I do believe that I’ve found the perfect way to ring in the New Year, namely, by being declared a heretic. For someone having a blog titled Just This Side of Heresy, you cannot plan this kind of attraction. The story follows thusly: I posted a comment on YouTube that said, in essence, that the shared belief of Muslims and Christians, that we are sinful people, can be used as an opportunity for evangelism. This was read by one enthusiastic person as “All religions are the same. Let’s not make salvation by Christ a requirement for Heaven.” I tried to clarify myself with another response, affirming that I do believe we should preach Christ crucified, but I was too late—I was labeled a heretic and an enemy of Christ. The first part had no impact, because I’ve been called that on several occasions (now three), but the second statement genuinely hurt. I felt as though I was being chided by a high school student, who was insisting that they were Jesus’ best friend. Even though I know that they’re in no place to make such a judgment (nor am I), it still stung. Unity of the body is important to me, so I found the person’s blog, read a few entries, posted a positive and hopefully encouraging comment, with a preface that said I hope that there are no hard feelings between us. I cannot guess how it will be received, but I can hope for something positive.

This comes on the tail of a joke I made to a friend, only a few weeks ago. I said that if my non-fiction career ever takes off, it will be a great pleasure to be declared a heretic by the likes of John MacArthur or R.C. Sproul. Perhaps, I thought, it might even be worthy of the Top One-Hundred Things To Do Before I Die (dispensationalists, you may insert “…before the Rapture,” if you so choose). As I am currently reading Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy, I am surely already on their prayer list. It’s a sad commentary on the Christian community that McLaren (may I call you Brian?) can preface the book with a half-comic warning to his readers that they risk guilt by association, and everyone knows what he’s talking about.

So it’s true, in my very first theological discussion of the year, I was declared a heretic and worse. Perhaps this is going to be easier than I thought. Rather than shooting for a condemnation by MacArthur, I ought to make a New Year’s resolution to insure that my excommunication is an earmark in the next Reformed Baptist constitution. What I find most distressing is that though I follow McLaren closely in orthodoxy, I am not primarily a post-modern Christian. Where I part ways with most evangelicals is my departure from T.U.L.I.P. Calvinism which, somehow, is still misconstrued as being morally relative. Someday, I hope someone will explain that accusation to me in light of the fact that Calvin preached something that was entirely new in his day.

Epilogue: I refuse to be the guy who gets self-righteous about other people’s self-righteousness. Hypocrisy-detectors have become the new Pharisees, replacing those that they accost. I was pleasantly surprised to find that neither McLaren nor Doug Pagitt, who co-wrote Church Re-imagined, do this. It’s a very likely pitfall for people who don’t follow the recently traditional version Christianity.

Friday, I got mad at my radio...

...because I was feeling generous and gave John MacArthur's Grace To You a chance. As many of you know, I have issues with MacArthur and his theological beliefs. But it's not only his beliefs that I get frustrated with. There's a bit of arrogance, quite a bit, that comes along when you start a statement with, "If you believe the bible..." or "All bible-believing Christians hold that..." I don't mean to say that we can't be certain in our beliefs. I do, however, think that it's very arrogant to take a stance that suggests there's nothing that we could have possibly overlooked. This is especially true of doctrines that were not in existence for the first 1600 years of Christian history.


I was, however, very pleased to hear the following words come from MacArthur's mouth:


"We have to be the first to the first to admit that our understanding of virtually everything is somehow warped and twisted and affected by our own sinfulness."


"[W]e cannot be wrestling with [the doctrine of election] intellectually as if there is going to be some answer in our reason."*


MacArthur is stating what many Calvinists have felt for years: election doesn't seem like the product of a loving God. Rather than explain this biblically, however, he groups it in with other biblical paradoxes (i.e. other Calvinist doctrines) and says not to try and understand them. This is an odd statement for a man who just said that all bible-believeing Christians should adopt Calvinism. I've said this before: we are humans, created in the image of God, Christians with the mind of Christ, and believers, indwelled by the Holy Spirit. If something seems unfair, it's probably because the whole of the Trinity is testifying to our spirit that it actually is unfair.

I have to stand with Doug Pagitt when he says, "I think [reading your bible] might give you a more full understanding of the gospel than the one perverted by the likes of John MacArthur. I do not say "perverted" lightly, either. I really think what he communicates is so distant from the message of the Bible that it is dangerously harmful to people."

~J



*The Doctrine of Election, Part 1 (Selected Scripture), John MacArthur