Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

ORTHODOXY AND orthopraxy—strange theological words from Sojourners’ past.  But I was recently thinking back to the theology with which Sojourners began—43 years ago—and how it is still so central and fundamental to me today.

I remember the word that we so often used back in our formative days: “and.” As young Christians, we said our fledgling little movement was committed to evangelism and social justice, prayer and peacemaking, spirituality and politics, personal and public transformation, contemplation and activism, real salvation and real social change, orthodoxy and orthopraxy—which means starting with a biblical and Christ-centered personal faith and then living and practicing that faith in the world—in ways that changed both our own lives and public life. “And” was our big word in a church that was so divided and polarized. Another way we expressed it was calling for a “third way” beyond conservative and liberal, evangelical and mainline.

I want to refer back to some of the earliest expressions of our critique of both the conservative and liberal theologies of the time. Please forgive some of the passionate and movement language from the later 1960s and early ’70s (and the generic “male” language), but this was written when I was 23, in 1971! Yet the heart of the editorial commitment expressed so long ago remains true of Sojourners today:

We contend that the new vision that is necessary is to be found in radical Christian faith that is grounded in commitment to Jesus Christ. ... The offense of established religion is the proclamation and practice of a caricature of Christianity so enculturated, domesticated, and lifeless that our generation easily and naturally rejects it as ethically insensitive, hypocritical, and irrelevant to the needs of our times.

We fault a narrow orthodoxy that speaks of salvation but is often disobedient to the teaching of the prophets, the apostles, and Christ himself, who clearly stated that faith divorced from a radical commitment to social justice is a mockery. Salvation spiritually manifests itself in active concern for the needs and rights of people. We fault also a naïve and inadequate liberal theology that neglects man’s need of personal transformation and liberation, perverts the historic content of the Christian faith, and reduces Jesus Christ to a Galilean boy scout. ... A faith rooted in biblical data must stress both personal liberation and dynamic commitment to social justice that contains the seeds of social liberation.

STILL TODAY WE see some churches that view “the gospel” as private atonement and only see social “implications,” while others reduce Christianity to following the teachings of Jesus as best one can, without the need for a personal relationship with Christ.

We believe, however, that to experience personal transformation through Jesus Christ and then live out the kingdom of God as a new order that Christ came to bring “on Earth as it is in heaven” is still the foundation of what we called “radical Christianity.”

The good news is that many evangelical churches are now preaching the gospel as “good news to the poor,” as did Jesus’ first sermon at Nazareth. At the same time, more mainline churches are coming back to personal faith in Jesus as well as emphasizing his teachings. And we now have a pope who is calling Catholics, and all of us, back to personal conversion and obedience to Christ in ways that change the world, especially for the poor and vulnerable—“the least of these” whom Jesus describes in Matthew 25 as the test of our faith.

Sojourners’ mission is “to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.” That’s a commitment you see in every issue of Sojourners, including this one. Our mission was, is, and always will be centered in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.

The changes in the world we hope and pray for will never come from politics. My editorial in the first issue of the magazine under the Sojournersname (we changed our original name, The Post-American, to Sojourners in 1976), put it this way:

I have no confidence that the vision and power for new human values and relationships can be generated from the present system or from its ideological opponents.  Christians have that responsibility. Social leadership in providing alternative vision and values is a Christian responsibility because the necessary breaks with the mindset of the present system require deep and thorough-going transformation and life redirection, which is at the heart of the power of Christ in the world. Fundamental change of this proportion is basic to the claim of the gospel and its outworking in the context of a body of believers committed to Christ and to one another.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Pray that we will continue to be faithful to our mission.