Paul's Passing Thoughts

I don’t know what’s wrong with me this morning. I sang to PJ and Phillip while taking them to school this morning: “Let the sunshine in, face it with a grin, frowner’s never win…….” Too much coffee or something. Then I guess I made the mistake of checking my FB wall before getting to work. One of my friends posted an item concerning an apparent, or possible paranormal event concerning the pale horse of the apocalypse. At first, my comment was serious:

“ Interesting. It could be paranormal – that does happen. But for Christians the question is always, “So what?” Or, Objective verses subjective. Like when lightning struck the giant image of Jesus here in Ohio: objective; God doesn’t like idols so He struck it with lightning. This [note] is more in the realm of subjective. Subjective paranormal events are sometimes a judgment because they are often a form of idol worship. People like idols because they can draw any truth they want from them; like the giant Jesus here in Ohio – it meant many different things to many different people. Likewise, people can draw all kinds of different “conclusions” from subjective paranormal activity. The apostle Paul said that in the end times God will send “delusions” as a judgment and Christ said they will be so deceptive that they could potentially deceive the elect “if that were possible.” I believe that as the time draws near we will see strong delusions, and Katie bar the door, if the likes of John Piper can fool people, one can only imagine the wholesale plunge into deeper error.”

Then something happened. You see, I have been in a cage while writing the second edition of “Another Gospel” because I made Susan the chief editor of the book. Her credentials for such a task are over the top, and it has been brutal: no sarcasm, no unprofessional statements, no unnecessary statements that don’t contribute to the main point, etc., etc., etc., and etc. Do you know what I mean? Do you hear me knocking? “No, this won’t work,” she says, “the blog is informal [my translation: fun!], this is serious business.” So, I made a second comment to the note on FB that was in jest – something about an end-time delusion concerning space aliens visiting Southern Theological Seminary and presenting a false gospel. Then I thought, “Hey, that would make a good post!”

But then I thought (Susan never lets me start a sentence with “but”), “It wouldn’t be fair to use Southern since they are primarily influenced by Westminster these days, so I will use Westminster for the imaginary scenario instead. So, imagine with me, the spaceship lands on the front lawn of Westminster Seminary, the aliens emerge, and say, “Take us to your leader.” Undoubtedly, since this would be a counseling situation, and even a possible alien abduction (I could only wish), they would summon profs from CCEF, the counseling wing of Westminster. After listening to the new gospel presented by the aliens, one can only assume they would respond this way:

“No, no, we have a much better gospel than that. We believe in change at the ‘heart level.’ You see, we don’t need to evolve, the church has always had the truth, but then it forgot a bunch of stuff. We realized the church did so when we observed people who hate us developing theories of change based on an ‘inside life.’ Unfortunately, first generation versions of ourselves deny this ‘inside life’ because they are obsessed with what can be known objectively. It is important to overcome that because even though we have recovered truth forgotten by the church, ‘it’s different because it’s always in a different socio-cultural-historical movement, and different forces are at work’ ( see David Powlison interview with 9 Marks Blog). However, this shouldn’t bother our first generation friends because the Bible is not a book of objective truth anyway, it’s a gospel narrative.

Now, on Earth we have flowers called the daisy, and if you just cut down a daisy, it will grow back again because what you need to do is get to the roots and dig them up. Likewise, idols in the heart must be found and destroyed by deep repentance. When we do that, change is just a ‘mere natural flow’ via new obedience. Now, idols in our heart take our desires captive, so we locate the idols by asking ourselves x-ray questions, which will identify desires that have been disoriented / misplaced by the idols. This is very important because like Sigmund Freud, we believe ‘Everything we do is shaped and controlled by what our hearts desire’ (How People Change, p.17). Furthermore, we like to quote a great teacher of the past who said: ‘The heart is an idol factory.’ So, as our nasty hearts continue to create these idols, we must eradicate them by deep repentance.”

At this point, the aliens have a question: “So, your gospel is a gospel that teaches a constant cycle of new idols being created in the heart and the cutting down thereof ?” Answer: “Precisely! Because when we sin, it keeps us humble and prevents self righteousness. But when we obey, it’s not really us obeying; when the idol is eradicated, the void is filled by Christ and he obeys for us. So really, it’s a constant cycle of humbleness and rejoicing in what Jesus is doing, not anything we do. This is much better than the first generation of putting off the old self and putting on the full righteousness of Christ granted to us at salvation.”

Aliens: “But isn’t that what Ephesians 4:20-24 says to do? And isn’t it more objective than idol hunting?” Answer: “That’s first generation thinking. We thought you guys are supposed to be more highly evolved than us. The Bible is a gospel narrative, and ‘Christ is a person, not a cognitive concept we insert into a new formula for life’ (How People Change, p.27). The Bible is a big picture model / story of every believers life, and we are invited to enter into the plot ( How People Change p.94).”

Aliens: “Your concept: the Bible is personal truth embodied in a person [Christ] and expressed in a narrative; therefore, it cannot be applicable truth; isn’t that postmodernism? Another one of your earthly leaders says it is (John MacArthur, Truth War pages 12-14).” Answer: “Guilt by association! Are you guys really blogwatchers posing as aliens?!”

To conclude my narrative, one of the aliens keys his communicator and says the following: “Ground to command, beam us up, there’s no intelligent life down here.”

And once again, CCEF’s research and development team has saved planet Earth!

The end.

(Don’t tell Susan I wrote this).

paul