I’d like to add a footnote to my article “Hunting heretics ’cause you’ve nothing better to do“. That article was written in response to theologian Owen Strachan taking to Twitter a few days ago to accuse popular progressive evangelical and female blogger Rachel Held Evans of heresy because she once referred to God as “she”. Here’s Strachan’s original tweet:
Heresy, straight up?!
This strikes me as incredibly ironic. You see Strachan is obviously trying to position himself as a theological doctor for the church, one who is truly serious about doctrine and spiritual health. That’s what he’d like you to think, anyways. But his behavior directly contradicts the very impression he wishes to convey.
To put the matter into a context, imagine that an oncologist reads the following on the blog of an acquaintance named Jones: “I’ve had a persistent cough for a month now. That’s strange.”
Based on that statement in a post, our oncologist tweets the following:
Let’s stop pretending like all’s okay. @Jones has a persistent cough. This is cancer, straight up.
What would you think of that doctor rendering a diagnosis of Jones on that amount of evidence … and doing so through Twitter!? Reprehensible. You’d call it a form of medical malpractice or misconduct.
So what should we think of a theological doctor rendering a diagnosis of heresy on the barest evidence of a single reference to “God Herself” … and doing so through Twitter?
This is theological malpractice, straight up.
