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Question 1
Dean Taylor warns against the “starting over” impulse—“It’s me and my thought and my mind and my Bible…”—and says “there’s something lacking in it”; what do you think is spiritually missing in that posture, and what does it assume about the Holy Spirit’s work in the church across time?
Another way to ask: Dean warns against the “starting over” mindset of “just me and my Bible.” What spiritual piece is missing in that approach, and what does it assume about how the Holy Spirit has been working in the church through history?

Direct Answer Based on Dean Taylor’s teaching, what’s spiritually missing is humility and communion with the wider church—receiving the faith as something God has preserved through real communities, not something we rebuild alone. That posture assumes, at least functionally, that the Holy Spirit’s work in the church across time is unreliable or disposable, so “I” must restart Christianity.

Support from Transcript:

  • Dean describes the impulse: “It’s me and my thought and my mind and my Bible… I’m going to start this thing over again,” and says “there’s something lacking in it.”
  • He connects this to repeated fragmentation: “People have done that… to tens of thousands through history.”
  • He says the church is “more alive than all their terrible doctrines and their mess… somehow the Church of Jesus Christ lives through all these.”
  • He doesn’t “trust myself enough” to start over, because he’s seen “enough of my own mistakes” and needs something “real… the living witness of faithful communities across time.”
  • He frames “real” as doctrine/practice rooted in “living witness,” not merely “theory.”
Discussion Follow-ups What would it look like to read Scripture “in communion with the saints” without surrendering conviction? Where are you most tempted to be a “lone ranger” in theology?

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