Baptist & Amillennial Blunders

“While it is true that the gospel does have ripple effects on society, it is wrong to equate the kingdom with those ripple effects.”

-Sam Waldron
Baptist Amillennialist

Waldron, along with Baptist Amillennialist Tom Hicks has written a book inveighing against Theonomy and postmillennialism. One position they take as Amillennialists is that the Kingdom of God is only identified with the visible church. Now, keep in mind that if it is true that there is no such thing as neutrality this Amillennial position means that all other Institutions of men that are not the visible church are, by necessity, outposts of the Kingdom of Satan. That which cannot be part of the Kingdom of God is always a part of the Kingdom of Satan and is always opposed to the Kingdom of God. This means, families, education, arts, politics, courts, medicine, and all the institutions that wherein these are contained all belong to Satan’s rule because according the Waldron, Hicks and countless number of Amillennialists the Kingdom of God is only identified with the visible church.

This is despite the fact that we are taught to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. This position is held despite the fact that we are to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This position is held despite the fact that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to Christ who then instructed us to disciple the nations. This stupid Amillennial position is held despite the fact that the gates of hell would not prevail in the Church’s work of extending the Kingdom.

The Amillennialist position is fine with Jesus being King over the Church. They are fine with Jesus being King over our individual personal lives. However, these poor chaps get stuck on the idea that the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the Church and personal individual lives, as that is multiplied by God’s faithfulness to build his Church, will necessarily mean that all the various institutions that are built up by converted men and women will thus become expressions of the Kingdom of God.

Waldron, instead wants to refer to all that as “ripple effects on society.” Apparently “Kingdom ripples,” are acceptable but actually being part of the Kingdom of God is verboten. One wonders where an acceptable Kingdom ripple ends and where an unacceptable Kingdom identity begins. Maybe we should begin a “Kingdom ripple police.” These Kingdom ripple police would make sure that ripples never became more than ripples.

Waldron needs to be reminded that Jesus was crucified for being the kind of King that the Romans found threatening. Rome would not have found Jesus being King to be threatening to their rule if they had believed that the Kingship that Jesus brought was only to be over a private religious organization (Church) or over people’s “hearts.” Pilate would never of hoisted Jesus up on the Cross if Jesus had been only some kind of private sphere King.

“If these arguments that I am making are correct then Christian Nationalism is actually Satanic. It is, in truth, Satanic Nationalism because it is a usurpation of Christ’s authority… The book of Revelation teaches that their is an unholy alliance between state religion and and overpowered civil government. Any government that claims authority over the Church’s orthodoxy and fills the church with reprobates is under the influence of the dragon and is speaking with the voice of the dragon.”

Tom Hicks
Anabaptist Amillennialist

1.) Hicks great presupposition here is that a nation’s government should allow for all the gods into the public square. Being Baptist, Hicks, by definition, believes in pluralism, which means he believes in polytheistic Nationalism. Since religion is an inescapable category all nations practice a nationalism as animated by some religion.

2.) Notice when one gives up Biblical Christianity the categories of good and evil end up being inverted. Once Hicks calls genuine Christian Nationalism, “Satanic Nationalism,” he now has embraced “Satanic Nationalism” as being Christian.

3.) Hicks is correct about the book of Revelation but all because a godless union of church and state persecuted the Church in the book of Revelation (something we would expect) that doesn’t mean all cooperative work between a Christian church and Christian State is evil.

4.) A Christian government correcting a Christian church that is giving up doctrines of the true Christian faith is a blessing. Obviously a government filling up the Church with reprobates would not be a Christian government and would, as such, have to be resisted. Hicks makes no sense.

5.) Hicks is speaking with the voice of the Dragon.

Hicks is speaking with the voice of the radical reformation (AnaBaptists). Below is a Puritan voice of the second Reformation – John Owen. It provides a correction to Hicks Baptist ramblings.

“Protestants teach unanimously that is it incumbent on kings to find out, receive, embrace, and promote the truth of the gospel, and the worship of God appointed therein, confirming, protecting, and defending of it by their regal power and authority; as also, that in their so doing they are to use the liberty of their own judgments, informed by the ways that God hat appointed for that end, independently of the dictates, determinations, and orders of any other person or persons in the world, unto whose authority they should be obnoxious.”

John Owen
Puritan

Hicks and Waldron are classic examples of problems one finds with amillennial, baptist, theology.  These guys think they are claimants to the doctrines of the Reformation and claimants of covenant theology. However, when it comes down to it, all you are left with when one embraces Baptist Amillennialism is discontinuity, dualism, and dispensationalism.

This & That — Boomers, Scientism, Church Courts

On The Boomers

I am not a Boomer, though I fall in the rough age bracket. Actually, I fall kind of in-between Boomers and Gen. X, but sociologically speaking as Boomer and Gen. X are described I am definitely Gen. X. My parents were more characteristically Boomers.

Having a foot in both worlds though maybe I can make some comments on some of the things of which the Boomers are accused by subsequent generations.

First, subsequent generations need to be careful about the broadly placed accusations made against Boomers. Not all of them grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths. Not all of them think that other generations are whiny and shiftless. Some of the Boomers understand that subsequent generations got a raw deal and have a right to be angry. Finally, on this score, there are Boomers who agree with much of the younger generations analysis and so are not your enemies.

Second, because the above is true subsequent generations should make alliances with Boomers where they can. Some of those Boomers have been fighting about many of the very things about which subsequent generations are incensed, and they were fighting when the subsequent generations were yet in diapers. In other words, my counsel to the younger generations is don’t make enemies where you don’t need to make enemies. Every generation has a remnant. Find the remnant and learn from them.

Third, don’t dismiss Boomers just because they say you’re wrong on this or that particular issue. For example, I know a number of Boomers who hate centralized Government. This means they are not going to agree with many in the younger generation who think that if we just had a Christian prince centralized government would be positive. They will disagree with younger chaps who want to insist, as I read this morning for example, that Christian Nationalism cannot live with paleoconservatism.  Boomers can disagree with y’all on this or that plank of the agenda without being total enemies.

On Scientism

Shifting gears, I wanted to note for readers here (and this in light of some recent comments) that we don’t do Scientism here. Scientism is the idea that Science is some holy grail of truth by which all should abide. Scientism is a religion wherein it is claimed that the postulates of “science” with its native empiricism is the only source of knowledge. We don’t believe that science is the Queen of the Sciences and we believe that any science is only as good as the theology that drives the science in question. I find it my delight, for example, in mocking science as displayed by the Lysenkoism that resulted in countless numbers of death due to starvation — all because they were “following the science.”

The Liberal Atlantic Monthly draws the wrong conclusions but the substance of what they write about in terms of Scientism is spot on;

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/trofim-lysenko-soviet-union-russia/548786/

All of this translates into skepticism regarding what is called “the cult of the experts.” Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn about what “the experts say.” Sure, I’ll quote folks and studies here but only as those folks or studies are doing what I understand to be credible science. No Trofim Lysenko science need apply. This means, if you post a study on this or that subject you should not expect me to say, “well, that’s the end of the conversation, I guess.” So, for example, you are not going to want to come around here telling me who “science proves anthropogenic climate change and that means the end of the world.” Sorry, that’s all bollix driven by Lysenko like science. The same thing is true regarding what science says regarding the merits of vaccines. Sorry…. I just don’t believe your science and no study is going to change my mind because you’re beginning with presuppositions about the nature of reality that I do not share and the true science is on my side. I mean… any time the poseurs have on their side Anthony Fauci saying, “I am the science,” you know that they have a weak hand.

So, by all means, “science” but “scientism” need not apply. The fantasy world of Charles Darwin and evolution should really be the end of appealing to Science as some kind of conversation stopper.

On “Conservative” “Reformed” “Church” “Courts”

It is my conviction that the Associate Reformed Presbyterian denomination dealing with Rev. Michael Hunter and the Presbyterian Church of America dealing with Rev. Zach Garris are now boxed into a situation where they  have to discipline Rev. Hunter and Garris since the outcome of those denominations not doing so would mean they would be labeled “racist” denominations, and since avoiding the label of “racist denomination” is something to be avoided more than going to hell Hunter and Garris will be railroaded. The denominations have no choice since they themselves have in the past, by implementing WOKE polity and by the personnel they’ve allowed into their denomination adopted the Cultural Marxist / WOKE world and life view. These denomination cannot let Rev. Hunter and Rev. Garris go without discipline in some form since to do so would be to let loose all the demons in their denominations that they have allowed in over the prior years.

I know what they are going through now and will go through, having gone through it myself and as such I have large amounts of compassion for these men who have now joined guys like myself and Michael Spangler to be canaries in the coal mine of these compromised and Christ hating denominations, but this continued persecution of all orthodox Reformed and Protestant clergy should be a warning to all Christians in these “Reformed” and “Presbyterian” denominations. The modern church in the West — Reformed and otherwise — worships egalitarianism, especially in racial matters, and will not allow this idol to be touched by anybody who commits the sin of noticing on issues like race, feminism, the history of Christianity and the Bagels, and Cultural Marxism in general.

My word of advice to those in the large box store “Conservative” denominations (as well as many smaller Reformed denominations), for whatever it is worth, is “get out while you can. Why should you be supporting denominations that are aiding and abetting the destruction of the White Christian race?”

Instant Forgiveness In the Face of Violent Crime & The Color of Crime; The Texas Case

Recently, with the murder of a 17 year old white male in Texas by a black teenage assailant the issue of forgiveness has become a subject of conversations among folks. The Father of the boy murdered, shortly after the murder, went public with his announcement that he had forgiven the black murderer of his son.

In a later interview with Laura Ingram the father in question somewhat clarified his earlier blanket forgiveness, thus making more clear what he had said earlier.

This is not the first time that we have seen this kind of  blanket “forgiveness” by folks in the face of heinous crimes against their loved ones. In the past few years I remember another case in Indiana where a white man forgave the black murderers of his white wife.

Now, the way this “forgiveness” can come across, especially when offered in the context of this kind of horrid sin, is that the person forgiving is willing to let “bygones be bygones,” as if we are going to ignore the necessity to hate unrighteousness. However, the God who instructs us to forgive is the same God who commands us to “hate that which is evil,” and it it is no hatred of evil to come across as if one treats grievous sin lightly.

I think somewhere along the way the Christian church has done a disservice to its members by teaching them to respond to glaring evil with a seeming nonchalant “I forgive you for raping and murdering my wife,” or, “I forgive you for driving a knife into my son’s chest because he told you to go sit somewhere else.”

Allow me to suggest that our forgiving someone doesn’t mean that the consequences that sin brings are no longer in force. Horizontal forgiveness does not mean the offender gets repeated opportunities to do us harm. “I forgive you” is to release us from vindictiveness and bitterness but it does not mean we put ourselves again in the position to be offended against by the perp. In a realistic world the husband of the murdered wife in Indiana could have said in one breath; “Personally, I forgive you thus releasing my personal vengeance against you but I will do all that I can to see that you get the death penalty.” There is no inconsistency in this statement. Neither would it be inconsistent at that point to plead with the criminal by visiting them in jail repeatedly that they repent and trust Christ, all the while insisting that they be visited with capital punishment.

I may forgive a babysitter for doing something harmful to my children, but that person will never babysit my children again no matter how much they repent. Further, I will make it known to others that the abusive babysitter should not be brought into their homes to babysit. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t forgiven the abusive babysitter.

Forgiveness, in these kinds of cases, has to have not only in mind our relationship to the person who has violated us but it must also have in mind other people who will in the future have interaction with the perp. Do we really want to argue that my personal forgiveness of someone means that the perp should not be met with the full weight of the law? This kind of forgiveness would put others in the cross-hairs of future similar behavior. This kind of forgiveness – a forgiveness that would diminish the just penalty against public crime – would be a violation of the 6th commandment. Similarly, a kind of forgiveness that would divert from the awfulness of the crime could also be seen as not giving the 6th commandment its full weight.

Wilhelmus à Brakel’s in his systematic theology, “The Christian’s Reasonable Service” writes;

  “To say, “I forgive you” when such is not warranted is a triumphant boasting of your kindness and will harden the offender in his sin.”   

Vol. 3 —  p. 565-566

I am not confident that the kind of forgiveness that we see in these kind of tragedies is really a biblical forgiveness.

Rev. Zach Garris pointed me to a quote here from the great Southern Presbyterian Benjamin Morgan Palmer which sustain what I have been teaching/preaching for some years. While insisting that Christians must forgive the perp, Palmer noted here;

 “Forgiveness does not necessarily include restoration to full confidence, as before the offence,” as “the offence may disclose attributes of character.” So while we must forgive others, “it may be sometimes our duty to protest against a wrong which we heartily forgive, by the withdrawal of intercourse—not as an act of resentment, but as a judicial testimony against sin.”

Secondly, we must continue to plead with people to be realistic concerning the issue of race. It is no surprise that the perp who killed the white lad was black. This is not to say that all black people are murderers but it is to say that statistics overwhelmingly bear out that when it comes to violent crimes people of color are more likely to be the perps.  Only in a brain dead world is it considered bad form to notice significant and repeatable patterns in various people groups.

Click to access Color-Of-Crime-2016.pdf

Even Rev. Jesse Jackson confirmed my point when years ago he wrote;

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps… then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Jesse Jackson

If Jesse Jackson can recognize the reality that people of color are more likely to be perps in violent crimes than there should be no shame in agreeing with him by saying that when around non-white people in large numbers white people’s heads should be on a swivel looking out for danger.

I Timothy 6; Paul’s Final Charge To Timothy In I Timothy

17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, 19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. 

20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and [f]idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge— 21 by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.

After the brief excursus (a digression in a narrative) we examined last week Paul returns to the issue of wealth. When reading St. Paul we need to be aware of these inspired bunny trails that St. Paul will go on. It is a habit of his. Some people call this habit “a flight of ideas,” and such a habit often is characteristic to highly intelligent people. They will be going along on a particular point and they will say something that reminds them of another subject and off they go pursuing that subject for a while before returning to where they left. It’s the whole “squirrel” thing. Paul does that here.

He was talking about the problems of money earlier and the urgent necessity for Timothy to flee this inordinate love of money led him into a digression in the narrative outburst, first concerning what Timothy should be pursuing and then concerning the greatest of God.

Now, however having expressed himself on that brief tangent Paul returns to the issue of money.

I hope you have noticed how often this issue of money has come up in our walk through 1st Timothy. Sometimes it is explicit as we have twice in chapter 6 but more often it has been implicit. Remember;

I Tim. 2:9 in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and [e]moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, 10 but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works

There the problem with wealth was poking through in the uppity way women were dressing.

And then there was the I Tim. 5

8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

In that context the problem with wealth was that it was being hoarded to the neglect of providing for extended members of the family.

So, this issue of money is a repeated theme in I Timothy, along with the theme of the miscreant false teachers upsetting the Church. Even with that though there is overlap as we saw last week. These miscreant false teachers were seeking to grift off the church in order to line their pockets.

With that all as background St. Paul tees up the issue of wealth, money, and responsibility once again.

The Holy Spirit begins with the attitude that wealth can often work in those who have wealth. Paul starts with a negative by saying if you have wealth “do not be haughty.” We today might say “don’t act snooty,” or “don’t act condescendingly.”

ὑψηλοφρονεῖν (hypsēlophronein)
Verb – Present Infinitive Active
Strong’s 5309: To be high-minded, proud. From a compound of hupselos and phren; to be lofty in mind, i.e. Arrogant.

Clearly, if this disposition were not a problem in the Ephesus Church St. Paul would not have warned against it.

We should note here that the fact that Paul can raise this issue, suggests if we read between the lines, that this was a have and have not congregation. There were the rich who are being told “do not be haughty,” and likewise there must have been the not rich who were being visited with the rich folks “haughtiness.”

In light of this it is interesting that while the Holy Spirit calls for humility among the Rich he does not inveigh against them simply because they have wealth. Their problem is not their wealth. Their problem is that they think wealth allows them to look down on those without wealth. Paul does not call for a forced wealth redistribution program within the Church as headed up by Timothy. Rather the Holy Spirit calls the wealthy Christians to become familiar with the Christian under-estimated and seldom practiced virtue of humility. He doesn’t browbeat them for having wealth … something that has been present too often in church history. He corrects them by telling them “do not be haughty.”

This problem of haughtiness is a product of pride and remember pride along w/ unbelief is the motherlode of all sin. We, as fallen humans, have a predisposition to be haughty about any combination of things.

O Spirit of Christ grant us all grace to recognize how we each are haughty in our lives towards others. Grant each of us the humility to have this mind in us with was also in Christ Jesus whose whole life was one of humble service. Thanks be to God that Christ paid for the sin of our haughtiness and gave us the Spirit of Christ to put off the old man of pretend superiority and put on the new man of humility towards others.

The first negative word on this disposition was “do not be haughty.” A second negative word is given when St. Paul says that rich folks ought not to trust in uncertain riches. Here Paul is echoing God’s Word;

Proverbs 23:5 When you glance at wealth, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.

Psalm 62:10 If your riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.

So, God’s Word does not condemn being rich but it does instruct the rich how to be rich. Hold on to your wealth with a open hand. Understand that your riches are always going to be uncertain.

We all should hear well here. Understanding that here in America there exists different levels of wealth, it is still the case that all Americans are, as compared to world history, and compared to the world today we are all wealthy and being wealthy we ought not to trust in uncertain riches.

Instead we are to richly enjoy all things that God has given us.

Notice the play on words here … “riches are uncertain,” but “God gives us richly all things to enjoy. 

Note here that there is no evil found in enjoying the rich things that God gives us, and that includes wealth. Everything is to be received w/ thanksgiving.

From the negative proscriptions that the Holy Spirit gives

-Do not be haughty (Violation of 6th Commandment)
-Do not trust in uncertain riches  (Violation of 1st Commandment)

St. Paul, inspired by the Spirit of the living God gives positive proscriptions;

– Let them do good
– That they be rich in good works

God has blessed the wealthy that they in turn may be a blessing to those around them. Of course, we understand this in light of what we have learned elsewhere in I Timothy. This doing good and being rich in good works follows the ordo amoris (order of affections) pattern that we find in I Tim. 5:8. Should it be the case that God blesses us with wealth we need to look around us in our families and local church first to be rich in good works. These are the “neighbors” in our lives that God has placed in our lives that we dare not pass by.

Of course the idea in this passage is that the Christian rich have a responsibility to not hoard. Their wealth ought to be a blessing to others in need in their Christian families or Christian churches or Christian communities, depending on the level of wealth we are talking about.

The Holy Spirit correlates the doing of good now and the being rich in good works now and the readiness to give and share in this present age with realities for them in the time to come.

18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, 19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

The text clearly communicates that there is continuity in the way we are rich in good works, ready to give, and willing to share here and our future after this life.

Now, the prosperity / health & Wealth preachers have taken this truth and debauched it so as to teach that people need to send in money to them and then they can be sure that God will return their investment. People like Kenneth Copeland and other Word-Faith grifters have turned this idea into a way to get rich. The “Hole you give through is the hole you get through” is the spiel and so if you want to be rich you will send in your money to them and God will bless you with a greater return. May God have mercy on them.

What is clearly being called for here is generosity. Another Christian virtue. It is the widow’s mite given. It is;

9 Lay(ing) not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay(ing) up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

What is being called for here is seen elsewhere in Paul’s corpus when he says to the Corinthians;

II Cor. 9:3 — For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting to the Macedonians that since last year you in Achaia were prepared to give. And your zeal has stirred most of them to do likewise.

In his Epistles, particularly in 2 Corinthians but also elsewhere, Paul often boasts about the generosity of the churches. Here he is again enjoining the Christian virtue of generosity.

I want to tread lightly here because I have seen that through the years this congregation has been a generous people. Still, we have need, all of us, to examine ourselves on the issue of generosity. Are we storing up for ourselves a good foundation for the time to come via our generosity here and now?

We learn thus that the way we live now has eschatological impact on the life to come. While doing good for others the rich can simultaneously store up or lay up for themselves a good foundation for the future age to come.

What excites me about this passage is to see the continuity that will exist between this life and the life to come. The way we live now will impact the way we live in the eschatological state. This is inspiring to the end of being a generous people.

Before turning to the final charge we want to note how all this is consistent w/ Paul’s teaching throughout his corpus. What Paul says to the rich through Timothy — live with a view of the age to come —   is what he says to Timothy in 11ff

12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

This idea of living with a view of the age to come is what Paul has said of himself elsewhere;

I Cor. 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may [a]obtain it.25 And everyone who competes for the prize[b]is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.

This idea of living with a view of the time to come is what Paul speaks to others;

Gal. 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Good works thus are seen as demonstrative of the reality of faith and salvation and are present when eternal life is received and is to be received. Jesus himself taught about the the godly and generous use of wealth, which stores up treasure in heaven. Similarly our Lord Christ taught that good works show that a person has an indestructible foundation (Mt. 7:25). What Scripture everywhere teaches is that one who has accepted God’s grace in justification must evidence salvation in one’s life. This is not salvation by works. This is works because of the grace of God in forgiveness. It is the cry of the soul unchained from the accusation of the law to walk in gratitude for God’s great grace given in Christ.

Paul now pivots to a final injunction to his young padawan;

20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and [f]idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge— 21 by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.

One reason I love the Scriptures is the earnestness you find throughout. The inspired writers are not blase men. When they write their pens are fire and their thoughts are gasoline and the result is explosive.

Note the earnestness here. The passion. The depth of expression.

This is a plea. This is a command.

The idea of guarding here communicates a diligence that requires work. The need for it suggests that there are those who would abscond with that is to be guarded. What has been committed to Timothy’s trust is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ considered in its broadest meaning. What has been committed to Timothy we might say today is “Biblical Christianity.” Here Timothy is told to guard. Elsewhere he was told to fight the good fight. We find all these militaristic masculine terms. It’s enough to send a WOKE feminist “Christian” screaming.

Paul is asking of Timothy what he himself spent his life doing and all only for the desire to hear the “well-done thou good and faithful servant.”

And so the Christian life is for the conscientious clergy a matter of being at war. Defending. Fighting. Guarding. Refuting. Correcting. Discipling. All that God’s Word might continue to be seen as glorious as it never ceases to be.

Fellow believers, inasmuch as we have all been called by God to the Christian life, and inasmuch as we are each and all of us Prophets, Priests, and Kings under Sovereign God we likewise are called, along with Timothy, to guard what has been committed to our trust.

Paul makes reference again to the Gnostics who are inside the Church. The counsel is to avoid their teachings, which I take to mean to “not be ensnared by them.” Remember my friends, the effect of what these Gnostics were doing was to empty the Gospel of being the Gospel. Wherever you find men emptying the Gospel of being the Gospel there the battle lines are drawn and there the battle must be engaged.

I personally find the mention of “contradictions” to be fascinating if only because I have been taught and trained that to locate the contradiction is to locate the vain babbling. Vain babbling is always characterized by the presence of contradiction.

Paul reminds Timothy that the worst thing imaginable has occurred because of these vain babblers… and that worst thing imaginable is that some have strayed from the faith.

My friends …. in that final day, I want to meet with you in heaven. To that end may none of us ever stray from our undoubted catholic Christian faith.

May we all together guard the faith.

It needs guardians.



Magic In The Modern Church

In Seminary, while pursuing my degree in cross cultural dynamics I did a course work and a good deal of reading on the idea of magic. At that time I thought we were headed for the mission field and being familiar with how culture worked was a natural fit. Most of the reading and study I did on magic was as sat in the context of third world pre-modern cultures. We looked at the idea of totems, charms, spirit-animals, grimoire, shamans, and everything in between. As it turned out Jane and I didn’t end up on the mission field (not for lack of trying) but oddly enough all that work studying magic and cross-culture contexts ended up being instrumental for understanding culture in modern and post-modern contexts right here in the USA.

When one strips all the mysticism and spooky context from the idea of the magical one is left with the reality that Magic, by definition, is the attempt to manipulate one’s surrounding by means of gaining control of the cultural context. In a pre-modern context magic is about manipulating the false gods (the supernatural) so as to put them in the magicians service. Magic thus is a way of gaining power over every circumstance that one encounters. Magic works to put the gods in the service of the one who knows the keys to manipulating the supernatural forces that guide the universe. In magic the practitioner is the one who is controlling the controllers (supernatural).

Now in a third world pre-modern context that means gaining control by means of manipulating the gods. However in a modern context magic still gains traction even though the concept of supernatural is diminished and/or dismissed. Because the gods don’t go away, even if they no longer exist in a pre-modern animistic setting, magic still is a thing. However, the adjustment one needs to make in applying the idea of the use of magic manipulating the gods in a third world setting is to understand that while magic might look different in a modern/post-modern world magic is still practiced in leverage against the gods. The secret was translating the gods of animism to the gods of in the post-modern world. Now, unlike a animistic setting where the supernatural is everywhere and the gods are thick as flies the modern/post-modern world, having denied god, has merely rearranged the deck chairs of divinity so as to find the supernatural as being controlled by the new God in town — sovereign Man. Once one understands that one begins to see that magic, as a means of establishing total control over the world, other men, and the “supernatural” via manipulation of reality in one’s favor is still a thing with the difference that the shaman, witch-doctor, and sorcerer translated into modern/post-modern culture is now called the sociologist, the marketer, the psychologist, and the propagandist. If you pause to consider it, it is easy to see that these categories of people are to us today in the modern world what the magician was to the animistic world.

Secondly, wherein “primitive” cultures it is the gods who are manipulated in modern/post-modern culture it is man as god that is controlled and manipulated by our new forms of magic. And sociology, psychology, propaganda, and marketing are the means by which man the controller magician has established manipulative control over man as god. Modern man as magician uses these forms of magic to control man as god just as the Shaman in animistic cultures used magic to control men.

You see the difference is that in the world of animism the magician worked on the supernatural to control it to his ends, whereas today in the Western world the magician works on the natural that has taken the place of what the gods were to the animistic world. In the third-world the Magician resorts to reading entrails, casting bones, chanting spells, and making potions. In today’s modern/postmodern world the Magician is more likely to read statistics, cast marketing reports, chant psychological gibberish, and map simple ways, via propaganda to get people to act the way you want them to act. However, in the end it is all about controlling people via controlling the gods. It’s all magic.

Scientism is a sub-category of modern magic as well. Scientism is used as a magic to control and manipulate modern man. This was most recently clearly seen in the whole Covid fiasco – disaster. Scientism, aided by propaganda, sociology, and psychology worked the work of magic by the magicians to control mass man. There was no reality there. It was all “magic.” It was all manipulation and control of god — of modern man. Looking back, who could ever doubt the control of the magicians? It was breathtaking to see how they used their magic spells to control the world’s population. The greatest sorcerers  of all time (Merlin? Allanon? Bremen?) would be envious of the magic cast by the Covid magicians of the 21st century.

A troubling thing happened at the tail end of the 20th century and that the kind of magic spoken of above came into the Christian Church via Fuller Seminary’s “Church Growth Movement.” Lead by the likes of Donald McGavern, C. Peter Wagner, Allen Tippet and then taken up by the likes of Rick Warren,  Lyle Schaller, and Bill Hybels magic was brought into the Christian Church and has not waned since its introduction. The Church growth movement was all about sociology, psychology, propaganda, and marketing. It was the magic movement coming into the last place magic should have been seen. People were “converted” by means of this magic but like all magic the spell wore off for a considerable portion of these people. Hybels went down in a sex scandal. Warren became connected to the CFR. Wagner went off the Pentecostal edge with the Vineyard movement.  However it ended each of these people and many others introduced magic into the Church.

In Seminary we had to study how marketing plans could build the church. We had to take humanist psychology dressed up as Christian, we had to take a whole semester class in Church Growth techniques. (Somewhere around here I still have my Donald McGavern and C. Peter Wagner books.) We had to understand how sociology could direct people’s affections. They were all magic courses.

And now one can barely function as a church apart from the operation of magic over the congregation. Indeed, Pastors have become known more for their marketing skills or psychology counseling skills than for their understanding of reality because of familiarity with God’s Word. It is not too much to say that magic has turned the Pastorate into a Shaman or Witch Doctor. Pastors are expected, as one Pastor told me years ago, “to put the meat in the seat.” That is to be accomplished via the control that comes from rightly handling the magic. Because this is so our churches are burgeoning with people who are not converted but instead have had a successful magical spell cast upon them. Some form of modern magic (sociology, psychology, marketing, scientism, propaganda) has gripped them and holds them in congregations. Much like a voodoo doll in ancient magic would find it controlling the person who it represents so much of the modern church controls its members via magic and sociological manipulation.

Understand that the sociology, marketing, propaganda, and psychology used by the modern church is manipulation by means of modernist notions of magic. Modern magic manipulates reality by convincing people of realities that are not real. Just as the magic of Covid created a reality that dictated that poisonous vaccines were a cure, that masks stopped disease, that social distancing made one whit of difference so the modern magic of the Church creates a reality where the awe of God is lost in worship, where the law is no longer proclaimed, where egalitarianism is a spell that is cast over the congregants, where the Pastor is Shaman.

It’s all magic folks, and you need to wake up from the spell that has been cast.