Theology Thursday: Don’t Encourage Them!!!
(Bonus points to anyone who noticed this went out yesterday. I was obviously time-skewed.)
One of the things that really bugs me these days is when Christians throw around the word "heresy." My current attitude is that if you resort to accusing the person on the other side of your argument of heresy, you've just lost the argument. This isn't to say that heresy doesn't exist, of course, but how do we define it, exactly? For a Catholic, with a monolithic Church and an authoritative Magisterium (the Teaching Office of the Church), it's pretty easy to define. Anything that doesn't match up with the Catechism would qualify as heresy.
But what about for the rest of us? How do we define heresy? What should our reaction be to encountering it? I think 2 John has a pretty good summary of both:
Certainly, "the truth about Christ" could be interpreted fairly broadly, but John actually already did us the favor of defining his terms:
Back in 1 John, there was an additional way to get called "antichrist," and that involved denying that Jesus was the Messiah. But basically it boils down to denying that Christ was who he said he was.
Some will argue that denying the Trinity is heresy. Or that the ideas of Calvinism/Arminianism are heresy. (Yes, those groups tend to bandy that word around a fair bit. Interestingly, Open Theists, who disagree with both of them, rarely try to lose the argument in this way.) Others will accuse those with a non-traditional view of Hell or Satan of heresy. I don't see John doing that.
This is actually one of the things I really liked about John R.W. Stott's Basic Christianity. We tend to over complicate just what are the crucial doctrines of Christianity. But if it's boiled down to the nature of Christ and his work, that's probably a good place to stand. Everything else is peripheral. Not unimportant, but peripheral.
The interesting thing about the 2 John passage is verse 11: "Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work."
I'll admit, I read quite a few books containing what some would call heretical views. There's The Shack, which has strong Universalist underpinnings, as well as heterodox stylings of the Trinity (identified as Modalism by more than one argument-losing pastor using the "H" word). And there's The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Torment, which espouses a Universalist view. I even read a book called Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, which basically says it's because he wasn't the Messiah. Or how about (try not to scream) the book I read that purported to explain how to be a Christian and believe in evolution? (Saving Darwin, and it didn't really accomplish its goal.)
A friend of mine actually expressed concern that I might somehow damage my faith when I told him I was reading a book by a Christian author who doesn't believe in Satan. (For some reason I didn't do a full write-up on that very poor book, but I gave a brief explanation of how bad it was in my 2008 Reading Recap - it's #9).
So am I encouraging these people? Am I becoming a partner in their evil work? I don't actually think so. First, I don't believe their work is evil, because none of these works meet John's criteria of denying Christ (well, except the one by the Jewish guy, and it's not like that was unexpected). So it's true, as you may have inferred, that I don't believe that views on Hell, the Trinity, or Creation/Evolution are really very important. Well, okay, important but not matters where the "H" word should be thrown around.
Basically, I think it boils down to not supporting Christians who hold abberent views of Jesus. Claiming he wasn't really a human being, or that he wasn't the Messiah. Those things are worth fighting over. The others we should allow some latitude on. It's okay for people to be wrong about peripheral issues. But we're generally not comfortable with that.
Thoughts? Wow did I ramble on this!
July 2nd, 2009 - 09:45
Things must be weird in our computers. I noticed that you had posted TT yesterday at one point but didn’t have time to read it. When I logged on later it wasn’t there on either of our computers. I mentioned it to your mother, who said that I had to be wrong as you always post T on T. Anyway, I’m glad it really was there. I was afraid I was losing my marbles. By the way, where did that saying come from? Surely my head would rattle if there were marbles in it.
By the way, I agree with your assessment that what we need to focus on is who Jesus is and what His death and resurrection accomplished for us. Other arguments (such as the various views on baptism) are peripheral.