I've read some of their testimonies...The one thing they have in common is they never found Jesus where they were at, not that they were even looking...
Without Jesus, you are without the Holy Spirit...Without the Holy Spirit, the bible is no more than a historical, shallow book...
So you want to be a minister or whatever and you have a bible and it is written in 8th grade English but you can't seem to get anything out of it...So what do you need??? More education...
Education in the bible??? Nope, that's not attainable without the Holy Spirit...So then you have no choice but to turn to human philosophy...Likely if you are already in a bible rejecting church, you've already had numerous courses in human philosophy...You don't get anything from the bible but you need some wisdom...Man's wisdom...Man's wisdom teaches you that you can reason out under your own power to understand God...
You get educated right out of the simplicity of the scriptures...You learn religious history...Study up on the church fathers who agree with your human wisdom and knowledge...
That wisdom tells you that there couldn't possibly have been a worldwide flood...That's foolish...A guy in a whale for 3 days??? Bah... Aristotle would never approve...
They quit believing the bible or never did to begin with...
The bible clearly teaches what the church is...If Scott Hahn would have believed the word of God, he never could have become Catholic...
Short story is, these guys end up in a religion where humanist philosophy is King...That would be your religion...They're educated, self-made intellectuals and don't know a thing about God...And they fit right in...
Of course that's the very short story...
You keep saying “Without Jesus”…. but this is what former Protestant theologians call shallow thinking. Jesus commanded Peter and His successor to GO Teach. This is to teach ONE truth. On any given Sunday, you have Catholics celebrating the source and summit of their belief in Jesus with the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Eucharist. We have a Credo, and it doesn’t matter if you are in Timbuktu or Tokyo. University theological departments are filled with books on the Petrine authority.
This is why Catholicism draws on nobel laureates, scientists, astronomers, sculptors. and a stellar cast of theologians. Additionally, Catholicism has the greatest number of converts from every other religion in the planet including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and Rabbis. These folks aren’t shallow thinkers. For example, Bobby Jindal ditched his Hindu faith at much chagrin to his parents, and converted to Catholicism.
Outside the Church you have Biblical chaos. If you are a “Baptist” you can go to Southern Baptist, Reformed Baptist, AnaBaptist; or any number of different First Baptists, all providing their “own” interpretation of scripture. Some of it is lethal like the snake handlers in Appalachia or the followers of Jim Jones Jone or David Koresh.
Others like televangelist “Bishop” TD Jakes is pure entertainment, and Joel Osteen spins out Chinese fortune cookie sayings of scripture laced with cheap entertainment. They, like Billy Graham, Schullers, Tammy Faye Baker are all exponents of hollow preaching practices drawing upon audiences of the sort Oprah Winfrey attracts. The create a “personality of the cult,” reaping fortunes for themselves and their families.
The moment you take these shallow street preachers into to the deep end of theology pool they drown. No wonder Bible Christian are known as anti-intellectual.
You talk about the Holy Spirit, but it is the Holy Spirit that remains with the Church until the consummation of the world. You speak of “wisdom” but so did David Koresh. The Petrine authority helps us carry that wisdom through the ages.
It is no accident that several articles have been written about the utter shallowness of those Bible-Chrisitans with all their nonsense of born again stuff.
http://www.ukapologetics.net/13/shallow.htm