Orthodoxy -praxy -pathy

(From Alan Hirsch's blog)

Not forgetting Orthodoxy: Having noted that orthodoxy (right belief) is not enough, I am not suggesting that it is not important. Far from it! Right belief is an irreplaceable element of any discipleship in the way of Jesus. However the church nearly always sees orthodoxy narrowly, as a commitment to propositional truth, assuming that the knowledge of God is received through purely the cognitive functions. I am convinced that if we are to come to a full appreciation of God, our thinking about him must be right, but it must be complimented by othopraxy and orthopathy if we are to come to a full-orbed, biblical, engagement with (and knowledge of) God. This can be depicted in the following way:

As can be seen above, it is in the nexus between orthopraxy, orthopathy and orthodoxy that that a true and full appreciation of God is to be found. Indeed, in the place where all three intersect we are less likely to make the mistakes that occur when we favour one over the others. If we adopt a commitment to orthopraxy alone at our worst we become tireless (and tired) activists, burning ourselves, and others, out and relying on our own efforts to please God. If we foster orthopathy to the exclusion of the others, we can end up as impractical mystics, so focused on contemplation and personal spiritual experience that we become no use in the kingdom of God. But as we well know, if our primary or exclusive interest is in orthodoxy (as is the case in many churches today), at our worst we are arrogant bibliophiles, no different to the Pharisees, worshipping our doctrine and our theological formulations over a genuine encounter with the Jesus revealed in scripture. It is in the place where the ways of head, the heart and the hand overlap that we find our way to Jesus. This is exactly what the shema (Dt.6:4-9) aims at, and what Jesus directly affirms as being at the heart of discipleship and knowledge of God (Mk.12:28-34). We are to love God with all our heart, mind, will, and strength.