Today, in 2003, I am not nearly so naive. Having been involved in the home church movement for the last decade, I have seen wandering around within the movement enough doctrinal screwballs to fill a theological zoo. Here is a list of positions that have been personally represented to me by fellow house-church brethren. Jesus was married. The Bible is full of errors. Your humble editor is "worse than Hitler" for saying there is a hell that some people will go to. Aberrant views of the Trinity. There will be no resurrection of the dead. And of course, the ubiquitous King James only folks, who inform me that the translation commissioned by the seventeenth-century homosexual king of England should be used to spiritually edify Mandarin-speaking Chinese people. I even heard of one house churcher, for crying out loud, that believes that slavery in the modern world is legitimate! (I pray my informant erred about this last brother, but given what I've seen, I bet he didn't.)

I do not for one minute believe that there is anything inherent with the home church philosophy that encourages doctrinal aberration. I believe the proper view of home church is based upon the apostles' doctrine and practice as evidenced in the Bible, and obviously, a biblical church will not promote unbiblical doctrines. In fact, a biblical church will do everything possible to keep doctrinal heresy out, through proper procedures of church discipline. The early Christian church was bedeviled with all sorts of doctrinal fruitcakes, and that church was constantly exhorted by its apostolic leaders to keep itself doctrinally pure. Here are some examples:

S o, what is it about home churches in America that seem to attract the weirdos? I have several suggested answers. (1) Home churches reflect the prevailing anti-doctrinal, anti-biblical culture of the wider evangelical environment, (2) the unbalanced denigration of doctrine by the "radical" Gene Edwards wing of the home church movement, (3) the large influence of the charismatic movement on the home church movement, and (4) the latitudinarian and tolerant culture of the home church movement.

We live in a doctrine-hating, truth-despising new age. As the western church stumbles into the twenty-first century, it is unsure of many, many things that Christians in the mid-twentieth century took as axiomatic. A look at The International Church Council Project will show you a list of things that are being debated in today's evangellyfish church that ought not be up for debate, among which include: "The Eternal Fate of Unbelievers (more quaintly knows as "Hell"), "Homosexuality," "Biblical Distinctives Between Males and Females (do you remember a more civilized time when we used to call 'em "Men" and "Women?"), "The Trinity," "The Omniscience of God," "Biblical Inerrancy," and "Church Discipline.". There is no excuse for this. A church that squanders its theological heritage is no better morally than parents who blow their children's inheritance at Las Vegas crap tables. But that is where we are, and Christians who end up in home churches are most often Christians who have come out of some sort of evangelical background, which means they are being thrust from an insipid Christian culture that's afraid to assert the theological equivalent of two plus two equals four. It should not be surprising to find this attitude carried over into the home church movement.

I just received an email from a follower of Gene Edwards which claimed that he and his fellow church members don't hate the Bible, and in fact constantly use it. I have no reason to suspect that this is not true. However, as pointed out in a previous NRR article ("The Gene Edwards Disaster"), when one listens to Gene Edwards and his followers, one is confronted with a constant barrage of rhetoric which can only be described as disrespectful towards the proper use of the Bible. I am not a scholastic, and I know the Bible can be misused and turned into a paper crutch, a substitute for a living relationship with Christ. But that is the misuse of the Bible, not its proper use. Listening to Edwards and his followers, one does not receive the impression that they are merely trying to correct an imbalance, rather, the impression is that the Bible is superfluous as one walks with Christ. Edwards' literature is everywhere, and read widely by house church people. Even if the Edwardsites do have a proper respect for the Bible and foundational doctrines of the faith, there is no way that those who are only familiar with their literature could know that. The misimpression is everywhere in the home church movement that there is some sort of war between fundamental doctrine and the love of Christ. And the Edwardsites have done nothing to correct this misimpression, and have done much to further it.

I once heard Gene Edwards say that the charismatic movement has more profoundly affected the modern church than any other influence ever has. Much of this influence was good, was necessary, was wonderful. I myself was deeply affected by the movement. I have prophesied, worked miracles and had them worked on me, and still speak in tongues, so you will not find me within one trillion miles of cessationism, which I consider silly. But I will tell you this: I have watched charismatics from close range for over thirty years, and I promise you, nobody can produce weirder doctrines than charismatics can. (Example: heaven won't be as good as it is on earth now, because we won't have the devil to kick around any more!) Nobody can be as unconcerned, or unlearned, about what the Scripture says as can a charismatic. Nobody can produce extra-biblical beliefs and practices like a charismatic. And these charismatics do not change one whit when they start doing house church. And if you try to acquaint such a charismatic with Scriptures contradicting his "experience," he will likely accuse you of being a "denomination," or a "Sanhedrin." There are some exceptions, but generally, plain propositional Scriptural truth bounces off a charismatic like an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade bounces off an American tank.

I remember reading the website of a prominent house church leader who claimed that Arminians and Calvinists were both right. I also heard the same sentiment from a speaker at one of the Southern House Church Conferences. Now, one thing that both Arminians and Calvinists can both agree on, is this: they are not both right. No, sir. On the fundamental points of contention, they are diametrically opposed. They can not both be right. Not if there's a God who created reason and logic. Not if we are not living in Alice's Wonderland. Not if [a = a], and [a not equals b]. What is it about house church people who want to square a circle in the name of unity? Why do they want to pooh-pooh fundamental doctrinal divisions, and pretend they don't exist? Is it so we can all live together in a smarmy fog of warm ecumenism? Is it that they have been sloshing around in our relativist, "tolerance-" loving culture for so long that they can't even recognize that two mutually inconsistent propositions can not both be true at the same time?