What Is Heresy?
W. Carl Ketcherside
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We have been awaiting arrival of your book on "The Kingdom" in the hope that it may help us in our situation. We have a man in the congregation who holds the premillennial doctrine. He has discussed his views with a number of us, hut has never caused any trouble in the church. He is a fine person and has a good family, all having the respect of outsiders. But the preacher who held our meeting last year found out that this man was a pre-millennialist, and he preached three nights on the subject, and warned us to get rid of this man because he held a dangerous heresy. The church is quite disturbed about the matter."My book "The Kingdom of the Messiah" will probably not help. It is not intended to be a disciplinary manual for congregations. Only the word of God can occupy that position, and it has been here all of the time. My treatise will simply set forth what I think God's word teaches. It will be my humble effort to explain what I understand the Holy Spirit to advocate relative to numerous issues. In regard to the millennium, it will establish that I do not hold the view that our Lord
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But this book is not a handbook for a post-millennial party among God's children. It is not intended to urge brethren to take the criminal action of driving out into the cold those who hold a divergent view. I have worked in close harmony all my life with those who are of pre-millennial persuasion. They never forced their views upon me, and I never set up my own as a test of fellowship. We realized that Jesus was greater than any of our theories about His coming, and we were content to allow Him to show in His own good time which view was right, and we believed that He would gather us both into whatever state He had prepared for us.
Most of the problems relating to fellowship are created by preachers who get out of their place and become lawmakers and creed designers. The spirit of the clergy is to rule, dominate and domineer. That spirit can brook no interference; and tolerate no trifling with its edicts. The seminaries of "The Church of Christ" are grinding out a professional clergy and these men must hold their exalted position by forcing others to conform. Woe to the independent thinker who will not bow the knee, or who calls for evidence beyond the authoritarian dogma of the preacher. He will be hounded out into the cold, misrepresented, mistreated and maligned.
In the case mentioned in this letter, the brother who holds the pre-millennial view is not the heretic at all! I think he is wrong in his concept, and his interpretation of the scriptural teaching is all askew. But it is the preacher who is the heretic! Heresy, as that term is used in the New Testament, is not the holding of an opinion, either true or false. Neither is it the mere advocacy or expression of such an opinion. A man can be in error and not be a heretic; he can be a heretic in conjunction with the truth. The general idea as to heresy, held by most of my brethren, originated with Rome in her attempt to subjugate the world to papal tyranny. She planted the seed that heresy consists of an opinion held in opposition to the orthodox view, and upon the basis of this false definition shed the blood of thousands of dissenters. Moreover, the acceptance of this theory by Protestants has caused the innumerable divisions that exist, and has even fractured and splintered the glorious restoration movement into bitter, wrangling partisans, whose attitude belies the expression of their noble ideals.
I have long known that the Holy Spirit gives no sanction to this distorted view which was enforced by the stake, rack and strangling cord in days gone by; but in these more refined days is enforced by the "gentler" methods of boycott, false propaganda, malicious whispering, malignant rumor, and downright lying. Heresy is the party spirit! A heretic is one who seeks to build a party around his view to the division of the children of God. A post-millennial party is as sinful as a pre-millennial party. I want nothing to do with either! I do not accept a man as a brother on the basis that he agrees with my interpretation of Revelation 20, but because we both have the same Father. Then I shall not reject him as a brother because he disagrees with my interpretation of Revelation 20. That is not my creed!
Mind you, I think the pre-millennial theory of interpretation is wrong. I believe that it is a warped and twisted view. But I do not encourage putting people "out of the fellowship" who have a physical deformity--a crooked foot, a twisted arm, or a slanted eye. Then why should I want to "disfellowship" those whose mental image may be slanted, or whose ideas may be out of line with mine? I would as soon think of casting out a brother for physical astigmatism as for mental. Do you say he cannot help the first? What makes you think, in view of his past training, environment, culture,. prejudice and influence, that he can escape the second, without help? If I see a brother whose foot turns out at an angle and who cannot follow exactly in my tracks, shall I jump on him, pummel
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