The Ragged Pursuit of Truth

Spiritual error is never a flat issue of doctrinal aberration or bad theology. It is at a deeper level a twist in our thinking about God, and a distortion in our views of ourselves and other people. Error is devious business precisely because it departs from the spirit and content of the Christian Scriptures while purporting to illuminate them. It force-fits the exegesis to get there and introduces its version of special revelation to jump the bumps in biblical interpretation. But the real evil lurks in recasting the package as God’s message for the times. Every listener is pressed into the corner and compelled to make an ultimate decision: to remain faithful and embrace this fuller “truth,” or reject it and be consigned to the margins of God’s Kingdom. New truth becomes its own gospel, foisting a burden on ordinary believers, with God’s pleasure or displeasure hovering over what they do with the new message. This device is shamelessly perpetuated in the contemporary Pentecostal-Charismatic world. Quite apart from the content, this methodology is devilish business and spiritual bullying.