Newton and the Dangers of Disputation
We live in an age of innumerable errors. There are false religions, false views of man, false views of God, false views of salvation, false views of the nature of truth itself. There are false views of justice, false views of morality, false views of sexuality, false views of the end and telos of man. And that is not even opening the can of worms that is politics where we observe countless examples of governmental overreach and failures of magistrates to do their divinely appointed jobs. Human life is trodden over in the name of personal choice, evil is called good, and what some have termed a “soft totalitarianism” seems to be on the rise.
Suffice it to say, a lot of people are wrong about a lot of things.
In such an environment it is tempting for sound minded Christians to take hold of the battle standard and begin berating everything and anything that is in opposition to the truth. Social media and other online tools make such crusading easier than ever, gifting everyone a virtual stone to throw which we can chuck without the discomfort of looking into a living person’s eyes. Comment, correct, pile on, mock the evil--this is normative for Christian online discourse. And for in house discussions, or at least toward people who claim to adhere to the tenants of Christianity, we see no holding back as the accusations of “heresy” fall from the righteous.
Now I understand that there is precedent for boldness and even strong language in the Biblical and Protestant tradition. Our religion follows in the way of Elijah who taunted the prophets of Baal, of John the Baptist who condemned the promiscuity of an already unrighteous King, of Christ Jesus who called people vipers and children of Satan. Martin Luther spared no ounce of indignation when he wrote The Bondage of the Will to Erasmus or when he frequently likened the pope to the antichrist. In our day John Knox would be labeled a gross misogynist for his First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women and Samuel Rutherford would be seen as unduly divisive for writing against the Arminians and daring to be imprisoned over something so minute. Truth mattered to these Christians of the old school, and they saw it as something worth fighting and dying for. G. K. Chesterton, while often doctrinally deficient, nevertheless epitomized this same passion for truth: “No man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinks that he is in truth and the other man in error.” We belong to a combative religion that is called to contend for the faith once delivered to all the Saints and to protect the deposit entrusted to us.
Yet with all that stated and assented to, I was convicted by a letter by John Newton (the same author of Amazing Grace) about the dangers of controversy. I thought I would share some excerpts from “A Guide to Godly Disputation” though it is worth reading in full, multiple times (please do read it!). In it Newton provides counsel to someone who is publishing an article against an opposing viewpoint:
“As to your opponent, I wish that before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write.“But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit), he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger! Alas! ‘He knows not what he does!’ But you know who has made you to differ from him. If God, in his sovereign pleasure had so appointed, you might have been as he is now; and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the gospel! You were both equally blind by nature. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes—and not his.”
Newton hits on this internal spirit that needs to accompany a Christian when engaging in a cause for the truth. This spirit causes the Christian to undergo a compassionate combat that does not diminish the individual or become a carnal tit for tat mudsling. We are not to fight with the same victory at any cost methods of the world, purposing every tool in our power to nullify, squash, belittle, or play to the watching crowd. The call to speak the truth in love is not redundant. It implies that the truth can be spoken without love which does damage both to our message as well as ourselves. Further along Newton continues:
“It seems a laudable service to defend the faith once delivered to the saints; we are commanded to contend earnestly for it, and to convince gainsayers. If ever such defense were seasonable and expedient, they appear to be so in our own day, when errors abound on all sides—and every truth of the gospel is either directly denied or grossly misrepresented.
“And yet we find but very few writers of controversy who have not been manifestly hurt by it. Either they grow in a sense of their own importance; or imbibe an angry, contentious spirit; or they insensibly withdraw their attention from those spiritual truths which are the food and immediate support of the life of faith—and spend their time and strength upon matters that are most but of a secondary value! This shows, that if the service is honorable, it is also dangerous. What will it profit a man if he gains his cause and silences his adversary—if at the same time he loses that humble, tender from of spirit in which the Lord delights, and to which the promise of his presence is made?”
Engaging in disagreements and fighting for truth is honorable and noble for the Christian. We are not to conform to the world's pattern of “living and let live” or allow a governing principle of “being nice” override our duty to speak what is true. But while fighting is honorable, Newton warns it is also dangerous. I have seen the contentious, self-inflating spirit he speaks of arise in many online figures; even at times myself. There is a kind of “savior complex” we right ones can very easily take on, believing it our noble duty to rectify every error we see. We and we alone are in the right. We are the ones thus appointed to bring the truth to bare against error in all its manifestations. Those who fall outside our narrow boundaries are forever on the outside and deserve only our disdain. This egotistical attitude causes us to lose the gentle spirit that is to characterize a Christian and replaces it with a proud one. Should we avoid that particular pitfall there is still a risk that fixating on error will withdraw “attention from those spiritual truths which are the food and immediate support of the life of faith.”
I have discovered exactly this second point to be true: continual digestion of “what is wrong with” content--what is wrong with evangelicalism, what is wrong with the Democrats, what is wrong with Critical Race Theory, what is wrong with this particular teacher--is not a sustainable diet for the Christian life. There is a place for it. Surely, we need to be aware of the insidious errors permeating our culture, but it cannot be the majority of what we consume. There is no life in “what is wrong with” content, there is no food offered for the soul. Over indulging in it only expends my energy and gives further hopelessness to my outlook. Errors are unlimited, my time and my mind and my outrage are not. What I need is more gospel. I need more Christ. I need more Christianity 101. I need to be given something I can take hold of and cling to; to be reminded over and over again who my portion is in this present moment. It is not a preoccupation with error which will carry me through the undulations of life, only a positive and frequent gaze at Christ.
The Christian life is such a narrow road. Errors encompass all around, so much so that even in being right and proclaiming truth, sin still remains crouching at the door.
So fight the good fight, but be cautious as you enter the fray. Be aware of what is wrong with the world, but do not let it consume you. Speak the truth, but do so in love—perhaps even with tears in your eyes. Pray for those who stand against you. “As God’s chosen people…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Col 3:12). And remember it is only by the grace of God that our position is not reversed and we are not in the same error as those we now oppose.
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“There is a principle of SELF, which disposes us to despise those who differ from us; and we are often under its influence, when we think we are only showing a fitting zeal in the cause of God.”
-John Newton
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