By Farther Steps

Reformed and Reforming, semper reformanda to Christ's glory.

Posts Tagged ‘Heresy’

Camping on the Fringe

So this is how he got there:

[Harold] Camping says that because Jesus was crucified on Friday, April 1, 33 AD, and that it takes exactly 365.2422 days for the earth to complete one orbit of the sun, we can conclude that, on April 1, 2011, Jesus was crucified exactly 722,449.07 days ago. Add 51 days to this to get to May 1, and you get a figure of 722,500.07.

Round that down to the nearest integer, and you get 722,500, which is an important number because it is the square of 5 x 17 x 10 . The number five, says Camping, represents atonement. Ten represents completeness, and 17 represents heaven. Multiply all these together – twice – and you get 722,500. Therefore the apocalypse kicks off on Saturday, May 21.

Don’t know why I didn’t see it. Oh, because I don’t read my Bible that way. I take it as a piece of literature that can be read and understood for what it says. Like:

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son,but the Father only. – Matthew 24:36

I take that to mean that no one but God the Father knows the date. But please notice that there IS a date. People laugh and scoff at Camping, and rightfully so, but don’t laugh and scoff at Jesus’ return. Camping is wrong even if Jesus shows up tomorrow but don’t miss the fact that he is returning.

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”- 2 Peter 3:1-4

The Colossian ‘Heresy’

This weekend I start a 14 week Sunday school class on the book of Colossians. This is a class I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Somehow in my preparation, I missed the fact that Colossae was damaged and maybe destroyed by an earthquake in about 61AD. One person in the class asked about that and I said I didn’t think that was correct but I’d have to look into it. Doh. Forehead slapping moment. I’ll correct that on Sunday.

Anyway, as part of the introduction to the book I asked about the ‘Colossian Heresy’. That is, why was Paul writing to the church? Some have hypothesized that there was a growing heresy at Colossae and Paul was writing to correct it. They look to chapter 2 to find the nature of the error and see in it a Greek element and a Jewish element. The Greek part of the error involved philosophy and visions and angel worship and asceticism. The Jewish element involved circumcision and observing days and the law.

When the Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in the 1940s we suddenly had Gnostic documents and thereby access to an ancient Christian heresy in a way that we hadn’t for over a thousand years. Some scholars suddenly found Gnosticism everywhere from popular Christian culture to Colossians. The idea that the Colossian heresy was Gnosticism soon got challenged since Gnosticism didn’t bloom till about 150 and obviously Colossians is much earlier. Okay, so it isn’t Gnosticism, it is proto-Gnosticism. Well, that doesn’t really help that much because the Jewish elements of the Colossian heresy don’t fit in Gnosticism. So then the heresy became a “syncretic proto-Gnosticism with Judizing tendencies.”

What a mess. In first year Greek I did some work on Colossians and came across some scholarship that suggested that maybe there wasn’t a Colossian heresy. That got me thinking. First, Galatia embraced a heresy and Paul’s tone with them was sharp and to the point. “Paul, an apostle to the church at Galatia. Grace, etc. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! Why have you so quickly abandoned the gospel?!” There is a section in Second Corinthians where the Greek is almost untranslatable. Paul is so angry it is just a string of words and you have to figure out what he’s saying. But you don’t get that with Colossians. If the Colossian church was on the verge of heresy, I would expect more spit and fire from Paul. Now, it could be argued that since he didn’t know this church he adopted a softer tone. I suppose, but that just doesn’t sound like Paul.

So what was going on? What would prompt the kind of firm but loving response from the Apostle? My theory is that Paul has only a cursory, second-hand understanding of the struggles of the Colossian church. But he knows what kind of problems other churches have faced when attempting to integrate Jews and Greeks. There had been a tendency toward legalism and Judiasm amongst the Jews so Paul talks about real, New Covenant circumcision and how the law related to Christ. Amongst the gentiles there was the draw of Greek philosophy with its own peculiarities and catchwords (like pleroma which he uses a few times in the letter.) So as this congregation of Jew and Gentile forms into the body of Christ, whatever their background, it all has to be understood in light of Jesus. Whatever the issue is, Jesus trumps it. Paul didn’t have to know exactly how the church was wrestling through her different issues to know what the answer was. 1Since later Gnosticism was rooted in Greek philosophy it isn’t surprising that some of the issues at Colossea could appear Gnostic to us later on. The same basic philosophies are present but that doesn’t mean that Gnosticism was present at Colossea. It also excuses those who thought they’d found it there in my opinion.

See, the problem with fixing the Colossian error is that we can then strand it in the past. I mean how many evangelical churches are facing Judizing tendencies or are about to embrace Greek philosophy? Not many, some but not many. For most of us we can largely not see the message as applying to us. We’ll hip pocket it so that we can straighten out other folks. But what if there isn’t a specific error that’s being addressed? That might make the principle of Jesus’ supremacy that much more applicable to us. We don’t have to see it against Gnosticism to see how it might apply in our lives. If our tendency is toward legalism, Colossians has an answer. If your tendency is toward visions and mystic experience, Colossians applies.

Sure, even if there is a specific error we can still get the same principles, but I know for me tying it to a specific error rather than a tendency makes it that much harder for me to apply it to myself and my situation and my church. It makes it much easier to put it on the bookshelf and forget it.

↩1 Since later Gnosticism was rooted in Greek philosophy it isn’t surprising that some of the issues at Colossea could appear Gnostic to us later on. The same basic philosophies are present but that doesn’t mean that Gnosticism was present at Colossea. It also excuses those who thought they’d found it there in my opinion.

Sins of the Father

falling-appleA while ago I called Tony Campolo a heretic. I sadly stand by that because I haven’t heard him recant or say something better and clearer. The issue then was that he was stripping God of his sovereignty in order to excuse God from the damage of Katrina.

The old adage “the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree” is generally right in both positive and negative ways. 1The adage fails in that it fails to take into account God’s sovereignty and his grace. God intervenes or we would all be lost, each patterning ourselves after Adam. There is also a principle in the scriptures where God sometimes threatens to visit the sins of the father upon the son 2It is not an absolute principle. God is free to apply it as he will. Consider the counterexamples in Ezek 18:20, Jer 31:29-31 as promises in the New Covenant. for example in Exodus 20:5 and Leviticus 26:30.

This principle (at least) sometimes involves not the innocent children being punished for the father’s sins but the pattern of the father’s sin repeating itself in the son. I fear that may be what has happened with Tony’s son Bart. It appears that Bart has been drawn away from the authority of Scripture in revealing who God is. Bart works in inner city missions and he’s struggled with theodicy. 3Theodicy is the area of dealing with God and evil. How can evil exist and God be good? He announced this in an article titled “The Limits of God’s Grace“ in the November/December 2006 edition of the Journal of Student Ministries. 4The paper was hosted on the Youth Specialties website but they pulled it due in part to the negative response it generated. The editor said, “without a strong lens of understanding as to why the questions raised by the article are worth talking about, or a counter-argument by someone else, we were concerned that the article could be more damaging than helpful.” They did the right thing. Updated 7/31/07 – The original link was replaced but I googled it and found the original at a different location. To demonstrate this rejection, allow me to quote part of his paper and include in square brackets some of the scriptures he’s rejecting. (Also, I “tamed” the text a bit by removing some of the specifics of the evil and generalized it.) Know that Campolo has a very concrete, very disturbing and very evil event in mind.

Perhaps, as many believe, the truth is that God created and predestined some people for salvation and others for damnation, according to God’s will. [Romans 9, Ephesians 1, Jude 4] Perhaps such caprice only seems unloving to us because we don’t understand. [Job 42:1-9] Perhaps, as many believe, all who die without confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior go to Hell to suffer forever. [John 8:21-24, 14:6, 2 Thessalonians 1:9] Most important of all, perhaps God’s sovereignty is such that although God could indeed prevent [bad things from happening], God is no less just or merciful when they [do], and [the victims] and we who love them should uncritically give God our thanks and praise in any case. [Job 13:15, 1 Peter 4:19 5This verse is significant. Here, those who suffer are called to entrust their souls to God. If he is not in control then what good would it do to entrust our souls to him when we suffer? He can’t do anything about it. But if he is sovereign, then entrusting our souls to him is the best and wisest thing we can do.]

My response is simple: I refuse to believe any of that. For me to do otherwise would be to despair.

Indeed, Campolo is blunt in his statement about the relationship between his conception of God and revelation: “First of all, while I certainly believe my most cherished ideas about God are supported by the Bible (what Christian says otherwise?), I must admit they did not originate there.” So where does the Bible stand in reference to his conception of God? “I required no Bible to determine it, and honestly I will either interpret away or ignore altogether any Bible verse that suggest otherwise.”

At least Bart is honest in announcing where his concept of God comes from: experience. So what has his experience taught him a real God, one he can worship, should be like:

Please, don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that I don’t get to decide who God is. What I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegiance. I am a free agent, after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this: I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am. (Emphasis mine)

Bart has set his ideal and his timetable for compassion as the standard by which God must measure up. Not only must God be at least as compassionate as Bart is, but apparently he must do so in the amount of time Bart has alloted him.

So in this configuration who is sovereign here? That’s right, Bart is. Consider:

You can figure out the rest. I don’t hate God because I don’t believe God is fully in control of this world yet.

I don’t hate God because I believe God is always doing the best God can within the limits of human freedom, which even God cannot escape.

I don’t hate God because, although I suppose God knows everything that can be known at any given point in time, I don’t suppose God knows or controls everything that is going to happen. (Emphasis mine)

Since Scripture cannot be appealed to with Campolo, at least not in this area, we’ll have to use reason. However, once you cast off God’s self-revelation the kinds of things listed above seem reasonable. But that’s exactly the problem; human reason is not in tact. The doctrine of total depravity is not that man does all the evil he can all the time, it means that man is corrupted by sin in all his faculties. There isn’t one part of man that is not affected by the fall; body, soul, mind, will, emotions, reason. All of them are corrupted by sin. So when we cast off revelation, we are not left with pure, naked reason to guide us. We’re left with a compass with a bent needle and an misaligned magnet. Bart is using this to guide him to a true doctrine of God and it can’t. That faulty compass must be corrected by revelation. This leaves us in a pretty horrible situation since Bart won’t allow Scripture to correct his compass.

Why does any of this matter? Why should I get so excited about this? Because “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.” (2Pt 1:3-4) The doctrine of God is not important just so that we don’t commit idolatry, it reaches much further. Without a proper understanding of who God is we cannot advance in our Christian growth!

I’ve been reading in blog comments things such as “he’s just being honest about his struggle” and “he’s out there working with the poor and you’re not so shut up till you get out and see what he’s seen.” First, it doesn’t sound like a struggle. It sounds like a done deal. “I refuse to believe any of that” is a far cry from “I’m struggling to understand how it fits together.” And second of all, all the good works in the world are as spider webs if he rejects the One, True and Living God. You see, even if I am not engaged in feeding the hungry (to my shame) my righteousness surpasses his because I am clothed in Christ and he is not. Also, seeing evil does not excuse what he’s done. Consider Job, Job experience evil first hand and he never said things like Campolo has said. He was righteous.

Part of the “knowledge of Him” that Peter puts forth as our only hope for life and godliness requires that we wrestle with theodicy. A better, more Biblical engagement with theodicy can be heard here. After the tsunami in 2005 NPR interviewed John Piper to get a Christian perspective. They only used about 3 seconds in the show but Desiring God presented most of the interview. It made me cry when I first heard it.

Since we believe in a sovereign God who can and does change human hearts, who has revealed who he truly is, who loves the fallen world and redeems people out of it, we need to pray for Bart, Tony and those who think like them. God can change their hearts and inclinations and correct their view of Him.

Sovereign Lord, please have mercy on this father and son. Grant them repentance and faith in the True and Living God as You have revealed Yourself in Your scripture, not in their vain understandings. Amen.

[HT: Justin Taylor]

UPDATE: The Journal of Student Ministries has since pulled down the link to Campolo’s article. I still have a hard copy of it in my office. Also, Campolo has, tragically but not surprisingly, come out as an agnostic humanist.

↩1 The adage fails in that it fails to take into account God’s sovereignty and his grace. God intervenes or we would all be lost, each patterning ourselves after Adam.
↩2 It is not an absolute principle. God is free to apply it as he will. Consider the counterexamples in Ezek 18:20, Jer 31:29-31 as promises in the New Covenant.
↩3 Theodicy is the area of dealing with God and evil. How can evil exist and God be good?
↩4 The paper was hosted on the Youth Specialties website but they pulled it due in part to the negative response it generated. The editor said, “without a strong lens of understanding as to why the questions raised by the article are worth talking about, or a counter-argument by someone else, we were concerned that the article could be more damaging than helpful.” They did the right thing. Updated 7/31/07 – The original link was replaced but I googled it and found the original at a different location.
↩5 This verse is significant. Here, those who suffer are called to entrust their souls to God. If he is not in control then what good would it do to entrust our souls to him when we suffer? He can’t do anything about it. But if he is sovereign, then entrusting our souls to him is the best and wisest thing we can do.