Paul's Passing Thoughts

We have all heard of Antifa. A short description of them follows: “The Antifa movement is a conglomeration of autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist militant groups in the United States. The principal feature of Antifa groups is their use of direct action, harassing those whom they identify as fascists, racists or right wing extremists, both online and in real life. They engage in violent protest tactics, which has included property damage and physical violence. They tend to be anti-capitalist and they are predominantly far-left and militant left, which includes anarchists, communists and socialists. Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than politically.”

That’s pretty bad and I don’t agree with Antifa groups at all. They think they have a right to hijack my freedom of movement and expected experiences prepaid for in certain venues. They are annoying, but at least honest about what they believe. Many of them wear masks at protests because their stated MO is direct action through civil unrest and violence.

Of late, more annoying is the church which now thinks they have the right to invade your prepaid expectations of certain venues, and think it’s pretty hip. If I want to hear so-called “praise and worship” music, which I don’t, I will go to church, which I never will. Nevertheless, because the stated goal of church orthodoxy is cultural takeover, they have adopted another tactic from the world: flash mobs.

So, let’s say I make a decision to use MY time and money to dine in at Chick-Fil-A, with an expected experience in mind, unless Antifa blocks the highway I use, and suddenly this happens:

It happened at the Rivergate Chick-fil-A in Nashville, Tennessee last Saturday around lunchtime.

More than 60 male a cappella worship leaders from seven nations had gathered for a week-long conference, Worship Leader Institute, hosted by Acappella Ministries and its founder Keith Lancaster. The students attending the conference lead their churches in a cappella worship services without instrumental accompaniment.

The Worship Leader Institute conference was held at the Madison Church of Christ in Nashville. Several years ago, a tradition began for conference attendees to eat lunch together at a nearby Chick-fil-A either during the conference or before going home. That’s when they started group flash mobs.

The first flash mob took place in 2016 after someone in the group had an idea to sing a song together before heading home, and the Chick-fil-A store manager has been supportive of the flash mobs ever since.

This year, the group sang Hezekiah Walker’s “Every Praise” in SATB 4-part harmony.

Chris Armstead, of Atlanta, was among the a cappella worship leaders and told FOX 5’s Katie Burk everyone sat around at tables and booths in the restaurant after placing their orders. Then, the singing began.

“The first group, including the leader, began the flash mob by standing up to start the song at their table, and then the other groups stood in succession at their tables/booths to join into the song at predefined times until all 60+ guys were singing the song,” Armstead said.

Armstead shared a video of the performance on Facebook last weekend, and it quickly went viral with more than 8-million views and nearly 100,000 shares.

Armstead, a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta employee, said some of the Chick-fil-A staff joined in to sing as the excitement began to build at the restaurant.
“Other customers joined in to sing as well,” Armstead said.

According to Armstead, the a cappella arrangement of the song was created by Mike Rogers, Ph.D., Assistants Professor of Music Theory at Abilene Christian University.
Armstead also works as a part-time Worship Minister at East Cobb Church of Christ in Marietta.

“Maybe we’ll try to do some flash mobs at local Chick-fil-A locations here in Atlanta, Lol!”

But hey, as the “excitement began to build” some of the staff and customers joined in. And by process of elimination, tough crap for the paying customers who were not up with it. So, let’s take a tally here: I don’t care to listen to praise and worship music, and for that reason and many others, I don’t go to church, and lastly, I have never been to Chic-Fil-A and never will because I might get ambushed by church which is far more annoying and detrimental to life than getting ambushed by Antifa. Why so? I’m glad you asked.

With Antifa, everything is pretty straight forward: they disagree with you so they are going to hurt you unless you protect yourself. Church used to be like that as well except church views were enforced by the government so you really couldn’t protect yourself. But after the American Revolution and the subsequent separation of church and state, the church has to resort to mind control and manipulation. We call that, “cultism.”

First, note the arrogance of seizing upon the freedom of those who might disagree. That is time belonging to others that paid money for the expectation of a particular experience.

Secondly, it propagates a false persona: “Look at us. See how happy we are? We are people who live a lifestyle of “celebration.”  Fact is, statistics show clearly that churchgoers don’t have it together any more than the world if not much less in many cases. Since its conception in the 4th century, church history has never shown church culture to have the market cornered on happiness. Disgustingly, this is sold as an initial sales hook while knowing what the church really believes about church experience.

Thirdly, the lyrics of these praise songs advocate the church’s false gospel of progressive justification and zero-sum-life philosophy. One of the most popular “flash mob” songs is “Every Praise.” The gist of the song states that absolutely nothing of reality except Jesus is worthy of praise. Of course, the apostle Paul heaped praise on many people other than God. But in the case of this typical promotion of total inability ALL and “EVERY” praise goes to Jesus because everything else in reality is totally depraved.

Fourthly, stunts like this portray the church’s departure from intellectual persuasion and more towards an experience orientation because they have no logical argument and never had one to begin with.

Fifthly, it is a rejoicing in evil so that grace may abound. Yes indeed, churchgoers “celebrate” the idea that no man, woman, or child is praiseworthy which points to the supremacy of God alone. More on that here.

Thanks for asking; my opinions are only given by request.

paul