Struggling with Orthodoxy
Orthodoxy is beautiful, when it means striving to praise God rightly, striving to avoid dishonor or carelessness in our speech about and to God. I want to affirm this concern for speaking well that underlies the whole history of systematic theological reflection, and I want to agree that we cannot preach the gospel without knowing whom it is we preach—so doctrine is only a way of naming those conclusions we have reached over centuries of careful reflection. But why do you make it so difficult to affirm, labeling any divergence or serious questioning as wacky and ludicrous? If we lose the profound sense of struggle that went into the development of doctrine, if we somehow begin to imagine that these conclusions are self-evident rather than the result of years of questioning, then we have lost the very spirit at the root of all Christian theology: a spirit of humility and prayer.
21 December 2006 |
tags: Roman Catholic
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