Our Gospel of Grace for All the Heretics (Including You and I)
Updated: Oct 8, 2022
I am a heretic and so are you, well at least it seems in light of what is presented on social media and perhaps in our culture in general. One of the negative effects, (I believe) we have from our media saturated culture is everyone has an opinion however unrealistic or foolish and they expect it to be given complete credibility.
Coram mob has replaced Coram deo.
The church is full of heretics. Heretics can be found among Calvinists, Armenians, Charismatics, Baptists, Methodists well just say all the denominations. Everyone gets a label Christian Nationalists, Progressives, conservatives to name a few. Theologians are elitist and out of touch. Billy Graham is also at fault among other evangelists. You get my point.
There is left there is right there is the middle.
You and I are the one true Church, and we are faithful to God’s word…well actually that is a falsehood because that is not true. We are all rebels on any given day. We can easily through our sin nature slip into being a scoffer or critic or we might bully someone or always expect to be right. None are righteous not one!!
The comment sections of anything online is disasters. You can block as many as you can, but the toxic over critical comments never end. Christian blogs among others and now YouTube are filled with vile rhetoric as if we were in the court prosecuting criminals. People went from Twitter to Parlor so they could rant and shout hate without penalty. In social media tribalism is the norm. Despite social media being one of the worse ways to communicate people can’t resist and the misunderstandings and arguments based on mere misinterpreted words goes on and on. You are either liberal or conservative yet if we as Christians really look closely at the early Church that as being developed by Paul and others through the Holy Spirit it was NOTHING like what we today refer to as the Church.
The responsibility is on all of us. Some of us should not be on social media. And all of us should be more committed to Christ and the Church than we are. The time is long past that we should began to do better. The time is now to disagree while at the same time maintaining fellowship. We can turn a deaf ear to this now finding our self-righteousness to be sufficient, but we risk becoming part of the culture that moves further and further away from Gospel centered living.
The church, the Body of Christ has been filled with disagreeable sinners who insulted and beat each other and yes killed each other. Our bad behavior is not unique to our time. In the past Christians have also perfected the art of cancel culture that also is not new. The Church debated for many centuries in the councils to define and establish orthodoxy. Today pastors, preachers, and anyone we don’t like are labeled heretics after one blog post.
If you disagree with someone say so and do it with respect. Some friends of mine and I would get together (before the pandemic) to read the bible and discuss topics. Theology. If we disagreed, we would look for scripture, other opinions, books etc. we never took it personally, we would agree to disagree. It can be done. Our opinions are not a matter of life and death. Jesus said we would be known for our love. Are you known by your love? Christians are being sucked into the blackhole of our culture and may never come out. We must learn to love one another whether it be on social media in whatever disagreements we find ourselves., and in different denominations. We talk about a Gospel of Grace to the world but are we actually living it out or are we just pretending?
Yes, you may be wrong, I may be wrong but to live a Gospel Centered, Christ like life we must actually practice what we preach!