Paul's Passing Thoughts

Before I begin to make my case, let me state the thesis. With Marxism, there are relevant human beings and irrelevant human beings. You either believe in the total inability of mankind, or you don’t. If you don’t, the sum and substance of your life is completely irrelevant. The Christian Marxist would use the Bible to state it this way: “All of the works of man are as filthy rags.” In that Bible verse, the Hebrew word used represents menstrual  rags.

If you believe in the total inability of man, your works are still filthy rags, but your total worth is judged by what you believe about humanity resulting in total obedience to the state. With Christian Marxism, you can replace “state” with “church,” and when Christian Marxism has fully bloomed, they are one and the same.

This translates into how the purpose of an individual is defined. The purpose of EVERY individual is to contribute to the state for the collective good as determined by the state. Of course the government has a right to tax you into poverty, it knows best how your money should be used for the “collective good.”  If the government didn’t take your money from you—you would only use it for yourself. Man must be ruled. He is inherently evil and must be saved from himself.

Purpose now defines worth. The worth of an individual is now determined by the individual’s ability to contribute to the state, and subsequently, the state’s definition of what the collective good is. Old people have little ability to contribute to the state; in fact, they are a burden on the state. Old people cost the state money and contribute nothing.

Though many of today’s evangelicals would deny the church doctrine of total depravity intellectually, they function according to its dictates. At the very least, they proclaim Total Depravity Light; “We are all just sinners saved by grace.”

The end-game of Marxist politics is the total submission of individuals to the state. Marxism uses different narratives cloaked in moralism to obtain that goal. Marxism’s worst nightmare is the idea that the world should be ruled by the collective good of individuals, and frankly, that’s the church’s worst nightmare as well because the doctrine of total depravity and Marxism are mutually inclusive. The church’s present participation in leftist narratives is a march towards the same end-game, and more and more, wittingly rather than unwittingly.

Sure, you have heard some squabbling here and there from church pastors over the government shutdown of churches because of the COVID pandemic, but a significant fuss is nowhere to be found. Even with some pastors being arrested for practicing their constitutional rights, the rest of the evangelical community remains silent. Even the premiere evangelical pastor of our day, John MacArthur Jr., is calling for “Christians” to quietly submit to the shutdown.

Furthermore, there is little discussion of any churches closing for financial reasons. How can this be? Two enormous church bodies that spearhead the New Calvinist era, the Southern Baptist and the Presbyterian Church of America, are showing little, if any financial strain. How in the world can this be? While I suppose that point could be argued to some degree, certainly, John MacArthur’s Grace to You religious empire and many others are not showing any significant financial shortfalls because of the pandemic shutdown.

This all seems strange when you consider the orthodoxy as well. According to New Calvinist orthodoxy, Church membership is synonymous with being part of Christ’s mystical body, and salvation must be progressed through obtaining the “ordinary means of grace” found only at church.

The fact is, evangelical churches of the 70s and 80s could not have financially survived this kind of shutdown, and the churches of the 50s and 60s would not have stood for it. What happened?

Simply stated, a dramatic shift in ideology because of the New Calvinist movement. Notice I am not referring to a change in doctrine, the doctrine of the church, Catholic or Protestant, has never changed, only the understanding of the doctrine.

Church was founded in a church-state, and was organized for the express purpose of church-state. Church shows up in the 4th century after successfully replacing the pagan-state as Rome’s mistress. The church, after a 200-year effort, finally got its marriage ring from the sugar-daddy it needed to enforce its orthodoxy.

Hence, church history begins, but the ekklesia of Christ was never a part of it. The ekklesia of Christ was never a party to the state in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the church had adopted pagan orthodoxy in order to obtain Rome’s favor, and that means philosophy was the primary authority for truth. The fact that the church fathers demanded the Bible be seen through the eyes of Plato is overt history.

But didn’t the Protestants come along and save us from all of that and return the church to its gospel roots? Hardly. That notion is the paramount historical hoax of the ages. Because of Thomas Aquinas’ integration of enlightenment ideas with Catholic church-state orthodoxy, a rift developed leading to the Protestant Reformation. The crux of the debate was the interpretation of reality and mankind’s role in reality. Augustine represented the Platonist view of reality adorned with Bible verses that drove Catholic orthodoxy for 1000 years. Aquinas was more influenced by Aristotle, and a debate within the church, the total inability of man versus the ability of man, began to fester.

Look, the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, sparked the Reformation with three proclamations: The 97 Theses, The 95 Theses, and the Heidelberg Disputation to the Augustinian Order. Two of the three proclamations were biblical treatises from a philosophical viewpoint. Martin Luther and John Calvin were rabid disciples of Augustine who was an avowed Platonist. None of this is obscure church history by any stretch of the imagination. Plato was Augustine’s authority for truth. This is not arguable. But the point here follows: Platonist Christianity calls for church-state; the two are mutually inclusive. According to Platonism, the sole purpose of man is to support the state. It’s collectivism.

The Protestant Reformation defeated Enlightenment Era ideas in the church, though the church remained split between Protestant and Catholic, while enlightenment ideas led to the American Revolution. The American Revolution was NOT a religious revolution; it was driven by ideas concerning the ability of man and his right to be free. For the first time in human history, the relationship between government and mankind was completely reversed, and consequently, the stated purpose of government was to serve the individual endeavors of mankind. Again, this was an idea never defended beforehand in human history.

The result was the confusion of true Catholicism and Protestantism in America. Churches retained worship procedure that reflected the church-state and the rejection of the biblical new birth, while intellectually, Americanism ruled the day. The worship tradition reflected the total depravity of mankind and progressive justification, while the intellectual confession was once-saved-always-saved and ideas of being literally born again, and therefore able to please God.

Hence, things like church attendance and tithing were matters of the heart and devotion, and were not seen as being linked to salvation in any way. Church was a volunteer army. Yet, its structure was still institutional because of its church-state foundation. This individualist mentality versus institutional authority created a tension that was always the elephant in the room at church. Yet, it made church, for the most part, a good thing from the end of the American Revolution to the 1970s. During those years, and due to being confused in a good way with Americanism, it was a force for good.

Then came a doctrinal tension in the Adventist church concerning the relationship between law and gospel. Americanism had caused the church to have some fuzzy idea of what the new birth is. The institutional tradition rejected new birth ideas, but most Churchians functioned according to fuzzy new birth ideas. In other words, and unfortunately, the functionality never surpassed biblical generalities. This resulted in the elephant in the room becoming too big for the room in Adventist circles.

An Adventist theologian, Robert Brinsmead, decided he would get to the bottom of the confusion once and for all by devouring all of the writings of the Protestant Reformation. And he did, and not being an American, he did so without an American worldview. What did he find out? He found TRUE Protestant soteriology. This, at first, started a movement in Seventh-Day Adventist circles, and then spread into Protestant circles, primarily beginning at Westminster Seminary in Pennsylvania. This was a return to authentic church-state Protestant orthodoxy. In the 70’s it was known as the “gospel recovery movement.” This caused a severe kerfuffle among Reformed Baptists resulting in the beginning of the Continental Baptist denomination in 1983. Its New Covenant Theology was an attempt to explain the Reformation’s overt error in making the law justification’s standard. In the 80s, it began to be known as the “Sonship Theology” movement which met with severe pushback in Presbyterian circles. The movement then went underground as the “gospel transformation” movement and started making noise again in 2006. It was then dubbed, “gospel sanctification.” In 2008, it obtained its present name, “New Calvinism.”

Consequently, New Calvinism is going to be in agreement with the state, especially its endeavor to control people, and will oppose American ideas. No one has heard one New Calvinist object to the shutdown, nor will you. In fact, they will endorse it, as they have.

Secondly, New Calvinist leaders have solidified their authentic Protestant view of authority over most church members which makes church attendance less important than remaining obedient to church leadership which ultimately saves them anyway. According to Protestant orthodoxy, church hierarchy has authority over salvation (John Calvin’s “Power of the Keys” doctrine).

Thirdly, the money issue. New Calvinists have solidified tithing as an “ordinary means of grace” along with The Lord’s Table etc., so, any significant drop in tithing is probably not taking place while overhead expenses plummet. New Calvinist churches are probably making money, not losing any.

President Donald Trump recently declared churches as “essential.” How essential? Are churches too big to fail? Like its church ancestors, New Calvinism is obviously striving to once again be married to the state. Where church history has been, and where it is going is inevitable, and true Christians have big decisions to make.

Perhaps the confused church was worth saving, but that ship has sailed. The church is going back to where it started. It was formed in a church-state and for the express purpose of a church-state.

paul

One of the biblical doctrines brought under sharper focus for me in recent months is so-called kingdom theology. If you don’t mind, I would like to claim the following view of kingdom theology for the home fellowship movement: we do not believe that God’s kingdom is presently on earth enforcing its authority over creation. If it was, the results would be obvious, as it will be when Christ returns and sets up His 1000 year kingdom on earth, and will rule the world from David’s throne in Jerusalem.

Secondly, God is not all that big on authority. The last enemy of God to be defeated will be death and that will occur at the end of His 1000 year reign. That means there will be some sin in the kingdom because some death will remain, although nothing like what we see now. Why would God work with such a plan? Because He is primarily concerned with love which is not valid without freewill. In the Old Testament, there was taxation under the law, and then there were freewill offerings that were driven by love, not compelled by force. God is love, and all about love, not law.

Hence, under the new and better covenant, there is no institutional Judaism, only love offerings. There is no tithing. God’s kingdom manifestations through Israel were ended with the destruction of the second temple. No temple, no kingdom. Period. The church institution tries to get around this by claiming a “spiritual kingdom” of God and claiming that the church is the visible institution of it on earth. For some reason, God decided to put men in charge of a kingdom on earth that competes with all of the other worldly kingdoms, while claiming that God is “sovereign” and “all powerful.” Meanwhile, supposedly, despotic kingdoms constantly give Him a run for His money. Nope, don’t think so. What I think follows: when Satan took Christ to a mountain top and offered Him the kingdoms of the world in exchange for His worship, it was a legitimate offer.

So, why is there a struggle between good and evil presently? If Satan is king of this present kingdom, why doesn’t evil rule the day? One, because of the conscience within every human being, at least, most of them. Second, God’s kingdom has ambassadors on earth. Third, the presence of the Holy Spirt. Fourth, man’s practical commonsense that avoids unnecessary suffering (what is “self-evident” to all). Fifth, what God creates is still good.

Yet, the present kingdom on earth prefers death—death is its calling card. It partakes in slow death through lifestyle, promotes anti-humanity ideologies, is full of control-lust, and thinks of people on different social strata as worthy of death. Justice is illusive because justice speaks to life value. When it gets right down to it, people who value life are seen as ignorant and uneducated. God demands justice and the defense of the weak because he values His creation generally, and individual human life in-particular.

Good people are a good thing, and when they are courageous enough to defend good, that is even better, but they still need to take the extra step and rescue themselves from this present kingdom of death. They need to prepare themselves for God’s coming kingdom. There is no neutral ground between these two kingdoms. And, I do think there are hedges of protection for those who belong to God in this world. And, I do think those guided by conscience receive blessings from God.

The present COVID pandemic has revealed this world’s overt disregard for life. Politics clearly trump any regard for life. If you cannot be controlled, or you are unwilling to be controlled, you are worthy of death. For many, money has a much higher value than life. Regardless of the fact that Chinese ill behavior has claimed the lives of 250,000 people worldwide, don’t expect the NBA or its players to express horror over it. For the NBA, China represents billions of dollars in yearly profits, and often toe the Communist line for this very reason. The COVID pandemic overwhelmed healthcare systems in many countries resulting in people having to place their deceased loved ones at the street curb for eventual pickup and burial with no funerals. Yet, the production and market of expensive tennis shoes far outweigh any concern for such horrific results from the Chinese playing with dangerous viruses for questionable reasons. Past that, they CLEARLY allowed flights out of Wuhan to the rest of the world, hoarded PPE, moved in January to obtain a patent on remdesivir, and threatened to withhold it and other drugs from the United States.

My friends, in this kingdom, fancy tennis shoes are much more valuable than any life.

New York city is the blue chip of anti-humanity death ideology. CLEARLY, human life is far from being the highest priority there. Nurses from other parts of the country went to New York to help in the hospitals, and have testified to the horrifying disregard for life. At least two ER nurses have testified that patients are “being murdered” by the hundreds in New York hospitals through incompetence and indifference.

Though I am no big fan of the church, I would see the Samaritan’s Purse medical efforts there as totally positive. Yes, Billy Graham’s total inability of man doctrine is annoying, but nurses confused about religious issues can still be good nurses. The bottom line should be a question of whether or not their presence there saved lives. For certain, as a patient there, your survival chances are demonstrably higher in the Samaritan Purse tents. As a healthcare worker, I can tell you where I would have worked without a second thought. Yes, the mentality that prayer is needed at every turn to be successful lest we do good “by our own power” would have been annoying, but the bottom line is how many lives are saved.  Yet, Samaritan’s Purse was harassed and bullied by the New York city politicians because of their anti-homosexual position. However, I think we know a Muslim organization would not have received the same treatment though Muslim countries execute homosexuals.

Regardless of overwhelming evidence that certain treatments cured COVID patients, such treatments were deliberately withheld for political reasons. Governors even banned the treatments through executive order and threatened to jail doctors who administered the treatments. Many effective treatments for COVID were discovered early in the pandemic, but the pandemic was deliberately extended with no holds barred fear mongering for purely political reasons. Again, we must remember, control-lust is a primary element of sin, and in this present kingdom, those who will not “humble themselves” and submit to being controlled, are worthy of slow death.

And finally, regardless of the resources sent to New York to guarantee its health system would not be overwhelmed, those resources were saved for those better suited to “contribute to the group (society at large).” Older people who were hospitalized were mandated to LTC facilities that lacked proper PPE and training. This resulted in isolating infected people with non-infected people where distancing is difficult. This resulted in mass death in New York nursing homes. This was completely foreseeable. In LTC facilities we call the people who live there, “residents” because it is their home in the strictest sense of the definition. By law, they are endowed with rights to be treated with dignity, and to be free from abuse and harm. New York ran over those rights with a Mack truck.

God’s creation has value. What God creates is still good: “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” The Bible doctrine that substantiates that is “Redemption.” Redemption is NOT salvation. Something that is redeemable has value. The fact that God will resurrect dead bodies speaks volumes to life value.

And that is what justice is all about; justice speaks to life value. Any religion that downplays justice because “we all deserve hell anyway” (Luther/Calvin) is a religion that disdains life and God’s creation.

But don’t make this a religious matter only: in the same way, politics are founded on life value. Though not our kingdom, and we look for that city built God, Christians are worthy ambassadors according to their politics in this kingdom.

paul

John MacArthur Jr. has spoken on whether or not churches should defy lockdown orders. The transcript is at the end of this post if you care to read it. He believes Christians should submit to the lockdown. Missing is any instruction on how to obtain the “ordinary means of grace [salvation]” found only at church and efficacious for “growing in grace [salvation].” During normality, pastors pound the pulpit hard on the authority of the church and faithfulness to it being synonymous with being part of the body of Christ. But, during abnormal circumstances, some sort of doctrine that keeps the “salvation process” moving along is conspicuously missing. Why?

MacArthur states WHY Christians shouldn’t defy the order, But like many other pastors, offers no HOW on keeping the salvation process moving. And yes, Protestantism clearly teaches that salvation is a process found only in the church and not a onetime and for all-time finished event.

I think the answer is found in what I refer to as the “gospel of authority.” This is salvation by submitting yourself to the authority of men. This is also a vital element of ecumenicalism. Obviously, sound and consistent doctrine is not really the issue at all; the issue is submission to religious authority as religious authority defines it. Basically, you are saved by showing a “willingness to submit to godly men.” and “obeying God’s anointed.” And of course, “Men of God (a Protestant authority designation) have disagreed on doctrine for thousands of years.” Que, sera, sera.

And obviously, no fruit demonstrated by church says anything about church at all because it is full of “sinners saved by grace.” When a leader gets caught with both hands in the cookie jar, it’s because he was taken for granted and not prayed for enough. So, shut your damn mouth and put the tithe in the plate or some man of God will remove your salvation.

Apparently, during an abnormal time, your assumed submission to the “men of God” secures your salvation until church resumes. Primarily, this is probably demonstrated by mailing your tithes to the church. Tithing is one of the ordinary means of salvation, so it’s probably an unwritten law that tithing covers the other means of grace (like the Lord’s Table) until church resumes. Another ordinary means of grace, “sitting under gospel preaching (because as a Christian, you still need the gospel),” can be obtained by watching videos.

However, the one most likely to elicit a mass text message is tithing.

This post will not address the mass cognitive dissonance throughout the statement, but I will close with one mention. MacArthur touts submission to the authorities, but calls a defense of the Constitution on which that authority rests as “irrelevant.”

paul

John MacArthur on churches reopening despite government suggestions and policy.

Yeah, let me make very clear this question because it keeps coming up. If the government told us not to meet because Christianity was against the law, if the government told us not to meet because we would be punished, fined for our religion and our religious convictions, we would have no option but to meet anyway. And that takes you to the fifth chapter of Acts where the leaders of Israel said to the apostles, “Stop preaching.” And Peter’s response was very simple. He said, “You judge whether we obey God or men,” then he went right out and preached.

If the government tells us to stop worshiping, stop preaching, stop communicating the gospel, we don’t stop. We obey God rather than men. We don’t start a revolution about that; the apostles didn’t do that. If they put us in jail, we go to jail and we have a jail ministry. Like the apostle Paul said, “My being in jail has fallen out to the furtherance of the gospel.” So we don’t rebel, we don’t protest. You don’t ever see Christians doing that in the book of Acts. If they were persecuted, they were faithful to proclaim the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ even if it took them to jail; and that’s been the pattern of true Christianity through all the centuries.

But this is not that. Might become that in the future. Might be overtones of that with some politicians. But this is the government saying, “Please do this for the protection of this society.” This is for greater societal good, that’s their objective. This is not the persecution of Christianity. This is saying, “Behave this way so that people don’t become ill and die.”

Now you may not think that you’re going to have that impact on somebody, you’re not going to be the one that becomes a carrier and causes something to be passed on to somebody else down the road and somebody dies. You may think that’s going to be you. But you cannot defy the government. And I don’t think pastors should do this. You cannot defy the government and say, “We’re going to meet anyway because God has commanded us to meet, no matter what damage we do to people’s lives.”

I mean, what should mark Christians is mercy, compassion, love, kindness, sacrifice. How are you doing that if you flaunt the fact that you’re going to meet; and essentially you’re saying, “We disregard the public safety issue.” You don’t really want to say that.

That does not help the gospel cause.

What helps the gospel cause is to say, “Of course, we don’t want to be the cause of anyone’s sadness, anyone’s sorrow, anyone’s sickness, and certainly anyone’s death. So we will gladly comply. This is consistent with what Scripture says, that we are to live quiet and peaceable lives in the society in which we live. We don’t rebel, we don’t do protests, we don’t fight the government, we don’t harass and harangue, we don’t march, we don’t get in parades, we don’t stop traffic; we lead quiet and peaceable lives, and we pray for those in authority over us, and we submit ourselves to them.

In Romans chapter 13, Paul says, “You submit yourself to the government, the powers that be.” But Peter adds to that, “You submit yourself to the governor and the king,” whoever that personal authority is. I’ve heard people say, “Well, this isn’t constitutional.” That’s irrelevant. That is completely irrelevant. When you’re told by an authority to do something and it’s for the greater good of the society physically, that’s what you do because that’s what Christians would do. We are not rebels and we’re not defiant, and we don’t flaunt our freedom at the expense of someone else’s health.

How do we back out of that to communicate the love of Christ? Look, Jesus came and basically banished disease from Israel. He was a healer. The last thing the church of Jesus Christ would want to be is a group of people that lived in defiance and made somebody sick, caused somebody’s death. So you restrain yourself from that.

Again, the issue is so clear that even going back to Richard Baxter back in 1600s, Richard Baxter has a great section in one of his books where he says, “If the magistrate,” as he calls it, “asks you to refrain from meeting because of a pestilence, you do not meet. On the other hand, if the magistrate tries to force you not to meet because of persecution of Christianity, you meet anyway.” I think that’s the dividing line.