Where will you lay down your life? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.
Recently, I wrote on how evolution is not a problem for me. If I wake up tomorrow and hear “Evolution proven true!” and it cannot be denied, I’ll say “Okay. That’s interesting,” and go about my day. If I hear instead “Scientists agree evolution cannot be true,” my response will be the same. For me, it is a non-issue and I believe much ink has been wasted on making this an issue and turning it into science vs. Christianity.
This quickly became a very debated blog with the first poster being OEC and then a couple others came in, one clearly YEC, and I jumped in to offer my defense of what I had written. Unfortunately, what I saw on the YEC side gave me the impression that if YEC is not true, then the Bible is not true and if the Bible is not true, then Christianity is not true.
This leads me to the question of what hills we are going to die on. For instance, I have seen several exchanges between Calvinists and Arminians. However, how many of us would be willing to lay own our lives for Calvinism or Arminianism? Now if you have studied this field more than others, you would be more prone to state certainty of your view, but will you make your Christianity dependent on it? Picture being in any of those camps and being shown strong evidence that your interpretation of the text was false and the text in reality is incompatible with your view. Could you accept that and still accept that Jesus rose from the dead? Or would it be that if your view was wrong, you would think the text had to be wrong and call into question the resurrection?
The same follows for eschatology. A Preterist interpretation places much on Jesus’s claim that this generation would not pass away. Suppose that that interpretation could not stand, but you still had undeniable evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. What would it mean? If you were a dispensationalist and you were shown that there was no distinction between Israel and the Church, would you think you had to abandon Christianity?
What if you’re charismatic and believe strongly that tongues are a prayer language and that you have that gift, but you are shown it is all something in your head and tongues does not refer to a prayer language and your understanding of the text is wrong. Will this mean you abandon Christianity?
We’ve written much here lately on Inerrancy. Let us suppose that you are shown undeniably that the Bible does have an error in it. Do you take that to mean then that Christianity is false entirely and we have no reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
Each of these cases present hills people are willing to die on. I have no problem with arguing vociferously for an interpretation. I have a problem where that belief system is made an essential for the gospel to be true.
What happens then is that we make our beliefs to be essential when Christ never made them so. We can even make them tests of orthodoxy. This should never happen. My wife and I for instance both disagree on the age of the Earth and on the topic of eschatology. She has no problem however when someone asks me a question if I share my view. There was even a Sunday School class we were in once on eschatology that had her view being taught and she was wanting me to state my view and how it was different and why I held it.
Does that mean we can never disagree then? Of course not! We should disagree and disagree strongly. That’s the only way we can determine which side has the truth. (Note to some out there. The way to determine this is by actually arguing and not engaging in open letter campaigns and calling for repentance)
Let us also make sure we know what the other side believes. A notorious fault I have with the works of the new atheists is that they do not get Christian arguments right. A problem I have with several intra-Christian debates are the constant straw men I see. Make sure you know what the opposition believes.
Finally, don’t mistake your view for the gospel. There was a Christian coffee shop I once went to, but stopped attending and part of it was that there was too much emphasis on non-essentials. One person wanted to consistently argue with me on the age of the Earth when I said I wasn’t interested. Another consisted of a very hyper-Calvinistic approach to evangelism I just didn’t want to work with.
Too often, we can be firing at our own brothers and sisters as enemies of the gospel. Let us remember Christians do have a common enemy. No doubt we have to rebuke our own at times, but they are not our enemy. Let’s be careful which hills we’ll die on and let ours be the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
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