Paul's Passing Thoughts

Church is a lie. Christians must come to grip with this reality for their good and the good of God’s kingdom. If we want to make the most of the opportunity God has given us presently, if we’re going to leave personal legacies before God that we will not regret, church must be dissected from our contribution to this life. Like a song with a sweet melody and evil lyrics, we must not endorse the evil ideology by humming the tune.

This indictment against the church includes a complaint about every element of its existence; it is a plenary indictment against the entire body of church thought and is not complicated nor hidden to any degree. The only thing that hides its plenary elementary error is a failure to glance in the right direction. This work merely points to what can be seen in broad daylight along the main street of life; it addresses the reasons we do not look and insists that we do for all that is at stake.

We do not look past the pastor’s expertise. To do so would question the competence that we trust so dearly and relieves us of our responsibility to think for ourselves. As coined by author John Immel, “Thinking is hard.” Sure, glaring problems are so evident that we stumble on them from time to time, but since the pastor is not concerned with it—it must not be significant. We do not look past the authority of church because this authority, as we have come to believe, is an authority over our eternal wellbeing. We do not see past church because it is the only way to heaven regardless of any and every fault. Supposedly. Neither will we look past our inability because though there seem to be severe problems with church, it must be our over-concern based on failure to understand. These reasons for not looking are a fallacy.

The time has come to throw the baby out with the bathwater because the problem with the water is the baby. Both need to go. The paramount excuse for not looking can be likened to a tree. All the branches are different, and none of the fruit thereof shares exact shape and size, but overall, they are the product of a basic root system. Church is the same tree, but the diversity of its branches and fruits supply the chief excuse for its evil; “Our church doesn’t believe that.” “That’s what the Baptists believe, we are Presbyterian.” “Gee, that sounds like a cult, and of course, our church isn’t a cult because it’s a church.” “Oh my, that sounds like a ‘high controlling church,’ not us.” Really? No, the church tree has a basic root system that results in the same evil. ALL churches share the same basic ideology that results in its evil fruit. Christ addressed this same issue often by stating that a tree is known by its fruit. Regardless of the fruit, the masses still embrace churchism. How can this be?

Did you happen to know that Western culture is immune from mass deception? It is a sarcastic question but seems to be our arrogant mindset regardless of black and white history. We need to look no further than Germany and its Nazi fiasco. Germany has always been the epicenter of Western intellect, but in no wise lacking in a history given to absurd mysticism and superstition. Concerning shocking words and actions coming from the church fathers, we hear, “They were men of their time.” These excuses, and this one, in particular, remind us of the genius we expect from Deity; the growth history of a tree at any specific point doesn’t redefine what evil is nor excuse it. If the fruit is rotten, the tree was bad from the beginning and will be to the end.

Church is a lie, and all elements of its matter are a lie, but can we pinpoint the dominant lie among its lies? Probably. We could say that the supreme lie is the proposition that church is the product of literal Bible interpretation. Most Christians believe this, and it is not true in the least. We often hear that “The Bible is our authority for truth.” This is but one star of propaganda in the church universe and will be addressed thoroughly in this work.

By the way, is the Bible an “authority” to begin with?

Suppose that we would consider the second place lie, what would that be? It would be the idea that church is the subject of the New Testament and what we see in the book of Acts. Every Christian believes this, but it is not true. And likewise, regarding the rest of the indictment, the evidence for this article of the charge is not hard to find.

This causes us to return to the subject of why we do not look past the expertise of the pastor and add more guilt; we heavily invest in the lie to the point that we cannot bear the thought of leaving it. To do so leads to painful admissions. No one wants to believe they have been misled for so many years; no one wants to think they invested in a lie and wasted their time on a lie. But the bad news gets worse as will be revealed in this work; the lies are not strong deceptions. As aforementioned, the lies are elementary; they bear no elevated level of genius.

Yet, there is a human reality that does offer some excuse for being misled. Something can sound good in the beginning while establishing a mental prism that we begin to see all reality through. We can read our Bible through such a lens and think it agrees with the church while that isn’t what the Bible is saying at all. Most Christians confess that the Bible is hard for them to understand or they do not understand it at all. This is because church presuppositions contradict what the Bible is saying overall. Most Christians carry their Bible as a token statement while relying entirely on the pastor for truth. EVERYTHING that happens is the result of logic. Catholics do not bring a Bible to church at all while Protestants bring their Bibles and focus entirely on the pastor’s words while the Bible remains closed on their lap. Regarding Protestants, this is a contemporary trend, and we will examine the evolution of it.

Church is among the great deceptions of world history while having one of the more anemic propaganda machines. The secular world rightly assesses those of the church stripe as egregiously illogical. While citing Noah’s deluge as a warning against the everybody is doing it mindset, this is the very excuse used for the horrifying history of the church regarding its tyrants being “men of their time.” Yes, the church fathers were either blood thirsty tyrants or shameless lackeys, but during those days everyone lacked civility. If a tree is known by its fruit, church is rightfully condemned by its history alone. Therefore, this work will often state the obvious in compelling people to merely look to the left and right to see what is there.

Furthermore, church orthodoxy, when seen for what it is, befuddles one that it is even taken seriously as truth much less endowed with gargantuan infrastructure and holy folklore. Indeed, church orthodoxy is built upon utter nonsense that contradicts the plain sense of Scripture and God-given common sense.

Nevertheless, while its orthodoxy is ridiculous, the havoc it wreaks upon humanity must be addressed. This is the fruit that coincides with its history. Church orthodoxy makes up the ideology that results in the fruit while its “good works” are ways of “helping” its victims. As we will see, the church is all but an exact reflection of the religious institution that Christ fustigated during His ministry on earth. It likewise travels land and sea to make people twice the child of hell that it already is.

With all of this said, the real New Testament body of Christ will be articulated from the plain sense of Scripture along with its intended mode of operation. The church is NOT the body of Christ; the genuine article will be observed.

Moreover, the bankruptcy of the church is no excuse to coast with our lives in neutral until Christ returns. We must know the real New Testament body is meant to do things on earth beyond what we could ever imagine.

This work is for those who have always known something is wrong with church and want to do something about it. This work is for those who wish to redeem the time because the days are evil.

Because only truth sanctifies (John 17:17).
Paul M. Dohse