Fashionably Unorthodox

I just want to say that I think we are in trouble as a generation in that we have equated orthodoxy with stodginess. Maybe this is the product of youth and something that each new generation does in its own way, but I just want to make the comment that I see our generation doing just that. Orthodox theology is associated with prudishness and judgment, while emerging, off-beat, hip theology is very cool. I have felt these leanings myself. A professor of mine in college made a good care for theistic evolution and against 7-day creationism. I found myself very swayed by him, and as I examine this swaying within me, I realized that, while his points were very solid, I was not being swayed by the convincingness of his arguments but by how cool I knew I would feel if I could reasonably reject something I had taught to me as so inherently, fundamentally true. Oh, I would pretty big stuff. I'm smart enough to know that I couldn't just reject it for no reason and cling to some other random belief. But upon having something else presented to me with enough substance to it that I could reject my old ways and take up this new, edgy belief and still be able to justify it? Well, that was all the rationale I needed. What I really wanted was to feel that free, independent, yummy feeling of rejecting something I had assumed for something much more daring and new that felt crisp and cool on my tongue, after years of having repeated back the same words, of which I had grown very bored.

My point is this - we are in a very dangerous place when we move into new beliefs, not because they are actually better, but because we have equated newness with coolness, and oh we want to feel cool. We don't want to be stuck in the stodginess of all the old people, so we label orthodoxy as uncool and justify this by calling the old beliefs "judgmental". If we have believed something that isn't good, only because we have always believed it, then that is worth getting rid of. I'm not afraid of or against moving into a new idea. But we need to ask why we are moving. Why do we like this new idea? Is it really a better idea? Do we feel God prompting this movement? Or are we just suckers for the glossiness of something new? Do we feel cooler and more enlightened and less stuck when we move forward, no matter what we're moving into?

I think, when we move, we need to consider where we're moving. But equally important is the consideration of WHY we're moving? What's prompting us? Is the new thing really better? Or does the traditional/old thing just feel smothering or boring or normal, and we're tired of that?

I see some of this as our generation of Christians moves away from some of orthodoxy Christianity (namely, into universalism). I am afraid that so much of this is motivated by the desire to feel new and edgy and cool, rather than by informed study and prayerful decision.