About This Video
The teaching by Shawn describes various religious paths as metaphorical paths to a house on a hill, symbolizing access to God's Kingdom through Christ, with different types of religious institutions likened to efforts in clearing the icy path. Shawn ultimately suggests that while these various approaches—ranging from legalistic institutions to community churches—are not perfect, they function to guide people towards understanding and accessing God, reflecting that God accepts any effort that helps people approach Him through Christ.
Shawn's approach to Christianity emphasizes a biblically-based and subjective faith that prioritizes freedom and love, inviting all individuals, irrespective of background, to embrace a relationship with God without the constraints of organized religion or enforced doctrine. This path, deemed complete and accessible, encourages individuals to explore faith at their own pace, underscoring that doctrine divides while accepting faith claims unites, and it will be unveiled on February 1st, 2022, at 8 PM Mountain time.
Access to God's Party: Examining Pathways Through Religion
From Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. Long – the last show of 2021.
Let’s pray!
Show 65L The Most Reasonable, Biblically Supported, God-Breathed Approach to Christianity on the Face of the Earth Today. I want you to imagine that there is a long concrete walk leading up to your house that sits on a steep hill. From the street below it is the only way to access your home above. The walk is wide and has several landings for steps that serve to bring a person from the street level below to the front porch of the house above. The point of that description is there is only one way only to access your home above.
Now I want you to imagine that you have been planning a huge party in your home for over a year. Several dozen guests are expected to show up tonight but when you woke up this morning you discover that it has snowed, hailed and freezing-rained over three feet of solid white frozen material over the night – and the walk up to the house has all but disappeared under a massive long frozen mound of ice. You have so many things to do there is no time for you to try and clear the path yourself. So, you call a team of laborers to clear the way for you.
When the team gets on site and realize the enormity of the job they double the price as it might literally require dynamite to break through the frozen mountain covering the long path. Suppose they work all day. It’s an hour before guests arrive and when you come out to inspect their work you see that they were only able to hack out a very narrow footpath in the ice leading up to the house. You response is something like, “Well, it’s not ideal, but that will work.” Got that in your head? I suggest that this scenario is akin to large legalistic religious institutions that demand all manner of works and allegiance from their congregates to please God. Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxies. They are not ideal, but they will work.
Protestant Efforts and Their Pathways
But let’s suppose that the team was able to do a little better and they were able to clear a two foot wide route up the four foot wide cement path. Ice still covers the cement and obviously, it would be far more efficient than the first efforts produced and upon seeing it you might say, “We’ll its not perfect, but it will serve its purpose.” This might be similar to the Protestant efforts to bring people to God through organized religion. Yes, they use “tithes” on the unsuspecting and yes they put the fear of God in people when they preach a burning hell and the imminent return of Christ BUUUUT . . . . their approach serves the purpose of bringing people up to the party. Got that?
Mega Churches and Community Churches
But I want you to now suppose that the team you have hired was able to clear away all of the top ice and snow away from the path and the stairs but was unable to scrape it off the cement itself. Nevertheless, they have made a four-foot wide path leading up and you hope the ice-melt will now remove the slick ice and snow left on the surface. Seeing this you would say something like, “its great! “et’s just get some ice melt on it and call it a day!” (Trusting your guests will carefully ascend the path to the party above). We might liken this scenario to mega churches that preach Jesus and salvation by grace through faith or small community churches that do the same – they perform a service to the community of keeping people thinking about Jesus. Good enough, but not perfect and subject to some dangers, right?
In all of these scenarios, the point is that all of the approaches are functional, all of them give access to the party above, and taking it out there, I would suggest that God is okay with any and every path that is working to provide people access to his party on high – with the party being His Kingdom and the paths being all the approaches people use to access it through Christ.
So now to my point – which I stand by with all my heart, preach without shame, and present to you unabashedly. After years and years of trial and error, seeking, finding, reworking and revamping, we now stand by what
The Most Reasonable Approach to Christianity
We call the “most Reasonable, Biblically Supported, God-Breathed Approach to Christianity on the Face of the Earth” – bar none. Our approach is superior to all religious institutions that have EVER been presented or offered to human beings on earth since the first century apostolic church. Our approach is more reasonable, more biblical, more efficacious, and more God-honoring than ANYTHING offered after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Our approach is just that – an approach, which can be employed and received by any church system or any individual and stands apart from the demands, doctrines, practices, and perspectives of all organized religion. It endorses Jesus as the consummate victor, it explains God’s work through the ages to bring about the age in which we now live. It endorses freedom, faith, and liberty in Christ and the command to love all the while honoring the true New Testament God promised to give someday to all who are His by faith.
Understanding Our Approach
It has the right eschatologyStudy of “last things”—TGNN teaches all biblical eschatology was fulfilled in 70 A.D. More, therefore it has the right approach to scriptural interpretation, and therefore the right approach to Christian practice which is subjectively based and not objectively demanded. In our example of the snow covered path, our approach is akin to you going outside before your party starts and discovering a dry, wide path from the street to your front door clear, clean, sure and lighted. It offers nothing but complete security. Nothing but freedom. Nothing but liberty for all to choose to step, walk, run up or run down, giving clear dry access to the Kingdom above.
This is the best approach to Christianity on the face of the earth because it is biblically based, it is open to all, it is subjectively understood and delivered. It is there to be tested, challenged and trod. And it is finished. Nothing more to be done. Complete by the hand of God through His Son nearly 2000 years ago. There are no fees or charges, no overhead, no authorities (but God). The path is open to all and all have the right to climb up as they see fit. They can run, they can walk, they can stop and enjoy the view if they please or they can hop. Everyone – all peoples of all races, lifestyles, and nationalities are invited to enter the party because everything that once stood in the way has been remedied. Those who decline to walk up and attend are loved and respected by those who chose to walk up and attend as faith and love are the modus operandi of this approach.
Not doctrine. Not demands. Faith and love subjectively assumed and embraced and lived by each individual. This approach is going to be unveiled on Tuesday Night 8pm Mountain time, February 1st 2022 – about 1 month from today.
Embracing Challenges
We understand the things – enormous THINGS and PEOPLE and POWERS that will stand in the way of many people accepting or even hearing this approach – fear, certainty, traditions – outright anger and hate – has and will work hard against it. There will be those who say I am trying to start a new religion. I am not. This is not a new religion. It is the approach to the faith Jesus established nearly 2000 years ago that honors what God clearly put in place to exist once he shook everything in heaven and earth. It is an approach to His New Testament. It is an approach that openly receives all faith claims and doctrinal positions because it affirms that doctrine divides.
As stated, I unabashedly stand our approach up to every other attempt to reach the party and declare it superior. Admittedly, it’s not the only acceptable approach, it’s not the only approach that will work. But it is unquestionably the best and I challenge anyone to try and prove this claim false. We have done the work. At least 35 years in the making. We know the objections and why they exist relative to Bible readers. All we ask is you hear us out, test all things by the scripture and hold fast to what is good because if you do, you will discover that we do, in fact, represent: The Most Reasonable, Biblically Supported, God-Breathed Approach to Christianity on the Face of the Earth.
Tune in to our live broadcast Tuesday, February 1st 8pm Mountain to hear where all of this is headed.
