True and False Dualisms
Nikita Khrushchev described a period in the Soviet Union's history when
petty theft was a problem, especially in the government-owned plants.
Guards were placed at the factory entrances to scrutinize the laborers as
they entered and departed. At the Leningrad timberworks, one of the guards
spotted Pyotr Petrovich leaving the yard with a wheelbarrow filled with a
bulky sack. With the notice of thievery by the workers making its rounds
to all the government-owned factories, a guard became dutifully
suspicious.
"Come on, Petrovich," said the guard. "What have you got there?"
"Just sawdust and shavings," Petrovich replied.
"Come on," the guard said, "I wasn't born yesterday. Tip it out." Out it
came-nothing but sawdust and shavings. So he was allowed to put it all
back again and go home.
The same thing happened every night all week, and the guard was getting
extremely frustrated. Finally, his curiosity overcame his frustration.
"Petrovich," he said, "I know you. Tell me what you're smuggling out of
here, and I'll let you go."
"Wheelbarrows," said Petrovich.1
In Christianity's desire to think straight in a crooked world (a
worthwhile and legitimate goal), the devil has conveniently smuggled in
more than a few unholy beliefs that hinder the measuring process. Is it
possible that in our desire to rid ourselves of unrighteousness that we
are, in fact, looking in the wrong places for the evils that provoke us?
While we are scrutinizing the sack of wood chips and shavings, the devil
is smuggling wheelbarrows.
Heresy most often enters the church under the cover of some orthodox
position. Heresy is like a crooked ruler. While it can never be used to
draw a straight line, it is straighter than anything else in the drawer.
There is enough straightness in the ruler for it to be called a ruler, but
it is out of whack just enough so that it cannot be trusted for making
accurate measurements. Irenaeus, a second-century straight thinker, wrote
this about the insidiousness of error.
Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus
exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in
an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to be
inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than truth
itself.2
One of the most pernicious heresies that neutralizes Christians is
relational dualism that passes as ethical dualism, the belief that staying
away from the stuff of this world will keep us from sin:
o The spirit is good, the body is evil.
o Spiritual things are good, material things are evil.
o Grace is good, law is bad.
o Heaven is good, earth is evil.
o God is a God of love, not a God of law.
o God is our father, not our judge.
o The soul is good, the mind is bad.
There are other dualisms: Old Testament vs. New Testament, church vs.
state, Israel vs. Church, eternity vs. history. Heretical dualisms make
ethical opposites (e.g., good vs. evil) into relational opposites (e.g.,
heaven vs. earth). True ethical dualism is defined as good and evil,
obedience and disobedience, holy and unholy, right and wrong, virtue and
wickedness, hypocrisy and sincerity, love and hatred, honor and dishonor.
The Christian's relation to the world is often presented in dualistic
terms. Holiness is defined as an escape from this world, if not physically
through some cataclysmic eschatological event like a pretribulational
rapture, then certainly by being separated from the affairs of this world
in an unwillingness to acknowledge that God has made us stewards of His
good creation of which one day He will demand an accounting (Matt.
25:14-30). These relational dualisms have been with the church for
centuries, and they have been effective in spreading gangrene through what
would normally be a healthy body.
by Gary DeMar
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1. Os Guinness, "The Christian and Society," in James M. Boice, ed.,
Transforming our World: A Call to Action (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press,
1988), 52.
2. Irenaeus, Against Heresies (1.2). Cited in Harold O. J. Brown,
Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from
the Apostles to the Present (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 6.
.
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