Paul's Passing Thoughts

How annoying is American Christianity to me right now? Well, being a Christian in Iraqi is looking pretty good to me right now. Instead of dying the death of a thousand cuts from theological debate, I could get my head blown off by the Middle Eastern version of Calvinism. Those ISIS guys are surprisingly ignorant in the ways of the European ideology of spiritual caste and determinism that drives their religion. Thank goodness they partake in the elementary ways of execution and have never studied Puritan history.

TANC and PPT are working hard at solidifying our Biblicism so that we can work on home fellowship networks and get on with the Lord’s business. Meanwhile, let’s ask the right question: 2000 years later, why is there so much confusion about what the gospel is?

I am totally convinced that the source of the confusion is the foundational idea that justification is not a finished work. God has eliminated any excuses here by stating that justification was finished before He even created the earth, but leave it to Gnostic brainiacs  with four or five titles after their name to make the simplest of facts confusing. If they didn’t, what would you need them for? This is their greatest fear…not being needed. Nothing strikes more fear in their souls than the day that you discover that you can determine truth on your own (1John 2:27).

Lou I am ever learning but never coming to the truth Priolo stated it best: justification is like a computer program that runs in the background of the Christian’s life. Justification is not seen as an ended work with the Christian life (sanctification) being completely separate. Hence, you have the likes of John MacArthur Jr. stating that justification (salvation) and sanctification are “never separate, but distinct.” Mark it: that ancient idea is the very crux of the whole problem. That is the one and only reason for Jerry Springer blogosphere Christianity that presently dominates American Christianity.  When we are not waiting with bated breath at the golden doors of The Gospel Coalition for the next spiritual unction from on high, we are at a spiritual Amway convention hosted by mystics like Beth Moore and Francis Chan.

We need them to guide us through the very tricky waters of maneuvering through a justification running in the background of sanctification. So, if we do not do sanctification just right, it will mess up our justification. We are not free to aggressively pursue love in sanctification; we must make sure we will “stand in the judgment.”

American Christianity is full of fear and paralyzed for this very reason. Instead of being about the Lord’s business, we are frantically running about on the internet and to conferences to make sure we are not “making the fruit of sanctification the ground of our justification.” Justification and sanctification are “never separate, but distinct.” What does that mean? It means they are fused, but justification has a beginning, and is distinct from sanctification because sanctification is justification that is running in the background.

Therefore, Christians ask all of the wrong questions, and work on all of the wrong problems, and remove no obstacle of confusion. While the fathers of Protestantism wrote outrageous anti-gospel statements in treatises like the Calvin Institutes that clearly point to the problem with their Progressive Justification, the debates center on “election” and bad behavior. And, the latest pain in my butt…

The lordship salvation debate.

For eight years, I have pretty much stayed away from this debate even though it has cost me some friends, and when you are in the process of declaring the institutional church and Protestantism in general illegitimate, you don’t have many of those to spare. The cure for the American church is a mass exodus from the institution back to what church was always meant to be, a fellowship of believers meeting informally in each other’s homes. This is also combined with good organization for targeted purposes; the concept is very efficient and powerful. It is the dismantling and utter rejection of spiritual caste. I don’t understand why Christians don’t want to be free. Why are we letting arrogant men dictate the relationship we have with the Christ who died for us? The arrogant bozo with the degree didn’t die for you—Christ died for you. Who made these guys Chief Shepherd?

Can you imagine seeking Christ together without spiritual caste and being free from all of the institutional drama? I hope you can. Almost four years ago, Susan and I left the institutional church and began an independent verse by verse study of the Book of Romans on our own. In the first six months, we learned more about Christ than both of us had ever been taught in the institutional church. That’s a combined eighty years of Christian experience. This is just the plain fact of the matter. We have been sold an institutional bill of orthodoxy written by spiritual tyrants. Even though the behavior of the Westminster “Divines” is historical fact, we follow there doctrine because “God’s anointed” say they are the exception to “by their fruits you will know them.” Why do we accept these contradictions? Because the “anointed” have replaced Christ.

And at least in one particular camp of the anti-lordship salvation crowd (ALS), listening to men apart from independent study has created quite the spectacle. Portending to be on the cutting edge of anti-Calvinism, their soteriology is no whit different from Calvinism whatsoever. I will continue to state that the problem with Calvinism is progressive justification. So, what we have here is a group of likeminded Christians who are bashing Calvinism while believing the exact same gospel of progressive justification.

I think it is time to start calling out this sort of confusion among God’s people.

paul