Yawn. I’m a “Pharisee.” Go Figure
This blog has always been a tool for working through the best ways to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. For three years this blog has tested theses after theses with an open invitation to be proven wrong on every point by the New Calvinists. And no doubt, adjustments have been made. Though mostly personal attacks and the pointing out of 2-3 grammatical errors in a 2000 word post, acceptance of criticism has been key to where this ministry has come. And it has been a long, hard road. I didn’t just put up a blog and start writing, among many other preparations, I took college courses for the specific purpose of being as effective as I could be.
Some critical emails serve my purpose, and this morning, I received a New Calvinist jewel. It is a wonderful piece of Reformed talking points that exposes their egregious false gospel and the verbiage they attempt to use in the winning of an argument. The email can be addressed in order and point by point. Mighty convenient.
You would have made an excellent Pharisee. Like you, they delighted in law, instead of delighting in Christ. They searched the Scriptures because in them they thought they had eternal life, but Jesus said “they [the Old Testament Scriptures] are they that testify of me, but you do not wish to come to me that you might have life.” Then he makes the bold claim about Moses’ writings, “he wrote of me.”
First, Reformed hacks have fed on the Pharisee lie for a long time. The Pharisees were NOT “legalists” (a word that is not in the Bible), but were rank antinomians (“anomia,” a word that appears throughout the New Testament). They didn’t love the law, they loved their tradition. Christ’s specific indictment against the Pharisees was that they made the law void by integrating it with their traditions (Matthew 151-9, Mark 7:9-13).
Like you, they delighted in law, instead of delighting in Christ.
As we have seen, they DID NOT delight in the law, they delighted in their tradition. But note that although the Scriptures say Christians delight in the law (Romans 7:22), according to the Reformed false gospel, we can’t delight in the law and Christ both. To delight in the law is to delight in the law “instead” of Christ. It’s either the law or Christ—it can’t be both. This should speak for itself, and I have written extensively on the Reformed heresies that this reasoning is founded on. Primarily, Luther believed that reality could only be interpreted through one of two prisms: the cross story (the works of Christ [reality]) or the glory story (anything we do [unreality]). This can also be seen in the first tenet of New Covenant Theology which is the stream of Reformed thought that came out of the Australian Forum via Jon Zens:
New Covenant Theology insists on the priority of Jesus Christ over all things, including history, revelation, and redemption. New Covenant Theology presumes a Christocentricity to the understanding and meaning of all reality.
It’s Gnosticism—pure and simple. Christ is the “vision of the good” and everything else is evil.
They searched the Scriptures because in them they thought they had eternal life, but Jesus said “they [the Old Testament Scriptures] are they that testify of me, but you do not wish to come to me that you might have life.” Then he makes the bold claim about Moses’ writings, “he wrote of me.”
Of course Moses wrote about Christ, but does that mean that everything in the Old Testament is about Christ only and not what he tells us to do? Part and parcel with being saved is a commitment to follow Christ by obeying the law (“follow me”). When we commit to Christ, we are recognizing that He will (after the commitment) make us slaves (douleuo) to His law (Romans 7:25). In what I call the gospel according to Moses in Exodus 21:3-8, he splatters them with blood AFTER their commitment to obey the law. Peter alluded to this event specifically in 1Peter 1:1, 2. Before the foundation of the world, and according to God’s foreknowledge and our setting apart by the Spirit, we were set apart “FOR obedience to Jesus Christ” and for “sprinkling with His blood.”
Let me be clear: we don’t do anything to be saved, but when Christ makes us new creatures, He also enslaves us to His law and enables us to obey it. Though we can’t do anything to be saved, we should know that when Christ answers our plea for salvation—He makes us His slave. We now seek to “follow” Him in obedience and love Him by keeping his commandments. I can’t state this fact better than the apostle Paul:
Romans 8:1 -There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
The Pharisees didn’t search the Scriptures for that purpose. This Calvinist, like all of them, makes the fact that they searched the Scriptures for something other than Jesus synonymous with searching the law for ways to work your way into heaven. Christ didn’t even begin to give them that much credit for being closer to the truth. He stated that they made the law of God “void” altogether. Furthermore, many Jews thought they were saved by virtue of the fact that God had appointed them as caretakers of His word. He could have just as easily been referring to that, but it is clear that Christ’s broader point was the following: while claiming to be experts on the law, they were rejecting Him who is one of the major themes of the Scriptures. The other major themes are the other two members of the Trinity.
A person would have to be spiritually blind to miss the typological relationship between the Old Testament Scriptures and the truth revealed in Christ. You are right to observe “The Bible has built-in rules for interpretation throughout.” Not only did God reveal his truth through Jesus and the Apostles; he also revealed to us through their example how we are to interpret the Scriptures.
You seem to have misunderstood the nature of biblical typology. One of the characteristics of a type is that, unlike allegory, it is based on historical fact. We reject the allegorical method of interpretation, but fully embrace the typological pattern Jesus and the Apostle’s used and taught. If you should try to interpret the Book of Hebrews, for example, apart from typology you would be completely at sea. And what of John’s declaration “Behold the Lamb of God?” and Jesus’ declaration “I am the bread of life.” Typology is not a Greek hermeneutic; it is a biblical hermeneutic.
I don’t misunderstand the Reformed approach to “typology” at all. The following is the 6th tenet of New Covenant Theology:
All of the Old Testament scriptures are inherently prophetic in that the entire Old Testament, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, point forward to and anticipate the WORD Incarnate, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2). New Covenant Theology presumes that Jesus Christ, in his person and his saving acts, is the hermeneutic center of the Bible.
Then, John Piper states that our justification is maintained by meditating on those saving acts alone:
In the first image, the believer has no security or confidence that he will make it to heaven. In the second image the believer has security in the wrong place; a kind of automatic eternal security that can get you to heaven another way than by the chain of God’s saving, persevering acts revealed in Scripture.
Hence, we persevere to the end by God’s “saving” “acts” PLURAL as “revealed” in “Scripture.” It’s salvation by seeing all of Scripture as redemptive acts. Typology is needed to do this because a literal interpretation causes many problems with this approach. The whole Bible must be interpreted by “rich typology.” Meditation on the works of Christ alone in the Scriptures enables us to live by faith alone in sanctification as a means of maintaining our just standing. Again, Christ plus mediation on his works alone as found in the Scriptures to keep our salvation intact. We are doing something (meditation), and not doing something (obeying the law in sanctification) to keep our salvation. That’s a problem.
You wrote, “To take away from this construct by making the Bible a narrative rather than objective law is to drive a stake through the essence of the of the gospel.” For you, law is the gospel. You even stated that “Law” and “gospel” are used interchangeably. It is true to state that on occasions the term “law” is used as a synonym for the revealed truth of God, but that is altogether different from stating that law and gospel are used interchangeably. You would have found full agreement with the Pharisees. The reality is that Law and gospel are founded on two distinctively different principles. The principle of law is “the man who does them shall live by them.” The principle of the gospel is “the righteous shall live by faith.” Those principles are mutually exclusive. If it is of works, it is no longer by grace.
This statement reveals how ignorant Calvinists think the average parishioner is. “Gospel” means “good news.” All of God’s word is “good news.” This Calvinist, like all Calvinists, makes the good news of the blood synonymous with all of the good news in the Bible, and then makes it mutually exclusive from the law. The Sermon on the Mount is the “good news of the kingdom,” but Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection is not once mentioned in the sermon. The death, burial, and resurrection is the good news of “first importance” (protos 1Cor. 15:3). The word speaks of the order, or what is before what is next. We are to then add works to the foundation of our faith in sanctification (1Peter 1:5-11).
He continues:
The reality is that Law and gospel are founded on two distinctively different principles.
How can that be? We wouldn’t know anything about the gospel if it wasn’t for the law. Law isn’t just the Ten Commandments, it’s the full counsel of God (Matthew 5: 18). Instead of the law (word of God) informing us on the gospel, he makes the gospel a separate entity “founded” on a different “principle.” But we are either “under law” or “under grace.” And “under grace” DOES NOT EXCLUDE THE LAW, but in fact ENSLAVES US TO THE LAW (Romans 7:25). A Christian is also defined by his/her ability to keep the law as opposed to those who are under it (Romans 8:7,8). Furthermore, one of the primary purposes for which we were saved was so that the righteous requirement of the law could be fulfilled in us (Romans 8:4).
His erroneous Reformed position is further stated:
The principle of law is “the man who does them shall live by them.” The principle of the gospel is “the righteous shall live by faith.” Those principles are mutually exclusive. If it is of works, it is no longer by grace.
This is a clear fusion of justification and sanctification by virtue of the fact that law/works and faith/grace are mutually exclusive. Law is totally separate, rather than having a different relationship to both. Hence, those “under grace” cannot be enslaved to the law which is synonymous with unregeneration. If the law is mutually exclusive—there is no gospel. A saved person is enslaved to the law.
Moreover, his statements lack a context in regard to justification and sanctification because the Reformed see them as the same thing. Hence, “The principle of law is ‘the man who does them shall live by them’”….for justification or sanctification? “The principle of the gospel is ‘the righteous shall live by faith’”….for justification or sanctification? If the Reformed answer honestly, they say, “both” because they see the two as being the same.
I have never encountered an individual who claimed to be a Christian as you do who seemed to delight so much in detracting from Christ. There is no question the Scriptures provide us with moral principles and flesh and blood examples [usually negative examples in the OT Scriptures] of how we should live, but the Scriptures are more than a legalistic manual for life. If you read the Scriptures and miss Christ, you have missed the heart of the biblical message.
You have often stated that we believe “every verse in the Bible is about Jesus.” It is difficult to imagine that anyone could believe 1 Chron. 26:18 “at Parbar westward, four at the causeway, and two at Parbar” for example, could be a reference to Jesus. Your claim, as is usual for you, twists our position. What we do believe is that the Scriptures are not primarily a book about laws, but primarily a book about Christ. Even those passages that report the abysmal failures of prophets, priests, kings, judges, etc. point forward to him who will fulfill these offices perfectly to the glory of God.
I will conclude with the simple truth that these last two paragraphs by him illustrate the Reformed, and very Gnostic Emphasis hermeneutic.
Sure, shadows are true, but to the degree that we focus on the shadows, we detract from the full life-giving powers of the sun Son. Sure, the new birth is true, but to the degree that we focus on a work that is supposedly done within us, we detract from the Son. Hence: “I have never encountered an individual who claimed to be a Christian as you do who seemed to delight so much in detracting from Christ.” Other Reformers warn of “eclipsing Christ” by emphasizing the Father and the Holy Spirit as much as Christ. In Gnostic venues, focus on the material detracts from the “vision of the good.”
Therefore, though I say they believe every verse in the Bible is about Christ to make a point, more accurately, they believe that Scriptures where Christ can’t be seen shouldn’t be “emphasized. ” That would be a problem because Christ stated that man lives by “every word” that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). An example of how this incites the Reformed to approach the Bible follows:
Immediate context is vital; however this is a starting point and not an end. From the immediate context begin to think of the wider contextual range (Sentence, Paragraph, book, whole Bible). At this time, resist the temptation to utilize subsequent passages to validate the meaning or to move out from the immediate context. Remembering that all exegesis must finally be a Christocentric exegesis.
Ever wonder why everything is About Jesus in Reformed churches and the Holy Spirit and the Father are seldom mentioned?
That’s why.
paul
The Anti-Spiritual Abuse Camp: Fellowshipping With Wolves
I will keep saying it: people don’t get up one morning and decide to be spiritual abusers. The present-day spiritual abuse tsunami in the church wasn’t created from nothing. If you believe the neo-Calvinist resurgence of late is unrelated to the sharp increase of spiritual abuse in the church →I have some oceanfront property here in Xenia, Ohio that I would like to sell you.
For some time, I have sat typingless in regard to anti-spiritual abuse bloggers who are Calvinists. Whatever. Does one really think that Calvin’s logic had no relationship to his behavior? And the one that just kills me is the Reformed pastor who is a hero among the anti-spiritual abuse crowd. The guy is a strong advocate of Jon Zens who was one of the core-four of the Australian Forum which launched the present-day New Calvinist movement.
He also brags about how much he enjoys reading the Puritans. The Puritans were Calvin’s ugly grandchildren and were responsible for wiping out the entire population of women in some European towns during the medieval Witch Wars. As fanatical political refugees, they fled Europe and brought their pandemic logic to American soil. Consequently, Americans have to claim part of their filth as our infant history; ie., the Salem Witch Trials and the executions of Quakers for being Quakers. The International Day of Religious Freedom (Oct. 27th) is a spiritual Pearle Harbor Day, and the Puritans are the Japanese in that story. But yet, they are spiritual heroes among the Reformed; go figure.
This same pastor also idolizes John Piper who sits on the board of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood. Their magnum opus is the Danvers Statement which was compiled in Danvers, MA. → the very same location of the Salem Witch trials. This is absolutely no accident—it is an open mockery of women and the Enlightenment thought that had to save American Christianity from a wicked European foundation. This is often the case: God has to send in people with commonsense to save us from ourselves.
I was finally jolted into writing this after being referred to several “commendable” articles by fellow anti-spiritual abuse bloggers. Several of these messages were right out of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation which is the core logic of the Reformation. Luther hated humanity, and believed God only works through us when we are brought to nothing. He believed the Christian life was a series of deaths and rebirths founded on perpetual justification through the “cross story.” To Luther, the joy of rebirth could only be experienced through the ravaging of our own personal story, or the “glory story.” When we suffer these deaths, a new birth or resurrection happens and our just standing before God is maintained. It’s truly salvation by a life of misery.
Calvin then took Luther’s principle (which he got from Auggie and Gregory who got it from Plato who was the inspiration for neo-Islamic thought and communism as well): all wisdom is the difference between God’s holiness and our wretchedness, and extrapolated that single principle into a full-orbed philosophical statement on life. The Calvin Institutes are built totally on the foundation of the first sentence thereof which states the essence of Luther’s Disputation. Calvin’s ability to take this simple dualist principle and build a full-orbed metaphysical statement speaks to his genius while escaping the Mass Murderers Hall of Fame.
Hence, we have pastors from coast to coast who don’t necessarily see rape as a bad thing. Rape leads to brokenness, and a wonderful opportunity to experience God’s resurrection life. Why do you think the pastorate is so indifferent to what’s going on? It’s not just cowardliness, they also share the logic of our Protestant roots.
I perceive a lot naïve young people, new to the ministry, who are latching on to these concepts unawares. They perceive biblical warnings about wolves in sheep’s clothing through the lens of their own arrogance; ie., “Because of how smart I am, it will look like a cheap costume.” Therefore, they don’t see the disconnect in logic.
But if they don’t, they will continue in their attempt to help people with the same logic that brought their misery.
Good luck with that one.
paul
The Utter Folly and Anti-Gospel of Bible as Story/Narrative: Christian Academia is Making Fools of the Laity
All of the rage in our day is Bible as redemptive narrative. Yes, the story, or narrative that gives us the “big picture” of God’s redemptive story. This concept is packaged in feel-good truisms like “History is ‘His story.’” The Bible is about a person, Jesus Christ; so, would you make an instruction manual out of a person’s life story? Would you systematize a person’s life story? The idea is to be wowed by who God is personally, and He invites you into His story. “It’s a person—not a precept.”
This is all disingenuous because we are still dealing with hermeneutics. We are still dealing with exegesis verses eisegesis. The question of the day is still epistemology: how we know what we know. For you who want to romanticize our faith—it doesn’t work.
If the Bible is God’s revelation to man, and it is, be sure that he will also reveal how he wants his word to be interpreted. Fact is, the Bible has built-in rules for interpretation throughout. ANYrules of interpretation for a text must be validated by the Bible itself. So, what about Bible as story or narrative? After an exhaustive study on what the Bible would state about this interpretive model, it begs the question: where is it?
On that note, let’s start with a blog named “Istoria Ministries” by Reformed teacher/pastor Wade Burleson. The subtitle reads as follows:
Istoria is a Greek word that can be translated as both story and history. Istoria Ministries, led by Wade and Rachelle Burleson, helps people experience the life transforming power of Jesus Christ so that their story may become part of His story.
Burleson is right, it is a Greek word, but is it in the Greek New Testament? After hours of research, I cannot find it anywhere. In fact, Hebrew or Greek canon words that project the English idea of history, narrative, or story are either extremely scarce or nonexistent. The closest idea is the word “parable” which is a story that helps define truth. It’s a teaching tool. But in every case where a parable is implemented as a teaching method, the Bible plainly introduces it as such beforehand. It doesn’t appear that parables in the Bible are meant to be stories that explain the story.
The Greek word historia came about around 500 BC and means, “Inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation.” Prior to that, mythology ruled the day. Mythology is “Ideology in narrative form.” The word, “historia” was introduced into the English language as “story” in 1390 AD and had the same meaning as its Greek origin. But prior to that between 180 AD and 553 AD, particularly among European theologians, the concept of mythology as sacred narrative/novel was integrated into the concept of historia for the purposes of interpreting the Bible:
Melitios of Sardis who died in 180AD read the Old Testament as a typology – it is a preparation for the Messiah in a similar way that a sketch or a model is the preparation that an artist, sculpture or architect does before making the reality represented in the preliminary sketch or work. Theodore of Mopsuestia who died in 428AD gives us some sense about how Christians in the 5th Century approached the Scriptures. For though Theodore was condemned for his teachings long after his death by the 5th Ecumenical Council in 553, his methods in interpreting Scriptures were shared by St. John Chrysostom and others in the Antiochian tradition of interpretation.
“In this work (Commentary on the Psalms) it is evident, first, that Theodore is almost entirely concerned with the istoria of the biblical text rather than its theoria. By istoria I mean the narrative meaning of the text, not its literal or historical meaning. On the other hand, theoria refers to the spiritual meaning of the Scripture in Antiochene theological circles. Thus the istoria of any given text may also provide the theoria, since the narrative meaning on occasion can and does supply the spiritual sense.” (Harry Pappas in SACRED TEXT AND INTERPRETATION, Ed. Theodore Stylianopoulos, p 59-60).
Later in history, istoria became a term that referred to story painting or history painting:
History paintings usually depict a moment in a narrative story, rather than a specific and static subject, such as a portrait. The term is derived from the wider senses of the word historia in Latin and Italian, and essentially means “story painting”, rather than the painting of scenes from history in its narrower sense in modern English, for which the term historical painting may be used, especially for 19th century art. Paintings almost always contain a number of figures, often a large number. The genre includes depictions of moments in religious narratives, above all the Life of Christ, as well as narrative scenes from mythology, and also allegorical scenes. These groups were for long the most frequently painted; works such as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling are therefore history paintings, as are most very large paintings before the 19th century. The term covers large paintings in oil on canvas or fresco produced between the Renaissance and the late 19th century, after which the term is generally not used even for the many works that still meet the basic definition.
All in all, istoria is the integration of mythology and history as a way to interpret and communicate truth.
At the very least, to accept istoria in our day, one must assert that a Greek hermeneutic was accepted into an interpretive method grounded in Hebraic roots: this is extremely unlikely. But beyond that, the notion that the Bible should be interpreted in narrative form, even partially, eradicates the significance of the gospel. Throughout Scripture, the Bible is presented as LAW, and this is critical to the gospel. “Law,” “gospel,” “word,” “law and the prophets,” “Scripture,” “holy writ,” etc. are all used interchangeably to refer to the full counsel of God; ie., His full philosophical statement to man including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics.
The objective law of God is intrinsic to gospel and eternal life. This is because eternal life and death are defined by being under the law or under grace. The linchpin of this is obedience. In an Old Testament passage that Peter alludes to (1Peter1:1, 2 → Exodus 24:7, 8) we read the following:
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
Based on a commitment to understand and obey God’s law, they were sprinkled (splattered) with blood. The apostle Paul then explains what the results of that are:
Romans 8:1 – There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Throughout the book of Romans, Paul describes two relationships to the law: under the law in regard to those who are hostile to it, but while under it see their need for Christ constantly. They see objectively where they fall short of the law. On the other hand, those who are under grace delight in the law and are able to please God by obeying it.
To take away from this construct by making the Bible a narrative rather than objective law is to drive a stake through the essence of the gospel. To put ourselves into a narrative rather than a seeking to understand God’s word for life application, and to beckon the lost to enter into a narrative rather than to repent and obey the gospel is antithetical to the true gospel.
paul
Calvinism and Urine Technology
Calvinists often intimidate us with oceans of ink left behind by the brilliant, spiritual, educated children spawned by John Calvin: the Puritans. Calvinists like John Piper display their spiritual swagger by quoting the Puritans and making everyone aware that they read them daily. Of course, this plays on the utter ignorance of present-day Christians. Their authority is no longer the really thick pamphlet dropped down from heaven called the Bible—its orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is an analysis of God’s mass publication to people indwelt by His illumining Spirit by the church’s “Divines” of whom many were Puritans. They repackaged God’s word for consumption for the unenlightened masses.
So, when these brainiacs took the urine of accused witches and made cakes from it, and then fed the cakes to dogs in order to watch their reaction for a verdict, we need to understand that what the Divines do at times is the “foolishness of the cross.” We wouldn’t understand. This is activity that is on another spiritual plane; so, recite Luther’s Small Catechism and keep your mouth shut. The Small Catechism is one of Voddie Baucham’s recommendations for use in family devotions. He is really big on husbands being the “family shepherd” and leading the family Bible studies with….orthodox creeds, not anything that would come from their own brains.
Much could be discussed in regard to the lovely traditions that the Puritans brought with them when they were driven out of Europe as political refugees. But let’s talk about urine. Actually, urine tasting was the state of the art research born of European theocracies during Medieval times. How the urine of the subject tasted was used to determine what ailed them. Several examples of medical charts are displayed below for your educational enjoyment. Click to enlarge them, but if you are a Calvinist, don’t try this at home—it’s not orthodoxy!
“But Paul, didn’t the Puritans have a lot of awesome things to say about God? Isn’t there much to be learned from them?” No, not in the long run because of their flawed logic. Notice that they aren’t around anymore. Why not? Because Puritanism cannot function without theocracy. Their logic led to the persecution of the Quakers via hanging etc., and when society had enough, an end was forced in regard to their theocracy. No theocracy—no Puritanism. And frankly, the same goes for authentic Calvinism. Calvinism exists today because their logic had to be adjusted for survival. Here at TANC, we call them, “sanctified Calvinists.” Yes, they have done the church some good because they don’t share the same logic.
I really wonder if this latest resurgence of authentic Calvinism will put an end to it because of the Information Age that we are in. Nobody calls themself a “Puritan” in our day. Will the day come when few will call themselves a Calvinist? Authentic Calvinism doesn’t work, and people will only use a clock that doesn’t work for so long; the fact that it is useful twice a day does not end up being enough. Once again, the same old superstitions of authentic Calvinism are showing themselves in the contemporary church. The basis is the idea of spiritual caste: the idea that preordained enlightened mediators should rule over the unenlightened masses. Theocracy comes part and parcel with that logic.
“But Paul, Neo-Calvinism is thriving right now in America and America doesn’t allow theocracies.” Oh really? Many New Calvinist “ministries” in our day are nothing less than Little Geneva. They have their own in-house police stations, and control parishioners by almost every means of the past save the death penalty alone. This ministry is compiling a list of various means that these ministries are using to control people through first-hand testimony. Other than the intimidation of armed in-house security forces, they are using “biblical counseling” to compile information on people that can be used to control them. That angle can be seen in living color via the public transcript of CJ Mahaney telling the cofounder of SGM that confidential counseling records would be made public if he left SGM for doctrinal reasons. Let there be no doubt: this is standard protocol in New Calvinist churches. And if they don’t have the dirt on you, they will fabricate it. That’s just fact.
Getting back to superstition—that is also the inevitable result of caste logic. Many blogs document the weirdness in this movement that gets crazier each month. And dismissal of comparisons due to medieval ignorance doesn’t cut it. Sure, urine isn’t used in counseling today (at least not yet), but instead we have rapists counseling their own victims in the church office!
It’s the logic. And in the Information Age, what happens in Salem doesn’t stay in Salem.
paul
The “Cross Story” and Sanctified Rape in the Church
“Be sure of it: this is how Calvinists think; this is their worldview.”
“Don’t misunderstand: the problem of ‘victim mentality’ is not even on the radar screen—they have removed the word “victim” from their metaphysical dictionary.”
“Justice necessarily implies victim. Victim necessarily implies worth. All three are conspirators with the glory story.”
Martin Luther had more on his mind than silly Popes when he nailed his 95 Theses to the front door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany. That protest launched the Reformation, but six months later Luther presented the systematic theology of the Reformation to the Augustinian Order in Heidelberg. Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation laid the foundation, and John Calvin later articulated and applied its basic principles to the full spectrum of life in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.
The Cross Story and the Glory Story
Luther’s cross story, or theology of the cross is the crux of the Heidelberg Disputation and introduced in the first sentence of the Calvin Institutes:
Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
That’s Luther’s theology of the cross: a deeper and deeper knowledge of our putrid humanity as set against God’s holiness. And NOTHING in-between. All of creation, all events, and all reality contribute to deeper knowledge of one of these two, and then both as a deeper knowledge of each gives more understanding to the other; knowledge of both, and the experience of both. Hence, every blessing, including our good works which are done by the Holy Spirit to begin with, lends more understanding of God’s glory. Every evil event, sin, and tragedy lends deeper understanding in regard to our total depravity and worthlessness. But of course your mother is dying of cancer; I am amazed that God would give anyone as many years as He has given her. Who are we to think we deserve even one year of life? And what a wonderful opportunity for her to suffer the way Jesus suffered for us!
This is the cross story. See the illustration below. This is a contemporary depiction from that camp—this is their assessment:
Anything else at all that gives any credit to humanity—Christian or non-Christian is the “glory story.” That would be our glory specifically, and not Christ’s. To the degree that humanity is considered, the glory of Christ is “ECLIPSED.” This is the theses of a book written by John MacArthur associate Rick Holland: Uneclipsing The Son. Everything is perceived as speaking through one of these two perspectives. ANYTHING coming from what is perceived as the “glory story” is summarily dismissed. Be sure of it: this is how Calvinists think. This is their worldview.
In one of the former Resolved Conferences sponsored by John MacArthur and Holland, in one of his messages, Holland extols a letter written to Puritan Christopher Love by his wife as he awaited execution. Holland forgot to mention to those listening that Love was executed for espionage against the English government while letting the audience assume he was executed for loftier spiritual-like reasons. The following is excerpts from the letter:
O that the Lord would keep thee from having one troubled thought for thy relations. I desire freely to give thee up into thy Father’s hands, and not only look upon it as a crown of glory for thee to die for Christ, but as an honor to me that I should have a husband to leave for Christ…. I dare not speak to thee, nor have a thought within my own heart of my own unspeakable loss, but wholly keep my eye fixed upon thy inexpressible and inconceivable gain. Thou leavest but a sinful, mortal wife to be everlastingly married to the Lord of glory…. Thou dost but leave earth for heaven and changest a prison for a palace. And if natural affections should begin to arise, I hope that the spirit of grace that is within thee will quell them, knowing that all things here below are but dung and dross in comparison of those things that are above. I know thou keepest thine eye fixed on the hope of glory, which makes thy feet trample on the loss of earth.
Justice? That implies that humanity has some sort of value. That implies that life itself has some sort of value. That implies that humanity should be protected through threat of punishment. That’s the glory story. Therefore, Calvin stated the following:
Those who, as in the presence of God, inquire seriously into the true standard of righteousness, will certainly find that all the works of men, if estimated by their own worth, are nothing but vileness and pollution, that what is commonly deemed justice is with God mere iniquity; what is deemed integrity is pollution; what is deemed glory is ignominy (CI 3.12.4).
Death by Biblical Counseling
The church must face up to a sobering reality in our day. The vast majority of biblical counseling that goes on in our day is based on this construct—you will be counseled from the perspective of the cross story, and anything that smacks of the glory story will be snubbed. You are not a victim. There is no such thing as a victim. Christ was the only true victim in all of history. Don’t misunderstand: the problem of “victim mentality” is not even on the radar screen—they have removed the word “victim” from their metaphysical dictionary. “Victim” is part of the glory story; Christ as the only victim is the cross story. I am not a victim. That’s impossible because my sin nailed Christ to the cross. Thank you oh Lord that I was raped. Thank you for this opportunity to suffer for you. Thank you for the strength to forgive the one who raped me in the same way you forgave me. What a wonderful opportunity to show forth your gospel!
Hence, when the leaders of a Reformed church came to inform parents that a young man in that church had molested their toddler, this was the opening statement:
Today, we have before us an opportunity to forgive.
The parents were then counseled to not contact the authorities. Those who do are often brought up on church discipline. Justice necessarily implies victim. Victim necessarily implies worth. All three are conspirators with the glory story. And be not deceived: this is the logic that drives Reformed organizations that are supposed to be mediators in the church; specifically, Peacemaker Ministries and G.R.A.C.E. A major player in the Biblical Counseling Movement is Paul David Tripp. In 2006, he wrote a book that articulates the horizontal application of Luther’s theology of the cross: “How people Change.” Of course, the title is a lie; if he really believed people change, that would be the glory story. Notice also that it is, “How People Change” and not, “How Christians Change.” That’s because this bunch see no difference in the transforming power of the new birth and ordinary Christ-rejecting people.
In the book, Tripp, like all who propagate Luther’s theology of the cross, posits the Bible as a “big picture” narrative of our redemptive life. The Bible is a mere tool for one thing only: leading us more and more into the cross story and away from the glory story. This is accomplished by using the Bible to enter into the cross narrative and thereby seeing our preordained part in the “big picture” narrative of redemptive history. Though Tripp is not forthright about it in the book, this is known as the Redemptive Historical Hermeneutic. By seeing our life through the cross story, we are empowered to live life for God’s glory. This is done by seeing ALL circumstances in life (Heat) as preordained in order to show our sinfulness (Thorns) and God’s goodness (Fruit) for the purposes of having a deeper understanding of both resulting in spiritual wellbeing. In other words, all of life’s circumstances are designed to give us a deeper understanding of the cross story: God’s holiness, and our sinfulness. I have taken his primary visual illustration from the book and drawn lines to the cross story illustration to demonstrate the relationship (click on image to enlarge):
Understanding this lends insight to Tripp citations on the Peacekeepers Ministries website:
Paul Trip wrote a great post over at The Gospel Coalition blog all about the need for pastors to pursue a culture of forgiveness in their ministry. Pastors (and anyone serving Christ) have a choice:
“You can choose for disappointment to become distance, for affection to become dislike, and for a ministry partnership to morph into a search for an escape. You can taste the sad harvest of relational détente that so many church staffs live in, or you can plant better seeds and celebrate a much better harvest. The harvest of forgiveness, rooted in God’s forgiveness of you, is the kind of ministry relationship everyone wants.”
Then he describes three ways forgiveness can shape your ministry. I’ve listed them, but you can read how he explains them in detail.
“1. Forgiveness stimulates appreciation and affection.
2. Forgiveness produces patience.
3. Forgiveness is the fertile soil in which unity in relationships grows.”
He closes with this exhortation:
“So we learn to make war, but no longer with one another. Together we battle the one Enemy who is after us and our ministries. As we do this, we all become thankful that grace has freed us from the war with one another that we used to be so good at making.”
And concerning another author, they also stated:
Last week, Steve Cornell at The Gospel Coalition blog posted some really great insight into the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. They also offered up some excellent and biblically sound steps in dealing with a situation where an offending party is hesitant to reconcile.
Here he summarizes a key distinction:
“It’s possible to forgive someone without offering immediate reconciliation. It’s possible for forgiveness to occur in the context of one’s relationship with God apart from contact with her offender. But reconciliation is focused on restoring broken relationships. And where trust is deeply broken, restoration is a process—sometimes, a lengthy one”…. His ten guidelines for those hesitant to reconcile are rooted in scripture and, I think, incredibly helpful.
1. Be honest about your motives.
2. Be humble in your attitude.
3. Be prayerful about the one who hurt you.
4. Be willing to admit ways you might have contributed to the problem.
5. Be honest with the offender.
6. Be objective about your hesitancy.
7. Be clear about the guidelines for restoration.
8. Be alert to Satan’s schemes.
9. Be mindful of God’s control.
10. Be realistic about the process.
Notice the overall blurring of distinction between the offended and offender with the subject of forgiveness.
The Cross-centered Anti-justice Pandemic is No longer Exclusively a Reformed Thing
Apart from Calvinism, the redemptive historical cross-centered approach is crossing denominational lines en masse. We at TANC see doctrines that were born of Luther’s theology of the cross in non-Reformed circles constantly; specifically, heart theology (deep repentance), exclusive interpretation of the Scriptures through a redemptive prism, Gospel Sanctification, and John Piper’s Christian hedonism. And we also see the same results. It is not beyond the pale for a pastor who has raped a parishioner to be the one counseling the victim sinner. You know, the “sinner saved by grace.”
God is a God of justice, and throughout the Scriptures He demands that we be people of justice. He demands that we come to the defense of the victim. I close with fitting words from church historian John Immel:
And this is the challenge. This is the challenge that I have as a man who is passionate about thinking: to inspire people to engage in complex ideas that drive tyranny. So here’s my challenge to those who are listening.
Do not be seduced into believing that righteousness is retreat from the world.
Do not be seduced into believing that spirituality is defined by weakness and that timid caution for fear of committing potential error is a reason to be quiet.
Do not be intimidated by vague, hazy threats of failure.
Do not let yourself believe that faith is a license to irrationality. I’m going to say that again to you. This is good. Do not let yourself believe that faith is a license to irrationality.
Do not mistake the simple nature of God’s love for a justification for simple-mindedness.
Do not deceive yourself with the polite notion that you are above the fray, that your right to believe is sufficient to the cause of righteousness. There is no more stunning conceit.
Do not pretend that your unwillingness to argue is the validation of truth.
Know this: Virtue in a vacuum is like the proverbial sound in the forest–irrelevant without a witness. Character is no private deed. To retreat is nothing more than a man closing his eyes and shutting his mouth to injustice.
Virtues are not estimates to be lofted gently against evil.
Virtues are not to be withheld from view in the name of grace.
Virtues are not to be politely swallowed in humble realization that we are all just sinners anyway.
Love is not a moral blank check against the endless tide of indulgent action.
Love is not blind to the cause and effect of reality.
Love is not indifference to plunder and injustice and servitude.
The time is now, you men of private virtue, to emerge from your fortress of solitude and demonstrate that you are worthy of a life that bears your name. The time is now, you men of private virtue, to answer Mick Jagger and all the nihilists that insist we are living on the edge and we cannot help but fall. It is time for you men of private virtue to take up the cause of human existence and think.
~TANC 2012 Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny: John Immel; session 1, “Assumptions + Logic = Action.”
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Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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