Heresy
- Michael Haldas
- Jul 7
- 2 min read
“Heresy comes from a Greek word that means “picking and choosing.” A heretic is someone who picks and chooses which parts of a religion he wants to follow rather than following the religion as a whole. As a result, his beliefs may strongly resemble the original religion, but they will have certain glaring omissions or additions…All of the heresies and errors that afflict the church—and, I might add, in the individual believer’s spiritual life—can be measured by their tendency to stress either the human or the divine dimensions at the expense of the other.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu, Gregory Wolfe)
“The list of heretics using their logical and rational minds goes on and on, with many still at work today. Simply using our rational and logical minds to understand a God that is far beyond our comprehension are the very things heresies are made of... and how they continue to exist today. If you sit through a presentation from certain heretical groups, they will continually ask you: “Doesn’t this make sense to you?” They learned long ago the best approach is to appeal to rational and logical thinking…the…way to understand God is to recognize that we cannot understand God. This is where heresies fall into error. They try to make God accessible. Because the Trinity confronts us with confusing realities, heresies try to soften this confusion, and simplify God…understanding of God, insists on our imperfect knowledge of God. We know only that we know only a little.” (Fr. Stephen Powley, George L. Parsenios, PhD)
“But the most pernicious heresies are actually those that, while never stated directly, nevertheless become part of the background for how people make sense of their world. For example, in communities where churches are architecturally indistinguishable from warehouses, or where parishioners ignore the Christian calendar but not secular holidays, or where church interiors are whitewashed and completely lack religious art, whole communities can be catechized into an essentially Gnostic approach even when their churches officially affirm creation’s goodness.” (Robin Phillips)
“The reappearance of ancient heresies in our day is due in part to taking random citations from a hymn, ascetical text, or early apologetical work and then attempting to reinterpret the entirety of Holy Tradition through this lens…Heresies never die, they are simply repackaged and sold under new names. Just as Arianism is now professed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, so Gnosticism has been incorporated into various pseudo-Christian and New Age systems. As the philosopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (Fr. Joseph Lucas)
“Being human is a cultural event. No one is human by themselves and no one becomes human without the help of those around them. This is so obvious it should not need to be stated, but contemporary man often imagines himself to be his own creation. The exercise of individual freedom is exalted as the defining characteristic of our existence: “I am what I choose to be.” To suggest that most of who and what we are is beyond the realm of choice would seem to be a heresy, an insult to the modern project.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
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