Practical Orthodoxy

From The Very Rev. Alan Jones’ book, Common Prayer on Common Ground, on Anglican orthodoxy:


“Salvation isn’t the ultimate reward fro believing abstract doctrines. Salvation is experienced through grace as our lives are ‘converted,’ and conversion is an ongoing process. Doctrine is practical. It has to do with
practice, with what the tradition calls ‘the experimental knowledge of God.’
“To be truly orthodox, doctrine must have an impact on the moral life. I remember some years ago a man screaming at the philosopher Jacob Needleman that to be a Christian you had to believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. Needleman took the wind out of the young man’s sails and said, ‘Yes, you do. Now tell me, what does it mean? Tell me what difference it makes!’ The young man had nothing to say. An elderly retired priest angrily thundered at me: ‘Do you believe in the
homoousian?’ (this is the doctrine that Jesus Christ is of the same substance as the Father). I said, ‘Yes, I do, but the more important question is why don’t you love me?”