Perry Parishioner Confronts His Calvinist Pastor
Perry: Thanks for seeing me today pastor.
Pastor: No problem Perry, what can I do for you?
Perry: Um, uh, it’s about something you said in Sunday’s sermon.
Pastor: What did I say Perry?
Perry: Uh, I got the tape so that I could write it down, you said: “I was born in sin. In sin, my mother conceived me. I have broken every law of GOD and I deserve the full extent of His just wrath against me.”
Pastor: That’s absolutely correct Perry, so what’s your question?
Perry: So, since you presently still deserve the full wrath of God, do you still break God’s law on every wise?
Pastor: Absolutely Perry.
Perry: Then I must insist that you go into counseling and resign as pastor.
Pastor: Excuse me? Why do you say that?
Perry: Well, pastor, I am sure you agree that having sex with animals is behavior unbecoming of a pastor!
Pastor: Whaooooooo, Perry, I have never had sex with an animal!
Perry: But you said…
Pastor: Perry, Perry, Perry, we are just saying that the spirit of the law is much deeper than outward conformity. We all break every law of God in our hearts, or what we call the “spirit of the law.”
Perry: Sooooo, you are saying that you fantasize about having sex with animals?
Pastor: Absolutely not!
Perry: So, when did you overcome that fantasy?
Pastor: I never had it!
Perry: So why do you deserve God’s wrath for it?
Pastor: Perry, you take things too literally.
Perry: Whew! Thank you pastor, I assume what you have said here would also apply to pedophilia as well?
Pastor: Perry, you are beginning to annoy me.
Perry: Gee pastor, you seem defensive, are you in fact better than those who practice bestiality and abuse children?
Pastor: No Perry, that’s not what I am saying.
Perry: Then why do you deserve the same wrath that they deserve?
Pastor: Perry, we are done here, you just don’t understand.
Reformed Theology = All Righteousness REMAINING Completely Outside of Us
“If the Platonist monster is hiding in the church’s big closet, there is no priesthood of believers and pastors/elders are the enlightened ones who must tell us who to marry, what to eat, and what to wear. They must also do whatever it takes to protect the totally depraved zombie sheep from themselves. And look around, we are almost there right now. The mega-church is behaving like Rome and Geneva’s theocracy more and more every day.”
“So now we have this core element of all righteousness remaining outside of the believer. Where do we go from here? What about the new birth? What’s ‘new’ about us if all righteousness remains outside of us?”
“Though New Calvinist elders talk of the new birth and Christ being ‘in’ us, you must understand they’re using earthly language that the totally depraved zombie sheep can understand. They do not believe Christ works in us…
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Gospel-Centered Preaching Verses Jesus’ Learning and Doing
It couldn’t be clearer, after all, we can assume Christ is the master communicator. He created us; obviously, He knows how to communicate with us. If you really want to know God’s intentions for communicating to His people, it can be observed in the Sermon on the Mount.
Christ didn’t preach that sermon at some institution of higher religious learning; He preached it to the blue collar class of that day on a hill in the countryside. The key hermeneutic, or how Jesus expected the crowd to hear His sermon is in Matthew 5: 2; “And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying….” It can be said of the particular verb here “taught” (didasko) that it means, “to cause learning.” To suggest that this crowd was already up to speed on a redemptive historical hermeneutic is of course preposterous.
New Calvinists point to the writings of Paul and the…
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Why Non-Institutional “Church Discipline” is Very Unmessy
In most states, to tell someone under threat of public humiliation that they can’t do something legal, such as vacating church membership, is a criminal act. This is especially true of the institutional church.
Why? Because the institutional church has its roots in Europe where church states were common. In many cases, church membership was mandatory. Keep in mind; in many Reformed churches the Calvin Institutes are the standard of polity, but it was written under the auspices of and in context of a church state.
Hence, institutional “church disciple” often conflicts with laws in a free society. This is why institutional churches spend millions of dollars each year covering their sanctified rumps in regard to this issue…and it is money spent for no good reason at all.
First of all, the legal problems begin with orthodoxy that calls for a “tell it to the church” for purposes of shunning and declaring the person an unbeliever. The whole declaring people unbelievers thing goes back to the orthodoxy of Calvin’s “Power of the Keys.” This is the belief that whatever Reformed elders proclaim on earth will be true in heaven. Basically, even if you are saved, if an elder wants to unsave you, heaven is bound by his authority. The Reformed can throw their little temper tantrums in denial if they want to, but this is a fact, and many who read here at PPT can bring their own testimonies to bear on that. Besides, the Calvin Institutes stake this claim in no uncertain terms.
Secondly, “tell it to the church” was NEVER meant to be an announcement to the congregation that the elders have decided to “excommunicate” a certain person. It is a call to the whole assembly to get involved in the situation so that EVERBODY is accountable and the true facts of the matter are totally out in the open. In fact, the offended and the first two witnesses may have to stand alone against the whole assembly in some cases:
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
Thirdly, we see “the Lord’s discipline” in the Bible, and we see self-discipline in the Bible, but where is “church discipline”? Answer: NOWHERE. The church does not discipline, assemblies are a matter of voluntary fellowship, period. If the whole assembly cannot convince the offender to make things right, they simply refuse to fellowship with the offender until he/she repents—it’s just that simple.
Fourthly, per the usual, this should all be interpreted through the prism of home fellowships, not the institutional church with all its necessary legal drama. Said offender is no longer welcome in the home of the host where the meetings take place. In extreme cases, restraining orders in regard to an institution are very messy, but not when it comes to private homes.
In addition, if the home fellowship wrongly stands with the offender for various immature reasons, guess what? The three merely go off and start their own home fellowship. Who is with them?
See how simple this all is? It’s the institution that complicates all of this.
Lastly, it’s not a matter of humiliating someone publically via the institution’s public building—that obviously beckons a host of legal issues. It is a simple matter of discontinuing fellowship until the offender makes things right.
Moreover, in regard to a network of home fellowships in a given geography, a wronged person could appeal to other fellowships. Where there can be no agreement, you may have an actual split in networks as well. But the whole thing is based on fellowship—not authority or a public institution where things become legal issues.
paul
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