Doctrine and Dissensions

Our church decided to spend the summer doing a "Doctrine and Dissensions" seminar. The idea was to highlight some of the major debates within Chrisitianity--to give both sides of the major arguments. When I first heard of the idea, I was all for it.

In retrospect, I think this was an ill-advised idea. (Although I firmly believe our elders and pastors were truly seeking God's will in this.) The problem is that the assumption was that the audience for these classes would be believers who were well-educated in the faith, able to think about the subject matter critically while maintaining their loyalty to the truth of the Bible.

The reality is that most of the audience is NOT well educated in the faith. At least not educated enough. Our job as a church is to teach and make disciples, not encourage critical thought. I'm a big advocate of critical thought, but Scripture demands a vital balance between critical thought and humility toward the teaching of God's Word.

The first class was about politics. It was poorly taught, boring, and avoided the key issues. I appreciate my fellow believer's motivations, but his teaching style does not reflect the authority of the Word of God. Most of the students in the class felt that we didn't get to the issues.

The second class (that I didn't attend) was to share the viewpoint of some kook who doesn't believe in eternal condemnation. Ummm...read your Bible. Nuff said. Week wasted.

The following two weeks were about creation. The first viewpoint was the "young earth" viewpoint that insists that the world is about six thousand years old. The second viewpoint was the "old earth" position that posits a much older earth based on relativity of time. These classes were interesting. I just wish we could have had more direct debate.

Then came Mike Duffy's class. Mike did a great service to our Lord. He was organized, articulate, passionate, interesting, and on point. He did a superb job representing the premillennial viewpoint of prophecy.

This week, the church allowed a young gentleman to present the partial preterist viewpoint. I appreciate the sentiment, but this was a total waste of time. The instructor was unprepared, ill-organized, and unconvincing.

What upsets me is that the church elected to sponsor correct teaching to appear next to grossly incorrect teaching. Our job is to teach and make disciples. Instead, I feel we are suggesting to our students that "I'm okay, you're okay." In other words, that truth is relative, or unimportant. Neither is true.

I'm frustrated.