Sent by “Ghostwriter”: Recipe for a Hostile Takeover
Originally published June 28, 2013
Preamble: An anonymous person sent me the following satire of New Calvinist Ernest Reisinger’s article on how to take over a church covertly. Reisinger left the Earth in 2004. He was one of the forefathers of the present-day New Calvinist movement. I detail Reisinger’s departure from Presbyterian circles for the sole purpose of taking over the SBC with the Australian Forum’s doctrine in my fifteen-page addendum to The Truth About New Calvinism: Volume One (TANC Publishing 2011). Reisinger and his brother John were part of a small group of men associated with the Forum who believed that they had rediscovered the true Reformation gospel. And they were right. But key was the fact that they were also armed with the Forum’s brilliant systemization of the doctrine for contemporary consumption—a feat that has given New Calvinism its staying power.
This small group of men set the precedent and procedure for covert takeovers. The protocol was further articulated in Dan Southerland’s book, “Transitioning: Leading Your Church Through Change” (Zondervan 1999). Ghostwriter is a member of a church in America, which means that it is in the process of being taken over by New Calvinists or the takeover is complete; hence, good reason to remain anonymous because these guys will utterly ruin your life if you stand up to them. How? Well, for one, most American Christian wives just want to be a member of a church and enjoy the community of it without any controversy. It’s just the way Protestants have been programmed over the years. This is one of the points of exploitation, among many that are used. And unfortunately, a change of membership will more than likely find the same problem.
The only answer is to reject the New Calvinist premise altogether and come out from among them. Unfortunately, much more carnage will have to be displayed before that happens to any significant degree.
paul
Recipe for a Hostile Takeover
It’s the “Little Red Book” of hostile Reformed church takeover, publically available for all to see. (My italics are the satire, obviously)
“Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”
“whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”
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REFORMING A LOCAL CHURCH
STRENGTHEN THE THINGS THAT REMAIN
by Ernest C. Reisinger
Rev. 3:2
“Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die…”
Rev. 3:4
“Yet you have a few people…who have not soiled their clothing.”
Chapter III
SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE- ( i.e. an unsuspecting, biblically sound free-grace preaching Church in need of radical reform )
Some who read this pamphlet are in, or will be in a reforming (hostile takeover) situation. And each situation has some different obstacles to deal with. The size of the church and the staff will make some difference in the approach as will the kind of membership, (discerning Christians- avoid these churches like the plague, or ripe-for-harvest mindless troglodytes already under the influence of Nicolaitanism, seek these for takeover) the spiritual caliber of the leadership (see above). I wish we had some little pamphlet with ten rules to success (we don’t now but one is probably forthcoming, every other dictatorship on earth has a pamphlet like the little red book, etc), but it is not that simple. There are not ten rules to guarantee success. There are some principles, however, that will always be helpful and will save some shipwrecks .
1. Don’t try any reformation until you have earned some spiritual credibility with the church (Pretend you are what you aren’t, hide your true views from the search committee and the congregation until you have suckered them in, be sure to throw in an old-time revival/gospel meeting every now and then to woo the wary).
2. The first suggestion is study the biblical principle of accommodation. There is a little pamphlet on this subject (The Principle of Biblical Accommodation as Applied to the Invitation System), (shows you how to pretend to be a free-grace preacher until you have your hand-picked elders and a quarter of the congregants under your sway) and an excellent message on tape by Thomas K. Ascol. This is available through The Christian Gospel Foundation, 521 Wildwood Parkway, Cape Coral, FL 33904, or Pastor Thomas K. Ascol, Grace Baptist Church, 204 SW 11th Place, Cape Coral, FL 33991.
3. Three questions should be asked, and carefully answered:
a) What is the right, biblical thing to do?
b) How should these changes be implemented?
c) When should they be implemented? Don’t try to do too much too soon. Many mistakes have been made by doing the right thing in the wrong way or at the wrong time (because even ignorant congregants were able to quickly see through the cloak.
4, The principle of priorities must be applied. You can’t change everything at once–first things first (go slow, it will take time to deceive).
5. The principle of two churches must be before us at all times.
a) The church as it should be, conceived from the scriptures (actually the Calvin Institutes, Westminster, various Baptist confessions of faith), in idealism–never abandon this.
b) The church as it is–the one you look at 11:00 on Sunday morning (you know, the one that has real people with real Scriptural beliefs in it?). One must realize that the two shall never meet on earth, but you will find joy and satisfaction in narrowing (weeding out the Arminian Free Grace miscreants) the difference between them, that is, when you see the one you look at on Sunday morning make some steps toward the (Calvinist) ideal one.
6. The principle of church membership. Don’t make church membership any narrower than the New Testament (suck in as many poor saps as you can before you uncork the bottle).
7. The principle of restraint. Don’t tackle the whole church at one time (this will never work for reasons stated above). Choose a few men who are sincere, teachable (unwary, biblically unlearned, unwilling to engage brains in coherent thought, nice guys but mindless) and spiritually minded (religious but not holding to any solid beliefs except that somehow Christ died for them) and spend time with them (indoctrinating them in your intellectually superior beliefs ) in study and prayer. They will help you to reform (because they don’t know any better). This principle is found in Titus 1:5: “For this cause left I thee behind in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.” Acts 14:23: “And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.” Acts 1 1:30: “Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.” Acts 20:17,28: “And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” Don’t get bogged down with what you call these men until they are trained (indoctrinated)–they are called overseers–elders (putty in your hands, yes-men).
8. Don’t get hung up on secondary matters (like preaching the Gospel, helping the poor, widows in the congregation).
9. Don’t use theological language that is not in the Bible, in the pulpit, such as, Calvinism, reformed, doctrines of grace, particular redemption etc. (duh, these aren’t in the Bible for a reason, moron. We are trying to take over a church here, not preach the truth). Most people will not know what you are talking about (because it is not found in the Bible and any discerning Christian will throw you out on your ear if they hear these terms, indoctrinate them slowly with simplistic language).
10. Use sound literature, not indiscriminately, but wisely. Little things at first, that is, pamphlets and books with some doctrinal and experimental substance (written by John Piper, RC Sproul, perhaps Jonathan Edwards… Those first two are the most important).
11. Don’t use the pulpit to scold people. You cannot scold people into reformation (you can only trick them into reformation).
12. Exercise common sense (see above. Don’t be an impatient idiot and get yourself canned).
13. Depend on the only weapons we have: prayer, preaching and teaching (wielding the newfound power of your inner circle of yes-men).
14. Be sure that you understand the foundational doctrines and how they are related to each other and to your situation (you freakin well better have completely aced the TULIP test).
15. I would suggest that you check the history of your church in respect to early constitutions or declarations of faith. Often you will find, particularly, in older churches, a statement expressing the doctrines which you desire to establish (in other words a Church that has already tried reform theology but it blew up in their face, don’t worry, our new brand will work). A gracious appeal to this document will help to give you credibility, at least they will know that you are not coming from Mars (just from infiltrated seminaries completely out of touch with reality and the laity and completely under the influence of the doctrines of men). Hide behind these articles of faith (I can’t even think of anything sarcastic to say to this, can’t believe it is so blatant). Hide behind our Baptist fathers, such as Bunyan, Spurgeon, Fuller, Boyce, Dagg, Broadus, Manly, W. B. Johnson, R. B. C. Howell and B. H. Carroll (because they will love you if you quote their founding fathers until you are ready to reveal your true colors).
Most of these suggestions come from experience, and, she is a queer old teacher. She first gives you the test and then the lesson. Unlike other teaching (which relies on Scripture to give the lesson).
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
This worked in the SBC. Mohler got it down to perfection. Now he runs the show, his minions are leading most of the entities and his indoctrinated YRR seminarians are all over the place demanding high salaries and ipads. It worked!
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Very nice.:-) Love it.
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By the way, it never occurred to me to map Reisinger to Dan Sotherlands book, but the same foundational principles are there. And who was the first master of all of this and make it really work well? Rick Warren!
I used to read over at his pastors.com transitioning forum until they pass protected it. Back then it was a mind blower. It was a forum of purpose driven pastors talking about how to get rid of the wolves in their congregation. It was vile and shocking back then, like the first time you get to see inside of the mind of a pastor and what he really thinks about you. It was quoted so much back then they had to make it private.
The Neo Cals have simply perfected it with Calvin’s caste system.
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Wow! This is so timely! I know of a pastor that has managed to “get rid” of elders that disagreed with him and then hand-picked his own elder board. The first thing they started doing was looking at the church constitution to change it up. I predicted this a long time ago. The problem is, most of the congregation is reacting as if they are frogs in a pot of water and the temperature is being slowly turned-up to boil them. It’s sad really.
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Laura,
These hostile takeovers have been going on since the early 70’s and the institutional church is powerless against them. I have been studying the New Calvinist movement since 2007. I have been consulted by parishioners in regard to an attempt to stop many of them, but to no avail. All of these takeovers that occur daily follow the exact same pattern. After several years of research, I have concluded why churches are powerless to stop this movement: deep in the psyche of Protestantism is the idea that salvation is found in church membership. I guess it shouldn’t surprise us as the two icons of Protestantism, Luther and Calvin, stated such in no uncertain terms.
So, in other words, if this doctrine is in all the evangelical churches, that’s just the way it goes–there is no alternative. The movers and shakers of the movement know that Protestantism is grounded in salvation by church membership and not enough people will leave said churches to make a difference. They say it plainly; show the detractors the front door–there is not enough of them to make a difference.
Since Susan and I began to strongly suspect this to be the case, we test the waters when we run into our old Baptist friends at the grocery store etc. here in town. In recent examples, one lady shared that the only way we can receive ongoing forgiveness as Christians is the altar call during church services. Another lady shared that she was concerned for Susan’s mother because she wasn’t a member of a church. Both examples are Calvin and Luther to a T. And remember, these are evangelical Baptists we are talking about.Yes, if you pose the very question to some they will deny it, but it’s how they function, while others look at you like, “Duh, of course you have to be a member of a church to saved!”
For almost 400 years the “church” was not an institution. The New Testament model is something altogether different. Is a return to that model the answer? We think it is. In some respects, this movement is a survival mode because Protestantism is in sharp decline. The strength of Protestantism used to be thousands of churches with an average of 300 members. Those churches are going broke, shutting down, and merging into mega-churches. In other words, there is an appearance of revival going on because the focus is the mega-churches which are really the result of sheep redistribution. However, we are now seeing the collapse of these mega-church campuses. Off the top of my head, the Crystal Cathedral, Mars Hill, and James MacDonald’s campus infrastructure is on the verge of financial collapse as well. Bottom line: enough people have been indoctrinated by the caste system of church membership to enable survival to this point.
The Millennials are not helping the situation. They are a generation that values what the individual brings to the table in regard to knowledge. They, unfortunately, associate capitalism with a caste system that withholds knowledge and sells it. They believe knowledge should be free and every individual has something to bring to the table. Wikipedia, for example, is a Millennial brainchild. The New Calvinist Movement sees this as a dire cultural threat to authentic Protestantism and is focusing hard on the re-education of our children towards collectivism. Hence, I talk to a lot of people who express surprise that their conservative Baptist pastors support Obama–this doesn’t surprise me at all.
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Excuse my typos up there. My keyboard has some sticky keys that are scheduled to be cleaned asap. 😉
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Welcome Laura. No worries. I think I got ’em.
I believe you’ll find many more timely items here, since it’s hard to find a church that not’s a simmering kettle. We are encouraging people to get out of the institutional church, take up independent bible learning sans the commentaries and celebrity preachers, and walk in the newness of life by way of enthusiastic sanctified love in action.
Thanks for stopping by!
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[…] movement has theologically and often physically taken over Christian churches. Posturing as the “conservative resurgence” (launched in the late 70s by Banner of Truth Trust UK) Reformed operatives are now peddling […]
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[…] has theologically and often physically taken over Christian churches. Posturing as the “conservative resurgence” (launched in the late 70s by Banner of Truth Trust UK) Reformed operatives are now peddling […]
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