To which I replied, “You are correct. You do. And I told you so.”

While Bartholomew’s name is fiction, this snippet of conversation occurred in the fall of 2001 in a church parking lot. The broader subject was the institutional mistreatment of a local church organization. The context spanned months of interpersonal antagonism between him and me. 

My second Kinko’s-published edition of had been circulating Montgomery County Maryland for some time. This individual had read a copy though he didn’t get it from me; I was later to learn it was a copy of a copy of a copy given by a pastor I’d never met. The evidence for the book’s truth had been stacking up for years. The human outcomes were toddled through Montgomery County, Maryland churches like an epidemic of Canadian Geese: Even if one could not see the birds, it was impossible to miss if anyone would actually look at the droppings everywhere.… Read the rest

“Run, run as fast as you can! You can’t catch me! I’m the Gingerbread Man!” Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there were two bloggers taking on abuses in twenty-first century American Christianity. Rumpelstiltskin was clever, adorably blunt and talked about Metaphysics and Epistemology. The Gingerbread Man was sweet and cuddly, serving milk and cookies to his readers while grumbling about blogging for the greater good. Rumpelstiltskin talked about Ethical and Political theory. The Gingerbread Man gave people a safe place to tell their stories of being under the thumb of giants up the SGM beanstalk chanting, “Fee-fi-fo-fum! We smell the blood of an Arminian.” Rumpelstiltskin combated the roots of the Giants’ power and the absurdity of reform. The Gingerbread Man railed against the “unbiblical” nature of Sovereign Grace Ministries’ polity. 

For many days Rumpelstiltskin’s blog was listed on the Gingerbread Man’s blog.  And then one day, it was not.… Read the rest

(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.… Read the rest

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 timeout 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.… Read the rest

Somehow I ended up on a Frank Viola e-mailing list. Someone was very kind to add me. I suspect that the motive was either counterargument by proxy or they assumed that I would agree with what Mr. Viola is teaching. Whatever the reason and whoever put me there, thanks. I now have more fodder for my Spiritual Tyranny grist mill. Of course, I know some of you are Frank Viola fans, so this could get interesting. My fans are most affirming and vocal when I’m taking on the Sovereign Grace Ministries phenomena. I’ve said repeatedly that they are not my obsession, only a stepping off point. Anyone making a bid towards Spiritual Tyranny is fair game. To that end, let the frolic begin.

It must have been a divine appointment that I actually read the e-mail. As a rule, I delete what looks like spam. But I happened to notice that Frank weighed in on the Harold Camping End of the World deal.… Read the rest

Unless the rapture only included about four people, I’m going to assume that it didn’t happen. I know, I know, some of you are shocked. Your calculator said the same thing that Harold Camping’s calculator did. I could crack a blonde joke, but that might get me in trouble. We can just all agree that math is hard.

What have we learned?

Well, if history is any measure … probably not much. I remember the first time (within my lifetime) that this whole Jesus is coming back in 5 minutes and 31 seconds occurred. Then the book was called 88 Reasons Why Jesus is coming Back in 1988 and lots of people were all in a dither about Jesus knocking on the Rapture door. The dithering was not limited to the Christian superzealous fringe as I had the opportunity to learn.

I made the unfortunate miscalculation of laughing riotously when my good friend’s mother offered the book up for discussion.… Read the rest

Read on or Click Here for Audio Mp3  of this Namaste Nemesis Article(48 Min)

“Namaste, I kill you,” says Yogi Maha Gumby.

Hmmm… that does not have the same ominous ring as Achmed the Dead Terrorist’s “I keeelll you!”

Somehow yoga is on the Theological watch list of Albert Mohler. It seems that the bending and breathing of the far eastern practice is subverting Christian doctrinal purity. Reports that went far and wide attributed Albert with saying that you can’t practice yoga and be a Christian. Since I’m no a fan of media outlets–particularly the Associated Repress when it comes to covering Christians–I decided to look it up myself on his blog: www.albertmohler.com. And, yup, it’s true. Al Mohler is anti-yoga.

Albert Mohler opens his article on Monday, September 20, 2010, with this:

When Christians practice yoga, they must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga.

… Read the rest

(Mp3 Audio) 58 mb 50 min audio

I feel my temperature rising
Higher and higher

It’s burning through my soul
Abdul, Abdul, Abdul
Gonna set the book on fire

My brain is flaming
Don’t know which way to go
Lord have mercy

What would Jesus do?

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love
Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love

A recent release on Elvis Gospel Greats released by Infi Del Records.

Uh…

Er…

Ehem…

Qur’an burning…

The Muslim world heard about this issue half a planet away, so  it is a fair expectation that few people haven’t heard that Terry Jones, a preacher in Gainesville, Florida was going to burn Islam’s bible on 9/11.  The common summary of the story is: Preacher says Islam is of the devil: crazy preacher is gonna burn the Islamic Holy book.  Mass criticism flooded the ether from all quarters seeking, begging, cajoling Terry Jones to stand down.… Read the rest

I dares ya ta’ step across this line.

- Bugs Bunny

Click here for audio

I had thought to let this series of posts go, (June 12th, 12:20 a.m. to June 13th, 2:43 p.m.) on Women and Children First, offered by self-identified Mike Doherty. My reasons were equally divided across a few thoughts. First, I am working on another article tentatively called “Crisis Management” and didn’t want to get distracted from research. Second, in my mind, Mike Doherty’s words speak for themselves, and I expect that the savvy Spiritual Tyranny readership sees the implicit failure in Mike’s demand. Third, I have addressed many of the stock defenses of tyranny over and over and over and over and over and over. Fourth, I anticipated this was just another drive-by blogging; people say their piece and move on. However, Mike did return for a couple more shots at me, my character, my lack of deference to him, some foreboding proclamations about biblical authority, and a general: “What are you talking about?”

One must wonder if orthodoxy forbids classes on reading comprehension, because detractors seem not to grasp my specific criticisms in context to the atrocity of rape, and my unrelenting critique of the doctrine of apostolic covering being taught to American Christianity:  its catastrophic failure to deliver on its self-declared social contract.… Read the rest

Click here for the audio

This article is a continuation of a conversation on Family Member Tomczak Responds.  What follows is my unrelenting determination to hammer this point down with nails.

Some have attributed my tirade to fury… that notwithstanding… the thing I am specifically critiquing is the fraud in the whole apostolic submission and authority doctrine and the sub-theme called “covering” that is being trotted through the United States.

There is a general cry emerging in American Piety: our leaders abuse us.  Any number of outlets have emerged, voicing a litany of abuse, perpetrated by leaders of many doctrinal persuasions and flavors of Christianity.  Some Churches under discussion are national ministries, others are local mega churches, some are mid-size interconnected community outreaches, and some still are small town gatherings.  While the problem might not be in every location and in every denomination, the theme of leaders leveraging bible ideas to exploit and dictate their congregations has come to the forefront.  The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse and other resources addressing the same issue are becoming staples in Christian reading lists.  Believers feel the need to doctrinally arm themselves against their leadership.  As a trend in American Piety, this is a bad, bad sign.  My goal is to illustrate the theme is no accident; it is the logical outcome driven by specific ideas.… Read the rest

Here are the two comments in order of post:

To whoever writes these articles… I am a member of Larry Tomczak’s family and we left a long time ago from SGM. We were the pioneers of leaving SGM. Please post something that is correct. No offense but it makes me sad that you have to post things that are not any longer true. I would also like you to respect everyone even if they are wrong.

… Read the rest

*********

Be arrogant if you must. Be ignorant if you must. But don’t be arrogant and ignorant. This is a John Immel original aphorism. I accept royalties.

In some Christian circles, the accusation of arrogance is worse than the charge of misogyny in a National Organization of Women Conference. This stems from the fact that in these circles, Pride and Arrogance tend to be synonymous, and Pride becomes a catch-all spiritual failing: tossed within an utterly erroneous notion that humility is manifest in self-deprecation, self-doubt, and self-destruction. Whatever… This all ends up being “Method and Manner” fraud.

Arrogance is nothing more than the assumption of superiority and anyone who has worked to achieve any level of expertise or mastery, by definition, has earned that assumption.… Read the rest

I”m sitting in my living room hanging out with friends, cracking jokes, talking about ideas, barbequing tyrants, on occasion sharing struggles, pains and turmoils about life’s pressures and experiences.

Some newcomers join the conversation adding their 38 cents worth. They don’t agree. They say so. No biggie. This is the Arena of Ideas where it is more rough-and-tumble than other living rooms. Someone might hand me my ass in my living room, but hey, I’m a big boy, I can handle that. They are still welcome.

The other people with me understand this living room is a bit different, because I have said so, and they seemed to listen when I said so. We talk about cause and effect. We talk about why and wherefore. We advocate reason, and the tools of thought, and how spirituality fits into that dynamic; and we set out to know Truth. We try on ideas like some people try on clothes: abandon the bad and keep looking for the good.… Read the rest

The only charge absent in the list is that I might not like kitties, puppies, and refuse to kiss little babies. That would make moi really mean, wouldn’t it?

So what is the logic here? There are two assumptions in this logic.

1.  Blunt, harsh, direct, passionate, satirical commentary can only have a malignant source.

2.  Passionate, unequivocal, emotional, moving, cajoling, raving observations canNOT be accurate observations.

As my Church History Professor, Dr. Shelton, was fond of saying: “Rubbish!”  This is the Ad Hominem argument rehashed and garnished with some psychological claptrapery, but it is still the same non-argument…uh…argument.… Read the rest

This blog apostle gig is exhausting. I have to talk endlessly about Submission and Authority. I have to figure out how to justify an apostolic authority without an apostolic succession since I’m not Catholic.

And I have to protect all those people with my apostolic authority.

Oh, wait…I can’t say that. Because when it comes time to actually cover someone, where am I?

….

…..

….

You know…screw it…I think I have been too subtle. Let’s try blunt. It turns out that I can’t get my Funny Bone re-attached on this one.

Let’s try ranting, raving flamingly, in your face unapologetic.  Noel told her story on www.sgmsurvivors.com about her three-year-old daughter being molested by a 15-year-old boy in a Sovereign Grace Ministries church, and the ensuing pastoral counseling ordeal that spans YEARS. The boy lies to the pastors about his actions and his evil. The pastors, in a stroke of utter insanity,  play spiritual patty cake with the boy and villainize the parents.… Read the rest