By John Immel
(For those of you who don’t care about the specifics of the SGM phenomena, give me a minute. This is going somewhere.)
Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head
Rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead.
She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho,
let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh,
sing it high,
sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
So some time has passed since Vicar Charles Joseph headed off to sit in the bad preacher doghouse. Rumor has it that the doghouse has traveled to other states and other countries south of the border where he is speaking in behalf of the very church he said he should not be leading. Or maybe that was just the local church he had committed grave sins against, and the universal church is fair game for his metaphysical mayhem.
Anyway, for a few days the blogging world tried to hum a few bars of the song in the Wizard of Oz: “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead.” People seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief: “See, we really aren’t crazy! It really is bad in Sovereign Grace Ministries. It really is!”
Joshua Harris, beta big dog for the SGM Vatican in Gaithersburg, Maryland, took to the plexiglass podium and admitted that yes, there were grave sins in the church. It really was as bad as it seemed. We don’t answer fools, but God was disciplining US because He loved US.
SGM admitting they are wrong? Why, how could it be?
People broke out in group hugs, speaking of grace and love and mercy and nodding sagely as people thought this was God finally showing up. Why, if the CJ Mini Me was willing to say it was bad, very bad, then surely this was a sign that the bucket of WikiLeaks in the face had really worked:
“Ding Dong the Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!”
Armed with ruby slippers, a flood of outrage-filled articles poured forth taking El Primo Doctrinal Mover and Shaker to task. If it wasn’t for his faulty Bible interpretation, his Bible proof-texting, a host of church polity mishaps, and his temerity for seeking to place himself in the same category as John Calvin, all these thing would not have happened.
“Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.”
SGM WikiLeaks seemed to embolden a few more victims to take their story public: yet another story of molestation swept under the pervasive depravity rug and another parent villainized for a lack of love and grace and forgiveness showed up on www.sgmsurvivors.com. Rumor has it that this story hit very, very close to SGM Vatican home. The CLC faithful were summoned to a members’ only meeting. The women are in an uproar; the men are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to proof-text their masculinity to get their theologically deficient wives back in line. The pastors are doing their gossip and slander two-step all the while woeing and tumulting about the great sinfulness of man and the great evils of human ego.
“Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.”
With only a few exceptions—from those on the “anti-SGM” side of the blogging world—Brent Detwiler was heralded as a hero with the pooper-scooper for the SGM dirt and applauded for his courage to face down the green-faced villain of Gaithersburg, Maryland.
“Don’t you talk mean about Brent! Don’t you dare remember he was one of them for decades! Brent, please come in. Yes, make yourself at home. You are one of US now. Besides, we need you to tell us we are OK. We can’t know anything unless a pastor makes it clear for us. We can’t understand what is really happening unless a leader tells us. We are so confused. Can we get you some hot cocoa? Yes, tell us how hurt you are. We are very hurt. So you must be hurt. Brent, tell us where you hurt. Is it in your heart? Is it in your soul? We are hugging you. Brent? Brent? Brent, aren’t you going to tell us?”
Denigration of those dastardly bloggers in their underwear daring to speak ill of SGM leaders all but forgotten, Brent slid into the kiddie end of the cyber pool ready to take his side of the story public. Floaties firmly around his arms, like God before Balaam, the very blogs he denounced for a failure of attitude, and gossip and slander became his voice to the world. See! I’m not apostate! I’m not evil! I did it right! But CJ, this is all his doing! It’s him!
“Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.”
When a house didn’t drop on his head for the rational larceny of joining the blogging world, Brent was encouraged to take his kiddy pool backstroke into the lap lanes. With the debut of brentdetwiler.com, he came out splashing; the mist was felt all over the blogosphere. Tim Challies took his blogging towel to Rat Fink Brent D concerning his documents; yet another Neo-Reformed shill weighing in on the general impropriety of reading the leaky PDFs. Rat Fink Brent D defended himself by pointing out that “two anti-SGM blogs” had been in existence for years before the documents, so he really didn’t have a personal vendetta.
never were more truer words spoken…I just dont know if I have the energy to deal with this all anymore…26 years is a long time, I will
let you know if I am contacted…LOL…but somehow I think the teflon runs just a bit too thick there…
I seriously really doubt if anything will ever be done for all those folks…being able to forgive is a reward in itself…and thats probably enough…thats the way I have dealt with it anyway…t
Hey Ted….
I get being tired I suppose, but as i said above: “If we let them win we will get what we deserve.”
Hey John, It’s been a couple years since I posted here (under an ever so slightly different handle), but anyways… this is a brilliant post. Im still trying to absorb and comprehend it all. But you captured the hopefulness we all felt that: finally they would see, finally they would respond, finally they would do what is right, only to have our hopes dashed. And you described the corrupted system they operate in that actually keeps them from seeing truth.
But the stories are still being told, the truth is still getting out, bruised reeds are still escaping alive, albeit “barely” but alive nonetheless. And what was a giant “seeing moment” for them, an opportunity to turn and do what is right, will stand as an eternal testimony of their choice on That Day. They are as blinded by the system they created as the many sheep that still follow them.
But nonetheless the truth is still pouring out like a rushing river that will not stop, because God is that river of truth, and people are seeing, and they are responding. Once you said to me (when I just got out and was still deer in the headlights), you said, “Just pray in the spirit and read the Red” – Now more than ever, that is still sound advice. Lord, have mercy on us all.
Blessings to you John
MANM
Much Afraid No More… yes I remember you and thrilled that you remembered the “Pray in the Spirit and read the Red” comment. It is sound advice, particularly in the beginning of the path out from underneath the body of thought Calvinism represents. In the beginning it so very hard to get one’s bearings, As you say very well, most escape these ideas, and the experiences driven by these ideas “barely alive.” These are true words.
That is why so many people must be shown the path back to life. I have an advantage. I am couple of decades farther down this path. I am not immune to peoples pain, but rather very aware of what must come next for them to find the life and peace the so desperately crave. In time what people must come to grasp is that the power they are asking for is the ability to drink from that river of TRUTH you mention. But drinking is at no point passive.
The acquisition of TRUTH is a two-fold process. The first and most important step is the determination to hunt for TRUTH. This is where men and women mostly fail. If Man has shown anything it is his fundamental hostility towards TRUTH, and that hostility manifests in an overwhelming passivity, an utter reluctance to make the effort. Or said another way, for Man to pursue TRUTH men must make a choice THINK.
But this is only the first step. The second step is the courage to remain consistent, to maintain the integrity of one’s own cognitive life. This is an intensely personal, intensely demanding, intensely lonely process. No one can do it for you, and it requires the highest and best effort from every man and woman that chooses to walk the path. The weak of will, the weak of character, the weak of moral development, will wither on this path because it demands absolute courage and ruthless self evaluation. Only those who are determined to evaluate the cause and effect of their ideas. Only those who are determined to judge reality, and the system dynamics of choices and outcomes successfully get out from underneath the indoctrinated fear and death. Only those determined to possess the power of the Anointed Jesus, the Mind of Christ walk this path well.
It is a thrill that you are on that path… much afraid NO MORE!
Hey John, The two-fold process you speak of is so true!! I have always hungered after truth, have been relentlessly annoying at times in my search for it, (that’s why I was one “not allowed in the inner sanctum of my old sgm church groups) “we must watch that one boyz, she’s not really one of us…”
But your sencond part is what got me! That is where I am at now, and I never realized how: narrow the path, how alone the path, how ruthless the self examination, as I wade thru and wrestle thru, why I believe what I believe. Two years after and it is harder now than when I first got out.
What you wrote there pretty much brought me to tears, because I feel like I am midway in the process, too far thru to ever turn back, but it still looks like a long way until breakthru to the other side. I have been needing a dose of “Courage” as the lion of oz used to talk about. I am determined as you say, but have been feeling about as weak as can be. Thanks for putting the process into words, that helps! Only the Power and Presence of the Living God can satisfy my soul, everything else is rubbish. Thanks John, your words speak life!
Blessings,
MANM
Of course you are not one of them… you have estrogen and are missing a chromosome. LOL…
This is one of the reasons I think this body of doctrine hits women so hard. It makes them third class citizens with no rational appeal to any objective standard. So they are victimized by pretty much any and every whim that gets touted as biblical. And men are told they are rationally superior by the lottery of genetics so their “rational” conclusions are unassailable.
So men and women are compelled to live in the worst of all worlds… men who have no responsibility to produce one thought worth accepting, one action worth following and or one trait worth desiring, and women are compelled to live a fraud. They must sit silent and rationally subordinate to a man who they know doesn’t have a brain cell in his head while he makes choices and takes actions that are devoid of sense. But he gets to puff out his chest like he’s the original theologian, taking credit for the doctrinal sufficiency of his family, all the while taking his rational queues from some man sitting in a office.
So you have rational third class citizens, being “led” by rational second class citizens, who mooch their ideas from doctrinal autocrats who rule the definition of TRUTH by fiat.
Is it really any wonder that there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the actions of those so zealous for these doctrines?
The greatest of all tragedies is how often these doctrines destroy marriages all the while getting credit for “saving” the marriage.
In the beginning when the woman isn’t really getting any help in the house, and kids, bla bla bla, it sounds like a grand idea to have the man “lead,” but when he trades the vice of indolence for the vice of relational “scriptural” autocrat, (or merges indolence with relational autocracy) the warm fuzzy outer coating these doctrines are wrapped in wrecks everything that marriage is about—the sensual, rational and spiritual celebrations of two equals exchanging value.
Anyway… as for the courage to stay on this path… you are correct, there is a point on the path when you know you cannot go back, but what forward looks like remains a mystery. The reason the Platonist Augustinian world view holds such sway over man’s thinking is because the bulk of man’s intellectual energy has been brought to bear in its defense, so the doctrines are specifically designed to undermine those who choose to challenge them. So know this… your fear and uncertainty is by design. The courage you need is the audacity to remain faithful to your own rational/spiritual faculties.
One of the greatest declarations in scripture is, “it was for freedoms sake that Christ set you free.” the consequences of believing that declaration is you must take responsibility for your freedom. This means action-reading the Word, allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you into all truth. This does not mean allow yourself to relinquish rational thought and abdicate your freedom to someone else’s interpretation because they say they are gifted differently then you. The lie we believe is because certain individuals tell you they have authority over your life you must give them said power of authority. No, no a thousand times no!!! I see the heads buried in the sand because the work of freedom is work and it is easier to give someone else this power over you. Blessed child you no longer have to be a berean any longer, I shall take up that mantel for you and in exchange I will take away your freedom to rational thought, I will bury the voice of the Holy Spirit because I will represent him to you. So brothers and sisters declare it loud and strong– I am free, I am free thank God Almighty I am free!!!
John,
Could you please help with an answer to the following question: Why do these poor people put up with this?
[Unpacked] Why do the members of SGM affiliated churches continue to stay in them, even with all that has been identified recently in so public a forum?
It is a very puzzling phenomena.
Thanks!
Sopy ;~)
Sopy…..
You said: Why do these poor people put up with this?
Here is my take. I don’t think they are “poor people.” This implies some form of relational poverty. Or maybe better said, it implies that the SGM faithful are not empowered to change their own fate—as if they are not co-conspirators in their own treatment. The evasion that so many people seek to make is that they bear no responsibility for their ongoing participation. Or maybe I should say it this way: they forfeit their own intellectual and spiritual subordination and pretend they can’t see the logical conclusions of the doctrines.
The SGM phenomena (or any tyrannical philosophy) cannot succeed without rational passivity abetted by superstitious threat. All Mystic Despotism requires the consent of the victims to prevail. In context this consent is given because of a presumed moral superiority. As long as people accept the argumentative linchpin of Sovereign Grace Ministries moral superiority they concede all rights to ANY objection.
People like to capitalize on the moral superiority while a part of the organization. They like the perks as long as the police powers are pointed elsewhere. They only get fussy about the “polity” or the “interpretive methods” or the “poor treatment” when all those doctrines suddenly come to bear on their lives. (Notice hypocrites in chief Brent Detwiler and Larry Tomczak) Then the grand theory of “Submission and Authority” doesn’t look so grand. Suddenly they want the right to their own mind and their own self appointment, and the value of their own moral existence. And this is what SGM, (and every other group teaching these doctrines) never concedes. This is of course, because the Reformed Theology construct never concedes a rational equality in humanity. Rational INEQUALITY is founded on a pervasive depravity that—presumably—corrupts the human mind. Pervasive Depravity is merely another way of saying that no individual man owns a moral worth, which means he has no right to think for himself.
How can a creature of no moral worth—which has a corrupted thinking, reasoning, and inescapable evil nature—ever qualify to challenge an ideology the places all moral value, and all “objective” TRUTH with the governmental purview of a select few autocrats?
The answer is self evident.
So these “poor people” don’t “put up” with it. Rather the truth is, members indulge SGM leadership, defending the pastors as if they are one of the family. They are zealous in defense against bloggers in their underwear denouncing the “bitterness”, “hate” and spiritual treason . . . until the “orthodox” police powers turn the force of governing authority on their lives. Then they quickly get a blog alias and join the chorus of pious outrage as if they were an innocent bystander in the Metaphysical Mayhem perpetrated in the name of God.
I have endless compassion for the young and the weak, and the theologically uninitiated. SGM is leveraging a world class philosophical tyranny that has proved itself an overwhelming menace throughout history. The average five year old girl does not have a chance against such force. I get the plight, but for every story of molestation, and doctrinal injustice, and horrific pastoral conduct, there are parents abetting the outcome. I marvel at the fathers that let their wives and kids get chewed up and spit out … for years. They thumped their chest while a part of the grand fraternity “orthodox” Christianity. Then wail their outrage when that “orthodoxy” turns on them … for a decade.
Men only sacrifice a value if they have been told that “sacrifice” is in service to a higher moral standard. (This is exactly what these doctrines teach.) The treatment can only happen because a man/father lets it happen. It is that simple.
The reality that everyone wants to evade, the ugly baby that no one wants to call ugly; the animating power behind the treatment is the doctrines behind the curtain carried to their “logical” conclusions. The fathers bought the doctrine with their rational subordination, and made a down payment to join the “authority” fraternity by selling the moral worth of their wives and children’s lives. They purchased the affirmations of Mystic Despots passing out Eternal Assurance, and then the doctrine behind the curtain spent the down payment, and cashed the check.
They shouldn’t be mad. They got exactly what they paid for.
So the answer to the question: Why do people “put up” with Sovereign Grace Ministries conduct? Why do people “put up” with all forms of civil or religious tyranny?
Because it suits them . . ..
What was said in the post direct above this one knocked the wind out of me.
But I’m “missing a chromosome,” so I may be easily deeived but you have two unmatched chromosomes
Some more observations, I am glad you are not giving BD andn LT a pass here because if you are aware of the history of this so called movement, both of these men have behaved as poorly as CJM. They have basked in their position of privilege.
BD has written extensively and he is clearly patriarchal in his beliefs telling women not to pursue an education. His views on male and female roles are obvious. Brent is excessively proud of his Y chromosome (doesn’t realize there isn’t much more on there than stuff that makes him a dude and, because it has no match, there is no crossing over so it is passed down essentially the same from father to son.)
LT has been the poor victim in a lot of minds but, mind you, he has profited from such books as, “God the Rod and your Child’s Bod,” which is extreme in its teachings. Parents are told they must spank to be good parents. LT mocks effective nonviolent parenting techniques and I wonder how many children have suffered because their parents bought into LT’s false teaching while LT laughed all the way to the bank.
Thank you for having the nerve to part the curtain and showing us what sort of people are providing us with SGM smoke and mirrors.
Hey DB…
Yes… I marvel that people treat Brent Detwiler and Larry Tomczak with such deference. They would both still be part of the organization had they not been forcibly removed. Neither man has ever recanted the doctrinal assumptions that are at the forefront of the tyranny. They both persist (present and past tense) with the root doctrinal assumptions that produce the tyranny. Even for all of Larry’s bluff and bluster that he was leaving the organization “because of the doctrine” in the better part of 15 years he has done nothing to combat the doctrine. To be sure the moment he was offered “reconciliation” with the SGM bunch Larry came out in defense of his homeboys, with nary a word about the “Doctrinal Refocus” mentioned. How “everything” can be put on the table, and “reconciled” and yet SGM persist in their Calvinist agenda defies any rational, logical, or spiritual consistency.
Dare I come out in defense of der Vicar Charles’s Joseph and point out that he is the ONLY person in the Larry T. dynamic acting consistently? Dare I point out that he is the only one demonstrating the courage to carry their convictions to the logical conclusions? After 15 years, CJ is vindicated: Larry leaving wasn’t about the doctrine.
(For those of you why haven’t, read the third part of Brent Detwilers, the SGMwikilieak documents might I recommend—The Blackmail of Larry Tomczak pg 135 and following. This contains the background for my comments, and the subsequent history and conduct—or utter lack of action—of Larry Tomzak confirms my point.)
Anyway, people are being played for chumps … but in a world of freedom, liberty and choice, they can wear that status proud.
BTW … DB …. your first two sentences …. I have puzzled and puzzled about what you meant. I thought you were making a joke. And then I thought maybe not. Since I’m one of the few men in this fuss advocating rational equality no matter what the chromosome count I’m a bit fuzzy on the punch line. LOL
John
A bit of info about human sex chromosomes. For those whose eyes glaze over: you have been warned. Now, I warm to my subject……
As most of you know, gender in humans is determined by the presence of a Y chromosome (male) or the absense of a Y (female.) Female is, by the way, the default gender.
The Y chromosome is a little bitty thing that has mutated such that it holds very little more than the genes that code for male stuff. The chromosome is passed from father to son with very little alteration over thousands and thousands of years. In fact, the priestly Jewish tribe, decendents of Aaron (Kohinin or present day Jewish family name, Cohen, Coehn, Koehn, etc.) about 50% of the males share the same Y chromosome that can be traced back to a single ancestor that lived at the same time as Aaron; isn’t that cool? Almost worth slogging through this tedious post but I regress.
Normal humans regardless of gender need the same number of active chromosomes or the extra X in females would be overproducing the RNA that codes for the proteins on the second X so one of the X’s is randomly inactivated and becomes a vestige of the X known as a Barr Body. At this venture balance is found in the Force and I shall be merciful and close this post. Oh, almost forgot, the first sentence was a compliment, that’s all. Good observation and all.
DB… outstanding comment…
It goes directly to the point of my article. If there was ever an object lesson for rational effectiveness in action; if there was ever, an example of Aristotelian epistemology exploited; if there was ever a case in point that anti-SGM critics presume rational equality; if there was ever a demonstration that the real pedigree of those opposing the contempt for human existence demonstrated by the Neo-Reformed movement are children of the Enlightenment; if there was ever evidence that we live in the Age of Reason, DB’s mini chromosome tutorial is it.
All you lurkers out there… it is time for you to join in the leverage and power of your real heritage.
Blushing
Oh, here is a link to the wiki version (citations to scholarly peer-reviewed articles at the end.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron
John, for your answer to my question in the comment above, much thanks…
It certainly is strange how SGM officials can take some basic christian truths and twist them into sordid rules to promote such legalism. My word, haven’t these guys ever read Galatians?
“Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.”
– Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)
Excuse me, am I missing something?
Didn’t Christ come to set these folks “free?”
(sad face)
Sopy ;~)