Paul's Passing Thoughts

I understand that until recently, church has been a safe place, or so we thought. Church was a place where you always felt welcomed and loved. However, apparently, the whole child sexual abuse thing was going on behind the scenes for a long time, even in Southern Baptist circles.

Aside from that, Church was a place where you were free to come and go, and if you hadn’t been there for awhile the folks missed you. There was some notion of a biblical new birth and church was primarily for encouraging each other to be better Christians while enjoying close friendships.

Any notion that church membership is efficacious for salvation, that the church was out to control you, and is a political party vying for societal influence, where not thought valid by any stretch of the imagination.  Asking you to sign a church covenant, and the idea of church discipline for non-attendance would have been met with dismay.

Of course, those former 20th century church ideals are a post-Revolution-America thing. Until Americanism came about, church was always married to the state and compelled people to obey its orthodoxy by force. Shortly after the Reformation, many Protestant movements had their own standing armies. Politics and church were hand-in-glove. The church was not only seen as God’s appointed authority over salvation on earth, but God’s standing army to take over the world to pave the way for Christ’s return. Church was represented almost entirely by Dominion Theology.

Presently, we are seeing a massive return to medieval church theology and the application of it. If you walk into any church, you better be all-in because church now plays for keeps. It is no longer, “Hey look! A visitor!,” but rather a sizing up and an evaluation protocol. Welcoming committees are no longer welcoming committees, they are trained individuals who evaluate visitors and report to the elders. Of course, terminology that describes their “ministry” is couched in soft terms. In these evaluations, those who can think for themselves are immediately deemed a threat to the “church family.”

Church campuses are the big thing now. These are groups of churches that are really one church and occupy a large geographical space. Unofficially, these campuses often have their own in-house police departments run by real police officers or retired police officers. At John MacArthur’s church in California, they are known as the “Temple Guard” and have been known to escort people to their cars for asking too many questions in Sunday School. They are also heavily armed.

Look, I know as Christians we care about the truth, but church is no longer a place where you stand for the truth or fight for it; they will totally destroy you. Church is now the wrong venue to stand for truth. Church has become just another political party and all of the political intrigue that goes along with it. Let the dead bury their own dead.

Based on this ministry’s firsthand experience in helping people, Susan and I can tell you how churches are now functioning as church-states in an open society. First of all, politicians and people running for office are members of these churches and actively work towards passing laws that further enable churches to function as shadow church-states. When you hear Churchians say, “God’s law is higher than man’s law,” you should be very afraid. By no means at all should churches in our day be tax exempt. Clearly, churches are now split along party lines and promote party and social platforms. Laws will subtly empower churches to get back in bed with the state. And by the way, the church could easily open a box of instant church-state by reuniting the Catholic and Protestant churches. That’s what the ecumenical movement is all about to begin with.

Also remember that IRS agents, police detectives, police chiefs, prosecutors, psychiatrists and children’s services people go to these churches. Would these people be used to bring bogus charges against people who are causing a church problems?

It’s already happening. It is totally already happening.

Stay away from church unless you are ready to run with the big dogs of political intrigue. Church is not what it used to be…at all.

paul