SGM’s House of Horrors and the New Calvinist Theocratic Subculture
The class action law suit brought against SGM has been revised. And with new allegations added, the narrative can now describe SGM as a house of horrors. I will leave the gory details to the Calvinism would be a good thing if not for the Neo-Calvinists crowd and their Reformed versions of the National Enquirer.
In a recent interview, John Piper discussed a few [!] faults that Calvin had; namely, his idea of integrating church and state. Piper then proceeded to propagate the outrageous idea that Reformed Baptists were responsible for reversing that concept. Funny, no matter how many times you read James Madison’s Memorial Remonstrance Against Ecclesiastical Establishments the Reformed Baptists don’t seem to be mentioned. Last year, Piper announced his post-retirement plans to spread “the light” of Calvinism—on location in Geneva as a way of presenting Calvin’s Geneva as a model for the renovation of humanity. If you believe Piper thinks the marriage of Church and state is a bad idea, I have an oceanfront property in Dayton, Ohio I would like to sell you.
CJ Mahaney and company may not think too much of what their pedophile friends have done, but to them, a bigger issue is at hand here: the preservation of their theocratic subculture. Mahaney et al don’t think that they should be subject to civil law. The way they state it: “The church should be free to shepherd their people as they see fit.” And the way they prefer to handle these situations should be evident by now and is directly linked to their Reformed ideology.
I have written on that extensively, and frankly, I am too lazy this morning to rehearse it all. It’s just exhausting: this behavior, though shocking, should not be surprising when their gospel is understood. Calvin and Luther considered the whole concept of Justice to be a joke and part of the “glory story” and not the “cross story.” These are people who function from a total different reality than normative metaphysics. If you believe that you are capable of interpreting your own reality you are living the glory story; if you trust them to interpret your reality for you according to the cross story, you are living in the gospel meta-narrative.
But back to my original point. New Calvinists have simply improvised and built a theocratic subculture. Again, I have written extensively on this and am weary of it. New Calvinist churches are ruled by elder law and have various ways of enforcing that law apart from the state. They would prefer the state, but the likes of James Madison, whom they despise, messed that plan up big-time on this corner of the globe.
Yawn, ugh, let me repeat a few improvisions: in-house security forces; control structure; covenants; church discipline; brainwashing; networking with likeminded government officials willing to operate off the record; etc.
Hence, the New Calvinists see this as an opportunity. If they win this case based on separation of church and state, the implications are staggering. Don’t miss this: that is why the rest of the New Calvinist community is watching this in silent, anxious anticipation. If you think they see this as a bad thing, if you think this puts New Calvinism on the ropes—you are dead wrong—they see this as a grand opportunity to set precedent and further strengthen their theocratic subculture.
paul
New Calvinism’s Anti-American Propaganda
In our most recent conference update Susan and I spoke of how the New Calvinist movement is attempting to recreate Christian reality. As part of this campaign, their overt rewriting of church history staggers one’s imagination in regard to audacity. It goes something like this:
The church was in a dark age. And the Reformers saved mankind from Catholicism. Then the children of the Reformers came to America and established its religious roots. But American capitalism and individualism has become a god and is destroying the piety that the precious Puritans brought here from Europe.
Hardly. First, the “church,” more correctly, “assembly of Christ” which adds Christ to the unbroken concept of “assembly” in both Testaments continues to be built by Christ and no darkness has ever prevailed against it—not even temporarily. The whole Dark Ages thing and its relationship to the “church” is a Western perspective. The world is bigger than Western culture.
Secondly, the philosophy of Socrates and Plato continues to dominate Western thought and culture to this very day. From Plato’s Academy, and his magnum opus, The Republic, Western thought moved forward in two directions: secular and religious. In the secular, it took the form of communism. In the religious, the identical ideology formed the foundations of Catholicism and Protestantism. The Reformers were merely “moral” philosopher kings.
And Plato didn’t come up with anything original. The cradle of humanity only had two religions: Friends of God and Spiritual Caste. And when you are God’s friend, He copies you on everything because you are morally responsible for the sum and substance of your own life, “the life that bears your name” (John Immel: TANC 2012). God doesn’t have an elite minority that rules over the unenlightened masses on his behalf. If the enlightened philosopher kings tell us to sacrifice our firstborn to the sun god, we protest because we didn’t get the memo.
And though we are to serve others, the sum and substance of our life is not defined by our contribution to “the group.” The Bible tells us to bear our own burdens as much as we possibly can. Individualism is not a sin. The demonizing of individualism is where New Calvinism and Communism play together in Plato’s sandbox. Don’t take the words of others for it, study history for yourselves; European religion has always been in bed with Fascism and Communism. Their like ideology spawns their common lust to control the masses.
And together, they despise the children of the Enlightenment that saved the American colonies from the tyranny of European religion. The Salem witch trials were a miniscule remnant of the bad seed. No country has ever flourished like America nor done good to the world in the same degree. Europe has never been a friend to God’s elect nation, but Israel has never had a better friend than America. America has never been a Christian nation per se. But there is immense power in even implementing God-given common sense….
….upholding individualism.
paul
Forget the Election Debate; Calvinism is a False Gospel
Perhaps the only book in existence that challenges the Protestant Reformation gospel in regard to doctrinal soundness. This book presents its case that the Reformation gospel is progressive justification, and that its major tenets such as total depravity extend to sanctification as well as justification. The total depravity of the saints? The book also explores the Reformation’s impact in regard to understanding the new birth.
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Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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