Paul's Passing Thoughts

“Why do sharks refuse to eat attorneys? ‘I don’t know, tell me.’ Professional courtesy.”

Doctors, lawyers, and especially policeman (the blue wall of silence) are often known to stick together. Such  professional courtesy should not be known among God’s chosen men, but the New Calvinist movement threatens to take such courtesy to new heights not even known among professional pagans. Such professional courtesy enabled Jack Hyles to remain in the pulpit until his death despite behavior that gangsters would even find intolerable. Never before in church history has cowardliness and cronyism seen a greater day among those who call themselves pastors.

The Biblical Counseling Dichotomy

Let there be no doubt about it: biblical counseling for the sheep is different than counseling for the shepherds. Reformed churches, especially New Calvinist churches, have completely integrated a Matthew 18 discipline model into counseling, and without full disclosure. After all, if the sheep knew, they wouldn’t come—this almost obligates them to accept whatever they hear in counseling as gospel (no pun intended). No matter how bad a situation is for a Christian, they are never to turn off their discernment lest they find themselves in worse shape than counseling found them.

Nevertheless, counselees routinely come to a counseling session and are surprised to see one additional elder or two sitting in the room. Tag, counselee is it:

“Hi Bill, I’m sure you know elder John and elder Joe from our church. They are here because the counseling isn’t going very well. Actually, they are here as witnesses because we are placing you under church discipline.”

Bill: “But shouldn’t you have confronted me first before it came to this?”

Counselor: “Bill, I have confronted you about many things in our appointments.”

Bill: “Yes, but I didn’t know that it was in the context of a first step of church discipline!”

Counselor: “Bill, according to Galatians 6:1 and other passages dealing with church discipline, they are both for the purpose of restoring you, so they are the same.”

Bill: “I see. Well, I agree, I have been stubborn in regard to some issues. No need for the discipline, I will follow your instruction on the major point we disagree on.”

Counselor: “Uh, Bill, that’s not exactly how it works. You will be under church discipline until you are released from counseling.”

Five months later:

Bill: “Look, this counseling is going nowhere. I have decided to leave this church and enter into counseling somewhere else.”

Counselor: “I’m afraid that’s unacceptable Bill. You can’t vacate membership here to avoid church discipline. The elders will not find that acceptable.”

Bill: “What are they going to do about it?”

Counselor: “You will be excommunicated and declared an unbeliever before the congregation Bill.”

Notice that “Bill” was not immediately dismissed from the discipline process upon verbal repentance according to Luke 17:4. Not only is this present-day biblical counseling protocol unbiblical, but in most states it is a first degree felony to control any person in any way under threat of financial loss or loss of reputation. Under most State law, it is called “Coercion” under the “Kidnapping” statutes. This type of counseling/discipline is a criminal act, and also unbiblical. Furthermore, in most of these cases, the counselor is looking for a conversion to Gospel Sanctification; that’s why this process is often referred to as “redemptive church discipline.” The counseling will entail a lot of “showing forth of the gospel” without any instruction which over time confuses the counselee. This leads to a stalemate, further steps of discipline, and in many cases, excommunication.

Once a parishioner is under church discipline or excommunicated in Reformed/Neo-Calvinistic circles, professional courtesy is on steroids. Other pastors will not intervene, no matter how grievous the situation. Here is a snippet of the types of pleas this ministry hears from time to time:

“I don’t know what you can do if anything, however, we are contacting anyone possible in an attempt for help. The governmental system of the Presbyterian church, designed to protect us, is now being used as a weapon.”

But the biblical prescription for sinning, abusive pastors is not even taken seriously:

1 Timothy 5:20

But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.

When it comes to the sheep—by the letter, and then some.  But regarding elders, professional courtesy kicks into high gear. What better example than the present “counseling” of CJ Mahaney by well-known New Calvinists? Mahaney was finally forced to step down from his position as president of Sovereign Grace Ministries because layman took action by erecting websites exposing his significant shortcomings as a leader. He was not confronted by his New Calvinist pals who often wax eloquent about transparency, humbleness, and confession, but with millions on the line in regard to conference revenues from T4G and Resolved, Mahaney is on a New Calvinist sponsored sabbatical to “reflect on his shortcomings.” It is obviously an image rebuilding project. Mahaney is still officially listed as the president of SGM and will still be a part of the “core four” at this year’s T4G conference.

But on the one hand, these pastors will not overstep their supposed bounds to help distressed parishioners in the local church, while on the other hand, a Presbyterian and two Southern Baptists  have come to Mahaney’s (a Charismatic) rescue against people he has sinned against!

To put the icing on this sickening hypocrisy, CCEF, who counsels people for $85.00 per hour, does not invoke church discipline on their counselees because they are paying customers!

Damage Control Organizations

Organizations spawned by the Reformed counseling movement such as Peacekeepers International and G.R.A.C.E are clearly damage control organizations paid for by the laity to protect pastors and church organizations. A point in case is a situation that I have firsthand knowledge of involving Peacekeepers International. A  parishioner was brought up on church discipline that was obviously bogus, and Peacekeepers was asked to intervene by a well-known pastor in biblical counseling circles. Peacekeepers declined because according to them, they only enter into mediation between Christians, and since said individual was under church discipline and declared an unbeliever, it was technically not a matter between Christians. Words cannot describe how lame this excuse is as a ploy to avoid mediating the cause of a wronged believer against elders.

Yet another case is the involvement of G.R.A.C.E in the Bangladesh Missionary Kids affair. Here is what I wrote concerning that situation in another post:

If the ABWE Former Missionary Children (Hereafter FMC, not “MKs”) put some stock in GRACE, the parachurch organization that “teaches” the Christian community how to deal with child abuse in a “Godly” way, then so will I, but not totally. I have some concerns…. That brings me to the latest “investigation update” by GRACE concerning the ABWE horror story. It begins as follows:

First phase? How many phases are there going to be? Why is more than one phase needed? The document, throughout, invokes all kinds of questions of this sort. And, “GRACE plans to schedule additional interviews….” Why do they have to “plan” to schedule? Is it really that complicated? Once again, the FMC are waiting for somebody “important” to do something. My grandmother had a word for it and often scolded us with it: “lollygagging.”

The report continued….

Huh? GRACE “hoped” to gather information? The document is full of tentative, overcautious language. The interviews succeeded in “beginning” to “help”  “build” (how big is the building going to be and how long is it going to take to build it?) an understanding?  For crying out loud, the FMC have already built the case with all kinds of documentation! The job is more than half done! And GRACE’s proclamation that God put his stamp of approval on it all regarding their interviews is just classic, and arrogant. But I will again mention that where GRACE will hopefully have some value is in their final ”thorough,” “balanced,” “independent” report; if it gets completed before the second coming. And we certainly don’t want any victims muddying up the waters with their own assessment of getting molested by the ABWE icon, Donn Ketcham—that just wouldn’t be “independent” and “balanced.”

Then, GRACE concluded the snail race report with the news that they are expanding the investigation to “non-MKs” in addition to the FMC they presently don’t have time to interview. Good grief! In addition, they are going to spend time singing Pat a Cake, Pat a Cake,  with a “new” ABWE “liaison” regarding ABWE’s lack of cooperation with full disclosure—unlike Penn State which has committed to full disclosure—day one.

In my estimation, G.R.AC.E is simply going to counsel this situation to death until it goes away. This is nothing more than damage control. It reminds me of a big-name church leader who responded to a molestation victim regarding her insistence that her attacker be removed from the ministry in his denomination: “ What do you want me to do, shoot him?”

I would say, “No, we want you to practice 1Timothy 5:20. We want you to take some of your book royalties, buy a ticket, get on a jet Saturday night, go to his church the next morning, wait till he is into his sermon for about ten minutes, then get up, walk down the aisle, and rebuke him in front of the congregation. Somehow, that is more radical than molestation.

paul