Why Bloggers Must Stand Against Spiritual Despots
It’s time to get a grip. Susan and I have been visiting many churches and reading a mass of recommended sermons on, “forgiveness,” “judging others,” “humbleness,” and “pursuing peace” that are saturating the internet. These sermons, like the ones we are hearing Sunday, after Sunday, are geared to control people via the following principles; albeit ever so subtle, and of course, by proof texting:
1. In comparison to Christ, everything on Earth, including life in general, is a pile of dung. So, all the bad things that happen are irrelevant. I mean, what do you expect? God allows these things to happen to draw us closer to Him and wean us from our desires for things on Earth. Oh that we would have no desires whatsoever other than “Christ and Him crucified!” That is our goal. No desires at all other than Christ is the ideal.
2. “Justice?” [add sarcastic smirk that begs the question: are you really that clueless?]. “You want justice? If we all got what we deserved, we would all be in hell!” “In regard to everything in life, remember the Puritan who looked upon a marcel of meat that was his only meal for that day and said, ‘What? Christ?? And this also???!’” Being interpreted: any dissatisfaction with life at all directly relates to your unthankfullness for being one of the chosen ones. Yes, I had a sinful thought the other day: I was thinking about how nice it would be to take Susan on a cruise. Just the two of us out on some boat in the middle of God’s vast ocean. How dare me! Those thoughts could have been better expended on the excellency of Christ!
3. The saints are incapable of righteous indignation because of our total depravity. Righteous indignation is arrogance. All anger is sin. We are always angry because we didn’t get our own way.
4. A sense of accomplishment is pride. Jesus does it all for us. We are totally depraved and every good work we do was preordained by God for His glory, and the rest of our life is left to us to muddle through to teach us not to depend on any of our fleshly “strengths” or “abilities.” It’s all good—both what God has predetermined and our own sins point us back to Christ and His works only, “not anything we would do.” “It’s not our doing—it’s Christ’s doing and dying.”
5. The preordained elders of the church must use the law to control the totally depraved zombie sheep. However, remember, every verse must be seen in the context of the historical Christ event, and this takes a special anointing given to those who have been preordained to lead the zombie sheep to heavenly safety despite themselves. “I’m sorry, you who question the elders, it just so happens that your marriage doesn’t ‘look like the gospel’ so we must tell your wife to divorce you. Yes, I know it seems like a contradiction to the plain sense of Scripture, but you don’t have the special anointing that enables you to see the ‘higher law of Christ’ that we can see.”
6. And remember, even though they are God’s chosen and specially anointed, they are still totally depraved like us. See, this is a huge problem—this whole problem with evangelicals wanting Reformed elders to “be the gospel, rather than preaching the gospel.” In other words, trying to manifest our own behavior, rather than manifesting the gospel; ie., Christ’s “active obedience” that is continually imputed to us in sanctification.
7. Conclusion: Keep your stinking mouth shut, buy the books that translate the Bible into “Chrsitocentric gospel truth,” tithe 10% or else, sit under elder preaching as the only way to manifest the historic Christ event, rejoice that all evil in the church makes the cross bigger, and report people who ask questions.
Certainly, the wholesale brainwashing of the saints in this country, and in our day, may be unprecedented. I see it daily in this ministry through correspondence from battered sheep: “Are my elders wrong in their wrongdoing?” How would we know? They supposedly can see things we can’t see. The rest of the congregation is told to “trust the elders who are close to the situation and know all the facts.” Saints stand perplexed and ask, “How can they do that when it is plainly against the Bible?” The answer is simple: they don’t read their Bibles the same way we do. The “gospel” is an objective truth (by the one word only) that is an unknowable eternal truth that the “knowers” can only know.
The Reformers bought into all this stuff, and it is nothing more than a Gnostic perspective that despises life. The statements that vouch for this are everywhere in the Calvin Institutes and Luther’s commentaries, as well as things spoken by contemporary Neo-Calvinists, but we simply don’t want to believe that they are saying what they are saying. Could they be wrong in their wrong? Could they be erroneous in their error? Is their hatred really hatred? Is their law-breaking really a violation of the law? Where do I even begin here? I had a Reformed elder call and tell me that another elder told him that God will bind in heaven whatever elders bind on earth—even if they are wrong. He then added that he didn’t really believe the guy said it. He was standing there, did he say it or not? And if he did, do they really believe that? Hhhheeeellllooo, yes they do!
This is just all a repeat of history. It all boils down to whether men own men by proxy, or whether God owns man. And if God owns man, to what point does He want us to be responsible for ourselves? To what point does our participation in life matter? How are we to think about the full philosophical spectrum of life? Bottom line: we are letting spiritual despots determine these questions and not our Creator. And yes, what God wants to be accomplished in His kingdom is being affected. The world is watching, and they are not impressed, and the answer is not “keeping it all in the family.” And, “What happens in the church, stays in the church because the world doesn’t understand the ‘historic Christ event.’”
“Deb,” or “Dee,” I forget which, over at, I forget, “The Whatburg blog”? or something like that, got it right: the internet is the modern-day Gutenberg press. Yes, there is a lot of pain out there, but there will be a lot more if what is done in darkness is not exposed to the light. This is exactly what God’s word instructs us to do when professing Christians refuse to repent of serious offences against each other: “TELL IT TO THE CHURCH.” Then what? Those who are aware of it are to “stay aloof” from them. It is a fellowship issue. And the willingness of MacArthur et al to fellowship with serial sheep abusers shows what their true love for biblical truth is: not much, if any.
Do you think I am being extreme? Then explain the following to me:
1. The rampant cover-ups by “respected” church leaders.
2. The utter indifference to abuse by the leaders of our day.
3. The blanket acceptance of ridiculous ideas by the who’s who of national religious leaders; such as, John Piper’s “Scream of the Damned.”
4. The wholesale fellowship of leaders with blatant mystics like Tim Keller.
5. Rape and pedophilia swept under the rug and ignored—an atrocity that was once identified primarily with the Catholic Church.
Whether Rome or Reformed, the behavior is the same because the underlying presupposition is the same: the totally depraved must be enslaved to “enlightened” leaders; supposedly, by God’s approved proxy. And there are a hundred different doctrines that seek to reach that goal—we argue over the correctness of each doctrinal nuance, but the goal of all of them is the same: CONTROL. As author John Immel aptly states, these men speak for God, but the problem is….God is not standing there to personally object. Immel states this as a manner of speaking—God is standing there to object, if the mental sluggards of our day would open the Bible and listen for themselves.
But nevertheless, this is way Reformed theologians want to make the Bible a mystical gospel narrative rather than a full philosophical statement on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and interpersonal application to be understood and interpreted by the individual born again believer with the help of elders—not the dictation thereof. The latter is for purposes of control—job one for most churches in this country.
The state’s worst fear is an uncontrolled populous, and religions have always come knocking on their doors offering a belief system that will produce a docile mass, and by the way, “if they won’t believe what we tell them to, you can kill them for us.” Do some historical googling on your own—Rome nor the Reformers have ever been any different on this wise. Oh, and you can add the Puritans to that list as well. They called their place of landing “New England.” New location—same England, complete with witch hunts and persecution of those who disagreed with them. Uh, do you think it is coincidence that their only Bible was the Geneva Bible? Now research the city council archives from Geneva during the time Calvin ruled there. Yes, it really happened. And yes, Rome would do what they have always done if the Enlightenment had not put them in their place. Historically, whether Reformed, or Romish, their tyranny has gone underground when they are contended against. A good illustration of this is the book. “House Of Death and Gate Of Hell” by Pastor L.J. King. Pushed back by the Enlightenment, the Catholic Church merely went underground with the Inquisition. Therefore, all of the whining about the evils of the Enlightenment among the Reformed is no accident. The freedom of ideas has always been the tyrants worst enemy.
“Oh now Paul, you can’t just paint the whole movement with one big brush.” Why not? That’s how Jesus painted the Pharisees. When did Jesus ever say, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, but they aren’t all bad. I can’t just paint the whole movement with a big brush. Some of those guys are ok. We have to take from the shelf what is good and leave the rest where we found it.” See my point on how the Bible is a comprehensive statement on how to live and think for the individual? We can’t use it for that if it is a mystical gospel narrative. And that’s the point: control, by removing our ability to think for ourselves. When we read that Luther despised reason, we don’t think he really meant it just because he wrote it. Oh really?
So, in case you aren’t keeping track, that’s reason number three why discernment bloggers need to keep up the blogging: it’s a call to come out from among them. That’s the biblical model: ducks swim with the ducks and birds fly with the birds. Congregations that support abusive ministries need to be confronted about it, and most certainly, others need to be warned that they shouldn’t support those ministries either. Statistics show that 80% of all parishioners who visit a church will google it—exactly, why should the other side of the story not be told? Because abusive churches are masters of deceit, and centralist doctrine is slowly assimilated into the minds of people like the proverbial frog in boiling water, many people are simply in too deep before they realize what is going on. I deal with people who are simply too spiritually weak (through indoctrination designed to do just that) to do what they have to do to leave a given church. Let me state something in regard to what John Immel calls “private virtue.” If warning a sleeping family that their house is on fire is not a private virtue, which Immel rightly fingers as an oxymoron, neither is blogging about abusive churches. Far from it. There is no place for private virtue in our duty to stand against spiritually abusive leaders.
Another reason that the bogosphere must continue to take a hard stand is because the Bible specifically states that we are to do just that. Consider 2 Corinthians 10:4,5;
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Christians have a duty to contend against EVERY “thought” that is contrary to God’s truth, and they are to use truth to do that. I don’t think much needs to be added to this point.
Like our belief that the Popes of our day wouldn’t repeat the horrors of the inquisition, even though they clearly did up until the early 50’s after being forced underground by the Enlightenment, we imagine that the Neo-Calvinists of our day would never repeat the behavior of the Reformers and Puritans. We are sadly mistaken. The spiritual abuse tsunami that we are seeing in our day is Reformation light. The gallows and the stake stoked with green wood has been replaced by bogus church discipline with excommunication following, character assignation, commanding people to divorce their spouses, ruining people’s careers, and false incrimination. It is now protocol for many New Calvinist church leaders to make a concerted effort to get in tight with local law enforcement in case they would need a “favor.” In my contention with Clearcreek Chapel in Springboro, Ohio, I received a very inappropriate phone call from a police detective who ordered me to do certain things that were clearly outside of his authority. I immediately contacted an attorney and started compiling data because I didn’t know what was coming next. My life was also threatened via email. Whatever the present abuse might escalate to, I think it prudent to do all we can to end it where it is at.
The present-day Neo-Calvinists are absolutely correct: they have “rediscovered” the true Reformation gospel. Ministry themes like “Resurgence,” “Modern Reformation,” and “Resolved” are absolutely correct in their assertion that the true Reformation gospel has been recently rediscovered (circa 1970). But where did it go? “The Enlightenment and Existentialism suppressed It.” Hardly. The Enlightenment and Existentialist movements were a pushback against the tyranny that is part and parcel with the Reformation gospel. The Reformation gospel dies a social death every 100-150 years because of the following:
1. The idea of the plenary inability of man leads to a significant decrease in quality of life.
2. The saints eventually discover that said philosophy imposed an interpretation on the Bible regarding the gospel, instead of a gospel understood from exegesis. Another way of stating it: The Reformation gospel is false, fuses justification and sanctification together so that all works are of God only, denies the new birth, is Gnostic, and is accompanied by bad fruit accordingly.
3. The tranny that cannot help but be a part of this doctrine eventually peaks; ie., the saints finally get fed-up.
4. The Gnostic concept of continually recycling a narrow concept that is supposedly the gateway to higher knowledge eventually gets boring. In this case; gospel this, gospel that, gospel the other, gospel driven marriage, gospel driven music, gospel driven child rearing, gospel driven drivers education, gospel driven weight loss programs, and 52 different versions of the gospel a year parsed out on each Sunday. People also get tired of 7/11 music: seven verses about Jesus repeated 11 times.
5. A narrow sanctification dynamic begins to wreak havoc on the saints; ie., ruined lives become the norm.
6. An air of indifference becomes evident. Everybody starts acting like Dr. Spock.
7. Like its kissing cousin, Communism, it just eventually sucks the life out of people, and they start looking for something else. The doctrine simply does not deliver in the long run.
8. The light bulb finally turns on: when the doctor says: “there is nothing we can do,” that =’s no hope. The saints begin to wonder why the Christian life is any different.
And that’s what we are seeing right now. Big time. And regardless of the various stripes of those who are in the fight—we are united on the following: the tyranny and abuse must stop. And what will stop it is the same thing that has always stopped it: the truth proclaimed from the housetops. An incessant, relentless, tenacious proclaiming of the truth hastens the rightful death of tyranny.
It is true, “the keyboard is mightier than the sword.”
paul
Paul and paul Phone Interview on Muzzling Thinking Saints: If They Can’t Take Your Life—They Will At Least Get Your Wife; Part 4/Conclusion
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1
The Doctrine of Centralism and the “Cult” Misnomer
“Hence, there are only two types of churches in our day: those that promote bondage to pastor kings, and those that promote the priesthood of believers—with the latter being an anomaly in our day. ”
“This Reformation myth—the epic battle for truth between Rome and a lowly monk, is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind.”
Like “legalism,” “gospel,” “grace,” and “Christian,” “cult” is a loosely used term thrown around in our day. Like “legalism” in particular, I don’t think there is any such thing as a “cult.”
The word is very unhelpful, inaccurate, and enables spiritual abuse and tyranny of the worst sort. And, bibliology, or doctrine, has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not an organization is something that doesn’t exist; namely, a cult.
Have you noticed? People still attend and vigorously support what some call the big C. Why is that? Why do they also cover up big C behavior? Why the blind faith? Why do upright law abiding citizens support certain organizations in the face of damning evidence? Why are the victims blamed for the actions of their abusers? What’s going on?
Same Behavior
Observation begins to supply clues. Some years ago, I had a ministry to Jehovah Witnesses. JW’s are commonly accepted as being a cult. But in case you haven’t noticed, they aren’t going away anytime soon. Why is that? I will answer that question later, but for now, let me state a procedure that JW’s use to neutralize those who contend against them: they set out to end your marriage. I was called into a situation where an individual was meeting with a group of JW elders from a kingdom hall that his wife was a member of. They had been recently married. He wanted to follow God, and considered the Bible to be the authority, and wanted me to attend the meeting to present another perspective on Scripture for him to consider.
But I did something surprising. I wouldn’t discuss doctrine with them. Instead, I brought copies of old Watch Tower theological journals (some dating back to the 1920’s) that clearly showed how JW’s have changed their positions on major theological issues over the years. Until the 70’s (if I remember correctly), JW’s disallowed blood transfusions (based on obscure Old Testament law) which led to the untimely deaths of many of their followers—especially children. Some of the younger elders present were unaware of this fact and didn’t buy the idea suggested at the meeting that I had photo-shopped the copies.
The next morning, three ladies from the same kingdom hall came to visit my wife after I left for work. They offered to come to our home during the day and have Bible studies with her. Despite my outrage, they were so persistent that I had to consider the obtaining of a restraining order from the local police.
Now enter Calvinist churches that are in contention with individuals. They do the EXACT same thing. The first thing that is going to happen when, and if you are in a contention with Calvinist elders in a local church—they are going to set the wheels in motion to drive a wedge between you and your spouse. I don’t condone it, but in cases that have been brought to our attention, the stalking of wives was only halted when Reformed elders were threatened with physical violence, or confrontation in the middle of Sunday morning services. The latter we do indorse, and many Reformed churches have security teams in place to thwart such confrontation which by the way is biblical. In other articles, I have outlined fourteen cult elements that are aped by Reformed churches. According to “cult” experts, the primary motivating factor is CONTROL. The process aimed at getting control and keeping it is known as centralism.
Now, try to solve the Reformed bully problem by labeling them a cult. Ya, good luck with that one. So, herein is now the problem: by labeling some “cults” and others not cults, the others get a free ticket to act like a cult without being one when the fact of the matter is that they are all CONTROLISTS.
Controlism
Labeling them all “control freaks” (centralism, or controlism) is much better, and more accurate than “cult,” but still way short of being solution oriented. Why would so many people be concerned with controlling others? People do what they do for a reason. They do what they do because of what they believe or want. “Oh, you mean ‘doctrine,” right?” Wrong. Doctrine is the tool that makes control possible. Something comes before the doctrine. We are going to discuss the primary crux of this issue and lay all of the residual issues aside. This is the big picture.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the theory of being or existence, how we know what we know, ramifications of knowledge, and how we communicate it to others. Western culture is predicated on the idea that philosophers are an elite class that should rule the world. And depending on the philosophy’s doctrine, they are mediators between the masses and the cosmos, nature, various invisible forces, gods, or thee God.
Prior to the sixth century, Western culture primarily functioned on mythology. The fifth century saw a movement towards science, but the study of human existence and how truth related to life (philosophy) did not emerge till circa 400 BC. The epicenter was the Academy in Athens Greece. This is where the philosophical wheel of Western culture was invented. The primary premise mentioned above, Plato’s philosopher kings, moved out from Athens into history by two roads: secular, and religious. In the religious realm, doctrines and church polity were geared for the ultimate goal necessary to implement the core philosophy: CONTROL. Though religious wars have raged throughout Europe till this day under the auspices of doctrinal disagreements (going to war over doctrine is not doctrinally sound to begin with), what the issue has always been is that of control.
Even in regard to the doctrinal contentions between the Reformers and Rome, both doctrines were designed to control the saintly masses. That is why the results have always been the same whether Reformed or Catholic: heavy-handed leadership, abuse, and cover-ups. Why are there so many different denominations, doctrines, and beliefs? Really there isn’t; these are just different theological systems that approach control in different ways. The doctrine assimilated into the minds of both groups lead to the behavior. Why do pastors feel entitled to abuse? Philosophical indoctrination via biblical proof texting. Why do pastors cover for each other and refuse to confront other pastors? Same reason. Why are victims told that it is their fault? Same reason. Why do parishioners look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen? Same reason. Want to see this in action? Watch the following video:
And this article: http://martybraemer.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/jack-schaap-my-friend/
The primary crux of Centralism in both Reformed doctrine and Catholicism is the emphasis on saintly ineptness. The Reformers relegated the saints to total depravity and a total inability to please God in any way. If you can convince people that they are worthless, it goes without saying that they become docile followers who are hesitant to question anything. Likewise, on the Catholic side, if you can’t interpret the Scriptures on your own and absolution can only be found through the Catholic Church—few are willing to rock the boat. Today’s Baptists of all strips are either one or the other, or a combination of both. While supposedly rejecting both, determinism and weekly absolution can be found at the altar weekly. After all, we are “all just sinners living by the same grace that saved us.” Sermons are about “forgiving the way we have been forgiven,” and how “complaining is always sin.”
As obedience to the local pastor king is slowly assimilated into the minds of parishioners through various doctrines, followers will ultimately drink the Kool-Aid if they are told to. The infamous Jack Hyles (Independent Fundamental Baptist) demonstrated this to a fellow pastor by saying to one of his deacons: “stand up”; and he did. “Sit down”; and he did, and much to the astonishment of the other pastor. Hyles’ daughter once stated that she was certain that her father’s 50,000 followers would drink the Kool-Aid if he told them to and prefaced the statement with, “I’m not kidding!” Therefore, in her estimation, when it got right down to it, the (at one time) largest Baptist church in the world was no different from Jonestown, and I concur. Hyles and Jim Jones simply had different flavors of doctrine that were geared to obtain the same results.
When Christ came upon the scene proclaiming His good news of the kingdom of God, His message was a head-on collision with Greco-Roman philosophy that had been integrated into Judaism. Christ proclaimed the Scriptures, for all practical purposes, to be the comprehensive metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political, philosophical statement directly from God, and placed it in the hands of the saints to interpret it for themselves, and supplied everything necessary to do so. The priesthood of believers is the extreme antithesis to philosopher kings. And Christ looked to none of the theologians of that day for credibility—He didn’t cite any of them. He picked twelve uneducated blue-collar workers to build the greatest kingdom of the ages, and made every citizen a priest unto God. He purchased us with His own blood, and we are owned by no other man.
Hence, there are only two types of churches in our day: those that promote bondage to pastor kings, and those that promote the priesthood of believers—with the latter being an anomaly in our day. Susan and I are visiting churches right now, and we know this: any given church will be geared to control the members through doctrine, polity, and ministry, or will be geared to equip priestly saints full of goodness and competence in spiritual matters—able to minister to each other and the world with all knowledge. There is no in-between; every church will fit into one of these two criteria.
Where Truth Still Matters
Christians are under the illusion that truth matters, and doctrinal disagreements in our day are driven by such. Hardly. Truth is irrelevant; the real crux of the matter is what doctrine best suits to effectively control the masses. Truth is not the epicenter of God’s comprehensive philosophical statement on life and godliness in our day. The prior question (which doctrine best controls) has always led to the marriage of church and state throughout history. The state has always sought to unite with a “unifying belief system,” ie., religion; the state has a vested interest in a docile populous, while religion has an interest in using the state to control the totally depraved zombie sheep from destroying themselves. Rome and the Reformers were in agreement on the marriage of church and state; their disagreement concerned the gospel of centralism under the guise that gospel truth really matters. This Reformation myth, the epic battle for truth between Rome and a lowly monk, is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. And, read the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel for yourselves, the marriage of the anti-Christ statesman with the one world religion of the latter days is hardly a mere preface in the scheme of things. The anti-Christ is Plato’s magnum opus of philosopher kings.
1. Exhort with sound doctrine and truth.
But there are still plenty of saints around that care about real truth, and they must be convinced with sound doctrine and sound doctrinal apologetics. This is the first piece of the puzzle that answers the ministry riddle of our day.
2. Save the honestly deceived.
There are saints who love the truth, and have no agenda, but have unwittingly resigned their priesthood to pastor kings, and are owned by them instead of Jesus Christ. They must be convinced with the truth they love, and thereby rescued from throwing away their high calling and casting their pearls before swine.
3. Do not invest in “saints” with itching ears.
Don’t waste time with those who value what they receive from pastor kings more than truth. Pastor kings offer easy believeism, and ease is a universal temptation. Whether, this is easy because to do anything in sanctification is works, and not grace; or, obedience is optional—at least we are saved; or, we are totally depraved pieces of crap that couldn’t please God even if we tried, so what could be easier?; or, any effort in sanctification is works salvation because the two are the same; or, the same gospel that saved us also sanctifies us—no need to move on to anything else that might be harder than that; or, no need to delve deep into the Scriptures and study hard because the Bible is a gospel narrative only; or, whatever else is the reason—something that people want that they are receiving from the pastor kings is more important than truth. Truth is often hard.
This is why they are willing to compromise and lay almost everything at the altar of the pastor kings. It’s easy. And, victims are a big-time inconvenience. Hence, ignorance is bliss and cover-ups are the first order of the day. Doctrine will condone this in various and sundry ways. Occasionally, these saints with itching ears will contend against truth bearers that threaten their comfort. Be careful to not invest time in them—invest in the honest doubters.
4. Prevention
Saints must be educated and warned not to squander their priesthood under the auspices of the pastor kings, whether of the Reformed stripe, the Arminian stripe, or the misnomer of cultism.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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