A recent post on the website of Chris Kratzer is making rounds among “ex-vangelicals” on social media. (My post will make more sense if you read his first. I will warn you that you may see some language you find offensive.) In it, Kratzer calls to account the hypocrisy of those who taught him to love his neighbor but who then criticized him for how he applied that teaching. The article is framed by the question, "What...did you expect me to do?"
I'd like to suggest an answer to that question. Before getting to that answer, I have a few thoughts and questions of my own. Kratzer may never read this, but I’d like to help those who do read it to think through what he has written.
If the middle lines of his post are true (“I paid attention. I took every lesson. And I did what you told me” [emphasis mine]), and therefore the teaching outlined in his post represents the totality of what he received, shame on those teaching Kratzer. If his presentation is an accurate recounting of the fullness of the teaching he received, I’m truly sorry he and others like him suffered under such leadership. To be sure, almost everything he recites in the first half of the post are biblically true; the problem is it is not the whole truth.
The view of the Christian life depicted in the first half of Kratzer's post reads like a slanted practical theology based on a tiny, highly-selective smattering of red-letter verses. Sadly, it would not surprise me at all for someone teaching such an emaciated sampling of Scriptural truths to then behave the way Kratzer depicts in the second half of the post. Someone who teaches only what Kratzer has recounted is almost certainly someone who has not fed on the whole Bible, reading it voraciously and repeatedly as if it is their food (Matt 4:4, Deut 8:3), which it should be. Such teachers certainly have not taught the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Shame on them.
However, is it possible that Kratzer has misrepresented, even unintentionally, the teaching he received? Is it possible that while quoting his teachers accurately, he has not represented them fully? That is, has he selectively taken some words out of the larger context of their teaching, and therefore, presented the teachers as taking Scripture out of context? Is it possible that in its original form their teaching was far more discerning, level-headed, biblically-faithful, and appropriately multi-faceted than Kratzer suggests? I have no way to know for sure. I ask simply because the teaching he recounts sounds grossly unfaceted.
His post is addressed to the “evangelical Christian.” By addressing an “evangelical Christian” does he refer to his conception of evangelicalism as a whole? If so, I would simply say…I’m an evangelical and I don’t recognize the evangelicalism he depicts. I see a poor caricature at best.
Are there people out there who teach only what Kratzer says he received? Possibly. But I wouldn’t call them evangelicals. Are there people out there who criticize others in the manner Kratzer says? Surely. But they don’t bear the fruit of those who have repented and followed Christ. Therefore, it seems Kratzer has painted evangelicalism with the brush deserved by a few who perhaps call themselves evangelical but who show no actual zeal for the evangel in all its fullness.
If everything that Kratzer says is an accurate and full accounting of the teaching he received, certainly the teachers bear the lion’s share of the blame (Jas 3:1). At the same time, the Bible models (Acts 17:10-12) and calls for (Matt 7:15; Col 2:8) discernment in the reception of teaching. It further sounds the alarm regarding hypocrisy among teachers (Luke 12:1). In fact, the Bible requires that a pastor/teacher have a life which reflects the transformation of the gospel (1 Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9).
Kratzer seems to suggest he was a helpless victim of his teachers. However, anyone who feeds on the Bible, reading it and meditating on it day and night, as the Bible itself calls him to, would recognize errant teaching (Jos 1:8; Psa 1; 119; Col 3:16). He certainly would not indiscriminately apply it. He would reject it and find a church where the whole counsel of God is taught and appropriately applied. Yes, shame first and foremost on the errant teacher; shame also on the undiscerning listener.
I suspect—don’t know, but suspect—that Kratzer has been far less influenced by his teachers than by the liberal culture around him. He does not seem to be influenced by a broad understanding of the Bible. His post resembles a wave of new liberals making names for themselves by beating up a caricature of the evangelical church. Other posts on his website take the same tone.
As a member of the actual evangelical church, I suggest an answer to Kratzer's question. What did we expect you to do? Discern.
May the Lord grant Kratzer faith in Christ, biblical discernment, and deep love for Christ’s true bride.
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