We’re probably all familiar with the Atlanta-area pastor who recently expressed what I’ll call “functional Marcionism” in a sermon encouraging struggling believers to center their faith on Christ, despite doubts about Old Testament veracity. For my part, as is usually my track when the Internet jumps on a pastor or theologian’s controversial statement, I’ve reserved judgment, avoided the low-hanging fruit of online mockscernment, and only engaged insofar as the teaching in question has impacted souls in my local church community (it hasn’t).

This changed last night.

As the last day’s work of a business trip concluded, I made dinner plans with a coworker who lives on the other side of the city from me. Thus far in our interactions spirituality had not come up, but I was able to successfully steer the conversation that way over a pair of Moscow mules. He asked what church I went to and I shared; he goes to the afore-referenced pastor’s megachurch.

As our stories of finding or returning to faith were being shared, he intimated that he struggled with aspects of Christianity well into adulthood, and a particular teaching had helped him commit to belief after a period of walking away. To my shock, here are snippets of what he shared:

“Stuff like creation and Noah’s ark and parting the sea, that bothered me.” “But that’s the Old Testament. That’s not Christianity!” “Jesus is our God, and that’s all we need.” “The Old Testament is Judaism, the New Testament is Christianity.”

Remember, these are statements made about the major decision point of his faith, deciding to go back to church and commit to Christianity.

I can no longer consider this pastor’s teaching as odd or deviant but harmless. The impact and result of this teaching, whether the pastor himself holds it or not, IS. DAMNABLE. HERESY. Full stop.

In the life of this man, guided by this teaching, it’s directly led him to claim Christ despite Yahweh. In response to that, I can only say, “That’s not Christianity!”

Pray for me, and for him, as I hope to untangle small threads of this in our infrequent spiritual conversations.