This is Pastor Tim’s article which appeared in the Evening Leader on Tuesday, Feb 7, 2023
Today, let’s learn a new word: orthodoxy. That is a good church word we don’t use much anymore, and I will get to why this word has fallen out of use in a moment. But according to Websters Dictionary, the word orthodoxy means “conforming to established doctrine especially in religion.” That is a fancy way of saying that something is viewed to be correct according to standards set by society. Let me give you a few examples.
As a middle aged man who holds a leadership position in this community, it would be unorthodox for me to be passed out drunk on a bench in Memorial Park. If I decided to have a midlife crisis and go out and by an expensive sports car, that would be unorthodox. If I wanted to increase attendance at Wayne Street by bringing in dancing girls, that would be unorthodox. None of these things would be necessarily illegal, but they would still be considered wrong because they are unorthodox compared to the standards of this community.
While we don’t use the word orthodox any more, what is and is not orthodox is a big issue on people’s minds. I grew up in the 80s and went to college in the 90s and I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that things we did not even think twice about then are things that would get you cancelled, fired, and possibly sued today. I can’t even begin to express how thankful I grew up prior to social media because the way especially guys talked to each other back then would not be considered orthodox today. I don’t have a sensitive bone in my body, but even I look back and feel a little cringe. Don’t get me wrong, it was hilarious, but was definitely not orthodox.
The thing that has changed about orthodoxy is that while it is definitely a church word, the church does not own the concept in popular culture. But don’t for a moment think that means that the word police aren’t out there in force. And what is considered orthodox and what is not is beginning to be very strange to say the least.
Last night, I turned on the TV and I was getting ready to fire up my Nintendo Switch to play Borderlands. The TV apparently was on some kind of digital TV station. Honestly, I don’t understand the TV hardly at all any more, but an episode of Unsolved Mysteries was on, the old one with Robert Stack. So I watched it for moment and then a commercial came on and in the few seconds of commercial I saw, and I mean it, it was like 15 seconds, there was a man putting on lipstick, two men getting married, and someone kneeling to a statue I didn’t recognize. This was a commercial that aired during a rerun of a TV show that was on back in the late 80s. During the original run of Unsolved Mysteries, a commercial like that would have gotten a show taken off the air. I am not saying that is right either, but you have got to admit that boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not have changed.
Who decides what is orthodox today? It isn’t me. No one from any media corporation who are pumping these things into our homes has ever contacted me. I know we want to blame our leftist media, and I don’t completely disagree with that, but there has to be someone paying for this stuff. Some streaming service called HBO Max has done a revision of the old Scooby Doo cartoon. I grew up with that cartoon. But this “revision” has Fred as an entitled idiot, Velma and Daphne are both lesbians, shaggy is a black drug addict, and they cut the talking dog. It is Scooby Doo without Scooby. It is mean spirited remake of a cartoon I loved growing up. Who greenlighted this garbage by declaring it orthodox?
And the answer breaks my heart. We did. We are the ones who fund this garbage through the subscription fees we pay. The moment, and I mean the very moment, that the revenue stops, so does this nonsense. The only subscription service I pay for is Disney+ so I could watch all the new Marvel and Star Wars content. But as terrible as those have been recently, I am strongly considering cancelling it as well.
So, I booted up my Nintendo Switch and had a cathartic time shooting alien creatures and zombies. Probably still not Orthodox, but at least I enjoyed it. That is more than I can say about most of the other propaganda that is spewed out these days.