Doctrine

Almost half of Americans (48%) believe that the rise of artificial intelligence has made them less “scam-savvy” than ever before. With AI working its way into education, finance, and even science, a new survey finds people admitting they can’t tell what’s real anymore.

The poll of U.S. adults revealed that only 18% feel “very confident” in their ability to identify a scam before falling victim to it. As the United States enters a new era of tech, AI is continuing to blur the line between reality and an artificial world.

One in three even admits that it would be difficult for them to identify a potential scam if the scammer was trying to impersonate someone they personally know. Between creating fake news, robo-callers with realistic voices, and sending texts from familiar phone numbers, the possibility and probability of falling victim to a scam may cause anxiety for many Americans.

This may be because 34% of respondents have fallen victim to a scam in one way or another over the years. For others, the sting is still fresh. According to the results, 40% of people have been impacted within the last year — with 8% indicating it was as recent as last month.

BOSS Revolution VP Jessica Poverene said in a statement, “As AI technology advances, so do the tactics of scammers who exploit it. It’s crucial for consumers to stay vigilant.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The question “Can You Spot an AI Scam?” can apply to Christians with a slight change. The question becomes, “Can You Spot a Doctrinal Scam?” In this age of deception, there are many false doctrines being spread by false teachers and it is important to be informed and vigilant. “But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will deceive others and will themselves be deceived.” (2 Tim. 3:13)

If you’re on the operating table, you don’t want your surgeon to say to a nurse, “Hand me one of them sharp thingamajigs.” You want him to have a specific name for a specific tool to perform a specific job.

Words matter. The medical field has distinctive terminology by which it carefully defines diseases, medicines, instruments, and the like. When it comes to our bodies, we have very high expectations of our doctors. They better know what they’re talking about.

We should expect no less—indeed, far more—when it comes to pastors, priests, and teachers of the Word of God. They handle the word of truth. They minister to body, soul, and mind. They better know what they’re talking about. We don’t want to hear from them, “Now that divine power is doing some religious stuff in you.” Precision in language is necessary. We want God’s Word unapologetically, lovingly, and carefully proclaimed to us.

The alleged prophet Nostradamus is more popular than ever in these troubled times. Books about him and his prophecies are high on the best seller lists even today. His predictions are fraudulent not because they contradict Scripture, but by pure logical reasoning.

The British daily paper the Guardian recently exposed the prophet's devious methods. The reader can read into Nostradamus' vague words whatever he or she wants:

Circumlocution and evasion of directness play a large part. He usually waffled in his astrological datings, since conjunctions are repeated. He invoked obscure Latin words to create possibilities of double meanings; he omitted prepositions, articles, reflexives, and connectives, and favored the infinitive as a timeless, personless form that can be read many ways.

Nostradamus has the virtue of vagueness combined with apocalyptic fervor. That’s not unusual. Many sayers of sooth, from Merlin and Geoffrey of Monmouth onwards, have done the same. This vagueness lends itself to what we now know as confirmation bias. In desperate times, soothsayers have a ready audience for their insane nonsense. It’s the meeting point of cynicism and gullibility.

When life seems chaotic and the future uncertain, people look for patterns, narratives and meaning. At moments of great change or social anxiety we do tend to go looking for explanations. We want the past and the future to make narrative sense.

American evangelicals’ grasp on theology is slipping, and more than half affirmed heretical views of God in the 2022 State of Theology survey, released by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research.

Overall, adults in the U.S. are moving away from orthodox understandings of God and his Word year after year. More than half of the country (53%) now believes Scripture “is not literally true,” up from 41 percent when the biannual survey began in 2014.

Researchers called the rejection of the divine authorship of the Bible the “clearest and most consistent trend” over the eight years of data. Researchers wrote, “This view makes it easy for individuals to accept biblical teaching that they resonate with while simultaneously rejecting any biblical teaching that is out of step with their own personal views or broader cultural values.”

Here are five of the most common mistaken beliefs held by evangelicals:

1. Jesus isn’t the only way to God. 56 percent of evangelical respondents affirmed that “God accepts the worship of all religions.” This answer indicates a bent toward universalism—believing there are ways to bypass Jesus in our approach to and acceptance by God.

2. Jesus was created by God. 73 percent agreed with the statement that “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” This is a form of Arianism, a popular heresy that arose in the early fourth century.

3. Jesus is not God. 43 percent affirmed that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,” which is another form of Arian heresy.

4. The Holy Spirit is not a personal being. 60 percent of the evangelical survey respondents believe that “The Holy Spirit is a force but is not a personal being.”

5. Humans aren’t sinful by nature. 57 percent also agreed to the statement that “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.” In other words, humans might be capable of committing individual sins, but we do not have sinful natures. This denies the doctrine of original sin.

Who is Jesus? Few questions could be more relevant at Christmas. Yet a new Lifeway Research study shows nearly half of Americans believe a Christological heresy. Only 41 percent of Americans believe the “Son of God existed before Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” That means 59 percent either do not believe or are unsure whether they believe that the Son of God existed prior to the Nativity.

As pastors prepare their Christmas sermons this year, they might want to keep this fact in mind. Many who will walk through their doors on Sunday morning—some Christians, some not—hold to a heretical understanding of the Trinity. They’ll listen to the sermons and sing the songs, but their view of God is not orthodox. To be blunt, their view of God is not Christian.

(So), rather than a narrow focus on what Christ did, expand your vision to who Christ is. John’s Gospel is exemplary: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:1–3).

The Apostle is eager to introduce the saving work of Christ, but before he does so, he lifts us outside the confines of history to contemplate who this Son is from eternity: the Word who was not only with God but also was God.

But unless our Savior this Christmas is the “great God” himself, the One who descends into our darkness out of the glory of his everlasting light, we will never enjoy the blessedness and bliss of that (radiant) vision.

LifeWay Research and Ligonier Ministries have once again examined the theological awareness, or lack thereof, of American evangelicals. This time, instead of defining “evangelical” by whether participants identify as such, they used a definition endorsed by the National Association of Evangelicals. Below are the areas where believers have most gone astray in their theology:

People have the ability to turn to God on their own initiative. 82% Agree

Individuals must contribute to their own salvation. 74% Agree

Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. 71% Agree

God knows all that happens, but doesn’t determine all that happens. 65% Agree

The Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being. 56% Agree

God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. 48% Agree

My good deeds help to earn my place in heaven. 39% Agree

God will always reward faith with material blessings. 37% Agree

A survey by Pew Research Center shows that American Protestants believe that:

46% Faith in God alone is needed to get into heaven

52% Both good deeds and faith in God are needed to get into heaven

46% The Bible provides all the religious guidance that Christians need

52% In addition to the Bible, Christians need guidance from church teachings and traditions

J. Dudley Woodberry, senior professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, said, “More Muslims have become Christians in the last 35 years than in all previous centuries since the foundation of Islam. But they do not have a Christian background to support their newfound faith. Many of these converts have come to faith through such means as satellite TV or the Bible passed along via cell phones. So, a greater depth of understanding (of doctrine) is needed.”

The Puritan colonists who settled in New England in the 1630s had a nagging concern about the churches they were building: How would they ensure that the clergymen would be literate? Their answer was Harvard University, a school that was established to educate the ministry and adopted the motto “Truth for Christ and the Church.” It was named after a pastor, John Harvard, and it would be more than 70 years before the school had a president who was not a clergyman.

Nearly four centuries later, Harvard’s organization of chaplains has elected as its next president an atheist named Greg Epstein. Epstein, author of the book Good Without God, is a seemingly unusual choice for the role. Yet many Harvard students—some raised in families of faith, others never quite certain how to label their religious identities—attest to the influence that Epstein has had on their spiritual lives.

Epstein said, “There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life.” He has been Harvard’s humanist chaplain since 2005, teaching students about the progressive movement that centers people’s relationships with one another instead of with God.

This reflects a broader trend of young people across the United States who increasingly identify as spiritual but religiously nonaffiliated. That trend might be especially salient at Harvard; a Harvard Crimson survey of the class of 2019 found that those students were two times more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic than 18-year-olds in the general population.

Epstein said, “We don’t look to a god for answers. We are each other’s answers.” Epstein’s community has tapped into the growing desire for meaning without faith in God. A.J. Kumar, president of a Harvard humanist graduate student group, said, “Being able to find values and rituals but not having to believe in magic, that’s a powerful thing.”

Americans are worse at The Price Is Right than they used to be. On the game show, which has been running since 1972, four contestants are asked to guess the price of consumer products, like washing machines, microwaves, or jumbo packs of paper towels. The person who gets closest to the actual price, without going over, gets to keep playing and the chance to win prizes like a new car. In the 1970s, the typical guess was about 8% below the actual price. These days, people underestimate the price by more than 20%.

This finding comes from research released in 2019 by Jonathan Hartley, at Harvard University. A longtime fan of the show, Hartley was inspired to conduct his research after reading a paper that reveals contestants don’t use optimal bidding strategies. Hartley wondered what else the data might show. He found that the accuracy of people’s guesses sharply decreased from the 1970s to the 2000s, and then stabilized in the 2010s.

So, what accounts for guesses getting so much worse? Hartley thinks there are three economic factors that are the most likely culprits:

First, inflation in the US was much higher in the 1970s and 80s. When inflation is high and variable, people become more attentive to prices, noticing they are paying more for goods than before.

Second, the rise of e-commerce may have made people less sensitive to price. As a result, people may feel less of a need to do price comparisons.

Third, there are more products than ever. There are 50 times as many products at a grocery store than 80 years ago. This also might make it harder for The Price Is Right contestants, along with the rest of us, to know how much stuff costs.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Are believers getting worse at recognizing sound doctrine and genuine Bible teachers and churches? If so, it is because they are paying less attention to the study of biblical doctrine, are less aware of doctrinal issues, and are confused by the hundreds of varieties of churches, denominations, and even cults.

The Trinity almost never comes up in the songs sung by American Christians, according to a new study from Southern Wesleyan University. In worship songs churches mostly sing about Jesus (68%), with only occasional references to the Father (7%), and few (if any) mentions of the Holy Spirit (5%).

The relationships within the Godhead only rarely make an appearance in the 30 most popular hymns or the 30 most popular worship songs. Michael Tapper, professor of religion at Southern Wesleyan says, “In the music we sing, it seems like we’re not as Trinitarian as we think we are.”

A media provocateur known for spreading outlandish lies recently reported that his friend’s home was raided by the FBI. The seriousness of his claim, combined with photos and video footage, merited interest from local investigative journalists. But in an effort to publish quickly, they failed to discern an essential detail--the raid was staged.

When contacted by a Washington Post reporter, Jacob Wohl gave corroborating details about the supposed raid on his friend, conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman. What he left out was that the men creating the commotion outside Burkman’s residence were actors, hired under the guise of a TV pilot.

The story triggered more investigation from Post metro editor Mike Semel when he noticed there was no other confirmation from FBI or other law enforcement sources. This resulted in a mea culpa from the Post, in the form of a statement:

The Post earlier today published an erroneous story about a purported FBI raid on the home of conservative operative Jack Burkman. The FBI has since said that the raid did not take place. Our story was published because we failed to obtain appropriate confirmation.

When given the opportunity to retract, Burkman doubled down on his story, warning the Post thusly: “You have to remember in journalism you have to be careful—I’m not saying you did this—creating your own reality and ensnaring yourself in those realities.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Those who are motivated to spread the truth shouldn’t need to use lies to prove their point. Deception is inevitably revealed as fraudulent and discredits the work of anyone who uses it.

In his book, Rick Mattson writes:

I’m not the one making the exclusive claim about salvation—Jesus is. He is the one who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). I’m simply trusting his authority to know these things. It’s like going to my excellent family physician, Dr. Lehman. If he tells me my cholesterol is too high and that I need to cut down on sweets and fatty foods, I believe him. He’s an expert on the matter. Sure, there are plenty of other voices I could listen to about my health, including celebrities, infomercials and tabloid articles. To the extent that these voices disagree with Dr. Lehman, they’re most likely wrong. My physician has made the “exclusive” claim that his patient, me, has a certain malady that requires a certain treatment. I’m just the amateur who believes him.

Editor's Note: This simple illustration can show that proclaiming the exclusive claims of Christ need not be arrogant. Preachers can easily adapt this illustration with details from their own lives. Here’s my adaptation of the illustration (with a twist of humor):

I went to a sleep specialist doctor because apparently, I snore a lot. I told everyone, including the sleep specialist doctor, “Fine, do your study, but I am NOT wearing one of those CPAP machines.” I was convinced the doctor was getting kickbacks from the CPAP machine company. So I spent the night with electrodes stuck on my head and the doctor gave me his diagnosis: you have sleep apnea and you need to wear a CPAP. Now I trusted his expertise even less. I called a doctor friend to investigate this quack with his kickback scam. My friend said, “Your doctor is the real deal. Wear the CPAP machine. You’ll have more time on earth to enjoy your grandchildren.” So, every night I put that silly mask on my face. Why? Because after kicking and screaming, I have come to trust and to surrender to my doctor—his authority, his expertise. Why do followers of Jesus obey him in all things? Because they have surrendered to his authority and expertise.

Possible Preaching Angles: Rick Mattson writes, "This analogy can work with any authority figure you can think of: pilot, air traffic controller, professor, lawyer, scientist, astronaut, boat captain and so on. I prefer the doctor image because it’s so universally revered. I suppose a skeptic could push back on the analogy by pointing out that sometimes doctors are wrong and one should get a second opinion. That’s fine. The point is that somewhere in the process I, the amateur, trust in some authority who makes an exclusive truth claim about my condition.”

For more than forty years a lighthouse stood on a large peninsula jutting into the Tasman Sea in southern Australia. It stood at a place where it shouldn’t have, luring ignorant ships into the very rocks they were trying to avoid.

The cliffs around Cape St George just south of Jervis Bay were notorious for shipwrecks. So it was decided that a lighthouse was needed for the safe navigation of coastal shipping. In 1857, the Colonial Architect Alexander Dawson began looking for a site suitable for a lighthouse on Cape St George. Unfortunately, Dawson was more interested in the ease of construction rather than providing an efficient navigation aid.

When the Pilots Board went to verify the location Dawson chose they found that the site was not visible from the required approaches. They also found Dawson’s map suffered from “discrepan­cies so grave that it is impossible to decide whether position(s) marked on the map really exist.” The board also suspected that Dawson chose the site solely because it was situated closer to a quarry he planned to obtain stones from.

Despite the glaring deficiencies and disagreement by a majority of the board, for reasons not known, the chairman of board authorized the construction of the lighthouse. For the next four decades the ill-sited lighthouse was responsible for some two dozen shipwrecks. Eventually in 1899, the lighthouse was replaced by the Point Perpendicular Lighthouse in a much more suitable location on this part of the coast.

Even after decommissioning, the lighthouse continued to cause navigational problems especially on moonlit nights when the golden sandstone tower glowed in the dark. So near the turn of the century, the tower was reduced to rubble to prevent any further disaster.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Carelessness; Effort; Laziness; Motives – When there is a lack of diligence in studying of God’s Word many can be misled (2 Timothy 2:15); 2) False doctrine; False Teachers; Pharisees; Hypocrites – Scripture warns that in the last days there will be false teachers who will mislead many people into tragedy. All teaching must be carefully checked against Scripture to discern true from false.

The Wall Street Journal reported a story about how fake news stories and photos can have a powerful impact on shaping our minds and hearts. The story quoted Randi Romo, a female photographer whose photograph at an immigration rally had been manipulated by a Russia-backed account. The fake photo conveyed an anti-immigration message while the original photo clearly conveyed a pro-immigration message. Ms. Romo had a powerful warning for all of us: "We are living in the greatest era of information access. People will watch cat videos endlessly, but they won't take a minute to ascertain whether what they are being told is true or not."

Possible Preaching Angles: Of course this clearly applies not just to fake news stories in mainstream media. It's also a powerful reminder about being discerning with false doctrine and false teaching.

In light of the Super Bowl game, there was a discussion about one crucial word in the game of football that keeps enduring—Hut! An article in The New York Times pondered why this word keeps hanging around:

It is easily the most audible word in any football game, a throaty grunt that may be the sport's most distinguishing sound. Hut!

It starts almost every play, and often one is not enough. And in an increasingly complex game whose signal-calling has evolved into a cacophony of furtive code words—"Black Dirt!" "Big Belly!" "X Wiggle!"—hut, hut, hut endures as the signal to move. But why?

Most football players have no idea why. A pro ball center said, "I guess because it's better than yelling, 'Now,' or 'Go.' Some people have used 'Go' and that's awful. That doesn't sound like football." A former quarterback reckons he shouted "hut" more than 10,000 times during games and practices. "I've been hutting my way through football for 55 years—but I have no clue why."

The article conjectures that "Hut" may come from the military backgrounds of many early pro football players. But that's just a guess.

Possible Preaching Angles: Bible; Doctrine; Doubts; Questions; Interpretation—This is a great way to set up a sermon on any topic of what Christians believe or what the Bible teaches. Perhaps people have been told what to believe without the why or the rationale behind that belief or doctrine.

In 1879 Lieutenant George De Long set out with a crew on the USS Jeannette in hopes of claiming the North Pole for the United States. De Long's plans were based on maps developed by mapmakers at the time (cartographers). Like most mapmakers, Dr. August Heinrich Petermann believed there was an open polar ice-free sea, teeming with marine life "whose waters could be smoothly sailed, much as one might sail across the Caribbean or the Mediterranean."

Unfortunately, every previous expedition that had sailed north in search of the sea had run into a problem—ice. Now you might think that running into ice every time would lead scientists to abandon the theory of an Open Polar Sea. Not so. Instead, Petermann merely modified the original theory by adding the idea of a "thermometric gateway." As Hampton Sides recounts the story in his book In the Kingdom of Ice, "If an explorer could just bust through this icy circle, preferably in a ship with a reinforced hull, he would eventually find open water and enjoy smooth sailing to the North Pole. The trick, then, was to find a gap in the ice… a natural portal of some kind."

George De Long and his crew of 28 men wanted to find that portal. It didn't take long for De Long to realize that all the cartographers, scientists, and geographers had been wrong. He wrote, "I pronounce a thermometric gateway to the North Pole a delusion and a snare." Eventually, De Long began to doubt the existence of the Open Polar Sea. He and his men encountered ice that seemed to stretch out forever.

De Long and his crew came to grips with the fact that they had been duped. The team had to "replace [their wrongheaded ideas] with a reckoning of the way the Arctic truly is." They were running up against the rocks or hardened ice of reality. In September 1879, the USS Jeannette got trapped in the ice pack and his crew escaped and tried to go toward Siberia. The crew got separated. Some made it to Siberia and survived; others continued their lonely trek through the ice. As for George Washington De Long, he died in late October 1881 of starvation. He was covered up by snow, except for one of his arms, which was raised as if to signal toward the sky.

Possible Preaching Angles: What are the maps for your life? What are the assumptions, the worldviews that guide your life? Is your map true or false? All too often we stake the expedition of our lives on false maps.

In his essay "Sinsick," theologian Stanley Hauerwas explores the notion of authority using a medical analogy. If a medical student told his advisor, "I'm not into anatomy this year, I'm into relating" and asked to skip anatomy class to focus on people, the medical school would reply, "Who in the [heck] do you think you are, kid? … You're going to take anatomy. If you don't like it, that's tough." Hauerwas delivers his crucial point by saying: "Now what that shows is that people believe incompetent physicians can hurt them. Therefore people expect medical schools to hold their students responsible for the kind of training that is necessary to be competent physicians. On the other hand, few people believe an incompetent minister can damage their salvation."

The church has said for millennia that bad teaching is more deadly than bad surgery. … The need for formal structures of training, hierarchy, and accountability in medical schools and medical boards is obvious because we don't want our doctors to simply be popular or relatable; we want them to practice medicine correctly and truthfully, participate in a medical tradition broader than themselves, and serve under the authority and oversight of others. We need to be as discerning in whom we trust with care of souls as we are with care of our bodies.