Paul's Passing Thoughts

The contra Reformation clarion call could very well be: “Give me my little inner light or give me death.” Liberty is important, but liberty is always the natural result of recognizing that man can understand reality. Tyranny’s mother is adamant that the only thing that mankind can understand is that he can’t understand. And even with that, he lacks the “humbleness” to admit such so every means possible must be utilized to save him from himself. Those who think themselves capable of good ideas should be neutralized for the sake of the whole. The idea that man can have ideas is the most dangerous idea. In the mind of the tyrant, ideas coming from the common man are the cause of every drop of blood that has been spilled on the earth.

Whether by God or Mother Nature, the enlightened few have been preordained to rule over the unenlightened masses, and nothing strikes more fear in their heart than hearing the voices of children singing somewhere in the distance….

I’m gonna let it shine

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine

Let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel? No!

I’m gonna let it shine

Hide it under a bushel? No!

I’m gonna let it shine

Hide it under a bushel? No!

I’m gonna let it shine

Let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine.

John Calvin dressed ancient spiritual caste in biblical garb. Some of these spiritual caste systems even took the idiom, “They’re at the bottom of the food chain” literally. Reformed theology is predicated on the emptiness of man. Salvation is only granted to those who understand our emptiness. Those who believe salvation cures emptiness are in a worse condition than they were before; “the gospel is an objective truth outside of us.” This is explained well by Martin L. Cary who witnessed the rise and fall of the father of neo-Calvinism, Robert Brinsmead:

….said Brinsmead:

“The righteousness by which we become just in God’s sight, remain just in His sight and will one day be sealed as forever just in His sight, is an outside righteousness. It is not on earth, but only in heaven…only in Jesus Christ.”

True sanctification looks away from self and flows from the finished, objective work of Christ…. For many Christians, the glory of the crucified Christ is not their focus; instead they seek internal experiences that eclipse the cross. The Awakening rightly opposed the subjective, human-centered emphasis found among some groups within Christianity.

Wrongly, they reacted with a cerebral, spiritless gospel. Brinsmead strongly opposed the Charismatic movement’s emphasis on experiences as a return to the theology of Rome. However, going to another extreme, Present Truth magazine decried “the false gospel of the new birth,” and offered a new birth that was merely a corporate, objective blessing, not an individual experience.

Brinsmead’s Awakening movement and the subsequent Australian Forum project articulated authentic Calvinism and launched it into present-day New Calvinism. Cary’s description is Calvinism to a “T.” It is the secular co-op to the idea that individualism and private ingenuity is a threat to the overall wellbeing of the group. But on the spiritual side, it disavows the idea that God’s ideas will better the world when used by believers and unbelievers alike. Believing that man is born free, capable, and endowed with such by the creator, and applying that idea to life is pragmatism because it is not done with the pure motive of glorifying God. If God isn’t being glorified, the difference between 10,000 slain and 6,000,000 slain is neither here nor there.

Thus, America as idea and the good that it has done in the world is neither here nor there to the Calvinist. This is where Calvin and Stalin embrace passionately. Stalin despises the individual and his supposed threat to the group—a secular objective truth outside of us; Calvin concurs with the object gospel outside of us and deems any “good” apart from God’s glory as “mere iniquity.” If it’s not the cross story, its man’s glory story; hence, the more slain unmercifully the better. Susan and I dined with some Christian couples last night and one expressed surprise that a professor of a local Christian university was a strong supporter of Barak Obama. I know who this professor is. He is a Calvinist and therefore this should not surprise us at all.

In the past election, all Christians who stayed home because Romney is a Mormon are functioning Calvinists whether they know it or not. Like Calvinists, they believe Romney’s American idea about man is pragmatic, and the good that could come of it is neither here nor there. God will not use a good idea in the milieu of life because He is not getting all of the glory. Hence, an unbelieving Boy Scout saving the proverbial elderly women from being run over by a car is irrelevant because the Boy Scout doesn’t have the right biblical doctrine. This is amusing because most Christians don’t understand doctrine anyway except for, “Romney has bad doctrine because he is not a Baptist.” Not a Baptist =’s wrong doctrine while the vast majority of Christians don’t understand the difference between justification and sanctification to begin with.

All of this can be seen through the classic blood feud between Calvinist Puritans and the Quakers. The latter’s soteriology and church polity was a direct pushback to what the Quakers had experienced in Europe during the first and second “reformations.” These two groups represent the two extremes of inner-nihilism and existentialism. Like all good American Christians and ignorant liberals, they will not make any choice between the two regardless of the fact that Quakers were not given to hang, drown, or burn people for differences of opinion. To Christians, those damn Quakers have bad theology because they aren’t Baptists, and to the liberals, those damn Quakers are probably Republicans. How can we argue with Plato’s philosopher kings when they say mankind has a limited ability to interpret reality? We don’t even understand how good ideas and ethics fit into metaphysics!

That’s why Nazis were incredulous that they were being hung for following orders. Bewilderment was their only companion on the short trip down to the end of  a  rope. That’s often the result of lazy thinking and the status qua. In the blogosphere, bloggers contend against spiritual abuse while supporting Calvinist E-churches!  Liberals still vote democrat while not understanding that religiosity and secularism are the interchangeable body parts of the Mr. Potato Head communist tyrant. While a Quaker will probably not pass a law legalizing gay marriage, it is also true that he will probably not hang you for being gay. At least vote Libertarian. It’s far less bloody. In the realm of ideas, there is no fundamental difference between a Calvinist, a Communist, and Islam. All three reject individualism and the idea of an inner light.

This is even the crux of the little frays that occur in Christianity such as the “asking Jesus into our hearts” SBC controversy. Calvinists in the SBC say that this idea is unbiblical. Sure they do, if Jesus is inside of us, it could incite a good idea. When people think Jesus is inside of them they come up with all kinds of ideas that are not “group focused.” Neo-Calvinists also deceive by claiming that they believe in an “inner life” via Dr. David Powlison’s heart theology. But all that’s a theological system for better understanding the darkness that is in us, not any kind of light or good. It is inner-nihilism theology.

You like a simple gospel? Well, now you have one. There are only two: infused grace that enables, or one that glories in our inner darkness as a way to bring more glory to God.

But perhaps the most important distinction is the songs that our children will sing. “John Calvin, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm,” or “This little light of Mine.”

paul