16AR21-18

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AR 21:18 - How to define heresy

In this issue:

HERESY - attempting "a mature definition"

HOMOSEXUALITY - Touchstone calls down Tony Camplolo

REALITY - cultural experience is about to change - a lot

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM - "searching for a nondualistic God"

Apologia Report 21:18 (1,291)

May 18, 2016

HERESY

"How to Define Heresy" by Justin S. Holcomb -- so reads the cover. On page 37, the article's title is "The Truth about Heresy." It opens: "A group of bloggers seeking reform n Southern Baptist circles recently decried pastor Rick Warren for teaching that God communicates to believers via dreams. ... To be sure, the nature of God's revelation has been debated throughout church history, and overemphasis on dream interpretation can be theologically dangerous.

"Elsewhere, a UK Christian leader has devoted much of his writing and teaching to criticizing Christian Zionism - the belief that the founding of the State of Israel is foretold in Scripture. ...

"But are these problems of heresy? ...

"Some blogs and Twitter accounts exist solely to cry foul whenever a well-known preacher makes a controversial statement.

"Yet the frequency and volume of the proclamations from these sources - and from those who share and retweet them - suggest that some Christians don't understand the significance of right doctrine, or the gravity of heresy charges. Worse, these disputes lead some to believe that doctrine isn't worth the effort, since it seems only to breed division rather than promote Christlikeness.

"Given our volatile online atmosphere, Christians in general and evangelicals in particular need a clearer definition of heresy." Examples are seen in Marcionism and Sabellianism. This is followed with a six-question quiz on the deity of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the nature of God.

Holcomb strives to provide "a mature definition of heresy. ... If a believer genuinely accepts the Nicene Creed, they should not be dubbed a heretic. It's worth asking: 'Can they say the Nicene Creed without crossing their fingers?' If yes, they may still be wrong or heterodox on other rmatters, but we cannot call them heretics. [M]any evangelical statements of faith include affirmations of the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture. That's because evangelicals have wanted to distinguish themselves from liberal Christianity, which often denied these teachings. ...

"Even though heresy is rare, heterodoxy and false teachings are not. In a pluralistic world, some sub-Christian or extra-biblical teachings ... find their way into otherwise orthodox churches. Most would not count as heresy, but that does not mean we can ignore them. [O]ften, we're not dealing with theological error as much as different interpretations of Scripture." Christianity Today, Oct '15, pp38-46. <www.goo.gl/m7JmvW>

READER FEEDBACK, May 19 '16: "Regarding the review of Holcomb's book on heresy: He stated that anyone sincerely affirming the Nicene Creed could not be a heretic. Now there is much to commend this statement. The Nicene Creed is much better than, say, the Apostles' Creed as a test for orthodoxy. Yet, I find myself wondering if Holcomb would consider the denial of justification by faith to be heterodoxy and not heresy. Prior to the Reformation, someone could be confused on the issue of the role of good works in justification and be a true believer. When you read some of the medievals you find that their affirmation of a role for our works in justification co-exists with an affirmation of the full sufficiency of Jesus Christ's righteousness to justify. Berrnard of Clairvaux would be one such example. This is particularly true of Augustinians such as Luther's confessor, Johann Staupitz. The more Pelagian one gets, the less sound on justification one becomes. (That statement assumes a spectrum of semi-Pelagian views.) To make a creed from the Patristic period the defining document of orthodoxy/heresy seems to me to privilege the early church in a way that is unjustified. There is a lot of confusion and error in the Fathers. The Church clarifies its understanding of fundamental doctrines throughout its history. Therefore, we should recognize that post-Patristic formulations are also to be included in any standard summary of orthodoxy. I would argue that the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone is just such a doctrine. (Notice I did not include 'by grace alone' so as not to exclude my Arminian brothers from the pale of orthodoxy!)

"I find myself wondering now if Holcomb considers Roman Catholicism to be a heterodox but not heretical church. If he does, I would have to disagree deeply. Romanism is daily teaching millions to trust in their works and faith to the depreciation of Jesus Christ. I grant that some Roman teachers are sounder than that communion's creeds, but then, they have to ask if they are being merely heterodox or heretical according to the standards of their own church. It is no part of my argument that there are not Christians in the Roman Catholic Church. The question is whether Rome is heretical or orthodox. That is not a question to be decided by the formulations of any of its theologians. They do not claim that their theologians are immune to error. What Rome does claim is that pronouncements by the Pope when he is speaking 'ex cathedra' and by creeds/confessions when endorsed by the Pope are infallible and, very importantly, irreformable. By its own affirmations, Rome cannot change, no matter how much some of its theologians and members want it to. To change any of its fundamentals is to say that the Magisterium erred, which would prove it is fallible and then the entire Roman edifice would collapse." James O'Brien

HOMOSEXUALITY

"Re: Capitulation - Tony Campolo's Turmoil Over Homosexual 'Marriage'" by S.M. Hutchens -- this editorial notes Camplolo's statement that it has taken "countless hours of prayer, study, conversation and emotional turmoil to bring me to the place where I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church."

Instead, Hutchens finds that it is Campolo's "prejudicial misrepresentation of fact and rhetorical legerdemain leading to a desired conclusion - the *desire* for the conclusion being the only reasonable driving force behind the process itself." He explains that "the problem in this 'I have been in much prayer (or Bible study, or communion with saints or angels), and so declare unto you...' syndrome is something all Christians need to be wary of.

"Our first reaction to these declarations should be unapologetic, knee-jerk skepticism. St. Paul commends the Bereans for not believing him without first satisfying themselves from the Scriptures of the legitimacy of his message. ... Wise evangelicals have the same attitude. That is why the predictably iconoclastic Dr. Campolo remains a fringe phenomenon among them." Touchstone, Sep/Oct '15, p3. [4]

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REALITY

"Hypervision" by Kevin Kelly -- explores the "mind-bending technology" that lies ahead in the future development of virtual reality (VR) as it considers "the quest to create a new kind of reality." Presented as a profile of Magic Leap ("the world's hottest startup") - considered the main challenger to VR leader Oculus - the article gives a history of this emerging industry and its leaders.

If you think today's entertainment experience is helping people feed a desire to escape reality, VR's future makes concerns over video-gaming addiction seem naïve. "The joy of VR is proportional to the square of the number of people sharing it. That means VR will be the most social medium yet."

Kelly predicts that "virtual reality is creating the next evolution of the Internet [and] within 15 years, the bulk of our work and play time will touch the virtual to some degree." Data throughput will advance and "the scale will increase from gigabytes per minute to terabytes per minute." Some of the startup companies described by Kelly will likely become "the largest companies in history, dwarfing the largest companies of today by any measure."

As the virtual increasingly counterfeits the real, it seems the ultimate challenge will become one of surrendering control. The occult has been successfully doing this for a very long time. Wired, May '16, pp74-87, 112. [5]

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RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

"The Way Open to Other Ways" an interview by David Heim of Paul Knitter, "Buddhist Christian" -- "Since his 1985 book No Other Name? [1] Paul Knitter has been exploring religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue. He is especially concerned with how religious communities of the world can cooperate on issues of social justice and the environment.... He has taught at Xavier University in Cincinnati and at Union Theological Seminary in New York....

Heim asks: "In Without Buddha I Could not Be a Christian [2], you say you needed resources outside Christianity to make sense of Christianity. Could you mention an aspect of the faith that didn't make sense and say what Buddhist resources helped you?

Knitter replies: "I think that the uneasiness I had with much of the Christian creed had to do with its pervasive (but not necessarily inherent) dualism between God and the world. ...

"In line with the Christian mystics - including Paul and John in the New Testament - I was searching for a nondualistic God. Help for such a search can come from many sources, but I found a particularly useful one in Mahayana Buddhism....

"[I]n the words of Julian of Norwich, there is a 'oneing' between God and the world. ... God doesn't step into our lives; we become aware that God is already there. ...

Heim: "Couldn't some or all of the concerns you name be addressed from within the Christian tradition, without venturing into Buddhism?

Knitter: "Certainly. I just referred to the mystical tradition, a resource that many Christians neglect or are unacquainted with. ... Buddhism is an entry into, or a flashlight with which to explore, the mystical or nondualistic contents of Christianity. ...

"To use the issues you mentioned: the loss of self in Buddhism is even more radical than what Christians generally mean or feel in talking about kenosis, or self-emptying. I might even dare to suggest that Buddhism could have helped St. Paul grasp what he was getting at when he wrote to the Galatians: 'It is no longer I who am alive, but Christ who is alive in me.' ...

"It is not just that it is God in whom 'we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28), but also it is we in whom God lives and moves and has God's being. ...

Heim: "The claim that 'Jesus is the only way' strikes some people as exclusivist and imperialistic. Do you agree?

Knitter: "I certainly do. ...

"To insist on the supremacy of Jesus leads (whether we intend it or not) to claims for the supremacy of Christianity. Just as we cannot build a multiracial society if we believe in white supremacy, we cannot build a multireligious society if we believe in Christian supremacy.

"That's why I have devoted much of my career as a theologian to exploring the resources (often neglected) in our scriptures and our tradition that allow us - indeed, require us - to understand Jesus as truly savior of the world but not necessarily as the only savior of the world. ... As John B. Cobb Jr. has beautifully put it: 'Jesus is the way that is open to other ways.' ...

Heim: "One way to understand that claim might be not as the insistence on a certain formula about Jesus but as the insistence that Jesus' life of humility, inclusive compassion, and suffering love is the only way to God. Does that advance the discussion? Or is that exclusivist too?

Knitter: "Yes, I think it does advance the discussion. ... It's a way of handling John 14:6: 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' ...

Heim: "One can imagine parents bringing kids to two kinds of services, say, but that would itself not constitute the kind of community of support that religions typically foster. Do you think in the end one needs a primary community? ...

Knitter: "Though I am no expert in child psychology, I suspect that in a child's early years, belonging to two different religious communities can be a bit confusing."

(Right. "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Mt 18:3) Christian Century, Nov 11 '15, pp28-31. [3]

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions, by Paul F. Knitter (Orbis, 1985, paperback, 304 pages) <www.goo.gl/CU2nsH>

2 - Without Buddha I Could not Be a Christian, by Paul F. Knitter (Oneworld, 2013, paperback, 264 pages) <www.goo.gl/Pt6iYZ>

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