About the Holy Spirit Jesus said that “when he comes he will prove the world wrong about sin and […]: about sin because people do not believe in me” (John 16:8-10). It seems odd that Holy Spirit doesn’t convict the world of sin because, perhaps, the world lacks a moral compass. No. The Holy Spirit “proves the world wrong about sin […] because people do not believe in [him].” Though initially peculiar a deeper look at this passage, I feel, can reveal a theological vista. It is through belief that humans actually become moral beings; that is what the verse tells us.
Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are two words we don’t hear very often. Orthodoxy we might associate with a strict group of far-right moralists, but literally it simply means: right belief. Someone can have orthodox beliefs about a chair, for instance: it is for sitting in. Orthopraxy is the even lesser known word, it means: right action. The two words are intrinsically related. For instance it is only after a person has an orthodox view of a chair that the person can use the chair in accord with orthopraxy. Right belief and right action are related in this way, in a twirling dance, belief leading action.
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As I watch the news I am stunned and saddened by some current events. We don’t have to focus on events like 9/11 or the multitude of natural disasters; events at home: a divorce in the family, or an infant death, speaks loudly enough. But there is also plenty of good too; with every natural disaster there seems to be a well-spring of human aid and money raised. But, more simply, we can witness everyday kindness in a car stopping for someone to cross the street, rather plainly just some going out of their way.
It seems to me as I meet new people and continue to develop other relationships that there are people who seem to either focus on the negativity or the good stuff. Some watch the news and see things like global warming, natural disasters, war, and famine. For them the world is a gloomy place lacking hope, deficient in future possibility. On the other hand there are people who believe the world is ‘just great’. They focus on things like: human progress, countries forgiving third-world debt, or the recent successes of a family member. Both types of people don’t have a right view of the world.
Right belief of the world, or an orthodox view of the world—in general terms—is acknowledging both the good and the bad, the sin and the saving power. Christian theology tells us that we are in tension between the “already” and the “not yet”. A Christian way of understanding the world sees the impending judgment of sin and the future of a new creation where there is no famine—where peace reigns and everyone rejoices in the love of their creator. Jesus says that the
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It may sound odd but before belief was something you thought it was something you did. In the Middle Ages the word belief was actually two words: by + life; this way people knew what you believed by your life, belief was lived out belief, not lip-service belief.
So, if we live in a world with both sin and God’s saving power we must share Christ, through word and deed, because it is only after the humans acknowledge Jesus as the Lord that the seed of hope grows a new shoot reaching out. Admitting the struggle and sin is the only way to peace; having an orthodox view of the world is the first step to right action in it.
2 comments:
About focusing on the negative or the positive: GK Chesterton agreed. In his book Orthodoxy, he describes being dissatisfied with optimism and pessimism. Both are incomplete worldviews, he argues. Instead, he realized he needed to embrace radical optimism and radical pessimism at the same time. To paraphrase, he says we must hate the world enough to change it, yet love it enough to think it worth changing. The search for a viewpoint that was both radically optimistic and radically pessimistic helped lead him to Christianity which embraces both the helplessness of our sinful state AND the hope of Christ crucified.
Good stuff Bryan it is very refreshing to read.
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