Heresy

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)

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

In an interview for the Howard Stern Show, former First Lady Hillary Clinton was asked about her faith.

“I have a deep faith,” she said before saying she believes there is a God and that when we die, we’re going to go “somewhere.” “We’re learning more and more about what holds the universe together. Dark matter makes up most of the universe. We really don’t quite know what it is. It’s energy. I think religious belief and science are compatible, unlike those who reject one or the other. I think that energy doesn’t die. Energy keeps going.”

Stern replied, “That’s comforting.”

In the Kingdom of Ice is journalist Hampton Sides' compelling account of the failed nineteenth-century polar expedition of the USS Jeannette, captained by Lieutenant George De Long. It serves as a cautionary tale about the hazards of misorientation—not because of a faulty compass but because of a mistaken map. De Long's entire expedition rested on a picture of the (unknown) North Pole laid out in the (ultimately deluded) maps of Dr. August Heinrich Petermann. Petermann's maps suggested a "thermometric gateway" through the ice that opened onto a vast "polar sea" on the top of the world—a fair-weather passage beyond all the ice. De Long's entire expedition was staked on these maps.

But it turned out he was heading to a world that didn't exist. As perilous ice quickly surrounded the ship, Sides recounts, the team had to "shed its organizing ideas, in all their unfounded romance, and to replace them with a reckoning of the way the Arctic truly is."

Our culture often sells us faulty, fantastical maps of "the good life" that paint alluring pictures that draw us toward them. All too often we stake the expedition of our lives on them, setting sail toward them with every sheet hoisted. And we do so without thinking about it because these maps work on our imagination, not our intellect. It's not until we're shipwrecked that we realize we trusted faulty maps.

The system of apartheid in South Africa, a sophisticated but oppressive structure of racism that reigned for decades, was based in large part on theological doctrines that were formed at Stellenbosch University in the 1930s and 1940s. The Afrikaner nationalism and distorted Christian theology that came from Stellenbosch's Seminary fueled many Afrikaner's belief that they were God's chosen people. They saw themselves as biologically superior to other races. Therefore, they felt called to create a new segregated society that would allow them to civilize other people while not tainting themselves with the "darkness and barbarism" of those inferior groups.

These doctrines gave the white South Africans religious justification for horrific crimes against their countrymen and women. More than 3.5 million black, Indian, and biracial people were removed from their homes in what was one of the largest mass removals in modern history. Nonwhite political representation was obliterated. Black South Africans were denied citizenship and relegated to the slums called "bantustans." The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, providing black, Indian, and other "colored" people with significantly inferior services. The result was a segregated society where people were dehumanized based on beliefs that were supported by bad theology.

In his book Dreamland, journalist Sam Quinones points to one paragraph of false information that helped pave the way for the surge in addicts to the highly addictive opiate OxyContin. Before 1980, the rule for prescribing narcotic painkillers was as little as possible for as short a time as possible. Doctors were taught that the risk of addiction was simply too high. As Mr. Quinones recounts, this thinking changed when Dr. Hershel Jick and a colleague submitted a one-paragraph letter to the New England Journal of Medicine noting that, according to their data, of 12,000 patients treated with opiates in a Boston hospital before 1979, "only four had grown addicted."

But Quinones writes, "There were no data about how often, how long, or at what dose these patients were given opiates. The paragraph simply cited the numbers and made no claim beyond that."

Cited and recited, Dr. Jick's letter bolstered a growing push within medicine to treat pain more aggressively. By the time the pharmaceutical company Purdue Frederick introduced a time-release painkiller called OxyContin in 1996, the accepted wisdom was that opiates were nearly non-addictive. Purdue "set about promoting OxyContin as virtually risk-free and a solution to the problems patients presented doctors with every day," Doctors—often primary-care physicians not specially trained in pain management—duly began to prescribe the drug for patients in chronic pain.

The results have been disastrous. "Oxy prescriptions for chronic pain rose from 670,000 in 1997 to 6.2 million in 2002," writes Mr. Quinones. "While still prescribed for cancer pain, OxyContin was now also offered for the sorts of aches for which one might have previously taken an aspirin." As a result, the rates of opiate addiction in big and small cities across America have soared.

Words change meaning over time in ways that might surprise you. Here are just a few examples of words (so, preacher, take your choice) you may not have realized didn't always mean what they mean today.

1. Nice: This word used to mean "silly, foolish, simple." Far from the compliment it is today!
2. Silly: Meanwhile, silly went in the opposite direction: in its earliest uses, it referred to things worthy or blessed; from there it came to refer to the weak and vulnerable, and more recently to those who are foolish.
3. Awful: Awful things used to be "worthy of awe" for a variety of reasons, which is how we get expressions like "the awful majesty of God."
4. Fizzle: The verb fizzle once referred to the act of producing quiet flatulence (think "SBD"); American college slang flipped the word's meaning to refer to failing at things.
5. Clue: Centuries ago, a clue (or clew) was a ball of yarn. Think about threading your way through a maze and you'll see how we got from yarn to key bits of evidence that help us solve things.
6. Naughty: Long ago, if you were naughty, you had naught or nothing. Then it came to mean evil or immoral, and now you are just badly behaved.
7. Guy: It comes from the name of Guy Fawkes, who was part of a failed attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605. Folks used to burn his effigy, a "Guy Fawkes" or a "guy," and from there it came to refer to a frightful figure. In the U.S., it has come to refer to men in general.

Possible Preaching Angles: Doctrine; Word of God; Theology; Love; Repentance; Marriage, and so forth—You can pick many words in the Christian vocabulary, words about biblical doctrine or a biblical lifestyle, and examine how these words have changed meanings from Scripture to today. Unfortunately, many of these changes in definitions of biblical words aren't just interesting or innocent; they damage our faith and weaken our understanding of Christ.

Natives of the islands of the South West Pacific had very little, if any, contact with the modern world and its many technological advances. So during World War 2 they were mesmerized by Japanese and later Allied soldier's uniforms, their marching in perfect order, the construction of airstrips, and the hand gestures in directing the landing of incredible flying ships bringing all manner of exotic goods. The Japanese and later the Allied soldiers shared some of their "cargo" with the natives—Coca Cola, canned food, clothes, basic medicine, and other assorted desirable yet unfamiliar common items.

When the war ended, the mysterious visitors left for good. Disappointed, the natives believed if they would mimic the actions of their heavenly visitors, the planes would return, bringing more fascinating gifts and healing medicines. They built a control tower out of rope and bamboo, a runway out of straw, and made "clothes" resembling the military uniforms they observed. They carved and wore simple wooden headsets and exactly mimicked the landing hand-gestures on their airstrip. These patterns of beliefs and rituals have become known as "Cargo Cults." The faithful believe if they simply follow the pattern and motions of their technologically superior visitors, they will get the same results.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) False teaching; (2) Spirituality without power; (3) Addictions; Idols; Idolatry—We might be tempted to make fun of these "superstitious" beliefs, but every time we turn to an idol or an addiction we're acting like these cargo cult believers—we're expecting to receive something that the idol just can't deliver.

Bradley Nassif, a follower of Christ from Lebanese descent, tells the story of his grandmother, who often showed her love by cooking. Nassif writes:

When I was a boy, she would spend hours in the kitchen kneading dough, grinding lamb, boiling cabbage, mixing spices, rolling grape leaves, making baklava, and baking bread. The foods were elaborately prepared with time-tested techniques. Many dishes went back centuries, some to the days of Jesus. Salads, desserts, side dishes, and main courses offered the best of Grandma's Mediterranean gems. I especially loved her hummus, a chickpea dip now popular in America.

Grandma died many years ago. For years I longed for her hummus. But to my dismay, I failed as I mixed the wrong ingredients and spices over and over again. "What am I doing wrong?" I asked. "Why can't I make hummus like Grandma did? What is the right blend of lemon, garlic, and olive oil? What's essential and what's not?" Eventually, I discovered the balance. Now my hummus is to die for—at least according to my family.

Similarly, Christians have a long tradition of enjoying a delicate combination of ingredients that compose a proper understanding of the Trinity. That beautifully balanced doctrine of the Trinity came in the fourth century, after church leaders reflected on how God exists as a unity of three equally divine and equally eternal Persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God—three divine Persons sharing one divine nature. The doctrine was eventually summarized in the Nicene Creed.

Editor's Note: Nassif adds some more background: "The heresy the Nicene Creed stood against was a bad recipe called Arianism. The heresy was named after Arius, a priest who believed that Jesus was not fully God but rather a created being through whom God the Father made the world. If Arius and his followers were right, enormous consequences would follow: The church would be wrong to worship Jesus as God. Salvation through Jesus would be impossible because only God can save—and Jesus would not have been fully God."

In an interview with New York Magazine, Lady Gaga said,

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth—and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but then he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment the audience falls in love.

Possible Preaching Angles: Satan's Power, Deception—It would be easy to use this quote to bash Lady Gaga, but as Paul says, "We struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers." In other words, Lady Gaga is not our real enemy. She is also a victim of Satan's ability to deceive.

Vishal Mangalwadi, a Christian scholar from India, shared the following story after visiting America:

In November, 2011, I visited two classes at a Christian university in North America. I asked both: "How many of you would still believe Christianity if you found out tomorrow that Christianity was not true. That is: God never became a man; Jesus did not die for our sin; or, that he did not rise from the dead?"

Twelve hands went up in [the class of about 25 students]. These sincere and devout students had grown up in Christian homes, gone to church all their lives, and studied in Christian schools. Some had been in that Christian university for three years! They respected their elders who taught them that Christianity was all about faith with little concern for truth.

Christianity lost America because 20th-century evangelicalism branded itself as the party of faith. Secularism (science, university, media) became the party of truth. This is one reason why 70 percent of Christian youth give up meaningful involvement with the church when they grow up…. Secularism acquired the "truth" brand by default because evangelicalism began defining the Church's mission as [just] cultivating faith, not [also] promoting knowledge of truth.

Many Christians only see bits and pieces of the Bible, lacking a big picture of how the Scriptures hold together. Theology and doctrine provide that larger vision of the entire Bible. In his book The Social Animal, David Brooks illustrates the need for a big picture by using an illustration from the game of chess:

A series of highly skilled players and a series of nonplayers were shown a series of chessboards [with chess pieces] for about five to ten seconds each …. [Later], the grandmasters could remember every piece on every board. The average players could only remember about four or five pieces per board.

Why did the chess grandmasters have such an amazing ability to remember the pieces? They did not have superior IQ's or better memories. Instead, Brooks explains:

The real reason the grandmasters could remember the game boards so well is that after so many years of study, they saw the boards in a different way. When average players saw the boards, they saw a group of individual pieces. When the masters saw the boards, they saw formations. Instead of seeing a bunch of letters on a page, they saw words, paragraphs, and stories …. Expertise is about forming internal connections so that the little pieces of information turn into bigger networked chunks of information. Learning is not merely about accumulating facts. It is internalizing the relationship between pieces of information.

For Christians, theology and doctrine are essential because they provide the big picture so we can read Scripture and see not just "individual pieces" of information. Doctrine also enables us to see "the relationship between the pieces of information."

In a blog post, Justin Buzzard wrote:

While I think it is important to be known more for what you are for than what you are against, just a cursory reading of the Bible shows that it also calls us to deal with false teaching. Why? Because false teaching is dangerous and destructive; it hurts people.

About ten years ago I heard Ben Patterson say something that I will never forget. Ben told the story of a retired pastor who began noticing that his former congregation was sliding away from orthodoxy. The pastor saw this as his fault, noting the one thing he thought he did most poorly as a pastor. The pastor stated, in two sentences, his great failure as a pastor: "I always told people what to believe. My great mistake is that I never clearly taught my people what NOT to believe."

In The Story of Christian Theology, theologian Roger Olson writes:

A popular misconception—perhaps a Christian urban legend—is that the United States Secret Service never shows bank tellers counterfeit money when teaching them to identify it. The agents who do the training, so the legend goes, show bank tellers only examples of genuine money so that when the phony money appears before them they will know it by its difference from the real thing. The story is supposed to make the point that Christians ought to study truth and never heresy.

The first time I heard the tale as a sermon illustration I intuited its falseness. On checking with the Treasury Department's Minneapolis Secret Service agent in charge of training bank tellers to identify counterfeit money, my suspicion was confirmed. He laughed at the story and wondered aloud who would start it and who would believe it. At my request he sent me a letter confirming that the Secret Service does show examples of counterfeit money to bank tellers.

I believe it is important and valuable for Christians to know not only theological correctness (orthodoxy) but also the ideas of those judged as heretics within the church's story. One reason is that it is almost impossible to appreciate the meaning of orthodoxy without understanding the heresies that forced its development.

A new, highly efficient system is being used by San Francisco and New York City to detect the presence of toxins in a city's water supply, a possible sign of a terrorist attack. They have found that the best tool for monitoring such threats are bluegills, those little fish so many catch on a lazy summer afternoon.

According to an article by the Associated Press, a small number of bluegills are kept in a tank at the bottom of a city's water treatment plant because they are highly attuned to chemical imbalances in their environment. When a disturbance is present in the water, the bluegills react against it. If the computerized system of the treatment plant detects even the slightest change in a bluegill's vital signs, it sends out an e-mail alert.

Bill Lawler, the co-founder of the corporation that makes and sells these bluegill monitoring systems, said, "Nature's given us pretty much the most powerful and reliable early warning center out there."