God is in control, he has been for all of human history. I would never argue that point, but have you read history...? I have heard this phrase repeated often in 2020. What exactly does it mean in the context of our current world? Does it mean that God will lead us out of this? That peace and prosperity are in our future if we but pray for it and are faithful in our belief we will receive it?
I do not intend to be insulting, but that sounds a lot like Prosperity Gospel. Tweek it just a bit here and there, change a couple of words and it is Prosperity Gospel entirely. Kenneth Copeland level stuff. I only hear this phrase from my evangelical friends. None of my Catholic friends say this. I disagree with Catholic theology, but they are not wrong about everything!
Why do Catholics look at this so differently than protestant evangelicals? That is a loaded question, there are many reasons. Broadly speaking, I think it all relates to our inherited traditions. Some protestant denominations encourage a faith and reason tradition and learning more than others. Certainly, not all Catholics read history and the classics. However, in general, and broadly speaking their tradition does. Perhaps I have oversimplified it, maybe the cause I see is all wrong - but in my observation, there is a difference, protestant evangelicals say this, Catholics do not.
Maybe it is because we protestants do not have a living memory of oppression. Catholics in America know a little bit more of that, perhaps not them personally, but there is a collective memory in their tradition of not being accepted universally. Maybe they spend more time in the Old Testament than some evangelicals. I do not know.
I have lost friends this year because I have become dogmatic in certain areas. I believe the small errors we have accepted and embrace need to now be removed. We are headed for hard-times I think, real oppression and real ostracization (Rod Dreher called this our 8:20 moment this week). But I hear "God is in Control". Yes, he is, but what do you mean by that?
Solid old Christian ladies die painful deaths to cancer. Young children die to leukemia. Faithful Christians are murdered in the middle-east. Christian fathers lose their jobs and can not feed their families. If by "God is in Control" we mean all that bad stuff will not happen to us - then we mean we just need to name it and claim it and everything will be ok. Why then does it happen to other Christians?
God is in control cannot mean what people imply when they say it to shut down conversation about the state of our world. There is no conceivable reason that America should be shown any additional favor or protection. We are in many ways as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah. We murder thousands of babies a year.
God may have a plan that leads us out of this, but there is nothing Biblical or historical to indicate that he will our should. If he does it is because we have a purpose to serve, not because we have been faithful.
Uttering this phrase is almost heretical at this point. It tells people not to tighten their belts and do the things required to shape our own future. If people listen to you, if you have authority, maybe you need to reconsider how and when you use this phrase. Throughout history, in times of great trouble and crisis, men of God stood in pulpits and preached fiery words of action. Not words that agreed with the world, real and hard truth. Telling people to "not worry and be happy" is not helpful. Preaching that this is all just a phase and God is in control is an error. It is almost as damnable as preaching that Christians should be following the ideas of the world right now.
We live in a transcendent metaphysical reality but we are also part of the material world. Just throwing it all on God was never part of His plan. We have work to do.
Antonio Gramsci conceived of the need for long-march through Western institutions in order to facilitate Marxist revolutions. The church was one such institution that had to be infiltrated. This happened long ago with the UMC, PC (USA) Episcopalian, and others. It began in earnest with the SBC a few years ago. The megachurch, is unique in that it was built upon communitarian ideology that will eventually mean these churches fall lock-step into compliance and support of Marxism and away from Christianity.
To be clear Marxism, both cultural and classical, primarily only serve as tools to those that seek to control our world, but important tools to understand nontheless.
I challenge you, spend time watching the videos below and follow some of the links. Follow the facts yourself, check the sources, and question the conclusions of the folks below. The men below are both qualified to speak, by education and experience, and they speak quality as determined by measuring their words through discernment and reason. They are not speaking from new and ‘interesting’ ideologies or currently popular ideas, they speak truths based upon the Bible, history, and ideas long tested by many reasonable and intelligent people.
Do not follow the world (Romans 12:2), even if it comes in the form of a church. If a church is following the world – it is probably wrong.
Follow the links below long before you read a list of ‘recommended books’. Books often are written by people that quote people that cite ideas that are unproven and unsound. No matter how ‘recommended’ many of these books may be by the crowd, you have to evaluate the intent before the content – you have to understand the ideas the books are based upon and where they come from, and what the real purpose of the book has. If you fail to do this, if you read these books and follow the crowd without rightly applying Biblical principles you will be made a fool. If you blindly follow leaders that tell you how to think and tell you not to question but just to ‘act and serve’ you will become nothing more than a Menshevik (a useful idiot to the Marxist – their term, not mine.)
Late addition to the list, look at the The Statement on Social Justice & the Gospel. Read the statement, argue from Biblical principles that the statement is wrong. Would your pastor sign this based upon what he has been saying from the pulpit? If not, ask yourself what he is using to justify his words if not the Bible. If you doubt the assertions, look at the resources on the SJ&G site. Why do these real, authentic and concerned Christians disagree so firmly with what progressive churches are saying? Look at the site, read the statement, look at the resources below, check the facts, read your Bible, pray – You already know what right looks like, you are just so far into your social group you are unwilling to see it.
Watch Dr. Thomas Sowell, the brightest economist of our day explain why all the troubles on the street that people are rioting and protesting about are really public policy and economic problems, not racism.
2. John MacArthur and an expository review of the Biblical explanation for the current troubles.
6. If you do not believe or understand that the bad and dangerous ideologies of Postmodernism and Cultural Marxism have infected the church, watch the Founder’s Ministries presentation below.
7. If you are confused as to why your megachurch pastor is not saying anything like the pastors above and why they have told you to stop having opinions and just listen to the leaders and act, watch Chris Rosebrough’s presentation below (open up the PowerPoint that goes with the lecture first).
8. (Optional) If you do not believe Chris I suggest you check his work. Begin at the Leadership Network ( the organization that was foundational in the creation of your church) read what they say of Peter Drucker. Google and read Druker’s own words about social change and why he got involved with churches (hint: it was not about Christ). Google “Peter Drucker Cult’, there are numerous books papers and articles about leadership cult etc, even people that applied his management theories realize the cult-like elements. Look at these [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] for some examples of this in the church, there are many more. Think about how preachers in these churches place themselves in every sermon, other preachers do not do this – that is part of the cult of leadership, it is intentional. Go find where your Bible says that ‘truth can only be found in community’ (in context and in agreement with the whole Scripture), ignoring the Biblical principles of the authority of conscience. Ask why preachers in these churches are so fast to follow the WORLD in this time instead of rightly applying the Bible – where are they leading you? Are these false teachers? (Matthew 24:24)
9. See Dr. Stephen Hicks explain Postmodernism (the stuff that fills up those books on that recommended list you are provided continually)
10. (Optional) a discussion of America’s New Religion…and How To Stay Christian.
11. Read deeply about China’s Cultural Revolution, dig for facts, not just Wikipedia, and much of the muted stories that appear high in Google searches – go deeper to find the true and horrible story. Read how 100 million people died and countless others were tortured and imprisoned and an entire nation impoverished because of the same sorts of radical ideas and ideologies at play in our world right now. See below for one example.
12. A description of the Marxist plan from 1966
13. I know nothing about the folks that produced the video, but I have been familiar with the lecturer Yuri for years, he is the real deal – the video would be much better without the commentary.
If you watch and read all of the above and more, from folks that apply a Biblical understanding of these issues in a way that is tried and true and tested over the generations you will come to understand a few things about the world. You will see that some folks you have come to trust are wrong and have led you astray.
Don’t listen to me – but also don’t let others tell you how you are supposed to see all of this. There are fools and charlatans out there and many bad ideologies. If you listen to them you forfeit your inheritance to a good future and damn your children to suffer under the mess you went along with the crowd in creating.
Be a true man and woman of God,Be brave, seek truth, think for yourself, don’t follow the crowd, don’t follow charlatans!
In a recent Newsweek piece, an article typical of so many, left and right, that incorrectly view the philosophical questions related to Coronavirus. Painting the struggle as one of liberty versus safety, the freedom of the individual versus the power of the centralized state the article misses entirely the question of the implications of such a struggle. It also ignores the question of what role should other important institutions be playing and to mitigate evil, and suffering as well as encourage citizens to use freedom ethically and government to act as little as required.
A recent Newsweek article[i] is representative of the much of the zeitgeist of the current state of American politics, left and right. A view of Natural rights, shaped by the Lockean view, have come to dominate both sides of the political spectrum, manifesting over separate issues, but deriving from the same root. Roger Parloff’s piece approaches the issue from the left-liberal progressive position; he is concerned with voting rights and abortion. One could easily find a piece approaching gun control[ii] or religious freedom deriving from the same flawed foundation. All such appeals begin with errors found in Locke’s conception of the state of nature, an incorrect view of natural law. Essential, both right and left approach these issues from a form of Pelagianism[iii] and an extreme focus on the individual; these approaches assume man alone can consistently choose good without divine aid and that the needs and rights of the individual are equal to the importance of the community and tradition and convention. Such a view is of course theologically flawed (James 2:8) but also is contrary to our history and traditions. It is a binary view that places the law and the central government’s role at odds with the individual, it completely ignores the historical importance of other institutions -subsidiarity - and the permanent things of a culture. It is also an appeal to an originalist view, left and right, that holds certain presuppositions about the de facto versus de jure nature of our system and the rule of law, premises that history calls into question.[iv]
Parloff begins his article with an assumption, that coronavirus is an “extreme crisis” that creates a conflict between safety and liberty. In this, he demonstrates two errors. First, it is impossible to know that Coronavirus is a crisis in and of itself because we simply do not know the nature of the thing.[v] Second, his assumption that a liberty/safety conflict must exist demonstrates the fundamental flaw of the ideologies of liberal societies. He goes on to equate delaying primaries as an affront to voters rights, prisoners being denied a ‘right to life’ because they may become ill, he conflates basic triage strategies with discrimination against disabled people and finally, the curtailment of medically ending the life of babies in the womb as an afront to human rights.
The conflict between liberty and security is a problem only insofar as the Western liberal democracies have abandoned the partnerships for the common-good Aristotle wrote about in the opening to Politics.[vi] This, compounded with the abandonment of subsidiarity, of institutions that ought to have co-equal roles with the central government in the nurturing and maintenance of culture and people, has led to the conflict Parloff and so many others see.[vii]
Looking to history, the problems that Parloff highlights would be considered absurd. The individual is a member of a community, that is his natural state.[viii] His community is in partnership with others for the common good. John C. Calhoun warned repeatedly that a strong central government without subsidiarity would invariably lead to these sorts of conflicts.[ix] Thus we find ourselves faced with an event we cannot define, partially because we listen to sophists, in a crisis we do not understand, leaving us to discuss balancing liberty with security while applying no philosophic principles other than flawed concepts of man and nature – individuality and fear.[x]
Parloff is not alone in his mistakes and errors, the central theme of all such pieces is their failure to understand that liberalism, progressivism, and individualism is bound to end in authoritarianism and tyranny.[xi] He has framed the wrong question and has failed to ask what role other institutions should play in an event like this to ensure common-good[xii] and morality and virtue at the local level. Instead, he assumes that the individual and the central government are the only actors, an assumption that if true, will invariably lead to the individual losing.
[iv] See, McDonald, Forrest., “Was the Fourteenth Amendment Constitutionally Adopted?”, The Annotated Secessionist Papers, Second Edition, Abbeville: The Calhoun Institute, 2018, https://books.google.com/books?id=-jVhDwAAQBAJ. pp. 41-60. Dr. McDonald presents an argument that the 14th Amendment was not ratified in accordance with law or convention. This one amendment is the foundation of much left-liberal, progressive and libertarian-conservative ideology yet, it does not comport with de jure law.
[v] It is impossible, simply because the data related to COVID19 is all over the map and ‘experts’ have been wrong at each step to know what the true nature of this virus is and the implications of that. Marcus Aurelius warned in Mediations, Book X, “Focus on what nature demands, as if you were governed by that alone. Then do that, and accept it, unless your nature as a living being would be degraded by it. Then focus on what that nature demands, and accept that too—unless your nature as a rational being would be degraded by it.” The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. United Kingdom, Routledge, 1894. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Meditations_of_Marcus_Aurelius/5qcAEZZibB0C.
[vii] Organized religion, State and local government, business and trade organizations, fraternal and community based organizations – all have had a traditional and historic role in both protecting and nurturing communities and people locally but in allowing people, through voluntary organization to take care of themselves. Liberalism in the west has replaces all f this with Government and the individual.
[viii] Strauss, Leo, Cropsey, Joseph. History of Political Philosophy. p. 121.
[ix] Cheek, H. Lee. Calhoun and Popular Rule: The Political Theory of the Disquisition and Discourse. United States: University of Missouri Press, 2004. p. 156. https://amzn.to/2w3agBE
Last evening a new acquaintance, and perhaps someday a friend, responded to one of my Twitter posts with a question that has plagued me since watching the events in China back in January.
It's just not obvious to me. People die all the time from new virus mutations. It infects entire societies. Why this one? Is it because it stays on surfaces for prolonged period?
Indeed. How and why is this different than SARS, the influenza epidemic of 1957, the Spanish Flu of 1918-20 or the Black Death?
I do not know? President Trump's Oval Office speech on 11 March used words that if a President in 1940, 50 or 80 had uttered would have positively impacted the spirit of the nation.
From the beginning of time nations and people have faced unforeseen challenges, including large-scale and very dangerous health threats. This is the way it always was and always will be. It only matters how you respond...
Spot on, common-sense, robust words. Tough times come, troubles arise and brave nations and people rise up to meet the challenge. None of what Trump said mattered the markets tanked, the news media went into a frenzy of speculation and attack and Americans, in general, acted like idiots. We bought up toilet paper but did not take any steps to avoid crowds. By Sunday 15 March, many took things seriously, reaction, overreaction and panic were the norms.
But as Harrison Frey asked via Twitter - why is this different? What first principle are we applying? Essentially he is asking, what is the nature of this thing, this coronavirus event?
Oh, don't give me the stink eye when you have Negan and Lucille in your post >:D
It's just not obvious to me. People die all the time from new virus mutations. It infects entire societies. Why this one? Is it because it stays on surfaces for prolonged period?
It is certainly hard to tell. We were told by 'experts' you could only get this if you were within three feet of someone coughing. Some people pushed a campaign of #StayCalmWashYourHands.I saw this locally from the folks in charge of AUMC. Washing one's hands is certainly sage advice, but did the 'experts' really understand the nature of the thing? So why the different information coming out now 'it lingers in the air and on cardboard boxes too'? Did we not have enough information because China refused to let anyone in to observe what was going on? Is the virus mutating? Are our experts incompetent? Is it all three in combination or some other factor I have not considered? Is the virus as dangerous as it appears in Italy? Was it just as China depicted, or did they cover anything up? Is Iran being completely honest about their mortality rates? Why did so few people on crowded cruise ships contract it and so few die?
These are tough questions? Without answering them, it is difficult to approach the nature of the event by analyzing the virus itself. One thing is certain, it is no longer 'crack-pot' to at least wonder if Chinese bioengineering work in Wuhan had anything to do with this. Was it an accidental release? Is this mutating because it was bioengineered?
Of course many in the US are still hung up on what to call the virus, reporters that have the opportunity to ask serious questions that might inform the public waste their chance with ridiculous #ChinaVirus questions. Not the issue at hand, unimportant and detracts from the important conversations.
Perhaps this is the nature of the thing, not the virus, but the level of distrust, stupidity and triviality that infects the media, the Fourth Estate. Perhaps the ineptitude, bias, and dishonesty of the media (something no honest person can deny exists) have contributed to a general sense of cynicism, distrust, and fear in the population. Perhaps when we couple this cynicism with our cultural decline (loss of faith, identity, unity, civility and ethics) and add-in selfishness, sloth, greed, laziness and overall weakness in American people generally - the true nature of this becomes clearer.
This is certainly not how the generation that faced the Great Depression or WWII acted, we know that as a fact. The Spanish Flu of 1918-20 did not cause this sort of fear and reaction and as far as we can tell the Black Death. As a fact, we know we, as people have changed - perhaps that is the nature of this thing.
Josh Clark did a reasoned explanation of the trends in biotech that lead to this in '18. Some of the open-source resources (not just the 'crazy-web') produced interesting information a month ago. It was a whackadoodle then, not so much now. #coronavirushttps://t.co/HoJktd87Km
My conversation with Harrison centered on first principles - what applies here. Is all life is invaluable and no life is invaluable; or to paraphrase Spock, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Is the cost to the economy, and the suffering and death that will necessary? How deadly would this have been if normal controls were instituted?
These are solid philosophical questions - but not applicable. The United Kingdon considered implementing a plan where a portion of the least vulnerable would contract the disease and they would implement measures to protect those most likely to have serious complications. The theory being eventually the population would build up immunity and stop spreading the disease and the economy could carry on. Winston Churchhill could have briefed such a plan in 1941, you can essentially hear the words he would have used - they would differ only slightly from Trump's words on 9 March. But again, this is not 1941, people have changed, the zeitgeist has changed. The UK government quickly abandoned their herd immunity strategy. Britons it seems are not as stiff-lipped and stalwart as their ancestors. Neither are Americans.
Since it is impossible to implement any policy that measures the cost to life of overreaction versus underreaction, in our present culture, we must seek other first principles to apply. The only one I can envision fits at this point I propose is 'societal continuity' - the preservation of the structure necessary for safety and order. it is a bit more Platonic than I prefer, but in the absence of everything else, people expect the government to maintain order so that there is not a war of all against all.
Faced with a population that is more and more apt to turn to the government for solutions to problems individuals and communities should solve; a people that are weaker, less moral and less robust than past generations; a society filled with greed, laziness and unethical behavior in an environment where people cannot trust their news media and fear abounds - the government, state and Federal, has had no choice but to act drastically. Social continuity must be maintained, for the health and safety of all.
The government cannot just tell bars to close, limit alcohol or gun sales or institute a curfew, not here! Apparently, governments in New York, Ohio, California, Lousiana, and South Carolina disagree. We have seen mayor rush to limit gun sales (because that is proven to stop a virus) and now we are seeing curfews and shelter in place orders. By what authority you say? By the authority we as weak, selfish and lazy Americans have given them.
If you are upset with the reaction of the government and the fear and behavior of your local citizens, look at what you have done to stop the age of entitlement that proceeded this event. Look to the progressivism, socialism and weakness that has captured public policy and the politician of each party, that we have voted for over the years that have slowly grown government. This event is our penitence, not the virus, but our inability to weather it like brave and free men. We have done it and you and I over the years allowed the situation to develop. We have only ourselves to blame.
I attend (from afar because they are rare) a conservative, biblically-based, doctrinally sound (based upon received and tested tradition) Presbyterian church. Many of my Baptist friends might assume that there can be no such thing as an authentic Christian Presbyterian church. In the Baptist tradition, there was a time, in the late 1960s, when liberal elements expunged Reformed and Calvinist aspects. Some of this was restored in the conservative resurgence in the SBC in the late 1970s and 80s, but most Baptists are not fully aware of their Reformed and Calvinistic roots. It is understandable not to see the possibility that a conservative branch of Reformed cousins exists in at least one of the Presbyterian denominations. My Lutheran friends have their view, not kind at times and my Catholic friends believe I am in rebellion. We all have problems in our traditions that need correction. We all hold pieces and parts of something that is true, we could argue nicely over how much and who. There is also a lot we could each learn from one another I suppose, but I digress.
Traditions are important, God gave us the family, traditions passed from father to son is a critical part of social continuity (his gift to us). My family left Jura, Scotland in the early 1700s. I am who I am.
Does Calvinism hold more memories than promises? I suggest it is not a mere memory. Reactionary Calvinism, based upon the traditions and the truths from which those traditions derive is the key to solving our religious decline in the culture and to address our difficulty in defining what authentic conservatism ought to look like in the public square. The megachurch will not do it, dead Christianity will not, hopes placed in feckless and foundationless political parties will not. A return to the traditional principles and courageousness of our Calvinist roots might - God willing.
Jarod Longshore recently opined, "[a] cowardly Calvinist is an illogical thing. I don’t say that it is a thing that does not exist. Sadly, regrettably, shockingly, it does exist. But it shouldn’t." Read his entire post.
We need a renewal of a sparse, sincere rebellion - against sin, against the compromise of the glory of God, against the status quo, against the 'wisdom' of the world and against the absurdity that is all around us. Confident, courageous and certain that the Word of God is our life, guide, and answer to the needs of this world. Our difficulties in the culture and our fecklessness in politics are the results of many things; true. However, if there is any hope to fix it we need to consider the words of Paul, as he departed the Ephesian elders:
18 And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 22 And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, 23 except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. 24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 25 And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
Acts 20 (ESV)
Robert Godfrey spoke to this issue at the Reformed Bible College. Highlights from the talk in the video below include: Christianity no longer has the influence on the culture it once had; however, Christianity is not in decline; God is at work in the world; Americans are often fixed within; Catholicism abandoned tradition; Evangelicalism no better off. American needs a return to Courageous Calvinism.
Confident
Christ-centered
Comprehensive
Coherent
Caring
What does this have to do with paleoconservative, or traditional conservatism - that thing way on the fringe that sees the Republican party and mainstream 'conservatives' as useful idiots in the progressive agenda? Everything!
I think CJay Engel suggested recently in an article I cannot locate that at every step of the progressive advance, mainstream conservatives have been just a step behind, building nice roads and structures to support what the progressives have done. What we have come to know as 'conservatism' in America, the talking heads, the pundits, the massive organizations and think tanks; all of these are tragically flawed. None of them look back and ask real questions about what went wrong, what policies and programs have been adopted, no matter how long ago, that are damaging to culture, tradition, and families that we might actually fight to repeal. Their fight has been about the day to day, small things, rudderless and foundationless notions. They continually lose because they abandoned the foundations of conservatism.
If we are to save America, and perhaps this is not within God's plan, we have but a duty to try, it will never happen with the current leadership, ideas, and programs of ordinary politics. There is little left of what was, nothing much left of the good. What are we conserving? Look about, it has almost all been burnt down.
In these times, our calling is to become courageous. Protestant Christianity was a permanent thing of American culture, we simply do not exist as Americans without that influence. Reformed Protestantism was the foundation of that Christianity.
However, we need to come to terms with the flaws of Protestantism. The spirit of independence and rebellion is sinful. Catholics that hold to authentic Christianity and the traditions of their church know some things we have forgotten. (natural law, subsidiarity, and metaphysics to name just three). Traditions passed from father to son are important (I hold that as a first principle), but there is much we might all learn from each other (those that truly follow the narrow path) We all have a mess to clean up in our various traditions.
It is perhaps time to stop calling ourselves conservatives, there is little left to conserve, and instead become courageous, radical reformists and reactionaries against the staus quo. We need to stop fighting the ridiculous daily battles of red/blue politics and stand and say "all of this, all of these programs, ideas, trends, policies and this direction is wrong, we want to restore was was good and true of tradition." We need to stop entertaining the notion of further compromise, in our denominations (looking at you SBC with your current fight over complementarianism) and in the public square. As Godfrey says above, Confident, Christ-centered, Comprehensive, Coherent, Caring; Courageous.
Only God knows if this is a fight we are supposed to win, but just as Paul knew certain death awaited him as he departed Ephesus, he did his duty, he spoke the truth, all else was in God's hands and plan.
I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen. -Luther
Much of modern political theory is a result of or a reaction to the theories of Locke and Hobbes and their individual views of both the state of nature and of the social contract. Although both men differed in their views of each of those topics, they share a commonality in that they missed key elements. Theirs was an idealist view of how community and government came into being. In their idealism, they missed key elements of reality.
In broad strokes, each envisioned a pre-government world where man either lived mostly in peace, following natural law (Locke) or in a constant state of war of all against all (Hobbes). Man eventually decided it was in his best interest to come together, in community, and to surrender rights to some form of government. Hobbes would say all rights were surrendered, Locke argued only some. Hobbes would argue that man did this out of fear of his neighbor, Locke essentially that man saw this as the best way to preserve his rights to his property and prosperity. Hobbes was more Platonic in his view, Locke more Aristotelean. Both, Hobbes to a greater extent, abandoned key elements of philosophical thought going back to the Greeks. Both proposed something new and radical; idealist.
However, both abandoned a realist view of history, anthropology, and sociology in their theories of 'man in nature'. Man has never existed in nature as an individual, alone with no authority, no structure, and just his senses and desires.
If one is inclined toward an evolutionary view of history and the rise of man, looking back we would find the first human-like creatures with intelligence and some form of capacity for reason were not so different from the primates that evolution would tell us these humanoids descended from. That is to say, they were social creatures built around family groups. The individuals in those groups were born into a social hierarchy and authority structure. The same sort of structure that existed for eons before, in that individual's ancestors that were not humanoids at all but rather apes.
No individual ape ever contracted with other apes to form a group for protection, biology provided the template for the social order; the family. There was no instance of a Lockean state of nature with apes 'monkeying' around, eating bananas from their private property trees, such radical individualist would have been killed and never allowed the chance to procreate. There was never a case of all apes individually at war with all other apes in the Hobbesian view. Each ape was born into a social order, a social order that went back in one form or another as far as their mammalian ancestors existed. It developed over time, being traditional, it was learned, it was also inherited. It was never contracted. When the first humanoids arrived in the evolutionary story, they brought with them these traditions and learned behaviors and biological facts; the family group.
If one is inclined toward a literal interpretation of the Genesis story, again we find no instance where an individual man was without a structure and some authority over him. God created Adam and served as his sovereign. God created a mate for Adam, creating the family and gave Adam headship over the family. The entire Old Testament from Genesis to Kings is centered on the family group and tribes that derive from extended family. Never in the Biblical story did either a Hobbesian or Lockean state of nature exist.
It never existed in an evolutionary recount nor a Biblical view, Locke and Hobbes were working in the realm of idealism, not realism. Yet, their entire theories begin with the premise that the social contract exists because man previously lived in a state of nature. Somebody, somewhere, in their view, came together to contract for something better, to form community and then an authority to rule over that community. The fact is, humans have always had the foundational building block of community, the family, and authority that naturally resides in a parent over a child. Social order has existed throughout most of human history because of convention, tradition, and power derived from biologically inspired sociological facts - greybeards were stronger and wiser than youngsters and taught them the way. Families formed the core, family leaders became tribal leaders, and later kings - no social contract.
In the American story, our rights, laws, and traditions came from Britain. A nation that developed a constitution from what began as a simple monarchy. In the 1600's ours was a British system, in the 1700s also, when the Constitution was ratified, we were still recipients of these British traditions. Ours was a combination of centuries of convention, tradition, subtle modifications and progressions. We were not founded, we were framed.
The implications of these errors are not insignificant. All of classical liberalism, all of the political theories that derive from that and have emerged to oppose it are based on or opposed to the fundamental errors that both Hobbes and Locke made. Thus, democracy, republicanism, and socialism all have inherent flaws. They either promote the idea of the individual or the community above that of the foundational building block of society for eons - the family. They downplay the importance of tradition, accidents of history, and received knowledge.
In the US, many of the framers of the Constitution understood the difference. The anti-federalist did not see a founding but rather a continuation of British traditions and ancient liberties. They understood the notion of sovereignty and knew full well that the British sovereign had relinquished sovereignty not to the Continental Congress but to thirteen free and independent states individually. They thus understood that the will of the people might only be expressed through their states in congress assembled.
The Federalists, had a pretty different idea, they used many of the words of Locke, but upon analysis, they were much more Hobbesian and Neoplatonic in their view. They feared a lack of control, they feared checks and balances - they wanted centralization, a Hobbsean Leviathan that operated under the rule of law, but a could also define and redefine what that law meant and what the limits of its own power were at will. The Federalists did not see America as a continuation of British traditions and ancient liberties - established through convention and sometimes accidents of history. They saw themselves as founders of a nation based upon idealistic notions.
Their hubris combined with the error of Hobbes and Locke at the base of their thinking is what has brought America to this stage of absurdity.
Apparently, Twitter just banned Zero Hedge for proposing a Coronavirus theory similar to what Josh Clark talks about in episode # six of his podcast The End of the World – gain of function biotechnology laboratory research.
I will say it, it is too early in the news cycle to be taken seriously, I may be termed a conspiracy guy. But based upon legitimate open-source info, this smells like an engineered phenomenon, an accident, but man-made.
The internet is abuzz with all sorts of false information about Coronavirus, perhaps from official and fringe sources alike. Zero Hedge certainly qualifies as an outlet on the fringe. Whether than makes them always wrong, I cannot say. Josh Clark is certainly not always correct in his treatment of the issue in his podcast linked below – but he raises curious facts.
See below why you ought to listen
I admit that is a pretty catchy title. So catchy that when my wife and I were on a road trip a few weeks back she voted a hard ‘no’ when I suggested we listen to it. However, it is perhaps not what she assumed it to be. Josh begins with the question, if there are billions of stars and millions and millions of planets in the universe, statistically, many of them should have produced life and some of that intelligent life. If the scientific answer regarding the formation and timeline of the universe is correct, we simply should already be aware of other life.
Unless life is so unique it exists only here (God? or some scientific reason that makes life statistically improbable?) I could personally accept that God made life unique, but let’s stick in the realm of how a scientist might answer this apparent problem or paradox in their theories.
Josh does a good job of explaining the paradox
Science might attempt to answer this paradox by stating 1) life is hard to form, or, 2) life is easy to develop but also easy to eliminate, or, 3) life is easy to develop, but intelligent life is difficult to sustain.
Item number one would place Earth in some improbable cosmological lottery, if life is so hard to form that it has only formed here, among all the possible other options, it makes us a statistical anomaly (or designed by God).
If life is easy to develop but also easy to eliminate through various disasters, then why are we here and still do not see anyone else? Why did we and nobody else, out of millions and millions of possibilities, make it? This would mean, again, Earth and humanity are winners of a cosmological lottery (or God).
If number three is correct, this assumes there was nothing particularly improbable about us getting to this stage of history and development, yet we look around and do not see anyone else. Why? Josh describes the answer as the great filter, a set of problems that intelligent life would have to navigate to exist much past us and our level of development.
Just look around as some of the technology that we are only beginning to play with, even though we only dimly understand it; AI, biotechnology, physics experiments at the quantum level, etc. Passing the great filter, in this sense, is a civilization learning to both create and control AI without creating the terminator. To master bioengineered food, drugs, and germs without accidentally releasing an extinction-level pandemic. And finally to master physics at the quantum level without blowing up the world. All of those dangers are perhaps low probability, but at the extreme, they are highly dangerous, as they potentially end civilization.
The great filter then is this set of challenges a civilization has to solve as they become just smart enough to play with the ‘fire’ but not yet wise enough to fully understand it.
More on the Great Filter
So what does this have to do with coronavirus? As Josh points out biotech laboratories are all over the world. Several years ago many of these labs began gain of function research. Essentially this is the process of speeding up the development of viruses by stimulating the artificial selection of some of the most horrendous traits. This can result in a much more lethal, more contagious and more resilient virus. Many scientists view this as a way to get ahead of bad germs so that we might be able to fight them if they appear in the wild.
Of course, Josh also points out that the numerous ‘high containment’ labs around the world have a pretty poor history of containing the bad stuff inside. He suggests the great filter might consist of one of these Franken-viruses escaping from a lab and decimating the population.
Two points are interesting, the sheer number of these labs around the world doing this sort of research and the number of mistakes that have been documented to occur.
Zero Hedge was banned from Twitter because of an article they posted, suggesting that Coronovirus originated in just such a lab in Wuhan China. They listed the lab and the lead scientist from that lab. We will perhaps never know if this is exactly what occurred but based upon the track record of such labs and the sort of gain of function research routinely going on; it is possible. Worth discussing for those with a dog in the fight.
Coronavirus certainly does not seem to present an existential risk to mankind. Not in its present form. It does not seem lethal enough and it does not spread fast enough. It could perhaps end up being bad, or it might burn itself out. But it does not seem to be a civilization killer.
What is interesting about this whole situation is just how slow the world has reacted. Last Friday when the State Department announced real travel restrictions, the doctors they brought out said essentially, ‘at first we did not know infected individuals could be asymptomatic and infectious, now we do”. We are now three or four weeks into the outbreak, and nations are just now taking anything close to real action. If this were the sort of virus that could end, or severely depopulate mankind, we would be far too late in reacting.
If the great filter is a real thing, if biotech labs are as inept at maintaining containment as Josh points out, then we seem rather unprepared when a serious virus escapes one day.
Public policy guys need to consult somebody (philosophers and theologians) to help guide scientists in these efforts. Big money throwing cash at mad scientist without wise people thinking past stage one is dangerous.
I have written at length about the megachurch movement and why I am convinced it is so dangerous to authentic, organized Christianity. I have thrown about the word communitarianism as a pejorative. I have spoken of the importance of the community over the individual in what might be considered a very classical liberal way. So what gives?
Perhaps if you have read much of my writing you have noticed
that I call myself a paleoconservative. Surely you must say, if I truly am
such, I realize full-well that the Straussian neoconservatives and the
progressive liberals alike would likely make the same arguments. They argue
that the United States was founded on liberal principles, deep Lockean
principles that recognized natural rights.
Of course, I know such claims are at best complex and at
worst utterly false. The United States was founded on conservative principles,
and the US Constitution was perhaps only a compromise between a Hobbesian and
Lockean view. The states and their constitutions, the entities that really
mattered in 1788-89, were definitely conservative instruments. Rights were viewed
not as natural but derived from British tradition. In honest truth, no man in
nature has the right to anything he cannot defend. We know this is true but
like the philosophical position that this may not be true. But I digress, what
does this have to do with the megachurch you say.
I do not hold that the individual is supreme, that the
natural moral law and reason alone can suffice to inform a man of what is
right. As a true conservative, in the philosophical sense of the word, I know
full well that the experience of the ages and tradition combined with received knowledge
are the main ways that men come to know truth.
This then is the crux of what might appear divergent views within my own mind on the subject of the megachurch movement. I argue that their communalism diminishes the individual, and the authority structure they set up is potentially dangerous. It is not a traditional authority they prescribe but one of their own design. Yet, I am a man that believes that it was the local communal Reformed Protestant nature of America through most of its history that defined us. It was, from the perspective of many, a very illiberal history and circumstance, but it worked well. In short, I agree with communitarianism, just not the sort that Drucker and his ideology invented.
My main argument against the megachurch movement was that it
was built upon bad ideology deriving from bad philosophy. And, perhaps most
dangerously, they are built upon the premise that they must be relevant, they
have to offer something the people want, in order to get them in the door. It
is this reliance upon relevance, combined bad ideology that makes this movement
so dangerous to organized Christianity. The
megachurch movement and its churches will fail because the culture will drive
them eventually. I am opposed to submitting or seeing others submit to
community and authority built upon such a base.
But these churches identified some real problems and attempted
to solve them. They used, and sometimes, misused, techniques straight out of
America’s conservative tradition to get after the problem. The various
Protestant denominations in the US in the late 1980s were dying or dead, stale,
stuffy, feckless beasts. The pastors, boards of directors and initial groups of
elders that founded what would become megachurches were predominantly generation
X folks, they had sat in those stuffy pews, saw exactly how ineffective those
churches were and wanted something different. Many of these churches got their
start in the mid-late 1990s, this was just off the heels of the failure of the
Moral Majority and the exposure of many televangelist. It was a pretty bad time
in Christianity.
Peter Drucker offered a model to Bob Bufford and the Leadership Council. Early generation megachurches based mostly upon strong pastor personalities, such as Rick Warren’s Saddleback provided examples and lesson-learned. The Leadership Network supplied the template, and the disgruntled, dissatisfied upstart GEN Xers took it and built churches, everywhere.
They identified a problem, applied methodology and systems
to the problem and created solutions. It is hard to argue with that. Except for
the foundation, Drucker’s ideology, and his stated intent. His was a vision to fundamentally
change society, through building community in churches. The problem with
utopian ideas is just that, history generally has something to say about the frailty
of man’s ability to reason out complex social issues with brilliant solutions –
generally the best of such ideas fail the worst, sometimes with catastrophic
results.
History has taught us that the best way to move forward and
solve complex problems is by relying upon the experience of the ages, to fall
back on tradition, to fix what is broken rather than create something new, shiny
and brilliant. The innovators of my generation, GEN X, that abandoned traditional
career paths and forged ahead to build Amazon, Google, Facebook, and our
digital world would disagree with that statement, as too would those folks that
built started those future megachurches in the 1990s. But there is a difference
in building an online shopping mall and digital warehouse and redefining how to
‘do church”.
Success is something that is hard to argue with, yet success
does not make a thing optimal or even correct. Do we yet know the cost of Amazon
on society and our way of life? If
someday the only real purchasing option is online will that be better? We do
not know. We do know that sort of innovation was transformative and abandoned
tradition rather than refurbish old practices? Is the social media revolution
truly good for mankind? I suspect not in
total, but it is too soon to say. The point is, yes, those innovations have thus
far succeeded, but at what cost? And, again, technological innovation is not on
the same level as changing the church just because you can.
What will be the cost to the success of the megachurch
movement? What happens if it fails, now that so many formerly dying churches
have been drained?
As a Christian, Protestant, conservative, I applaud the efforts by the megachurch folks to bring back community. I wrote about this very need in Retrenchment: Christian Defense of Permanent Things. For the same reasons, I am opposed to the idea of building a new and shiny thing, particularly for something as important as faith, theology and religion – Christianity itself. The ‘community’ of a megachurch is too big for accountability – too big to be called community. The group is beyond one’s circle of influence and of concern. The pastor and the staff are too far removed to be knowable. How can you keep accountability of a man that teaches you the word if his congregation is so large that you most can never break bread with him, and few can do it regularly enough in a personal way to actually know him?
What should that entrepreneurial generation Xers have done in the mid-to-late 1990s? If I think the megachurch movement has gone all wrong what should have been done? I agree with them, all the major denominations had serious flaws and error. There was no real possibility of working inside of them to effect change, not in the short-term, not to change the whole thing.
They should have done the only thing a right-reasoned
conservative can do when faced with such a circumstance; retrench and
double-down. Buying into what Drucker
was selling, the Rick Warren-like model, was wrong and they should have
recognized it from the start. That they did not perhaps speaks to motivation, but
I cannot see into their hearts.
By retrenchment and doubling down I mean, in seeing the problem
that existed in the church, they should have focused on the local church. If
they saw it as dead an irrelevant, make it alive, while remaining true to what
came before. If they wanted to build community, they should have begun in the
local church. You do not have to move an entire denomination overnight to
change the world, you do it the proven conservative and rational way, in small
steps at home with people you know. The solution in 1990,1995 or 2000, when
these megachurches got their start, was not that complicated.
Yet, that is not the path the leaders and founders of these churches chose. They picked a model that allowed them glory from building something bright and shiny. It was hubris, arrogance and pride that told those 20-something-year-old idealists that they knew better than the centuries of doctrine, procedure, and creeds that proceeded them. A bold statement, but I stand beside it. A lot of harm can come from relying upon oneself to try to do good.
If you want to know why I have written so vigorously about
the megachurch, yes it is about what I have seen, things that are easily discernable
as fruit from the movement. However, it is also something else. Look to the
founding, look to Drucker’s own words concerning his intentions with The
Leadership Network. Ask yourself about the thought processes of the young men
that started these churches 25 or so years ago – why did they choose the
Drucker model instead of putting their heads down and getting to work on the
local church?
I suspect their egos wanted to build something.
“First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing, ask what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?”
I have made the extraordinary claim that the megachurch movement is dangerous, so where is my proof? I have talked about the origins of the bad ideology of the men that founded the organization that has helped almost every single megachurch form. I have talked about the dangers of manipulation and control and of a lack of accountability but what of proofs? I suggest that the frequency, brazenness, severity and egregious nature of sexual assaults and pedophilia in the megachurch is not run of the mill evil, it exists inside an organization that creates power differences and enables this behavior, by default, not design.
First to the inevitable counter-arguments:
‘mega’ means big, more people, and people are fallible, so of course, these things should happen more often in mega-churches.
This happens in ‘other’ megachurches, not mine, we have good people
This gets more publicity because it happens in a mega-church
To point #1, I agree, however, the stories below point to something different, not just the statistical variation of events that ought to be expected. Point #2 is naive, many parents that trusted their children to leaders that were later abused thought the same thing. Point #3 is perhaps true, I cannot argue against it, I only have the stories we can see and those are ugly.
I think that these cases of abuse in the megachurch are different precisely because the megachurch is different. It is based upon communitarianism, it has a language of control, it is designed to create obedience and submission of the individual to the collective and to the leaders of the collective. That sort of combination has proven to almost always be dangerous, throughout history. We could list the examples, but you already know this to be true. Since history has proven the danger, we can reasonably conclude that there is also a danger in the megachurch.
As I was researching and preparing to begin this series of articles, I watched a lot of megachurch sermons online. One subject I saw pop up across several churches was sermons on parental authority. Often these sermons represented parental authority as a pyramid, with more authority over say toddlers, relaxing over time toward the teenage years. Oddly enough, in the megachurch model, this is precisely the time when the church, through small-groups and small-group leaders begin to exert greater authority. Who one dates, where one wants to go to college, who one calls friends - all are subject to ‘conversations in community’. These conversations are mechanisms of control. If the teenager resists and goes their own way in these choices, they are said to have a ‘heart problem’ - another form of control, one that borders on serious error at that, for only God can know what is in another’s heart (Jeremiah 17:9-10, Acts 1:24, 1 Samuel 16:7 and many others)
‘Parent wounds’ is another subject that comes up. Sometimes in sermons in various megachurches that you can find online but more specifically in the context of small-group sessions. Here tweens and teenagers are encouraged to talk about how their parents have hurt them or disappointed them. I have been told stories of some that simply believe they have nothing to tell being pressured over several sessions to come up with something. This is another form of control and manipulation, all with the outward appearance of helping heal wounds. It reinforces that authority has passed from the parent to the community - the community and the leaders can help, they can be trusted.
What does this have to do with sexual abuse? Almost everything. Many of the examples of recent abuse occurred between adult pastors and leaders and children and teenagers between 11 and 18 years old. Right about the time the community was telling them that these youngsters have a different authority they need to trust and listen to.
Look, I am not suggesting that this goes on in every megachurch nor that every pastor or leader is out to prey on the vulnerable. I am saying that it does not make a lot of sense to hand one’s children over to a group that will tell your kids to trust the community and its leaders more than any other thing in their lives. It is dangerous to place a child in an environment where they talk about ‘wounds’, real or imagined, in one on one counseling sessions with a new authority figure.
Psychologists and counselors have known for years the danger of displaced emotions in vulnerable patients and a pastor friend of mine told me horrible stories that lead him to never counsel women alone. People are weak in such situations, vulnerable and act out or accept things they normally would not. The communitarian nature of the megachurch exacerbates this danger.
So what sort of abuse have we seen? (Search Google for Megachurch Sex Abuse to see a much more complete list)
I find the NewSpring cases interesting because I know some people that have attended there as I know the history of the church, after four incidents in three years, NewSpring Church denies responsibility. When I have returned to Powdersville to visit, the NewSpring campus is still full. This despite their former pastor and his board using church money to ensure his book made the New York Times bestseller list, him attempting to rewrite the 10 commandments and finally him having to resign for alcohol abuse.
Continued attendance is a case of cognitive dissonance. The organization is flawed, far beyond the individual people that acted poorly. The organization selected them, gave them access and accepted them. Changing leadership cannot fix deep foundational flaws. Yet, this is the sort of naivety that persist in many megachurches - blind trust because it is fun, exciting and everyone seems so good.
NewSpring, Willow Creek and Village are unique only because they are mega-megachurches and their pastors figured prominently in the movement. The error of Perry Noble was easier to spot because more people were looking. How many smaller megachurches out there, organizations that were built on the same model from the same organization, have similar problems? Problems not highlighted by high-profile discernment ministry guys keeping an eye on what is going on?
Dangerous? Yes, too much control, too much loyalty to the group, not enough accountability.
I have never joined a megachurch. I have attended a couple several times. I have eight family members that have joined one. Of those eight only one still attends. Of the seven that left, three attended long enough to make their departure ‘interesting’ – more on that below.
My personal experience consists of attending regularly, but never joining, a large Baptist church in the 90s. It was what I define as a phase two megachurch, it was still Baptist and it required a pastor with a strong and attractive personality to grow large. Even though it was an early stage megachurch, I could not buy-in and join it, it was off to me. They had gone in deep for the Purpose Driven dribble. (my ever-comical nephew termed this place the Repentagon because of the shape of the large building they constructed)
the 2000s
I attended the megachurch that most of my family joined when I was home on leave from the Army. It was in those visits and in observing and conversing with my family that had joined that I began to have deep suspicions. Lastly, in an effort to find a church in the town I retired to my wife and I visited the local megachurch a few times – until the parking lot incident that made my suspicions click in my head. That is my experience.
Now
I attend a small, quiet church – that is my style, but that is not why I write against the megachurch movement.
Why
Why do I write about the megachurch? I saw first hand the experiences of my eight family members, how it affected their relationships with others and their sense of self and self-esteem. I had a shouting match one evening with one of them that screamed literal heresy at me, something they had come to hold as truth from the megachurch. I have seen the leaders of both the churches my family attended (and attends in one case) manipulate family dynamics, create divisions (parent wounds*) and use the power of position the church provides for personal benefit.
*Focusing on parent wounds creates divisions in families and demonstrates that the small-group, church, and the leaders are capable of helping where parents have failed – trust your leaders! It is a tool to exert control over kids. One particularly egregious, and perhaps nefarious megachurch pastor used parent wounds to attack preachers with dead Christian mentors, subtle deeds not creeds attack (another megachurch tendency).
First Impression
Basically, it all smelled wrong to me the first time I walked in, but a lot of my family was there so I was open-minded; but I researched, questioned and observed. I watched their sermons online from afar, looked at what was going on in other megachurches and observed the changes in my family. Each time one of them left, I debriefed them extensively. The story they all told after leaving was vastly different than the narrative they portrayed while there.
Around 2011 or 2012 I sat with a friend of mine, an Army Chaplain and a Baptist pastor and asked him if I should be concerned with what I was seeing. I love my brother, I mean him no harm in this but he was absolutely wrong in his response to me. He suggested that the Christian church goes through a great change every 500 years and this seeker-sensitive megachurch stuff was alright. I did not know at the time, perhaps he did not know, that 500-year idea came from a heretic named Phyllis Tickle and the Emergent Church. Brother if you are reading this you were wrong, perhaps you were deceived like so many others have been.
Deception indeed.
4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
Mathew 24
It is not my contention that all of the megachurches are evil and all pastors heretics. I do not argue that organized, denominational Christianity was not in a mess of its own making before this phenomenon began. I would not argue that the old way got things right.
I do contend, not just because I have witnessed it in some folks I love, but because I have looked around at the facts enough to now state as fact that the megachurch is more dangerous than any boring old baptist church from the 1980s ever could have or would have been. One was filled with apathy, the other perhaps increasing levels of apostasy.
Mine is not an argument about worship style nor music. I prefer one style but that is not my argument.
My argument is not about a conspiracy to take over the church. Not in the sense of an organized effort that reaches down into each and every megachurch. It is true there is a definite line from bad philosophy, to bad ideology, to people like Peter Drucker and the creation of a methodology that could be replicated franchise-style in the creation of megachurches**. However, because one can trace the bad ideas to their source is not the same as an organized conspiracy, do not confuse my argument for the former.
Conspiracies are not necessary, evil exists, and evil has been able to coordinate and combine its efforts. Deception is the primary weapon of evil. I am convinced the megachurch model Peter Drucker codified and has been replicated across America is dangerous, far more dangerous than the apathy it was created to replace.
Wondering who the heck Peter Drucker is and why he matters to this argument? Look hereor better yet here, Resistance is Futile.
If you argue that my observation, my dataset is too limited and all independent megachurches are different and ‘independent’. I would ask you this. How did all those independent churches just spontaneously generate in the late 1990s and 2000s and yet have so much in common if they do not share some core methodology and techniques for formation? They claim to be relevant, different and cool, but there are some stunning similarities.
Their ‘starting out’ story is a little less original and less authentic than is oft-repeated.
And, certainly, not all have slipped into outright apostasy or heresy, but some big names among them certainly have and that is undeniable. Those big names came from the same methodological mold as the others, all from Druker’s model. All churches have some error, and megachurches should be no different – but; Sovereign Grace Church, Bethel, Perry Noble, Mark Driscoll, Steven Furtick and more than I care to name (all tied to the Leadership Network) seem to add evidence that pastors with too much control and not enough accountability are dangerous.
Surrendering to the community is dangerous. Reviving a rebranded form of shepherding (something recognized as apostasy years ago) is dangerous. Focusing on the emotion of religion instead of a deep understanding of theology is dangerous. Forcing loyalty through oaths, (membership covenants) that say you will follow the leaders of the Church and not speak out against the vision of the leaders is dangerous. Placing ‘service’ at the level of Justification, as a part of salvation, is a revival of the works heresy, a variation of Pelagianism – instead of, well Grace alone. Preaching from a weak translation of the Bible that is best used as a supplemental study guide. Preachers that work themselves into every sermon, because, relevant. Topically preaching ‘relevant’ stuff. The introduction of strange, and biblically absent words into all conversations (intentional, relational, authentic, etc.) – all dangerous and troubling.
All the phase three megachurches out there may not have slipped as far into heresy as Bethel, but they all do the things I just described.
The Shunning
I mentioned above that of my seven family members that left a megachurch, three had attended long enough to be invested deeply. When they left I observed a strange sort of fear and shame. For instance, they became physically and observably scared when in the presence, even if just in the same restaurant, with a member of the church. I discuss all of that in more detail in my associated posts, however, this realization and observation was enough to make me know that some of the other things I suspected were correct from the start.
My Assessment
When I combine the social control and manipulation techniques I have observed, with the heresy I have observed (justification by works, instead by Grace alone) and combine that with the publically available facts that lay out the map of the ideas that gave birth to this whole thing – my initial suspicions ten or so years ago make a lot of sense.
** I want to be super clear that I am not implying, nor do I believe most of the folks that have used the “Drucker Megachurch Franchise” template had ill intentions. Most of the folks that started these churches were GEN Xers, and we GEN Xers grew into adulthood with a lot of distrust of the things that were around us. Those of us that grew up in church saw a stale, ineffective church. We knew the Sunday talk and the weekly walk of many people.
I grew up in a very typical place that describes that. I was raised in Powedersville, near Greenville SC. As typical of the Southern Baptist Bible belt as you can get. I saw all the things that likely frustrated those that followed the Drucker plan.
I also do not believe the folks working in these churches as underling leaders have ill intentions, or at least they did not start out that way. There is however something corrupting when you place an ordinary man in a position of extreme power over others, young impressionable folks, and give him a soap-box to repeat the myth of himself that develops from that power. I have witnessed such people abuse their power in subtle ways.
These people did not mean evil, not all of them do overt evil and there are good things that derive from these churches. Most have zero understanding of the flawed philosophy that this movement came from and many of the underling leaders and junior pastors are not even formally trained in theology to equip them to recognize error.
On the whole, it was all a mistake, it has morphed into something very dangerous and it is, in my observed opinion, the single greatest existential threat to organized Christianity in America.
When you think of visiting one of these places, keep looking, find a Bible-believing place without all the communitarian trappings, apostasy and error.
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Follow me on Twitter if you want to learn more about this subject or to tell me I am wrong @onlyBarryLClark or take a gander at the tag for all post related to the Megachurch
Disclaimer I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.https://t.co/zvZRkK2G6V#Conservatism#Rightist
