The Church Answers Podcast
#163 Who Are the CHRINOs (Christians in Name Only)?
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Well, we have a podcast that's done by Church Answers. Thus, we call it the Church Answers Podcast. Now, to be fair, we have a longer standing podcast that's been around for quite a while that has a longer form than these short bursts that you have at Church Answers Podcast and it's called Rayner on Leadership. I know that many of you join us on both podcasts. So let me just say a word. Thank you. Are those words, aren't they just thank you for watching us on YouTube or listening to us on your favorite podcasting out or listening to us at church answers.com. Hey, if you're on a podcasting out, would you do a favor? Would you give us a rating, a review? If you're over on YouTube watching us, would you subscribe to us? Please do so and give us a thumbs up there as well. We would be deeply appreciative. Why? Because it gets the word out about this podcast that is a free ministry for listeners and for viewers at podcasts. 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It sounds like a lot, but when you think of the reality that these are 10 minute short bursts of information, what we're basically going to do is we're going to take an hour. Now, I'll take us two weeks to do it because we release three podcasts every week. So take us two weeks to get through all of these, but I hope it doesn't feel like you are getting through it as much as you are perhaps learning some new information that can be valuable for you, your ministry and for your church. We are talking about the crinos. Now, that's an acronym spelled all caps, C-H-R-I-N-O, crano. Sometimes we speak of it in the plural, so we put S on the and crinos, but that's the acronym. Crano, Christians in name only, the C-R, the C-H-R is representative for Christians and then I-N-O, in name only. Why do we want to talk about a group of people who have indicated that they are Christians even though they may not be? Now here's something I just really want you to tune in closely on this because the question will be asked, how can church answers, how can Tom Rayner know who is a Christian and who is not in order to do this type of database research? The answer is we cannot know. I want to give that caveat. We don't have access to the Lamb's Book of Life. We cannot see with some type of spiritual luxury vision who is a believer in Christ and who is not. So I want to put that caveat out there. What we do is we offer a filter of theological questions. The first and the major theological question is this, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation? He talked explicitly in John 14, 6, where it begins with two words it should say it all. Jesus said, but it goes on behind that in response to Thomas, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." That is called the doctrine of exclusivity. That is called the only way of salvation, the one way of salvation. And what that means is, what that means is people who are truly Christians have repented of their sins, trusted that Christ who died on a cross took the punishment for our sins. They have received that forgiveness by faith they have received it. And in doing so, they are now totally clean in the eyes of God, totally sinless in the eyes of God, because Christ every time we sin has taken the punishment for us. And so we ask that filter question a good bit, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation? If you do not, two things are going on. You're denying one of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. And number two, you are ultimately saying Jesus is not speaking truth, because the first two words in John 14, 6, are Jesus said. Now I went through all of that, just to give this kind of overview in this first episode, the overview that we used a doctrinal filter, or doctrinal filter is perfect, absolutely not. Someone could say, oh, I do believe that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and still not have embraced Christ in their hearts. That is a possibility. Or someone could have said, no, I don't believe it, but maybe they did not understand it. And they truly, despite any type of misunderstandings of what the question was, they truly have a relationship with Christ. The latter is unlikely. The former is even more possible though. So we've used a doctrinal filter to find out who are Christians really. And we found that there's a large number of people, we'll get into the data on this later, there's a large number of people who have claimed the name Christian. But by their beliefs, they do not indicate that they truly are. And a reasonable question would be, well, Tom, since Jesus said by the fruit, you shall know them, why don't we do more of a fruit inspection than a cognitive test? Well, the reason is you're doing massive amounts of steady. And you cannot, you don't have the luxury to go in and look at how someone is living out their salvation or working out their salvation to use the words of the Apostle Paul. You don't have that luxury. So we have been using a doctrinal filter. Now how long have we been using this? Here's what blows my mind. We started asking these questions through an instrument, which is called today, Know Your Church. We'll put that in the show notes. It's a great way to get connected with and understanding what your church believes. But we started doing that back in 2000 and no, no, no, no, 1996 about betrayed my own antiquity on that. So we've been doing these doctrinal surveys in the context of a larger church health survey, which is called the Know Your Church Report since 1996. So we've got a lot of data. We've got a lot of information and we are comfortable that our data is as accurate as it can be from a human perspective. We are comfortable that we are identifying a group that maybe we don't talk about that much called the cranos. Now the cranos are in the church, the cranos are not in the church, some of them are outside of the church, and some of them are nominally attached to the church. We think that it is very, very important for you to hear what we have to say about the cranos. Not because we're the ultimate source on this information, but because this is an evangelistic opportunity, it's an opportunity to give someone the assurance of their salvation. It is an opportunity to know more about those that Christ has commanded us to reach. So we will be looking at the cranos, we'll be looking at people who are saying either in the form of surveys or in some type of interaction with others. They are saying, I am a Christian, but the bottom line is when they are asked the question about exclusivity of salvation through Christ, John 14, 6, they do not affirm it. So that's kind of the profile of the cranos. We've got a lot more to say on that, we'll be looking at this in each of the six episodes. This is the first of the six, next episode which is already available to you, we're going to look at the three major groups of the cranos, Christians name only, and we will continue to look in more detail at this enigmatic and yet important group, important to know group in our culture and our nation today. So stand by, we'll be talking more about the cranos, hop on over from this particular episode, number 163, going to episode number 164, and we will talk about the three major groups of the cranos. I look forward to being with you there, whether you're watching us or whether you're hearing us. Thank you as always for being a part of the church answered podcast, we'll continue to try to inform you, enlighten you, and inspire you as we talk about these things that matter to the church. If you have been listening to the church answers podcast presented by Chaney and Associates, Chaney and Associates are the accounting firm for the church. You need to focus on ministry, Chaney will focus on finances, also please subscribe and give a review to the church answers podcast on YouTube and on your favorite podcasting app. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)