I too get pretty fed up with people lazily branding someone a heretic on an almost daily basis without much of an understanding of what heresy truly is .

Of course the term needs to be retained and used within the Christian lexicon but at it’s worst (and sadly I have seen it more than a few times from some of our less ireinic posters on this and other sites) it borders on a fairly brutal and unwarranted form of character defamation/assasination. A small, mischievous part of me is looking forward to the day when a blogger is threatened with legal action following some particularly outrageous accusation that has been made.

“Traditional heretic: those who depart from the faith of a particular tradition (e.g. Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, Dispensationalist, etc.) or denomination (Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, etc.)

Historic heretic: Those who depart from the faith with regard to a belief that has been held by Christianity from the beginning. There can be two different types of historic heretics:
1) One who departs from an essential belief (which I believe should be limited to the person and work of Christ)
2) One who departs from a non-essential belief”

With regard to “traditional heresy” I find myself feeling really uneasy about the implications and outworking of this term. Traditions and denominations are man-made structures and hence, by nature, fallible constructs. I personally would be extremely wary of labelling anyone a heretic because they do not share the same tradition or belong to the same denomination as me. This can be where we see denominationalism at its very worst.

A Baptist/Anglican/Methodist/Roman Catholic who genuinely believes that anyone who does not subscribe to their tradition/denomination is a heretic is in my view in a very sad place. A heaven that is solely comprised of just Anglicans or Baptists or Reformed or Roman Catholics would be a very sad place in which to reside forever….Can you imagine ….spending the whole of eternity with someone who largely thinks exactly the same as you or me…..I am almost tempted to say “give me hell….it would be the more preferable option”! So I have to say, if pushed I am tempted to reject the notion of ‘traditional heresy’ owing to its foundations being extremely shaky.

I am much more comfortable with Historic heresy, especially one who departs from an essential, core, fundamental belief. Hoewever, once again I struggle with branding someone who departs from a non-essential belief as a heretic, and this is what I feel happens all too often. A non-essential belief is blown out of all proportion, is hyped up and begins to be presented as if it were an essential belief.

“Even if I don’t believe that their departure necessarily undermines the very essence of Christianity, I do believe that their departure deserves a strong rebuke.”

I would be interested in what you feel constitutes a “strong rebuke”. It would appear to me that the Open Theist argument (not that I am one, I am merely pondering) is similar to the type of treatment that was meted out to Arminius when he had the temerity and audacity to challenge and question Calvin. In Arminius’ case strike out “strong rebuke” and replace it with “death for perpetrating heresy”. I know you would not advocate such treatment nowadays, but I do feel that sometimes personal/denominational/structural/traditional prejudices can all too easily hold sway, and the heresy label is sanctioned and then deemed inviolable.

first i would like to note that the above definition is good. i would note though that it only can be used if the readers all understand and agree on the definition. but by using the above definition the word “heresy” will be used even more than it has already been thrown around. from the above definition anything not according to one’s particular tradition will be classified as one type of “heresy”. i am confident people would love to be able to use it in that way!!!

for example: i have read amillenialists, premillenialists and postmillenialists say that their doctrine was the historic position of the church, and that the other two were divergence from the orthodox position. the point is that the history of doctrine is always up to manipulation.

as for the term “essential”, this is also subjective if one does not make definite rules for how to define what is “essential” and why. it will only be a useful definition if agreed upon by all in any given discussion. words only have the meanings we give to them, and with so many minds out there it is hard to nail down a definition. one suggestion is , anything considered essential “should be limited to the person and work of Christ”. this is great but will need to be expanded. which parts of christ person and work? why is this the litmus test?

do we need the word at all? i think we do but we need to be careful how we use it and we need to use it to protect people from danger, not attack others. i think we also need to define it when we use it (since it is defined differently by so many people). for example when i use the word i use it about something that would necessarily (at least in my logic) lead to the denial of what i consider (there is that darned subjectivity again) the basic christian beliefs (one god and jesus is savior) or even more foundational, the basic practices (placing faith in christ and repenting of our sins by submitting to Christ)

from my experience, i have seen that this word is usually thrown out to prove ones point in polemic theological discussions. it is often uttered with a great amount of emotion and meant to be an unarguable argument against which no one can argue (i know that was a redundant statment! hehe!!) this i believe ruins the purpose of the word. it seems to me that “truth should be spoken in love”. so if the word “heresy” is used at all, it seems it should be used to benefit and protect people, not to prove a point or argument. it should be applied to a doctrine that is shown to be dangerous to the lord’s sheep. it shouldnt be uttered as an emotional attack, but as a compassionate attempt to protect the flock from a doctrine that is shown with simple logic and scripture (as opposed to appealing to tradition) to harm the faith or well being of god’s people.

the other option is that we chuck a word so riddled with various interpretation, most of which are emotionally charged, and then we would just say things like ” that is not according to our particular groups tradition and heritage” instead of saying it is “heresy”. or we might say that “not believing in the trinity (just an example) will cause someone to eventually deny the deity of christ and his ability to be our savior, and thus shipwreck a persons faith” instead of saying “anyone who doesnt believe in the trinity is a “heretic”". in other words we would say what we mean instead of trying to use an abiguous term to describe our meaning!

hope that makes some sense?!?! let me know what you think. thanks for letting me thow in my 2 cents!

gbu
chris

1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; …Not Mary!!

Sorry Michael but if you cannot agree that having statues of Mary and dead saints in your buildings is not idolatery then you are wrong biblically.Here is the 2nd commandment :

Exo 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Exo 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

The RC churches preach a very different gospel than the one Paul preached,sadly.

- dale

As to your question “Do you agree with Gods Word that praying to Mary and having statues of her and dead saints in your buildings is breaking the second commandment of idolatery ?”

My answer is “No’, because from my understanding of Vatican II, Mary is to be venerated, but not worshipped. I have pictures of my wife and children at home, living saints all of them, because of their faith in Jesus Christ. I value all of them very highly, but do not worship them. I would say that the same would be true of dead saints.

Keep in mind, that I am not a Roman Catholic, so perhaps some could answer this question better than me.

As to your final point, I will answer that in Part II. I will say for now that it has been my experience that those who leave a particular tradition are most critical of it because of the negatives that they have experienced within that tradition. (By the way I have some in my small group who believe very similarly to you because the local Catholic community that they were part of did not teach the gospel. They, like you, decided to leave when they became true followers of Christ.) I have known of several others who have had quite different experiences and this I will address in part two.

While i do not take issue with the set of questions that were asked to determine if someone was an evangelical Christian.I do think that although some Roman Catholics might agree with evangelicals on lots of issues, this does not mean that they have the Holy Spirit and guarantee that they will be saved.
A more appropraite question that could be put before RC’s is this:
Do you agree with Gods Word that praying to Mary and having statues of her and dead saints in your buildings is breaking the second commandment of idolatery ?

Then this verse could be highlighted to them :

1Co 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

The true test would be when shown Gods Word and His standard the Holy Spirit (If they have Him) would then convict them of this truth and they would leave as fast as their legs would take them ….as i did

- dale

Here is the first part of my response to “Are Roman Catholics Christian?”. I have chosen to look at the issue both statistically and anecdotally. As it is quite lengthy I have posted it on Eclectic Christian under the topic Counting Canada’s Christians. The second part of my response will happen later this weekend. (It is a long weekend here, so it may be late Monday night before you get it.)

I believe Dale means me.

Dale, I am preparing a response. It will probably be this weekend before I get it complete. It will be quite lengthy, so I will link to it from here.

The Other Michael

Many thanks in anticipation of your response
- dale