On Social Media, I'm seeing a lot of guilt-by-association (GBA) arguments. It goes like this: Person A recommends Person B’s Book #1 as good and helpful (without agreeing with it fully). But Person B has a Book 2 which Person A would not recommend and in which B says things...1/6

Person A would not agree to at all. No matter. The person using GBA says that by A affirming anything B says in any book, A is now affirming of and responsible for everything that B has ever said or taught. I respect the great concern over the danger of theological compromise...2

However, using the GBA approach means we can’t learn from anyone who doesn’t agree with us totally. That’s not only a recipe for intellectual stagnation, it’s a denial of
the historic Christian doctrine of common grace...3/6

Social media loops and bubbles are powerful tools to draw Christians into conformity to the secular mind in both Right and Left directions. The only way to avoid this is (a) be rooted in the Bible itself (b) be rooted in Church history—seeing how Christian orthodoxy has...4/6

been forged over the centuries, listening well to the Augustines, Luthers, Calvins, and the Creeds and catechisms & (c) while knowing the anti-thesis between Christianity and all non-Christian worldviews yet also the reality of common grace means we can learn to listen broadly..5

...especially to Christians who are from other races, cultures, and nationalities. 6/6