Heresy

I have created my own religion.  It is founded on Christianity, but it contains one major addendum.  That addendum is the wonderful book of Hesitations.  I have been compiling it since birth, and it has proved its usefulness on many occasions.  Here’s an example of where I might employ it.

Ashley: “Let’s have lima beans with dinner.”

Me: “I can’t.  It’s against my religion.  It says so in the book of Hesitations.”

Or perhaps

Ashley: “Why don’t you clean out the bathrooms today?”

Me: “Unfortunately, it is written in Hesitations 37:4 that ‘wicked is the man who scrubs and washes on his knees on his day off.’”

Ashley: “Well then do it standing.”

Me: “That’s covered two verses later.”

Ashley is particularly good at catching me in heretical acts, though.  I try to use other verses from the book of Hesitations, but she remembers them better than I do, and she often quotes previously referenced verses back at me.  Then I have nowhere to run (except maybe the apocryphal book of Necessitations). 

Recently I have been thinking what it would feel like to be a real heretic, though.  Truthfully, some would already consider me one.  For starters, I believe in evolution; I don’t believe the Flood was global; I don’t believe Adam and Eve were actual people; and many are shocked when they hear my thoughts on heaven, hell, and the devil.  But I do believe every sentence in the Apostle’s Creed, so I don’t think I’m a heretic. 

But it is a strong word.  Originally, its ancestor was used to describe any particular religious sect.  For example, it was used in the Greek New Testament in reference to groups of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Christians as sects of Judaism. But today, as we all know, it is used to refer to someone whose beliefs are in opposition to the doctrine of a particular church, whether it be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, though certain members of these groups are more likely to talk about heresy than others.  I grew up in one of those sects, the Southern Baptists, who seem to use the word more than members of many other Protestant denominations.  (I have twice in my life happily been a member of a Southern Baptist church, but it is nonetheless true that they can often be overly dogmatic.)  I learned the word from an early age, though I didn’t quite understand its meaning for many years.  In fact, I often used it myself simply to describe, perhaps in intentionally exaggerated fashion, those who I perceived did not believe in the true version of religion, which was of course what I happened to believe at that moment.  Sometimes the word is intended as jest or as a precise explanation, but most of the time it is more pointed. Now that I am sometimes on the receiving end of the word, I have begun to think about it more.

Even were I to become an official heretic, I wouldn’t be terribly troubled.  After all, the great reformers of the church were often heretics in their time, and many other “heretics” died for beliefs that are staples of the church today.  John Wycliffe, for instance, preached the authority of the Bible over the authority of the church and was a proponent of having Bibles available in the vernacular (I believe his was the first Bible translated completely into English).  After his death, his body was exhumed and burned as a heretic.  Jan Hus, an admirer of Wycliffe, furthered Wycliffe’s ideas and also attacked the use of indulgences and the idea of the Crusades.  He was burned at the stake for his heresy.  Martin Luther was also a heretic, despite his love of the church.  Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” for his support of the Copernican idea of heliocentrism and died under house arrest as a result.  It took more than one hundred years for books related to heliocentrism to come off the Catholic banned book list.  But those who were heretics to the Catholics eventually caught on to the old ways as well.   John Calvin, an influential Protestant, also had heretics put to death in Geneva when he was there. 

Thankfully, heretics are no longer put to death today, but some traditions of Christianity, whether overtly or covertly, are still eager to brand dissenters as heretics.  We don’t often use the word anymore, but the mindset persists, especially in the US.  It is inherently ostracizing and unloving; it says “You no longer belong and we don’t want you.” Depending on the group, this mental label can manifest itself around all sorts of topics: evolution, hell, communion, speaking in tongues (or the Baptism of the Spirit), prayers of healing, music.  The list could go on and on.  When a person finds themselves in conflict with some particular beliefs of a church, he is rarely cast out by the pastor or priest.  Instead, the modern heretic is shunned by the church body for his beliefs, and even if he is eager to worship with those who shun him, eventually he despises the fact that no one will be his friend, and he leaves. 

While I think it is important for the church to stay true to its core, which I would define as the beliefs mentioned in the Apostle’s Creed or other similar creeds, I would argue that ostracizing people in the church for “heretical” beliefs is largely ineffectual, unnecessary, and damaging to the Christian faith.  Many atheists and agnostics today were once not opposed to religion, but a bad experience with the church pushed them out of it forever (I could list half a dozen that popped into my head within a few seconds).  When people were booted from the early church, it was normally for saying things like, “Jesus isn’t God,” or “Zeus is just as good,” not things like “I’m not sure that hell exists,” or “I believe in evolution.”  The things that often constitute heresy in the minds of some Christians these days are not central to the faith.  What is central to the faith – love – is conspicuously absent in these cases. 

I am glad that we have come as far as we have in our understanding of heresy.  It would be much worse if we were still killing people for having different beliefs.  But the idea of heresy still thrives in the mind.  We are all taught from an early age what we ought to believe, and this information is extremely specific – from what kind of clothes we should wear to the proper way to speak to views on religion in general to whether or not the body and blood of Christ are actually or only symbolically present in the host.  At some point, though, we must exit our tunneled view of religion and realize that there is considerable room in the church for differences of opinion.