Paul's Passing Thoughts

“Here is another bottom line: claiming that New Calvinism is an aberration of authentic Protestant orthodoxy is a choosing of tradition over Christ. Protest if you will; you are guilty as hell.” 

I am not one for pulling down anything I have posted, I think I have done it once or twice since the beginning of PPT, but I cringe every time I see a hit on this post. One of these days I will rewrite The Truth About New Calvinism but the book still documents the real historical account of New Calvinism, an account few people want to acknowledge. TANC was the very first book written on New Calvinism based on four years of research.

Here is where I thank God for New Calvinism. I was born again with much power through the Spirit (circa 1983) before I was a member of any church or denomination. An insufferable zealot, I went on a journey to choose the right church. In the meantime, I saturated my brain with Scripture. I decided to hookup with the Southern Baptists, and was enrolled in a conservative seminary less than a year later.

Frankly, six months into church membership, deep down, I knew something was fundamentally wrong with church. But hey, this is Western culture; if you want a relationship with God, what else is there but church? Right? Without going into details, what I was seeing in personal Bible study wasn’t matching up with church at all. Finally, I cried out to God to show me the truth. In His own time, and way, He most certainly answered that prayer.

But the time came when I decided that God was not going to answer that prayer. So, circa 2006, I folded up my “devout Christian” tent, and settled into a general commitment to God and church while acknowledging I was comfortable with the contradictions. After all, God’s wisdom is beyond knowing, right? Hey, God works in mysterious ways, right?

So, there I was. I attended church, worked for the grounds ministry, said amen to everything, and was waiting on God to come back and sort everything out. Everything was good. Yes, no doubt, it was some passive aggressive attitude towards God: “Hey, you aren’t going to show me what’s going on; so, I am going to coast until you get back. Sure, you are God, and I know better than to turn my back on you, but since you like being all mysterious, go be mysterious, I am no longer going to kill myself figuring out all of this mess.”  Right, that’s a pretty pathetic attitude, no doubt. Perhaps the most pathetic there is.

Then, New Calvinism showed up and began one of its first covert takeovers of a church. Funny things started happening that pushed back against the cognitive dissonance that I worked 23 years to obtain. I was not happy, but I should have been. God was moving to answer my prayers in the midst of my cynical worldview.  And this was not just any church being taken over by the new Calvinists, it was a particular group of men involved with those that were key to unlocking the true history of New Calvinism.

Now, please understand, my beef with these guys at the time follows: they were messing up my own personal game plan for dealing with church until the Lord returned or I died. I worked 23 years to get there, and I had found contentment. I was no longer unhappy or angry; I replaced all of that with cynicism. I wanted answers. And as you know, the New Calvinists don’t like questions. Basically, they set out to destroy my life. The evil of it all dumbfounded me. What’s going on here?

So, I set out on a journey to defend my cognitive dissonance. Yes indeed, those pesky New Calvinists had hijacked true Calvinism and I would expose them in TANC. I then found a church where I could return to the cognitive dissonance that I knew before. I had done my duty to God, I would turn over my research to someone else who wanted to continue the fight and I would go back to comfortable Churchianity.

That person I found who was interested in my research was a guy named John Immel. I met him for dinner to hand over my stack of stuff. I liked him immediately; he was even more cynical than I was. As I was sharing elements of the research, he interrupted me. “Paul, you are saying that this is what New Calvinists teach?” When I replied in the affirmative, he replied, “That’s exactly what Luther and Calvin taught. Paul, you need to read the Calvin Institutes.” So I did. Bottom line: God showed me what I prayed for; the problem with church is church and its false gospel. What I could never put my finger on was so very simple: a false gospel.

C’mon gang, just admit that none of us really knew what Protestantism was about and it took a Seventh-Day Adventist to show us. Until you admit that, you are choosing Protestant tradition over Christ.

“But Paul, if I go down this road it will cost me everything!” Hmmmmm, so when was the last time you preached a sermon on Hebrews 11 you stinking hypocrite? Here is another bottom line: claiming that New Calvinism is an aberration of authentic Protestant orthodoxy is a choosing of tradition over Christ. Protest if you will; you are guilty as hell.

With that said, I do think there is a way forward that doesn’t completely burn down the reputation of the pastorate and church. That’s right, you may not even have to get a real job and will still be able to face Christ when the time comes.  That’s part two. It’s a win/win proposition.

I’m only trying to help,

paul