Orthodoxy

Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is anybody else’s doxy who does not agree with me...it is not fashionable to roast them alive, but we will condemn their souls to everlasting perdition, which is the next best thing, and may not appear to be quite so uncharitable. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Orthodoxy (from Greek ὀρθοδοξία "right opinion") is adherence to correct or accepted creeds.

Quotes

• There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad.
  • G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908), ch. 6

• What cannot be emphasized enough is that there is nothing to be said for presenting 'the Islamic view' ... as though there exists one view which is shared by all Muslims. All religions contain a variety of interpretations of that religion, and trying to work out what the right view is should not detain us. Working out the orthodox position in each religion is in itself a minefield, and even if we skirt that minefield without coming to harm, it is not at all clear that an unorthodox belief is not nonetheless a belief which can be classified as falling under the religion.
  • Oliver Leaman, Referring to God, edited by Paul Helm (New York: St Martin's Press: 2000), pp. 5-6

• Dorian Gray ... never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable for the sojourn of a night,
  • Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 11, p. 106

• In Bergerac’s Lutheran temple, Madame Brigitte unintentionally gave testimony to a meek yet strong anxiety that seems to circulate, consciously or not, among several different Christian churches and sects. It is the search for, or the aspiration to, a “basic orthodoxy” that different brands of Christians need at the end of the day to share to retain a non-negotiable loyalty to a set of fundamental doctrinal and moral principles, preserving the authenticity of the message of Jesus and the “early church” (whatever this may mean). In 1952, Irish writer, literary scholar and Anglican theologian C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) published a book on a similar subject, entitled “Mere Christianity.”
  The concern of these groups is to avoid latitudinarian and liberal interpretations of Christianity that may end misrepresenting Jesus’ message. But a definition of “Christian” is not easily to achieve. An essential one is considering “Christian” all those who acknowledge Jesus Christ as their divine savior, even if some find this definition too large, others too strict, and all definitions may be discussed.
  • Marco Respinti, "A Visit to Bergerac. 2. In Search of “Mere Christianity”", Bitter Winter (August 22, 2023)

• I know it is the notion of the bigot, that all the truly godly people belong to the denomination which he adorns. Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is anybody else’s doxy who does not agree with me. All the good people go to little Bethel, and nowhere else: they all worship at Zoar, and they sing out of such-and-such a selection, and as for those who cannot say Shibholeth, and lay a pretty good stress on the “h,” but who pronounce it “Sibboleth;“let the fords of the Jordan be taken, and let them be put to death. True, it is not fashionable to roast them alive, but we will condemn their souls to everlasting perdition, which is the next best thing, and may not appear to be quite so uncharitable.
  • Charles Spurgeon, "Lessons from Nature Sermon 1005 (August 13, 1871)

• Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy.
  • William Warburton, quoted in Joseph Priestley's Memoirs, vol. 1 (1807)

See also

• Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton