The New Calvinist Movement Poses Imminent Danger to American Society
“Church folk only think they are doing church when in reality they are being USED for a broader political motive.”
While our ministry will continue to reveal the plenary doctrinal aberration of authentic Reformed soteriology, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the societal impact of New Calvinism.
Be sure of this: New Calvinism has bold political aspirations. The movement is simply a repeat of European church history trying to function under American rule of law. Right now, the movement is using a particular doctrine to gain a following, and once the following is big enough, it will make its move because it has votes to bring to the political big-boy table. In times past, the biggest sword won, but because of America, politics must replace bloodletting.
Also be sure of this: New Calvinism is about world domination, to the glory of God of course. Um, New Calvinists such as Doug Wilson and Albert Mohler have stated that in no uncertain terms.
Also note their reluctance to be critical of terrorism and such groups as ISIS. In fact, New Calvinist Joe Carter recently defended ISIS in regard to “false accusations” under the auspices of setting the record straight…because you know…we Christians should care about getting our facts straight. Yes, perhaps we should form a committee to defend career bank robbers accused of robbing a bank they didn’t rob. Indeed, one should ask Joe Carter why that is a priority, but I am afraid I already know.
Same ideology…different god.
Here is another thing you can be sure of: New Calvinists wouldn’t deem it a horrible thing if the ISIS flag eventually flies over the White House. Why? Well, their metaphysical epistemology is suffering to begin with, but the bigger element is the fact that groups like ISIS are seen as serving a possible benefaction: getting rid of Enlightenment ideology. If terrorism can serve that purpose, the New Calvinists figure they can make lemonade out of the lemons later on. BUT, New Calvinism cannot ultimately reach their utopian goals as saline fish in fresh waters—Enlightenment ideology must go, that is job one for New Calvinism. And hey, if terrorism can do that, it must be god’s will. Yet one more thing you can be sure of: New Calvinists see Enlightenment ideology as the absolute root of ALL evil.
Right now, New Calvinism is building their base; following/votes equal power. They are a political animal. If you think any of this is about God, you are simply naive.
What is prompting posts like this from moi? Because of our educational relationship with John Immel, PPT readers are beginning to understand, resulting in a mass of information being sent my way. They understand the doctrinal aberrations and the relationship to the political. This all boils down to collectivism versus individualism. Church folk only think they are doing church when in reality they are being USED for a broader political motive.
I will use a few recent examples sent to me. This one here (Article pdf) is yet another example of moral equivalency being preached from the pulpits. John Immel has a great post on that here…and here. Folks, please, there is a reason why New Calvinists are not outraged by terrorism. They share the same ideology and their forefathers practiced the exact same tactics to bring people into conformity.
This one highlights the Redemptive Historical Hermeneutic which is Platonist epistemology dressed in biblical garb (Article pdf. I have written extensively on this to the point of literal exhaustion. Platonism was the foundation of the Medieval church. Copies of the Bible were not available because rulers believed that the masses were unable to reason (see, “Catholic Church”). And, allowing the masses to reason will supposedly lead to chaos. Due to my research, I have come to believe that the Protestant Reformation was an answer to the inevitable mass distribution of the Bible to the serf populous. Trust me, the Bible is no friend of the Reformation. The Redemptive Historical Hermeneutic is specifically designed to rob God’s people of reasoning intellectually with God, and making it a Platonist epistemology instead.
New Calvinism is a political movement that is using people who think the movement is about Christian discipleship. The results speak for themselves; though New Calvinism posits “new resurgence,” it’s been “new” since 1970. While these Platonist philosophers attempt to save the world from chaos like their Marxist predecessors, in the same way, they create chaos, and then blame the same chaos on “losing our original roots.” New Calvinists have been firmly in control of the American church since 2006, and the results again speak for themselves. Virtually ALL anti-spiritual abuse blogs were authored post 2006.
paul
Weakness is NOT Sin: Christians Need Better Definitions, NOT More Mysticism
Christians speak and write much about seeing the Bible with “new eyes,” etc. The mystical and spiritual seems to legitimize all that we say and teach.
I didn’t realize the extent to which I functioned as a Christian mystic until I was exposed to Dr. Jay E. Adams. I found his common sense practicality applied to Scripture liberating. His principle of definitive knowledge as a starting point is a principle I have never swayed from. He had simple quips that would fill the hopeless with hope in a matter of seconds:
“I’m having a nervous breakdown—I’m losing my mind! ‘No, you are not having a nervous breakdown. Obviously, your nerves are working quit well, we just need to see what God’s word says about bringing your nerves into proper use.’”
“We can’t go there, that will open up a can of worms! ‘Perhaps, but if we deal with one worm at a time, the can will eventually be empty, and the more empty the can is, the better off you are.’”
…or something like that, close enough.
Christians don’t need more spiritual bumper stickers to live by, they need better definitions of words. We are in a day when biblically specific word use has never been more important. When we read our Bibles, we need to make sure that we really know what the words mean specifically, and we need to be biblically specific in our communication when referring to it.
Until very recently, I always read the word “flesh” in the Bible as synonymous with evil/sin. With that presupposition intact, it led to the conclusion that “weakness” is also synonymous with evil as well.
This is not the case. Let’s think about this. The “’holy’ angels” are weaker than God, no? This obviously does not make them sinful. Being weaker than God is not sin.
This is also the definition of “flesh,” “members,” “body,” etc., in the Bible; it’s “weak” (specifically defined as such many places in the Bible), but not inherently evil. How do we know this? Because our bodies can be used for holy purposes:
Romans 12:1 – I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 6:13 – Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Throughout the Bible, the problem of sin is defined as sin that resides in the body, but the body is not sin. Notice that Paul tells us to not “present” our bodies TO sin. We are to offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, not to sin. The body cannot be both. God is a master, and sin is also biblically defined as a master, the body can be used to serve either.
To the degree that we have improper understanding of biblical words, we are blinded to the truth of Scripture. To the degree that we are biblically ignorant, we are enslaved.
paul
Trevin Wax and the Gnostic Nation
Article discussed in pdf format: Is Sanctification a Process or a Position_ _ TGC
Paul David Tripp Gnosticism
Paul David Tripp is a leading “Christian” author and well noted in the contemporary biblical counseling movement. Tripp was active in aiding fellow Gnostic David Powlison in hijacking the biblical counseling movement from Reformed grammarians. I use the term “grammarian,” who are few in our day, to differ from redemptive historical interpreters. If a teacher is not identified according to his/her interpretation method of either grammatical or redemptive, it is impossible to know what they are really teaching. You may think you know what they are saying, but you don’t. Depending on which method is being utilized, all basic theological terms, like “new birth” mean different things. To believe you can understand any teacher without knowing their interpretive method is folly. The best way to explain a grammarian is, “words mean things.”
Gnosticism came from Platonism and to state it simply: it is the belief that the material realm is evil and only the spiritual realm is good. In order to find true knowledge, one must obtain it by getting beyond what the five senses can ascertain. Plato believed that the material world is the shadows of the invisible world. Plato also believed that truth is immutable; so, the gateway to truth from the material/evil realm must be something immutable. For Plato, that was math.
The Reformers were not theologians first, they were philosophers first and were embroiled in the debate of that era: Plato or Aristotle? Platonism holds to spiritual caste which proffers the idea that elitist philosophers are preordained to lead the masses who are enslaved to the shadows of reality. They are specially gifted by the force or god of your choice to obtain the “Gnosis.” Determinism is also a major pillar of Platonism.
Hence, Gnosticism can be seen throughout Tripp’s teachings, especially in How People Change. In that book, Tripp attributes a literal interpretation of Scripture to works salvation. He also attributes obedience to something that Christians only experience, but do not really perform; the experience is imputed to the material realm by the Spirit, who is defined more as a realm than a person. Gnosticism can be seen in Tripp’s interpretation of Romans 8:2 and most of Romans 7—“law” is not really “nomos,” a written law, but refers to two different realms: material/evil versus invisible/good.
paul
Predestination and the Gnostic Connection
One shouldn’t dismiss information out of hand because of the source alone, but there is no doubt that such information deserves more stringent vetting when the source is dubious. We know that the founders of Protestantism, Augustine, Luther, and Calvin had Gnostic leanings, so we also know that Protestantism needs a complete reevaluation by the saints. I think we have been sold a bill of goods for so long that what the Bible has to offer is a wide open frontier. I think most of what we “know” was conveyed to us by dead mystic despots. We are so dumbed down that their hatred for God’s people wasn’t even our first clue. Neither was the fact that they hanged, burned, and drowned those that disagreed with their interpretation of Scripture.
I am hesitant to screen some who comment here at PPT when they are well studied and respectful because I am confident in what I know. Granted, I sometimes cringe as I click on the approve button, but sometimes it pays off in regard to learning something valuable. Well studied people bring valuable things to the table, and if I have made my case here at PPT, readers will not be led astray by contrary information.
However, I do screen those who waste my time with what amounts to assertions that a cat isn’t exactly a cat because it starts walking. It’s already a cat, but not yet. A cat and a walking cat are distinct, but never separate. That’s where I draw the line. I draw the line with those who do Reformed speak.
This brings me to the point. The following is a comment posted on PPT last week:
Calvinism derived its 3 classes ultimately from the 3 classes in Valentinian Gnosticism (see Ireneaus’ five books Against Heresies):
1. Pneumatics (spirituals) – The elect of the elect.
2. Psuchics (soulys) – The average elect.
3. Hylics (carnals) – The non-elect.
Meaning, the Hylics have no chance. As for the Psuchics, they are (as you put it) “entered into the race” but not given “the gift of perseverance.” And the Pneumatics, of course, are elect to the uttermost, meaning nothing they do can damn them.
In Gnosticism, this is natural selection, or election by nature according to Clement of Alexandria in Stromata: 2. 3. More specific definitions follow:
In the gnostic view, hylics, also called Somatics (from Gk σώμα (sōma) “body”), were the lowest order of the three types of human. The other two were the psychics and the pneumatics (from Gk πνεύμα (pneuma) “spirit, breath”). So humanity comprised matter-bound beings, matter-dwelling spirits and the matter-free or immaterial, souls.
Somatics were deemed completely bound to matter. Matter, the material world, was seen as “evil” in the gnostic world view. The material world was created by a demiurge, in some instances a blind, mad God, in others an army of rebellious angels as a trap for the spiritual Ennoia. The duty of (spiritual) man was to escape the material world by the aid of the hidden knowledge (gnosis). *
The pneumatics (“spiritual”, from Greek πνεῦμα, “spirit”) were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and hylics. A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the transcendent knowledge of Sophia’s Divine Spark within the soul.†
They conceive, then, of three kinds of men, spiritual, material, and animal . . . The material goes, as a matter of course, into corruption. The animal, if it make choice of the better part, finds repose in the intermediate place; but if the worse, it too shall pass into destruction. But they assert that the spiritual principles which have been sown by Achamoth, being disciplined and nourished here from that time until now in righteous souls (because when given forth by her they were yet but weak), at last attaining to perfection, shall be given as brides to the angels of the Saviour, while their animal souls of necessity rest for ever with the Demiurge in the intermediate place. And again subdividing the animal souls themselves, they say that some are by nature good, and others by nature evil. The good are those who become capable of receiving the [spiritual] seed [and becoming pneumatic]; the evil by nature are those who are never able to receive that seed [and become hylic].—Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 7, 5
Calvin held to these same three types of categories except the determinism is by God rather than nature. For Calvin, it is the non-elect, the elect, and those of the elect that are gifted with perseverance:
In fine, we are sufficiently taught by experience itself, that calling and faith are of little value without perseverance, which, however, is not the gift of all (CI 3.24.6)
The expression of our Savior, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” (Mt. 22:14), is also very improperly interpreted (see Book 3, chap. 2, sec. 11, 12). There will be no ambiguity in it, if we attend to what our former remarks ought to have made clear—viz. that there are two species of calling: for there is an universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of a severer condemnation. Besides this there is a special call which, for the most part, God bestows on believers only, when by the internal illumination of the Spirit he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts. Sometimes, however, he communicates it also to those whom he enlightens only for a time, and whom afterwards, in just punishment for their ingratitude, he abandons and smites with greater blindness (CI 3.24.8).
To what extent is the doctrine of election fruit of Gnosticism’s poisonous tree? Is predestination true at all? These are questions that the saints will have to answer via their own faithful study.
Paul
Notes
*Freke, Timothy (2001). Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-1-4000-4594-5.
†Online source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_(Gnosticism)
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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