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Those who lead churches into apostasy rely on the
cooperation or inaction of the doctrinally
indifferent to carry out their agenda. We find
this pattern repeated throughout church history.
The cooperation or inaction of the doctrinally
indifferent has often permitted apostates who
began as numerical minorities or even single
individuals to exert strong influence on
churches and denominations, leading them astray.
Identifying the Indifferent
Who are the doctrinally
indifferent? It would be inaccurate to say that
these people are merely generally indifferent,
that is, apathetic. The doctrinally indifferent
do care about other things. Their watchword
is tolerance. They see controversy as one of the
greatest evils, and they see tolerance of
varying views under one big tent as
the way to avoid controversy, the way to put
aside seemingly petty strife and focus on the
greater good.
We must all trust one another and
work together, they say, even though we differ
on basic doctrine (or, as they like to say, "we
express the same doctrine differently").
Doctrinal disputes are an airing of dirty
laundry that must be avoided. We must, they say,
go along to get along for the greater good. The
pluralism and relativism of the secular mind
dominate their thinking, and this produces
spiritual indifference in matters of doctrine.
Intolerance of error becomes the only
intolerable.
Like Pontius Pilate and the careless Gallio
of Achaia (Acts 18:12-17), the doctrinally
indifferent seek at all costs to avoid taking
clear positions on the most vital issues. They
refuse to stand positively for authentic Christianity and
against counterfeits.
Yet by "taking no position" they do take one. By
consistently refusing to take the side of
those who seek to propagate and defend authentic Biblical
Christianity, they have consistently given aid
and comfort to the enemies of Christ.
An Example From Recent Church
History
Dr. J. Gresham Machen fought
doctrinal indifference in the Presbyterian
church of the 1920s and 30s. A document called
the Auburn Affirmation, signed by only about 15%
of the denomination's ordained ministers, became
the rallying point for liberalism. The Auburn
Affirmation denied the inerrancy of Scripture,
Christ's virgin birth, His miracles, His
atonement for sin as the only means of
salvation, and His bodily resurrection. The
relatively small minority of men who signed the
Auburn Affirmation were soon able to exert
majority control of the church with the aid and
comfort of the doctrinally indifferent. Machen's
description of the doctrinally
indifferent of his day is timeless:
[I]t is
undoubtedly true that in many quarters there is
a most lamentable ignorance regarding the
greatest issue of the day [authentic Biblical
Christianity versus the liberalism of the Auburn
Affirmation's signers]. Such ignorance, with the
indifference to which it gives rise, is
sometimes very disheartening to those who are
contending for the faith
.
Far more serious,
however
is the injury to the souls of the
indifferent people themselves. In very many
cases, people who decry controversy have already
lost, or are in process of losing, their own
hold upon the great verities of the faith. They
may not be conscious of relinquishing a single
doctrine or a single fact that the Bible
records. But the trouble is that what is not
consciously given up in their minds has been
removed from their hearts; they live only on the
periphery of the Christian religion, and the
really great things are lost from view. By such
persons, whether in the pulpit or in the pew,
the Gospel is not indeed denied. But what is
almost a worse thing than that is done the
Gospel is not denied, but is simply ignored.1
In Machen's time as in ours, the doctrinally
indifferent simply wanted peace at any price.
When the controversy over the Auburn Affirmation
was beginning to rage in 1924, Dr. Charles
Erdman was elected moderator of the Presbyterian
Church
General Assembly on this platform: "We need a
moderator who stands for presenting a united
front rather than the encouragement of controversy."
Erdman himself said this: "I want the
constructive work of the [church] to
go on without interruption on account of any
doctrinal controversy." Machen responded:
It
would be impossible to put in any clearer way
than is here done by Dr. Erdman the position of
doctrinal indifferentism. And it would be
impossible to imagine a position to which I
am more conscientiously and more profoundly
opposed. How can the constructive work of the
[church] go on without interruption
on account of any doctrinal controversy? The
thing for which the [church] exists,
I hold, is the propagation of a certain doctrine
that we call the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Only in that doctrine is Christ offered
to men as their Savior. The church might do many
other things it might tinker with social
conditions, it might use all sorts of palliative
measures with men who have not been born again
but only by persuading men to accept the blessed
"doctrine" or Gospel can it save human souls.
The church, I hold, is in the world to propagate
a message; and if its propagation of the message
is not clear, then, whatever else it does, it
cannot possibly he said to be engaged in its
"constructive work."2
Within a few years after he wrote
those words, Machen and others who stood with
him were expelled from the church as
troublemakers.
Today the
doctrinally indifferent in many churches occupy the
same position as their counterparts eighty-five
years ago. Because they shun controversy
over doctrine, and prize a false peace and
counterfeit unity at all costs, they are often
willingly ignorant of the facts of the present
crisis of sound doctrine within Reformed and
Evangelical churches. There are none so blind as those who
will not see. In many cases they themselves have
lost their grasp of the message of the
Gospel and other fundamentals of the faith.
Often today the "greater good"
that the doctrinally indifferent seek is church
growth at any price under the guise of
"evangelism" falsely so called. The doctrinally
indifferent who advocate this kind of evangelism
refuse to recognize and act upon two central,
Biblical facts: 1.) There can be no evangelism
without the Evangel the authentic Gospel of
Jesus Christ. 2.) There can be no real church
growth unless those who are being added to the
visible church are truly saved by the power of
the authentic Gospel.
When doctrinal indifference opens
wide the door to cheap substitutes for the
Gospel that produce false converts, it does not
take long for those false converts to exert
influence and eventually become the
majority in a church. The real message of the
"come as you are" false evangelism of our time
is that the unsaved can "stay as you are" within
the affirming environment of a church that has
lost its spiritual power.
Authentic Christianity Is Not Doctrinally
Indifferent
We find many warnings against
doctrinal indifference in the pages of God's
Word, including these:
Beware lest anyone cheat
you through philosophy and empty deceit,
according to the tradition of men, according to
the basic principles of the world, and not
according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are
complete in Him, who is the head of all
principality and power (Colossians 2:8-10).
Beware, brethren, lest
there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief
in departing from the living God; but exhort one
another daily, while it is called "Today," lest
any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness
of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of our confidence
steadfast to the end, while it is said: "Today,
if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your
hearts as in the rebellion" (Hebrews 3:12-15).
...that we should no longer
be children, tossed to and fro and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of
men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful
plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may
grow up in all things into Him who is the head
Christ (Ephesians 4:14-15).
Therefore, beloved, looking
forward to these things, be diligent to be found
by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and
consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is
salvation as also our beloved brother Paul,
according to the wisdom given to him, has
written to you, as also in all his epistles,
speaking in them of these things, in which are
some things hard to understand, which untaught
and unstable people twist to their own
destruction, as they do also the rest of the
Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you
know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall
from your own steadfastness, being led away with
the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. To Him be the glory both now and
forever. Amen (2 Peter 3:14-18).
Recommended Resources
Articles on our website:
References:
-
J. Gresham Machen,
"What Is the Gospel?" in J. Gresham
Machen: Selected Shorter Writings
(Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing,
2004), pages 124-125.
-
J. Gresham Machen, "Statement to the
Committee to Investigate Princeton," in
J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings,
306-307.
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