Question: A frequent reaction to your book The Seduction of Christianity is that it causes division within the Body. What is your response to this criticism?
Response: I agree that we as Christians are to love one another genuinely and to seek unity. However, I would remind you that it is the "unity of the faith " that we are to maintain; and it is the truth that we are to speak in love. If members of the Body have erred, then we must in love correct them.
Furthermore, division is not always bad. Christ caused division everywhere He went (John 7:43 ; 9:16 ; 10:19 ) . He even declared that He had come into the world to bring division (Luke 12:51 ) !
I've heard Romans 16:17 misquoted repeatedly on this subject: "Mark them which cause divisions and avoid them." That is not what Paul says. We are to mark and avoid those who "cause divisions and offenses contrary to [sound] doctrine...."
If division arises due to opposition to the truth, it is not the one teaching or standing firm for sound doctrine who is at fault, but those who "will not endure sound doctrine" (2 Timothy:4:3For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;) . That doctrine is despised today is one of the clearest signs of the last-days apostasy, which is growing at an alarming rate.
Let those who oppose The Seduction of Christianity point out from the Bible where we have erred. If they cannot do so, it is a pitiful cover-up of their aversion to truth to raise the cry of "division"!
