Autoimmune diseases happen when the body, seeking to expel hostile cells that create diseases begins to attack its own healthy cells. These include serious conditions such as rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis.
The other day, I was talking about why some people struggle when the church doesn’t prioritise or get passionate in the same way about something they see as of first importance. One danger with this is that they begin to believe that they are challenging the church, to call out sin an d compromise in order to defend the church. However, what happens is that they end up seeing sin and compromise where it isn’t there. Similarly, some Christians out of a concern for purity and holiness begin to see evidence of heresy. Sometimes they correctly identify false teaching but at other times they are merely identifying differences on secondary matters. Sometimes there is no difference at all in terms of belief, just a difference in approach or language.
In those cases, it can feel a bit like the church is suffering from a type of spiritual autoimmune disease. People within the church or even a whole local church, network or parachurch organisation become so heightened in their alert to possible danger that they end up in effect attacking the body itself, just like the healthy cells, it is other believers who feel the pain. And because we are all connected together, when one member of the body is in pain, it affects the wider church too.
I think that those of us who write blogs, articles and books have a particular responsibility to take care here. Usually we take time to write, or record vlogs and podcasts because we are passionate about a specific thing. For example, in my case, I’m concerned about urban church planting and revitalisation. W need to be careful that we don’t become so passionate about he one thing that we end up seeing danger and error everywhere. That’s why healthy accountability is important.
Faithroots 