“A beast is a persecutor; an antichrist is a false teacher”

Never Open Up Constructive Theological Dialogue With An Antichrist

Topic: Chrestomathy

“At the same time, precisely because the Church is the household of the faithful, the enemy outside hates it. One of the ways he expresses that hatred is by various attempts at subversion, corrupting the Church from within. It is simply naive to maintain that all assaults on the faith come from persecuting tyrants. Most of the threats to biblical integrity come from men who went to seminary. The beast in Scripture is a civil ruler, persecuting from outside. There have been many such beasts in the history of the Church, from Nero to Stalin. But the antichrist in Scripture is a spirit of corruption from within the body. Who is the antichrist but the one who denies that Jesus came in the flesh? (1 Jn. 4:3). A beast is a persecutor; an antichrist is a false teacher. In the scriptural categories, Hitler was a beast, but to find our modern antichrists we have to look for liberal Methodist bishops and the lesbians who love them. Now the Bible requires that the Word be brought against both kinds of threats, which is just what the apostle John did. He brought the Word against the beast in Revelation and against the antichrist in 1 John. And when that Word comes, it does not do so as an invitation to dialogue” (A Serrated Edge, pp. 99–100).

Posted by Douglas Wilson — 12/28/2005 12:45:29 PM
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5 Comments

  1. “Hates the household of faith” ✓
    “Various attempts at subversion” ✓
    “Corrupting the Church from within” ✓
    “Persecuting tyrant” ✓
    “A spirit of corruption from within the body” ✓
    “a false teacher” ✓

    “A beast is a persecutor; an antichrist is a false teacher”
    Doug Wilson is both.

  2. “Most of the threats to biblical integrity come from men who went to seminary.”

    Doug Wilson: no seminary, no problem!

  3. At the same time, precisely because the Church is the household of the faithful, the enemy outside hates it…[most] of the threats to biblical integrity come from men who went to seminary.

    According to Wilson’s logic, those inside the church (i.e., seminary grads) are actually outside the church, while those outside the church (i.e., non-seminary graduating pastors) are actually inside it.

    Did I understand him correctly?

  4. It’s poorly written and he doesn’t develop his thought very well, which leaves room for your read (and I am unsure if you’re referring to a visible/invisible hermeneutic). But I think this is his distinction:

    1. Enemies outside the church — beasts — represented by civil rulers such as Nero & Hitler;
    2. Enemies inside the church — antichrists — represented by false teachers such as men who went to seminary (he didn’t cite a biblical example of an antichrist but he did cite a biblical example of a beast).

    I don’t know his source for this interpretation (it may be original, though unlikely), but I agree with him. Scripture furnishes many examples of both kinds of enemies.

    This was his primary point: “liberal Methodist bishops and the lesbians who love them.” He wanted to take a gratuitous whack at lesbians. This was the punch line and the other stuff was his set up.

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