Bad News For Evangelicals

[silverspine]

In the bible, the church refers to the laity, not the priests and elites.  So if one is criticizing the church, it is indeed legitimate to sample the rank and file.  That's what defines a religion.  Not the specific views of a minority.

In the bible, the church refers to a group with neither laity nor elite. Rank and file is all there is, and ought to be. But does that include everyone who claims to be a christian? Jesus calls out some of the same sort of religious hypocrites that atheists do, and warns about the hypocrites that will come in his name. If this survey includes all such people, it would certainly reflect the majority. But the survey itself proves that many people labeled as 'evangelicals' don't know what they believe in, therefore cannot have faith in it, therefore cannot really be Christians, because faith is a requirement. So if this survey is about people who make a false claim to faith, then i agree. I only debate that this survey applies to true Christians, because that is in itself a contradiction since they must necessarily know what they believe in. I do admit to uncertainty on some of the minor doctrines of Christianity, but it is the tenets that are in question.

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silverspine, loving the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, etc means putting God first in your life; it doesn't mean devoting yourself to full knowledge of scripture or doctrines that were formulated decades after Jesus' supposed utterance of these words. As a former Evangelical myself, I knew many Christians IRL who aren't well read when it comes to the Bible, who don't know much about the history of the church, who don't really understand the doctrine of the Trinity (hell, even learned Christians get this one wrong) but nevertheless believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and clearly live a life devoted to him, perhaps even more obviously and modestly than you do.

I believe this topic is about the tenets of Christian faith, not all the minor doctrines or full knowledge of scripture, certainly not church history