Thread: Should non bible believeing christians be evangelized?

These mainline protestant denominations do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture:

Presbyterian Church USA
United Methodist Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Episcopal Church
The United Church of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Should they be evangelized as if they were Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, pagans, or unbelievers?

Do we really share a common religion when we do not share a common authority? How can we achieve christian unity when it is apparent that most of christianity isn't christian?

Everyone needs to be evangelised, including you and me. In the absence of a supernatural revelation as to whether a particular person is a true Christian, it is safest to assume they might not be (at the least) and proclaim the gospel. I proclaim the good news to myself daily.

Or perhaps you ascribe a meaning to the word 'evangelised' that couldn't apply to yourself? If so, what is it?

They are in a different category from pagans and such in that they claim to believe in the gospel. They need to be called to repent. They are in a similar category as RCs.

Also note that some in some of those denominations do believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. Why they are still there, I'm sure varies from person to person and church to church.

Originally Posted by dr_parsley

Everyone needs to be evangelised, including you and me. In the absence of a supernatural revelation as to whether a particular person is a true Christian, it is safest to assume they might not be (at the least) and proclaim the gospel. I proclaim the good news to myself daily.

Or perhaps you ascribe a meaning to the word 'evangelised' that couldn't apply to yourself? If so, what is it?

I understand we are all utterly worthless sinners and can't do anything good. We need to study daily to renew our minds or we will certainly slide into rebellion because we are sinners.

However, to deny that God's word is God's word cuts one off from truth. Should any church that does not believe the bible is true be thought of as christian?

Originally Posted by dr_parsley

Everyone needs to be evangelised, including you and me. In the absence of a supernatural revelation as to whether a particular person is a true Christian, it is safest to assume they might not be (at the least) and proclaim the gospel. I proclaim the good news to myself daily.

Or perhaps you ascribe a meaning to the word 'evangelised' that couldn't apply to yourself? If so, what is it?

Amen, Brother. I need to hear the Gospel of Free Grace regularly. Our Sinful minds are so inclined to Salvation by Works that we cannot hear and meditate on the Good News of the Gospel often enough. Plus it is the best weapon to kill sin in existence.

Originally Posted by DD2009

These mainline protestant denominations do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture:

Presbyterian Church USA
United Methodist Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Episcopal Church
The United Church of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Should they be evangelized as if they were Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, pagans, or unbelievers?

Do we really share a common religion when we do not share a common authority? How can we achieve christian unity when it is apparent that most of christianity isn't christian?

From the WCF XXV.4:

This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.

While the aforementioned denominations are 'liberal,' not all the churches within those denominations are liberal. Moreover, not all believers in our (presumably) conservative and orthodox churches are 'true' believers.

As Dr_Parsley said, we all need to be evangelized. If someone professes to be a Christian, but essentially denies Christ (which is what is happening when one denies the authority of Scripture), it would be appropriate to treat them as a non-believer.

Should we be equatting inerrancy with the gospel itself? Though related, they are not the same thing.

Originally Posted by DD2009

Should any church that does not believe the bible is true be thought of as christian?

Firstly, go and ask any of those churches or any of their members whether they "believe the bible is true". It is unwise to ascribe to others, especially in their absence, a position with which they would vehemently disagree; it comes close to bearing false witness. Secondly, the bible is inerrant, but the content of the gospel is not that the bible is inerrant; belief in inerrancy is by no means the first or most important evidence of grace that I would look for.

Originally Posted by dr_parsley

Originally Posted by DD2009

Should any church that does not believe the bible is true be thought of as christian?

Firstly, go and ask any of those churches or any of their members whether they "believe the bible is true". It is unwise to ascribe to others, especially in their absence, a position with which they would vehemently disagree; it comes close to bearing false witness. Secondly, the bible is inerrant, but the content of the gospel is not that the bible is inerrant; belief in inerrancy is by no means the first or most important evidence of grace that I would look for.

We too often make the mistake of elevating secondary (though extremely important) doctrines to the first level of the gospel.

Originally Posted by dr_parsley

Originally Posted by DD2009

Should any church that does not believe the bible is true be thought of as christian?

Firstly, go and ask any of those churches or any of their members whether they "believe the bible is true". It is unwise to ascribe to others, especially in their absence, a position with which they would vehemently disagree; it comes close to bearing false witness. Secondly, the bible is inerrant, but the content of the gospel is not that the bible is inerrant; belief in inerrancy is by no means the first or most important evidence of grace that I would look for.

Would you agree that denying the authority of Scripture is tantamount to denying the authority of Christ -- i.e., akin to John 13:20? (BTW, I agree that inerrancy is not the gospel.)

A church that denies the inerancy of the bible leaves their members in a position of doubting if anything in the bible is true at all.

Who determines what is in error in the bible and what isn't?

How can anyone learn about the character of God if they don't believe what he said is what he said?

Originally Posted by DD2009

A church that denies the inerancy of the bible leaves their members in a position of doubting if anything in the bible is true at all.

Who determines what is in error in the bible and what isn't?

How can anyone learn about the character of God if they don't believe what he said is what he said?

Just to address some of your points,

Sure these denominations leave many people doubting, but more often all they do is basically give people permission to "worship" and be in a community whilst at the same time rejecting the things they hate in the bible.


They make the standard of what it means to be a Christian so low, or non-existant so that really doubt is natural - even encouraged and so then the congregration are made up of people walking in what they like to call "the mystery we call God" and that really all ways to God are valid.


You also said about "who decides whats error in the bible", well textual scholars do really. Now in all honesty there is mistakes in your bible and the only way to maybe dodge this reality is becoming a king james only user. Theres scribal errors, many scribes have added things e.g. last part of the book of mark, that famous verse in 1 john, even the woman taken in adultery.

I agree that there should be textual criticism of the bible so that we get rid of some of these mistakes similar to those mentioned above.

However, the denominations that you listed have a very different approach. They say basically that all the books of the bible are products simply of man and his experience of God and these men at some point in their lives, decided that they were being guided by the Holy Spirit and so then claims started to arise of divine inspiration of these scriptures. Therefore since we're post-enlightenment, were much smarter than those dumb folk that wrote the bible and we know that it's not inspired, therefore it's not our authority.

They then use historical criticism, they look at the history of the middle east for example and try and find the "historical Jesus", they look at the authorship of the new testament, and declare that paul never wrote many of the letters attributed to him (e.g. 1 timothy, 2 timothy, titus are called something like the psuedo-pauline corpus) attributed to paul by a later writer probably sometime in the second century after paul died in the first century (about 70 a.d.??). They look at the books attributed to moses in the old testament and they say that theres 4 sources (if i remember correctly), the elohist, the deuteronamist and some other names, because in each of the books of the torah, different hebrew names are used for God and so they say well therefore because of the different writing styles and the fact that in one book the name "elohim" is used for God mostly, and in another the name "yahweh" is used, therefore theres 2 different authors.

So ultimately, through this criticism, they come to the conclusion that the bible is just a product of it's historical surroundings, it cannot be used in any kind of authority, and usually at this point they start to use the bible as a philosophical guide to love, justice and usually the one verse they take as being divinely inspired is "and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God" and then they usually end up practicing some kind of brother lawrence/St. John of The cross / new age meditation to get closer to "the mystery we call God".


They also find apparent contradictions and set the biblical authors against themselves to basically destroy the authority of scripture too.

Ultimately it comes down to, are you gonna trust the apostles who died for the gospel truth and a God big enough to inspire and preserve the scriptures, or are you going to use scholarship as an excuse to reject the bibles teachings that you don't like and these denominations have went for the latter.

Sorry for the long post :P

Originally Posted by carlgobelman

Originally Posted by dr_parsley

Originally Posted by DD2009

Should any church that does not believe the bible is true be thought of as christian?

Firstly, go and ask any of those churches or any of their members whether they "believe the bible is true". It is unwise to ascribe to others, especially in their absence, a position with which they would vehemently disagree; it comes close to bearing false witness. Secondly, the bible is inerrant, but the content of the gospel is not that the bible is inerrant; belief in inerrancy is by no means the first or most important evidence of grace that I would look for.

Would you agree that denying the authority of Scripture is tantamount to denying the authority of Christ -- i.e., akin to John 13:20? (BTW, I agree that inerrancy is not the gospel.)

Absolutely. But is a lack of subscription to inerrancy equal to denying the authority of Scripture? Do those churches listed deny the authority of Scripture? (I honestly don't know but would find it difficult to credit)

-----Added 10/19/2009 at 01:15:19 EST-----

Originally Posted by DD2009

A church that denies the inerancy of the bible leaves their members in a position of doubting if anything in the bible is true at all.

Who determines what is in error in the bible and what isn't?

How can anyone learn about the character of God if they don't believe what he said is what he said?

I don't believe that the church is the paramount witness to the inerrancy of the bible. Surely people don't just believe what their church tells them? If someone is a sheep of the pastor of their church before they are a sheep of the Good Shepherd then (IMHO) they're likely to not be a Christian, regardless of whether they subscribe to inerrancy or not. If someone is firstly a sheep of the Good Shepherd then they must surely refer matters to the Spirit of God who will inevitably refer them to the bible.

By the way, I don't know what the churches you referred to believe; my comments are general.

Originally Posted by Jon Peters

Originally Posted by dr_parsley

Originally Posted by DD2009

Should any church that does not believe the bible is true be thought of as christian?

Firstly, go and ask any of those churches or any of their members whether they "believe the bible is true". It is unwise to ascribe to others, especially in their absence, a position with which they would vehemently disagree; it comes close to bearing false witness. Secondly, the bible is inerrant, but the content of the gospel is not that the bible is inerrant; belief in inerrancy is by no means the first or most important evidence of grace that I would look for.

We too often make the mistake of elevating secondary (though extremely important) doctrines to the first level of the gospel.

The doctrine of Scripture is not a secondary doctrine. Apart from an orthodox understanding Scripture, the gospel itself is thrown into doubt, and necessity of belief in Christ's virgin birth, sinless life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension are what then become secondary in importance. Ask any roundly liberal mainliner. I've had a few of them in my former congregation, and they make it clear that due to their view of the nature of Scripture those things are not necessary to be believed, yet apart from a belief in them you cannot also have a saving faith. Saving faith rests on the historical and doctrinal truths which are quickly denied in part or in full when your doctrine of Scripture becomes corrupted.

It is no coincidence that the Westminster Confession places it's discussion of the nature of the Scriptures foremost in the order of its presentation.

Originally Posted by DD2009

Should non bible believeing christians be evangelized?

I didn't know there was any kind of Christian but a Bible believing Christian.

Originally Posted by Jon Peters

We too often make the mistake of elevating secondary (though extremely important) doctrines to the first level of the gospel.

There seems to be some confusion even on this board as to what is at stake. The Westminster Confession of Faith is helpful at this point:

By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace. (14.2)

True enough that the "principal acts of saving faith" have reference to Christ offered in the gospel. Nevertheless, the point is clearly made that a saving faith believes to be true whatever is revealed in the word for the authority of God speaking therein. Although, true Christians sometimes misunderstand and misinterpret the word and have false doctrines, to deny the authority of God speaking in the Scriptures altogether is incompatible with saving faith.

Denominations which in their confessional standards, or by their judicatories deny the Bible to be the authoritative word of God are not Christian.

Originally Posted by DD2009

These mainline protestant denominations do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture:

Presbyterian Church USA
United Methodist Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Episcopal Church
The United Church of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Should they be evangelized as if they were Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, pagans, or unbelievers?

Do we really share a common religion when we do not share a common authority? How can we achieve christian unity when it is apparent that most of christianity isn't christian?

Should they be evangelized? Of course. The sad situation is these folks think what they are being taught is real "Christianity" when in many cases that is simply not true. What gets me is that the Statements of Faith many of these denominations put on their websites look OK, but the operational theology (to use Mike Horton's phrase) is nothing like the published SoF.

As noted above, there are many individuals and individual congregations in the above mentioned denominations that are faithful to the Word. One would have to question the individual to learn what they believe and show them the truth if necessary.

Just to chime in, let us please not forget that there are still some solid, evangelical local churches within these largely apostate mainline denominations.

One of the most vibrant conservative Reformed churches in Toronto is, at least for the time being, a parish of the Anglican Church of Canada (the Canadian equivalent to the U.S. Episcopal Church). I speak of Little Trinity Anglican Church, on King Street.

For anyone interested, here are three documents from Little Trinity's senior pastor, the Rev'd Canon Chris King, addressing the ongoing 'blessing of same-sex unions' debacle in the ACC (taken from the parish website)...

"A Statement from The Reverend Canon Christopher King during General Synod 2007"
http://www.littletrinity.on.ca/docs/...eral_Synod.pdf

"Why Stay Within an Anglican Church of Canada"
http://www.littletrinity.on.ca/docs/...can_Church.pdf

"Some Reasons Little Trinity Can Feel at Home in the Diocese of Toronto"
http://www.littletrinity.on.ca/docs/Some_Reasons.pdf

Originally Posted by DD2009

These mainline protestant denominations do not believe in the inerrancy of scripture:

Presbyterian Church USA
United Methodist Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Episcopal Church
The United Church of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Should they be evangelized as if they were Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, pagans, or unbelievers?

Do we really share a common religion when we do not share a common authority? How can we achieve christian unity when it is apparent that most of christianity isn't christian?

I'm TOTALLY offended! There are SEVEN mainline denominations, not six. You left out my denomination of origin (and original ordination), the ABCUSA. As long as the Church of Laodicea remains in Revelation, there will be an ABCUSA!

Hey, we all need to be Gospelized. Frankly, I prefer to start with those with the wrong eschatology, position on baptism, and odd ideas on the law that keep showing up in the posts on the Puritan Board.