{"id":6461,"date":"2010-06-24T06:22:27","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T06:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2010\/06\/christ-and-the-dragons-2.html"},"modified":"2010-06-24T06:22:27","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T06:22:27","slug":"christ-and-the-dragons-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/06\/christ-and-the-dragons-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Christ and the Dragons 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dragons.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>James Emery White<\/b><\/a> thinks evangelicalism is teetering over a precipice, and his new book — Christ Among the Dragons: Finding Our Way Through Cultural Challenges<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em> — probes topics that are in need of serious discussion. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Orthodoxy is one such topic.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Orthodoxy is a shibboleth — that is, it is something that one can either pronounce or not. That is, something one either affirms or does not. In this sense, it has a level of objectivity about it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It also divides. It also unifies. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
White presses into an issue that is at work today: tolerance. He sees three kinds:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Social<\/i> tolerance: I accept you as a person because you are a person.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Legal<\/i> tolerance: You have the right to think and believe what you want.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Intellectual<\/i> tolerance: all ideas are equally valid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
White thinks intellectual tolerance has too much influence among too many evangelicals and it is cutting into the fabric of its integrity, and in particular into its orthodoxy.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But what about Jesus? Did Jesus believe in orthodoxy as a test case to be his follower?<\/b><\/div>\n


\n“The idea [for many today] is that Jesus did not have a statement of faith — he was about calling people into trustworthy community as opposed to cognitive assent to abstract propositions” (47).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Let’s pause right here: is it fair to say that Jesus did not believe in propositions? (The word “abstract” is a red herring.) The issue here is did Jesus think someone had to believe something  about him — something propositionaizable [no word, I admit, but it might work here] — in order to be a genuine follower?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So what is “orthodoxy”? White: “to be in alignment with the Christian faith as revealed in Scripture and as conveyed in a heritage” (50).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It has to do with determining what is Christian and what is essentially Christian.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Which to me [SMcK] means this: it must be entailed in the gospel. That is, to be orthodox means to be so connected to the gospel that the denial of it means undercutting the gospel itself.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Emery White thinks evangelicalism is teetering over a precipice, and his new book — Christ Among the Dragons: Finding Our Way Through Cultural Challenges  — probes topics that are in need of serious discussion.  Orthodoxy is one such topic. Orthodoxy is a shibboleth — that is, it is something that one can either pronounce or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"\nChrist and the Dragons 2 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/06\/christ-and-the-dragons-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christ and the Dragons 2 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James Emery White thinks evangelicalism is teetering over a precipice, and his new book — Christ Among the Dragons: Finding Our Way Through Cultural Challenges  — probes topics that are in need of serious discussion.  Orthodoxy is one such topic. 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