A Bad Kind of Discernment
Note: Possibly contains spoilers for those who haven’t read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
In the classic Jane Austen novel Northanger Abbey, Austen has a little fun poking at her current culture. At her time of writing, women were seeking and enjoying books with gothic tones—dramatic deaths, suspenseful mysteries, paranormal activity, frightening madness, forbidden love, dreamy heroines and heroes, and the like. Unlike this, she wrote novels that centered on the every-day problems of life among ordinary people. She knew the majority of her readers wouldn’t experience the dramatic lives portrayed in those gothic novels, and so she sought to help her readers consider the things of society they were more likely to encounter: People who use you to their advantage, the appearance of honour covering crookedness, the goodness of being sensible, the necessity of discernment, and the like.
In Northanger Abbey, Austen’s main character Catherine Morton has nothing extraordinary about her—she is plain and average, and so is her life. But she becomes immersed in the classic horror and gothic books of her time. While a love for literature is good—something Austen highlights—we see that she becomes so immersed in it that she begins looking for this kind of dramatic plot line in her own experiences. She swings open creaky cabinet doors expecting to find cryptic messages to solve, but only finds faded laundry notes and linens.
This climaxes when Catherine creates a dreadful story in her mind pertaining to her host, presuming he had harmed his wife and locked her in a secret chamber within the home. In a scene of great humility for Catherine, the man she secretly loves figures out what’s going on inside her imagination and shows her the foolishness of it, dragging her back to reality. Catherine is shown that despite her usual sensibility, she allowed the chilling books she was consuming to consume her own mind and alter the way she viewed reality. She neglected discerning the actual characteristics of the people around her to create ones of her own imagination.
I wonder if something similar happens to us when we immerse ourselves too much into the narratives of heresy and false teachers (rather than the narrative of Scripture)? Do we begin to see them everywhere—even where they are not?
It begins by listening to every podcast, reading every article, buying every book, and reposting every meme that comments on the particular heresy they fancy. They consume this material so much that they see this heresy everywhere, or go searching for it even where it’s absent. They make it their goal to hunt it out of every possible place, and make sure everyone they encounter is made aware of it.
Discernment is good. Desiring to see God’s name honoured and his Word rightly divided is a righteous desire. We shouldn’t condemn those who discern from the goodness of their hearts out of a love for the church.
But this type of hunting goes beyond loving and gentle discernment. This kind of hunting has perhaps put love to the side and picked up a few different motives. Like Miss. Morton from Northanger Abbey, they enjoy the adrenaline of the hunt. There is something thrilling about scanning an article or book in search of false teaching. Electricity tingles through their fingers as they possibly sniff the lingering trail of a heresy.
There is likewise something invigorating about spreading the hot gossip of newly found false teaching. Rather than mourning for the deceived, they enjoy making sarcastic remarks about the foolish heretics and their followers. They take more joy in the shock-factor when they reveal their latest find than they do in reaching lost people and seeing God’s Word properly handled.
How can I map out this character so well? Because I was one—I was a heresy hunter, and at times still lean that way, shamefully.
Discernment isn’t sinful or unloving in itself, but some have twisted it to be so. This doesn’t mean we should divert from discernment altogether. Instead, we should seek to call out false teachers with damp eyes, as Costi Hinn describes.¹ We should be grieved when we see false teaching extolled, and speak out with such grief on our lips. Our motive in discernment isn’t to be a witty comedian, but to display overflowing love—love for God and love for people. Love for God that his name not be blasphemed, and love for people that they don’t endure the harm that false teaching brings. This is the kind of discernment that glorifies God.
This kind of discernment is gentle and humble, as Galatians 6:1-2 describes. “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,” (ESV). We come with tender hands looking to mend what’s broken and misplaced, and humility in recognizing we could be found in the same place of needing correction.
Heresy hunters like myself would claim the example of Jesus or Paul when they rebuked Pharisees and false teachers. But Jesus is perfect and his anger is always righteous—ours isn’t. Jesus is God, the one directly offended by false teaching—we are not. As for Paul, he reserved his harshest criticism for specific people, namely those who were leading others into hell-bound error for gain. He would be appalled by the divisiveness and unkindness in churches today that comes in the name of good doctrine and discernment.
Brothers and sisters, let’s discern well. Let’s discern as those who have been saved by the gospel—let’s discern as previous rebellious heretics who were saved from our error and have experienced the loving kindness of God we were far from deserving. Let’s approach one another as those who were drawn in by God’s grace, not his wrath, and corrected in his fatherly discipline, not his rage.
Resources for Further Study:
Articles on Discernment
All That’s Good by Hannah Anderson
Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies
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Costi Hinn and Bethany Barendregt, accessed February 4, 2020, https://www.women-encouraged.com/blog/episode-48-what-is-the-prosperity-gospel-with-costi-hinn/)
