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A word of prayer. Father in heaven I thank you for the opportunity to again study theology together and to focus our time today on a subject which has really influenced the church greatly in the last generation especially and has brought about some of the more negative aspects of modern theology and modern theological thought.
And I do pray that you would guide me and direct me, lead me, use me, keep me from error and I pray father that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth. And ultimately lord as we seek to understand the subject of neo-orthodoxy that we would just understand it aright and be able to use that as we further our own understanding of what is true orthodoxy true proper biblical theology.
And we pray this in jesus name and for his sake. Amen we have been excuse me isn't the word neo-orthodoxy a nazi moron. No it isn't. Well I mean I mean I guess it could be but we're going to get to that in a moment we're going to talk about the meaning of the word and everything.
But before we even get to that let me just kind of catch everyone up because I know not everyone is here always and want to kind of make sure everybody understands what we're doing. We've been studying the book of charts of theology and doctrine by h wayne house and the reason for this is we have two adult sunday school classes.
One is our bible study class which is across the way mr bunting who is our chairman of the elders he leads that class. And then I teach systematic theology. Systematic theology is still biblical but it's it looks at subjects from a systematic perspective looking at scripture and subjects together and sort of giving an overview of different ideas and understandings.
Specifically systematic theology is broken down into the major systems of theology proper christology pneumatology soteriology ecclesiology eschatology and different different ologies all these different things referencing different aspects of theology theological thought.
But when we started this book charts of christian theology and doctrine it starts in kind of a weird way. It starts by looking at different theological systems before it really gets down to breaking down the different parts.
So we began by looking at roman catholicism and natural theology and methodism wesleyism reform theology arminianism. It's been the way that it's broken down and we've gone through the major classical views again those being reform theology wesleyanism and when I say classical I mean the ones that have large amounts of adherence prior to the 20th century.
But in the last few weeks we've been looking at newer more modernistic theologies that have made their way into the christian landscape. The one that we looked at for a couple weeks was called existentialism.
Existentialism is the idea of existence as preceding essence. And we talked about what that meant over a couple week period the idea that man is in essence he at first he exists and then there's a purpose for his existence.
There's no purpose that precedes his existence his existence creates his purpose. And we kind of talked about the idea that existentialism isn't as hard atheistic because we believe that we had a purpose before we were created.
We believe god had a purpose for us. He created us with a purpose. And yet with existentialism your purpose doesn't come until after you've existed because existence precedes essence. And so there's a little different philosophical idea of what existence is.
And that's existentialism. And there's a lot more to it. And if you want to go back and listen to the recordings I would encourage you to maybe help you understand it a little better. But it did have a great influence on how people understand things like miracles.
Because the big issue with existentialism is to demythologize scripture to take away the miraculous and try to boil everything down to the natural. And this is why you end up with people who who who would call themselves christians but would reject the creation story.
They would call themselves christians but they would reject the resurrection. They would call themselves christians but they would reject the supernatural and thus they would call them what would their existentialist christians.
And so and we in a lot of that has influence on modern liberal thinking. Liberalism tends to be more existential in its perspective. Well today we're going to look at something called neo-orthodoxy and neo-orthodoxy um already was mentioned.
Well is this a um is this an oxymoron. Well an oxymoron is two words that go together that mean something different. Like jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron. Um dodge ram is an oxymoron. Think about it. If you dodge it you didn't ram it.
If you ram it you didn't dodge it. So you know dodge ram is oxymoron. Um uh you know so oxymoron is two words that go together mean something different. Um oxy neo-orthodoxy. The word neo uh means new uh neo is the greek word for new.
Um orthodox comes from a combination of the word orthos which means straight and doxa. And there's uh there's actually quite a bit doxa can mean glory or praise but specifically in this sense can also mean uh opinion.
It can mean thought uh someone's thinking about something uh and it comes from the word decade meaning to accept something. You know it's something that's accepted uh something that uh but we'll just say we just you boil it down to something.
This is what someone believes or an opinion. I spelled that wrong. Excuse me uh so you have um someone who is orthodox and by the way orthos a good way to remember that is orthodontia. Orthodontia is when they take your teeth and straighten them.
You know because they were crooked. So an orthodontist straightens teeth. So orthodox it means to have a straight opinion. Well what's the straight. Straight is correct. So it means to be right means to have to be in line with what's correct.
Right. You know a lot of people are unorthodox in their theology because they're out of line with the truth. And it may only be a 10 degrees off you know it may most unorthodox teaching is not totally perpendicular to what's being said what's the truth.
It's usually just enough to where it creates enough of a divide where the line is no longer contiguous. You know it's simply off just a little. And so orthodoxy is the idea of keeping something straight in line with what is correct what is the truth.
Right. So it's keeping it straight with the truth. So if you say well neo-orthodoxy is an oxymoron because you can't have new keeping with the truth. Maybe orthodoxy i think what you thought it was more like tradition.
Right. And so if you say new tradition yeah that would be or new truth might work too. I mean because it's like if it's new it's going to be different. Yeah. Well well something's different you know than what the original.
Yeah and that's a good point. Something new is is typically different. And you know you could you could argue i guess that the reformers calvin luther's wingley and those that they were neo-orthodox in their time because they were teaching something that was to the people new but it was true gotcha.
So um i'm not saying they were neo-orthodox. I'm saying that you could you could call what they were doing they were teaching something that wasn't in line with the normal part of the day because what was in line with the normal part of the day was the false teaching of roman catholicism the heresy of roman catholicism.
True orthodoxy got skewed back then. Exactly. So it's really they're just returning to the exactly. That's why it's called reformation. You know to reform something means it once was correct it's become corrupt and now it's got to be reformed back to the beginning the re meaning to return to something to go back.
So they're informing based on what it was already formed you know. And that's what happened. The the roman catholic church had taken proper biblical theology and had taken it like a wax face and had and had and had mixed it all up.
They'd moved the nose they'd refixed the eyes they contorted the mouth and it became like a picasso painting. It didn't no longer look like a face. It just looked like sort of this mass where you could tell what was eyes you could tell what was a nose you could tell what was a mouth but it wasn't.
It wasn't straight it wasn't right. And yet that's what the people were believing. So long comes calvin long comes luther long comes men even preceding them like wickliffe and um huss and even before them you had the waldensians and others who were coming out and who were who were proclaiming.
No that's not right. There's a truth and the truth has been lost. It's been it's been obscured it's been it's been mixed and muddled and and we need to get back to the truth. Well in the 20th century uh and even before you have the uh liberal protestantism and liberal protestantism is uh getting away from orthodoxy altogether.
Liberal protestantism sort of takes and steps away from the the orthodoxy of the past the truth of what had been believed about the scripture and begins to open up many views about the bible and about the the truth of the word that were that were wrong.
But yet in it in uh liberal orthodoxy liberal uh teaching liberal theology there was a there was a lot of um there was a lot of optimism because the gospel went from being about sin to being about the fixing of social ills the fixing of problems.
And so there was a lot of optimism in in early 20th century liberalism the idea that the church's role wasn't to save men from sin but it was to save men from you know persecution and oppression and things like that.
And so the church sort of takes on a very socially aware very socially important role not so much to get men and getting men out of hell in the afterlife but getting men out of poverty in the current life and getting men out of the bad life now sort of your best life now kind of proto you know uh modernism uh so what we see i'm trying to get around to this is when the world war happens a lot of the optimism of liberalism is gone.
You see the first world war followed very soon after by the second world war. What do you have. You got a world that's been crushed by men who are evil and it's had to have been fought back against this evil thousands and thousands have died.
And now you have a new different view of the world it's much less optimistic. And out of that rises something called neo-orthodoxy. Neo-orthodoxy teaches that sort of finds tries to find a middle road between the fundamental orthodoxy of the bible is the word of god it's the truth we hold to it hold to a specific teaching of and the liberal view which was very uh very much open to all kinds of variations and interpretations and falsehoods and things.
And so neo-orthodoxy tries to find a middle road. So wouldn't it better wouldn't a truer way to put it would be like reformed re-orthodox rather than new orthodox. When you're actually bringing it back rather than creating something new.
Well i'm not i'm they never liked the term those who were uh the the the the proponents of this particular teaching did not use the term neo-orthodoxy. It was their their uh people describing them said well they're the neo-orthodox.
So it wasn't this isn't a term they coined uh one of the there there are other there are other um um views uh or other other ways of describing it uh there's the uh what was it theology and conflict is uh is is what another way i think it's in the book actually it's referred to as um the dialectic which means the the conflicting the idea of trying to trying to trying to make a sense of a world of mayhem you know and uh let me let me give you kind of the the major theme of neo-orthodoxy because i see i don't want to go too far and and confuse.
Um the major theme of neo-orthodoxy is that uh the logos. This is in the greek logos. Um if i were to ask you what is the logos. Um would you know the how many of you know what logos means. Logos means word.
But if i said what is the logos. What what what am i saying. Okay now if i said who is the logos. Okay all right. So you understand that there is a distinction in the bible between that which is logos and he who is logos.
Right that which is logos is the word and he who is logos is the living word. So you have the written word. Uh so you have the word written and then you have the word living. Now there are. You know we could we could argue and say well the written word is a living word.
But when we talk about in this distinction we have the logos who is written or the logos which is written. And then we have the logos who is living. And uh of those two essentially the bible in jesus.
Okay of those two which one is preeminent jesus. Okay anybody else want to weigh in. Why would it's the same. Is it i always you know jesus is the word the word. I mean i i don't separate the two. Okay anybody else want to opine.
Which one is preeminent. Okay is it both. Well okay preeminent means that one has a higher place than the other. And obviously it's difficult for us to say one has a higher place than the other because you have christ who is god in the flesh and you have the word of god written.
And so we have these two expressions of the logos one written and one living. And so the question becomes which one is preeminent. And for the fundamental christian for the for the conservative christian there is a sense in which the written logos is preeminent because outside of the written logos we would know nothing of the living logos.
True. Yeah you follow me. Just stay. Because i promise i'm going to make sense of all this. But what i'm saying is for the for the conservative christian there's a sense in which preeminence rests in the word of god because outside of it we would not know about the living word of god.
The written word of god tells us about the living word who is christ. All. Right. The neo-orthodox position is opposite of that. The living word is preeminent over the written word because for the neo-orthodox theologian the living word is all that really matters.
The written word is not a divine. Um it's not that it's not divine. It is not the word of god as revelation as we would see the word of god as revelation. But the written logos is the word of god as a um it is a byproduct of revelation.
This is kind of like what christian mysticism i see where you're going. And maybe i don't think i might not be explaining but it's a little different. But but there is a there is a mystical aspect to this because it gets down to the issue of jesus and me.
The bible becomes an artifact of revelation not revelation itself. And so when when you read the bible what do you. What do you read. You're reading the word of god. Right. You're reading god's word to man.
Do you believe that it's revelation from god. The neo-orthodox position is that the bible isn't revelation from god. It is a record of god's revelation. But it's not revelation itself. How can i make sense of this.
Um the bible is the medium but it's not the revelation according to the neo-orthodox position it it's how you learn about the revelation. But it itself is not the revelation. The revelation is jesus.
He is the revelation. You learn about him through the bible. But the bible itself isn't revelation. Why is this so important for them. Because there's parts of the bible that have to be jettisoned or reinterpreted or taken out or missed in or reinterpreted a different way.
If you believe the bible is absolute revelation from god guess what that means. You have to accept some things that are really really difficult. You have to accept things like eternal hell. You have to accept things like absolute truth.
You have to accept things like a person who dies outside of jesus christ will spend an eternity separated from god being punished forever for their sins. These are things that you have to believe if you believe the bible is revelation from god.
But if you believe simply that the bible is a record of god revealing himself to man. And it's how men recorded the record that basically all you're reading is someone's interpretation of what god revealed to them.
And so what do you get to do. You get to interpret god as to how he reveals himself to you. See this is not orthodox at all. It's really a robbery of the word. What do men want more than anything in the world.
They want to be the captain of their own destiny. They want to be their own god. What was it that caused eve in the garden to be taken in by the serpent. You will be like god. Right. What is in the orthodox promise.
Well you get to. You get to be the person who determines the truth. You get to be the person who is the who is the arbiter of the truth. And so the neo-orthodox position in and of itself sort of opens up the door for a relativistic approach to understanding the scripture.
This idea that what's true for you and what's true for you can be two different things. Because it's how god has revealed himself to you. Let me uh i want to read. I brought a lot of notes with me today and i haven't.
I haven't really revealed revealed to uh uh i haven't really read a whole lot. But i want to read a little bit from this particular passage. This is from an online source on the subject neo-orthodoxy it says best described as an approach or attitude that began in a common environment but soon expressed itself in diverse ways.
It began in the crisis associated with the disillusionment following world war one with a rejection of protestant scholasticism with the denial of the protestant liberal movement which had stressed accommodation of christianity to western science and culture the eminence of god and the progressive improvement of mankind.
Notable figures associated with this form of theology include emile bruner paul tillich whose theological methods were markedly influenced by the writings of the danish philosopher soren kierkegaard who referred to as the father of existentialism which we talked about earlier.
Some scholars have added carl bart to the list but this has been disputed. Neo-orthodoxy is known for its existential element which stress the subjective experience of the individual and regards propositional truth as either irrelevant or indeterminate.
What is propositional truth. When i say that what is propositional truth. No that's the opposite. The propositional truth is truth that is true. Uh in and of itself it's always true. It proposes something as absolute.
For instance if i say um god exists right. That's a that's a propositional truth. It's either true or it's false. It's it's one or the other. It cannot be both right. If i say propositional truth god exists.
Now we could debate that i could say god exists. You could say god doesn't exist. We could go back and forth. But neither of us can make it be true or untrue. We can't force it to be true or untrue because truth is truth.
Right. What is subjective truth. Another way propositional truth also called objective truth it's true always objectively. What is subjective truth. That's what you said. Yeah. Subjective truth is truth that's determinate on the individual.
So what if i said this. What if i said god is true for me. What am i saying. I'm saying he might not be true for you. And that's okay. Right. No that's that's what i would by adding the term for me. That's why i always hate when i'm having conversations with people and they'll say well it's true for me.
And i say what do you mean. And i'll say well it's true for me. So that's what they believe. Yes you know what they mean. But i'll say so what you're saying is that something can be true propositionally or objectively can be true for one person but not true for another person.
I'll say absolutely. I'll say that see i don't believe that i don't believe that truth changes for per individual. But there are people who do. And this is again the issue of neo-orthodoxy is stresses the subjective rejects the proposition rejects the objective.
It's at the heart of relativism. By the way my sermon this morning is on relativism. So you guys are just getting a preview because that's the stress of this is the idea that you get to determine you get to determine how you understand and interpret and apply whatever truth you accept.
And so we read the bible. It talks about mankind falling into sin. One of the things neo-orthodoxy rejects is the fall. The idea that we are all sinners by nature. In fact i remember neo-orthodoxy has really uh existentialism.
Neo-orthodoxy really influences a lot. When i was in college we read a book in the very first page of the first first page of the book it said um we used to believe our man used to believe that he was born sinful.
He's born with a sin nature. But now we know whatever i said i just kind of checked out at that point. But now we know what he's not. Man's not sinful by nature. See neo-orthodoxy teaches that the fall is something everyone commits individually.
Fall isn't something that's a collective thing that we've all fallen in adam. But that the fall itself is something that each of us do. We all you know we all sort of have our own fall our own mistakes.
And so we're all sort of it's a subjective thing. It's not an objective thing. I want to read again a little just quick note here the bible is said to contain within it as inspired witness. But it is a mistake to directly identify scripture as the word of god jesus.
The person is the word of god. The bible can become the word of god only when the person chooses to use it to reveal only when god chooses to use it to reveal himself. So so again the bible itself isn't the word of god.
Jesus is the word of god. To the neo-orthodox the jesus is the word of god not the bible. So the bible simply is a book. And when god chooses to use it to reveal himself to you he will. But that's that's up to god and how he does it is up to him.
And ultimately the bible then becomes sort of a wax nose as martin luther said sort of just be twisted and turned however we want it. Um it's very dangerous uh very dangerous theology. And my time is is running short.
But let me just kind of sort of bring everything around. We're going to talk about this more next week when we actually get to the book. I'll make a copy for everyone next week uh from the book. But ultimately the neo-orthodox movement is uh is really concerned with understanding uh subjectivism rather than objective truth.
And this is at the heart of most of the problems in the church today is the absolute abandonment of the concept of objective truth we have even in the most conservative churches i would say we're pretty conservative at least in our theology.
Even in the most conservative churches there has been an abandonment of objective truth. Because you will still hear people say well what does that mean to you. Like in a bible study you hear somebody say what does that mean to you.
I don't care it doesn't matter what it means to you no matter what it means but you'll still hear that. It reminds me of the book the age of reason because it's the reason of man that always seems to creep in.
And this is the logic of the world. And they're well we now know. So they always want to get in and get things up based on their own knowledge or what perceived knowledge. Yeah neo-orthodoxy claims many orthodox doctrines of the faith.
We're going to talk about that more next week. They claim to hold to orthodoxy and that's again why they claim you know it's called neo-orthodoxy. But where it departs is in the most critical area it is in the authority and inspiration of the bible.
Once you've given up the bible everything else is up for grabs. Once you've given up the authority of scripture everything else is up for debate. It can ultimately be lost. One of the most precious parts of systematic theology is bibliology.
The study of the bible. Why is it that we can trust it. Where did it come from. How do we know where it came from. These are all parts that we really need to understand. I listened to last night in preparation for this message i listened to a liberal professor who was just a religion professor was not a christian.
At least from what i could gather he knew a lot. He wasn't a dumb person. Um certainly had a lot of knowledge. But i listened to a lot of things in preparation for teaching and whatnot. And it was just interesting listening to him talk because he would differ.
He would refer to the fundamentalists as naive now not necessarily in an ugly way. Because he wasn't he wasn't any nicer to the liberals in the sense because he would you know refer to them in different ways that were somewhat derogatory as well.
I think he was sort of an equal opportunity basher if you will. He sort of just bashed everyone. But he did say that the approach of the fundamentalists to the bible of it being the absolute word of god and being without error is a naive approach.
And i'll say this if you have never sought to understand where the bible came from how we have it in the form that it is currently in the transmission canonization translation of the text of scripture.
I think there is some naivete in the modern church because people have not been willing to learn these things. It's not naive to believe the bible is the word of god. But it is naive if you don't know why you believe it's the word of god.
I'm missing. I look if you don't know why. If you don't know why i don't know why i have faith. Okay but i do. Have you ever been challenged on why you believe that there's 66 books and not 67. Challenged on why there's 66.
Why do you mean one that some are taken out. Okay see just on that very statement you just made. You mean you said some are taken out some of what see. We don't have time to get into it. We don't have time.
Okay we don't have time today. But this is what we're going to talk about more next week. There is a reason to believe it. But most people don't know. What that reason that most people don't. You go to your average fundamentalist church.
You ask them why do you believe the bible. Because mama did. If you think i'm lying you think i'm wrong. Try me go somewhere. Ask them. Ask them why is there 66 books and not 67. Why don't you have maccabees in your bible.
The original king james bible 1611 had all the apocryph in it. Why don't you have the apocryph. See this is the issue. This is how neo-orthodoxy creeps in it creeps in on the heels of ignorance. We don't know yet.
We proclaim we have the truth. We should know. And we can know. The truth is there. But we often are satisfied in not knowing all. Right. I've gone further than i wanted to. But i hope that i've challenged you to at least think through these things.
Let's pray father. Thank you for this time to study. Help us in the weeks to come understand even better why we would hold to the inspiration and authority of scripture in jesus name. Amen.