Theology and controversy

I’ve been doing some thinking about theology, controversy, and confrontation the past couple of days. Here’s why.

At last week’s Band of Bloggers, Phil Johnson said (and this is a summary), “Seeking controversy for its own sake is bad; but engaging the issues sometimes demands dealing candidly with issues. Christ didn’t shy away from controversy.” Yet some see Phil’s approach and blog as too confrontational. Is Phil right that candidly dealing with issues means that we sometimes wade into controversy? If so, how do we do it? (A good example of Phil’s approach is his recent post on defending the truth.)

On the other hand, Steve Knight left a comment here yesterday, “After all, what is ‘orthodox’? and who defines it? right?”

Here you have two very different approaches to truth and orthodoxy. How do we respond to false teaching? Or do we? I hope to post a few thoughts on this in the next few days.