The idol of being right

Everyone wants to be on the winning side of an argument. It’s great being part of a faith that is called “Orthodox” (no one wants to be “heterodox”!) since that puts us on the side of the winners, those who got theology right. Yet a desire for being right can conflict with, and even replace, a desire for Truth (Who is a Person rather than a set of beliefs). Instead of engaging our faith and discovering why the Church Fathers chose to be active Orthodox Christians, members of the Lord’s Body, we are content with just proclaiming Orthodoxy as our preferred ideology.

Our pride for our Church isn’t all bad. Being Orthodox means being part of a 2000 year old Christian tradition, which itself continues thousands of years of Jewish tradition. That’s a beautiful thing. It’s also a humbling thing to realize that our own personal opinions on Church teaching, based on our limited experience, are but drops in the bucket compared to the life of the Church.

And the Church is alive in Christ, as His Body. But how easy is it for us to transform it into just another club or ideology, elevating it as the idol of our adoration (ie. the pride of being Orthodox) instead of directing our worship to Jesus Christ? We have to be careful that in our desire to live a spiritual life we don’t fall more in love with Orthodoxy than we fall in love with the Lord.

Source: blogs.goarch.orf