Website owner:  James Miller

  PITFALL OF THE EVANGELICALS                   4/86



   Evangelicals emphasize certain things to the neglect and 
   exclusion of everything else.  To name these things that they 
   emphasize: 


       - doctrine            - giving money to the church 
       - Bible study         - being actively involved in church 
       - witnessing              activities
       - testimonies         - the "gospel" message 



   They emphasize these things to the point of fanaticism.  They 
   become so obsessed with them, so carried away with them, that 
   they become intellectual automatons.  The consequence of it is 
   that they become starved spiritually and end in spiritual 
   emptiness, spiritual bankruptcy.  What is it that is so vital 
   to spiritual growth and health that gets neglected, crowded out 
   and excluded?  The search for spiritual understanding.  The 
   process of asking questions, the process of inquiry. The search 
   for knowledge of self.  Spiritual truth and understanding comes 
   from thinking, questioning, and examining.  It comes from 
   observing life, learning from life.  It comes from asking what 
   is important in life and what isn't.  It comes from reading 
   things that wise and thinking men have written down through the 
   ages.  It comes from searching for truth and understanding, 
   from whatever the source.  It comes from listening to your 
   feelings and intuition, from listening to the light that lies 
   within you (if your basic feelings and intuition tells you 
   something is wrong, listen).  And it comes from serious reading 
   of the Bible. 

   True Christianity is a thing of the heart, a thing of the right 
   values, outlooks and priorities.  The obsessions and 
   fanaticisms of evangelicalism create a religion of the head, a 
   religion of ideas instead of feelings.