You could hear the audible intake of breath from my fellow presbyters at the utterance of this word. Within moments I was confronted in the hall, thanked by some and told by others that this wasn’t a word that we used in presbytery. I still maintain that the distinctions between heresy and orthodoxy are important and that the discussion of what is heretical and what is not is an important conversation for the church.
In Alister McGrath’s latest work, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth, we have an important book that brings a fresh perspective to the conversation on heresy. It should be widely read by church leaders, seminarians, and any one else interested in the conversation about right belief. Breaking his argument into four parts, “What is heresy?” “The Roots of Heresy,” “The Classic Heresies of Christianity,” and “The Enduring Impact of Heresy,” readers take a journey that engages their heads and hearts in the conversation. McGrath asks, “So what is heresy?” then provides an answer that forms the rest of his exposition, “Heresy is best seen as a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilizing, or even destroying the Christian faith.”
McGrath argues that, “Heresy appears to be Christian, yet it is actually the enemy of faith that sows the seed of faith’s destruction.” Moving along this path, McGrath lays out much greater detail about the essence and origins of heresy. While acknowledging that there was diversity within the early church, McGrath is careful to point out that it was not as if “the New Testament offers an unbridled multiplicity of visions of the Christian faith.” There are, he argues, a core set of ideas that are consistent with what it means to be Christian. Acknowledging that heresy arises within the Church, McGrath carefully explains that intentions behind heresy are often honorable and apologetic in nature. In the third section of the book, he examines both some of the early Christian heresies and then some of the later heresies, explaining the context in which they arose within the church and how those behind them saw them as an apologetic tool. In the final section McGrath examines the “cultural and intellectual motivations for heresy.” One chapter looks at the relationship between power and heresy particularly during the Middle Ages. Of particular interest is the chapter devoted to the Islamic view of Christianity and how understanding the heresies prevalent in the Middle East at the time the Quran was written allows us to agree with Muslims that the particular version of Christianity that is being criticized would also be criticized by orthodox Christians.
Where does this leave Christians? In a time when heresy seems to be popular, perhaps even encouraged, McGrath asks us to think again about the importance of orthodoxy in relation to the preservation of the faith. All the heresies of the past will resurface from time to time, they will never go away, so the Church must be on guard, for heresy is “an intellectually defective vision of the Christian faith, having its origins within the church” (p.83).
Heresy still matters.
NEIL CRAGAN is pastor of First Church, White Bear Lake, Minn.
