One of the most common arguments against organic fellowships (aka “home church”, “simple church”, “house church,” etc.) is the argument around heresy. Heresy, simply put, is wrong teaching, or teaching that strays from what is accepted as truth. It is argued that institutional churches have accountability, and that protects against false teaching. In the organic church, however, there is no accountability, or so it is thought. It is believed that someone can teach whatever they want and there is no checks and balance system to call them out on it.
Recently, our own organic fellowship experienced a member who had been with us for twelve years simply walk away into a known cult that teaches false doctrine. The teaching that they chose to follow, however, was not taught in any way during our gatherings. In fact, it came from outside the group, and this person chose to follow because a family member brought the heresy to them.
As I reflected back, I wanted to be sure that we had not failed to proclaim the truth, or that something said did not mislead them unintentionally. But I realized that all our bases seemed to be covered, and that this person simply rejected the truth that they were taught and preferred to embrace the false teaching because it met their own needs. As I reflected further on this individual’s life, I realized that they never embraced the truth, but had come into our fellowship for all the wrong reasons–seeking relationships alone rather than the truth of God’s Word. They had attended church most of their life, but their church history revealed that much of their exposure was surrounding experiences and was not truth centered. This added to their gullibility.
Orthodoxy
In the church, there are many teachings and doctrines. Different denominations may have different interpretations of certain scriptures, but all churches must agree on the central doctrines of orthodoxy, or they will be labeled as heretics. Denominational and non-denominational churches both have written doctrinal statements that declare to all what they believe and declare to be truth. These beliefs come from the Bible, but are a summary of their most important beliefs and practice.
There are many teachings that may be a bit controversial, but are within the accepted norm. But there are some teachings that are non-negotiables. These include the doctrine of the trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the death by crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and salvation by faith in Jesus’ shed blood on the cross that was a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. There are others, but these are critical. These central doctrines surround the nature of God, the deity of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith. This forms the basis of orthodoxy–what was taught from the beginning.
Examples of doctrines that are “negotiable” and will vary from church to church include the gifts of the Holy Spirit, baptism of the Holy Spirit, eternal security, and the role of communion. These teachings, though they all come from the Bible, are viewed differently by different people because the Bible may not be concise on that particular topic, and people may view them differently based upon their own experience or interpretation. But these scriptures are not essential to the nature of God, nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit, or to the salvation of the soul of an individual.
To be labeled a heretic, however, is to say that one teaches wrong doctrine. And all throughout the history of the church, heretical teachings were a constant battle. In fact, it is because of the heresies that would bombard the early churches of the second, third, and fourth century, that early believers were forced to determine and write down what doctrines were true and what were not. In fact, the whole of the New Testament was assembled mostly because of the need to guard against heresy. But what is truth, and how did the church determine what “right” teaching should be?
If anyone wants to know the truth about something, they go to the source. In this case, Jesus was the main source. Any teachings of Jesus were considered to be true because it was apparent that He is the Son of God. Likewise, his disciples walked with him daily for three years, and some of them wrote down his teachings and their experiences. This first hand information was invaluable. Though many impostors would later write things about Jesus, they were deemed irrelevant when it was recognized that they did not have first hand knowledge of teachings or events. These first hand accounts and letters from the original apostles were kept and passed around the church communities and read to the believers for teaching and encouragement. They were recognized by most as inspired by God, and therefore carried an authority above all other inspirational teachings. These writings were carefully transcribed, but copies were few in number unlike the availability of Bibles today. So, another way of preserving the critical truths of these writings were to create creeds. Creeds were concise statements of belief around central doctrines, and were used to teach new believers, and became a standard by which to test whether doctrines that were taught were true or false.
I find it rather audacious of the church institution to assume that they have the corner on the market on truth and accountability. The way it is presented is that institutions are not prone to incorrect, or heretical, teaching because they have a hierarchical structure that guarantees that pastors won’t teach incorrect doctrines, in contrast with house churches where such structure does not exist. My position on this, however, has always been that if I can find even one institutional church that teaches heresy, then that blows their theory. And, of course, we all know that there are rather large institutional churches that teach doctrines that are not accepted as orthodox.
So, how do those churches who do teach correct doctrine guard against heresy even in the institution? It comes down to keeping the Word of God, the Bible, as the inspired authority, the standard by which to judge all teaching. But, furthermore, to guard against misinterpretation of critical doctrines, one must be tied to the original orthodox teaching as determined by the early church. This can be done via creeds such as the Apostle’s creed or the Nicene creed. Both of these have been accepted as truth bearing creeds since the fourth century.
Guarding Against Heresy
When our home fellowship first began to meet, I was greatly concerned about guarding against heresy. I was also concerned about guarding against the perception of heresy given that we were not tied to an established denomination. So, I immediately suggested that we adopt the Nicene Creed as a statement of faith for our fellowship. The Nicene creed, though longer than the Apostles Creed, was written to guard against heresy and is more substantive than the Apostles Creed. Furthermore, it is the most accepted creed among Christian churches since it’s creation. We did not create any further doctrinal statements because as long as we embraced and taught the essential truths, the rest was not critical. What we found was that many came into the fellowship from different church backgrounds, with different distinctive doctrines and experiences. But we discovered that these differences were not divisive. I suppose they could be, and in may churches are the causes of splits and dissension, but we found that love allowed for, and respected, differences of opinion on the non-essentials, while we embraced the truth of the essential doctrines together.
The role of the Holy Spirit in the process of guarding against heresy, as we experienced, was to make us aware of false teaching from anyone that was bringing it. This didn’t happen often, fortunately, but the gift of discernment was in operation within our assesmblies, and we learned that we can trust the leading of the Holy Spirit.
In conclusion, then, heresy can be easily guarded against by keeping scripture’s authority central, and by tying into the established orthodoxy of the church historically. This is what the institutions do, too. Their statements of faith are in alignment with the early creeds. Many of them recite these creeds during their worship services. It doesn’t take an organization to embrace and preserve truth. God does so in and through anyone who will submit to the authority of His Word and align with established orthodoxy. There are institutions that teach wrong doctrine, and when that happens, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people are affected. When a house church goes awry and teaches heresy, perhaps ten to twenty people are affected. It is obvious that the impact of the institutional error is much greater than that of the simple house church. Furthermore, it is a lack of faith in God to think that the One who said that He would “build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” is unable to preserve His truth through His people throughout the ages. True to form, mankind always thinks he can do God’s job better than He can, but God always has His people, and though heresies will arise, so God will always raise up a standard against it!
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