Taking Back the Bible from Christian Academia: Confident Study of the Scriptures, Part 1
Originally published October 1, 2013
The Apostolic Church’s greatest nemesis was Gnosticism. An understanding of how Greek philosophy influenced the landscape of that day is critical to understanding what was behind many things written by the Apostles and Christ. Greek philosophy was the driving force behind Gnosticism, and it was predicated on an elitist academia who were supposedly the gatekeepers of truth and wisdom. Supposedly, these were the enlightened minority who should necessarily lead or rule over the unenlightened masses. They were, and still are responsible for repackaging the “deep” things of God so that the unenlightened masses can use it in some way to cope with life. In religious circles we call this, “orthodoxy.” In secular circles we call this, “Psychology.” Those who cope rather than overcome are always the shadows of orthodoxy.
Enlightenment was a pedigree that you were born into; predetermined by the universe, gods, or God Himself. Hence, formal schools were mostly populated by the affluent to prepare them to lead or rule over the unenlightened masses. It’s very little different today as most pastors are graduates from universities that the majority of people can’t afford. Ability to obtain a degree from a noted seminary is part and parcel with being qualified to be a pastor (even if you are a pedophile). Pastoral search committees immediately toss resumes that are anything less than a Master’s degree. Lay pastors are seen as a lower class of leaders and are paid accordingly. They are seen as necessary for churches who can’t afford the “real deal.” This whole tradition, at least in Western culture, began with Plato’s Academy. The Academy is really the foundation that all seminaries are built on. They follow the secular pattern of Western culture.
This was the elitist atmosphere in Judea when Christ showed up. God’s people were sheep without shepherds and living on a heavy/steady diet of orthodoxy. Jesus called it “the traditions of men.” Jesus came and circumvented the whole elitist construct which often invoked, “By what authority do you teach these things?” Christ never contacted or checked in with the formal academia of that time; they had to come to Him as Nicodemus did in the darkness of night. He was “the teacher of Israel” which probably means he was among the most prominent. It is also interesting to note that his name means “power over the people” which is the same idea as the Nicolaitan movement of that day which was primarily a Gnostic movement. That name means “power over the laity.”
Jesus took God’s truth directly to the people. He cut out the middleman, so to speak. This was revolutionary. This is EXACTLY what the apostle John was addressing in 1John when he wrote “you have no need for anyone to teach you.” He wasn’t excluding the need for teachers, he was excluding orthodoxy. He was excluding a dumbed-down version of “God’s truth” by the elite for the consumption of the supposedly unenlightened masses. And that is exactly what John was contending against. 1John refutes several teachings that were Gnostic ideas permeating the church in that day. Christ mentions the Nicolaitans specifically in His seven letters to the churches. Historically, they were known to be of the Gnostic school of thought.
Furthermore, the Bible always addresses God’s people as a whole and not the leadership specifically. The New Testament epistles always address the whole congregation. This is very telling. The Bereans searched the Scriptures themselves to verify the teachings of the apostle Paul and were called “honorable” for doing so. This is very telling as well.
Christ’s methods of teaching and approach had built-in opposition to the whole elitist caste system. He himself was not formally educated; the foundation of His assembly was built with men who were uneducated—they were the blue collar working class of that society. In the same way the elitists taught mysteries that the common people could not understand, He taught mysteries and parables to the common people that the elitists could not understand. More than likely the apostle Paul delighted in saying, “Behold, I show you a mystery.” That was turnabout play, mysteries were not revealed to the common people in that day.
Christian media and education is a multi-billion dollar business. History has never seen a country like America endowed with the same gargantuan Christian education system. Yet, Christians in this country are woefully dumbed-down and propagandized with European traditions and superstition. Our seminaries merely parrot European orthodoxy and their penchant for dumbed-down congregants. Yet, Europe’s history and societal woes in no way recommends itself for an example to follow. Those who know European history are dumbfounded that the Reformers and Puritans could be posed as religious heroes. American Protestantism is basically the European model that has never embraced the priesthood of believers.
This tradition translates into Christians consuming a mass of “Christian” information via published books, novels, movies, Christian radio, the internet, and TV/cable programs. Christians do not read and study the Bible for themselves. If they did, Christian media would not be a multi-billion dollar business. Instead of the Information Age and its tools being used to show ourselves approved, we use it to saturate our minds with the opinions of others. This is orthodoxy on steroids. It makes Paul’s “ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth” the understatement of the ages. This point can be solidified by the mere observation that the Information Age has not put seminaries out of business. Why? Because Christian academia is not a teacher—it’s an authority.
This is a segue for getting to my first point. The Bible must be returned to its proper place as the only authority in the church. We must obey God rather than man. The idea that making a book the authority in some way demeans God’s splendor is a metaphysical sleight of hand. To use the idea that God should not be minimized to the exegesis of a book is to praise God for being so awesome that we cannot really know anything about Him. “He’s not a precept, He’s a person,” etc., add nausea. Worship becomes a celebration of subjectivity as a way to praise God. God was way ahead of this little game:
Psalm 138:2 – I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name (KVJ).
Apparently, the concept of praising God’s glory above anything earthy like mere words written on a page annoyed Christ to some degree:
Luke 11:27 – As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
While God reminds us that indeed His thoughts are above our thoughts, He insists that we not lean on our own understanding; hence, we may assume we can understand the alternative. We are clearly responsible before God for objective truth, and no one will give an account for our own lives but us. Listen to whom you will, but you are personally responsible for what you believe. Does a book seem a little earthy and unspiritual to you? Well, they are present at the White Throne Judgment, and judgment will be rendered according to what is “written in the books.” In the book of Revelation we see that Christ instructed John to “write” what he saw. We also read Christ’s warning to not add or take away any words from the book.
That’s where confident Bible study begins. We must trust it as God’s sole authority. But why a book? The answer is so easy that we readily miss it. God created reality as we now know it, and that reality is interpreted through words. To comprehend any present reality, it must be described by words. God spoke the world into existence with words. We know light as light because He defined it by the word “light.” God instructed Adam to name the animals with words. Animals can only be defined by such names. If we see an animal that we are completely unfamiliar with, we ask, “What is it?” Words describe general reality and particular reality. One may also ask, “What kind of animal is that?” Words interpret reality. God’s Law is interpreted by words; so, it stands to reason that His enemies will want to interpret truth/reality in some other way. This is where philosophy can lead us to more understanding or death. We must remember that words mean things.
The points so far can be argued from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. The audience was the spiritual peasantry of the day. Yet, the hermeneutic for that sermon can be found in the following:
Matthew 5:1 – Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
He “taught” them. As my Grandmother might have said, They got a learnin’. That means they had everything they needed to understand what Jesus wanted them to know. The sermon is to be taken on face value. The words mean what they mean. This audience is NOT the spiritual elite of that day. Jesus ends the sermon by saying the application of those words to life will result in said life being built on a sturdy foundation. The sermon sought to change their lives. It taught them how to think, how to worship, how to pray, and how to act. At the end, they were astonished that he taught these things without the authority of men.
This is first and foremost: to know that God’s word is to us, that it is our sole authority, that we are solely responsible to know it and obey it, and next, that God has sustained its original intent and meaning.
Perhaps one reason Christians do not read their Bibles very much is because we have been taught that we can’t really understand it. Many Reformed churches teach their parishioners that Bible reading merely flavors or prepares their hearts for what they must learn from the elders:
You think, perhaps, that [you] can fill up the other half of the plate with personal study, devotions, or quiet times, or a radio program. Beloved, you cannot. Scripture is relatively quiet on such practices. But on preaching, the case is clear and strong. Neglect preaching and neglect your soul (Dr. Devon Berry: Clearcreek Chapel .org archives; How to Listen to a Sermon)….
The text here implies that there was an interactive nature between three entities: The preacher, the hearers, and the Word. Note this cycle: Paul, from the Word, delivers words. The Bereans, from Paul’s words, go to the Word. The Word cycles from God, through the preacher, to the people, back to the Word, and this, verse 12 tells us, produced belief in the God of the Word. An important thing to note is that this happened daily – suggesting a regular interaction between preaching, personal study, and the Word. The Bereans eagerly prepared by paralleling their own Bible reading and study with Paul’s preaching. So a good preparation for the public preaching of the Word is the private consumption of the Word. It will be the seasoning that brings out the flavor – salt on your French fries, if you will (Ibid.)
Such a statement is indicative of Reformed thought and should raise the ire of a child. Yet, American Christians are so dumbed-down that they listen to such without even blinking.
Therefore, few Christian fathers in America think they are qualified to teach their family the Bible. Oddly, this is not the sentiment in faiths like Islam and many cults. Is their growth, as opposed to the decline of Christianity, due to the offering of something objective? Tragically, many married couples that have been Christians for years seek counsel for what they should already know. Often, this counseling makes the situation worse because it comes from those who didn’t teach them the full counsel of God to begin with. Few parishioners are aware of their pastor’s epistemology. There is no concern for how their elders approach God’s word because the pastor himself is the authority. That’s the problem.
Moreover, we must be confident that God has sustained the Bible’s intent and meaning. Christ’s very mandate to the church was the following: go to all nations with the authority of His word and teach everyone to observe it and keep it. It may then be assumed that He has superintended the Bible and its canonicity. Yet, God involves us in the process. He has promised us that the truth will be available for those who seek it, but we must study to show ourselves approved. That study involves hard labor in all areas of epistemology. We must insist that God has made objective truth available to man for its primary purpose: “everything we need for life and godliness.” It may not tell you how to fix cars, but it will certainly teach you how to be an auto mechanic who pleases God.
This may entail a strong endeavor to gain knowledge of the skill apart from the Bible in order to fulfill the biblical mandate. I think you get the message; God gave us an extraordinary instrument known as a “brain.” We are to use it, not download the thoughts of others with a mindless flash drive. You will be held responsible for the actions that the downloaded information produces. You are responsible, not the source who fed you the information. Christians need to start reading the ingredient labels on the cans. You are to work out your OWN salvation with trembling and fear. Each person will be judged according to their OWN work. Being judged by our works is synonymous with being judged by what we choose to believe. We best not let others make that choice for us. To do so is to let others determine our eternal destiny. Perhaps there is not a greater measure of insanity; seeking for others to think for you. They will not stand in for you before God, why in the world would you let them think for you?
paul
Ground Zero for Understanding the Biblical Counseling Movement
Originally published September 18, 2013
“I believe this will go down in church history as one of the most grotesque betrayals ever perpetrated on a man in the name of friendship and the gospel.”
A Chapter Theses for Clouds Without Water: The Biblical Counseling Movement; It’s True History and Doctrine
In the Beginning, Plato, and then Augustine.
During the first century, the upstart assemblies of the risen Christ suffered a viral affront from Gnostic sects. The first century church was made up of people from all socioeconomic strata, and the Gnostics infiltrated Christianity for that purpose. Those in the first century church well-endowed with money were a valuable resource, and this is who the Gnostic sects primarily targeted with their false doctrine.
Gnosticism has always been about elitism, power, and money. If you want to see an immaculate mural of the American church, read Philip J. Lee’s “Against the Protestant Gnostics.”
Gnosticism finds its roots in the philosophy of Plato. Every American born into the world should be thoroughly apprised of Plato the man and his philosophy. To understand Plato is to understand Western culture politically and spiritually. All the philosophers agree on this point. From there, the math is easy: Augustine was the father of Reformation doctrine, and a rabid follower of Plato. Augustine had little use for the Bible without Platonist insight, and considered Plato a Pre-Christianity Christian.
Of course, the favorite red herring is that Plato is not agreed with on every point, but the fact remains that his primary construct founded Reformed theology: the incompetence of man, and the need for a select few (the enlightened) to rule over the masses. Those with gnosis know how society best functions, and they know how the masses can find individual peace from the desires that rule over them.
The Age of Enlightenment (circa 1630) produced men who were the first to confront Plato’s construct successfully. The most formidable product of that movement was the American experiment which obviously turned out quite well. It was founded on the competence of the individual. The competition was the Platonist Puritans who unfortunately survived the voyage from Europe and wreaked havoc on the East coast. But fortunately, their worldview kept them from settling further inland. “Go west young man!” is hardly the motivational words of competence found among the purer forms of Reformed thought.
Let there be no doubt about it, the idea of merging church and state is grounded in the religion of man’s incompetence. The masses need the state to take care of them. Plato’s philosopher kings contrive orthodoxy, and the soldiers enforce it. This concept did not find its way into the Westminster Confession by accident. Even those who think the state should be separate from the church think a utopia would arise if the church ran the state. “Separation of church and state” doesn’t mean no theocracy; theocracy would be a good thing, supposedly. The state has always had an interest in ruling over religion because ideas are dangerous, and the church has always been a willing participant if the state agrees to enforce their orthodoxy. The battle between the two for the upper hand of control is the political intrigue that is European history in a nutshell. And that is how the world as we know it will end: the zenith of church statecraft as described in the book of Revelation.
This is Western history, and the children of the enlightenment would have no part of it on American soil. Ten years after the Declaration of Independence, James Madison successfully stopped a European style push for a church state in A Memorial in Remonstance Against Religious Assessments. For all practical purposes, it was an indictment against the fruits of European Reformed doctrine.
The Reformation’s Historical Cycle of Social Death and Resurgence
The Reformers, being children of Plato, didn’t interpret reality with a normative epistemology. Plato’s Achilles’ heel has always been the application of Eastern mysticism. Instead of reality being interpreted empirically, and a course of action being determined by discovery, conclusions are drawn by using interpretive gateways to the “pure” form of reality that is hopefully good. Plato thought it was good, but his interpretive gateway to reality rejected the five senses out of hand. Gnosis was the key.
The Reformers merely replaced gnosis with the personhood of Christ as a sort of stargate to reality. That reality was predicated on the difference between the unchangeable pure form of Christ, and the inherent evil of man dwelling in a world that constantly changes. Plato equated the pure forms with immutable objectivity, and evil matter with mutable subjectivity. Hence, today’s Platonist Reformers speak of the “objective gospel experienced subjectively.” This is clearly Plato’s metaphysical construct based on the incompetence of man in regard to interpreting reality. Like Plato, the Reformers of old and new alike bemoan man’s attempt to understand reality “in the shadows” of all matters that “eclipse Christ.” While donning the persona of Biblicism, pastors like Steve Lawson call for pastors to “come out from the shadows.”
This is the theme of books like “Uneclipsing the Son” by John MacArthur confidant Rick Holland. In his book, he hints at why purest Reformed theology gets lost in the minds of Christians from time to time and therefore needs periodic resurgences and rediscoveries. He notes in his book that good grammar makes bad theology. The mystic heretic Paul David Tripp makes the same assertion in “How People Change,” noting that a literal interpretation of Scripture circumvents the personhood of Christ and His saving work. What’s in an interpretation method? According to Tripp—your salvation.
This is the paramount point at hand: the Reformers did not interpret the Bible grammatically, objectively, exegetically, or literally at any point; they interpreted the Bible through the dual prism of “reality” seen in God’s holiness and our evil. The only objective truth is the person of Christ leading to a mere subjective experience of His power and grace manifestations. Hence, many Reformed purists in our day embodied in the New Calvinist movement speak of, “spiritual growth in seeing our own evil as set against the holiness of God.” Therefore, commands in the Bible become part of the narrative that helps us see what we are unable to do rather than commands to be obeyed. We merely seek to see, and wait for the subjective experience of “vivification.” The seeing is the “mortification.” Reformed theologians like Michael Horton explain this as a continual re-experience of our original baptism as we perpetually revisit the same gospel that saved us “afresh.”
This reduces the Christian life to experiences of perpetual rebirth found in Eastern concepts Plato borrowed for “practical life application.” This is the foundation of Historical Redemptive hermeneutics born of Reformed purism. This is also the interpretive method that is all of the rage in our day through programs like BibleMesh.
This is not the natural bent towards interpreting truth. We are wired to interpret truth objectively, and grammatically—tools like allegory and parables notwithstanding. This is why Reformed purism dies a social death from time to time throughout history. Thus, this metaphysical anomaly experiences “rediscovery” and “resurgence” movements. Be certain of the following: this is the New Calvinist movement in our day, and in essence, a return to the exact same viral Gnosticism that plagued the New Testament church with this caveat added: we by no means possess the doctrinal intestinal fortitude of the first century church.
Ground Zero: The 1970 Resurgence
1970 is ground zero for the present landscape of American Christianity. In that year, two movements emerged. Since colonial times, the third resurgence of Reformed purism was born through a project called the Australian Forum. In that same year, Dr. Jay E. Adams, a hybrid of Calvinism and Historical Grammatical interpretation, launched the biblical counseling movement. His movement was predicated on the competence of enabled congregants to counsel each other through the deepest of human problems. Adams also recognized the simple concept of anthropology and its relationship to helping people. Because all humans are created by God, what works well for the unsaved should work even better for the saved. If unsaved people who don’t violate their consciences are happier, this should also aid Christians in their walk with God. Bad ideas are simply bad for everyone, the ultimate need for eternal salvation notwithstanding. But that doesn’t mean you throw out the unsaved baby with the bath water of practicality. And in addition, does practicality show forth the wisdom of God and thereby point people to God? Should God not know what makes people tick? Moreover, what is the authority for interpreting human existence? Philosophy, or the Bible?
Adams’ biblical construct produced astounding conclusions, especially in areas where a medical model covered for escape mechanisms that create another reality for realties one may not like. If Bob is in big trouble, he merely becomes Ted, or maybe even Jane. This is a bad idea for Christians. Adams created a dichotomy between salvation and the Christian life. He believed in the utter incompetence of man to save himself, but abundant competence in colaboring with God for a victorious life over sin. With Adams, it is about CHANGE for the glory of God and the happiness of His people.
Thus, with the resurgence of Reformed purism at the same time, the battle lines were drawn, and a confusion of conflict emerged in the biblical counseling movement. The one predicated on the utter incompetence of man whether saved or unsaved, and the other predicated on the competence of the Spirit-filled Christian. The one predicated on Christians only being righteous positionally, and the other predicated on the idea that Christians are also practically righteous. The one predicated on contemplationism, the other predicated on obedience. This is the civil war that has raged in the biblical counseling movement from its conception until this day. It is for the most part a civil war of servility, lest two different gospels be separate, and careerism maimed.
The Forum doctrine quickly found footing at Westminster Seminary in Pennsylvania where Adams was a professor. The initial vestige of relevant infection was found in Dr. John “Jack” Miller, also a professor at Westminster Seminary. True, Westminster was founded by Reformed purists that believed the many acts of Christ’s righteousness were part of the atonement, not just His one act of death on the cross, but for the most part, the Reformation’s metaphysical anomalies had reduced Westminster to moderate Reformed ideology. If you will, a hybrid Calvinism that interpreted reality grammatically.
Miller changed that. While the doctrine was in the process of suffering a brutal death in Reformed Baptist circles by moderate Calvinists, being labeled as antinomianism, it found resurgent life at Westminster in Miller’s Sonship Theology incubator. The forerunner of this doctrine in Reformed Baptist circles, Jon Zens, discovered the doctrine in the early years of the Forum while he was a student at Westminster. He actually became heavily involved with the Forum in the 70’s, convincing them that everyday Covenant Theology would be a hindrance to infecting Christianity with the newly rediscovered disease. From that conversation came the birth of New Covenant Theology circa 1981. It was a significant addition to the present repertoire of elements that confuse the real crux of the issue. Till this day, few moderate Calvinists make this historical connection between New Covenant Theology and New Calvinism.
But it was a particular mentoree of Miller’s that saw Adam’s construct as a threat to the successful spread of the Forum’s rediscovery: Dr. David Powlison. Powlison, working closely with Miller, developed the Dynamics of Biblical Change which is a counseling construct based on Reformation purism. This became the counseling model for Westminster’s biblical counseling wing known as The Christian Counseling & Education Foundation (CCEF). Later, there was a proposal for an organization that would certify counselors for CCEF. Adams was opposed to it as it smacked of the kind of elitism that he was trying to avoid. Remember, Adams was all about the competence of the average congregant to counsel. But Purist Reformed ideology is all about elitism because Gnosticism is all about elitism; the two go hand in glove.
Show Me the Money
Gnosticism rejects the average man’s ability to understand reality. So, assimilation for purposes of functionality is the main concern; ie., that the masses are controlled by indoctrination that is not necessarily understood, but invokes behavioral goals. But another primary goal is the spiritual caste system that provides millions of dollars for elitist educators. In essence, these are the professional Sophists produced by Platonism. This is why Gnosticism always dwells in the upper socioeconomic strata, as Phillip J. Lee notes in the aforementioned book, Gnosticism is a rich man’s game. CCEF certified counselors are extremely rare in zip codes of average incomes less than $80,000 per year, and nowhere to be found in zip codes of $50,000 or less. This of course, is very telling. Their conferences require registration fees of $300.00 per person or more.
Meanwhile, NANC Happens
Powlison followed a classic mode of Gnostic deception by seeking to be identified with the persona of Adams’ successful counseling construct while despising the doctrine as a supposed false gospel. To be more specific, he wanted to gain ground by being identified with Adams’ success, and with a deliberate long-term goal of destroying the historical grammatical approach to biblical counseling.
Unfortunately, and to the chagrin of Adams, the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors was born (NANC). “Nouthetic” counseling was a Greek term introduced by Adams and often associated with him. Therefore, Powlison et al were able to be identified with the tsunami like personal transformations of the Adams reformation as a jump start for their own construct, and with a long-term goal of destroying the competition. They did this so effectively that Adams was often thought of as the founder of NANC, which was never true.
Consequently, Adams experienced an increased persecution from within the contemporary biblical counseling movement that he founded. His counseling was dubbed “first generation” biblical counseling and referred to as nothing more than “producing better Pharisees.” I believe this will go down in church history as one of the most grotesque betrayals ever perpetrated on a man in the name of friendship and the gospel.
The fallout in our day is indicative of the spiritual carnage that has always been left in the path of Gnosticism. While the spiritual peasantry cries out in hopes that the elite will police their own, the Nicolaitans of our day laugh all the way to the bank. After all, subjective reality is messy business and peasants just don’t understand. The biblical counseling community has founded organizations who seek to keep them out of court and prevent the obscuring of cash flow. The New Calvinism movement is intrinsically connected by a complicated and massive network of associations—in many cases disagreeing with each other on “secondary issues.” A prime example is the G.R.A.C.E mediatory organization headed by Boz Tchividjian. While playing the part of advocates for the spiritually abused, they are professionally networked with serial abusers of the worst sort.
Conclusion
The biblical counseling movement embodied in New Calvinism is nothing more or less than a return to the exact same Gnosticism that plagued the first century church. The fact that Eastern mysticism is often the application can be seen by what happened at a Passion Conference where the who’s who of New Calvinism led the audience in a form of Transcendental Meditation. Tim Keller, a co-mentoree of Miller along with David Powlison in the early days, is a staunch advocate of Eastern mysticism as a practical application for Christian living.
CCEF, and NANC are the epitome of false advertising. They advertise the gospel and change, but believe in neither. Like the father of their faith, St. Augustine, it is Plato they trust. The banner over them is not love, but a sense of elitist entitlement to be paid and supported by the unenlightened masses for their own good. Sheep that don’t get it are more than expendable; the one in 99 is expendable for the 99 who know their place and pay the Shamans their tax deductible dues.
They invent and sell orthodoxy, the layman’s manual for experiencing perpetual rebirth. On the one hand, there is a Christianity that posits the living water that is received once, the onetime washing, and the moving on to maturity from the beginning principles of baptisms, and then there is the gospel of our day that posits the perpetual rebirth of Eastern mysticism.
But this is not a mere disagreement about how to live the Christian life. How we see the Christian life reveals the gospel that we really believe. When our salvation is not a finished work, something must be done by us to finish it—even if that means doing nothing with intentionality. NOT living by a list of do’s and don’ts is the work that keeps us saved. It is playing it safe by hiding our talents in the ground and giving the Lord back what He originally gave.
Christians would do well to choose which gospel they will live by in our day. At this point, that conversation has not arrived yet. And to be sure, many do not want the conversation to be clarified to that point. The gospel itself has become the elephant in the room.
paul
The TANC Library of Heterodoxy
Future contributions to heterodoxy:
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
leave a comment