Tuesday, June 21, 2011

How Heresy and Error happens

This blog has shown an example of how error and heresy happens in the Church.

In a blog post on preaching I had asked rhetorically "What do you think is more important than preaching the Cross?"

The purpose of this statement was to contradict and overturn those who don't preach Christ.

In the comments there was this:

"What do you think is more important than the Cross?"

The resurrection, maybe?


Now, this comment has missed the point. He has set Good Friday and Easter against each other. You can't do this - they are tied, they connected.

However, this comment got my goat. I heard this and I thought of all the happy, clappy preachers who don't want to talk about icky death -- so I responded, asserting that the Cross is more important.

From a logical order, you can argue that the Cross must precede the Resurrection - that you cannot rightly preach the Resurrection without preaching the Crucifixion. I'd contend this is why Paul tends to speak in terms of knowing nothing but Christ and Him Crucified -- the Risen Lord *is* the Crucified Lord.

But in saying that the Crucifixion is more important - instead of speaking the truth accurately, I instead became more worried about responding to potential error.

And spoke wrongly myself.

Every error has its equal and opposite error, generally dividing the Word of God and setting it against itself. And it comes with the best of intentions, with zeal, with vim and vigor. And that zeal makes us less than careful in our word choice, or makes us emphasize something to the diminishment of another truth.

I got caught up trying to protect the Crucifixion.

It doesn't need to be protected - rather it simply needs to be proclaimed with the whole Christian truth.

1 comment:

Mike Baker said...

It was a leading question. That's why I called it a logical fallacy. It set you up to take one side or the other when the truth is neither option.

But your little imprecision has proven your point on another position that you push on this blog. This is a perfectly good reason why philisophical reasoning (even when informed by the Biblical narrative) is inferior to just returning to the text. This is a classic case of a philisophical answer when a scriptural answer was needed. This is a classic case where human reason and natural law fall short.

You'll see that the first response to the question was a reasoned response with man-made arguements. ...and it was wrong.

The second response to the question returned to Scripture and St. Paul and quoted the apostolic teaching. ...and it corrected both errors simultaniously. So that it was not I who sharpened Rev. Brown but the Holy Spirit through the Divine Word.

Thanks for showing us this great difference between man-made arguements and declaring the Word as it has been given to the church through all ages to proclaim.

So even your mistakes prove you right in their own little way! I'm sure that you did this on purpose. ;)