Paul's Passing Thoughts

New Calvinism isn’t anything new. It is a return to authentic Protestant orthodoxy. But it can be new. This is because one of the original tenets of Protestantism is Semper Reformanda, viz, “always reforming.” Got it? Remember the movie, Love Story? “Love means never having to say you are sorry.” In Protestant Story, “Orthodoxy means you never have to be right because truth is a process.” This is no different from the Jehovah Witnesses doctrine of  Increasing Light. “Oh ya, uh, sorry about all the children that died because we were against blood transfusions in the 50s, but ya know, understanding increases and reformation is a process.”

Much can be discussed about the present-day New Calvinism movement, but with all cults, the obvious is often missed because of the many-faceted issues created by cults that keep people busy with confusion. That’s by design. The premiere example is the election debate when Protestant soteriology denies the biblical new birth to begin with.

This post is about the blatant Marxism that the movement has displayed since its conception. Marxism is a form of Collectivism that would reject capitalism, individualism, a middle class, and is a rigid elitist caste system. Marxism is not predicated on a thriving middleclass that diminishes serfdom.  Many in the church are bewildered by the movement’s overt Marxism, but they shouldn’t be. What we miss while chasing all the issues they create is an observation regarding how they function.

Susan and I have attended many of the nonstop conferences hosted by T4G and TGC. When the speakers attend these conferences, they are not only being well paid, but everything from the hotel suites to the meals are first-class. Keep in mind that these conferences are not for the laity and never have been. These are all leadership conferences.

But who pays for them? The cost of these conferences are on the backs of the working uninvited laity. That’s how Marxism works: you work like a dog to pay people to tell you how to live and how to spend the product of your own labor. It’s both sad and stupid.

So, while church leadership is partaking in nothing more than social engineering and indoctrination/marching orders to lower lieutenants, the laity, or the producers, are paying for everything.

That’s just classic functioning Marxism in a nutshell.

paul

Any time one of us here at TANC engages someone in some debate over some tenet of Protestant orthodoxy, something major is always missing in these conversations that we don’t talk about nearly enough. Due to the research myself and others have done for this ministry over the past 10 years, we tend to ply our argument with objective points and expect counter-points in return.

That almost NEVER happens!

I am not even sure how I would frame this issue/observation, but the following may get close: it would seem that our objective arguments are not answered with counter-points, but vague statements of authority. It’s interesting, but we often converse with people who are not anybody important by religious standards, yet they answer us as if their pedigree of authority is to be assumed and we are wrong just because they say so. Responses are really nothing more than the usual talking points that we hear all of the time.  I can only assume that folks think they speak with authority that is not to be refuted because they are repeating what the religious authorities tell them. In other words, no matter what objective argument we pose, it is going to be answered by some talking point that has been certified as “authoritative.”

Also telling in these conversations are answers that are unnecessarily wordy. For example, instead of simply saying “pursue love”, all kinds of stuff about “walking in the Spirit” is added as well as various and sundry Christo-centric verbiage.

Someone may make the observation that, “You have this attitude that someone is wrong because they don’t agree with you.”

Um, Yeah! After all, you can’t have opposing viewpoints and have both be right. And that’s the whole point. If I think you’re wrong, the burden is upon me to provide a rational argument for why my ideas are better. Likewise, the burden is upon you to provide a similar rational argument for why my ideas might be wrong.

But most people don’t argue this way. They don’t know how to provide rational arguments for their ideas. They only know how to rely on appeals to authority. In other words, their ideas are correct only because some authority (whatever that source may be) has deemed it so.

~ Andy