The Four Groups: Which One Are You?
Humanity in Western culture can be split up into four different groups from two different camps. Think it simplistic if you will, but it explains many things in Christianity that has perplexed me for years.
Camp one believes man is capable, and should be self-dependent as much as possible. The following are the two groups in that camp:
1. Regenerate thinkers. These are saved people who deem themselves capable of knowing truth individually, and are uncomfortable with predominate centrality of control without accountability. They note the fact that we are the only creatures God created upon the earth that can reason, so it stands to reason that God wants us to utilize that capability to the fullest extent in order to improve our environment and help others.
2. Unregenerate thinkers. Like regenerate thinkers, they think man is capable. Their convictions, at least in America, are probably going to be expressed through patriotism and a respect for ideas produced by the Enlightenment era. They are going to be unwilling to trade freedom for supposed guarantees. They are individualistic. Like the regenerate thinkers, they believe strong individuals are better able to help those who really need it.
Camp two believes man is incapable, and should have implicit faith in some sort of elite group or institution. Thinking and reasoning are greatly devalued in this group. The “group” is paramount, and individualism is deemed to be the root of all evil. Following the brain trust of the group is vital for unity and peace. This gives opportunity for the individual to plunge the depths of selflessness—emptying oneself for the sake of the group.
1. Regenerate groupies. This group puts all of its trust in the religious institution or the “Divines.” What they can understand about God and His will is limited. They therefore depend on things like “Daily Bread” short devotionals and creeds. They follow the “polity” (government) of the church to insure they are in good standing with God. Ultimately, God will hold the Divines responsible and not the group—the group is only responsible for following and obeying God’s anointed. The anointed are responsible for determining the deep things of God and presenting them to the group in a way that can be understood. Hence, “orthodoxy” (the authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures by the Divines determined by councils and the confessions that come from them), and creeds.
2. Unregenerate groupies. This group concurs with the governing elite that they are owned by the government. Dependence on the government is paramount, and contribution to its strength the highest form of morality. It is predicated on the basic ineptness of mankind. No big surprise then that after a speech by a politician, political commentators tell us what he/she just said. Again, loyalty to the group is paramount; hence, the group is voted for regardless of many factors because of the fundamental agreement about who owns mankind.
These factors answer questions that I have had for years. Why is church so intellectually unchallenging? Why is it that seminary students don’t teach what they learn in seminary to congregants? Why is empty headed praise music and contemplationism all the rage in today’s church? Why do Christians vote for liberal democrats? Why is the sin of church leaders swept under the rug? Why are people happy to pay taxes? Why are people who ask questions in church feared and ostracized? (they threaten the well-being of the group). What’s up with cults? And why do cult-like denominations and other groups get a pass on being called cults? (Because they manifest the same underlying presuppositions about man in more subtle ways).
This is a paradigm that I plan to develop and expand on, but I believe everyone fits into one of these groups, whether they are aware of it or not. And by the way, which camp were the Reformers in? I will give you a clue:
The following quotes concerning the evil of human reason are from the father of Christian Protestantism, Martin Luther:
Die verfluchte Huhre, Vernunft. (The damned whore, Reason).
Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom … Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.
Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but — more frequently than not — struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and … know nothing but the word of God.
There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason… Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed.
Martin Luther, quoted by Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic, (Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1963), p. 75
Reason should be destroyed in all Christians.
Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason.
To be a Christian, you must “pluck out the eye of reason.”
People gave ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus] who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13] that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.
Martin Luther, “Works,” Volume 22, c. 1543
paul
John Calvin: Gnostic Extraordinaire
“If you believe that going to a Reformed ‘biblical’ counselor is about change, I have some oceanfront property in Xenia, Ohio that I would like to sell you.”
“In the first sentence of the Institutes, Calvin completely circumvents one of the primary purposes of God’s word for the believer.”
Note: You can click on charts to make them bigger.
It’s really not rocket science. The much touted idiom for Reformed thought is, the objective gospel outside of us. What does this mean? It means that all truth, wisdom, knowledge, and reality is contained in the knowledge of God which =’s “the gospel” which =’s the “personhood and works of Christ.” The dirty little Reformed secret is that the effects of the knowledge of God continues to remain outside of us even after salvation. Recently, New Calvinists have had to come clean on this to some extent by admitting that total depravity also applies to believers, and much to the consternation of Sanctified Calvinists who don’t know that they have been sanctified from Reformed soteriology. TANC is in the process of producing a 12 step program for recovering Sanctified Calvinists. The first step is to admit that Calvin was a Gnostic: “Hi, my name is Bob, I unwittingly promoted a Gnostic for ______years.” Hi Bob. The second step is vital for rebuilding self-esteem: “Hi my name is Bob, I have never been a Gnostic, and I am not totally depraved.” Hi Bob.
Obviously, if you are totally depraved, you can’t know anything that actually becomes a part of you and changes your behavior. Sanctified Calvinists must come to grips with the logical conclusions that follow the idea that GRACE remains completely outside of the believer. Reformed thought eventually referred to the antithesis of the “true gospel” as “infused grace.” In other words, the new birth does not change the individual by making grace a part of him, and thus making change possible via the new creaturehood. If words mean things, and they do, total depravity does not = change. Hence, grace does not enable individuals to perform works.
This line of thought educes statements from the likes of Tullian Tchividjian who boasts that he has never done one work that pleased God and looks to this as the assurance of his salvation. These fanatical concepts are running amuck and unfettered in today’s church because they came from Calvin, and nobody wants to take on Calvin. This is because too many have not paid attention for too long and now don’t want to look stupid. Basically, instead of thinking for themselves, and studying for themselves, they followed others.
John Piper teaches that the crux of the Reformation was the idea that grace remains outside of us after salvation. In other words, grace changes our position, but not us. And he is exactly correct in his assessment. He, like the Reformers, attributes infused grace to the very root of all evil as demonstrated by the following chart published by a Reformed think tank (I discuss Piper’s Reformed view of this in detail: chapter 4 of The Truth About New Calvinism):
I have a lot of work to do in order to nail all of this down specifically, but the basics are pretty simple: if you note the chart above carefully, and think about it, the only place to go from there is Gnosticism—Gnosticism makes it work—Gnosticism is the practical application—nothing else works. By the way, a primary contributor to the above chart was Graeme Goldsworthy. Think about that one for a while. Graeme Goldsworthy was also a contributor to an article entitled, “The False Gospel of the New Birth.” In the article, the new birth is explained away by the Gnostic concept of “emphasis.”
Plato, the father of Gnosticism, believed that matter was a form or shadow of the true, good, and beautiful. The forms were certainly TRUE in regard to being a reality, but man’s basic problem was that he/she EMPHASIZES the shadows over the true form. Likewise, the new birth is true, but is merely a form of the true gospel. Focusing on the new birth (ie., our responsibility to exercise our redeemed will to obey God), “eclipses” the true Sun (a play on words). The life-giving ray of the Sun that manipulates dead matter and gives it form is a constant theme throughout the Calvin institutes and literature like Pilgrims Progress. We are frozen blocks of ice until the Sun shines its light on us and changes the form of the block gradually, but obviously, the block of ice has no participation in the process.
Calvin presents this Gnostic epistemology in the very first sentence of his Institutes. He states:
Our wisdom insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts; the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two proceeds and gives birth to the other. For in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts toward the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; no, that are very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.
So, ALL wisdom concerns knowledge of ourselves and God, but the knowledge of ourselves must come first through God. And, since God is the good, and we are the evil, God is the knowledge of the good and we are the knowledge of the evil. All of the Calvin Institutes are framed within this prism—the knowledge of good and evil. I have made a chart below to illustrate this:
As we delve deeper and deeper into the knowledge of both, the glory of God is manifested. As illustrated by the following chart that is a viral illustration in Reformed circles. The knowledge of the good coupled with the knowledge of the evil makes the cross bigger; or in other words, the glory of God:
Of course, this is eerily similar to the lie in the garden. I wouldn’t drive a theological stake on this, but it seems that God called His creation good (including Adam and Eve), and the serpent came along and told Eve that there was also a knowledge of the evil that God was keeping from them. They rest is history. So, God redeems us, and once again His creation is good (as in the new birth made possible by Jesus Christ), and here comes the Reformed crowd with the knowledge of God’s goodness and the news that we are still evil, and the knowledge thereof. Creepy, if you think about it. And I suggest that you do. Go ahead, it’s safe for you to do so—Calvin and Luther are both dead.
Even though we do not really change according to Reformed thought, what does change? Before I address that, let me first answer the cat-cries that I presently hear. Notice in the very popular Reformed illustration above that we don’t change, the cross does. It gets bigger. We get worse in our own minds which also makes the cross bigger. We are the knowledge of the evil and are totally depraved accordingly. If you believe that going to a Reformed “biblical” counselor is about change, I have some oceanfront property in Xenia, Ohio that I would like to sell you. Come now, let us reason together, how do the totally depraved change?
According to Reformed thought, we don’t change; we manifest God’s glory; ie, “spiritual formation” or “transformation” or “reorientation of the heart.” Regardless of how change-like their terms sound; once again, ask yourself how the totally depraved change, and remember—we don’t change, only the manifestation of God’s glory does. This transformation takes place by “knowing.” We are transformed into the image of what we know. This is also a Gnostic concept. In fact, Calvin quotes Plato accordingly in book 1, chapter 3, section 3:
This did not escape the observation even of philosophers. For it is the very thing which Plato meant (in Phoed. et Theact.) when he taught, as he often does, that the chief good of the soul consists in resemblance to God, i.e., when by means of knowing him she is wholly transformed into him.
As an aside that I am not going to address deeply here, Reformed thought holds to the idea that anything more than obtaining the knowledge of the good while letting any result thereof happen naturally—is works salvation. As some in that camp state it: “You can’t just leap from the command to obedience.” Right. You have to know that the command is a command that we can’t keep, and see it as a work that Christ has already accomplished for us—anything more than that is works salvation. What we know about the command will create a manifestation of God’s glory. “Ya, like, we will then obey, right?” No, no, and no. Again, how do the totally depraved obey? Again, how do we obey if only the cross grows, but not us? By the way, the cross illustration above also illustrates Luther’s Gnostic concept of law/gospel. The law is meant to drive us to despair of self-righteousness (knowledge of the evil via the good) which drives us back to the foot of the cross. See illustration below:
This is only true of unbelievers, but for the born again believer, the Bible is God’s full philosophical statement for life and godliness (Matthew 4:4, 2Tim. 3:16). In the first sentence of the Institutes, Calvin completely circumvents one of the primary purposes of God’s word for the believer.
Much more research is needed, but one gets a hint of how this all supposedly works in real life as Calvin refers to the ideas of Socrates and Aristotle as well in book 1, chapter 5, section 3:
Hence, certain of the philosophers have not improperly called man a microcosm (miniature world) as being a rare specimen of divine power, wisdom, and goodness in containing within himself wonders sufficient to occupy our minds [emphasis mine] if we are willing to employ them.
This seems to indicate that God is satisfied with man contemplating Him in their minds only, while what happens in the outside world is totally in God’s control. The fact that Reformed thought holds to the idea that all occurrences in human history point to God’s glory in one way or the other—is no big secret. Therefore, since God is not the creator of evil, but preordains it for his glory, all human occurrences should be seen as either a manifestation of the good or a manifestation of the evil, or the knowledge of good and evil as well, but with both purposed for glorifying God accordingly. So, a bad event is knowledge of evil which glorifies the good by contrast, while good things that happen are obviously knowledge of the good as well. What is true of the “believer” in his mind, is also true in the metaphysical world. When we contemplate the goodness of God in our mind, the cross is bigger. When we see our own depravity—the cross is bigger; likewise, good and bad events in the world make the cross bigger as well. This explains the Reformed infatuation with tragedy. Do I think this philosophy is at the core of why there is so much indifference in the church to spiritual tyranny and abuse? YES.
Moreover, it explains why there is no concern over the fact that Reformed theology’s European legacy is aflame with the Witch Wars (in some villages, the female population was completely eradicated), the Inquisition, the Peasant Wars, the Thirty-Year War, the First English Civil War, the Second English Civil War, the Third English Civil War, and the Levellers’ rebellion against Puritan tyranny. These were all religious wars involving theocracies—mostly of the Reformed stripe.
Because the Church of England wasn’t lopping of enough heads to satisfy the Puritans, they tried to bring their show to America, but the founding fathers shut them down. There is a reason why America has never had a religious war. Nevertheless, their very first theocracy resulted in the very same European behavior: the Salem witch trials. As a memorial to the glorifying knowledge of the evil, New Calvinists signed the Danvers Statement on Puritan Manhood and Womanhood at the same location.
The restrained tyranny is now manifesting itself in New Calvinist “churches.” Abuse and tyranny will always follow the philosophy.
And of course, for the glory of God.
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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