Belief Versus Practice

Jeremiah 31:31-34:  

"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the Lord', for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."

Jesus tells a story about a man who had two sons.  He said to the eldest, "Go into the vineyard and work today," and the son said, "No, I will not," but later he thought better of it and went.  The same father went to his other son and told him to go work in the vineyard and that son said the right thing, he said, "I will do it," but he never did.  In any contest between what you say you will do and what you actually do, all that really matters is what you do.

That's a problem for many religious folk today.  We have, for centuries, had a very profound and strong notion of orthodoxy, of believing the right things.  And we believe those things with such vigor that there are times when Catholics have said that Protestants are not Christians and Protestants often say that Catholics aren't Christians and there are even small, self-congratulatory groups of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Christ, the Church of God, and some Baptists who are convinced that they are, in fact, the only ones who are Christians and that will make it to Heaven.

Gandhi once said that "A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion."  The Christian religion, as it is based on the teachings of Jesus, is a religion of radical compassion, of great personal sacrifice in order to change the world, fighting against injustice and working for peace and mercy.  The religion that has evolved, especially in America, is a religion of beliefs intended to magically get your soul into heaven and is in your head only, it is no religion at all.  You need look no further than those around us that wan't to mandate our laws to mirror their orthodoxy and require everyone to live according to their spiritual morals while they share no religion of sacrifice, compassion, peace, mercy, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or fighting for true justice.

The crucial difference between Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy is the difference between having right Christian beliefs (Orthodoxy) and have a right Christian practice, or life (Orthopraxy).  The Christian religion started out as a religion of orthopraxy, a way of life based on radical compassion, a religion primarily practiced among the poor.

Many religious historians and Theologians, trace the change from orthopraxy to orthodoxy to the time of Emperor Constantine in the 4th century.... Saying that basically, the royal family took over the religion and imposed the creedal form of religion on the entire empire.  In fact, I tend to believe, the teachings of the historical Jesus and the religion of Constantine but the great majority of church folk in our day practice only what looks pretty much like the Constantinian religion.  There is a practice today among the leaders of certain political parties that wrap the flag around the bible then suggest your not a Christian if you do not believe the way they do.  They use this evolved form of Christianity to go to war, justify not helping those that need help the most, discriminate against anyone different, all in the name of God.  This is in total opposition to the message of Christ.

And, to be fair, it isn't like there was one kind of Christianity for 300 years and suddenly there was another kind.  There are things in the letters of Paul and in the gospel of John that push the scale towards orthodoxy and there are lots of things in the synoptic gospels and James that push the scale towards orthopraxy.  However, we know which side of the fence each one of us are on.  But without ever arguing biblical interpretation or the theological debate between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, you don't need a posse and a 30 minute head start to know that the son who went into the vineyard and worked is the one who got it right and the one who said he would but didn't is not the hero of that parable.

The true church, the bride of Christ, the church that will likely survive the next century, is the church that is able to re-strike that balance and become again a church that is relevant because of the way that we live what we say we believe and not because of our set of doctrines, creeds and theology.

There is a passage from the prophet Jeremiah who said that one day we'll stop teaching beliefs because people will actually live their faith.  It isn't a matter of believing the right things, reciting the right creed, repeating the right magical incarnation, following a list of do's and don'ts..... it isn't about saying what you believe it is about being what you believe.

As James said, "Faith without works is dead."