Answering Progressive Christian Memes 2: Is it a Sin to Smoke & Drink? Do we Worship the Bible? With Mike Winger—The Alisa Childers Podcast #89
Recently, a progressive Christian meme made the rounds that stated 22 beliefs about God, Christians, the nature of heaven and hell, and the exclusivity of Christianity. I asked Mike Winger to join me to help us think through these statements and analyze them through a biblical lens. Here's part 2!
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Thank you for your podcast! A friend introduced me to it a couple of months ago and I have really enjoyed listening. I just wanted to comment because in this episode you talk about the meme saying it's the Father, Son and Holy Spirit not the Father, Son and Holy Bible, and you mentioned that you were confused about where the idea that people worship the Bible comes from.
I can relate to this from my experience in the church I grew up in. The Bible was valued very highly (which I'm grateful for) but the Holy Spirit much less so. Anything remotely charismatic or related to emotions was frowned upon, and we were taught to avoid and fear experiences of the Holy Spirit and to focus only on the Bible.
I think it was well-intentioned and I wouldn't go so far as to say they worshiped the Bible, but it was certainly placed well above the Holy Spirit in terms of authority.
I don't know how widespread that thinking is, but I wonder if the meme is a reaction against that.
It was only in my mid 20s, after having been in church my whole life, that I even began to understand the Holy Spirit after looking into things more myself, and was able to reach the point of valuing both the Spirit and the Bible.
Brandon
12/26/2020 07:51:13 pm
I greatly appreciate the work both you and Mike Winger do, and I am very much enjoying your book Another Gospel (on chapter 10 now). Thanks for all you do and I know that your work has made a great impact for the kingdom of God.
I do have one question that has been on my mind for a while now though. Perhaps you have mentioned it somewhere before, but I was wondering if you could explain how you believe someone comes to a well-warranted faith in Jesus Christ and how this relates to trusting the other evidence for his life, death, and resurrection and evidence for the truthfulness of the Bible?
In particular I have in mind the vast majority of people in the past or even now who don’t have access to the historical argument or other evidences for Jesus Christ; do you believe they can have a well-warranted faith in Christ by hearing the Word preached (or reading it) and turning to him in faith? The reason I am asking is because this is an interesting topic to me, and reading your book and listening to some of Mike Winger’s videos made me think about it again.
– Brandon
Hi Alisa, I listened to the podcast and want to address a serious topic which I suspect you haven’t really thought through.
When you got to the topic of hell, both you and Mike kept using the word death to describe the wrath of God. You used this word death because that is the word the bible uses. But you apply the word death to equal everlasting torture by fire.
I ask nicely that you please look into the Conditional Immortality position.
Mike made a point of highlighting that the traditional position of Eternal Conscious Torment has been the position of Roman Catholics as they came up with it.
If Rome invented the doctrine of hell to mean everlasting torment likely to control the masses through fear, maybe we need to take a good hard look at the doctrine and consider that maybe we have been deceived on this point.
I was taught ECT for years. I now can see that the scriptures do not teach it. This took an honest step back and looking at what the text says plainly.
Please be honest and do this.
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