Moral Seduction

Sunday November 8, 2009 • 1 Comment 

By John Immel (Click here for MP3 audio)

The original publication of Moral Seduction was my first effort to show how the seeds of tyranny are sown with precise ideas beyond the narrow confines of church and Christianity.

My first months of blogging stardom were spent highlighting tyranny’s philosophical elements as displayed in the Charismatic Reformed denomination called Sovereign Grace Ministries. My familiarity with their doctrine and practices made it an effective stepping off point. Plus, other voices needed to rise up to join the existing blog commentary concerning their blight on the vineyard. I was happy to take up in 2007 where I left off in 1998 before the blogging world took notice.

People tend to think that this blog revolves around the very narrow criticism of Sovereign Grace Ministries. This is understandable but not true. No matter how much I enjoy poking those specific intellectual and spiritual thugs in the eye, they are hardly the bulk of my concern.

In the ongoing effort to unearth the correlation between the foundational IDEAS, and the tyranny they breed, Spiritualtyranny.com has been branded into the minds of many as just another anti-SGM site. Well, it is, but only in as much as the “leadership” perpetrate spiritual thuggishness on individuals. But in the broader sense, they are but anecdote to the cause and effect of how historic ideas always progress to specific ends.

SGM is a very, very, small player in the trend towards indoctrinating American Piety into the European collectivist tyranny that dominated that continent for the better part of 1800 years. I know of other movements, with other acronyms in American Piety advocating many of the same concepts, perpetrating the same fundamental oppression of individuals in the name of God and the greater good. I just haven’t talked about them… yet. But whatever, tyranny is tyranny, no matter who advocates the governmental outcome.

My goal for the original Moral Seduction had mixed success. People sort of caught on to the “they who shall not be named,” riff understanding that I was deliberately NOT speaking the SGM name, but didn’t quite get why a speech at Notre Dame by the President of the United States had anything to do with a Reformed Charismatic bunch out of Gaithersburg Maryland specifically, or the Spiritual Tyranny theme in general. And most importantly, people really didn’t get the specific seduction I was trying to highlight.

This might be a shocker to some, but SGM leadership is in fact a victim of the very seduction this article discusses. Way back when, they were charmed down this path like so many well meaning semi-intellectuals looking for a cohesive “Biblical” world view.

SGM is filled with what I call Unfocused Passive Minded Pseudo Thinkers; people who are aware of their ideas… sort of… but choose a hazy, foggy, indistinct intellectual existence. Their intellectual opinions revolve around an appeal to authority. Their arguments are stock variations of: “Well, umpty ump master thinker said this … and I agree with them.”

They are offended by any challenge of their ideas because they claim solidarity with “authority” and how dare you challenge authority. They have long since decided they have done enough work to know what they know. New information is irrelevant at best and intellectually seditious at worst. When discussion threatens their entitlement to stagnation, they refute with this intellectual gem: “I’m old enough to be your father, Sonny. I’ve been studying these ideas for 150 years, up hill, in the snow, crawling on my knees.”

Unfocused Passive Minded Pseudo Thinkers are profoundly easy to influence with the right social and emotional levers. Because of their implicit passivity and intellectual obstinacy, these people tend to be at the forefront of most tyrannical social, political, and religious movements.

So it is no surprise that SGM trotted down the heady path of Historical solidarity, pursuing the mythological creature called Orthodoxy. They were looking for the ultimate: “Well, umpty ump master thinker said this…and aren’t we cool for agreeing with them.”

Oh, they tried small measures of independent thinking in the beginning, flirting with rejecting elements of the seduction. But by millimeters, one assumption led them to another and another and another, until now they are perpetrating, with striking consistency, the ideas and oppression of historical Mystic Despots.

Whatever they were before now they are sold out to the ideals. And since none of the primary players within SGM do anything by half, they have appointed themselves pipers playing for the church masses, merrily dancing down this path. As you will read/hear the ideological intellectual power undergirding the doctrines of tyranny is formidable. These are time tested tyrannies, with the bulk of human thinking focused on their defense.

Conversely, the names of those who have resisted the ideas can be numbered with fingers and toes: many names that stand out in history are famous for dying in defense of liberty. Most people do not have the intellectual or spiritual fortitude to muster such effort, and if they faint from the thought of pain… fugeddaboutit.

While that makes Sovereign Grace Ministries’ acceptance of the ideas understandable, that at no point absolves them of their unwillingness to apply critical review to the historic “fruit” of the doctrine. Contrary to the “we’re all just sinners,” moral relativism lofted as absolution to any governmental wrong committed, Universal Guilt and Mass Incompetence are not excuses for recalcitrant blindness.

The historic fruit has been displayed for all to see, but no one has the nerve to say out loud that the Emperor wears no clothes and carries a guillotine to cut the head off anyone who thinks the thought. Which, interestingly enough, is how SGM metaphorically acts when confronted with objections to their governing authority.

They make dissent with them a moral sedition.

And notice the emerging characteristic of America’s political climate: Private Citizens are being targeted by governmental organizations for expressing dissent. And the governmental justification for targeting private citizens is a moral argument. Pay attention folks, this similarity, is no accident.

The first publication of Moral Seduction was an effort to illustrate the tyrannical phenomena, driven by a specific seduction of “moral” ideas. Unfortunately, I was too oblique by half and people really didn’t get what I was trying to say specifically, nor did I do a good job of connecting the dots. After re-reading, and re-thinking, I knew I needed to do my job better. It is my job to make sure people GET what is being said. You never have to agree but I need to be clear and creative so that the great readership of www.Spiritualtyranny.com can fully grasp what I am saying, and why I am saying it.

Furthermore, the political climate in the US has taken fuller shape over the last few months. I suspect that my prescient warnings mere weeks after the election seemed out of place at best, but I am confident that the nature of tyrannical collectivism is becoming increasingly more obvious. Moral seduction is being perpetrated on the American public. All the same arguments, with all the same moral assumptions are pressing individuals down the very path I set out to highlight. It is an ominous time in American history. We are duplicating the very philosophical and intellectual foundations of the 1930’s Weimar Republic, and the 1920’s Czarist Russia. Barack Obama is a collectivist of the historic stripe. He is executing the Marx, Tse Tung, Alinsky play book from front to back. Tyranny, is tyranny, is tyranny. It is a well-trod path.

American Intelligentsia and many Christian denominational leaders are working toward the same collectivist ends. Some of this working is done unwittingly—at least for now. For reasons to be discussed, Christians tend to think they hear bible style charity in the governmental proclamations of collectivism. They tend to think they hear bible doctrines in the collectivist moral denunciations and advocacies: anti-greed, anti- avarice, pro-depravity and pro-sacrifice. As a result, many will dance down this path almost giddy as the pipers continue to play the gay melodies of tyranny and despotism. And for those people who will not dance, the force of moral condemnation will be used as a spiritual battering ram to compel their minds and hearts into docility. This road has been paved with the good intentions of endless tyrants.

The pavement has been laid to the paths of old to speed the masses passed their natural resistance to assimilation. The methods work because people get caught unequipped to respond or resist to the seductive progression and then one day they look around from the cocoon to see the spider ready to feast and wonder: “How in the world did I get here?”

I am going to tell you how you get there.

Since I can never just leave well enough alone: since blogging is a license to shout Mulligan to my writerly heart’s content: since the first Moral Seduction was akin to drawing the picture with crayons on 20 bond papers, I set out to make this version of Moral Seduction much closer to Auto Cad and laser printer. And of course, for you auditory learners, the MP3 version gives the opportunity to listen. Get your popcorn and blanket and snuggle up by the fire, because I over-deliver with an hour of audio.

Tyranny’s web is woven with five leading concepts: Incompetent Masses, Universal Guilt, Dictated Good, Abolition of Ambition, and Collective Conformity. But these five concepts are secured behind the walls of two assumptions.

“Come into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly. The invitation to the web is just the beginning of the seduction. And for those of you who want to know what the rest looks like ….

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First Introduction

For months I have been advocating that “They Who Shall Not Be Named,” are bit players in the unfolding historical drama, resurrecting ideas that have always led to corruption, destruction and death. I submit that the political and religious arenas are inseparable, inevitable extensions of specific philosophical assumptions. I have been pointing out that we are hearing moral and spiritual ideals advocated in the public arena from our political leaders: moral and spiritual ideals that ultimately reduce men to slavery.

How can morality and spirituality be used to shackle humanity? Christians like to say that such things are the means to freedom and liberty. Are you sure? President Obama gave a speech on May 17, 2009 to the graduating class at Notre Dame. This speech is not policy statement, or economic tutorial, or social state of the union. It is something very else.

Read the whole speech. I am not, and never will be, a filter for the minds of people. To the utter contrary, I am advocating the tools of effective thinking so that individuals can think and find the truth for themselves. To that end, I am providing two links. One from the New York Times.  (Transcript)

The second is a page from www.Spiritualtyranny.com for when the NY Times sees fit to eliminate this speech from its active web pages.  (Transcript)

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Moral Seduction

Seduction is fun when done with the right person at the right time and at the right place, when the swirling intoxicating heady tonic sweeps you into heights of implied pleasure. But disaster when one is beguiled into eating sweetbreads in secret. The morning after, lying in the sheets, sobriety returns; the cost of abandon, the price of indulgence blooms hard in the soul.

Most people are not familiar with the process of seduction. The infrequency is what catches them unaware. It is a dreadful personal moment to realize how each glance, each implied familiarity, and indirect closeness had a goal. The goal was to move you to intimacy when there was no real relationship.

The illusion of seduction is fun. And as an adult you can travel the path with eyes open and weigh the costs. But when you have been caught unaware because you didn’t know that you are being seduced, oh, that is an ugly, ugly, ugly betrayal.

So, for those of you who don’t know what seduction looks like…

President Obama: “Your generation must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. Your generation must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity - diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief.”

The seduction begins with the suggestive flash of the eyes…

The first look is oblique, gentle, encouraging but conveying the message: come hither. Every glance leads you to believe that interaction is inevitable. See how much we have in common, notice the possible destiny.

Seduction trivializes differences by eliminating standards. That is why it is essential for us to embrace all, accept all. Differences, Disparity, Dissimilarity: that is the mantra of the global brotherhood.

Beliefs are sacrosanct because they are…beliefs. Anyone can believe whatever they want. No judgment can exist because no standard measure exists. Cultures can define themselves however they choose, and everyone must accept their definitions. Why? Because culture is code for race, and to criticize race is to be unenlightened. Race is the Collectivist Holy of Holies: sacred and unassailable. The ideas that drive a culture are irrelevant. No matter what stands out, no matter what deviates, no matter what bankrupt thoughts, ideas and actions may exist, we must embrace…in the name of Diversity.

Right and wrong are antiquated definitions of morality. The only good is embracing all things multicultural. The only bad are those people who choose to disparage the failures of Diversity. Collective harmony is the definition of enlightenment. Come, let us link arms. Our fraternity, our strength, is in our unity, at all costs.

President Obama: Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and greater understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

See how serious it is that you concede? And see how crucial that we all link arms? How can anyone possibly survive? The only way to LIVE is to understand that we are all incapable, all outmatched for the challenge. No person, religion, or nation can face the challenge of survival alone. We are incompetent to prevail against the temptations, and the rigors of life. So let us unite, as friends in common bond.

Seduction proceeds with a tender touch…

Physical seduction progresses from the casual to the intimate. Personal boundaries get moved by inches, by touches and grazes. Friends can touch, because well, it is platonic: the clasp of the hand, the casual brush of a stray hair. It is familiar and warm and welcome. We visit the common ground of our lives by visiting the common places on our bodies.

Social seduction proceeds by moving individualistic boundaries with enforced collective expectation. By obtaining unearned intimacy, the seducers can imply social morality and demand a common world view. See how close we are? See how much we share? Our values are really the same. How could this relationship be any other way?

But notice they never let the answer to this question be given. To answer this question is to destroy the seduction.

President Obama: And part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man - our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin.

Irenaeus, a Bishop in Lyons, coined the phrase “Original Sin” in the 2nd century. His theory said that the “Fall” of Adam was not rebellion against God, or a squandering of a created perfect state, but rather humanity’s failure to rise to greater things. For Irenaeus, evil comes from God, serving a good purpose. Things that seem evil to us - death et al. - are divine intentions and without such things, we would never repent.

Augustine, some 250 years later, (circa 450 AD) would advance what has become the “Orthodox” creed. Humanity was literally present at Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit. This sin is transmitted by the act of sex from parent to child: hence an “Original Sin.”

The result, everyone is infected with depravity. Or said another way, man sufferers a genetic weakening or enfeebling of faculties and will. The consequence of this state is the inability to do Good or act towards God. Man is a moral, physical, spiritual cripple unable to will or to do any Good.

This is the definition with which most of you are familiar. This familiarity is why it never occurs to you that you are being seduced. The common is friendly, platonic, and harmless. This is the philosophical casual brush of a stray hair. This is the energizing touch of the hand. This is the social seductive equivalent of: “How could it be any other way?”

Seduction implies much…and defines little…

But if you pause and ask for clarification: “What does this all mean?” the seducer looks shocked: how could you have so misunderstood my motive? My motives are pure. Surely you can see that. Surely you can tell that I have nothing but the highest intentions. What can I possibly gain by being here, with you, enjoying your company? How can I help? What can I do for you? How may I serve?

And if that doesn’t guilt you into complicity, the seducer will take the intimacy away, turning the interaction on you. The implication is always: “Are you seeking to take advantage of me? I give freely, but what have you given freely?”

The intoxication is growing, the heady rush of inclusion and warmth, and friendship is dulling the mind. So the Seduced doesn’t notice that the giving was NOT done freely. If the service were free, there would be no expected reciprocation.

Besides who wants a conflict when someone is giving so much? Pushing for clarification seems like very poor form, very ungrateful. So the Seduced lowers their personal boundaries and abandons their standards. What is the harm in going along to get along?

President Obama: We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.

Altruism is the moral assertion that sacrifice is man’s highest ethical action. He must help, serve, or benefit others by actions necessarily at the expense of self-interest. Applied to its logical conclusion, individuals can never have a vested interest in an action or outcome. So to determine if an action is moral, ask this simple question: Who benefits? As long as there is no self-interest, man is executing ethical action.

President Obama: And it was quite an eclectic crew - Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish and African American organizers, working-class black, white, and Hispanic residents - all of us with different experiences, all of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help - to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

What could be nobler than working in the service of others?

Let us talk more about Altruism. We might read the Dictionary definition and occasionally some blogger in his underwear will pound out the word to the Ethernet. The content, the practice of the word isn’t really discussed; yet many of you know its substance because the moral claim is advocated from many, many fronts. Most people are quick to say: “Hey, I have no vested interest here. Therefore, blah blah blah blah!” What comes after the therefore is irrelevant because the important part of the sentence is the moral qualifier. The speaker is vetting his words via the moral standard of selflessness, as if personal benefit is immediately disqualifying. So imbedded in our cultural and philosophical assumptions is Altruism that it never occurs to us to challenge the moral ideal.

I want you to notice this juxtaposition. The assumption of Original Sin and the assumption of Altruism create an unassailable moral and ethical barrier.

Here is the progression: Original Sin disqualifies the sum of man’s faculties by asserting that depravity warps his every ability to grasp the world around him. Man cannot choose Good because he cannot KNOW Good. His every want and desire is contrary to Good. Man is a fish on dry land utterly unequipped to navigate the world of Good. Or for the spiritualists among us, Man is tied to a horse led around by the devil. Man is Insane. Whatever the metaphor, the outcome is the same. Absent some form of intervention, some kind of outside force, all of man’s choices are evil driven by lusts that he cannot overcome.

Altruism piggybacks its moral power off of Original Sin by insisting that self-action is corrupt. Any self deed is suspect because its source, its root, is deep in the blackest pervasive depraved soil. Because self is evil, morality demands that the highest human aspiration be self-destruction. Good choices are imposed on Man. These choices are, of necessity, defined by pain. Therefore, man’s true state of existence is suffering, and an implicit validation of Altruism’s superior moral standard.

Here is the bulwark that I have been pointing out. To argue for self: any expression of self is to be condemned as immoral. To argue against the doctrine of Original Sin…oh, never mind, let’s not be silly.

While many of you would openly argue with Ireneaus’ definition of Original sin, very few of you would have the nerve to argue with Augustine’s doctrine. That would open a whole wormy can that no one wants to pick through with fish hooks.

Who is going to raise their hand and suggest that Augustine got it wrong? Who is going to suffer the threat of heresy and the subsequent bonfires kindled in their honor? Who is going to argue with 1600 years of Church “orthodoxy”?

Even if a person did make the argument, who would have the nerve to actually listen? Wouldn’t that make the listeners enter the line to become honorary S’mores?

So, let us just accept the fates and not speak such absurdities. Let us ignore the doctrinal “fruit” displayed in for two millennia. Since we are all moral, spiritual, and intellectual cripples, what we can “see” must be a vapor, a vague shadow cast upon the wall of a cave, a grand delusion of our mass incompetence. This is what Plato taught and what Augustine integrated into bible ideas. But never mind the real source of the doctrine.

Everyone who is anyone has always believed this truth even though this doctrine did not exist for the first 500 years of church history. Everyone who is anyone has always believed this truth even though its roots are imbedded in ideas wholly and entirely foreign to canonical literature.

It matters not that the words “Original Sin” do not appear in Scripture as a specifically defined teaching. It matters not that one must assemble the doctrine using unrelated passages like so many Lego’s. It matters not that without the Neo-Platonic eisegeses, the passages used as doctrinal evidence, have little or nothing to do with “disqualifying” a man’s faculties or his ability to grasp and gravitate to Good. It is a central pillar of the Christian faith. Who is going to dissent? Who is going to say that Augustine got it wrong? It matters not the answer to such a question. Place it out of your mind. No one will ask the question and fewer still will listen to the answer.

Seduction redefines…

Moral seducers are always redefining words because they want to control the ethical equation. A touch, no matter how overtly intimate, is platonic. A sweet nothing whispered in the ear is just a secret between friends. A voice against pastoral tyranny is Gossip. The effective public communication of abuse is slander. Criticizing a man’s political ends is racism.

Don’t judge, because that brings judgment. Don’t speak harshly because such method drives people away. Don’t you know that conflict is selfish sin?  We must have unity, unity, unity.

The seducers inform us how to behave by telling us that “Love” is speaking softly. They tell us “Peace” is their concern for the collective wellbeing.

But this method is designed to chaperone our emotions and actions to prevent our dissent. They guilt us into accepting their definitions and manipulate our sense of justice. Never forget, the goal is always one more step down the path of seduction.

President Obama: The question, then - the question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Seduction makes intimacy the most reasonable action…

President Obama: He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.” Fair-minded words.

And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that - when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe - that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

So, now we look for the common ground of our human existence. What is that common ground? The moral seducers have told us what it is. Do you realize what they said? The oblique assumption being advocated says that Original Sin and Altruism is the place for humanity to center itself. The foundational agreement, the starting place of our philosophical ideas, is the reprobate nature of our metaphysical and epistemological state. This is a wordy way of saying: if we can agree that we are all just screwed up, then we can figure out how to live together. The best way to live together is to realize that we can’t know anything because our “knower” is broken. Right and wrong might exist, but since we are all morally bankrupt, no one can advocate a standard.

This bankruptcy should make us suspicious of our ideas, our ideals and our expectations. That suspicion should make us give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Whatever they believe, whatever they are passionate about is just their thing. The enlightened position is to embrace their belief because it is belief. And if one cannot embrace, then at the very least moderate your speech. Please, no declarations of right and wrong, good and bad. No one has the moral authority to do such speechifying. We are all sinners. The only real moral standard is to sacrifice our values, to sacrifice our selves for the greater good.

Submit yourself, therefore, under the collective mighty hand - let the community hold you accountable to the highest value, sacrifice - because your adversary, your SELF, walks about seeking to devour you.

The assumptions under discussion require a government whose purpose is to FORCE you to “Do Good.” What is good? Good is always that you sacrifice your SELF. Government forces you to part with anything that benefits you.

What must you give? Everything necessary for the “Greater Good.”

What can you keep? Nothing. You don’t own YOU, so you don’t own what you create.

Oh, you won’t object, so don’t pretend indignity. You don’t have the nerve to object because you don’t want to suffer being roasted over a campfire. And neither do you have the courage to focus on someone making the objection. So just go ahead and follow the seduction to its logical conclusion. The bloodletting will start soon enough.

Oh, you want to object to the tyranny AND keep the moral and ethical citadel of Original Sin and Altruism. You want to keep the historic doctrine of Original Sin because it is an inarguable truth. And you are utterly persuaded that Sacrifice is the highest moral aspiration. Just because some have abused the truth doesn’t mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. There must be a balance in here somewhere. Maybe the right people just haven’t gotten into government. Maybe we are just waiting for the best and brightest to take their place.

Really? How many millennia do we have to wait before the right people believe all the right things and the right group gets it…right? These philosophical assumptions have been in the earth for a long, long time. And the truly hysterical thing is every generation of do-gooders become the very thugs the next generation insists they can be better than, which is beyond ironic considering the doctrinal predicate of Original Sin destroys the concept that any person can ever be morally better. No matter when they are born, no matter what wisdom and understanding has come before, people are always born into depravity.

But beyond the insanity of believing the same things over and over and over and expecting a different result, what does it matter who is in charge? The issue isn’t government form or content. The issue is philosophical assumption. How do you defend a millimeter of self when ANY self is utterly corrupt?

Oh great Archimedes, where is the place to stand that you might “raise the world?” What is the foundation of your resistance? You laid down your mind upon accepting depravity as the human fundamental state of existence. Is your appeal now to Reason? Will you now assert your independent “Will” to engage the debate?

Surely you jest!

Okay, let me get this straight. A “Depraved” reason and a “Bound” will are the sum and substance of your arsenal??

Aaaahahahahahhaha…

The comedy is entertaining but your hubris has shown you for an intellectual fraud. Only a “Depraved” soul with admittedly corrupt faculties cannot see the absurdity, the glaring flaw in that foundation. Your very doctrine destroys your weapon.

So try again to find the edge underneath the castle wall.

Can you find a failure in Altruism?

Now remember, by the Altruistic moral standard, any personal benefit is immoral. What did the preacher of morality say?

President Obama: We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.

Those who defend the right to self and the substance thereof are nothing more than people seeking advantage over others; seeking justification for the implicit injustice over those who suffer lack, suffer the injustice of inequality. Keeping substance is immoral because any defense of self is immoral.

“But a totally sacrificial life is impossible to live!” you say. “The individual should have SOME moral value.”

You are correct: it is an impossible moral standard.

This is by DESIGN.

The purpose is to make you so utterly despairing that you will abandon every want, desire, ambition, motivation, drive and interest. Men die without moral clarity - a moral certainty that the actions they take are right. The goal is to make you beg someone to give you moral absolution and then force you to look for that absolution from government, because government dictates good. And at this point, they own you in the truest, fullest sense.

Point to the pain of ethical self-destruction, and mystic despots muster magnanimous compassion but dismiss the suffering as your reasonable service. Point to the impossibility of the standard, and the critics will agree - of course, it is impossible. God made it impossible so no man could ever achieve the goal. This is the function of grace. Grace provides forgiveness and Government. God supplies grace by supplying leadership to organize the collective substance. No one will have an unfair advantage if they would just submit themselves to the considered judgments of those appointed to the task. For those who will not submit, the State does not wield the sword in vain: government exists to compel GOOD action. And because you accept Augustinian depravity, what can you say?

How will you justify the value of the individual? Are you going to try a middle of the road argument? OTHERS have value and you will sacrifice on THEIR behalf. This seems like a nice compromise on truth. Some people have value, others sacrifice on their behalf. But you don’t make a claim to your own self value to fulfill the moral requirement.

Ahahahhhahahaha….

Oh, this is rich. As long as everyone is paying sacrifice forward, all is well. This is a moral Ponzi scheme and there is a reason those are illegal.

The other method of dealing with the impossible altruistic ideal since no one can live a totally “sacrificial” life, we can see that people must do SOME things for THEMSELVES. So we wink and nod at a mutual unethical conspiracy ignoring the bootlegging done to stock the SELF-gratifying Speakeasy.

Notice that both of the above arguments concede that actions for self are still immoral. And here is the problem: these are NOT counterarguments but moral equivalencies. Or maybe better said, the ethical version of don’t ask don’t tell.

By surrendering to the Altruistic premise, you cannot assert INDIVIDUAL value.  Logically, to concede the moral principle makes it impossible to argue for selective reprieve.  Any time an argument concedes the premise, that dispute is lost.

Seduction is designed to make you feel out of control…

The heady feeling of intoxication mingled with the rush of pleasure fills your mind with a voice that says let go…let go…let goooooooooo.

It would be so nice to just let the cares of this world evaporate. It would be such a relief to revel, even for a moment in the physical bliss.

Besides it is inevitable. They want good for me. They are here in fraternity and sorority. There is no judgment. Tomorrow there will be no one to condemn. How can I be good…really? Who can call me to account? We are all just wretched sinners after all.

Are you feeling trapped in a maze? Are you unable to see your way past the fortifications that are being used to harness your soul? The fortification is formidable and the reasons to succumb overwhelming!

This is by DESIGN.

When government figures begin to erect the ethical bulwark of Original Sin and Altruism, they have departed from political statement and are entering the realm of moralistic homily. When they hijack disembodied bible ideas, the Second Coming is not close, and neither is a God ordained righteous government. The political figures are laying the foundation for the very tyranny that will make the streets turn crimson.

President Obama: For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It’s no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. The call to serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

Seduction is designed to make you lose your mind…

President Obama: This generation, your generation is the one that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before the most recent crisis hit - an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

It is no accident that the first assault is on prosperity, on economics, on fairness. All good seductions appeal to our erogenous zones: those places in our thinking that bring passionate response.

Political Seducers know many people hold the moral expectation that money is immoral and its pursuit a manifestation of selfishness and greed.

The Political Seducers also know you will be quick to agree with their altruism, faulting those who HAVE (substance) with an indulgence of their depraved nature - an excess that needs penalized.

So, the Political Seducers exploit YOUR covetousness because they know it is a philosophical erogenous zone. Your covetousness leads you to support policy initiatives that TAKE from some to GIVE to another for no other reason than an implicit resentment of those who HAVE.

And the Political Seducers use Altruism to give moral absolution to what would be theft in ANY other circumstance. You use altruism to hide from that reality by justifying “robbery” because it “serves” someone else.

You absolve yourself of envy because the rich don’t put in an “honest day’s work” but heap materialism upon their greedy selves from unfairness and exploitation. You license the government to steal and believe you have done God’s work, cheering as yet another rich person sacrifices for the greater good: as they too feel the pain of what it is to struggle in life.

What you don’t realize is eventually…

Seduction turns to denouement…

President Obama: Now, understand - understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

It will never occur to you that you cut your own throat because you let others define the moral equation. You were seduced into letting them define good, and right, and ultimately truth. This let them define Government and the use of Force. This let them rule with impunity.

You accept their premise and act accordingly. You moderate your speech and in doing so undermine your passion, the energy of your resistance. You buy the notion that love requires clement speech. You buy the lie that people are justified in turning from truth merely because they don’t like the way things are said. You accept the premise that a depraved soul can be certain of nothing. This leads you to defer to government because it is somehow appointed to solve the ills of life. You become timid with leaders because they are…somehow…uniquely qualified to dictate Good.

And with this moral progression you gag YOURSELF. Your power to speak is gone. Now the face of seduction is unmasked and the political seducers have shown their true face like any wanton soul that persuades to eat sweetbreads in secret. Suddenly, Harlotry’s hard life is obvious: smeared lipstick, mascara running, wrinkles hidden by too much makeup. The morning after, you roll over in the sheets and you see what you did and the devastating reality emerges. What looked like glitter and glitz is evident, horrific, and dreadful. Sobriety returns and the price of indulgence blooms hard in the soul. “What did I pay to be intimate with that?”

By micro steps you were led down the path of destruction. Now there is no retreat and no weapon with which to fight. The seducers talked you out of the power necessary to defend your SELF. So, like Samson beguiled before Delilah, hairless and blind, the strength left can only be used to pull the house down on everybody’s head.

Do you poo-poo my words? Do you roll your eyes at my warning? Do you shake with indignity at identifying Original Sin as the source? You want to tell me how much I don’t really understand the doctrine, how much my deception has blinded me to an inarguable truth?

Hehehe….

I told you that is what the doctrine was designed to do.

Are you inclined to say, “John, you just think too much.”? That can’t happen in America. Tyranny will never come here, to this land. We have a constitution. We have civil liberties.

Ahahahah…

This would be a cute naïveté if it wasn’t so disastrously myopic. Those civil liberties are based on individual value. Those liberties were conceived in utter deliberate contrast to European collectivism and the tyranny perpetrated via Original Sin driven assumptions. The Constitution framers advanced the moral predicate that INDVIDUALS had the right to their property and the unmolested pursuit of happiness. Those liberties were predicated on limiting government to protect the individual. Those liberties were founded on the moral assumption that the individual was sovereign. That sovereignty was given by Man’s creator.

Just over 200 years later WE are reversing those philosophical assumptions by resurrecting doctrines that demonstrate an implicit destructive nature. We are mixing the old wine in the new wineskins of our Republic. It is no accident that we are coming apart at the seams.

How could it be any other way that the modern world is trending towards tyranny and death and destruction? How could it be any other way that Church leaders sound like the 1930’s Weimar Republic Lutheran Church? How can it be any other way that fear is increasing in both social/political fronts and spiritual/congregational fronts?

How can it be any other way that Spiritual Tyranny is increasing?

By seductive steps the foundation of individualism is eroding into the murk of collective conformity. As long as people do not resist the moral and ethical assumptions, the day will come when atrocities spread far and wide.

The masses don’t resist because they have been condemned by the moral equivalency of Original Sin. Everyone is a sinner. Who can hold up a standard? Everyone’s perceptions are flawed. Who can really KNOW truth? The masses do not object because SELF-defense is disqualified by the hint of SELF-promotion.

Seduction’s path starts with the most innocuous interaction. The first steps down the path of tyranny seem harmless, friendly, a nice expression of fraternity and sorority. Every step seems like the logical next step, the appropriate continuation of people gathered together in community. A glance and a touch are followed by smooth words that redefine the definitions of intimacy and morality. The goal of all seduction is to drive you to a state of intoxication; where your mind is given over to the heady rush of implied passion.

This stupefied condition makes it all but impossible to notice that what was once a ludicrous conspiracy theory has become reality. Tyrants start by advocating the moral predicate that all men must serve. Everyone accepts the premise and applauds the implied righteousness. Moral seducers tickle your ethical outrage by pointing to those who have more substance than other people. Obviously, these people have not really sacrificed. Obviously, these people are greedy and selfish and failing to do Good. Obviously, government needs to step in and hold them accountable. This is nothing more than a blatant stroking of your covetousness erogenous zone.

The seducers work you into a sanctimonious lather and praise your moral exhibitionism every time you empower them to loot in the name of the greater good. It is here that INDIVIDUALS tear off their clothes and join the orgy of service, the greater good, the community, and the body.

The mystic despots of old wielded Original Sin like a rational guillotine giving themselves license to enforce dictated Good with bloodshed. In the modern age, government enforced bloodshed is not necessary because the people are commanded by Altruism to put a knife to their own throat.

And here is the thing that no one realizes. Tyrants are calculating the end of the path. These moralistic despots are plotting the course of accumulated power. They are foreseeing the moment when government can advocate any violation of individuality and fear no reprisal.

They are intentionally laying the foundation to say…control population. Women MUST sacrifice for the Greater Good. They must have abortions to feed those alive. It is selfish to want 4 children. It is selfish to want 3, then 2, then maybe, just maybe, the Government will let you have one child…if it serves others.

Where will you stand on that day? The bulwark of Original Sin and Altruism is even now selling you into slavery but you don’t know it. Will you rail at Governmental injustice on that day from your front door? In your house? The Government will have long since taken your stuff, told you how much to eat, when to eat, what to wear, and how much to sacrifice. On that day the gods of Original Sin and Altruism will mock you in your calamity.

American Christians love to defend the unborn, but on that day they will be powerless. (If you don’t believe me, look at China.) The only thing left to defend is the scrap of whatever someone else has deemed you can keep. The gods of Original Sin and Altruism will frolic at the self bloodletting as they revel in the endless propitiation.

Refresh yourself on the true value of the individual. It is to the individual that God’s blessing was bestowed: “Be fruitful and multiply, rule and subdue the earth…”

The Individual raises a voice to defend the unborn.

The Individual resists the tides of tyranny.

The Individual musters courage to speak words that destroy insidious, humanity-incarcerating ideas.

The Individual seeks effective knowledge and harnesses ambition and works to improve their lives. The result: industry grows, the quality of life expands, and prosperity matures.

I said this above and I need to drive this point home. It is no accident that the political seducers manipulate covetousness. They seek to discredit the acquisition of wealth so they are morally justified in looting an individual’s substance. Here is the secret that political seducers do not want you to know: property is the power to disagree. Wealth is the power to stand in the face of those who differ. Without property, you are a pawn in the game of History’s Hitlers and their partners in crime, the Mystic Despots.

If you want to champion any superior idea…

If you want to fight for any just outcome…

If you want to advocate for the lives of the unborn…

then you had better start paying attention to those who want to abort your property. Defending property is the defense of SELF. If you own you, then you MUST own what you create WITHOUT moral recrimination. The moral bulwark advocated in seductive homilies is seeking to destroy our very lives by destroying our very livelihoods.

President Obama: And so, for all our technological and scientific advances, we see here in this country and around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

Violence and want and strife would be familiar to the folk of ancient times. That is because the reasons for that violence, want, and strife are sourced in the philosophical assumptions of ancient times. The moral citadel of Original Sin was conceived in the mid 4th century AD for the express purpose of justifying compulsive collective conformity. The Three Estates - some pray, some fight some work - is the collectivist medieval political theory that grew directly from those Platonist Augustinian assumptions. The religious caste combined forces with the warrior caste to enforce “Righteousness” in the name of God for the next 1200 years. It is no accident that these years are called the Dark Ages. This millennia of western history stands as testimony to the proliferation of death, destruction, poverty, and injustice. Europe was hip deep in the blood of Dictated Good - also known as the Divine Right of Kings - until well into the 17th century.

As Monarchial slaughter fell out of vogue, the political class sought new justifications for violations to individuals and injustices done in their ravenous quest for power. They found that validation in Altruism, a philosophical conclusion just a few hundred years old. No, the moral standard of sacrifice does not have its roots in bible ideas; it has its roots in the bankrupt philosophy of the 18th century. Many people do assume that these ideas are sourced in Christian canon, but that has more to do with the academic accomplices more interested in historic solidarity than critical review of observably bad doctrines. Sacrifice of the bible kind has little to do with Altruism’s dehumanizing moral demand.

If not being for a readymade tool of despotic control, Altruism would have been dropped into the landfill of failed ideas. But combined with Original Sin, Altruism becomes an almost unassailable moral and ethical fortress. It is from this fortress that the greatest tyrants in the last 200 years have lived.

The list is long, the cultures varied, and the countries numerous. But every tyrant uses the epistemological predicates of Original Sin to disqualify any individual rights and uses the rationalization of Altruism to justify any individual destruction, also known as sacrifice. Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Kim Jong-il: these people take the doctrine of sacrifice for the greater good to its logical conclusion - body counts in the hundreds of millions.

This is how modern History’s Hitlers joined forces with ancient Mystic Despots: they use morality as cudgel to drive the “depraved” masses into Collective Conformity. Collectivism, also known as Tribalism, also known as Sectarianism, also known as Socialism, also known as Communism, also known as the “Greater Good,” has always been the Holy of Holies in political, social, and religious, corruption, death, and destruction. No need to send in the High Priest to offer sacrifice because the people have been seduced into bloodletting themselves.



To Reform or Not to Reform

Friday April 3, 2009 • 439 Comments 

By John Immel

I started on this article over two months ago, long before the current conversation on www.sgmrefuge.com with Protestant Knight (AKA ~John) advocating reform and Jim’s post Let’s take a poll (1) started on March 23 of ‘09. It has undergone substantial changes from the original drafts, but as a writer the time comes to abandon a project. That time has come for To Reform or Not to Reform. What started as a 1500-ish word post turned into this 24-page 9,500 word behemoth with end notes.

I’m a wordy sort…what can I say?

This is a Sovereign Grace Ministries (2) related post. While many of you dear readers have no connection with SGM directly and therefore may be inclined to skip this post, please don’t. The concepts within this post are related to the current trend in American history on the political and religious fronts. Indeed, these fronts are inseparable.

I will say this until everyone agrees with me: SGM is a bit player in a MUCH larger societal event. They are anecdotal for the resurrection of long since disgraced, corrupt, destructive, intellectual assumptions. But tragically, people have either lost sight of those realities, never knew them, have been bullied into accepting them, or are willfully ignoring the outworking of those assumptions.

Lots of material will follow. I am setting out to connect a lot of dots. It would be good to read To Reform or Not to Reform a few times. As you digest, visit related posts noted (end noted) throughout the document. I make shorthand reference to a number of concepts that I dealt with in greater detail in other posts. Follow the links and read those posts to help in rounding out the commentary.

Good blog posts are short-ish with narrow focus. This is none of that. This is a long one folks, and since the Internet is a hard place to read long bodies of text, let alone digest a detailed progression of thought, I decided to offer this as a PDF download.  (Click here) Distribute as you see fit: Friends, Family, SGM rank and file. Give the gift that keeps on giving, hilarity, food for thought, or…apoplexy.

>snicker<

Be forewarned, this post is not for the faint of heart or the faint of mind.

Peace out,

John Immel

********

To Reform or not to Reform?  That is the question.

Yeah, me and Bill Shakespeare…

I’ve been mulling, also known as canoodling, as I am wont to do over Sovereign Grace Ministries and their (apparently) endless string of tyrannies. Actually, better said, I habitually mull over spiritual tyranny and sundry jokes. At the moment, SGM just happens to be at the forefront of that particular preoccupation–the tyranny and the jokes. (You other tyrants I will visit shortly).

It is the cry of many hearts in the blogosphere that SGM reform. Many of you hope that the leadership in that bunch takes a good long look in the mirror and say, “Eureka!”  or “John Calvin!” or “I could have had a V-8″ or whatever they are inclined to say when they discover a thought not found in Sin and Temptation.

This assumes they like mirrors, which in my cynical olderness, I’m inclined to think not so much. Or maybe better said, they do look in the mirror, mirror, on the wall, and it affirms that they are the Fairest Wretch of them all. They knew they were wretched; they saw what they expected, so how can they be faulted for seeing their failings and therefore are utterly qualified to persist?

Hey, it is a twisted logic; but it is their logic.

Many of you possess a secondary hope:  after reading the blogs, the Rank and File SGMers might realize El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker, CJ Mahaney and sundry Hommies haven’t done as much academic and intellectual rigor as they have let folks believe. If these Rank and Filers can SEE the doctrinal inconsistencies, maybe they will hopscotch on across the church threshold.

Reality is most people don’t care about intellectual or academic details. They see theological debates as a waste of time:  a truism that SGM leaders exploit when it serves their interest; meaning when it is their theology under scrutiny. How can you spend time quibbling over non-essentials? How can you hide behind “a veil of theological exactness”? This is why they don’t give one good rip if Jesus “screamed” the cry of the damned, (3) “Cried.” “Wailed,” “Hooted,”  “Hollered,” or just said “Ouch.” Don’t doubt me here. Theological distinctions only matter to this bunch if they are making the distinctions.

Furthermore, most Rank and Filers need to be absolved of the responsibility to think, so debates over details are on par with tooth extraction:  a necessary evil best left to professionals, masochists, or 24-year-old bloggers in their underwear. (Thank you so very much Eric “phenomenal” Simmons (4)).

SGM has people assigned to monitor subversive material, so I’m guessing they know the content of the blogosphere criticism. In brief review, the criticisms have gone like this.

  • Cult!
  • Well, maybe not a cult???
  • CJ is Pope.
  • Dave Harvey is selective with his source material.
  • SGM Sucks!  (But we love it.)
  • SGM doesn’t really have a plurality of leadership.
  • SGM Sucks!  (But we love it.)
  • Danny Jones is incompetent. (But we love it.)
  • SGM is presumptuous with the “First Among Equals!”
  • The Bible has better Polity models.
  • It is clear that the Bible says…
  • SGM has an amazing PR machine
  • SGM Sucks!
  • Why do People go to SGM?
  • The Cry of the Damned?? Did CJ really say that?
  • It is clear that the Bible says…
  • They did WHAT to Noel and Grizzly?????
  • Blah blah blah blah la la ….

Just so you know, I’m confident this doesn’t pass the ’so-what’ test. How can I be so confident with the Augustinian/Calvin/Kantian Epistemological Axis so firmly entrenched in our Christian Theology? I have this surety because I have special thought microphones strategically hidden in CJ’s office. And I can say he doesn’t think about this much at all. When he does, El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker’s thoughts go something like this:

Calvin and Hobbes…  So funny… Reformed Theology…. So serious…  Lasagna …. So good.  Bloggers in their Underwear….  So what? …. Calvin and Hobbes… so funny…  Bill Belichick (5) … so not humble

And so it goes…

See, one thought in five. Well, I guess that is about 20% of the time, so maybe it is proportionally a lot of thought. But he still says, “So what?”

Uhhh… Errr…

So if SGM reforms what will they be … uh … re-forming?

The theme pounded out on the blogs is that a change of polity will do the trick.

To Polity or not to Polity? That is the question.

I am officially going to quit calling it polity. Polity is a word that carries its own mystic overtone in Christian minds; kind of an Uber spiritual event absent the obvious perils of human governance because GODDDD!  (Turn up the reverb) appointed IT. What is IT? IT is where we all link arms, sing Kumbaya, and polity with each other. Oh the Fraternity, Unity, and Equality!

Yeah, me and Robespierre…

Well, Polity is Government and Government is always force. (6) I don’t care how you want to dress this up, what lipstick you want to wear when you kiss me with those lips bearing Polity. You are really kissing me with the FORCE of government:  the collective power to dictate… something.

Hide the guillotine, and get the fire hose!

I will get to what we are dictating to whom in a bit. For the time being, bookmark this point:  Polity is Government and Government is FORCE.

I submit SGM reform is a pipe dream.

No offense to you faith folks who think I’m putting God to the test: All things are possible with God, and all that. Before you all tag me as a big downer, give me a minute to revise and extend my remarks so you can know exactly why I’m a big downer.

Let’s back up a minute.

Since most folks think that reform is a function of government structure, I wanted to get a better sense of what Sovereign Grace Tyrannies really wants in government. So, I hearkened to the posts on www.sgmrefuge.com where Protestant Knight and Jim talked about SGM government structure, also known as Polity, (7) by Dave Harvey. Mr. Harvey is a pastor, of one form or another, at what SGM calls Team Related Churches. I downloaded and read the PDF version (8) of the Polity thingy, browsed sundry blog posts by El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker, CJ–you know, the one where he doesn’t allow comments–to see what I could find.

All writers want something–implicit or explicit–from you, except me, of course. Today I am the definitive altruist, exercising the ultimate expression of Kantian disinterest. My motives are utterly empty and selfless or maybe they are chicks and money like always.

>snicker<

If one can find what the writer wants, it is easy to understand why they write what they write. Sometimes the writer tells you what they want, sometimes their real wants are unstated, and sometimes they tell you but come at it from an angle.

So, what does SGM really want? Well, since Dave wrote the Polity thingy, the question should technically be what does Dave want? However, nothing comes out of SGM that isn’t reflective of El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker, CJ Mahaney (and sundry Hommies) thoughts on the subject. So, Dave is SGM and SGM is Dave.

What does Dave want? Well, that isn’t easy to ferret out. He does want to give a “Biblical” theology of Polity.

He does want to offer up an apologetic (read: defense) of SGM collective “wisdom” the leaders have arrived at over the decades of leadership.

The Sovereign Grace Ministries apologetic stands upon a tripod of principles that lift and support our local-church government:

  1. The Principle of Plurality among Elders
  2. The Principle of the Presiding Pastor
  3. The Principle of Partnership with Apostolic Ministry (page 2)

He does want to illustrate why, in a non-hierarchical body of Christ, there are those who are “First Among Equals” (9)in a pyramid of authority.

“Thus, we begin with an assertion that will ground and guide this entire document. Local-church leadership in the New Testament was a shared endeavor. (page 3)”

And further on addressing the same point:

“The presiding pastor, or senior pastor, is a role drawn generally from the broad pattern of order resonant in Scripture…”

“While neither the pattern nor the application carries in itself sufficient force to sustain an apologetic for senior pastors, they unite to bring greater understanding of the role. Central to this understanding is the fact that the role of presiding pastor must always be based on the foundation of plurality.” (page 6)

He does want to give explanation to his “Reformed Brethren” why the polity structure of SGM is as viable as what they practice. Dave touches this theme on page 4, and then on page 8 he furthers the thought with this:

“Within the Sovereign Grace churches it was not uncommon, early in our history, for local-church polity to follow the Reformed model of coequal plurality, i.e. elderships unadorned with senior pastors. This was an instructive season, and has built in us a respect for all churches that endeavor to exalt Christ through a coequal eldership. Our experience, however, was less than God-exalting, and our “polity postmortem” resulted in the following conclusions: …”

Dave goes on to detail six effective departures from the traditional Reformed Practice related to SGM learned wisdom from said post mortem.

He does not want the official SGM take on Polity to be considered an essential.

“At the outset it must be said that the form of church government is not a major doctrine like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, or the authority of Scripture…

“And church history attests that several different forms of government have worked fairly well for several centuries…” (page 2)

These are Dave’s stated wants for his Polity thingy. I didn’t notice that these ideas flowed from one to the next in any particular order. They just are. His Systematic Theology is full of the catastrophic flaws that come with using that academic practice for reading Bible.

If it matters, I have a degree in Systematic Theology. And while I had a real love for the practice, I’ve come to believe it has fatal flaws. And those flaws are at the heart of Christian tyrannies over the centuries.

I contend that Systematic Theology is a cross between academic proof texting and biblical shamanism. Wave a handful of verses that kind of sort of mention the idea you want to promote and Alakazam! Poof! We have a “Biblical Doctrine.” We have an AUTHORITATIVE idea. I know, that was a cynical comment, but it was really good.

Bible VERSES are a disembodied collection of words. It seems strange that I should have to point this out, but … whatever. Just because a couple of numbers sit in the margin to reference six, eight, or twenty words does not mean the words are remotely related to a Systematic doctrine. Nor does a paragraph necessarily represent the original author’s intent or principle teaching. And even more important, nor do those disembodied words represent overarching themes or broad stroke teachings throughout Cannon. Taking disembodied statements from book to book and compiling them like so many Legos to build whatever authoritative doctrinal point is fraught with all manner of intellectual pitfalls.

And Mr. Harvey’s Polity thingy demonstrates some WHOPPERS! As I read his Polity thingy I kept humming the Burger King theme song:  “Have it your way… at SGM now…”

But Dave Harvey is safe from any mass criticism. His arguments are a study in uninspired historical academic regurgitation. For most readers, he is close enough to the land mass of Protestant tradition as to not raise an eyebrow. Which he is quick to point out:  “There is little originality in Sovereign Grace Ministries; …”  (page 8) Oh, the irony in this sentence.

Dave is marginally creative in arguing the foundations of Protestant Papacy, but he comes at this governmental FORM at a sufficiently obtuse angle; citing enough other sources to successfully distribute the blame or credit. And he certainly never calls the doctrine Protestant Papacy, so if one is not really paying attention to the logical conclusion… >shrug< who is going to object?

Mr. Harvey doesn’t say anything scandalous, hedging against critical review by appealing to Non-essentialness — there “might” be other ways to govern a church. In the pursuit of the SGM Polity, Dave comes off as endlessly magnanimous.

So, what is the big deal? Is this a quibble over theological hairsplitting? Am I forcing you into the Theology Dentist Chair? Who cares? Many preachers crack open the Bible and identify similar assumptions from the book and teach some variation of these themes.

What is the big deal?

Here it is:  SGM doesn’t govern–they don’t FORCE with a magnanimous bone in their body. By frog-boiling increments, these men expand the definition of what is an essential doctrine by implicit or explicit demand to adhere to their considered judgments. (Mandatory Date nights? Husbands ordering food for their wives to demonstrate leadership? It is sin to have a Junk drawer because it is a sign of laziness? There is a punch line here, right?)

A massive disconnect exists between the veneer of their magnanimous scholasticism and the direct manifestation of their practice. So, this means something is lurking under the surface. Something is driving the interaction that ultimately skews the outworking: something implicit, some oblique assumption that folks really haven’t caught on.

Most folks believe that the problem resides in the SGM’s Charismatic papacy. CJ, at pyramid pinnacle passing out feudal favors to his spiritual henchmen, is the driving power of the problem.

While that may enable the tyranny, that is not the source of the tyranny. And here is the distinction:  Government forms–congregational, presbytery, et al.–are only structures for philosophical outcomes. What does it matter if you have one man at the top of the pyramid or 20 “First Among Equals” or a mob of congregants if what they are GOVERNING doesn’t change?

And what is government? Force. So the sentence could also read, “What does it matter if you have one man, a bunch of men, or a mob if what they are FORCING doesn’t change?”

The biggest reason the blog conversation doesn’t really pass the “so what?” test is the difference between REFORM and RESTRUCTURE. A different form of government won’t change the governmental objectives. The Monarchies of France and the French Revolution still used the Guillotine with equal passion. The form of government changed, the governing PHILOSOPHY did not. Bookmark this too because I will say more about this in a minute.

Sovereign Grace Ministries fancy themselves the best of the Orthodox and the best of the Charismatic. They have long since decided that the blend effect is what gives them their unique place. They have long since demonstrated the willingness to depart from the logical extension of their “orthodoxy” as it suits them. No academic debate exists. No logical debate exists. So, evaluating “Biblical” polity (FORCE) remains a debate about who has the “authority” to establish “authority.” Since they have decided they are uniquely authoritated to define authority … it seems strange to believe one can out-authority them or out-FORCE them.

Even if they changed the form of government, they would still be governing toward the same end. So, the question that needs to be answered is: what is the Sovereign Grace Ministries’ governing philosophy?  (10) What integrated ideas drive them to FORCE in all the varied forms that we see described with profound regularity from the blogosphere?

What is the driving governmental premise?

Okay… enough suspense. What is their driving premise? Here is the answer:  You don’t own you.

It is that simple.

Where do I get this from? I am going to show you. Remember what I said about Mr. Dave coming at this conversation at an angle? Notice this tucked into page 12 of his Polity thingy; Dave is discussing Romans 12:6-8.

The Greek word for “leadership” is “proistemi” (proistemi) “meaning…’to lead,’ ‘to direct,’ ‘to assist’… ‘to arrange,’ ‘to apply oneself to’.” 33 Curiously, the verb translated “govern” in the NIV is not present in the original language and was only added to clarify the application of “diligently.” According to John Murray, a more accurate rendering would be, “he that ruleth, with diligence,” 34 a translation much closer to the English Standard Version above.

Let’s track Paul’s progression of thought here:

  1. We all have different gifts (v.6a).
  2. Our gifts are the result of a prior work of grace (v.6b).
  3. The grace God has given determines the boundaries of our gifts and service (v.6).35
  4. Some have been given a distinct grace to lead (v.8).
  5. The grace to lead is exhibited by a “zealous and diligent concern” 36 (v.8).

Whatever Paul’s progression of thought may be, notice the implicit presumptions Mr. Harvey is advocating. His effective logic is:

  1. Our different gifts are given to us (not earned).
  2. Grace determines/necessitates boundaries.
  3. Leadership is God’s manifest boundary on gifts and talents.
  4. “Zeal” and “Concern” is tantamount to Leadership.
  5. Leadership is tantamount to Government.

And… say it with me now: Government is FORCE.

As a brief aside, I have always known I have what it takes to rule the world, (11) but needed an ironclad justification for demanding that one and all “Submit to my Authoritaaahh!” (A little South Park Lingo for you)   After reading Dave Harvey’s Polity thingy, I have finally found it. I have “zeal” and am “concerned” for the whole world. So now, you wretched sinners, bow your mind and then your knee! I am utterly qualified to demand your obeisance. I’m king of the–oops…  I am “First among Equals” for the whole world!

Ehem…

Anyway, Dave’s progression above is an oblique way of advocating “You don’t own you; the Leadership does.” God’s gifts are not yours to lay claim. Therefore, you are not justified in doing what you want or exercising initiative with those gifts. Since God limits you by grace, He limits you by LEADERSHIP because leadership is a manifestation of grace. As far as Sovereign Grace Ministries is concerned, LEADERSHIP means government. By the hallmark of their “Zeal” and “Concern,” they are distinguished to perform the appointed job of administering your life in God’s stead.

Remember I said bookmark this thought: “You are really kissing me with the FORCE of government:  the collective power to dictate… something.”  This is the something that SGM is dictating. They are dictating the sum of you. You are not free to take initiative on the sum of your gifts. And ownership is defined by the freedom to act, the freedom to exercise ambition, the freedom to exploit the content of your life. If you are not free to do these things, you don’t OWN your gift–you don’t own YOU.

I advocate you read CJ’s editorial, Standing in the Very Stead of God, (12) found on his blog. The underlying presumption of that entire blog post is that unique men are given the specific job of administrating the revelation of God to the people. God doesn’t speak to everybody; He speaks to some who deliver that message to the masses.

Beyond the horrific display of Exegetics or lack thereof in the post, the presumption should leap off the page and grab you by the throat. For those of you who have kept up with my commentary, this is the assumption of the Demagogues of Dictated Good.  (13) Because God so chose, a select few have been given revelation. To those who steward that revelation goes the exalted task of administering the lives and minds of those whom God has given. The concurrent doctrine that makes for a compliant body politic is pervasive depravity. You are depraved, and therefore, truth needs to be dictated. Ergo, you must rely on those who stand in the very stead of God to dictate truth.

Most folks lay down their minds (14) because they accept the moral premise of their own depravity and its implicit disqualification. They quit defending themselves and the right to the content of their own mind and gifts and substance. Defenseless people willingly accept “Submission and Authority” until it becomes submission to any assertion of authority. The doctrine becomes imprinted on the hearts of people until there are no personal boundaries, no personal ambition, (15) and no appeal for wrongs committed because no individual rights exist.

And this is the governing philosophy of ALL Destroyers. (16) These philosophical premises are what works in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every human atrocity.

Look at history’s tyrants. Listen to their slogans and speeches. Listen to moral premise. Listen to what they implicitly demand. Their polity is founded on the premise that God, the State, the People, the Collective own individuals.

History Lesson

Raise your courage and look. The Feudalism of the Dark Ages held the governmental philosophy of the Three Estates: a Christian Eugenics (17) –some pray, some fight, some work. To enforce the estates, the ethics and politics of the Dark Ages were notorious for utter brutality and human atrocity. In the West, this was a Christian age by any definition yet we have made a joke out of the philosophical outworking with comments like “I’m gonna get Medieval on your ass.” As I said above: the philosophical premises working in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every human atrocity.

The absolute Monarchies of Western History, the Divine Right of Kings, meant rulers could do no wrong because God appointed their actions from heaven:  the King owned all (people) because it was God’s will–the philosophical premises working in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every human atrocity.

Muhammad rose out of the desert with a revelation from Allah, who owned all, declaring the Infidel fit for nothing but bloody death. If not for the Christian opposition, the carnage that swept across three continents would have consumed the West. To this day, the governmental philosophy of Islam makes it the single greatest threat to the free world menacing daily to terrorize us back to the barbarism of the 7th century–the philosophical premises working in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every human atrocity.

The French Revolution occurred almost concurrent with ours, rising against cruelty and despotism of French Monarchies. Yet Robespierre shouted Liberté, Egalité, Fraternity for all the PEOPLE while blood ran thick and deep from the guillotine from those same people–the philosophical premises working in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every human atrocity.

It is no accident that the following words came from one of history’s most recognizable tyrants:

It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his people:  that the position and the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the community as a whole.

That above all, the unity of a people’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual…

This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture…the basic attitude from which such activity arises, the call to distinguish it from egoism and selfishness–idealism. By this we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community for his fellow men.

Many could go to Church tomorrow and hear these words extolled from the pulpit and believe they have been encouraged to a sound truth. Certainly, the Lutheran Church of the Weimar Republic thought so, not realizing that these same words were the philosophical premise of Chancellor Adolf Hitler (18) that ultimately justified the destruction of roughly 11 million souls.

And Joseph Stalin, not to be outdone by his National Socialist adversary, is estimated to have destroyed between 20 and 30 million souls in pursuit of the Communist Workers’ Paradise predicated on the Marxist assumption that those who HAVE (substance) should be slave to those who do not (have substance).

German National Socialism and Soviet Communism had virtually no government structure in common, yet they both produced the same end. The governing philosophy in every instance is that:

  1. Men do not own themselves.
  2. Man is depraved and therefore needs to be dictated.
  3. Individuals have a moral and corporate compulsion to lose themselves, their gifts, their talents, their substance, to the statist/collective, the Church, the People, and the Greater Good.

Here is the source of all history’s rivers of blood, death and destruction: the philosophical premise that man does not OWN himself.

Make no mistake: this is the measure of serious.

It is no accident that SGM acts the way it does. They set out long ago to emulate historical doctrine because they believed that “orthodoxy” made their body of doctrine unassailable. It never occurred to them to check the “fruit” of those doctrines. It never crossed their mind to evaluate the outcomes those doctrines have perpetrated on humanity every time they have been logically pursued. They were too impressed with their ability to think big thoughts to hear a voice of caution coming from a snot-nosed kid who wasn’t impressed with their bald heads and Enlightened Geriatric Club (19) act.

Can you really believe it a useless historical fact that sinners were fed to the bonfires in Geneva? Do you think that burning Michael Servetus at the stake is an unfortunate event brought on by pervasive depravity? Do you think it mere political zealotry that leads Protestant Queen Elizabeth and her father Henry VIII to kill Catholics with various forms of dismemberment? Do you think it a mystery that Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans fought a civil war in the pursuit of doctrinal purity? Do you believe the burning of Witches is a theological accident of a few misled souls?

Naivete is not an endearing or effective trait.

Burning someone at the stake requires an absolute utter resolve to listen in excess of 20 minutes to the agonizing screams, babbling wail, the endless plea for mercy, and relief. The contempt one must have for human life, for human freedom to perpetrate such an act is absolute. And it must be a CORPORATE RESOLVE. You can’t privately barbecue a man alive. (For heaven’s sake, we don’t even do that to animals for the piteous torture.) The group, the collective, the congregation, the parishioners, the worshipers, the fellowship, must all hold the same contempt because they stand mute, idle, and impotent in the face of the atrocity. Such mass passivity in the face of manifest horror, pain, and suffering requires that the group hold the same philosophical assumptions.

How else can they be willing to stand and listen, stand and approve? They must hold the same assumptions as the person that commands the judgment, as the person who builds the fire, as the person who lights the fire. They must all hold the assumption that individual freedom, individual human life is subordinate to a superior principle–a dictated principle that trumps all other values.

The historic facts above have all been perpetrated because of the integrated ideas that I’ve repeatedly pointed to: Moral Depravity, Dictated Good, Man Does Not Own Himself–the philosophical premises working in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every human atrocity.

It is no accident that SGM finds itself repeating historic doctrines and emulating their logical outcome in the way they treat people. I know… I know… they are not burning people at the stake. Don’t be obtuse. A flaming stake is only a matter of degree and the logical extension of: “Do it because I said so.”  When Truth is dictated, it isn’t long before someone reaches for a lighter and justifies their action by saying it was for the Greater Good, because man is depraved, he is exercising an unholy ambition and “needs to be held accountable.”

When Truth is dictated, there is only one way for men to deal with men: Force. (20) They must manipulate with fraud or extortion. When that power fades, man must hold other men hostage to the threat of that which they love: their life or the life of another. And mystic despots take this one step further: they lay claim to affecting the afterlife. Not only can they kill your body, they can impact the destination of your soul. Most men cannot stand in the face of such threat, even though it is not provable.

As I said in the Gospel According to John Immel (21)

Chapter 3: 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 destructive actions, find the assumptions, and you will find the cause.

My words above are a summation of the power of Philosophy:  the actions perpetrated from a logical extension of a body of ideas.

For Sovereign Grace Ministries, everything else follows from here. What you have, the sum of your gifts, time and talents, is not yours to lay claim. You need boundaries on your life because you will fail to act righteously and justly with those time, skills and talents. God’s Grace sets boundaries; boundaries mean leadership. You don’t own you because you can’t know you. Ergo, you need someone to dictate to you what you can never know. So, you must submit to those whom God has given the unique power to know you so they can succeed in their ownership of your time, skills, talents, mind, and body. The content of their practice, the specific manifestations of their tyranny, follows the philosophical premises working in concert to justify any and every governmental wrong and every spiritual atrocity.

  • Their relentless defense of Pastoral infallibility. (As Noel (22) and Grizzly’s story shows.)
  • Their twisted use of the Matthew 18 ethic. (As every story in the Blogosphere shows.)
  • The ridiculously heavy-handed authoritarianism. (As the Chesapeake (23) story shows.)
  • Their redefinition of gossip and slander.  (You are not entitled to know anything they don’t want you to know or have an opinion they haven’t given you.)
  • Their institutional paranoia.  (Illustrated by pervasive pastoral kibitzing with gutless wonder care group leaders to find those who don’t toe the pastoral mark.)
  • Their relentless demand on Singles to minister.  (Be Single in SGM and know what it is to NEVER have a life outside the church. You are not FREE to say NO.)
  • Their universal distrust of those people in the pews.  (As shown from their micromanaging of the smallest life detail.)
  • Their treatment of women as intellectual and sexual subordinates. (SGM wives gotta put out on demand and carry no intellectual objection in their head.  Crude, but so very true, just ask them.)
  • Their amazing PR machine. (24) (Is it really a mystery that they have an entire propaganda machine to spin for the masses? Every tyranny on the planet relies on the power to filter ideas and keep people from getting the details.)
  • Their utter affront when you exercise any initiative of thought, gift or calling. (Don’t you understand that Leadership has the prerogative to dictate the content and course of your life?)
  • Their rabid displeasure when you fail to devote absolute trust to their judgments. (How dare you distrust us… we are empowered to shepherd your soul.)

Every single last one of these examples is ultimately a fight over some facet of who owns whom:  a carrot and stick to enforce the ownership of time, talents, gifts, body, and mind.

Commitment to the Highest Truth

It is often asked by those observing this unfolding drama with Sovereign Grace Ministries how they can hear the mass criticism and not realize they have a problem. For all their advocacy of humility, how can they fail to approach the onslaught with that humility?

Here is my answer. I submit that SGM leadership sees this as a test of their commitment to higher truths. They see the blogosphere condemnation as a manifestation of persecution for their tenacious stand, for their courageous determination to arbitrate the dictated truth of which they have been made steward. They see their humility expressed in the patient endurance.

To that end, they see the barrage of criticism as invalid. They may have some remorse on specific incidents because the public outcry is embarrassing. They may decide to “Reconcile” with the moral relativistic wand of pervasive depravity:  “We are all sinners saved by grace and as your leader, I must remind you we have an opportunity to practice forgiveness today.” (And forgiveness means taking down whatever bad thing you’ve said on the blogs) They may believe they need to say, “I’m sorry,” but at no point do they see their actions as disqualifying. To the utter contrary, each conflict is an affirmation and a test of their commitment to God’s higher truth.

This necessitates that they see the mass, public condemnation of their practices as presumptuous and self-disqualifying. They take no real action toward interior remedy because they think the problems lie from without. You have failed to make their job a joy. You failed to adhere to a sound biblical teaching that they are morally on the hook to defend, advocate, and enforce. The hurt feelings, the spiritual collateral damage, the individual pressures that arise out of conflict with them are merely signs of selfishness and sin and the natural consequence of failing to embrace the higher truths of their sound teaching. In light of eternity, how could these momentary light afflictions be of any real consequence?

If you only understood that you don’t own you. If only you understood that you have been mandated by God to submit the entirety of your SELF to their care, the conflict would not exist. You don’t own you, so how can you object to a violation of your personal boundaries, aspirations, wants, and desires? It is all sin, and they are doing God’s work by standing in the way of your determination to carry out your sinful self. The pain and suffering is merely the outworking of God’s discipline.

I am going to participate in some self-plagiarism.

I wrote the following in my book Blight in the Vineyard: Getting free of the Myths and Tyrannies of Sovereign Grace Ministries. I self-published this work ten or so years ago when they were People of Destiny International, with the mother church of Covenant Life Church, affectionately referred to as PDI/CLC. God knows if Blight will hit mass production. Anyway, this is what I wrote on the point of reform those many years ago, and it fits nicely here.

For all the reasons we have already discussed, their method and practice affirms their doctrine, and their doctrine affirms their method and practice. Go to them to reconcile and find yourself embroiled in an endless effort to justify the content and conduct of your life. Seek to emulate the Matthew 18 ethic (25) by taking another person with you to establish “every word,” and they accuse you of gossip and slander because you spoke to someone not directly associated with the conflict about their error. Take it to the Church, and they refuse to be accountable to the questionable character of the masses.

These men are in an intractable position.

Tell them they are wrong and, in their mind, you persecute them. Prophesy from God about their error, and they dismiss the words as the ranting of a self-appointed Prophet. Preach something contrary to “Orthodoxy,” and they flip out their list of the “Nine Enemies of Truth.”

To the feeble-minded this is all very heady stuff.

PDI/CLC has been obsessing over Sound Doctrine and Reformed Theology in their own paranoid way since 91-ish and nothing has registered to arrest their descent… yet. Or maybe I should say that whatever God has done to arrest their intellectual progression has not or did not register.

But let me ask this. What is there for God to do? Inflict the leaders of PDI/CLC with some catastrophic disease? What does that do but affirm to them their doctrine of suffering? Maybe He quits sending them money and they have a serious financial crunch. What does that do but affirm to them their doctrine of suffering? Maybe He has people leave the church that have been key member for years. What does that do but affirm that they are preaching hard truth and not everybody can receive it?

Oh, and get this Irony of Ironies: in the very next breath they will point to church growth as a sign of God’s validation. If people leave, it is hard truth and cannot be received. If people come and they grow, it is God’s validation on their truth.

Gag me.

Hey Dave Harvey, where are your mental reflections?

Like I said, their position is simply intractable. They cannot hear anyone who is not their own, and their own would not dream of dissenting with CJ.

REFORM vs. RESTRUCTURE

It doesn’t matter what governmental form in which this premise is housed. It doesn’t matter how many different government styles one finds in the New Testament. The need for government, the need for FORCE, is related to the premise of ownership of brothers and sisters.

I told you to bookmark this idea:  in the French Revolution, the form of government changed, the governing PHILOSOPHY did not. The French Revolution brought about an absolute restructure of government from the Absolute Monarchy to Democratic rule. But both structures used FORCE with equal passion to compel compliance. They exchanged the Divine Right of Kings with the Absolute Right of the People and proceeded to behead any who did not abandon themselves to the collective.

This is why there is no REFORM in RESTRUCTURE. So, the restructure of SGM is irrelevant. Sovereign Grace Ministries will accept any government model that sustains their assumption:  men do not own themselves.

Their history bears this out. Every evolution of PDI/CLC/SGM has played to whatever body of thinking affirms their capacity to rule by proxy the minds, actions, and content of men’s lives. They could transform their governmental model tomorrow to democracy and they would still perpetrate the same fundamental tyranny because the model would be in service to the philosophy–the interrelated ideas that drive their actions.

It is important to realize these men are not driven by an intellectual integrity. They are driven by an authoritarian integrity. Their ideas are in service to their authority AND their authority is in service to their ideas (which is what makes most of their arguments so circular). Their ideas validate their authority and their authority dismisses any scrutiny of their ideas.

This is why all of the blogosphere Theological pontificating is irrelevant to Sovereign Grace Ministries’ leadership. For all of their vaunted intellectualism, they cannot be moved by a progression of thought: they cannot be REFORMED in their mind. They are stewards of Dictated Good. Truth is dictated, not the product of integrated non-contradictory thinking. No intellectual persuasion can be had.

So, non-essential doctrines are a license to believe what they want, which is precisely what Dave Harvey’s Polity thingy shows as he picked and chose the historical sources to justify this sentence: “Our experience, however, was less than God-exalting, and our “polity postmortem” resulted in the following conclusions: …”

Conversely, essential doctrines are inarguable because disagreement with them is rooted in deception. And being utterly consistent with T.U.L.I.P. (26) if a man is deceived–if a man is blind to the Dictated Truth–it is because God wants it that way. Why bother with an argument?

Make no mistake, dear reader. There is no REFORM with these wicked premises. There is no RECONCILIATION with this intellectual evil. “You don’t own you” is their governing principle. No REFORM exists because we are confronted with this irreducible principle: they own you by proxy. To concede this point is to be served with Mint Jelly. (27)

Do you envision this “Apostolic Team” saying, “Oops. We had the truth, but now we have a better truth.”? How many times can a group of men pound the pulpit and insist they have found the highest dictated truth and remain credible?

If Sovereign Grace Ministries ever changed these governmental assumptions, they would, by definition, cease to be who they are. They flirted with these premises for years as Gathering of Believers, as Take and Give, and as People of Destiny International. Every evolution of their organization has been in service to increasing governmental control. (Notice their participation in Shepherding in all its varied forms.) But in the past, some part of their thinking still held out that people had freedom to pursue their life and the content of their calling. But eventually, the historic Leaven of “orthodoxy” took root and these men pursued that body of ideas to its logical extension because it affirmed their governmental premise and justified the ultimate goal of their practice.

The name change from People of Destiny International (PDI) to Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) marked the point of no return. It marked their utter commitment to the philosophical assumptions:  Moral Depravity, Dictated Good, Man Does Not Own Himself.

There is no retreat from where they stand. The SGM leadership can only recant and disintegrate. And by definition, the Beta males who hold positions in the SGM pecking order based on the tyrannical assumptions handed down by the Alpha males have disqualified themselves as leaders by failing to resist the evil premise that put them in office. And those gutless wonder Care Group Leaders, the SGM Brown Shirts, that use Spiritual Roofies (28) to gain insider knowledge for the express purpose of informing on the spiritual proletariat for failing to toe the pastoral mark… don’t even get me started.

RESTRUCTURE is irrelevant. No REFORM is possible.

The Warm-up Round

For those timid readers lurking about on the blogosphere, you need to understand that this is the warm-up round. SGM is a bit player in this unfolding drama resurrecting historic doctrines that oppress people. Our current culture prevents them from FORCING with the threat of overt physical harm.

(Some of you having suffered physically might debate this.)

But our culture is trending in this direction. There are those on the public stage advocating the premise that you don’t own you, and governmental entities should be empowered to FORCE you. You can find this governing premise advocated from far too many church pulpits, from the freaky Charis-costal (29) gathering to the most staid Main-line denominational church, cable news networks, and political speeches.

By land and by sea, Tyranny is here. Tyranny is here.

This is why there are no “Reformed Big Dogs” (30) or “Charismatic Big Dogs” coming to apply brotherly accountability to the Sovereign Grace Ministries phenomena.

Not that SGM would ever consider lowly, unlettered, experiential Charismatic “equals” in the smallest sense.

And “Charismatic Big Dogs” for all of their talk about “covering” and “oversight” avoid actually doing any covering and oversighting, because they are really, really busy guarding the Prophecy mic, trying to make sure everyone knows that modern day Apostles actually exist, and calling angels to come do … stuff.

>shrug<

(Just close your eyes fellas and wish hard: “We really do exist, we really do exist, we really do exist.”  And click your heels together. You will get home safe.)

So they won’t be coming to the party.  But don’t sweat their absence, the women and children (31) are carrying the fight just fine.

Before someone trots out that Reformed Leadership in, the U.S. is ignorant of SGM. Or that Reformed Leadership in the U.S. is ignorant of the ongoing criticism by masses of blog commentators and venues of condemnation… Are you sure you want to advocate “ignorance” as a defense? How cute is that?

If leaders of other movements aren’t vetting their ministry partners, what does that say of the due diligence? What does it say about a ministry who will demand submission and authority,  (32) claim covering and oversight (33) from the pulpit and fail to inspect ministries that share their stage?

Ignorance would really be no different than incompetence! My advice then: if you are a part of these “Reformed Big Dog” ministries, and your leadership is demonstrating that extraordinary measure of incompetence… RUN!

So, if one does not like the incompetence explanation, that only leaves one real option: The “Reformed Big Dogs” are fully aware of the growing list of criticisms, and it doesn’t pass their “so what?” test.  Which really means that they fundamentally agree with the content of Sovereign Grace Ministry governmental philosophical assumptions: Moral Depravity, Dictated Good, Man Does Not Own Himself.

And I quote myself in part from above:

It is a CORPORATE RESOLVE. The group, the collective, the congregation, the parishioners, the worshipers, the fellowship, must ALL hold the same contempt, because they stand mute, idle, impotent in the face of the atrocity. Such mass passivity in the face of manifest horror, pain, and suffering requires that the group hold the same philosophical assumptions.

How else can they be willing to stand and listen, stand and approve?

They must all hold the assumption that human freedom… human life is subordinate to a superior principle–a dictated principle that trumps all other values.

The “Reformed Big Dog” ministries are of the same mind. The content of your life is to be sacrificed on the altar of their considered judgments. If they do good things, it is as it should be. If they do bad things, well, “Oops, forgive me because we are all just sinners saved by grace.”  The measure of the carnage is irrelevant because the governmental premise remains: Moral Depravity, (34) Dictated Good, Man Does Not Own Himself.

I expect that those “Reformed Big Dog” ministries reading this paper are now agitated a bit, indignant that I would dare lay this on their heads. With each paragraph, they are rattling off in their minds a list of teachings that encourage their flock to, on some level, go seek God and take initiative on their own. The foundation of their defense will sound something like this: “We must uphold standards and provide limitations.  We are appointed overseers and take care of A, B, and C but we expect believers to go do H, I, and J. The people are responsible for themselves. We don’t advocate the extremes of what SGM is doing.”

Dear reader, don’t fall for this. It is subterfuge. This is really a debate over HOW MUCH of you they own: 2% to 100%? It really doesn’t matter.  Doctrines that successfully persuade, successfully conclude that they own ANY of you, and the battle is already lost. Because every other subsequent argument becomes about what ownership looks like, and that line always creeps.

As I said above:  ”They don’t govern–they don’t FORCE with a magnanimous bone in their body. And, by frog-boiling increments, these men expand the definition of what is an essential doctrine by implicit or explicit demand to adhere to their considered judgments.”

This is the reason that the socialists usually end up losing to the communists. The socialists say they own 50% of a man; the communists say they own ALL of him. The only thing that is left is who will commit the most atrocity; who will follow the logical extension of their philosophy to its effective conclusion. The only thing left is to find out who will use the most FORCE to achieve the fullest end of their philosophical premise.

As of now, SGM is just more consistent with their foundational principle. If they are to be applauded anything, it is that they are more purely diligent with the cause and effect of their governmental premise. They have successfully mastered an ironclad corporate culture that organizes the smallest pastoral conversation. This is the measure of their commitment, a gauge of their determination to take action.

As of now, most other “Reformed Big Dog” ministries are just pretenders flirting with the fringes of the most evil governmental premise ever conceived on planet earth.

Leaven is yeast…

Yeast unchecked produces fermentation…

Drink deep of the spiritual Mojo juice and become intoxicated…

If the “Reformed Big Dogs” ever give themselves over to the intoxicating, rabid, heady tonic that these philosophical assumptions universally create…

If they carry these intoxicating, rabid, heady, philosophical assumptions into the political arena…

If they succeed in persuading a compliant body politic, a mass of people who have laid down their minds such that they are successful in joining the power of civil government with their Mystic Despotism….

I shudder to think….

The Political and the Religious (35)

We are inundated with this governing philosophy on all fronts. In the last ten years, America has made some drastic changes in the founding ideals that define our culture and life. The entitlement mentality is speeding us down the path to collectivism with ever frightening speed. It is no wonder we fail to resist the premise. Most people don’t know they should resist. And those who do resist don’t understand the source of the issue, the philosophy behind the driving moral and social demand. And those who finally do openly resist instantly suffer rebuke and rejection and attack.

Most people do not sustain an inner moral clarity to stand in the face of such onslaught. So they hem and hedge, offering bromides about brotherly love and advocating some brand of Rodney King Christianity: “Can’t we just all get along?” They assume we are in some gentlemen’s disagreement, and if we just comported ourselves with decorum, we would be able to negotiate a peace.

This is not true. Historically, this is the ugliest street fight man has ever engaged. This is the philosophical nuclear war of human existence.

(And people get nervous if you are snarky?? I do sooo love irony.)

For the first time in American history, we have granted mystic status for our governmental leaders–leaders too big and too Messianic to suffer criticism. It is no accident that the founding elements of history’s tyrannies are being openly advocated.

God help us when the Demagogues of Dictated Good join History’s Hitlers. When the civil bonfires of Geneva join mystic despotism, humanity is plunged headfirst into blood. Tyranny floods from the civic and spiritual front, driving all men to worship at a cult of death that only serves one purpose: enslave the minds of men or destroy those who refuse compliance.

This is the Essence of the Leaven of the Pharisees. And it is that very Leaven that joined the religious leaders of the early 1st century with the governmental power of Rome to crucify a seditious sect leader called Jesus.

Make no mistake. This is precisely what Jesus warned His followers to beware. And it is this very Leaven that marks the whole of Church History.

It was no accident that the Lutheran Church misunderstood who they voted Chancellor: they shared his governmental philosophical premise that man does not OWN himself. And it wasn’t long before Lutherans traded one symbolic cult of death for another: the Cross for the Swastika. And then they stood by helpless in the face of the carnage.

How many of you stand helpless in the face of the spiritual carnage being discussed on sundry blogs? How many of you stand mute while you see the metaphoric bonfire kindled for your friends as they walk through a conflict with church leaders determined to govern to the higher truths of “Sound Doctrine” and the “Local Church,” “submission and authority,” and “Church Discipline Leaders” who dismiss objections to mistreatment with the moral relativistic magic wand of pervasive depravity; we are all just sinners so you must forgive, forgive, forgive?

How many of you are guilty of ignoring their cries of pain and suffering because you stood approving?

Dear Timid Reader: if you can’t speak out now, how will you be able to speak out when the spiritual tyrants build a bonfire in your name and turn you into an honorary S’Mores?

Who owns Whom: That is the Question.

[1] Let’s Take a Poll http://sgmrefuge.com/2009/03/23/lets-take-a-poll/

[2] Sovereign Grace Ministries http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/ a ministry based out of Gaithersburg, Maryland with churches scattered around the globe. The leaders of this Group is a CJ Mahaney, former ministry partner of Larry Tomczak. For further information, visit their site for a list of people and their respective roles.

[3] For background info on this doctrinal debate, google (CJ Mahaney + Cry of the Damned)

[4] Eric Simmons comments and response http://spiritualtyranny.com/musing-in-my-underoos/

[5] Link to CJ Mahaney’s comments on Football Bill and commentary  http://spiritualtyranny.com/bill-belichick-and-other-lessons-in-sillyness/

[6] What Government is http://spiritualtyranny.com/speaking-of-church-polity/

[7] Sovereign Grace Perspectives: Polity, Dave Harvey 2004, Sovereign Grace Media, 7505 Muncaster Mill Road, Gaithersburg, MD 20877-3814.

[8] FREE Download http://www.sovereigngracestore.com/Search.aspx?Keyword=Polity&ByName=false

[9] “First Among Equals” is a reference to the Latin primus inter pares http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primus_inter_pares

[10] Humans are the sum of their collective ideas: http://spiritualtyranny.com/not-so-vain/

[11] My plan to rule the world http://spiritualtyranny.com/the-plot-thickens/

[12] Editorial Post: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/The-Preacher-Standing-in-the-Stead-of-God.aspx

[13] Defining Insanity and the Demagogues of Dictated Good: http://spiritualtyranny.com/defining-insanity/

[14] You are guilty and will accept any judgment given, any idea offered. http://spiritualtyranny.com/lay-down-your-mind/

[15] The government needs a compliant body politic http://spiritualtyranny.com/oligarchy-of-mediocrity/

[16] The Destroyers Rise because we let them http://spiritualtyranny.com/from-whence-the-destroyers-cometh/

[17] Collectivism: Historic Destructive Force.  http://spiritualtyranny.com/borgification-of-the-church/

[18] Adolf Hitler: 7 Oct 1933.  You ever heard these words in Church http://spiritualtyranny.com/what-about-individuality/

[19] Coined phrase: find the definition here: http://spiritualtyranny.com/definitions/

[20] I deal with the force of ideas and the force of violence further in this post. http://spiritualtyranny.com/dispassion-to-avoid-distortion/

[21] My Gospel is being written. http://spiritualtyranny.com/gospel-according-to-john-immel/

[22] Read the post and the comments.  LOTS of information in this incident. http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=276&cpage=10#comment-12540

[23] This post begins a series of posts addressing the Ester and the Chesapeake story. http://sgmrefuge.com/2009/01/15/from-esther-in-chesapeake/

[24] PR at its finest.  http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=71

[25] I am referring to the method of conflict resolution that Jesus advocated in Matthew 18.

[26] The acronym: T.U.L.I.P. is used to condense John Calvin’s Systematic Synthesis of Christian Theology.  Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints.

[27] People are sheep. Shepherds protect sheep. But the reason they protect sheep is to be eaten later. http://spiritualtyranny.com/pass-the-mint-jelly/

[28] Unearned Intimacy http://spiritualtyranny.com/spiritual-roofie/

[29] Definition of Charis-costal.  http://spiritualtyranny.com/definitions/

[30] Reformed Big Dog and Charismatic Big Dogs is my way of referring to major ministries of a particular theological ilk and corresponding leadership in American Christianity. Reformed Theology is the predominate body of Christian thought that came out of the Protestant Reformation. Charismatic refers to a Christian movement that started roughly 60 years ago and emphasized the gifts of the spirit: speaking in tongues, healing, demons, et al.

[31] Women and Children First http://spiritualtyranny.com/women-and-children-first/

[32] http://spiritualtyranny.com/the-myth-of-accountability-and-team-leadership/

[33] http://spiritualtyranny.com/the-very-important-things-of-blog-apostleness/

[34] The soil of moral relativism.  http://spiritualtyranny.com/keen-eye-on-the-funny-guy/

[35] Why is it that the church never ends up on the right side of human freedom.  http://spiritualtyranny.com/ecclesiastical-establishments/



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