“I MAY ERR, BUT I WILL NOT BE A HERETIC”

This quotation is from the pen of Augustine of Hippo, a fourth century church father who had considerable influence upon the theology of the church. He had a way with words, sometimes startling in their import, such as, “Love God and do what you please.” But he had his bases covered on that one, for if you love God as Augustine would have you love God, then you would be pleased to do what pleases God!

This cryptic statement of his, “I may err, but I will not be a heretic,” has special interest to me because it had some influence on the thinking of early leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement. W. K. Pendleton, who succeeded Alexander Campbell both as president of Bethany College and as editor of the journal Campbell founded, The Millennial Harbinger. quoted this line from Augustine as he wrote about the nature of heresy.

It was Pendleton’s understanding that heresy is not simply an erroneous viewpoint and may not be error at all. Heresy is rather “the tyranny of opinionism,” Pendleton noted, and is therefore more of a behavioral problem than a doctrinal one.

Our pioneers had their problems with heretics and defectors. There was Sidney Rigdon whom Campbell called a “Mormonite” because he joined league with Joseph Smith in founding the Mormon church. There was Jesse Ferguson, at one time the most popular preacher in the Movement, who became a spiritualist and conducted seances with the dead while still minister of the Church of Christ in Nashville. There was Dr. John Thomas who lead a “rebaptism” movement (baptism is not valid unless one understands it is for the remission of sins) and finally left and started the Christadelphian sect.

There were other preachers whom we would today call “Charismatic” whose views on the ministry of the Holy Spirit caused problems. One of them was a graduate of Bethany College who became a college president in Jacksonville, Illinois while yet in his 20’s. His unorthodox views on the work of the Spirit divided both the college and the church. Campbell, who once highly esteemed him, named him a “schismatic.” He was forced from the fellowship of the Movement only to die in the Civil War a few years later.

But Pendleton, along with Campbell and other leaders, did not name these men heretics and schismatics because of their doctrines, however erroneous these may have been, but because they tyrannized with their opinions. If they had held their views as private property and not been pushy they would not have been heretics. They were schismatic because they created dissensions, factions, and sects. Sidney Rigdon started a sect. One of the “Spirit” preachers conducted a separate service at the court house, apart from the church that had hired him and without its consent, so as to promote his unique views.

It is this kind of behavior that is the heresy, Pendleton argued, and not doctrine per se. These men could have been correct in their views but they were still heretics because of their conduct. He claimed New Testament support for this distinction. Opinions, right or wrong, are not themselves condemned in Scripture, but rather it is “Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Rom. 14:5). It is those who “cause divisions and offences” (Rom. 16:17) that are the heretics, not those who innocently and mistakenly hold a wrong position. Error sincerely and peacefully held is never heresy in the Bible.

To buttress his position Pendleton quoted the renowned Scottish divine, George Campbell, who said that error alone, however gross, is not heresy. Heresy is rather “malignity or perverseness of disposition,” Campbell noted. One may be as right doctrinally but wrong in spirit. Heresy is when one is so perverse and meanspirited as to try to separate brethren, divide the Body of Christ, and build a party around himself.

And Pendleton quoted the great Augustine whose quaint statement seems to say it all. “I may err,” he concedes. We can all say that and more, for we all do err. I am sometimes criticized for “fellowshipping brothers in error.” My answer to that is that “brothers in error” are the only kind of brothers I have, for we all err. If error makes us heretics, we are all heretics. That is what the wise Augustine was pointing out. It takes more than a mistaken theology to make one a heretic. Indeed, a new, well-meaning Christian may be wrong about many things, but if he has a good and honest heart he can’t be a heretic. On the other hand one may be squeaky clean doctrinally and yet have a perverse disposition and a trouble-making attitude.

Augustine goes on to say, “but I will not be a heretic,” by which he meant that he would not make such a big deal out of his “error” (in which case of course he would insist that he and he only is right) as to be pushy and schismatic. He is saying that he might be wrong about one thing or another, but he is not going to cause dissension in the church over his opinions.

Alexander Campbell stated Augustine’s distinction in a different way. He distinguished between errors of the mind and errors of the heart, the latter being much more serious. It is errors of the heart —malignity and perverseness, as George Campbell put it —that leads to heresy. Or to put it still another way, when Augustine listed all sins as either carnalities or animosities he concluded that the latter are the more serious. That is, sins of the spirit are more deadly than sins of the flesh, and heresy is a sin of the spirit. A person with a bad heart is a greater threat to the wellbeing of the church than a person with a wrong idea, for something can be done about the wrong idea if it is held by one with a good heart. That is why the Scriptures hold out little hope for the heretic: “Reject a divisive person (heretic) after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a one is warped and sinning, being self-condemned” (Tit. 2:10-11). Self-condemnation or insincerity thus identifies the heretic, which is never true of the well-meaning person who is simply honestly mistaken.

If we heeded Augustine’s wisdom by conceding our own inclination to err while resolving that we will nonetheless always be peacemakers, we would find it wonderfully liberating. We would be less critical and condemnatory of others. “To err is human, to forgive is divine,” says it in a different way. We create a more loving climate when people are free to be wrong in their search for answers, honestly and sincerely mistaken without being heretics. One may hold a different view on the millennium, the nature of inspiration, methods of doing the Lord’s work, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, etc., etc. without being “warped and self-condemned.”

Nearly always it is the person who harshly condemns and judges others, with all the name-calling that goes with it, that is most likely to be a heretic rather than the one he brands with that epithet. Let us not be of that spirit. —the Editor