Every perspective that I read opens my mind to the world of possibilities that are out there. Every article possess within it the seed of ideas that make up a writers worldview. Every person writing something new is adding to the variations of possible ways to look at the world. Yet this thought itself is at odds with the very tenet of Orthodox faith.
The tenet of any "Orthodoxy" is that there is only One Truth. There may be many interpretations of that truth, but all these interpretations must adhere the the basic idea of One Truth. It is for this reason people who are strict adherents of any Orthodoxy will refrain reading works written by people who do not align with their own worldview. They will even go so far as to ban books written by people of their own world view if they think that the ideas expressed do not align with the One Truth ideology. The influence of unorthodox views can impact a person's adherence to the idea of One Truth.
Orthodoxy serves as a limiting mechanism in the field of unlimited possible ideas. Without social pressure, traditional values, walls of impossible heights, and a compass to show the way there is no way for a person to have any way of knowing where they will end up with their lines of inquiry and reasoning. Orthodoxy is man's safety net in a world of unlimited uncertainty, and a world of unlimited ideas. Orthodoxy tells a person that at least there are others out there who adhere to the same logic. If the ship is going down, at least there will be lots of people going down with me.
Orthodoxy is not only something that is found in religious circles. Every human endeavor on the planet has it's own Orthodoxy. Academia has it's own orthodoxy with its peer review. Fashion has it's orthodoxy in the celebrities. Politics has an orthodoxy in the main stream political parties. Everywhere a person looks they can get a glimpse of people massing together and agreeing to "frame the conversation", to set the boundaries of what is possible in the current climates of life and the current ways of thinking.
Yet anytime one sees the masses of people agreeing to frame the conversation, one will also see the dissenters on the sidelines. These are the people that are willing to stand apart and leave the huddled masses, saying what they believe is correct no matter what the consequence. These are the people who destroy the Orthodoxy of today and make room for the Orthodoxy of tomorrow. These are the people who offer new ideas to people who would otherwise continue to think in one direction no matter what was going on around them. It is these people who enrich Orthodoxy with the various possibilities that are available. But it is also these people who undermine the whole idea Orthodoxy was meant to engender, a sense of safety and a sense of limits, and a sense that there is One Truth out there that can be known only through the orthodox lens.
It's at this point that I ask you, the reader, to reflect on what I have been saying. Think about the people you know who might be re-framing the conversation with their new ways of looking at things. What do you think the impact of their ideas will be? What do you think the impact of those ideas have been in the past? How do you think the existing orthodoxies will change due to the introduction of these new ways of thinking? Think about yourself, think about the way you personally think, perhaps you are someone who might possibly be thinking outside the box. Do you think your ideas have the power to change everything? Do you want them to have that power, or is holding your own unframed viewpoint enough?
