A Generous Orthodoxy All Over Again
October 26, 2007 by Jonathan Brink
Emergent Village is looking for feedback on developing a Greenbelt type festival. And as I was taking it they included the following demographic question: “Primary Theological Orientation”. And to a certain extent I looked at the list and identified with almost every one, which made me think about Brian McLaren’s, “A Generous Orthodoxy.“
I’m a former marketing guy so I get why they want to do this. But to be honest I surprised me that Emergent would seek out this information. Facetiously, are they going to stamp this on the name tag?
Spiritual but not religious: Yes, I am a spiritual person but I can’t stand oppressive religion.
Orthodox (Eastern Rite, OCA, Coptic, etc): Yes, I’m trying to be orthodox. Aren’t we all?
Roman Catholic: Yes, even though I have serious concerns. I love the liturgy and art forms that are part of the history. The Apostle Peter was part of this church too.
Anglican (Episcopal, Anglican Church of Canada, etc) Yes, These are my brothers from up North. Need to know more though.
Methodist (UMC, AME, Nazarene, Wesleyan, etc) Yes, I love Wesley’s focus on discipleship.
Reformed (PCUSA, PCA, UCC, etc) Yes, I hope I’m reforming.
Lutheran: Yes, see “reformed”.
Anabaptist: Yes, I love the focus on Kingdom.
Pentecostal (Charismatic, etc) Yes, I truly believe the Holy Spirit is alive and well and leading for those who are listening.
Evangelical (Non-Denom, Vineyard, Southern Baptist, etc) Yes, I love the beauty of freedom and intimate worship and losing labels.
Contemplative Tradition (Quaker, etc) Yes, you bet. I need to remember to remember and reflect on the journey on a regular basis.
Metaphysical Christian (Unity, etc) Yes. It’s hard for me to knock anything that has the word unity in it. 
Other Religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) Yes with an obvious asterisk. Jesus was Jewish and I have learned a tremendous amount from Hebrew culture, Buddhists and Muslims on commitment and conviction, but the real word here is human.
None: Yes, because it is hard for me to identify that I am simply one of these.
I’m being facetious with all of this to a certain extent. But the list really got me thinking about the nature of the emerging church and our desire to move past traditional belief labels and find deeper distinctions that bring us together so we can learn from each other. I recognize that we don’t have these distinctions yet. But I’m not afraid to learn from my Buddhist friend or my Anabaptist brother. I can easily imagine God speaking through them just as much as he would through an ass. I made a decision a long time ago to be open to listening to the Spirit in what ever way He chooses. I have Scripture to help me sift.
I suddenly had a renewed appreciation for what Brian was trying to accomplish with his book. How do we begin to learn from each other rather than separate ourselves? How do we learn to connect as human beings rather than disconnect based on differences? Love calls us to move past these differences and see each other for who we really are, God’s beautiful creation. We may believe differently but it doesn’t mean they each of us doesn’t need love.
My end choice was “other” for this reason. It was a good exercise though.
Which one would you pick?
Just out of curiosity, have you looked into “Metaphysical Christianity”? I’m up in the Seattle area and there are Unitarian churches all over… the idea is that NO idea of God is wrong, rather that you can believe in whatever God you want and have him however you want him.
Because it carries an appealing word in the title, you can dig on it? For real?
I wonder, are you a bit over concerned about accepting all and appearing to accept all humans? I mean, as Christians we are to believe that there truly is a right and a wrong and isn’t it our responsibility to uphold and fight for that Truth? Humanity is something that we obviously love and stand by… rather, it’s the sin that we don’t validate. Right?
I walked through the questionnaire to make sure that I understood what exactly they were asking for. It asked for your “primary theological orientation”… And honestly, I surprised that you’re surprised that they’re asking! Everyone came from somewhere, after all.
We all hold a set of beliefs that align us with one group or another. I see your point that we can appreciate certain traits from one group or another but THEOLOGICALLY, where do you line up?
P.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian
Hmmm. I don’t know that I could pick just one either. I lean most towards “Anglican,” “Methodist,” and “Contemplative.” I guess I’d have to choose “Other” or “None” to be the most honest.
Raquel, I think you missed that I was being facetious. I even specifically said so to avoid confusion. My “choice” was other.
The point was also not that I believe all of these. I would not consider myself a unitarian, even though one of the primary elements of Missio Dei is working towards reconciliation, or unity. And I never said I dig on it. I said, “It’s hard for me to knock it.” I was referencing the label, not the distinction of unitarianism.
I also saw the “primary” reference. My point was calling out the label distinction and my surprise that emergent would do this. The postmodern world doesn’t like to be pigeon holed. Labels serve their purpose but have clear problems as well. I specifically referenced McLaren’s work as a way of holding the idea of seeing into the value of each category.
Also please help me see where you see we are called to fight for truth? I would suggest we are called to love and uphold the truth through our lives. Jesus never argued for truth. He let his life speak truth in love in ways that arguing never could.
Hope this helps.
Well, you’re right in that I totally missed the facetious portion (I’m crackin up). I hope you’ll excuse the misread.
And while I appreciate your idea of unity, but if it isn’t based in the Trinity (the Truth that I made reference to previously) then what do we truly have in common with them? If our lives, as yours sounds to be, are built on the foundation of the trinity then our #1 goal should be to have a relationship with Christ and #2 goal should be to share that relationship with others.
As for fighting for truth.
Psalm 31:5
“Into your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.”
1 Timothy 6:12a
“Fight the good fight of the faith.”
2 Corinthians 10:4
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”
I agree that arguing isn’t a sound technique. However Jesus did, and still does, fight for truth and for the revelation of His truth to be seen. The Holy Spirit constantly fights (and I pray that we are blessed enough to join Him in this fight) for the oppressed and the weak. Shoot, He fights me just trying to get me to pay attention to Him! This could simply be a slippery semantics debate - but Paul called us soldiers and how I love that metaphor…
We are fighting for the future of humanity. Everyone around us is going to end up somewhere for eternity and God desires for it to be with Him. We want what He wants and so we fight our sinful nature, put ourselves on the line, and we stand up for the Truth. He is the truth.
I could go on and on but I’ll give you a chance to reply
Raquel, thanks for seeing that.
I think it is important to state, which I’m assuming you agree with, is that humanity is not the enemy. When we fight against each other, the enemy wins. I’m not interested in fighting unitarians or anyone on any list.
I had a great conversation today with a great guy about just this. The enemy is always luring us into an argument, read fight, against each other. And when he does, he sits back and laughs.
This goes back to the label issue. Labels have a tremendous power to divide us.
We adopted some children from Liberia and when they came, their vocabulary was very small. They didn’t even know the names for individual colors or they called their fingers, elbow, shoulder, etc. “arm”. But this doesn’t mean that they didn’t recognize that these things weren’t there. Labels are simply vocal sounds for something that already exists. Ya with me?
I believe that the division isn’t the words that come from our mouths but the ideas within us. The desire to put things into boxes is a God given gift that we can use appropriately or inappropriately. We should discern good from bad, safe from dangerous, Christ from antiChrist. This is necessary. But when we take that tool, of putting things into boxes, and use it to make the world ‘us vs. them’ then this is not cool. It should be ‘you and I vs. sin’.
Thanks for this… I enjoy a good debate (even if it is over semantics).
Raquel, I hope this wasn’t a debate, even over semantics. I completely understand your point but wondering if you are catching mine. My whole post was in our misuse of labels.