Billy Graham: The Former Contemporary Pope of Confused Protestantism
Shortly after the American Revolution, the brand of Protestantism that came over the pond was integrated with Enlightenment ideas which are much closer to biblical metaphysics than Platonist ideas that gave birth to Protestantism. The result was a kinder, gentler Protestantism, but still a cultural train wreck.
Remember, Protestantism never sought to replace the Catholic Church, but only to reform it. Luther, nor Calvin, ever left the Catholic Church. Both churches still claim the same doctor of grace, Saint Augustine.
Pre Revolution Protestantism was just another version of the same old song and dance church-state that plagued humanity since the 4th century. Before then, and shorty after man was banned from the garden, it was the pagan-state. While masses applaud the Protestant Reformation, a blind eye is turned to the historical brutality and despotism of the Reformers. A taste of this confusion is seen in the adulation of the Reformers while many of their historical understudies, like the Nazi regime, are disdained.
This is why separation of church and state was, and still is a hallmark of Americanism, but not because the marriage of force and faith always yields tyranny, but because Platonism hijacked religion. Platonism completely rejects the abilty of man in general and the individual in particular. The rest is, as we shall say, history until mankind could no longer bare the misery. Enough was enough, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” The liberty of man is really the crux.
Because Platonism calls for a strict dichotomy between invisible good and material evil, predeterminism is a key factor; abilty to choose goes hand in hand with ability to control individual destiny. Enlightenment ideas more along the lines of Aristotle propagate the general idea that man can know reality and is able to obtain legitimate upward mobility in all areas of life. The founders of Americanism, when it gets right down to it, were primarily concerned with the freedom of man rather than freedom of religion. Freedom of religion was merely an element in their long list of other individual freedoms. You may also note that Enlightenment ideas are still a caste system albeit based on formal education which explains our culture’s infatuation with expertism. Nevertheless, it beats the caste system of old that disdains individualism and sees it as the paramount root of all evil.
So, as American history moved from the Revolution, its defeated European Protestantism became confused as Enlightenment ideas were integrated into it. Ironically, this is exactly what prompted the Reformation to begin with; the Catholic Church was being influenced by Aristotlean ideas through Thomas Aquinas. While a ready excuse was feigned indignation over indulgences, the real issue was the Catholic Church’s move away from Platonism which necessarily requires statism. As a side note, Platonism shows up in the form of Gnosticism during the ministry of Christ, and was the number one enemy of the New Covenant. On its death bed, the former Puritans who oversaw the former colonial Protestant theocracy made a push to remarry with the government, but this attempt was soundly defeated by James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments in 1785. Said Madison,
Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
As the church moved forward in America this integration did not eradicate the fundamental principles of what some of the founding fathers called, “Platonist Christianity.” The integration of Platonism with the Bible necessarily requires a progression of salvation found only in an institution, or the institutional church. This is the same old historical song and dance: the orthodoxy of religious philosophers is enforced by the warrier class, and the greatest threat to civilization is anti-altruism. The sole value of every individual is abilty to contribute to the whole of society as dictated and judged by the state. Now stripped of its abilty to call on the state to enforce its orthodoxy, or its ability to drown, burn, or hang those who questioned their authority with state sanction, the church maintained its progressive justification even though progressive justification goes hand in hand with Platonist statism.
Why is this? Progressive justification only recognizes a system that saves the totally depraved individual progressively as he or she obeys those supposedly given authority by God. It is a salvific caste system. In contrast, a one-time, and for all-time transformation of the individual (once saved, always saved) enables the individual and sets him or her totally free from fear and condemnation. Hence, justification is a one time act that is settled and sanctification is a progression of love exemplified by the efforts of the individual and aided by the Spirit of God. Contrary to this, progressive justification makes sanctification part of the salvation process overseen by the church; it is explicitly Platonist in principle.
What were the results of this? While giving the progressive sanctification of new birth justification intellectual ascent as part of the integration of individualism, the practice always EMPHASIZED the only thing that ever mattered in Protestant orthodoxy: salvation. As far as sanctification, people are little more enabled to affect it anymore than salvation which is zilch. Stated simply, the church acknowledged the new birth intellectually, but has always functioned according to progressive justification overseen by the church. Everything is about salvation, while real change for the better in sanctification is given mere lip service. While the church portends a moral compass for society, its testimony exemplifies libertinism resulting from salvation by church membership.
What did this look like historically? A strong emphasis on salvation, or justification, with a tacit nod towards sanctification…of which Billy Graham was pope between 1947 and 1970. Without belaboring all the details, everything was about getting people saved; evangelism itself was the primary measure of sanctification. Everything was really about the gospel while the banner over the church advertised a balance of 50/50 which was patently bogus. Sure, there were popes of everything salvation before Graham like RA Torrey, DL Moody, and Billy Sunday, But Graham ruled the roost during the aforementioned 23-year period. While some argue that his rein lastly well into 2005, his style of so-called “easy believism” began to decline with the advent of Neo Calvinism (1970-present).
Invariably, of course, an overemphasis on salvation led to weak sanctification which created a widespread discontent in the church. Unable to supply curative answers for the deep problems of life among well meaning church goers, the Neo Calvinist movement presented a “beefy” Christianity with real teeth. “You see,” posed New Calvinism, “the problem with church is,” get ready for this, “too much sanctification.” I’m not kidding. The Neo Calvinism movement pointed to the anemic efforts of sanctification in the church as indicative of the problem because sanctification was believed (by those rascally evangelicals) to be separate from justification. The problem with church, insisted Neo Calvinism, is that church tries to implement sanctification through the efforts of the believer when sanctification is really the progression of justification. Yes, insisted Neo Calvinism, sanctification is “justification (salvation) in motion.” Otherwise stated, “justification (salvation) is not a gas station that you stop at once to begin the Christian life, but rather you stop at it often on the road of life to refill your tank.” And we all know what the gas station is…it’s the church, God’s salvation gas station on earth. Supposedly.
In what I think to be a deliberate ruse to deceive by utilizing assumptions, the so-called “Biblical Counseling Movement” is really counseling on how to “preach the gospel to yourself every day” or otherwise the art of being sanctified by justification. The “change” is not increased competence in the art of living, but the art of seeing your need for more and more salvation in a deeper and deeper way. Though initially, the movement was truly intended to rectify weak sanctification by a confused Calvinist and experienced impressive results that might have saved the institutional church as much as it could be theoretically, the movement was hijacked by the Neo Calvinist movement and turned into a progressive justification Sunday school.
This is true Protestant orthodoxy that stripped away the integration of enlightenment ideas proffering human agency in sanctification, or for that matter, any human agency in any other venue of life. After all, “God is sovereign” and in “total control.” It merely redefines God as a Platonist. Augustine himself described Platonism as a pre Christianity philosophy. Augustine himself claimed that understanding the Bible without Plato’s insight is a fool’s errand. And keep in mind, Luther was a monk in the Augustinian Order, And John Calvin cites Augustine no less than 400 times in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. These facts are not mere happenstance.
Consequently, the Neo Calvinists accused the likes of Billy Graham with promoting a professionism with no visible life transformation. But how does Neo Calvinism define a transformed life? That’s an easy question; they define it as mindless devotion to the institutional church. Remember, they also accused the church of having too much sanctification, that is, a sanctification that included human agency in transformation. However, Neo Calvinism also defines transformation as an increased gratitude for salvation as we continually see our need for it in a deeper and deeper way.
Prior to 1970, the church put little emphasis on progressive sanctification. After 1970, the church began to deny that there is any such thing as progressive sanctification apart from “Phariseeism, legalism, and moralism.”
Nevertheless, in all of this, church according to Billy Graham still maintained a significant amount of authentic Protestantism shared also by the Neo Calvinist movement. Though half pregnant in progressive justification, Graham promoted religious expertism, and was guilty as anyone in human history for exacerbating laity ignorance. It isn’t enough that few Protestants know what a Protestant is, church defies common sense in every opportunity it can find.
And lastly, after being stripped of its very identity as a church-state by the American Revolution, and while claiming separation of church and state intellectually, the real heart of the church is to once again have its orthodoxy enforced by the state. According to the Charlotte Observer,
The Rev. Billy Graham will lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol next week, an honor accorded to only 33 Americans – 11 of whom were presidents. Graham will be the first private citizen so honored since Rosa Parks died in 2005. House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Thursday that Graham’s body will lie in the Capitol rotunda from Feb. 28 to March 1 so the public can pay their respects. Graham died Wednesday morning at his home in Montreat at the age of 99.
This conjures up uncomfortable thoughts on so many different levels. If nothing else, our thoughts turn to the fact that our Savior was hardly afforded such recognition by earthly government for specific theological reasons. The fact that Graham, or anyone associated with his legacy would allow this is stunning. But yet the church can do nothing without including something of steroidal cognitive dissonance. Graham had a simple wooden casket constructed by prison inmates. And undoubtedly, the typical churchian will marvel at such humbleness while waiting in line for hours to ponder his body where only the famous lie in state.
Such is the reality when authority and elitism is truth apart from individual reason.
paul
Fergie, the National Anthem, God’s Church Position, Freedom, Present Duty, and Thankfulness for the Future
“And, does this secular viewpoint sound all too familiar? Why does this sound a lot like church? Because it’s the selfsame ideology.”
I finally found some time this morning, well, more accurately, made time to finally view the Fergie rendition of the National Anthem that has caused such a kerfuffle. My take on what is offensive about it doesn’t coincide with what I have heard in passing; namely, the execution of it vocally, which was actually pretty impressive. I think the issue here follows: it was a borderline mocking of America. This is somewhat confirmed in the way the cameras panned to celebrities in the audience and NBA players who are routinely critical of America. In all cases, their smirks seemed to verify that this was a nuanced besmirching of Americanism.
During one of our tasks in our very task oriented lives yesterday, Susan and I became involved in a protracted discussion on so-called racism in America. We were deluged with a tsunami of liberal talking points on this subject. Partaking in this arena of ideas, the unraveling of massive misinformation is daunting.
It made me VERY thankful for something: as born again believers of God’s literal family offspring, this is not our kingdom. And, when the time comes, Christ will implement God’s kingdom on earth. GONE totally will be the cultural nonsense we are tortured with daily on Fox news and CNN. Nevertheless, until that day, we have to live here, and it would behoove us to make the very best of it by remaining free. Indeed, freedom is not even free in peacetime; in order to remain free, we must enter and fight in the arena of ideas.
I am not much concerned with the idea that there is racism in America, Because there is, but I am very concerned about the idea that America is a racist nation. As Susan and I successfully disallowed ourselves to be distracted by all of the residual talking points including the idea that racism is a core problem instead of the result of a deeper problem, we were able to zoom in and reduce the issue to its most basic common denominator: was America founded on racism, or is there racism in the land called America?
Why is this THE interpretive question? Because it all boils down to one’s definition of mankind. Is man able or unable? If he is unable, his freedoms must be limited to save mankind from itself. But who determines what these limitations should be? Well, if God doesn’t yet have a shop location on earth, and obviously, He doesn’t, hark, he must appoint special people to rule for Him on earth. This may be clergy, or philosophers, or both, who have the knowledge (gnosis) to bring about a just society among the great unwashed while the purpose of government is to enforce the given philosophy.
Let me now utilize one of the residual distractions from the main point, viz, stuff that Donald Trump says that was brought up. Specifically, he is a bad person because he referred to “s#^!*-hole countries.” Susan and I used this to state the crux of the issue. Before America, historically, the whole world was a SH. A cursory observation of world history bears this out. There were no “good ol’ days” before America.
What made the American idea different? It’s presuppositions regarding mankind; primarily, man is able…to self govern. A universally radical idea that turned all world ideology prior to Americanism completely on its head. The results? Nothing is more obvious than the fact that America has been the greatest force for good in all of human history.
Why is there racism in America? Because America didn’t start with a clean slate. America was founded on old-world ideology. The American colonies were a Puritan church-state and their orthodoxy was enforced by the Church of England with the Red Coats at their disposal. America was taken over by Americanism; the idea of a government BY the people and FOR the people and for the express purpose of securing the freedom of the individual to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Man is able.
This core value results in a progression of freedom and the subsequent eradication of oppression. Hence, unity around the core value increases the dignity and freedom of the people individually. This is why racism in America isn’t what it was; the progression of the core value.
However, please note, those who believe in the total depravity of mankind will invariably say that America IS racist as opposed to racism being IN America and declining. Telling is their claim that racism is worse than it has ever been in the face of a clear reality that states the opposite. Yes, as we heard yesterday, America has always been racist but when Obama became president, black people were finally given the freedom to speak out about it. And yes, even though this has unfortunately led to reverse discrimination, white people need to get over it and accept what they have coming to them in regard to past oppression of black people by commission and omission. Hence, all white people are guilty and need to accept what they have coming to them.
And proof that America is racist? Well, the founding fathers had slaves. Right, they did, because that’s the only economic model that existed because of old-world ideology, but did that change? of course it did except in the South. The South, during the Civil War era, was for all practical purposes a Presbyterian church-state. Again, what we are talking about is vestiges of what originally came from over the pond. What happened? Americanism eventually faced off with the old-world ideology in one of the ugliest, darkest, and bloodiest confrontations in all of human history. Additionally stunning in the midst of these accusations against Americanism is the idea that we presently benefit from the slavery based economy that existed during the infancy of America. In reality, slavery created an extremely weak economy and low production because the workers had no vested interest or incentive to increase productivity for their own good and self fulfillment.
And we must remember this: racism is one of many results of the basic presupposition; man is totally depraved. But what we miss is the degrees of total depravity defined by discrimination which comes in all forms: social class, education, lineage, physical appearance, physical handicaps, nationality, etc., etc., ect. “Surely, we are all sinners saved by grace, but because of my pedigree, I am ordained to rule over you for your own good and especially mine because I am a special kind of total depravity.” If this concept is confusing, you only need to look at the present-day caste systems that saturate human existence and always have.
One question that Susan and I posed in the discussion yesterday follows: “So, what is the game plan for eradicating discrimination in this country? What about discrimination against poor people, different religions, different political parties, single people, married people, fat people, ugly people, Jews, men in careers dominated by women, women in careers dominated by men, other nationalities, sexual preference…to name but a few?” The answer? “We must start according to priority, and the bulk of racism is against black people.” Oh my! Really? What racism rivals the execution of 6 million Jews in camps built for that very purpose? Again, the unraveling of misthinking and misinformation is immeasurably daunting.
If your view of humanity is that of total depravity, you must believe that any perceived improvement is an illusion. And since America is racist, the only cure for this racism is the very eradication of America itself. No, the American idea did not improve anything because it propagates rulership by the great unwashed en mass. This cannot turn out good, and any appearance of improvement is somehow tainted with evil; hence, as we heard yesterday, “Ya, things got better for _______, but at the expense of_________.”
Yes indeed, according to this worldview, no deed is absent from ill motives. This person, not speaking from any religious viewpoint whatsoever, rejected my assertion that there isn’t a “racist bone in my body” because it is “impossible for anyone to not have some level of racism within them.” Hence, if we are all honest, we must admit that we are all racist to some degree and deserve what our kind dished out to others.
Get it? We need to be honest totally depraved people.
And, does this secular viewpoint sound all too familiar? Why does this sound a lot like church? Because it’s the selfsame ideology. What happened when Americanism destroyed the church-state? Communism was created to fill the void. It’s no accident whatsoever that Communism pops up in the 18th century. It is by no means an accident that the Democratic Party was a church-state with the KKK as its military arm and then later became a socialist party. And it is no accident that the present day American church longs for a return to its church-state days; practically pining away on the point with great weeping in sackcloth and ashes.
What is the closest they can get to their long lost days of executing anyone who dared cross them? Well, taking away salvation through excommunication, and claiming that God sends hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, disease, famine, plagues, and more recently mass shooters to judge all of those who dare be indifferent to the church. Sure, they claim God is the one being dissed, but what is supposedly God’s authority on earth? When we see memes like the one displayed at the top of this post, what is being said? A little history will help. The public school system was founded by the Puritans. At one time, the church ruled public schools, and trust me, there isn’t one Baptist or Presbyterian on the face of the earth who doesn’t think it would be wonderful if this was the case once again.
However, though separation of church and state kicked the church out of public schools, the same ideology in the form of socialism replaced it. Churchians who think socialism and Protestantism are incongruent are simply misinformed; they share the exact same presuppositions regarding man’s nature. And, both are morally indignant towards anyone who questions their ideology thinking them worthy of death. While Protestants claim that God will curse you for daring to diss church, liberals will use art to suggest that someone should do humanity a favor and assassinate Donald Trump. It’s all the same lump of dough intellectually and behaviorally.
Ironically, the well traveled idea that God was kicked out of public schools by the socialist version of religious tyranny speaks to the necessary denial of the new birth by the church. A literal new birth would greatly enable an individual in contrast to the idea of total inability. If the believer is the temple of God individually indwelled by the Holy Spirit, it’s the church that took God out of the public schools, not God Himself. Furthermore, regarding the intellectual embarrassment that church is often a part of, mass shootings also take place in churches. Nevertheless, memes like the one above will light up the churchian LIKE buttons on Facebook and other social media venues.
In God’s eyes, man is able, but no doubt alienated from Him. However, this does not discount the fact that man was born able, and free. Man is individually accountable to God, and what is right is self evident. Because man is able, He has no excuse before God because God created him with ability.
As true Christians, though we look for a city built by God, we have an obligation to support the freedom of mankind based on God-given ability. It does not behoove us to be indifferent to present day politics that determine present social wellbeing. The inability of man ideology invariably leads to cultural atrocities that compel the true Christian to act. Though our kingdom will display mercy, justice, and happiness in perfection, our love for these compel us to fight for them in this present kingdom. Mercy, love, and justice have virtue wherever and whenever they occur.
Therefore, it is our duty to study to show ourselves approved in articulating the truth in all worldly matters. It’s hard work, but it is our duty.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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