In this article, I will analyze some of the most prevalent warped beliefs and errant practices of modern-day Christians that either support or grow out of institutional Christianity.

Warped Beliefs

Salvation by Doctrine

True Christians are called by God to change their intellectual filters to accommodate the Bible, not the other way around. Because each faction and denomination is founded on a set of specific theological beliefs and institutional structures, most Christians are lackadaisical about reading and understanding the Bible, and they don’t tolerate intellectual debate outside of predefined boundaries.

Institutional churches benefit from this narrow-mindedness because it prevents the breaking down of walls between different church bureaucracies, thereby minimizing competition for the tithers and church attenders within their domain. It also allows churches to label as heretics those who question the biblical foundations of the institutional church, protecting the church’s dogma from intellectual challenges.

If you are in such a church, have you ever considered how bizarre it is for a church to list out all the things it believes and then require everyone who becomes a member to agree with all of them? Are these churches absolutely certain that there are no Heaven-bound Christians who disagree with some of these beliefs? And if such is the case, by what right does a church excommunicate such believers from fellowship?

In the first-century Church, everyone who proclaimed Jesus as Lord and Savior within a city belonged to one church, to the point where the Church struggled with dissension from false believers in their ranks. Still, the apostles considered it better to deal internally with false beliefs than to dare excommunicate a single believer.

Today, however, most Christians fellowship only with the Christians who think the most like them, not every member of the body of Christ, which grieves the Holy Spirit. As Paul warned the Corinthians, we should not have divisions within the Church (1 Corinthians 1:10).

Refer to the following verses for proof that we are saved through belief in Jesus, not our specific doctrinal beliefs:

• He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)
• I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9)
• And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13)
• Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)
• Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. (Acts 16:31)
• If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10)

Justification by Faith Alone and “Once Saved Always Saved”

As I explained in How the Gospel Works and Tackling the Hard Questions Head-On, the doctrines of “justification by faith alone” and “once saved always saved” are not biblical. So why are they so popular amongst institutional churches?

Simple: they promote “easy-believism,” whereby nothing more is required of a person to be saved and go to Heaven than to say a saving prayer. From that point forward, a person can behave however they want and still remain in the faith, regardless of fruit produced or sanctification pursued. As long as they continue to commune with the ordained pastor through the liturgical ceremonies of their institutional church, they need do no more to maintain their salvation.

In truth, intellectual belief in God alone is not enough for salvation. As James pointed out, even the demons believe… and tremble (James 2:19). Your belief must be made alive through obedience to God’s commandments (James 2:26). This responsibility cannot be outsourced to a pastor or any other third party.

A connected issue is the idea of “passion” in faith. Often Christians will have powerful experiences of God upon their first conversion, and then they will experience it again at big concerts, conferences, and revivals. This gives them a sense that they should be on fire all the time, and they don’t understand why God seems absent most of the time in their lives.

In reality, the faith is not always super exciting. The Christian walk is a marathon, not a sprint, and it can feel like a grind or slog sometimes. However, if you are focused on sanctification, keeping God’s commandments, and fulfilling the responsibilities God has given you, you will eventually find a stable peace and harmony in your life. In this way, it is similar to how the lovey-dovey passion largely settles down in a marriage after a few years, but a stable contentment can eventually flourish once the married couple have navigated through their main conflicts and chosen to remain committed to one another.

Rejecting Predestination

An alternate scheme found in institutional churches is to proclaim that humans are not predestined to salvation but rather can choose it for themselves without reference to God’s will. Beyond the rather obvious denigration of God’s omnipotence that this represents, it also presents the problem that if you can choose to be saved, you can also choose just as easily to not be saved.

In this model, every sin you commit could be the one that severs you from your connection to Christ. Thus, preachers must admonish and warn you every Sunday about the dangers of sinning, lest you lose your salvation at a moment’s notice. Congregants live in fear, dominated by pastors who intimidate them with fire and brimstone preaching.

Although in Tackling the Hard Questions Head-On I explained that it is possible to walk away from the faith, this can only happen due to a concerted and persistent rejection of God and a complete disinterest in being one of His children. It is an extreme and unusual case, the product of deliberately feeding one’s heart with sin.

The average Christian will always occasionally sin, no matter how mature or sanctified, and that sin does not remove their assurance of salvation. As with David’s sin with Bathsheba, it merely drives a wedge between God and the Christian that must be bridged, and it may result in consequences that will have to be dealt with at some point. Still, all the Christian has to do to be restored into fellowship with God is to confess his sin, and once he does, God is faithful and just to forgive his sins and cleanse him from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

The fear of Hell should therefore never be used as a cudgel against God’s children, but authoritarian Christian leaders nonetheless do so to keep their congregants in bondage. Tragically, many such congregants then treat their children in a similarly domineering and fear-based manner as well, terrified that their kids will likewise step out of bounds and lose their salvation. If members of these churches truly understood their liberty in Christ, they would not put up with or participate in such abuse.

Futurism

Note: I’m going to refer here to the idea that the Second Coming is in the future as “futurism” and the idea that the Second Coming is in the past as “preterism.” See The Enigma of the End Times for more information.

Because standard futurism puts Jesus’ return in our future, futurists believe we are still living in the same state of “already but not yet” that existed during the Last Days of 30 AD – 70 AD. Indeed, futurists explicitly believe we are still living in the Last Days.

The problem with this notion is that it means certain aspects of the Old Covenant Law continue to apply. While they won’t admit it straightforwardly (because it is so clearly against the text of the New Testament), futurist authoritarians seek an equivalency between the priestly sacrificial system of the Old Covenant and the institutional church. In other words, they seek by analogy to justify the notion that a pastor is essentially a priest, closer in holiness to Jesus via ordination than the common priestliness of the laity.

As John 4:21-24 make clear, however, the idea of a structured worship system, an intermediary priesthood, and a physical sanctuary were all made obsolete by Christ’s sacrifice (and were dramatically wiped away during the First Jewish-Roman War). His disciples are to worship God in spirit and in truth, and wherever two or three disciples gather in Christ’s name, we have the presence of our Messiah (Matthew 18:20). Nothing more is required for worship.

Beyond trying to resurrect the destroyed trappings of institutional worship, futurists waste an inordinate amount of time, energy, and opportunity to witness by dwelling endlessly on the timing of a supposed future Second Coming. We have our marching orders with the Great Commission, and nothing in our future makes Christ’s command to disciple and teach obedience to the nations any less binding or relevant for our lives.

Errant Practices

Faith as a Cultural In-Group

Much like the Jews of Jesus’ days (Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, priests, etc.), modern-day Christians have transformed the Christian faith from a missional way of life into an exclusive identity group. Let’s examine a few aspects of how modern-day Christians repeat the errors of the first-century Jews.

Hatred of Foreigners

The Jews always existed to be a light to the nations, but by the time Jesus came around, many of the Jews had declared the nations around them unclean and were more focused on venerating themselves than bringing Yahweh worship to the Gentiles. This infuriated Jesus, who called these Jews children of the devil (John 8:44) and sons of Hell (Matthew 23:15). His heart was like the original heart of Solomon, who prayed for foreigners to have their prayers answered at God’s temple (2 Chronicles 6:32-33). This is why Jesus drove out all those who bought and sold in the courts of the temple where Gentiles were supposed to worship (Matthew 21:12-13).

American Christians today have done something similar by setting up barriers for members of other nations to sojourn in America, which was originally conceived as a city on a hill, i.e., a light to the world. Conservative Christians generally want to keep out all but the most “valuable to us” immigrants, whereas the Israel of the Old Testament generally welcomed all those who came in good faith to experience for themselves the blessings God had given Israel. As God commanded the Israelites, “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).

Of course, that does not mean we have to let criminals live amongst us without consequence, allow sojourners privileges that should only belong to citizens (such as the ability to vote), or set up a welfare system for both citizens and sojourners that violates biblical guidelines for social welfare and overburdens our economy (see A Biblical Vision for the State for a biblical proposal for immigration reform). But we should not place our interests above the interests of those of other nations, for our ancestors fled persecution and suffering and became immigrants to found our nation, just as the Israelites fled Egypt.

We also must be wary of when Christian nationalism transitions from a reasonable pride in one’s country and heritage into a blind allegiance to the nation above all else. Jeremiah and Daniel were both considered traitors for allying with Babylon against Judah (see for example Jeremiah 38:1-4), even though the judgment upon Judah was the will of God and could only be averted through national repentance.

The Christian Jews of the first and second century also opposed the nationalistic Jews who declared independence from the Romans during the First and Third Jewish-Roman Wars and placed their trust in godless princes like Simon bar Kokhba to lead them to victory, regardless of God’s will. If America or any other nation falls under God’s judgment, godly citizens of that nation will stand with God against it, warning it that without a return to God’s commandments, it will suffer destruction, and its purposes shall not stand.

Hatred of Sinners

Within their national identity group, the Jews of Jesus’ day separated the “good” righteous Jews from the “bad” sinners and scum of society. The Pharisees attacked Jesus for daring to eat with sinners and tax collectors, the members of Jewish society who were considered out of bounds for decent people to affiliate with (Matthew 9:9-11). But Jesus called out their hypocrisy and reminded them that we all need mercy, and our self-righteousness excludes us from the saving power of the gospel (Matthew 9:12-13). See Luke 7:36-50 for a similarly themed story.

To those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised those whom they didn’t consider righteous, Jesus warned that the one who checks all the religious boxes but has a hard heart will not be justified in God’s sight, while the worst of the worst who genuinely repents will indeed be justified (Luke 18:9-14).

Such it is today, where those who call themselves Christians argue with, oppose, mock, and condemn the lost members of our society. They forget that no one is righteous and no one truly does good of his own accord (Romans 3:10-18) and that Christians must be humble, because we have no right to boast, because everything good we have we have received from God (1 Corinthians 4:6-7). Instead, arrogant Christians pride themselves on being in the faith and despise those who are too stupid to do likewise.

As God warned the self-righteous, the lowly members of society who seek God’s forgiveness in earnest will be justified, while those who spend years attending church, praying, studying the Bible, and tithing will not, if they do not have a similarly soft heart and are not genuinely seeking to share the blessing of their salvation with all men, no matter how wicked or ensconced they are in supposedly “unforgivable” sins like sodomy.

Remember above all else that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11) and desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:304). Hence, we as believers do not judge those outside the church while they remain outside, but can freely associate and share the testimony of Jesus Christ with them (1 Corinthians 5:9-12). God is their judge (1 Corinthians 5:13).

Legalism and Hypocrisy

There is a confusion in modern Christianity about whether attempts to impose obedience to God’s commandments constitute “legalism.” Often this goes hand-in-hand with the idea that Jesus came to condemn the Pharisees for preaching that people should adhere to God’s Law, instead of relying on “faith” in God.

Both of these beliefs are false. I have already explained the importance of commandment-keeping in How the Gospel Works, but as far as Jesus’ perspective of the Pharisees goes:

Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. (Matthew 23:1-5)

Jesus commanded his disciples to be obedient to God’s laws and even to observe the (Mosaic) commandments preached by the Pharisees themselves! However, he condemned the Pharisees for being hypocrites who failed to actually follow the laws they preached. They pretended to be righteous and only kept the lighter parts of the law themselves:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24)

Furthermore, to make up for the deficits in their righteousness, the Pharisees created fake rules that ran contrary to God’s laws. Indeed, during the intertestamental period, many Jews had adopted a second set of commandments beyond the written law of Moses in the Bible, which they called the “Oral Torah” (Mishnah), claiming that Moses had handed these prescriptions down orally outside Scripture. These are referred to in the Bible as “the tradition of the elders” (Matthew 15:2), “the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8), or “the tradition of [the] fathers” (Galatians 1:14).

The problem with this is that God’s Law is holistically perfect. Everything that needed to be there was there, and nothing that didn’t need to be there was there. Every jot and tittle was important and could not be neglected, and not a jot nor tittle of any other law should have been included. Therefore, adding something to one part of the Law would necessarily cause a violation of a different part of the Law.

That’s what Jesus is explaining when he discusses the practice of offering up to God the money that would have been used to care for one’s parents (Matthew 15:1-9). Though it’s a good idea to offer up money to God, doing it that way necessarily leads to breaking the commandment about honoring one’s parents. The issue was thus not that the false Jews were strict followers of God’s Law, but rather that they were actually violating God’s laws and hated true followers of God (like Jesus and John the Baptist) accordingly.

That is what true legalism is, not zeal for God’s commandments. It is not about insisting on following God’s Law but rather replacing God’s Law with man’s precepts. In that Matthew 15 passage, Jesus quoted Isaiah 29:13, thereby showing that this practice had been similarly prevalent in the time leading up to Judah’s destruction by Babylon. And indeed, it continues to this day in the modern Christian church.

Examples:

• Jesus enjoyed drinking at parties so much that He was called a winebibber (Matthew 11:19). He was not a drunkard, because He did not get excessively drunk, but He definitely liked to use wine to get into the festive mood. Yet today, many Christians proscribe drinking alcohol altogether.
• The Bible does not say anything at all about gambling, but some Christians forbid it.
• The Bible does not forbid drug use in either the Old or New Testaments (although it does forbid drug abuse and its connection to sorcery in Galatians 5:20), but Christians by and large still support the War on Drugs (see A Biblical Vision for the State for more discussion about Christianity and drug laws).
• There are multiple positive depictions in the Bible of God’s people dancing (e.g., Exodus 15:20, Judges 21:21, 1 Samuel 18:6-7, 2 Samuel 6:14), yet some Christians forbid it altogether.
• The Psalms contain numerous references to musical instruments, yet some Christians forbid their use in performing psalms or even altogether.

Each of these false prohibitions restricts us in some way from living out our faith fully, but by these restrictions Pharisaical Christians proclaim their self-righteousness, while still engaging in adultery, sexual immorality, no-fault divorce, gossip, hatred, and various other sins that are called out explicitly in the New Testament as wrong and to be avoided. They thus imitate the Pharisees and scribes by cleaning the outside of the cup and dish while leaving the inside full of filthiness (Matthew 23:25-26). They become whitewashed tombs, outwardly beautiful but full of uncleanness (Matthew 23:27-28).

This pattern of behavior is also the “form of godliness without power” mentioned in 2 Timothy 3:5.

Magical Christian Thinking

Magic at its core is an attempt to make spiritual power quantifiable and repeatable. This could be through substances (like potions), incantations, enchantments, etc.

God’s people have power, but it is always to be used in service of God’s goals, not our own. We can never guarantee that He will want us to be healthy, rich, or successful in every endeavor. On the contrary, sometimes we need to suffer to mature or to open new avenues of ministry.

Prosperity theology and other forms of magical Christian thinking, on the other hand, attempt to systematize Christian power to produce repeatable results. If you pray a certain way, tithe a certain way, or worship a certain way, you can consistently produce the results you desire.

The ultimate objective of the magical discipline of alchemy was to produce a philosopher’s stone, which could create gold from base metals and grant immortality to the stone’s owner. Immortality and gold = health and wealth. That’s exactly what prosperity theologians seek today through their version of “Christianity.”

For an example of what happens to those who seek to use Christian power in a magical way and not a faithful one, see Acts 19:11-17. Note that this story is followed immediately by the burning of magic books.

You do not obey God to get some kind of dependable reward. You obey Him because He is your Father. He is in charge, and He wants what’s best for you, but His highest priority is to bring healing to the world. You must focus your efforts on achieving that. God will indeed bless us if we are faithful, but not always with health and wealth.