I Owe My Faith to “Heretics”
It’s high time we recognize the narrowness of contemporary evangelicalism’s definition of “heresy” as a yeast that leavens the whole body and soul with sin and condemnation. If the wrong view on something such as infant baptism, seven literal days of creation or heaven and hell can make someone a heretic in contemporary evangelicalism then the following people are “heretics”:
-James
-Iraneus
-John of Chrysostom
-Origen
-Gregory of Nyssa
-Augustine
-Anselm
-St. Nicholas (“Santa”)
-Thomas Aquinas
-Martin Luther
-John Calvin
-Karl Barth
-George MacDonald
-G.K. Chesterton
-J.R.R. Tolkien
-Dorothy Sayers
-C.S. Lewis
-N.T. Wright
The fact is, I owe my faith to these “heretics.” They have taught me so much about living the gospel and finding salvation and deliverance in this life and the life to come. They taught the people who taught me, and the people who taught them, from generation to generation to generation. I am part of the rich, vibrant faith tradition of Christianity that has been passed on for thousands of years by the people in the list above.
The thought that for thousands of years God has used “heretics” who don’t understand the “gospel” of contemporary evangelicalism to pass down scraps of knowledge that did not redeem them, only so that two thousand years later we are allowed to understand exactly what is in the Scriptures is the worst kind of pride.
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Which (credible) evangelicals have called OEC or paedobaptism heresies? Even when I was YEC and baptistic, I didn’t think anyone who disagreed with me was a heretic–misguided Christian, maybe, but not a heretic.
I don’t think anyone comes out and says it, but at least in the YEC, baptistic circles I was in, the language was couched differently, such as “un-biblical,” “non-biblical,” “un-Christian,” “not saved,” or “Catholic.”
To me, that sort of language is a modern way evangelicals use to say someone is a heretic. And isn’t that really the traditional definition of heresy, to say that something is “non-Christian” or isn’t “biblical.” And paedobaptism and OEC were generally derided as “Catholic.”
Hm. Maybe you just ran in more conservative circles than I did–but my friends and churches were pretty conservative.
I think you’re simultaneously giving NAEs (North American Evangelicals, to abbreviate a Schnittjerism) too much credit and not enough credit.
I don’t know that your average evangelical in the pew could articulate orthodox doctrines such as the trinity or the incarnation in anything but the most minimal of definitions, much less explain why certain competing views are heretical. I don’t even know that they would use the term heresy; it’s just, “We believe these things from the Bible, and people who disagree with us are either not Christians or misguided Christians.” (To be fair, I don’t think your average Catholic or mainline Protestant could articulate those doctrines, either.)
To give NAEs credit, I think most would tend to place folks who disagree with them into the “misguided Christian” category than into the “non-Christian” category.
I think you’re correct in asserting that NAEs have little or no conception of church history or historical theology. I think this is related to the spiritualizing of the gospel and the atemporalizing (“timelessness-izing”?) of salvation, moving away from the doctrine of the resurrection and an understanding of redemptive history.
I guess I fall into the “unsaved Catholic” slot. Pity! Because I really like being saved and alive in Christ. I’m glad you wrote this piece…it is one of my favorites so far…reminds me of how little we really understand the workings of the Holy Spirit.
Nancy: I am glad you enjoyed the post. A saved Catholic, who’d have thought it possible…haha.
This was a nice post. No matter your denomination, you owe a huge debt to Origen Adamantius. Even though he believed countless errors, he was still a brilliant theologian and a zealot for the Faith.
Nicholas: Great insight. I think that’s how almost every great church father is remembered after the test of time: “even though he believed countless errors, he was still a brilliant theologian.”
And also why it’s the “Consensus Patrum” not the “consensus ”
A lot of people do the latter with St. Augustine, for example.
Aha, I meant to say:
And also why it’s the “Consensus Patrum” and not the “consensus ‘insert favorite Church Father’ “