Chapter 18: Learning to Stand Up to Theological Bullies. We all know what bullies are. They are people who intimidate or hurt others as a way to obtain power, to feel important, or to get their way. Bullying is perpetrated by persons who are more powerful, either socially or physically, than their weaker victims. One encyclopedia defines bullying behavior as follows: The behavior is aggressive and negative. The behavior is carried out repeatedly.
The behavior occurs in a relationship in which there is an imbalance of power between the two parties. Behavior is purposeful. Although bullying often involves physical coercion, it also can be accomplished through non-physical techniques such as name-calling, spreading rumors, ostracism, ridicule, and arguing the victim into submission.
One writer describes adult bullies as people who are possessed of an exceptional verbal facility and will outmaneuver most people in verbal interaction, especially in times of conflict. They are self-opinionated and display arrogance, audacity, a superior sense of entitlement, and a sense of invulnerability and untouchability. A bully is a control freak and has a compulsive need to control everyone and everything you say, do, think, and believe.
For example, he will launch an immediate personal attack attempting to restrict what you are permitted to say if you start talking knowledgeably about a subject on which he feels he has the exclusive say. If I didn't know better, I would have thought this writer was giving us a description of Martin Luther. Theological Bullies. By nature, theologians tend to be bullies. The scribes and Pharisees certainly were. They used all of the classical methods of bullying.
They denigrated and ridiculed those who didn't follow their opinions. For example, the religious leaders belittled the officers who were supposed to arrest Jesus but failed to do so. Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. John 7:47-49. The religious leaders even resorted to physical violence, imprisoning the apostles and other Christians and murdering Jesus and faithful followers such as Stephen.
Unfortunately, Christian theologians have an even worse track record than the scribes and Pharisees. They have been more inclined to murder and torture than even their Jewish predecessors. The famous defender of the Nicene Council, Athanasius, set the pattern for all who followed him. He painted his religious foes, most of whom were not actual Arians, as the most wicked and despicable persons imaginable. He readily pronounced eternal damnation upon them.
He heartily approved of their judicial exiles, and he never objected to the death penalty for those who harbored Arian writings. After Athanasius, the bullying got much worse. The Catholic and Orthodox churches regularly persecuted anyone who challenged the church's teaching. During the Middle Ages, genuine children of the kingdom were often imprisoned, tortured, and murdered merely for wanting to totally follow Jesus in their lives.
The reformers quickly demonstrated that they could be just as big bullies as the Catholics. Both Luther and Calvin were control freaks and bullies. They joined hands with the Catholics in besmirching kingdom Christians such as the Anabaptists and doing what they could to annihilate them. Kingdom Christians. Many of the kingdom Christians who stood up to the reformers were murdered or imprisoned in dungeons. Those who survived were forced into submission.
They were driven to remote mountainous regions or distant corners of Europe. Kingdom Christians were allowed to live in a given region only on the condition that they remain quiet and not share their faith with anyone else. Consequently, they eventually became the quiet in the land. The centuries passed and the children of the kingdom eventually obtained freedom of religion. But the effects and traumas throughout centuries of vicious bullying from the Catholics and reformers continue to this day.
In the end, the theological bullies have largely had their way. From what I've observed, we kingdom Christians often are weak when it comes to evangelism. That's because keeping quiet has been deeply etched into our collective psyche. We've thrown out the bulk of our forefathers' teachings and replaced them with the doctrines of those who have bullied us.
When a person reads the typical doctrinal textbooks of today's Anabaptists, Moravians, Brethren, and other kingdom Christians, he or she finds that they basically teach the doctrines of Athanasius, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, with a mere addition of non-resistance, free will, and the head covering. When kingdom Christians today prepare sermons and Bible lessons, they typically go to the works of the theologians commentaries, doctrinal textbooks, and popular writings for their insights.
But why do we imagine that those who understood so little about Christ's kingdom have some inside track on understanding scripture? We properly eschew seminaries and higher theological learning. But on the other hand, we go to the men of advanced learning for most of our doctrine. We continue to let the bullies dominate us. The situation makes me think of the Israelites during the days of Samuel. The bullies at the time were the Philistines.
To keep the Israelites in subjection, the Philistines outlawed all blacksmiths in Israel. This kept the Israelites from making swords and spears that would enable them to stand up to the bullies. So the Israelites had to go crawling hat in hand to the Philistines to acquire any kind of needed metal instrument. Just like those ancient Israelites, we kingdom Christians today go crawling to the theologians for their doctrines and commentary on scripture. We're afraid to stand up to the bullies.
On commentaries and quantum optics. A Christian friend once told me, "The problem, David, is that when I read the New Testament, I have trouble understanding what it's saying. On the other hand, when I read a commentary, then the New Testament becomes clear." On the surface, that seems to make sense. If someone were to hand you a doctoral thesis on quantum optics, my guess is that you would have a hard time understanding it, unless you have an advanced degree in physics.
However, I could write a line-by-line commentary on that doctoral thesis that would make it understandable to you, even if you have no background in physics. Sounds great, doesn't it? There's only one problem. I don't know any more about quantum optics than you do. I can't even define the term. However, my ignorance of the subject wouldn't prevent me from writing a commentary on the subject that would be understandable to non-scientists. It just means that my commentary would be worthless.
It would be understandable, but it wouldn't help anyone to have a better grasp of quantum optics than he has now. It's no different with Bible commentaries. In theory, there's nothing wrong with the concept of a Bible commentary. The New Testament was addressed to Greek-speaking Christians living in the Mediterranean world between the years AD 35 to AD 100. I'm an English-speaking Christian living in the United States in the 21st century.
It would be ideal to have a Bible commentary that would put me in the same position as a Greek-speaking Christian who lived in the Mediterranean world in the year AD 100 when the New Testament was complete. Unfortunately, there's no commentary that does that or that even makes a serious attempt to do it. Standing Up to Bullies. When I was in my early 20s, I had a part-time job delivering handbills on foot. One day, I was on a side street walking up to the house on the corner.
I noticed that the front yard of the house had a chain-link fence around it. As I walked past the side of the house, I quickly discovered why. Inside the fence was a large, snarling dog. The dog snapped and lunged at me from behind the fence as I walked along the fence and turned the corner. I felt certain the dog would tear me to shreds if it weren't for the fence that stood between us.
Because I wasn't about to go inside that fence, I decided that I would just leave the handbill in the front gate of the fence and then move on to the next house. But when I reached the front gate, my heart stood still. Someone had left the gate open. I stood there frozen in terror as I waited to be shredded by the dog. But then the dog also discovered that the front gate was open. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me for a few seconds.
He then suddenly started yelping and trying to scoot backward as fast as he could. In his rush to get away, he fell over and then started yelling at the top of his lungs. If someone had been home, I'm sure that person would have thought I was torturing the dog. The scenario was so comical I couldn't help laughing. The classic bully, I thought to myself. He was so brave and ferocious as long as there was a fence between us. But as soon as he had to stand up to me face to face, he was a whimpering coward.
Victims No Longer. In many cases, the victims of bullying don't have the means to stand up to the bullies because the disparity of power between the two parties is too great. But today, kingdom Christians aren't in that situation. We can stand up to theological bullies. When the ferocious dog I encountered was unmasked, I discovered that there was nothing to him. He was all bluff. The same is true of theologians.
When we have the courage to unmask the great theological heroes of the faith, we usually find that they are men who corrupted the faith. Likewise, when we unmask the learned theologians of today, we usually find they actually are incompetent phonies. Let me give you some examples of the incredible incompetence and blindness of today's theologians.