From the Northumbria Community Rule:
We are called to intentional, deliberate, VULNERABILITY. We embrace the responsibility of taking the heretical imperative by:
speaking out when necessary or asking awkward questions that upset the status quo,
making relationships the priority, and not reputation.
…
Simplistically summarised, the heretical imperative is: To choose to seek God in Christ and to discover His Truth in a pluralistic, secular and materialistic world, being unafraid to listen or to ask awkward questions, of others and ourselves, as part of the quest.
Northumbria and the Heretical Imperative
The Heretical Imperative from the Ethical Spectacle.
will expand on this later…
An Absolution Revolution 
? Is this is one of those things were someone calls themselves something to be shocking?
The first commandment is to love God above all else.
Jesus says that all law boils down to loving God and loving man.
Paul helps us to understand the the only real “code” we follow is to do what edifies..
Ther person who seeks God relentlessly in the Spirit that is in him and in the Truth allready revealed in God’s word is not a heretic, despite what the world may say.. these are the ones that are actually doing what God has called us to do..
on the other hand, God has also called you to be well seasoned with well salted words to win back as many as you can to him.. If you are right and your brother is wrong you don’t rejoice in your awesomeness, you do what you can in the spirit of gentleness and meekness and humility and love to help align him back to the Spirit and the Truth, that’s why we are a body, we do that to each other.. if you can’t do it in the right spirit though.. well then take care of the plank first. 🙂 Then go help your brother, in meekness, kindness love gentleness, humility, etc.
Peace in Christ brothas!
I don’t think it’s something that’s intended to be shocking, so much as it is what it is. Did you read the linked articles? I think they explain very well why I would use the term “heretic” to describe myself, particularly the idea of a heretic as one who upsets the status quo. Heretic, at its root, doesn’t mean someone who is wrong, it means someone who chooses his/her own way apart from the dominant authority. You have to remember that the main debate over orthopraxis and heresy in the ancient church was not about the WHAT of belief, that is the belief content, but about WHO determines what is right belief, what is orthodoxy versus heterodoxy.
I am not a heretic in that I advocate beliefs that are heretical to historical Christian orthodoxy (though I do advocate beliefs that are against certain aspects of today’s orthodoxy, the status quo of power-based religion and the siding of religion with political power). I am a heretic in that I say things that upset the status quo, that I examine the evidence for myself and attempt to choose right belief and practice according to an understanding of how to translate the ancient truths of the church into the cultures in which I find myself.
Even by today’s language, heretic is a fine word for it:
heretic
Main Entry: her·e·tic
Pronunciation: ‘her-&-“tik, ‘he-r&-
Function: noun
1 : a dissenter from established religious dogma; especially : a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church who disavows a revealed truth
2 : one who dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine : NONCONFORMIST
of course because it has been used to despouse so many, a less shocking word would be iconoclast.
Shouldn’t we be excommunicated?