Why Heritage?

Why do 43% of Evangelical Christians deny Christ is God and 56% of Evangelicals say God accepts the worship of all Religions?

In our nation today there is much division and confusion. Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from religion. So, if we want to find the source of our moral, cultural, and political downgrade and division, we have to look upstream at our Christian churches and what they are practicing and preaching.

Here in central North Carolina, most of us have at least a general awareness of Christianity. You have likely heard about Jesus Christ and some of His teachings found in the Bible.

Beyond that, however, there is much confusion and disagreement about who Jesus is, what He taught, and how He is to be served and worshiped. Christians themselves are deeply divided on these issues! This pamphlet is meant to help the reader find and know the biblical Christ, so you may learn how to serve and worship Him in your life and in a biblical church, which is the kind of Church Heritage Reformed Presbyterian strives to be. 

But to illustrate how confused many are concerning Jesus and Christianity in the 21st century, consider this question -- Was Jesus really God? Ligonier Ministries’ State of Theology survey[1] polled many in the United States and found that a startling 52% agree that Jesus was a great teacher, but NOT God. 12% were not sure, and only 36% polled believed that Jesus was God.

Even among Evangelicals (those often identified as believing the Bible to be God’s inspired words without error, and that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone), 43% now believe that Jesus was only a great teacher but NOT God! Further, 46% of Evangelicals believe mankind is good by nature and only sins a little bit.

Perhaps the most startling example of the spiritual and moral confusion among Evangelical Christians and its churches today is that 56% affirm that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”. To affirm that this is true is to deny Jesus Christ’s own declaration that He alone is “the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). It is clear that nearly half of Evangelical Christians are neither Evangelicals nor genuine Christians! 

Christians worship one, triune God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the three persons in the Godhead. Jesus is eternally God the Son, but in time, according to God the Father’s sovereign plan, He took on flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), fulfilled all righteousness, then went to the cross to die for the sins of all who repent (which means to turn away from your sin in shame and sorrow) and look in faith to Christ for salvation.

While many churches mention Jesus died for sin, where is their focus? Is it on faithful explaining and proclaiming of all the Bible, God’s inspired Word (2 Tim. 3:16)? If this were the case in most Evangelical churches, you wouldn’t have so many Evangelicals thinking Jesus was not God, or that God accepts the worship of all religions.

So, what are many of our large, Evangelical churches doing? They often use manipulative tactics, emotional “spiritual” highs, or man’s “willpower” rather than God’s power. Salvation isn’t said to be from our own sinfulness, but from our unhappiness, our lack of joy and fulfillment. God’s Word no longer means what God says in the Bible, but often what someone claims God “spoke” to them in their heart. Music and lyrics in worship are often shallow and mindless, like a mantra repeated over and over. Zeal without knowledge (Prv. 19:2). 

But being "on fire" for Jesus doesn't land you a good job or home, secure a spouse or friendships, achieve a genuine sense of community and belonging, or sustain you against your sinful and selfish desires. That flame of fire from supposed “spiritual highs” is quickly quenched by the realities of life. Why? Because too often this is a “false” fire, not the Word of God burning in your heart as Christ speaks to you through His Word preached and taught with clarity and understanding. Jesus caused His disciples’ hearts to burn by speaking to them and explaining the Scriptures (Luke 24:32), not with empty emotional appeals or entertaining “worship” performances masquerading as the Holy Spirit.

Does this describe your experience? Have you found Sunday church services to be shallow, the Bible more of a prop or side show to a charismatic person on a stage? Do you sense that a lot of church today is about optics and numbers, singing and shouting to the point of sweating, but short on substance and true nourishment for your soul and guidance for your life? Does your pastor shepherd you personally? Does he even know your name?

Thankfully, there are faithful ministers and churches that know, love, and obey God's Word, committed to hard work, diligent study, fervent prayer, and sacrificial service for Christ.

Whatever your situation, God calls all to repent and believe in Christ, be baptized, and become a member of a FAITHFUL, BIBLICAL local church. The church is the congregation of Christ's body, and God calls us to worship and serve the Lord faithfully among His body. That body also serves and strengthens you. The focus is on God’s written Word.

The Apostle Paul said he was innocent of the blood of all men. Why? Only because “I have not avoided declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears” (Acts 20:27-31). Many Pastors/Overseers have failed to shepherd God’s people with the whole counsel of God’s Word, which profits us to know, love, and serve God in every good work, 2 Tim. 3:16-17. Such pastors are guilty of the blood of those who go astray, and many have as the survey of Evangelical beliefs shows. Some of these pastors are the deceptive savage wolves that Paul warned about!

You need to find a church that is prioritizing day-to-day, faithful living, not mountaintop experiences that have no deep study of God’s Word or reverence for biblical worship. You need faithful preaching of God's Word, bringing out its details book-by-book, verse by verse, and applying those deep and rich truths to your life and problems in the 21st century.

You need to have fellowship with other Christian saints, other members of your local church with whom you build up Christ’s kingdom. You need Jesus Christ for everyday life, so that you don't feel like Israel wandering in the wilderness searching for miraculous mirages, having no clear purpose or mission, but instead are plowing ahead into the promised land flowing with milk and honey, resisting the sinful world, flesh, and the devil by building for Christ and His kingdom in your life, household, church, and town.

This is Heritage Church’s goal – to proclaim the full riches of God’s Word so you can fight the good fight of faith in all aspects of life, whether changing a tire (or diapers), comforting a friend who is grieving a loss, disciplining your disobedient children, forgiving a transgression even though it is painful, seeking forgiveness and repenting when we've wronged someone, correcting a wayward soul when they are practicing wickedness, bearing responsibility rather than passing the buck and embracing the “victim” mentality that plagues our culture, being hospitable to one another in our homes and with our time, diligently praying for one another, and above all, knowing and worshiping the Triune God who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all righteousness (I John 1:9).

In Psalm 16 we read that the Lord Himself is our heritage, our inheritance, our joy, and God has given us families, children, as part of this blessed heritage, to raise for the Lord and His kingdom (Psalm 127) as His own children. This rich heritage, this inheritance of Christ and our Christian families/households, is what Heritage Reformed is committed to raising up to serve for the glory of Christ and His kingdom. Married and single alike must learn God’s intended purpose for making us “male and female” in His image, and how masculinity and femininity are each to be cherished as unique expressions of God’s own divine image (Genesis 1:27).

But especially in this age of sexual sin and gender confusion, we at Heritage desire to see young, godly, single people meet other godly singles and establish families together, bearing children and fulfilling the dominion mandate to be “fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28; 9:7), answering the Great Commission to “baptize” and “teach” our covenant children all that Christ has commanded (Matthew 28:19-20). 

Dear friend, if your weary soul lacks such a church, please join us at Heritage, where Christ is preeminent in all things (Colossians 1:17-18) and the gates of hell are sieged by knowing and confessing Christ our Rock (Matthew 16:18) from all of Scripture, for all of life.

May the Lord bring you into His Truth and love, for your good and His glory,

Pastor Thomas F. Booher

[1] See https://thestateoftheology.com/ for more information.