My friend and pastor, Hunter Ruch, sat down the other day to record a couple more sessions of the Chapel Institute podcast, where we consider the question: Is There Such a Thing as “Heresy” Anymore?

Our previous conversations were about the dangers of “progressive Christianity,” so each of these two new episodes, roughly 40 minutes a piece, serve as a perfect followup topic. Have you ever had a conversation with a friend, co-worker, neighbor, or even family-member about the Bible, and your partner responds with, “Well, that is just YOUR interpretation” of the Bible?

I know that I have. A lot.

But where does this idea come from? Why are so many people drawn to the concept of “I have my truth and you have your truth,” which is just another way of saying “Well, that is just your interpretation” of the Bible?

Working at an institution of higher education, I can observe how ideas that have been founded in our universities will eventually make their way into the popular culture, touching the lives of busy dads, soccer moms, and kids growing up glued to their iPhones in our world today.

One of these ideas stems back to the work of Walter Bauer, a well-known German biblical scholar in the first half of the 20th century. Bauer wrote a very influential book, translated into English in 1971, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.  The thesis of Bauer’s book, that theological conflict and irreconcilable diversity go back to the very earliest days of the Christian movement, has captured much of the world of academia ever since, regarding the history of early Christianity. The most well-known advocate of the Bauer thesis today is perhaps the world’s most popular Bible skeptic and New York Times best selling author, Bart Ehrman, professor of New Testament at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. While Walter Bauer’s thesis has some strong points to it, much of what scholars like Bart Ehrman make of it today has a negative impact for people of historically orthodox Christian faith.

See my review of Bart Ehrman’s Heaven and Hell from last year on Veracity for more, or another blog reviewing Bart Ehrman’s adoption of Walter Bauer’s thesis. For a brief presentation by two esteemed evangelical scholars, Dr. Michael Kruger and Dr. Andreas Köstenberger, on this topic of the “Bauer thesis,” take a look at this linked 8-minute video. Köstenberger observes that Bart Ehrman believes Bauer’s thesis to be from “the most important book in the entire 20th century on the origins of early Christianity.”

If you are just listening to the conversation, you might want to briefly consult the two diagrams I refer to in both episodes, posted below the linked videos. We talk about everything from a brief survey of early church history to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. Lots of fun and hopefully helpful, too. Hunter and I had a blast! Enjoy the conversation!!

If you want the audio only, from something like Spotify, try here and here, but be sure to at least have the two diagrams below handy, as you will need them. If you have not heard them yet, you should check out my two earlier conversations with Hunter about “progressive Christianity” a the Chapel Institute website. The Veracity blog post introducing these two earlier conversations with Hunter can be found here.

The Traditional view of Historic Orthodox Christianity….

..

The Walter Bauer thesis which seeks to challenge the Traditional view of Historic Orthodox Christianity….