I have just started reading a new book edited by Ben Quash and Michael Ward called 'Heresies and How to Avoid Them'. Stan Hauerwas, a theologian at Duke University, offers some interesting thoughts in the forward to the book.

Hauerwas says that a book on the ancient Christian heresies is still important because it "rightly helps us see that how we speak as Christians makes all the difference if we are to be faithful witnesses in a confused Church and in an even more confused world."

He notes the form that the book takes. Originally, the chapters were all sermons and this is important for Hauerwas. He says "For the testing of Christian speech is prayer. The decisive form of prayer is the liturgy in which the sermon is one of the central acts of praise. The Church's doctrinal debates are rightly about how we are to pray so that our words do not betray the one to whom we pray. Situating the discussion of past heresies within the liturgical action of the Church and, in particular, its proclamation, indicates the continuing need of the Church to speak well in the appropriate context."

"Moreover, that the heresies are dissected through sermons reminds us that theology is always first and foremost commentary on Scripture. Each of these essays in distinct ways shows how Christian reading of the bible is a delicate task at once beautiful and complex as a spider's web. Spiderwebs are fragile, requiring constant repair, which means the web in the process of repair reveals connections we had not anticipated."

Stanley makes a number of interesting observations about Orthodoxy that, as evangelicals, we often forget, so it is worth hearing what he has to say:

1. Orthodoxy is beautiful - "That one of the tests of orthodoxy is beauty means orthodoxy betrays itself if it is used as a hammer to beat into submission those we think heterodox." He commends the book for not demonising the heretics, recognising that "the church seldom knows what it believes until someone gets it wrong. So those who get it wrong are blessed just to the extent that they help us discover what it is we must faithfully say, to be adequate witnesses to God.

2. Orthodoxy is humble - "Orthodoxy can tempt us to self-righteousness and a protectiveness that betrays the joy and confidence that should be the heart of the Gospel. When orthodoxy becomes defensive rather than a form of love and proclamation it denies its own reality...the lively and radical character of orthodoxy...does not require coercion to sustain itself. Rather orthodoxy is displayed as an act of love that takes the form of careful speech."

3. Orthodoxy is restrained- "Orthodoxy is the hard discipline of learning to say what needs to be said and no more. Too often those we learn to call heretics have tried to say more than can be said. They have succumbed to the temptation to say too much by explaining what cannot be explained. Orthodoxy shows why what we believe cannot be explained but can only be prayed. What Christians believe is wonderfully simple, but to say what is simple is not easy."

I pray that our orthodoxy, such as it is, may be beautiful, humble and restrained in these days of conflict and confusion.

[By the way, thats St Augustine refuting a heretic in a beautiful, humble and restrained manner!]