Immelism is Best Argument for Discernment/ Abuse Blogs
There may be a problem with John Immel over at Spiritual Tyranny .com. Perhaps Immelism should come with the following instructions:
WARNING:
The content herein requires thinking, and includes simple solutions for some problems that others assume are complex. This may cause extreme fear in many who have an existing condition known as mindless-saintaphobia. Remove all household items that could be used to inflict self-harm before reading this material.
This condition, in the same way that pyromania has an irrational fearlessness of fire, has an irrational fear of thinking for oneself, and may cause panic among those challenged to do so.
The church has a long way to go in regard to recovering and rediscovering the lost gospel of thinking. “Gospel” means “good news,” and many Christians are clueless in regard to the fact that the Holy Spirit sees critical thinking as “honorable,” and in fact, is an activity that we can partake in without suffering the wrath of God. What were we thinking? We weren’t. Mindless-saintaphobia was not a problem in that day, so they had John the Baptist. We have John the Provoker.
In case you are wondering what brought this post to bear, let me share, for that is only fair for those who care. I have been cooped up in our tech room for two weeks (as the last sentence clearly indicates) producing the DVD set for the First Annual Conference on Gospel Discernment and Spiritual Tyranny. After necessarily listening to John’s first message roughly fifty times, two words he used as a primary theme for much of his first session hit me right between the eyes. The ten points under that theme aside, those two simple words beg an argument that ends the discussion concerning the validity of discernment/abuse blogs. After wading through the gargantuan internet wordage for pro and con, pray tell, what are those two words?
“Private virtue.”
Though John outlines ten elements of “private virtue” in his first session, the very two words immediately beg the question: can virtue be private?
The apostle Paul didn’t recommend it. He said to let our good works be “evident to all.” Try the private virtue thing with your wife sometime: “Oh baby, I love you sooooooo much, but I am just not good at showing it.” Next interpretive question: how comfortable is your living room couch.
I get letters all of the time that state something like the following: “We are trying to figure out what is going on in our church”; “We can’t figure it out, we are confused, why won’t the elders just explain it to us so we can decide for ourselves?” “Everyone is just walking around confused ‘like zombies’ [actual quote]. We just want to know what’s going on.”
If I know what’s going on, and I don’t tell them, is that virtuous? It’s a rhetorical question.
In Immel’s conclusion to his first session, he referred to “men of private virtue.” John the Provoker is much nicer than John the Baptist. John the Baptist called them cowards.
paul
New Calvinism’s Beef With Teaching Children to Ask Jesus Into Our Heart and Voddie Baucham’s Reformed View of Children
Now look, I believe children are born sinful, and I also believe children not properly reared can grow up to be monsters, but we need to also remember that every human being is born with the works/law of God written on their hearts and their consciences either excusing or accusing them. That’s why I don’t go for this total depravity stuff along with the dirty little secret that this also supposedly applies to believers. Man is by nature sinful, but if you go through life looking at the unregenerate as nothing more than barely a step above the animal world, they will know that and it will create issues in your life to say the least.
New Calvinism will die a social death. Authentic Calvinism always does because five things finally come home to roost:
1. Folks finally take a stand against the tyranny it produces.
2. Folks finally catch on to the fact that authentic Reformed theology is Gnosticism (Neo-Platonism) dressed up in Bible verses.
3. Folks grow weary of its pessimistic mindset/outlook on life that came from Plato and Augustine.
4. Folks get bored with the constant recycling of Christology as if that is the only subject in the Bible (Susan and I are hearing this a lot lately).
5. As a result of 1-4, people’s lives start going to hell in a hand basket. Authentic Calvinism always ends up yielding very bad results as it did in Geneva and Salem MA.
But for the first time since the conception of Reformed theology, there has never been a resurgence of it that has been this well systematized and funded (ie, New Calvinism). And, there has never been a time when American parishioners were dumbed down like they are in our day; so, number 2 is going to take a while. In other words, the former resurgent movements haven’t left enough damage for people to remember, and dots usually aren’t connected (ie, the Salem witch trials were an identical event to what took place in Geneva under Calvin’s reign of terror). So, every hundred years or so it makes a comeback and then dies out again. The goal is to limit the carnage and educate to prevent another resurgence.
Now back to my original point about children. New Calvinists get this Reformed, abysmal view of man from Plato and Augustine. And the following quote by New Calvinist Voddie Baucham depicted in the illustration should be all that needs to be said.
Keep New Calvinists away from our children.
“Why Southern Baptist New Calvinists Don’t Like Jesus in our Children’s Hearts”: a Bedtime Story.
Monster Under the Bed
I have a great Facebook friend who always reposts the choice articles floating around the internet. My writing time is limited, but every now and then he reposts something that I cannot pass on. I already knew about the David Platt kerfuffle concerning the dissing of “asking Jesus into our hearts,” but this particular article followed Platt’s cue without leaving out the children. After all, Jesus said not to prevent the little children from coming to him in case they are among some that he has chosen. Ya, let all of them come; the little runts he hasn’t chosen will find out soon enough that they never had a prayer, but nevertheless, those who pray for salvation anyway should at least do so correctly lest they offend God even more.
The article was written by New Calvinist Jared Kennedy and posted on Church Leaders .com. The article is predicated on nine reasons to not teach children to ask Jesus into their hearts. Now granted, I object to Southern Baptists, of which I am one, incessantly deemphasizing what they think is the fine print of salvation: repentance. There is too much Jesus as Savior only, and not Jesus as Lord AND Savior. Yes, and I say again, “yes,” many Southern Baptist child converts fall away because they know Jesus as Savior only, and do not also realize that he also came to destroy the works of the Devil. The cross not only makes that possible, but that being one of Christ’s purposes for going to the cross should at least get an honorable mention in our lives. In case you missed it—that’s de-emphasis for purposes of emphasis in my ever failed attempt to beg folks not to teach a half gospel—especially to children. I think we often exclude the “repent” in the “Repent and…. [believe]” for fear that the recipient of the good news will not deem the “repentance” part as such (good news).
By the way, I never get to teach children anymore because my favorite lesson is the one where God sent the two momma bears to maul a group of children for mocking one of God’s prophets. I always add the little caveat that since the mommas mauled all of them (if I remember correctly, 42) they must have tracked down the ones who had initially gotten away throughout the night, and probably in their cozy beds while savoring their supposed getaway. Southern Baptist parents are usually aghast towards teaching things like that about God to children lest they think they can make God angry in some way via bad behavior or disobedience.
But back to Kennedy. From here, I must launch on a comment by one of my Southern Baptist brethren in regard to the article: “What’s going on?” Being Southern Baptist; 10% tithe; rededicating your life; at least twice, Southern Baptists not knowing what’s going on: priceless. Well, here is the Cliff Notes on what’s going on. You can fill in the blanks with the 80 gigs of electronic data I have accumulated to back up my thesis. I will tell it as a bedtime story. Maybe that will work.
Why Southern Baptist New Calvinists Don’t Like Jesus in our Children’s Hearts:
A Bedtime Story by Paul M. Dohse
Once upon a time, there was a man named Johnny Calvin. He had a great, great grandfather named Auggie. Johnny’s double great granddaddy was faithful to the wicked witch of the west, Queen Catholic. Both Auggie and the Queen believed man could not find God without them. Auggie believed it because a magic doggie named Pluto told him man cannot know reality without striving to find it beyond what we can touch, see, and hear. Auggie learned from Pluto that those who come to see reality through thinking really hard thoughts should rule over those who think reality can be understood by observation. But either way, people are very, very naughty, even those who see reality.
Therefore, Auggie made up his own bedtime story about how all of reality is Jesus [the objective gospel], and Jesus, and what he does, always stays outside of us because Jesus is reality and good, but we are always naughty. Pluto the magic doggie also had puppies who grew up and taught that Jesus didn’t really come as a man because spirit is good, and things that we can touch, see, and feel are naughty like us.
Eventually, Auggie’s descendants, Johnny and Martin, liked this idea, but didn’t like the Queen because she said that she could be the only enlightened one to rule over all of the naughty people who can’t know good things. However, they continued to revere their double great granddaddy even though he served the Queen till the end of his life. Also, Johnny and Martin didn’t like it that the enlightened Queen thought that Jesus does good things inside of people if they are a member of her empire, pay their dues, and drink her magic grape juice. It made them angry that she believed Jesus does good things inside of naughty people. Jesus must always stay outside of us [the Reformation gospel of The Centrality of the Objective Gospel Outside of Us].
So, Johnny and Martin started their own empire called the Reformation. Like their double great granddaddy, they believed the enlightened ones must rule over the totally naughty. If the totally naughty devoted their life to realizing more and more how naughty they are, what Jesus does outside of them will look bigger and bigger. But many of the totally naughty couldn’t help themselves. In fact, a little girl shoved her mommy so Johnny cut off her head.
And that’s what David Platt will do to you if you ask Jesus into your heart.
The End.
paul
New Calvinist Calvin Wannabes and How Their Polity Is Modeled After Geneva: Part 2
My association with John Immel has been a real eye opener. For someone who has been of the Reformed mindset for more than twenty years and served as a Reformed pastor, discussions about who owns man, the very discussion in the arena of ideas itself, feels like being at a strip club. For the Reformed mind, this is an outrageous concept, the idea that man is a free agent, or in other words, owns himself.
Immel, for the most part, has pointed me in the right direction, and what I have discovered by my own study has brought about a significant transformation of thinking. New Calvinism is old Calvinism to a “T.” Hear me and hear me well: New Calvinists will do what the old Calvinists did; i.e., study the history of Calvin’s Geneva theocracy.
What we are seeing today in the churches, this spiritual abuse tsunami, is a direct result from the resurgence of authentic Calvinism in our day. The present abuses are all about the control Reformed elders think they should have via the Reformed tradition. The present control abuses are merely cheap substitutes for the implementation of government to enforce church doctrine enjoyed by the Reformers in medieval times. How does that play out today? What has taken the place of the burning stake, the dungeon, the guillotine, and the gallows?
1. Brain washing. Communication techniques employed by New Calvinist elders are vast, and most certainly, a book could be written on that topic alone. Some blogs like Under Much Grace explore some of these techniques in significant details.
2. Accountability structures. This has become very easy to detect in New Calvinist churches if you are looking for it. When you visit initially, you will be befriended by a member and probably taken out to lunch and immediately invited to several functions. The purpose is to ascertain your ability to think for yourself and ability to discern doctrine. Such are a threat to the control structure. If you are foolish enough to join after attending a “church membership class” and signing a covenant which you probably didn’t read, you will be assigned an elder which also oversees the small group that you are ASSIGNED to. As in Calvin’s Geneva, periodic home visits/inspections by elders to determine the “spiritual wellbeing” of the family are becoming more prevalent in New Calvinist churches.
3. Per New Calvinists protocol, there will be a refusal to discuss/debate doctrine in the arena of truth/ideas. New Calvinist elders see their authority as absolute and a binding on earth as it is in heaven.
4. New Calvinist elders teach that God will in fact condemn a person to eternal separation based on their declaration. In other words, they hold your very eternal security in their hands.
5. Where church discipline fits into all of this is rather self-explanatory. Reformed elders believe that they have the authority to bring any individual under church discipline for any reason, and at any time.
6. Read the fine print on membership covenants: you can be brought up on church discipline for leaving a church for “unbiblical reasons.” One of these unbiblical reasons is departure for doctrinal disagreements. Just ask the former co-founder of SGM. My wife Susan was also told by a pastor that she couldn’t leave the church where she was a member.
7. Church discipline doesn’t end with “if he SAYS ‘I repent,’” but rather a decision by fruit inspecting elders.
8. Fact: this ministry counsels people from time to time on how to leave New Calvinist churches without stress/conflict/tension. In extreme cases, people are counseled to temporarily take a job well beyond a feasible driving distance from said church. Moving to accept employment elsewhere is hard to argue with. At least two families that I know of have done so and not left forwarding addresses, emails, or phone numbers. You smile, hug, kiss, wave, enjoy the cake at your farewell party put on by the elders for appearance sake, and then disappear. Keep in mind that New Calvinist elders believe they can condemn you to hell via church discipline even if you are no longer a member; ie, if you contact present members after you leave.
I was asked for advice by one couple who were leaving a New Calvinist church for two reasons: mission work for an upstart church, and doctrine. I pleaded with them to only mention the former, and they heeded my advice. When they only stated the one reason to the elders, one elder remarked, “We would never prevent you from leaving for that reason.” Even with that, the elders told the congregation that the couple was leaving to start a new ministry that was an extension of their church. They also had the audacity to do this before the couple even left. In fact, their farewell party was a supposed celebration regarding the new upstart ministry supposedly started by them. I counseled them to just keep their mouth shut and play along. This is the extremes that people have to go through in order to leave these churches in peace.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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