By Brannon S. Howse
If you’ve read some of my articles, you know how much I enjoy pointing out the intolerance of people who scream about how important it is to be tolerant. Ironically, many who advocate not judging others are the most judgmental of opinions with which they disagree. Now I’ve found a new set of hypocrites who try to bully us into doing as they say but not as they do, and I’ve christened them the Politically Correct Matthew 18 Police. Usually I go after liberals, but some of the PCM18s are misinformed and naïve, yet genuinely well-meaning, Christians. They’re also dead wrong.
What exactly do PCM18s have to do with Matthew 18:15-17? They twist truth to fit their convenience and use it against people like me who blow the whistle on bizarre or heretical claims made in the name of Christ.
Recently, several members of the PCM18 Police (they’re stationed all over the country) confronted me about several articles. I had produced a three-part series on the false teachings of Christian happy-talk superstar Joel Osteen. And exposing him, by the way, was incredibly easy. All I did was quote from Osteen’s interview on Larry King Live and from his book, Your Best Life Now. His statements obviously contradict the Word of God.
I also released an article on 85 “evangelical” leaders who had signed a left-wing global warming initiative funded by radical, anti-Christian foundations. A few in this group held press conferences and interviews and even launched a series of national television commercials and radio spots to ballyhoo their “insights.” Then I did what may have been the most unpardonable, un-PC act of all. I wrote an extensive article on the dangerous and unbiblical beliefs of the Emerging Church and some of its leaders.
Citations from the PCM18 Police rolled in like a tsunami. But did they email privately to chastise me for my “unbiblical” conduct of writing and speaking out against false teachings? No, of course not, even though that is exactly what they were writing to tell me I should have done. (You’ll notice, if you haven’t already, that the hallmark of any “tolerance officer” is that they want you to do what they would never do themselves.)
The PCM18s ignored my private email address—which is clearly posted on our website—and posted their virulent objections in the feedback section. I had to laugh. Without first coming to me in private as the scripture they quoted says to do, they publicly blasted me for not first going in private to those about which I had written. Hmm. Can you say, “Disconnect”?
Now don’t get me wrong. I think Matthew 18 is a great chapter of the Bible and one that should be followed (of course!). However, the PCM18 Police strip Matthew 18:15-17 from its context in order to force their politically correct, “nonjudgmental” tolerance agenda on Christians who challenge unbiblical beliefs, doctrine, or worldviews. In context, it is clear the verses address how to handle a private issue or a personal offense. They detail the steps to take for church discipline of an individual who has sinned. If the offending person does not repent when you confront him or her privately, then you are to take one or two people with you. If the individual still will not repent, take the issue before the church. If even that doesn’t work, the person is to be removed from fellowship until he or she does admit to the sin and repents.
PCM18s would have you believe Matthew 18 means you should never write or speak publicly to oppose one of their gurus unless you first speak to that person privately. This is just an absurd manipulation of Scripture. In reality, the PC police seek to intimidate and manipulate by guilt those with whom they disagree. Apparently, such childish techniques are the best they can muster when backed into the proverbial corner by solid biblical facts. With finger wagging and heaping helpings of self-righteous indignation, they offer verbal or email lashings about how you are sinning and should repent and cease at once from speaking out against false teachers and their accompanying doctrines. PCM18s drone on about how you are not loving or are creating disunity among Christians and how this is such a bad witness to unbelievers.
A bad witness? It would be a better witness to allow false teaching and a false gospel to go uncorrected and unchallenged? What the police don’t want you to know is that throughout the New Testament the great apostle Paul himself publicly denounced false teachers by name without first going to them in private. After all, how can one privately correct public false teaching? It can’t be done, and that’s exactly why we are to publicly point out erroneous teaching once it has been promoted in books, television, radio, websites, and other public forums.
So now you’re ready. If you should ever happen to get “pulled over” by the Politically Correct Matthew 18 Police for boldly refuting someone’s public false teaching, take the law into your own hands and make a Christian citizen’s arrest by pointing out their illegal handling of the Scriptures.
Copyright 2012 ©Brannon Howse. This content is for Situation Room members and is not to be duplicated in any form or uploaded to other websites without the express written permission of Brannon Howse or his legally authorized representative.
