Posted on 06/20/2002 8:39:24 PM PDT by Matchett-PI
po-lem-ic (pelem'ik) n-1 an argument, dispute, etc., especially a written one, that supports one opinion or body of ideas in opposition to another (The New Scholastic Dictionary of American English).
Excerpts from the article:
"Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
With Luther, we must say, "Unity wherever possible, but truth at all costs."
In his battle with the modernists earlier this century, J. Gresham Machen, a student of Warfield's and young colleague at Princeton, replied, "I cannot conceive of preaching the truth without exposing error."
John Newton not only gave us "Amazing Grace," but polemical attacks on Arminian legalism in his day. Luther and Calvin not only wrote heated polemics against the Church of Rome, but against the "enthusiasts" whom we would know today as Pentecostals. But let us go back further. Where would we be without the polemics of Athanasius? And yet he was accused by Arians-that is, those who denied Christ's divinity (and this was in some regions the majority view)-as a divisive person. Thank God that Irenaeus preferred truth to tolerance when he drove Gnosticism out of the church.
God gave us St. Paul, who told legalists to castrate themselves, just as Jesus had told the religious leaders of his day that they were a den of robbers, a nest of snakes, white-washed tombs that appeared spotless on the surface but were full of hypocrisy and dead men's bones. He told them that they travel over land and sea to evangelize one single convert only to make that person more a child of hell than he was before. And the prophets? They were so polemical that they were often executed by the very people against whose judgment the prophets were trying to warn.
It seems that the whole progress of biblical revelation and church history through the ages has been forged out of the fire of controversy and the often angry struggles over truth.
It is these great debates that have preserved the church from error and when the church grows lazy and fat, unwilling to be corrected, the world loses its only hope of salvation. It is never easy to correct, nor is it pleasant, but we are to "preach the truth in love." However, neither are we to pretend that our laziness, ignorance and apathy in defending the truth are really attempts to preserve the bond of unity. With Luther, we must say, "Unity wherever possible, but truth at all costs."
"...the effects of preaching Christ truthfully from bad motives are far less damning for the hearers. One highly respected evangelical leader in our day has said, "I would rather have wrong facts and a right attitude than the right facts and the wrong attitude." That may sound pious, but it is in reality quite a selfish statement. Surely he is not saying that it is better for one's hearers to become Arians or Pelagians, so long as the preacher is full of charity, but it is open to that kind of interpretation.
Stanley Grenz, author of Revisioning Evangelical Theology (IVP), argues that "a 'right heart' takes primacy over a 'right head.'"1 Just think of all the heretics in church history whose motives were unimpeachable or courageous men and women who held their errors and gathered a following until their death. No doubt, many heresies gain their popularity by the outstanding character of their champions: they are often quite likeable people.
Augustine never accused Pelagius of being a cad, but of denying essential Christian truth. Grenz does not seem to recognize that true beliefs are the prerequisite for godly motives, feelings and actions. Since atheists can be as kind to their postman as an evangelical minister, it is essential that we distinguish truth-driven godliness from vague religious and moral sentiment.
The Reformation, for instance, led to an impulse for the modern missionary movement; without it, there would not have been genuine "good news" to take to the world in the first place. Let us never forget that the question of that day was nothing less than, "How can I, a sinner, be accepted by a holy God?", and Rome and the Reformers gave (and continue to give) two entirely opposite answers. Before we get the Gospel out we have to get it right, and that is, to a large extent, what polemics is all about.
The "flower children" didn't like formal religion. They started replacing the word "church" with the word "fellowship," to make it more relational than institutional. The flower children are not only in power in Washington; they are in power in the evangelical movement as well and while they might want to recover traditional morality, they show no signs of interest in traditional Christianity. They are children of their age, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine-that is to say, with every trend in the marketplace.
"...but public sins require public exposure. When someone goes into print or occupies the airwaves with teachings that are regarded by a wide consensus of wise Christians throughout church history as dangerous, it is not only permissible, but necessary to expose such people publicly. The proposed cure must attempt to be as wide as the infection.
Thus, Simon the Magician, who professed Christ and then corrupted Christian doctrine, was publicly anathematized by Peter (Acts. 8:9). However serious and guarded our judgments must be, we can surely say with St. Paul, "Whoever preaches another Gospel..., let him be anathema."
Satan loves disorder and error, both schism and heresy. One weakens the body by amputation, the other by poisoning. By both he keeps the church in constant turmoil. But polemics is never the problem. If we follow proper discipline in our own church life and call public ministries to account publicly, with grace and courage, we may, God willing, see a renewal of both truth and love in a time of intolerant tolerance. ~
Dr. Michael Horton is the vice chairman of The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and is a graduate of Biola University (B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary in California (M.A.R.) and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford (Ph.D.).
Go to the above referenced website to read the whole article and the see the footnotes.
Hate, no. Pity, as I told him, yes.
This is obvious to the logical thinker, to the trained mind. The dull effortlessly accept paradox.
This is obvious to the logical thinker, to the trained mind. The dull effortlessly accept paradox.
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