Tony Evans, a prominent Evangelical pastor with close ties to the Southern Baptist Convention, has been on a roll lately with aberrant theology and false teachings. Evans, who has now partnered with former Southern Baptist Convention president, Ed Litton, to push a social welfare agenda, holds to the Pelagian heresy denying the doctrine of original sin. Recently, during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, Evans preached a sermon demonstrating a bizarre view of the Trinity using a pretzel illustration. This illustration was closely aligned with the anti-Trinitarian heresy known as partialism.
Now, in a recent post on Twitter, Evans gives a grotesque definition of what faith is, defining faith as not being guaranteed the outcome. Southern Baptist pastor, Dwight McKissic re-tweeted him.
Defining faith in such a way is typical in charismatic circles—many of their doctrines and beliefs are mangled anyways. But one of the fundamental doctrines of biblical Christianity is the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. It is faith alone that is the conduit by which God grants us grace to be saved. And that faith itself is a gift from God.
The book of Hebrews has quite a bit to tell us about what faith is and how we come to have it. The author of Hebrews in Hebrews 12:2 refers to Jesus as “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” To define faith, especially in a Christian context, as something without a guaranteed outcome is contrary to what Scripture teaches—it is to suggest that we can’t be assured of God’s promises. But further, Hebrews 11:1 explicitly denies what Evans is saying here:
Join Us and Get These Perks:
✅ Access to Comments and Discussions
✅ Community Chats
✅ Full Article and Podcast Archive
✅ The Joy of Supporting Our Work 😉
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. —Hebrews 11:1
God’s promises are not random, unexpected, or not guaranteed. God’s promises are eternal and his Word stands forever (1 Peter 1:25). Evans has demonstrated time and time again that he has no understanding of spiritual things, yet, he continues to be tolerated among the rank and file Evangelical elites who represent us. How much more of this false teacher are we willing to endure before he can actually be written off as a false teacher?
