This web site is dedicated to a grandiose project, certainly one too grand for me to accomplish, yet necessary if Christianity is to remain a vital and vibrant force. As we fall short of even that to which we aspire, we might as well aspire large.
That Christianity shall again become a vital and vibrant force; I have little doubt. But this is far from true in the West at the present time.
For Christianity has been in meandering, yet accelerating, retreat since the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), an atrocity which was the culmination of many prior wars of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries, and which gave Christianity a bad repute. It is not biblical Christianity, in of itself, which was causal of those travesties and atrocities, but a product of its supposed ambassadors. (“For the name of God is blasphemed among the nations through you” – Romans 2:24.) Christ’s counsel was to leave those outside the camp alone to their own devices – Matthew 15:14. His mission was to save some from among those already condemned by virtue of their own sin and injustice.
Most contemporaries are unaware of this not so distant past. Their aversion to Christianity is premised upon other and varied grounds. Yet, a good degree of that aversion is due to Christianity’s supposed ambassadors, many who prove to be but serpents and wolves, who add impediment upon impediment because of their own vice, folly, ignorance, and/or stupidity.
Much of the fault is systemic. Many alien and false teachings have entered the churches over the centuries, which are incongruent with the letter and spirit of the Christian faith. These teachings often inexorably propel their own corollaries, (“A little leaven works through the whole batch of dough” – Galatians 5:9), thereby corrupting and undermining the coherence and credibility of Christianity.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
– Hosea 4:6
Evangelicals have, in general, proudly inculcated ignorance and stupidity, a disposition traceable to the so-called Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century (see Richard Hofstader, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, 1963). Those, who conceive a rationality, even genius, in the God of Scriptures, are often spurned by such folk. I have been politely asked by a pastor, and this through email, thereby leaving an audit trail, to go elsewhere from his church after I challenged their tenet that the Gospel and the Faith are simple, a common meme within Evangelicalism based upon false exegesis.
Due to such inculcated ignorance, Evangelicals have long conceded the Commanding Heights of thought and culture to their ideological adversaries. And because of ignorance of things, external to churchianity, false teachings enter the churches, its members unaware of their origins.
On the other hand, the critical flaw of Confessional Protestantism is creedalism, the exaltation of man-made statements of faith ostensibly to the same level as Scriptures, but effectually, the prism under which Scriptures is later interpreted and subsumed.
They exchanged the truth of the God for a lie, and worshiped and served [the works of] the creature rather than [the works of] the Creator.
– a variant of Romans 1:25
Claiming Scriptures inerrant and ultimate authority, these creeds, confessions, and catechisms are deemed perfect summaries of Scriptures, hereby acquiring a form of canonicity equal to or greater than Scriptures. But being very man-made, these are therefore very fallible. At least a dozen substantive tenets in the Westminster and London Baptist confessions can be proven false. But even as the march of history and knowledge falsifies those tenets, creedalism does not permit the ecclesiastical institutions, married to these confessions, to modify them. Such Protestant denominations become mired in the sclerosis of ecclesiastical Tradition and thereupon crippled from properly and coherently addressing the issues within a cultural milieu which is very different from that of the 16th and 17th century.
A Barthian tome could be written, detailing all the artifacts of a decadent and moribund Protestant Evangelical church. But as this spiritual enervation and decadence have become increasingly palpable to all, such a project would be vanity. A more profitable theological endeavor is to go to Source and attempt to re-establish the true Faith, a necessary endeavor in the purification of doctrine, which likewise preceded the Protestant Reformation.
A related subproject is to demonstrate the fruitful relevance of many scriptural claims as it pertains to this worldly realm in the areas of philosophy, ethics, political theory, history, economics, psychology, etc. These assertions, inferences, and counsels, which are more often found in Hebrew rather than Christian Scriptures, act as bridesmaid supports to the Christian Faith. They ought never to supplant the Gospel. These aid in interpreting the signs of the times, even in prognosticating futures, albeit on conditional basis. These serve, first and foremost, to solidify a steadfast and bold faith.
About the Author of These Essays
Canadian, born and resident; the semi-retired father of four grown children, whose primary vocation was in IT, both as employee and entrepreneur; the most significant event of my life was a long Bunyanesque ordeal, which compelled me through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, along with its psychic hell. It is through that odyssey that my understanding of the Christian Faith was forged as well as realizing the severely decadent and moribund state of contemporary Protestant Evangelicalism. The contemporary proponents of Protestant Evangelicalism were of no help, often exacerbating the psychic hell through counsels which made things worse and hindering the path to overcoming victory.
In the aftermath of overcoming, I have felt most compelled to investigate the root causes of this worthlessness of Protestant Evangelicalism, only to discover that what I came to learn and believe through ordeal was substantively at variance with the accumulating heterodoxies and heresies within Protestantism (Northwest European Christianity) and Evangelicalism (American Christianity).
Long and involved exposés of such theological errors will certainly be conducted here. And in remembering my pain, I am likely to become vehement and vitriolic in those exercises. Peace of mind would much prefer, and it would be more profitable to build up the framework, bit by bit, rather than further tear down the existing, rotting hulk of Protestant Evangelicalism.
However, my heart is more desirous of defending the Christian Faith and weltanschauung (worldview), which I think most defensible, even if counterintuitive to common human notions.
John Hutchinson
August 16, 2025