A faith that denies the divinity of Jesus, the efficacious nature of His death, the reality of His bodily resurrection, the veracity of His witness in the Scriptures, the power of His Spirit, is a faith that is heretical, out of alignment with the faith once delivered to the saints.

When God created, He spoke. Genesis tells us that “God said” and it was so. The gospel of John confirms the nature and power of God’s Word as from the beginning, delivered fully in the person of Jesus Christ, and preserved for all generations in the Bible. What God has said matters and the fact that God chose words as the means of communication, matters as well.

If language matters then words matter, and if words matter then the definitions of words matter. Otherwise confusion replaces shared understanding and chaos reigns, as in the days of Babel. As cultures rise and fall, the mutual understanding of words changes. As the world has become more connected and information is multiplied and broadcast faster than we can comprehend, many are left wondering what is meant by words that used to mean one thing but seem now to mean something very different.

Many classical definitions have been exchanged for definitions that are in many cases an inversion and even a perversion of the original. The classical definition of tolerance is that all people are equal but all ideas are not. Contrast that with the post-modern re-definition of tolerance that puts all ideas on a par and yet subjugates to a lower class any person who does not agree that all ideas have equal merit. A similar degradation has occurred with the word “truth.”

Truth was once understood as that which was revealed by God and received by faith along with that which could be measured through the metrics of science, observation and reason. Truth now means whatever an individual chooses to believe. Stripped of its supernatural and natural sources, truth has become a concept held captive by the imagination and feelings of each person. Whatever the individual holds to be “true” is true for them. Truth is rendered absolutely relative and loses all sense of shared meaning.

Other words get co-opted and their meaning becomes identified within a particular context with a “cause.” The word “welcoming” means different things to different people across the theological spectrum within the remainder of the mainline church. The word “renewal” had a sense of defining a position and effort in our common life for a generation, but that definition is now radically changing. The word “fellowship” has taken on new meaning for many recent months.

Then there are words that are simply out of vogue. Words like apostasy, heresy and blasphemy. They all have negative connotations and we shy away from using them instead of seeking to use them properly.

Jesus was frequently charged with heresy by the religious leaders of His day. In Greek, the word translated heresy, αίρεση, means “choice” or “faction”. Jesus was being charged with introducing new ideas that would have the effect of changing a long held system of beliefs (namely Judaism). What emerged from all that “heresy,” coupled with the historical reality of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, was classical Christianity.

Heresy today could be understood among Christians today as ideas that diverge from the essentials of the Christian faith as described in the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds. A faith that denies the divinity of Jesus, the efficacious nature of His death, the reality of His bodily resurrection, the veracity of His witness in the Scriptures, the power of His Spirit, is a faith that is heretical, out of alignment with the faith once delivered to the saints.

Jesus was also charged with blasphemy. Blasphemy ranges from irreverence toward God and the things of God to statements or acts of open hostility toward God, His Word and His Spirit. For Jews, Jesus blasphemed when He equated Himself with God the Father. A charge of blasphemy today might arise for similar reasons should a person claim to be God or Jesus come again. However, denying the veracity of the Word of God or the powerful presence of the Spirit of God might also rise to the level of such a charge.

Throughout the ages, the institutional church has charged various people with various departures from the faith. The charge of heresy may rightly be brought against an individual who denies any one of the essential tenets of the Christian faith. The charge of apostasy may rightly be brought against a council that departs from the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. And any among us can be charged with blasphemy should we fail to take the Word of God and the Spirit of God with sufficient sobriety.

Now, having said all that, would anyone like to take a “go” at the word “schism?”

Carmen Fowler LaBerge is President of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and Editor of their magazine, The Layman. This article first appeared on The Layman website and is used with permission.

[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]