Setting Up the Sheep for Heresy

For reasons too complex (and tedious) to detail here, I have been thinking lately about the twin phenomena of evangelical homosexuality and egalitarianism. (1) For the uninitiated, these novel doctrines attempt to maintain the essentials of the Christian faith, such as salvation through Christ and biblical authority, while at the same time denying historic teachings of the church. The former says homosexuality is not a sin, and the latter calls male headship in the home and the church a sin.

I call these movements "twins" because they tend to use Scripture in similar ways. Again and again in the literature advocating one or the other position, I read something like the following: "Yes, this passage appears to teach male headship/the sinfulness of homosexuality. But if you look at the Hebrew/Greek, you will see that this word 'x' really means 'y.' Also, in Ephesian/Canaanite society, cultic male prostitution/male chauvinism was common. This passage deals with that specific situation and must not be applied arbitrarily to our modern culture, which is quite different. The real application of this passage is that Christians should be nice to each other/not sleep around." In other words, the text in the original language, interpreted in its cultural and historical context, teaches something quite different from what one might conclude when reading one's English translation. The layperson must depend upon the expert and cannot interact critically with his or her conclusions.

To my ears, this type of teaching sounds eerily familiar. In fact, I imagine anyone who has sat under evangelical preaching recognizes it. We regularly hear seminary-trained pastors say from the pulpit, "The Greek word for 'love' Paul uses here is 'agape,' which means more than just 'love.' It means a completely selfless, totally committed covenantal love! That really spoke to the people in Corinth, a center of commerce where the culture was greedy and selfish." Over the years, believers learn much more is going on in a text than they could ever get from studying their English Bibles. For many Christians, it's not a good sermon unless the preacher tells them something they never could have gotten on their own.

It seems to me, however, this is instead the mark of a bad sermon, and perhaps a very bad sermon. In saying this, I should note I happen to be a seminary-trained pastor who translates from the original language every text I preach and wrestles regularly with the difficulty of making complex texts understandable to my congregation. With the rest of my Presbyterian tradition, I put a great premium on an educated clergy. But as a Presbyterian elder, I am also sworn to uphold the Westminster Confession of Faith, which teaches, "All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may obtain unto a sufficient understanding of them." (2)

That is, while some points of doctrine may be a bit tricky, those things that every believer must know are so plainly set forth in the Bible that anybody willing to put in the effort should be able to figure them out. (3) In other words, the Scriptures are sufficient; the Bible is, in itself, enough to teach one how to be a Christian.

Preaching does more than proclaim the truths of Scripture; it models how those truths are discovered. When pastors throw around Greek and Hebrew week after week, their congregations learn they cannot "obtain to a sufficient understanding" of even the most basic things of Scripture unless they've studied dead languages and ancient history. "Lovingkindness" makes perfect sense to even the smallest child, but we've got to say "chesed." This evangelical tendency to speak in dead tongues, found all too frequently in Presbyterian and Reformed pulpits as well, (4) tells "the unlearned" the Word of God is not clear to them, and thereby undermines their trust in the Bibles in their hands.

If this happens with such a simple and essential biblical concept as love, we can hardly have good hopes for other teachings of the faith. Male headship and the sinfulness of homosexuality are hardly obscure points of doctrine; they're both right in Genesis 1! But when scholars explain 1 Corinthians 11 doesn't mean what it says, the average Christian is unequipped to provide a response. He may scratch his head and say, "I can't see that in the passage," but he's learned that very fact proves the novel interpretation is true. By telling listeners to believe the text teaches a doctrine without equipping them to find it there for themselves, standard learned evangelical preaching sets up the sheep to embrace heresy. We should not be surprised many evangelical Christians now accept egalitarianism as a matter of course. Will homosexuality soon follow?

"Greek-speak" in the pulpit is only a symptom, not the disease itself. To suggest a practice so common, and so apparently trivial, leads to gross heresy may seem an overreaction. (5) But this manner of preaching betrays a more fundamental problem, which in my view is pervasive throughout Reformed churches today: namely, Gnosticism.

A few months ago, Modern Reformation readers were reintroduced to Philip J. Lee's Against the Protestant Gnostics. (6) Lee compellingly argues that Gnosticism, which can be defined simply as believing one is saved by possessing secret knowledge of God, (7) has become the default religion of both evangelical and liberal churches. One defining characteristic of Gnosticism is elitism, believing one's self or group to be superior to others. (8) A moment's reflection will make the connection clear: after all, if I know more than you do, doesn't that necessarily make me smarter and better than you?

In Reformed circles, a pilgrimage narrative such as this one is extremely common: "Once I was an unbeliever, then I got saved through an evangelical ministry, and then I read some books and went to some conferences, and now I am Reformed." To be Reformed, then, is not a matter of church membership, but to have attained to a higher level of knowledge and insight than have the commoners in evangelical and fundamentalist circles. While those people may be saved from their sins, they have not yet ascended to the elite heights that we possessors of greater knowledge have reached.

Here, then, is the appeal of muttered syllables that can only be nonsensical to the vast majority of congregants who hear them. Like the Latin Mass, these intonations declare to the congregation that the preacher has gone through the steps necessary to acquire a higher knowledge of God than they have. They can be assured that if they also mutter these syllables and ascribe to them the meaning they have been assigned by the preacher, they will, like him, possess higher knowledge. While one might have no interest in a Latin Mass, since one couldn't understand a word of it, one might be drawn to a preacher who promises access to secret knowledge locked away in the original Greek and Hebrew words of Scripture.

Note that, in this scenario, the congregant is utterly dependent on the preacher for his knowledge of the Bible. The congregant has not gone to seminary and couldn't tell the difference between a Greek word and a Hebrew word, let alone define either. He must put his faith in the words of the preacher rather than the words of the sermon's text. If "good" preaching has taught him unquestioning acceptance of the minister's doctrine, what defenses will he have against a bad, or even heretical, preacher?

I've no doubt whatsoever that egalitarianism and "evangelical" homosexuality are heretical twistings of the plain meaning of Scripture. But you see, I believe the Bible actually has a plain meaning. (9) If you've been taught there is no "plain meaning" of the Scriptures, and that its meaning can be discovered only through the mediation of a preacher, then you will have no resources with which to differentiate between heresy and orthodoxy, between false knowledge and true knowledge. It will all sound alike: secret knowledge accessible only through a priest who has already mastered it.

The problem, then, is only partially ministers who want to show off their educations. Instead, it is the Gnostic conviction one may attain to higher status within the Christian community by the acquisition of knowledge. Too many come to services each Sunday not to worship but to hear "the real deal," the latest doctrine that is different from what all those second-class Christians in their not-as-enlightened-as-us congregations believe. They want to hear those meaningless Greek and Hebrew syllables that give them imaginary insight into the text. Accordingly, they are puffed up instead of being driven down to their knees in adoration of the God who speaks to them so plainly and convictingly in the Bible.

Gnostic elitism is one of the greatest enemies of the gospel:

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Cor. 1:17-25)

Biblical preaching proclaims the cross. The cross is great foolishness because it proclaims God did not remain on high, where he belongs, and wait for us to gather enough knowledge to climb (or think) our way up to him. The cross proclaims God came down and got himself killed in our place because we would never ever get smart enough or good enough to walk into his presence otherwise. The cross proclaims faith in Christ's work is the only way to be saved, which means the acquisition of greater or secret knowledge is useless as a means to salvation. The cross, then, proclaims what everyone, including Christians, knows to be just plain foolishness.

Of course, although we don't like to admit it, to be a Christian is to forswear all secret knowledge and all elitism:

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:27-29)

We are nothing. I am nothing. You are nothing. And nothing we do will ever make us anything. We are, we have being, only because we are in Christ, who alone is glory and honor. And that's the message found in the original Greek.

When he wrote in 1987, Philip J. Lee was reluctant to identify what we might now call "reformational" churches as Gnostic. In 2008, however, our elitism and fascination with secret knowledge betray us as being as thoroughly Gnostic as any other heretical movement in church history.

The problem is not merely an unhelpful rhetorical habit. It is, rather, a sneaking suspicion on the part of preacher and parishioner that the gospel is insufficient and can be added to by our knowledge, as though the Father will say to only a few on the Last Day, "Well done, smart and well-read servant; you have learned enough theology to be promoted to a seat of honor over the rest of the rabble." The problem is that we're a bunch of Gnostics.

We confessional Protestants properly ground ourselves in the Reformation and have for a slogan, "Reformed and always reforming." Biblical reformation begins with the heart, and each must search his own. Pastors should lead the way. Like all other believers, we are a prideful lot. We easily fall prey to the temptation to show off, to impress those under our care, and be served by their admiration instead of serving by bringing them into the riches of God's Word.

Brothers, I own a couple lexicons myself, and "love" means….

Well, it means "love." As with every other word in any language, its use in a particular phrase is conditioned as much by context as etymology. Teach your people how to read that context, and they'll be able to understand the words of Scripture even when you're not around. That, after all, is a significant component of our job.

To be clear, I believe the original languages have a place in the regular life of the congregation, as do theological and confessional jargon. That place is in Bible studies, where there's opportunity to use exegetical tools thoughtfully and carefully, and where people may respond, ask questions, and make sure they themselves can explain what the study leader is teaching. We must repent of the urge to show off on Sunday mornings. From the pulpit we must plainly declare God's Word, and though we might occasionally have to make reference to the original languages to settle a dispute among the translations, we should do so in a way that honors our spiritual fathers of the Protestant Reformation who died to bring the people Bibles in their own languages. If we do not, why should they have given their bodies over to the flames of martyrdom?

I am as wary as any of the dangers of the "just-me-and-my-Bible" mentality, which denies any authority other than my own personal interpretation of Scripture. At the same time, we should all be wary of teaching people, explicitly or implicitly, that they cannot tell the difference between heresy and orthodoxy and must depend on expert opinions. Ironically, the individualist and the preacher-dependent will end up in exactly the same place. Since experts will always disagree among themselves, each shall simply choose the one whose opinion most appeals to him or her.

Thus, pastors must teach their people how to interpret their English Bibles properly. This happens in Bible studies and, perhaps with greater impact, in the way exegesis is modeled from the pulpit. Only in that way will Christ's sheep be guarded against the twin dangers of individualistic interpretation and heretical teaching.

We will do just about anything to hold onto our idols, and the greatest one of all is our own vanity. I've known more than one Christian ensnared by egalitarianism or "evangelical" homosexuality. (10) It's easy to buy into these movements because they remove the necessity of repentance and entire submission to God's will: I get to be who I want to be in just the way I want to be, and God wouldn't dare tell me otherwise. Preachers regularly commit this same sin of self-exaltation. They strive to justify their salaries by demonstrating they have mastered the Bible, and thereby win adherents. The teaching they offer their followers is the Bible's secret knowledge, which can in turn make them members of the theological elite as well. In the process of becoming masters, we forget we are called to submit as faithful servants of the true Master.

Sadly, Reformed parishioners and pastors often are most easily identified by an absence of Christlike humility. Accordingly, we all must turn anew to God's Word. We preachers must not think we teach knowledge, but rather understand we are commissioned to proclaim Christ and him crucified from every Scripture. We Christians all must submit ourselves to the Bible and find ourselves renewed, in heart and life, by the Spirit of Christ who speaks through it to the learned and unlearned alike. We may forget, for a time, that the Scriptures originally were written in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, but we shall hear much more clearly the voice of our Lord and Savior through them.