Why the Christian Argument Against Abortion is Dead on Arrival
Age, thinking, study, and listening will eventually teach you some things. I am against abortion for obvious reasons; I am a Christian for crying out loud and obviously abortion is murder. I mean, how can anybody be for those late term abortions and what was going on at Dr. Gosnell’s abortion clinics? Can’t they see the end result of these anti-God belief aberrations?
While wondering in the woods of research I stumbled into the enemy camp. I was perplexed, so I figured I would stick around and listen because the path that brought me to this camp was named, “We Agree on this Issue.” There I was, stunned, and in agreement with murderers albeit on a single issue.
I am outraged that while the Steubenville, Ohio community screamed in protest like alley cats in the night that their community is now defined by the actions of two high school football players, they extended the contract of the football coach post-conviction while it is common knowledge that he knew about the rapes and didn’t report it. That’s a crime. And it wasn’t only rape. These guys hauled this passed-out minor from party to party to be raped by others. Furthermore, they were completely indifferent to the fact that you can die from alcohol poisoning of which the first stage is unconsciousness. In fact, some of the boys tweeted that they thought she may have been dead. While they hauled her from party to party.
So, when I saw the Ultra Violet .org petition demanding the coach’s firing, I readily signed it. They sent me a thank you by email along with a link to their Facebook page. I quickly jumped on the path to their Facebook page, entered the camp, and began looking around. Ooops. The subtitle states the following:
We’re an online community of women and men across the U.S. fighting sexism and expanding women’s right everywhere, from politics to pop culture. Equality at a higher frequency!
I asked myself : “Does that include abortion?” With a little poking around, the answer to that question was, “yes.” I quickly located the “Share” button and quarantined it. After I collected myself, I began thinking, an art I started practicing as a Christian about one year ago. But I have an excuse: I was never taught to do so by my Christian handlers. I was assured that Calvin had already done our thinking for us and documented everything. But since I no longer buy into that, I sniffed around and started practicing the art, knowing that no one would ever know I was there thinking. Brilliant.
But I discovered some things. Not everyone in the camp has a problem with God. Apparently, some are reserving judgment until they find His representation. And they would be just as horrified as the next person regarding Gosnell’s house of horrors. The primary concern seems to be the idea that women are property. So, if they let anybody tell them what they can do with their bodies, no matter what, the women are property gang will take an inch and make a mile out of it. Does that argument sound familiar?
I am not against the banning of fully automatic assault weapons. But if you give those liberals an inch, they will be coming for our muzzle-loaders next.
And so it goes, the Steubenville affair is the epitome of women as property; so Ultra Violet is on the case. And in regard to abortion, why would they listen to the church? Because we are not part of the women as property gang? Oh really? The response of the church to sexual assault is exactly, that’s e-x-a-c-t-l-y the same as the Steubenville mentally that Ultra Violet despises. I only need one example to make the point: the SGM class action lawsuit. Also, I have done massive research on the Steubenville event and the church speaks loud and clear with its silence on these crimes. I hear the outrage of feminists, but not even the roar of a church mouse from God’s people. In fact, where is the outrage within the Christian community in Steubenville? Well, I was able to find this:
From the David Gossett of the Steubenville Herald-Star:
STEUBENVILLE – Religious leaders from throughout the city called for unity and peace in a community that is embracing for national attention this week when two Steubenville High School students go on trial facing rape charges in Jefferson County Juvenile Court.
“Some of the media are here listening and waiting to hear something about the rape trial, the shootings and drug activity in our city. We can say the steel mills are long gone. There are shootings and rape. And we can say the last person to leave should turn out the lights. But we can say Lord we don’t have the answer, but Lord you know the answers,” stated Pastor Vaughn Foster of Christ’s Community Church.
“We as a city are in need of God’s hope. And we get that hope by being in God’s presence. We pray that God will invade our city,” Foster added.
Huh? Unity and peace? A God invasion? How do we think the world perceives this mambe pambe response to such outrageous behavior? But here is my bottom-line point:
An argument against abortion by those who turn a blind eye to sexual abuse is dead on arrival.
paul
Doing Church Like Steubenville: Paul’s Interview with Alexandria Goddard
Church doesn’t sanctify bad ideas. Elitism, caste, and collectivism will lead to the same bad behavior and a religion of tyrants worshiped by cowards.
~ Paul Dohse
When antinomianism rules the church, refuge will only be found in common sense wherever it may exist by God’s grace.
~ Paul Dohse
Alexandria Goddard is the creator and editor of Prinnified.
She has a 20+ year career as a legal assistant with experience in fraud analysis and risk management as well as being a former volunteerguardian ad litem-court appointed special advocate for the juvenile court system. Goddard is also a business owner, providing social media profile analysis to parents, as well as offering training seminars to parents and educators to enable the monitoring of children’s social media.
She is on Twitter @prinniedidit.
http://www.xojane.com/issues/steubenville-rape-verdict-alexandria-goddard
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Prinniefiedcom/476805162358494
Don’t Miss This Control Technique Among New Calvinists: “Diagnosing” Subjects as Mentally Ill
“….we must remember that Luther’s theology of the cross doctrine was primarily a metaphysical endeavor. Luther and Calvin believed that ALL of reality is interpreted through the gospel meta-narrative. So, and please don’t miss this: if you don’t interpret reality through the “gospel-driven” life, you are in fact incapable of properly interpreting reality and a diagnosis of mental illness is not far behind.”
“Check out the new sports blog CJ Mahaney has and the playful dialogue that goes on there while his empire is publically submerged in sewage. This is actually seen as astounding spiritual maturity in the midst of a trial. In this case, a civil one.”
“Therefore, New Calvinists are going to feel completely justified in labeling anyone they choose as mentally ill. In fact, one of their heroes, Geerhardus Vos, bemoaned what he thought was a lost opportunity to have dispensationalists psychologically evaluated over the years to determine the lack of a ‘normally-constituted mind.’”
I’m surprised that I haven’t heard much discussion (actually none) on how New Calvinist churches control people who ask too many questions by calling their mental stability into question. This is particularly effective and a favorite among totalitarian regimes worldwide. During the Cold War era, it was the staple method in the Soviet Union.
Unhelpful in falling victim to this ploy is the whole idea of, “mental illness” propagated by various fields of Psychology. This is the idea that we can become “mentally ill” in the same way that we catch a cold. The truth is much more hopeful than that, but when you have a bunch of educated elders and their psychiatrist lackeys telling you that’s the case—it’s very powerful. If you’re “mentally ill,” you wouldn’t necessarily be able to recognize that yourself, right? Then, this idea about you is also suggested through ambiguous prayer requests at mid-week flock groups. Game over. You have to admit, these guys are good at what they do.
This may also take an unfortunate turn in which the parishioner buys into the idea and agrees to taking psychotropic drugs in order to prevent church discipline. By the way, many New Calvinist churches are disciplining people who are genuinely depressed. I have written on this in the past. “Redemptive” church discipline is not to correct a wayward life, it is an attempt to reveal the “cross-driven life.” Hence, disciplining the depressed is seen as an act of love to open the person’s eyes to their “only hope.” If they won’t see the cross story, they are better off dead anyway. And yes, suicides in regard to this reality are not even on the radar screen in the anti-spiritual abuse offensive. Hear me well: counseling based on progressive justification is Russian roulette. Read Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, and then imagine a depressed person being counseled based on that construct. Add cold chills up back.
Luther himself argued in the Disputation (which embodies all the major New Calvinist tenets) that depression would not be the result because of the continual deaths and rebirths produced by gospel contemplationism. This is the Reformed definition of the new birth, a series of deaths and rebirths until we reach final justification. Luther believed that the law (biblical imperatives) drives us (Christians and unbelievers alike) to despair—making a joyful rebirth possible (John Piper’s Christian Hedonism is a supplement to the Reformation idea of new birth). So, the Bible is not for encouragement, instruction, etc., it is for ascertaining how evil we are as Christians leading to “humbleness” and a new birth experience. This is the “cross-driven” or “gospel-driven” life. It could be surmised that the depths of despair get shallower as we “grow” in our Christian walk because a deep realization of our sinful state is circumvented by joy. Happy antinomians that rejoice in evil are the inevitable result. Do you doubt that? Check out the new sports blog CJ Mahaney has and the playful dialogue that goes on there while his empire is publically submerged in sewage. This is actually seen as astounding spiritual maturity in the midst of a trial. In this case, a civil one.
Incredibly, Luther’s theology of the cross construct (the foundation of the Reformation) causes Christians to be depressed if they are not aspiring antinomians, and then guess where they go to get help? Right. Of course, it will affect people in different ways—the decline in spiritual maturity will take many different forms.
Now, we must remember that Luther’s theology of the cross doctrine was primarily a metaphysical endeavor. Luther and Calvin believed that ALL of reality is interpreted through the gospel meta-narrative. So, and please don’t miss this: if you don’t interpret reality through the “gospel-driven” life, you are in fact incapable of properly interpreting reality and a diagnosis of mental illness is not far behind. One example is New Covenant Theology which was spawned from Reformed ideology. The first tenet of NCT reads as follows:
New Covenant Theology insists on the priority of Jesus Christ over all things, including history, revelation, and redemption. New Covenant Theology presumes a Christocentricity to the understanding and meaning of all reality.
Therefore, New Calvinists are going to feel completely justified in labeling anyone they choose as mentally ill. In fact, one of their heroes, Geerhardus Vos, bemoaned what he thought was a lost opportunity to have dispensationalists psychologically evaluated over the years to determine the lack of a “normally-constituted mind.” In regard to this statement by Vos, the father of contemporary Reformed hermeneutics, Barry E. Horner stated the following:
It is difficult for me to recall a more graceless, indeed intellectually arrogant denunciation of an opposing Christian perspective than this. While Richard Gaffin commended the gentle, retiring, pious manner of Vos, such virtue is quite absent here (Future Israel: p. 174).
It is also difficult to find anything in Reformed theology that accomplishes any good. Other than the positing of facts that are complicit in first-degree theological felonies, there is nothing but delusional arrogance and the muffled screams of those buried alive under mythological topsoil. Tyrants like CJ Mahaney were looking for an ideology to fulfill their filthy lust, and they found it in Calvinism.
paul
Discovery: Making People Do Right is Part of Life
Internet activism against abuse in the church is just about full throttle in our day. Is that a good thing? One stops to ponder in the middle of any war to reevaluate the overall value of the stress involved. Let’s face it; anybody who would enjoy all of this would have to be a little twisted. I think we all enjoy what we have learned and our personal growth through it all, but could do without the stress and bad feelings.
The culmination of last week was a teachable moment in regard to this question. The week was saturated with actions by me to make people do what is right. It started with the end of a business to business relationship. The other company is very large and did not terminate our contract correctly which threatened to cost my wife and I thousands of dollars. These are very powerful people who are not used to being stood up to by little people like me. My wife (Susan) and I discussed it and decided we would fight and let the chips fall where they may.
I became amazed at all of the options we had at our disposal that put this company on a level playing fighting field with us. But then I realized why that is: others didn’t back down either and took action to prevent injustice for others. Also, it is often the case that when you back down from fighting for what is right, you are not the only one that loses. Losing that money would have prevented us from helping others that we usually help on a regular bases.
An order of published books arrived and the printing quality was substandard. It was not only right to hold the printer accountable for wrongdoing, but it was a decision for our contributors as well. They deserved to get what they paid for. Making my son do his best in school is not only right, it is best for him as well. As I won these battles for right last week, I found myself mentally and physically spent. I awoke from falling asleep, sitting up at my desk, and began to type this post.
And I started typing for this conclusion: those fighting for the spiritually abused in the church fight a good fight. The fight is hard because many looked away for many years. Their decisions to be cowards were not only made for themselves—they also made those decisions for others. And a horrible price was paid.
But our decision is to fight the brute beasts of our day who fancy themselves as God’s anointed and their cowardly golfing buddies. The fight is long and hard, but we will not relent. Making people do right is a part of life, and the decision to fight is rarely for us alone.
paul
My Answer to Justin Taylor and Pyro Blog Regarding the “Gospel-Centered” Take on “Gossip.”
“None of these videos will make sense for anyone who doesn’t follow this brand of blogging or this brand of gospel centrism. I admit that.”
~Frank Turk
“By the way, the term, ‘gospel-centered’ saturates the Pyro blog, and it means much more than you think it does. Understanding the meaning of this term is key to understanding why they think the crying out on behalf of raped children is gossip…. This is much more than just a common understanding of how we are saved—this is a radical worldview.”
“Susan also came from such circumstances and slept one night in contemplation with a gun under her pillow. ‘Survivor’ is a word that is only worthy of irony in the minds of New Calvinists like Frank Turk who have a twisted worldview. And one only needs to read the SGM legal brief to know exactly who Frank Turk is mocking.
As the New Calvinist cartel circles the wagons around CJ Mahaney, an abnormal number of blog posts concerning “gossip” have appeared on the Evangelical blogosphere. I checked my calendar to see if perhaps February 12 is Gossip Awareness Day. Hmmmm, not finding it on the calendar.
Dan Phillips is one of the authors of the Team Pyro blog along with Frank Turk. Phil Johnson, most prominent in the John MacArthur venquilitrist show, is a former author on the blog. Phillips posted the exact same article that Justin Taylor posted (and the same day) on the Gospel Coalition blog. The post insinuates that the survival of a local church is paramount to all else. “Gossip” is a “church-killer.” Bill Gates would be asking me for money if I had a nickel for every time we hear this from the who’s who of New Calvinism:
Yes, yes, what they did to you is horribly wrong! But exposing this under any circumstances could destroy that church, and whoever destroys the temple of God will be destroyed by God!
Per the normal, an exegetical argument from the Bible was not executed, but rather run of the mill Reformed orthodoxy. That brings us to the gospel-centered motif that drives almost everything in the American church in our day. By the way, the term, “gospel-centered” saturates the Pyro blog, and it means much more than you think it does. Understanding the meaning of this term is key to comprehending why they think the crying out on behalf of raped children is gossip. And it starts with orthodoxy. In the Reformed construct, elders receive the word from God, and then repackage it in a way that can be understood by the totally depraved unenlightened masses. Hence:
It is wholly an issue of whether or not authority comes from God through the Scripture to the elders and pastors of your church and is therefore the basis for their credibility and their exercise of spiritual responsibility.
This was a comment made by Frank Turk in the comment thread of a Post by Johnson entitled “Should Type-R Charismatics Get A Free Pass?” Type-R refers to Reformed Charismatics. And yes, according to Team Pyro, they should get a pass because….
I have warm affection and heartfelt respect for most of the best-known Reformed charismatic leaders, including C. J. Mahaney, Wayne Grudem, and Sam Storms. [Let’s call them “Type-R Charismatics.”] I’ve greatly benefited from major aspects of their ministries, and I regularly recommend resources from them that I have found helpful. I’ve corresponded with the world-famous Brit-blogger Adrian Warnock for at least 15 years now and had breakfast with him on two occasions, and I like him very much. I’m sure we agree on far more things than we disagree about. And I’m also certain the matters we agree on—starting with the meaning of the cross—are a lot more important than the issues we disagree on, which are all secondary matters.
Got that? ALL other issues apart from their “meaning of the cross,” i.e., gospel-centered are “secondary.” This is the tie that binds. “Cross-centered” and “gospel-centered” are often used interchangeably. This is much more than just a common understanding of how we are saved—this is a radical worldview. The uniqueness of it can be further demonstrated by this:
We are glad that you admit it Frank. Refreshing. But before we continue, let me interject an example of the kind of hypocrisy that comes part and parcel with this worldview. Here are the five points outlined in the post by Pyro and TGC blogs:
1. Ask, “Why are you telling me this?”
2. Ask, “What’s the difference between what you’re telling me and gossip?”
3. Ask, “How is your telling me that thought, that complaint, that information going to help you and me love God and our brothers better, and knit us closer together as a church in Christ’s love?”
4. Ask, “Now that you’ve told me about that, what are you going to do about it?”
5. Say, “Now that you’ve told me about that, you’ve morally obligated me to make sure you talk to ____ about it. How long do you think you need, so I can know when this becomes a sin that I will need to confront in you?”
But yet, consider this by Phil Johnson:
Shortly after that (in early 1992), John MacArthur, Lance Quinn, and I met with Paul Cain and Jack Deere in John MacArthur’s office at Jack Deere’s request. Deere wanted to try to convince John MacArthur that the charismatic movement—especially the Vineyard branch—was on a trajectory to make doctrinal soundness and biblical integrity the hallmarks of Third-Wave charismatic practice. He brought Cain along, ostensibly so that we could see for ourselves that Cain was a legitimate prophet with a profound gifting.
But Cain was virtually incoherent that day. Lance Quinn remarked to me immediately afterward that it seemed as if Cain had been drinking heavily. (In retrospect it seems a fair assumption that this may indeed have been the case.) Even Deere apologized for Cain’s strange behavior that day, but Deere seemed to want us to assume it was because the Spirit was upon Cain in some unusual way. They both admitted to us that Cain’s “prophecies” were wrong at least as often as they were right. When we cited that as sufficient reason not to accept any of their prophecies at face value, they cited Wayne Grudem’s views on New Testament prophecy as justification for ignoring the errors of prophecies already proven false while giving credence to still more questionable pronouncements (Ibid.)
If Johnson and Quinn confronted Cain about their concerns before they gossiped to Deere about it, they may have known exactly why Cain was acting the way he was. Furthermore, why was his demeanor relevant to what he specifically stated? Moreover, unbeknownst to Deere or anyone else for that matter, Cain could have been on medication for a medical problem. That is why Matthew 18 states that if you have a concern or issue with someone; first, go to them “ALONE.” This is only a grain of sand on the beach in reference to the kind of hypocrisy that is constantly vomited out of the Pyro blog and is indicative of their grossly distorted worldview.
What is that view? I have written on this extensively, but here I go again. Volumes could be written about this, but I am stating what coincides with the subject of justice. Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation was written about six months after the 95 Theses disputation. It is really the magnum opus of the Reformation. Calvin then took Luther’s HD worldview which he got from Pope Gregory/Augustine and developed it into a full orbed philosophical statement adorned with Bible verses. That would be the Calvin Institutes.
Reformed theology sees all reality from Luther’s Theology of the Cross. Basically, there is only two prisms from which to interpret the world: the glory story (existentialism), or the cross story (all reality is seen through objective redemption history outside of us). The cross story objectively categorizes all of life into two categories: God’s holiness and our sinfulness. Reality is the difference between the two and defines each more fully leading to greater and greater understanding. The first known counseling manual written by a clergyman was based on this concept; i.e., Gregory’s “Pastoral Care,” which is the model for most Reformed pastoral counseling in our day. Everything else is the glory story which is considered to be a gargantuan cesspool of subjectivism; specifically, anything at all about us.
….I think that the idea that Christians have been given The Truth, and The Truth is utterly embodied in Christ, and that we shouldn’t pretend like other explanations of reality have any worth because they have no eternal worth is, at its core, the only true monotheism. Its unquestionable that this is the reason we evangelize and not merely discuss our faith as if it was one of several viable choices (Frank Turk: Unleash the Response; Pyro blog).
It’s really a great gig if you want to believe in it. You can totally separate yourself from the realities of the world by focusing your whole mindset on our worthlessness, powerlessness, and hopelessness. All of our hope is in Christ and everything He has done—not anything we do. At all. To the degree that we are able to empty ourselves, we can detach ourselves emotionally from the world. This mindset enabled Puritan Christopher Love’s pregnant wife to write him a seemingly celebratory letter prior to his impending execution for meddling in English political affairs. Love could have escaped execution and not left his wife with a quiver-full to care for on her own by merely promising to mind his own business. He refused. Luther’s worldview, articulated by Calvin, spawned the most radical religious sect ever known to man—the Puritans, who are the envy of New Calvinists—particularity Phil Johnson.
Therefore, all of the misfortunes and tragedy of life serve to humble us. They eradicate the glory story, and lift up the cross story. Luther specifically states this idea in his HD. Life is about deathly humbling that brings about resurrections. These resurrections are experienced by joy in our deprivation for the clay vessel is being shattered and thereby allowing the glory of the cross to shine forth into the world. We have this treasure in earthen vessels; the glory of Christ, which can only be manifested when we suffer the way He did. All suffering is a cross event. Are we not to take up our cross and follow Him daily? Got cancer? Awesome! Another cross event! Been raped? What an awesome opportunity to show forth the forgiveness you have received! There aren’t any victims, just preordained cross opportunities.
This is why the Reformers were indifferent to suffering and didn’t take the concept of justice seriously. Calvin called justice, “mere iniquity” (CI 3.12.4). This is why New Calvinists disdain the idea of victims, justice, and “survivors.” They often preface these words in what we grammatically call scare quotes. Scare quotes preface the word with the idea of “supposedly,” or “so-called.” So, let me give you an example from Pyro blog:
OK: enough is enough. I’m opening this post and the comments below for one reason only: SGM “Survivors”.
Note the scare quotes utilized by Frank Turk. Interesting. You see, Susan and I counsel people who have left abusive church organizations, and when we asked one counselee to tell us about other families that left—this is what we heard:
Some turned their back on the faith. Some do church at home, and some committed suicide. Not many marriages survived.
Susan also came from such circumstances and slept one night in contemplation with a gun under her pillow. “Survivor” is a word that is only worthy of irony in the minds of New Calvinists like Frank Turk who have a twisted worldview. And one only needs to read the SGM legal brief to know exactly who Frank Turk is mocking.
This would also explain why Pyro continually defends the president of SGM, a defendant in the class action sexual abuse lawsuit filed against SGM. The following screen shots from Pyro illustrate this below, including Frank Turks indictment of SGM whistleblower Brent Detwiler:
This Reformed worldview is the reason for the present-day tsunami of spiritual/sexual abuse in the church. While the Reformed accuse dispensationalists of escapism their doctrine is a gnostic-like escape from the here and now. It has always appealed to intellectual elitists and run along the upper socio-economic paths. It avoids the messy, painful experience of fighting for the most vulnerable among us. Embracing pain and suffering as the gateway to joyful resurrections is the pastoral easy-button. This gives them time to blog about the “deep things” of God and supply cover for abusers.
The logic is the same, the mentality is the same, and the behavior is therefore the same: coldblooded, vindictive, and controlling.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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