Apostates in the News

Apostates Top ImageOf late there have been several apostates in the news. Most recently, two fairly well known ‘Christians’ proudly declared that they had renounced their Faith. One of them was Hillsong’s Marty Sampson who recently announced on Instagram, “I’m genuinely losing my faith.” Christianity Today  has reported on his apparent apostasy, so I won’t attempt to summarise or evaluate Marty’s reported utterances.

A dictionary definition of Apostasy is ‘an act of refusing to continue to follow, obey, or recognize a religious faith’ and I will leave it to those who know the man and the circumstances to determine the extent of his ‘falling away’.

One Reason for Modern Apostasy

What I want to pick up on is Marty’s reported frustrations about the Christian faith and apparent contradictions in the Bible. He posted “”How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send 4 billion people to a place, all coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it”. Well, I want to talk and write about it, but perhaps from a perspective that may be different to that of the many critics of people like Marty Sampson.

Marty is a high profile representative of an alarmingly large group of intelligent men and woman who fall away, to one extent or another, from orthodox Christian belief. Many of them suffer a crisis of faith because they cannot reconcile the biblical record with science, modern morality, or common sense. They learn of the well-established theory of macroevolution, but then their Christian mentors tell them that the cosmos is really just a few thousand years old because the Bible ‘says so’. The Old Testament appears to them to depict God as wrathful, petty, and vengeful, yet their pastors tell them that although God is love He also has an ‘angry’ face. They identify anomalies in scripture that seem to be distinct errors yet their theologians inform them that the Bible is inerrant and that ‘errors’ are just the perceptions of uninformed and spiritually immature readers. And these are just some of the more obvious issues that trouble many people, not to mention Hell, evil, predestination, and so on.

My Position on Scripture

For any reader who doesn’t already know where I stand, let me state that I believe in the inspiration of the Bible and regard it as entirely trustworthy. However, I differ from many of my contemporaries in my understanding of the Bible’s purpose and how it we should understand what it is saying. Although I may differ from some orthodox theologians on these matters, I am in good company – actually, the best company. We just need to read the Sermon on the Mount  to realise that the Lord Jesus affirmed the inspiration of scripture yet, almost in the same breath, informed the learned men of His day that they were misunderstanding what the scriptures taught.

Let me state my essential thinking on the Bible’s purpose and my thought on how to understand what it teaches. If you want my abbreviated statement on the purpose of the Bible, then click HERE. In brief, my understanding is as the Apostle John put it:

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31).
My essential view of biblical interpretation flows out of this in that I regard the Lord Jesus as both the author and primary interpreter of scripture. If you want my full view on this then click HERE.

The Nature of the Bible

I believe that the Bible is a divine-human collaboration primarily designed to reveal the character and nature of Almighty God, pre-eminently through His self-revelation in and through Jesus of Nazareth. The Bible is exactly what God wants it to be, apparent anomalies and all. It’s divine purpose includes revealing the sinful ways of humanity, good and bad examples of responses to His instruction, and the way we can be eternally reunited with Him. It is not a science textbook nor a theological dictionary. It is a testimony to God and His ways and man and his ways.  Now, if people like Marty Sampson understood this, then why would they have a crisis of faith when encountering biblical ‘problems’?

Let me offer one possible answer to my question. It is highly likely that the mentors of men like Marty have taught them that the Bible is inerrant because The Holy Spirit dictated all its words (impressed upon the writers just what they should record). If there are any ‘errors’ that can not be attributed to scribal incompetence then it would mean that God is in error. So “just accept everything and contradict nothing or you will be guilty of blasphemy!” (my own possibly overstated words and not a quote).

I have covered this idea in my book ‘Truth is The Word’ , but it must be obvious, at least I think it is obvious, that some thinking men and women of integrity are likely to struggle with any concept of total inerrancy. Perhaps some of these folk, like Marty, would not even consider walking away from the Christian Faith if they had a different understanding of the purpose of the Bible and of how to interpret its contents.

Inerrancy of Scripture

In 2006 I wrote a short article on biblical inerrancy which you can find HERE. One of my favourite theologians when it comes to biblical inspiration is the late Clark Pinnock. His major work on this subject  ‘The Biblical Principle: Reclaiming the Full Authority of the Bible’ contains excellent comment on inerrancy. Unfortunately, this book is not available on Kindle. You can read Steven H Propp’s review of the print version on Amazon HERE and click on the ‘Look Inside’ to get a general idea of the book’s contents.

Final Thought

I don’t know Marty Sampson and I have no detailed information on why he thinks as he does. I have no knowledge of his testimony of salvation, nor of his life as a church worship leader. However, perhaps we should be gentler in our criticism of him and a little more challenging in our criticism of the kind of fundamentalist dogma that makes total inerrancy a litmus test of true faith.

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Christopher Peppler

Christopher Peppler

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4 thoughts on “Apostates in the News”

  1. You raise some good points, but I would like your thoughts on the following:

    From the 16th to the 19th century, the more “cerebral” nuanced form of Christianity, gradually had to give up more and more to science until it had almost nothing left. The only scientifically compatible religion was some vague form of Deism. You talk about Biblical inerrancy and young-earth creationism as being immature; most historians consider the bible not only “errant”, but mythical from Genesis to halfway through Kings! The NT is also not without massive credibility problems at a very fundal level.

    By the early 20th C, all the mainline Churches of Europe had been in decline for generations, the only growth point was a new brand of Christianity that basically ignored the science (and history,
    and archaeology). This form relied on and encouraged the ignorance of its members. The scientific community and the media are regarded with suspicion. “The only reason why we do not read of miracles is because the press hates God” is a common trope amoung them.

    We now see young people departing from that kind of Church. Young people are more adept at using the internet to discover for themselves that this brand of Christianity is not credible. The more nuanced Christianity has already been moribund for a long time, so that does not present a solution for them.

  2. Pingback: TruthTalks: Apostates in the News | Truth Is The Word

  3. Pingback: TruthTalks: Apostates in the News | Truth Is The Word

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About Me

My name is Christopher Peppler and I was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1947. While working in the financial sector I achieved a number of business qualifications from the Institute of Bankers, Damelin Management School, and The University of the Witwatersrand Business School. After over 20 years as a banker, I followed God’s calling and joined the ministry full time. After becoming a pastor of what is now a quite considerable church, I  earned an undergraduate theological qualification from the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa and post-graduate degrees from two United States institutions. I was also awarded the Doctor of Theology in Systematic Theology from the University of Zululand in 2000.

Four years before that I established the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), which today is represented in over 70 countries and has more than 2 500 active students enrolled with it. I presently play an role supervising Masters and Doctoral students.

I am a passionate champion of the Christocentric or Christ-centred Principle, an approach to biblical interpretation and theological construction that emphasises the centrality of Jesus

I have been happily married to Patricia since the age of 20, have two children, Lance and Karen, a daughter-in-law Tracey, and granddaughters Jessica and Kirsten. I have now retired from both church and seminary leadership and devote my time to writing, discipling, and the classical guitar.

If you would like to read my testimony to Jesus then click HERE.