Paul's Passing Thoughts

“Protestantism needs more honesty and truth in advertising; so, my congratulations to Tullian Tchividjian for his new ministry.”

Let’s begin this short post by addressing Protestant dishonesty. The pretense of church being society’s moral compass is false advertising and the church knows it. Most people seek God because they want to be better people; they want a different and better life. People also assume church is the place to go for that. The church knows this, and deliberately plays on that assumption to get people into the church where the goal is to slowly indoctrinate them into a “confessional” application of “Christianity.” In other words, where the “gospel is done TO you, not BY you.” Where it’s about “what Jesus HAS done, NOT what we do.”  Where practice what you preach is proclaimed to be a false gospel of justification by works.

So, inside the church, it’s, “We are all just sinners saved by grace.” Outside of the church, it is, “why should the church have lower standards than secular society when it comes to these issues?”

Well, because secular society has higher standards than the church by virtue of its ideology concerning law. According to the Protestant church and its orthodoxy, Jesus not only supplied a substitution for the penalty of sin, but he also supplies a substitution for our works because “all of our works are as filthy rags.” This is the foundational doctrine of Double Imputation. It can be expected that the secular realm has higher standards for the following reason: secularism assumes that people can really do good works. Protestant orthodoxy denies that altogether. Come on now, that’s Martin Luther in black and white documentation…period…end of discussion.

Secondly, secularism can be expected to be more moral than the church because it is only under one law, not two. The Bible is clear; when you are under law, sin can use the condemnation of the law to create sinful desires. Then, the practice of those desires leads to an increase in the intensity of the desires to the point where one cannot say “no” to them. The new birth ends the law’s condemnation which strips it of its power to enslave. The new birth transforms one into a different relationship to the law (the Bible) and the “works of God’s law” written on the hearts of every person born into the world. The changed heart through the new birth has a fundamental love for God’s word and a desire to obey it for purposes of love (which fulfills the whole law) but without the condemnation. The true born again believer doesn’t love perfectly because we are still weak in our mortality, but we have no need for relief from the law’s condemnation through the church nor the seeking of more salvation through church permission for “being allowed to take communion.”

Now we come to the catalyst for this article which is the latest trending church drama, because, when you are under law, you will always be under drama as well. Tullian Tchividjian has founded his own church after getting kicked out of the PCA for having affairs with congregants. As I have stated before, and will state again, the church’s longstanding angst regarding TT is his astute understanding of Protestant soteriology and his honesty about it. In other words, he is totally honest about the Protestant gospel minus the pretense plus bait and switch advertising. In more words, he doesn’t deliberately play on people’s assumptions to get them into the church with intentions of slowly indoctrinating them.

Note: whether TT, or Jean Larroux III, they can preach incessantly about “cheap grace,” just so they don’t get caught being “sinners saved by grace.” Preaching that the church is a “train wreck” is perfectly good orthodoxy, just don’t get caught at the crash scene. It is common knowledge that many church leaders lead decadent lifestyles, and that is ok, but getting caught messes up the bait and switch advertising. And by the way, it is usually those from the secular realm that shine the light on church darkness and excel at getting justice for the victims. The church has shown itself utterly unable to keep its own house in order. Organizations such as G.R.AC.E headed by TT’s brother, Boz Tchividjian, are organizations paid by the church to keep churches out of court while protecting the pretense that church is society’s moral compass for the express purpose of drawing people into the church under false pretense.

TT, to his credit, has never played that game nor has he showed any interest in doing so. TT is unique and a good start towards finding something commendable in Protestantism; namely, Protestants that know what a Protestant is.

Protestantism needs more honesty and truth in advertising; so, my congratulations to Tullian Tchividjian for his new ministry.

paul