Paul's Passing Thoughts

I just received a phone call from an “elder” of the Latter Day Saints. Supposedly, I clicked an online link used to request information about LDS, which I didn’t. So, right from the start, we see solicitation deception. You might want to note something else. Church boils down to the gospel of authority. It makes perfect sense that these organizations partake in solicitation because church is an industry that sells salvation, and truth really doesn’t matter. As long as you “humble yourself,” and submit to some religious authority, you are on the magical yellow bus going to heaven. And all of these buses have something in common: they all need a paint job, have all kinds of nastiness going on in the interior, but they are the only buses going to heaven. All churches have their version of, “We are all just sinners saved by grace.”

In the past, when I was a Baptist, this phone call would have invariably ended up in a theological debate. Obviously, church culture is enslaved to endless theological debate about which magical bus is the one really going to heaven. Another thing you can note follows: EVERY theology is based on the authority of men. Name one church that was not founded by a person’s interpretation of the Bible. The church is a quagmire of debate regarding truth. More than 2000 years later, the gospel is far from being a settled issue and confusion reins.

The caller awaited my answer, which would have guided him to the next option in his sales script. If I am unchurched, he would have presented the LDS gospel. If I already go to another church, he would have preceded to tell me why LDS is true and how the other church is in error. With church, all so-called “evangelism” is the sales pitch for your salvation company.

How freeing it was to say, “No thank you, I am involved in a home fellowship movement.” That shuts everything down immediately. Why? Because my fellowship with other believers and God is not centered on a church, and debating that with me creates a problem; Churchians have to, at that time, openly admit they believe people are saved by going to a formal church institution. And even though that’s what they believe, they don’t want to admit it. That’s interesting, no? Something that you believe to be truth, but you don’t want to admit it.

However, they may have questions about the home fellowship movement. “What is your authority?” Note that they are admitting church is based on an authority. I answer that with a question. “Do you believe Christianity is a body?” Of course, they have to say, “yes.” My reply follows: “Well, we believe a body only has one head, and for us, that is Christ.”

And by the way, what is “authority” to begin with? In our present reality, individual autonomy ends up being in a much better position of truth than the church idea of authority. Church authority assumes truth cannot bring about a unified group. So, the only way to bring about unity is a submission to authority. Hence, truth isn’t truth because you think it is truth…truth is truth because some authority says it is truth. That’s why the church gospel, for all practical purposes, is merely the gospel of authority.

Individual autonomy is not only nowhere close to being anathema, it’s reality. If the authority of people and their interpretations are myriad, and individual interpretation is also myriad, what’s the difference? There is one difference; ultimately, the individual must decide who to submit to based on who they think is right, right? Isn’t that individual autonomy to begin with? Christ never showed up at any church council to proclaim any one person or any one church to be his authority. We only have the word of what men say about themselves for that. They proclaim themselves to have authority over your spiritual wellbeing…so what? The only problem with that follows: more than one man, and more than one church claims that, requiring individual choice by default. You can also apply this concept to the freewill debate. The reality of freewill is unavoidable. Church is an individual choice about which authority can save you based on your individual assessment of the argument or who you want to believe for emotional reasons. Then, ironically, you choose to believe the doctrine that the authority espouses because of your supposed inability to think for yourself. In other words, you are choosing an authority to surrender your individual autonomy to.

People are metaphysically free by default, and are therefore individually culpable for the sum and substance of their own lives. One day, you will stand before God ALONE, and will knowledge that it was YOUR choice to believe whatever you believed and to live a life dictated by those beliefs. It is your choice to believe whomever you believe.

You are defined by freedom, and will be judged by the excercise of that freedom.

paul

“This is why Steve Lawson, regardless of the huge stakes, was unable to say “no” to an elicit affair with another women.”

At what point might Churchians think it is time to rethink the whole church thing? Once again, a celebrity pastor, this time, a really big fish in the Protestant pond, is caught with both hands in the cookie jar. But, once again, I ask, “Why would he have to resign?” Week in, and week out, these guys proclaim the “We are all sinners saved by grace” Protestant gospel. As TANC has bemoaned for years now, the biblical definition of a “sinner” is someone who is yet unregenerate. And that, in fact, is the Protestant gospel; the idea that a “saved” person remains unregenerate (fundamentally unchanged) and is only declared righteous legally through church membership. The big picture of Protestant doctrine and history is completely illogical and downright goofy. Furthermore, unlike any other religion or cult in the world, most Protestants are totally unaware of what they believe. Most Protestants would vehemently deny their orthodoxy.

Protestantism is unique because there is a huge disconnect between its intellectual testimony and its function. Protestants function according to its original doctrines, but deny the doctrines intellectually. For example, authentic Protestantism denies the biblical new birth and redefines it, and most Protestants function that way. Hence, they are still “sinners,” and no real change in state-of-being has taken place. Why? Well, because they can’t keep the law perfectly. Note that justification is defined by perfect law-keeping, but that’s NOT how the Bible defines justification. The Bible defines justification as being God’s literal offspring through the new birth. It’s NOT a mere declaration, it’s a reality, leading to a change of heart and the saved person’s relationship to the law. They are no longer under the law’s condemnation, and consequently, enslavement to sin. The Bible is clear: the power of sin is the law. An unregenerate person that is under law is also enslaved to sin and is not able to say “no to sin” like a truly born again believer. This is why Steve Lawson, regardless of the huge stakes, was unable to say “no” to an elicit affair with another women.

However, of course, the born again do not always say “no” to sin, but not for the same reason. The born again fail to love like they should, according to the Bible, because of weakness (mortality). When it gets right down to it, for the most part, when the chips are down, the born again are able to say “no” to sin more and more through growth in sanctification. The Bible states that believers grow in sanctification through biblical teaching enabling them to “beat my body into subjection.” That’s NOT what Protestantism teaches about sanctification. Clearly, Protestantism teaches that sanctification is the progression of justification through a perfect law-keeping substitution, what is known as the Protestant doctrine of double imputation. This substitution is found in “participation in Christ” or the “ordinary means of grace” found only in church membership. Nevertheless, Protestants usually confirm a new state of being intellectually, while also confessing doctrines that contradict new creaturehood. Protestantism is clearly an under-law justification, and in essence, the Galatians problem revisited.

So, why is Steve Lawson totally toast after his “fall.” Because a righteous life, or changed life, is mere pretense in Protestantism. Intuitively, people seek God because they know they need to change. Protestantism allows people to assume that Protestantism holds to that in order to draw them into the church where they are slowly indoctrinated into the sinners saved by grace gospel and acceptance of an additional mediator other than Christ, viz, the church. Hence, the primary pretense is the moral character of the leaders, who preach weekly that everyone is totally depraved, including believers, and nobody even blinks.

Hence, what I have been saying for 14 years now: I am not the least bit surprised that there is so much sin in the church; the Protestant gospel is an under-law gospel and being under law empowers sin. With that said, what is the alternative? The alternative is replacing the church, a word that is not in the Bible, with an organic home fellowship movement modeled after the New Testament. This is a cooperative body with different gifts and roles, not a hierarchical pecking order. It is a cooperative body with ONE head, Christ. It displaces “worship” from a place and makes it the whole life of the believer, and it meets where real families meet, in homes.

paul

All of life is worship. It doesn’t happen at a place. It happens when you serve out of a motivation of love!
John 4, Romans 12

~ Andy
(see also: https://paulspassingthoughts.com/2017/12/04/a-historical-survey-of-the-first-century-christian-assembly-defining-worship-part-1/)