Pay No Attention to the Doctrine Behind the Curtain

Saturday August 27, 2011 • 101 Comments 

 By John Immel

(For those of you who don’t care about the specifics of the SGM phenomena, give me a minute. This is going somewhere.)

 Ding Dong! The Witch is dead.

Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!

Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.

Wake up – sleepy head

Rub your eyes, get out of bed.

Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead.

She’s gone where the goblins go,

Below – below – below. Yo-ho,

let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.

Ding Dong’ the merry-oh,

sing it high,

sing it low.

Let them know

The Wicked Witch is dead! 

So some time has passed since Vicar Charles Joseph headed off to sit in the bad preacher doghouse. Rumor has it that the doghouse has traveled to other states and other countries south of the border where he is speaking in behalf of the very church he said he should not be leading. Or maybe that was just the local church he had committed grave sins against and the universal church is fair game for his metaphysical mayhem.  

Anyway, for a few days the blogging world tried to hum a few bars of the song in the Wizard of Oz: “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead.” People seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief: “See, we really aren’t crazy!  It really is bad in Sovereign Grace Ministries.  It really is!”  

Joshua Harris, Beta big dog for the SGM Vatican in Gaithersburg, Maryland, took to the plexiglass podium and admitted that yes, there were grave sins in the church. It really was as bad as it seemed. We don’t answer fools, but God was disciplining US because He loved US.  

SGM admitting they are wrong?  Why, how could it be?  

People broke out in group hugs, speaking of grace and love and mercy and nodding sagely as people thought this was God finally showing up. Why, if the CJ Mini Me was willing to say it was bad, very bad, then surely this was a sign that the bucket of WikiLeaks in the face had really worked:  

“Ding Dong the witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!”  

Armed with ruby slippers, a flood of outrage filled articles poured fourth taking El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker to task. If it wasn’t for his faulty Bible interpretation, his Bible proof texting, a host of church polity mishaps, and his temerity for seeking to place himself in the same category as John Calvin, all these thing would not have happened. 

“Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.” 

SGM WikiLeaks seemed to embolden a few more victims to take their story public: yet another story of molestation swept under the pervasive depravity rug and another parent villainized for a lack of love and grace and forgiveness showed up on www.sgmsurvivors.com. Rumor has it that this story hit very, very close to SGM Vatican home. The CLC faithful were summoned to a members’ only meeting. The women are in an uproar; the men are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to proof text their masculinity to get their theologically deficient wives back in line. The pastors are doing their gossip and slander two-step all the while woeing and tumulting about the great sinfulness of man and the great evils of human ego. 

“Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.” 

With only a few exceptions—from those on the “Anti-SGM” side of the blogging world—Brent Detwiler was heralded as a hero with the pooper scooper for the SGM dirt and applauded for his courage to face down the green-faced villain of Gaithersburg, Maryland.  

“Don’t you talk mean about Brent! Don’t you dare remember he was one of them for decades! Brent, please come in. Yes, make yourself at home. You are one of US now.  Besides, we need you to tell us we are OK. We can’t know anything unless a pastor makes it clear for us. We can’t understand what is really happening unless a leader tells us. We are so confused. Can we get you some hot cocoa?  Yes, tell us how hurt you are. We are very hurt. So you must be hurt. Brent, tell us where you hurt. Is it in your heart? Is it in your soul?  We are hugging you.  Brent?  Brent?  Brent, aren’t you going to tell us?” 

Denigration of those dastardly bloggers in their underwear daring to speak ill of SGM leaders all but forgotten, Brent slid into the kiddie end of the cyber pool ready to take his side of the story public. Floaties firmly around his arms, like God before Balaam, the very blogs he denounced for a failure of attitude, and gossip and slander became his voice to the world.  See! I’m not apostate! I’m not evil!  I did it right! But CJ, this is all his doing!  It’s him! 

“Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.” 

When a house didn’t drop on his head for the rational larceny of joining the blogging world, Brent was encouraged to take his kiddy pool backstroke, into the lap lanes. With the debut of brentdetwiler.com, he came out splashing; the mist was felt all over the blogosphere. Tim Challies took his blogging towel to Rat Fink Brent D concerning his documents; yet another Neo-Reformed shill weighing in on the general impropriety of reading the leaky PDFs. Rat Fink Brent D defended himself by pointing out that “two anti-SGM blogs” had been in existence for years before the documents, so he really didn’t have a personal vendetta.  

I welcomed him to the pool party on his first post; I told him that blogging in underwear was fun and the water was fine. I think my comment got caught in his spam filter, ‘cause I never saw it post.

>snicker< 

Even I was caught up in the outpouring of “grace” and refrained from pointing out the sarcasm within his maiden doggie paddle into anti-SGM blogging stardom. Tone, I thought, was the end and beginning of all righteous commentary. A failure of tone means sin. And sin, we all know, means it cannot be true. Oh well, now I have two Get-Out-of-Sin free cards:

1.   If Rat Fink Brent D. can make a point with sarcasm, then so can little ol John Immel.

If that doesn’t work then…

2.   I can trot out: “God has not granted me grace to perceive that snark is a very grave sin.”  

Thanks, CJ. Hugs and kisses.

Speaking of kisses, after almost 15 years of singing “Lions and tigers and bears … oh my,” the apostle of covering Larry Tomczak gave CJ a big make-up kiss. Having visited the Wizard, Larry puffed out his chest displaying his badge of courage in a letter published for the entire world to see.  “Puttem uuuuup… puttem uuuup!  I’ll fight you all together if you waaaaaant. CJ and I have put everything on the table and reconciled. So you just never mind.”  

Confused, the blogging world wondered why the reunion tour was starting now?  But they kept humming the song, only to be caught on the yellow brick road by Al Molher’s support for der Vicar Charles Joseph. Somehow a secular Louisville rag published his kudos for the Sovereign Grace bearer of Miter and Simar. 

“Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead???  He’s gone where the goblins go… Huu?  Oh, it must be the money. That is the only explanation for Al Molher’s support.”  

And that was closely followed by Ligon Duncun of Presbyterian Church big dog fame tossing his rather weighty academic creds behind the Mahaney legacy. As an aside, with an academic vita that reads like an English Thoroughbreds General Stud Book for Geneva-philia Theology, one is inclined to wonder what he sees in a high school graduate with the academic pedigree of a Rouncy?  Sinfully suspicious minds want to know. 

“Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up . . .  Another one?  This can’t be happening.” 

These men were followed by a cavalcade of endorsements from many quarters with head scratching perplexity at all the hubbub and a general disdain for that un-submissive Dorothy and her co-blogger Toto.   

“Ding Dong … ?????  Hey, we were singing!” 

Everyone was sure it was all a bad dream, and if they just kept clicking those ruby slippers and chanting: “There is no doctrine like Orthodoxy, no doctrine like Orthodoxy,” they would all land back in Kansas—oops, Geneva—safely tucked in bed, surrounded by friendly faces, and very sure they shouldn’t venture beyond the safety of their backyard. SGM is an aberration after all.  They are the outlier in the data set. It is their polity!  It is their polity! They are the bad apple in a very large barrel of right-thinking Christians. 

“Pay no attention to the doctrine behind the curtain…” 

And this is the problem. With very few exceptions, people reduce this down to the common denominators of personalities, or faulty ecclesiological structures, or some esoteric internal religious squabble. The morality play unfolds before our eyes something like this: 

Fade in–Title

 

Close Up—Blogosphere—Dorothy and Toto to splash around it leaky documents.

BLOGGERS IN THEIR UNDERWEAR

“See, we told you.”

 

Long Shot—plexiglass podium– with green face and broom.

CJ MAHANEY

“I have committed Grave Sins. I’m melting. I’m melting.”

 

Medium Shot—in front of the castle wall. Flying Monkeys poke at the carcass. The freed creature proclaim victory.

FLYING MONKEYS

“Hail Dorothy! Hail Dorothy! The Wicked Witch is dead.”

 

Long Shot—yellow brick road—Blogging world merrily dancing back to Oz to see the wizard for vindication.

BLOGGERS IN THEIR UNDERWEAR

 (Singing)

“We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

 

Fade to Black—The End

 

And here is where the made for TV movie comes crashing to a halt. They get back to Oz very sure that they understand the villains and motives, and fully expect vindication. But once granted an audience with the Wizard, they find he is not at all willing to vindicate, or even help. As time passes, the players involved didn’t melt, and they don’t even seem to think they have done anything wrong. The Wicked Witch and flying monkeys are subtly defiant. And when pushed, even though they smile a lot, they start sounding like the belligerent wizard and demand to know why you dare make them mad. Here is what the blogosphere expected. 

SGM’s Marauding Ways + SGM WikiLeaks = Proof.

Proof = Vindication

Vindication  + Big Dog Authority = X.  

Exactly what X was supposed to look like has remained an algebraic variable, circumscribed by different flavors and shades of the concept of “Grace.”  

Here is what they got. 

“Well, my little pretty, I can cause accidents too…” 

Almost no one has dared utter the word “justice” and SGM in the same sentence. Probably because SGM has been very adept at creating the equations in people’s minds: If God executes justice to US, then he will have to be just to YOU!?  And since justice in this context means damnation, everyone gets polite and full of “Grace,” and moral relativism wins the day. Over the last few weeks, consternation has turned to mostly tepid incredulity in the face of the broader Neo-Reformed movement coming out in DEFENSE of SGM in general and CJ Mahaney in particular. Not only has exoneration failed to come—beyond some early SGM lip service to humility—those caught with their hands in the munchkin cookie jar are trending toward their usual position of studied indifference. You don’t answer a fool in his folly after all.  See, it’s in the Bible. And Bible authority is all we really need. 

“Pay no attention to the doctrine behind the curtain…” 

To explain the smiling self-deprecating belligerence, the logical inconsistencies, the bizarre twists of logic, the horrific manifestation of moral ambiguity, the endless anecdotes of pastoral mistreatment, the utter callousness of SGM apologists to the spiritual roadkill, and the general presumption of THEIR spiritual superiority . . . everyone seems to have concluded that Sovereign Grace Ministries is merely an aberration. So the problem must be the personalities, interpretive errors, and governmental peculiarities of THAT specific group of men.  THEIR actions are a stain on all pure righteous Bible faith. THEIR government structure is in error and failing to emulate true Christianity. THEY are playing fast and loose with definitions and doctrines and shaping them for their own selfish use. See how THEY proof text?!  See how THEY ignore context!?  Someone needs to hold them accountable to believing right things!   

And like Dorothy with her three friends standing before the disembodied head after having acquired the token of their commitment, they are perplexed by needing to beg the “Wizard” to keep his promise. It isn’t supposed to be this way. How could so many other men in “positions of authority” turn such a universal blind eye to what is before them?   

Here is the answer. People fail to see the real machine, the real animating power behind the curtain of these events.  CJ Mahaney is not the wicked witch. He is not a Pied Piper theological mastermind.  He is many things and has many specific traits that have brought him to the forefront, but he is not the animating power of the SGM juggernaut. He has managed to surround himself with like-minded people willing to be utterly consistent with a specific set of ideas. But make no mistake. He and the broad list of names and personalities connected to the specific SGM drama are fully irrelevant to the much broader picture. This is no absolution for their conduct and their specific metaphysical mayhem.  I am only drawing your attention to where it really needs to be focused.  Notice the curtain off to the side?   

It is time for us to take up the advanced studies of Christian thought on which this Blog focuses.  It is time for us to pay attention to the doctrine behind the curtain.  

It is true. There is a host of doctrinal redefining and meaning-nudging. There is a storm of proof texting. There is an ocean of Bible verse contextual indifference. There is a sea of theological and philosophical license being demonstrated that is producing a tidal wave of mutually exclusive conclusions breaking across the Christian landscape. But the deviation is not with SGM or their theological peers (in as much as they grant anyone the privilege of sharing that title). They are executing flawlessly the Platonist/Augustinian worldview, also known as Luther-based Reformation theology, also known as Calvinism. SGM is utterly consistent with the historic Orthodoxy. They are masterful in their execution of historic interpretive methods. And this is why—as far as the broader Neo-orthodoxy movement is concerned—YOU are the problem. 

“…  if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.”   

The first thing that attracts so many people to the Neo-Reformed movement is security. The glossy brochure says that if you believe what the true church has always believed, then all will be well with your life . . . sort of.  And more importantly, if everyone would believe right things, all would be well with the world . . . sort of. Then preachers set out to organize life into neat hospital folds. And when life refuses to be look flawless like Glinda with her fairy wand and glitter, the wire brush of the doctrines forces everything to lay in the right order.  

Church leaders are the keepers of the gate against the spiritual barbarian horde, and the price of Christian authenticity is a rational subordination to Eldership edicts. We are all members of the true faith after all; what is the big deal? We agree on the major points of the ‘orthodox’ confession, so it isn’t like those preachers are ever going to do anything to US. The problem is all those Charismatics with bad attitudes believing bad things, taking Bible verses out of context, teaching heretical doctrines, committing a crime by not reading Holy Scripture correctly, doing bad things with body parts, and causing all the chaos. We believe right things, but would someone make those empty-headed scarecrows get their mind right! 

The moment that happens, the game is afoot. As John Locke observed:

“For whatsoever [all] people boast  . . .  of the orthodoxy of their faith — for everyone is orthodox to himself — these things, and all others of this nature, are much rather marks of men striving for power and empire over one another than of the Church of Christ.”  

Of course, some man says, “Sure, I’ll be the authority wielding the sword of the state—oops, sword of the spirit.” He jabs a finger at a Bible passage and says, “This day, this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears,” and he is forever authorized to defend your delicate mind against bad ideas. Everyone sings “We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz,” very sure that the wizard is their source of answers. 

When men declare themselves the intellectual keepers of the gate and the defender against the barbarian masses, they conceded the very premise of the barbarians: force as the deciding factor of existence. The only difference between the Barbarian and the Bishop is that the first is using his force to obtain his physical wants; the Bishop uses force to rule the mind because he wants to rule the definition of TRUTH. 

“Do not arouse the wrath of the Great and Powerful Oz!  I said come back tomorrow!” 

To paraphrase Von Mises: when a man says there should be a law, he means to say that armed government men should force people to do what they do not want to do.  When a man says the law should be better enforced, he means the police should micromanage the outcome in greater degree.  When a man insists that people must submit to authority, he means that men must abandon rational self-appointment. When man declares the church God’s power of earthly government, he deifies select men who adorn themselves in the titles Apostle, Elder, and Bishop.

Considering that America has as a foundational assumption of freedom of worship and religious tolerance, the ancient superstition is taking over our minds with speed; Americans are growing in their suspicion of freedom of thought. That distrust is merging with the primordial mysticism that assumes human freedom is the source of God’s determination to destroy us all. As a result, with no sense of impropriety, or even a blush for the American constitutional inconsistency, Christians demand what amounts to coercion and threat against those who do not advocate their definition of religious “orthodoxy.” Here is what this schizophrenia reveals. The SGM drama is not bad because it is wrong in principle, rather the SGM drama is only bad proportional to being on the other side of “orthodox” police powers.

Everyone wants to applaud cultural warriors who defend pure Bible faith and “stand for something” in the public square. And if the names suffering the condemnation are Copeland, or Bentley, or Warren, or a list of other not so Reformed preachers, then it is just desserts. But when it is a fellow Neo-Reformation groupie?  Why, how dare they? How could they betray their comrades in arms? I am a co-laborer in the People’s State of Heaven! Don’t they understand I’m one of you? 

This is exactly what happened to Larry Tomczak. He had the better part of six years to see the rise of Calvinism during the “Doctrinal Refocus.” Four months after being put in the bad preacher doghouse, he decides the problem is the doctrine. Are you kidding?  How very convenient. CJ was right.  In that context, it can’t be about the doctrine. 

This is what happened to Rat Fink Brent D. According to the “non-biblical whistle blowing” documents, Rat Fink Brent D. has been leveling his charge about CJ and the broader SGM issue for years. Here is how he defended himself to Tim Challies:

“What you fail to realize is the pervasive and profound nature of problems in SGM. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been mishandled and mistreated.” 

How does a man who was a leader of this “pervasive and profound nature” become a hero since he effectively tolerated the outworking for the better part of 15 years? How is he suddenly an innocent bystander? OK… so he wrote some e-mail. Big whoop! It is the self-declared social contract of these men, to—somehow—“cover,” that is to alter a course of action by the force of their lofty pastoral position. Where did Rat Fink Brent D. demonstrate that power to alter bad action? Besides pissing off the Witch of the East, he still doesn’t have his broom. And now he can’t even walk on the yellow brick road back to the hallowed halls. 

This is exactly how SGM church members react.  When they are part of the exclusive “Sound Doctrine” club, they are onboard with condemning gossip and slander. When their friends are being chewed up and spit out in the name of “Sound Doctrine,” it is the just dessert of a sinner’s un-submissive pastoral authority executing church discipline. They turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, and close the doors of their hospitality so none of the bad influence rubs off on them like cooties. They run away like little kids on the playground when the pastors are romping through someone else’s life. They want the benefit of the Reformed Theology fraternity, but when that wild animal turns and nibbles on their backside, they swiftly get a blog alias and wail and moan at the great injustice. 

Suddenly, a 28-year-old protestor driving around Montgomery County, Maryland distributing a self-published book doesn’t look crazy at all. Suddenly, those bloggers in their underoos don’t look so disreputable. But don’t you dare say it is the doctrine. No, don’t you dare tell us that our Bible-believing is wrong. Don’t you dare challenge our ideas, because our ideas are unassailable! See, it says so right here in the Bible! It is SGM, I tell you. SGM are the flying monkeys in Oz. If you don’t be quiet, we will . . . we will . . . just  . . . ignore you! 

“Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz?  You ungrateful creatures!” 

And this is the second thing that attracts so many people to the Neo-Reformed movement. People get to feel smarter because of the Neo-Reformed claim to be THE intellectual tradition of Christianity. When you are competing with the likes of the “intellectual” traditions within the Charismatic movement, the average HS senior can stand out in that crowd. But the issue is not the Reformed tradition’s intellectual power, but rather its philosophical power. 

As consistent readers of my blog, you know that philosophy is the comprehensive system of how ideas integrate together. To be sure, the driving factor for embracing Reformed theology ideas is not stupidity. Quite the opposite; the body of this ideology tends to suck the very intelligent down its destructive path, because as a rule, the very intelligent are looking for a comprehensive place to hang their thinking. 

Very intelligent men and women get some of their greatest pleasure from the exercise of their rational and cognitive efforts. And they should, because this is how we were built. Many of them are professionals attracted to the sciences and the echelons of higher learning. Unfortunately, for the better part of the last 30 years in modern Christianity, there has been almost no place for such people. In the Charismatic renewal, these men and women of rational interest were starved, their rationality condemned, and their aspirations to fully developed philosophical integration equated with the highest spiritual treason. No man or woman can sustain themselves in such a cognitive vacuum, so they go looking for someone, anyone, who can help them fill the void. 

The Neo-Reformed movement gained its initial power from this vacuum; they rode in on a passive/aggressive high horse and daggled the most comprehensive philosophical system known to humanity before the unsuspecting eyes of hungry minds. Like a child beguiled by a confectioners store, the mind candy tasted good on the palate. They never knew they were being kidnapped. 

With no alternative turnkey “Christian” philosophical solution readily available, men and women of rational cognitive interest are defenseless against the Platonist Augustinian seduction. One small bite leads to another small bite, leads to a river of rational sweets and never once do people notice it is rotting their cognitive, self-appointed, self-defining will in their heads. To be sure, the doctrines ultimately demand rational subordination. But who cares? We are elite. We are not like other churches. We have sound doctrine.  

From the presumption of rational superiority, combined with the notion of theological superiority, combined with a foundation of doctrinal authority, it is micro steps down the path of Ecclesiological Autocracy. Men in charge of these ideas are by every measure superior, so of course they should be in charge.

For all the denigration of Pride and Arrogance, when challenged for their “rational” conclusions, they are insulted that you dare imply they are automatons. Why of course, they are original thinkers. And what is this temerity to suggest otherwise? You must be proud! You must be arrogant. You must be a Heretic! 

Reformation Theology’s foundational appeal is its comprehensive construct. But the dirty little secret of the theology’s structure is its implicit Platonism. Or more precisely, the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus as integrated into Christianity by Augustine in the early 5th century. Because Christianity had been merged with the power of the state, a little less than 80 years prior, St Augustine’s doctrinal conclusions stood almost unopposed for the next 800 years. It was not until after the canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas that Aristotelian thought began to permeate the minds of men and challenge Platonism’s implicit collectivist oligarchy. It wasn’t until Aquinas that many of the ideas that held Europe in tyrannical grip started to suffer real challenge. 

Unfortunately, for all of Protestant Christianity’s self-applause over the split with the Catholic Church, for all of our insistence that we represent the True Church and pure Bible Faith, we remain metaphysically Catholic. That is to say, we hold as foundation the same tenant of Catholic Orthodoxy. That is to say we remain philosophically Platonist. At the core of Platonism is a fundamental disdain for human existence. At the core of Platonism is a primary rejection of human rational effectiveness. And this is the very core of Calvinism.

“Think yourselves lucky that I’m giving you audience tomorrow, instead of twenty years from now?” 

The foundation of the unfolding fight with SGM (and the broader Neo-Reformed movement) is over rational equality. 

This is what every anti-SGM critic presumes… and what SGM leadership NEVER concedes. 

And this is the crux of the problem: Rational self-appointment and Pervasive Depravity cannot live in the same metaphysical world. No matter how many definitions one tries to amend, no matter how often they try to cobble together a “biblical” interpretive equality, if the metaphysical starting place of human existence is Plato’s worldview, man is forever incapable of knowing and obtaining TRUTH, the only logical conclusion is a group of Oligarchs uniquely qualified to dictate GOOD to the barbarian masses. 

At the root of every fight with an SGM pastor is the premise that no matter what council they give, no matter what action they take, it is superior to any objection and purer by the imputation of Grace to govern God’s church. And how dare you challenge, how dare you accuse, how dare you fail to make their lives a joy? How dare you challenge their authority to do what God has appointed? 

Dear Spiritual Tyranny reader, this is utterly consistent with Platonist Augustinian philosophy.  Yes, the contemporary marketing and packaging likes to talk of the grand fraternity of believers, but that fraternity dissolves the moment someone outside leadership starts challenging interpretive conclusions. Indeed, SGM has appointed themselves the keepers of the gate against the barbarian spiritual masses. 

When Ligon Duncun weighs in on behalf of CJ Mahaney and tells everyone that they don’t have the authority to look into what are the issues of authority, he is serious. His disdain for your rational equality is unapologetic. You find it offensive. He merely sees it as a hard but necessary truth. 

When you hear CJ Mahaney thumping the pulpit for a return to the “Great Doctrines of the Church,” he isn’t kidding. This is no grand hyperbole. This is a declaration of a return to the days of yore when the world breathed heavy under the “benevolent” yoke of God’s kingdom, an era when civil powers trembled and sinners quaked as the God of Heaven and Earth presided in undisputed rule, carried out by His faithful but benevolent servants. Mahaney is holding up as ideal, the era before a representative republic, government by the consent of the people, and our ontological certainty of freedom of religion. 

What we see playing out in the SGM microcosm is the conflict of the ages: In the metaphysical world of Election and Limited Atonement, there is no such thing as self-appointment and self-determination and self-governance, because you don’t own you. Taken to its “logical” conclusion, in the metaphysical world of Irresistible Grace, there is no such thing as private property, private possessions, or even personal boundaries, because whatever GOOD you have is a manifestation of Grace. And all Grace is administered by His stewards of Grace. In a world of Predestination, there is no right to inquire or human sensibilities for which to account; there is only the sovereign appointments of God’s mysterious intent and man’s meddling sinful suspicion to pry into things above his pay grade. 

In this metaphysical TULIP world, there is no real justice. Everything is a great big fat sin before God, because the nature of man is utterly offensive to God. If you happen to be part of the group that gets picked, it is all good. But the threat of damnation hangs over your head like a sword of Damocles. Your sin violates God, so who are you to demand recompensing for violations of you? You don’t own you!  How dare you speak of justice?  True Justice is eternal torment. So you would do well to just walk in God’s “grace” or maybe God will condemn you to hell after all. We are all just sinners.  We are all suffering from our sin nature.  And besides, who are you oh man to even challenge what is obviously God’s sovereign appointment? It is regrettable that your daughter was molested, but who are you to questions God’s purpose? 

It was this religion that the American Founding Fathers put absolute barriers in place to restrain its advance. They understood how much a menace it had been to the world.   

“Pay no attention to the doctrine behind the curtain…” 

And this is what is really offending our modern minds. The doctrines carried to the “logical” conclusions ARE offensive to our human sensibilities. We implicitly recoil from the immorality of the assertions. We implicitly flinch at the contempt for human existence undergirding these ideas. But in a fit of moral cowardice, we let these Demagogues of Dictated Good use a master stroke of philosophical magic. Like alchemists of old with the wave of the wand and a Bible proof text incantation, they transform this natural reaction to the implicit evil of these ideas into the telltale sign of their TRUTH.  

In the days when man’s mind was shackled by superstition and arguments were solved by judicium dei (trial by ordeal) or where “Logic” was the possession of saints’ bones, man’s capitulation to this moral assault was understandable.  

But as living heirs to the legacy of man’s rational power, living in a time where we hash out debates on a “blogosphere” that leverages quantum mechanics, where preachers fly on machines south of the border that fully exploit the laws of nature, where one nation of 350 million people can almost single-handedly feed the world, where almost all human knowledge can be accessed (and verified) by the power of one word: Google, where the free and unfettered power of man’s rational power has been displayed and lifted man’s quality of life by any and every measure . . .

there is no excuse! 

The outcomes and practices based on the metaphysical presumptions of Augustine, and subsequently Luther and Calvin, ARE what grate on our Age of Reason souls. SGM and the broader Neo-Reformed movement are not the aberrations. In historical context, their “orthodoxy” has persisted for millennia. The content of SGM preaching is an absolute quest to reinstate all of the metaphysical assumptions of the Middle Ages so they can advocate the government structure of the Dark Ages.  

If we let them win, we will get what we deserve. 

“Pay no attention to the doctrine behind the curtain…” 

People pay lip service to the Bondage of the Will, but you will cry out their injustice if they prohibited the smallest personal freedom. People will wail out their great worm-hood in Sunday service, but if they get stepped on in the grand rainstorm of life, their indignity rises to the heavens. People will thump their ESV’s in pious outrage for biblical purity, and then by small logical steps deviate from Dordrecht and Westminster, endlessly smuggle Wesleyan assumptions into Bible interpretation, or flat out hijack Charles Finney’s rebuttals to the Puritan construct when the strictures become too oppressive. But here is the greatest of all dogmatic ironies, the greatest of all Orthodox treasons: The anti-SGM blogging world is really showing their true paternity. They are really children of the Enlightenment. 

It sounds like a churchy theory to advocate Pervasive Depravity and the great sinfulness of man. But at the end of the day, modern American churchgoers are presuming the rational assertions of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and John Locke. All you fine folk objecting to the fundamental disdain for human existence pouring out of SGM by the bucketful are the odd duck in this philosophical soup: You are sons of the Enlightenment and participating in the tail end of the Age of Reason.

• Every time you make an appeal to cognitive identity—when you insist that A is A, and not some other worldly form—you are leveraging the rational mechanics of Aristotle.

• Every time you transcend a precept with a concept—when you use abstract ideas and (not impressions of some special revelation) to form operative principles—you are leveraging the rational mechanics of Aristotle.

• Every time you point out a logical fallacy—when you point out contradictory thinking—you are leveraging the rational mechanics of Aristotle.

While many of you do this habitually—but certainly not all of you—the most important part is every time you presume to leverage the broad tool belt of rational mechanics, you are defaulting to the Aristotelian metaphysics: man’s nature is an implicit effective rational being. It was this presumption that started the hard climb out of the primordial ooze of medieval unreason, barbarism, mysticism, and despotism.  It was this presumption that led to the Enlightenment. It was this presumption that led to John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington and the U.S. constitution.

 But this is not limited to the outworking of civil authority or American social political organization. The philosophical challenge of Platonist Augustinian thought reverberated down the ages in biblical studies. Doctrinal absolutists could not defend the house of card they had presided over. Without absolute force, they could not defend against the power of human understanding as it succeeded in wresting interpretive methodology out of the superstitious hand of Church authoritarians.  

For the first time, men found the freedom to challenge the myths that could only be defended by threat of force. Men like Thomas Hobbes were able to focus their mind on the scriptural conundrums perpetuated by the contradictory claims of church leaders. And this was only the barest beginnings radiating down centuries and growing concentric ripples throughout Christian thought. Debates produced further debates, produced greater research, produced academic hairsplitting, produced academic atom-splitting, and finally, landed in the hand of men like Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was the first to formulate the main hermeneutic task: discovering biblical author intent. Every time you raise the concept of “context” in a Bible argument, you are cashing in on the rational capital of the Enlightenment. 

If you doubt me that “context” is a modern addition to Bible interpretation, take a fast look at say, Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies and tell me how often he successfully argues interpretive conclusions by the force of authorial intent. Try to count how many times he asks the fundamental hermeneutical questions. Then contrast Luther with the substance of say David Bivin, Steven R. Notley, E.P. Sanders, Richard A. Horsley, or even a modern Eerdmans New Testament Survey. Then if you dare to continue the advanced studies, dig into the understanding that has come to light from the scholarship developed from Nag Hammadi and Qumran. 

So here is what this means. Let me give a couple of metaphors. For you accountants, could you do your job without two arithmetic developments, the invention of the concept of zero and double entry bookkeeping? For you rocket scientists, you could not put a man on the moon without Copernicus foundational assertion of the earth revolving around the sun, and the Wright brothers?  

What if there had been a bunch of shamans with the governing force who forbid the invention of zero? What if there had been a bunch of witch doctors who forbid the understanding of the earth revolving around the sun?  

You get the point, right?  

The historic names above don’t mean much to many of you, nor are they specifically important. But the similarity for modern biblical understanding is exactly the same. The evolutions of thought that have been introduced in the last 300 years, the advances of human understanding that have long since exceeded the unreason and superstition of the 16th century are what make many of our contemporary realities possible.  

Not long ago, if a man not consecrated to ecclesiastical authority had ventured to challenge “scriptural meaning,” his temerity would have placed him in danger of the halter, or the rack for his heresy. And if a woman blogger had dared challenge the masculine superiority of the church hierarchy, she may likely have been burned at the stake for her “theological deficiencies.”

This is important: The reason there is REASON in biblical interpretation, the REASON we can even fuss about scriptural “context” and Hermeneutics, the REASON we don’t decide interpretive conclusions by who holds the saints’ bones, is because of the Enlightenment. 

Here is the philosophical farce played out before our eyes. Men try to steal Aristotelian logic to defend Platonist mysticism. Men seek to demagogue Aquinas’s Summa Theologica to defend Augustine’s assertions of epistemological bankruptcy. Men hijack the cognitive products of the Age or Reason to defend the superstitions Of the Dark Ages. So, the next time you hear a bunch of Puritan groupies pounding the pulpit for their interpretive superiority and voicing their snide assurance that everyone ELSE reads Scripture out of “context” based on 15th century interpretive methods, just giggle.  

It is time to “Pay attention to the doctrine behind the curtain…” 

The lens that makes the Sovereign Grace Ministries anecdote come into focus is the doctrine behind the curtain. You are witnessing the logical progression of these doctrines played out in every story, and action from those within leadership and those who sit in the pews. The common thread running through it all is the Calvinist constructs held up as the ONLY Christian ideology.  

But know this, however appalled you are at what you see currently, the sequence is far from fulfilled. This is merely the infancy, and we are already reeling from the stories. To date, all that has happened is enough people have begun to voice their objections. They have gained enough confidence to come out from underneath the indoctrinated fear far enough to start explaining their treatment under the dynamic. But they still want to evade the relationship to underlying doctrines.    

Historically, as these ideas have risen up in fits and starts, America has been mostly immune to their advance. The biggest deterrent is the inability of their advocates to succeed in dominating the public forum. In America, they have never been able to make full inroads to acquiring civil power. These doctrines cannot prevail without force in the face of rational adults unmoved by superstitious threat. To be sure, I submit that Calvin’s specific intent was to create a philosophy that gave moral justification for Protestant Theocratic Autocracy. The logic to this end went like this:  

Human Depravity = Mass Incompetence = Dictated Good.   

Therefore,

Dictatorial Good = TRUTH = God = Authority = Force

 And this leads to the inevitable question: Who are those in charge of beating the barbarian masses into submission to the greater good?  

If man can’t do anything, who then amongst us is qualified to do something? Hence, the rise of the Oligarchy, the First among Equals, the Ubermenschen: a group of men who are, immune—somehow—from the very Mass Incompetence that condemns everyone else’s self-governance. The rationalizations and justifications are many, but the sum is a presumption that they are qualified because, well, they just are.  So if they have an idea, it is just better. If they take an action, it is superior. If they are moral, they are perfectly moral, well, until God grants them grace to perceive their grave sin. And then they are just wretched old sinners like everyone else. Alakazam! Poof! Who are you to judge? You are sinfully suspicious and don’t have the authority to pry into things above your pay grade.  

And now you can understand how Rat Fink Brent D can blog without a blush of inconsistency. Why, of course, he is blogging better and more righteously than those evil armatures in their mommy’s basement. Like a church shaman of old armed with saints’ bones, he stacks up Bible proof text to win the “rational” argument. And how dare you challenge his interruptive conclusions? How double-dog dare you challenge his interpretive methods? 

Now sit down and shut up and maybe he will commend you as a worker of God. While you are waiting, be a good servant and get him some hot cocoa. He’s hurt!  

And now you can understand what is really animating the SGM is pathological defense of their authority. In their mind, TRUTH and authority and governing force are all the same thing. They must defend their authority because a challenge to authority is a challenge to TRUTH. A challenge to TRUTH is an assault on the Bible.  And assault on the Bible is an assault on their justification to govern.   

When governing power is tied to the definition of TRUTH, there is no possible world where another interpretive conclusion can be achieved. That is why Europe was awash with bloodshed for a hundred years after the Reformation. 

Pay no attention to the doctrine behind the curtain…. At your own peril. 



CJ Mahaney’s Metaphysical Magic Mayhem

Wednesday July 13, 2011 • 22 Comments 

CJ Mahaney, El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker of Sovereign Grace Ministries fame, recently released a letter stating that he is stepping away from being the Alpha Big Dog at the top of the “First Among Equals” governing egalitarian hierarchy. It is my current understanding that he wrote this letter to the leaders within his family of churches on July 2nd. He subsequently made a blog post on July 6th for general consumption. There is one difference of consequence between the blog posts and the pastoral letter—blog version: first paragraph, CJ reserves the right to update his blog while he is on self-imposed doghouse vacation.

The gist of the letter/post is easy enough to understand: “People told me I’m a bad, bad sinner. (Whispering: ‘and they said the same thing about other leaders in SGM’) So I am going to put myself in time-out so I can morally navel gaze.”

If one is able to look past the coils of SGM speak slithering around the one-thousand-word document that threatens to squeeze your mind into a spiritual warm fuzzy, if you can remain conscious enough to spot the Harry Houdini level logical sleights of hand, it is rather obvious that CJ doesn’t really think he has done anything wrong. Well, maybe I should say he is willing to concede that he his is a sinner but doesn’t think what he has done is terminally disqualifying. He fully expects to return—appropriately chastened—to his rightful place after he has looked at his belly button for an undisclosed season.

Yeah, we can all see him working double time to say all the right things. Since he is the creator of the SGM sin, confession, and reconciliation mantra, it would be absurd to think he would say anything else. No matter how much he acknowledges some theoretical wrongdoing, he ultimately disagrees with the judgments brought against him. Notice this specific admission in the last part of the third paragraph:

“Even with the charges I disagree with it has been beneficial to examine my soul and ask for the observation of others. And I am resolved to take responsibility for my sin and every way my leadership has been deficient, and this would include making any appropriate confessions, public or private. Most importantly I want to please God during this season of examination and evaluation.”

And notice this in the 7th paragraph:

“I have resolved that I and the Sovereign Grace team can’t effectively lead us into the future without evaluating the past, addressing these deficiencies, improving our structure, and as much as possible pursuing reconciliation with former pastors.”

This means that no matter how much repenting he ultimately does, CJ by fiat, reserves the right to maintain his judgments about former ministries and ministers.

In the grand world of Indwelling Sin where one’s motives and rational understanding is shot through with disqualifying “sinful cravings,” it is a bit puzzling how he gets to even say “I disagree” with the charge of sin; nor do I understand how he can summarily decide the level of reconciliation. The doctrine says one is guilty never to be proved innocent because one is blind to the corrupting power of sin. This is the metaphysical assumption that SGM leaders use as a hammer when dealing with unruly deleterious problem children. All those silly ideas, all that rational confidence, all that personal assurance you think you have, no you don’t. You are a bad, bad sinner and need to shut up and just believe what they tell you is true. When we want your opinion, we will give it to you. We are old enough to be your father after all, so we should be sufficiently patronized for our lofty leadership authority. (BTW, Robin, do you feel patronized yet?)

That is what they would say to a lowly pew-sitter that was called to the carpet by their considered judgment.  By definition, CJ’s self-awareness is flawed, and the proof is his self-assertion, which means he is disqualified to self-disagree. Well, that is if SGM were at all consistent with their sound doctrine and denounce the glaring display of doctrinal egoism within the letter. (MUCH more on this in a minute.)

The content of the letter is not surprising. CJ must pay lip service to the SGM yardstick that defines the “humble” approach to receiving criticisms, accusations, and addressing offense. He does not have a choice but to at least publicly entertain the notion that he could be wrong. Since someone dumped about 500 pages of documentation onto the internet, declaring in excruciating detail the content and conduct of Sovereign Grace Ministries’ governmental “deficiencies,” it is kind of hard to persist in a blazing display of “un-entreatability.” So it is no hair off his head to at least entertain the chance that he might have, potentially inside book-making odds within the existential consideration of all possible worlds, done something bad. Who can argue with the truth established from the ages:

“Oh woe is us! WE are all just sinners in need of God’s Grace? You all just never mind the implications of my sins. I will take care of this myself as I see fit. I have organized everyone who is anyone to make themselves available to make sure this all goes smooth. And I will be back soon to continue my—oops, God’s very important work.”

The bottom line is CJ Mahaney, in his letter of apology(?), is defying everyone to challenge his moral authority to act as he sees fit. His contempt blazes forth between the lines of this letter like the morning sun. He is daring someone to cast the first stone. And if the SGM Wikileaks has shown anything, no one within that organization has the stones (not the ones you throw) to resist his assertion of moral superiority. A curios dare, considering this is a quarry he dug.

It is fun to notice that when the pressure is on, to see how fast El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker’s doctrinal consistency starts to unravel. He let the Schrodinger’s cat out of the quantum mechanics box with his admission to an unofficial sin hierarchy scale.

“These charges are serious and they have been very grieving to read. These charges are not related to any immorality or financial impropriety, but this doesn’t minimize their serious nature, which include various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment, and hypocrisy.

It is an entertaining thought experiment to make all human action sinful and therefore universally disqualifying because it makes God look really big because it makes man look really small. And when Man makes God look really big, we get impressed with our spirituality. But the most important part of this metaphysical cavorting is that preachers get to create a moral and ethical paradox. They get to define the moral yardstick and keep it in a box that no one can peer into, and then when it serves their purpose, they LOOK at the cat to see if it is alive or dead. Oops, I mean look at who is committing a given ethical action and condemn or applaud depending on the day or the Verschränkung.

(That quantum mechanics joke was hilarious.)

But anyway, CJ has walked into his own quantum entanglement. Of course, the nature of the charge minimizes or expands the measure of moral failing. The whole premise of Levitical legal code—that is lex talionis—was to place a proportion on human action, ethical values, and subsequently, civil penalty for failure to live to those standards. It is absurd to suggest otherwise. But if you do suggest otherwise, why make the distinction at all? By definition, CJ is making a comparative statement.

CJ Mahaney’s contempt for people rolls off this two-page document in waves, centering on the Harry Houdini level logical sleights of hand. So, let us keep our eyes on the other hand so we can spot the illusion. Observe and you will see CJ Schrödinger’s thought experiment turned moral disaster.

First thought experiment: “I have been accused of pride and arrogance and hypocrisy, blah blah blah, so I will look in the metaphysical box and determine how bad I am. Gasp! I had no idea, but God has revealed that yes, this is very, very bad.”

Second thought experiment: “I have been accused of sexual immorality and money problems, so I will look in the metaphysical box and determine how bad I am. Oh wait, I didn’t do those things so I’m not that bad, so you just never mind.”

And here is the quantum entanglement. This gives CJ Mahaney the power to treat each ethical lap as a wholly unique metaphysical event that is nonexistent until it is observed. Until the moment of God-revealed awareness, it has no specific bearing on reality. (MUCH, MUCH more on this point in a minute.)

Let us take this out of the realm of thought experiments and place this firmly in reality. If the “offense” was adultery, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality, or embezzlement, would the SGM leadership act in the same way? Would they be circling the wagons and declaring El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker the most humble man EVER? Would Larry Tomczak be “reconciling” with CJ if he’d molested his son? Or would Larry be using his “Apostolic Authority” to cover and defend his son and protect the flock. Oops … OK … well, maybe that is a bad example. But certainly, people who don’t cower away from extortion would be pressing every available force to boot CJ into the doghouse and chain him there. And they certainly would not tolerate letting CJ Mahaney spin this as a self-declared parade of Altruistic Moral Narcissism.

The truth of the matter is if the charges were sex or money-related, everyone would be reacting differently. If CJ had been … uh … ponying up with a pony, his wife would be looking for a divorce attorney that can split up the funds earned from CJ’s speaking circuit. (Hey, he brought up sex, not me! I’m just saying, who knows how far down into debauchery “the greatest sinner he knows” goes?!) And if it were money-related, the police would be knocking on the door.

As for CJ’s self-flagellation over “various expressions of Pride” and “sinful judgment,” yeah, that is a big what-EV-r and beneath his Harry Houdini act. He has much, much better metaphysical and epistemological magic tricks. The bit over pride is SGM Subterfuge 101. They create the yardstick. Tell everyone how to live up to the yardstick. They emulate the standard they created and everyone marvels at their humility and character. SGM manufactured these two nouns—pride and judgment—into the highest spiritual sedition by taking on the adjective “sinful.” Well, maybe I should amend: they are secondary spiritual seditions to “immorality or financial impropriety.” But who is quibbling with the unofficial SGM sin hierarchy scale? It is all bad—very, very bad—even though “various expressions of Pride” is no real crime of any applicable measure and “sinful judgment” is a euphemism for a rational error. We cannot evaluate CJ’s rational error without context, content, and the ability to MEASURE the dynamic between CJ’s government power and the outcomes of that expression of force. El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker sound’s pretty churchy when he starts confessing his frolicking congress with the evil twins—Pride and Judgment—but this is a full-on attempt to parse words and wreck moral clarity. Only a man with the highest contempt for human existence can lead with such a cavalier ethical manipulation. But you just never mind the coils and coils of SGM speak and render the only appropriate response in light of Pervasive Depravity eternity—all together now: “Ooooohhh . . . Ahhhhh . . . CJ is soooo humble.”

So no matter what the glossy brochure says about all sin being a great big fat evil before God, it is apparent that he thinks some sins are not as bad as others. It seems that the Reformed Theology Vicar Charles Joseph Pious I is creeping closer and closer to Catholic doctrine. First, we have the sin hierarchy: venial and mortal sins. Second, we have the cardinals and bishops refusing to confront the Pontifex Maximus.

What is next? Confession to a Priest of the Lord?

Since CJ took a trip into the wild side, living dangerously with that dastardly pair, Pride and Judgment, the priest should really stick it to CJ. Those mortal sins—oops, those leadership “deficiencies” are very, very bad. They are very, very grieving. When Mark Dever and David Powlison step into the confessional, what will be their penance? Rosary beads, 28 Hail Marys, and 31 Our Fathers? I figure they have to keep the appearance of Protestant Papacy to a minimum, so they will probably have to mandate the reading of Sin and Temptation on his knees 3.14159265 times. Or maybe they will limit penance to: “Now, my son, go crack a self-deprecating joke and sin no more.”

But jokes aside, describing a catastrophic failure of judgment as a “deficiency” is such a CJ-ism. Deficiency makes it sound like he forgot to put on a belt with his pants, or maybe forgot to comb his hair, or forgot the mustard for the perfect tasting hotdog. Deficiency is a polite euphemism designed to conceal effective description of his leadership outcomes. Or in SGM speak, it is designed to hide the nature of the fruit. In the real world, a persisting, manifestation of rational judgment over the course of time is called incompetence.

“One more thing. For the past five years or so I have become increasingly aware of certain deficiencies in my leadership that have contributed to deficiencies in Sovereign Grace Ministries’ structure and governance, the lack of a clear and consistent process of conflict resolution and pastoral evaluation, and the number of former Sovereign Grace pastors who are offended with me/SGM.”

I read this section and thought of Napoleon after Waterloo: “Yes, my dear Frenchmen, it seems that after five years I have come to understand that I have certain ”deficiencies” in my leadership.

I marvel that this gets ANY traction with rational, competent, successful men and women. Some of you members of the SGM juggernaut are captains of industry, successful by any measurable method. You are responsible for the decisions that may involve potentially destructive consequences for investment portfolios, or real-estate, or the livelihoods of hundreds of employees. Do you get five years to become “increasingly aware” to recognize that there ARE deficiencies of leadership? We haven’t even gotten to the specifics of the deficiencies or the intended corrections. By SGM math, it would take 15 years to get any given “deficiency” set aright.

What are the minutes of that corporate board of directors meeting?

“After five years I realize that there might be deficiencies in my leadership? Give me another five to figure out exactly what those are and another five to fix the problem.”

“Oh yes, you are very humble to admit that. It is such a privilege to serve with you in this very important endeavor.”

What a hoot!

Once again, free yourself from the quantum entanglement of CJ Schrodinger’s morality play and plant the events in the real world. A business leader would have about five MINUTES to identify the possibility of incompetence. And by close of business THAT DAY, he better have a full grasp of his rational errors. It would be a profound mercy if the “offended” share holders will let him take five MONTHS to correct the “deficiencies.”

What happened to Larry Tomczak is not a deficiency. It is a full-on moral atrocity. Calling it a leadership “deficiency” is a roaring, contemptuous trivialization. It doesn’t matter if Larry is selling out the event and reconciling the last fifteen-ish years (the aftermath) as a mere “offense.” The defining measure of ethics and morality is NOT subjective to the offended party.

And this is the point of the whole illusion—the profound mastery of moral relativism and the contemptuous parade of moral narcissism. So now we will turn our attention to CJ Houdini’s metaphysical and epistemological sleights of hand. If I wore a hat and was motivated toward the same Mystic Despotism ends, I would be doffing my cap in admiration.

In 1996 I made my criticisms of the SGM juggernaut public. (Well, maybe I should say that I made them MORE public. There was no Wiki back then because there was no real web.) One of the first, most scathing denunciations of my efforts to address the “deficiencies” of their leadership was that I was “hiding behind a veil of theological exactness.” Of all the mean things in that letter, this one crossed a line. Actually, I am just kidding about the crossing the line part. (But not the mean things part.) What these words revealed is that after reading my book, the writer did not understand where the lines were drawn. They were woefully misinformed about the lines of logic that run deep underneath the SGM leadership’s claim to authority. My 1996 effort to expose those lines of logic was designed to explain the source and substance of those ideas. Here I am almost fifteen years later taking up the same cause.

“Hiding behind a veil of Theological exactness” are great words that I will relentlessly plagiarize. But in context to me, they are horrifically misapplied. There is a universe of difference between being theologically precise and using the endless coils of Theological ideas to shield and justify real world outcomes. Or said another way, there is a big difference between being logically consistent and using the tools of logic to create a rational castle that shields men from critical review.

In 1996 I was being theologically precise; in addition to being historically precise, in addition to being philosophically precise, in addition to being logically precise.

In every area of human existence, rational competence and logical consistency are ESSENTIAL for man’s success. But somehow when we get to the world of Religion, and specifically Christian Theology, aspiring to the same standard is spiritual sedition. People tend to treat the ideas behind theology like some smorgasbord that they can pick and choose at their leisure accepting or rejecting doctrines to fit their emotional or spiritual feng shui. If this blog has shown anything, it is that this approach to the Arena of Ideas is a disaster.

I have said this—in many forms and variations—ardently and often, what I captured in the Gospel of John Immel Chapter 3 verses 1-3.

1) All people act logically from their assumptions. 2) It does not matter how inconsistent the ideas or insane the rationale, they will act until the logic is fulfilled. 3) Therefore, when you see masses of people taking the same actions, find the assumptions and you will find the cause.

Words mean things. The ideas those words convey create structures by which men seek to live. Those structures are integrated into cohesive philosophical statements. That underlying philosophy becomes the galvanizing system of thought that drives the moral superiority to take action. The action is in service to the assumptions underneath the ideas. It is this dynamic that everyone wants to evade.

Christians have decided that the only valid knowledge comes without work: Unless it is a superior revelation that comes from a supreme authority, man cannot know anything. So we go to men who claim to represent that supreme authority to spoonfeed us ideas. And herein is the problem. This places select men in the position to arbitrate the sum of human knowledge and excuses us from having to take up the cause of our own consciousness.

This is a disaster. We cannot take the pulse of the cause and effect of our ideas and subsequent actions because we have abandoned the very tool that makes judgment possible: our brain. So when challenged with ideas that do not conform to the spoonfed standard, we respond exactly like my “Veil of Theological Exactness” critic.

Here is what my critic was really saying: “John, you think you are really smart and are too big for your britches. You are just making something simple, complicated. So I have no responsibility to understand what you said.” In other words, he morally justified a rational punt because the ideas were beneath his super-spiritual simple-mindedness.

I would be a very rich man if paid money for every time I have heard some variation of this excuse. I hear it a lot because people pretend that simple-mindedness is morally superior, and moral superiority is a potent evasion because it absolves everyone of every thought they don’t want to address. It is much easier to evade the reality of their own making, and it lets them pretend they have transcended the evil, selfish, vain philosopher. Or said another way, it lets them dismiss me.

Here is the reality I am no longer willing to let people evade: it is THEIR rational bankruptcy that lets men like CJ Mahaney maraud his way through metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical disaster. As long as he can keep little Joseph in his pants and his hand out of the till every other “deficiency’ and “sinful judgment” and “hypocrisy” is trivial to some superior simple-mindedness. Since he hasn’t offended the threshold of your moral sensibilities, you marvel that people make it into a big fat dealeo, never once realizing the catastrophic function of his assertions.

Rational vacancy is not a superior moral state, and a man cannot use his faith to change reality until he can DEFINE reality. So here it is: The Mahaneys of the world exist because YOU let them. His current position and the existing failures within SGM have nothing to do with cultic behavior, or bad polity, or a lack of accountability, or a thousand and one other blogosphere criticisms.

Go look in the mirror. The problem is looking you in the face.

The problem is every time you whined about having to THINK to make sure you were fully consistent. The problem is every time you failed to earn your own mind and thoughts by strengthening your logical faculties. The problem is every time you told yourself that you knew everything you would need to know and had no responsibility to challenge the source, content, and outcomes of your ideas. The problem is every time you insisted that you had “authority” to think what you think, and therefore your ideas were unassailable. The problem is every time you resented a counterargument headwind and closed your mind in a fit of “unentreatablity.” The problem is every time you condemned men like me who offered you a depth of insight that was beyond your conceptual ability and dismissed the ideas out of hand because you didn’t happen to like the tone. The problem is every time you rationally punted with a wave of the “I just believe in Christ and him Crucified wand” as if that passage was a license to irrationality.

I will be my usual adorably blunt self and put my finger dead square on the real problem: The current SGM quandary exists because people are rational cowards.

Just so there is no misunderstanding, just so everyone can grasp my goal, just so there is no confusion about motive, it is my intention to wreck the thing that makes it possible for the CJ Mahaneys of the world to rise in power and thrive in despotism. I will grab hold of the raw nerve of the whole debacle and yank and hammer until people have so much psychic pain they cannot sleep or eat. Mystic Despotism has reared its ugly head throughout history, and it only prevailed when good men refused to think.  We are circling back round the assumptions that have always undergird Mystic Despotism and the issue is not confined to the theological bankrupt glory unfolding before our eyes in Sovereign Grace Ministries.

American Christianity is on a disastrous course. The only way to correct its direction is to remove the rich soil that gives men like CJ Mahaney the ability to grow and thrive. That rich soil is the hearts of Men and Women who accept their moral inferiority as the metaphysical starting place and live fearful and resigned to a theoretical inability. To uproot the choking infesting root system, it requires that YOU be conscious and THINK.

To that end, let us strip away all of the coils designed to suffocate us all into a spiritual warm fuzzy. Our goal requires that we remove all the extraneous words and spiritualized sentiments and look at exactly at what was said. This exercise will reduce CJ’s words down their foundational truths and doctrinal assertions. Once completed, we will have successfully pulled back the real veneer overlaying the extraordinary manipulation of theological exactness.

Contrast this:

  • expressions of pride
  • unentreatability
  • deceit
  • sinful judgment,
  • hypocrisy

With this:

  • … perceived a degree of my sin…
  • But I want to perceive
  • Although my experience of conviction
  • . . . more for me to perceive …
  • … gift of sight where
  • … blinded by my sin …

And now we know exactly why CJ is lost. He’s trying to taste his way to conceptual awareness.

Perceptions are the physical apparatus of man’s sensory impute: taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. You perceive cold, hot, red, blue, hunger, loud, cinnamon, grape, and thousands of other sensory input.

Conceptions are the stuff of integrated logic and rational abstraction. Pride, “sinful” judgment, hypocrisy, unentreatablity, deceit are all abstractions based on a specific set of logical assumptions and filtered through metaphysical truths that impact epistemological conclusions.

Consider everything a man must understand to grasp the concept of deceit. Here is the definition:

–noun

1. the act or practice of deceiving; concealment or distortion of the truth for the purpose of misleading; duplicity; fraud; cheating:

2. an act or device intended to deceive; trick; stratagem.

3. the quality of being deceitful; duplicity; falseness.

At a minimum, one must be fully capable to grasp the nature of TRUTH. And then one must be aware of what others understand of TRUTH. And then one must consciously seek to undermine that understanding. There is no need to dissect every level of this abstraction because the absurdity is self-evident to those with the rational development of a twelve-year-old.

CJ speaks of failing to understand abstractions as if he were describing the flavor of a grape. He hears what everyone else calls “grape” and is mystified that it doesn’t taste like “grape” to him. So he says, “OMG! I’m such a wretched old sinner. I need God to impute grace so I can perceive grape-ness.”

CJ’s letter is like a high school senior trying to rip out the pages of his textbooks with his teeth and rubbing them over his eyes to perceive Calculus and the “confessing” to his parents that he sucks at math. Rational parents would be keeping that kid from licking windows and fitting him for a helmet, not discussing his great humility for admitting that he had become aware of his academic “deficiencies.”

CJ is declaring himself to be the philosophical equivalent of an infant gumming an epistemological teething ring trying to make sense of the world through his mouth. Even the two-year-old manages to grasp the concept of “yucky” as mommy teaches that the world is not understood through a river of drool.

And CJ expects you to “swallow” these shenanigans? I tell you, he holds you in utter contempt.

You think I am just parsing words? That I just need to give him the benefit of the doubt and just understand what he is trying to say?

No, I am not: This is not mere semantics. And no, I don’t: We are decades past the benefit of the doubt. His letter is a bold manipulation of the doctrines of Pervasive Depravity and Irresistible Grace. Most people are familiar with the first doctrinal concept, but I suspect not so much for the second. To summarize, Irresistible Grace says that no matter how much of your depraved part sins, no matter how much you act like a heathen, acting unworthy of your calling, and walking apart from your election, those whom God calls cannot resist his Grace because God would not allow such a precious gift to be squandered. The fact that you can “perceive” any good is the seal of your authentic election. So now you can see how CJ is parsing the doctrines for the broadest personal benefit and within sentences defying the logical conclusions of his own appeal.

Furthermore, during the early 1990s, during the SGM “Doctrinal Refocus” (which was a euphemism for Reformed Theology Force-Feeding), the men at the top of the leadership food chain thumped the pulpit and then their chest for their effort to dig into the deep things of theology. They wrote endless articles and preached endless sermons denouncing the lack of theological precision and general rational vacancy within American Christianity. They were very pleased to tell EVERYONE that they were “not like other churches.”  They patted themselves on the head for saying “We don’t want to be like the ‘gift rich’ but doctrinally-deficient Corinthian Church.”  They wore their lofty self-educatedness like a badge of qualification. And then they beat everybody around the spiritual head with submission and authority to demand obedience to their self-educatedness. CJ built a monument to his theological precision—ostensibly a seminary level library in his office. So now he can’t have it both ways. CJ cannot make an appeal to his qualification to lead by the virtue of the size of his library and his “greater measure” on the one hand and then pretend that he can use any old word to describe any old idea, because he is just a simple man preaching simple truths—kum-buy-yah, kum-buy-yah.

And—somehow—I become the big meaner when pointing out that CJ does not have any clothes? Or sense? Or rationality?

As one of my professors was very fond of saying, “Rubbish!”

I told you I was standing in the quarry he dug. I’m not even throwing rocks. I’m merely pointing out that the rocks he has thrown for years to intimidate the uninitiated are really ping pong balls that no one has had the courage to return.

But now we do have to turn our attention to the rocks. Now we have to focus on the bedrock of CJ Houdini’s all star Metaphysical Magic Mayhem that leaps off the page in the 3rd, 7th paragraph.

I believe I have by the grace of God perceived a degree of my sin, and I have been grieved by my sin and its effects on others. . . . .  But I want to perceive and confess any and all sin I have committed.  Although my experience of conviction has already started—and this is an evidence of God’s mercy—I’m sure there is more for me to perceive and acknowledge.   . . . it has been beneficial to examine my soul and ask for the observation of others.

. . .

Please pray that God would give me the gift of sight where I have been blinded by my sin and others have been adversely affected by my sin. Pray that I will be convicted and experience godly sorrow resulting in reconciliation where necessary and adjustments to my heart and leadership.

Let us once again extract the important parts from the coils choking our minds.

“I believe I have by the grace of God perceived a degree of my sin…”

“Although my experience of conviction has already started—and this is an evidence of God’s mercy—I’m sure there is more for me to perceive and acknowledge.   . . .”

Sounds churchy, doesn’t it?  And because it sounds like something a humble preacher should say, the reality of the words sail right over our heads. But these words are the core of this whole letter.  These sentences are profound epistemological declarations and the key to understanding how SGM leadership has gotten to this point in their history.

Epistemology is the science of determining HOW we know what we know so that we can define WHAT we know. Without understanding the answers to these two questions, man cannot live. It is that simple.

For almost the whole of human history, the conclusion to these two questions—the conclusion that crawled out of the primordial ooze of man’s superstitious mind and landed in the mouth of the local soothsayer, and was explained by every generation of mystic until it was codified by a man called Hammurabi and was eventually integrated into a full philosophical statement by a man called Plato, and was then fully syncretized into Christianity by a man named Augustine—was there is no HOW because Man cannot know anything unless the gods tell him. And WHAT he understands from the gods’ instruction is limited by the corruption of man’s nature.

The inevitable conclusion of this worldview is that select men are given a dispensation from the inability to “perceive” TRUTH from the gods. Those with the dispensation are then morally superior and therefore empowered to compel those “under” them to act in accord with the edicts. Once man accepts this premise, the only conversation left for humanity to have is how much force (that is authority) do those morally superior men have to compel compliance?

And now many, many generations later, CJ Mahaney is saying the exact same thing. CJ is summarizing the HOW and WHAT of his knowledge using the ancient assertions of mystic despotism. He is appealing to the most ancient of all worldviews and explaining his actions by tossing himself in to the mosh pit of the most destructive metaphysical and epistemological assumptions this world has ever seen. He is specifically telling us he is not responsible for his rational capacity. He is admitting to having abandoned every pretense of conscious responsibility. The HOW of his epistemology is that he doesn’t know ANYTHING. WHAT God tells him may be perfect, but he is flawed and therefore needs supernatural help to “perceive” what his sinful nature corrupts blinds. Whatever repentance or change of mind CJ Mahaney is undergoing to “perceive his sins” has nothing to do with an objective standard of ethical behavior, or evidence presented that led to rational correction, or the logical capacity to evaluate the cause and effect of actions, or a mastery of abstractions to achieve conceptual understanding.

No. No. No.

CJ is telling us that he is blind, deaf, and dumb unless God gives him mercy. This lip service to Irresistible Grace is an overt effort to say that a correction of rational judgment is not really “rational” at all, but rather the imputation of divine revelation. The fact that he can see ANY ethical or moral failing is the PROOF of God’s specific involvement and therefore evidence of his authentic Christian calling. So his epistemology (the science of HOW and WHAT he KNOWS) is “God gave me the gift of sight.” And his ethics are summed up by saying “I don’t know how to act unless I get a specific gift from God that I can put in my mouth and chew on.”

Are you kidding?

Can you imagine the Reformed Theology groupies hue and cry if this were Todd Bentley or Kenneth Copeland saying they can’t get their moral act together unless God (turn up the reverb) gives them a “revelation” on how to act?

But beyond the silliness, notice how much power this gives a man. You confront him with an objective outcome and he can blithely say that he does not have a “conviction” or a “witness” or a “gift of sight” to see what you see.  So he is free to measure the “objective” outcome by the whims of his epistemological teething ring. So for instance, unless he gets the same revelation of grape-ness that you have, he can persist in any action without any responsibility to outcome. And this is why this body of doctrine obsesses on authority. The only way to tell whose taste buds are authentic is the man with the most force to compel epistemological compliance. He gets to shove his teething ring in everyone else’s mouth to “perceive” what he “perceives” until the world is flooded with drool. So as long as HIS revelation of grape-ness is affirmed by his authority, how can he correct his actions? He cannot correct his actions because he “perceives” no need to correct his action. His authority is granted by the gods. And who are you to challenge his dispensation to understand TRUTH?  So if he does not change his mind, it is PROOF of God’s imputation of Grace. And if he ever does “perceive” himself guilty of ANY ethical or moral failing is the PROOF of God’s specific involvement and therefore evidence of his authentic Christian calling.

And this is SGM leadership in all their metaphysical glory.

Each person-to-person interaction is a wholly unique event that is measured up against … nothing … but the ability to “perceive” as God grants grace.  This is the metaphysical equivalent of a newborn baby who cannot distinguish between mommy being gone and mommy being under a blanket. The baby does not conceptualize the blanket, only that mommy’s face is present and mommy’s face is gone. Likewise, CJ does not conceptualize the broader pattern of his edicts and declarations. He can see no system dynamics between the metaphysical given of his own epistemological vacancy and the subsequent outcomes of his leadership deficiencies. By definition, he only sees what God specifically “gifts” him to see.

So he at once has no rational responsibility to ANY consistency or logic AND is excused for his prevailing failures because of his blinding sin. Alakazam! Poof! He is free to create a world of his own detached whim and his errors are mere “sinful judgments” and leadership “deficiencies.” And since we are ALL just sinners in need of Grace, who can fuss with that?

With such a metaphysical and epistemological worldview, is it any wonder that HIS moral and ethical judgment is all over the map? Is it a wonder that there is no rhyme or reason to SGM pastoral council? Is it any mystery why CJ suddenly must at least acknowledge “. . . the lack of a clear and consistent process of conflict resolution and pastoral evaluation . . .”?

I cracked my Schrodinger’s cat joke above because as a metaphor, it captures this very dynamic. In the quantum thought experiment, the cat is either alive or dead at the moment of observation. This experiment was used to explain how it was possible that quantum particles could exist in two simultaneous states—wave and particle—and yet when observed, they could become one or the other but not both. In any given moment, that cat was alive or dead within the box: the only way to know is to “perceive.” Hence, the similarity to quantum particles.

About half of you dear readers are sorely tempted to let your brain go tilt and give me the “You just think you are really smart and I just preach Christ and him Crucified,” speech. You want to read me the riot act for not arguing Scripture; tell me I’m too big for my britches and brush this off as me being too clever by half.

My britches fit just right, and this is not too clever by half!

I told you it was Harry Houdini level sleights of hand. This is masterful in its presentation and execution, but it relies on your unwillingness to watch both hands and remain conscious of the very foundational level ideas. Just as quantum mechanics is the foundation of our physical existence, metaphysics and epistemology are the foundations of our rational/spiritual existence. This brazen manipulating is how SGM has been so successful at romping through people’s lives. This is how SGM can hold Scriptures in two simultaneous states: absolute and bendable. They put the Bible in the Schrodinger box and do a thought experiment with every interaction. Is the Bible absolute or bendable? Who can tell until they “perceive”?  And here is the scandal.  They don’t let anyone else look in the box. We don’t all get to look at the cat and see if it is dead and check their quantum math. There is no math to check. There is no algebra. There is no objective standard. There is only their imputation of Grace to determine, in every discreet moment, what God is saying and doing. They emerge from the “observation” and declare the conclusion.

And this is EXACTLY what CJ did in this letter.

And this is EXACTLY what frees CJ to be utterly inconsistent with his evaluation of his own judgment. Notice in 2008, CJ wrote an article about Bill Belichick decrying his lack of humility in the face of adversity. How did CJ arrive at this conclusion?  Simple, Bill left the field before time on the clock ran out. I addressed the full absurdity in this article. But now I want you to read how CJ justified his judgment. (Full article)

“. . . I am the worst sinner I know. For am I most familiar with the countless sins I have committed against God,  . . . Though it doesn’t appear Bill Belichick is a humble man, I know I am not a humble man.

I am a proud man who is pursuing humility only by the grace of God. . . .

So today after examining my heart for any trace of self-righteousness, any hint of moral superiority in my soul, I have prayed that God would . . .

So how does a man go from being the worst sinner he knows to the egoistic assurance of “So today after examining my heart for any trace of self-righteousness, any hint of moral superiority in my soul, I have prayed that God would blah blah blah ….”?

ONE DAY! Not five years to arrive at the conclusion that he MIGHT have leadership deficiencies. Within ONE DAY he can fully and effectively declare himself free of self-righteous moral superiority and then subsequently manufacture a doctrine that eternally condemns a man for leaving a football field before the end of a game.

Really?

Here we are a few years later and he wants to pretend that he cannot successfully master his own rational appointment within half a decade?

Really?

You all are buying this?

Since CJ brought up reconciling with Larry T. we need to revisit what they said of the Apostle of Covering back when they booted him to the curb. I will summarize that letter as follows:

The [then] PDI Leadership team and the three men of the local Atlanta Church [where Larry was currently stationed] would not agree with “. . . Larry’s assessment of himself. . .” because “. . . for a man simply cannot trust his own assessment of himself or determine unilaterally when he returns to ministry once he has been disqualified.”

For those of you who still have the letters that deal with the “offense” of Larry Tomczak’s removal from his job. Notice how the doctrine of Pervasive Depravity is used to absolutely steal the power of volitional judgment from Larry T.

Who is acting unilaterally now? How did CJ get a dispensation from implications of Pervasive Depravity? Where are the “leadership team” letters decrying CJ’s ethical egoism with the same zeal as they went after Larry?

Hmm?  Anyone?

In light of Pervasive Depravity eternity, how does CJ feel qualified to orchestrate the terms of his own exile? For someone who is supposed to be reviewing his ”deficiencies” and hypocrisy and all the self-flagellating rest, for a man who admits that he has no means to know anything but what God puts in him, he is profoundly self-appointed. In a 1,000-word document, the “Greatest Sinner he knows,” uses the word “I” almost 50 times. How can he be trusted to choose who will help him find the solutions? How can he “take responsibility”? By doctrinal definition, he does not have the ability to be responsible for his conduct. By self-admission, he is claiming to struggle with the most rudimentary level of human cognitive development. So if CJ picked the course of action, it should be immediately disqualified in his manmade efforts toward a solution to the “deficiencies.”

Of course, this begs the conclusion whether there should BE a solution to the “deficiencies.” Who is to say that God isn’t appointing CJ Mahaney to wander in the abyss of his epistemological “deficiencies”? Since authentic Bible doctrine and sound doctrine purity must be defended at all cost, it is worth considering. Human lives are at the utter disposal of all pure, righteous Bible absolute TRUTH. So I’m just saying . . .. CJ admits that the nature of the grace and mercy granted him so far is partial, which means that God is choosing to withhold the full truth from his delicate, fragile, sin-filled psyche. So by definition He [God] is Sovereignly appointing the circumstance. Indeed God has, to date, withheld the grace that makes this deficiency-ridden, sinful judgment, Pride-filled, hypocritical state of CJ’s leadership possible. God has refused to grant the “gift of sight” for five years. So why do we automatically presume that God does not want it to persist for another decade?

Why would God do that?

Who are you, oh man, to even ask such a question?

It is God’s sovereign choice to raise up vessels of Grace and destroy vessels of destruction. If He chooses to allow CJ Mahaney to trot off the deep end, how is that any of your concern?

You cannot rationally object to God’s sovereign action. Since you have subordinated your mind to authority, you have no choice but to go along for the ride into perdition. You can, at no point, revert to YOUR judgments because you are also in need of Grace to “perceive” the error of your ways.  And what you do “perceive” must be validated through the authority. So suck it up and stay in your pew; shut your mouth and let God do as he sees fit because whatever bad thing CJ does, God intended it for your life.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Did that finally get real enough for some of you? Is any of this penetrating the stupor of your mind?  Are any of you quaking in your boots at the logical conclusions? This Houdini level Metaphysical and Epistemological illusionist show is exactly what has empowered CJ Mahaney to romp through the lives of people unchecked, treat everyone else as a distant theological abstraction, all the while making pretense at seizing the highest moral and spiritual standard. Once he can make an unchallenged claim to moral authority, he gets to define for EVERYONE what grape-ness tastes like and you can stick it in your ear if you don’t happen to like the dog squeeze he force-feeds you in the name of biblical absolutes.

Do you “perceive” how this liberates a man to act with impunity?

This might be marginally understandable if it were accidental. We might be able to grant some space to a man struggling to master the elements of his existence and taking responsibility for his own consciousness. But that is not what has happened with CJ.

He is at once blaming his moral failing on God and confirming his Christian authenticity by the PROOF of the small measure of his repentance to date. So he affirms his authority by appealing to Pervasive Depravity and absolves his authority outcomes by the doctrine of Irresistible Grace. He is at no point disqualified.

This whole magic show is a despicable display of rational larceny. And it is rational larceny because it is obvious that he does not believe for a minute that he is ineligible in any applicable sense. He is now fully on record for cherry-picking his qualification and abandoning his rational culpability when it serves his purpose.

I told you from the outset that he holds us all in contempt. No matter what the glossy brochure says, no matter how often he smiles and self-deprecates and is his generally witty winsome self, this man fully believes he is morally superior by any and every measure. The morality play unfolding before our eyes is a further brilliant move, a well orchestrated final act in an endless campaign to make himself unassailable in the acquisition of moral superiority. The men around him are utterly cowed by his moral authority. They have demonstrated no capacity or even the slightest desire to check or balance his conducts, actions, or doctrines. They let him rewrite the meaning and outcomes with impunity. And as a governing body, they are universally “unentreatable” unless it serves their purpose.

So this only has one outcome.

At the moment the leadership team has had their confidence shaken so they too are saying all the right things, in all the right places for all the same reasons. This will give local churches who have been chaffing under the pain of having to subordinate to the Big Dogs the moral clarity to defect from SGM central planning.They will suffer the usual criticism of those who dare leave the SGM fold. But then it will pass. The leadership will have sufficiently watched their bellybutton to affirm in their own mind they are still qualified to govern.

El Primo Doctrinal mover and Shaker will head into self-appointed exile and navel-gaze till his heart is content. The board will investigate. The men of correction will enter the stage on cue, offer their correction as if CJ is a five-year-old that needs swatted with a spoon. He will be told to respond “right away, all the way, and cheerfully.”  He will cry great big alligator tears in public, an event that is hardly unique. A season will pass—season = until he gets tired of the dog house—and he will then unilaterally return, appropriately chastened, appropriately repentant, appropriately confessed.

For the first few board meetings, CJ will nod in all the right places as if the words he hears others say are new and fresh and important. He will defer and conciliate. Everyone will extol: “See, it works! The redemption is real! The process of restorations is a miracle of Grace!” They will write books and sing songs and dance their hold over charismatic two-step in the aisles. All the sins have been washed away. Repent of unforgiveness. Move past your emotional offense. You too must confess your faults and make your Pastors work a Joy. Woe is us, we are all just sinners.

And then, one day, behind the scenes, the e-mail chain will start again, and to those who lived the nightmare the first time will “perceive.” The illusionist never left and now CJ is unassailable.

SGM, welcome to CJ Mahaney’s Metaphysical Magic Mayhem.



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