Just How Much Can You Get Wrong and Still Be a Christian?

Shortly after I got saved, I heard one of our church deacons say--I'm afraid I can't remember the context--that we didn't have to have perfect understanding of all the Bible in order to be saved, and that was a good thing, as otherwise we'd all be in trouble.

I have thought of those words many times since then. I thought of them last night. You see, I just read a post, and skimmed/read the comments thereon, that reminded me of them. I rather got the impression that a pretty fair number of folks in the Christian blogosphere have come to the point where they are seriously ready to say that anyone who doesn't publicly denounce a person who's made certain doctrinal errors as a false teacher or a heretic is himself a false teacher or a heretic.

Now, before I go on, let me say that Scripture, in the main, is not that hard to understand, and the main--principle--points of doctrine are really quite unequivocal, and that THERE ARE points beyond which a person cannot go and still be considered a Christian. To deny the bodily resurrection of Christ, for example, is one of those points. To deny that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, is another. Those are what one blogger--I almost hesitate to mention his name, so controversial is he in some circles--Wade Burleson, might call "primary" doctrines. Those are doctrines that one cannot simultaneously deny and be said to be holding to the Christian faith.

But there are other doctrines, what Burleson and others might refer to as secondary or tertiary doctrines, which, while important and certainly worth the effort of getting right, the denial or misunderstanding of which would not necessarily be an indication of a person having left the Christian faith. Problems--to say the least!--arise when some folks act as though every doctrine is primary, as though a deficiency in understanding about mode and timing of baptism or poor reasoning about the nature of "filthy talking" is enough to make one a false teacher or an apostate.

Sometimes issues arise when people just make mistakes, or are taken out of context. I have read, in the dim and distant past, some people say, for example, that Martin Luther taught justification by works, that is, that it was necessary, in order to be saved, that a person get certain sacraments right. I will admit that I have not read Luther exhaustively--actually, all I have read is his The Bondage of the Will and part of his Commentary on Galatians, but in those, Luther's insistence that salvation is by grace alone, that it is all of God and none of man, that man's works are of absolutely no avail when it comes to salvation, comes across so clearly that I can't help but think that people who are willing to say that Luther was a heretic who taught works-salvation have seized on some of his words to the exclusion of others and greatly mistaken his meaning.

I get the impression that there are bloggers out there who would separate from a preacher if he shared a stage with Martin Luther, or if he, not possessing exhaustive knowledge of every jot and tittle of some other preacher's doctrinal irregularities, generously assumed that the other preacher wasn't a heretic until it was definitively proved otherwise. I would suggest that when you have gotten to this point, you have gone a little bit too far.

With the Usual Disclaimer...

That "usual disclaimer" being that I don't agree with every jot and tittle of what Wade Burleson writes. There, now that that's out of the way...

I read this post with interest, and if you have any interest in Christian giving, you might find it interesting, too. The upshot, as far as I am concerned, is that Wade Burleson has said out loud in a widely-read forum what an awful lot of Bible-reading folks have long thought, but not said out loud, for fear of the looks they will get, or being preached at by certain people:

There is no command in Scripture for Christians to give a certain percentage of their income.

You heard me. None. There are plenty of commands to give generously, joyfully, as led by the Spirit, proportionately, and so forth, but there are no commands given as to a specific percentage, nor even as to where it's supposed to go.

I know an awful lot of you have grown up in churches where tithing--and contrary to one well-meaning-person-I-know's assertions, tithing does specifically refer to ten percent, not "regular on-going giving"--has been taught for decades. Many of you have read your Bibles over and over, and when you casually give thought to what you hear from the pulpit on the subject of giving from time to time, the thought has crept into the back of your head that something doesn't quite add up...

You're right. Again, there is no command in Scripture for Christians to give a specific percentage of their income. You do not have to take my word for it. Get yourself some Bible software--you can go to E-Sword and get some for free (you can even get the ESV for free with it), and do the searches. Look for "tithe," "tithing," "tenth," and "giving," and anything else you care to look up. You will find plenty of instructions for Jews to tithe (and even that tithing was handled and carried out considerably different from what you might have been led to believe), but you will not find one command for the Christian to do that.

You will say, "But MOTW, I've heard all my life that we're supposed to tithe. If there's no such command, where do preachers get that?"

I wish I knew. I've never, ever heard an argument from Scripture that didn't torture it in the process of being made. Usually, preachers argue from some instance in the Old Testament and then tell you that they've found "a principle" in the Old Testament about tithing.

Mark it well: when a preacher tells you that he's discovered "a principle" to which he wants to hold you accountable, it usually means his case from Scripture is weak.

Don't assume from this that I think Christians shouldn't give, and give generously. That's not the case. I just don't see the point in trying to hold them accountable to a command that simply does not exist.

Cool Burleson Post on Alcohol

God knows I don't agree with everything that Wade Burleson writes, but when he's right, he's right. This was cool. He even quoted John Gill.

A Big Part of the Problem

The remarkable Wade Burleson notes:

There comes a time when Southern Baptists need to realize that some growing, conservative, evangelical churches such as Sojourn are refusing to support the Southern Baptist Convention because of our silly extra-biblical traditions...

There's more to the post, of course, but that line stuck out. There is so much truth to it.

I once told a co-worker that when it came to clear-cut "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," there just weren't all that many commands to the Christian in Scripture. There really aren't. Try reading through it and making a list sometime. But aggravatingly, the Southern Baptist Convention (along with many other churches and associations, it must be added) and its member churches all too often insist on creating more rules, or treating issues wherein they can make a good, but not ironclad, case for their interpretation as issues wherein disagreement justifies denying funding or cooperation that would otherwise be given. I don't believe that this is done out of meanness or spite. People honestly think that their ideas are correct. It's just that they--frankly, and shockingly, for a people that supposedly embraces no creed but the Bible--take it for granted that if the pastor, or Lifeway, or a visiting evangelist says it, well, they must know what they're talking about.

That's not really what being a Baptist is all about, you know. It's a whole lot more like Romanism. And please believe me, it's just not true anyway. Just as an example, you would not believe the number of people who manage to escape Southern Baptist seminaries without having actually read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion or Luther's The Bondage of the Will, yet who will willingly preach (as I heard one evangelist do) that Calvinism is a "doctrine of the devil."

I found out a long time ago that a surprising amount of seminary time is devoted to things that, in my opinion, amount to "church management." Not as much theology as you would think. So why take it for granted that when people start preaching on doctrine and theology, they know more than you do? Make them prove it. That's not out of malice, it's just simple common sense.

I've often told the story of the man--highly placed in the BGCO at the time--who visited our church, and during the sermon, insisted that men should wear a coat and tie to Sunday services. His scriptural proof? None was offered. He made his case on the grounds that we would, after all, dress our best for a meeting with the boss, wouldn't we? And if so, how could we get away with not dressing our best to meet with God? I've run across others that hold the same position on much the same grounds.

I've often wanted to point out to those people that I know perfectly well that on most mornings, they meet with God whilst dressed in their underwear and drinking coffee, and they call it their "quiet time." But I'm sure that such a comment would be taken as evidence that I had a bad attitude.

I could produce more telling examples of attitudes held to be doctrines in many SBC (and other) churches. I chose that relatively innocuous one only because it I'm not in the mood to start a fight this morning. My point is that for many years now, many, many people in the SBC have been teaching as doctrines things for which they cannot actually produce a command from Scripture. If pressed to produce one, they will tell you that they've found "a principle" in Scripture, or they will--again, shockingly in my opinion, for a body that claims no creed but the Bible--appeal to church history. And I think that as long as this approach continues, you're going to find that people vote with their feet.

This isn't the only part of the Southern Baptist Convention's problem. But it's a big part.

Almost a Sure Sign of Not Paying Attention

Wade Burleson wrote a post the other day about "Baptist Identity" folks' position on alcohol. In case you didn't know, they're against it.

Wade went to some trouble to point out that his issue--well, let him explain it:

I am not writing about the pros or cons of total abstinence. The point of this post is that all of us must resist the easy temptation of equating our personal beliefs regarding tertiary matters on par with obedience to Christ, and demanding others comply with our views.

In other words, for him the bigger issue is not so much alchohol as it is whether or not we are going to allow some Baptists to so define their personal convictions, some of which are difficult to prove from Scripture, as one and the same as core Christian (or at least Baptist) beliefs.

That's a valid concern, and I appreciate Wade's ongoing efforts to point out this sort of thing when he sees it.

For me, though, when I see the subject of alcohol come up in a Baptist context, I almost can't help but just roll my eyes. It is really an effort of will not to do it in front of some people at church. I have this reaction because while I have often heard from some Baptists that Christians should not drink, I have yet to hear any argument made for the position that didn't make my head spin.

(Let me note, for those who have already made up their minds that I am a chronic drunk, that I hardly ever drink. Got better things to do with my money, now and for the foreseeable future.)

I can't tell you the number of times that I have run across people who are utterly convinced that every time "wine" is spoken of negatively in Scripture, it really does mean "wine," but every time it's not--like in the second chapter of John, where Jesus turns vats of water into top-quality wine--it's "grape juice." That's bad enough, but it's not what gets my goat most of all.

What really gets my goat on the subject, and convinces me that people, often including ministers of the Gospel, have their minds made up in advance of the facts, is the continual misquoting of these two verses:

Romans 14:21

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

1 Corinthians 8:13

Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

Unbelievable as it may sound, I hardly ever hear these verses quoted correctly. What I almost always hear is:

Romans 14:21

It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that (might) cause your brother to stumble.

1 Corinthians 8:13

Therefore, if food (might) make my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

This verbal legerdemain is resorted to when someone (Only God knows who... :) ) points out that there isn't actually any command anywhere in Scripture for the Christian to abstain from alchohol, only to avoid drunkenness. The idea is pressed to mean that because someone, somewhere in the Body of Christ might see or hear of you having a drink, and might be pushed beyond the limits of their self-control and stumble into violating their own conscience or into outright drunkenness, it is therefore incumbent on Christians everywhere to totally abstain.

But that's not, as any who care to read it can see for themselves, what the verses actually say. There is no "might" in there. We're not talking about a potentiality; we're talking about someone we know, someone who has apparently demonstrated a problem in a given area. And frankly, I have never, ever run across someone quoting these verses who would or could point out someone like that. Their concern is always, without exception, for some hypothetical Christian somewhere...else.

And it's a certainty you'll never hear anyone use these verses to argue that Baptists shouldn't eat meat, or that Baptist women shouldn't wear jeans, etc., etc., etc., even though the argumentation would be pretty much identical. It's the worst kind of selective hearing.

Pheh. Every time I hear this stuff, I see it as almost a sure sign that someone's not paying attention. And I frankly don't want people who aren't paying all that much attention deciding for me what being a Baptist is.

Carry on, Brother Wade...