Love Does Not Enable Evil; A Clarification and Follow-up
As I have said before and will continue to say, professing Christians in our culture know very little about the Bible. By the way, I include myself in that assessment. After partaking in independent study for nearly ten years this ministry has discovered some basics about biblical truth that I believe are good building blocks, but for the most part, God’s family in our culture remains biblically illiterate or maybe better stated; we suffer from serious wisdom deprivation.
There are a lot of questions concerning the deep waters of Christian living that remain undiscovered and unlearned, and the only way learning will take place is faith to faith; when God’s family collectively studies the word in order to show themselves approved of God. What others say the Bible says must be confirmed by our own hearts indwelled by the Spirit who will lead us in all truth if that’s what we are really after.
So, of late, here come the accusations from posts I have written like this one: “Dohse is an antinomian.” “Dohse believes you always turn the other cheek even if your spouse hired a professional hitman to take you out.” “Dohse believes that you never file for divorce under any circumstance,” etc., etc., etc.
No, what I am saying is spouses, according to the apostle Paul, are called to peace and not suffering. That’s first. Second, spouses need to “dwell” on love, not sin. In the Bible, the “mature” (often translated, “perfect”) focus on love—not the law’s condemnation. Do you want to get rid of sin in your life? Start loving more; you can’t love and sin at the same time unless you’re a Calvinist.
In contrast, if your focus is sin and seeing the “sin beneath the sin” as a way to return to the same gospel that saved you resulting in Jesus imputing His own perfect law-keeping to your life, your own active love will obviously diminish more and more. What does such a gospel make a marriage look like? See, “Protestant.” Other than a very large percentage of Protestant marriages that are bastions of misery, we have…
“Hey honey! I just got back from being counseled by Heath Lambert and I have very good news! We both suck! We are just two unregenerate sinners living together and shouldn’t expect anything from each other except the exaltation of Christ and Him crucified! How dare I expect to be loved by you when I only deserve hell! How dare you expect to be loved by me! It’s not about anything we do, but what Jesus has done! After all, are we the gospel or is Jesus the gospel?”
In other words, “good” Protestant marriages rejoice in evil which the apostle Paul said was the antithesis of love.
Can bad Protestant marriages be fixed? Yes, when the spouse who gets it assumes the role of adult in the marriage. I mean, let’s think about this. If your spouse believes he/she can do no good work, and all of their works are as filthy rags, you have a serious marriage problem. Treating you poorly is just another grand opportunity to repent and return to the cross resulting in “vivification.” At the very least this attitude towards the law is what Jesus condemned as “relaxing” the least of all commandments. This is what Jesus accused the Pharisees of specifically; having a relaxed attitude towards using the law to love God and others.
So, does sin cause repentance or does love cause repentance? According to Calvinists, it’s not about us, yet our sin supposedly magnifies the cross and brings glory to Christ. Clearly, throughout the Bible, it is our love that glorifies the Father, not our sin. It seems to me that Protestantism boasts the exact same error that Christ condemns throughout the Sermon on the Mount specifically and the New Testament in general.
Hence, the loving spouse does not facilitate this kind of evil error. The adult spouse who is maturing in love must refuse to be defined as unregenerate and unable to please the Father. If the Protestant spouse pushes the issue in an accusatory way resulting in such things as church discipline and other forms of persecution, the mature spouse should at least separate until the errant spouse grows up.
Simply stated, there is no hope for change unless the mature spouse refuses to facilitate this false gospel or accept it in any way. Bringing a spouse up on church discipline with the cooperation of the other spouse (over a false gospel to begin with), declaring them an unbeliever, and calling for the shunning of a spouse is tantamount to divorce. In my book, the unbelieving spouse has already divorced the believing spouse. The believing spouse should leave until the unbelieving spouse either repents or files for legal divorce. In such cases, the believing spouse is not obligated to stay in the marriage.
If the situation falls short of this, the believing spouse should model the true gospel of love before the Protestant spouse. Refuse to capitulate to a false gospel that seeks to glorify the Father through sin rather than love. This is how the world knows that we are His true disciples; we love each other, we don’t look for sin under the sin and we don’t repent of good works.
Granted, there is much hard study to be done in recognizing the many-faceted ways that this truth should be applied, so let’s get busy.
paul
Hashtag for Calvinists
If you’re going to hold to reformed theology, you might as well be honest about it.
Andy
Church “Covenants” and How You Should Behave in a Protestant Church
Originally published July 23, 2015
One endeavor on the long list of objectives here at TANC ministries is to get solid legal insight into what has become protocol in evangelical churches. That process began yesterday during a consultation with a local attorney. As documented here at PPT, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) and its network of churches has become a virtual divorce mill. The pattern that this ministry continues to be made privy to is documented in an open letter to the executive director of ACBC, Heath Lambert.
Simply stated, New Calvinism, which is a return to the original church polity of the Reformation, does not have the force of state to compel church members to follow its orthodoxy. So, it improvises. Instead of simply burning heretics at the stake, or burning a hole through the tongues of those who ask questions in a challenging way, they ruin names and finances.
We must remember, the orthodoxy of the Protestant Reformation was tailored for a church state. America was originally founded by the Pilgrims who didn’t like how the Church of England did church-state, so they came to America and founded “New England.” The name is not happenstance. The American Revolution put an end to the Pilgrims’ theocracy that dominated the colonies. Actually, “Pilgrims” is a soft term for “Puritans.” And please, spare me the emails about the differences between the Pilgrims and the Puritans—the differences are insignificant in the whole scheme of things.
That brings us to the discussion of soft terms. First, the original Protestant Reformation was a simple church state, but in reality, the definition of “cult” comes into play when church states had to improvise in order to control people because of the American Revolution. A cult is defined as follows: it is any religious organization that controls people by means other than a church state. The etymology of the word “cult” does not become significant until post American Revolution.
In other words, without the force of the state to compel people to obey its orthodoxy, it must resort to manipulation and brainwashing to control people. Yes, church states also emphasize brainwashing because murdering people is costly in its implementation, and fewer people amounts to less resources, but brainwashing becomes even more important and refined when the final solution has been outlawed in an open society.
So, let’s state a definitive definition of cult: it is any religious organization that controls people by means other than a church state, and combines faith with authority. Like its church state predecessor, it assumes that the nature of man cannot obtain unity for a given cause without being ruled by those with superior knowledge of realty.
After the American Revolution, churches became a hybrid of orthodoxy and enlightenment thinking. It became an alphabet soup with a broad range of attitude concerning the ability of man to rule self. But, this never resulted in the full-blown focus on individual responsibility mirrored by the 1st century assembly of Christ. The concept of “church” spawned in the 4th century has always permeated the American church psyche, i.e., orthodoxy being a storybook form of truth written by church “Divines” that the saints can understand, and enforced for their own wellbeing.
With that said, soft terms become vital to the American church as we know it today. Church polity is a soft term for church government; church discipline is a soft term for Unam sanctam, or John Calvin’s power of the keys that gives church authority to decide someone’s salvation on behalf of God. It goes without saying that you obey someone that can take away your salvation.
And, “church covenant” is a soft term for “church contract.” Basically, when you sign a church covenant church contract, you are signing away your right to be heard. In most of these contracts, you agree to obey the leadership and to be “teachable.” Hence, from now on, when our ministry hears, “Gee whiz, all I did was ask questions and now my life is being destroyed,” the subject will mostly likely hear, “No, what you did is breach of contract so take your medicine.”
Note: in many churches that deem themselves congregational, the parishioners unwittingly circumvent that reality by agreeing to a revised church covenant prepared and presented by the elders. See how that works?
Moreover, these third party contracts often negate rights found under civil and criminal law. This ministry, more specifically I, stands corrected in my assertion that coercion is being used to control parishioners. In fact, it is not coercion, but according to what the parishioner has agreed to and signed, especially regarding permission to leave church membership. It’s a contract—you signed it, so shut up, nod your head, say amen, and put your money in the plate. It’s all good; if the elders like you—you will more than likely “be able to stand in the judgement.”
What are the redeeming facts here, if any? Education: NEVER sign a church contract. It’s NOT a “covenant” bolstered by your signature—it’s a CONTRACT. This is why TANC does what it does; education, then solution/alternative.
Is there a way to get justice after signing our rights away? Perhaps, because apparently, marriage is also a contract. Rather than burning you at the stake and burying you in the church yard under a stone edict condemning you to hell, which of course is against the law presently, they will begin by ruining your name, and then destroy you financially via divorce.
The process goes something like this: you break your contract and stop being “teachable.” This tells the leadership that you no longer see yourself as a sinner, and you have become “insubordinate.” A dozen or so respected leaders and their wives start telling your wife that you are no longer “humble” and whether she realizes it or not, she is married to an “angry man.” And hark, behavior that your wife formerly assumed not to be abusive, in fact is abusive. Yes, she is married to a man who “doesn’t love her like Christ loved the church.” It’s all downhill from there.
Apparently, legally, this is interference with a marriage contract. Damages would be determined by a jury if the situation ends in divorce. Also, the idea that ACBC could eventually be subject to a class action lawsuit is not all that farfetched.
However, this is just more evidence that the premise and foundations of the institutional church is egregiously flawed and was designed for a church state to begin with. The solution is the cooperation of spiritual gifts, not authority, and fellowship—not membership.
Meanwhile, if you do not like the solution, behave yourself in the Protestant church. Stop going to discernment blogs and whining—you signed the contract, shut up and live by it.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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