Creative Orthodoxy: Part I

Orthodoxy is not often considered in conjunction with creativity; in fact, orthodoxy and originality are frequently taken to be inimical. It is my contention, however, that the two should kiss and make up, as justice and mercy do.

The reason that doctrinal/practical fidelity is thought to be at odds with innovation is simply this: in almost all known cases, innovation leads to the rejection of fidelity. The church has struggled to resist error since the time of the apostles, most or all of that error being the result of creative thinking on the part of its proponents.

Another cause for the suspicion of originality is the desire to maintain a particular tradition. Even if those who seek to rejuvenate orthodoxy do so within the boundaries of accepted Christianity, they tend to be borrowers from other strains of dogma or praxis. Hence many well-meaning Christians within the Presbyterian tradition are currently seeking to remedy, to pick an example, the deplorable state of worship in our day by appropriating Anglican or Lutheran perspectives and branding them as "really-really Reformed."

Presbyterian orthodoxy is in need of rejuvenation, I agree. I do not believe, however, that heterodoxy or the injection of alien traditions is what we need, because either of those options results in the transformation of Presbyterianism into something else.

Neither do I agree that hard-nosed conservatism is the answer. When both heterodoxy and alien traditions are rejected, the option of a tradition's conservators seems to be limited to simply resisting change, at least to a degree.

I believe that there is a fourth way. Many times in the West we have seen rejuvenation occur as the result of a group digging deep into its own past, exhuming the ancestral corpse of founding concepts, and bringing it back to life. The Shakespearean sonnet can show us how to do this.

To be continued...