Orthodoxy vs Polydoxy

Emergent, post-modern liberals are in love with this new heresy called...Polydoxy. Here is a quick little primer on the next official American Religion that will imprison and martyr actual Christians since actual Christians cannot support Polydoxy. 

The word orthodox, from Greek orthos ("right", "true", "straight") + doxa ("opinion" or "belief", related to dokein, "to think"), is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion. In the narrow sense the term means "conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early Church". I would tweak this definition to be "conforming to the Christian faith as represented in Word of God, the inerrant Scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit." 

What is a "polydoxy”?

A polydoxy is a religion whose fundamental principle is that every person is her or his own ultimate religious authority with the right, therefore, to accept and follow whichever religious beliefs and observances she or he thinks true and meaningful. Accordingly, members of the same polydox community (a religious community that subscribes to a polydoxy) may hold different views on such subjects as the meaning of the word God or the existence and nature of an afterlife. All members’ beliefs regarding the great subjects of religion are equally acceptable so far as the polydox community as a whole is concerned. (Members of a community that subscribes to an orthodox religion, by contrast, are all required to accept fundamentally the same religious beliefs and to follow basically the same ritual observances.) The fundamental principle of a polydoxy may be stated in terms of a covenant: Every member of a polydox community pledges to affirm the freedom of all other members in return for their pledges to affirm her or his own. Equally binding in a polydoxy is the corollary of their covenant: Every member’s freedom ends where the other members’ freedom begins. 

THIS IS FROM THE BLOG POST ENTITLED

Exploring Polydoxy BY JOHN VEST

Several weeks ago my friend Christopher Rodkey introduced me to the theological concept known as polydoxy. Catherine Keller (a theologian at Drew University and one of his teachers) and Laurel Schneider (a theologian at Chicago Theological Seminary), have assembled a collection of essays that explore this intriguing concept. If orthodoxy is the notion that there is one right way to believe, polydoxy suggests that perhaps there are multiple right ways to believe. I find this fascinating.
This is an idea well suited for the postmodern, post-Christendom, pluralistic world in which we live. Polydoxy recognizes that Christian theology has always been characterized by multiplicity and diversity—orthodoxy has always been an illusion advanced by the winners of theological debates. Polydoxy embraces uncertainty and ambiguity, recognizing that it is impossible to know the mysteries of life with any precision. John Calvin knew this when he talked about our propensity for idolatry. Paul Tillich knew this when he talked about the “Protestant Principle” that refuses to make absolute what is relative. And polydoxy is grounded in the relationships that bind us all together, a posture that corresponds well to our flat, networked world.
I’m just beginning to read this book, but last week I used this concept to think about what a Pentecost-like experience might suggest for us today. Could it be, that just as God’s Spirit surprised the Jews gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost by showing them that each could hear God’s word in their own language, God’s Spirit may surprise the church today by showing us that we can each hear God’s word in different ways, and that this is not a problem but a gift? Why must we spend so much energy trying to say who is right and who is wrong? Why must we fight over difference of belief and practice? Why must we view diversity as a danger?
At Fourth Presbyterian Church, we articulate and share the gospel in a particular way. It doesn’t take much exploration in Chicago to find other ways of articulating and sharing this good news. Even within our church, each pastor probably does it in a slightly different way. And my hunch is that every individual who participates in our community of faith understands God’s good news in some unique way.
Polydoxy suggests that this is the way it has always been and always will be. And God’s Spirit—opening our ears, opening our hearts, opening our minds—tells us that this is okay. We don’t need to be in competition with each other. It’s not a zero sum game: the rightness of one does not necessitate the wrongness of another. God calls us to something much bigger than this.
I don’t believe that God’s Spirit ignited the imaginations of one group of people two thousand years ago and then took the next two thousand years off. God’s Spirit continues to move, continues to inspire, continues to challenge, continues to unsettle, continues to shake things up.
Have you read this book or engaged this concept? What do you think?