Imperial Valley Christian Center

I've always been amazed at the emphasis that evangelical Christians put on identifying heresy.  It seems to be one of the main subjects of their religious education. I sometimes imagine evangelical seminaries and Bible schools having game nights where they play, Name That Heresy. Future pastors, theologians and ministers compete against each other to see how few of a religious opponents words they need to hear before they can identify his heresy.

Game Show Host: This so called minister was from Texas but his ministry headquarters were in Tulsa, Oklahoma and he was close friends with Oral Roberts.

Contestant #1 Future Pastor: I can name that heresy in 10 words.

Contestant #2 Future Professor of Theology: I can name that heresy in 5 words.

Game Show Host: Name that heresy…

Most evangelical ministers seem to be more familiar with the various heresies than they are the Bible. They can tell if a preacher's a Pelagian, or a Manichean, an Arian or a Montanist faster than you can say, "Please turn in your Bibles to…" Why waste time studying the Bible when learning to recognize heresy is a much faster route to all, acceptable, truth.

I shouldn't let the Catholics off the hook, but they've apparently narrowed all the heresies down to one, " Are you now or have you ever been a member of any church other than the one true, Catholic and apostolic church? " At a Catholic internet forum I was reading, someone had asked about a particular healing ministry. The healing minister had been a Catholic Priest and the poster's parents liked one of his books, so the poster wanted to know more about the healing minister. It didn't take long for a Torquemada-wanna-be to come online and assert that the healing minister was teaching heresy because he had suggested that the Catholic Church had missed it in the area of healing. Torquemada Jr. claimed that since the Catholic Church was the body of Christ, it was Christ, and to suggest that the Catholic church had missed it in any area was the same as saying that Christ had missed it. Okaaaay… well there's not much you can say to that.

Anyway, I said all that to get to this: This emphasis on heresy, by Christian churches, is an artifact of Bubble Boy Christianity. I mean "bubble boy" like the "boy" in the Seinfeld Episode who had to live in a

Proclaiming the Gospel, the message I preached at Pastor Logan’s Church.