Why Orthodoxy Trumps Faith

The Ancient Apostolic Church, according to its website, is "a new Independent denomination". I referred to an article that mentioned one of my posts over at Street Prophets, and, as it turned out, it was written by a "Father David" of this new denomination. The title of the post was "When Orthodoxy Trumps Faith", and it appears that his point was that faith is fluid and everyone can believe whatever they want. It should come as no surprise, then, when "Anthony I", the ... I don't know the actual title ... "prime apostle" of this new denomination (if that title is incorrect or offensive, please forgive me; it was not my intention to be unkind) puts up an article entitled "Changes".

In an effort to foster a spirit of unity and ecumenism with other churches, we have declared and ordered that the line “Further we declare anathema” be removed from all our papers, Encyclicals and documents.

This is an effort to reinforce our beliefs that everyone has a sacred right to believe what they feel they are called to believe. We believe that there are many well-meaning and good Christians that have not grown to the point that we have and there is nothing wrong with that in itself.

Thus it is not for us to declare their beliefs or their progress in their Christian development wrong or “anathema.”

Now, remember my recent assertion. The question is not the character or intelligence of Anthony I. I'm not casting aspersions on Father David. The character or intelligence of those men is not the point. I am drawing attention to the ideas. Nor is it that Anthony I or Father David are new at making these assertions. Indeed, it is the battle cry of most of America. We should all be free to believe what we want, and no one can say that what we believe is wrong.

To the first assertion I proclaim, "Yes! In America we are all free to believe what we want." Whew! That should settle things, right? Not likely.

You see, the second assertion is nonsense. It is nonsense first because of the first assertion. If I am free to believe what I want and I believe that what you believe is wrong, and I further believe that I have the freedom to state my beliefs, then I can say that what you believe is wrong. Simple logic. To argue the second you would first have to deny the first ... and we've just agreed on the first.

But it's also problematic for other reasons. If there is truth, and what you believe is false, you are certainly free to believe what is false, but should everyone else keep silent about it? Move off the arena of theology for a moment. Your child believes that there are little green men under the bed. Poor little tyke ... he's terrified to sleep at night. In America he's free to believe that, but what loving parent would let it go on? What loving parent wouldn't go into that room at night and tell him the truth? There are no little green men under the bed. What he believes is false. It's okay to sleep. Evil, rotten parents, telling that kid that what he believed was wrong. Who do they think they are??!! They're loving parents, that's who.

This is the dilemma in which we find ourselves. Would that it was as simple as lost sleep over little green men. Instead it is eternal damnation over false beliefs. Today's common wisdom says we should just keep our mouths shut and let people believe what they want. They hate to hear someone tell them that they're wrong. No one wants to hear that they're sinning, let alone that they're in danger of eternal punishment. But what loving soul simply says, "Well, let them believe what they want; it's okay if their beliefs damn them for eternity"? How is that kind or helpful?

The Church in its history picked up this habit of "anathematizing" heresies. They would gather to discuss the heresy of the day and, when they were done, they would write a paper explaining their position. They would affirm certain truths and state an "anathema" on those who held to the heresy. And the church councils weren't the first to do this. They picked it up from Paul.

But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema (Gal. 1:8).

(He even repeats it for emphasis in the next verse.) Here Paul anathematizes anyone who preaches a different gospel. It would appear that Paul didn't believe that "everyone has a sacred right to believe what they feel they are called to believe." He believed that there was a true gospel and there were false gospels, and that people that taught false gospels were accursed. Paul didn't care if they were "well-meaning and good Christians that have not grown to the point that we have." When the Church picked up that habit, they didn't either. The goal, rather than "to foster a spirit of unity and ecumenism", was to foster a spirit of unity around the truth. The aim was to warn people away from error by making it too frightening to go there. That was Paul's goal. That has been the goal ever since.

It is true that we can all believe whatever we want to believe. It's the law of the land. It is, however, nonsense logically and cruelty socially to not point out error. A loving person must stick his neck out and say, "Well, actually, that's not true; this is," especially in matters of eternal consequences. It would not be kind to do otherwise. You may believe what you want, but orthodoxy -- that which is true -- always trumps faith -- that which you believe to be true.