Are you a heretic?

Probably not, but you never know.

I used to live with a guy who wanted to stamp all the books he considered heretical in the library with an ink stamp he found online. Thankfully, the stamp never turned up.

Heresy is one of those words that gets bandied about in Christian circles and is used to attack people with whom one disagrees. Christians tend to vehemently disagree on questions of theology, whether about communion, women in ministry, sexual ethics or something else and Christians can be (and often are) unloving towards one another when they start arguing. While we might have stopped killing each other over these issues,[1] we are still finding ways to be unpleasant towards one another. Don’t get me wrong, I think theology is really important, and we should discuss our differences of opinion. I’m just saying that the way in which these differences are discussed is equally important.

The way I see this unpleasantness playing out (often online) is in accusations of heresy. For example, I was recently reading a critique of John Mark Comer by Tom Marshall, who says ‘Richard Rohr, one of Comer’s key influences, is a known heretic who also redefined sin in a similar way.’[2] He goes on to say that Christian mysticism is ‘really’ Gnosticism. Which it is not.

I’m not convinced Rohr is a heretic, and while I haven’t read a whole lot of him, the main reason I’m not convinced is that it’s quite hard to be a heretic.[3] To be a heretic, you need to actively reject the core teachings of the whole church,[4] which were established in the earliest Christian creeds (following councils). To quote my friend Jeremy on this:

Orthodox believers hold to the sovereignty of God the Father, the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son, and the life-giving power of the Spirit. Which is to say, they affirm belief in the Trinity. Orthodox Christians also believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection of the dead, the forgiveness of sins, and in the Church catholic and universal.[5]

There are maybe a few other things than Jeremy’s short list, but you get the point. to be orthodox (and so not a heretic) one needs to ascribe to key tenets of faith as laid out by the Church. What’s important, however, is that these councils and creeds are concerned about ruling erroneous beliefs out; they aren’t concerned about prescribing a specific way of interpreting these creeds, rather they say, ‘as little as doctrinally possible’.[6] For example, to be orthodox, you do need to affirm the hypostatic union (that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God), but there are different ways of discussing Christology without one then becoming a heretic. This is what Oliver Crisp calls ‘dogmatic minimalism’.[7] These creeds recognise the mystery of God, that there are things we can’t fully understand, and so they are not, in most cases, overly prescriptive; rather, the focus is ruling out specific heretical ideas.

The key point is this: it’s hard to be a heretic.

Because it’s hard to be a heretic, we really should stop trying to label people like Comer as heretics. Just because you don’t like someone’s theology, or you see it as wrong, that does not make them a heretic. It might mean you disagree with them, and so you stop going to their church, or that you stop listening to their band, but that still doesn’t make them a heretic.

Now, heresy does exist, and some views are heretical, e.g. those that deny the divinity of Christ or fail to grant him equal status as the Father, like subordinationism. Theologians should take care to avoid potentially falling foul of this. But using heresy as a buzzword to attack your theological opponents is lazy and shows you haven’t really got a clue what you're talking about (it does not, however, make you a heretic).

So, no, you’re probably not a heretic. Congrats. And put that stamp down.

---

[1] Unlike the reformers or crusaders. For a particularly wild story, google the Munster Rebellion.

[2] Tom Marshall, ‘From Insightful to Concerning: Reassessing John Mark Comer's Practicing the Way’,

From Insightful to Concerning: Reassessing John Mark Comer's Practicing the Way

[3] Another reason is that anyone who thinks mysticism is the same as Gnosticism needs to give their head a wobble.

[4] Due to church schism, this no longer exists, and so you can’t make ‘new heresies’ – usually, modern heresies fit into the description of those in the early church, hence why Tom compares mysticism to Gnosticism (he has to make it fit).

[5] Jeremy Rios, ‘The New Orthodoxy, Part 1: Do you really preach the Bible?’, https://jmichaelrios.wordpress.com/2025/03/12/the-new-orthodoxy-part-1-do-you-really-preach-the-bible/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJBgAFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXrSF0GotTJLP_F8G53EnnM9nj5BN-cr90deP5aXN5hnMpSU49gHQ6H0Bw_aem_oQyrJM2-6Mkhfl27TnyQhg

[6] Oliver D. Crisp, The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 80.

[7] Ibid.