Paul's Passing Thoughts

I have followed politics since I was a nine year old Barry Goldwater conservative. One thing has always characterized my view of the American electorate: cynicism. It was obvious from the beginning that Jimmy Carter would be a disaster. The American people elected him anyway. Everyone knew Bill and Hillary Clinton are corrupt. The American people elected them anyway. Everyone knew Barak Obama had a negative view of America. The American people elected him anyway.

I could never figure it out, until now. For the most part, like me, the electorate has been cynical and unenergized. Look, for some time, at least forty years, everyone knew political promises are made to be broken; we came to expect it. George Bush’s infamous “read my lips” was merely political business as usual. Even more frustrating was the following: Ronald Reagan clearly demonstrated that a smaller government empowers America and its people.

However, knowing the brilliance of the founding fathers of America, who put a failsafe constitution in place leading to a very resilient America, we have always figured we could keep America afloat by voting for the least of two evils. Hence, we made up enough of the electorate to keep things close. Question: who was the last Democrat to win an election by a landslide? See what I mean? The problem has always been inactivity by commonsense Americans who are fed-up with looking and acting “presidential” being more important than keeping promises. The icing on the cake was watching the Bush’s frolic with people who obviously hate this country and everything it stands for in the name of “civility.”

Donald Trump has changed all of that. Finally, a leader who says what he means and means what he says. He not only keeps promises, but doesn’t let opposition from others stop him from fulfilling his promises. It’s the fulfilling of promises times two because he doesn’t use opposition as an excuse to not get the job done. In other words, he views campaign promises as his job description. In the business world, you either get the job done or you don’t, period. This is how Trump is running the country and it is more than we could ever hope for.

Moreover, his unceremonious disrespect for those who disagree with him is balm for years of frustration. It’s payback for those who make America work while being dismissed as worthless grunts by elitists. Oddly, regardless of Trump’s pedigree, we hear, “He’s one of us!”

It’s why the Russia hoax didn’t work. It’s why the Ukraine hoax didn’t work, and it’s why the Coronavirus fear mongering hoax to trash the economy is not going to work, but this time with an added twist.

Everyone knows this virus is being exaggerated so that Trump doesn’t get credit for a good economy, but meanwhile, it has robbed thousands of Americans from once in a lifetime family experiences. This is going to backfire bigtime. Trump has no choice but to send the Navy Seals to take care of a schoolyard bully, but more than likely, it is going to put a quick stop to this virus and Trump will get all of the credit. Meanwhile, people will remember what the exaggerated response costed them personally. This is a political disaster for the Democrats. They have made it personal on ground level.

Have you noticed that Nancy Pelosi et al have changed their tune this week? It’s because they see it regardless of their TDS. In addition, consider that more than half of the people infected, even in China, are now recovered. Again, when the smoke clears, this is going to be a political disaster for the Democrats.

The character assignation and “political qualifications” playbook no longer works because the American electorate is no longer marginalized by the disenfranchised. Trump has begun an era of new politics, and it will result in the mother of all electorate landslides in 2020.

paul

Don’t you know, God’s design for Christian fellowship is susceptible to every bump and pothole in the road of life. Supposedly. Of course, the problem begins with the whole concept of church, which is where you go to get more gas for your salvation gas tank for motoring closer and closer to “final justification.”

Yes indeed, church is God’s authoritative institution on earth for the overseeing of his salvation process, and meanwhile, the process is hindered by all kinds of natural disasters, dictatorships, genocide, and religious persecution. In some countries, if you want to murder a bunch of Christians, they will accommodate you by meeting at a certain advertised place, on a certain day, and at a certain time. In other countries, organized religion is against the law unless state approved. In Western culture, church seems like a perfect system because it fits the culture.

Sarcasm aside, Christian fellowship has nothing to do with a salvation process, and is designed in such a way to not be hindered by any bumps in the road of life. The most recent example is the Coronavirus pandemic. I find it interesting that on the one hand, church is critical for obtaining the “ordinary means of grace” under the authority of “God’s ordained ministers,” but on the other hand, where is the biblical exception for when the church building gets leveled by an F5 tornado?

Already, several churches have cancelled services until further notice, and in some states, executive orders to limit ALL social gatherings to 500 people or less are forthcoming in the near future. So much for separation of church and state.

Funny, when a church is shut down, you never hear a concern about where people are going to get their weekly justification, even though that is church orthodoxy in a nutshell.

What could happen to the mega-churches is particularly interesting. During a pandemic, you can’t have thousands of people gathered together three times a week. Also, the bulk of tithing takes place when people are at the services. Furthermore, things like pandemics effect the personal livelihood of parishioners to begin with, while the need to go to the church for financial help increases. Well, the church isn’t going to be able to help. Add these realities to the fact that churches have gargantuan budgets and most mega-churches survive financially on a month to month basis.

It’s interesting that there is no interim orthodoxy for not being able to go someplace and receive salvation on the installment plan from “God’s anointed.”

God’s family is a literal family and functions like a family. Gatherings are for studying God’s word, sharing a meal together, prayer, and encouraging each other unto good works. Multiple self-sustained households can also accomplish various things at utmost efficiency. Institutions, invariably, are funded by individual households anyway.

This doesn’t mean that there is no organization; there may not be authority, but all families are organized. During a pandemic, the family may not meet for awhile, but everything else would remain the same.

And because its not a public institution, home fellowships are underneath the radar of cultural dramas of all sorts.

paul

The constant Bible-speak among Churchians is laughable; there is no Bible in the church. “The Bible says in”…cite chapter and verse…this, that, and the other…is really what they hear from the pulpit on Sunday and nothing more or less.

At least Catholics are honest about it. On the other hand, it’s amazing to watch John MacArthur preach as mindless parishioners are told what the words they are looking at say. Again, I like the honesty of Catholicism; they don’t even bother bringing their Bibles to church, while Protestants mock God by doing so.

So, how did Biblicism become a lie in the Protestant church? Well, it always was a lie, but Protestants strayed away from the lie for awhile and a sort of half-pregnant Protestantism ensued for awhile. And during that time, the church was actually halfway decent, at least, some churches.

The Protestant Reformation was founded on a historical-redemptive interpretation of the Bible. What’s that? Well, since salvation is progressive according to Protestant orthodoxy, the Bible has one role and one role only: to aid the Christian in the progression of salvation. It’s a “redemptive” interpretation, get it? What does “redemptive” mean? Duh.

And how do we use the Bible for the progression of our salvation? Well, since we are still supposedly “sinners,” and as John Calvin and Martin Luther stated, present sin removes us from grace (read: salvation), we must return continually to the same gospel that saved us for re-justification. The sole purpose of the Bible is to “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” Hence, every verse in the Bible is about the “saving works [note the plural] of Jesus.” The Bible is about “what Jesus did, not anything we do.” The Bible is the law that continually walks us back to the cross for more Jesus.

Thing is, most Protestants just wait for Sunday to hear a “gospel message” rather than to preach the gospel to themselves during the week. After all, that’s what we pay the preacher for, right?

Also, remember this: all of the quarreling about women pastors in the church boils down to the ability to re-condemn parishioners every week for purposes of leading them back to the cross. Seems to me that a woman can do that just as good as a man, if not better. Nagging in the pulpit by men every week in the church is rivaled by nothing.

Most pastors will claim they use the historical-grammatical interpretation method and they are either outright lying or don’t know what they are talking about. They may use a grammatical method to reach a redemptive conclusion regarding the text, but that’s not a true use of the historical-grammatical method.

It’s amazing to note the obvious: New Testament letters were read to the assemblies at large. The letters were not delivered to so-called pastors who then explained the letters to those assembled. Nor is there any indication in the Bible that such a format should be used in the assemblies moving forward.

Contemporary Christians know very little about the Bible because the knowledge of it is clearly doled out through the traditions of men. Christ said that makes the word of God void. There is no word of God in the church.

The Bible is about more than redemption. A free and collective study of the Bible by everyday Spirit indwelled Christians is the only way its treasures will be revealed.

paul

“You better educate youth, because one way or the other, they are going to do a revolution.”

There probably isn’t enough totally ignorant and un-self-aware millennials willing to leave their parent’s basement long enough to elect Bernie Sanders. That’s good, because otherwise, he would be elected. You see, we have it so good here in America that it is sort of like being in high school; reality can be experienced through fads without anyone ending up in a mass grave. We voted for the coolest classmate for class president, not because of any difference he or she would make, but because said person represents everything trending at the time.

Back in the day, people told me they voted for Bill Clinton because, “he’s cool.” And gee whizz, “wouldn’t it be cool to have a black president?” While liberals played the race card during the 2008 elections, the truth of the matter follows: America has become a culture given to low information and feel-good faddish trends; by virtue of Barak Obama being something different, he was likely to be elected. And frankly, with a woman president being the next big thing, I am very surprised Hillary Clinton didn’t win. She should have, and the fact that she didn’t speaks to her stunning incompetence.

Perhaps the best example of this was the Che Guevara “T-shirt fad” otherwise known as “Che chic” and widely popular among young people who tend to be enamored by revolutionary ideas and have an inherent sense of moral superiority. With young people, some sort of revolution is always needed. Call Che chic a mere T-shirt fad if you will, but if he would have run for president at the time of the fad, he would have received 100% of the millennial vote. Also note, during the peak of the New Calvinism movement in the church, “Jonathan Edwards is My Bro” T-shirts were wildly popular among the so-called “Young, Restless, and Reformed” who had no idea whatsoever what Jonathan Edwards believed or taught.

Be sure of this: the New Calvinism movement led by John Piper in the church is very parallel to the present-day phenomena of Bernie Sanders and his millennial generation following. The similarities of John Piper and Sanders are uncanny across the board. Only now do I look back and see how Piper brilliantly exploited the propensity of youth towards misinformed revolution to take over the Protestant church. Oh, and by the way, yes, the New Calvinism movement has taken over the Protestant church.

Does this lesson follow? You better educate youth, because one way or the other, they are going to do a revolution. It goes without saying that the church was woefully inept in educating its youth for hundreds of years. Ritual is not education.  And speaking of high school, what revolutionary ideas are being taught to those who have revolution built into their hormones? A clue: NOT capitalism. If you know anything about history, you know that the youth were key to the Chinese cultural revolution and the rise of Nazism. Misguided youth are a major tool of all tyranny trying to take over a culture. In all cases where they succeed, adults were asleep at the switch.

So, you know me, I believe the church hijacked Christianity circa 350 AD and is not worth saving. But since I am a compassionate soul and have friends on a crusade to save the church from New Calvinism, I can at least help them with that. Basically, they need to look at what those in the Conservative movement are doing presently in politics: they are redirecting the youthful propensity towards revolution with truth.

But that may be some bad news for my church friends because it means you are going to have to start telling the truth about Calvin and Luther in the same way the Conservative movement is telling the truth about Joseph Stalin et al.

In fact, had you done that correctly over the years, John Piper would have been rejected out of hand. “But Paul! Are you saying that Calvin et al were socialist tyrants?!!!!!”

See what I mean?

paul