Heresy is the Koala Mitten of our Time

I was halfway through a nasty post about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and then the cat stood on my keyboard and deleted it all and I can’t figure out how to get it back. I’m taking it as a sign from God to stay out of the democratic primary, and to avoid the temptation to annesplain that the reason Hillary Clinton lost is not because she’s a woman, but because…oh never mind.

Instead, how ‘bout two stupid things for Wednesday, since the whole day is now discombobulated.

Here is this Koala Mitten thing. Truly, this has captured my imagination and worked itself into my dreams. The reality of global communication combined with swift and basically effective (unless you live in my town and are unwilling to do the required sacrificing of your firstborn to try to get the post office to in fact give you your mail, even when you know it’s sitting there, right behind the postal person, but God doesn’t love you, so stop thinking you can even have your mail) postal opportunities, combined with extraordinary time for leisure, combined with a deep apocalyptic anxiety about the world being destroyed, means that tragedies can be responded to in striking, and in this case, unhelpful ways. There you are with all your awesome yarn (and believe me, I’ve seen awesome yarn, though am unable to really appreciate it on account of my overwhelming commitment never to knit anything again), and the fires are raging, and it’s no big deal to whip something up and send it off and there you are. Except that it’s not just you, it’s every single fiber artist in the world. So that, on top of everything else, the poor fire exhausted people of Australia now also have to deal with piles of friendly and well-meaning and unusable Koala mittens.

And here is a great piece by Alisa Childers explaining why it is that Max Lucado should not have gone on Jen Hatmaker’s podcast. Please, read the whole thing. Even at this late date, so many lovely Christian people are utterly confused about the nature of false teaching and why it is so dangerous. Indeed, I think that false teaching is the koala mitten of our time. It looks harmless. It looks loving, even, but in reality, you will drown under the weight of it.

I expect to be saying more about this soon. Indeed, I have a longer piece I’ve worked on for CRI about the importance of calling out people by name who unrepentantly devote their lives to teaching false doctrine, error, and yes, even heresy. These kinds of people are not the “sinners” that Jesus embraced in the gospel. These are the kinds of people that Jesus called Whitewashed Tombs, the people who lie about the nature of God and the nature of salvation. The reason not to eat with them (or, as someone on twitter mockingly joked, ‘Paul told Max Lucado not to have lunch with Jen Hatmaker?’ yes he did, unknown to me tweeter, yes he did) is because it says to the confused (of which the number is almost above counting) that the things they teach are not that big of a deal and believing them will still let you into heaven. I must stop frothing. Go read Alissa, she explains it very calmly and carefully.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I will go pick of the pieces of my shattered calm.