In this video, I offer a critical response to Tim Challies’ video “7 Marks of a False Teacher” by demonstrating that he conflates two (or three) different groups and proposes empty and self-defeating marks of false teaching. In short, it’s not helpful advice.
heresy
Hamfisted Heresy Hunters
Calvinist blogger Steve Hays has a long list of people he needs to monitor on a regular basis and I’m apparently on that list. Every few weeks, he seems to make a point of commenting on one of my articles or tweets. I wrote a reply to him last week and of course, he needed […]
If you can’t define “being biblical,” don’t accuse others of failing to be biblical
Yesterday I posted the following tweet: Nobody should be allowed to say "that's not biblical" unless they can give a succinct, coherent, and orthodox statement regarding what it means to be biblical. — Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) January 27, 2018 Some fellow with the Twitter handle @noah_nonsense replied by asking what was wrong with saying “That’s not biblical” without […]
Who is Eric Schneider and why is he defaming Bruxy Cavey?
Yesterday I became aware of a nasty article by a fellow named “Eric Schneider” who has a blog devoted to destroying the reputation and ministry of Bruxy Cavey. The article was poorly argued and evinced little by way of analytic skills, biblical or theological knowledge, or a modicum of charity. So who is Eric Schneider? […]
Universalism, Evangelicalism, and The Shack
Two days ago I came across this article at CBN: “Art Designer of ‘The Shack’ Book Cover Says He Regrets His Involvement.” In a Facebook post of three weeks ago, Dave Aldrich states that he lacked discernment when he agreed to illustrate the book cover for The Shack a decade ago. He now recognizes that the theology […]
On accusing a brother or sister in Christ of heresy
A couple weeks ago I posted an article on the new Shack movie titled “To See or Not to See The Shack Movie: That is the Question“. Today somebody named “Sven” posted a comment in which they charged author Paul Young with a long list of egregious doctrinal errors: “God is not a gender fluid goddess. The Shack teaches […]
Why John Sanders won the Unbelievable Debate on Open Theism and Heresy
The most recent episode of “Unbelievable” featured a debate between open theist John Sanders and Calvinist James White. All in all it was a good exchange, although White tended to offer potted criticisms of open theism and I found Sanders had an effective reply to many of his points. All in all a very worthwhile primer […]
Open a window: Fundamentalism and the thoughtful heretic
A couple weeks ago I wrote “When is a fundamentalist a fundamentalist?” to explain how I use the term “fundamentalist”. With that background in mind I wanted to turn now to offer a critique of the way fundamentalism is inimical to the open society of free enquiry and mutual truth-seeking. In particular, I want to say […]
Is Owen Strachan guilty of theological malpractice?
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”. […]
Hunting heretics ’cause you’ve nothing better to do
A few days ago Rachel Held Evans wrote a response to Owen Strachan after he went on Twitter and accused her of heresy. And what was Evans’ great sin? She once used the female pronoun “She” in reference to God. *silence* Oooooohhh! Call the bishop! Call the magistrate! She called God “She”. He’s a he, […]
Are the orthodox better off than the heretical?
In his intellectual biography Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton famously summed up the ironic conclusion of his wayward intellectual journey away from the church: “I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.” But things don’t always work out […]
Substance dualism as atheistic heresy
Ray Ingles asked: “Why would substance dualism be an atheistic heresy? A minority position, to be sure, but you don’t need God for substance dualism. Nor faeries, for that matter.” There really are two questions we might address in this regard. First, is adherence to substance dualism sufficient to make one an object of ridicule […]
Atheistic heretics
Can there really be atheistic heretics? Cyngus thinks not. Indeed, Cyngus seems to think the idea is not far off of “married bachelor”: “In order for atheists to have “heretics”, the “heresy” would be if an atheist would say “I believe in god”, which defies the very definition of “atheist”.” Cyngus fails to recognize, however, […]
Essential beliefs
Walter commented: “I recently skimmed a blog post by C. Michael Patton over at Parchment and Pen where he created a diagram showing what he considered to be the essential and non-essential doctrines that comprise orthodox Christian belief. “The fighting began almost immediately in the comments section.” This is not a problem unique to Christian […]
