“Obama and orthodoxy,” summed up.

My last post was a little bit meandering. Bullet points:

• There are two common objections to defining Christian orthodoxy. First, it is said that any definition includes doctrines that the early Christians didn't hold. Second, it is said that most Christians in the pews don't know enough doctrine to agree with everything in, say, the Nicene Creed.
• I think you can get around both of these objections pretty easily by tying orthodoxy to institutions. Then it's easy to argue that what is considered orthodox can change or develop over time, and that people can belong to an orthodox denomination without understand all its doctrine. “Small-o orthodox” ends up being a perfectly good descriptive term.
  
• On the other hand, this approach does separate the question of orthodoxy from the question of Real Christianity. Alan Jacobs does a great job explaining why the question of “how much fit there is between someone’s profession of faith and the state of his heart and mind is a mug’s game.”
• But if there were an easy way to figure out who is a Real Christian and who is not, it wouldn't be at all surprising to find that many who proclaim orthodoxy are out, and many who don't are in. (It occurs to me that if you are a Roman Catholic, a Real Christian might just be an RC. Get it?)