In the previous post, we spoke about the beginning of the battle with belief, and the discovery of logic coupled with reason. We learned about the roots of my experience with the evangelical Protestantism, specifically with the Four Square Church and how it was related to the Methodist John Wesley. We simple looked at an overview and did not delve deeply into the theology and specific beliefs of these groups. The reason for that would be because I would rather address the commonly held doctrines later. The primary purpose of this next post is to walk us through my studies. The next step would be to look through the evangelical system.

Evangelicalism is a loose grouping of denominations and non-denominations which share common core values. At the ground level, they focus on conversion, the atoning work of Jesus on the Cross, the primacy of the Bible, and of activism. These are all great traits and I learned a lot from the focus on studying them. Within each community, there is a shared joy and focus on the conversion stories of the members. This is entirely aimed at a subjective experience with Jesus, built from a tradition of an individual and private personal relationship with the Christ. There is some level of community, but it remains surface level and doesn’t span to the spiritual development of other people. I have found that one can have any kind of differences in personal beliefs and the individual can then determine what church they will go too based on their preconditioned ideas.

Within the last thirty years, we have seen a massive growth in these communities. The growth has lead to an increase in mega churches which themselves have branched more into the feel good emotionalist agenda associated with the relativistic world view that had been growing inside America since the early nineteen hundreds. This is far different than the history one can trace. Again we could go back to John Wesley and the Holiness movement. There is actually a couple of other root groups from the Puritans, Presbyterians, and even the Moravian Church group sparked during the First Group Awakening.

In my study, I looked to people like Billy Graham, Ravi Zacharias, Jim Bakker, John Hagee, and Rick Warren. These were some of the more popular TV personalities that I heard every day I was visiting my grandparents’ house. A common proclamation would involve the encouragement to give money, and the return would be greater than what was given. Along with the common use that involved praying for the acquisition of items of desire. This became called many years later the “Name it; claim it” or the “Blab it; grab it” doctrine. Another of the series of unbiblical doctrines I began to encounter. Dealing with the Evangelist movement is when I began to question doctrine and teachings that had been common from my youth, doctrines that I took for granted without fair and true examinations.

These other doctrines trace their lineage back to the primary figures of the reformation, and some thoughts and philosophies that created them originate much further back in history. These individual ideas and doctrines I spent many years examining and questioning, for the key part of my investigation required the use of an analytical mind bolstered by reason and focused with logic. Even reading from a Protestant Apologist such as Dr. James White. The Gospel of Christ was reasonable, the necessity of salvation followed logically, but how the protestant mind arrived at their views of soteriology (Salvation and Life of Christ), and their eschatology (the ultimate destiny of human kind), flowed not from the reason and philosophy it developed from. Instead, the ideas and agendas proceeded from ideas and issues of the day that would not be resolved quickly. Therefore, appealing to the conscience of a man who suffered greatly at the anxiety of his own mind, and the scrupulosity of his thoughts a reformation, a rebellion would result.