Paul's Passing Thoughts

“So, they would say to the young ladies and boys who have been molested in the church, ‘So what?’ The same sin that indwells the pedophile is in the victim as well. Can we not survey the past and present abuse and see this worldview plainly?”       

Even though we hate to think commonsense is important in understanding spiritual issues, the fact remains that such is the case. We struggle with this because of our notion that material is evil and spiritual is good. This notion is deep-seated in the Western psyche. Consequently, we are often willing to throw math out the window for something spiritual. Also, the spiritual get out of commonsense free card comes in handy when we have invested too much of our own self-esteem in a bad idea. If we humble ourselves and admit we were wrong, our intellect labeled as “humbleness” (lest it have no credibility) seems to lose its credibility.

Frankly, I find admission of wrong freeing. Yes, it may make you feel stupid for a while, but the problem with being wrong is that you can’t get anything done with bad information, and not getting anything done leads to hopelessness. Ultimately, even if you are stupid, people will judge you by what you get done, and even if they don’t, God will. Christ is documented throughout the New Testament as being annoyed by verbal assent to righteousness rather than actual doing, and bad information does not lead to right doing. This would seem evident.

But what if you can’t really know anything? And what if you can’t really do anything good? What would the results of that be? Well, look at the blogosphere spiritual discernment and victim “healing” ministries. In full force since 2009, matters continue to get worse, not better, and to date, justice for the victims is found nowhere. Why? Why doesn’t discernment ministry work? In the analysis of Herman Cain’s acronym, W-A-R, discernment bloggers are not working on the right problem, asking the right questions, nor removing the necessary obstacles.

What is the right question? It follows: “Why doesn’t discernment ministry accomplish anything?” Need proof? Anybody remember the outrageous ABWE scandal? Thought so. A secular media producer just cancelled “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” because of the mere potential of a smidgen element of the ABWE scandal, yet, ABWE continues to thrive unabated. How can this be? is another right question.

No, that is THE right question. And what is the obvious answer? It follows: people keep supporting ABWE financially. In case it escapes anyone, ABWE cannot continue unless it receives money. That raises another question: “Why do people keep sending such an organization money despite their deplorable behavior?”

Um, I can only tell you why the people who keep sending ABWE money say they keep sending ABWE money. Would that suffice? The reasons follow:

1. Because ABWE, and institutions like it are God’s anointed, preordained vessels to take the gospel to a dying world, they are the only ones qualified to do so. If ABWE fails, thousands and thousands of souls will go to hell for eternity. ABWE must survive.

2. ABWE must operate with people, and where there are people, there is sin, this is unavoidable.

3. ABWE should be forgiven as Christ forgave us.

These are the reasons that no justice can be found in the institutional church. These are the reasons that religious institutions continue to spiritually abuse unabated. That’s the problem that must be worked on. Those answers assume the following: spiritual hierarchy, moral equivalency, and individual value defined by contribution to the group; i.e., no justice for the individual is what’s best for the many.

Note: the institution in and of itself is not the problem, people in and of themselves within the institution are not the problem, and money in and of itself is not the problem: the logic is the problem. The threefold logic clearly gives license to the behavior. The threefold logic insists that nothing can be done, or that nothing should be done. In fact, the threefold logic insists that there really isn’t a problem to be worked on in the first place—this is clearly ascertained by the normative results of all of these scandals.

So, how do discernment blogs work on the problem? By exposing the problem, “properly” identifying the problem, and assuming that the institutions will respond and seek justice for the victims. How’s that working for us so far?

So let’s ask another right question: “Why isn’t that approach working?” One reason is the identification of a particular problem that discernment bloggers like to call “cognitive dissonance.” This is the study of how people believe contradictory propositions and their attempts to reconcile the contradictions. But this is where discernment bloggers totally miss it: spiritual hierarchy is more times than not predicated on the idea that the masses cannot properly interpret reality itself. How many times have we heard the following?

No matter what it looks like, you need to trust the leaders who have been working close to the situation and know all of the details.

Though we would not agree with a naked verbalization of the idea that only spiritual leaders can properly interpret reality, we by all means function that way. However, more and more in Reformed circles, this concept is being openly stated in the following way:

All of reality, or what is truly reality, is interpreted through redemption, and only the gifted are able to do so. Meanwhile, it is acceptable to obtain worldly knowledge, and some of it is good, but a good thing is not always the best thing.

Therefore, when it comes to spiritual matters, trust God’s anointed regardless of the obvious. In cognitive dissonance, the thing used in an attempt to reconcile two contradictions as much as possible is called the “buffer.” In this case, the buffer is the belief that spiritual leaders must be obeyed because they are the ones who can see reality and we can’t. Sure, we can understand worldly things that have no eternal value, but when it comes to eternal matters the leaders must be trusted at all cost. The right problem to address is the buffer, not the symptom of being comfortable with contradictions. Discernment bloggers wrongly identify the real problem and work on the wrong one. They fail completely on Cain’s “W.”

And by the way, if you want to read a sermon by a conservative evangelical that exemplifies this dualist approach to reality, you can read it here, and listen to it here.

In addition, this author can give firsthand evidence of this mentality via  correspondence from someone upset by what this ministry publishes.

Deep down you know that it is true.  Turning logic on its head, twisting words, pseudo-scholarship, and outright attacking people for things that both you and I know they do not believe does no one any good.

Another misunderstanding is that I somehow knew and stood behind any improper things you may have experienced at Clear Creek.

These statements were made in light of the fact that citations/quotations make-up approximately 30% of what our ministry writes, and improper things “you may have” experienced is set against a website that thoroughly documents what exactly happened. The individual wrote these statements in the face of undeniable documentation. How can he do that? Because only those with authority can properly interpret reality despite the evidence presented to the contrary. That’s why. The individual also accused our ministry of “pseudo-scholarship.” Why is it such according to him? Because it doesn’t have the authority of Reformed institutional scholarship—they are the ones who really know the truth. Discernment bloggers seem to miss the point that institutional tyrants do not interpret reality in the normative sense.

Another point missed by discernment bloggers is: tyrants who interpret reality differently will not always act out in the same way. However, if the same ideology does not produce shameful behavior, it will at least produce tolerance for it. And the right question here is, “why is this so?” Answer: moral equivalence. If everyone is Adolf Hitler at heart, who is anyone to judge anybody for anything? We are ALL just sinners saved by grace after all. “Justice,” you say? What justice? We ALL deserve hell! Again, this is also seen in the aforementioned correspondence:

I truly grieve for the things that you have shared have happened with your family, but all either of us can do from here is look to faithful God and away from the sin that is in our heart and other men who will always ultimately disappoint because none of us are sinless.

Notice that he grieves for the things “that you have shared happened with your family,” i.e., how I interpret their actions, not what they actually did. And notice that the sin these men may have committed against me is also in my heart as well. So, they would say to the young ladies and boys who have been molested in the church, “So what?” The same sin that indwells the pedophile is in the victim as well. Can we not survey the past and present abuse and see this worldview plainly?

So, if there is no moral unequivalence necessitating a need for justice, all that is left is unity and peace for the sake of unity and peace which can only be obtained by blindly following those preordained to lead the great unwashed masses. We must also understand that this logic gave rise to institutions in general and the institutional church in particular.

Let’s work on the right problem: the worldview of the institutional church. Let’s ask the right question: “What should we do about it?” And finally, let’s remove obstacles to what works.

The obstacle that needs to be removed is fellowship with the institutional church. Again, the institution in and of itself is not the problem, but its caste worldview is the problem. Christians en masse must stop giving their money to the institutional church and must warn all people that they involve themselves with the institutional church at their own risk. It looks something like this:

Mark, likewise, I don’t care to debate with you because we see reality differently. I interpret reality grammatically, and you interpret reality redemptively like the Neo-Platonist “Christians” that you follow. Even John Street has bought into this latter-day antinomian nonsense. All I want to hear is that you stay clear of my family, and let’s be clear, it is not a wish—it is a demand, and I will protect my family at all cost—be sure of it.

Keep your family away from the institutional church. What else needs to happen in order to demonstrate that its fundamental worldview is horribly distorted? Husbands need to step up and take over their responsibility before Christ to lead their own families spiritually. You need to join a fellowship and be encouraged by men of God who can think for themselves and fear the Holy Spirit more than puffed-up control freaks. If you cannot find such a fellowship, do so in your own home.

paul

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