Recently, Chris Huff of Matter of Theology made a post on Twitter that I believe is both sound and biblical (see attached pic). A screenshot of that post was shared on the Facebook page, “Expository Parenting.”  The hosts of that page clearly agreed with Chris Huff’s post and wanted to share that with their followers. Now, as with any online engagement, you will always have your supporters and your detractors. At the time of the writing of this article, there were 373 comments and 247 shares. To say this post generated conversation would be putting things mildly. 

When it comes to the matter of the music used during a worship service, there are no end to the opinions Christians will share and defend. In this case, Chris Huff made a solidly biblical and rational statement. The “ministries” he named are well known for their false teachings: that God will always heal people of their illnesses; that God must always give you whatever you decree and declare; that God “broke the law for love”; the list is endless. And, as such, whatever materials produced and promoted to the Christian church at large should be not be considered as suitable for use in Christ’s church. You don’t eat a meal tainted with poison and you don’t use the “worship” material from churches that preach heresy.

Hence, Chris Huff is absolutely correct. Pastors are the under-shepherds of Christ’s sheep. They have a solemn and sacred duty to not only feed and care for the flock but to protect them from ravenous wolves as well. To fail to vet the music coming into a church, including the ministry which created and promoted said worship band, because a song seems close enough to biblical truth is to shirk the duty assigned by God to every pastor. Now, this does not mean that pastors who have failed to do so are heretics or false teachers themselves. It means that they need to wake up to the danger these so-called worship bands present to their congregations and they need to step up to the solemn responsibility they have.

Going back to the post that Expository Parenting shared, there was one detractor, a self-identified pastor, who took issue with Mr. Huff’s post. That’s not unusual. Many times people, including pastors, will comment their disagreements with online posts. Fair enough. But, in this case, the pastor took to making personal attacks and character assassinations against Chris Huff. It is worth reviewing and discussing his charges in his post, not because we want to denigrate this man, but because, as a pastor, what he does here funnels down to the congregation. Want to know where such fallacious straw man attacks given by professing Christians come from? Look to the man who is teaching them these things from the pulpit.

Now, I’m leaving the pastor’s name out of this post. We’ll just refer to him as Pastor X. This is primarily because I don’t want this perceived as a personal attack against him. This is not about him. This is about what he lays out publicly, as a pastor, against another Christian with whom he publicly disagreed. I’m sharing his entire post, putting in bold lettering the points I wish to engage and making my responses as we go.  This is a teaching moment. A chance to interact with a fallacious online argument and point out where the problems are. With that foundation laid, let’s proceed.

Pastor X writes:  “Wide brushes of judgmental statements always make me cringe for many reasons, and this one does just that. Theology is a funny thing. When you attend higher learning for theology or biblical studies, you should learn one thing really fast. If you intend to only read or listen to people you agree with completely on every theological issue, you will only listen to yourself. I don’t know the author of the original post, but I can almost guarantee he spends a lot of time listening to himself.”

Let’s start here. Pastor X starts by making the statement that we need to be willing to listen to those who have different theological beliefs than ourselves. That if we fail to do so, then what we end up doing is only listening to ourselves. That’s a fair observation. Many of us lament that the current culture lives in perpetual echo chambers, wanting only to hear people affirm themselves.  So, Pastor X should be willing to listen to Chris Huff, right? Clearly, he disagrees with the post, so, wouldn’t we then assume what is to follow will a fair examination of Mr. Huff’s statement? Well, not so much.

Pastor X admits having zero knowledge of Chris Huff, which means he knows nothing about his person, his character, his theology, or his motivations. Yet, he immediately assigns a character flaw. Why? On the basis that Mr. Huff establishes a theological premise that pastors are responsible for ensuring that false doctrine and false teachers ought not to enter into the church proper. For stating that firmly and unapologetically. For holding that position and expecting pastors to do the same. Pastor X is declaring that, because Chris Huff does not hold to a nuanced view on this matter, that he does not entertain the positions that others (like Pastor X) hold as having equal weight, he is not listening to others who differ from him. Thus, because Mr. Huff does this, it is apparent that he must only ever listen to himself, otherwise, he would never have made such a post. This is presumptuous and a character assassination built on nothing but Pastor X’s own irritation with Chris Huff’s post. In other words, he’s violating his own standard here.

“The community of God has never and will never completely agree on all things theological.” 

This is true. In fact, we have 2,000 years of church history to prove it. But, that history exists because Christians have fought for, wrangled through, and held councils for the express purpose of determining sound doctrine! Why? Because it’s that important! Theology and doctrine are not mere matters to quibble over and simply agree to disagree about. Doctrine, our understanding of God and our practice of worship, is directly tied to God and His nature. It comes from His revealed Word. Therefore, we don’t simply chalk things up to, “well, we all don’t agree about all things!” Yes, we have to recognize denominational differences. Yes, we recognize some areas are matters of salvation versus areas of important, yet orthodox differences. But we don’t just dismiss them in this way. This, quite simply, is a dodge.

“God gave us his word throughout thousands of generations to be studied, lived out, and understood through a community of voices,” 

This is flat wrong. We understand Scripture through the study of Scripture, by illumination of the Holy Spirit, and through prayer. While God has in fact gifted many brethren to be preachers, teachers, writers, and expositors (through whom we learn and are taught) it is not the “community of voices” that determine whether doctrine is true or false. The final authority is what does Scripture say? It is not “what does my community of voices tell me” but what Scripture itself tells us.

“voices that will inherently be wrong many times. Including the voice of the person who made this statement. By his own judgment and the words of Jesus, he should be judged. Knowing that no one is theologically sound on all issues, no one should listen to this post at all.” 

This is a complete misrepresentation of what Chris Huff wrote. In his post, he specifically pointed to false churches that are not simply holding to areas of mere disagreement, but entirely false and heretical teachings. Their entire practice is an assault upon the Word of God and they seek to expand their sphere of influence in multiple ways. One such way is the creation and promotion of worship bands. 

These bands produce music that has been promoted on the airwaves of Christian Radio Stations who do little if any, theological discernment as to what they air. These songs are promoted to churches and listed on CCLI as worship songs that can be played at any church. There is not going to be an asterisk next to the song that says “by the way, a heretical church produced this.” It is then incumbent upon Christians themselves, and more specifically pastors who allow such music to be played in the church, to seek out not only what group produced the song, but the beliefs of the group and the doctrinal teachings they sit under. 

We’re not talking about debates over modes of baptism or end-times theology here. These groups come from churches that claim that it is God’s will to always heal, or that God must provide you wealth and prosperity if you declare it. These are attacks against the character and nature of God. 

Yes, just like a blind squirrel can find an occasional nut, a group or band can put out a song that, on its face, does not appear to be overtly heretical. Yet, all it takes is a little leaven to leaven the entire lump. Allowing music from groups that hold to false teaching gives them legitimacy in the eyes of undiscerning Christians. It allows for a false confidence that such a band must not be all bad if we can sing their songs in church. It allows for the foot in the door that leads to compromise down the road. And this is exactly what Chris Huff was saying. Pastor X ungraciously mischaracterizes his post to make it say what it did not, then attempts to club Chris Huff with said misrepresentation. 

“That is the logic of such horrible judgment on illogical theology. Any song intended to be used in the worship of our creator should be judged on the merit of the words that are being used in said worship.” 

Pastor X may appear to trying to be generous here, but it is based on a faulty representation of what Chris Huff said. This isn’t an either/or, but a both/and. Not only should a song be judged by what it says, but also by the beliefs of those who wrote it. What we believe impacts what we write, even in song.

“If a song itself has theological issues with the words of that particular song, I agree that it shouldn’t be sung as worship to our creator. However, saying that no songs a person with bad theology (from the perspective of another person that other people would say has bad theology) will ever write can be used because of that person’s background theological ideas even if the song never comes close to reflecting those disagreeable theological ideas” 

This sounds dangerously like Pastor X believes that false teachers’ teachings and beliefs do not impact what they produce. For that to be the case, said false teacher either would have to be able to disconnect thoughts and belief from action or would have to be a liar and a hypocrite. It simply does not comport with reality to believe that songs from these groups would “never come close to reflecting those disagreeable theological ideas.”  Scripture is clear, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What you hold to in your heart and mind will play itself in what you say and do. In order for a song to not at all represent what a false teacher believes, there would have to be a concerted effort to keep those beliefs out.  The truth of the matter is that many false teachings steal enough from God’s truth and blend in the false. The reality is a false teacher can say and sing just enough to sound true, but all the while they are peddling lies. What Pastor X is writing here is a straw man argument.

“(from the person other people would say has disagreeable theological ideas) and then telling others that if those songs which never reflect bad theology are used in their churches their pastors are not shepherding the King’s bride is simply reckless, ignorant, irresponsible, and just plain arrogant. The share of this post on this page is an example of how people should stay within the lanes of their call and strengths. My wife and I love this page for the call and strength they have for the material they put out. Yet, when they have stepped outside of that here to share and support such an ignorant statement (from what appears to be a personal friend), it diminishes the good work that God has been doing through them.” 

We need to ask some questions here: What are the lanes? To whom do they belong? Who assigns the lanes? And who made Pastor X the guardian of these lanes? Has he been designated the lane police? Is he operating within his own lane in this post? Or is he outside his lane? 

Let’s say something clearly that refutes this idea of “staying in your lane”:  All Christians have a duty to learn and proclaim truth and identify and call out falsehood. This page does not only ever have to talk about parenting as narrowly defined by Pastor X. In fact, parenting as Christian means guarding our children against all that is false, including music. Even if it were appropriate to say they should stay in a particular lane, the Expository Parenting folks are well within those boundaries by informing parents to be concerned about music from false teacher ministries. 

“I’ve done it. I’ve seen people of many others areas of ministry do it. It’s cringy every time. In the end, the most basic issue with the statement is that it is completely laced in arrogance and assumes that they themselves have no lack of perfect theology in their life.” 

Again, Pastor X demonstrates he is practicing exactly what he is preaching against here. With, by his own admission, no knowledge of Chris Huff, of what he believes, what he practices, etc, he declares he has perfect knowledge and understanding of Mr. Huff’s mind and motivation. If that is not arrogant, I simply don’t know what is.

“This, of course, is in direct contradiction with the Scriptures and the character of Jesus, especially as lain out in passages like Philippians 2. Such a broad stroke, character assassination, and attempt at removal of speck of so many the original poster couldn’t possible know is simple in poor character and representation of the image of Jesus.”

I would suggest Pastor X look at the mirror here. He may well be describing himself.

“And with that, the statement, as said above, judges itself as the words of Jesus say they will in Matthew 7. No one should listen to or share the sentiments of the poster, Chris Huff, anymore as he lacks proper theology and nothing he says from this point further should be shared lest you be considered a poor representation of the Kingdom of God. Funny how that works…”

Pastor X concludes his screed by trying to be clever. He takes a completely misrepresented version of Chris Huff’s argument and treats it as a slam dunk. Chris Huff never said lacking in completely perfect theology means your material should never be used. He clearly identified ministries that are well known for the false teaching and called pastors to do their duty, guard the sheep in their care. Yet, Pastor X tries to reduce this to a mere disagreement of lower rungs of theology and mischaracterizes Chris Huff so he can claim Huff’s argument actually defeats itself. This is nonsense. It is a straw man and Pastor X really should be ashamed of himself.

 

So that’s what I wanted to point out here. I felt it necessary to show that poor argumentation abounds within Christianity at large. Oftentimes, it comes straight out of the pulpit. When you engage people like this online, don’t be afraid of them. Take the time to actually analyze what they are saying and why they are saying it. In reality, you will oft times find they are guilty of the very claims they are making against others. Once the straw man claims are exposed and the character assassinations are put aside, then let’s spend time getting to the meat of the argument. Something Pastor X worked really, really hard to avoid. Don’t be like Pastor X.