Jumping on the Bandwagon / The Danger of Evangelical Trends

Moore's Corner Church

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Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the danger of evangelical trends and how

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Christians will often jump on the latest bandwagon. Evangelicals in particular, evangelicals have a tendency to follow after the next big thing, and that can be a danger, especially when you combine that with the fact that most churches, many pastors, are not teaching their people to test the spirits.

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They're not teaching their people to be discerning, to hold on, wait, let's see if this is biblical.

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No, people just jump on the bandwagon. I mean, think about it. How many people back in 2002, 2004, whenever it was, were teaching

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Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Life? They would never do that in 2025, but that church was doing it back then.

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Or the shack. A lot of churches back in the day, they used the shack as their

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Sunday school curriculum. Well, I don't know anyone who's doing that now, but when it was popular, here's the thing.

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People didn't want to come out and say anything or test the spirits or be critical because yeah, they would just be seen as, well, you're just a critic, but we're actually supposed to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

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Isn't this what the Bible says? We get the title of this podcast after first John four, one where John basically tells

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Christians don't just follow after everyone and everything. He says, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether or not they are of God.

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Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world and it's not just John. The apostle

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Paul expands that and first Thessalonians five 21 and he says, test all things.

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So that's what we need to do. So whatever the next big thing is within evangelical Christianity, we shouldn't just jump on the bandwagon.

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We should test it and make sure that this is a sound ministry or that this book is teaching.

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It's in line with biblical truth, but a lot of people don't do that. They won't do it.

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And then the people who do do it are accused of just being judgmental or critical.

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So this is a real problem. So based on the word of God, I'm telling you, you know, based on first John four, one first Thessalonians five 21 going to have other verses, other passages of scripture in a moment.

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But based on the word of God, I'm telling you, we need to be careful. That's really all it is.

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Just be careful. Walk circumspectly in the world, right? Ephesians chapter five.

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So here's a simple way you can do that. Just avoid jumping on the latest bandwagon.

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Don't buy into the next evangelical trend, whatever it is. So what am

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I talking about? Let's give a few examples. Of course, I could talk about how churches have jumped on the biggest bandwagon of them all by going contemporary and seeker sensitive, you know, out went the hymns in came the praise band, the rock band, and that's another topic.

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But that's a bigger topic that we've talked about before. But I mainly thinking of, yeah, the next big thing, like in 2002,

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Rick Warren and the purpose driven life or the prayer of J biz. That was the big thing for a while.

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Eugene Peterson's the message that was all the rave. Then Andy Stanley became the next big thing.

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And everyone was talking about, Hey, if you heard this new pastor, this young pastor, Joel Osteen or Andy Stanley.

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Wow. He's so amazing. And everyone started listening to these new preachers.

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And that turned out to be a total train wreck. Well, here's the thing. If you tested the spirits originally, we wouldn't have that problem and people wouldn't have been led astray.

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And then you had the shack and it just goes on and on. I think the current trend is probably the chosen.

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Why is that a problem? Because they affirm Mormonism. They defend the rainbow flag being displayed on set.

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So I could go through and explain why each of these things individually are a problem, were a problem.

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And I'll try to do that briefly. But the bigger point is many people now at this point in time, 2025, many people realize that, okay, some of these things were at best just hype and then others were flat out heretical.

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So a lot of people, they know that now, but they fell for it back then. Why? Because they were not testing the spirits.

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They were just jumping on the bandwagon. So instead of dabbling in some things that were heretical, if evangelical simply did not follow along with the latest trend, a lot of damage could have been prevented,

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I believe. So back in 2004, 2005, I mean, I get it.

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I'm not being critical of anyone. I fell for this stuff too. Not all of it, but back in 2004, 2005,

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I was falling for some of this stuff. And honestly, I think it's partially because some people find the

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Bible and sermons, I mean, they find them boring or maybe some preachers make the

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Bible boring. But instead of just going to church and going through a Bible study, I mean, how many churches have gone through a verse by verse, chapter by chapter study of the

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Psalms? How many churches have done that? No, you don't do that. I'm not saying you, but churches don't do that because they know if they taught the purpose -driven life, that'll put more people in the pews.

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So whatever the latest trend is, the chosen, whatever it is, that'll bring more people into the church.

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So they end up teaching the shack or the purpose -driven life because that's the new shiny object that evangelicals are chasing after.

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So the church ends up teaching, you know, the prayer of Jabez instead of the book of Psalms.

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Why would you do that? Well, that's the way evangelicalism is. So we're like the fish and, you know, the shack was the bait, you know,

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Andy Stanley was the bait and people bought it hook, line and sinker. So I remember hearing pastors and deacons, you know, men who would normally be considered sound in the faith, raving about this new preacher,

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Andy Stanley. Why did they get all excited about Andy Stanley? Because he was the big name at the

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Christian bookstore. You know, he was the, he was the next big thing. Well, again, in 2025, most people know better, but why did they fall for it back then?

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Because he's famous, he's on TV. So when fame and Christianity intersect, wow, people get really excited.

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But if you look at it, these trends almost always end up being questionable at best and heretical at worst.

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And then by the time people figure it out, it's almost too late. The damage has been done.

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So let's go over a few of these things that I mentioned, uh, when it comes to Rick Warren and the purpose driven life, you can look up my video, the problem with Rick Warren, and that will explain things.

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But basically that book teaches easy believism, uh, basically repeat these words and voila, you're a

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Christian now. Hmm. Uh, I don't think so. The prayer of J Bez. Okay. That might not be at the same level as the shack.

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Like the shack is really bad. Uh, the shack is heretical, uh, does violence to the

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Trinity. The author is basically a universalist or a quasi universalist, but the prayer of J Bez at the very least presumes upon God telling

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Christians that if they just use this formula, it's like a guarantee to get God to answer your prayers.

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Again, it doesn't really work like that. Eugene Peterson's. The message is a very loose paraphrase where Peterson essentially rewrote the

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Bible in his own words, and then decided to market it to Christians, but the

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MSG is not a faithful, uh, Bible translation. It's really not a translation at all.

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He's not faithful to the original text. It contains the author's pro gay bias versus about homosexuality are removed from the message and Peterson even endorsed so -called gay marriage before backpedaling after people started calling for a boycott of his books.

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So in short, you know, Eugene Peterson gave the church a pro

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LGBT paraphrase that in Romans one, as long as people love each other, then,

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Hey, love is love. And what's worse, it gets even worse because you had pastors like Chuck Swindoll.

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Even he jumped on the bandwagon and he promoted the message and that gave a green light to his followers.

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So his followers then started using the message. And next thing, you know, pastors all across the country are preaching from it.

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And then even Chuck Swindoll came under fire for putting this on his website, promoting the

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MSG. And eventually he removed it, but you know, please understand. I'm not saying this to be critical of Chuck Swindoll.

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I'm sure he probably didn't know about the author's bias towards homosexuality, but here's the thing.

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He didn't test the spirits. If he had taken the time to examine it, he would have realized.

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Okay. Eugene Peterson totally rewrote Romans one, and there's a real problem, but people don't take the time.

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People don't test the spirits. They don't discern. Even pastors don't discern. They jump on the bandwagon and it does a lot of harm.

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So again, I'm not saying that to be critical of, yeah, I think the message is bad.

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I'm not saying that to be critical of Chuck Swindoll. It's just, hopefully we can learn from these mistakes.

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That's the point. The book of Proverbs says in chapter 14, verse 15, the simple man believes every word, but the prudent man watches his steps.

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And then, as I mentioned, Ephesians five, the apostle Paul says we should walk wisely, you know, circumspectly in the world.

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So this is about wisdom and being careful. We all make mistakes. Okay. Even pastors, but we all make mistakes.

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We all have regrets, but it's about learning from our mistakes.

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And if we just use discernment and practice, you know, testing the spirits ahead of time, maybe we won't make some of these mistakes.

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So a few other things, uh, the shack portrayed God, the father, I'm sure some of you know, this, the shack portrayed

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God, the father as an overweight African -American woman. The Holy spirit was also, uh, depicted as a woman,

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I believe an Asian woman, not that it matters the race, but God, the father is not a human being.

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It certainly isn't a woman. So just unbiblical concepts were expressed in that book mentioned

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Andy Stanley, even though he's been open and affirming since at least 2012, probably a lot earlier than that.

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If that's true, why was Andy Stanley so heavily promoted? Because at the height of his popularity, it was unpopular to come out and say what needed to be said.

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So this is in conclusion. This is what I call the sin of being first. You know, the people doing the right thing, testing the spirits from the start, that's the biblical thing to do, but because you're not jumping on the bandwagon because you're not following along with the crowd, uh, you're yeah, you're labeled as the bad guy.

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So in conclusion, let's do this. Let's wait, let's not jump on the bandwagon.

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If you don't know, then don't promote a ministry. If you don't know, and let's just test the spirits and we can save ourselves a whole lot of trouble.