Paul's Passing Thoughts

Preface: I have heard from most of our strong supporters on the spirited discussion between John and Bo, and the feedback seems to be…good discussion in the Coliseum. That was very encouraging to me as a sign that our supporters understand that TANC is about rethinking churchianity. More on that later in this post.

Dee Parsons is the co-author of The Wartburg Watch blog which reports on cultural trends within the Neo-Calvinist movement. Some Neo-Calvinists get it and have a cordial relationship with “Deb and Dee.” Others see them as arch enemies and the verbiage gets personal. This is disappointing as I prefer to see the masses deceived by clever politics rather than politics of the schoolyard variety. I have become fond of humanity and like to think the best of us. I would like to think that most Neo-Calvinists follow the leadership that plays well with Deb and Dee for a maximum deceptive benefit.

Let me set the table for the case against Deb and Dee.

This is why I no longer watch American Greed on cable television: it’s so disappointing to see all of those intelligent people duped by unimpressive Ponzi schemes. But, I also feel bad for the victims as many lost their entire life savings and have no way to get it back.

Yes, I feel bad for them, which makes me part of the problem as well. More table-setting ahead.

I have grown immensely as a person and Christian via my relationship with John Immel. We consider John our resident church historian and philosopher, not our theologian; that’s my department. John knows where Susan and I stand on Scripture as truth for life and godliness. Where does he stand exactly on that? I’m not sure, but that has nothing to do with TANC. We are a think tank, and our observers expect thinking to take place, not a solidifying of every element that we have believed all of our Christian lives as told to us by others.

TANC is trying to do something about the dichotomy between common sense and Christianity; viz, common sense is “not of faith,” but rather “of the material world.” When it gets right down to the nitty gritty, Christians may assent to the idea that the humanity part of us finds practical nourishment from the same material world, but we don’t function that way.

This is where it is difficult to read John, it would seem that he refuses to discuss the gospel until Christians come to grip with philosophy. Let’s say for sake of conversation that John has a different definition of the new birth than “Christians,” A; look around, few Christians among us can define the new birth biblically. Is the new birth a realm, or new creaturehood? “New creaturehood” you say. Well, that’s strange because easily 75% of evangelical pastors believe the new birth is a realm. B; if our “Christianity” is driven by philosophy that most don’t understand, why would John want to discuss it? Also, the spat was really my fault because even though I have a kinship with Bo’s view of Scripture, I forgot to tell him the following: you never use the word, “authority” when talking with John about truth. Christians by and large give assent to the idea that God owns truth, but clearly function as though God’s anointed own it by proxy.

This is the bottom line and a matter of irrefutable history: Western theological debate, when stripped naked, is a debate between Plato and Aristotle. If you don’t understand that debate, your local evangelical pastor can hang a Bible verse on anything he says and you will believe it. Augustine is the father of Western Christianity, and the fact that he integrated Platonism with the Bible is no big secret. Yet, there are discernment ministries that bemoan the integration of Psychology with… their interpretation of the Bible, which is a Platonist interpretation. Yes, I have read the unwitting treatises of a Platonist interpretation of the Bible, and its indignity against psychological integration which comes mostly from Socrates.

Also, when Jesus arrives on the world scene, Judaism was saturated with the theology of Philo who integrated the Old Testament with Platonism. Do you really think that is unnecessary knowledge for understanding the New Testament? Christ was the personification of the physical and good—this was an in-your-face pushback to the philosophy that has always dominated humankind from the very beginning of time.

What am I talking about? and why do Christians drive John Immel nuts? Well, a test: do you think that creation was representative of the gospel in that God brought light out of darkness? I have heard John MacArthur posit that idea more than once. That’s a Platonist interpretation. And…

…No, I am not going to tell you why that is a Platonist view of the Bible. For the first time in your Christian life, you need to study for yourself, and stop thinking the thoughts of other men. Like thoughts are different from your thoughts, and your faith should be your own, and faith is not separate from intellect.

No, I do not feel sorry for you. You fell into the trap of abuse because you were guided into a place of danger by thinking other people’s thoughts and not your own informed by good information. You are a lazy thinker who is guided by the chemical reactions in your brain ignited by the words of others. You are a vice, not a victim.

No, I am not obligated to recognize facts that lead to the tragedy of untruth. No, I am not obligated to say something good about facts used in the commission of a third degree theological felony leading to first degree bad fruit. No, your “story,” or “experience,” is not useful to me unless you have pinpointed the errant logic borrowed from others that led to your victimization. Yes, you are not much different from the man who attempted to rectify fuel line freeze up by heating a can of gasoline on his stove because his neighbor said it was a good idea. No, regardless of what happened, I am not obligated to discuss the goodness of gas cans and stoves. The goodness of gas cans and stoves does not partially sanctify the bad result. Yes, I will discuss the bad logic that led to the misuse of the gas can and the stove as a way to prevent the explosion of apartment buildings. No, I am not sorry that the man who had fuel line freeze up is dead. No, I will not discuss the fact that many who followed the same logic didn’t die, and were given a new home by Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Yes, you are right, you were wrong, and you do owe me an apology. This is why God refuses to cure Stupid with an Apology pill. I do not accept apologies from those who do not fear bad ideas. There is no antidote for stupid, only you can prevent apartment fires.

No, Susan will not apologize for having nothing good to say about the Puritans in her three sessions. No, I no longer feel sorry for those who are led to the slaughter like the dumb oxen.

Yes, I will lay down my life for you if you say the following: “I was formally a mindless fool thinking the thoughts of others and dishonoring God by wasting my mind. I now see that studying to show myself approved is a moral obligation.”

I might even feel sorry for you.

Yet another example: Let’s say that the thousands presently being slaughtered by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in Iraq could come back from the dead and tell their stories on the Wartburg Watch. These poor souls, they were lined up in large number and summarily executed with AK 47’s. They would post about that awful experience, and then many would wait with bated breath for Deb and Dee’s profound words of comfort.

I will embellish this motif a bit further: Deb and Dee host an online Echurch and the pastor is a Muslim cleric (actually, it’s the New Calvinist Wade Burleson). But he is a good Muslim cleric who thinks the mass executions are absolutely horrible. Hence, since all Muslims don’t condone mass executions of those who are other than Muslim, also known as infidels, NO connection can be made between the doctrinal logic and the behavior. And here is the crux of their argument:

“We don’t agree with everything they teach.”

If logic is not connected with behavior, no one can be held accountable, or accountability is selective which is the exact case with the Wartburg Watch. And as I will demonstrate, this actually facilitates tyranny. As I will demonstrate, Deb and Dee facilitate tyranny in a way that is as old as the world itself.

And this fact answers the following objective: “But Paul, you and John Immel don’t agree on everything either.” Precisely, and thanks for bringing that up.According to what John and I disagree on, we connect the logic of those elements to probable outcomes, and the probable outcomes are acceptable in context of the endeavor.

Now back to Deb and Dee and my ISIS motif. I want to feel sorry for the victims lined up in front of a row of AK 47’s, but I can’t because too many more lives are at stake. You see, the victims lived in a society accepting of soft Islam with different applications. Obviously, beforehand, mass slaughter wasn’t an application, but another tenet of the same logic was: laws banning the right for the people to keep and bear arms. If you have an armed public, bullies can’t just march in and slaughter people at will. When a logic is bad, many of its tenets can lead to your death. In a spiritual caste system, all of the tentacles lead back to the brain of the octopus. Even if an octopus doesn’t use all of his tentacles, it’s still an octopus, and a lazy octopus can be motivated to full octopusness at any time. The problem is the octopus, not the tentacles unless he doesn’t have any.

“By their fruits you will know them.”

Bad fruit is caused by false doctrine; therefore, bad doctrine will eventually cause bad fruit. In Africa presently, Muslims are killing Christians, but in many areas of Africa, presently, the Christians still burn witches. Why? Both are spiritual caste systems. The same basic logic that drives Christians to burn witches in Africa is the exact same logic that caused Calvin to burn witches in Geneva. Ideology is timeless, you can be sure of that.

This brings me to a discussion that I had with John at the conference. God’s design in regard to the balance of power is this: the people outnumber the government. If the people rise up in unison, the government is toast. This is why dictatorships are so afraid of ideas. Throughout human history, man has typically not connected logic with behavior. The logic eventually leads to fruit that incites the masses to take drastic action. This is a vicious cycle that has repeated itself throughout human history, until America happened.

For the first time in human history, a group of men got together and decided to form a nation that addresses the logic and not the symptoms. The results sometimes referred to as the American dream speak for themselves. There is a reason why there has never been a religious war in the United States. The founding fathers of America grew up under the tyranny of the Puritans, and when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they had the Puritans on their mind. The unseparation of Puritan and state on America’s east coast was duplicating the exact same tyranny that saturated human history up to that point. The framers were adamant in regard to separation of Puritan and state.

In defense of not making logic accountable to fruit,

Dee Parsons referred me to an article written by Roger Olson. Notice that her defense is the thoughts of someone else rather than her own. You can also add this attribute to her propensity for making lazy thinkers and mindless followers victims. At any rate, Olsen attempts to make a case for separating doctrine from behavior. Unlike what Jesus plainly stated, Olson argues for the following: those who teach without adding right practice should yet be regarded highly in the kingdom of heaven. This advocates the irrelevance of fruit in discerning doctrine. This makes a separation between doctrine and behavior. This is not eliminating the stagnant pool of water that will likely breed a disease.

I once knew of a pastor who had some sort of acid poured in his swimming pool by somebody. Every time for a week that his children wanted to go swimming, it rained, eventually resulting in a colored film floating on the surface of the pool. Experts say that the acid would have caused severe burning of the children’s skin and blindness. According to many, the logic of those who poured the acid in the pool is not all that bad because the children didn’t jump in. I disagree. The application of bad logic, for many reasons, does not always come to full volition.

Likewise, soft Calvinism is like cancer that is in remission, or a landmine that has not yet been stepped on. The attributes of the logic are present, and set the stage for a full expression to happen at any time. The tenet that disarms the public sets the stage that makes the full expression possible. In the same way, Deb and Dee proclaim that soft Calvinists provide safe haven for people while these same soft Calvinists remain conspicuously silent in regard to other Calvinists that express a more explicit tyranny.

Brigitte Gabriel of the American Congress for Truth is fighting the exact same problem in Muslim circles in regard to “moderate Islam” versus “radical Islam.” She points out that the ideology of Islam is the problem, and calls out the “moderates” for not speaking out against the fruits of the “radicals.” Political commentator Sean Hannity has said that the silence of those who have supposedly had their religion “hijacked” is…”deafening.”

This same debate is all too familiar in Evangelical circles regarding Calvinism. In addition, the fact that Islam and Calvinism both find their roots in Platonism is far from being obscure and the idea is promoted by renowned scholars past and present. Islam’s threat will continue to grow if the ideology is not rejected wholesale, and spiritual tyranny in the church will continue through Calvinism aided by those who claim to be the cure.

Another tenet:  

In this year’s TANC conference, John Immel explained another tenet of Reformed ideology: socialism and the socialist disdain for capitalism. This is the idea that man doesn’t have the right to own property. John explained how this ideology bred class envy beginning with Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies, and found strong footing in Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Even during the time of Luther, Jews were prosperous, and were referred to as the “greedy Jews.” Oh my, how many times did I hear in the Reformed church that everything I owned didn’t belong to me—it belonged to God (being interpreted: the church by proxy). Per the usual, and without a second thought, I nodded like the Calvinist Bobblehead that I was.

Understand, this tenet of Reformed thought laid dormant under the auspices of mere economic theory for about 400 years, but was the seed that gave full bloom to the holocaust. According to the NSGWP platform, “profiteering” was a crime against humanity and punishable by death. Per the usual, John’s sessions sink in slowly over time with periodic, “Oh my Gosh.”

There is a solution for spiritual tyranny in the church. When you see bad fruit—find the ideology behind it and reject the ideology wholesale. Do not think that some tenets are harmless and therefore worthy of praise, because, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump,” and “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” A note to Roger Olson: that’s Jesus again.

Calvinist elder-despots have a mantra that they use to deflect all accountability: “All the elders do not agree on that point.” Because one of them might be right, the lot of them cannot be rejected. If ideology is not connected to behavior, no one is accountable. The ONLY hope for justice is the secular courts. And let’s talk about that word “secular.” At this year’s conference, the baggage associated with the word “secular” was examined. Even though our founding fathers believed in God, the Constitution of the United States is primarily a secular document that prohibits the promotion of any particular religion. So, the first secular nation on earth also happens to be the greatest. And by the way, look around in our day, justice is only being found for victims of religious tyranny in the secular courts. “Secular” does not equal, “evil,” it just means the separation from any particular religion, and if something has to be religious to be good, which religion? “In God We Trust” doesn’t mean that God thinks practical governing is a bad idea.

Ok, so I could go on and on with this. There are lots of tentacles. The Calvinist idea that “secular” is antithetical to God’s authority has made the high tide of spiritual tyranny a virtual tsunami in the American church. But yet, Deb and Dee are hell-bent on advocating a moderate Calvinism. Their association with Wade Burleson gives the green light to thousands of followers to taste and see if any given Calvinist church is of the moderate form. I have direct association with people who have been double and triple victimized by this mindset. In other words, three churches later…the lightbulb turns on: “It’s the doctrine. It’s the fruit of a bad tree.”

Moreover, Wade Burleson is closely associated with the very forefathers of the New Calvinist movement that is the primary target of Wartburg and dubbed the “Calvinistas” by Deb and Dee. The irony and pure ignorance of it all is stunning.

Frankly, Deb and Dee ministering to the spiritually abused is like Dr. Kevorkian caring for someone who has a 50% chance of surviving some horrible disease. Deb and Dee, giving credence to a moderate Calvinism themselves, have bought into the whole sanctification by justification idea. That’s a slow spiritual death.

Moderate Calvinism will continue to pave the way for more and more misery—it must be rejected in totality.

paul