Paul's Passing Thoughts

“We can add another practical question to the conversation: As a visitor to a new church, will you now be scrutinized by volunteer “security” people packing a Glock that they practice with 50 hours a year? When you reach for that tithe in your coat pocket, should you do so very slowly?”

Another church shooting  occurred in Texas yesterday, but with a new twist: armed parishioners took the guy out in about six seconds. If you watch the videos closely, some of the armed parishioners were already preparing to draw before the guy even stood up and started shooting. That’s because the guy was obviously creepy and wearing some sort of baggy trench coat and a weird looking hoody. I don’t go to church, but if I did, I would defiantly carry, and if I was there, would have taken up a position on the guy for readiness purposes. The guy had “active shooter” written all over him.

This is just another problem with institutional purpose builds that are places of “worship.” First of all, if you are a Christian, ALL of life is worship at all times and in all places. A purpose build where you go to “worship” at a particular place and time detracts from that truth. Secondly, if the church is “the people and not the building,” why all of the vast investment in infrastructure?

Because churches are public institutional buildings, anyone can walk in from the street during a “worship service.” They are referred to as “visitors.” Armed volunteer security can prevent a massacre, but a visitor with ill intent is always going to have the element of surprise. Even in this case where the guy was a walking billboard with “trouble” written all over it, two parishioners died.

Christian gatherings, that is, biblically speaking, were never for evangelizing. In fact, purpose builds are closely related to a false gospel that conflates justification and sanctification. Christian gatherings for “prayer, the breaking of bread, and teaching of doctrine,” were/are NOT for evangelizing. Christian gatherings are for sanctification and sanctification only.

Hence, real Christianity functions very much like a literal family and not an institution. Anyone coming to a home fellowship meeting is going to be familiar and known to those gathering together. Each home fellowship should decide for themselves if they want to invite curious seekers.

Institutional Christianity that requires a central meeting place where its authorities operate have myriads of other problems. To name a few more, in countries where Christians are persecuted; for example, in Muslim countries, Christians insist on gathering together in purpose builds at a particular time and place to make their slaughter more convenient. Why would they do that, and spend good money for the privilege? Answer: because church doctrine makes gathering together in a purpose build efficacious to the church’s salvation process. Church soteriology calls for submission to church authority as part of the salvation process, and infrastructure speaks to that authority.

Moreover, the church build model doesn’t work everywhere and in every cultural circumstance. Many cultures do not have an economic system that will support institutional buildings. In many countries, such builds are illegal unless approved by the government on a case by case consideration. In China, only the state church is allowed to have institutional buildings. This was also the case in the Roman Empire during the 1st century. That’s why Christ’s called-out assembly was primarily made up of home fellowships.

Also, last week, you may of heard of the stabbing attack on a gathering of Jews at a Rabbi’s house. The news stories also referred to a “synagogue” that was near by. Though thought of as a purpose build for worship, the Hebrew word is the Greek version of “ekklesia” translated as “church” in the English Bible. The idea of both words is a “congregation” or “assembly,” or more with the Hebrew version, “house of gathering.” In Jewish tradition, synagogues were primarily family homes where Jews gathered and that is also true today as can be noted by the news story. True, the attack illustrates that such violence can also happen at a home fellowship, but for the aforementioned reasons, very, very unlikely, especially if home fellowships take precautions. Private homes do not lend free access to whoever wants to walk in for any given reason; you just don’t walk into someone’s home uninvited.

In addition, if a home fellowship is aiding someone in a domestic violence situation, everyone in the fellowship is going to know and precautions can be taken. In contrast, when churches are involved in such situations the congregation is not aware for the most part. These are volatile situations, especially when the church is counseling a spouse to divorce her violent husband and maybe even paying for the divorce. This is a tragedy waiting to happen and puts the whole congregation at risk unawares.

We can add another practical question to the conversation: As a visitor to a new church, will you now be scrutinized by volunteer “security” people packing a Glock that they practice with 50 hours a year? When you reach for that tithe in your coat pocket, should you do so very slowly?

A book with many chapters could easily be written on the dysfunctionality of the institutional church system that flows from the false gospel of progressive salvation. Hopefully, people will give this issue more thought as this illogical system collides with real-life reality.

paul

“Get it? Church membership is a ‘means of salvation.'”

I received a solicitation for a donation to The Gospel Coalition this morning by email. Why their false gospel is false is explicitly stated in the email:

” In the waning hours of the decade, we at The Gospel Coalition rejoice at how God has used our ministry over the last 10 years—serving more than 130 million people with thousands of free digital resources to help them grasp the gospel and apply it to all of life.
Our mandate for the next decade is clear. As the internet grows darker, and the search bar becomes ever more a spiritual battleground, ministries like ours must be steadfast in our mission to offer gospel-centered hope for the searching.

If you have read our articles, attended our events, or supported TGC in any way over the last decade, thank you. A coalition cannot exist without its stakeholders, and our impact thus far could not have happened without you. As we look to the next decade, we need your support more than ever before. We are seeking to raise $100,000 by year’s end to propel our Hope for the Searching campaign in 2020 and beyond.”

Simply stated, the TGC gospel makes salvation a PROCESS and not a onetime finished work by God alone for eternity. If salvation is a process and you are living in that process, you, in same way, must be a part of that process; that enters human activity into salvation and that’s works salvation in all cases.

The email was sent by false teacher and president of TGC, Don Carson. Like with all TGC double-speaking liars, “salvation” is replaced with the word “gospel” for purposes of nuance and deliberate deception. Hence, here is what is really being said: “…free digital resources to help them grasp the gospel salvation and apply it to all of life.” Note that we must apply salvation to our whole life. Maybe you have heard it stated this way: “We must preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” It is, as Carson also writes, “gospel-centered hope.”

We are not sanctified by salvation—salvation is finished by God in your life apart from anything you do or don’t do with intentionality. This is a fact IF you believe the true gospel of justification by new birth. Salvation (justification) is a completely finished work and totally separate from the Christian life (sanctification). Only sanctification progresses and depends on our activity apart from the finished work of salvation. Any doctrine that conflates the two is overtly false; TGC teaches a blatantly false gospel in broad daylight. One of their favorite truisms is, “Justification and sanctification are distinct, but never separate.” Of course, this is just more deliberate double-speak. In ALL instances where a soteriology does not completely separate justification and sanctification; justification by the law is present. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Furthermore, according to this false gospel, submission to the institutional church is needed to facilitate the salvation process. Church is where you access what they call, “the ordinary means of grace.” That’s really saying, “the ordinary means of salvation.” Get it? Church membership is a “means of salvation.”

Everyone knows what the word “means” means in that context, so the word “salvation” is deliberately replaced with the more ambiguous word, “gospel.” It’s deliberate deception.

paul

Don’t let all of the various and sundry stripes of Protestantism whether Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Charismatic confuse you; it is all a variation of Double Imputation soteriology. I was reminded of that when I stumbled upon the below (bottom of post) tweet by Joel Osteen which I responded to.

The problem here, once again, is Protestantism’s fundamental error concerning the new birth which totally distorts a true Christian understanding of reality and salvation. In Protestantism’s Double Imputation soteriology, everything boils down to a single perspective on how God sees us regardless of what’s really going on. Hence, the Charismatic side of the Double Imputation coin (Osteen et al) posits the following: because of what Jesus has done, God only sees His approval of Jesus when He looks at us. Think, “covering.” This circumvents a fatherly view of his child according to reality and makes everything about the fulfilling of the law by Jesus. As children of God, why make it “our goal to please him” when, supposedly, because of Jesus, He only sees approval to begin with? To make any effort to please Him would be circumventing the work of Jesus, no? This under-law thinking restricts our relationship with the Father to a yes/no question of perfect law-keeping accomplished by Jesus. Therefore, of course, Osteen is going to preach a don’t worry, be happy lifestyle that pleases us as anything we do to please others is circumventing the salvific works of Jesus.

On the other side of the Double Imputation coin, viz, Baptists etc., again, a true fatherly relationship with God is circumvented. According to this version, we are totally depraved spiritual losers but whenever God looks at us, again, He only sees Jesus. According to this construct, likewise, why try to please the Father when there is nothing we can do to please Him anyway? Indeed, “all of our works are as filthy rags.” God is not really our father, he is a god of wrath that would be please to devour us with fire in an instant if not for Jesus the god of grace.

One side states that we should live like God sees us so we will be happier and richer while the other side states that we should mortify self and find joy/gratitude in Christ’s grace. Both really boil down to the same thing from two different angles: our love for the Father through the wisdom of the law will be relaxed because of the same soteriology that supplies a double substitution: Jesus is a covering rather than a true brother to those who have been transformed from death to life as a state of being. It’s a true Fatherly relationship; we are eternally secure and loved by our Father, and because of that reality, just like our fatherly relationships in this life, our Father is not always going to approve of our actions. And, by the way, He may want us to have the approval of others in many circumstances because like true realty a child’s behavior reflects on the parents.

However, Osteen’s approach is a pushback to the other side of the coin which is why he is wildly popular. Everyone following him got sick of hearing what a loser they are Sunday after Sunday.

That’s the difference, but in both cases the true new birth and how it results in a true Fatherly relationship with God is missing.

paul

First, elite Churchians call the church a “train wreck,” so, I am merely agreeing though I disagree with the soteriology that makes such a confession virtuous. Like many, I have thoughts running in the back of my mind that we may call “peripheral thoughts,” that is, thoughts that are in the peripheral but have not been brought into full focus. For some time, former victims of “church hurt” that are now “advocates” for those who suffer various and sundry abuses from the hands of the church has been running in the background of my mind. That is, until my daughter shared a post with me from one of many “advocates” peppered throughout the internet yesterday; now my thoughts about these advocates are running in front of me.

I read the post and commented on the stream, but latter in the day when my daughter visited me and started a discussion on the post, she said something that solidified my former peripheral thoughts into a monument in the middle of the road. More on that later.

John Piper is a primary predator of the church. As Andy Young pointed out in last year’s conference, all of these people are filthy rich. There are vast problems with making salvation an institution. Salvation is a family affair and an spiritual/organic body affair, and an organized body doesn’t function like an institution; one is a cooperative or collective effort of different gifts, and the other runs almost entirely on authority resulting in caste and top-down rule. You know, the “ruling elders.” Such a term is laughable on its face.

The post was a pushback to Piper’s statement that godly women should endure some occasional roughing up from abusive husbands before going to the church for help. My comment on the stream follows:

John Piper’s worldview flows from his false gospel. Evangelicals need to decide what they believe about the new birth once and for all. And by the way, the “church” is not going to help you. ALL, I repeat, ALL instances of rendered justice for ills taking place in church have been by the hands of the secular government. For one thing, if you are a “sinner saved by grace” and your husband is a sinner saved by grace, who are you to judge your husband for beating you? Piper et al are continually ridiculing the idea of “greater and lesser sin” which comes from their new birth rejecting progressive justification. Piper believes Christianity is a PROCESS of salvation. As he has said in no uncertain terms, “Christians still need to be saved.” Come now woman, are you going to drag the unregenerate into this and ruin your husband’s life and throw him off the path of salvation because his sins are supposedly worse than yours and miss the opportunity to “show forth grace”? All of these statements by these loons come from their distorted view of justification and it is totally annoying how people focus on what this jerk says rather than why he says it.

Now we come to my daughter’s follow-up comments later in the day which I am paraphrasing: “That lady who posted it was a former victim of church abuse and is now writing to help other women. She speaks at conferences and churches and has written a couple of books, and never dreamed she would be able to make a living sitting in front  of her laptop with a cup of coffee.”

Bingo.

Hence, in regard to the subject of discernment bloggers, spiritual abuse recovery blogs, etc., I have no more peripheral thoughts but only one focused indictment: most, if not all, are secondary predators making bank on the carnage produced by John Piper et al. They are scavengers working on the leftovers. Note my comment that, “All of these statements by these loons come from their distorted view of justification and it is totally annoying how people focus on what this jerk says rather than why he says it.” It may indeed be annoying, but I must practice what I preach and focus on WHY these “advocates” do that and not WHAT they do.

Because there is good money in it, and true problem solving results in you working your way out of a job. I never cease to be amazed at how much money there is in religion. First, look at the massive infrastructure and lifestyles of celebrity pastors supported by the church serfs. Then, past that, the victim priesthood that makes up spiritual abuse blogs. We can also add church missionaries that are the biggest bunch of do-nothings in the world. And by the way, MOST good causes supported on the backs of the laity like Samaritans Purse and Habitat for Humanity are extremely profitable business enterprises that pay many people six figures.

Abused church women are trapped by church orthodoxy. Being a “keeper at home,” and the “husband’s help-mate,” and wanting to honor God by having a “quiver full,” they have no money of their own, no career, six kids, and their salvation owned and overseen by the church hierarchy. What are they going to do? Well, indeed, some flip out and drown all of their children in the bathtub. That’s one way out, though rare. Some fall into deep depression and check out of reality. That’s more common. After all, good Churchians can’t stay drunk all of the time but they can get happy pills from the doctor with blessing from the church to boot. “Hit me with your best shot baby those morning meds are kicking in bigtime, and hurry up, we don’t want to be late for church.”

What these women really need is a refuge to start a new life. My vision, a massive home fellowship network that could facilitate that, is the real cure. We have a home for you and your children, and everything else you need to start a new life. Pack some bags and if you don’t have a car with a title in your name we will pick you up. And in the meantime, now that you have some control over the situation, your dumbass husband may see the light; his call. To a significant degree, this is exactly what TANC Ministries has done and hopefully can do more in the future.

But the idea that these women can be helped by blogging is not only completely irrational, but detestable.

paul