Orthodoxy? Theology? Life Style?

So this post is coming from a few recent events.

1. I was hanging out with a few friends. They were joking around and some joke about falling or dieing came up. The next comment was "well hopefully we will be in heaven if that happens." That bothered me. It was a few people I know to be Christians. People who I have observed growing drastically in their faith. The next thought I had is the one that bothered me. My thought was "Oh they are Catholic that's fine then." I mean this might seem small but a big part of my faith and my understanding of the Gospel is that we are given confidence in where we are going. I mean I don't know what is up with the time between death and resurrection, we are told God will hold us accountable for what we do, especially those of us who are leaders in the Church (no matter how high or low we are). But I don't think that the scripture leaves room to fear or not be confident where we are headed, that is part of where our confidence and freedom come from. We might not have huge rewards if we don't live well, but we are there none the less. Why is denomination an excuse for bad theology? Why do I feel compelled to correct or morn bad what I see as bad theology?

2. A friend and I discussed an instance of a man who was charged with heresy for saying Christ dying on the cross didn't change the world, rather that act was what God chose to accept as the atonement. And I don't know the story well enough, my explanation and understanding of it had some issues. But we were discussing what types of implications our understanding of what God does and why has on our view of him. Again the question here is what is the importance of orthodoxy. What is the reason why we value it (if you do)?

No matter your view it is important. I mean look around, my generation is largely disillusioned with the church because in the American Church largely Orthodoxy is valued so highly (and sometimes they still mess it up), but acting it out is not a big. I mean a lot of pastors try and many churches are not like this, but enough are that we have lost faith in organized church. Enter the emerging church. They generally push living your faith about as strongly as orthodoxy is valued in the mainstream church. But look at the books they write and sermons they teach. They are right on with how to apply, but so many times I hear misunderstandings of God and our position with him. Again, like before not everyone is like this, but enough to cause some who desire to follow Jesus and honor God to not trust either group.

So if one side is completely unable to do what Jesus commands us to do, and the other seems to not know why, what do we do?

One person suggested one was better than the other, living it out but not having a good foundation for why. But this is the same issue that happened back near the enlightenment, the resurgence against this mindset lead to fundamentalism. So I personally reject the idea that serving without a good foundation of orthodoxy is to be preferred over just the foundation. But we also clearly see from Jesus' teaching that knowing the truth is not the same as or a substitute for living it out.

It seems to me that to be effective we need both. We should be constantly growing in both our knowledge of scripture and God and how we live it out. Anything less is not the maximum of the type of life we can have.

Without good theology how can we answer our critics and our own thoughts when things go wrong?

Without living it out how can we call ourselves followers of Jesus when he says to love and care for the poor?

I have given my thoughts a little, but what do you think about the issue of Theology/Orthodoxy/ and Living out our faith?