I sit here with a bit of a conflicted soul. On the one hand, I got the new issue of Christianity Today and found that it is devoted to the importance of doctrine in spiritual formation. Giddy. That is what I was when I read it. However, I also received an email yesterday that serves to curb my excitement, reminding me of the reality of our desperate condition. (I’ll get to the email soon).
Christians often scare me. Really, all religious people scare me. But Christians in particular because they are the ones I have to deal with everyday. I have a deep empathy for the so-called “new atheists” such as Daniel Dennet and Christopher Hitchens who find religion repulsive and counterproductive to the betterment of society. While I completely disagree with them for a variety of reasons that will not be covered here, I can put myself in their shoes and find myself saying the same things. Namely: Christians can be so bizarre.
Seriously, we can produce the craziest nutcases the world has to offer. Sadly, it is often our beliefs that are the issue. From the “God told me to kill my children,” “I cannot talk to you because you are going through a divorce,” “If you say the earth is going around the Sun we are going to put you in jail,” to “Our ministry needs a million dollars or I am going to kill myself,” we have our embarrassments. The things said and done in the name of God are astonishing and disturbing. Yes, I know. Everyone has their nutcases, but we have the tendency to breed a special variety. I have already, in times past, talked trash on my own breed: Calvinism. But now I am going to get after the species in general: Christians.
In the interest of full-disclosure I must tell you something. I have Gail Riplinger’s book Which Bible is God’s Word sitting right in front of me. Its basic argument is that all Bible translations other than the King James Bible are from Satan. Oh yeah, I am serious. The sin is not that I have this book, but that it is representative of times past when I was, for about six weeks, a KJV Only advocate, believing that all other Bible versions were from Satan. To make matters worse I was actually an outspoken evangelist of this belief. I told my family, my friends, and everyone who would listen about Satan’s plot to get you to read another version of the Bible. I can only imagine what the conversation sounded like. I had “evidence” that I thought was solid, but as I look back on this “evidence”, my face turns red. I guess I keep Riplinger’s book in front of me to keep me humble and always aware of how bizarre I can be.
Christianity is dangerous. The Bible is dangerous. Please don’t get me wrong. I believe that both, rightly understood, are wonderful and true. However, the “rightly understood” is so hard to come by. The difficulty is not that one has to be a super-genius to understand the Bible or the Christian faith. Quite the opposite. The Bible is wonderfully simple and so is the Christian faith.
I believe that the difficulty lies in two areas:
1. Christians believe that the Bible is God’s word.
2. There is not a bolt of lightening that strikes you when you interpret it wrong (i.e. there is no immediate evidence of or consequence for wrong interpretation.)
The reality of these two make a potentially lethal combination. They don’t make good bed-fellows and hence the Roman Catholic cry for an imperial authority to regulate such things. Although Catholics have their share of bizarre teachings themselves, their problem is bigger in my opinion since their bizarre doctrines get dogmatized and everyone must believe them. At least in Protestantism we can both recognize and repudiate our weird uncles. Catholics are stuck having to defend them for all time. (Another story, another time.)
Now for the bizarrity of the moment. . .
This is from an email I received from a concerned follower of our ministry. It is a phone message from his Bible Study leader. Every time I listen to this, I am reminded of the movie “The Jerk” when Steve Martin is getting shot at but he naively thinks the guy is shooting at the cans beside him. “Its the cans. He hates the cans!” Well, in this case: “Its the buildings. God hates the buildings.” Listen and you will see what I mean:
(Please note that the audio has been altered to protect the identity of the caller.)
I had a gentleman come by the Credo House the other day. I think he just came to argue. He was one of “them.” You know what I am talking about. You would think that we would get more of these types, but this was actually the first one in the eight month existence of the Credo House. Here was his basic argument: “If it does not make rational sense, we should not believe it.” In his view, we are obligated to understand something before we commit our belief to it. Therefore, this guy rejected some important doctrines of classical Christianity.
Christianity is often confusing. Reality is often confusing. There are certain things that we believe that simply must be, but they don’t “add up.” A good theologian needs to have worked through this. While we should be extremely diligent and committed to a task of understanding truth, a lack of understanding does not necessarily mean that it cannot be true. In other words, coherence is not the final and infallible test of truth.
It is interesting to me to see the charges of “incoherency” that we can often bring against those who oppose our perspective. Calvinist do so with Arminians and Arminians do so with Calvinists. Egalitarians to so with Complementarians and Complementarians do so with Egalitarians. “You view simple does not account for __________ and my view does. Therefore, my view is right.” Or, “If what you say is true, here is the crazy situation you find yourself in . . .” Formally, these type of arguments are called reductio ad absurdum and they are more often than not very effective in giving logical and emotional credit to your case.
Don’t get me wrong, much of the time this can be a legitimate charge that should give pause to the proponent. So I am not saying that incoherency is a position of value by any means.
However, I think that Christians must realize that there are some things in our world view that are going to be beyond our coherence tolerance.
Let me talk about this word “incoherency” for a moment. Here are some synonyms for what I am talking about: unintelligibility; inconsistency; incomprehensibility; discontinuity.
What I am talking about are those things that we believe which lack some degree of viability due to their confused nature. This confusion may be emotional or intellectual. It may be based on how we feel things should be or how we think things should be. In some sense, these things lack a degree of credibility due to our inability to coherently understand them and relate them to other things we know.
Here are some examples:
1. Calvinistic understanding of predestination: A belief that while God loves everyone, he only chose a few.
2. Arminian belief in libertarian freedom: A belief that an act of our will can be birthed from neutrality.
3. Christian belief in creation ex-nihilo: A belief that God created all that there is from that which does not exist.
4. Christian doctrine of the Trinity: God is one in substance, three in person.
5. Christian belief in the hypostatic union: Christ is fully God and fully man; one person, two complete natures which are neither confused or divided.
6. Christian belief in human freedom and divine foreknowledge: God exhaustively knows the future, yet the future is a result of free choices, including God’s.
7. Christian belief that God is transcendent and imminent: God, in his essence, transcends time and does not experience a succession of moments yet he truly interacts in time.
8. Jesus Christ’s incarnation and fellowship in the Trinity: The Second member of the Trinity, while in eternal transcendent immutable unity in the Godhead, becomes forever incarnate in a time-bound universe in Christ.
9. The atheistic view that there is no ultimate beginning (some atheists): An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed, yet we have somehow traversed an infinite number of moments to get here.
10. Christian belief in God’s universal foreknowledge and love and in the doctrine of hell: Although God is good and loving, he chose to create people who he knew were going to reject him and go to an eternal hell.
Now this is a large and varied list. Many of these I agree with and some I don’t. Some of these represent outright contradictions and analytical absurdities, and some are legitimate mysteries that possess no formal absurdity, but are incoherent from the standpoint of a limited observer. Some are a standard part of Christian orthodoxy and some are positions about which there is legitimate disagreement and alternatives. Obviously, not all are in agreement about which fits into what category. Christians would all agree that #9 presents a logical absurdity. I will leave it to you to decide on the rest for now!
Some people distinguish between a contradiction and a paradox. A paradox is something that may be true but beyond our understanding while a contradiction cannot be true by definition.
Let me focus on #10 for a moment. All branches of historic orthodox Christianity believe that 10 is correct. Whether you Roman Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian, Baptist or Presbyterian, all believe that God created people knowing that they would end up in hell. All orthodox Christians believe that it is biblical to teach these four things:
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Of course, there are solutions, but all of them require changing what seems to be a clear teaching of Scripture as well as sacrificing one’s standing in orthodox Christianity for the sake of coherence, emotional or logical.
Here is what the options look like:
Open Theism:
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Universalism:
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Pantheism (though I don’t know of any “Christian” pantheism)
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
Hyper-Calvinism
1. God has exhaustive knowledge of the future
2. God created all people
3. God loves all people
4. Many people are going to end up in an eternal place of torment for rejecting God
In the end, I think it is best that we leave all four in place and recognize the paradoxical difficulty with this issue.
If absolute coherence, emotional or logical, is your goal, then you will never find a system that is completely satisfying. Never. Even in science, room must be left for anomalies (things that don’t make sense under the current paradigm of data). More importantly, I think it is vital to recognize that while coherence is indeed something we should diligently strive for, it is not the highest priority in the Christian faith. The highest priority for the Christian is to let rightly interpreted Scripture be our ultimate source for truth. Emotion and reason are not unimportant, it is just that they must be submitted to Scripture. Anyone can twist and manipulate Scripture to make it fit their idea of coherency. I see this done every day. Anyone can come up with a more palatable solution and force the puzzle to create a new picture, but palatability is not the final test of truth. Scripture is.
However, I don’t want it to sound as if incoherency is the highest ideal. I have also seen this “I-believe-because-it-is-absurd” mentality. We should never adopt such an irresponsible stance. While a modernistic ideal of perfect harmony in understanding is not our guide, harmony is more often than not a characteristic of truth. Disharmony and true incoherency are, more often than not, a hallmark of error.
As well, it is important to realize that just because something does not seem to have coherence, this does not make it truly incoherent. Often we are too limited to find coherence, even though it is actually present. In other words, just because something may seem incoherent to us, this does not mean that it is incoherent to God. While the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery to us, it is not a mystery to God. Some things in Christianity do not seem to have coherence, but this does not mean that they are truly incoherent. (And yes, this does make the title of this article misleading.)
In this, we must realize that there are some things that God has withheld information about for his own reasons. Could God have made everything perfectly understandable and emotionally satisfying? Most certainly. The fact that he has not does not make his truth any less true, it just mean that he, for some reason, from time to time, wants us to believe something even though he does not want us to understand it.
A very particular Scripture comes to mind here:
Deut. 29:29
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
The “secret things” are those things that God has, for whatever reason, intentionally withheld. But, thankfully, the emphasis in this passage is on “the things revealed,” and they belong to us forever.
God may never clear everything up. And he might make it all clear someday. I don’t know. As a Calvinist, one of the seemingly incoherent things that I believe is that God could have elected everyone, but he did not. Why? I will ask him one day. Will he tell me? I don’t know. Either way, I know that he is righteous and he is good. These missing pieces of the puzzle gives me no right to doubt him when he has already proven himself in so many ways. I know that if I dare to judge him by manipulating the truth to make it more palatable, he will prevail (Rom. 3:7).
While there are so many things we can understand, we must recognize that there is true mystery to which we must submit. When we get the temptation to judge God by manipulating the truth, let’s pause and learn to find stability even when things are not as palatable or coherent as we would like them to be.
While people can intellectually understand truth without the Holy Spirit moving in their heart, no one can accept the truth without his influence (1Cor 2:14-15). The same goes for us as Christians. We may study and have all the information in the world—even the right information—but this does not mean that we are going to be capable of accepting the truth. In other words, the acquisition of knowledge and understanding is meaningless without the power of God to trade your will for his. Pray that God will open your eyes to see and accept the truth.
2. Recognize your bias
From a human standpoint, you are already biased and you need to realize this. Your history, experience, culture, and personality are already present. These have bent you in one way or another. You are always going to fight to keep your bent as it is the place where you feel the most comfort. As my seminary professor John Hannah used to say (tongue-in-cheek), “I am going to teach you many wonderful things about theology and history. However, that does not matter since you are just going to believe what mommy and daddy taught you anyway.” As well, you have “preunderstandings” that effect your views. Previous commitments will cause you to interpret the data through an already constructed lens. The goal is not to get rid of all bias (as this is impossible), but to evaluate information with an understanding that these things exist and are affecting your judgment. It will temper you and allow you to approach things with more integrity.
3. Get a broad overview of the topic
Don’t get into the particulars of the issue yet. You must first get a broad overview of the topic at hand. This is looking at the forest before the trees and is absolutely essential to thoroughly cover before you get into the particulars. Read books and articles that give summaries and overviews, not ones that argue for the particular position. These types of overviews should give you an unbiased look at the spectrum of belief, without arguing for any particular position. Theoretically, theological dictionaries and encyclopedias should be able to do this. Cover this well. You cannot spend too much time getting a basic familiarity with the topic.
(Note: This is not “biblical” theologies such as A Theological Dictionary of the New Testament)
4. Study the history of the issue
This is a crucial step that focuses a bit, but not too far yet. Here you will look at the issue through the lens of history. The goal here is to broaden your perspective and draw upon the historic body of Christ. This will prevent you from “reinventing the wheel” in your studies. We stand on the shoulders of giants. This step encourages you to step down off their shoulders and look at the ladder they have built. This is an issue of submission, respect, and humility. To bypass this step is to fail to draw upon the Spirit’s work in the church for the last two-thousand years and is arrogant.
These are the type of people who are continually doing research. They primarily involve themselves in first hand resources. In biblical studies, they are concerned with original language, backgrounds, historical criticism, and textual issues. They are often (though not always) very timid to take theological stands due to their realization of the complexities of the issues involved. Because of this, they are sometimes accused of “academic agnosticism.” They are very precise thinkers and normally find it difficult to teach because they are always qualifying everything. More often than not they limit their studies to very particular areas.
They find all the pieces of the puzzle.
Viewpoint: TREES
Why they might dislike theologians: “They often lack the precise information and are sloppy with the facts.”
Why they need theologians: To process the data and come to conclusions from a broader understanding.
Possible problems with exegetes: Truth often dies the death of a thousand qualifications. They can lack common sense. Their precise studies can blind them to the obvious.
2. Theologian/Philosopher (think) – Level two studies
systematize; reflect; theories
Theologians are the thinkers. They are not so much concerned about researching and discovering original data, but with the bigger picture of what the data means and exploring original ideas. They spend their time reflecting on issues and coming to conclusions about truth. They systematize the data in order that creeds can be reasoned, established, and defended. They are much broader in their thinking and studies, having to be familiar with many areas of scholarship in order to provide a systematic understanding of the complete truth. They are concerned with biblical studies, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, logic, and the like.
Sometimes it is frustrating to introduce yourself to theological issues. Most people who get deeply involved in theology quickly realize how much they don’t know. Confident seminary students enter their training thinking that they are going to breeze their way through as they have their prejudices confirmed by their soon to be impressed professors. After the first year, their countenance is soured as their confidence turns into an insecure angel (or devil) on their shoulder who says, “Who did you think you were presuming God called you into ministry?” They begin to realize that they came to seminary to find out how much they did not know! Some get discouraged and leave, others harden in their categories becoming unable to learn. But the best adjust their expectations, knowing that an admission of ignorance is a fundamental foundation to learning.
There is an old dictum to knowledge. It goes something like this:
There are four types of people:
1. The one who doesn’t know, and doesn’t know that he doesn’t know. He is a fool–shun him.
2. The one who doesn’t know, but knows that he doesn’t know. He is a student–help him learn.
3. The one who knows, but doesn’t know that he knows. He is an unenlightened person–enlighten him.
4. The one who knows and knows that he knows. He is a wise man–follow him.
I would like to add a fifth:
5. The one who knows but does not know how he knows. He is naive—deconstruct him.
This fifth category refers to those who have all the right beliefs for all the wrong reasons. This is very common in theological circles. I believe that it is prevalent within Evangelicalism as a basic creedal confession takes the place of doctrinal understanding. I know of many people who confess a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, but they really don’t know why they believe in this doctrine. I know of many people who believe that Christ rose bodily from the grave, but they could not give you even the most basic defense of their confession. Both the bodily resurrection of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity are good and right beliefs, but if someone cannot justify these beliefs, do they really believe them? Continue Reading »
For my Bibliology and Hermeneutics students. Classes begin a week from Tuesday. Enroll now if you have not already.
I am looking on page 23 of my Bible and it has the list of books. The books all together number 66—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. This is often referred to as the “canon” of Scripture. “Canon” (Gk. kanon) means “rule” or “measuring rod.” The canon of Scripture is the collection or a “rule” of books that Christians believe belong in the Bible. There are some variations among Christian traditions concerning the number of books. The Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches all use different canons (as well, some eastern churches will vary still). The Catholic and Orthodox include a group of books in their Bibles referred to as the Deuterocanonical books (“second canon”) or, as Protestants would call it, the “Apocrypha” (although the Orthodox church is not quite as settled upon the status of the Apocrypha).
The question How do you know what books belong in the Bible? is a significant one indeed. The Catholics and Orthodox will normally refer to the establishment of these books as part of the canon by fourth century councils. Catholics would further refer to the teachings of the council of Trent (1545-1563) which dogmatically and infallibly declared the current Catholic canon (including the Apocrypha) as being authoritative.
I believe that the 66 books of the Protestant canon belong in the Bible, no more no less. I believe that all 66 books are inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Yet the list on page 23 of my Bible is not part of the canon. In other words, the list itself is not part of the inspired word of God. I am using the English Standard Version, but it is the same in any version of any language. The NET Bible does not have an inspired list, even in the footnotes! There is no early Greek or Hebrew manuscript that solves the problem either. Therefore I have a potential difficulty. Since do not believe in an infallible human authority that can determine what books belong in the Bible, how can I be certain what books belong in the Bible?
It was R.C. Sproul who first made the claim that Protestants have a fallible canon of infallible books. A fallible canon of infallible books? What good is that? Catholics often jest about the seemingly ironic situation in which advocates of sola Scriptura find themselves. The doctrine of sola Scripture was one of the two primary battle cries of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Essentially it means that the Scripture is the ultimate and only infallible authority for the body of Christ in matters of Christian faith and practice. Professing this doctrine does not mean that there are no other authorities, but that there are no other ultimate and infallible authorities. Catholics on the other hand will claim that they, due to their belief in a living infallible authority, have an infallible collection of infallible books.
Not only this, but what about interpretation? Not only do Protestants not believe in an infallible authority to dogmatize which books belong in the Bible, but they don’t believe in an infallible authority to interpret the Bible. Therefore, we can take this to the next level. Protestants have a fallible interpretation of an fallible canon of infallible books. Ouch! Sounds like it is time to convert to Catholicism, eh?
Not so fast. In the end, this is an issue of epistemology. Epistemology deals with the question “How do you know?” How do we know the canon is correct? How do we know we have the right interpretation? Assumed within these questions is the idea of certainty. How do you know with certainty? Not only this, but how do you know with absolute certainty?
The question that I would ask is this: Do we need absolute infallible certainty about something to 1) be justified in our belief about that something, 2) to be held responsible for a belief in that something. I would answer “no” for two primary reasons:
1. This supposed need for absolute certainty is primarily the product of the enlightenment and a Cartesian epistemology. To say that we have to be infallibly certain about something before it can be believed and acted upon is setting the standard so high that only God Himself could attain to it. Outside of mathematics and analytical statements (e.g. a triangle had three sides), there is no absolute certainty, only relative certainty. This does not, however, give anyone an excuse or alleviate responsibility for belief in something. Continue Reading »
The other day I was listening to a radio program. The speaker is someone who is very popular in Evangelical apologetics. He is someone that I have learned a lot from and whom I respect a great deal. However, he propagated something that I think is a very poor apologetic response to questions for which the individual does not have answers. It goes like this:
Apologist teacher: “We need to be ready to give an answer for our faith.”
Student: “But I am scared. What if someone asks a question that I don’t have an answer for.”
Apologist teacher: “Don’t be scared. It is okay if you don’t know. Don’t feel bad about your lack of knowledge. You just need to remedy it. Tell them that it is a good question and that you will go find the answer and get back with them about it.”
However, I find this sort of carte blanc response disturbing and quite demeaning.
I am not saying that it could not be a good answer in certain circumstances for certain questions. But when it comes to our defense of the faith we had better be more prepared and more reflective. What do I mean by this?
Think about it. Let’s put this in a particular situation. You are an enthusiastic Christian who believes deeply in the Gospel. You are talking to a co-worker about Christ one day. They begin to tell you about why they don’t believe in God. The crux of their issue is the problem of evil. “How could a good God allow evil?” That is their question. You respond, “I don’t know. Good question. I will research this some and get back to you next week.”
What you have just done here is illegitimized your faith to this person. As well, you have diminished the seriousness of the question and the person asking it. To this person, your faith is carried even though you have not dealt with one of the most serious theological questions that anyone can ask. You have just told the person, “Hmmm…Good question. Never thought of that.” Once this person (who obviously does think deeply) recognizes that you have not personally wrestled with this issue, they will see your faith as shallow and fake. By essentially saying, “I have never thought of that,” you have just lost your representation. Continue Reading »
I am normally one of those people who attempts to see the good in all things. I continually tell people that they need to calm down. “Get a grip.” I tell them. ”Things are not as bad as they seem.” “You have to look at the good.” But today is not one of those days and the issue is not one of those issues. The alarm is sounding and I don’t plan on handing out earplugs.
It has been over a decade since Mark Noll penned the piercing words: “The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind” (The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind). Sixteen years to be exact. It was a call for Evangelicalism to recover from the spiritual atrophy brought about by a neglect of the mind in favor of a shallow form of Christianity that offered no history, creed, or hope, only self-help remedies without any foundational basis.
Since this time, a lot has happened. But, broadly speaking, not too much progress toward a reformation of the mind. Biblical and theological literacy continues to shame us. We have seen the children of Evangelicalism turn bitter and pout about their heritage, demanding that all things must change, but not really knowing why or how. They began to implement a sour change that gave birth to a short lived movement without a sustainable or defendable creed, and no certain hope.
We have seen the iconic fall of the “seeker” mentality when Willow Creek admirably confessed that their method of discipleship was bankrupt. According to Bill Hybels, leader of Willow Creek and the seeker-sensitive movement:
“Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back, it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.” Continue Reading »
We talk a lot about this: essentials and non-essentials. In fact, at the Credo House of Theology (our headquarters), right when you walk in the front door you will see written on the wall in Latin the words in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. Translated into English, this means, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” This phrase (often wrongly attributed to Augustine) comes from an otherwise obscure German Lutheran theologian of the early seventeenth century named Rupertus Meldenius. It has served as a place holder for a sort of Evangelical Credo (statement of faith). It expresses the idea of orthodoxy and grace. It reminds us that there are essential Christian beliefs and there are non-essentials.
I remember hearing a pastor once say concerning doctrine, “You are either one-hundred percent right or one-hundred percent wrong. There is no in-between and there are no gray areas. God is not confused or unsure. Why should we be?” While this might be true concerning God, for us things are different. For now, we see in a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12).
As well, Paul spoke about those things that are “of first importance [protois]” (emphasis mine). Christ spoke about straining out a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matt. 23:24) and the “weightier things of the law” (Matt. 23:23).
This is one of the things that (should) distinguish us as Evangelicals. We are those who unite around those things that we believe are the weightiest, the things that are the most important, the essentials, while we (should) give liberty in the non-essentials. I often tell people that there are some things that I believe that I would die for; there are some things that I believe that I would lose an arm for; there are some things that I believe that I would lose a finger for; and then there are some things that I believe that I would not even get a manicure for.
Like in all areas of life, we need to learn to choose our battles carefully. But in order to do this, we must first come to know the difference between essentials and non-essentials.
But (as the criticism goes) it is not that easy to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials. I have written on this before. More importantly for now, many Evangelicals have simply never been exposed to this and therefore practice their theology in a much more legalistic way, believing every conviction that they have to be representative of a hill upon which they should die.
Here I want to elaborate upon and expand the discussion a little bit. While we need to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials, we also need to recognize that there are different types of essentials. Along with this goes my belief that there are different ways to “break fellowship” based on our beliefs. In other words, not all essentials are equal. Some are essential to the very foundation of Christianity, but some are only essential to a particular denomination or expression. This will require different types of breaks in fellowship.
Let me start with a chart, then I will briefly break it down:
Essential for salvation: These are the most essential doctrines of all essentials. This includes what every Christian should always be willing to die for. In essence, if someone does not believe the doctrines that are “essential for salvation,” they are not saved. Continue Reading »
I have been talking a lot about being passionate, yet cool, calm, and understanding when contending for the truth. I have also said that you can quickly disqualify your voice with rhetoric that lacks tact (especially today). I think we have a lot of people out there who have good theology but terrible tact. Hence, they are simply not effective.
Friends, this needs to change if we are going to have an impact (and this is coming from a Calvinist!).
Here are two great and classic examples about how to handle yourself tactfully in theological discussion. Listen well…
Martin Bucer
“If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn’t quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ’s Spirit, and consider anyone to be the enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well.”
This is a good starting point to gain perspective. Remember, there is no one who looks exactly like you do theologically. Be careful here as this type of attitude can quickly exhume your soul from death, but leave every other living person in hell. This is worse than just about anything you could accuse your opponent of. We have answers, but we don’t have all the answers. We have truth, but we don’t have all the truth.
John Newton’s Works; Letter XIX – On Controversy
A minister, about to write an article criticizing a fellow minister for his lack of orthodoxy, wrote to John Newton of his intention. Newton replied as follows:
“Dear Sir,
As you are likely to be engaged in controversy, and your love of truth is joined with a natural warmth of temper, my friendship makes me solicitous on your behalf. You are of the strongest side; for truth is great, and must prevail; so that a person of abilities inferior to yours, might take the field with a confidence of victory. I am not therefore anxious for the event of the battle; but I would have you more than a conqueror, and to triumph, not only over your adversary, but over yourself. If you cannot be vanquished, you may be wounded. To preserve you from such wounds as might give you cause of weeping over your conquests, I would present you with some considerations, which, if duly attended to, will do you the service of a great coat of mail; such armor, that you need not complain, as David did of Saul’s, that it will be more cumbersome than useful; for you will easily perceive it is taken from that great magazine provided for the Christian soldier, the word of God. I take it for granted that you will not expect any apology for my freedom, and therefore I shall not offer one. For method’s sake, I may reduce my advice to three heads, respecting your opponent, the public and yourself. Continue Reading »
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