Contemporary Christianity and Heresy
All I have is one question, and I am very interested to here your responses.
Why can't the contemporary Evangelical church call those within its ranks who teach false doctrine heretics?
Why can't the contemporary Evangelical church call those within its ranks who teach false doctrine heretics?
posted by Jeremy at
11:12:00 AM
2 Comments:
i have a couple of thoughts on this subject. the first is that the evangelical community simply divides when there is a disagreement in theology. the catholic and orthodox churches can, and do, call out their priests in areas of heresy, and exercise their authority to do so.
with protestantism, we have placed scripture at the center of our worship (as opposed to relying on the belief that the pope, for instance, is the successor of Peter, and therefore the final word) and by doing so have opened the door to disagree with interpretation. hence all of the ridiculous factions from something like eschatology...which no one really knows.
the greater protestant church has, however called out heresy on many things. somehow there is agreement among protestant churches on many popular teachings, like additional revelations (book of mormon) etc. so, we are not hopeless, but we have set it up that the church (micro/local) just deals with its own...good or bad that is how it seems to be.
By
Chris Gough, at 1:56 AM
Very good question, and one I am baffled by as well. I think 'itstooearly' is onto something. Maybe evangelicalism not only lacks a central, authoritative body, but evangelicalism might even resist clean doctrinal definition. I personally believe there is a nugget of doctrinal affirmations at the heart of evangelicalism, but there has always been too much contention over that issue for it to coalesce into an 'accepted' rule of faith.
In addition, it might be that evangelical movements have historically been too tied to the idea of cultural relevance to moore itself, and thus, when the latest movement comes along and declares doctrinal herecy in the name of cultural relevance (Emergent?), there is no deeper priority with which to combat it.
Let me add the thought that anti-intellectualism might have something to do with it as well.
Very interesting indeed.
By
Phil Steiger, at 10:44 PM
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