Continuing on the themes of redemption and atonement, in this episode we examine the view of Brian McLaren, Dallas Willard, and the emergent gang on the subject of the cross of Christ. Was the cross where Christ won forgiveness of sins for all mankind, or was it really just a demonstration of society's injustice?
Listen Now.
"Yet in the case of heresies, which inflict eternal death and the burning of a keener fire, some persons prefer to wonder that heresies have such power rather than to avoid their power when they have the power to avoid it. Heresies would not prevail a whit if men would cease to wonder at their prevailing so greatly. For either whilst men are wondering, they lay themselves open to an occasion of stumbling, or because they are being tempted to stumble, they wonder on that account, fancying that the great power of heresies arose from some truth that they possess. As though it were wonderful that evil should have any strength of its own. Yet it is to be observed that heresies prevail chiefly with those who are not valiant in the Faith.
In a contest of boxers or gladiators, in very many cases a competitor wins the victory not because he is strong or insuperable, but because the defeated one was a man of no power; and hence that same victor, when subsequently matched against a really strong man, is himself overcome and retires. Just in the same way heresies owe all their power to men's weaknesses, and are powerless when they assail a really strong faith." - Tertullian
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Read about Tertullian's De praescriptione haereticorum (On the prescription of heretics) at The Tertullian Project. You can find a readable English translation here.
Foxe's Book of Martyrs at Amazon.com
Or read it online at Crosswalk.com
