Why I am Paleo-Orthodox

Colleen Carroll not so long ago wrote a book called The New Faithful: Why Young adults are embracing Christian Orthodoxy. In this book she chronicles what she sees as a movement among younger American Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, rejecting the feel-good, wishy-washy, liberal, up-to-date, trendy Christianity of the Boomer generation and grasping toward a more ancient faith. In this interview she explains the gist of her book.

This movement has manifested itself in several ways: some Evangelicals are leaving Protestant Churches for Orthodox or Catholic or Anglican Churches (see Robert Weber's excellent little autobiographical book Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail). Another way we see this movement is Protestants remaining within their own denominations or churches but attempting to integrate more ancient practices and theology into their spiritual life. We see this in renewed emphasis on Holy Communion in many quarters. We see it in certain strains of the "Emerging Church" movement that includes icons and communion and incense and other ancient elements in its practice. In a few cases we see it in conventional Protestant Churches offering liturgical/sacramental worship opportunities such as the overtly Anglican-styled Cox Chapel service offered every Sunday at the prominent Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas.

I have been greatly influenced by this movement and one of the most influencial books that I have read in seminary has been Tom Oden's The Rebirth of Orthodoxy. The buzz-word for this movement is "Paleo-orthodoxy," a re-appropriation of the ancient, classical Christianity of the undivided (First Millenium A.D.) Church for our Postmodern age.

I just read an interesting post at the blog Paradoxology that puts it well: Oden (and many others, actually) have pointed out the "hunger for roots" that exists in today's culture due to the incessant change and runaway individualism that is so commonplace. In such a world, opportunity to anchor one's faith to what "all Christians at all times in all places have always believed" is very appealing.

I came to appreciate the importance and authority of the Church and her ancient consensus precisely because I hold a very high veiw of Biblical authority. I began to ask questions like: "I believe that the canonical books, and not others (like the Gospel of Thomas) are the God-inspired Scriptures. Why these books, and not the others?" or "I find Christians in Protestant, Evangelical, and Pentecostal Churches all pointing to the Bible to defend very different and often contradictory doctrinal positions. At the end of the day, is my own opinion the most authoritative interpretation for doctrine, or are there wiser guides?"

At the same time, I became dis-satisfied with the individualism and rootlessness I felt characterized my faith. It was all about me. I wanted a faith that was bigger than my experience, bigger than my intelligence, bigger than my opinions, interpretations, and understanding. I wanted to be connected to the Church through the ages, the whole communion of saints through history. I wanted safe-guards against aimless pluralism and individualism in the interpretation of the Bible.

I have found all of these by allowing the consensus of the ancient faithful guide me. There ARE authorative standards of belief: they are called the canonical Creeds that were accepted by the seven truly Ecumenical Councils of the whole Church. The Concilliar model of Church decision making is first attested in the Scripture itself in Acts 15 and the early Ecumenical Councils simply followed this paradigm and were also guided by the Holy Spirit (Dan Brown's accusations notwithstanding).

Most thinking Evangelical Protestants must say sort of the same thing. We all know that the Early Church in its practices, traditions, and synods, eventually came to a consensus deciding which books constituted the canonical New Testament and which do not. And we simply must assume that this process was guided by the Holy Spirit. Then surely that same Holy Spirit also guided those same individuals and leaders and councils as they hammered out doctrines and formulated the creeds in the very same process. It is very logical to assume that the God who gave us the faith would take steps to preserve right doctrine and methods of interpretation in the life of the Church. And so he has in the ancient ecumenical consensus of the Early Church and the whole church throughout the ages in all places.

Let us all with great joy re-discover the treasures, old and new, that exist within the traditions and among the great Early Fathers and Teachers of the Christian Church.