Rumpelstiltskin and the Gingerbread Man

Tuesday December 27, 2011 • 205 Comments 

by John Immel

“Run, run, as fast as you can!
You can’t catch me!
I’m the Gingerbread Man!”

 

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there were two bloggers taking on abuses in twenty first century American Christianity. Rumpelstiltskin was clever, adorably blunt, and talked about Metaphysics and Epistemology. The Gingerbread Man was sweet and cuddly, serving milk and cookies to his readers while grumbling about blogging for the greater good.  Rumpelstiltskin talked about Ethical and Political theory.  The Gingerbread Man gave people a safe place to tell their stories of being under the thumb of giants up the SGM bean stalk chanting “Fee Fie Foe Fum, we smell the blood of an Arminian”. Rumpelstiltskin combated the roots of the Giants power and the absurdity of reform. The Gingerbread man railed against the “unbiblical” nature of Sovereign Grace Ministries polity. 

For many days Rumpelstiltskin’s blog was listed on the Gingerbread Man’s blog.  And then one day, it was not. The Gingerbread man did not say why and Rumpelstiltskin did not ask. Since he can spin his own straw into gold it did not matter. Many days passed and the blogs continued, until one day The Gingerbread Man was asked. 

Hi Gingerbread Man,
If  Rumpelstiltskin is your friend, then why did you take SpiritualTyranny.com out of your blogroll list?    

And the Gingerbread Man answered:  

Berlin,
There was a time that I think Rumpelstiltskin was taking a strong doctrinal stance that I disagree with. When I asked for a clarification and asked a simple question “who owns man?” he would not give me an answer. I don’t know if Rumpelstiltskin believes that man owns himself, or is owned by God. Simple question/simple answer.

It’s not Rumpelstiltskin’s fault that his IQ is at least 20 points higher than mine, nor it his fault that I’m uneducated. I was feeling that he was leading to a conclusion that man owns himself, which is an unbiblical belief. Again, this is not an accusation, because I don’t know what he believes. He can clear this up if he likes, or he can continue to talk over my head. 

Having said all of that, I have a lot of friends who I disagree with. I honestly like Rumpelstiltskin, a lot. 

I’m so glad you asked on this public forum  :-)  

Rumpelstiltskin having heard some variation of this underlying objection for many years sat on a tuffet with little Miss Muffit. He did not like curds and whey, so he talked while she ate. “Why are the clever the villains? Those brother’s really were Grimm when they made me the antagonist. They don’t even know me, and I have to justify myself when it was that stupid farmer who lied to the king?”

“Did I lie?” asked Rumpelstiltskin, as Miss Muffit took another bite.  “No. Did I put my daughter in a bad spot with the king?  No.  And that simpleton the King who had to threaten to get the girl to do what he wanted. Isn’t that just like all men in “authority” bullying and threatening? And as an authority, shouldn’t he have known the truth from a lie? Well, that just goes to show, that just because you have the zeal and concern to rule, doesn’t mean you’re worth goose dropping, golden or not.”

Miss Muffet nodded. 

“And that girl,” continued Rumpelstiltskin, “is the one who spread the tradition handed down from her father. She could have told the truth, but no, she perpetuated the lie to save her own skin. And she was the monster that was willing to sell her child for a cushy spot in the castle. What mother does tha—

Rumpelstiltskin paused, “Uh Miss Muffet, I don’t mean to frighten you, but uh.  You have a guest that has sat down beside your—.”

Miss Muffet’s eyes went round.

“I’m just saying,” Rumplestiltskin said, “It was only right that I should raise the kid.  I can provide endless gold to buy food. I work for a living. What was that ridiculous woman going to do?  Sell her second born to feed the first? But I am the antagonist because I am clever?  I am the bad guy because I can really do what I said? I am the villain because I wanted paid? I even wrote the contract with an escape clause. They guessed my name, and I am the one who honored the deal.”

Miss Muffet hid behind Rumplestiltskin.

“Rumpelstiltskin is smart, anyone who can spin straw into gold is a sharp cookie. Uh… err.”

Miss Muffet climbed on Rumplestiltskin’s shoulders.

“Miss, your Tuffit is most certainly in the way.  Listen Miss Muffit, here is what I want you to see. Listen to what the Gingerbread Man said again.  ‘It’s not his fault that his IQ is Twenty Pounds heavier or that I’m uneducated …’

“Miss Muffet, you need to be still so you can pay attention. The Gingerbread Man has framed the conversation so that it doesn’t matter if Rumpelstiltskin’s IQ is a thousand pounds or two pounds.  It doesn’t matter if his IQ only qualifies him to lick windows. Notice this:  

‘No one taught me this. I had no religious influence growing up. Approximately 3 weeks after I became a believer I found this. This is not a product of the reformation, but God’s Holy Word. Simple and Pure. […]

 

‘If you feel the need to make this concept very very complex, I’m all ears.’

 

That was when Miss Muffet ran away. But Little Jack Horner came out of his corner, eating a plumb on his thumb.

“This is what he’s really saying,” said Rumpelstiltskin, “Run, run, as fast as you can! You can’t catch me! I’m the Gingerbread Man! I’m not smart, but I see what is the truth of simplicity.”

“I’m a good boy,” said Jack.

“There are no good boys,” said Rumpelstiltskin, “Because there is no GOOD. So don’t worry about thinking and just eat, you wretched sinner.”

While Jack was busy eating Rumpelstiltskin thought to himself about how to respond to the Gingerbread logic. He didn’t know if it was a logical fallacy, but it should be.  

He diagramed it in his head:

Truth = X

 X = simple (pure)

 (therefore)

 Truth = Simple

 Which by default means: complex (cannot equal) truth.

“But complexity does not magically disappear because someone declares simplicity Truth,” said Rumpelstiltskin.

“I’m a good boy,” said Jack.

Rumpelstiltskin decided he needed to think hard so he stripped out of his Underoos to keep them from getting in the way. He sat on his tuffit pedestal, chin on fist.  Rumplestiltskin musing without Underoos But then he saw the three little pigs so got dressed.

Hay Pig started gathering hay for his house. “I’ll make us comfortable in a minute,” he said.

Stick Pig sat down on his tuffit to relax. “Give me a second. I’m winded.”

Brick Pig set up a work bench and pulled out his abacus and slide rule.  He started making notes on some plans.

 “Gingerbread logic gives people a powerful tool,” said Rumplestiltskin to whoever would listen. “It preemptively disqualifies all coefficients. Think of it this way: The logic applied to the equation (7x)2 = 4Y +3Z2 magically renders the equation:

(X) = whatever I think it means.

“They can erase the 7 and the 4 the other variable and the operating conditions that give X context and value. So any argument that points out complexity is disqualified.

“You’re talking over me,” said the Stick Pig.

“You just blew away my house,” said the Straw Pig

“But not by the hair on his chinny chin chin,” said Brick Pig, “He didn’t even huff and puff.  All he said was, if you can eliminate context, and audience, and author intent from bible interpretation, by disqualifying anything ‘complex’ a person can declare his ‘simple’ judgment biblical.”

“And by definition,” Rumpelstiltskin added, “what is complex and what is simple are subjective judgments.”

“Exactly,” said Brick Pig, “So you can’t catch the Gingerbread Man, because he can run away from any complexity in the name of biblical purity.”  

“But the bible clearly says—” said Stick Pig, jabbing a finger at his ESV. 

“Clearly?” asked Rumpelstiltskin. “Hold on to your ESV Bible thump for one second. Clear to whom? A 21st century English speaker?  Do you realize this is an appeal to English literalism: the literal understanding of English words, in a western culture, to a human mind living in the 21st century?

“This is getting complex,” said Hay Pig.

“The lie is that bible interpretation was ever simple.” Rumpelstiltskin shrugged, “The appeal to ‘simple and pure’ is merely an appeal to an interpretive method called Literalism.”

Brick Pig finished making a note in the margin of his King James, “This makes the foundation of all Bible understanding English 21st century understanding. This is like using the metric system to measure a feet and inches world. Some conversions can be made but they are cumbersome.”

“That was a metaphor,” said Hay Pig.

“The appeal to literalism is basically an appeal to modern subjectivity,” said Brick Pig.

“Which is why you can’t catch the Gingerbread Man,” said Rumpelstiltskin. 

“Which is why it is so easy to blow down Christian doctrinal houses,” said Brick Pig, “I keep telling my brothers to make their houses out of bricks and mortar, and they complain that I’m making it too hard.”  

“That wasn’t very nice,” said the Hay Pig.

Brick Pig rolled his eyes. “Nice?” he asked, “Just imagine what would happen if those wolves Jesus talked about showed up? They are in ‘nice’ sheep clothing, but they eat you. How nice is that?”

“Gingerbread logic tastes sweet, and sounds righteous,” observed Rumpelstiltskin, “but it is really designed to make intelligence a liability. It is an argument designed to level the intellectual playing field by declaring the full force of critical tools off limits.”

“What you said wasn’t very spiritual,” said Stick Pig, “As Christians we are not suppose to be critical. We shouldn’t even think too much. It was the Tree of Knowledge that got us in trouble. God didn’t want us to use our mind.  He wanted us to use our spirits. He wanted us to have a relationship with Him. He wanted us to have a revelation.”

Brick Pig sighed at the same time Rumpelstiltskin sighed. They’d both heard this before “A revelation, like for Allah?  A revelation for like Giaia?  How do you know which revelation is the better revelation?” asked Brick Pig.

“But it is God’s Word?”

“And that is what everyone else says about their ‘revelation,’” said Rumpelstiltskin.

“That is just not spiritual at all!” said Stick Pig.

“Spiritual!” exclaimed Rumpelstiltskin, “Eureka! Eureka! It tis the quest for true spiritually!” Rumpelstiltskin would have kissed Stick Pig but he didn’t have on any lipstick. “Brethren, we have found the problem.”

“Why are you speaking in King James?” asked Hay Pig.

“I was blind, but now I see,” Said Rumpelstiltskin, “Had I only been using the exact words written in the simple and pure Holy word of God I would have been truly spiritual. Now, thou canst not argue with me!  Behold! The Gingerbread Man doth spake thus:  

“‘No one taught me this. I had no religious influence growing up. Approximately 3 weeks after I became a believer I found this. This is not a product of the reformation, but God’s Holy Word. Simple and Pure. This is not a product of the reformation, but God’s Holy Word. Simple and Pure.’”

 “Approximately 3 weeks after I became a believer, I found this,” said Rumpelstiltskin to the Brick Pig, “But his own Ginger voice. Here do be the problemo.”

“That was Spanish,” said Hay Pig.

Rumpelstiltskin winked, “Thine Gingerbread Man’s interpretive methods, by his own ginger voice, were flawless from the first. Never to be marred with further thought, or tempered with more knowledge.”  

Brick Pig looked up from his Abacus, his eyes round with concern, “But if thine Gingerbread Man hath never improved his interpretive methods from three weeks from his New Birth, from the days that he was but a spiritual tyke, from the moments that he was as new as wobbly giraffe fresh from the Holy Spirits womb….”

“Oh the disaster!” cried Rumpelstiltskin, “Quick, fetch all the Kings horses and all the Kings men.  We must search the country side for homosexual lying dead.  For God’s Holy Word, simple and pure spake on this wise:  

“Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

 

“If thou read the holy book in like manner always,” said Brick Pig, “thou must always cast the first stone.”

“You are talking King James too?” said Hay Pig as he tried to rebuild his house, “is that the best translation?”

“I thought it was the ESV,” said Stick Pig.

“Straight away, send for the Seven Dwarves,” Rumpelstiltskin said, “Run fast. Fast as you can to the Gingerbread Man. Take the sharp knives out of his home. For if he is consistent with this interpretive standard of simple and pure bible reading, untainted by further instruction, but left to his own holy and pure understanding, he shalt be missing body parts.

“For the book says in Matthew 5. 

29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body  be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole  body go into hell.”

 

“But,” said Jack Horner, “Maybe his eye has never caused him to sin.  Maybe his right hand has been good.”

“Thou transgress,” said the Brick Pig, consecrating his words with the appropriate proof text language, “go back to thy corner, little Jack Horner. Everything from the heart of Man is damnable. Thus spake Calvin!”

“Off with their heads!” said the Queen of Hearts.

“Ney Bretheren, stay thine hand Sisteren, Jesus only said to take out eyes and cut off hands,” said Rumpelstiltskin. “We want to be purely, simply literally biblical.”

“But surely,” said the Brick Pig, “those Preaching Indwelling Sin, and Pervasive Depravity, can’t say his eye has never been evil, or that his hand has never offended.”

“Good point fair swine, before thou run off the cliff, I pray thee, Hurry to the beloved dwarves! Get the ice pick before the Gingerbread Man remembers His holy and simple and pure interpretive methods, and pokes out his eye!”

Rumpelstiltskin looked about the crowd that had gathered before his tuffit.  “Where are those three mice?” he demanded, “I cannot see them.”

The Cheshire Cat smiled.

“El Gato Diablo! I lose them from thee!” Rumplestiltskin declared in a loud voice, “Come Forth! Ok, now, you Three Blind Mice, scour the pages of the pure and holy word of God for the simple words, “Original Sin”. Use brail, use a concordance, use thine lexicon, and thou Inter-linier bible.  Tell Rumpelstiltskin true does thine ‘simple and pure’ untrained, interpretive standard show these words, exactly taught, anywhere in cannon? 

“Read thou well, the book of Genesis, for tis here that the traditions of Augustine say Original Sin took place.  Dost these words come from the consecrated mouth of God?  Doth he summarize Adam’s actions so? Doest He say thus be the whole of humanity tainted from sex?”

“Ney brethren, Tis not found,” said Brick Pig, flipping pages through his NASB, and then his Cotton Patch Translation.

“I’m going to a fair,” said Simon, “But before I see the Pie Man, could we change to a different translation. The “Thees” and “Thous” are confusing.”

“Yes Simple Simon, but the Pie Man will not let you taste his wares,” said Rumpelstiltskin, “What then of the simple and pure, ‘clearness’ of this ‘biblical’ teaching? If it is not so simply found, how then can it be called a biblical doctrine from the Holy word of God? What determines when we abandon context, and audience and occasion and author? Can we always use bible verses like Legos, weaving chapters together to build doctrines? But then demand simplicity when it serves our limited understanding?”

And for a long while the crowd was silent.

Finally Simple Simon raised his hand. “I may be simple, but why not just answer the question.” He turned the pages of the Holy book and said:  

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.” 

Simon finished reading. “The bible does say that. It seems pretty simple. So how can you say that “Man owns himself? Why not just answer the question?”

“First of all,” said Rumpelstiltskin, “I have answered the question of the specific metaphysical premise that man MUST own himself. If man does not own his own mind, fully able to integrate the world in which he lives, in service to his own volitional action, then the concept of personal accountability is foolishness. And if accountability is foolishness why is everyone fussing about Sovereign Grace Ministries conduct. If they are not specifically responsible for the sum of their actions why rail about their practice?  Whatever the grand theory of Divine ownership, no one really believes that God is ultimately responsible for the sum of their existence. Everyone DOES believe that those preachers own the content of the ideas that drive their actions which is why everyone rails against perpetrators of injustice. We all do this because we implicitly understand that man is the sole owner of his own volition. To suggest otherwise is absurd.

“Second, the vast percentage of the Spiritualtyranny.com is dedicated to addressing the folly of man owned by the state, verse man (all his faculties and life product) owned by himself. To drop this specific context is intellectually sloppy. And dropping context is what Gingerbread logic empowers Christians to do. They get to render the equation [(7x)2 = 4Y +3Z2 … (X) = whatever I think it means] and make a claim to higher spirituality while they do it. So the Gingerbread Man is free to ignore pretty much any variable that does not square with his own thinking.

I haven’t reconciled every Bible chapter and verse, but the notation that I have not addressed the question posed, ‘Does man own himself,’ is just not true. The only way someone can insist that I have not addressed that questions is to merely dismiss the content and context of the blog. Maybe I didn’t spoon feed the answer to conform to some very narrow, definition, but it has been answered.

“Third, this is not a one way conversation. I don’t dance to the John Piper music merely because he plays a flute. I was asked to explain this over a year ago. I, in turn probed for more information to address the very underlying interpretive presumption in the beginning of this post. But that request was ignored, so I didn’t pursue exposing this very issue. I was waiting for an object lesson, and now I have one.

“However little did I know that my lack of spoon fed response would become the final judgment of all things “biblical”. To engage the ideas on this blog requires the motivation to probe root assumptions. This cannot be done by those who believe themselves entitled to my time or my ideas without the responsibility to engage the conversation. This is a dialogue. It is presumptuous to demand that I deliver to an arbitrary satisfaction.

“Fourth, if people can define the nature of ‘biblical’ as synonymous with ‘simple and pure’, then it does not matter how much I explain the details of my thought. By definition simplicity is the measure truth, so anything that does not conform to their narrow subjective standard can be dismissed in the name of defending ‘God’s Holy word.’ They can ignore, pretty much every counter argument that they choose to not understand. No one can argue against intellectual calcification.

If there was ever a trait of the self declared heirs of the Reformation, this it. They emulate the attitude of Martin Luther with impunity.  

“This is my reply to you and to him. It is not my purpose to quarrel with the Jews, nor to learn from them how they interpret or understand Scripture; I know all of that very well already.” (On the Jews and their Lies)

 

They feel utterly qualified to demand answers but resent any counter argument. They feel free to dismiss any detail or knowledge that is not narrowly defined by their use of the Literalist interpretive method. They defend their intellectual passivity in the name of defending the pure traditions of Orthodox Christianity. But when confronted with the obvious conundrums that the traditions produce they pretend they are uniquely qualified to define all conversations while bearing no responsibility to the outcomes of their logical inconsistency. Read through pretty much any Calvinist debating his pet doctrine and you will see this illustrated in vivid colors. They are intractable when challenged on their authority to define the nature of “Biblical” doctrine.

This attitude pervades the whole of Sovereign Grace Ministries leadership structure. This attitude pervades the whole of the Neo-Calvinist movement.  This attitude is found undergirding most every Christian organization obsessed with its own doctrinal purity. The reason is simple: this is the lynch-pin of their interpretive monopoly. They work over time to vet their moral authority so they can demagogue the interpretive methodology.  They can be as simple or as complex as they choose. They can be simple people preaching simple truths in one breath and pound the pulpit for their flock to devour the rehashed tedium of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic theology in the next. They can reduce pretty much anything to the catch phrase “Gospel Centered” (Thanks Argo, forgot that one) and then demand everyone plow through Sin and Temptation and act as if the highly complex ideas contained within that intellectual labyrinth is a trivial reiteration of the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

I don’t remember how many hours I spent with that dim bulb Robin Boisvert chasing my tale trying to get up underneath his lofty fraudulent pastoral presumption, or bowing to the theological vacancy of my care group leader, merely because the doctrine said I had to give deference because he was an “authority.” Well, I chased and bowed until I finally realized that Robin was never, ever going to concede his right to define the nature and scope of the conversation, and my care group leader was in way over his head. And that was when I stopped letting the weakest link in the room define the conversation. That was when I quit accepting the premise that intelligence was a liability and “uneducated” was a virtue. It is all fraud.

Everyone pays lip service to humility with the standard self deprecating comments about IQ but try this just once: agree with their personal assessment. Affirm that yes, they are right, they really are stupid and watch how fast the façade falls away. People are content to not be Steven Hawking, but truly challenge their intellectual faculties and they will shortly be listing their academic and rational vita like they are applying for a spot at MIT. The only people that accept the title “simple minded” are those who keep licking windows. If you challenge anyone else’s intellectual abilities, or the strength of their self appointed bible study and they are insulted that someone would dare utter the words.  Even though they can’t spell the words Hermeneutics and Exegetics, even though they don’t own a concordance, they are very, very sure they are original thinkers, fully informed of their own intellectual self-appointment. They will call it spiritual. They will call it revelation from God. But it all boils down to the reality that they fully believe their understanding is THE defining measure of Bible knowledge. Challenge their understanding as faulty and the simple good ol boy vanishes. Point out that ignorance is not a virtue, but a leadership liability and the wailing and gnashing of teeth never stops.

So make no mistake, the “simple and pure” designation cannot be applied to the Bible. Bible literature spans thousands of years written to cultures that have no modern parallel. Bible doctrines are profoundly complex, being shaped by cultural forces that the modern mind must work intensively to understand. And these considerations haven’t come within miles of how to apply this understanding to modern life. So there is no such thing as the “simple” and “pure” Holy word of God.  This smoke screen is applied to human understanding in an effort to consecrate intellectual passivity.

With this in mind, here are a few considerations that impact my thinking when addressing Paul’s specific discussion and the broader Religio-political issue I’ve been addressing on Spiritual Tyranny. 

 

1.   In context, Paul is addressing a rational for a moral standard.  Paul is responding to a doctrinal problem of his own making.  Paul was one of the first to dare answer the question: How can you have an eternal law, with eternal promises that are enforced by en eternal covenant, that are in fact superseded by the ratification of a new covenant?

His contemporaries, (Jewish) found the source of moral responsibility in the giving of Torah.  But Paul’s ‘logic’ said that Jesus, and the Anointing effectively superseded Torah. It was this ‘separation’ from Torah that gave Paul the intellectual justification to abandon circumcision plus a hodge podge of observances with which Paul disagreed. This led to the implicit conundrum: If one can abandon Circumcision (THE means to accessing the Covenants of Promise, which is the heart of the gospel preached to Abraham) what else can Christians abandon? So the question that most of the early first century Jewish Christians struggled with was which parts of Torah can Christian’s choose to ignore. The logical conclusion of Paul’s doctrine led many to assume that man no longer had ANY moral responsibility. The “Grace of God” absolved man of all ethical conduct.  

Paul tries to answer the utter disaster of that conclusion by transferring moral responsibility from commitment to Torah to a down payment against a divine ransom. 

 

2.   The broader context of ransom. Ransomed from what to what?  There is no evidence that God’s ransom is in exchange for collective slavery, which is pretty much what the SGM giants do to the people who climb their bean stalk.  

3.   Paul’s repeated use of the term Bond Slave. This is a deliberate allusion to volitional indenture rooted in Torah. A full understanding of this concept is essential in grasping the type and nature of God/Man Slave/servant concept within the Paul’s thought.  

4.   Slavery was an implicit part of human existence. Paul is necessarily speaking in realties familiar to his audience limited by man’s existing knowledge base and socio political expectations. But his realties are our distant metaphor. And slavery is only a metaphor to US because modern men realized that the historic literalistic reading of bible literature was error. It was this new understanding, this willingness to challenge what had been “simple and pure” bible reading for hundreds of years that finally overthrew slavery as a social institution. Slavery used to be a “Christian” institution until it was challenged at the root: its historical ‘biblical’ roots. In America that challenge was waged a mere hundred and fifty years ago.  

5.   Further, a socio political world organized around a politically free people is an evolution of thought that is less than 300 years old. In the 21st century there is no credible Christian movement advocating slavery precisely because we have come to understand the broader context of effective social order. (See the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence)  

6.   The broader context of the socio political understanding of “freedom.”  Both from its embryonic forms within first century literature to its modern forms. From the message of John the Immerser, to the many of Jesus teachings, to the political allegory of the Revelation of John.  Only someone utterly preoccupied with the narrow interpretive expectations of the Reformation can miss that the first century was fully and totally preoccupied with political/religious freedom and self determination for the common man in the street. This preoccupation was decidedly anti slave.  

And this is a short list (and hardly exhausted) of the exegetical considerations that impact the reading of three brief sentences in cannon. As I said, complexity does not magically disappear because someone decides that their “simple and pure” 21st century English speaking, literate understanding is the defining measure of all things biblical.    

“And that is what the Gingerbread Man measured you by… being ‘unbiblical’” said, Brick Pig.

“Yes,” said Rumplestiltskin.

“But he said he didn’t know what you actually believe,” said Hay Pig.

“Yes.”

“But he still decided that it was ‘unbiblical,’” said Stick Pig.

“Off with their heads,” said the Queen of Hearts.

“But yet the Gingerbread Man has Brent Detwiler’s blog listed.”

“That means that Brent is Biblical,” said Simple Simon.

Rumplestiltskin nodded. “By the Gingerbread Man’s own definition, being listed is related to being biblical.”

“But Brent Detwiller has been repeatedly challenged for his “unbiblical” polity” said Brick Pig, “Does that mean Brent has changed? Or that his doctrine is in fact biblical.”

“If Brent Detwillers doctrine is biblical, then how can people object to him?  And if they cannot object to him, how can anyone object to Sovereign Grace Ministries” asked Stick Pig.

“Stick Pig, now you are catching on,” said Rumpelstiltskin, “And this is the hypocrisy that has always infected Christianity. The quest for doctrinal precision has always led men to affirm those who have ‘biblical’ doctrine all the while those same men commit profound injustice. This was the Leaven of Jesus warning. This is what leads men to tithe Mint and Rue in the name of doctrinal purity and then consume widows houses by the same consecration.

“As long as someone can quote chapter and verse of “Orthodox” understanding, they are deemed authentic but the content of their actions is a side issue explained away by the great depravities of man. Because Brent Detwiler starts to openly say there is something wrong with SGM practice, he is consecrated as biblical yet his ‘biblical’ practice is lever of his despotism. This is how John Calvin can be extolled as the Great Reformer of Geneva in one breath and his murder Michael Servitus utterly ignored in the next breath. Because Good ol’ Johnny C’s doctrine is considered the purest form of God’s Holy word, his actions are doctrinally irrelevant, and people can conveniently ignore that his doctrine was the lever of his tyranny.

“So let us review,” said Brick Pig, “Brent Detwiler has stories of Spiritual Tyranny yet ‘Biblical.’ John Calvin has stories of Spiritual Tyranny yet ‘Biblical’

Rumpelstiltskin’s teaching judged unbiblical but no Spiritual Tyranny stories. His blog is erased.”

“Yes, that sums it up,” Rumpelstiltskin, “When Christians infected with the Leaven of the Pharisees encounter ideas they deem ‘unbiblical’, they do what has always been done. They erase it from consideration by whatever means available. This is the heart and soul of Gingerbread logic. Look at history and you will see it is true. And that is how Christians live happily ever after.”



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