Proper Treatment of Heretics by L. H. CHRISTIAN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 24, 1916

Proper Treatment of Heretics

By L. H. CHRISTIAN

L. H. CHRISTIAN

Now and then it happens that a really good word is shunned because it has been woefully misused. This is true of the words “heresy” and “heretic.” The Jews said that Paul taught heresy when his teaching was the truth of God. The Roman Church and every other persecuting power have accused the children of God of heresy. The faithful Christians whom we revere as martyrs were scorned and held up as heretics. The heroes of today were the heretics of yesterday.

But while the children of the Lord have been arraigned as heretics and the truth of God decried as heresy, we must not believe that there is no such thing as heresy and heretics. The Scriptures speak of “damnable heresies” brought in by “false teachers.” 2 Peter 2:1. We also read of “a man that is a heretic.” A heretic is one that “upholds a doctrine varying from that of his church.”

The true church of Christ has always been troubled with those who pretended to have advance light, but who in reality led the people astray. These deceivers often desire to remain among the children of God. They even speak of persecution when the servants of God follow the example of Paul, who “separated the disciples” from the others. Acts 19:9.

Not long ago we met one of these men. He spoke of the servants of the Lord as a “Vatican Council.” The man declared he and his followers were “cruelly persecuted.” We asked him if his enemies had taken his Bible from him, and how many times he had been fined, or “beaten with rods,” like Paul, and how large a number of his brethren had been burned at the stake. We learned that the only suffering he and his fellows had endured was that they had been asked not to disturb a meeting which some others were having. Later they had been quietly disfellowshipped from the church.

The persecution of which these complain is the very treatment that the Bible tells us to give those that depart from the faith. We should not hate them nor fight them. We should treat them kindly yet firmly. They ought not to remain as members of our churches nor take part in our meetings. Though they say things about us which are untrue, we

must never speak thus of them. Indeed, the less we say to them or about them the better. Of course that will not please them. They love to argue; they have nothing else to do. But the remnant people of God, with a soul-winning message to all the earth, “cannot come down” to idle disputings.

The Bible teaches that when some arise among us who “cause divisions” and teach contrary to the truth, we are to “avoid them.” Rom. 16:17. When a person becomes a heretic, we are to admonish him once or twice. If he will not hear us, we are to “reject” him. Titus 3:10. Then he will find himself a “cast out” from the church. The third angel’s message is a sacred heritage. We cannot fellowship any person nor join any enterprise that so tampers with this message as to turn the truth of God into a lie.

Chicago, Ill.