we all have to agree that there are a lot of things that NEED to change in our world.
many people simply disagree on what those changes are or how they need to be made.
it's no different in the religious community... lots of disagreement when it comes to change.
but, like it or not things ARE changing. the postmodern era is ushering in plenty of change. there seems to be a lot of talk about what we believe possibly changing.
but, what if we don't need to believe new things (as opposed to old things), just new ways to believe?
Peter Rollins says in How (Not) to Speak of God = "Instead of following the Greek-influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief... [we need to] rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way--that is, believing in a loving, sacrificial, and Christlike manner."
This reversal from 'right belief' to 'believing in the right way' is in no way like simply doing the opposite... as Rollins puts so awesomely "for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief."
and that would be just plain stupid. to believe the wrong thing. no one is suggesting that.
He goes on to write...
"Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing things about the world."
YES! i LOVE that! A WAY OF BEING IN THE WORLD. not just a means of believing things about the world. because at the end of the day, who really cares what you believe if it doesn't translate into a way of being.
i wrote a whole blog series on that idea and you can see 1 part of it HERE (titled what you do IS what you believe.
so the idea is that orthodoxy is not determined by believing something but by BEING something. because anyone can mentally assent to something. that's pretty easy.
being/becoming is so much more important. some guy named Jesus said that, not me.
later this week i want to explore this further and really see the root of all this.
