Calling out false teachers always causes conflict. For many reasons, people become defensive when a teacher they like is criticized, even lightly. It’s rooted in our sin nature to defend those we put our trust in.
But we must confront heretical teaching. It has the potential to ruin lives and endangers eternal souls. It is a biblical mandate to mark and avoid false teachers, to expose evil and even to cast out the unrepentant sinners in the body until they repent.
Not all conflict is bad. As Proverbs says, “iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another” but it requires considerable force and creates sparks in the process.
Exhibit 1
This video by Saiko Woods And Sir Walter Jones gives an excellent argument for the Biblical response to false teaching.
Exhibit 2
This article by The Messed Up Church blog “Confirmation Bias: Why You Are Protecting Your False Beliefs” will help you understand why we all, at least at times, resist embracing unpleasant truth.
From the article
“Confirmation bias” is the name for a very common trait that all human beings share. When we favor information that validates our pre-existing beliefs but refuse to consider information that threatens our pre-existing beliefs, we are demonstrating confirmation bias; other names are confirmatory bias, myside bias or subjective validation.
It is very difficult for people to change their mind; this is part of our fallen condition as sinners. There isn’t much difference between Christians and non-Christians in this regard; we all tend to stick with our pre-existing ideas (also called our presuppositions, the things we “pre-suppose”). On top of this common human trait is the way we stick to whatever “our group” says, especially when “our group” is closely connected to our essential spiritual development.
Exhibit 3
Voddie Baucham explains his views on calling out false teachers. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes.