Orthodoxy, by definition, means “right belief.” But who gets
to decide what is right? Throughout Christian history, “heresy” has been
nothing more than the name orthodoxy gives to its losing arguments. Jesus
himself would have been labeled a heretic by the very standards later enshrined
in the institutional church. In fact, he was.
Consider how Jesus was received in his own day. He broke
Sabbath laws, consorted with the marginalized, reinterpreted Torah, and
directly challenged the religious elite. He said outrageous things like “You
have heard it said... but I say unto you...” which undermined legalistic
interpretations of Scripture. He claimed unity with the Father in a way that
scandalized the religious authorities. These weren’t polite theological
differences. They were confrontations with the theological gatekeepers of his
time—gatekeepers who believed they were defending orthodoxy. From their
perspective, Jesus was the heretic. And for this, they saw him crucified.
Paul, too, was called a heretic. Once a persecutor of
Christians in the name of Jewish orthodoxy, Paul underwent a radical
transformation and began preaching a gospel of grace that tore down walls
between Jew and Gentile, insider and outsider. His letters often pushed against
early church expectations and Jewish norms alike. His emphasis on the spirit
over the letter of the law—and his claim that faith in the risen Christ
abolished the old distinctions—put him in direct tension with the very
religious world he once upheld.
And let’s not forget the Reformers. Luther, Calvin,
Zwingli—all were considered heretics by the Catholic Church of their time.
Each, in their own way, sought to liberate Christianity from what they saw as
distortions and legalism. And yet, within a generation, many of their followers
turned those new insights into dogmas of their own, excommunicating and
persecuting those who dared to diverge. The same spirit that condemned Luther
was alive in Luther when he condemned the Anabaptists.
This historical pattern reveals a troubling truth: orthodoxy
is not a static container for divine truth. It is a moving target shaped by
power dynamics, cultural assumptions, and the psychological need for certainty.
It’s not that truth doesn’t exist—it does—but our formulations of it are always
partial, always filtered through human lenses.
Which brings us to the tyranny of binary thinking.
The theological tradition, especially in the West, has been plagued by
either/or categories: saved or damned, in or out, true or false, believer or
heretic. This black-and-white framework flattens nuance, ignores mystery, and
leaves no room for growth or evolving understanding. When God is confined to
the binaries of systematic theology, we lose the relational, dynamic, and often
paradoxical nature of the divine.
Jesus did not speak in systematic theology. He spoke in
parables, riddles, and paradoxes. He emphasized fruit over doctrine, love over
law, and mercy over sacrifice. He rarely answered questions directly, often
responding with another question. He challenged the very idea that being
“right” was what mattered, shifting the focus instead to being righteous,
meaning aligned with the heart of God.
Yet evangelicalism today often reverses this emphasis.
Rooted in a post-Reformation desire for doctrinal clarity and a modern need for
certainty, it treats the Bible as a rulebook and God as a distant judge. Jesus
becomes less a living presence and more a theological formula: a sinless
substitute paying a legal penalty to appease an offended deity. In this
framework, God the Father is often portrayed as angry and exacting, with Jesus
acting as a buffer. But this is not the God Jesus revealed.
Jesus called God Abba—Father, even “Papa.” He spoke
of a Father who runs to meet prodigals, who gives good gifts, who knows our
needs before we ask. He modeled intimacy, not fear; union, not separation. The
Father Jesus reveals is not a divine accountant tallying sins but a lover
longing for relationship. To distort this Father into the image of a wrathful
judge who demands blood to forgive is to miss the heart of the gospel.
When we liberate Jesus and the Father from the scaffolding
of rigid theology, what emerges is something far more compelling than
orthodoxy’s caricatures. We see Jesus as an elder brother, showing us what it
means to live in union with the divine. We see the Father not as a monarch
demanding allegiance but as a Parent drawing all creation into the dance of
love. We recognize that truth is not found in perfect propositions but in the
transformation of the heart.
And we reclaim the right to think, to question,
and to doubt without fear of hellfire. In fact, the very fear of hell—so
central to evangelical urgency—is itself a product of later theology and
cultural conditioning. Jesus spoke of Gehenna, a real place outside
Jerusalem, in the context of prophetic warnings. His use of it was not a cosmic
threat but a metaphor for the consequences of choosing death over life, ego
over spirit. We were never meant to live in fear of a vindictive afterlife but
to awaken here and now to the indwelling Christ.
To call this heresy is, ironically, to repeat the very
mistake made by those who called Jesus a blasphemer. It is to privilege the
letter over the spirit, the map over the territory. But when we follow Jesus in
spirit and truth, we are freed from the need to conform to any doctrinal box.
We are invited into a living relationship with the divine—one that transcends
dogma, embraces paradox, and leads to radical love.
In the end, the only orthodoxy that matters is love. Not the
kind of love that fits neatly into creeds, but the wild, boundary-crossing,
life-giving love that Jesus embodied. A love that heals, includes, and
liberates. And if that is heresy, may we all be heretics—walking in the way of
Christ, not the constructs of religion.
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