American Evangelical Christianity is in crisis. The story of how it got here is an important part of this series but there are several reasons so many evangelical Christians are discontent and looking for something else, something with historical roots, with a sense of tradition, with a sense of of transcendence, with reverent worship, and with a deeper view of the sacraments. It is the conviction of the Heidelberg Reformation Association that the answer to the longing for more lies not in Rome or in the Eastern Orthodox traditions but, as it were, in Geneva. In this series we will explore the history, theology, piety and practice of Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox traditions, and we will compare and contrast those two traditions with historic Reformed theology, piety, and practice.
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The Heidelcast is the official podcast of the Heidelberg Reformation Association. With more than 800 episodes, the Heidelcast has been in production since 2009.
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I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that moves to Rome or Constantinople are fundamentally driven by a deep-seated instinctual desire for institutional stability and permanence, and talk of church history, liturgical tradition, and aesthetics are really just rhetorical expressions of that.
Modern Westerners are losing confidence in 18th-21st c. institutions as a whole, and intuitively even a 16th c. Italian sect feels like it will have greater longevity then one formed in 1936 or 1973.
For the same reason it almost isn’t safe to call yourself an evangelical, as the same with a Presbyterian, and even a Christian. Why? Because there is so much falsehoods and confusion in camps that fellowship under these titles. At is it stated that false churches obviously don’t identify as such, it is disheartening how much nonsense is believed and practiced in the modern “evangelical” church. Look at the dross of pentacostalism. look at the dross of the “5 fold ministry”. it is alarming how much it seems to be turning into a cult. Movements that are truly so far off from the roots of biblical Christianity.
Without even listening to the whole recording, I can say how encouraging it is that someone can communicate what is so clearly prevalent. And that is exactly it. In my opinion, the majority of people that I interact with are ignorant to the historical Christian faith. Even people that have been “Christians” their whole lives. The interesting thing is when I explain the early ecumenical creeds they are completely unaware of them and completely unaware of the significance of them and how the early church defended the purity of the Christian faith. And I think simply put, without going into too much elaboration, this reflects the ignorance of them practicing biblical Christianity in general. But I know this is a very loaded statement that would take a while to articulate. There is a lot of subject matter to cover. Basically thank you heidelcast. Thank you so much for your commitment for biblical and historical Christianity. It is important that we understand why we are not Roman Catholics. But it is also important to understand why we are truthfully catholic in its pure sense as we are part of the one body; of the universal church, Amen.