Don’t get carried away.

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.

2 Peter 3:17

At this point in my life I have participated in over half a century of American evangelical Christianity. And I will say this: Peter’s warning stands. I’ve seen a lot of Christians (and sadly still witness it) get carried away from biblical Christianity. It is so very tragic. And in my opinion the Christian in American culture may more than likely already be carried away and NOT EVEN KNOW IT! This scares the heck out of me. Here are three ways I’ve seen Christians carried away by the error of lawless people:

FUNDAMENTALISM. Yep… the “F” word. The movement began as a necessary correction calling Christians to the authority of scripture for doctrinal clarity as modernism and theological liberalism began eroding confidence in God’s Word. And actually the historic doctrines of fundamentalism are part of the core of my own beliefs still. However, fundamentalism got off the rails when in zealousness it crossed over into legalism, making preference equal to essential doctrine. And then it got really angry and became antagonistic. Today I reject “fightin’ fundamentalists”. It became lawless by becoming loveless.

PRAGMATISM. The mega-church kind of “Let’s do what it takes” philosophy of ministry has softened the gospel, ignored key doctrines, diminished the authority of scripture, and created a generation of consumeristic, cafeteria-fed, spiritual customers. I’m not sure that even a few of them are authentically Christian. Church growth culture is lawless by design, being suggestive with scripture rather than authoritative and refusing to insist upon faith founded in the clarity of scripture. There are not enough “essentials” to any doctrine… in fact doctrine is hard to find in the movement.

LIBERALISM. By this I mean theological liberalism that considers scripture to be a mere human invention and theology a pliable silly putty of human thought and cultural speculation. It literally squishes to the mold of any cultural pressure. There is no law of God. There probably is no God for liberal theology! It became lawless by redefining love outside of the gospel. As such there is no basis to say anything with authority. I find it an intellectual joke.

These three pressures (and many more) call us to watch the line of scripture very closely and adhere carefully to historic Christian faith. It is way too easy to get carried away.