Random Notes From White Horse Inn "Romans Revolution" Series Premiere

Here, in a semi-organized grouping, is what I picked up from the first installation of The White Horse Inn’s “Romans Revolution” series: “Understanding American Evangelicalism.”

Why Romans:

1. Romans is part of every revolution and used to defeat every heresy.
2. Without Romans, our default theology is Pelagianism.

Modern Evangelicals and Romans:

1. Evangelicals stress “I love Jesus”
   Romans stresses “Jesus loves me”
2. People today want to know how to fix their lives, not learn theology.
3. People stress “heart knowledge” over “head knowledge.”
4. Theology is seen as being against spiritualism.
5. Without theology or doctrine, we can’t defend Christianity against other philosophies.
6. People minimize and atomize sins. “Sin” is replaced by “sins”, a mental check list of things to do/not do.
   This leads to people become modern Pharisees.
   Ted Haggard: “People don’t need to repent every day because they don’t sin every day.”
7. Ted Haggard reported that only 30 people have ever asked to see their church’s statement of belief.
   A question asked by the hosts: why don’t they show perspective members the statement anyway?
   In contrast, Nigerian churches spend 3 years catechizing new (adult) believers, before accepting them as members.
8. One minister: “We are Bible based not Christ based.”
   “We don’t need to preach Christ and the cross every week. That would be repetitive.”

The modern church:

1. Modern ministers use small snatches of Bible verses to set up their diatribes.
2. Preaching is about ourselves instead of Christ.
3. Sermons are about “how” instead of “who.”
4. Modern churches use “Purpose Driven” type books to replace Scripture as the source of their sermons.
5. Worship: God calls us into His presence to give us His Son.
6. The modern church “performances” bear a lot of similarities to the practices of pagan religions.

“Deeds Not Creeds”:

1. Churches that stress this a “breeding the next generation of unbelievers.”
2. It leads to a rejection of Grace in favor of works.