Today churches have gone “woke.”  Many accept critical race theory and same sex relations.   Before contemplating those extremes, we might consider something short of that and what leads to it.

A man I know well pastors in the same city as a conservative evangelical does, and the two discussed separation.  The conservative evangelical church accepts membership of many and widely varied doctrinal and practical positions.   Everyone is worldly also to sundry degrees, many very much so.

The conservative evangelical graduated from Masters Seminary and in general follows its way of thinking and operation.  In a conversation, the man who I know well mentioned to the conservative evangelical 1 Timothy 1:3:

As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

Paul besought Timothy to charge the pastors at Ephesus that they “teach no other doctrine.”  That’s very clear.  “Teach no other doctrine” is one Greek word, heterodidaskaleo.  This matches up with what Paul also said in 1 Timothy 6:3-5:

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness . . . . from such withdraw thyself.

Here’s what the conservative evangelical, who went to Masters Seminary, said:  “We teach that “doctrine” there [in 1 Timothy 1:3] is [or means] ‘the gospel.'”

This is the kind of dealing with scripture or teaching that justifies disobedience to scripture.  Is “doctrine” “the gospel” in 1 Timothy 1:3 and in 1 Timothy 6:3-5 among other verses of scripture?  Of course not.  Still, that’s how conservative evangelicals will go ahead and understand “doctrine.”  “Doctrine” refers only to “the gospel” in that passage.

Calling “doctrine” “the gospel” is a type of deconstruction.  Rather than a verse asserting absolute truth, a person assigns a meaning that he conceives at that moment in time.  In Is There Meaning in this Text?  Kevin J. Vanhoozer writes (pp. 21-22) about the deconstruction of the postmodernist Derrida, the one most associated with it:

The belief that one has reached the single correct Meaning (or God, or “Truth”) provides a wonderful excuse for damning those with whom one disagrees as either “fools” or “heretics.” . . . Neither Priests, who supposedly speak for God, nor Philosophers, who supposedly speak for Reason, should be trusted; this “logocentric” claim to speak from a privileged perspective (e.g., Reason, the Word of God) is a bluff that must be called, or better, “deconstructed.”

A teacher or preacher may dismantle Christianity by deconstructing the language.  Christianity is based upon language, the language of the Bible.  Rather than say you don’t believe the Bible, you can just deny a “single correct meaning.”

Deconstructing the biblical text allows and even instructs men not to believe and obey the Bible.  They not only disobey, but they disobey while thinking they’re obeying, because of the deconstruction of the language of scripture.  A church can grow in numbers from the welcome of plenteous and diverse disobedience, while still labeling it obedience.  It doesn’t fool God now or ever.