This situation took place in
Sunday school several years ago at a United Methodist church. The
normal Sunday school teacher was absent and asked the District
Superintendent to substitute. If you are not familiar with the
structure of the UMC, the DS is the representative of the Bishop on a
district level. If that doesn't help, the DS oversees the pastors of
all the UM churches in the local area. So, the DS is an ordained United Methodist pastor.
In the class we were spending a couple of months doing question and answer. The 3 questions I remember from this Sunday were "is baptism required for salvation;" "how were the Jews in the Old Testament saved;" and "is Jesus the only way."
I would say that his teaching was heretical. I like the term heretic because it is so charged and we never use it. It is used very commonly in older writings, but I guess it has gone out of vogue for today's Christian.
While answering the first question, the pastor claimed that that baptism was not required for salvation by using the justification that Jesus made no mention of baptism when talking with Nicodemus. When he said that, I interjected saying "Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born of the water and the spirit," which is straight from the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3.) You will recall this because Nicodemus laughs and says "Must a man reenter his mother's womb?" Jesus didn't find Nicodemus funny. Nicodemus, when I meet you in Heaven, I'll shake your hand and give you a wink to acknowledge your joke. But I digress. The DS's response to my quote of scripture was "No he didn't." Not wanting to belabor the point, I did not respond.
For the next question, the DS said that the people of the Old Testament were not saved by Jesus. To this remark, I responded that they were. He once again reinforced that they were not as Jesus had not died yet. Turning to the Bible, I pointed out in both Hebrews and Romans that Jesus' death was indeed for the sins of all people of all time. I used Hebrews to illustrate that they were saved by faith into a promise that was not fulfilled in their time nor did they understand. I further more demonstrated from Hebrews that the animal sacrifices did not erase sin but were an overseer until and a foreshadow of the sacrifice of Christ. He stood fast to his denial of this. Continued discussion led to his third claim about the way to Heaven.
To answer the third question he said that belief in Jesus was only required for Christians to be saved. If you were not a Christian and believed in a god, you would be saved. I immediately responded to this claim with a "that is false," while collecting myself to respond to this heretical claim. I sadly, though most appropriately, did not announce him as a heretic in class nor order a fire to be stoked by the blood of the heretic. I further responded to his claims that Jesus was not required for salvation by using the perhaps most famous sayings of Jesus, John 3:16 and John 14:6. The DS stood by his claims and as he did when supporting all of his claims, never used an iota of scripture to support his claims.
After class, two members of the Sunday school class stopped me and thanked me for standing up against the pastor. A compliment never desired in church!
I am all for the free exchange of ideas. However, when you engage in this free exchange of ideas, I think it is important that you support your ideas. Most appropriately in a Christian church would be to use a Bible. I further believe that if you are a United Methodist pastor, you must support and teach the basic theology of the United Methodist Church, which is common with most Christian churches. Teaching that Jesus is not required for salvation and that Jesus' death was not for all people is clearly against the theology of the United Methodist Church and the Christian Church, as found in the Articles of Religion (including Article I, V, IX) and Confession of Faith (including article I, II, IV, VII, VIII, IX) (UMC Doctrinal Standards.)
To false teachings in the church, I responded by directly confronting the source, the pastor. This should have never happened. One would expect a pastor in a church to not only know his scripture, but to teach and believe the very doctrine of the church. But when this does happen, we must be vigilant to stand up for the Truth. The most important part of the gospel is that Christ died and rose from the dead for all of us and sits on the throne in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. The last place one would hope it would be attacked, but a very important place the Truth must be found, is in our own churches.
In the class we were spending a couple of months doing question and answer. The 3 questions I remember from this Sunday were "is baptism required for salvation;" "how were the Jews in the Old Testament saved;" and "is Jesus the only way."
I would say that his teaching was heretical. I like the term heretic because it is so charged and we never use it. It is used very commonly in older writings, but I guess it has gone out of vogue for today's Christian.
While answering the first question, the pastor claimed that that baptism was not required for salvation by using the justification that Jesus made no mention of baptism when talking with Nicodemus. When he said that, I interjected saying "Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born of the water and the spirit," which is straight from the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3.) You will recall this because Nicodemus laughs and says "Must a man reenter his mother's womb?" Jesus didn't find Nicodemus funny. Nicodemus, when I meet you in Heaven, I'll shake your hand and give you a wink to acknowledge your joke. But I digress. The DS's response to my quote of scripture was "No he didn't." Not wanting to belabor the point, I did not respond.
For the next question, the DS said that the people of the Old Testament were not saved by Jesus. To this remark, I responded that they were. He once again reinforced that they were not as Jesus had not died yet. Turning to the Bible, I pointed out in both Hebrews and Romans that Jesus' death was indeed for the sins of all people of all time. I used Hebrews to illustrate that they were saved by faith into a promise that was not fulfilled in their time nor did they understand. I further more demonstrated from Hebrews that the animal sacrifices did not erase sin but were an overseer until and a foreshadow of the sacrifice of Christ. He stood fast to his denial of this. Continued discussion led to his third claim about the way to Heaven.
To answer the third question he said that belief in Jesus was only required for Christians to be saved. If you were not a Christian and believed in a god, you would be saved. I immediately responded to this claim with a "that is false," while collecting myself to respond to this heretical claim. I sadly, though most appropriately, did not announce him as a heretic in class nor order a fire to be stoked by the blood of the heretic. I further responded to his claims that Jesus was not required for salvation by using the perhaps most famous sayings of Jesus, John 3:16 and John 14:6. The DS stood by his claims and as he did when supporting all of his claims, never used an iota of scripture to support his claims.
After class, two members of the Sunday school class stopped me and thanked me for standing up against the pastor. A compliment never desired in church!
I am all for the free exchange of ideas. However, when you engage in this free exchange of ideas, I think it is important that you support your ideas. Most appropriately in a Christian church would be to use a Bible. I further believe that if you are a United Methodist pastor, you must support and teach the basic theology of the United Methodist Church, which is common with most Christian churches. Teaching that Jesus is not required for salvation and that Jesus' death was not for all people is clearly against the theology of the United Methodist Church and the Christian Church, as found in the Articles of Religion (including Article I, V, IX) and Confession of Faith (including article I, II, IV, VII, VIII, IX) (UMC Doctrinal Standards.)
To false teachings in the church, I responded by directly confronting the source, the pastor. This should have never happened. One would expect a pastor in a church to not only know his scripture, but to teach and believe the very doctrine of the church. But when this does happen, we must be vigilant to stand up for the Truth. The most important part of the gospel is that Christ died and rose from the dead for all of us and sits on the throne in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. The last place one would hope it would be attacked, but a very important place the Truth must be found, is in our own churches.
