Sheltered or Trained?

I grew up in a Reformed Christian home.  I went to a CRC church (Christian Reformed Church) and attended a school that held to Reformed distinctives.  My friends from first grade through high school also attended the same church and school and were being taught the same things at home that I was being taught.

I also went to a college that held to the Reformed Confessions and close by was another CRC church that I attended.  Until the age of 21 I really had only minimal, cursory contact with people outside the Reformed tradition, let alone outside of Christianity.

Some would probably say that I lived a sheltered life.  In a way probably so.  However, looking back I would not have it any other way.  In those formative years of growing up, especially in adolescence, Christ and the gospel were being given to me.  Altough I was not as strong in my doctrine as I should have been (a problem that needs to be addressed in today's churches) the foundations were there.

As far as I know, the eight or nine of us who grew up in the same church and went through elementary, junior high, and high school together are all still believers in Christ.  Something must have been done right!

Being that I grew up in a strong Reformed community, I did not know (thankfully) how messed up the rest of Evangelicalism was.  Even after graduating college and beginning to work in "the real world" I was working largely with non-Christians.  Those that were Christians I didn't interact with enough to really get a feel for what they believed and what they practiced. 

When I began to listen to The White Horse Inn radio show they were making mention of certain thoughts, trends, and practices in the Evangelical Christian world that I did not know people actually believed.  It is one thing to read about Arminianism in a high school doctrine class, but to actually hear how pervasive that teaching is in American Christianity was an eye opening experience. 

It was not long before I would be immersed (in a weird, unorthodox manner) into this world and experiencing, dialoguing, arguing, and defending the Biblical truths.  Not only was I blown away at the scary doctrines of many Christians, but my own faith was strengthed as I was defending Scripture truths using the Reformed system I had been taught and was, in effect, re-learning .

The reason I called this immersion a little unorthodox was because it took place for the most part entirely on-line in a discussion board of a popular TV preacher.  A weird medium, but an interesting one for these types of discussions.  The "conversation" can be read by many people and can spread over many days.  The board I chose to which I posted was for "the discussion of the inspiring messages" of this TV preacher.  By asking simple questions concerning these "sermons" I was caught off-guard by having to defend the very Gospel itself.

Because this post is getting quite long, I will have to continue later.  But before I do let me leave you with some quotes from the "sermon" that prompted me to jump into this bulletin board in the first place.  I wish I could say these are taken out of context, but alas, they really are not.

"For the first few weeks of this year we are preaching on my new book."

"Yes, I believe that this book can really make a difference and I want to pray for God's blessing on it.  I want to dedicate it the way you dedicate a child in baptism, the way you dedicate a new building when it is finished.  The whole concept of this book is to keep us believing in the future and so I want to read just one page, the epilogue. It is short and then I'll have a prayer of dedication."

This was just the tip of the iceberg! This piqued my interest and as I kept reading and exploring I got more and more discouraged. I naïvely thought the people in the discussion board would show me something that would tell me I was wrong in my brief assessment. I was not wrong and these people made the situation worse!  I hope to discuss more of these experiences in the next couple of days because as you know our personal experiences are all that we can give another person!

Sola Deo Gloria