The Conservative Deformation

The Rev. Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823-1883)

We see the church becoming like the world, in part, because we have not recognized the enemy’s strategy:

Something that is simply not done becomes a one-time exception, which then becomes an acceptable practice, which then becomes an adiaphoron, which then becomes the dominant practice, which then creates the impression that yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s laughing-stock and tomorrow’s forbidden practice.

This is the way of the world, and we would do well to recognize it when it sneaks into the church.

It is also a variation of the trajectory noted by the Rev. Charles Porterfield Krauth in 1871:

When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three.  It begins by asking toleration.  Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of others.  The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions.  Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights.  Truth and error are two balancing forces.  The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality.  It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth.  We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of the truth, because it is the truth, is partisanship.  What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental.  Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential.  Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the church.  Truth and error are two co-ordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them.  From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy.  Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time.  Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points.  It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church's faith, but in consequence of it.  Their recommendation is that they repudiate the faith, and position is given to them to teach others to repudiate it, and to make them skillful in combating it.
~ Charles Porterfield Krauth, (1871)  The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, pp 195-6