THEOLOGY

Theological Method

Tutor: Dr Daniel Eshun

The nightmare of every theologian is to be accused of 'heresy'. Yet the term 'orthodoxy' is not helpful in theological discourse: Discuss this statement using various examples from the early and the Contemporary Church history.

Introduction

All the way through the history of the Church, there has been an attempt to bring unity and uniformity, in fact, Jesus Himself prayed for His disciples that 'they may be one as we are one' (John 17:11). Like Jesus, Paul the apostle stressed out the same issue of unity within the Christian communities as he desired the 'single authentic message of Christ' especially when he asserted that the believers of the Church in Corinth have the risk to recognize 'another Jesus', consequently, 'another Spirit' and'different good news'. On the other hand, those of the Church in Galatia risk to 'deform gospel' but they all ought to teach about distinct truth (2 Corinthians 11:4; Galatians 1:6).

Hence, Peters asserts that 'the unity of Christianity was defined in terms of Jesus; the diversity of Jewish Christianity is being also defined in terms of Jesus (1980, pp.262). In addition, there has been some other divergence with a different point of view, such as in the book of Acts whether to accept the Gentiles or not into the believing community (Acts 15: 1-40). Therefore, in the early events of the New Testament there have been disagreements and diversity among the Christian community that affected also its writers considering the fact that some of them were subjective to the 'Greek philosophic' thought and culture. Nevertheless, there has been also the desire of a form of unity that involves in whom Jesus is? His doctrine and what He meant for the Christians? meaning one doctrine of all Christians. Despite these facts history is lactated and shows that there will never be unity among the Christians as they continue of accusing one another of heresy. For this reason, the others have arrogated to themselves they are only 'orthodox'.

This essay attempts to argue the term 'orthodoxy' which is not only comprehended as a religious reality but also sociological, political and civil which is not helpful in theological discourse either to follow this argument. Owing to this fact, I will try to explain both terms 'orthodox' and 'heresy' by using various theological resources. Then I will explain using different examples from the early Church to the Contemporary time, and argue that the term 'orthodoxy' is not helpful in theological discourse. However, it is important for the Church to have a form of unity that Jesus desired, but this unity must be in Christ rather than doctrines about Him.

Discussion

In this section, I have used theological dictionaries and some other resources in order to explore the meanings of both terms. Through this exploration, I shall attempt to show the reasons that why many theologians become frightened when they get a hint of being accused of heresy.

Defining 'Heresy'

According to the Bible dictionary, the term 'heresy' means 'the aberrant doctrine or opinion arising ...