If we act in a wrong spirit—we shall bring little glory to God; do little good to our fellow creatures; and procure neither honor nor comfort to ourselves! If you can be content with showing your wit, and gaining the laugh on your side—you have an easy task! But I hope you have a far nobler aim; and that, sensible of the solemn importance of gospel truths, and the compassion due to the souls of men, you would rather be a means of removing prejudices in a single instance, than obtain the empty applause of thousands! 

A pastor wrote to John Newton about a public letter he was planning to write to a fellow pastor confronting him a aberrant doctrinal views. Newton took the opportunity to send back a letter full of gospel wisdom about the proper way an evangelical Christian should engage in correction and controversy. In our harsh, reactionary social media age Newton’s letter may be more applicable to our context than it was his context. Nevertheless, the biblical wisdom in his letter is applicable in any age.
I thought about simple providing a few excerpts from Newton’s letter but decided even though fewer people may read it they will benefit to a greater degree (C’mon, it is only 2,100 words). Other than adding some additional headings I have not made any changes to Newton’s letter.
A Guide to Godly Disputationby John Newton
Dear Sir,As you are likely to be engaged in controversy, and your love of truth is joined with natural warmth of temper, my friendship makes me solicitous on your behalf. You are of the strongest side; for truth is great, and must prevail; so that a person of abilities inferior to yours might take the field with a confidence of victory. I am not therefore anxious for the outcome of the battle; but I would have you more than a conqueror, and to triumph, not only over your adversary, but also over yourself. If you cannot be vanquished, you may be wounded. To preserve you from such wounds as might give you cause of weeping over your conquests, I would present you with some considerations, which, if duly attended to, will do you the service of a great coat of armor; such armor, that you need not complain, as David did of Saul’s, that it will be more cumbersome than useful; for you will easily perceive that it is taken from that great armory provided for the Christian soldier—the Word of God. I take it for granted that you will not expect any apology for my freedom, and therefore I shall not offer one. For methods sake, I may reduce my advice to three heads, respecting your opponent, the public, and yourself.
Respecting You Opponent
As to your opponent, I wish that before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write.
If You Consider Your Opponent to be a Believer
If you account him as a believer, though greatly mistaken in the subject of debate between you, the words of David to Joab concerning Absalom, are very applicable: “Deal gently with him for my sake.” The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him, or treat him harshly! The Lord bears with you likewise, and expects that you should show tenderness to others—from a sense of the much forgiveness you need yourself. In a little while you will meet in heaven—he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now! Anticipate that period in your thoughts, and though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.
If You Consider Your Opponent to be an Unbeliever
But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit), he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger! Alas! “He knows not what he does!” But you know who has made you to differ from him. If God, in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now; and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the gospel! You were both equally blind by nature. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes—and not his!
Calvinists Should be the Most Gentle and Compassionate to Opponents
Of all people who engage in controversy, we, who are called Calvinists, are most expressly bound by our own principles, to the exercise of gentleness and compassion. If, indeed, those who differ from us have a power of changing themselves, if they can open their own eyes, and soften their own hearts—then we might with less inconsistency be offended at their obstinacy! But if we believe the very contrary to this, our part is not to argue, but in meekness to “gently teach those who oppose the truth—if perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.”
If you write with a desire of being an instrument of correcting mistakes, you will of course be cautious of laying stumbling blocks in the way of the blind, or of using any expressions which may exasperate their passions, or confirm them in their false principles, (humanly speaking).
Considering the Public as You Engage in Controversy
By printing your article, you will appeal to the public—where your readers may be ranged under three divisions:
Consider those with Whom You Differ in Principle
First, such as differ from you in principle. Concerning these I may refer you to what I have already said.
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As sure as lust distorts the world, purity reenchants it. As lust dims beauty and hides God’s face in night; purity cleanses our vision and dawns day upon the face of Christ for us to behold him. Our eyes cannot serve two masters.

The racing heart, the watering eyes, the abrupt disinterest withering the world outside. The carnivorous appetite, the volatile urge. The hungry stare. The inner burn (1 Corinthians 7:9). The dry mouth, the blinking eyelids, the jittering hands. The hidden force. The haunting whispers. The inescapable desire. The sweet slavery. The roaring drumbeat silencing music. The fight to death, a civil war. The silent suspicion of inevitable defeat; the dark desire for your downfall. Lust.
In a world coursing with sexual temptation, who can walk through unharmed? Who wants to? This enemy, so cherished and beloved by its victims, holds such a place in our affections that when God calls us to drive the stake through our passions, many ignore the threat or laugh it off.
Sexual lust, even for those awake to their consciences, is often the tiger one wishes to leash but not kill. When told about chastity — an old word tasting of stale bread and smelling of their great aunt’s perfume — I’ve had decent men by worldly standards open their mouth and gasp, “How could anyone live without sex?” Air, food, water, and sexual gratification — the bare necessities of life.
Lay Lust on the Altar
Men should gasp at what God requires. William Gurnall puts the heavenly expectation vividly:
Soul, take thy lust, thy only lust, which is the child of thy dearest love, thy Isaac, the sin which has caused most joy and laughter, from which thou hast promised thyself the greatest return of pleasure or profit; as ever thou lookest to see my [God’s] face with comfort, lay hands on it and offer it up: pour out the blood of it before me; run the sacrificing knife of mortification into the very heart of it; and this freely, joyfully, for it is no pleasing sacrifice that is offered with a countenance cast down — and all this now, before thou hast one embrace more from it. (The Christian in Complete Armor, 13)
Gurnall comments,
Truly this is a hard chapter, flesh and blood cannot bear this saying; our lust will not lie so patiently on the altar, as Isaac, or as a “Lamb that is brought to the slaughter which was dumb,” but will roar and shriek; yea, even shake and rend the heart with its hideous outcries.
Our lust shrieks when injured. It roars, shakes, angers, and gives hideous outcries. But God calls us to kill it before him, joyfully, freely, now — before we take another embrace of it.
But how? cries the weary voice of many.
Help For Sexual Sinners
Perhaps you (both men and women) have tried and tried again.
You’ve cut off hands and gouged out eyes that tempt you (Matthew 5:29–30), but they regrow like Hydras’ heads. You succeed to put to death what is earthy in you (Colossians 3:5), but only for a time. You know this sin threatens ultimate harm, waging war against your very soul (1 Peter 2:11). You know to indulge is to sin against your own body (1 Corinthians 6:18), undermine your profession (1 Corinthians 6:8–9), and contradict the explicit will of God for your life (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5). But the madness returns, leaving remorse and shame.
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The best way to define what I mean by “Christianity passivity” is through an illustration. Imagine you are in a setting in which other Christians are present, and a secular person enters and begins to strenuously denounce Christianity. Suppose that, rather than attempting to make any defense of your faith, you allow the person to proceed unopposed, perhaps thinking that simply being polite is the ideal Christian response. If so, you can be sure that the other Christians present will probably think nothing of this reticence.

As an anti-Christian teenager, I enjoyed challenging Christians about their faith. The arguments I made against Christianity were not original or very well-researched: I cannot have read more than three books on the subject during my whole adolescence. Yet the dynamic of each conversation seemed to prove that I was winning.
In the world of Christian apologetics, it is not uncommon to encounter atheists who are both well-read and charitable. My own hostility to Christianity was more typical of the vast majority of anti-Christians: my arguments were unoriginal because I was not all that interested in developing them. Like most secular Westerners, this did not stop me from having a strong opinion, nor from believing that I had discovered that opinion myself.
What really fueled my confidence was not that Christians were intellectually unprepared—although it helped that they were. Instead, my hostility was excited because I perceived Christians as showing weakness. I don’t mean that the Christians I confronted explicitly conceded defeat. I mean that the believers I challenged seemed to approach almost any clash of ideas with an attitude of passivity. They avoided staking out bold positions, took great care not to say anything that might be offensive, and generally went beyond mere civility and into passivity.
During one such conversation, I recall thinking that I’d made a discovery: that Christians secretly knew that I was right and that their faith was a lie. Far from being winsome, which is probably what these Christians had intended, the impression that Christians were doormats encouraged me to be even more aggressive in my opposition. The compliant agreeableness of Christians did not soften my hostility. Instead, it put blood in the water.
I also remember the very moment when I first began to consider Christianity in a new and different light. A man had handed me a paper tract earlier in the day and, propelled by some unusual circumstances, I found myself looking through it. The content of the tract—although not quite fire-and-brimstone—was clearly intended to be provocative. As I looked at the tract, it suddenly struck me that Christianity might not be, as I’d thought, something that a person trying to rationalize cowardice would invent. This experience didn’t convince me that Christianity was true—that didn’t happen until much later—but I did catch myself viewing Christianity with a new kind of respect.
I agree with authors like Brett and Kate McKay about the problem that has been called “the feminization of Christianity.” Yet I also think the church faces a distinct but related problem: Christian passivity. In this column, I’ll review the nature of the problem and what might be done to counteract it.
The best way to define what I mean by “Christianity passivity” is through an illustration. Imagine you are in a setting in which other Christians are present, and a secular person enters and begins to strenuously denounce Christianity. Suppose that, rather than attempting to make any defense of your faith, you allow the person to proceed unopposed, perhaps thinking that simply being polite is the ideal Christian response. If so, you can be sure that the other Christians present will probably think nothing of this reticence. Your fellow believers will almost certainly not regard you as having done anything suspect or un-Christlike.
But now imagine that, rather than remaining passive, you rise to the occasion and firmly engage with the critic’s arguments, even going on the offensive against his own views. In this case, it goes without saying that your behavior is likely to be frowned on by some of the other Christians present, who might conflate any energy in your argument with unkindness. And if you do genuinely cross the line into rudeness, this offense is going to be judged far more severely than had you said nothing at all, and utterly surrendered the floor to the atheist.
First Peter 3:15 famously commands Christians to always be “prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” The word “defense” (apologia) connotes an accused person’s defense of himself in court, as in the Apologia of Socrates. Yet, in the popular interpretation of this verse, the subordinate clause of the sentence has somehow chewed up and eaten the main clause. It is almost a cliché that, when apologists remind Christians that they are commanded to be “prepared to make an apologia,” someone will chime in to quote the subordinate clause of the sentence as if it cancels out the main clause, or as if to suggest that “gentleness” itself is the “defense.” This is not unlike the way that people are fond of quoting the words “render unto Caesar” while omitting the part of the sentence containing Jesus’ main point: “and unto God the things that are God’s.”
To take a larger illustration, consider Chick-fil-A’s 2019 decision not to renew funding for The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and to instead give to certain secular charities.
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