Paul's Passing Thoughts

Sincere people just don’t get it in many circumstances. I believe this is what the Millennial Kingdom is all about; Christ will be totally running the show from Jerusalem and His way of doing things will be a testimony as set against 10,000 plus years of foolishness.

Mankind, far from being totally depraved, has intuitive knowledge of common sense and common good…which will cause the common man trouble in this world. Christians don’t have the market cornered on suffering persecution for doing good; in fact, church Christians usually deserve what they get because they are annoying.

So, when I was saved in circa 1982, I did what Western Christians do when they get saved; get baptized, join a church, and start reading the Bible.

First of all, in most cases, and certainly in my case, the idea that salvation is a radical transformation of who you are as a person is intuitive. This is why most people shun the gospel; they fear radical change, and they don’t want to give up sinful desires. The idea that salvation is nothing but trust/faith in Jesus is counterintuitive. People don’t fear staying the same, they fear radical change and an unpredictable future. In addition, for those who are actually seeking radical change because their lives are in shambles, they will find the Protestant do-nothing gospel wanting.

Don’t misunderstand, they understand there is nothing one can do to obtain transformation other than seek God for it, but the assumption is radical change will follow.

When the new Christian joins the church, and this radical change does not follow coupled with lame explanations for the lack of change, doubt sets in. And all in all, ALL Protestants doubt their salvation because the very orthodoxy of it keeps them under the condemnation of the law.

In fact, according to Martin Luther and John Calvin, the big two of the Protestant Reformation, sanctification (the Christian life) is driven by an ongoing fear of damnation. I wrote a book on this subject/fact and will not belabor it here.

When you go to any given church on any given Sunday and look around at all the smiling faces; don’t be fooled, these are people who live under law and its fear of final judgment. The only exceptions are the few who don’t get it which will usually be the newer converts still functioning on intuition. Give it time; a year or so of good old-fashioned Sunday condemnation will take care of that.

Protestantism, according to its own black and white printed orthodoxy, is a progressive salvation of perpetual new births found only in one’s faithfulness to church membership. Again, I also wrote a book on that as well and won’t belabor the citations here (Ibid). Suuuuure the church believes in the new birth, but of course they do! Question is, how is it defined by the church? The doctrine is Mortification and Vivification, and is the stated Protestant orthodoxy of perpetual re-salvation found only in church membership. And, that’s just documented black and white Protestant orthodoxy; it’s not arguable.

“Well Paul, our church doesn’t believe that.” Very well, then I am sure your elders will be willing to publicly denounce Martin Luther and John Calvin as purveyors of a false gospel. Good luck with that endeavor.

At the beginning of the Protestant Reformation which was an attempt to reform the Catholic Church, and still is, which means the Protestant church, in its heart of hearts still wants to go back to momma, the formed traditions (alterations to Catholic tradition) matched its orthodoxy. Historical events distorted and confused its orthodoxy, but the traditions stayed in place (we tend to be creatures of habit). So, what we have today is traditional functions of Progressive justification that don’t match intellectual understanding.

Hence, Protestant orthodoxy in its plain printed form is denied, but its traditions are maintained. Why do we preach the gospel to supposedly already saved people every Sunday? “Well, you know, there may be unsaved people attending.” And so it goes. However, with the emergence of the Neo-Protestant movement (aka New Calvinist/Neo-Calvinist movement), its authentic orthodoxy is making a comeback. This is why the movement is taking over the Protestant church like a wildfire; the church is already primed for it.

As a result, the Protestant church experience is a morass of confusion and doubt suppressed by a doubling down of commitment to the institution and finding comfort in its authoritative display.

But those who truly love the truth will seek and find with God’s help. Those who are truly reborn of God will seek tenaciously, and if they give up God will intervene. This series will look at the contradictions new Christians will see in the church when comparing it to a face-value interpretation of the Bible.

In this introduction, we can start there; the new Christian, intuitively, will assume that the Bible should be interpreted by a “words mean things” approach. That’s a simple way of saying that the historical-grammatical hermeneutic is assumed. But is that Protestant orthodoxy? Nope. So, how does true Protestant orthodoxy call for the Bible to be interpreted? Well, again, I wrote a book about that. And by the way, we sell our books for what it costs to produce them and ship them, so….

Does this mean that most Protestants don’t even understand how their teachers and pastors interpret the Bible? Pretty much. The “wonderful” messages they hear every Sunday is an assumption of wonderfulness—they don’t even understand how pastors interpret their Bibles.

In part two, we begin to look at the specific contradictions and why they are such. With each, we will match the tradition with the assumed interpretation.

paul

So, You’re Not a Theologian? 

The Divorce Decision

Live Link: Sunday 10/8/17 @ 6pm – 8pm

The Vegas massacre, except for the number of deaths, is nothing new and does note denote an increase of wickedness in the latter days. As far back as the early 60s there were incidents of random sniper attacks on the public. Is our culture more wicked than it was in the 60s? Hardly.

As I have written about prior, the essence of sin is a desire to control others. Humanity has no small source of ideas and techniques for fulfilling control-lust. Psychological control is primarily obtained on every stratum of human existence through lowering one’s self-esteem and self-confidence. I will also mention a good contemporary example: political domination through the shaming of America.

Let’s, for a moment, refocus on my introductory idea. Though death or some other retribution is often the punishment for not allowing someone to fulfill their control lust, murder is the ultimate control experience. When you are pointing a loaded gun at someone with your finger on the trigger, in that moment, you decide whether they live or die; at that moment, you either give life, or take it away. I believe some people are willing to trade their very life for this momentary, ultimate control high.

Most religion is a religion of control administrated through a cultural caste system. The Bible is clear; sin seeks to control/enslave through condemnation. If we are all bad people, we need experts on how to have our best life now under the circumstances, and these people should rule the world. And, the more wicked and worthless you are according to any given human category, the lower you should be in the enslavement pecking order. And some within the caste system are even toxic or a threat to those in the higher echelons of caste resulting in something we call, “genocide.”

By the way, there are different theories on how caste is best implemented to save the world from humanity, and this is the source of all wars. In regard to root cause, there are no exceptions.

It will never fail; every time a Vegas happens, or some weather catastrophe, church hierarchies of all types will remind the public that the end is near and beckon them to seek refuge in their religion. Yes, their “sanctuaries” are where the death angel passes over. Yes, they are the ones that properly place the blood of Jesus over the doorposts. Yes, though Jesus never showed up at any church council, they are the ones God appointed to oversee ongoing forgiveness on earth. Because they say Jesus says so.

But, only Jesus has the authority to forgive sin based on His onetime sacrifice on the cross. There is no Holy of Holies overseen by temple priests; the curtain has been torn in two and free access obtained. God does business directly with every individual; there are no mediators other than Jesus—He is the only mediator.

Multiple denominations are not from a lack of authority resulting in the chaos of individualism, they are the result of disagreements among elitists on the best way to control truth. The American Revolution exposed the folly of this notion by default; prior, truth was determined by the biggest sword while now the individual merely chooses which authority he or she will obtain heaven by. Prior to Americanism, the most successful sword determined the right way to heaven, after Americanism, elitism is free to multiply and offer choices to the individual, yet individualism gets the rap. If only individuals were stripped of freedom, authorities would be free to wage war for the control of truth like the good old days.

This brings us to the cardinal point of this article; before America, the world had a long history of unspeakable horrors on every stratum of life. What? Today’s news reveals that our days are more evil than the Dark Ages and Medieval times? LOL! Really? So, if Americanism saved the world from steroidal evil, what increase of “wickedness” in the latter days is the Bible talking about? Answer: the return of the church-state, which replaces love with law/authority. There will be an increase in lovelessness by the same people beckoning us to flee to them for sanctuary.

Americanism totally confused world religion for a while. Religion, because of Americanism, became half-pregnant individualism. To Catholicism’s credit, they have never been confused on this wise, but Protestantism fell prey to the confusion wholesale.
However, Protestantism is returning to its foundational roots. The fact that Protestantism was created in a church-state and for a church-state is hardly ambiguous history. This is directly responsible for the anti-American trends we are seeing among evangelicals. You know, supposedly, to be a patriot is to honor America above God’s kingdom, blah, blah, blah. If America would only turn back to God, utopia would arrive.

But this is church-state rhetoric that dominated human history until the American Revolution and nourished every human ill and plague known to man. Americanism is a huge obstacle to a return of the church-state, and the only hope for its return is the total demise of Americanism in hopes that some palatable form of statism will arise from the ashes.

But why would American evangelicals who have profited greatly from American freedom want its demise? Because the fact that individuals have the freedom to say “no” to their authority just goads them to no end. Sin seeks to control. Secondly, they think statism will make them even richer with control over others as the icing on the cake. Remember, statism depends on controlling blocks of people. Therefore, anyone who has control over large numbers of people via brainwashing has a place at the bargaining table; “In exchange for this, we will tell our group to obey you, and we will toe the state line. And of course, it goes without saying that you will enforce our orthodoxy accordingly.” This is how the church-state has always worked. Statism has always seen religion as its most valuable asset. And by the way, if the book of Revelation doesn’t describe the mother of all church-states, what is it describing?

If you pay attention to what is going on in church lately, you will hear much about, “submitting to governing authorities.” No matter how loathsome and anti-freedom an administration is, we hear, “they are preordained by God.” We hear, “God will, at times, sovereignly place a tyrant in power to test our humble submission.” Be sure of this: it is a promotion of those seen as the future control-brokers. It’s a primer.

Presently, many, if not all church campus networks (groups of different local churches under the same leadership) are, in fact, church-states. For all practical purposes, the only thing missing is the freedom to execute detractors onsite or have them arrested by local authorities. Under the auspices of “security,” these churches really have their own inhouse law enforcement. Routinely, secular authorities find themselves either unwilling or unable to address rape, kidnapping, extortion, and even murder that goes on within church organizations.

A warning in our day to anyone foolish enough to join a church or sign a church covenant: you are totally on your own and you will have no recourse if something unfortunate happens. You can perhaps join a nice church still confused, but they are primed to go the way of most other churches in the midst of the Neo-Protestant movement.

An increase of secular decadence is not the sign to look for in regard to the second coming; an increase in church authority, and authority as truth is what to look for. When truth is authority, love is irrelevant, and at most a fleeting pretense.

paul

Xenia, Ohio is a church community, and nothing brings out church-speak more than a benefit sale for someone in a trial on a sunny afternoon. After thinking for ourselves on these issues for the better part of ten years based on the idea that God gave us a brain for a reason; primarily to reason, and to be reasonable, we admit that we don’t have it all figured out, but have figured out that the churched are the most confused brainwashed people walking the face of the earth.

Don’t confuse that with our God-focus, church doesn’t = Christian, and families are not institutions, and love has nothing to do with authority because mandates and love are mutually exclusive.

That’s the introduction to a classic conversation I had yesterday with a Xenia church lady. If you know me very well, you know that I am a 60’s scavenger. I love the furniture of that era and the whole cultural motif. Susan and I came across a food warmer from that era in all of its avocado green splendor and decided to donate it to the sale for the reasonable price of $15.

The church lady wanted the warmer for $10, and I said “no.” It is said that “no” is the first word that we say as infants because, you know, in our total depravity it is an expression of our rebellion towards authority and the Bible says that babies “come forth from the womb speaking lies.” More than likely, it’s the first word we speak because, you know, it’s the simplest of words probably heard the most among moms and other siblings. Yet, I must admit that speaking the word makes me feel better than any other word I speak, and yesterday was no exception.

Well, the church lady informed me that she only wanted the warmer enough to pay $10 for it, then began to ask for whom the benefit is for, and the details concerning the plight. I informed her while thinking, “Oh boy, here we go.”

The grammatical religious vomit I expected poured forth almost word for word. “It’s Gawd’s will, we only have Gawd, all we can do is pray, blah, blah, blah, blah, add unlimited gagetry.

I have some patience for confused Protestants, but this lady was a fully credentialed churchian; otherwise, I would have given her a $5 credit for the warmer in exchange for her prayer, but in this case, the prayer is hardly worth $5.

You see the irony in all of this, right? It’s a benefit, so why not pay a little extra and get something you are interested in to boot? I can answer that. She asked if we are a “church,” to which I answered, “No (while once again experiencing the joy of saying the word), we are a home fellowship.” So, you see, the dichotomy comes in her rejection of our sale as a legitimate benefit because we are not a real church “under the accountability of Gawdly authority.” Hence, the condescending offer of prayer for the whole lot of us outside the gates of heavenly Jerusalem. Add gagetry.

Contrast that with a fellow presently unchurched poorer than dirt totally depraved visitor to the yard sale outside the camp. They bought a few items and gave $10 over and above, and you can bet it was $10 that these people don’t have laying around. That’s what happens when the totally depraved have more conscience than they have money.

Truly, having your conscience replaced with the traditions of men is an ugly and dreadful thing.

James explained it this way: “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

In all of this, please note: what is a legitimate opportunity to give according to church because said organization is a religious authority? Organizations like Samaritan’s Purse where the director makes almost 1 million dollars a year. Go figure.

This is an opportunity to consider giving power that doesn’t pay for salaries and massive infrastructure, and is not compelled to give by some authority, and worse yet, the purchase of salvation in the name of love.

That is the cheapest love of all.

paul