October 2026 - Donatism

I was asked to write an article for the October edition of AFLC’s devotional magazine The Ambassador. The topic they asked me to write about was the ancient heresy of Donatism. The name “Donatism” might not be a familiar one to most of us, but this heretical doctrine and the hurt it causes when people act on it still causes divisions in congregations. I felt honored to be asked to write on it, and I felt humbled by the challenge of addressing it in a short article. 

A pretty good historical overview of Donatism can be found at www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/donatism .

​For they were not worse than that betrayer Judas,

​​with whom the apostles received the first sacrament of the supper,

​​although they already knew that a guilty man of such a great crime was among them;

​​and yet the filth in another's heart did not defile them,

​​and yet you dare to rebaptize Christian brothers.

​​All you who rejoice in peace, now judge what is true. 

-St. Augustine, Psalm Against the Donatists

When Christians fight with each other, it hurts. 

Sometimes when Christians are hurting, it causes them to fight each other. 

Many of us have personal experience with these things. Any of us can see how these two things can play into each other and create a nasty downward spiral. 

When Christians fight, whether it's between spouses, family members, friends, or congregation members, it has a disorienting effect on us, and it leaves us asking hard questions. It’s vital that we answer those questions with truth. 

“How in the world could anyone who says they are a Christian do that!?” 

Well, the truth is, Romans 7 and Genesis 3 say “they could do that sin” because we all still have an old, sinful nature. If we ever do anything good, it’s a miracle of grace (John 15:5), but until this old flesh dies we wrestle with sin. 

Sometimes that wrestling match with temptation looks like John the Evangelist, following Christ all the way to the cross, despite the danger. 

Sometimes our struggle with temptation looks like Peter, failing Jesus but repenting and being forgiven by Him anyway. 

And sometimes it looks like Judas. 

Our new hearts in Christ know that we should walk like John, but that sinners can always repent and be restored like Peter. When we are hurting, though, we don’t always want Peter to be forgiven. Sometimes our wounded hearts want to hang Peter with Judas. In the wake of sin and betrayal, it’s pretty easy to silence Christ’s voice and listen to the voice of our wounded heart instead. 

When this happens, we’ll answer questions like “how could they do that?” with stuff like: “because they aren’t as Christian as me.” 

The problem with that is that instead of listening to Jesus, you are listening to the same old sinful heart that your betrayer was listening to when they hurt you. 

This is essentially the dynamic that gave rise to the historically famous heresy of Donatism. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, some of our brothers and sisters stood strong in the face of persecution, offering even their suffering as a gift to the Church and her Lord. Many, though, failed and were later restored. 

Afterwards, the hurt and the division lingered. Bad answers to tough questions became acceptable to some itching ears. Hurts created divisiveness. Division inflamed hurts. 

Essentially the Donatists’ thinking became: “No real Christian would fail like that. If this guy failed, it’s because he’s not actually one of us.” 

Later questions arose: “If that guy’s not one of us, how can he baptize? He can’t give what he himself never had.” 

And just like that, the Donatist heresy was born. It sounded logical, but it directly contradicted 1 Peter 3:21, Romans 6:4-8, and many other Scriptures.

When we speak of Donatism today, the theologians mainly mean something like “a heretical teaching that denied the efficacy of sacraments administered by anyone deemed to be outside of the Church.” Donatism as a doctrine is widely and precisely rejected. Donatism as a practice, however, is not. The impulse to judge someone’s salvation by their lived experience, instead of by what Christ says about them, just because we’re angry at them, continues to wound and divide Christians. No Christian era seems to be exempt. 

What the Donatists failed to understand is that the purity or “filth” of a Christian administering a baptism has no ability to obstruct the power of Christ. It’s absurd to say “the scalpel has no heart, so how could it give a heart transplant?” The scalpel is just a tool with nothing to give. The Great Physician supplies the power. The same is true of a Christian giving Holy Baptism. 

When we doubt that it is solely Christ and His Holy Spirit that empower the Means of Grace, we heretically add human purity as a prerequisite to salvation. The inverse can happen also. If we demand human perfection as evidence of salvation, we spit on the cross of Christ and hold in contempt His appointed Means of Grace. 

So, we don’t just reject Donatist doctrine and practice because it’s incorrect. We reject it because it’s a rejection of the grace of Jesus Christ. Jesus, who patiently walked with Judas and graciously restored Peter, is not going to turn His back on those who fail in our era either. That’s a truth we can rejoice in.