Beautiful! God uses different means for each of us, because, in our uniqueness, we respond to different imagery and expressions, but I fully believe that the only healing from the spiritual abuse of the “sin-sniffers” comes from a soul-deep immersion in God’s infinite love.He isn’t standing over us, “infinitely angry with all sin” as a Calvinista in a former church told me, but He loves us beyond our capacity to understand, and His arms were nailed to the cross open to receive us and never closed against us, so He can carry us through into the glorious freedom of the resurrection life.

Thank you for sharing your story, you encourage every one of us who has walked that path but still sometimes hears those terrible whispers that suggest we are delusional. You encouraged my heart today

Eagle wrote:

Does anyone else find it odd that Sovereign Grace is fighting this lawsuit? I mean for an organization that teaches “theological determinism” where God is responsible for everything and there is no such thing as coincidences….if that’s serious the case…why are they fighting the lawsuit?

I think Diane mentioned this on another thread. Brill. Exactly. They do not practice what they preach. God must have willed it so why are they fighting it? Perhaps they get to decide what God wills? (bingo!!!)

They are frauds.

Thank you so much for sharing this lovely testimony of God’s great love for us in Jesus.

I don’t think I will be able to light Sacred Heart candles ever again without remembering this story. I believe that the Holy Spirit does work in ways which we’ll never be able to understand, and I’m okay with that. How encouraging to read this experience of being drawn to the heart of God even when the church fails to represent his heart well

Thank you to the author of the guest post. Thank you to Deb for sharing this coming home story.

Some of you here at TWW have already heard bits and pieces of my story. The timing of this guest post is so meaningful to me because a couple days ago I wrote about why my last name is Trust, and so these words are a kiss to my soul- a reminder of where I’ve come from and who God is.

Josh McDowell (in this interview with Janet Mefferd) says it takes truth plus relationship, or truth conveyed in relationship, to reach people (which I think is similar to the ‘correct doctrine’ vs ‘love people’ division that was being discussed here):

Janet Mefferd Show-1/26/2010, Hour 1- Josh McDowell stops by

McDowell also says that pastors should stop assuming that the people in the pews believe every thing in the Bible is true, pastors need to become “more apologetical” even while giving sermons. (Some of you were discussing this in another thread yesterday.) He says Christians today are more skeptical.

I love this story about the Sacred Heart of Jesus, & I'm pretty sure you posted at iMonk about this once. I'm hoping to believe all the nice stuff about Jesus again one day & to stop wondering finally whether I've been predestined to something a lot less than salvation…

And I feel bad because I was pretty blunt with an article about Calvinism that popped up on my fb feed from a Francis Schaeffer page. The reformed Pastor that runs it proof- texted me & when I pointed out that just because I didn't agree with his conclusions didn't mean I hadn't read the Bible, then cemented by someone calling me venomous & asking if I 'd read the Bible all the way through to get the flow of it. Cue head banging. I wasn't very gracious & now I'm off to cry in the bath. How long O Lord?

@ BeakerJ:
When one feels raw inside, emotions run. And when one meets someone who is smug, those emotions can make one feel a fool. But being emotional doesn’t mean one is wrong or an idiot, but just that one is raw. And your rawness isn’t fabricated. It comes from a pernicious lie you were told was from God by the very people you emoted at.

Keep pursuing Love. I hope you find it soon. It really is there, waiting for you.

PS re the confession of sins to one another, I think this is another area where a Biblical passage has been overemphasised. Sometimes it is actually refreshing and unburdening to confess something, but I think once it becomes an imperative then the road ahead is dangerous – too often it can smack of Maoist self-criticism or cultishness. Also I think confession of that sort should to be made to one or two older or more mature Christians, not to a whole group of people. I’m going to sound patronising now, but I think it is also dangerous among the young, whose zeal may not always be tempered by knowledge (or experience?).

Thank you all for the kind words!

Kolya, my thoughts about Jansenism (and, of course, it’s very strong similarity to the “new Calvinism”) would take up way too much space, and clog up Dee and Deb’s comments section. So in lieu of a full-fledged response, may I recommend a book? “Moral Choices: the Moral Theology of St. Alphonsus de Liguori” by Theodule Rey-Mermet gives a fantastic summary of Jansenist belief and practice, as well as the response of Liguori, whose brilliant theology really embodies the Catholic rejection of Jansenism. I think it’s a very relevant read for all who are concerned about new Calvinist spiritual abuse; Christians have dealt with this sort of thing before…

Patrice wrote:

I taught college for years and it was fascinating to help students discover who they were and what they believed in the context of knowledge, friends, culture. Part of my job as art prof was to teach people how to critique each other’s work. How to respect the person and the piece and yet be truthful and helpful. How to receive the critique when properly offered. Etc.

This is mostly missing today! Absolutely needed as part of preparing young people for the real world. (There is no real world in minstry but nevermind)

Instead, these young men are listening to their gurus who convince them they have truth and are the elect. The ones going to seminary are indoctrinated and cannot think outside that box. Where I live this becomes pretty obvious fast. They cannot handle their “knowledge” or “power” well at all. And sadly many are given power they should not have.

The irony is that supposed brilliant men like Mohler, Dever, Piper, etc, have done young men no favors. They have stunted their spiritual, mental and emotional growth in life and these young followers will have lots of catching up to do IF it ever happens. They are not well read at all. They have been indoctrinated and taught to think in a certain way as truth. Others are heretics. What is missing? LOVE. So what do they do? Redefine what is love.

The most important thing we can do is help people steer clear of them as teachers/preachers so more lives won’t be wrecked.

Hi Ryan, thanks for your recommendation. To be fair my knowledge of Jansensim has been gained through an earlier interest in Blaise Pascal who was associated with Port Royal where the movement was based. I’ll check out the book you mentioned.

The other caveat of course is that as a movement it didn’t last long so didn’t have time to develop as far as I understand it. We don’t know therefore whether it would have been modified or indeed become akin to the neo-Calvinism of today. (My take anyway – perhaps I’m wrong!). It’s interesting though that Pascal at any rate thought Luther (and I suppose by implication other Protestants, including Calvinists) very wide of the truth, although his remarks are in scribbled note form and therefore not conducive to a theological discussion 😉

@ Deb:
“We’re doing our part here at TWW to sound the alarm!”

And a bang-up good job you two do. The issues you raise on this site simmer across the nation, in/out of the church. Culturally, we are suffering a massive dysfunction of authoritarianism. There are people in the economics field, particularly, who have been raising their version of your issues, and many of them are not believers and most of them are “nones”. It has been lovely to find TWW because you are speaking truth to the nasty societal zeitgeist as it is revealed in this arena.

@ Diane:
The Calvinist thinks that absolutely everything that happens is God-ordained. Under that umbrella, humans’ new knowledge about how to repair hearts is also God-ordained. So, according to the SGM people (I conjecture), God ordained that the state would try to undermine their privilege as “special God-bearers” and he also ordained that they, oh-so-special-male-muckety-mucks, would fight it. Everything, good and bad, is worked out before-hand by God.

They separate God’s particular will from “what happens”. In the sense that God doesn’t condone evil, it is never his will that evil is done. Yet, since he planned it out before hand, he uses the evil so that good made be done. According to the Calvinist, that is the only reason for evil to be allowed to continue, that good may come of it. In the largest sense, therefore, God’s will is always done. Thus Bridges: “No pain or difficulty occurs in our lives apart from the will of God.”

Calvinists who pray “Thy will be done” are saying it for three reasons: 1. As a gesture of submission since everything, in the end, is done for good. 2. As a request for less of the evil and more of the good to produce God’s final purposes. (That prayer is fore-ordained, too, as well as any positive answer that may result.) 3. A request for heaven (“on earth as it is in heaven”), where all God’s purposes are served via the good, and there is no longer a “need” for evil to accomplish his ends.

It is the idea that evil is used to make good that is so unpalatable for those who have suffered at the hands of intimate others. It contaminates one’s view of God. In truth, evil never flows through the hand of God. He/She only works good out of the consequences of evil. It is the results of evil, not evil itself, that He/She heals so that good may reappear.

I don’t know if that helps.

@ Patrice: I hear you about critiques – they were VERY difficult for me, back in the day (undergrad studio art major), and by no means were all of my profs emotionally mature, so… they sometimes turned into really nasty scenes.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

.e. Enlightened Self-Criticism before Party Commissars.
Who were the most dedicated muscle of Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian Revolution? Young students.
Who were the most dedicated to the Cause in all the French-style Revolutions of the 20th Century? Young students.
Oh, and Patrice? There is a difference between an authoritarian system and a totalitarian system. An authoritarian system is content to rule and break heads to stay there. A totalitarian system is not satisfied until it has remade every thought and emotion in its population units into its image, i.e. Converts them into its Fundamentalism.

This is so true.

Points to consider:

It seems that with each passing year, we hear more and more horror stories about how our brothers and sisters in Christ are being treated in church. We’re not talking about congregations that are being poisoned by heretical teaching. On the contrary, in some churches that claim to teach the true Gospel, there are major problems!

I experienced this dynamic in the Seventies. Christian Cult Watch(TM) groups of the time defined “Cult” entirely in terms of theology and doctrine, NOT by controlling/abusive behavior. They routinely gave destructive congregations and their pastor/dictators clean bills of health after parsing their theology not only word-for-word but letter-by-letter. (It helped that these Christian Cult Watch groups were coming from a Fundagelical Dispy background just like the aberrant churches and fellowships.) Not only did this gaslight those who were suffering under these pastor/dictators, but their clean bill of theological health gave the pastor/dictators another weapon to use against their people — PROOF that I Am Not A Cult.

But I slowly experienced a change in the way I thought of God and how I related to Him. He became, in my eyes, less loving and kind and more austere, distant, and – dare I say it? – arbitrary and just a little bit capricious. I realize now that I was afraid of God and certainly not in the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” sense.

Where God resembles the old gods of nature, who would bless you with a bumper crop one minute then kill you with a tornado or famine the next, like an unpredictable violent alcoholic parent. In the words of Christian Monist, “A God who is Omnipotent but NOT benevolent.”

Despite the fact that we ostensibly believed in “grace”, we had an obsessive and unhealthy fear over our sins: we used to sit in circles in “accountability groups” and confess to each other, in graphic detail, every sin we could recall. We also confronted each other with sins we perceived in that person’s life, and a guy unwilling to see how he was sinning (according to his brothers in the Lord) was quickly labeled as “prideful”.

Morbid Introspection, as has been documented in the 17th Century journals of Massachusetts Bay Puritans. According to those journals, such morbid introspection over “Am I Really Saved? Am I Really Elect?” was the most common subject, to the point of OCD.

The Sacred Heart devotion had been around for several centuries, but it was not terribly wide-spread. Towards the end of the 17th century, a woman named St. Margaret Mary received a vision of Jesus, in which He showed her His Sacred Heart, and instructed her to make it more widely known. The Sacred Heart is usually shown, as in the picture at the top of this post, as Christ’s human heart, bleeding and wrapped in the crown of thorns, with fire pouring out of the top.

Isn’t the Sacred Heart devotion ROMISH(TM)? Remember “NO POPERY!”?

@ Patrice: Painting.

And *good for you* re. your work on how to handle critiques – that’s fantastic! All art departments should have policies in place, imo.

Ryan M. wrote:

Kolya, Pascal is an interesting character, isn’t he? A dear friend of mine from college is actually writing his PhD dissertation on Pascal, but he’s a philosopher, and Pascal’s Jansenism is more just a biographical interest to him. I know Pascal mostly through majoring in math in college…

I’m a former kid genius. I can confirm that just because you’re BRILLIANT doesn’t mean you’re going to be wrapped all that tight. As we say in D&D, “Intelligence 18, Wisdom 3.”

Ryan M. wrote:

Kolya, my thoughts about Jansenism (and, of course, it’s very strong similarity to the “new Calvinism”) would take up way too much space, and clog up Dee and Deb’s comments section.

My quickie definition of Jansenism is “HyperCalvinism with Rosaries.”

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:Yes. It makes me so angry!

“There is a difference between an authoritarian system and a totalitarian system. An authoritarian system is content to rule and break heads to stay there. A totalitarian system is not satisfied until it has remade every thought and emotion in its population units into its image, i.e. Converts them into its Fundamentalism.”

People are unruly and will eventually kick against injustice and unfairness, and so, in my opinion, an authoritarian system will be required, in the end, to become totalitarian, in order to maintain itself. The logical conclusion to “power over” authoritarianism is totalitarianism.

You quote: “It is not enough for you to obey Big Brother, 6079 Smith W. You must LOVE BIG BROTHER with all your being.”
– Comrade O’Brian, Inner Party, Airstrip One, Oceania, 1984

Dee quoted: “… in rare cases, you might find that you disagree so strongly with something your pastor teaches, or that you disagree on a matter of such consequence, that it would hinder you from contentedly submitting to his leadership. In a case like this it may be best to quietly, lovingly find another church after discussing your intent to leave with the pastor.” – 9 Marks, “What should I do if I disagree with something my pastor said?” http://www.9marks.org/answers

The requirements are the same; the only difference is that 9 Marks and the other illustrious groups mentioned on this site remain yet relatively small fiefdoms.

@ Patrice: Love the Pascal quote, Patrice!

Dee and Deb said:

“We’re not talking about congregations that are being poisoned by heretical teaching. On the contrary, in some churches that claim to teach the true Gospel, there are major problems!”

This struck a cord with me because I have friends who greatly admire Acts 29 and other similar circles…they seem to be continually preoccupied with the idea that many churches aren’t getting the Gospel right, and that modern North American Christianity is letting heresies in, etc. It always seemed weird to me that they were so convinced that the modern church had abandoned the true Gospel, because I do not know any churches which actually teach what I would consider “heresy” (do I know churches where people preach one thing but live another? Sure. But that’s not heresy, that’s hypocrisy!)

Anyway, I thought it was really ironic, because these friends of mine would definitely err on the side of authoritarianism. They were the ones acting in an unhealthy manner, and it was because of some *perceived* need to guard against heresy, heresies that I wasn’t actually seeing in the rest of church life!

So weird.

HUG, you echoed my thoughts. I’d also add Pol Pot’s eager teenage gunmen to that list, and Mao’s Red Guards. The Red Guards are a particularly sad story as I believe many of them were left high and dry to live out hard lives in the countryside after the Cultural Revolution burnt out – certainly other organs of Chinese stability, mainly the Army, didn’t take too keenly to them after a while and I think in Tibet the Army even gunned some of them down after they started raising a ruckus.

Similarly surviving young soldiers of the Waffen SS came back to find that their leader was now reviled worldwide as a monster and their own country ashamed of their associations.

Sad observer, I hear what you say. I hear this stuff about “the true Gospel not being preached” at times myself, and I wonder where the neo-Calvinist crowd draw the line.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
“(And a quip about “Christlam” — how when Christianity goes sour, it curdles into something resembling Islam.)…And the Calvinistas are more Calvinist than Calvin ever was, just as the Talibani are more Islamic than Mohammed.”

And the irony drips blood when the radical Christian community hates on the radical Islam community with the US military-industrial complex behind them. Bah.

@ Eagle:
“But work is treated more as doctrine in this crowd and less than “this is how you learn to figure out what you want to do.”

Would you be willing to explain that a bit more? I had ye olde Dutch work-ethic pounded into me but this seems different.

@ @ Patrice:

“The Calvinist thinks that absolutely everything that happens is God-ordained. Under that umbrella, humans’ new knowledge about how to repair hearts is also God-ordained. So, according to the SGM people (I conjecture), God ordained that the state would try to undermine their privilege as “special God-bearers” and he also ordained that they, oh-so-special-male-muckety-mucks, would fight it. Everything, good and bad, is worked out before-hand by God.”

So- with regard to Bridges and his malformed heart valves designed by God in the womb (his words), the God ordained surgery will of God supercedes the God ordained malformed heart valve will of God. Right?

Because, it’s the latest/newest/next thing that comes into your life that is now the current God ordained will. However one acts…is God’s will. Convenient.

@ Gavin:

Excellent description of SGM, IMO.

From A W Tozer
(quote) God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election. predestination and the divine soverignty. The best and safesty way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God, and in deepest reverence say “Oh Lord, thous knowest.” Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Prfound of God’s Omnicience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints

Where’s the love in SGM?

It’s there every morning when CJ looks in the mirror and recites the creed: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me”. Then as he goes throughout his household, his spousal unit, offspring, and sons-in-law recite: “He’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and doggone it, we like him”. He stops in to SGL where servants swoon and adoring troubadors sing “He’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and doggone it, we like him”. He skypes with seminary presidents, ministry leads, and conference planners. They too recite the creed and pronounce him fit; if they noticed that His Baldness was unclothed, they never let on. To them he is good enough, smart enough, they like him and he is dressed appropriately for the occasion.

The love in and about SGM is in perpetuating the lie and bowing before the deception.

Residing on the other side of the spell,
Former SG Pastor

Ryan –

Thanks for sharing your story. Sorry that life was so lifeless for you in SGM. If they keep hearing the same message about the lack of love, maybe they (and all the authoritarian leaders) will eventually get it. But I’m not holding my breath.

The similarities between this story and my own are crazy! I grew up in SGM, struggled with crippling doubt about the state of my predestination, attended a Christian college and a second SGM church, and ultimately ended up Catholic (my confirmation is a week from today.) Ironically, the name of my new church is “Sacred Heart.”

Thanks to Dee and Deb for posting this at all but also for starting it with love. I hope to see a less fragmented Christianity in the years to come and the only way it’s going to happen is if we remember to love others more than ourselves. It’s a timely reminder for me that your denomination doesn’t determine your salvation.

FSGP,

Sadly, I believe you’re right. 🙁

@ Patrice:

Thanks Patrice!

“And it’s goofy.”

I will leave it at that, lol.

The ‘C-h-r-i-s-t’ Core: “Three Simple Truths?”

Eph. 6:24.—‘ Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity…’

HowDee,

hmmm…

The above scripture text declares the three simple truths that lie at the ‘core’ of Christianity: 

ready?

The central ‘force’ of true Christianity is ‘love’.  ❤

The central ‘person’ of true Christianity is of course ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’. ☺

(not de illustrious JohnnyC…)

The central ‘mark’ of true Christianity is ‘grace’. ☺

Bonus: 

“The central ‘theme’ of true Christianity” is:

*Christ came to seek and save the lost. ☺

n’

*Christ came to bruise the serpents head, and lead a host of captives free! ☺

Yahooooooo!

Christ uses the simple message of the Gospel to lead a host of captives free. ☺

(He’s done smack’d dat ole Beelzebub) 

huh?

Q: What is the ‘gospel’, anyway?

—-> God so loved the world (YOU) that he gave his only begotten Son, that who-so-ever (meanin’ YOU) believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. –For God did not send His Son into the world to ‘condemn’ the world, but through Him, that it might be ‘saved’. -Simple as pie!-

LetzUnpackit:

The ‘true’ gospel is:

A. God loves you! ☺

B. He Gave His only Son to save your ‘soul’ from eternal death! ☺

C. If you believe on Jesus, you will be saved, and have eternal life, spending it with Him! ☺

🙂 Take-away:

No FUBAR theo_cr@p, no rhetoric, just plain ole good news of what Jesus did for ‘all the world’. 

…get your ‘soul’ fixed up today?

hear! hear!

“Joy to da world, da Lord has come…” ☺

hum, hum, hum…

…there is no way to know with absolute certainty in SGM logos sōtēria, that a person is part of God’s household?

What?

SGM, what?!? ‘god’ are you serving? n’ what?!? book R U readin’?

Crunnnnnnnnch!

* 1 Timothy 4:10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe. ☺

* Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. ☺

Kirrrrrrrrrrrk!

S_G_M,  …S_G_M, rearranging those proverbial H.O.S. SGM deck chairs can be quite hazardous to your spiritual health…da spiritual life you save may be your own?

toooooooooooot!

Sopy

—

@ justabeliever:

Thanks for Tozer quote. The beginning and the end: trust in an incomparably great God who is astonishingly kind and generous. A light burden of mystery and grace delightful to bear. And equally delightful to pass along.

SenatorDancergurl,

Thanks for your comment, and welcome to TWW. When I was a student at Duke, I had a roommate who was Catholic, and she was extremely serious about her faith. She often prayed the rosary in our room, and I think she attended mass every day. She invited me to come one time, and I gladly accepted. It was held in the Memorial Chapel in Duke Chapel (where the Dukes are entombed). I greatly admired her devotion to Jesus Christ.

I have had Catholic friends through the years. Most recently, my co-leader in Girl Scouts was a devout Catholic. We worked together for about six years, and sometimes we discussed faith issues. I have no doubt that she is a committed Christian.

My husband and I recently attended a Catholic funeral because the mother of my hubby’s co-worker passed away. We both thought it was beautiful!

Although I am Southern Baptist and will in all likelihood remain in that denomination, I have tremendous respect for the Catholics I have known through the years.

Finally, my hubby and I had dinner at the Catholic Church just up the street for the last two Fridays. During Lent, they serve a delicious shrimp/fish dinner (as a fundraiser), and we look forward to it every year. 🙂

@ SenatorDancergurl:
Senator, welcome to the Catholic Church. May you be blessed.

May all Christians be blessed as we remember the death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus

OT about Blaise Pascal. It was his writings that helped lead Takashi Nagai, a Japanese radiologist to Christianity which helped him lead in the aftermath of the atomic bomb at Nagasaki.

@ Patrice: I should add that I meant few people were teaching technique because so many of them hadn’t learned much of it themselves, having grown up during the time when Abstract Expressionism was The Big Thing.

It was hard to find people who worked in other styles, still, at that time, though that started to change by the time I graduated.

SenatorDancergurl wrote:

The similarities between this story and my own are crazy! I grew up in SGM, struggled with crippling doubt about the state of my predestination, attended a Christian college and a second SGM church, and ultimately ended up Catholic (my confirmation is a week from today.) Ironically, the name of my new church is “Sacred Heart.”

Congratulations and welcome! We were confirmed at the East Vigil last year… it is one of the most wonderful experiences you can have. Savor every moment!

Yes, I enjoyed Nick Bulbeck’s little skit as well :-). And also the Pascal/A W Tozer quotes, which are timely reminders. Maybe the whole sovereignty/predestination thing is a bit like quantum mechanics or some other paradoxical aspect of modern physics?

And oh yes, the crits… a friend of mine is doing an art course, but the bit she doesn’t like is having to talk about artists, artistic movements and social factors, etc…. she’d rather just paint. What Numo and BeakerJ have said re “crits” reminds me of a rather dry interview given by Mike Barson, the keyboard player of Madness. He said that in his time at art college the lecturers seemed less interested in technical ability than being “original”. I got the impression that he found this irritating in both visual art and music.

Numo, Pascal could be a bit unbalanced in his own life, I agree. He is also one of those men who died early so that, like Bonhoeffer, we can’t really tell which way he would have developed his ideas.

@ Ryan: Ever read John of the Cross’s “Dark Night of the Soul”?

Might surprise you, Ryan!

Patrice wrote:

They really say that in D&D? How wise of them! The number of IQ geniuses who are absolute idiots continues to astonish me.

Not in any of the official rulebooks; “Intelligence 18, Wisdom 3” was a gamers’ expression.

Love doesn’t hurt, and if it does, it’s not love.

justabeliever wrote:

From A W Tozer
(quote) God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election. predestination and the divine soverignty. The best and safesty way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God, and in deepest reverence say “Oh Lord, thous knowest.” Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Prfound of God’s Omnicience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints

Thank you so much for today’s blog. When I returned to my hometown, I found my whole family was involved in this extremist theology. Though I was the first one to come to faith about 35 years ago, now they are all concerned about my salvation. It is horrible. My husband and I are in a centering prayer group at a Catholic Church in Apex. They allow for the mystery in God’s love for his creation. I can rest in this while my family debates predestination and losing one’s salvation. I don’t hear God’s voice in any of that. Ann

@ numo:
Yes, I was undergrad during the same pathetic era. Eight years later, MICA added very little technical knowledge, so I learned on my own and it was not thorough. When I began to teach, I was scrambling one day ahead of my students because I didn’t want them to get the same education I had. Oy! Thankfully, my teaching improved over time.

I will pray for you, numo. I’ll pray that you find your heart’s desire, that creativity runs freely, and that your hands become just skillful enough to give adequate shape to both. Washes and inks and pastels are gentle, quick and exact media. And I’ll pray that you understand how beautifully God made you, so you can discover delight, which will cause the crappy old voices to fade and allow you to stand next to anyone without apology.

Today is my birthday. I am grateful to be alive and to have a savior that loved me enough to die (and not stay dead) for me. My faith is in him and not in a creed nor any pastor or preacher.

I am reminded, from the post and some of the comments, of an experience. I was at my first Emmaus Walk (not really a walk), which is a three-day religious experience organized primarily by groups from Methodist churches, but some others as well. Our group was very interdenominational. We were housed on a Catholic retreat center and worshiped several times a day in the chapel, where hung a life size or a bit larger crucifix. What I noticed was that the knees and elbows were bloody and bruised, and scraped up a bit. It had never occurred to me that the knees and elbows would be so damaged due to the falls and the other treatment. We did some of the communion by walking up, almost under the crucifix, to partake of the elements, right close to the image of the broken body and the blood flowing from Jesus. It was a very powerful experience.

I recommend the Emmaus Walk program to every one. It is a Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon experience. Contact a local Methodist church to see if there is an Emmaus organization in your area. It is worth the time and cost to go. It will deepen your faith commitment.

@ Patrice: Thank you, Patrice – I am much more oriented toward what I might call a kind of “gestural” way of movement and brushwork (etc.) than anyone with whom I either studied or who was on the faculty at my school. And – like an online friend from another country – I didn’t necessarily want to create “Art,” but something else. My French friend does animal portraiture, illustrations and even comic strips – and her work is very funny and charming.

It might be that I’m headed in a similar direction…

BeakerJ:

And I feel bad because I was pretty blunt with an article about Calvinism that popped up on my fb feed from a Francis Schaeffer page. The reformed Pastor that runs it proof- texted me & when I pointed out that just because I didn’t agree with his conclusions didn’t mean I hadn’t read the Bible, then cemented by someone calling me venomous & asking if I ‘d read the Bible all the way through to get the flow of it. Cue head banging. I wasn’t very gracious & now I’m off to cry in the bath. How long O Lord?

You sound like me. I am never gracious when it comes to Calvinism, even though I try to be. I am unable to hold back. And when someone tells me with a straight face and a cold heart that a “loving” God ordains horrific child rape, why should I hold back?

But feel free to chuck some water-bombs if not…

@ Nick Bulbeck:
Nick the arrogance that some have about “their” religion certainly has to turn off unbelievers and believers alike. Where is their humility?

@ mot:
Yeah, this may have been the comment that got me labelled ‘venomous’, I was actually very frustrated by the instant assumption that they had read the bible & I obviously hadn’t :
‘You are assuming I haven’t read, reread & read these passages again because I haven’t come to the same conclusions as you. I’m embarrassed for you as I read that as it assumes (in a yawningly familiar way, despite what you say about what you once professed) that non-Calvinists just haven’t read the Bible & patting them on the the head with some proof texts will set them right. There’s another straw man that some Cavinists seem addicted to :’ only we bother to read the Bible’. It’s intellectually very dishonest & very unloving to do this. Sorry to be a bit blunt, but it becomes wearisome to be treated as an intellectual dwarf by the Biblically Privileged.’

@ Beaker:

“There’s another straw man that some Cavinists seem addicted to: ‘only we bother to read the Bible.'”

You mean like Reconstructionists claim to be the only ones who “apply God’s Word to every area of life!”? (Decoded: all you non-Reconstructionists who don’t believe in ditching the Constitution and replacing it with Deuteronomy aren’t applying the Bible to government, because we all know there can be no other opinion about godly government except ours.)

Ryan and Dee,
I also think that the depiction of the Sacred Heart is creepy. But maybe that’s because I’ve been watching Once Upon a Time. And it appears some fraternal orders have had some influence in stained glass art work of it. However I do not reject all mysticism. I believe that many visions that people have today are as true as they are in the Bible. 1John 4 says do not believe every spirit. I believe that John in context was specifically referring to not believing every spirit that comes to you in the name of love. I do not question the true faith and salvation of many mystics, but I do question some of their visions. Even if their visions are true, the mystic themselves and us the hearers still have to be careful not to make an idol out of it. The vision Peter was given for including the Gentiles also showed the heart of God. Since I am hungry right now, the ‘pig in a blanket’ is talking to me:-/

Pat,
I hear you about church, I am getting mor disillusioned all the time, especially with what I see as the group think mentality on unimportant issues made too important. I just watched my husband go out the door to church again without me, I tried to go but was running late…again! Just realized that I’m start ing to feel like I SHOULD go rather than WANT to go and that’s why I’m getting so tardy.
As far as Eagle posting the Bud Light youtube, if he wasn’t referring to Mars Hill Driscoll, it would be just plain offensive to me as well. But the point IS that Mars Hill Driscoll IS offensive. Correct me if I’m wrong, Eagle.

Constricted Faith: ” Let The Little Children Come To Jesus?

HowDee,

The New Testament Gospels Books give us a story about the donkey who carried a ‘King’.

ok.

Are we now hearing a story about a King who must needs ‘judge’ a proverbial ‘SGM donkey’?

huh?

Maybe this proverbial ‘church donkey’ is not alone?

What?

Dr. R.C. Sproul has recently written about a ‘gospel’ donkey who carried a King,  in an attempt to bring the Bible Gospel story about Jesus alive for our children.

hmmm…

For four years, Wartburg Watch has been writing about a certain ‘King’ Jesus, and a proverbial ‘gospel donkey’ Charles Joseph Mahaney, who has apparently darkened the Gospel story and allowed the damage of the little children Christ came to save.  

huh?

This behavior has apparently occurred under the ‘watchful’ cover of certain Neo-Calvinist big wigs? 

“Captain, O’ my Captain?”

“Reflections??”

“Defender?”

“Gospel elephant?”

“Legal beagles dine with the Neo-Calvinist crowd? “

“SGM church plant in Louisville, Lost?”

Silence is golden?

Excuse me?

Didn’t Jesus say to let the little children come to Him, and prevent them not?

(What has happened to these little ones?)

Are these Neo-Calvinist men welding a type of supremeacy, rendering a certain portion of Jesus’ Church , submissive, helplessness, weakness; impotent, and powerlessness?

Are we now beginning to hear the rest of the C.J. Mahaney ‘gospel’ story of blackmail, ministry theft, spiritual abuse, and apparent criminal cover-up of the conduct of perpetrators who would practice pedophilia upon the very children under the watchful umbrella ‘care’ of the ‘Sovereign Grace’ church ministry under C.J. Mahaney’s direct charge?  

(sadface)

I seriously doubt that the ‘King’ who rode the donkey into Jerusalem on that fateful day, is very amused. 

Neither will the Maryland civil justice system C. J. Mahaney has apparently fled from to ‘avoid’ mounting witness pressure and a certain sticky legal prosecution that was soon to follow…

These certain Neo-Calvinists apparently  have their skirts above their faces, and their nakedness clearly demonstrated for all the world to see?

Are these men faithfully representing and presenting the Gospel to a needy world, and a suffering church? Or just presenting and delivering gall?  Something bitter, spiritually defeating, outrageously insolent, and a blatant Christ effrontery?

The Lord has a plea against the ‘pastors’ of His flock?

What?

Are these men kneeling before a faux crucifix, perhaps?

Q: What more could Jesus have done for you? Jesus offers you daily the Bread of Life and His Word, but you yielded the Church wickedness?

Q: He gave you living water from His side, but you have given His Church gall to drink?

Q: He has led you from slavery to freedom, but you have led His people to a barren cross by your mounting sins?

Q: He gave you a royal crown, but yet you have crowned His people under your care with great burdens and thorns?

Q: When you do these things, shall He, the Lord, be deaf to it? Or do you think that He is like yourself?

Christ Jesus came to seek and save the lost, not to treat them like depraved worms to abuse and discard at will.

Q: Jesus would gather His ‘chicks’ only to have them scattered by proverbial white washed tombs, and fanged flea-ridden ‘church’ banded marauders?  

You can make a mockery of God Almighty only for so long…

(He is merciful, long suffering, and under His wings the little ones will find care for their eternal souls.) 

Yet, at some point He, The Almighty, is most likely gonna say:

This Is Too Much?

hmmm…

Sopy

—

Sopwith wrote:

For four years, Wartburg Watch has been writing about a certain ‘King’ Jesus, and a proverbial ‘gospel donkey’ Charles Joseph Mahaney, who has apparently darkened the Gospel story and allowed the damage of the little children Christ came to save.

Dang Sopy, you’re right on the money again. I knew Mahaney was talkin’ out of his ass.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
How will I ever know if I am saved or lost?

Per the Sacred Heart: I only recently learned what the phrase “sacred heart” meant and at first I found it completely bizarro. The post here helped me understand it a little more though. The symbolism (crown of thorns, fire, etc.) seems to be orthodox, and of course the idea that Jesus loves you is great, though I am leery of mysticism. I’m not sure I would automatically discount every vision but Patti is right, there needs to be some way to check them. I’ve never read any mystics (I’m a pretty down-to-earth person myself so that kind of thing isn’t what I would naturally tend toward anyway) but some of them got pretty weird, from what I understand.

How are we defining “mysticism,” anyway? Because some “discernment ministry” types I’ve read online seem to think just about everything that isn’t IFB is “mysticism”…

Hester wrote:

How are we defining “mysticism,” anyway? Because some “discernment ministry” types I’ve read online seem to think just about everything that isn’t IFB is “mysticism”…

Real hoot since “discernment ministry” types See Things(TM) like MD, except they see “God Revealing” DEMONS and WITCHES under every bed instead of hawt action atop the bed. Like they ODed on the Malleus Malefecarium or something.

As I understand it, “discernment” originally meant being able to see beneath the surface to “discern” reality, NOT getting shiver-in-the-liver/burning-in-the-bosom omens of DEMONS everywhere. Did Screwtape do some of his “redefinitions” here, too?

mot wrote:

@ Nick Bulbeck:
How will I ever know if I am saved or lost?

“For I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost Which dwelleth in us.”

Assurance is anchored in the finished work of Christ, fed by sound doctrine and nurtured by the Indwelling Spirit of God.

@ Bridget:

Agreed. I might suggest that the “Reformation” soon became more of a coup d’etat than an attempt to reform anything – a new clergy class overthrowing the established order and creating their own empires. A sacramental priesthood was replaced by an academic one – that’s a crude oversimplification, I know, but you get the idea.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
I love this post. It puts my angst, from my childhood, until now into 5 sentences.

Here’s how I define mysticism; Experience that cannot be explained by our five basic senses of smell, taste, hear, touch and sight, nor can it be explained as emotionally driven. It leaves us only to discern whether the experience is hallucination, mental or neurological, God or Satan. I believe that I have experienced them all. I have explanations for most, yet I know that I could be interpreting those incorrectly and I may never know for sure until heaven. For example, I believe I ‘experienced’ an angel the night I lost a baby. My interpretation? It could have been his angel sent to ‘carry’ him to heaven. I do not just make up that interpretation, it comes from the context surrounding my story plus interpretation of some scripture. Could I have simply been hallucinating due to physical pain and emotion? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Do I then tell everyone else that there is an angel there to carry your lost baby home? And make art and statues about my experience for others to worship my experience? No, but I DID have a mystical experience that was very very real. The whole concept of God is mystical to me. Some of my very real demonic experience increased my faith in God. If they could exist, that meant God could exist.

@ Bridget:
Bridget, I do not mind at all explaining. Although I was raised in a Christian home, church and school, and I had made profession of faith at my Calvinist church and had made many trips to the altar at my non Calvinist Baptist school, the only supernatural experience I ever had was demonic. I never felt saved or had a relationship with Jesus or did I believe God loved me. I knew that I did not love him. I never dared tell anyone about the experiences for fear that I would be labeled unregenerate, unsaved, not chosen,etc. I saw a ghost once at my childhood home. I had ‘sleep paralysis’ many times. There was a ‘poltergeist’ like episode that happened one night in my brother’s room. My first recollection of life was a ‘vision’ of little leprechaun like figures dancing around my head in my crib talking to me, I had a horrible unexplainable feeling and I couldn’t cry out.
I do not believe that I was born again until I was 30. I experienced deliverance from demons after that. It does not bother me if people think I wasn’t saved until after deliverance. I just know, and my husband and family know, what Jesus did for me. The difference in me was/is of ‘biblical’ proportions.
Here is just one example of a change. I used to have what manifested as severe psychotic ‘pms.’. One thing that would happen to me at that time of the month was a fantasy about killing someone with a knife, I couldn’t seem to shake this awful daydream, I would almost wish that a perpetrator would try to break in and just try to hurt me or my family so that I could kill in self defense. After surrendering to the Lord, this daydream would still come to my mind, but I would fight it so hard, and pray, but then sometimes I would give in a bit and add to my daydream that I would lead him to the Lord first, and then I’d stab him. I had had this daydream since I was a teenager. A long story short, I believe that I had an evil spirit of murder, along with quite a few others. My body reacted violently to deliverance. Murder named itself. I did not even consider this daydream ever during my counselling or deliverance, nor had I ever told anyone about it. I don’t know if you read my comment on another post about having stuff in my mind that made me believe that I may be one that was predestined to hell. Anyway, it was about a year after this deliverance that I realized I never had that daydream again, and I still have never 21 years later. It baffled me how I could have entertained this spirit, maybe because I wasn’t able to talk a room mate out of her abortion? Maybe it was the ex con that I babysat his kids when I was 12. He had served 20 years for murder. It was one of those things that made me question my whole story, until, a little while before my dad died, he finally told me the crime that another ex con boarder that we took in had committed. He would never tell me before, I don’t know why, maybe because he was a juvenile at the time the serious crimes were committed. Anyway, his ‘crimes’ were recorded as three separate episodes during his juvenile years as justifiable homicide. When he and his wife lived with us I was 13-14 years old. One day they just left and didn’t return. Flies started coming out from under their door. My mother finally went into their locked room of our house. They had pretended to be changed people, living for the Lord. But my mom found severe child porn and drug needles in the room. My mom tells me that one day ‘Tommy’ had said to her, kind of in a creepy way, that she had better keep a close eye on me. She had no idea what that meant. My mom and dad always thought that we were all safe because we were all saved. I wasn’t. Also my parents had no personal experiences with the demonic. It was that same room a while later that my two brothers moved to and had a strange experience. Their was a whole lot of noise coming from the room in the night. When my parents got to it they found my older brother and younger brother clutching each other in horrified fear in a corner of the room in complete shambles including the mattresses off the beds.
Ok, that was scary sharing all that, I would much rather just sound all theological and doctrinal and gospelly, rather than a nut case. But with as much experience as I have had, I have learned instead to dissect and discern information rather than to disregard it.

Here is my take on mysticism.

It is a submerging of yourself in God, so that you are closer than every before, yet you are still you and God is still God. (Unlike some Eastern religions, where you becomes nothingness.)

Two personal experiences. I live alone, but on occasion, I have been aware of a presence behind me loving me. You married folk probably have something similar when your beloved spouse walks up behind you while you are cooking. You are aware that they are there, perhaps waiting for a good time for a hug or a kiss, but you didn’t hear them etc.

When I was still a Baptist. I had had a private discussion with my Sunday School teacher, which did not get our conflict straightened out. I went to bed frustrated and not knowing what to do. I woke up the next morning, first with an understanding of the word, “paradigm” which I never had before. I recognized that I could understand his view of Christianity, but he could never understand mine. Then, while I drove to the library to find places to send my resume (being unemployed at the time), every person that I saw along the way, I could sense God’s love for them.

It was after that I tried to see if Baptists and/or Protestants had mystics. Only to find out that there were none, and at least one person that I asked had a very strong negative view of them.

Do I think that care should be taken in exploring and explaining? Most definitely.
I also like the Catholic view, that even the approved mystics are considered private revelation, which means that we can chose to believe or to disbelieve.

Do I wish that everyone was a mystic. No,partly because it might not be comfortable for everyone. Not to mention, that some experiences are very hard and only those whom God has prepared for them, should have them.

@ mot:

And a fair point too.

Mysticism has a very well-developed tradition within Christianity, going back to the very early days of Church history, and I don’t know that anyone ever really questioned its orthodoxy/validity until the last few hundred years (some Finnish theologians have even recently pointed out many, many commonalities between Martin Luther’s spirituality and Eastern Orthodox mysticism…)

The Church Fathers emphasized that there were two kinds of knowledge about God: the cataphatic (positive) and the apophatic (negative). Cataphatic theology emphasizes what CAN be known of God–for instance, we know that God is love, we know that He is a Trinity, etc. Apophatic theology emphasizes what CANNOT be known of God, and that ultimately He is a mystery to the finite human mind… Both are necessary and good, and Christian mysticism has made us of both as means to have a direct experience of God, BUT, I believe that when you use the phrase Christian mysticism, most people will associate it more with the apophatic.

In that sense, the Sacred Heart is not really a devotion that belongs to mysticism proper, though it is if you allow for the more cataphatic side of things…

Christian Mysticism, like I said, has a very well-developed tradition, and includes such great Christians as John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Bonaventure, and Hildegard of Bingen (Western), as well as Gregory of Nyssa, Anthony of Egypt, Gregory Palamas (Eastern), and too many others to count…

@ Patrice:
I agree with you, Patrice. I’m going to risk being a bore again but it does remind me of a famous passage in Dostoyevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov” where the atheist brother Ivan is starting to lose his grip and expects to see evil in the form of a devil with flaming wings, etc. Instead in his delirium he is surprised to find the devil as a seedy old man wearing outdated and shabby clothing.

Hi Ryan. I agree that mysticism does go back a long way in Christianity, and that some of its greatest thinkers have often been so inclined (including the Cappodocian Fathers you mention). My reservation is fear of going beyond the Scriptures, or in particular allegorising biblical passages to the point where really they seem to take on a meaning that the original authors probably never intended. Origen was guilty of this at times, in his desire to make the Old Testament appear more spiritual.

Having said that I agree that there is a place for apophatic theology if held in balance. I also think that people do have a sense of the mystical at times in their lives. Os Guinness discussed this in “The Dust of Death” which was interesting as he always has been quite Protestant (in the classical sense) in his views.

Hester,
I just want to clarify when I said something about if you would need to ever be involved in a more personal way. I wasn’t implying that you yourself would ever have a demonic problem. The woman who helped me had never had experience personally, she was raised in a stable home, albeit nominal Chrtistian. She had not been in rebellion, had a vital relationship with the Lord for many years. She says though that how she became aware of deliverance and for people that she believed and trusted as already Christians was placed upon her in one night/day. She had had a dream that did not make much sense to her, a very vivid distinct dream the night before a women’s Bible study day.
She has told me the details. The morning of the Bible Study, one woman, who was a leader suddenly had a demonic manifestation. It scared my friend so bad that she got up to walk out. When she got to the door one of the other ladies said something to her that made her go back to the meeting, and then the dream made sense, and the Holy Spirit empowered her to command the spirit to be gone. She said the leader lady suddenly said, It’s gone! And said she wasn’t aware of any ‘demon’ but the thing she was struggling with was gone. My friend is not weird or sick or anything. Maybe a mystic? I don’t think that we can hold deliverance meetings at will or healing meetings at will, that’s where things get weird and crazy and the demonic has a party. If all this seems farfetched. A book I would recommnend, one that you can find free online, is called War On The Saints. unabridged edition is the one I believe is more accurate, there is an abridged edition for those who believe Christians can’t be so influenced by demons as to have them in their flesh or mind (I believe they cannot get in our born again spirit). But read especially the dual workings in a preacher of the word and read the appendage that has a listing of the true workings of the Holy Spirit in revival vs. a list of the counterfeit workings of the Holy Spirit. This book helped me trememdously in discerning weird from not weird.

Can someone please explain to me hoe I accidentally made my comment all in bold letters? I don’t what it to happen again. Thanks.

Warning: the first paragraph will be science so skip if you don’t want to read it.

Hester, we *do* understand, at least in some cases, why some people are exposed to viruses and don’t get sick while others do. Generally, the way our bodies defeat or resist a virus is differnt from the way it deals with bacteria and parasites, etc. because viruses are too small for the macrophages etc. (your innate system) to detect and dispach. Your body needs to use the adaptive immune system (B cells and T cells) to overcome a viral infection then some special T cells are set aside (for the rest of your life) these are called T memory cells and they quickly recognize a virus that is the same as what the body overcame and kills the virus before it can make you sick. Now, to the point (sorry) Some people can be exposed to the virus and not get sick because their immune response was such that they never felt sick, they could have had that virus years ago and didn’t realize what they had, they could have had the immunity in their mother’s milk (not said with 100% confidence.) Also, viruses need the proper receptor to complex with the membrane proteins on the host cell. If that is mutated on the host (person) cell’s membrane, it protects against viruses. Isn’t that cool.

Now, to the point; Love is the first mentioned fruit of the spirit the Bible says against which there is no law.

Without love, the rest of who we are, what we say, what we believe, and our legacies are a pile of dog feces.

I am almost finished editing my book and it is about the journey a young woman takes that helps her learn to not let fear govern her, but what she does should be done in love. Love is the currency of heaven.

I have had a lot of serendipity around the writing of the book. These weird happenings are impossible to explain and it is going to sound like I’m a tin foil hatter but I have had dreams, visions, other people have had dreams for me, coincidences and stuff I’m forgetting but I could tell some stories if you want to hear them and, God is my witness, the’re true. The general effect is for me to feel God’s love for me.

@ Hester: Two of the best-known roman Catholic mystics are St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. St. Francis of Assisi is yet another.

There’s a great deal of mysticism in the Orthodox churches (Greek and Russian).

But this is a *big* topic, and not one that (imo) can be adequately dealt with in this format…

@ Ryan M.: Sorry – I posted before reading yours! You cover the topic very well, especially in such a brief form!

@ numo: P.S.: Phantoms in the Brain, by neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, is one of *the* books on understanding why we often see things that aren’t there, feel things that aren’t there (like phantom pain in phantom limbs, as experienced by many amputees),e tc. It’s very readable.

Oliver Sacks’ books – like The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat – are also fascinating and very readable, though he usually discusses specific cases. Ramachandran writes more generally.

@ Numo:

I’ve gotten scotomas too (only ever before wicked migraines) and you’re right about the resemblance to fort drawings. When I described them to my mom she got really freaked out. It’s funny that you linked to that article, because I actually found out what I’d been having accidentally while looking up Hildegard. Does this mean I can “see” things too since great minds think alike? ; )

Breaking SGM news: Yesterday a commenter at SGM Survivors was at a members meeting at Covenant Fellowship (Glen Mills, PA) where it was announced that Dave Harvey has resigned as a pastor and is leaving the church. If you recall, Dave Harvey was the #2 leader of SGM Corporate until this past December when he resigned from that position to focus his attention on family and local church matters. http://www.brentdetwiler.com/brentdetwilercom/2012/12/22/dave-harvey-the-number-2-leader-in-sovereign-grace-ministrie.html This is significant news and I expect we’ll be hearing more details in the days ahead.

@ numo:

That is really fascinating about the fortification illusions. I will have to check out your suggested reading. Thanks!

@ dee:
Indeed and Jonathan Edwards puts it this way:-
“The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, Appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun’s glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly,in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun. There was no part of creature holiness, that I had so great a sense of its loveliness, As humility, brokenness of heart and poverty of spirit; and there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted after this – to lie low before God, As in the dust; that I might be nothing, And that God might be ALL, That I might become as a little child.”
(1.xiii-xiv).

@ Gavin White:
Gavin – that’s a strange quote. I don’t know whom Mr a Brakel had in mind when he described the “mystics” and their carnally motivated activity; whether, for instance, they were famous figures that we’d have heard of, or whether they were just local folk of whom he was suspicious. But his apparent contrasting of “dabbling with invisible things” and “living according to the written word of God” does flash an amber light with me. The thing is, the Spirit to whom Brakel refers is invisible. Moreover, the intellect with which Brakel studied and pondered the bible was (I think it is safe to say) a human one (his own, I mean).

I can’t help but wonder what he thought, for instance, of Peter’s vision on the rooftop; did Peter make use of the Lord Jesus Christ when he had this vision, or was he merely up there praying according to his natural intellect, fantasy and imagination? Especially when you consider that what “God” said to Peter in said vision clearly contradicted scripture.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
Nick
As Calvin, no doubt. 🙂 who said
“Paul therefore contends that there is nothing more notable or glorious in the church than the ministry of the Gospel, since I is the administration of the Spirit and of righteousness and of eternal life(2 Cor. 4.6;3;9). How great the necessity of the ministry is, he declared not only in words but also by examples. When God willed that the light of his truth should shine more fully upon Cornelius, he sent an angel from heaven to direct him to Peter.”

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

But his apparent contrasting of “dabbling with invisible things” and “living according to the written word of God” does flash an amber light with me.

In combination, it brings two books to mind with me:
1) The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.
2) Malleus Malefacarium by Heinrich Kramer.

@ Patti:

Patti –

Thanks for expounding. Those experiences must have been quite tramatic! I’m glad you have been set free and no longer have to deal with such things — no matter what they were. I hope your brothers are experiencing the grace of God as well. I have never delt with demonic activities so I have little knowledge of the issues.

Thanks Bridget, I just posted that before I saw your post.
In my opinion both of my brothers are disturbed. My other brother who never experienced anything like me or my other two brothers is very sound. None of them believe in the things that I am saying. It took many years of me staying changed and seeing my brothers not changed before my mother started believing the way I do.
Let me tell you something interesting though and I hope that this is encouragement and not condemnation to anyone. I have a sister who has never had some of the problems me and my two brothers have had. She was the only one of us five kids who one of my parents personally led to the Lord. She was five years old and scared about something and that led my mom to pray with her about receiving Jesus. My mom had recently been changing from predestination/ covenant regarding offspring to more Arminian since my parents had left the reformed church for an Assembly of God. My sister is 9 years younger than me. My sister was always ‘perfect.’ I was a ‘black sheep’ compared to her. Her and her husband pastor an Assembly of God church. After talking to her husband one day about how my sister seemed to escape the weird things in our home, he just matter of factly declared that that was a no brainer because he remembers growing up always hearing his parents pray for his future spouse. Writing this reminds me I’ve been neglecting that for my daughter, I better get to it.

Hi y’all. I just got home from the hospital. The surgery went smoothly and for perhaps the first time ever (for me) there are no post-op complications. Yet. Thank you all so much for praying. This recovery should be fairly short and it looks like I’ll be able to avoid the wheelchair for awhile longer. I’ll always walk with my pink cane but that is just fine with me. Once again, thank you. The support that our Wartburg community gives each other is beautiful.

@ Nick:

Per the mysticism thing – most of what I’ve read (which was, admittedly, stridently anti-mysticism so I don’t know how accurate any of it is) seemed to imply that mysticism was trying to meet God in an altered state of consciousness. Like I said above, I’ve never read any “mystics” (however we’re defining that) so I can’t comment on how Biblical or unbiblical they are (and I have a feeling they’re not a homogenous group either). Even if I did end up not agreeing with them, I don’t think I’d necessarily go so far as that a Brakel quote above (which implied that they were all unregenerate and not following the Bible) without some definite evidence.

Mandy wrote:

Hi y’all. I just got home from the hospital. The surgery went smoothly and for perhaps the first time ever (for me) there are no post-op complications. Yet. Thank you all so much for praying. This recovery should be fairly short and it looks like I’ll be able to avoid the wheelchair for awhile longer. I’ll always walk with my pink cane but that is just fine with me. Once again, thank you. The support that our Wartburg community gives each other is beautiful.

Thank you Mandy for letting us know. God Bless you!~

@ Hester:
Hester
You would need to read the whole treatise together a full picture but essentially à Brake is criticising it because it is man made, or man induced and not of faith.

Bearing that in mind, a more modern reformed Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck, explains
“Practical, Empirical mysticism Seeks to obtain this knowledge and communion by means of various exercises; theoretical and speculative mysticism, which is often coupled to the former, yet distinct from it, Examines these exercises and attempts to systematize the experiences and insights obtained by them. In the footsteps of Plato, Philo, and Plotinus, and following Pseudo-Dionysius, mainly three stages are distinguished in the mystical life – asceticism, meditation and ecstasy. At the stage of purgation, By prayer, penitence, the use of the sacraments, deprivation, Self-chastisement and so on, the soul cleanses itself from sin and withdraws from all that is earthly. In the second stage,the soul with all of its powers of thought And will concentrates on one specific thing, for example, the suffering of Christ, his wounds, heavenly beatitude, the love or the holiness of God. In the third stage, the soul is most intimately united and, As it were, identified with the object to which it fully surrendered by meditation. It then falls into a state that, according to all mystics, is practically indescribable and is therefore denoted by various terms: seraphic contemplation,the mystical union, a betrothal, the mystical kiss, a passive transformation,a mystical sleep, death or annihilation, the tomb of the soul and others.”

If I could also offer a word of caution here. It is not generally beneficial and is often dangerous to talk, recall, recite occult and psychic events that may have occurred in one’s personal experience. There is always the danger of a door being left open through which untold evil can come.

I’m wondering if anyone has copies on their computors of Mark Driscoll’s Peasent Princess Series theme videos. He has changed all of them to be audio only. Even youtube does not have the video anymore. I went to show someone the dancing naked gay man tree but none of the videos run anymore. You can still go to Marsh Hill Church website and see the tree and definitely make out the physique on the Sweet to My Taste sermon picture.

Eagle wrote:

Can you really discuss Monica Lewenski without talking about cigars and a semen stained blue dress?

Makes me wonder, were they Cuban? (The cigars I mean). And did Bubba (Bill) inhale?

Mandy~

So happy for you!! Take good care of yourself.

@ Hester: I’m not sure what you mean by the “altered state” thing? Are you talking about people who seek to be in altered states in order to experience God? Or people who are in altered states already, or…?

Also, I think “altered state” means a wide array of things. When people experience what used to be called “highway hypnosis,” they’re in a light trance state, which is different than, say, seeking to be in some kind of trance state via music, movement, ingestion of alcohol or drugs, prayer, etc. etc.

Fact is, we’re in an “altered state” when we daydream (again, a light trance state), are sleeping (whether dreaming or not), experiencing intense pain, hyperalert (for any reason), experiencing intense sexual pleasure (sorry if that offends, but it’s true), reading (recent neurological/psychiatric studies show certain types of reading – mostly the “I can’t put it down!” variety – to be a kind of light trance), doing repetitive work, ingestion of lots of caffeine, and many, many other common things that any of you can add to the list.

Myself, I’ve experienced altered states via the so-called “runner’s high” (from playing percussion, which can be very physical), acupuncture (my reaction – euphoria followed by a crash – is atypical) and various legal and illegal substances (mostly back in the day).

@ Mandy: Glad to hear it! Will continue to pray.

Your pink cane sounds pretty snazzy, y’know!

http://marshill.com/media/the-peasant-princess/sweet-to-my-taste

@ Patti: Are you talking about oriental dance (commonly called “belly dance” in the US)?

if so, please know that lots of popular and folk dances from the Middle East employ a lot of hip movement… and men (straight men) move their hips, too. Same for Africa, much of Latin America and the Caribbean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs5Rvi8mKXY

Just found a promo video on youtube that they ‘missed’, some of the tree is more blurry than I remember but my ‘gaydar’ comes from watching how the man tree appears to be sexually attracted to Mark.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy
?

@ Hester:

So glad that’s all you see. I do not want to warp you.

@ numo:
Mark’s humor is not lost on me, it just makes me gag…..

@ Patti: But he didn’t create the animation. (I cannot stand MD, but this is one thing I’m *not* going to blame on him.)

Numo,
You are right about preconceived notions being shaped by our pasts. A warped past is what is triggered by much of what Mark Driscoll teaches and approves of. The first place I ever heard that kind of music in the Peasent Princess series was in a triple x movie theatre when I was a teen.

@ Patti: I’m sure the MH choice of music was intentional, which literally sickens me. (You see, I’ve never seen an XXX movie, though I know that the music *is* what was used, back in the 70s and 80s.)

@ numo:
The wounded have a lot to teach the church.

@ Patti: It’s such a brief part of the animation (maybe 3 seconds tops?) that I wonder if you are perhaps reacting to what you’ve been through rather than to the actual moving image?

btw, when I talked about dance, I was referring to serious hip/pelvic movement, and you really don’t see that in ballroom dance. I won’t link to any vids because I don’t want to trouble you in any way.

and yes, the wounded *do* have a lot to teach the church. The thing is, there are many different kinds of wounds (as I’m sure you know; just saying) and they come from many different kinds of experiences, medical/psychiatric problems, emotional/verbal abuse as well as physical and/or sexual abuse/assault… the list is awfully long. Mine includes persistent bullying by others (at school) when I was young. I’m no longer fearful, but it took me many years to get over it all. (Most important was learning to believe that I have worth… that’s been hard, and I’m still in process… as are we all, really.)

@ Patti: I think the imagery is intended to be slightly seductive, but not lewd, let alone “gay.”

Vid was creepy and silly, Patti. I did not think the music matched the animation. I only heard the sermon on audio a while back before he pulled it. the guy is a major creep that tons of young men idolized. His DNA will be a part of Christendom for a long while yet.

@ Bridget: The instrumental disco in the movie is typical of 70s-80s porn soundtracks, I’m afraid. That’s why Patti’s comment about XXX movies makes sense to me.

It’s also just – imo – bad music, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

@ Patti: I’m surprised that it wasn’t a dancing semi-nude woman of some kind, given MD’s thing about stripping. Be that as it may, I do get why you’re relating the vid to what MD said, but I’m still not sure that the tree is much more than a tongue-in-cheek “sexy” tree.

If there was obvious phallic imagery, that would be another thing entirely!

@ Hester: I think it’s meant to be suggestive, but not quite *that* suggestive.

I get what you’re saying, but I think I’ve kind of run out of things to say about this – maybe because I hate MD’s “interpretation” of the SoS SO much that I don’t want to waste my time thinking any more than I have to about it?

Anyway…

@ Hester: I just wish MD would leave poetry alone. yes, the SoS is very sensual, but it’s NOT what he thinks it is.

And I said I was quitting – gah!

Must go.

@ numo:

I should have ended my comment with the whole clip is just weird (in a freakish kinda way) to me. I can understand how it triggers you, Patti. I’m sad that you were exposed to such things at s young age, or any age for that matter.

@ Numo:

I agree MD has butchered SOS and it is painful to watch – though I didn’t go through the above exercise just to “snigger” at anything or be juvenile. I went to the book in question and looked to see if there were any correlations. I honestly wasn’t expecting to find that many.

I am not upset at all. I’m actually happy to know that people who do not have background in perversion are not picking up on the intended and not intended perversion that is in this video and sermon series. I did point out too much because I thought the correlations were obvious to everyone. Now that I have gone back over the video again, I see even more that I had only thought was childish but is more sexual. Hester bringing up the fawns made that weirdness make complete sense. The fawn heads are obvious boobs. Gospelly perky. There are even more things to point out. And no, I do not either believe that the gay was intentional. Mark would not have allowed that.

Eagle, Thanks for the link. The article affirms for me what I have thought for a while: This Calvin resurgance is a backlash to shallow seeker stuff of the 80’s and 90’s. It is another fad that will pass because folks will get burned out. In one sentence all is predestined. In another, we are responsible. Wish they would make up their minds but that thinking is exactly how they end up as perpetual worms who cannot obey Jesus Christ and “love others”.

@ dee:

Note to self — keep all the doors closed at all times . . . . it just gets so stuffy and stale that way though (couldn’t resist the snark.) 🙂

@ Gavin White:
Within the arms of Love, fear is cast aside and we are free.

@ Hester: I wasn’t talking about you – or anyone here – I was referring to MD and whoever else obviously gets a kick out of this being “dirty.”

so much is in the eye of the beholder. (fwiw, I was a studio arts major in undergrad, worked from many nude models – male and female; studied much art with nudity or semi-nudity, etc. None of it was what I’d call porn – not by a long chalk – but some of it was erotic. Which is different. The SoS is erotic, no question, but it works by allusive language and imagery. It’s not what MD thinks it is.)

[/rant over]

@ Patti: No, I didn’t; I was mainly concerned with the tree part. I’ve seen all of the screen caps from the vid on the MH site – really, I just don’t want to watch something that’s going to (potentially) make me upset.

I don’t watch vids of MD, Piper, CJ Mahaney and others for pretty much the same reasons. No sense making my blood pressure spike!

@ Hester: I think MD and his homies believe they’re quite clever.

Well, not so much.

I’ve had to build mental walls around the SoS and its beautiful imagery ever since I 1st came across MD’s horrible hatchet job on it. Because I love poetry, and the poems in the book are very beautiful and powerful. (Wish I could read them in Hebrew! Poetry’s one of the hardest things to translate.)

For a while, I felt as if knowing MD’s version of it had destroyed what I see there… and I still have to work to keep some of his crassest images out of my head.

Just for fun, look through the book and see how many references there are to trees. Nowhere – that I can see – does any of those images mean what he thinks it means. (I always understood “tree” in the verse in question to be a reference to the man’s torso. fwiw!)

@ Numo:

“fwiw, I was a studio arts major in undergrad, worked from many nude models – male and female; studied much art with nudity or semi-nudity, etc. None of it was what I’d call porn – not by a long chalk – but some of it was erotic. Which is different. The SoS is erotic, no question, but it works by allusive language and imagery. It’s not what MD thinks it is.”

Funny story about nudity in art – my grandma is into art and when she first married my grandpa, she had a miniature of Michelangelo’s David that sat on her coffee table. My grandpa came from a staunchly conservative LCMS family and their first argument was about whether the naked statue was going to stay on their coffee table, in public view. I understand she tried to explain the difference between nude and naked to him as part of the argument so your comment made me smile.

\@ numo:
Numo,
Yes, MD ruined SOS for me. Have you ever considered the idea that some have that the play or poem is actually a love triangle rather than a marriage? I have to lean a lot more towards that notion since Driscoll grossed me out. Anyway, if you haven’t thought about it, try reading again with the possiblility that Solomon is pursuing this young maiden. He already has 60 wives and/or concubines. Her love peering through the lattice may actually be someone else, the shepherd boy, and he may be the one that she marries in the last chapter. The young lady is torn between the king and having all the worldly goods or marrying for love instead.

@ Patti: Hey – I’m not convinced that there’s a narrative about Solomon, or about anyone except for the man and the woman.

My favorite translation (so far) is this one, by poet Marcia Falk (who is Jewish and has a good background in Biblical Hebrew). Actually, I have her more “academic” edition of the book, too, since she goes into the reasons that she translated it as she did, and gives more detail about literary aspects of the poems. You can read more at her website. I think you’d enjoy her version; she is careful with the text, and reverent without being overly pious. If anything, reading a fresh translation might put some of the beauty back into it for you!

Also, here’s some of Falk’s commentary on the SoS, which I had to grab via the Internet Archive (the page on her site is down right now) – you can see the translated portions of the SoS on her site, then click the following link for more info.:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120101004023/http://www.marciafalk.com/songscom.html

@ Patrice: I really appreciate what you’re saying.

Also, while I do believe there is evil that is not of human origin, I think that the vast majority of actual evil in this world (where people harm others, animals, nature, etc.) comes from within us and not from anything outside of us. I also think that mental and physical illnesses (very much including things which are organic in nature but affect emotional and psychological functioning) are part of the equation for some people who commit very real wrongs, but I do not believe those things are excuses (except in cases where a person truly has lost their sanity).

I completely reject the whole concept of “total depravity.” Those words trigger a gut reaction in me, and it’s not a pleasant one! I haven’t been hammered at about this (in so many words), but I might as well have been.

@ Hester: Wa your grandfather from the Midwest, by any chance?

Cute story!

@ Numo:

Northern Iowa/southern Minnesota.

@ Dana:
Dana
I think all of a Christian’s life is experiential but that there has to be a validation either through the word or in the fellowship of the church. Otherwise we might just believe anything at all.
Regards
Gavin

numo wrote:

or something like that…. at any rate, I found it to be true, via my many years in charismatic/evangelical-land.

Those types of experiences tend to make some overcorrect.

WenatcheeTheHatchet wrote:

When people have asked how MH and MD can be so popular the explanation is as simple as the halo effect and sunk-cost investment. If we’re immune to those mental shortcuts in one area we may simply be more susceptible in another.

I know of “sunk cost investment” primarily in the context of con jobs and swindles. It’s getting the mark so involved both financially and emotionally that they can’t back out even when they know they’re being taken.

This holds in high finance, too, where it’s called “too big to fail”:
“Owe a thousand dollars and they go after you as a deadbeat; owe a hundred million dollars and they take you on as a partner.”

numo wrote:

I think MD and his homies believe they’re quite clever.

Would that me “MD and his horny homies”?

Well, not so much.
I’ve had to build mental walls around the SoS and its beautiful imagery ever since I 1st came across MD’s horrible hatchet job on it. Because I love poetry, and the poems in the book are very beautiful and powerful. (Wish I could read them in Hebrew! Poetry’s one of the hardest things to translate.)

For my own sanity, I have had to build similar mental walls around the Book of Revelation. You see, I first heard of eschatology from Hal Lindsay’s homies.

@ Gavin White:
I do not believe in dabbling. However, I do not believe that demons can possess a Christian. You mentioned a serious evil. The article to which you referred was not helpful in that regard. I prefer The Covering by Hank Hannegraaff.

sunk-cost is also why some people stay married when they shouldn’t have married to begin with, HUG. 🙂 It’s also why some of us watched any X-Files episodes after season 5. 🙁

@ dee:
Interestingky enough, his program was very important for me in learning how to articulate my faith. I was very dismayed to learn of his apparent deceit, though I stopped listening to his program years ago.