Sunday, March 08, 2015

Why Baptists and Other "Bible-Only" Christians Leave their Denomination


Source: Jeremylofgren at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lancaster_Baptist_Church_Main_Auditorium.jpg
Albert Mohler blames the lack of theological education.

No. It's the opposite. Education leads people out of "Bible-Only" Christianity.

I've noticed something about Bible-Only Christians. The more educated they become, the less likely  they are not to remain Bible-Only Christians. They either drift closer to classical Christianity and become Anglican, Orthodox, Catholic or something similar.

Or otherwise they drift towards atheism or some other religion.

Bible-only Christianity is a flawed concept. There were no Bible-only Christians in the first centuries of the Church. When you read the Fathers, just about all of them had non-biblical, Catholic beliefs, which points to the idea that Bible-only Christianity did not exist.

The idea that a book interprets itself is flawed. The Jews didn't believe that: that's why they had Judges. Christ didn't believe that: that's why he left a Church.

American Protestant Christianity bears no resemblance to the Christianity of the first three centuries.

And that's why people leave. Bible-only Christianity is supposed to be the "purest form" of "apostolic Christianity" but it doesn't look anything at all like what the apostles believed.

People realize that, then they leave.

It's no big mystery.