• Nobody's interested. Most fellow Christians are much less interested in theology and doctrine, in my experience, than they are interested in praise, fellowship, and application (of course I'm not putting those down - they are in fact, I believe, the more important aspects of Christian living - but I am making the observation). Of course these intersect - exactly as in your case, where your concern over your father is an intersection of theology/doctrine with application - but it seems to me that most Christians don't rigorously and rationally think about such things themselves. Instead they either believe what they want, or believe what they've contingently picked up during their lives. People like you and the others on this forum, who actually read and think about theology, are uncommon.


• Making this worse, a large proportion of those people who do concern themselves with theology are highly invested in one view or another. And there are as many doctrinal opinions as there are denominations (more actually). You need a community of people who are not only interested in such issues, but are open and tolerant of exploration among those issues, rather than in having it "their way or the highway". This wittles down the potential population even more.


• The result, I'm afraid, is that I've never found a church in which such a, for lack of a better word, "intellectual" community was predominant and thriving. A church, after all, is typically a body of co-located people who can fit in one building, and thus is necessarily limited to a few hundred or thousand people at most, all living in the same area. This just isn't a population and diversity base big enough, I conclude, for such a community to often thrive. In fact, I now found much more "intellectual" Christian reward in turning to books and discussion forums like this one - specially created for such a community across millions of Christians, a population large enough to support it. Today I turn to church for praise/worship solely.


• Its the same problem with small groups, church classes and bible studies. If group members are close, I find them valuable sources of fellowship and encouragement in application, but not "intellectual" concerns.


• Finally, I should say my entire church history is with Protestant non-denominational churches. Precisely because such churches are non-denominational, they - I think - tend to de-emphasize theology and doctrine because, lets face it, they're divisive. They're the reasons for many, if not most, of the denominations. Perhaps a denomination would offer a better, more "intellectual" environment, but I don't have experience with that. I would certainly suspect that moderate and liberal mainstream denominations would be more tolerant and affirming of you, but then they might also be spiritually barren, offering psychology and works and philosophy but not "living water". Perhaps a self-professed "confessing" or similar more-conservative church, within a moderate (like Presbyterian Church USA) or liberal (like Methodist or Episcopalisn) mainstream denomination, would be a place to look for acceptance? You're still left with the fact that most Christians, IMO, aren't intellectually interested in theology/doctrine, though.

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Thank you for the book recommendation. Although I have personally embraced an inclusivist view, it is important to me that this view is scripturally sound and not just a product of my wishful thinking. I will certainly read Sanders’ book so I can see exactly how his views hold up to the Bible.

I do have a question, though, concerning Sanders’ distinction between the evangelized and unevangelized. I have always thought of the unevangelized as those who have never physically heard the gospel or who are intellectually unable to understand it (children, mentally retarded). If I understand correctly, it appears that Sanders’ definition of “unevangelized" would include those who are unable to truly understand the gospel for other reasons (that are equally outside their control). Would this then include factors such as one’s personality (prideful), intellect (need that all be proved by science), family history (to embrace Christianity would be offensive to parents who believed otherwise), negative experiences with the church (money-grubbing televangelists, sex scandals, etc.)? All of these experiences – outside of one’s control – can combine to form a heart pretty resistant to hearing the Gospel. I have an uncle, for example, whose father was Catholic and mother was Baptist. His maternal and paternal grandfathers fought constantly over their religious differences in front of my uncle, creating a real rift in the family, and they both attempted to convince my uncle, through angry, threatening rhetoric, to believe as they did. As a result, my uncle is not a “believer,” sees Christianity as a very divisive, hypocritical religion and he refuses to discuss the issue with anyone. Would Sanders consider him unevangelized? If not, isn’t he equally blameless in his hardened heart? If so, what would be an example of someone who freely rejects Christ? Aren’t we all products of factors outside of our control – our upbringing, intellect, personality, race, socioeconomic status, etc.? I guess the answer lies in your statement that “only God can discern deep into one's heart to tell which obstacles are out of our control and which are imposed by our own sin.”

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