Fact: Protestant Orthodoxy Disavows Good Behavior
TV Shows have been dissing the integrity of church for years. I am not much of a TV watcher, but one of my clients enjoys watching “ME” TV which highlights TV shows of the past. One such show is “Reba” starring the country music legend Reba McEntire. In the plot, Reba has divorced her husband who was having an affair with “Barbara Jean” who Reba nicknamed “BJ.” Barbara Jean plays a dimwitted blonde who is totally unrepentant for destroying Reba’s marriage, and in the plot, is also a confessing Christian and faithful churchian. BJ offers up most of the punchlines in the sitcom through the character’s totally confused mindset and worldview.
Indicative of the confusion that defines churchianity, Christians wail and moan in regard to recent TV shows that continually denigrate the Christian faith. This is what makes Barbara Jean a truthful representation of Protestantism. While proudly espousing the truism that Protestants are just lowly “sinners saved by grace,” they object to being represented as…well, “sinners.” While proclaiming themselves “sinners,” they also insist on being recognized as civilization’s moral compass in regard to every category of life. While popular Protestants such a Tullian Tchividjian preached loosey-goosey grace for years dissing all things good as “moralism,” he and the many leaders like him are forced to resign when their sinful ways become public. These kinds of ridiculous contradictions highlighted the Barbara Jean motif in the “Reba” sitcom.
What’s up with all of this confusion? Well, a leading Protestant evangelical lauded by the who’s who of the evangelical community, Dr. Michael Horton, clarifies the problem in his book, “Christless Christianity.” He accurately makes the case in the book that Protestantism has never laid claim to good behavior, and in fact, rejects it. In many of his writings, he drives home the point that Protestant orthodoxy is solely a profession and not an action (this is why Martin Luther rejected the book of James as a “straw epistle”).
Salvation is defined as a mere ability to “see” the kingdom with no participation other than proclaiming it. In Horton’s book, pun intended, trying to do well is not preaching the gospel, but an attempt to “be the gospel.” In the book, he continually drives the point home that any attempt at promoting the gospel through good behavior is fruitless because on our best day we fall short of God’s perfection. This is also a favorite talking point of Dr. DA Carson lauded as one of the most “brilliant theological minds of our day.” Another evangelical, Dr. Albert Mohler, also touted as the premier intellectual theologian of our day has stated that the sole purpose of the Bible is to show us our sinful nature, not an instruction book for moralism. Horton, throughout the book, bemoans the fact that Christianity has projected a false precept of good behavior and has therefore misrepresented the true gospel. He even suggests that the idea of change from bad behavior to good behavior is just “more bad news,” not good news.
My friends, in fact, this is authentic Protestantism as stated in the founding doctrinal statements of the Reformation. This is why scandals in the church shouldn’t even be news or fodder for gossip-blogs like The Wartburg Watch. Church is fraught with scandals because the foundational precepts of the Reformation reject change as just, “more bad news.” This is why any attempt to address or confront scandal in the church or any “Cry for Justice” in the church is utterly unfounded—Protestant orthodoxy calls for a resignation to bad behavior lest we try to “be the gospel.”
Supposedly, we are to be judged solely by what we say, not what we do. And if it is God’s sovereign will, one will believe the message regardless of any behavior that goes along with it. In fact, Horton suggests in said book that if one is persuaded by our good behavior, that is what they falsely put their faith in; viz, “our doing rather than Jesus’ doing and dying” another popular refrain of the Neo-Protestant movement.
As stated by this ministry often, the catalyst for all of this is authority. The empowered individual who can really change for the better makes for a weak caste system. The issue becomes the protection of an institution at all cost that God has supposedly ordained to oversee salvation…
…versus the soundness of a body gathered together to spur one another unto “good works.”
paul
Christian Living Series Program 12
Paul and Susan will discuss these four articles:
https://paulspassingthoughts.com/2016/03/23/condemnation-claims-another-casualty/
https://paulspassingthoughts.com/2016/03/23/what-is-really-going-on-with-common-core/
https://paulspassingthoughts.com/2016/03/21/ministry-and-the-unregenerate-spouse/
JOIN THE DISCUSSION! Call in towards the latter part of the program: 347-855-8317.
Live Broadcast link for Friday 3/25/2016 @ 6pm:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/falsereformation/2016/03/25/christian-living-series-program-12
Listen to the broadcast on your cell phone: (347) 855-8317
Live video of broadcast from the Potter’s House:
https://livestream.com/accounts/17669550/events/5054270
Calvinists: Going to Hell and Proud of It
Originally published January 5, 2015 “[T]he Bible is absolutely clear that ALL of those who will supposedly bark triumphantly at that judgment are among those already damned by virtue of the …
Ever heard of the 97 Theses? And is There Anything More Brainwashed than a Protestant?
Funny how the Protestants of Western culture fancy themselves as being grounded in objective scholarship. Because of our supposed acute intellect that enables the Bible to kiss logic, light shines from darkness wherever the world is blessed with our storied missionaries proclaiming the “gaaaaassspul.”
Yes, we are supposedly soooo unlike those mystical misfits found in Eastern culture and third world countries. And this is such a lie; perhaps the biggest ever perpetrated on mankind in all of human history. Few Protestants have a clue what the Reformation was really about, and the churches have deliberately rewritten church history to keep parishioners in the dark. Arguably, Protestantism is the most pathetic super-cult ever conceived because its participants don’t even know what their faith really teaches; at least good Hindus have an accurate mental grasp on their religious tenets. The same can be said for those pesky Islamic extremists that we despise.
Point in case: most Protestants haven’t even heard of the documents that really formed the foundation of the Protestant Reformation. We have been deliberately conditioned to believe that Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and the 5 Solas form the doctrinal foundation of the Reformation. It’s deliberate deception.
It supposedly goes without saying that the Reformation was a logical and objective return to the authority of Scripture; ie., “Sola Scriptura,” etc. This is all a steroidal outrageous lie; the exact opposite is true. The Reformation was sparked as a pushback against the Catholic Church’s move towards logical theology. In other words, the Catholic Church was founded on Augustinian Platonic (Gnostic) principles, but in the 13th century, it began moving more towards theological tenets based on logic and objectivism. And Martin Luther would have none of it.
Let me sort of simplify this as much as I can. It is the difference between two schools; one states that man cannot know reality, and the other states that he can. The former one draws a strict dichotomy between the material realm and the invisible realm. In this one; that is, the former, the material realm is an illusion, or subjective. Human experience cannot yield knowledge, and empiricism is a lie or useless epistemology. This usually yields some form of theology that deems all things material as evil/knowable and all things invisible as good/unknowable. In other words, man can ONLY know the material/evil world. I contend that this religion was first introduced in the garden as the “knowledge of good and evil.” I contend that in the creation account God was emphatic that His creation is “good” for this very reason; He knew what was coming.
Part and parcel with this philosophy that has dominated human history is the caste system. Caste systems advocate a knowledge strata that demands rulership over the world for the sake of the collective good. Some force or god from the invisible realm preordains wisemen who aid mankind in making the best of existence in the evil material world. These are Plato’s philosopher kings, and the Catholic Church was structured accordingly. Monks were the ones that separated themselves from the world as much as possible to obtain wisdom from the invisible realm, and then passed their edicts on to the popes for implementation. Usually by force.
The Catholic Church started moving away from this philosophy and more towards the philosophy of Aristotle who believed that the material world is a valid reality.
THIS ALONE IS WHAT SPARKED THE REFORMATION. The rest is a lie dressed in biblical garb.
Far obscured from seminaries and the churches is true knowledge concerning the foundational Reformation documents written by Martin Luther in 1517 and 1518. The two primary documents that form the foundation of the Reformation are the Heidelberg Disputation, and the 97 Theses also known as “Disputations Against Scholastic Theology.” This was 97 disputations against…get this…the use of logic and reason in theology. In fact, the 97 Theses were written one month before the 95 Theses. Also, it is commonly thought that the Heidelberg Disputation, penned 6 months after the 95 Theses, only contains 28 theological theses. No, it contains 12 that are philosophical for a total of 40. In both cases concerning these foundational documents, the major theme is Plato versus Aristotle. This is irrefutable.
And the ignorance of Protestants is no accident—it’s deliberate. What we are seeing today in the New Calvinist movement is a return to Protestantism’s Platonic/Gnostic roots. In a shocking display of blatant deception, New Calvinist leaders claim that hordes of people are being drawn to the movement because they desire a more intellectual faith.
The fact is that it appears intellectual while denying all logic and reason in matters of faith. Perhaps the best example of how this functions is the New Calvinist claim that “Christians” are still “sinners” while the Bible uses that word exclusively for the unregenerate at least 70 times. Words, being objective and meaning things, don’t really mean anything. Truth comes from whatever the philosopher kings say they mean.
Regardless of these modern Reformers claiming a more logical faith, the opposite is true…and they know it.
paul
What is Really Going On With Common Core?
John Immel | March 23, 2016
I was recently asked to give my thoughts on this article and what follows is an expanded version of my response.
After reading the article you can see that Common Core teaching methods makes hash out of mathematics and, of course, the logical question is why? Why create a teaching method that so obviously destroys arithmetical mastery? Common Core math is so disconnected from Classical instruction it seems too bizarre to be accidental. What then is the real motive?
The Common Core glossy brochure says that the reason for its existence is to institute a national standard to measure K-12 academic success. The logic being America lags behind in education, there must be something wrong with how local schools are teaching the Three R’s, therefore the government should be in charge of how teachers are teaching which means the government should be in charge of what teachers are teaching. If the Government can measure the teachers then all will be well in American education. So the first step in making sure little Johnny can get into a good collage comes from government creating a universal standard curricula. Alakazam poof! Common Core.
(You should be very, very nervous when the federal government says it should be in charge of anything because benevolence is never the real motive.)
What then is the motive? What is the real purpose behind this “new” math?
I’m assuming you read the article so I will reference Robin’s face book post. Notice that the 3rd (or 4th ) grader answered the question correctly and then notice that the teacher gives absurd advice on how to “make” 10 from 8+5. What is the practical result to the young grade schooler? Is this a new low in educational stupidity? Did the Department of Education suddenly have an aggregate drop in IQ?
Some variation of this criticism—that teachers and administrators are just stupid—is often offered as the reason for the emergence of this new math. While it is true that the world is full of stupid and ignorant and otherwise naive people whenever you see an ongoing, concerted effort to impose the absurd, the irrational, the erroneous on the masses, know that the reason is never stupidity. There is always a motive; there is always a method to the madness.
In an effort to uncover the motive behind Common Core one person I talked to observed the methods behind the math would crush the student’s self confidence. That is true. Such instruction is sure to destroy the child’s self confidence but I submit that the target is not self confidence but something much more fundamental . . . something much more important.
As a philosopher I try to see the root of things, to identify the foundations of ideas, to find the concepts upon which human existence rests. So follow me in the path to identify this foundation.
Self confidence is a byproduct of competence and competence is a measure of effective action and effective action is the result of conceptual mastery and conceptual mastery is the successful grasp of Aristotle’s Law of Identity.
The average 3rd grader has never heard of Aristotle, let alone the Law of Identity but he has an implicit grasp of its meaning. From the moment he distinguished Mommy from Daddy and then distinguished chair from dog he was practicing the process of identification and conceptual integration. And, assuming his parents affirm the value of a rational world view, he arrives in 3rd grade already very accustomed to using Aristotle’s Law of Identity.
What is the Law of Identity?
It is summed up in these three Aristotelian axioms:
Law of Identity: Whatever is . . . is.
Law of Non Contradiction: Nothing can both be and . . . not be.
Law of the Excluded Middle: Everything must ether be or . . . not be.
Or said another way.
- A = A
- A cannot be B
- A is unique in all particulars
These axioms are the foundation for successful identification and categorization of existence. Without this as the standard, existence does not exist and man is set adrift in a sea of his own consciousness. Or said simply without this standard our 3rd grader can’t tell the difference between Mommy or Daddy or a dog and a chair.
So contrast Aristotle’s foundation with the teacher’s assertion that you can “make” 10 from 8 + 5. Notice that this teacher is laying waste to the roots of the child’s conceptual faculty. And now you get a glimpse into the nefarious purpose behind Common Core math. I suspect that Common Core teachers are more like useful zealots than pedagogical Dr. Evil’s. I suspect they are Department of Education trained parrots merely trying to emulate the teaching methods learned from university professors . . . but that does not change their culpability or the underlying educational intent.
I submit that the real purpose of Common Core math is a direct assault on the Law of Identity. If A does NOT = A then A cannot equal anything. If you can really “make” 10 from 8+5 then 10, 8 and 5 have no identity nor is there a concept subtraction, addition, multiplication, or division. Indeed the arithmetic operators are not operators at all; they are not symbols denoting mental actions to be performed with the identities.
But 1 is an identity and so is 5 and so is 8. Students first grasp these identities and then build to higher level conceptual integration to concepts like 10. And then 10 soon becomes the concept 100 and then becomes the concept 1,000 and so on until a child has tools to quantify vast subsets of particulars. So to render these concepts meaningless is to undercut conceptual integration at the root which has the practical effect of undercutting man at the root.
So the purpose of Math (of the Common Core kind) is specifically designed to elevate “making stuff up” to a science. It is designed to give academic credence to whim worship. The “system” illustrated in the article to show how to “make” numbers is merely window dressing masquerading as Logic.
I submit that the Common Core endgame is to teach young minds that A can equal anything. And if A can equal B, or C or Z then A can be anything. A is NOT A. A is whatever conceptual abstraction one chooses to apply in the moment. Whatever lip service Common Core advocates pay to knowledge and learning they can never escape the conclusion that there is nothing to know. If A is everything then A is nothing. If A has no identity then A is infinite and the infinite has no identity. (See Aristotle’s response to Zeno)
As a brief historical aside, whenever man has concluded that there is nothing to know—because they formally rejected Aristotle and the roots of objectivity— philosophy has collapsed into skepticism. This has happened three times in the progression of human thought. And all three times civilization collapsed into barbarism and irrationality. For a lesson in what that looked like see any good history book about the dark ages.
So, returning from the commercial break, the only conceivable purpose of Common Core Math
is to unravel man’s conceptual faculty and make the world unintelligible.
Why would they do such a thing?
Very simply because Classical education—the focus on the Three R’s—was a profound global success and the source of almost unlimited human freedom because it drove back the frontiers of ignorance and almost banished the destructive power of mysticism and superstition. Notice that in Classical education young minds are first introduced to formal logic when they start mathematics. Students learn the concept of identity 1 and 2 and 3 etc and then they learn to combine identities to form higher concepts 9 +1= 10.
(The tens place opening up a vast horizon of measuring capabilities)
Then young minds learn to sequence ideas: (2X2) + 2 = 6 thus learning how to organize thoughts in order of importance. And then young minds learn to identify inter relating principles: For example a + b = c thus grasping that they can quantify many identities under the variables a, b and c and successfully find relationship between their sums. No matter how good a student is at arriving at the correct mathematical answer, the root lessons are logic lessons.
So now consider the “systems” of Common Core math that remove the mathematical rules and process. Notice that Common Core “math” is really removing logic (the formal organization of concepts to create larger concepts) from education as such. This can only have one purpose: to destroy man’s capacity to reason. People “educated” to believe they can make up whatever reality they choose are mere putty in the hands of anyone demanding that 8+5= 10.
Dictators and thugs and despots the world over have always known they must first cut off Aristotle’s head before they can shackle man’s body because self-confident men will not bow to subjugation. Men and Women who can effectively grasp the world in which they live will never need a mystic despot to tell them what the world means. And as I pointed out earlier in the article the root of self confidence is really Aristotle’s laws of identity.
So it should be no surprise that all tyrannical ideologies seek to first and foremost destroy the Law of Identity (Excluded middle, Non-contradiction) because they must first separate man from reality so they can easily separate man from his mind.
Unfortunately most anti Aristotelian ideologies present themselves as saviors of human existence (Augustine, Kant, and Berkeley et al) and therefore as saviors of people. The glossy brochure leads people to believe that banishing existence from logic and reason is for the benefit of mankind so people never notice that the outcome is fantastically anti-human. When existence is set up as the metaphysical villain it certainly follows that any tools that help measure (or master) existence must be a direct threat, so people are seduced into accepting the premise that identities are not really real and that subjective “Making” is the highest “rational” ideal.
But there is no such thing as a, “little bit of subjectivity.”
Either existence is a self created manifestation of man’s consciousness (subjective) . . . or . . . Man’s consciousness is the mechanism that identifies existence (objective). Either man can “make” 10 from 8+5 by the worship of his own whim . . . or . . . existence requires that 8+5 = 13.
A is A . . . or . . . A is nothing.
And if A is nothing how do you refute subjectivism?
How can you demand an objective standard of measure when the right answer is: there is nothing to be objective about?
Or more practically, how can you respond to a Tyrant that says individual wealth is an abuse of power and it is his moral prerogative to seize your money?
You say: “I made my money by hard work.” He says: “You stole your money by an abuse of power.”
You say:” 8+5 = 13.”
He says: “Make 10 from 8+5.”
In the end it is all semantics: You say tomato he says toomaato but he has the guns so the correct answer is “8+5 = 10” and while you’re at it give him your money, give him your life because the tyrant already has your brain.
And this is exactly the point.
I suspect that the powers behind this body of education (those few intellectuals behind the educational curtain driving and shaping the curricula) know that one of the things that have prevented a Western culture from total collapse into the dark ages of subjectivism has been mathematics. Since so many people in the world have been taught the rudiments of logic via mathematics — and introduced to Newtonian mechanics and more fundamentally Aristotle’s Law of Identity through math—Western civilization maintains a (tenuous) commitment to logic and reason. Or said simply: Western culture is reluctant to abandon the idea that words mean things.
But if the Federal government can create a monopoly on education and then educate an entire generation that words don’t mean anything: Symbols don’t mean things. Ideas don’t mean things and therefore anything can mean anything . . . which means that everything means nothing. . .
. . . Totalitarians know if they can destroy the minds of your children they will own the world.
John Immel
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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