Paul's Passing Thoughts

As a lifelong Republican and a Berry Goldwater conservative when I was nine years old, I have always been politically frustrated. I grew up watching the Vietnam fiasco unfold on the evening news and knew it was a humanitarian travesty that utterly rejected life value. No American politician has sought forgiveness for throwing away 50,000 American lives for a war with no clear objective except lame attempts to reason with Communists. Even at my young age, I knew Communism couldn’t be reasoned with.

I watched Jimmy Carter get elected. I couldn’t believe it. I remember a week before an election a good friend sensing my angst put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Paul, Paul, Paul, relax, the American people may be a little stupid, but they aren’t stupid enough to elect Bill Clinton.” I didn’t believe him one bit; I knew better. Then came Barak Obama; twice. I am still amazed at how the framers of the American Constitution had it all figured out; despite Obama’s overt attempt to destroy our Republic, we were spared due to the system the framers put in place.

Now we have Donald Trump, and an election coming in about ten months, but this time, my gut tells me this will be different. Would the American people, regardless of the economic statistics etc., elect an Elizabeth Warren over Donald Trump? In the past, before Trump, I wouldn’t hesitate to say, “Absolutely, yes.” Not this time, again, my gut tells me this will be different, but why?

Looking back, if you think about it, at least in my lifetime, no Democrat has beat a Republican in a landslide. Whenever a Democrat wins, it is either by a slim or moderate victory. This, along with what Trump has exposed, has me pondering.

Trump, regardless of whether or not you would like to have a beer with him, knew something a lot of Americans knew deep down but didn’t want to admit: nether party has been representing the American people for a long time. As an international business person, he knew politicians, for the most part, are elitists who believe they are entitled to unlimited wealth coming from the labor of the little people. When he saw crony capitalism on the precipice of destroying America he intervened.

Different healthcare systems for politicians and the little people; a two-tier justice system; and guns for protecting politicians, but not for the little people. The list goes on and on. And both parties are guilty and have been guilty for a long time; the Republicans are only a little less guilty where complicit.

Two things, primarily, have made the Trump phenomenon possible: the information age and Trump’s genius. The information age has made it possible for Trump to take his message directly to the American people. Elitism’s control of information has been totally decimated.  Trump is also smart enough to play politics by a totally different set of rules.

In considering all of this, I am not so sure Americans are totally stupid, but rather stayed home at election time because they sensed no real difference between Republicans and Democrats. In other words, they lost hope in the American political system. Trump, though genius, has a funny way of stating things: he said the political system is rigged; that means Republicans and Democrats have had the same basic status qua agenda for a long time, but the people understood what he was saying. At his inaugural speech, with the brunt of all American political representation sitting behind him, Trump accused all of forgetting the American people in exchange for their own interests and promised to be different. And he kept those promises.

American politicians don’t keep promises. That’s why, until now, election turnout was people wanting free stuff being led by idealists who have never worked for anything in their lives on one side, and eternal optimists on the other, and inactive political pessimism in-between.

Trump is the political savior that no one thought would ever come. The politically disenfranchised initially popped corn and watched the Republican debates purely for entertainment. At least we could watch the politicians get a few pies in their faces for all the misery they have caused us. At least we had someone we could vote for to flip the other politicians the bird. Trump was catharsis—little more. No one really thought a political messiah would come.

Then, as we all know, strange things started happening and hope temtped us. Taking back the Republican party rather then running as a third party candidate was part of Trump’s strategy. Everything was against him, yet, he has prevailed. Indeed, he is a strange character, but it is a ridiculous notion to think any normal person could pull this off.

So, are Americans basically stupid, or basically smart enough to know when voting is a waste of time? In the process of catharsis, was political hope accidently discovered? Are we dumbfounded to discover the process actually still works if we have someone crazy enough to make it work?

This time around, my gut tells me it’s the latter. Trump has exposed the whole rotten  bastardizing of the intended system. I believe a vast number of people who previously lost hope and interest in the system are energized. Hope in the American political system has returned.

They were never stupid, but rather smart enough to know that voting was a waste of time. I think that is what Trump has taught me; at least I hope so.

paul

We are warned about it constantly by church leaders: having a “righteousness of our own.” If you do, apparently, as John Piper often barks, “your soul is in peril.” Oh my, we don’t want that.

Of course, many assume that the following idea is being confronted by Piper et al: righteousness originated within us. That’s not what is being confronted at all; what is being confronted is the idea that a like righteousness of God is infused into our being through the new birth. That’s supposedly a “righteousness of our own,” so the concept of a free gift that we take ownership of and something that originates within us is conflated to make the former synonymous with the latter. It also rejects the idea that a newborn possesses the same nature and characteristics of one’s biological father.

The central soteriological doctrine of Protestant orthodoxy is Double Imputation. What’s that? Answer: Christ not only came to die as a substitute for the penalty of sin, but he also came to live a perfect life of law-keeping so that can be imputed to our lives as well. Protestantism insists that all righteousness must remain outside of the believer. Any righteousness attributed to us must be a substitution by Christ. Hence, our justification is a “legal declaration,” not our actual state of being via the new birth.

Well, that raises some questions doesn’t it? How then does the Christian life work? How does one live by faith alone in the works of Christ and not anything we do?  However, note that the very idea conflates justification and sanctification and makes sanctification the progression of justification (salvation). The answer is what Protestant scholars call “objective justification experienced subjectively.”

There is actually something Christians can DO which is considered living by faith alone and not good works that we do (faith alone works). Yes, if one works hard at the “ordinary means of grace,” viz, tithing, submitting to the elders, the Lord’s Table, preaching the gospel to ourselves every day, sitting under “gospel preaching,” attending church “whenever the doors are open,” etc., etc., etc., the perfect law-keeping of Christ will be imputed to your life.

According to Martin Luther who articulates this doctrine in his Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, we must assume that all works we do are evil (even those that appear good), but in our Christian experience of subjectivity, some of the works we experience are actually the actions of Christ imputed to our lives but we have no way of knowing which are from us or manifested by Christ. Before you think this is kinda weird (“golly gee, I have been a Christian for years and never heard that before”) I must ask you: how many times have you heard another Christian say, “I didn’t do it—it was Christ (or the Spirit).” Right, because if you actually did it—it is a “righteousness of your own.” Luther stated that our lives are therefore subjective; we don’t have any way of knowing which works we are actually performing or those done by Christ that we are only experiencing as if we are doing them. We must only assume that every work we do is evil lest we believe in a “righteousness of our own.”

But wait a minute: wouldn’t Jesus’ suffering also be a substitution? Would we then not be leary of a “suffering of our own”? Wouldn’t suffering for Jesus be a rightous act of our own and therefore a rightousness of our own? After all, doesn’t the Bible say that we are “healed by his stripes”?

I find it odd that mainline evangelicals whine and moan about the so-called “prosperity gospel.” If everything about the gospel is a substitution, and Christ’s suffering is part of the gospel, why would that not include suffering? In fact, would’nt a focus on health and wealth demonstrate our unworthiness to suffer as Jesus did?

And yet still, even if we concede that we should suffer as Christians, would we not have to proclaim that we are only experienceing the suffering and it’s not really us suffering? “I’m not suffering; it’s Jesus” lest we have a “rightousness of our own”?

If suffering for Jesus is a good work that shows us to be worthy, according to Protestant orthodoxy, we must deny that we are doing that work. At the very least, we must confess that we are only experincing the suffering subjectively.

Hence, the propserity gospel is wholly consistent with orthodoxy.

paul

LIVE LINK: Sunday 12/15/2019 @ 11:30 am 

LIVE LINK: Sunday 12/8/2019 @ 11am

This post concerns the latest trending drama in the Southern Baptist Convention. A Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor was fired for his position on LGBTQ. By the way, the cultural debate/discussion is underway that argues for the “P” to be added to that as well. That would be pedophilia, and I assume zoophilia (Z, [bestiality] since there is already a “B” in there) will also be forthcoming in the near future. Hey, a sexual preference is a sexual preference; who’s to judge, right?

The SWBTS official statement says that Dr. Lopez was laid off because of curriculum changes but no one is buying it. Apparently, Albert Moher, President of Southern Seminary, the flagship seminary of the SBC, has been trying to sensor Lopez on issues of LGBTQPZ for some time. 

So, when are those trying to save the SBC going to talk about the elephant in the room? And what is the elephant in the room? Answer: a concise biblical definition of the new birth. Lopez got fired because he is a confused Protestant, which is a good thing; church was a good place to be when Baptists were confused.

Albert Mohler et al are part of a movement that returned the SBC to authentic Protestant orthodoxy. Founders Ministry is an organization that was founded by Earnest Reisinger for the sole purpose of doing such. Reisinger was a Presbyterian who became an ordained Southern Baptist minister for the express purpose of infiltrating the SBC with “The Centrality of the Objective Gospel Outside of Us.” Thomas Ascol is a disciple of Reisinger who died in 2004.

I get it; those who want to save the SBC don’t want to admit that while debating Calvinistic predeterminism for all of these years, they didn’t really understand what Calvin and Luther believed about the very gospel itself and the new birth in particular. Nevertheless, EVERY woe taking place in the SBC right now boils down to what one group believes the new birth is, and the assumption of the other half that everyone believes the same thing about it despite overt public statements by Mohler’s clan.

The good guys are not paying attention. Words mean things. When John Piper states openly that Christians still need to be saved; you really ought to stop for awhile and think about what that means exactly.

Full stop: Lopez got fired because he believes in a biblical new birth as applied to the LGBTQPZ issue. Mohler et al do not believe in a biblical new birth; they believe in the Luther/ Calvin new birth. What is that?

It denies that the new birth is a transformation of a person’s actual state of being. Instead of the new creature being righteous as a state of being, or being holy as God our Father is holy, we are only “declared righteous.” Hello, please pay attention; they say it all of the time. Also, according to Luther and Calvin, the new birth does not change the believer’s relationship to the law. In other words, the “believer” remains “under the righteous demands of the law.” Hello, the Bible calls that being “under law” and that is the biblical definition of a lost person. Now you know why John Piper states that Christians still need salvation; please start paying attention. Also be advised: being under grace does not abrogate the law, but being under grace does remove the condemnation of the law and makes it our counsel for loving God and others with all of our heart, mind, and soul.

In the gospel of Luther and Calvin; in fact, its cardinal point, is that “believers” remain under the condemnation of the law and this is the very crux of double imputation soteriology. Since the “believer” remains totally depraved, Christ’s fulfillment of the law must also be imputed to our lives. The legendary RC Sproul even stated that Christ obtained His righteousness through perfect law-keeping and clarified the statement by saying Christ would not have been righteous without it. Regardless of the fact that such a statement is outright blasphemy, no one even blinked.

Please start paying attention.

So, what is the Luther/Calvin definition of the new birth? It’s merely a perception, or ability to see righteousness, but not perform it. ALL of our (who is the “our”?) works are like filthy rags, right? Hence, we must merely preach the gospel, but we cannot perform the gospel. “Sanctification is done TO us, not BY us as the progression of justification [salvation].” “Sanctification is justification in motion” because there is no real transformation in the person other than their ability to see “our sin as set against God’s holiness.” Faith is merely a perception, not an actual change in state of being.

Therefore, as they say, “our gospel is confessional” Get it? We cannot actually practice what we preach, we can only confess it. “It is our mission to preach the gospel, not be the gospel.” Get it? In the SWBTS statement denying accusations concerning Lopez, they affirm their stance that homosexuality is sin and not biblical, while also adding that they are “confessional.” They probably think it’s cute that they can say what they mean without most SBC parishioners knowing what they are really saying by saying that. In essence, they are saying:

“We deny that we don’t think homosexuality is sin; of course it is sin! But on the other hand, if you have that orientation, you are enslaved to it, and the church is a hospital for the sick. If you deny slavery to sin, you are saying you have no need for a doctor! The gospel is for those who need a doctor, not those who have no need for a doctor (Luther).”

And after all, “We are all just sinners saved by grace,” right? If a lie is sin, and you are afforded the full rights of church, why wouldn’t LGBTQPZ be afforded the full rights of church as well? If you break the law at any point as James 2:10 says, you are guilty of breaking all of it, no?

Yes, if the biblical new birth doesn’t change your relationship to the law and completely transform your state of being from sinner to saint. You, in contrast to what Luther stated, are not both saint and sinner simultaneously, you are one or the other: you are either under law or under grace; under grace is NOT a covering for remaining under law. Sinning as a true born again believer is NOT the same as sinning as an unbeliever. One is a failure to love and is a family issue between you and your Father while the other is sin that remains under the condemnation of the law. Fact: Calvin and Luther’s soteriology maintains that ALL people lost or saved remain under the condemnation of the law.

I am still the only one to date able to keep Dr. James White from running his pie hole a split second after someone says something. During a conversation about justification on a UK radio program,  White was doing the usual Protestant word shell game with everything I was saying until I asked this question: “Is justification an actual change of being from unrighteousness to righteousness and not merely a declaration? In other words, are we merely declared righteous, or are we righteous as a state of being?” Ironically, they even state that justification is a “legal declaration.” How is that a righteousness manifested apart from the law?

The real problem is not Lopez’s position on LGBTQPZ per se, but what his position states about the new birth.

Dr. Lopez’s testimony of deliverance from homosexuality and full restoration to heterosexual norms is counter to Albert Mohler’s ownership of the myth of “unchanging homosexual orientation ” which he embraced in 2014 at the ERLC conference on “The Gospel. Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage”.

Right, because Lopez believes that believers are no longer enslaved to sin, but rather enslaved to righteousness. Being under the “law of Christ” is a totally different reality than remaining under the “law of sin and death.” The law of the Spirit of life has set us free from that law (both are “nomos” in Roman’s 8:2).

Look, let me help here. For you good men of God being driven crazy by this stuff, I have a story you can use to save face. It might go something like this:

“Now fellow Baptists, there is a reason we are all not attending the Lutheran church down the street, right? [Those who have not yet broken their necks from nodding yes so much will do so]. And as you know, I have always had a problem with Calvin, and even though I have always known he had the new birth wrong [it’s alright to lie because you are no longer under law], it is high time we start talking about that.”

You then begin to broadcast the fact that the problem with church is Calvin’s false gospel, not the election debate. NOTHING well change until the elephant in the room is discussed. Personally, I believe the problem with church is church, but if you are going to save church, you might want to start with its false gospel.

paul