More Dangerous than Heresy

Who doesn’t have pleasant memories of the holidays? Christmas is as much a secular holiday as it is a religious one. Regardless of a person’s background, whether they grew up in a Christian home or a lost one, Christmas brings with it a great sense of nostalgia.

      The church has a wonderful opportunity to testify to the good news of Christ in this world. As the spiritually dead hum to themselves doctrinally rich hymnody, we have countless opportunities to share the real meaning of Christmas. As a holiday that celebrates the incarnation, the moment of promises fulfilled and the availability of dwelling with God forever, Christians have an open door to proclaim what is true!

      With this great opportunity also comes great risk. The church can just as easily embrace what exists in the culture around us by celebrating the warmth and comfort of the season without focusing on truth. If that happens, rather than seizing the opportunity to declare Christ to a world that needs Him, we’ll end up watering down the gospel entrusted to us.

      While most pastors worry about heresy creeping into their congregations, there’s a far more prevalent concern that actively plagues Christ’s body — sentimentality.

      Sentimentality is the emotional fog that substitutes nostalgia for discipleship. Unlike heresy, sentimentality doesn’t reject truth; it just empties truth of its weight. It advances the enemy’s agenda to undermine a season that should herald our Christian distinctiveness to the world around us, and to succumb to worshiping through the Advent season with diluted, hollow traditions.

How Sentimentality Distorts Truth

      Ignoring the merit and value of truth undermines the most powerful apologetic the church has — the claim that there is a knowable, absolute truth. Sentimentality trims away at the rough edges that God intentionally preserved.

      Matthew opens his gospel with a genealogy that includes exiles, scandal, sinners and outsiders. The story of Christ’s birth swells between the tension of a woman socially shamed by a miraculous pregnancy and a husband wrestling with confusion. Born during the reign of a murderous tyrant and escaping as a refugee, there is hardly a glimmer of sentimentality in the story of God taking on flesh in a sinful world.

      The story of divine invasion into the depths of humanity’s brokenness to rescue His people just doesn’t measure up to the Hallmark motif.

      What begins as soft sentiment at Christmas can shape a believer’s approach to truth throughout the year, producing a sentimental faith.

Why Sentimentality is Dangerous

      While mature believers and pastors can typically name heresies, sentimentality slips in under the guise of familiarity, appearing harmless and even pleasant.

      Consider for a moment that there aren’t any real “heresies” addressed in Scripture directly. The closest we’d come would be Paul addressing the early formulations of gnostic counterfeit Christianity. However, the Bible consistently warns against religion that feels sincere but isn’t rooted in truth.

      Jesus quoted Isaiah’s warning against a people who would honor God outwardly while their hearts drifted away from him (Matt. 15:8-9; Isaiah 29:13). By quoting Isaiah, Jesus revealed that the spiritual condition had reached a crisis point foretold by the prophets. The Messiah stood before them, but their reliance on tradition blinded them to Him. Isaiah rebuked a people who drifted toward exile. Jesus rebuked a people who drifted from their God, even while standing in the temple courts.

      Likewise, Jeremiah condemned the people who trusted in the temple rather than in the God of the temple (Jeremiah 7). Even as the church was taking shape after the ascension, Paul warned the church about practices that “have an appearance of wisdom” but lack power (Colossians 2).

      Yes, false doctrine is a real threat. But Scripture warns far more urgently against shallow devotion than against incorrect theology.

      The danger of sentimentality is not that it denies truth — it is that it makes truth optional.

The Hope of Christmas Breaks through Sentimentality

      The remedy is built right into the very story sentimentality tries to soften. Christmas is not fragile. It does not need protecting. It needs proclaiming.

      The incarnation is God’s declaration that truth put on flesh and walked into a world of sin, suffering and darkness. Jesus did not come to stir warm feelings. He came to save sinners. He came to confront the lies we believe and the sins we hide. He came to redeem. That’s what we celebrate — Emmanuel, God with us!

      When our hearts return to that truth, Christmas becomes more than a feeling; it becomes fuel for worship. When we realize that God with us means God is for us because God came to rescue us, Christmas becomes more than a memory; it becomes a mission.

      I’m praying that this season, Christians would resist the drift toward sentimentality and reclaim the wonder of the gospel. May our celebrations be marked by a joy rooted in reality. May our songs and gatherings echo with the news announced by the angels: “Unto you is born this day… a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). After all, that’s the reason Christmas remains the most glorious time of year.