Defending Apologetics
by Sandy Simpson, 9/7/11


Why is it that "Christian" leadership, when documented as having taught false teachings or having done unbiblical things publicly and then those things are exposed publicly, have a conniption fit?  They berate those who want to warn them and others not to teach falsely and want you to contact them personally or want to have a private meeting to talk about it.  But then if you do contact them personally or have a meeting all you meet with is "attitude" and nothing gets changed.  What is the use of that?  Why do people who may have been true biblical teachers turned false teachers assume they have the right to air what they do in public but those who refute do not have the same rights?

Private sin is one matter and should be dealt with in a biblical way, not forgetting that the end of an unsuccessful bid to reason with a person living in private sin is being disfellwoshipped.  But public sin in false teaching and false practice is another story.  The Apostles warned the churches about false teachers by name and those letters were passed around widely so everyone would know what was going on.  Yet today false teachers want us all to be in "unity" with them and respect that they have a "godly successful ministry".  But that is not the biblical way to deal with heresy.

The fact is that many who are teaching some heresy do not recognize it because they have taken so long to be brainwashed into it, and usually by associates they should have excommunicated long ago.  They think they are still fine by virtue of the fact that they are still in the same position in their church or organization.  But they ignore any criticism that brings up false teachings they are promoting or false unity with heretics and false religionists.  They get all bent out of shape when they are accused publicly of what they term "guilt by association", which it turns out is almost always also guilt by cooperation and participation.  They always try to come off as having a greater "anointing" when the Bible teaches that all born again Christians have the same anointing with different gifts. The top down leadership model of many modern churches that are not elder led is unbiblical and has become a tool of the enemy to cause leaders to not be able to repent and turn away from their false teachings, bad friendships, and paradigm shift mindsets.  They truly believe that no one has the right to criticize them and even when they are confronted with two or more Christians with objections to what they are doing they ignore those two or more witnesses and continue as they did before.  They publicly teach that people should come with their objections privately but then do not answer emails, letters, phone messages, faxes, etc.

I have a web site with around two million hits per month as of the time of this writing.  I don't know if you can quite imagine the volume of email I receive. Yet I endeavor to answer every email unless it is from a person I know is only out to make trouble because of prior contact.  I don't know how so many correspondences get lost in the "round file" to people we are trying to help and warn, when I rarely have anything get lost that is sent to me.  I have tried to carefully help people giving them biblical advice, pointing them toward articles or web sites that can help them, and I pray for many of them as the Lord lays them on my heart.  So I do not understand how senior pastors of some churches cannot even answer some simple questions put to them.

I have been called every name in the book.  I have received death threats and have been threated with lawsuits by people who call themselves "Christians".  There are people out there who object to apologetics who have web sites that call me all kinds of names.  I have even been tricked into getting together with people I have written about only to find out that the deck has been stacked against me with many people invited to be there to put me down by strength of numbers.  But I decided a number of years ago I would no longer participate in these "kangaroo courts". If I meet with anyone today one of my criteria is that there will be equal representation on both sides and people will not be able to drown out the conversation by talking over others.  But this is the type of response I have come to expect, especially from those who believe they are discerning and are unwilling to see that false teaching has crept into their denomination or organization.  There are hundreds of apologetics organizations out there that agree with my position on the current problems of Emerging Church, New Apostolic, Word of Faith and other ideological systems that have invaded many churches.  Those who refuse to listen to the counsel of hundreds upon hundreds of dedicated Christians on the subject of false teachings in the churches do so at their own peril and loss.

The fact is that apologetics ministries are not just called by God to help unbelievers come to the truth, but also to steer those who claim to be believers back to the core doctrines and biblical teaching.  The problems in the churches today are far greater than they have ever been.  In my time there were many polemical debates within orthodoxy which is to be expected and those debates did not cause division.  Today, since so much heresy has been let in the front door of many denominations, there is all kinds of division of the type that has to be apologized for ... both to those who remain in orthodoxy and unbelievers who need to see the difference between many denominations who are teaching heresy and true biblical Christianity.  This is why it is imperative to warn against most of what goes on in Christian television, particularly TBN.  If an unbeliever's only exposure to "Christianity" is what they see on TBN, then they CANNOT have a biblical view of what it means to be a Christian.  If a believer becomes enamored of TBN they will slowly be diapraxed away from true Christianity into the multitude of heretical teachings and actions on that network.

So you need to chose carefully who your friends are.  I found out many years ago who was telling the truth about the condition of modern Christendom and who was not.