Theology Thursday: What is heresy?

Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him. I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.

Pastor Brady's thoughts:
The word “heresy” can sound scary or threatening, conjuring up images of governments or churches burning heretics at the stake hundreds of years ago. Or it can seem irrelevant, like something belonging to dusty church history textbooks, as if all the serious controversies of faith have been ironed out. 

But understanding what heresy is (and identifying common heresies) is important for Christians in order to properly know what they believe and why (that’s why one of MCC’s core values is theological thoroughness) and avoid the pitfalls of bad theology that cause us to miss important aspects of God and our faith. 

To start, a definition: one way of defining “heresy” is a belief or teaching that contradicts the core truths and doctrines of the Christian faith. 

There are two critical components of this definition we have to hit on. 

First, it’s a belief or teaching that contradicts the core truths and doctrines of the Christian faith. Heresies aren’t variations or slightly different ways of looking at or emphasizing the central components of the faith, it is a belief or teaching that contradicts - it opposes, or denies, something that the Christian faith would not be the Christian faith without. 

Second, it’s a belief or teaching that contradicts the core truths and doctrines of the Christian faith. Heresies deny things that are essential to what Christianity is. They are big, egregious misunderstandings or false teachings about big, vitally important matters of the character of God and his plan for salvation and redemption. Heresy distorts the gospel and endangers spiritual wellbeing. Paul warns the Galatians about “a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6–9), and Jude urges believers “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The apostles expected the church to guard the integrity of the gospel.

Pastor and author Eugene Peterson said heresy is “a lie about God,” and that “it is wicked to tell a person a lie about God because, if we come to believe the wrong things about God, we will think the wrong things about ourselves, and we will live meanly or badly.” If that’s right, and I think it is, then false teaching isn’t just a theoretical error - it shapes how we live, how we imagine ourselves, how we treat others, our future hope, everything. 

Peterson argues that we are free in Christ, but that freedom isn’t license — it comes with a deep responsibility. Part of that responsibility is guarding how we think about God. Heresy, then, is a threat to this freedom: it misleads, enslaves, and distorts.

So, we aren’t talking about mere theological disagreements (even significant ones!) or denominational differences (even significant ones!) here. Heresies are smaller and bigger than that; they are smaller in that they are limited to a much narrower category of error, and they are bigger in that they constitute the top tier, A1, most crucial and necessary aspects of what it means to claim Christianity as true and meaningful in any real sense.

Understanding heresy matters because truth matters. The early church spent centuries wrestling with distorted teachings, not out of a desire for control, but out of a pastoral concern: false teaching leads people away from the true God and the salvation he offers in Christ. People’s souls are on the line, so nothing matters more than getting the most important things right.
 
Here are some examples of disputed matters that are not heresies: 

• The literary understanding of the creation account in Genesis and the age of the earth. Christians have long disagreed about a “literal” 24-hour, seven-day creation and the means by which God brought about this world. Denying that God created the universe is a heresy, but disagreeing about this matter of biblical interpretation and how he created it is not. 

• Continuationism vs. cessationism. In the Bible we read of the earliest Christian disciples performing miraculous deeds for the glory of Christ - speaking in tongues, physically healing people, and prophesying. Do those spiritual gifts continue today (continuationism), or did they cease with the death of that first generation of Jesus-followers and the closing of the biblical canon (cessationism)? Brothers and sisters in Christ can disagree on this and still worship together, even in the same church. 

• Premillennialism vs. amillennialism vs. postmillennialism. How Jesus will return and what will happen when he does is a matter of dispute amongst Christians between and within various denominations and traditions (even, dare I say, within Minier Christian Church!). It always has been. But, the key is to believe that Christ will return; bodily, personally, and triumphantly, to judge the living and the dead and put the final stamp on his victory over Satan and usher in the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1). 

These topics, and others, are important - I have opinions on them! - but notice what each of these three examples have in common: regardless of which position you take, the character of God isn’t impugned and his plan and path of salvation isn’t negated. Therefore, we’re not dealing with heresy.   

Here are some examples of actual heresies: 

• Denying that God is triune. The doctrine of the trinity is core and essential to understanding the character and activity of God. Read more about that HERE. Groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians reject the historic Christian doctrine of the trinity. When we get God wrong, we get everything else wrong. 

• Denying that full and simultaneous divinity and humanity of Christ. Jesus, in the flesh, fully God and fully human. 

• Denying justification by faith. God saves those who say yes to his free offer of grace. This heresy has two angles: 1) We cannot earn our salvation by being “good enough” or just kind-sorta believing, vaguely, that God exists. We have to respond the way he asks us to respond, in faith: believe, confess, repent, be baptized, follow faithfully. 2) Faith is a necessary requirement for salvation. The belief that all people will be saved regardless of faith in Christ - often called “universalism” - contradicts Jesus’ own teaching (John 14:6) and undermines the urgency of the gospel.

• Denying the authority of scripture. We may disagree about what it says at times, and we may be confused about what it says in part, but we must believe that its truths accurately reflect reality and therefore its commands and expectations for our lives are authoritative. In other words, obeying God is required, and obedience to God looks like abiding by the teachings and modeling of scripture. When scripture is treated as optional, outdated, or merely symbolic, the result is a Christianity re-imagined rather than revealed. Rejecting the authority of the Bible is usually the first step toward heresy.

• One more: prosperity theology. Promising health, wealth, and success as guaranteed outcomes of faith, the “prosperity gospel” twists biblical hope into worldly ambition. It redefines God as a means to personal gain and diminishes the centrality of the cross.

Now, notice what each of these have in common: they all meet our definition of heresy as a belief or teaching that contradicts the core truths and doctrines of the Christian faith. They tell lies about God.

Heresy is not a hobbyhorse for theologians; it’s a shepherding concern for every Christian. Knowing the truth helps us recognize counterfeits. Clarity about doctrine protects the church, strengthens faith, and preserves the gospel for future generations.

Ultimately, guarding against heresy isn’t about winning arguments - it’s about knowing and loving the God who has made himself known in Jesus Christ and has given us his Spirit in part to help us discern and practice the truth.

There’s one additional piece to hit on for a proper definition of heresy: heresy persists in deliberate opposition to biblical teaching and historic Christian consensus. Meaning, heresy isn’t an honest mistake that is repented of once brought to light, it’s the refusal to be corrected by scripture and the church. This is important. If I get something wrong in a sermon - even something essential - and am approached for correction by the elders/church members/whomever, and then the next week I go up and apologize for my mistake and clarify the true and accurate teaching, I have not committed heresy. Or, maybe I have committed heresy, but I am not a heretic. Does that make sense? Real heresy indicates a staunch insistence on non-biblical, anti-gospel, God-distorting teaching and beliefs. One-time, honest mistakes don’t qualify. Thank goodness!

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. - 2nd Peter 2:1-3

Take heresy seriously, your soul depends on it. Know what you believe, and why.
 
TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.