Bridge of Reason

Some time ago I posted a question on social media. The question I asked was this: ‘Which is more important Orthodoxy or Orthopraxy?’ The response was interesting, but not surprising. Apart from a couple of people who answered ‘huh?’, most people answered orthopraxy! Why Orthopraxy? When defined, the words orthodoxy and orthopraxy literally mean right belief and right action. So, my question revealed that most of those who responded thought right action to be of more importance than right belief. Now I believe that when people saw my question, they presupposed what I was really asking was, which is more important doctrine or people? The answer then in their minds would be obvious, it is people. In juxtaposing orthodoxy and orthopraxy and then asking a person to choose, I set up a false dichotomy because, orthodoxy and orthopraxy are of equal importance. They need each other. Right belief (orthodoxy) informs right action (orthopraxy). The problem comes when we have one without ...

  Christianity needs to progress. To survive it must change; it must be relevant. Therefore, we should not expect 21 st century Christianity to look and sound like 16 th century Christianity, or indeed 1 st century Christianity. Thus, saith the so-called Progressive Christians. Now I can go along with Christianity needing to change according to its historical context, but I am not singing from the same hymn sheet as the Progressives. The change I speak of regards methodology, that is how we communicate the gospel; not the message, for I believe the content of the gospel cannot change.  Not so the Progressives. They believe that doctrine evolves. Therefore, the historic creeds of the Church or the five solas of the Protestant Reformation have little or no relevance to modern day Christianity. Believers, they say, do not unite under the banner of historic Christian doctrine, rather they are connected by simply claiming to be Christian. According to this kind of thinking, a ...