Paul's Passing Thoughts

“A Calvinist believing in intellectual property is an oxymoron… that’s why plagiarism is rampant in the New Calvinist movement.”   

The radio host Janet Mefferd confronted the New Calvinist Mark Driscoll on air regarding plagiarism in his latest book. I listened to the interview and was struck by the overall lack of education concerning this movement that presently owns American Christianity.

During the interview, Driscoll, like many, many New Calvinists, continued to promote the idea that New Calvinism is still an upstart movement representing the only pure remnant of American Christianity. That’s absurd. New Calvinism has completely owned American evangelicalism since 1999. The movement is about 43 years old, and it took them about 25 years to reach this point. The present-day tyranny in the church that New Calvinism is responsible for kicked in around 2000. This provoked the mass of discernment blogs that we see today.

Another thing that came up, and Driscoll played along with, was Mefferd’s idea of “intellectual property.” That is an Enlightenment era idea and absolutely despised by New Calvinists. Be sure of this: when Mefferd said that, it totally torqued Driscoll off. Here is what folks continue to miss historically: New Calvinism is a return to authentic European Reformed theology. This is the same theology that the Pilgrims brought with them from Europe.

So, originally, America was a European church state and the only thing that saved America from that was the American Revolution which was inspired by Enlightenment thinking. Furthermore, the Great Awakening during that time was expressed in churches, that’s true, but the fundamental inspiration for the Great Awakening was the Enlightenment idea that ALL men are created equal and free. This also inspired the Abolitionist movement.

Hence, the idea that any average Joe can have relevant ideas, and those ideas should be their intellectual property, is an Enlightenment idea, and the Enlightenment era has always been the archenemy of Calvinism. A Calvinist believing in intellectual property is an oxymoron. Calvinists having to play along with the idea of intellectual property is a classic cultural clash between Puritan tyranny and the Enlightenment gospel that inspired the American idea. Calvinists don’t take intellectual property seriously and that’s why plagiarism is rampant in the New Calvinist movement. If Driscoll was honest, he would have laughed in Mefferd’s face. Only the enlightened have relevant intellectual property, and even then, it comes from God and not man.

And, go figure, Mefferd found further evidence of Driscoll plagiarism. And, go figure, Tyndale House Publishers defended the un-defendable in this case. Like I said, New Calvinism owns Christianity, and that includes the publishers. This is why independent publishing companies like Presage and TANC are popping up—New Calvinism virtually controls what gets published and what doesn’t in evangelical circles.

In my own situation at Clearcreek Chapel in Springboro, Ohio, I became aware that the present New Calvinist Pastor, Russ Kennedy, was fired from his prior pastorate for plagiarizing a John Piper sermon word for word. Imagine, he got up in front of the congregation and preached another man’s sermon while allowing the congregation to believe it came from his intellect. Also, Clearcreek is guilty of the same thing that many New Calvinist churches are guilty of, double plagiarism. What’s that? Well, the staff elders supply the lay elders with manuscripts and the lay elders pretend they put the lesson together. But in at least one instance, the plagiarized manuscript included plagiarized material from a pastor outside of Clearcreek Chapel.

This is sort of like a bank robber double dipping by robbing the teller and the customer both.

paul