The Heavenly B-52s Can Save American Christianity From Its Present Dark Age
Originally published February 11, 2013
We must remember that the Dark Ages were a European thing. And we must remember that Greco-Roman philosophy was the source and then it was turbo charged with the integration of European style religiosity. European religion has always been grounded in Plato’s disdain for humanity. Hence, one philosopher stated well that faith and force together are the destroyers of the modern world. One of the most notable historians of our time, K.R. Popper, fingered Plato specifically in regard to the logic that has wreaked havoc on Western culture through Communism, Islam, Catholicism, and Reformed theology. Augustine, one of the fathers of the Reformation, called Plato a pre-Christian Christian, and the juggernaut of faith and force was thus born.
And primarily, American religion was imported from Europe via the Puritans who were a European style religious political sect. They wanted to create a theocracy of their own in the new world. That’s the “religious freedom” they sought in America—a political one. Ironically, this importation of a European pandemic is romanticized by the Thanksgiving holiday. Somehow, deep in our evangelical American psyche, we think the Puritans could have led us to the religious utopia that we all lust for. And in-fact, deep in our evangelical psyches, we think the war still rages between our Puritan foundations and the evils of Enlightenment philosophy. And if Enlightenment philosophy would surrender, all would be well and the heavenly Jerusalem would finally come down to Earth.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Enlightenment thought, even with its many abhorrent shortcomings, launched America to unprecedented greatness as a nation because of three basic principles that God agrees with: man is free; man is capable; and man is responsible for the sum and substance of his own life before God. Men “small and great” will all stand before God. Plato’s philosopher kings do not stand before God in our stead regardless of the priestly garb that the Reformers have adorned them with.
In the movie, Moneyball, based on a true story, the General Manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team set all time league records with a meager budget and has-been players by breaking tradition with the ways big league teams have always been built. The player’s manager of the team was against the plan, and was a constant hindrance to its implementation. But when the Oakland A’s became the talk of the sports world because of the plan, the player’s manager got all of the credit. In the same way, the manager of American Christianity, the one of 95 Theses fame, Martin Luther, is given credit for America’s greatness. God has blessed America because of the Puritan missionary children that he spawned. Their roots are the lifeblood of America. We were “founded on their Christian principles.” This is a significant departure from reality.
Luther despised reason. He believed that reasoning was a dangerous stunt that the unenlightened masses shouldn’t try at home. And because they are not capable, they have to be protected from themselves; hence, neither are they free. To the degree that we are free the world is in a spree. Man must be saved from himself; by force if necessary, and for the good of the world. Martin Luther to the rescue. Stalin to the rescue. Muhammad to the rescue. The Moral Majority to the rescue. And on every Thanksgiving Day, deep, deep in our American psyche, a small still voice cries out: “Oh but for the Puritans! What could we be?” It’s all the same logic. You can dress it up in different doctrines, but it’s all the same. Logic comes in many doctrinal forms—both secular and religious.
The founding fathers of this country were children of the Enlightenment era. Until America popped up on the history radar screen, force and faith was the big league tradition. Our founding fathers proposed something different: government as the protector of man’s right to be free, capable, and responsible. And a government that served at the pleasure of the people to do so. It is a testimony to the power that is displayed when merely three ideas from God are implemented in our realty. Three ideas from God made America the envy of all world history. In the end, the motif that any child can perceive in the book of Revelation will fill the world with blood up to the horse’s bridles: force and faith. To what is said here, the proffers of force and faith, the Reformed of our day, answer in all of their Puritan glory, “I beg your pardon! Jesus Christ should be the envy of the world!” But which Jesus Christ? The Puritan Jesus Christ? And enlightened minds want to know: “Are we free to decide that for ourselves?” And: “Are we capable of even knowing that?” We fear that the answer to both of these questions is, “No.” And that is why giving you power in our lives at any level is a really bad idea.
Hence, To the degree that the Reformed Dark Age feigns, darkness in the American church does rein. And we are in that Dark Age. It came in essence as logic stowed away in the Mayflower’s diseased European rats bringing the same plague with it. I could drag out all of the apocalyptic data and its many faceted manifestations, but a recent televised top of the hour newscast introduction will suffice:
Here we go again, another sex scandal in the Evangelical church.
You notice they said, “Evangelical” and not “Catholic.” Anybody that knows the facts knows that sexual abuse and the subsequent cover-ups are just as prevalent in the Protestant Evangelical Church as it is in the Catholic Church. The scandals are the same, and the silence among clergy is the same, along with the same disregard for victims. Different doctrines—same logic—same results. Logic always has an endgame; there are many different doctrines that can get you there.
But the American Dark Age takes on a different appearance than the open fires of European religious wars and unspeakable terrors for it is tempered with freedom, capability, and responsibility. In the same way that God’s spies found refuge with a harlot, the American church has been saved from itself by Enlightenment thought. The result has been Reformed Light, and the carnage has been greatly limited. The European Reformers believed that children should be seen and not heard; American Reformed Light allows their children to play in a sandbox. Children are happier when they have a sandbox to play in, and they can form all kinds of ideas in what they make in the sand. But when it is time for dinner, it’s also time to put our little buckets and shovels away, run to the dinner bell, and obey mommy and daddy. They protect us from truth that can cause division because we are unable to handle truth, and they make truth a storybook that we can understand. They read it to us at night, and we are much comforted. We can pretend in the backyard, and we feel safe because mommy is watching from the kitchen window.
But the children of Reformed Light do not grow up. For certain, the American church is every bit like grown adults playing in a sandbox. The real Reformers now come forward and scoff at the pathetic sight, and say they are the answer. Yes, not playing with ideas at all must be the answer. Adults in a sandbox is not the problem, the sandbox is the problem. Sandboxes tempt people to play with truth. The Reformers to the rescue—those half breed Semi-Pelagian parents be damned.
Children in adult bodies will always rape, hate, pillage and steal. It is what it is: spiritually, they were born slaves, born incapable, and born irresponsible. Reformed theology is a bus of misfits, but all believe that it is the only bus going to heaven—the bus of faith alone in Puritan sanctification. All kinds are on the bus, but the tie that binds is womb to the tomb total depravity.
Some do not persevere in accepting their total depravity and the total depravity of others. Some do not trust God’s anointed to get the bus of misfits to heaven, so an Inquisition is needed. The European Reformers used the gallows and the burning stake (if the victim was lucky), brainwashing, and orthodoxy. The American Reformers can use brainwashing and orthodoxy, but because of the founding fathers, the American Reformers must replace the gallows and burning stake with character assassination, authority to condemn eternally, and false criminality. And all of the aforementioned paints the portrait of the present-day American Dark Age in the church. There is a little metal plate on the bottom of the spectacular painting hanging in the gallery of human history, and it reads:
Here we go again.
The Bible is written for mass consumption. All Bible books, save a few, were written to assemblies and not leadership. God has also written his word on the hearts of every person ever born into the world (Romans 2:14). We are all responsible before God, free to obey Him or not obey Him, and obviously, must exercise our minds for understanding. We also live in the information age; so, if man was without excuse in the days of the apostolic church (Romans 2:1) we are certainly without excuse today.
Nations, particularly the USA, have used heavy bombers to drop propaganda leaflets on cities before an invasion or in an attempt to turn the population at large against the enemy leadership. Each bomb usually weighs about 250 lbs. and rains about 60,000 leaflets on a given area. During the Iraq/US war, leaflet bombings resulted in the mass surrender of Iraqi soldiers. In the same way, regardless of what’s going on in the world, God has a message of truth for every person. Invariably, it is man’s responsibility to do what God wants him to do in any given situation.
God has given the truth to all men, and only the truth will set us free. We need to pick up and read the leaflet and surrender to the Chief Shepherd. The Reformation is responsible for this present Dark Age in the American church. It is a doctrine that must be rejected with prejudice, and we must disdain anything that has touched its filthy garments.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
paul
The Unauthorized Patience of the Elect: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28
One of the many callings of believers is to fully embrace and love difficult people who profess to be believers. I believe home fellowships are better equipped to do this than the institutional church by far. This culture is awash with people, many of whom are professing believers, who have personality disorders. These are people who have developed patterns and habits of thinking that cause them to be completely off the tracks socially. Since the government ran out of money and can no longer afford to institutionalize these people, they are among us. If they are older, some can be put in nursing homes where their social security will be confiscated in exchange for medicating them until they die.
Welcome to real believeism. We are not here for our best life now, we are here on assignment. We are ambassadors representing God’s kingdom. We are also literally God’s family. Thy brother may be bi-polar, ahhhmen. We are God’s elect. That doesn’t mean we were elected individually, it means God elected the means of salvation and the types of people he would primarily call. The sterilized institutional church and all of its aristocracy is an usurper—that is not what God elected. Certainly they are welcome if they want to come, but they were never the primary target in regard to what God elected.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose [elected] what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose [elected] what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose [elected] what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,31so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Look, I have been around church long enough to know that churchians don’t want to deal with the socially awkward, but I think the focus of Christ’s ministry is fairly obvious; He sought out the misfits of the world and all but completely ignored the religious academics of that time. The New Testament documents the indignation of the elitists accordingly. Come now, let’s think about this: Christianity is about conferences in Palm Springs hosted by celebrity pastors and $350.00 entry fees? And Caribbean Cruises hosted by celebrity pastors? Really? Have we lost our minds?
Church is where you get your ongoing salvation, and Christian living that glorifies God is barely on the radar screen. While the church mocks self-sufficiency, its worldly natural selection produces such. What better describes the present-day megachurch culture than, “We are rich and have need of nothing.” And don’t give me a load of crap regarding the institutional church’s token ministries for purposes of window dressing; we all know what its core constituency is. Those prone to lesser death are left to feed the ego of praise bands while those less disciplined are dumped out on the streets via ostracization for the world to deal with…while professing Christ.
So, we have a good reminder in 1Thessolonians 5:12-28 that believeism embraces the elect. That’s our calling. Like Christ, we are not looking to add Jeeesuuuus to mundane suburbia, we embrace difficult people with patience and wisdom. And it will take patience, active love, and good verbal judo. Let’s first take note of who this letter is written to; it is written to all Christians at large, as with all of God’s revelation. God writes letters addressed to mankind, and then religious academics claim that only they can properly interpret the letters. We need to stop buying into this silliness yesterday. Look at the obviousness of this:
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you…See that no one repays anyone evil for evil…I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.
First of all, obviously, this letter, like most from the apostles (note “we” throughout) is not written particularly to the leadership gifted to warn and protect God’s people from the gangrene of doctrinal error. It is written to the saints at large. Christ’s body is a unified body of gifts working together for a common cause with Him being the ONLY authority…period. That’s why God speaks to the whole family. The leaders and doctrinal discerners are merely gifted body parts, not authoritarians. In fact, note the tendency that Paul often addressed among believers at that time to not respect the ministers of the word. Also note that the word translated “over you” is the word “hymōn” which is usually translated “of you,” not “over you.” The word is simply the personal pronoun, “you.” The liberties taken by English translations that mostly come from the Reformers would be hilarious if not so scandalous in making this a case for elder authority. It’s just not there by any stretch of grammatical imagination. The Complete Jewish Bible probably captures a good sense of this verse:
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who are working hard among you, those who are guiding you in the Lord and confronting you in order to help you change.
Also note who has been charged with making sure things are executed correctly: “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil,” viz, EVERYONE is to “see” to it. This same pattern saturates the New Testament. EVERYONE is responsible to see that things are done correctly before Christ—this is not the particular role of elders. I could go on and on here, but I would add counseling to that list as well (Romans 15:14).
And who is charged with making sure this letter is read to all of the brothers? Answer: all of the brothers. Any questions?
The first type of believer Paul notes is the ataktos. They are generally disorganized and unproductive. They are unmotivated in general. Paul, in representing the apostles in this letter, says to noutheteó them. In other words, counsel them. We are to stir their gift up within them. Susan and I are presently working with a precious believer that is presently unmotivated due to some significant trials in her life. One particular trial is defining her whole life. Come to find out yesterday that she is an accomplished piano player. Guess who will soon be receiving a piano? This is how it works. This is our charge.
The second type (for lack of a better term) of believer that Paul addresses is the oligopsuchos—they are faint-hearted, and given to fear. We are to paramutheomai them. That is, we are to encourage them, and make them feel protected, because we do protect them. Home fellowships are ideal environments for these tendencies and needs to be revealed.
Thirdly, Paul says to antechó the asthenés. We are to “hold fast” and “cling to” those who are weak and sickly. But guess what? These will also be prone to lack of motivation and fear. We are to “hold fast” to them. We are to “cling to them.” These characteristics often abide together through cause and effect.
And it will take patience. These are difficult people to deal with as they lash out at the world in fear and confusion. If we are not careful, we will even find ourselves, repaying evil for evil instead of holding fast to them. This is where the rubber of believeism meets the road. This is where we walk in the footsteps of Christ.
This is our calling. This is what makes us the elect. This is family. This is the kingdom. This is our apostolic charge. Aristocracy is most welcome, but check your authority at the door. We have no Lord but Christ, and our only law is love.
paul
The Problem with Authority
I was reminded just yesterday why believers must begin taking a much closer look at the subject of authority. A client of mine complained that her adolescent’s social services counselor actually suggested that her son should sue her! This immediately brought back to mind something Susan, my wife, had shared with me concerning outside counseling that one of her sons had received prior to our marriage that was also divisive.
Authority is bad for the family unit. A major theme of TANC Ministries of late has been the love versus authority issue. If you give the subject serious thought, it would almost seem like authority is a necessary evil. Remember, the undisputed greatest nation in history, America, was founded on less governmental authority in exchange for individual liberty. It was founded on the idea of self-governance. Until America, freedom of the individual was greatly feared and thought to be a sure catalyst of chaos that would bring an end to human existence.
But authority divides, and can only bring about conformity and nothing else. The apostle Paul said it best:
1 Timothy 1:5 – The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. 8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…
The law is used lawfully when it is used for love. Love fulfills the whole law (Rom 13:10, Gal 5:14, Jms 2:8, Matt 22:40). The law asks, “Did you sin today?” Lawfulness asks, “Did you love today?” Authority asks, “Did you do what I told you to do?” Love asks, “What do you need today?” One seeks to outdo each other in meeting needs and honoring one another (Rom 12:10 ESV), the other seeks to outdo each other with control. I have been around long enough in pastor clicks to know that the pastors who are respected most “run a tight ship.” The famous Jack Hyles, the “best preacher since the apostle Paul,” once displayed his pastoral savvy by ordering a deacon to stand up and sit down upon his command of which said deacon obeyed on cue. Parishioners sought Hyles’ permission to go on vacation and buy new cars.
The scope of authority and its true usefulness in this age is extremely narrow. Governments are God’s ministers only when they fulfill His purposes of rewarding good and punishing evil. But Romans 13:1-10 reveals something astounding: we owe the government payment for such services before God, but we only owe each other love. Government is an institution—God’s people are a body. We give money according to the needs of others, not an authoritative religious establishment.
However, the main concern of this post is how outside authority divides families and marriages, especially religious authority. In general, when there is strife and division, authority is always lingering in the shadows someplace. And most troubling is the assertion that “If everyone would just obey the Holy See there would be perfect unity.” But herein is the glaring problem: God will judge individuals—NOT institutions. Even in this present age, how many have been hanged on the gallows of justice for following the orders of those in authority? During WWII, an adolescent could totally circumvent their parents’ authority by joining the Hitler Youth movement. The authority of parents over their children was completely usurped by the state.
Likewise, due to the New Calvinist movement unmasking the true orthodoxy of the Protestant Reformation, the present-day institutional church openly claims authority over the family unit and labels husbands as sub-elders over their families. Wives who don’t buy in are stripped of their salvation by the completely bogus concept of “church discipline.” Whenever I challenge someone to find “church discipline” in the Bible, they always cite verses that invoke… “Ok, so, where is church discipline in this passage?” Take Matthew 18 for example: where is church discipline in that passage? And for that matter, where are the elders? Most absurdly assert that “tell it to the church” refers to the elders. But in regard to the way “church discipline” functions, it’s always the elders informing (telling) the congregation. So, in order to make Matthew 18 about church discipline, the church is the elders, but when it comes to applying the concept, the elders tell the church. Sigh.
And unfortunately, many husbands are all too eager to buy into the sub-elder concept. As long as they agree with the church’s orthodoxy, the wife either obeys or supposedly loses her salvation. And many of these men have the gall to object to wife spanking that is more prevalent in the institutional church than we would like to admit, but pray tell; what is the logical conclusion of all of this nonsense? Wife spanking or not is merely the difference between authority pizza toppings, plain cheese or supreme.
And it also cuts both ways. Wives who want to get rid of their husbands for whatever reason only need to become Reformation queens. Once they establish themselves as a present-day Joan of Arc, the church would not dare deprive them of having a Reformed Kool-Aid drinking husband. Hence, church sanctioned divorce is presently an epidemic.
Once one is tuned into the authority issue, the senses are flooded with data in the milieu of our culture. After hearing what the client shared with me yesterday, I came home and was channel surfing while eating dinner. A documentary about “conscience” on the EWTN channel (Catholic) caught my attention. It went something like this:
So, there are some things wrong by their very nature…So conscience, since it is a judgment of reason, and not the voice of God, can err…To avoid error, conscience must follow the teachings of the Church. Vatican II did not change this. In Constitution on Divine Revelation #10: “The task of authoritatively interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on [Scripture or Tradition] has been entrusted exclusively to the living Magisterium of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.
But again, we stand before Christ individually. I have actually heard people say that they will not stand in the judgment before God, but Christ will stand in for them if they obey the church who represents Him. So, “This is my Son…hear ye Him” is now “Hear the church.” This seems like a really bad idea to me, and obviously results in a plethora of interpretations accordingly. Even if everyone obeys an authority, there will be disagreements among the authorities.
We call that “war.”
paul
Does the Law Really Lead People to Christ by Revealing Sin Only?
Originally published October 14, 2013
The insanely celebrated return to our Reformed roots teaches the following about the law:
We are unable to keep the law perfectly. And since a perfect keeping of the law is the standard for righteousness required to live with God forever, our inability to keep the law perfectly leads us to Christ who must keep/fulfill it for us. As Christians, we continue to use the law in this way to “preach the gospel to ourselves.” The more we use the law to show our innate sinfulness, the more we experience “vivification” (a joyful, perpetual rebirth).
The bogus idea that perfect law-keeping is justification’s standard aside, the most popular text that supposedly supports this idea is Galatians 3:24 –
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
To make that verse work, “guardian” (paidagōgos) is often translated as “tutor.” That’s a stretch. The word is better translated “protector”:
Among the Greeks and the Romans the name was applied to trustworthy slaves who were charged with the duty of supervising the life and morals of boys belonging to the better class. The boys were not allowed so much as to step out of the house without them before arriving at the age of manhood (Strong’s Dictionary).
Furthermore, the Reformed gospel teaches that the law is used by the Christian for this same purpose in our Christian walk—to continually lead us closer and closer to Christ by showing forth sin. This blatantly contradicts the context of the passage:
Galatians 3:25 – But now that faith has come, we are no longer [added] under a guardian,
Reformed doctrine clearly teaches that Christians are still under the law’s purpose to show us a deeper and deeper need for Christ and His grace as we see our own sinfulness in a deeper and deeper way. In other words, for Christians, God’s word still has a redemptive purpose. This is the basis for Historic Redemptive hermeneutics. However, even in regard to the lost, the showing forth of sin is only one purpose for the law, but far from being the only one.
Primarily, the law shows forth life. This is by far the primary theme of law throughout the Scriptures. The law shows forth the wisdom of God, and the wellbeing (blessings) of those who follow it. The law is also framed in the context of promise much more than it is judgment.
This gets into the major crux of the Reformed false gospel; the fusion of justification and sanctification concepts. The blessings of law-keeping can be experienced by unbelievers and believers alike, but such cannot obtain eternal life. The point is that the law shows forth life as much as it does death. It shows both. Again, this is a constant theme throughout the Scriptures. Who will deny that unbelievers will have a higher quality of life to the degree that they follow God’s law? No, it can’t gain salvation for them, but the law brings horizontal blessings by virtue of its wisdom.
Point in case:
1Peter 3:1 – Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they see your respectful and pure conduct.
In this passage, the husband is not won over by the wife demonstrating how sinful we are and our subsequent need for Christ; she is showing forth the blessings of being a believer. These are blessings that he is also experiencing because the home is sanctified by her presence:
1Corinthians 7:14 – For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 15 But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
So, there is a sense in which the unbelieving spouse is blessed by the believing one. The law not only shows forth sin, but also shows forth life. The latter is the way the law leads people to Christ just as much as the former.
paul
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