Paul's Passing Thoughts

“CJ Mahaney could not be an elder in MacArthur’s church for many reasons, but yet, MacArthur joyfully gives him credibility as being an elder par excellent …. MacArthur’s endorsement of Mahaney assumes his innocence in a long list of unresolved conflict, and rubs salt in the wounds of Mahaney’s victims.”

The promo video for this year’s 2012 Resolved Conference is sickening for anybody that can think for themselves. I use YouTube to post my videos, and have received comments from people there regarding the clip (http://youtu.be/3BbyzPkE_kc):

Where is my barf bag? God, please deliver us from conferences and churches,

Kinda hokey. Just from the images…who do you think is being worshiped here?

For anybody who has any grey substance between their ears at all, it’s obvious who is being worshiped. But the video was not designed out of the figment of somebody’s imagination. The images and what is stated has meaning. I received the following comments on my blog concerning the light from heaven thing going on in the video:

Paul I am confused about the sparkly stuff that is falling down on these enlightened ones. Is this fairy dust?

That was very disturbing to watch.

What’s with the beams of light streaming down behind them and all the little snowflakes? It looks like they are trying to make them look like they are speaking to us from heaven or something…all ethereal and everything.

I was thinking of the same things you were about the fairy dust- strange indeed. Another thing to notice was the movie like ending of the promo- felt like I was about to watch the avengers or transformers. I guess that epic ending was to evoke a response of awe and wonder at the sheer excitement of seeing the “Christian” heros of modern evangelical movement. Next we will see them donned with capes and claim abilities of being able to see right through your depraved soul [actually, Mark Driscoll is making that claim of late].

But believe it or not, the “light from heaven” thing has meaning. Notice that the beams of light come down, but the little dots are going up. That’s the Gnostic cybernetic loop of  how the totally depraved zombie sheep receive the truth of the gospel. The truth of the word is cycled from heaven through the spiritually enlightened elders. Farfetched? Well then, consider this statement from heretic/New Calvinist Dr. Devon Berry:

The text here implies that there was an interactive nature between three entities: The preacher, the hearers, and the Word. Note this cycle: Paul, from the Word, delivers words. The Bereans, from Paul’s words, go to the Word. The Word cycles from God, through the preacher, to the people, back to the Word, and this, verse 12 tells us, produced belief in the God of the Word. An important thing to note is that this happened daily – suggesting a regular interaction between preaching, personal study, and the Word.

Berry was making the case throughout the particular message that sanctifying truth only comes through Reformed elders, a belief widely held among New Calvinists. And I believe that the coming down of light, and the going up of the dots are a subtle allusion to the direct connection that New Calvinists believe these men have with heaven that is efficacious to the evangelical peasantry. Other illusions to Gnosticism in this video will be mentioned in the forthcoming parts.

In all, MacArthur’s willingness to be a part of all of this speaks for itself. It is an endorsement of the worst kind of heresy (the fusion of justification and sanctification) and those who propagate it. MacArthur’s appearance at this conference illustrates his utter indifference to basic biblical principles; such as, the importance of reconciliation, justice, and the qualifications of elders. CJ Mahaney could not be an elder in MacArthur’s church for many reasons, but yet, MacArthur joyfully gives him credibility as being an elder par excellent. MacArthur also shows his true heart towards the spiritually abused and his total lack of compassion towards them. MacArthur’s endorsement of Mahaney assumes his innocence in a long list of unresolved conflict, and rubs salt in the wounds of Mahaney’s victims.

The only thing in all of this that could be virtuous for MacArthur is the fact that this is the “Culmination” of the Resolved Conference. I strongly suspect that this is MacArthur’s way of gaining separation from Mahaney. But at the same time, it makes him a party to the concerted effort to protect the image of the New Calvinist movement which propagates a blatantly false gospel. It’s no accident that MacArthur is no longer invited to the T4G conference, and it is no accident that this conference (primarily sponsored by MacArthur’s church; ie, he has some control of it) is going to be terminated. Something is going on, but like the Piper controversy at Mac’s church, and the Mahaney controversy at RC Sproul’s church, nobody is talking. The image of the spiritual Camelot of our day must be protected. Gag.

paul