and that they were the ones to do it?<\/p>\n
I say \u201cthe church\u201d intentionally because before the Reformation there was just one church if you lived in Western Europe (Two if you had a heart and were more ecumenically inclined to love your Orthodox brothers and sisters in the East.). There was only Rome. Anything outside of Rome (or Constantinople for that matter) was considered heretical or, to borrow from Challies, \u201can alternative to Christianity.\u201d<\/p>\n
There seems to be this implied notion among evangelicals when we speak of evangelical Christianity that is has always existed. Sure, we sort of recognized that it really got going during the Reformation, but it\u2019s as if we see the Reformation as simply releasing the true faith, evangelicalism, from its Roman Catholic prison so that we could get back to an earlier, purer form of Christianity. So we could be like those great \u201cevangelicals\u201d of the early church.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m keenly aware of the anachronism in that last sentence. I\u2019m just not convinced that most of us in the evangelical world really comprehend the newness of our tradition. Which is why it\u2019s critical to understand what really happened during the Reformation if we are going to have the sorts of conversations Challies and others want to have without looking completely foolish.<\/p>\n
When most of us think of the Reformation, we tend to do so in terms of a problem, or set of problems, that needed to be fixed; problems which the Reformers supposedly took care of.<\/p>\n
But this is to miss what really happened in the Reformation and is still happening today.<\/p>\n
The Reformation was much more than a theological quarrel over doctrine and ritual that could simply be \u201csolved\u201d or \u201cfixed.\u201d It may have started that way, but it quickly became a fundamental revolution in thought. It was a seismic shift of authority, power, and control away from the magisterium and into the hands of everyday people.\u00a0It blew the door wide open to allowing everyone to draw their own conclusions and to be their own authority in the face of actual authority\/tradition\/credentials\/etc.<\/p>\n
In other words, the Reformation went from \u201cwe need to fix this\u201d to \u201cwe have the authority for ourselves\u201d and when it did it shifted from a problem solving endeavor to the creation of a new mentality and that mentality was and is a Pandora\u2019s box which, for good or ill, can never be closed or which will never \u201cend\u201d because it has no end point, no objective other than freedom and control. (Which I\u2019m not convinced are always particularly good things or even attainable things or even Christian things, but that\u2019s another discussion altogether.)<\/p>\n
In short, the Reformation isn\u2019t over. It can\u2019t be over because the Reformation was and is about a way of thinking, looking at, and interacting with the world that allows anyone and everyone to claim authority, to claim to be the possessor of the \u201ctrue faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is why the church went from either Catholic or Orthodox in 1517, to tens of thousands of Christian denominations just a few short centuries later \u2013 all claiming to be orthodox.<\/p>\n
Which is where the problem of orthodoxy and evangelicalism comes in.<\/p>\n
There is no such thing as a unified body of believers called \u201cevangelicalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Go to an evangelical Christian event and look around. You\u2019ll see people from dozens, if not hundreds of different denominations, some with radically different claims about the faith, all claiming the title \u201cevangelical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orthodoxy can only be orthodoxy within a closed group of like minded people with a central power base that agrees upon and defines what that orthodoxy will be. This does not mean there won\u2019t be some disagreement within that group. Of course there will be. But as soon as those people leave to form their own church, they create a new orthodoxy \u2013 their own.<\/p>\n
This is what we see in both the Great Schism of 1054 as well as the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and everything that followed in its wake. Certainly there are still statements of faith that bind us all together, things like the Apostles\u2019 and Nicene Creed which were affirmed when there still was one, holy, catholic and apostolic church (though plenty of people who claim Christianity today try to reject these creeds), but there is no longer a universal \u201corthodoxy\u201d that can be appealled to which can apply to all Christians and which can subsequently be used to beat up others when they don\u2019t agree with you.<\/p>\n
What we have instead are \u201corthodoxies\u201d. We have Roman Catholic orthodoxy and Southern Baptist orthodoxy and Methodist orthodoxy and Presbyterian orthodoxy and Nazarene orthodoxy (had to give my people some love), and while there are many things those groups can agree on, each has their own particular brand of Christianity.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t think this constitutes distinct orthodoxies, then I would direct you back to the issue that started this post \u2013 Christian mysticism. If you\u2019re a Roman Catholic, then there\u2019s no question that mysticism fits within the bounds of orthodoxy. However, talk to a Southern Baptist and you\u2019ll most likely get the opposite answer. While, if you talk to Methodists, Presbyterians, or Nazarenes you\u2019ll get responses that are all over the map.<\/p>\n
My point is this \u2013 with as fragmented as the Church has become in the past 500 years we must be extremely careful when we start invoking the idea of orthodoxy, because more often than not the battles we fight this weapon with are only \u201corthodox\u201d or \u201cunorthodox\u201d within our particular denomination or tradition, traditions which themselves were considered unorthodox or even heretical by the churches and traditions which were already established long before our particular denomination or church was born.<\/p>\n
What has happened as a result of this constant infighting, is that\u00a0evangelicalism in particular has increasingly become defined by its ignorance and arrogance, but it\u2019s lack of knowledge about its own history and the audacity with which it portrays itself as the keepers of the one, true faith.<\/p>\n
This must change.<\/p>\n
When we use the word \u201cevangelicalism\u201d as interchangeable with \u201cChristianity\u201d in the ways we so often do, what we are essentially claiming is evangelicalism is<\/em>\u00a0Christianity. While evangelicalism may be Christian, Christianity is not exhausted by the evangelical tradition. To act otherwise is, as I\u2019ve already said many times, the height of ignorance and arrogance.<\/p>\nWorse yet, it\u2019s profoundly un-Christian.<\/p>\n
For we are one Body with many parts, and even if one part is as big and powerful as evangelicalism, that part cannot say to the rest of the Body, \u201cI don\u2019t need you.\u201d For if that part cuts itself off, it will be the one outside the Body. It will be the one outside the bounds of orthodoxy. It will be the heretic.<\/p>\n
So while orthodoxy is a very important thing, we newcomers to the faith, we evangelicals need to be extremely careful about how we talk about it.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, we will end up sounding like a bunch of ignorant fools.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grace and peace,<\/p>\n
Zack Hunt<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, Tim Challies posted this article rehashing the old, and frankly tiring, warning about the \u201cdangers\u201d of Christian mysticism. I am by no means a mystic and, to be honest, Christian mysticism does not hold a lot of personal appeal. I don\u2019t think it is by any stretch of the imagination the dark evil Challies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":9678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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I am by no means a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/2013\/05\/evangelicalism-and-the-problem-of-orthodoxy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Semi-Official Blog of Zack Hunt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-09T15:16:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/941\/2013\/05\/donatello-the-high-altar-of-st-anthony.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"553\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Zack Hunt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Zack Hunt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/2013\/05\/evangelicalism-and-the-problem-of-orthodoxy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/2013\/05\/evangelicalism-and-the-problem-of-orthodoxy\/\",\"name\":\"Evangelicalism And The Problem Of Orthodoxy\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-05-09T15:16:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-09T15:16:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zackhunt\/#\/schema\/person\/92d888feb798c511bc3c9cb2fc4a4226\"},\"description\":\"Yesterday, Tim Challies posted this article rehashing the old, and frankly tiring, warning about the \\\"dangers\\\" of Christian mysticism. 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