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PART 3 of Chapter 1 - The Cultural Case against Creeds and Confessions by Dr. Carl Trueman with Pastor William Shifflett

A world in which human nature is merely a construct put together by the individual or by the specific community in which the individual is placed is a world where historical documents, such as creeds, can have no transcendent significance but are doomed to be of merely local or antiquarian interest.

Words, Mysticism, and Pragmatism.

The current suspicion of words as reliable means of communication.

Genesis 11:1- Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.

Psalm 127:1-2 - Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

Indeed, a whole school of literary theory has developed around the notion that words have become little more than tools to be used to marginalize and manipulate others. - Nazi propaganda film.

That Christianity is a way of life and not a set of doctrines has become something of a mantra among younger Christians in the last ten years.

There is also a popular strain of mysticism that pervades modern culture and that is profoundly suspicious of words. The notion that certain emotional sentiments or responses constitute truth, something that is often epitomized by the kind of statements made with remarkable regularity on TV talk shows, “I just know in my heart that it is true”.

It it feels good. How can it possibly be wrong?

There is no way you can refute this person’s claim because it is not a claim expressed using public criteria commonly known as words and logic. It makes truth something mystical, something to be experienced, not something subject to normal criteria of public evaluation.

In some churches preaching has been relativized and now stands alongside dramatic performances, candles, incense, and small group discussion.

The authoritative voice of the preacher has been replaced by a more democratic dialogue.

Schleiermacher offered an account of Christian theology which understood doctrine not so much as statements about the nature of God as a description of religious psychology. Doctrinal Christianity was exchanged for something mystical and experiential.

Mysticism is alive and well within evangelical circles. Anyone that has been at a Bible study where the burden has been to explain “what the text means to me” has experienced it.

Justin Peters - For those of you who may not be aware of what these Word of Faith teachings are, they believe that faith is a force, and your words are the containers for this force. They teach that you can create your own reality by speaking it into existence. They believe that God wants all believers to be healthy and wealthy, and if you’re not, then there must be some unconfessed sin in your life, or you just don’t have enough faith.

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