When Satan seeks to supplant truth with error he is not so foolish as outright to propose that error be accepted. At the fall he was subtle enough not to suggest that. He did not propose outright rebellion against God. He suggested only a slight variation from what God had said, “Is it really true that you cannot eat from every tree?” and later on, “You will not exactly die because God knows that you will become like Him.” But once he had wedged in even a little unbelief he drove it farther and farther until it ended in open rebellion against God.

That has been the progress from truth to error until this day. First, error begs for tolerance of only a slight variation from the truth; then, it becomes bolder and demands equality; then it takes the upper hand over truth; and finally, error becomes completely intolerant of truth. The idea that what you believe makes little or no difference is the first step away from the truth. It suggests compromise with error. It is this that has opened the ears of many a Lutheran to the falsehoods of new religions. This is why, for instance, a well-dressed and well-groomed Mormon, when he comes to your door, says he is not trying to win converts at all, but that he is only trying to remove certain misconceptions about the Mor­mons so as to create a better understanding. This is also why the “Two-by-Twos” call themselves non-sectarian and say they have no creed; they are only traveling “evangelists” preaching the Gos­pel. This gives the impression that they are not proposing any change from your old faith at all. If the preacher of a “new religion” can send a Lutheran away from his first few meetings saying, “They aren’t trying to get us to change over,” or “I can’t see any difference between what they preach and what our own pastor preaches,” or “I can’t see why their religion isn’t just as good as ours,” then the first and most important step in winning that Lutheran over to their new religion has been made. In the name of tolerance, error has driven in the point of its wedge.

Rev. Dr. Casper B. Nervig, Christian Truth and Religious Delusions (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1941), 4-5.