CHRISTIANITY TODAY EDITOR SAYS IT IS O.K. FOR EVANGELICALS TO DABBLE IN HERESIES (Friday Church News Notes, May 13 2011,)

By David Cloud

Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, says that evangelicals should be allowed to dabble in heresies. He said this in the context of Rob Bell’s heresy-packed book Love Wins. Though Bell denies the infallible inspiration of Scripture, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, the necessity of being born again through personal faith in Christ, eternal hell fire, and other cardinal doctrines, Galli claims that he is “a brother in Christ” and that we should be patient with his errors.

According to Galli, we should treat Paul Young and The Shack with the same “charity.” He says, “We recognize that an author trying to repeat the old, old story in fresh ways will sometimes overstep the bounds of traditional theology” (“Rob Bell Is Not a Litmus Test,” ChristinaityToday.com, May 5, 2011). This is a recipe for spiritual shipwreck.

The Bible warns God’s people to mark and avoid those who teach doctrine contrary to the apostolic faith, because false teachers are able to deceive the hearts of the simple (Romans 16:17). Heretics are to be rejected after the first and second admonition (Titus 3:10-11).

Doctrines of devils are not to be entertained; they are to be refused (1 Timothy 4:1-7).

Christianity Today was founded by Billy Graham in 1956 and has been a major voice for New Evangelicalism ever since. Conservative in its early days, it has grown progressively liberal over the decades. This is a loud warning to fundamental Baptists who are flirting with New Evangelical principles and who find “separatism” distasteful. Galli says, “The fact that so many resonate with Bell’s concerns about these themes means we need to wrestle with them afresh.”

No, the fact that so many resonate with Bell’s heresies is evidence of the wholesale compromise of evangelicalism and is a loud warning that we should touch not the unclean thing lest we, too, be polluted. Separation is a fundamental biblical practice.

 “Zeal will make a man hate everything which God hates, and long to sweep it from the face of the earth” (J.C. Ryle, 1816-1900).