The chapter headings I have published on my blog, free of charge, are in blue and underlined. The rest may become blog posts when I finish them. At some point they will all go into a book titled Salvation by…
Category: Beyond Evangelical
Being an Evangelical should lead us beyond being an Evangelical. How so? Evangelicalism was an answer to the Catholic Church’s claim to God-ordained, infallible authority to interpret the scriptures on our behalf. The Evangelical mantra is Sola Scriptura: only the infallible scriptures have authority, not churches or people. This was an effort to take the church back to its pristine origins before thirst for power and control got a hold of the church’s leaders. In the beginning, and for several hundred years, there was no bible. Nobody agreed about what writings were considered authoritative and it didn’t matter because they relied on God, not on a book that didn’t exist yet. Though these early Christians turned the world upside down, the lack of scripture brought with it problems (the reason half the New Testament was written), but that’s the reality of the early church. To continue the Protestant Reformation, and get beyond Evangelical and back to the “faith once and for all delivered to the saints,” (as the bible calls it) we need to believe like they believed, and believe and live like Jesus Christ believed and lived.
Introduction to Salvation by Being Good
Salvation by works? Salvation by faith? Who’s right, Catholics or Evangelicals? Neither one. We are judged by our conduct and we are saved by not being wicked, according to the Bible. This may sound like “Salvation by Works” but it’s…
Salvation by Being Good
Let’s put this salvation issue as succinctly as possible: If God judges based on a person’s faith, then a good non-believer goes to Hell. If God judges based on conduct, then a good non-believer is saved. If the latter is…
God Really is Just – Justice Demands Forgiveness
In my hundreds of conversations about Salvation by Being Good there are two objections that are raised almost every time. One objection that I have already addressed in a previous blog post is that no man can by his own…
There Are None Righteous – Except For Everyone Who Is
If you were part of a conversation on the Tri-City Gardeners Facebook Group and you saw that I wrote, “Yeah those crazy Virginia Creepers and Morning Glories. Turn your back on them for 5 minutes and they just take over,”…
Scriptures That Teach All Men Will Be Judged by Their Conduct, Not Their Belief
Primary Text for the Basis for Judgement: “This is the judgment [that is, the cause for indictment, the test by which people are judged, the basis for the sentence]: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather…
Loyalty to “God’s Chosen People” Does Not Mean Running Palestinians Into the Ground
What some of my Christian friends believe to be loyalty to “God’s Chosen People”, many of us Christians see as a cruel trashing of everything we believe Jesus stood for. The comments from Christians to Pres. Trump’s tweet about withholding…
The Doctrine of the Trinity is Not Orthodox
Many Protestants accept the idea that it was the Church that opted to be Trinitarian. This is a myth taught in numerous seminaries and pulpits. If that’s you – stop! It wasn’t the church that decided to define itself as…
Standing With Israel: How Bad Theology Duped Us Into Supporting Terrorism and Oppression
From Benjamin Corey’s blog: Not many days go by without seeing some sort of “Stand with Israel” image pop up into my Facebook news feed. And, each time it does, my heart grieves over the fact that so many of…
Just Who Has the Itching Ears?
I know the topic of salvation raises concern like no other because it hits at something foundational to our Christian faith and what we believe gives us a right to call ourselves Children of God. Recently someone I only slightly…