Are You in a CULT? ***Theology from a Golf Cart***

I'm Keith Foskey, and this is Theology from a Golf Cart. Now, why am I doing Theology from a Golf Cart? When I was a kid, anytime my dad wanted to talk to me about something serious or have a moment with me, he would take me on a ride in his truck, and we spent many hours in that truck having wonderful conversations, and I thought, this is sort of reminiscent of that.

It brings back a good memory to me to take a ride and talk about something serious, and I'm inviting you guys to go along with me. Today, we're going to be answering a question that came in, actually two questions that came in, discussing the question of the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Let's read those questions together. Today's video, we're going to answer two questions that came in through the comments on last golf cart video, and they're so similar, I thought, well, I'll talk about both of them.

The first one comes from Kyle Combs, and he says, because we're in such tribal times as Protestants, what are the absolutes that you put in the Christian camp? What things are not willing to compromise on versus there's room for interpretation?

Are the hyper-reformed heresy hunters being too dogmatic or just trying to preserve? And then Santa Fe19484 says, what are the most important beliefs of Christianity? What must you believe to be a Christian?

What things can you disagree on and still be considered brothers and sisters? What makes a religious group a cult? So I thought that really was the question that both of them are asking. What are the essentials?

What makes someone a Christian? And what makes someone a part of something that's a non-Christian group, and what is a cult? So those are the things we're going to talk about today on Theology from a Golf Cart.

The Three Circles of Doctrine: Definitional, Denominational, and Doubtful

So this is actually a subject I've had to deal with quite a bit, because the question often comes up, what does someone have to believe to be a Christian? And can someone err in this area or that area?

Can someone be wrong in this area or that area and still be a Christian? And so quite a while back, and I've talked about this on my show before, quite a while back, I created a graphic where I talked about sort of the three levels of doctrine.

And I use these to define those simply because I enjoy alliteration. So the center circle, those things which are essential, we call those definitional. What does it mean to be a Christian? How do we define Christianity?

Those are the definitional doctrines. The second circle is what we call denominational. How do we distinguish with that? Well, these are things that different denominations can disagree about and yet still be Christian.

And then the third circle would be things that are doubtful and again, keeping the D or discussable, maybe another way of saying it. These are simply things that even within the same church, there can be disagreement about and yet people can still fellowship together.

So here is an example from each of those circles. Definitional doctrine would be the doctrine of Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is the God-man. He is what we refer to as truly God and truly man, vera homo, vera deus, meaning truly man, truly God.

We understand that's a Latin phrase, the word like homo sapien means like the thinking man. Well, when this phrase vera means truth and vera homo means truly man and vera deus means truly God. And so that doctrine is essential to the Christian faith.

In fact, from the earliest times when Christianity was defending itself against the onslaught of errors and heresies that were trying to make their way into the church, two of the most prominent early church heresies, the first one was called docetism and that comes from the Greek word doce, which means to appear.

And it simply said Jesus did not have a real human body, that he wasn't really human and docetism denied his humanity. And then later there was something called Arianism. Arianism denied his divinity.

It said that Jesus Christ was not fully divine. And so the doctrine of the Christian church, the historic teaching about Jesus is that he is both. He is truly man and he is truly God. So that is a definitional doctrine that if someone denies that, they put themselves outside of the historic Christian faith.

And that's not the only definitional doctrine, but that's certainly one of the most important and one of the ones that oftentimes people will get wrong. And we find people, groups like the Jehovah Witnesses, outside of the Christian camp, we don't call them denominations.

We actually call them a cult because they teach falsely about the person of Jesus Christ. Ultimately too, about his work and what he did and the accomplishment on the cross. All of those things end up being wrong because when you miss who Jesus is, you end up missing a lot of other important things as well.

So one of the definitional doctrines of course, is the doctrine of Jesus. Now, what would be a denominational distinctive? Well, for instance, under the category of denomination, we would put something like baptism.

I know that my Presbyterian brothers love me.

And I love them.

And we share a unity in the gospel. We believe the gospel and we uphold the gospel and we preach side by side, arm and arm the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we differ on who is a proper candidate for baptism.

And because of that, we have a division denominationally. But that does not mean that I don't say that they're Christians, or they don't say that I'm Christian. And so we call that a denominational distinctive.

So we have the definitional doctrines, we have denominational things. And then there are doctrines that people can disagree about and still worship even in the same church. And we call these doubtful.

Sometimes the phrase for the third circle is adiaphora, but that doesn't start with a D, so it doesn't fit in my alliteration. But adiaphora means things that are doubtful, discussable, things that people can differ on or disagree on.

And so a doctrine like that would be, for instance, how a person views the end times, like their millennial position might be different. Like people come into our church, our elders teach an amillennial position when it comes to Revelation chapter 20.

But we understand people disagree with us and we hold no real ill will toward them. We love them, it is in no way a reason why they couldn't join our church or be a part of our church. And it's again, it's a third tier doctrine.

What Makes a Cult and What Belongs to the Historic Christian Faith

And so getting back to the question, well, what makes something a cult? What makes something outside of the Christian faith? Well, it's not the denominational distinctives and it's not the things that are on the third tier, it's not the doubtful things, it's the definitional things that makes something unchristian, that makes something a cult.

And that's the part that we really have to recognize as being absolutely essential to understanding what those things are. And so if we take those things and we begin to sort of parse them out, the first one, of course, is the person and work of Jesus Christ.

That one has to be understood, that one has to be correct. And you say, well, how is that defined? Hi, how are you? We define that through the work of the early church and the early church creeds, which did so much work in establishing what the Bible teaches on this subject and has stood the test of time down through the ages.

And so again, going back, we can say there were many heresies that came up and we talked about some of them. There's other heresies like modalism and Nestorianism and Apollinarianism and some of those things.

But ultimately, as long as we recognize what we call the hypostatic union, the union of natures, hypostasis referring to nature, Christ is fully God and fully man, or I don't even like the word fully, it's truly.

The word truly God and truly man. And the reason why I say fully isn't always the correct term because just like in the same way, I don't use 100%. I don't say God is 100 man or 100 God because ultimately we don't put percentages in the divine.

We say truly, he is truly man and truly God. And that's the simplest and best way to define who Jesus is. So when we address the subject of that, we then move on to other questions that would be essential.

Sin, Righteousness, and Salvation

And here's a second one I think is very important to consider. And that is the question of, how do they recognize man? So we move away from Christology, which is the subject of Christ. And we move to the question of anthropology and that's the doctrine of man.

If a group or a person denies man's sinful condition, that man is a sinner and denies his need for salvation, then he would be outside of the Christian faith. If a person says that he is able to establish his own righteousness based upon his works, then he would be outside of the Christian faith.

And so those are two things that must be recognized. And if a person doesn't recognize them, they would fall into the category of a cult or a false religion. If a person says that he's not a sinner, and if a person says he doesn't need to be saved, he doesn't need the work of Jesus Christ, but he can establish his own righteousness.

The Authority of Scripture and the Trinity

The third thing we would also address is the doctrine of revelation. And that gets to the question of the faithfulness of the Bible. If a person says that he doesn't believe what the Bible says, or he denies the Bible, that would be an indicator that he is not a Christian.

Because Jesus points us to scripture as the truth. The apostles of Jesus, including the apostle Paul, point us to scripture as the truth. Our standard for truth, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for correction, for reproof, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be equipped and for every good work.

So that scripture tells us that scripture has that place. So someone who would deny scripture and say that scripture is not authoritative would be outside the Christian faith. Now, this is where there can be some questions because someone would say, well, what about like people who would say you have to hold to a certain translation of the Bible?

Like King James only would say, if you don't believe in the King James Bible, you're not saved. I think that that is absolutely false. That is not a standard that we're given. We are not held to a standard of a 17th century English translation, but we are held to believe that the Bible is God's word.

And so maybe I'll do another video sometime on how we got the Bible. If you're interested in me doing that, please let me know. Let me know, please leave in the comments, things that you're interested in, things that you want me to talk about.

And if you want me to talk about how we got the Bible, why I'm not King James only, things like that, I'd be very happy to discuss those things. But ultimately, when we start going through the fundamentals, we talk about the nature of Christ.

And that relates also to, of course, the nature of God, questions about God's nature in regard to the Trinity, in regard to God's nature and the Holy Spirit, that God is one in essence and three in person.

All of these things are part of that and would be fundamental. I do believe the Trinity is a fundamental doctrine. I believe when someone rejects the Trinity, they are rejecting the historic Christian faith.

I remember years ago, a young man called me. He said that he had recently heard the gospel, had believed the gospel, but that he was really struggling with the doctrine of the Trinity. And I told him, I said, hey, I'm so thankful that you called me.

I'm thankful that you reached out and I wanna talk to you, but I want you to understand, I don't hold the Trinity as a doctrine that can be taken or left. I say the Trinity is essential Christian teaching.

And so I'm going to present it to you, not as an option, but this is what it means to be a Christian. And I do believe that that is in fact the case. So all of this to say, when we talk about what the fundamentals are, there are those things that you must believe to be a Christian.

And then there are those things that you can disagree about and still be a Christian. And so the cult groups would believe things that are outside of the realm of historic Christianity. As I was driving back home from the neighborhood, I remembered one part of the question that I didn't really address in my video and I wanted to take an opportunity to do that.

By the way, I'm outside the Theo shed. That's my studio. That's where I do my videos and Friday night live. Those of you who heard me talk about it, that's the 10 by 12 shed that we converted into a studio.

Discernment Without Turning Every Disagreement Into Heresy

So real quick, I wanted to address the question that was part of the two questions that came in. That was the question of whether or not there's too much heresy hunting going on, too much of that. I do think it's important that we be discerning about everything we say online, everything we listen to, everything we allow ourselves to be spiritually nourished by.

But I also think that there are those who are very quick to cast people out of the kingdom. There are people who would say, if you're not a Calvinist, you're not a Christian. I don't say that. I think that I have brothers and sisters in Christ who are not Calvinists.

Now, some of them don't think that about me. Some of them think that because I'm a Calvinist that I'm not a Christian, but I do not hold that as a standard or a fundamental for someone being a Christian.

I do think it's important. I think it's true. Obviously, I believe it or I wouldn't teach it. But if a person disagrees with me on that, I'm not gonna say that they're not a Calvin or they're, I'm not gonna say that they're not a Christian.

So there are doctrines that we can disagree on. I do think that there are those out there who are too quick to cast people out of the kingdom, but ultimately we should be discerning and we should be faithful in seeking to ensure that whoever we're listening to, whether you're listening to me talk about theology from a golf cart, or whether you're listening to other men and women who are out there trying to make videos and talk about Jesus, you need to be very careful what you listen to and always go back to the word of God.

Always compare everything to what the scripture teaches. And that's my encouragement to you. Yes, there are people out there that are too quick to throw people out of the kingdom. But also on the other hand, there are people out there who are too willing to embrace everyone.

And we have to be discerning. We have to be discerning as to who we can embrace and who we can't. So that's my encouragement to you is be careful. And if you have a question about a specific doctrine or a specific person's ministry, I mean, there are certain people I've called out directly, called out Benny Hinn, called out Todd Bentley, called out, I mean, those are the obvious ones, but others that are maybe not as obvious.

If you have questions about, feel free to send me an email. You can send me an email at kieffoskey .com or you can just leave a comment in this video. Thank you for watching Theology from a Golf Cart.

Please don't forget to hit the subscribe button. And if you liked this episode, hit the thumbs up button. And if you didn't, hit the thumbs down button twice. I look forward to seeing you on my next ride.

Dominion Wealth Strategists Sponsor Message

Hi, my name's Justin Johnson.

And I'm Josiah Stowe.

And we are Dominion Wealth Strategists. We are created to put money in the hands of those that are sitting in the pews.

From budgeting to estate planning, savings accounts, retirement planning, life insurance, and a heck of a lot more here at Dominion.

That means that you are leaving an inheritance that passes multiple generations because that is the legacy. It's part of our mission.

All of Christ for all of life.

And all of finance for Christendom.