A heresy is a wrong teaching about God. The church looked at it long ago and said no. A pulpit is the place in a church where the preacher stands. So the title asks a question. Are old wrong teachings being preached again today?
What is this page about?
The man who writes this site wanted to test an idea. Here is the idea.
Long ago, there were five wrong teachings about God. The church said no to all five. But now they have come back, and most people have not noticed.
He is most interested in one kind of church. It is the church that has no creed. This kind of church says, “We have no creed. We only follow the Bible.”
Creed
A creed is a short list of what Christians believe. The whole church says it together. The best known is the Nicene Creed. It is about 1,700 years old.
The five teachings have long names. Do not worry about the names. Each one has a simple idea.
| Name | The idea in simple words |
|---|---|
| Gnosticism | The world is bad. The body does not matter. Only the soul is saved. |
| Arianism | God made Jesus. Jesus is not really God. |
| Modalism | The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one person with three names. |
| Montanism | God is now giving new messages. They add to what the apostles taught. |
| Pelagianism | People are born good. We can obey God without his help. |
For each one, this page asks three questions.
- What did the teaching say?
- What did the church answer?
- Is anyone saying the same thing today?
What this page does not say
This page does not say that people who believe these things are not Christians. Most of them do not know that the idea is old. Nobody told them.
This page also does not say that churches with creeds are always right. They make the same mistakes.
Eight points
- Wrong teaching comes in quietly. The Bible says some men “crept in secretly”. Nobody says, “I am bringing a wrong teaching.”
- A creed is a list of answers. Each line is there because someone once said the opposite.
- Gnosticism has come back as a habit. No church teaches the old system. But many Christians now think that only the soul lives for ever.
- Arianism is back. One large group teaches that God made Jesus. Many people in other churches think so too.
- Modalism is back. Some churches teach it. And many people learn it by accident from pictures like water, ice and steam.
- Montanism has come back as a habit. Some preachers say God gives them new messages. Nobody is allowed to test them.
- Pelagianism is back most of all. Most people in church think that everyone is born good.
- A creed does not stop mistakes. But it helps a church to see its mistakes.
This is my own opinion. I thought I would find five old wrong teachings alive today. What I found is not so simple.
Two of them are really here. Adult Christians say that God made Jesus. Many more say that people are good inside. They do not mean any harm. Nobody has told them that the church talked about these questions for a very long time.
Two others are more like habits than teachings. I want to say that honestly.
One thing worries me most. A church with no creed cannot easily find out that it has gone wrong. Leaving the creeds does not take us back to the Bible. It means we must have all the old arguments again. And one man in one pulpit must decide them.
What is a heresy?
The Bible warned the first Christians. Wrong teachers would come. They would come from inside the church, and they would come quietly.
For there are certain men who crept in secretly
Jude 4 · World English Bible
In simple words: Some men came into the church quietly. Nobody saw the danger.
Men will arise from among your own selves, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.
Acts 20:30 · World English Bible
In simple words: Some of your own people will teach wrong things. They will lead other believers away.
So a heresy does not come from far away. It starts with people in the church. They read the Bible. They love Jesus. Often they live very good lives.
Here is an example. About the year 190, a man called Noetus taught that Jesus is the same person as God the Father. The leaders of his church asked him about it. He answered: “What evil, then, am I doing in glorifying Christ?”
He thought he was giving honour to Jesus. He was not a bad man. But his teaching was wrong.
Heresy lies in the sense assigned, not in the word written
Hilary, a bishop, about the year 360
In simple words: The problem is not in the words of the Bible. The problem is in the meaning that people give to those words.
All five teachers on this page used the Bible. So it is not enough to say, “We just believe the Bible.” They said that too.
The Bible also tells us how to treat a person who is wrong.
Avoid a factious man after a first and second warning
Titus 3:10 · World English Bible
In simple words: First warn the person. Then warn him again. Only after that should you keep away from him.
Factious
A factious person makes groups in the church that fight each other. The old King James Bible uses the word “heretic” here.
This is important. A person who is wrong, and has never been told, is not a heretic. He has made a mistake. Someone should tell him kindly.
A heresy sounds like good sense. It usually has a Bible verse with it. That is why the church wrote its answers down.
What is a creed?
A creed is not a short Bible. It does not try to say everything.
A creed says the things that someone once denied. That is why it has many words about Jesus and few words about other things.
| Words in the creed | The wrong teaching they answer |
|---|---|
| “Maker of heaven and earth” | Gnosticism. It said a lower power made the world. |
| “Begotten, not made” | Arianism. It said God made the Son. |
| “The resurrection of the body” | Gnosticism. It said only the soul is saved. |
| “One baptism for the remission of sins” | Pelagianism. It said a baby has nothing to be forgiven. |
Begotten, and remission
Begotten is an old word. It means that a son comes from his father. A son is not made, like a chair is made. Remission of sins means that sins are forgiven.
Another old creed is called the Athanasian Creed. It has a line about Modalism: “Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance”. In simple words: do not mix the Father, the Son and the Spirit into one person. And do not make them three gods.
No creed has a line about Montanism. There is a reason. The Montanists said the whole creed. Their teaching about God was right. Part 6 explains what was wrong.
A creed is like a list of old arguments, with the answers. A church that says “begotten, not made” every week has already said no to one of the five.
Gnosticism: the body does not matter
About 1,850 years ago, some teachers said that the world was a mistake. They said a lower and foolish power made it. The true God did not make it.
They said that a person’s spirit is shut inside a body, like a prisoner. A secret knowledge could set the spirit free.
Gnosticism
This name comes from “gnosis”. That is the Greek word for knowledge. These teachers said that secret knowledge saves people.
They also said that Jesus did not have a real body. And they said that our bodies will not rise again. One of them said: “Salvation belongs to the soul alone, for the body is by nature subject to corruption.”
These teachers put people in classes. The “spiritual” people were at the top. They had the secret knowledge. Ordinary church people were below them. A bishop called Irenaeus wrote about this in the year 180. He tells us who was in the lower class: “We of the Church, they say, are these persons.”
What the church answered
The Bible had already answered.
God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31 · World English Bible
In simple words: God made the world, and it was very good.
The Word became flesh, and lived among us.
John 1:14 · World English Bible
In simple words: The Son of God became a real man, with a real body.
Touch me and see, for a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.
Luke 24:39 · World English Bible
In simple words: Jesus rose from the dead with a real body. His friends could touch him.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:44 · World English Bible
In simple words: Our body is put in the ground like a seed. God will raise it as a new and better body.
So the creeds say three things. God is the “Maker of heaven and earth”. The Son “was made man”. And we wait for “the resurrection of the body”.
Irenaeus added one more thing. There are no secrets. He said that the truth is “within the power of all”. Any Christian in any church can know it.
Today
No church teaches the old system today. Nobody says that a lower power made the world.
But some of the old habits have come back.
The first habit is the hope to escape. Many Christians say, “When I die, I will go to heaven.” That is true. But it is only half. The Bible also says that God will raise our bodies. In 2006, people in America were asked about this. Only 36 out of every 100 thought their own body would rise again.
At a funeral, someone says: “She is free of her old body now. It was only a shell.”
This is said kindly. But the creed says something better. She will get her body back, made new.
The second habit is secret knowledge. A preacher says, “God showed me what this verse really means. You cannot find it by study.”
The third habit is two classes of Christian. Some teachers speak of “ordinary” Christians and “spiritual” Christians. A teacher called Warfield answered this in 1919. He wrote: “There are not two kinds of Christians”.
The old system is gone. Its habits have come back. But it would be unfair to call these people Gnostics. They believe that God made the world. They believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
Arianism: God made Jesus
The first Christians believed in one God. They also prayed to Jesus. How can both be true?
About the year 318, a priest in Egypt gave an answer. His name was Arius. He said that the Son is not God in the full way. God made the Son first. Then the Son made everything else.
We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning.
Arius, in his own letter, about the year 320
In simple words: People are against us for one reason. We say that the Son had a start, but God had no start.
Arius used the Bible. For example, Jesus said: “the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28)
What the church answered
In the year 325, many bishops met in a town called Nicaea. They wrote a creed. It says that the Son is “begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father”.
Of one substance
This means that the Son is God in the same way that the Father is God. He is not a lower kind of being.
They had two reasons.
First, Christians pray to Jesus and worship him. It is wrong to worship something that God made.
Second, only God can save us. A bishop called Athanasius wrote: “a creature could never be saved by a creature”.
Creature
A creature is anything that God made. Angels are creatures. People are creatures. God is not a creature.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:1–3 · World English Bible
In simple words: “The Word” is a name for the Son. He was there at the start. He is God. Everything that was made was made through him. So he was not made.
What about “the Father is greater than I”? The church said that Jesus spoke these words as a man. He became a man for us. As God, he is equal to the Father.
Today
One large group teaches the same thing as Arius. They are called Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their magazine says: “God created Jesus and then used him to make everything else, including the angels”.
They began as a group who studied the Bible with no creed.
Many people in other churches think the same thing by accident. In 2022, Christians in America were asked a question. Did they agree that Jesus is “the first and greatest being created by God”? Among the most serious church members, 73 out of every 100 said yes.
A teacher tells the children: “A long time ago there was only God. Then God made his Son, Jesus.”
The teacher wants to teach the faith. But this is the story that Arius told.
These people are not followers of Arius. They also say that they believe in the Trinity. They are confused. Nobody has explained it to them.
Trinity
The Trinity means one God in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Arius said that God made the Son. The church answered: “begotten, not made.” Today this old teaching is in print. And many Christians agree with it without knowing its name.
Modalism: one person with three names
There was another easy answer. It came about 100 years before Arius.
Some teachers said that Jesus is fully God because he is the Father. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are only three names for one person. It is like one actor who wears three masks.
One of these teachers was Noetus. People said that he taught this: “the Father Himself was born, and suffered, and died”.
What the church answered
The church looked at the life of Jesus in the Gospels.
Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him. Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16–17 · World English Bible
In simple words: Jesus is in the water. The Spirit comes down. The Father speaks from heaven. All three are there at the same time.
My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.
Matthew 26:39 · World English Bible
In simple words: Jesus prays to his Father. He is not talking to himself.
So the Father is not the Son. They are two persons. But they are one God.
Today
Some churches teach this old idea today. They are called Oneness Pentecostal churches. The largest one says:
There is one God, who has revealed Himself as Father; through His Son, in redemption; and as the Holy Spirit, by emanation.
United Pentecostal Church International, “Our Beliefs”
In simple words: There is one God. He has shown himself in three ways.
These Christians love Jesus and believe that he is fully God. This page does not judge them. But their teaching is the same as the old one. It says “three ways”. It does not say “three persons”.
Many other people learn this idea by accident. They learn it from pictures.
“God is like water. Water can be ice, or liquid, or steam.”
“God is like a man. He is a father, and a son, and a husband. But he is one man.”
Both pictures show one thing in three forms. That is the old wrong teaching.
A bishop called Gregory looked for a good picture in the year 380. He could not find one.
I have been unable to discover anything on earth with which to compare the nature of the Godhead.
Gregory of Nazianzus, the year 380
In simple words: I could not find anything in the world that is like God.
Modalism says that the Father, the Son and the Spirit are one person. The church says: three persons, one God. No picture can show this. It is better to say it plainly.
Montanism: new messages from God
About the year 170, a man called Montanus began to speak as a prophet. He lived in the land that is now Turkey. Two women joined him. Their followers called this “the New Prophecy”.
Prophet
A prophet is a person who speaks a message from God.
Their followers said something surprising. They said that they had “learned something more through these, than from law, and prophets, and the Gospels”. So the new messages were greater than the Bible.
Christians who did not accept the new prophets were called unspiritual.
A surprise
Nobody said that their teaching about God was wrong. They believed in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They said the same creed.
And the church did not say that God had stopped giving prophets. One writer who was against Montanus said that prophecy must go on “until the final coming”.
What the church answered
The church said that every prophet must be tested. The Bible gives the tests.
Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others discern.
1 Corinthians 14:29 · World English Bible
In simple words: When a prophet speaks, the other people must think about it. They must decide if it is right.
When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken.
Deuteronomy 18:22 · World English Bible
In simple words: If a prophet says that something will happen, and it does not happen, then God did not send that message.
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Old Testament. Many Bibles write “the LORD”.
The new prophets failed these tests.
- Nobody was allowed to question them.
- They put their words next to the words of the apostles.
- One of them said that wars were coming. Thirteen years later, no war had come.
- A writer of that time said that Montanus “appointed collectors of money”.
The same writer asked a question: “Does not all Scripture seem to you to forbid a prophet to receive gifts and money?”
Apostles
The apostles were the men whom Jesus sent to teach. Their teaching is in the New Testament.
Today
The same things happen today.
“Give money tonight to this word from God, and see what God does.”
“God is doing a new thing. The old churches are dead.”
“God showed me that a great thing will happen in this city before the end of the year.”
It is fair to see that these are like the New Prophecy.
But be careful. Many churches believe that God still gives prophecy, and they test it by the Bible. They are not Montanists. One such church is the Assemblies of God. In 2001 it wrote: “the content of prophecy itself should always be tested by and responsible to the superior authority of Scripture”.
In simple words: the Bible is above every prophecy.
The Montanists said the creed. But they added to the teaching of the apostles. The church answered with tests. Can we check the message? Does it agree with the Bible? Does it come true? Who gets the money?
Pelagianism: we can do it without help
About the year 400, a teacher called Pelagius came to Rome. He was a serious man, and he lived a strict life.
He saw Christians who did wrong things. Then they said, “We are only human.” This made him angry. He wrote down their excuse:
It’s hard! It’s difficult! We can’t! We are but men
Pelagius, the year 413. He is repeating the excuse that people made.
In simple words: It is too hard. We cannot do it. We are only human.
Pelagius answered like this. God is fair. A fair God does not ask for something that we cannot do. So we can obey God, if we choose to. He wrote that God “has not willed to command anything impossible”.
More ideas came from this one. If we can obey as we are, then people are not broken inside. A student of Pelagius said: “Adam’s sin injured only himself and not the human race.” So every baby is born good, like Adam at the start.
Adam
Adam was the first man. The Bible says that he disobeyed God, and that all people were hurt by this.
What the church answered
The church answered with the words of Jesus.
apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5 · World English Bible
In simple words: Without Jesus, we cannot do anything good.
for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God
Ephesians 2:8 · World English Bible
In simple words: God saved you as a free gift. It did not come from you.
Grace
Grace is God’s free help and kindness. We do not earn it.
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12–13 · World English Bible
In simple words: Live as people whom God has saved. You can, because God is working in you. He helps you to want what is right, and to do it.
A meeting of bishops said no to the teaching of Pelagius in the year 418. Later, some people taught a softer idea. They said, “We need God’s help, but we must take the first step.” Another meeting said no to that in the year 529. It said that even the wish to believe is a gift from God.
Today
This teaching has come back more than any other.
A famous preacher in America in the 1800s was called Charles Finney. He wrote in a book that the old teaching about sin was “anti-scriptural and nonsensical”. He meant that it was against the Bible and made no sense.
In 2025, serious church members in America were asked about this. 64 out of every 100 agreed that “everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God”.
About half of the people who go to church think that the Bible says “God helps those who help themselves”. The Bible does not say this.
“God has done his part. Now you must do your part.”
“You can stop any time, if you really want to.”
Be careful with this name
A preacher who says “Repent and believe” is not a Pelagian. The apostles said that.
Churches that speak a lot about free will are not Pelagian either. John Wesley started the Methodist church. He said that every person is born with a sinful nature. A person who denies this, he said, is “but an Heathen still”.
Heathen
A heathen is an old word for a person who does not know the true God.
Pelagius wanted Christians to stop making excuses. That was good. But his teaching has no good news for a weak person. It tells a drowning man, “You could swim if you tried.”
What do people in church believe?
A group of researchers asks about 3,000 people in America what they believe. They do this every two or three years.
They look closely at the most serious church members. Here is what those people said.
| The sentence | How many agreed |
|---|---|
| “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” | 73 out of 100, in the year 2022 |
| “Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.” | 64 out of 100, in the year 2025 |
| “The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.” | 53 out of 100, in the year 2025 |
Almost all of the same people also said that they believe in one God in three persons.
So they are not followers of Arius or Pelagius. They are confused. They know the right words. But nobody explained what the words mean. So they fill the gaps with ideas that seem sensible. And those ideas are the old wrong teachings.
Be fair
These numbers do not show that churches without creeds are worse. People in churches that say the creed every week gave the same answers. Saying a creed is not enough. Someone must explain it.
Why does a creed help?
If everyone is confused, does a creed help at all? There are two reasons to think so.
The first reason is history
In the year 359, a ruler wanted the bishops to sign a new paper. It left out the most important word of the Nicene Creed. They were given a reason: “Because it is not found in the Scriptures”.
That sounds good. But the word had been put there to keep out the teaching of Arius. The bishops signed. Soon the whole church seemed to be on the side of Arius. It took 22 years to put this right.
So “use only Bible words” was first said by the people who wanted to remove the creed.
It has happened again since then.
- In 1804, an American preacher told Christians to “take the Bible as the only sure guide to heaven”. Some years later he wrote that the Son did not always exist.
- In 1914, a new group of churches began with no list of beliefs. Two years later it was divided by the teaching of Modalism. It had to write a list of beliefs quickly.
The second reason is how a creed works
- It is said aloud. Everyone in the church knows it.
- It is older than the pastor. He did not write it, and he cannot change it. If he teaches against it, people can see.
- Its words shut out mistakes. Many churches write their own list of beliefs. It may say, “We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That is true. But Arius believed it too.
Pastor
A pastor is the leader and teacher of a church.
Be fair
The bishops in 359 had a creed, and they still went wrong. Many churches with no creed teach the truth, because they have good teachers. A creed is not magic. It is a measure. A church can use it to check its teaching.
Each of the five wrong teachings is easier to believe than the truth. That is why people find them again and again. A creed does not stop this. But it helps a church to notice.
Check it yourself
- Read the short letter of Jude in the Bible. How does wrong teaching come into a church?
- Read John 1:1-18. Was the Son made? Or did he make all things?
- Read Ephesians 2:1-10. What can we do without God’s help?
- Read the Nicene Creed slowly. It takes two minutes.
- Find the list of beliefs of your own church. Put it next to the creed. Does it say that the Son was not made? Does it say three persons? Does it say that the body will rise? Does it say that faith is God’s gift?
If you hear one of these teachings in your own church, do not be angry. The speaker has probably made a mistake. Jesus tells us what to do.
If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone.
Matthew 18:15 · World English Bible
In simple words: Go to the person. Talk to him alone, and kindly.
Then ask your pastor one question. “Is there any line in the Nicene Creed that our church does not believe?”
The Bible words on this page come from the World English Bible. It is a modern translation, and anyone may copy it. The quick version and the full dossier use the King James Version, which is older and harder to read. The words are different, but the meaning is the same.
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The quick version says the same things in ordinary English and adds short exercises. The full dossier gives all the evidence and names every source.
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