What is generous orthodoxy? A statement of purpose

The word ortho-doxy (Greek for “right doctrine”) has both positive and negative connotations. In a culture that prizes what is iconoclastic and transgressive, orthodoxy has come to sound constricted and unimaginative at best, oppressive and tyrannical at worst.

The position taken on this website is that we cannot do without orthodoxy, for everything else must be tested against it, but that orthodox (traditional, classical) Christian faith should by definition always be generous as our God is generous; lavish in his creation, binding himself in an unconditional covenant, revealing himself in the calling of a people, self-sacrificing in the death of his Son, prodigal in the gifts of the Spirit, justifying the ungodly and indeed, offending the “righteous” by the indiscriminate nature of his favor. True Christian orthodoxy therefore cannot be narrow, pinched, or defensive but always spacious, adventurous and unafraid.
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Fleming Rutledge has been known as a preacher and teacher throughout the US, Canada, and the British Isles for more than 45 years. She is the author of twelve published books. Her most celebrated book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, is the product of the work of a lifetime and has been identified as a new classic on the subject. Her books of collected sermons are often focused: one is on the Epistle to the Romans, one is exclusively about the Advent season, and one is exclusively Old Testament—And God Spoke to Abraham—arguably the only such collection in English. The Battle for Middle-earth is a narrative theology of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

Mrs. Rutledge was ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in January 1977, part of the first group who waited for the official approval of the denomination. She served for twenty-one years in parish ministry, fourteen of them on the clergy staff at Grace Church in New York City, an Episcopal parish where preaching was highly valued.

Fleming and her husband will celebrate their 66th anniversary in October 2025. They have two daughters and two grandchildren. She is a proud Virginia native but raised her family in the New York suburbs, worked in New York City for fourteen years, and continues to consider herself a genuine Manhattan transplant where she meets old and new friends whenever possible.

She is in retirement at present, but it is possible that she might return to writing before she exits, trusting the promises and purposes that God has in mind.

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