Introduction to 2015
This program is being presented in an effort to investigate all Christian truth-claims by comparing them with a contextual understanding of the Bible and its original intent. We are not interested in supporting or promoting any tradition, person, practice, culture, or denomination that stands contrary to this reasonable and contextual approach to scripture. Nothing is so sacred that it is exempt from scrutiny. Nothing so popular and accepted that it won’t be discarded if found wanting and unreasonable. This is Heart of the Matter where we make every effort to worship God in Spirit and Truth.
Live from Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the Matter where our aim is to help all people worship God in Spirit and in Truth.
Personal Journey and Revelations
I am your host, Shawn McCraney. So you know the story and the history. I began life as an active Latter-day Saint (or Mormon). After discovering that the religion failed to alter my heart, that it had historical and doctrinal problems – I was born again and then left – only to come out (guns ablazing) in an effort to expose and oppose it.
About the same time that I left Mormonism I became an Evangelical Christian (for lack of a better term) and like I did as an active Mormon I readily accepted all the standard rhetoric preached from over the Protestant pulpit. I believed that there was a universal drive among believers (and especially Christian leadership) to do what scripture described. My eyes were opened in December of 2012 when I discovered firsthand that what was actually being practiced (in many of the larger churches around Utah) was not in harmony with what the Bible deemed important to Christian living, so I left it as well – and turned on it as a means to openly reject its many repulsive practices.
This step allowed me the time and inclination to start looking at what I had accepted as core Christian doctrines and teachings as well – ones I had completely accepted as a naïve believer in the early years of my conversion. What I found were a number of very traditional (but in my estimation non-biblical) ways of viewing Christian doctrine and praxis.
Questioning Traditional Doctrines
These things included:
- That God must be accepted by the man-made, non-biblical term “Trinity,” and its definitions,
- That Christianity today is sold as an objective institution that needs to be embraced, supported, and obeyed rather than a subjective experience individuals have with Christ directly by the Spirit,
- That most believers think Jesus is going to return (at any moment) and rapture them into the sky before wiping out the wicked, and the ugly idea that
- While knowing everything before creating us, God has “purposed” that most of the earth’s inhabitants will spend an eternity in hell and/or the Lake of Fire.
I’ve also discovered that Christianity today – in particular what is known as American Evangelicalism – has somehow allowed itself to believe that to challenge its traditional tenets and doctrines is tantamount to heresy and that believers in tradition have not just the duty but the God-given right to try and destroy the lives, reputations, and livelihood of anyone who steps out of line.
(beat)
Beliefs and Convictions
I want you to know that I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. I believe that He is God incarnate, that He is the author and finisher of my faith, that by His grace I have been saved, and that He empowers me and anyone who abides in Him to love. I trust in His resurrection from the dead, in His ascension, and in His sinless life offering. I believe the Word of God is inspired and love what it provides all who are willing to enter into its influence and be taught. I believe in one God, one Lord, one Spirit. But I am convinced – with all that exists within my soul – that the entire system of organized Christianity is a fail – especially today – and more and more believers need to set their need for certainty and comfort aside.
Examining Religious Traditions
and examine what has been handed down to us by the traditions of Men. Looking at Mormonism it is easy to see the faulty influence, the non-Gospel they have accepted from their founders Smith and Young. We have seen over the last few years that Mormonism is having to come clean with some of their aberrant history. In my opinion they have not been completely forthright and transparent in their admissions but they have made some attempts. Good for them.
At the same time it is my belief that Christianity is going to have to do some of its own housecleaning in order to ready itself to receive all thinking people who are staggering into her doors by faith. Where the LDS church, in my opinion, is going to have to distance itself from Joseph Smith and some of his later doctrines and practices, the Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, and the non-biblical stances on soteriology, American Evangelicalism really needs to let go of some of its own non-biblical teachings and practices, including all we covered last year.
Challenges in Understanding the Good News
I want to spend our time together tonight sharing a few stories and anecdotes that illustrate just some of the problems with our approach to Christianity today. All the stories and illustrations are true. I am telling them to help explain why I see Christianity as I do and to help set the stage for what we are going to do with it this year. So let me begin by illustrating some hindrances and issues that get in the way of bible reading believers really understanding the Good News as it applies to us today. Tradition and history are very, very hard to overcome – and because they are we traditionally succumb to them.
Root Causes
The actions of forbearers establish the outcomes of our present state of mind: 70-73
We see and believe what we want to fortify our pet beliefs irrespective of truth.
Blinding effects of dogmatism” 24-25
Two stories to support this: Van Halen and David Lee Roth. The Ulcer
To buck the system, even if it will benefit others, is very hard to do because most of us are bent on looking good rather than doing or saying what is best. (Soccer player)
Built into the fail of modern Christianity is the fact that along with our opinions comes morality – which colors objectivism and alters our ability to solve problems. (STRONG MORAL COMPASS ISSUE) 31
Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts.”
The solution is to challenge not just how everything has been done but to change the way we do things in the future.
Hot dog eating contest story 52 (artificial barriers)
Moving Forward
How this all plays into modern Christianity and its established norms and traditions and where we are now. So this year we’re going to take an issue per week and review what the historical Biblical stance has been, what the current Evangelical stance is, what the current LDS stance is, and see if we can agree to some common ground once everything is said and done.
In 2010 we covered a bunch of topics and even compiled them into this book – Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face. This year we are going to push out there a little further, and some of the topics will include a reasonable, contextually sound response to the following topics (and more) including:
- Scripture, claims of biblical inerrancy, trusting the Bible as far as it is translated correctly, translations, problems, errors, etc.
- Missional Methods and outreach
- Deviations and Devotions
- Political allegiance and ecclesiastical unity
- Gender roles, church leadership, marriage
- Influence of the World on Christianity
- Everything you wanted to know about sex in the church
- Creation/Science
- Apologetics
Ministries and Groups
- Ministries, IWANA, Groups
- Benevolence, Christmas programs, feeding the poor
Christian Education
- Christian education (schools colleges, is this the church?)
Financial Aspects
The All mighty buck
Subjective vs objective religion
