Unraveling the American Orthodoxy, Part Two--Heterodoxy and Orthodoxy

Before explaining the unraveling of the American orthodoxy, I need to offer an apology of sorts for the term.  This is an apology in the sense of an explanation, such as defenders of religion engage in when testifying to the truth of their faith.  Apology is doubly appropriate since orthodoxy is itself a term most often applied to religion.  My usage will be more…catholic.  Orthodoxy ultimately derives from the Greek orthodoxos, meaning "proper belief."    It is generally paired with heterodoxy, or a "different belief."  Someone who has chosen heterodoxy, is a heretic, from the Greek for making a choice.

Orthodoxy need not be limited simply to matters of religion.  Indeed, we often hear this language used for matters of politics, science, etc.  In order to be orthodox, a belief need only be widely accepted and, more importantly, advanced by entities with the power to produce content that confirms the orthodox belief and to punish dissenters.  Orthodoxy is not, however, fixed and immutable.  It is constantly challenged by heterodox ideas.  At each step along the way, orthodoxy is changed by its encounter with heterodoxy, as its ideas and arguments are forced to become sharper and better-defined.

A few important examples from the history of Christianity make this clear.  The Council of Nicaea, called by the Roman emperor Constantine in 325, came together to settle a dispute about the nature of Christ that threatened to split the Christian church.  Bishops, mostly from the eastern empire, met and adapted the so-called Apostles' Creed to reflect the position they adopted, that Christ, God the Son, was of the same substance as God the Father.  This creed, tweaked slightly at the Council of Constantinople in 381, made the definitive statement of what it meant to be an "orthodox" Christian, a position backed by the coercive power of the Roman state.

In 1215 a meeting of several hundred high-ranking churchmen was convened by Pope Innocent III at the Lateran palace in Rome to face the challenges of large heterodox movements, new forms of monasticism that had arisen since the eleventh century and that ran counter to traditional Benedictine norms, and the perceived threat from Muslims and Jews.  The canons of the Fourth Lateran Council again defined what it meant to be an orthodox Christian, as well as detailing points of doctrine that had been in dispute (such as the transubstantiation of the Host), and setting guidelines for proper practice.

Facing the turbulence of the Reformation, Pope Paul III in 1548 called the leaders of the church to meet in Trent to address the doctrinal challenges raised by reformers.  Over the next eighteen years, twenty-five sessions of the Council of Trent met (three of them in Bologna) and in the end issued the Tridentine Creed.  This creed reasserted the basic tenets of Catholicism and condemned the errors of the Protestant movement.  Though, like Nicaea and the Fourth Lateran Council, the statement from Trent was meant as the definitive statement of what made an orthodox Christian, the fractured political situation in western Europe made uniform enforcement impossible.  Western Christendom would thenceforth be fractured, but for those who remained Catholic, the creed provided self-definition against "heterodox" Protestants.

These examples confirm what we have seen above.  First, that orthodoxy is not static.  Even if core tenets do not change much over time, they are clarified with each successive innovation.  Ideas previously hinted at, such as the consubstantiality of God the Father and God the Son, or the transubstantiation of the Host, are made manifest.  Second, that the creation of orthodoxy requires the challenge of heterodoxy.  Heretics think themselves orthodox.  Their claims require the guardians of orthodoxy to clarify their positions, and to make the case for them.  Finally, it shows that orthodoxy is historically contingent.  It is, to put it bluntly, the position with power.  The Council of Nicaea succeeded because it had the imprimatur of Constantine and the Roman state; the Council of Trent failed because the Catholic church could no longer count on the support of all western European rulers.

American orthodoxy works in much the same vein.  As we shall see, it was forged in crisis and modified in reaction to other crises.  It has a meaning that shifted over time, generally by expanding the membership of the "orthodox."  In the next post, we will see its creation and expression, and briefly explore its fate over the years.