In 2014 Ligonier Ministries started a survey each year among professing evangelical Christians to determine the state of theology within the church. Here is a link to the survey: https://thestateoftheology.com/ go to bottom of page and “click explore all survey reports” to see the full results and questions, and take the survey yourself.
The survey consisted of questions about the Bible, Salvation, Ethics, The Trinity, God, ect. It’s very shocking to see that more than 50% of those surveyed, those who profess belief in God, hold to heretical beliefs.
One in particular deals with the Arian heresy. Not the white Supremacy group. The heresy of Arianism denies the divinity of Christ and claims that Jesus was the first and greatest created being. The belief insists that Jesus is the Son of God but not coeternal, being created before time. This heresy is attributed to Arius of Alexandria, Egypt who lived from AD 256-336.
The First Council of Nicea meet in 325 and pronounced Arianism as heresy. During this Council the original Nicene creed was accepted as a formal statement of belief to fight against Arianism. Here is a link to the creed: https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/nicene-creed
In our modern day we often run into folks who still hold to this heresy when the Jehovahs Witness comes knocking at the door. They will admit, when pressured, that they believe Jesus was Michael the Archangel.
We should all know the Jehovahs Witness is a cult to be avoided, but how is it that this survey shows professing christians believing the same heresy that the early church fought hard against, and the Jehovahs Witness teach?
This survey shows so many within the Christian church hold to this heretical belief, among many others heretical beliefs, and are none the wiser. The Jehovahs Witness have created the New World Translation Bible that is a highly mistranslated version, and it teaches their belief. But professing Christians within the church have “the” Bible, so they have no excuse other than laziness and zero discernment.
They are quite content with ignoring the teachings of church history and many bible verses such as Colossians 1:16, John 1:1. We live in a time of great technology, everyone has phones with built in computers that can access hundreds of Bible apps, if not more. Countless numbers of Christian bookstores to visit and online stores.
I believe the bottom line is people just do not study. To be the most effective at reaching others and teaching rightly we must study, we must stay in the word and in prayer and plead for wisdom. If we become lazy and slack off we see where it could end, with the possibility of falling away from orthodoxy and running headlong in to heresy.
No King but Christ 