The book of Revelation is probably the hardest book in the entire Bible to interpret. It is full of bizarre visions and fantastical imagery, and it is almost impossible to be certain about what it all means. This book has frustrated readers for almost two millennia, and we have no reason to think the next 2,000 years of Christian history will be any different.
Not everything in it is an interpretive “wild west.” There are parts of it that are actually relatively straightforward. For example, chapters two and three are comprised of messages to seven ancient churches in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), and while they still have their fair share of difficult passages, they are much easier to understand than the rest of the book. They are messages from Jesus about what those churches do right and what they do wrong, and they contain valuable lessons that are still applicable to us today.
Commending Orthodoxy
For example, take a look at part of Jesus’ message to the church at Ephesus:
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and found them to be false…But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Revelation 2:2, 4)
In this passage, Jesus is both commending and chastising the Ephesian Christians. He is saying that they rightly test and reject false teachers (“those who call themselves apostles but are not”), so they have a good grasp of what their faith teaches. In modern terms, we can say that their orthodoxy is impeccable. They hold fast to everything they’re supposed to believe.
Abandoning Love
However, they also have a big problem: they “have abandoned the love [they] had at first.” Now, the text doesn’t tell us exactly what this love is. Is it their love for God or their love for other people? It is not clear, but it is ultimately unimportant. Growing cold in either type of love is a serious matter, so the ambiguity in Jesus’ chastisement of the Ephesians’ serves as a warning for us today about both sides of this key obligation. Just like the early Christians, we too need to hold firm to both our love for God and our love for one another.
Sadly, in America today, we often forget this very inconvenient truth. There are many Catholics who pride themselves on their orthodoxy, being extremely careful to avoid even the tiniest doctrinal errors, but who have also abandoned the love they used to have. In particular, they have abandoned their love for others, and sometimes they don’t even realize it.
Love in Politics
For example, many people are nice enough in their everyday lives, but when they talk about politics, they forget that we are supposed to love even our enemies. They engage in all the name-calling and mud-slinging that is sadly characteristic of modern political discourse, and they seem to think that hating “the other side” is a virtue.
But that is completely wrong. In fact, that is exactly what Revelation’s message to the Church in Ephesus tells us not to do. We’re supposed to love everybody all the time, even our political enemies. Sure, we can disagree with them, even vehemently, but we must always love them while doing so. Things like name-calling and insult-hurling have no place in the life of a Catholic.
Social Justice
To take one more example, many people also ignore Jesus’ call to stand with the poor and the oppressed. Many orthodox American Catholics tend to lean conservative in their politics, and as a result, they often forget about social justice. In fact, since it is usually associated with liberals and democrats, they sometimes try to distance themselves from the phrase “social justice” as much as they can.
But as Catholics, we can’t let our politics hinder our love. We are required to help those most in need, so we have to take a stand for social justice no matter how unpopular that may be with our political allies. Jesus’ call to love demands it, and if we ignore that obligation, then we are making the same mistake the Ephesians made back in the first century.
Orthodoxy Is Not Enough
Don’t get me wrong. Orthodoxy is important. In fact, it is more than just important. It is essential. To live a truly Catholic life, we have to accept the faith in its entirety but orthodoxy is not enough. Believing the right things does not exhaust our responsibilities as Catholics. As St. Paul tells us, we need to live out our faith in love (Galatians 5:6), and if we don’t, then we are not living genuinely Catholic lives. In fact, if we do not truly love others, including our political enemies and the most vulnerable in our world today, then we are failing in our responsibility as Catholics just as much as if we denied an essential tenet of our faith.
11 thoughts on “Revelation’s Warning: Orthodoxy Is Not Enough”
From the article in quotes.
“Social Justice
To take one more example, many people also ignore Jesus’ call to stand with the poor and the oppressed. Many orthodox American Catholics tend to lean conservative in their politics, and as a result, they often forget about social justice. In fact, since it is usually associated with liberals and democrats, they sometimes try to distance themselves from the phrase “social justice” as much as they can.”
Actually, distancing from the term, “social justice” is a good, depending upon which stance of “social justice” is being considered. Ever so many conservative Catholics definitely lean conservative in their politics, especially where the murders of the unborn and just born children are concerned.
The “social justice” Democrat President Biden fully supports these murders and has extremely enhanced America’s financial assistance for them. How is that social justice for the babies and for the mothers, the giving of full support to women who are for this practice?
Perhaps rethink this and look and see which cities and states are in the worst straits regarding the poor and the oppressed. They appear to be governed by “social justice supporters”. One example, the once upon a time beautiful city on the hills.
God bless, C-Marie
Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. I got a bit caught up in some other projects and didn’t realize so much time had passed.
Of course you’re right that the political left’s support of abortion isn’t real social justice, but the fact that a term can be misused doesn’t mean that we should ignore its legitimate use. The fact that grave sins are sometimes described as social justice doesn’t mean that we should ignore genuine social justice.
Thanks JP for your thoughts and observations. The Pharisees had great orthodoxy but little on love of neighbor. My sense is that Pope Francis is is guiding us to look at Love of Neighbor. Thanks Andrew for the word ‘orthopraxy’.
Whatever else we may want to say about Pope Francis (good or bad), you’re right that he’s definitely pointing us in that direction, and that emphasis is sorely needed in the Church today (at least in America)
The first love that the church at Ephesus had could also have been Christ. The church was so involved with its activities that it neglected the reasons for its existence.
Love is a fruit of the Spirit.
Right, the love that they lost could have been either their love for God/Jesus or their love for people. Like I say in the article, it’s ambiguous, and that ambiguity makes it a warning for us against losing both kinds of love.
Dear JP – I appreciate the point of this article – “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’….”
But I take issue with this premise – “Many orthodox American Catholics tend to lean conservative in their politics, and as a result, they often forget about social justice.” Now, I don’t know how broad a brush you mean to paint with the word “many” – but it seems you’re tapping into a very unfortunate stereotype. In most states, after government, the Catholic Church is the number one supplier of services to the needy. A big chunk of those services (in cash and in kind) is provided by the the very small percentage of active, Church-going Catholics (Dynamic Catholic does a good job of breaking down all of those statistics) – by and large – those are the ‘orthodox’ crowd.
The conservative/orthodox Catholics (if that is the terminology we’re going with) do plenty of the social justice heavy lifting – they just tend to be quiet about it. At least in my neck of the woods, the folks manning and funding the food pantries, pregnancy centers, public rosaries, political activism and so on, are very much the orthodox crowd.
Your mileage may vary, of course. But my seat-of-the-pants estimate is that more rather than less of the authentic social justice in the world is carried out by people who embrace the entire Gospel and endeavor to live it out (however imperfectly) in both word and deed – as Andrew points out, orthodoxy and orthopraxy tend to go together..
God bless – Steve
Agreed.
You’re right that there are plenty of faithful, Orthodoxy Catholics who don’t ignore love of neighbor, but my point wasn’t to say that those people don’t exist. It wasn’t even to say that they’re not the majority. I just said that “many” in the Church today make that mistake, and while I don’t know what your experiences are, I’ve encountered plenty of people like that in my lifetime. I also know many others who’ve had similar experiences.
Put another way, even if most of the people engaged in social justice are orthodox, that doesn’t mean that there’s not a sizeable contingent of theologically orthodox Catholics who ignore social justice.
The redemptive verb is “orthopraxy”, which means right thinking (doctrine) with right action (practice of God’s love). In Christ, Andrew
Orthopraxy doesn’t mean right thinking with right action. It just means right action (ortho=right, praxy=action), whereas right thinking is orthodoxy. While the two are obviously supposed to go together, they unfortunately don’t always.