beautiful orthodoxy

In the foreward to the book "Heresies and How to Avoid Them" Professor Stanley Hauerwas is talking about Orthodoxy. Now, in this age of everyone for themselves, orthodoxy might be seen as outdated and overly institutional - but it is still the bedrock of Christian faith.

Orthodoxy is not necessarily what it seems - it is not enshrining everything, vacuum sealing it, and then holding up a precious bundle of answers for humanity. It is more vital than that because it is about the living God interacting with human life. As we study and interact with God sometimes we find that our framework for understanding expands but perhaps, the key is what does it expand within.

Hauerwas gives a good and challenging benchmark for Orthodoxy and that is that it is beautiful. I started thinking about this in terms of the Biblical narrative - even in the darkest moments of Jesus life - there is a strange beauty - the love which lies behind his actions change colors them. Hauerwas also points out that orthodoxy is not small - this is perhaps the greatest temptation of our time - to make things fit into out hand - to turn our faith into a code which can be carried in our pocket.

That is what the Law had become for the Jews - something which they were making finite. But orthodoxy relies on something which cannot be turned into an ipod app and that is mystery and mystery holds beauty very close. If we allow things not to be tied to tightly as they move further away from our understanding - if we allow for that nebulous, dancing nature of God, then we will learn mystery and from that place we will be able to reflect back on all our words.