Modern Christianity has a serious problem. Churches today are more concerned with entertainment, emotionalism, feel-good messages and experiences than with sound doctrine, serious theological study and an honest exploration for the truth. Most Christians are content with an intellectually shallow faith and have no interest in actually thinking through what they believe. Worse, many don’t just fail to seek the truth, they actively avoid it, as is exemplified on this website every few minutes. They cling to their assumptions without ever asking whether those assumptions hold up to scrutiny, and if something threatens their beliefs, they shut it down instead of engaging with it. The result is a cycle of willful ignorance where theology is built on psychological comfort rather than truth. That, and a propensity toward accusing people like me of doing what I'm here lamenting in spite of reams of evidence to the contrary.
A big part of the problem is just plain and simple bad theology that’s been ingrained for centuries. Classical Theism, especially Calvinism, presents a God who is so immutable that He can’t genuinely interact with His creation and covenant confusion leads churches to take Old Testament promises and prophecies and apply them where they don’t belong. Many Christians have also bought into the idea that faith and reason are at odds, so they stop thinking critically and settle for slogans and clichés. On top of that, a lot of churches downplay human responsibility by promoting fatalistic views of divine sovereignty, which leads to passivity and a distorted view of God’s relationship with us. Then when people read the bible, folks are confronted with a God who loves people and reacts to their actions and who's priority isn't showing power but in being just and who loves those who embrace their duty to act righteously. They then find themselves confronted with trusting their own mind vs. trusting the professional theologian that preaches at their church. To often, the result is glazed over eyes and a shut bible that collects dust on the nightstand.
So, on the one hand you have dogmatic thinking on the part of leadership and mental passivity on the part of laity. This situation didn’t just come out of nowhere. Augustinian theology laid the foundation for deterministic views that have dominated church history. The Enlightenment pushed reason, but instead of engaging with it, most of Christianity embraced one form or another of anti-intellectualism. Revivalism and emotionalism shifted the focus from solid teaching to personal experiences, making faith more about feelings than truth. And now, modern church growth strategies put numbers over doctrine, resulting in a severely watered-down, consumer-driven Christianity, where most churches these days don't even want you to know what their denominational affiliation is because such things do not help them achieve the fatuous goals they are attempting to achieve.
The difference between dogmatic, blind beliefism and a rational, biblically grounded faith is simply huge. One is emotion-driven, blindly follows tradition, and passively accepts whatever is taught by the so-called theological expert behind the pulpit. The other examines doctrine like the Bereans did, actively engages with theology, and values biblical exegesis over mysticism, personal revelation and emotional experiences. One treats faith as predetermined and static; the other sees it as a dynamic relationship with God. But as long as people refuse to question their own beliefs, they’ll never recognize the vapid shallowness nor the self-contradictory nature of their theology, and, as a result, the self-deception will keep spreading.
The consequences of all this are numerous and intuitive. Christianity loses credibility when it’s inconsistent and irrational, which is why so many people turn to skepticism or secularism. Without sound doctrine, believers stay spiritually immature, at best, and are easily influenced by false teaching. Churches become fragmented, divided and ineffectual because there’s no solid foundation. Worst of all, intellectual dishonesty becomes the norm, and people get so used to ignoring contradictions that they can’t even recognize when they’re being deceived or when they're deceiving themselves and don't seem to care. Indeed, the longer it goes, the more entrenched they become in their false doctrines and protect their self-deception as if it were their very life. They cling to it as a child clings to a favored pet
So what’s the way forward? First, churches and individual believers need to prioritize real theological study and critical thinking. Of course, teaching Mid-Acts Dispensationalism would clear up a lot of doctrinal confusion by properly distinguishing between Israel and the Body of Christ and Open Theism offers a far more coherent and relational alternative to deterministic theology but that's several steps down the road. Since mainstream churches are mostly resistant to any sort of change, smaller groups committed to rational faith might be the best solution, but none of this matters unless Christians are willing to be honest with themselves. Christians being willing to challenge their own beliefs, recognize their biases, and actually care more about truth than comfort seems to be a necessary first step. Without that, nothing changes.
It’s frustrating to watch so much of Christianity fall into total nonsense and abject stupidity, but that’s no reason to give up. On the contrary! I take it as a call to action! The truth has always been the minority position. If we stand firm, dig into Scripture with a critical eye, and build communities that value both reason and faith, we can maintain a Christianity that’s actually grounded in truth. Just because most people refuse to engage in serious theological inquiry doesn’t mean we should stop pursuing it. If anything, it means we need to be even louder in proclaiming the truth, calling out false doctrine, teaching people how to think clearly, to detect cognitive biases and to embrace reality by rejecting the irrational in favor of the truth.
A big part of the problem is just plain and simple bad theology that’s been ingrained for centuries. Classical Theism, especially Calvinism, presents a God who is so immutable that He can’t genuinely interact with His creation and covenant confusion leads churches to take Old Testament promises and prophecies and apply them where they don’t belong. Many Christians have also bought into the idea that faith and reason are at odds, so they stop thinking critically and settle for slogans and clichés. On top of that, a lot of churches downplay human responsibility by promoting fatalistic views of divine sovereignty, which leads to passivity and a distorted view of God’s relationship with us. Then when people read the bible, folks are confronted with a God who loves people and reacts to their actions and who's priority isn't showing power but in being just and who loves those who embrace their duty to act righteously. They then find themselves confronted with trusting their own mind vs. trusting the professional theologian that preaches at their church. To often, the result is glazed over eyes and a shut bible that collects dust on the nightstand.
So, on the one hand you have dogmatic thinking on the part of leadership and mental passivity on the part of laity. This situation didn’t just come out of nowhere. Augustinian theology laid the foundation for deterministic views that have dominated church history. The Enlightenment pushed reason, but instead of engaging with it, most of Christianity embraced one form or another of anti-intellectualism. Revivalism and emotionalism shifted the focus from solid teaching to personal experiences, making faith more about feelings than truth. And now, modern church growth strategies put numbers over doctrine, resulting in a severely watered-down, consumer-driven Christianity, where most churches these days don't even want you to know what their denominational affiliation is because such things do not help them achieve the fatuous goals they are attempting to achieve.
The difference between dogmatic, blind beliefism and a rational, biblically grounded faith is simply huge. One is emotion-driven, blindly follows tradition, and passively accepts whatever is taught by the so-called theological expert behind the pulpit. The other examines doctrine like the Bereans did, actively engages with theology, and values biblical exegesis over mysticism, personal revelation and emotional experiences. One treats faith as predetermined and static; the other sees it as a dynamic relationship with God. But as long as people refuse to question their own beliefs, they’ll never recognize the vapid shallowness nor the self-contradictory nature of their theology, and, as a result, the self-deception will keep spreading.
The consequences of all this are numerous and intuitive. Christianity loses credibility when it’s inconsistent and irrational, which is why so many people turn to skepticism or secularism. Without sound doctrine, believers stay spiritually immature, at best, and are easily influenced by false teaching. Churches become fragmented, divided and ineffectual because there’s no solid foundation. Worst of all, intellectual dishonesty becomes the norm, and people get so used to ignoring contradictions that they can’t even recognize when they’re being deceived or when they're deceiving themselves and don't seem to care. Indeed, the longer it goes, the more entrenched they become in their false doctrines and protect their self-deception as if it were their very life. They cling to it as a child clings to a favored pet
So what’s the way forward? First, churches and individual believers need to prioritize real theological study and critical thinking. Of course, teaching Mid-Acts Dispensationalism would clear up a lot of doctrinal confusion by properly distinguishing between Israel and the Body of Christ and Open Theism offers a far more coherent and relational alternative to deterministic theology but that's several steps down the road. Since mainstream churches are mostly resistant to any sort of change, smaller groups committed to rational faith might be the best solution, but none of this matters unless Christians are willing to be honest with themselves. Christians being willing to challenge their own beliefs, recognize their biases, and actually care more about truth than comfort seems to be a necessary first step. Without that, nothing changes.
It’s frustrating to watch so much of Christianity fall into total nonsense and abject stupidity, but that’s no reason to give up. On the contrary! I take it as a call to action! The truth has always been the minority position. If we stand firm, dig into Scripture with a critical eye, and build communities that value both reason and faith, we can maintain a Christianity that’s actually grounded in truth. Just because most people refuse to engage in serious theological inquiry doesn’t mean we should stop pursuing it. If anything, it means we need to be even louder in proclaiming the truth, calling out false doctrine, teaching people how to think clearly, to detect cognitive biases and to embrace reality by rejecting the irrational in favor of the truth.
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