Toward a Recovery of Evangelical Orthopraxy
WE NEED A RENEWAL OF EVANGELICAL ORTHOPRAXY IN OUR TIME, A KIND OF REVIVAL THAT WILL MAKE DEMANDS OF US AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD.
The concluding chapters of the book of Judges are among the most haunting in all of Scripture. They tell a brutal story of a woman from Bethlehem, a concubine to a Levite man. She encountered a horrific night in the town of Gibeah, becoming the victim of brutal rape in a nightmarish assault. The Levite man, in an almost clinical coldness, dismembers her body into pieces and sends them out by courier to the tribes of Israel, calling upon them to take up his cause. And, if you know the story, it provokes a national crisis and war against the tribe of Benjamin. But the story is embedded in the book of Judges for a reason.
In all of its gruesome horror, the author is showing us what it looks like when the people of God become utterly and thoroughly Canaanized. They have the law of God - His perfect revelation -- but they live like pagans. They have the doctrine, but their lives are wicked.
Much of what passes for American Christianity today is nothing more than 21st century Canaanite fertility cults, baptized in the American dream. We are living in a barren wasteland that seems unable to see itself in the mirror. We have an orthodoxy problem, for sure. And we must contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
We have an orthopraxy problem. American Christianity has not only a theological problem, it has an ethical problem. Our consciences are seared, misshapen, and distorted. It almost seems we have somehow convinced ourselves that the call to follow Jesus, to pick up our cross and follow him, has exemption clauses when it comes to how we are to live.
We need a renewal of evangelical orthopraxy in our time, a kind of revival that will make demands of us as the people of God. And this kind of revival will demand the recovery of a biblical standard.
1. A standard of living shaped by God’s revealed truth, not our own subjective standards
Let me be very clear, we cannot have orthopraxy without orthodoxy. Put differently, you will never live right if you don’t believe right. There is no human flourishing, no justice, no shalom where the Word of God is rejected.
In any discussion of orthopraxy or public justice, we rightly remember the charge from the prophet Micah: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
Our imaginations and hearts are drawn to the call to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God. That imperative certainly is essential to structuring our definition of orthopraxy. But notice what undergirds those commands: the historical reality of God’s perfect and reliable revelation, “He has told you, O man, what is good.”
There is no righteousness where heterodoxy and false teaching fester. If we are going to be a people marked by right living, we will first be a people marked by right believing.
Let us reject any counterfeit gospel that fails to tell the truth about humanity’s sin, of the guilt that every single person carries before a living and holy God, and the condemnation we justly deserve in our sin. Let us reject any counterfeit gospel that tells us that human beings are inherently good, that our basic problem is one of environment, or that God’s plan for us is one of moralistic therapeutic self-improvement.
But rejecting those false gospels cannot mean buying into an amputated gospel that tells sinners how to get to heaven but falls short of declaring the whole counsel of God concerning Christ and his Kingdom. It cannot mean trafficking in a pseudo-gospel that sounds more like the white-washed tombs of the Pharisees and scribes, one that trades its birthright for a political pot of stew.
2. A standard of living that recognizes both the individual and the corporate dimensions
When we discuss orthopraxy, we are really talking about ethics. And any discussion of ethics generally must include both personal and social ethics.
For many American Christians, the first evokes a list of taboo behaviors and practices. Personal ethics become preoccupied with what we are to do (and not do) with certain body parts, what we eat or drink, the vocabulary we use, etc.
What we are seeing is the Canaanization of American Christianity. Our personal and social conscience is being shaped not by God’s authoritative revelation, but by the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Here’s the danger. It is entirely possible for any of us to affirm that with a loud amen, congratulating ourselves in self-righteousness because we think we’ve been immune from this Canaanization. Not so fast.
Do you have a heart for public justice? Great. But if you are giving yourself to pornography, you are on a path to destruction.
Are you an outspoken advocate for criminal justice reform and fair community policing? Wonderful. But if you are an unrepentant drunk, you will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21).
Are you laboring for the end of human trafficking in our generation? Good. But if you swindle the government on your tax returns, you are in sin.
So let’s humbly pause and admit that each of us must look in the mirror and confess that there are inconsistencies, failures, hypocrisies, and all sorts of problems in the assessment of our personal and social ethic.
3. A standard of living that takes seriously the reality of indwelling sin
Why does the world not work the way it is supposed to work? The Bible is remarkably clear and consistent in its answer: sin.
I say all of this as a historian who takes seriously the complexities of social forces in the world and how they shape our experience of justice and human flourishing. But I am convinced we need to be reminded that sin--in all of its dimensions, both individual and systemic--is the underlying reality that accounts for the suffering, injustice, brokenness, and pain in the world around us and in our own hearts.
So in our pursuit of a renewed Christian orthopraxy, let’s not be surprised when things don’t go as planned. Let’s not be shocked when Christian people fail. Let’s not be surprised when we see hypocrisy in our midst. And let’s not settle for remedies which are not redemptive, failing to account for the reality of sin and thus only offering short-lived aid.
4. A standard of living that takes seriously the work of the Holy Spirit
Go back to that story in Judges 19-21. According to the Old Testament, Israel’s recurring problem was not with the law, with God’s revealed standard of righteousness. Their problem was within. Their hearts were incapable of keeping the law.
We are a New Covenant people who have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is present among us, both corporately and individually, as the people of God. So while Israel was unable to remedy its cultural captivity and conformity to Canaanite paganism due to their uncircumcised hearts, we know that the Spirit of Christ has already regenerated us and transformed our hearts. He is leading, guiding, teaching, correcting.
When Paul writes to the Galatians, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal 5:16), it is full of implications for Christian orthopraxy.
For one, the desires of the flesh are at war against our effort to live rightly as disciples of Christ. In other words, your desires of the flesh are opposed to your orthopraxy. And it seems right to understand that both corporately and individually. Look in your own church and you will see evidence. Look in your own heart, and you will see evidence.
But Paul says that if we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify or indulge these desires. What a promise. How we need the Holy Spirit! We need fresh power from him daily. We need to keep step with Him (Gal 5:25) in the path of orthopraxy.
5. A standard of living that gives allegiance to the kingdom of Christ in both its already and not yet dimensions
Writing in 1947, Carl Henry diagnosed what he called the “uneasy conscience of modern fundamentalism.” In his analysis, one of the reasons why fundamentalism had largely lost any voice on the most urgent moral and ethical social concerns of the day was due to theological confusion about the nature of the Kingdom of Christ.
The fundamentalists had seen the capitulation of theological liberalism to a vision of the Kingdom untethered from biblical revelation, severed from the grand story of redemption in Christ, and amputated from an eschatological vision of the personal and imminent return of the risen and reigning Christ.
But Henry rightly pointed out that in their reaction against theological liberalism and their desire to protect the “not yet” dimensions of the Kingdom, they had ignored the “already” established realities of Jesus’ rule. “No study of the kingdom teaching of Jesus is adequate,” he wrote, “unless it recognizes his implication both that the kingdom is here, and that it is not here.”
Again, Henry: “The main difference between the kingdom of God now and the kingdom of God then is that the future kingdom will center all of its activities in the redemptive King because all government and dominion will be subjected to Him.”
In our historical moment in American Christianity, it seems we are at our own Kingdom kairos moment. If we are yearning for a renewal of Christian orthopraxy, one that affirms the place of personal and social ethics, we will have to give more careful attention to this eschatological tension.
In a very real sense, the Kingdom has come. Read the Gospels and the book of Acts and it’s hard to miss. The message of the gospel is inseparable from the announcement of the Kingdom.
We have already been transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col 1:13). We have already received a kingdom that “cannot be shaken” (Heb 12:28). We have been made a kingdom (Rev 1:5).
And yet, there is a future dynamic. Paul tells us that there are present ways of life that will disqualify one from inheriting the kingdom in the future (Gal 5:21; Eph 5:5). He tells us that there is coming a day when Christ will deliver the kingdom “to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power” (1 Cor 15:24).
A renewed Christian orthopraxy will recognize this tension. It will be characterized by a people of God “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
Formed by biblical truth, Christian orthopraxy will look stranger and stranger in a culture that has a hollow soul. Shaped by Christian love, Christian orthopraxy will be more and more freakish in a barren American wasteland of cultural captivity and exile.
This kind of kingdom vision will temper our expectations in the now, but also anchor our hope for what we know is coming. After all, we are a New Covenant people, formed in Christ from every nation, tribe, and tongue, and Christ’s decisive victory is settled and established. Whatever we see around us now, in no way does it cause us to lose hope or to despair. God may be judging and disciplining American Christianity right now, but the Kingdom of Christ is spreading rapidly all over the world.
6. A standard of living that must be taught but also embodied in example
You want to know the most powerful instrument for cultivating orthopraxy? It demands instruction, to be sure. But the power of example is hard to overstate. We see all around us the power of negative examples, don’t we? We see a generation of so-called evangelicals who have witnessed the normalization of wickedness and hate, who have had their consciences enabled and seared by the example of leaders who live and speak in fundamentally ungodly ways.
Consider just some of the New Testament’s instructions on the power of example in shaping right living.
“You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness.” (2 Timothy 3:10)
“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1)
The primary environment for this to happen is in community, within a local church. Your congregation is the community God designed for this kind of transfer of modeled orthopraxy. You can drive yourself crazy if you want to on Twitter, but the local church is where you and I will be most challenged--and encouraged--in seeing a renewal in Christian orthopraxy.
7. A standard of living that is missiological in its vision
Too often, when we think of the Great Commission, we relegate it to missions and evangelism. We rightly identify it as a passage to be used to construct the urgency of the missionary call and the demand for obedience to Christ’s charge. Perhaps, if we’re fortunate, we hear the call to discipleship as well. Jesus did, after all, call us to make disciples of all nations.
But we too often miss, or relegate to obscurity, the emphasis of Jesus’ charge to us. We are to teach his disciples to obey all he has commanded. It is a call to right living, what we might call “Great Commission ethics.”
If we are going to be faithful to the Great Commission, and to Christ’s charge, we must emphasize orthopraxy. The Great Commission demands the formation of the believer’s conscience—that he or she be shaped with a biblical personal and social ethic—because it is indeed the consequence of obeying all that Jesus commanded.
We are not moral or cultural relativists. The redemptive message of the gospel and the charge of the Great Commission mean that when Jesus’ people are birthed within any context, they will begin to find themselves following a new path—that of Christian discipleship—that will confront the political regime, the socioeconomic status quo, the prevalent sexual ethic, and the dominant ethno-racial nationalism.
This can be messy and there are all kinds of opportunities for confusion here in Christian missiology. But let’s never apologize for nor retreat from the clear expectation that making disciples of all nations will demand the cultivation of Christian orthopraxy.
Conclusion
Future Christian generations may very well assess us, indicting us for our failure to adopt a fully-orbed evangelical ethic. We have a stunted social conscience. And we’ve bought into an amputated gospel. We have degraded the gospel’s message into a “how to get to heaven” insurance plan and eviscerated the full message of the Kingdom and the good news of Jesus. We’ve preached a cheap grace. We’ve been more concerned about our own power than we have with the suffering of our neighbors. And most alarmingly, we’ve been seduced by false gospels of all sorts that can never deliver on their promises.
Let’s be a people marked by orthodoxy—preaching the good news and contending for “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).
Our confidence must be in the good news that a bloody cross and an empty tomb still declare that there is forgiveness of sins for all who will trust and believe in the risen Christ. If we are embarrassed by the message of conversion, forgiveness, and new life in Jesus, then we will most surely be embarrassed by Jesus’ social ethic and his path of discipleship in this world. Christian orthopraxy must be grounded in the gospel, fueled by the wonder of God’s grace, and on guard against the constant danger of seeking to establish our own righteousness apart from Christ’s finished work.
But let’s preach the full good news. American evangelicals have an opportunity to renew our commitment to a biblical message. Rather than deceiving ourselves, may we be “doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). May we be a people devoted to gospel-centered orthopraxy.
