Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy: right, true, soundness of faith, belief in the genuine doctrines taught in the faith.

We are surrounded today by people using the words of orthodoxy. But the actions with which they engage, in the name orthodoxy, are totally foreign to what was orthodox.

This is true for the Church and for what was has been our Nation's past.

This morning I was listening to Otto Scott in the third talk of his Christianity in 3 centuries series, that he gave to the "Basilians", somewhere back east in 1995. (Its downloadable from word.com but its two bucks per talk) It overlaps with the same sounding titles that are free at Sermon Audio) On the third talk he works with the 1800's to early1900's. He made the point that because America never had a central church, we never had a unified National Faith. So it was harder to identify heresy as it grew in the 19th century . His point being that when the Unitarian faith sprung up, most believers didn’t realize that it was a departure from the Christian faith at a core level. It spoke a language of orthodoxy.

Because we have for the most part, no teaching of the early creeds, ( that the early church brothers died over!) because doctrine is seen as divisive, because everyone knows that being a Christian is all about a relationship with Jesus, we are very vulnerable to error. Books like “the shack” become Christian best sellers.

Kevin Swanson in one of his talks from the conference here, made mention of the Gay and Lesbian church up the road form them in Colorado. That their statement of faith was orthodox!

Otto Scott has mentioned in other talks that, if you deviate from a orthodox position but don’t come out and say exactly what you are doing, you can go further. This was done to judges, law, government, family, christianity and to the schools in spades!

I would add that if you deliberately use the words of orthodoxy, while changing the orthodox applications you can go even farther!

When our new president today kept making references to historical America and how the greatness that was, can still be reached again. It was not acknowledged, that it has never been the government, that created, or was a source of the greatness. The historical connection’s to God, was missing. So the words of orthodoxy were used and they resonate with us emotionally like Mom and apple pie! But we are not supposed to ever reach the kitchen and see that "Hey...that’s not Mom!"

We have been bait and switched for some time now. No longer is it the engine of a free economy, but rather government spending that will bring back prosperity. Yes I know the economy has not really been free for very a long time and that is a root of today’s trouble.

We don’t know our history, what God has done in the Church, and then in a nation made up of those Church members. This distinction is huge. ( silent H)

We officially are sitting in Psalms 118 territory….Where unlike the author, much of the Nation doesn’t do this...... Psa 118:8,9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.

A lot of confidence was placed in a prince today, in a man.