The very term “Christian” has all but lost its meaning in our culture today. When someone says, “I am a Christian,” that can mean all sorts of things, most of which have nothing to do with Christianity. When we look at the polls about what people believe about certain core doctrines, we are currently seeing upwards of 60% of proclaimed Christians who no longer believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, just for example. That is not a negotiable. We have lost the authority of Scripture, and as a result, we have lost the ability to test what we are hearing with whether it belongs in the church or not.
We have many different denominations out there. Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, etc. I wrote about these “divisions” in the church a few years back, and just a quick reminder: there are NOT 33,000 denominations out there, and the bulk of those denominations are separated by geography and formal governing bodies, not teachings. But there is something else we have going on today: we have “movements.” These are not new. Some are legitimate, and some are totally fake. The Great Awakening was one such movement. That is what brought the colonial U.S. to God and prepared them for the American Revolution. We have many movements going on in recent days. There was the “Jesus Movement” of the 1960s-70s. My former church was a product of those days. There was the “Laughing Revival” of Toronto, Canada. There was Billy Graham and his crusades.
There are also major teaching shifts as well. We have Old Earth Creation, Young Earth Creation, the Charismatic Movement/Word of Faith Movement, Critical Race Theory, Emergent Church/ Progressive Christianity, seeker-sensitive movement, movements launched from books like “The Prayer of Jabez,” “The Circle Maker,” or “The Genesis Flood,” and there is/was a Reformed Theology revival in recent days, too. These are BIG major teachings that aren’t just affecting a city or region, but millions upon millions of people. The Word of Faith movement has about 500 million followers, comparable to the Roman Catholic Church alone. These are HUGE movements. But which ones of them are Christian? Which of these should be associated with the faith? How can we know?
John MacArthur was one of the first major voices to speak out against the Charismatic Movement/Word of Faith Movement. His infamous Strange Fire conference was to expose those teachings as not fitting with true Christian teachings. I am not going to repeat his sermon here, however he gives some very good tests that we should use to test ANY movement or teaching. Some of what I will share here come from him and some I piggy-backed off of those. These tests are not whether they agree with creedal statements of the faith. Many false teachings and false churches put such “statements of faith” on their websites that are copy and pasted but don’t actually reflect what they actually teach. These tests go deeper than mere intellectual agreement. I have put various teachings to said tests, but I’m only going to address them in principle here, rather than go through each teaching and put them through the test.
• Does following this movement/teaching add any clarity to the text of Scripture, or does it make Scripture less clear? Does it seek to understand the original and intended meaning to Scripture, or does it seek to simply make room for ideas that are not explicitly taught in Scripture? Does the teaching/movement base itself on the clear exposition of Scripture in context, or does it rely on technicalities and “dictionary roulette” as I call it (looking for any definition of a term that can justify the position)?
• What does this teaching/movement bring to Christianity that helps believers in this day and age live out the Christian life? Or is it completely extraneous?
• How does the movement/teaching direct the worship of God? Is the worship of God taught as God wants to be worshipped, or is the worship however man wishes to worship (see my post on Worshipping God’s Way)?
• Does the teaching/movement point to and yield to holiness and the separation from the world and the world’s system and the world’s way of thinking? Does it stand out from the world? Or does it seek to incorporate teachings and ideas from the world and other pagan religious teachings?
• Is the teaching/movement God-centered, where it is about God and what He wants and about His glory? Or is it about man, what man wants, and what man gets out of it, where God is merely a means of getting man what man wants? Does God get the glory at the expense of man? Does our sacrifice cost us something? Or does man get to share the glory with God?
• Does the teaching/movement support and uphold the doctrine that Scripture is the first, final, and ultimate authority on every subject it touches on? Or does Scripture have to share its authority with another field of study (science, history, psychology, etc.)? Does it, not theoretically but practically, teach the sufficiency of Scripture?
• Are you able to find scoffers and mockers who utterly hate truth, God, and Scripture within the ranks of that movement? I’m not talking about mere tares among wheat here. Does the teaching/movement enable and allow such people to identify with such a movement without question?
• Is the teaching/movement only concerned about the opinion of God? Or is it concerned about how others will receive it? Whose opinion is the teaching/movement most concerned about?
• What makes such teachings/movements “Christian” teachings? Where, when, and how is it “Christian”? Does the movement/teaching come as an outflow of the foundations of the apostles and prophets of the Bible with Christ as the cornerstone? Or is the movement/teaching mere cosmetic and completely irrelevant to the foundation?
• Does the teaching/movement promote humility or arrogance? Does it require “high level education” to understand it? Or is it accessible to the simpleton with no academic inklings?
• How has church history taught on this subject throughout the ages? There is nothing new under the sun, so every movement/teaching we have today has been taught before. What has been the church’s position overall through the ages? How has the church faced those teachings?
• What is the history of the teaching/movement? What is its spiritual heritage? Where does it originate? What foundation does it have?
There are more tests we could come up with, but these should give us a good starting point. Because the church in general has so lost Biblical authority, I have to argue that the extreme majority of the movements we have today are not merely extra-Biblical but mostly anti-Biblical. While no movement truly has 100% correct doctrine (because only Jesus ever had that), a very big clue on the legitimacy of a movement is when the goal is to get back toward sound doctrine and to return to what has been taught throughout the ages. But take notice that the real tests of a Christian teaching or movement are not merely agreement to core doctrines as given by the creeds (and that is also a necessary test on top of all these), but to showcase overall submission to Christ and Scripture, as opposed to submission to the ideals of sinful men.
There are so many counterfeits today that it is getting harder and harder for the genuine to be visible. Many unbelievers are frustrated with us as a Church, especially in America, because we refuse to be united on the basics. God said the genuine would be separated from the counterfeit. How can you tell what is what? These tests will help clear the confusion and make things much easier to discern. Apply these tests to any teaching, any movement, and any ministry. Yes, even apply these tests to Worldview Warriors and me; if I am not passing these tests, I need to know that so that I may repent and adjust accordingly.
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