Know your heresy: Docetism

Docetism, is a heretical sect that developed within the early church, its name is derived from the Greek word dokesis which means "semblance" they are particularly dangerous for the Christian faith because of their Christological understanding that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man”, which in a way denies Christ’s humanity. The danger as exhibited in history is that some Docetists even went as far as claiming that it was Simon of Cyrene who was crucified, while Jesus looked on from a place of safety. They also emphasized on the temporality of the human body and of the material world which puts forward a tendency to undercut the importance of the belief in resurrection of the dead and the goodness of created matter, which opposes the very nature of orthodoxy that stresses on the importance of the salvific work of God in Christ that transpired in the material world that we live in, which could be seen with their disengagement with the affairs of the world at large and their abstinence in partaking the sacrament of the Eucharist.

The Church responded with the assertion of the Scripture’s account of Christ as God Incarnate or God ‘in flesh’ (John 1:14; 1 John 4:13; 2 John 7). Early Christian apologists like Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus and Hippolatus who all wrote against it in the early part of the second century.

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Further reading: Docetism entry on the Early Church History in the World Wide Web

Know your heresy: Montanism

Montanism originated in Pepuza in Phrygia, a province of Asia Minor. Its first leaders were Montanus who claimed to have received a series of direct revelations from the Holy Spirit; Priscilla and Maximilla, who functioned as his prophetesses. Later on they were able to convert the Church Father, and onetime champion of orthodox belief, Tertullian of Carthage in Northern Africa who would later on become the most widely known defender of the Montanists.

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Further reading: The Montanists: Heretics or Primitive Christians?

Karl Barth on Fundamentalism

If I had to rewrite this volume, I might not be so polemical, although the heresies would be the same. I might have a more irenic spirit. I could look out on the present situation and ask: what should the Christian proclamation be in view of all these denominations in Ecumenical movement, etc? But maybe the way I said it is clearer. Liberalism is coming back today, especially in Europe. Look at Rudolf Bultmann; he stems from Father Schleiermacher! And look at the situation in Switzerland! And the old snake in Rome is still there! I might have mentioned a third heresy: Fundamentalism, Orthodoxy. In 1932 I did not know the Fundamentalists so well. The Fundamentalists says he knows the Bible, but he must have become master over the Bible, which means master over revelation... I consider it just another kind of natural theology: a view of the modern man who wants to control revelation.
John D. Godsey, Karl Barth's Table Talk, 40-41.