Paul's Passing Thoughts

Originally Posted September 2, 2012

“Many of the Temple members left notes and letters behind. Some Temple members wrote of their desire to leave all their assets to the Soviet Union. One unsigned letter read, ‘We did not want it this way. When we heard (that Congressman Ryan was killed) we had no choice. We would be taken. We have to go as one, we want to live as Peoples Temple or end it. We have chosen. It is finished.'”

I will be starting a series of studies with my family today. The series will begin with discussing a photo of 900 bodies rotting in the hot sun in what was once the Jim Jones theocracy of Jonestown. I will begin with asking my family if they think they are smarter than every one of the people who are lying dead in that photo. I will then ask them if they think they are more educated than every person in that photo. If the assumed answers to these rhetorical questions are “no,” then how did these people get there?

Did they willingly, even joyfully, drink from the vat of poison as a result of following the truth? No. But in the initial days of this sect, could there have been a mass suicide day one? Not likely. Why not? Because there was not yet a consensus of belief that led to the action. You get from point A to point H by believing a series of lies that build on each other…

…but it all starts with the first lie. Satan did not introduce himself to Eve with a proposal to eat the fruit God told her not to eat. She ate at the end of a series of propositions.

I read a lie, actually written by a good-guy the other day that is a classic New Calvinist (read “Protestant”) lie that ensnares many into their body of thought. This is not a person who would ordinarily buy into New Calvinism—knowingly. But we don’t buy into anything that we think will turn out bad. The lie is that the gospel is about, “community,” and “relationship,” and the idea that original sin was a sin against “relationship.”

Sounds good. Sounds profound. Makes logical sense. And it is an element of truth for certain. But the crux here is that the New Calvinists (Protestant, and every other cult in the world) then make that truth bigger than what it is in order to lead you elsewhere. The “group” as the pinnacle of purpose is the foundational premise of Communism (as in Marx, Stalin, etc.), as the name implies. “Community” is a good and true concept if it is not used to pave the road to bad places. By the way, Jones’ theology was based on Marxist doctrine (“Apostolic Socialism”).

It all goes something like this:

A. Community is what it is all about, “it’s not about you” (wow! Who would disagree with that?).

B. And of course, this makes UNITY very, very, important (duh! You look stupid if you disagree with that. No?).

C. But this also brings up a problem (Oh my!): The community is made of individuals (duh), and they are not always going to agree on things (double duh). What to do? (Pray tell).

D. We don’t always agree on things because we are sinners, but God has divinely appointed men to help us because God has gifted them with the gift of teaching. They can see the truth better than we can. And the truth is very, very, very important, so the church utilizes a group of these men to work together—just to make sure the church is being led by the truth (read, “truth as unity for the sake of unity”). We call these men “elders,” can you say, “e-l-d-e-r”?

E. Therefore, we should listen to obey these men. But, some people don’t like to listen, so the group/community should support the elders in disciplining these people in love for the sake of unity.

F. And in regard to yourself, if the elders are saying something that doesn’t seem right to you, and you disagree with them, you are saying that you are smarter than ALL of the elders. You don’t want to do that, do you?

G. And you don’t want to cause disunity, do you?

H: A+B+C+D+E+F = We do whatever the elders tell us to do for the sake of the group. Besides, they are accountable to God as his “under shepherds” and not us.

This is the same line of reasoning that ruled Calvin’s Geneva that the New Calvinists dream of in our day.  And on a hot sunny day in Jonestown, “H” was a final sermon by Jim Jones ending with an alter call to the vat. Meanwhile, other followers who were not even present, and located in other parts of the world complied to the alter call and slew their children with knives before taking their own lives.

And it all started with believing the “community” lie.

At this point, I direct you to the introductory meme at the top of this post. The answer to the question posed by Bastiat, according to Protestant orthodoxy, is, in fact, “yes.” Protestant orthodoxy holds to the idea that God does, in fact, preordain certain men to “save God’s people from ignorance” (Al Mohler). Know this: Protestantism’s infatuation with predeterminism points directly to the authority/control issue.

It’s not an oxymoron; truth wrongly applied is far more dangerous than outright lies. And in Protestant circles—no suicides, that is far too undignified, just burnings and beheadings in Calvin’s Geneva, and more recently in our day: broken marriages, countless broken friendships, countless church splits, relentless slandering, bogus church discipline, false incrimination, molestation cover-ups, unfettered arrogance, and outrageous propositions such as the “scream of the damned”….to name a few.

Lastly, a word on the return to real family-of-God fellowship/edification apart from manmade institutional authority. While it’s true that this sets God’s people free to maximize the individual gifts given to them, the so-called home church movement is way too loosey-goosey and seemingly a return to the Corinthian problem. This is one of many reasons that a distinction should be made between home church and home fellowship.

Freedom, a gospel truth, can certainly be misapplied in egregious ways, and is. Go figure that one of the unity problems in this movement is, “conflicting [direct individual] revelations.” Well, someone is either lying or misguided. In home fellowship, new birth resulting in a love for THE truth instead of A truth is assumed, and people are given space to be “convinced in their own minds” and their own consciences. Unity is based on agreement on the one mind of Christ, the head of His body…it’s a “body” analogy. The Bible states that all born again believers have that one mind that is developed by studying the word of God. How this works can be seen in the book of Acts regarding the care of the Greek widows, and how that problem was solved to everyone’s satisfaction.

Does not REASON have a standard? Yes it does, and the Bible also states that our service is according to reason and logic. Even non-Christians know things that are “self-evident” according to God’s creation. Group-think is the rejection of reason and logic as a metaphysical reality which always ends up in unthinkable sorrows. Group-think is determined by those supposedly made of a finer clay according to God’s predeterminism and the script of His metaphysical narrative.

Home fellowships will not use the truth of our freedom to create a hot mess, but will do all things decently and in order. The Spirit uses truth to sanctify and NOTHING else, and trust me, with Him coming alongside in the cooperation of truth, there will be plenty of fireworks to get excited over, but that’s His job, not ours; our job is to study in order to find ourselves approved of God and not ashamed as we apply that truth to life.

paul