Heresy has always been with us; this is my partial list, which has infiltrated Christian practices and culture:
1. Fatalism - ‘Christ is coming anyway so the welfare of this world doesn’t matter’
2. Purity before People - Protestant version, ‘people’s membership in the tribe of Christianity depends on strict cognitive agreement with literalism’. Catholic version, ‘people’s salvation is based on perfection of performance’ Promoting doctine without concern for the welfare of the people you are handing out tracts to, is another example.
3. Moral Dualism - mistaking the sum of the law, which is to love, as a call to label creation good and evil - Adam and Eve(ism)
4. Consequentialism - ends justify the means philosophy ‘humilition, righteous indignation, bullying, berating language, disrespect, hatred, dismissing behavior, and distainful attitudes are valid tools to be used at will if there is a chance a person will be saved’
5. Clericalism - righteous indignation is viewed as ‘standing up for what’s right!’ Church leaders are choosen for convinction over compassion. This is not just a game for clergy - it is rife across the internet amongst armchair theologians.
6. Zero sum game - Christianity is reduced to a game of numbers; winners are determined by how much everyone else has lost. This philosophy is evident in house - emergent church vs. fundamentalism; across religions - Christians vs. Muslims; and on the political stage - Christian rights vs. secularism.
7. Anti-intellectualism - based in fear; anti-intellectualism manifests as rejection of all knowledge which contadicts a person’s intution related to Christianity. Jesus spoke against this in Luke 14:26.
8. Radical Individualism: rejection of community / church / authority. It is often insidious because people who practice radical individualism often claim they belong to an invisible community and mistake their intution for God.
9. Christian Zionism - we can and should speed up the coming of Christ and the destruction of this world. Go ahead and elect a tyrant - it all leads to Christ!
10. Love is equated with Weakness - ‘loving others gets you crucified - we need to defend the gospel!’. Snowflakes are weak and irresponsible - true Christians are warriors for Jesus who have God’s priorities at heart, which is to be the last pure, perfect person standing.
Looking for the Devil behind every bush is a distaction from looking within ourselves and our community - indeed, it is underestimating the cunning nature of evil. Christians love to judge people they consider liberal for ‘not believing in a devil’; perhaps we are looking beyond the obvious places.
Prophets held their own communities’ feet to the fire, btw - we need to focus reform on ourselves, not the world.
Additions to the list are welcome. I tried not to add the usual suspects like darbyism and OSAS because they are up for debate and have their own threads.
1. Fatalism - ‘Christ is coming anyway so the welfare of this world doesn’t matter’
2. Purity before People - Protestant version, ‘people’s membership in the tribe of Christianity depends on strict cognitive agreement with literalism’. Catholic version, ‘people’s salvation is based on perfection of performance’ Promoting doctine without concern for the welfare of the people you are handing out tracts to, is another example.
3. Moral Dualism - mistaking the sum of the law, which is to love, as a call to label creation good and evil - Adam and Eve(ism)
4. Consequentialism - ends justify the means philosophy ‘humilition, righteous indignation, bullying, berating language, disrespect, hatred, dismissing behavior, and distainful attitudes are valid tools to be used at will if there is a chance a person will be saved’
5. Clericalism - righteous indignation is viewed as ‘standing up for what’s right!’ Church leaders are choosen for convinction over compassion. This is not just a game for clergy - it is rife across the internet amongst armchair theologians.
6. Zero sum game - Christianity is reduced to a game of numbers; winners are determined by how much everyone else has lost. This philosophy is evident in house - emergent church vs. fundamentalism; across religions - Christians vs. Muslims; and on the political stage - Christian rights vs. secularism.
7. Anti-intellectualism - based in fear; anti-intellectualism manifests as rejection of all knowledge which contadicts a person’s intution related to Christianity. Jesus spoke against this in Luke 14:26.
8. Radical Individualism: rejection of community / church / authority. It is often insidious because people who practice radical individualism often claim they belong to an invisible community and mistake their intution for God.
9. Christian Zionism - we can and should speed up the coming of Christ and the destruction of this world. Go ahead and elect a tyrant - it all leads to Christ!
10. Love is equated with Weakness - ‘loving others gets you crucified - we need to defend the gospel!’. Snowflakes are weak and irresponsible - true Christians are warriors for Jesus who have God’s priorities at heart, which is to be the last pure, perfect person standing.
Looking for the Devil behind every bush is a distaction from looking within ourselves and our community - indeed, it is underestimating the cunning nature of evil. Christians love to judge people they consider liberal for ‘not believing in a devil’; perhaps we are looking beyond the obvious places.
Prophets held their own communities’ feet to the fire, btw - we need to focus reform on ourselves, not the world.
Additions to the list are welcome. I tried not to add the usual suspects like darbyism and OSAS because they are up for debate and have their own threads.