Of platypuses and doctrine-mixing Christians

Duck-billed platypus

In one of his first comments, Fr. Orthoduckâ„¢ spoke about various “ducky” Christians he knew and said:

But, I must admit that none of us is quite sure what to do about those who have so absorbed various ducktrines from various groups that they are no longer ducks but have become duck-billed platypuses.

But this is a challange we also face ourselves in Christianity in the USA. I read way too many paeans to our American system of Christianity in which every person can make up their own minds on any doctrines without being subject to any authority. And, truth be told, there is something appealing to that argument. It plays to our national mythology of Boston Tea parties, rugged individualism, and the conquest of the West. But, just because it plays to our national mythology does not mean that everyone making up their own mind is a great thing. After all, we do have several warnings from both St. Paul and St. Peter about unstable people who distort the Scriptures. And, no, I do not think that they are speaking about people with psychological problems. Rather, St. Peter makes it clear that, “as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.”

And, while he is speaking about the ultimate end of some of the more extreme misusers of Scripture, there are less harmful effects found in the USA among Christians. Those were alluded to by Fr. Orthoduckâ„¢ when he wrote about “duck-billed platypuses.” A platypus was at first thought to be a mythical creature created as a joke by the taxonomists who sent a corpse to England because such a mixture of traits from different animal species was thought to be impossible. Well, it was not and platypuses are alive, moving, and reproducing.

But, in the spiritual world, a Christian platypus is a person who has grabbed doctrines from here and from there to form a logically contradictory body of belief. Now the Christian may exist and may move and may reproduce, but ultimately, it is in spite of the logical inconsistency of their beliefs. No, I am not talking about those inconsistencies that come as a result of our inability to know God, apart from the revelation given to us by Jesus Christ. Neither am I talking about those pesky inconsistencies that we all hold, but of which we are all unaware. Rather, I am talking about the severe inconsistencies that show that the person has picked and chosen doctrines as seemed best to them without being aware of the contradictions that they hold, and, sometimes, without even caring.

Let me give you but one example. There is a big debate between Calvinists and Armenians (among the Protestants). Calvinists consistently hold that the Lord, through His one decree, predestined people to salvation, and that such predestination was not based on foreknowledge, but was a choice of God’s will. Arminians hold that people choose God as an exercised of their free will, but, as a result, can also lose their salvation as a result of their free will.

Now, before several of you write me, I realize that there are several variations on what I have just stated. On the Calvinist side, there are arguments about whether God’s predestination was logically before or after the Fall (supra or infra lapsarian). On the Arminian side, there are arguments over common grace and how deeply the Fall impacted the exercise of free will (how total is depravity). But, don’t get lost in the details. Follow me into the next paragraph.

In the USA, we have picked what we like out of both logical systems of belief to develop a doctrine that makes us feel good about ourselves, but is logically contradictory. Many Christians (ah, ah, ah, don’t quote me theologians, I said Christians in general) speak as though we have free will, and only need a small push from God, at best, to help us make the ultimate choice, but then speak as though once we make that choice we will not be allowed to fail, almost regardless of our behavior. Much ink has been spilled in the USA on the subject of eternal security because, in practice, it is a doctrine that allows us to pat ourselves on the back about our choice while relaxing and almost exonerating us about any effort to affirm that choice and to grow in that choice. In other words it is a mixture of doctrines that allows us to have our cake and eat it too, otherwise called a platypus.

Let it be said that the original Calvinists insisted that those who were chosen would persevere–and even grow–in the faith. Perseverance of the saints was a doctrine that argues that if God has chosen you then He will also have that choice work itself out in your life in a practical and perceptible way. If there is no practical and perceptible evidence of election then there was probably no election. Semi-Arminians, such as Rev. John Wesley, insisted that we were called to wilful and voluntary growth in the faith, with the danger that the failure to make an effort might very well mean the loss of salvation. In one sense both sides agree with St. James that faith without works is dead. But, our current “popular” doctrine neither requires us to make any effort nor expects that God will ensure that we persevere in the faith in practical and perceptible ways. Instead, our current popular religiosity gives us a God who only wants us to say yes to him with no other real expectation.

Thus, the popular religiosity in the USA gives us a Christianity without effort. Instead, we have a psychologized Christianity that finds excuses and reasons as to why we do not change, rather than a Christianity that calls us to change and grow. Certainly God could not expect us to really go from “glory to glory.” He only expects us to do our “best,” whatever that amorphous phrase might mean. And, thus, is it any surprise that all the social measurements of the behavior patterns of evangelicals show that there is little difference between the behavior of evangelicals and the rest of society?

No, too many Christians in the USA have built a platypus, and this platypus does not really breathe well. Neither Reformation Calvinist nor Wesleyan Arminian would look upon the popular religiosity of this country with anything but shock and dismay. There are both Scottish Covenanter ancestors and Methodist circuit riders ancestors turning over in their graves as they look at what we call Christianity in the USA. It has little salt.