when you hear the word heresy you might think of witch burnings or the church torturing Galileo for doing science which didn't even happen by the way but all heresy really means is a belief that's incompatible with something so a Christian heresy is a belief that's incompatible with Christianity the first heresy is liberalism now to be clear this isn't political liberalism this has nothing to do with Christians who like the Democrats or whatever it just means not taking the beliefs of Christianity seriously sometimes not believing the Bible is the word of God liberalism destroys the foundations of Christianity like the Virgin birth the resurrection of Christ the Divinity of Christ and in some cases the idea of a supernatural God all together people try to have Christianity without these foundations but then it just falls apart it starts with people saying that Christianity is more about following Jesus than what we believe about Jesus and that turns into saying it doesn't matter what you believe about Jesus as long as you're following him by being vaguely loving or nice and that turns into saying we don't even know if the claims of Christianity are true but it's okay as long as it inspires us to do justice and in the end people say God is just an idea that inspires us to do justice rather than something that actually exists liberalism says Christianity can mean whatever you want it to mean but the Bible says that if Christ didn't rise from the dead then our faith is meaningless if Christianity can mean anything then it really means nothing so when you see a church flying a pride flag or preaching only about politics and not about theology that's a sign that the church doesn't really believe anything anymore so it just takes the mold of whatever the current culture believes so it does matter what we believe about Jesus true or false Jesus is the greatest being God ever created uh true right no that's aryanism not the German kind aryanism comes from an early church guy named Aras who said that God created Jesus so Jesus is like God but he's not actually God since God created Jesus there was a time when Jesus didn't exist and that means he's not God because God is eternal but then Aras got slapped by Santa Claus clause for saying that the truth is Jesus was never created because Jesus has always existed because Jesus is God the whole point of Christianity is worshiping Jesus Christ and you're only supposed to worship God so that means Jesus Is God there's a lot of religions that Think Jesus was important in some way what makes Christianity different is saying Jesus is literally the one true God so aryanism turns Christianity into not Christianity by the way that Jehovah's Witnesses are an example of modern day arens so Jesus the father and the Holy Spirit are all the one true God how does that work are they like three forms of God no that's another heresy called modalism they can't just be three forms of the same person because we see them interacting with each other the father is not the son the son is not the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is not the father but they're all the one true God so it's not three forms of God it's one God in three persons got it so the three persons are like three parts of God no that's a heresy called partialism which says the the father Son and Holy Spirit are each only onethird God it's heresy cuz in reality they're all 100% God they all have everything that makes God God and God's nature cannot be divided or broken into Parts okay now I got it free beings that are all 100% God guess what what that's heresy if you're saying there's three beings that are all God then you're saying there's three Gods the Bible is very clear that God is one being so it's heresy to say that there's three beings God is one being in three persons the Mormons are actually an example of people who commit the tri theist heresy so it's very important to be right about the Trinity because if we're not we're basically inventing a different God also don't use analogies when you're talking about the Trinity because every analogy people make ends up accident committing one heresy or another the Trinity is not like anything in our world so we can't make analogies between the two wait but I have a good analogy no you don't shut up it's also really important to be right about Jesus because we worship Jesus some people think when Jesus was a baby he could have spoken fluent Swahili or done quantum physics because you know he's God but that's a heresy called apollinarianism which says Jesus had a Divine mind but not a human mind yes Jesus Is God which means he has a Divine mind but he's also truly human which means he has a human mind the Bible says Jesus needed to learn stuff just like the rest of us if you're saying Jesus didn't have the limitations of a human mind then you're saying Jesus wasn't truly human so let's not be aarian bro why does this matter well Jesus needs to become everything we are to redeem everything we are so Jesus needs to have a human mind so he can redeem our human Minds so we got to understand the two Natures of Jesus he's God and he's also human so how does this work if Mary is the mother of Jesus does that mean she's also the mother of God nah she's not the mother of God she's just the mother of human Jesus but no that's a heresy called nestorianism nestorians think the divine nature is God the son and the human nature is Jesus and Christ refers to both of them so you can say Mary's the mother of Jesus or even the mother of Christ but not the mother of God they also think you can say Jesus died on the cross or Christ died on the cross but not God died on the cross because the divine nature can't die the problem with nestorianism is it separates the humanity and Divinity of Christ it treats human Jesus and divine Jesus like they're two different people in reality the two Natures are united in the one person of Christ so we can use the word Christ to Jesus and God interchangeably when talking about the person of Christ we can say Jesus of Nazareth created the Milky Way galaxy we can also say the god of the universe became a baby and died for your sins it's an important question do we worship a God who died for us biblical Christianity says yes but in the storian ism as well as Islam would say no now some people make the opposite mistake of mixing Jesus's two Natures into one combined nature making Jesus seem more like one of those Greek demigod Gods that's part God and part human but that's heresy Jesus needs to be truly human and truly God to bridge the gap between humans in God now there is a type of monophysitism called miaphysitism which still uses the language of one nature but also agrees with all this stuff so that type is not technically heretical adoptionism is a heresy that says Jesus became God at some point but wasn't always God here's why that doesn't work being God means being Eternal so if that means Jesus was ever God at any point it means Jesus is also Eternal which means Jesus has always existed that's what Eternal means and if Jesus has always existed that means he's always God so that means Jesus has always been God so adoptionism fails are you a good person no not according to the Bible at least the Bible says we're all sinners from the moment of conception but pelagianism denies this fact pelagianism says we're all born as blank slates with free will to choose good or bad pelagianism says you can save yourself you don't need Jesus to die for you but that's heresy we're all slaves to sin we all deserve to go to hell that's why Jesus needed to die for us gnosticism is another big heresy it's got a lot of complex lore that we don't need to go into but basically it says this physical world is bad so our goal is to escape this horrible place and go to the spiritual World which is good the first problem is it denies that a good God created our physical universe but also Jesus Took on a physical human nature Jesus came to redeem the physical a lot of us think this way even if we don't know it a lot of people think the goal of Christianity is to escape this world and go to heaven which is supposedly something completely different from Earth but no Jesus came to redeem the Earth and when Jesus comes back he's going to unite Heaven and Earth and make a perfect version of this world that we're going to live in forever so the physical isn't bad the physical will be Redeemed by Jesus subordinationism is a heresy that that says Jesus eternally submits to the father now it's understandable why some might think this because the Bible does speak of Jesus submitting his will to the father's will but that's only according to Jesus's human nature Jesus's human will submits to the father because all humans are supposed to submit to God but his Divine will doesn't submit to the father because his Divine will is the same exact will as the father's will there's also some heresies that can be explained in one sentence so I don't really need to spend time on them now some people think Christians are being way too nitpicky with all this stuff but the truth is everyone is religious and dogmatic about something it's just a question of what the more passionate you are about something the more willing you are to argue about it Christians love Jesus so we want to be right about Jesus and I Think Jesus is someone worth arguing about