In his epistle, James cautions his readers that “not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (Jas. 3:1). He then gives the reason for this caution: “For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” (Jas. 3:2). James here affirms two realities simultaneously: that all men at times err in what they speak, and that those who occupy positions of teaching should be held to particularly high standards in this area. In our modern world, teachers of influence are not necessarily limited to those holding teaching positions in local churches; instead, we see a proliferation of individuals aiming to instruct the broader church through a variety of means, from writing books to hosting podcasts to posting on social media. In light of James’s warning to teachers—as well as his affirmation that everyone sins in their speech at some point—how should we generally evaluate the errors made by Christian public figures in their teaching ministries? In other words, when has a teacher, writer, or thought leader who claims the name of Christ simply “gone too far” or proven themselves to be someone to avoid rather than heed? Don’t even godly Christians sometimes say the wrong thing or hold erroneous views? How do we distinguish between public ministries that contain a good deal of meat with some bones to spit out and those that are dry or poisoned wells capable of serious harm?
To resolve this tension, it is tempting to simply fall back on the framework of theological triage—that is, the evaluation of the importance of any given doctrinal conflict or disagreement to the Christian faith as a whole.[1] The main purpose of theological triage is to determine which controversial issues of our day are the most important to address and demand our most immediate attention. But we often tend to only evaluate the errors of a teacher/leader solely based on which categories of triage their errors fall into. For example, some might say that only those teachers who err on first tier matters (that are necessary for salvation) should be viewed as essentially false teachers and confronted or warned against accordingly. If the issues are deemed second tier, however, then while I may not be able to join the same church as that teacher, I can at least continue to view them as a solid and trustworthy Christian voice on other matters—or so the sentiment goes. Therefore, in this view, it would be entirely inappropriate to warn others that these figures might be untrustworthy guides or potential wolves. Again, one can think of the frequent camaraderie between those on opposite sides of the infant baptism debate: it would be inappropriate for a Baptist to call a Presbyterian a “false teacher” merely for their views on baptism, or vice-versa. But do all second tier issues carry the same weight?
1. Albert Mohler is typically credited for coining the term theological triage. In an article advising Christians when to engage in theological/ideological conflicts, Danny Slavich outlines three tiers of doctrinal disagreement using theological triage as follows: first-level issues are those that are “most central” and are comprised of “the doctrines of God, Christ, humanity, and salvation”; second-level issues are “those things that define specific tribes or denominations” (citing infant baptism as an example); and third-level issues are “those that we can debate within our own churches” (pointing to matters of eschatology such as the Millennium).
My concern with applying theological triage in this manner is that when it comes to a particular teacher/leader’s public ministry, this approach is both insufficient and oversimplistic. It’s true that some doctrines are more fundamental to the faith than others.[2] A denial of doctrines such as the Trinity or Christ’s two natures is a non-starter and automatically puts someone outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity. Christians should also be able to discern when a debate requires little to no heat and should be treated as nothing more than a friendly disagreement over matters of conscience or interpretation. But between these two ends of the spectrum, the seriousness of a given disagreement can vary quite drastically from one issue to the next. This is why, as David Attebury has rightly pointed out, we need to discern which second-tier issues directly undermine first-tier doctrines, and which second-tier issues—while still preventing Christians on opposing sides from joining the same church or denomination—nevertheless do not provide a serious impediment for Christian fellowship in almost any other sphere.
2. For a fuller treatment of theological triage, see Gavin Ortlund, Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020).28–29.
To Attebury’s helpful observations, I want to add two additional factors that often get left out of these kinds of discussions and that further highlight the insufficiency of theological triage when used by itself. These factors stem from the fact that when discerning which teachers are solid but sometimes wrong on important topics and which ones have proven themselves generally untrustworthy guides at best (or wolves at worst), we are dealing not just with doctrines and ideas but with people ministering in a particular time and place.[3] People are not simply walking doctrinal systems; instead, our decisions and views are shaped by a whole host of factors too numerous to list here. We are sinful human beings who fall far, far short of a perfect understanding of God and his Word, making errors and inconsistencies inevitable. These realities complicate the picture and make it more difficult at times to gauge the soundness or unsoundness of someone’s overall public presence, especially if we are only relying on a three- or four-tiered system of doctrinal evaluation. To aid in this messy work of discernment, I propose two additional questions that need to be asked whenever an individual who claims to represent Christianity in the public square expresses an erroneous, unbiblical opinion.
3. The distinction I am making here between an “untrustworthy guide” and a “wolf” is to leave room for those public voices who are genuine followers of Christ but have continually demonstrated a lack of discernment or wisdom in their handling of disputed issues. While I would consider them “untrustworthy” in the sense that I would not recommend their ministries and resources to others, I do not want to accuse everyone in this category of being a heretic or false teacher who is intentionally leading people away from historic Christianity.
1. Does Their Error Coincide with the Spirit of the Age?
Relying on the theological triage model by itself creates the potential danger of automatically considering any individual who signs off on first-tier doctrines like the Trinity, the hypostatic union, the resurrection of Jesus, the Imago Dei, and salvation by grace alone as a co-laborer ministering in good faith, regardless of how many other significant issues they get wrong. However, this line of thinking ignores the reality that we live within a culture that is directly hostile to Christian teaching at specific points (issues of gender and sexuality, for example). Faithful Christians will inevitably find themselves face-to-face with spiritually destructive ideas that directly contradict the teachings of Christ, and they must be able to respond accordingly (2 Cor. 10:3–6; Eph. 6:10–20). Scripture makes clear that followers of Jesus should expect hostility from the world (John 15:18–25; 17:14; 1 John 3:13; 4:4–6). Therefore, while we should love even the unbelievers who persecute us (Matt. 5:43–48) and seek to win them to the gospel (Matt. 28:18–20), we must also be careful not to yearn for the world’s approval, instead striving to be “in” the world while not “of” it (John 17:6–19; 1 John 2:15–17).
Because of this dynamic, the areas in which a public figure falls short of biblical teaching can reveal something about the authenticity or strength of their witness. To put the matter frankly: if a professing believer is only willing to publicly affirm historic Christian teaching in ways that don’t cost him much social credit while tending to err in directions that the wider culture would approve of, then I have good reason to suspect that he is unduly driven by a desire for the world’s approval (cf. John 12:42–43). In most cases, a Christian public figure is not going to be blacklisted for affirming the doctrines of the Trinity or the divinity of Christ; but they will earn the ire of secular news outlets, social justice advocates, universities, progressive political figures, celebrities in the entertainment industry, and social media influencers for taking firm-but-unpopular stances on issues like abortion, egalitarianism, homosexual rights, transgenderism, and reparations.[4] A Christian teacher/leader’s affirmation of the former doctrines would be largely undermined by compromise or unbiblical stances taken on the latter. Such stances or missteps erode trust in their commitment and submission to the authority of God’s Word over against the pressures of the world.[5]
4. The 2024 election of Donald Trump to the U. S. presidency has changed this dynamic somewhat, as his political victory appears to signal a change in what views the public considers permissible vs. taboo. However, these changes do not automatically undo the dominance progressive ideology has enjoyed for several decades in politics, mainstream media, public education, secular universities, “woke capitalism,” and the entertainment industry. Conservatism itself has not yet supplanted progressivism in controlling all the levers of cultural power. See, e.g., the insightful article by Aaron Renn, “Red States: Rich in Votes, Poor in Power,” Commonplace, January 28, 2025. Given that even members of the Trump administration hold errant views on issues like abortion, I don’t hold out hope that progressivism will be overcome overnight.
5. This is, I think, one reason why C. S. Lewis remains such a household name among conservative evangelicals in spite of the seriousness of some of his errors, including his rejection of the inerrancy of Scripture as well as his inclusivism and distaste for the doctrine of penal substitution. Despite his theological shortcomings, Lewis remained firmly orthodox at precisely those points where it would have been most fashionable for someone in his position to compromise, including the givenness of human nature, the historicity of Jesus’s incarnation and resurrection, the objective nature of morality, the emptiness of then-popular philosophical fads, and traditional Christian views of sin and virtue.
2. Are Their Errors Inconsistent or Part of a Regular Pattern?
When evaluating Christian leaders and teachers exclusively through the lens of theological triage, it is easy to zoom in on an isolated instance of error, deem it of secondary importance, and dismiss it as nothing more than a momentary stumble by an otherwise-solid voice. Yet while we should be slow to ascribe motives or to dismiss someone as a liberal operative[6] merely because they have fallen short in a few areas of their teaching, this does not mean we should be intentionally dull when such errors just happen to be consistent with other errors and tendencies that particular leader/teacher has shown. Naivete is not a virtue (Matt. 10:16). Discernment involves not just evaluating isolated moments but larger patterns and trends in an individual’s life and teaching. Unbiblical ideologies are rarely adopted wholesale overnight; instead, they are often introduced and consumed bit by bit. Thus, when any Christian leader seriously errs, it is worth asking whether such error is an anomaly or part of a larger pattern of error and compromise.
These kinds of patterns and trajectories can be subtle as well. For example, does a given leader/teacher frequently caveat their most unpopular stances, beginning their articles with statements like “Now I hold to [fill in the blank a biblical viewpoint], but…” followed by a series of assertions and arguments that appear to undermine that very position? Do they seem selective in their criticisms and outrage, consistently targeting the groups most distasteful to secular culture while remaining mostly silent on issues like abortion, Critical Race Theory, and transgenderism that would quickly place them in that same “distasteful” category in the eyes of the culture?[7] Any one instance of this kind of behavior may not seem too grievous or indicative of compromise; but in some cases, zooming out and looking at the bigger picture of a teacher’s public output can reveal just as much about their theological convictions as an affirmation of the Nicene Creed.[8]
7. I attempt to point out some of these tendencies and inconsistencies among modern Christian thought leaders in an earlier article, “Three Marks of Progressive-Lite Evangelicals,” Christ Over All, December 13, 2023.
8. Compare, for example, the rejection of the eternality of hell by John Stott on the one hand and Rob Bell on the other. Both cases involve the rejection of a major point of traditional Christian orthodoxy and thus constitute a serious error. Yet Stott’s rejection of hell’s eternality in favor of annihilationism (i.e., the belief that God eventually destroys those in hell, wiping them from existence) was inconsistent with his upholding of Christian orthodoxy at every other point concerning the wrath of God against sinners. By contrast, Bell’s open rejection of an eternal hell in his book Love Wins (2011) was clearly just one milestone in a larger enterprise of theological revision. His universalist stance (i.e., that everyone will eventually make it to heaven) is perfectly consistent with his insistence in earlier books that historic Christian doctrine is nothing more than human beings’ interpretations of the Bible that can be accepted, rejected, or remolded as one sees fit. His publications since then have only continued these kinds of unbiblical and anti-doctrinal trajectories.
Two Case Studies: Alistair Begg and Andy Stanley
It may be helpful to see how I would apply the above two questions to a couple of present-day Bible teachers: Alistair Begg and Andy Stanley. I’ve chosen these two pastors specifically because (1) they both have taken erroneous stances in the area of LGBTQ+ issues, (2) the specific controversies discussed below erupted within months of each other, and (3) my application of the above principles leads me to quite different conclusions about the two of them.
The controversy around Begg was sparked by an interview in early 2024 in which Begg mentioned a situation involving a grandmother asking him for his advice on whether or not she should attend her grandson’s so-called wedding to a transgender individual. Begg, after acknowledging the fact that “people may not like this answer,” advised her to still attend the so-called wedding and bring the couple a gift to express her love for her grandson and to avoid being seen as “judgmental” and “critical,” so long as her grandson knew where she stood on the issue.
I won’t lay out here all the reasons why this is, quite frankly, very misguided and potentially dangerous advice to give; I’ve written very briefly on this topic in another article and would also direct readers to the decade-old but still excellent article by Samuel Parkison on the subject. But assuming readers of the present article agree with me that Begg is in error here, what impact should this have on our view of Begg’s ministry as a whole? Christians would generally agree that this error is not a denial of a first-order doctrine; Begg is not condoning homosexual or transgender unions themselves. Can we thus dismiss this as just a minor misstep on his part, or should we see this as a sign of drift and a cause for wariness?
When we apply the two questions I highlighted above to Begg’s case—(1) Does his error coincide with the spirit of the age, and (2) is his error part of a larger pattern?—I would argue that the answer is “yes” to the first question and “no” to the second. Regarding the first, Begg’s error here is definitely in step with the spirit of the age. In fact, in his sermon following the interview in which he doubled down on his position, he essentially defended his stance as being the loving and compassionate position and painted his critics as judgmental Pharisees. This is the same kind of rhetoric that is used by professing Christians who encourage affirmation of homosexual lifestyles and relationships, in lockstep with the secular culture’s view that these unions are good and worth celebrating. I do not think it is wise, then, to downplay Begg’s error as no big deal and to chastise his critics for making a mountain out of a molehill.[9] His error here and subsequent defense of it are, in fact, serious and have grieved those of us who have held Begg in high esteem.
9. For an example of this kind of response, see Russell Moore, “Alistair Begg Meets the Politically Correct,” Christianity Today, February 2, 2024.
But the second question, I think, keeps us from swinging too far in the opposite direction. Yes, Begg’s stance here is deeply disappointing. But thankfully, it is blessedly inconsistent with the rest of his body of teaching. This is precisely why his comments created the shock that they did. Begg’s ministry has been characterized for decades by faithful exposition of Scripture and a willingness to speak hard truths, including on the sinfulness of homosexuality itself. So while I find his stance perplexing and problematic, I don’t see it as necessarily an indication that Begg is drifting into theological liberalism or capitulating to the culture. Instead, I’m inclined to think Begg has honestly come to a wrong conclusion here due to poor reasoning, and I’ll continue to be edified by his resources and view him as a generally solid teacher even as I pray he repents of this specific error.
Andy Stanley likewise has been the subject of controversy regarding statements and decisions made on how to address LGBTQ+ issues. In the fall of 2023, Stanley came under fire for hosting a conference at his church aimed at equipping parents of LGBTQ-identifying kids to love and maintain a relationship with their children. The controversy stemmed from the fact that the conference included speakers who were either affirming of homosexual lifestyles or practicing homosexuals themselves. In a sermon defending the church’s decision to include these speakers, Stanley claimed that the church still upholds belief in marriage as one man and one woman and invited these speakers only so they could share their experiences and give parents practical advice on how to love their gay-identifying kids well.
At the very least, Stanley should be criticized for his profound lack of pastoral wisdom in inviting unrepentant sinners to advise parents on how to deal with kids who are tempted to pursue the same damning sin that the speakers themselves are entrapped in (or encourage others to pursue). But how does this incident reflect on Stanley’s ministry as a whole? Is this just a major blunder, or evidence of a deeper problem with his teaching? Applying the same two “test questions” to his case that were applied to Begg’s, I would argue that the answer to both questions is “yes.” Regarding the first test, Stanley’s promotion of gay and gay-affirming speakers is certainly in line with the prevailing culture’s celebration of LGBTQ+ lifestyles. In fact, the organization the church partnered with to host the conference, Embracing the Journey, has been endorsed by the Reformation Project, a gay-affirming organization that has in turn received a significant amount of funding from the secular Arcus Foundation to promote pro-LGBTQ+ views among churches.[10] The fact that the church is comfortable partnering with an organization with this kind of progressive backing is telling.
10. On the background, associations, and LGBTQ-affirming teachings of both the Reformation Project and Embracing the Journey, see Megan Basham, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda (New York: HarperCollins, 2024), 203–209.
With regards to the second test, it is noteworthy that this is not the first instance in which Stanley has been criticized for his handling of LGBTQ+ issues. He has made previous assertions about how the “faith” of gay church attenders exceeds his own, and he has seemingly encouraged pastors to move their churches in a gay-affirming direction.[11] When viewed in light of other public stances Stanley has taken, such as his severe downplaying of the doctrine of inerrancy and his argument that Christians need to “unhitch” the message of Christianity from the Old Testament, his conference appears to fit an overall trajectory of undermining biblical authority in order to make his message more palatable to outsiders. He seems consistently willing to compromise or downplay unpopular teachings of historic Christianity to attract unbelievers to his church’s ministry. Should Stanley continue to follow this path in the direction he is heading, he will lead both himself and those who follow him into full-blown apostasy from the Christian faith and the adoption of a different gospel—one characterized by the world’s definition of “love” rather than God’s. Thus, unless Stanley publicly repents of these kinds of errors, I would not recommend his ministry or resources to others. He has proven himself to be, at the very least, an untrustworthy guide—and should he continue in unrepentance—even a full-blown wolf seeking to lead the flock astray.
11. See Basham, Shepherds for Sale, 198–202 for more on Stanley’s previous statements in this area, with full citations. More recently, clips from a training program produced and used by Stanley’s church appear to encourage youth leaders to affirm so-called trans-identifying children in their choice of gender and process of transition. See Allie Beth Stuckey, “Andy Stanley’s New Youth LGBTQ Training Program Is Highly Disturbing,” April 1, 2025, in Relatable, podcast, 26:06–1:00:21.
Conclusion
To be clear: I am not arguing against the concept of theological triage itself. To some degree, theological triage is not only biblical but also inevitable, and I suspect the vast majority of Christians recognize that some doctrines are more foundational to Christianity than others (compare the matters Paul labels of “first importance” in 1 Corinthians 15 with the matters he leaves up to personal conscience in Romans 14). This is obviously an important factor when determining how sound a particular leader/teacher’s ministry is. But it is not the only factor, and my argument here has been that other factors need to be taken into account as well. Such factors include (1) the pressure to conform to ideas that have the weight of cultural and institutional power behind them, and (2) the patterns and trajectories that are evident in a public figure’s teaching and behavior.
Yes, everyone sins in their speech at one time or another; but this does not mean that we should give teachers a pass every time they err on something other than a first-tier doctrine. We should all strive for a balance between giving one another grace (Matt. 7:12; Col. 3:12–15) and holding those in positions of authority or influence to high standards (Jas. 3:1–12). My hope is that in taking factors like those outlined above into account, Christians can cultivate greater wisdom and discernment in distinguishing between generally reliable voices who sometimes err and those who prove themselves faulty in their judgment and perhaps even subversive in their intentions.
