Heresy Explained

Most of us don’t have occasion to use the word heresy in our daily conversations. It’s one of those highly charged words that is seldom employed except perhaps by theologians or people hotly engaged in church debate, and occasionally in the press when someone expresses an unpopular position on any topic. It is most commonly used to put down someone—on either side—who disagrees.

Haeresis, the Greek word for “heresy,” actually doesn’t mean something negative or wrong. It means an opinion, or a way, or a choice. In fact, there is an early Christian writer who talks about the “heresy of the Gospel.” As he uses it, the expression refers to the way of the Gospel. It is not a criticism of the Gospel, but simply the use of that word to mean a way or a path. So one of the confusions of this word “heresy” is that in Greek it can refer to something neutral or even positive.

Simply put, heresy refers, in a neutral way, to a choice, a way, or an opinion. When it is used negatively in Scripture, with an adjective such as “destructive,” or when it is clearly negative by context, it means to break into factions, to cause division or schism (another word for division).

“Heresy” doesn’t mean “wrong doctrine.” In the negative sense it means using something—doctrine or practice or gossip or subversive leadership—to break up the loving community of the church.

Wrong doctrine can be used for such heresy—to divide—but so can right doctrine! In fact, many of us have experienced individuals and groups within churches that have used correct doctrine in such a legalistic, self-righteous way that they have caused division and harm to others in the church. This is heresy at its finest.

One of the reasons the church constructed the creeds (Nicene, Athanasian, Apostles) was to combat wrong doctrine—that is, a misunderstanding of the basics of the faith. That is a sufficient reason in and of itself, like a good dictionary or map. But the creeds also helped to combat heresy that came from misunderstandings of the faith. A more-proper term for those misunderstandings is heterodoxy—deviating from the norm.

Heresy happened when these heterodoxies were being used by certain people to cause factions. They promoted heterodoxies to produce an isolating, self-righteous sect. Paul pointedly puts it this way:

…the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group. (Galatians 5:20, NLT First Edition)

Let’s listen again to more from this chapter of Galatians, as Paul contrasts the attitude and behavior of a sinful versus a loving life. He is writing to Christians. The italicized words specifically address the issue of doctrine, conflict, and heresy in the Church:

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.  … When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:19-23a)

We seem to have little difficulty seeing the sinfulness of sexual immorality, idolatry, or lust, but we quickly indulge in hostility, dissension, and division to “defend the Gospel.” It’s the same as claiming that we commit adultery or worship idols to “defend the Gospel”! They are all sin, and none of them can be excused as a defense of the Good News.

As an example of heresy and heterodoxy, let’s look at an early heterodoxy called Donatism. This is especially important to us today because it is raging again worldwide in the Church, across denominations, and in many forms. The idea of the early Donatists was this: Only those living a blameless life belonged in the Church.

Their idea was the Sacraments, of which there were two key ones—Baptism and Communion—were ineffective if the person celebrating them was not sinless. Also, any ordination performed by a bishop who was not sinless had no effect and no ordination truly happened.

Donatism was considered a holiness movement in the early Church—where those who were in it strove to be holy and they excluded from their company those who they did not believe to be blameless and sinless. This still goes on today! It ranges from not allowing people to sing in the choir if they are having troubles at home, to refusing to receive Communion at the hands of a bishop, priest or pastor whose theology differs from your own—especially on hot, controversial issues.

Don’t mistake my point here: I’m not saying that differences in theology are irrelevant. They can be extremely important—can even be salvation issues—but to suggest that the minister’s own sinlessness is essential to God’s being able to be present—in Communion, Baptism, ordination or anything else—is to assert God’s powerlessness in the presence of His sinful creatures.

Can our sin get in the way of our relationship with God? Of course it can. But does God depend upon the sinlessness of His followers and pastors to be able to be present in Communion, Baptism, ordination, prayer, care, teaching, or anything else? No.

The fundamental idea of the Church is we are all sinners gathered together. Our responsibility to each other is as we should teach what we know to be true, hold each other accountable, love and edify each other, and speak with humility, love and directness when we believe that there is sin in someone’s life.

St. Augustine (A.D. 354–430) is the one who wrote convincingly about the Donatist heresy (and note that it was heresy—it intentionally divided the Church by claiming sinlessness and establishing competing Churches!)

Augustine drew the heart of the Church to understand that though filled with sinners, it was the unity of the Body that mattered, and that the division into another separate parallel Church was heresy. It was heresy because it was breaking into factions. It cut off part of the Body of Christ. That is the division that the Church contested.

Augustine followed Jesus, who said,

“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” (John 17:20-23)

If we are honest with ourselves, we have failed to listen to the prayer of Jesus for us, and have failed to be convinced by Augustine when he reminded us of it.

In Christ,

Pastor George