DEBUNKING EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY

1 – The “Original Sin” Doctrine Originated with Augustine, Not Jesus, Paul, or the Ancient Church

When I was a devout evangelical in a college campus ministry called InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a member of a variety of Baptist, independent, and charisma churches, and later as a missionary to Muslims in Africa, I thought I had discovered the ultimate reality. Jesus, at least the evangelical version of Jesus, was the answer to my own existential angst, all the problems and evil in the world, and the mysteries of life. I observed this Jesus embraced by a stream of youth culture from the 60s and 70former hippies, and even Bob Dylan, who converted through an evangelical denomination called The Vineyard and produced three studio albums of gospel rock (and later de-converted). I also had some incredible spiritual experiences that seem to reinforce this view. Yet in time, I began to question my faith. Not question Jesus, per se, but some of the major doctrines and practices of the movement, whether they were from mainstream
evangelicalism or charismatics. It happened very slowly, in what I now call "deconstruction light,” but later, in my late forties after 25 years in the church, I finally saw how destructive and abusive certain beliefs and practices are. I also did research and began to see how mythical many of them are when you compare them to a good study of history—ancient, biblical, early Christian, medieval, and modern Christian history. Based on that research, here are the top 4 historical facts I discovered that debunk much of evangelical theology:
This doctrine, which is universally accepted by evangelicals, came from Augustine (
century), not the early church fathers. It is read into today’s modern Bible translation is not derived from a fair study of the original biblical languages of the scriptures. As Eastern Orthodox scholar says, “This doctrine of ‘original sin’ is a hideous one and found its way into the Western theological construct through the flawed Latin text St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans having passed through the dark imagination of Augustine.”

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It’s hideous because it is a legal, ancestral view that says humankind inherited a depraved sinful nature through Adam, who had irreversibly fallen from perfect state. This sinful state makes eternal damnation the default destination of humankind. We are not born good but totally depraved and separated from a holy God until a salvific sacrificial transaction takes place (see #2). It paints unbelievers as depraved, “unregenerated” lost souls. It is a doctrine that divides humanity into "saved” and “lost” and perpetuates the destructive “us vs. them” mentality. On the other hand, Eastern Christian theology teaches that humans are born spiritually immature not totally depraved. Our spiritual eyes may be damaged, but they were never destroyed. We still retain God’s beautiful image and have what we might call "original innocence.” We are capable of drawing on God within us to heal any damaged connection. We are not in some reprobate state destined for hell unless God chooses to save us (Calvinism) or unless we choose Christ as Lord and Savior before we die (Arminianism). It is true, however, that everyone needs to grow up spiritually(develop values), just as we do physically and emotionally. But everyone is worthy of redemption. No one is born wretched. You can trust your own intuition when you see honesty and truth (See James Bernstein's “The Original Christian Gospel”).

Equally flawed is this notion that the meaning of the cross is that Jesus was tortured and murdered as a substitute to take the punishment we deserved so that God’s wrath over human sin would be appeased (how evangelicals interpret “Jesus died for our sin.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement was Not Taught By Jesus or Paul But Developed in the 12th and 16th Centuries

And then, whoever accepts this transactional sacrifice is saved from original sin in hell. This is the overwhelming majority view among evangelicals. I never heard another view of atonement taught in my 25 years in the movement. The problem is, when unpacked, this doctrine is atrocious. God supposedly cannot forgive without a bloody violent sacrifice of an innocent victim, and without each individual person formally trusting in this sacrifice. Without this, God supposedly has to consign unbelievers to eternal damnation because they deserve it and because God cannot simply forgive. blatantly contradicts the teachings of Jesus who taught and demonstrated that God the father is naturally forgiving, is kind to the ungrateful and wicked, loves his enemies and is equally merciful to all. Not only that, it flies in the face of the history of atonement theories (the meaning of the cross). This particular theory of atonement was not even envisioned until the 12th century when Anselm developed the satisfactory theory, that the cross satisfied God’s anger and rejection of human sin. Later, in the16th century, Calvin put “penal” into the transaction, teaching that Jesus was a substitute for the punishment humankind deserved. The point being is that other original, earliest atonement theories weren’t about this at all. Even in one called the ransom theory, the cross was a way to free fallen humanity from the devil’s claim, not from God’s wrath. A more accurate, original way of looking at the cross is that Jesus’ death by crucifixion was not a way to appease God’s sense of righteousness but rather a non-sacrificial of ending sacrifice.

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Despite being scapegoated by an angry mob—including Jewish leaders, Gentiles, and a Roman Procurator—the innocent victim Jesus chose to forgo and not to retaliate. He said while being tortured, “Father forgive them, for they known not what they do.” No strings attached. That’s transformative. And it proves that sacrifice is not necessary to move God. When God, through Jesus, forgives His most violent enemies, there is no reason to continue sacrificial religion. Yet, evangelical perpetuates violent sacrificial religion.

I have written extensively about hell and these other myths in Breaking Bad Faith. As for the belief in hell, one only has to trace the original terms translated hell or
eternal punishment in the Bible and the pagan origins of the concept of eternal perdition to discover that it’s a diabolical myth that not only misaligns with historical facts but in complete contradiction to Jesus’ love ethic. The terms translated hell do not match our modern definition of the term. Gehenna, which Jesus used, was a metaphor for judgment in the here and now (also cited by the prophet Jeremiah and which was located outside Jerusalem and became a garbage dump). As N.T. Wright says, “The point is that when Jesus was warning his hearers about Gehenna he was not, as a general rule, telling them that unless they repented in this life they would burn in the next one. As with God’s kingdom, so with its opposite: it is on earth that things matter, not somewhere else.”

[3]
Another term translated hell is Sheol (Hebrew) and Hades (Greek). It has always meant the place of the dead, whether righteous or unrighteousness eternal damnation. The last term Tartarus (not used by Jesus) is from Greek mythology meaning the place where fallen angels are punished. Finally, the phrase eternal punishment, used by Jesus in Matthew 25 is a terrible translation.

Kolasinaion means age-long corrective chastisement or rehabilitation. There are other terms for retributive punishment and eternity, and they are not used. Finally, there is a host of historical evidence that the early-centuries Jesus movement was largely universalist which fits with Jesus’ restorative love teachings.

Pagan views of the afterlife like hell didn’t start to become popular until Augustine in the 4th century. Evangelicals belief in a pagan God who consigns three quarters or more of humanity to eternal damnation (depending on who does the salvation math).

4
The Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy is a Modern Concept
It surprises many people to hear how the Jews, the prophets, Jesus, and the ancient church actually viewed the scriptures. They did not deem them altogether inerrant infallible. There was always a debate about what was scripture and what wasn’t (and which voices within scripture should be obeyed), and Jesus entered into that debate For example, the Jewish people did not have a settled “canon” (definitive list) of scriptures until the 2nd century AD. During the time of Christ there were various lists of Jewish scriptures people claimed and a general acknowledgment that the Bible critiqued itself. First, the Sadducees only considered the Torah scripture and not the Prophets and the Writings. The Greek Jews and earliest followers of Jesus used the Septuagint as their scriptures, which included the Apocrypha—14 books not in any Protestant Bible today!

The Essenes had a set of writings they deemed authoritative add to all these, some of them discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and even one them, I Enoch, quoted by the New Testament book of Jude. As for the New Testament, it was not a settled “canon” until the 4th century, and even then, there were ongoing disputes. As I describe in Craft Brewed Jesus.

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The process of establishing the New Testament reveals the dilemma with declaring the books we have today as infallible and thoroughly authoritative. Whereas some books were easily accepted (i.e., the gospels were widely accepted, but not mandatory for all nor considered impeccably factual), others were highly disputed by many orthodox Christian leaders. Revelational was rejected by at least half the early Jesus movement but still made it in and others like Hebrews, James, and Jude were also rejected, even by people like Martin Luther. Still other scriptures were considered sacred by orthodox believers but never made into the New Testament (e.g. the Shepherd of Hermas, the gospel of the Hebrews, and other books).

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As for the inconsistencies in the Bible, they are easy to find if one has an open mind The prophets Micah, Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Psalms all critique the sacrificial system found in the Torah. Jesus rejected Jewish exclusivity when he cites Gentiles being healed by Elijah and Elisha, and reciprocal violence found in Joshua(and the Torah) when he taught love for enemies rather than hatred and violence towards them (In Numbers 25:17 God tells Moses to “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them”). Jesus also rejected the Torah’s eye-for-eye, life-for-life retribution. Jesus fulfilling (or more accurately, of perfecting) the law and the prophets wasn’t him acknowledging biblical infallibility, but rather acknowledging the scriptures needed be screened by a superior love ethic. The whole concept of an inerrant Bible wasn’t thing until the late 19th
century, when for some, it became a strict, defined system created by Princeton Seminary theologians. Many disputes around “biblical” marriage, justifiable divorce, and whether one can be a Christian if among the LGBTQ community, are easily cleared up when we realize certain Bible passages are noninfallible and were never meant to define definitive rules of conduct. Other passages are just plain misinterpreted because historical and cultural context is not considered. At the end of the day, evangelicals who claim the Bible is inerrant use pretzel logic harmonize it and end up worshiping it.

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There are many other historical facts about early or later Christianity that debunk many other evangelical theologies.
For example, the early Church did not go tochurch the way we think of it or have professional clergy and hierarchies among leaders.

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Nor did they disallow women in leadership (biblical scholarship reveals Paul not really teach that women should be silent in the church).

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Moreover, the modern, popular interpretation of the end times, the Rapture, and the return of Christ has been shown to be based on the sloppiest translations and interpretations of the New Testament. Even many conservative biblical scholars concede this.

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Major evangelical theologies are easily deconstructed, and when done so, open people up to a whole new paradigm that can begin to heal them of the religious trauma that these very theologies often cause.

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