Proclaimer Blog
When caricatures don’t help
Christians don't always agree about everything and even within orthodox evangelical Christianity there are differing opinions on some things which must surely come within the realm of disputable matters. What interests me today is the way that Christians disagree about such issues. We need to be able to discuss them, debate them, talk about them and come to a biblical conclusion if we can. But we often do not help ourselves in the way we talk about one another and the doctrines we believe in, denominations to which we belong or approaches we hold dear. In fact, more often than not, we set up rather gross caricatures that are all too easy to knock down and pull apart when, in truth, the caricature rarely fits.
Let me try to explain what I mean taking a very 18th-19th century Baptist disagreement – particular atonement (and it has since rumbled on, see here). For those who don't know (!) this is doctrine answers the question: who did Christ died for, the world or the elect? It is perhaps pertinent to use this example as, within evangelical Christianity there is still a range of views. (I should nail my colours to the mast at this point and say I believe in it, but I'm not using this post to defend it, that is not the point). The caricatures in this case worked something like this:
- those who believed in limited atonement said that those who didn't would end up as universalists, for that is the only trajectory if one believes that Christ died for all
- those who dismissed limited atonement said that those who didn't would end up as introspective, non evangelising Christians
Now, of course, there were (sadly) some from both camps for whom this was true. The General Baptists became a large bulk of what we now know as Unitarians. The hyper-Calvinists arose from those who believed in the doctrine. In one sense, both camps were right to point out the dangers. But the gross caricatures were only true for some at the extremes and assessing a doctrine by the effect it has on some at the limits is never wise pastorally. It creates unnecessary bad feeling; it makes debate difficult; it offends; it hardly gracious.
There are lots of issues for which the same kind of gross caricature applies today. It's true denominationally: "all independents think nothing of other churches" or "all Anglicans would rather have fellowship with Anglo-Catholics". It's true doctrinally, the same arguments above still apply, but it also applies to other doctrines. It's true culturally: "if you have drums you'll just be whipping up the crowds" or "hymn singing will never attract young people" and so on and so on.
Let's be wary of setting up straw men that do little service to robust discussion about the things over which we, as evangelicals, disagree.