Steve Timmis and David Platt Appear to Have Misunderstood the Relationship Between the Law and Gospel Which Has Led to Pain for Their Followers.

Sculpture by Zenos Frudakis is entitled “Freedom.”

“Virtually the whole of the scriptures and the understanding of the whole of theology—the entire Christian life, even—depends upon the true understanding of the law and the gospel.”
Martin Luther


Special thanks to Sainted Sinner and The Lay Artiste as well as TWW’s weary travelers.


Intro by Dee

I bet you are looking at the length of this post and are in the process of deciding to blow it off since it is a long weekend. This post introduces to people, The Lay Artists and Sainted Sinner. I read the post by Sainted Sinner at The Lay Artiste’s blog and asked her if I could do a reprint. Then, I realized that it was a post by Sainted Sinner who has been catching my eye as he writes on topics such as the Law and Gospel. Lo and behold I discovered that The Lay Artiste does the same. So I asked her if she would write an introduction to Sainted Sinners marvelous post.

There is a reason that this means so much to me that I decided it was worth posting at TWW. You see, it was only when I got involved with my Lutheran church, as well as getting to know a kind Lutheran pastor on Twitter, that I realized I had missed a huge swath of Christian belief. In fact, I wished I had learned it sooner.

True confession: I am the type of Christian who wants to do it well. I have been struggling with this since the time of my conversion. I always felt that there was more I should be doing and my prayer life often revolved around my confession for not doing more. As you will see in this post, David Platt and Steve Timmis, (written about on TWW) forced themselves and their followers to do more and more and more, and still, it wasn’t enough.

I still remember the day when my pastor friend kindly explained the Law and Gospel to me in simple terms. The Law gives us clarity of “the rules of the game.” (My words.) The Gospel gives us grace when we fall short. As you will see, Platt and Tmmis push the Law until the people give up, weary and broken.

I know the post is long but it is my hope you will discover God’s grace and freedom. Far too many of us (me included) have come to this blog weary, feeling we have fallen short. My prayer is that you will discover God’s grace as you walk this difficult road that passes through the post-evangelical wilderness.


The Lay Artiste’s prelude

I operate a website called The Lay Artiste. Its mission is to provide a safe, creative outlet for thoughtful lay Christians, offering a supportive platform for artistic, intellectual, and linguistic expression – the intersection of art and Christianity. It’s a website for the laity, by the laity.

Recently, I stumbled across an excellent post, A Lesson From The Crowded House (Abuse in Reformed Evangelicalism), written by Sainted Sinner and published on his website ICXC NIKA: Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. Impressed by his thoughtful and detailed handling of the matter, and given the importance of exploring, confronting, and addressing issues of abuse within the church context, I requested and received permission to cross-publish Sainted Sinner’s article at The Lay Artiste.

In brief, from there the piece found its way to Dee, who likewise found Sainted Sinner’s post to be of great importance. She has asked me to provide an introduction to and share a few thoughts on Sainted Sinner’s article.

Steve Timmis, TCH, and the Independent Learning Review Report

Steve Timmis was the CEO of Acts 29; he also founded The Crowded House, an Acts 29 church located in Sheffield, England, where Timmis served as Senior Elder. Timmis also wrote several articles for The Gospel Coalition. As of this writing, Steve Timmis’s bio is still posted on The Gospel Coalition’s website.

In February 2020, Steve Timmis was removed as CEO of Acts 29. As Christianity Today reported, “Steve Timmis was acclaimed for his model of close church community. But former members claim that inside The Crowded House, he resorted to bullying and control.” Thereafter, thirtyone:eight, an independent Christian charity that helps individuals and organizations protect vulnerable people from abuse, was commissioned by The Crowded House to conduct an Independent Learning Review concerning the leadership of The Crowded House. In November 2020, thirtyone:eight released their findings in a report.

In his post, Sainted Sinner dissected thirtyone:eight’s findings, and he described the ways in which the report reflects “common themes” within broader Reformed Evangelicalism: specifically, the failure to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel. This failure is especially prevalent, according to Sainted Sinner, among the Young, Restless and Reformed (YRR). He wrote, “This distinction [between Law and Gospel] that defined what it meant to be reformed has been notably absent from many ministries that claim to have reformed heritage. Almost to the point that it has been forgotten.  While many big names of the YRR crowd could be used, David Platt probably is the best example…” It was this diagnosis that I found to be especially significant.

Law vs. Gospel

If Sainted Sinner’s assessment is accurate, there may be some readers who are unfamiliar with the “Law and Gospel” doctrine. Therefore, a brief description follows to aid readers.

The Law/Gospel distinction is especially well-developed in the Lutheran tradition, as Sainted Sinner noted in his post. Concordia University explains, “‘Law’ describes what God requires. It demands perfection: a standard we cannot meet. ‘Gospel’ describes what God provides so that we may live… The Gospel is healing. It is the most profound healing since it is eternal and heals in every way.” [1]

Tyconius (active 370–390 AD), “one of the most important biblical theologians of 4th-century North African Latin Christianity,” elucidated, “The [Gospel’s] promise is distinct from the Law; and since they are different, they cannot be mixed. (under Rule III).” [2] [3] In a sermon on 2 Corinthians, St. John Chrysostom (347 – 407 AD) stated, “In the Law, he that has sin is punished; here, he that has sins comes and is baptized and is made righteous, and being made righteous, he lives, being delivered from the death of sin.” [4] “The Law,” Chrysostom continued, “if it lay hold on a murderer, puts him to death.” [5] However, “the Gospel,” Chrysostom explained, “if it lay hold on a murderer, enlightens, and gives him life.” [6]

“Without the Law, we do not see that we are spiritually sick, and so will not receive the healing that is offered. We see this in the Gospel of Mark as a lawyer came to Jesus in order to justify himself, claiming that he had kept the Law. But since he only looked to himself and not to God, he was unable to fix his spiritual problem. He went away under the condemnation of the Law (Mark 10:17–22). In contrast, many came to Jesus with nothing but a plea of helplessness and need; Jesus provided what they needed and more.” [7]

“[W]hen God’s grace is given to a person burdened and afraid under the condemnation of the Law, they find restoration, healing, and new life in Christ.”

In 1 Corinthians 7:23, Paul warned, “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men” (ESV). “In Christ, we are delivered from sin and death… In Christ, we are free from bondage to human opinions and especially to their insistence on a law we cannot keep.” [9]

Sainted Sinner’s thoughtful handling of the Independent Learning Review’s findings and his careful exploration of factors fueling spiritual abuses within the Reformed churches – including the failure to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel – should be read and conscientiously considered by Christians of all traditions.


Sainted Sinner’s incredibly freeing post.

The Independent Learning Review concerning the leadership of The Crowded House, an Acts 29 church located in Sheffield, England, was released in November 2020, and it is far from pleasant reading. As grim as the content is, it is a necessary document and should be as widely spread and read as possible. The report has been embedded at the end of this article.

thirtyone:eight, an independent Christian charity that helps individuals and organizations protect vulnerable people from abuse, was commissioned by The Crowded House to undertake an Independent Learning Review regarding The Crowded House leadership. As explained on thirtyone:eight’s website, “An article in Christianity Today in February 2020 reported allegations from several individuals against Steve Timmis, together with concerns about the wider church culture. The Crowded House wants to enable any who have been harmed by the leadership of the church to express this and for their experiences to be heard and considered. The Review is to examine the actions, decisions, leadership culture, and ministry activities of the church, in order to help The Crowded House leaders to understand what has happened, to seek forgiveness where appropriate, and to ensure a healthy church culture for the future.”

To anyone in the know or who has had an eye on Steve Timmis and The Crowded House (TCH) none of what is contained in it will be surprising and that, in and of itself, should be one of the greatest tragedies of this whole affair.

What can we learn?

What can we learn from this? Or what should be the response from any body of Christians to learn from this? It’s hard to know where to start but for me I want to mention some things that stood out to me from looking over the report. These are things that all Churches who use the name ‘Reformed’ to describe themselves or their traditions should listen to. As someone who has been in a number of similar situations and as someone who met Steve and saw his books hailed as the next big thing, I took a special interest in the story so far.

What lead to this?

Read through the report and soon common themes arise, all of which resulted in people being manipulated, bullied, humiliated, and ashamed. Many left with their reputation slandered, shunned, alone and frightened. All of these people at one time called themselves Christians and many had specifically chosen to leave other places to come to TCH. It was seen at one time as the place to be and was lauded globally by big names such as Matt Chandler and the now-disgraced Mark Driscoll. What was so surprising about the events and why were so many caught off guard? It was a combination of many things, a strong personality and a group of elders that failed to protect the people under their care. However, another thing it shows to me are some glaring and difficult truths that the Calvinist/ Evangelical and wider Reformed Churches need to recognize and need to attend to. The report shows a combination of issues that are interrelated and the domino effect that lead one into another.

The Gospel was no longer good news

One thing that is crucial to understand is the soil in which characters like Timmis could grow. The Acts29 network in which Timmis had become CEO was a powerhouse in what became known as the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. While seen by many as energetic and exciting it fell down in one crucial aspect, its key movers had no concept of the Law and the Gospel. 

The Law and Gospel was the heart of the Reformation, the division that the Law’s chief function was to be a mirror to show us our sinfulness and our need of a Saviour, while the Gospel was the good news about the forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Not of works or anything that we could do but all through Jesus. Luther explains the distinction:

The law commands and requires us to do certain things. The law is thus directed solely to our behaviour and consists in making requirements. For God speaks through the law, saying, “Do this, avoid that, this is what I expect of you.” 

The gospel, however, does not preach what we are to do or to avoid. It sets up no requirements but reverses the approach of the law, does the very opposite, and says, “This is what God has done for you; he has let his Son be made flesh for you, has let him be put to death for your sake.” So, then, there are two kinds of doctrine and two kinds of works, those of God and those of men. 

Just as we and God are separated from one another, so also these two doctrines are widely separated from one another. For the gospel teaches exclusively what has been given us by God, and not—as in the case of the law—what we are to do and give to God. (LW 35:162.)

This distinction was not unique to Luther but common across the voices of the Reformers. This was the thing that set them up against the Roman Catholic doctrine that saw God’s favour as a combination of a person’s efforts. This was the thing that brought freedom to thousands burdened by the constant feeling of never being enough, never doing enough.

The Distinction the Reformed forgot

This distinction that defined what it meant to be reformed has been notably absent from many ministries that claim to have reformed heritage. Almost to the point that it has been forgotten.  While many big names of the YRR crowd could be used, David Platt probably is the best example. 

Platt composed a small book called ‘Radical’ that sought to rescue the Gospel from the American dream. The trouble was that it completely mangled the Law Gospel distinction. A review that shows how ugly this got can be found below.

David Platt-Confusing Law and Gospel

   Click on this to continue reading

A summary of one key takeaway from Platt was that leading a ‘normal’ Christian life wasn’t enough, the Gospel instead of proclaiming what Jesus had done was now demanding certain things of you, and a Gospel that gives a list of commands, not only distorts how you view yourself but also how you view God.

 This message was very popular and was widespread. ‘Radical’ Christianity was what the Gospel demanded of you and only outward signs could be evidence that you were living a ‘Gospel’ orientated lifestyle. It wasn’t enough to have faith in Christ and live trusting Him. God was now demanded more. He demanded longer prayers, tears, emotions, and sacrifice.  A fantastic summary of the pain and misery this can bring is highlighted below.

Leave the Cross behind

One aspect that is critical in the above text is how the Cross is seen as something that is no longer applicable to the Christian. What however has happened is the orientation of their life is not Cross focused but lifestyle-focused. This seemingly subtle difference has had an unbelievably damaging effect. Which I know from experience and I know has led to the abuse and exploitation of others.

The chief reason is because it takes the Christian’s standing before God away from what Christ has done on the Cross and makes it dependent on their radical lifestyle. This then opens people to all manner of exploitation and abuse and I would be hard-pressed to see a clearer example than TCH.

Lambs to the Slaughter

A large number of the people at THC were from a Reformed background and would have been well accustomed to the message that Platt had been preaching. THC was a place where young interns, mission workers, and couples were flocking to. This was because it was seen as a place where they could be ‘radical’ where they could live a lifestyle that showed they were taking their faith seriously.

However, looking through the report clearly shows that these people were vulnerable and easy targets for manipulation and abuse. Those who were compliant and devoted their time to the strenuous demands of Timmis’s vision were patted on the back, while others who were genuinely unable to meet Timmis’s strenuous demands were viewed in less glowing favour.

These are just certain sections that speak volumes about how a culture that used the terms ‘Radical Christianity’ and wanted people to ‘Share the vision’ ended up by being a ‘Gospel plus’ message that had people ‘endlessly striving to meet additional criteria.

A ‘Gospel Plus’ makes for a vulnerable saint

While this report clearly shows that there were far more factors in play than the loss of the distinction between Law and Gospel (Timmis’s character, Acts29 influence, and weak eldership) it is my belief that a strong and clear distinction between the two do create a more resilient and a more aware believer.

If one can easily understand that the heavy shepherding techniques and demands are merely the impositions of the will of men and not of God then one can easily see the warning signs and get out.

However, if one thing that can be labeled against the teachings of Acts29 and co was that the distinction was never stressed and often mixed and distorted to the extent that Jesus was far from what they were dwelling on.

Which in turn distorts their view of God and for some destroys it.


What now?

What I would like to see now is a bit of accountability and the taking on of responsibility of these circumstances by the wider Acts29 network and by many preachers and organizations that claim a Reformed heritage.

For someone who was right in the heart of the Young Restless and Reformed movement when it was at its height, I can safely say the continual message I got was that my relationship with God was all centered on me.

Sure Christ and the cross were mentioned but all I was told to do was lament my sinfulness and endlessly examine my heart. How much was I praying, reading, serving, and how deep my emotions were. It was all about me and nothing about Jesus. I had multiple definitions of the Gospel hammered into my head but none actually matched what the Bible said.

It had caused the cross to be something that I never looked at, never was able to see applicable to myself as I was always, again and again, pointed to my deeds, my heart, and my service. It is no wonder to me now that I have so many Christian friends who have either been burnt out, attempted suicide, or apostatized. The cross was for the convert, Christ was no longer the Savior, He was a judge ready to smite me if I didn’t live ‘radically’.

Not just ‘Big Eva’

However, I would be lying if I was to say that this was solely the fault of the YRR movement. The Law Gospel distinction totally passed me by after years in a confessionally reformed denomination. Though many claim that the distinction is part of the Reformed Churches heritage, I have to ask the question, how was it until I stumbled upon Martin Luther that I found out about it? How was it until I started reading Lutheran writings that I was able to feel as if I had been born again, again?

I don’t know the answer. However, as someone who was almost driven to suicide for many of the aforementioned reasons, including endless striving and introspection that lead me everywhere but Christ. I will say this we Reformed need to learn from the Lutherans. The confessional Lutherans have ensured the distinction remains in place, can we say the same?

As long as there is hesitancy in answering that question we leave an open door for many like Timmis to burden consciences, drive people to despair and abuse those who come to them seeking shelter and care.

How about rather than attend conferences, support book tours, and start salivating over the next heavy shepherding version of ‘Total Church’ we take our eyes back to the Gospel and neither add, nor subtract but simply gaze at the love of our God. Or maybe become a little bit more Lutheran.

 Here is a link to the final report. It’s 98 pages but it is loaded with


Citations:

[1] Law & Gospel. Concordia University Irvine. (n.d.). https://www.cui.edu/en-us/aboutcui/articles/post/law-gospel.

[2] Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Tyconius. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tyconius

[3] edengelbrecht6. (2015, November 7). Law and Gospel Distinction in Early Church. church history review. https://churchhistoryreview.org/2015/02/28/law-and-gospel-distinction-in-early-church/

[4] A., E. E. (2016). Law and Gospel: Identifying God’s ways with Mankind. In The Lutheran study Bible: English standard version (Kindle ed., p. 61). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

[5] Ibid. 4

[6] Ibid. 4

[7] Law & Gospel. Concordia University Irvine. (n.d.). https://www.cui.edu/en-us/aboutcui/articles/post/law-gospel.

[8] Ibid. 7


[9] A., E. E. (2016). Law and Gospel: Identifying God’s ways with Mankind. In The Lutheran study Bible: English standard version (Kindle ed., p. 61). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

Comments

Steve Timmis and David Platt Appear to Have Misunderstood the Relationship Between the Law and Gospel Which Has Led to Pain for Their Followers. — 158 Comments

  1. A song a friend and I wrote 40 years ago still applies:

    You say I’ve got have a quiet time to be the perfect Christian man
    Read the Bible daily, memorize all that I can
    And if I don’t go knocking on the doors around my flat
    I just can’t be too spiritual
    Well let me tell you what I think about that

    We must live by the Spirit and follow where He leads
    If He leads you one direction – well that is what you need
    But please don’t go judging your brother
    And please don’t box in me
    If we were all ears and noses, where would the seeing be?

    One man observes the Sabbath, another the Lord’s Day
    yet another doesn’t know the difference, and doesn’t care anyway
    But these are just a shadow of a vast majestic plan
    Man wasn’t made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man

    We must live by the Spirit and follow where He leads
    If he leads you one direction – well that is what you need
    But please don’t be judging your brother
    And please don’t box in me
    If we were all ears and noses, where would the seeing be?

    Now please don’t get me wrong – these things are all good in their way
    But righteousness is not by rules, but by a still more excellent way
    He’ll lead you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake
    Just follow after God’s Spirit – not the rules some Christians make.

  2. Godith:
    And yet Grace is not cheap or ought not to be. The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer.

    One of my all-time favorite books.

  3. Thanks for this Dee.
    On a similar note, have you (or anyone here) read the “Gentle and Lowly” book by Dane Ortlund? Seems a good book for those weary and tired from Platt’s “radical”?

  4. I think that exhaustion of the flock for the sake of maximal ministry effort is a natural, logical outcome of the consensus “infernalist” vision of individual eschatology. On that view, what happens to individuals after death is so much more important than anything that can happen “under the sun” that there is no reasonable way to compare one with the other; no exertion is too great to save one more soul — and the flip side of that is that anything less than maximal exertion is inadequate and a sign of deficient faith and love. And, of course, this can also excuse all manner of pastoral abuse in the course of motivating the flock to its maximal exertions.

    I’m not confident that a proper classical understanding of Law and Grace can resolve this — this problem is not about one’s exertions as an expression of love toward God, but about one’s exertions as the necessary antecedent to others’ escape from a terrible fate.

    Perhaps this concern is unconnected to the problems at TCH, but I think that it is problem in parts of the evangelical movement.

  5. “Platt and Tmmis push the Law until the people give up, weary and broken” (Dee)

    To Platt and Timmis, Calvinism = Gospel. It’s all about bringing folks into bondage to the Law of reformed theology. Their version of Christianity focuses on doctrinal propositions about grace, rather than a direct experience of Grace (there’s a huge difference!). Their gospel is another gospel which is not ‘the’ Gospel. Adhering to jots and tittles of Law will not lead you to Life, a personal encounter with the Living Christ. Folks who sit under a constant barrage of Law and doctrine do indeed grow weary and give up after a while … what’s the point?! Law vs. Life? Give me Life!

  6. John:
    Thanks for this Dee.
    On a similar note, have you (or anyone here) read the “Gentle and Lowly” book by Dane Ortlund? Seems a good book for those weary and tired from Platt’s “radical”?

    I have read it, and it’s not. The first few chapters are quite good, but then 4-5 chapters in Ortlund gets into Calvinism (and predestination) hard. Completely out of place for the subject of the book, but probably in there to keep his Reformed buddies placated.

  7. John:
    Thanks for this Dee.
    On a similar note, have you (or anyone here) read the “Gentle and Lowly” book by Dane Ortlund? Seems a good book for those weary and tired from Platt’s “radical”?

    I liked “Tired of Trying to Measure Up” by Jeff VanVonderen. Subtitled, “Getting free from the demands, expectations, and intimidations of well-meaning people.”

  8. From the Tyconius passage: “We see this in the Gospel of Mark as a lawyer came to Jesus in order to justify himself, claiming that he had kept the Law. But since he only looked to himself and not to God, he was unable to fix his spiritual problem.”

    Yes. This was my experience at the last two YRR churches I attended. Small group discussion so emphasized sin and confession and repentance and accountability. And this can be healthy in the appropriate context (which small group discussion turned out not to be).

    But, as a recovering perfectionist who grew up in a mildly legalistic family, an over-emphasis on these brings on an ugly spiral of depression focused on — guess what? Yup — myself. Not Jesus, but myself. And isn’t that, after all, what the devil (if you are one who takes the devil literally) wants? That our attention be taken away from Jesus and placed on ourselves?

    Thank you, Dee. This was well worth the read.

  9. John,

    Apparently this is the best thing since sliced bread. Everybody recommends it. But what specifically does it say that is so amazingly good? That’s a sincere question. I guess I fear more of the evangelical industrial complex pushing a book.

  10. Godith,

    I’m not sure, I’m just going off the promo and blurbs! Mine was a sincere question too just because it apparently emphasises grace for the weary.

  11. I am about 2/3 of the way through Gentle and Lowly; it is soul refreshing in its declaration of God’s love and help for sinners. Worth the read. I am reading it slowly…

  12. Amazing article! I, too, am recovering from the damage done by the ‘never enough’ crowd! After years of being made to feel that I was never good enough, and that God can barely stand to have me around, now I can stand in the sufficiency of Christ and Him crucified. It’s all HIS work—Christ IS enough…and YOU are enough in Him!

    Paul addressed this years ago to those “foolish Galatians.” It’s such a shame that we still struggle with this even today. It breaks my heart me to see people become so disillusioned and discouraged that they burn out, walk away, or worse yet, end their lives. That hardly seems to be the abundant life Jesus has promised us. The Gospel means ‘Good News’, but the reformed crowd (and others) have turned it into a heavy, endless burden, as though keeping your salvation depends on you. Thankfully, Jesus not only saved me, but He keeps me saved, too!

  13. As a long-time reader (and sometimes critic) of TWW, I believe this is the most important post I’ve seen here. Thanks and be blessed.

  14. Timmis: The Crowded House is a 9marks church. Chandler: The Village Church is a 9marks church. Platt: Led 9marks church in Birmingham. Churches that demand submission to a pastor who “stands in the place of God” and who demands submission to a church covenant will be hotbeds of spiritual abuse.

  15. “If one can easily understand that the heavy shepherding techniques and demands are merely the impositions of the will of men and not of God then one can easily see the warning signs and get out.” – from the post

    IOW, when boundaries [of agency] are crossed, and lives are being damaged RUN. (‘Cuz someone is building their dynasty not God’s kingdom where “My burden is light & my yoke is easy”. So run to Jesus.)

  16. from the 31:8 review

    “They [the people interviewed by the 31:8 review team who had negative experiences of TCH] depicted a culture of high expectations for conformity, combined with strong convictions about the local church and the unquestioned authority of elders in relation to every aspect of daily life”

    The thought occurs that church leaders who do not maintain a strong intentional posture of humility and patience are in danger of the opposite, a hubris in which they assume to themselves Jesus’ authority and in practice relate to the flock along the lines of “if you love me you will obey me, and I will love you and will disclose myself to you.”

    Regarding “favored” and “disfavored” (by leadership) individuals within a local congregation, there is a recent article at Warren Throckmorton’s site discussing “The Trinity Church” of Scottsdale AZ, led by MD, and the question of whether it may justly be interpreted to be a “cult”.

    One of the links WT provides suggests that “dispensing of existence” is one of the marks of a cult.

    https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2021/05/12/you-might-be-in-a-cult-if/

    (at about 2:00 in the embedded video)

    It’s probably not a good idea to allow your sense of “who you are” become too dependent on your relationship to a hierarchically organized social group, and to its leaders.

  17. Samuel Conner,

    Max,

    This is because evangelicals don’t know what “salvation” is or what Scriptures are saying to them – yes them, or what doctrine is / is for / who for. Jesus and Holy Spirit (really) bring individuality and help and of course the world aren’t going to buy into the false “gospel” that claims these don’t exist, and neither should we ever have done (if we did). As for “many” and “few” those are only relative.

  18. A “Top Ten” TWW post! A truth desperately needed by the Body of Christ!

    IMO, a thorough teaching about Law & Gospel should be 101 discipleship in all Christian churches. A new believer needs to be walked through these distinctions as soon as they come into the Kingdom. As a 70+ year believer, it took me several years early in my Christian walk to discover this on my own through reading Scripture. I didn’t receive this instruction from the pulpit or appropriate Bible studies.

    A proper understanding of Law & Gospel determines whether you live the Christian experience in Flesh vs. Spirit … Law vs. Life … Religion vs. Relationship. It is the Way, the Truth, and Life in Christ which cannot be derived through jots and tittles of Law served up in Reformed and certain other evangelical expressions of faith.

    The Gospel is framed “in” Christ, not “by” Calvin. It is not systematic, it is simple … unless you miss the Tree of Life in the forest of words by mere men. If you haven’t realize that yet – if you are still stuck in Law mode – get away from all the religious noise and look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

  19. John,

    Maybe the critique of Platt is justified from his sermons and other books, which I’m not familiar with, but I’ve read “Radical” and I’m left scratching my head here. Granted, the title of the book is quite unfortunate; however, what I heard him communicate in it is that our understanding of “gospel” is flawed and inadequate. Exactly the kind of thing Bonhoeffer was saying in Discipleship. We’ve wrapped it in Americana etc. Instead of calling this “radical” Christianity, he should have called it normal Christianity. His vision is what I read everywhere in the pages of the New Testament. Timmins, ya, he’s a fraud and a shyster. I read Total Church and my immediate reaction was: ????? This man (and his co-author) seemed like the abusive narcissists he’s turned out to be

  20. Root 66: The Gospel means ‘Good News’, but the reformed crowd (and others) have turned it into a heavy, endless burden, as though keeping your salvation depends on you.

    The reformed version of the gospel (which is not ‘the’ Gospel) is bad news if you allow their flavor of grace to prevent you from experiencing Grace, an encounter with the Living Christ.

  21. Max,

    Calvin, like Luther before him, stressed the difference between Law and Gospel. The problems begin when you attribute to one what belongs to the other, as Mr Platt does and whose views were excoriated by The WhiteHorseInn. ( a Reformed Calvinist website).From my extensive reading of this, the main dangers sprang from the Legalists on the one hand, and the Antinomians on the other. The only group that has had continual problems articulating their separate but distinct and complementary functions have been and are the Anabaptists and their descendants.

  22. Another cause for concern is that Acts29 bought Timmis’ teaching methods – the Porterbrook courses – about five years ago and this teaching is available through BibleMesh for $50 a pop.

  23. onesimus wong,

    I have read Bonhoeffer and have also read Platt. I even visited his church from time to time. There was enormous pressure on the congregation to be “radical” like he was-living in the ghetto.So some chose to follow his supposedly Christian example. Or should I say were stonrly encouraged to do so. Have you read the problems which developed when people tried to follow the leader. Many families were crushed by the experience and wrote about it afterward.

  24. Lowlandseer,

    But…my reading and experience has led me to believe that people like Platt, Chandler and churches like Austin Stone and other Calvinist Baptist type of churches is the emphasis on the ability to overcome sin or almost all of it. My one pastor called it *cooking the books.* which meant such people focused on the sin of others because they personally have overcome the sins in question. There have the incredible ability to justify their actions as godly while ignoring their innate sinful nature.

  25. very eye-opening post about how some will attempt to ‘control’ others in ways far beyond healthy,

    wanting ‘good’ for others cannot be realized by taking away their freedom to ‘be’ individuals, no

    a good learning, yes, thanks

  26. Dale,

    I woudn’t step into any church which was part of the 9Mrax association. So many stoires…One of their leaders told me that they shouldn’t be responsible for the bad outcomes at any of their member churches. I asked him whether he felt responsible for the poor outcomes at CHBC and the conversation ended.

  27. reading through the 31:8 report:

    a gob-smacking admission:

    “4.6. Constant State of Change

    Many participants reported that the story of TCH was one of constant change and this is described in some detail in the section of the report entitled The Crowded House: Background and History. Some stated that Steve Timmis believed in change for change’s sake. Others said they believed that often there were good reasons linked with the missional vision as they were not seeing many come to Christ. ” (emphasis added)

    ===

    And this was at the church run by the CEO of the Acts 29 Network, a church that was regarded to be an example to the worldwide Church.

    So, even the church that is “doing church” as well as or better than any other church in the world is not able to draw many people to Christ.

    Me thinks that “the cat is out of the bag” regarding Acts 29. As Max has said so many times, it’s not about “reaching the world for Christ” so much as “reaching the other parts of the Church for ‘Our Vision of What the Church Ought to Be’ “.

  28. Samuel Conner,

    “On that view, what happens to individuals after death is so much more important than anything that can happen “under the sun” that there is no reasonable way to compare one with the other;

    no exertion is too great to save one more soul — and the flip side of that is that anything less than maximal exertion is inadequate and a sign of deficient faith and love.

    And, of course, this can also excuse all manner of pastoral abuse in the course of motivating the flock to its maximal exertions.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    such an accurate way to describe.

    yes, this was my experience. nothing was every good enough, i hadn’t tried or sacrificed enough. if jesus went through all he did, surely i can sacrifice even more.

    even my kids. (in prioritizing church over them…. what a crock of fick flippin horsesh|t)

    this was the take-away in its practical reality. and really, it was so the pastors could feel good about themselves. so they would look good. so they could feel justified in what they were doing. as insurance against their own failure at what pastor has come to mean.

    gawwwwwdddd…. fick flippin….nonsense.
    .
    .
    how i see it now: eternity is now. redemption and salvation (whatever that is) is now.

    the significance is simply that I can say to God, “I see you.”

    And God says to me, “I see you.”

    And we ‘commune’ throughout the day.

    although that’s such a lofty silly word– it’s more like, “God, what you do you think? well, this is what i think. ok, yes, I hear you. i’m deciding on door number 3, and here I go. God, help me.”

    and we do it together.

    we take care of the beautiful earth and its inhabitants together.

  29. I don’t remember where, but I saw a link to the post at The Lay Artiste earlier this week. I’ve since sent the link to a friend of mine who once attended a church involved in the Young, Restless and Reformed movement. Thanks, Dee, for increasing the visibility of that important post.

    Another reason I was interested is that the post discusses David Platt, who’s practically in my backyard as senior pastor of McLean Bible Church. However, he wrote the book “Radical” while serving as senior pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham.

  30. dee: There was enormous pressure on the congregation to be “radical” like he was-living in the ghetto.

    Piper. The “I am [heroic] Everyman” façade, moving into the “ghetto”. His puzzle-kid points out this is where he grew up. So “ordinary”; move back into the City. Then followers follow. It’s what followers (of a man, not the HS) do.

    Wasn’t enough. Then the adoption of a child of not-their-race. “I am [savior] Heroic” move. Followers follow.

    Nothing intrinsically wrong with moving into a low-income neighborhood or adopting an orphan. However, these can turn out so WRONG if only façade moves.

    Better to be an orphan than violated by some adoptive father pleasing the pastor. It happens. Piper’s mantra? Submit.

    Authoritarianism cures all. Everybody gets to be a hero. The children & women who submit to this stuff, and the men who lead them – by following god’s leaders.

  31. John,

    John, I’m loathe to criticize Gentle & Lowly as I see that John MacArthur’s church has taken a big swipe against it. MacArthur’s views are sometimes extreme and unkind.
    But the Evangelical Industrial Complex is out there: Dane Ortlund was VP for Publishing at Crossway before pastoring his present congregation; his brother Ray, Jr. is a regional director of Acts 29 and is a council member of The Gospel Coalition.
    Sometimes it’s “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” I haven’t read Gentle & Lowly. I understand it’s a popularizing of the some writings of Thomas Goodwin which I see here sitting on my shelf.

  32. elastigirl: even my kids. (in prioritizing church over them…. what a crock of fick flippin horsesh|t)

    YES! this! (a steaming crock no less)

    elastigirl: how i see it now: eternity is now. redemption and salvation (whatever that is) is now.

    the significance is simply that I can say to God, “I see you.”

    And God says to me, “I see you.”

    And we ‘commune’ throughout the day.

    although that’s such a lofty silly word– it’s more like, “God, what you do you think? well, this is what i think. ok, yes, I hear you. i’m deciding on door number 3, and here I go. God, help me.”

    and we do it together.

    we take care of the beautiful earth and its inhabitants together.

    My sentiments too.

  33. Max,

    Max, I think this is one of the best comments you’ve ever posted.
    And, you’re not the only one —— there’s a lot of “get’em saved, then forget about ‘em going on in our churches.

  34. dee: is the emphasis on the ability to overcome sin or almost all of it.

    And this empahasis/attitude renders the price Jesus paid, even His very existence, useless ….. pointless.

  35. Samuel Conner: I think that exhaustion of the flock for the sake of maximal ministry effort is a natural, logical outcome of the consensus “infernalist” vision of individual eschatology.

    My church (RCC) went down that road during the Middle Ages – you know the results.

    This time around, it’s supercharged by Rapture Ready Eschatology (i.e. “It’s All Gonna Burn… Any minute now… Any minute now… Any minute now…”)

    On that view, what happens to individuals after death is so much more important than anything that can happen “under the sun” that there is no reasonable way to compare one with the other

    Resulting in “Wretched Urgency”:
    “WORK FOR THE NIGHT IS COMING! MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE! FASTER! FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!”
    Lest Christ Spew Thee Out of His Mouth on The Last Day!!!!!

    That way lies Madness.

    P.S. A further refinement of Wretched Urgency I encountered was the idea that your rank and position in Heaven (not Olam-Ha-Ba) depended entirely on “How Many Souls (not people) Did YOU Lead to Christ?????” coupled with Ezekiel 33:1-9 (look it up) as a carrot-and-stick.

  36. THC was a place where young interns, mission workers, and couples were flocking to. This was because it was seen as a place where they could be ‘radical’ where they could live a lifestyle that showed they were taking their faith seriously.

    However, looking through the report clearly shows that these people were vulnerable and easy targets for manipulation and abuse. Those who were compliant and devoted their time to the strenuous demands of Timmis’s vision were patted on the back, while others who were genuinely unable to meet Timmis’s strenuous demands were viewed in less glowing favour.

    Fueled by the promise of becoming “More Christian Than All Those Lukewarms/More Chrisitian Than Thou”.

    Does anyone else remember “Acquire the Fire”?
    (Or the branches of Islam that have been in the news since 9/11?)
    Same carrot, ame shtick.

  37. dee,

    I agree. I think it’s a kind of perfectionism which is prevalent in some churches/denominations. Strange coincidence? – Tyconius was a Donatist, one of whose doctrines was the gathered, pure church and that is quite similar to the Baptist view, but he argued that the church was made up of good and bad, similar to the Reformed view of the Visible and Invisible Church. Needless to say he fell foul of both sides (Donatist and Catholic).

  38. Though much of this conversation involves the influence of 9Marks and Calvinism, having started reading the learning review on TCH, what I’m seeing much resembles my experience with the seeker-driven Fellowship Church.

    Ed constantly harped about people finding their place of service. But whenever I tried, I might do something one time, then never get put on any rotation or hear back. And when I hosted one of their Home Teams, the team decided to “reconstitute” for a younger crowd “and I was invited to find a new one”.

    After I left I visited again a couple of times. Only one person I knew before spoke to me. Others gave me a look like “Why are you here? Didn’t you get the message we don’t want you?” And the overwhelming majority I never saw again. To this day, the only person that I knew from that church is my roommate (a story in itself). The only person that both of us knew, we communicated with him briefly via Facebook, but he unexpectedly died a couple of years ago. NOBODY from that church who is still alive has ever kept in contact with us. We just didn’t “fit the vision”.

  39. This has been an issue for about 8 or 9 years now.

    This is from May 2013
    (top half of the article is free, the second half is behind a pay wall):

    Here Come the Radicals! – (Christianity Today article)
    David Platt, Francis Chan, Shane Claiborne, and now Kyle Idleman are dominating the Christian best-seller lists by attacking our comfortable Christianity. But is ‘radical faith’ enough?
    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/march/here-come-radicals.html

    (Kyle Idleman used to have a weekly television series on Christian network TBN where he peddled this ideology for a couple of years. He was a host of his own show on TBN for awhile.)

  40. Also from several years ago….

    Radical for Jesus a New Kind of Legalism? – July 2015
    https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/june/radical-for-jesus-a-new-kind-of-legalism

    —From that web page (by Heather Sells):—
    For many years, Christian legalism meant no drinking, smoking or dancing. Today, young adults struggle with a new form of it: the pressure to live radically for Christ.

    It’s become such a concern that a slew of Christian books came out this year to extol the virtues of an “ordinary” Christian life.

    Author Jonathan Hollingsworth wrote about his struggle in the newly published Runaway Radical.

    …This “new legalism” was first identified two years ago by Dr. Anthony Bradley

    A tweet he posted on how being “radical” and “missional” is the “new legalism” exploded over the Internet.
    —(end page quotes)—

    I remember seeing that kid interviewed on TV at the time (or one like him, one who had been in this “radical” movement).

    If I remember correctly, he said his stint in “radical” Christianity about caused him to walk away from the Christian faith entirely.

    I think he also said it drove him to suicidal thoughts?

  41. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): there’s a lot of “get’em saved, then forget about ‘em going on in our churches

    In my humble (but accurate) opinion, there are not enough mature Christians in place in the averat church to mentor the immature in faith … so they all go on without going on, babes still on milk. A baby in a diaper sucking a bottle is cute … but it’s an ugly thing to behold when it’s a 60-year old Baptist deacon!

  42. Ooo my this post pushes a lot of buttons from the past. I could explode in a lengthy post about the classic and very legalistic reformed upbringing I got and the damage it has done and fear I have had and which still plague me regularly.
    But at the same time this post is a balm on those wounds.
    I would like to read more from Luther. Does anyone have advice what a good work is from him about law and gospel?

  43. Mark R,

    Did you know that I attended Fellowship Church briefly after a move to Dallas. My husband and I got the heck out about 2 years into it. We would have left immediately but we had a sick daughter and had no strength left to look for a new church in a new city.

    What you are saying is totally on point. So many people who didn’t look a certain way or didn’t have a respected professional job or who wasn’t a well-known athlete didn’t fit. One guy got removed from a team when his business went under.

    I’m so sorry for what you endured. I get it. I saw it and I got the heck out of there.

  44. dee:
    Mark R,

    Did you know that I attended Fellowship Church briefly after a move to Dallas. My husband and I got the heck out about 2 years into it. We would have left immediately but we had a sick daughter and had no strength left to look for a new church in a new city.

    What you are saying is totally on point. So many people who didn’t look a certain way or didn’t have a respected professional job or who wasn’t a well-known athlete didn’t fit. One guy got removed from a team when his business went under.

    I’m so sorry for what you endured. I get it. I saw it and I got the heck out of there.

    Yes, I remember you mentioning that to me in an earlier post.

    I didn’t realize what was going on until after I left. Hindsight is usually 20/20. It also helped me explain to my friend what happened. (On that point, I feel bad for the former Fellowship members in Miami who had their building sold out from under them, as The Roys Report mentioned.)

    Reading the review further many points of TCH appear to mirror those of Watermark as well (like having “community approval” of who you plan to marry; it’s one thing if they have concerns but another to make the decision for you).

  45. dee,

    Also FC tended to lean politically to the right, and though that is also my view politically, they took it to imply a total distrust of Federal employees, which this year I will have been for 34 years (and in two months will be eligible to retire though I have no plans to do so). So they likely presumed I was really a liberal, and thus not someone they wanted around.

  46. Mark R: We just didn’t “fit the vision”.

    The targeted demographic, to keep the ship afloat, and rehab to a fancy yacht, to sail in luxury, aimlessly. Because, living the best life, via the targeted demo.

  47. Mark R: total distrust of Federal employees

    Shaking my head. Let’s review. Federal employees include all US diplomats, air traffic controllers, spies, Supreme Court justices, astronauts, Cabinet members, secretaries of the Navy, Army, Air Force, Medicare administrators, Social Security administrators, and everybody around them from WG-1 to Senior Executive Service.

    If we want to get picky, we might also recall that the entire military consists of government* employees. “Oh, but the military is different.” “Yes, and look how many go on to work as civilian government employees.”

    *Federal and state, including those little gray areas when state Guard members are activated and go off to fight our wars or out-of-state wildfires.

  48. Ava Aaronson: The targeted demographic, to keep the ship afloat, and rehab to a fancy yacht, to sail in luxury, aimlessly.

    Just like Elron Hubbard!
    (Who originally invented Sea Org to crew his “fancy yacht”/used cruise ship and get out of dodge on the high seas when his agents infiltrating the IRS got caught.)

  49. Headless Unicorn Guy: Elron Hubbard!

    @MikeRinder says that at any of their major events, observe the parking lot: super luxe & limos, then barely drivable junkers. The wealthy celebs being the PR & financial tools, as the org shakes Everyman down for every penny they actually don’t have, and every minute of their time.

    @LeahRemini says it’s a business not a church. Wonder if the New Cals, 9Marx, TGC, DG, Kirke, SG, The Family, Fellowship, et al, have learned a few things from Elron.

    Will Evangeos progress to disconnection (shunning) and Fair Game (harassment)?

  50. Long time lurker, first time commenting. I want to comment on this thread concerning how a covert YRR SBC college group has hurt the faith of students in a college which will go unnamed. Faith by being all about the Law, their LAW, and not about the Gospel (although that and being missional is their mantra).

  51. The OT and NT teach a distinction between prior and subsequent sins, and between prior and subsequent works (the latter are supposed to be Holy Spirit powered). The tyrants claim we are heavy for each other, ourselves and them, because they have no belief in Holy Spirit strength.

    But in Jesus’ parlance by contrast, His burden – the other other, the widow and the orphan, you and me – is light because my brother ain’t heavy. This is what the disciples learned during those ten days. Those who are new to Christ need the chance to count the good cost. Because Britain and America are going to be less “comfortable” for us ordinary ones as recession and other bad fads bite ever worse.

    In the hereafter there are going to be a group of people asking the ones who thought they had arrived, “Why didn’t you give us a chance to count the good cost?” That’s why we don’t know what the consequences of “unregenerate” are, except that from him who HAS – note, not HAS NOT – what he HAS will be taken from him. God in Scripture says what He is saying by not saying what He is not saying. Have the vetoers and rationers taught us about interceding and supplicating prayer? Which are merely MOST OF Christian life?

    Ava Aaronson: Wonder if the New Cals, 9Marx, TGC, DG, Kirke, SG, The Family, Fellowship, et al, have learned a few things from Elron.

    Will Evangeos progress to disconnection (shunning) and Fair Game (harassment)?

    My old “animators” are probably typical in drawing consciously (which they were slow to explain to us) from 1930s to 1960s secular sources (political, “anthropological” and activist) as well as “holy” sources from past episodes of church chaos. Most of the worst recent movements originated or were re-launched just when prayer was being demoted and a system of protecting excesses by religious authorities (albeit with big variations) was getting extra entrenched.

    Movements or works intended as solving church problems and healing, quickly got colonised and subverted to the opposite end (I was in at least one and there are several well known parallels). Turning us into machines, part (a foreshadow) of the “abomination of desolation”. Who can be induced to what, by salami slicing? A pool of people to draw on, whether for rioting or “negotiating”, with a larger pool as passive alibi.

    Whether you call it “rhema” or “dominionism”, or reserve the new “charismatic” to those top nobs who have the stranglehold, or whether you overhype a system of superficial dole-outs, or whether you call it the reformed reform, or the unreformed reform. Only blasphemy against Holy Spirit – mistrusting Him in individuals – can’t (as of essence) be forgiven. Put down your sacrifice at the threshold, don’t go down into the house, return by another way.

    Ava Aaronson: rehab … yacht

    I fell off my chair laughing because of who specifically I thought of!

  52. Cp: I could explode in a lengthy post about the classic and very legalistic reformed upbringing I got and the damage it has done and fear I have had and which still plague me regularly.

    Cp, I’ve known several folks who have experienced the same thing. TWW writes a lot about the ails of “New” Calvinism, but hyper “Old” Calvinism has left a lot of victims in its wake as well. There are lots of reasons why 90+% of Christendom worldwide have rejected the tenets of reformed theology for the last 500 years. Hope you found love, hope and encouragement in Christ after you survived your awful start in church.

  53. TSSV,

    I have been told that a number of groups have been started on college campuses in which the leaders conceal that they are Calvinstas (my own word for them.) This is part of the game. I have also heard that they go after students in their groups, claiming that in order to be *real* Christians, they should go on mission tripes with them. Even worse, they try to get students to give up entering the workforce or graduate school in order to be missionaries with that group.

    The pressure placed on the students who inadvertently show up at one of their meetings can be quite intense. And you are. correct. They teach their Law which conveniently leaves out grace or else grace is described as ‘God forgave you, you little worm, so buck up and follow us and you will be on God’s side.

  54. dee: ‘God forgave you, you little worm, so buck up and follow us and you will be on God’s side.

    Yes, God forgives us.
    “Follow us & you will be on god’s side.”
    The gods of small stature & big overbite will eat a life.

  55. Michael in UK: interceding and supplicating prayer

    Which is pretty much the book of Acts, literally from start to finish. Pray, wait on God, then act on His answers.

    Of course, the rest of the NT, too, runs on prayer.
    Then there are the Psalms in the OT, as well as Elijah & the rest of the prophets constantly prostrate with prayer, seeking God for answers.

    Enoch.

    So, pretty much the entire biblical narrative runs on seeking God (prayer), then responding to His answers (not a dull lethargic prayer but active or at-the-ready for God’s direction). It’s lovely, really.

    Thx for your comment, this Sabbath. Such a good word, and biblically aligned.

  56. dee: Even worse, they try to get students to give up entering the workforce or graduate school in order to be missionaries with that group.

    My recollection from close to 40 years ago was that this was standard practice at local college “chapters” of Campus Crusade for Christ. I recall a CCC employee (aka “campus ministry staff member”) explicitly affirming that the word from higher in the corporation was that the single most important thing the campus chapter staff could do was recruit students into the CCC ministry. In retrospect, it had a bit of the “feel” of a Ponzi scheme. Perhaps they thought that the way to fulfill “the Great Commission” was to recruit every person on the planet into their organization.

    Again in retrospect, it’s not hard to imagine that aggressive recruitment by parachurch organizations had a negative effect on lay leadership in local congregations. As I recall, the local chapter CCC people encouraged church attendance, but they also reckoned that students’ intentional involvement in ministry activities would be more fruitful if invested in what the CCC chapter was doing rather than what the local congregation was doing.

    In the 31:8 review, it is suggested that, functionally, TCH was not a “local congregation of Christ” so much as a “mission organization” — a parachurch entity. It’s not hard to intuit that it likewise had a deleterious effect on the churches from which it was recruiting earnest believers — its numerical growth was predominantly by “transfer” rather than “conversion”.

  57. Max,

    Thank you Max 🙂 I appreciate your kind comment. I have been healed to certain degree, but I’m still struggling to get to know God’s real character.
    In my upbringing it was at least as much about what we ought NOT do, like women wearing trousers, watching movies, going to the theatre, breaking the Sabbath etc.

    So when I change my view on things, it worries me. Does it mean I’m losing my faith.

    And even if I genuinely do believe something different than I was raised with, I am unable to freely practice it. Because when I do, there is this nagging voice: what if they were right about the Sabbath, that means I’m wrong. And then what? Does it mean my faith isn’t real?

    This is one scar that so far didn’t go away. I can see legalism for what it is, but getting rid of it and standing in freedom has proven to be difficult.

    If only the Calvinists weren’t so sure that only they got it right….

  58. Daisy,

    “I remember seeing that kid interviewed on TV at the time (or one like him, one who had been in this “radical” movement).

    If I remember correctly, he said his stint in “radical” Christianity about caused him to walk away from the Christian faith entirely.
    ++++++++++++++++

    this describes our final foray in church.

    the pressure put on our kids… my son no longer felt like he ‘was a christian’ (all that meant to his young mind was “i’m not going to heaven”). he ‘escaped’ out a window in the bathroom during the youth service. he couldn’t take it anymore.

    the youth directors (husband/wife) were great people, but so intense approaching extreme.

    the adults who helped out in the youth group were like n@zis — had to sit still, had to stand and sit down on command, had to be physically demonstrative during music (known as ‘worship’ — gag).

    the general message was to be more, do more, be more ‘sold out’, towards a commitment goal that was always being moved along by a carrot on a stick, and impossible to achieve.

    and your status as ‘saved’ or ‘christian’ or ‘going to heaven’ was suspect unless you reached this increasingly unreachable target.

    this was the message communicated to the young impressionable minds of kids!!

    they’ve never really recovered from this. although my oldest is beginning to inquire about God once again — in his own way, minus any church ideas. Enough time has past, i think, that he can separate the concept of the God of the universe from the horsh|t nonsense of those days.

  59. Cp,

    “So when I change my view on things, it worries me. Does it mean I’m losing my faith.

    And even if I genuinely do believe something different than I was raised with, I am unable to freely practice it. Because when I do, there is this nagging voice: what if they were right about the Sabbath, that means I’m wrong. And then what? Does it mean my faith isn’t real?”
    ++++++++++++

    i understand your comment.

    i want to ask, “faith in what?”

  60. Samuel Conner: In retrospect, it had a bit of the “feel” of a Ponzi scheme. Perhaps they thought that the way to fulfill “the Great Commission” was to recruit every person on the planet into their organization.

    Into their parachurch org:
    Sign up and join for a “job”. Go fulltime ministry.

    Task #1: Raise your support $$$ so you can be paid for your “job” with a cut going up the line to the org admin. In essence, raise $$$ and do the work, to keep the pencil pusher/paper shuffling org higherups afloat with paychecks & all expenses paid.

    We’ve had these young people (approached us at church) in our living room giving their pitch, 3 points and a close. Glossy sales materials from the org. 3-ring binder with full color pages encased in plastic.

    Once they’ve raised support, they launch. Newletters monthly to supporters. Yearly furlough visits back home to keep supporters’ $$$ coming in.

    Parachurch, pyramid, ponzi.

    (We had been missionaries, short term, ourselves, twice, over several years. Nothing like this. At all. Recruited for our skills. Both Lutheran & Baptist orgs although we are neither. In the field, everyone works together anyway. It was Isaiah 6 that caught our attention and moved us to go. Good experiences. Productive.)

  61. Cp: what if they were right about the Sabbath, that means I’m wrong. And then what? Does it mean my faith isn’t real?

    A thought-provoking point made by NT Wright (in, IIRC, “The New Testament and the People of God”) is that the predominantly Gentile churches founded by Paul had many slaves among the “membership”. These slaves did not have the liberty to abstain from work on Sunday — they were obliged, on pain of severe punishments — to follow orders on Sunday as on every other day of the week. NTW suspects that the way the early Gentile churches dealt with this was to meet very early on Sundays, while the masters were still asleep. After these pre-dawn worship meetings had concluded, the slave members would go back to their masters’ homes and get on with the work that had been assigned to them. This strikes me as an unanswerable proof that the earliest Gentile churches did not impose scrupulous Sabbath observance on their members as a matter of conscience.

    And it seems pretty clear that Paul expressly affirms that Sabbath observance among followers of Christ is a matter of individual conscience (Romans 14:5, Col 2:16). Paul did not want scrupulous still Law-observant Jewish converts to Christ to look down on Gentile converts who did not keep Jewish laws as scrupulously as they did. (And there was a corresponding concern that Gentile converts not offend the consciences of still Law-observant Jewish converts; I suspect that this concern is in view in 1 Cor 8:1-13, for example).

  62. elastigirl,
    Thanks for prodding 🙂
    I think I mean: does it mean that I’m not saved by the blood of Jesus if I dare to change my views on certain important issues.

    And that is more in my emotions than in my head.

  63. Samuel Conner,

    Thank you for your reply. I think you’re right. And so, in my head, I believe this too. But I am too scared to believe it with the rest of me 🙁

  64. Samuel Conner: Law-observant Jewish converts to Christ to look down on Gentile converts who did not keep Jewish laws as scrupulously as they did.

    Quite the combo. In the Body of Christ. Unity.

    Thanks so much for this historical background.

  65. Josh,

    “…but then 4-5 chapters in Ortlund gets into Calvinism (and predestination) hard. Completely out of place for the subject of the book, but probably in there to keep his Reformed buddies placated.”
    ++++++++++++

    really, i feel the entire church industry can’t help but be an exercise in the compromise of what is ethical, moral, healthy and reasonable.

    it runs on money and power, and symbiotic relationships.

    professional christians and churches have to toe the party line (the one the leaders’ peers are following, and/or the one that the church industry majority is following).

    integrity is defined by christian powerbrokers, with spiritual language so it convincingly seems ‘godly’.

    but, of course, what looks kind and good can easily mask what is cultic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, life-taking, corrupt, criminal, the consolidation of power…

    so, so much for christian integrity.
    .
    .
    Melvin Udall : Judging from your eyes, I’d say you were fifty.

    Carol Connelly : Judging from your eyes, I’d say you were kind, so so much for eyes.

  66. Cp,

    i understand.

    me, personally, i’ve boiled everything down to what Jesus boiled down:

    ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

    this is a corollary of “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

    Although I can’t think of a more abstract idea, that invites a whole host of potentially dangerous rabit trails.
    .
    .
    my conclusion: Loving my neighbor as myself is simply the means for how I love God.

    my theology, really, stops there.

    how can i or anyone go wrong?

    do we really believe God will say, “Sorry, you should have opened door number 2 instead of door number 3, and look at all these Ts and i’s you didn’t cross or dot. No eternal soup for you!”

  67. Samuel Conner,

    This happened at University of Illinois in the early 80s. One person I knew was very much hurt by this practice. It soured me from CCC even more than their practice of lying when evangelizing with a “spiritual survey”.

  68. David:
    Samuel Conner,

    This happened at University of Illinois in the early 80s. One person I knew was very much hurt by this practice. It soured me from CCC even more than their practice of lying when evangelizing with a “spiritual survey”.

    This was actually one of the several things that caused us to write the song I quoted. Another was a group of Navigators that had a policy that if they were going to a conference in a car owned by a woman, and a man was in the car, the car had to be driven by the man. Another was a woman who had a nervous breakdown in the Navs and a last one was a group from the “no name church” that told us they had a meeting where they were told they had to memorize 3 more scriptures a week and extend their quiet time by 5 minutes a day.
    All were cases of one group telling other Christians that had to follow rules they had made up.

  69. Max,

    Wonderful spin Max. Two thirds of “Christendom” is Roman Catholic; Within Protestantism, Baptists claim to have 75-110 million but the World Baptist Alliance in December 2020 gave the number of baptised members as 44 million. The Reformed stand at about 75 million, possibly more because Methodism has two groups, Arminian and Calvinist. The same is true of Anglicanism.

  70. Godith:
    And yet Grace is not cheap or ought not to be. The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer.

    Thank you!

    Also see: New Perspective on Paul (or, as we Catholics and Orthodox call it: Old Perspective on Paul :D)

  71. david: This was actually one of the several things that caused us to write the song I quoted. Another was a group of Navigators that had a policy that if they were going to a conference in a car owned by a woman, and a man was in the car, the car had to be driven by the man. Another was a woman who had a nervous breakdown in the Navs and a last one was a group from the “no name church” that told us they had a meeting where they were told they had to memorize 3 more scriptures a week and extend their quiet time by 5 minutes a day.
    All were cases of one group telling other Christians that had to follow rules they had made up.

    Older son had a really bad experience with the Nava at Bama.

    They’re great at love-bombing, though. Gotta give ’em that.

  72. Catholic Gate-Crasher: Older son had a really bad experience with the Nava at Bama.

    They’re great at love-bombing, though. Gotta give ’em that.

    Should say NAVS, not Nava. What was Autocorrect thinking?

  73. Max: should read “average” church

    Autocorrect works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.

  74. David: It soured me from CCC even more than their practice of lying when evangelizing with a “spiritual survey”.

    I too was very offended by the IMO deceptive methods that were used to, IMO, lure people into “spiritually-loaded” conversations. Trying to interpret this charitably, one could view this as a logical and even inevitable consequence of CCC’s embrace of the consensus infernalist eschatology: “yes, I’m tricking you into this conversation, but it’s for your good and I have no qualms about it because the danger you are in is far greater than the transgression I am committing in deceiving you about my intentions.” One could regard it to be sort of a form of “pre-conversion abuse of flock,” justified for the same reasons that “post-conversion abuse of flock” is justified.

    In retrospect, I think that the whole CCC model of ministry was an ill-conceived attempt to standardize ministry into an easily reproduced set of procedures that could be quickly implemented in any (culturally homogeneous) setting by relatively lightly-trained personnel. The whole apparatus of “evangelism by reading a tract”, the “transferrable concepts” approach to teaching theology, the “team meeting” for canned evangelistic presentations in Greek houses, etc., etc., smells of “corporate standardization”. It had the feel of “ministry as a corporate franchise”. I was troubled by this imposed-from-above standardization even then, and it looks no better decades later.

    Returning to the OP, I wonder whether the “continual change in search of ministry effectiveness” that is mentioned in the 31:8 review of TCH would have led to something similar. Had they discovered or devised a procedure that was actually able to draw to Christ people who were not already church-affiliated, that procedure might have been rapidly transferrable to other congregations in the A29 network.

  75. Wild Honey: I liked “Tired of Trying to Measure Up” by Jeff VanVonderen. Subtitled, “Getting free from the demands, expectations, and intimidations of well-meaning people.”

    I think that sort of legalistic perfectionism is fairly common in some Catholic RadTrad (Latin Mass) parishes. But most ordinary run-of-the-mill parishes consist of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and that seems to work just fine. If you’re offended by men in baggy shorts or women in skintight leggings, don’t show up at my little rural NC mission. :O I must admit that I sometimes wish we were a little stricter, but then again, I don’t want to be harassed by the Liturgy Nazis either, so I guess it’s all good.

  76. elastigirl: had to be physically demonstrative during music (known as ‘worship’ — gag)

    I summarise Old and New Testaments combined thus:

    The worship of God is to not stunt the growth of our fellow adopted widow and orphan in Father’s firm (Proverbs 21: 10-31 is NOT about women)

    The praise of God is to show Him we know He is the one to go shopping from without price (Is 55, 58, 61) (I believe in shopping list prayer)

    Eat everything on the menu – but not all at once, keep coming back (I believe in Cafeteria Christianity)

    I’ve said an Our Father and a Glory Be for you.

  77. Cp: there is this nagging voice: what if they were right about the Sabbath, that means I’m wrong.

    I believe Samuel Conner is right about the Sabbath, he’s maybe a little too technical for me ….. no insult intended … it’s just me. I just want to add to what he said, in layman’s language. For starters, remember the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday – not Sunday.

    Being forbidden to work on the Sabbath is part of the OT Mosaic law, right up there with rape victims being commanded to marry their rapists and menustrating women being ceremonially unclean.

    Is is a sin for a mother/wife to cook breakfast for the family on Sunday, and clean up afterward? Is it a sin for doctors, nurses, fireman, EMT, etc. to save lives and put out fires on Sunday? If a pregnant woman goes into labor on a Sunday, is it a sin for a doctor or midwife to help deliver the baby? If you get rear-ended on your way to church on Sunday, and your car is undriveable, and stuck blocking the road …… is it a sin for a tow truck driver to tow your car??? And my, oh my…… how about those Sunday fellowship meals at church??——- I can tell ya, prepping for and cleaning up after those is work!!!
    ………Just some stuff to think about.

    Here’s something Jesus said:
    “And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him.
    And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy.
    And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?’
    And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;
    And answered them, saying, ‘Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?’ “
    KJV, Luke 14

  78. Catholic Gate-Crasher: If you’re offended by men in baggy shorts or women in skintight leggings, don’t show up at my little rural NC mission. :O I must admit that I sometimes wish we were a little stricter, but then again, I don’t want to be harassed by the Liturgy Nazis either, so I guess it’s all good.

    My creedo (so to speak) for years now has been:
    Live and Let Live

  79. Samuel Conner,

    “Trying to interpret this charitably, one could view this as a logical and even inevitable consequence of CCC’s embrace of the consensus infernalist eschatology: “yes, I’m tricking you into this conversation, but it’s for your good and I have no qualms about it because the danger you are in is far greater than the transgression I am committing in deceiving you about my intentions.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++

    hmmmm…. was never a part of CCC, or on the receiving end of this trickery described.

    however, after a lifetime in church, especially in the last 25 or so years, i feel ‘tricked’ into a whole slew of things. what ranks the highest are male headship, gender roles, be afraid of your own conscience/reasoning/common sense, and giving of your time talents and treasure until there’s nothing left and still give some more.

    is this also a logical consequence of infernalism? do evangelicals really believe that our names will be scratched out of the lamb’s book of life if we don’t do x y z?

    or in this context, does ‘biblicalism’ function the same as infernalism?

    and why is everything so dire?

    what happens if i say “no, you’re wrong” to a christian male headshipper? (aside from them feeling like they’ve just been punched)

    what happens if my son or daughter is attracted to their same sex, falls in love with a very compatible person, they marry and live a life of commitment, integrity, honesty, generosity?

    what happens if I do any number of things that go against the evangelical talmud that’s getting longer by the day, it seems?

    these are just a few examples — do we really think it would be curtains?

    do we really think a life lived that seeks to honor God with integrity is erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life based on any number of technicalities?

    or are our names still in the Lamb’s Book of Life, but we end up as 5th class citizens of heaven?

    i really don’t think christians think through this logically. we’re inundated with so many scare tactics from christian influencers that the logical thought process is stultified.

    stultified, i say!

  80. david: Another was a group of Navigators that had a policy that if they were going to a conference in a car owned by a woman, and a man was in the car, the car had to be driven by the man.

    Yeah, that would work really well with me. I would drive my own car, and the man/men could walk. No, never mind — I’d never go to one of those conferences, anyway. Though I would be sorely tempted to herd the men into a cattle trailer ……….

  81. elastigirl: is this also a logical consequence of infernalism? do evangelicals really believe that our names will be scratched out of the lamb’s book of life if we don’t do x y z?

    In my experience, infernalism was used as a motivator for giving or other exertion not primarily in terms of fear for one’s own safety (that would be “salvation by works”, a big no-no), but rather in terms of fear for others’ safety. If the church’s income was running behind budget, there would be a sermon series on the desperate condition of the lost and how necessary it was that giving increase in order the the gospel ministry not be impaired. In CCC (in my experience), there was a clear sense conveyed by the local campus ministry employees that “everyone should aspire to go into vocational ministry” (this might have been a “from higher up in the corporation” imperative, to increase recruitment and enterprise income) for the reason that so much was at stake in terms of the fate of those not yet “reached for Christ.”

    During my time affiliated with an IFB and later a denominational baptist-ic congregation, visiting missionaries would routinely deploy the “your $ will save souls from a terrible fate” meme to motivate a generous love offering.

    It’s interesting to compare this rhetoric with what we see in the NT documents. Paul doesn’t use “fear of others’ post-mortem punishments” to motivate offers of aid to his ministry. In the one case in which he does resort to (what looks to me like) pressure to give (in 2 Corinthians 9), it’s not to fund his own outreach, but rather for a mercy gift to an impoverished congregation (the church at Jerusalem) that is in even greater hardship than the church whose arm he is twisting.

    I doubt very much that Paul was an infernalist. He certainly believed in “wrath” — Romans mentions it repeatedly, for example, but there is it consistently “pre-mortem”/”under the sun”, culminating in mortality itself.

  82. Catholic Gate-Crasher: Catholic Gate-Crasher: Older son had a really bad experience with the Navs at Bama.

    They’re great at love-bombing, though. Gotta give ’em that.

    “Navigators never-daters” they were called at my college, because romantic relationships distracted from God.
    I got out after we women got scolded by a leader for not attending a conference they had arranged. Did they ask if we wanted or had time to go to a conference? (no) Did they ask if we Would go to a conference? (no) I didn’t feel guilty for leaving, either…

  83. elastigirl: do we really think a life lived that seeks to honor God with integrity is erased from the Lamb’s Book of Life based on any number of technicalities?

    Yes they (the great generic ‘they’ in fundagelicalism) really do believe that.
    Being kind, living a life of service to the betterment of human kind means nothing, if you (generic you) don’t believe a certain way, you’re hell fodder.

  84. Muff Potter,

    it’s just….stupid.

    in fact, it’s so stupid it’s totally “insupportable” (to quote Mr. Darcy) — as is the philosophical tension of it all for me. so much so i’ve had to establish boundaries that let in an acceptable amount of tension just so i can continue to live as an honest human being.

    don’t really give a flying fick what any christian influencer thinks — it has zero bearing on me here on the delightful outide.

    but i’m concerned for others, like my kids should they ever re-open the christian envelope. and quite frankly, i have a lifetime of investment in this religion, so i do have an abiding concern for what it has become and will become.

    (very mentally scattered at the moment, but here goes:) and more frankly, it would be nice to be not mortifyingly embarrassed and ashamed of my religion.

  85. Ava Aaronson: i have a lifetime of investment in this religion, so i do have an abiding concern for what it has become and will become.

    This is a source of significant discouragement for me, and I was not involved vocationally. I can’t imagine how discouraging it is for lifelong vocational servants of the churches to see what they have become and to anticipate what they will become.

  86. Dee and GBTC: wondering if there is a bug in the “Reply & Quote selected text” function — my above is a reply to elastigirl’s comment but the selected text is attributed to Ava Aaronson. I think that others have occasionally noticed this, too.

  87. david: had a policy that if they were going to a conference in a car owned by a woman, and a man was in the car, the car had to be driven by the man

    This darn comp stuff would end if female believers would rise up en masse, declare “Enough is enough!”, and start dragging their sorry husbands/boyfriends out of these religious circles.

  88. Max: This darn comp stuff would end if female believers would rise up en masse, declare “Enough is enough!”, and start dragging their sorry husbands/boyfriends out of these religious circles.

    A long time ago, some bikers used to set, uh, conditions for women to ride on the back of the motorcycle. They even had sayings and t-shirts about it. Then women started buying their own motorcycles. Problem solved.

    Sadly, the woman car owner in the scenario will not say, “It’s OK, guys. I’m fine driving alone to the conference. See ya there!”

  89. Samuel Conner,

    “I can’t imagine how discouraging it is for lifelong vocational servants of the churches to see what they have become and to anticipate what they will become.”
    +++++++++++

    to be clear, my vocation amounted to being in the nursery before i could walk, then sunday school, then junior high youth group, then high school youth group, all interspersed with desperately boring adult church, then only in adult church and occasionally getting something out of it plus volunteering many hours a week for 30 or so years.

    however, my grandparents were ‘pioneer missionaries’ and i have a long heritage of total investment, amazing stories (death-defying & other miraculous and generally fascinating things), and truly life-changing legacy.

    positive life-change for people in far away places. devastatingly destructive life change for my grandparents’ kids (my parent/aunts/uncles).

    (i have very mixed feelings about it all. my parent/aunts/uncles have extreme mixed feelings. unbearably complicated.)

  90. It boils down to one simple thing don’t become so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good! I think people like to hear themselves talk, use sophisticated language throw in scripture and then pat themselves on the back for being so righteous and smarter than everyone with these theological points they make! To be honest it’s nauseating to see it read it and I can only imagine what God thinks. This is why I read and study on my own I listen to different preachers who my spirit testifies with their spirit ( the Holy Spirit that resides in every believer). 25 years ago I never seen so much battling today with the message of Jesus. I even dislike using the term gospel because it’s been abused so much that most don’t know what the gospel is when they hear it!

  91. Shauna: don’t become so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good!

    Yes! Goes double when Christians think we should not bother pursuing earthly justice.

  92. Shauna: 25 years ago I never seen so much battling today with the message of Jesus.

    Back then, 1) a lot more Americans went to church, and 2) abuse in churches was rarely publicized.

    I’d like to think that a troubled institution losing power would start by solving its problems. Some churches have taken steps to reduce the risk of abuse.

    Others, though, deny the problems but desperately grasp for power. Unfortunately, as more people opt out of church, there might be a greater and greater concentration of awful people there.

  93. Michael in UK,

    “The praise of God is to show Him we know He is the one to go shopping from without price (Is 55, 58, 61) (I believe in shopping list prayer)”
    +++++++++++++

    my prayers are each a living contract between me and God. adjustments can be made, but we each have a copy we are working from.

    regarding praise: the highest compliment for me is “I see you, and I hear you.” so, when it comes to God, that’s all i do. Plus “thank you”. i figure God appreciates it as much as i do.

  94. Michael in UK,

    “Eat everything on the menu – but not all at once, keep coming back (I believe in Cafeteria Christianity)”
    +++++++++

    interesting.

    since the menu changes depending on the faction, and i’ve been given so many menus each purporting to be the only valid one, i simply take the few things that i know are free from food poisoning.

  95. Michael in UK,

    “I’ve said an Our Father and a Glory Be for you.”
    ++++++++++

    i don’t know what those are, but i’ll take ’em! and thank you. i’m sure it will help.

  96. elastigirl: since the menu changes depending on the faction, and i’ve been given so many menus each purporting to be the only valid one, i simply take the few things that i know are free from food poisoning.

    Some of those menus probably need to include crow.

  97. Shauna: don’t become so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good!

    This is for me the biggest misnomer I commonly hear in regards to Christianity. There was no one more heavenly minded then our Savior. Being like Him is not the problem. It is being like the Pharisees that is. It is about putting on prayers as a pretense as Jesus complained about. They were not being heavenly minded when they did that but were just trying to look more religious than everyone else. There is no such thing as being too heavenly minded. The Pharisees problem was that they were not thinking of God, but rather impressing people with their fake religious show.

  98. elastigirl: since the menu changes depending on the faction, and i’ve been given so many menus each purporting to be the only valid one, i simply take the few things that i know are free from food poisoning.

    Exactly.

    Like reading the Religion News latest on Hillsong today (see link above), where the Law was used to silence victims while Hillsong extended Gospel Grace for the predators. Wrong.

  99. Ava Aaronson: the Law was used to silence victims while Hillsong extended Gospel Grace for the predators. Wrong.

    Typical of many churches today that grace-this and grace-that without touching the hem of Grace.

  100. Max: This darn comp stuff would end if female believers would rise up en masse, declare “Enough is enough!”, and start dragging their sorry husbands/boyfriends out of these religious circles.

    Working on it, Max, working on it…

  101. elastigirl: but i’m concerned for others, like my kids should they ever re-open the christian envelope. and quite frankly, i have a lifetime of investment in this religion, so i do have an abiding concern for what it has become and will become.

    From the article up-top:
    “The Law/Gospel distinction is especially well-developed in the Lutheran tradition, as Sainted Sinner noted in his post. Concordia University explains, “‘Law’ describes what God requires. It demands perfection: a standard we cannot meet.”
    Glad you mentioned your kids, so I’ll mention my kids and grandkids too. I never demanded ‘perfection’ from them, only that they do the best they can with what they’ve got. In a similar vein, I no longer believe that God ever had a standard of ‘perfection’ that ‘separated’ his beloved kids (humans) from him, my conscience will no longer let me sign onto this.

  102. Samuel Conner: My recollection from close to 40 years ago was that this was standard practice at local college “chapters” of Campus Crusade for Christ.

    Along with the MLM Pyramid scheme of “Multiplying Ministry”.
    (I was not surprised to learn much later that Bill Bright started out as a salesman.)

    That said, CCC chapters varied from campus to campus; my own at Cal Poly Pomona was fairly mellow; the one at Cal State Fullerton (at the other end of Brea Canyon) was into the Satanic Panic early and had a holy war going against the Satanic D&D gamers (to the point the club had to screen new members to weed out CCC’s “Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing”).

    That said, there was one incident in Cal Poly CCC that illustrates another major problem: Billy Graham Crusade was coming to Anaheim Stadium and CCC staff made an announcement to “Invite your Unsaved friends to The Crusade”. And it triggered a mass panic — “OH NO I HAVE ONLY TWO WEEKS TO MAKE SOME HEATHEN FRIENDS SO I CAN GET THEM TO THE CRUSADE AND GET THEM SAVED! WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO?” None of them had any friends or contacts outside of Campus Crusade.

  103. david: This was actually one of the several things that caused us to write the song I quoted. Another was a group of Navigators that had a policy

    Oh, yeah, the Navs.
    At Cal Poly Pomona they had a reputation for the highest burnout and flunkout rates of any student group. (Christian Monist over at https://jmichaeljoneswriter.com/blog/ is an ex-Nav missionary in Egypt and got betrayed by them. The unnamed parachurch group in his nonfiction bool BUtterflied in the Befry, Serpents in the Cellar is the Navs. I wonder if he couldn’t name them directly because of legal liability.)

    And then we had one local group called “Studies in the Word of God” that out-Naved the Navs. Bad Craziness.

  104. Samuel Conner: In CCC (in my experience), there was a clear sense conveyed by the local campus ministry employees that “everyone should aspire to go into vocational ministry”

    The Heresy of Clericalism — that only Clergy count in the sight of God and the rest of us can all go to Hell. Except CCC called it “full-time vocational ministry” instead of Priests, Monks, and Nuns.

  105. readingalong: “Navigators never-daters” they were called at my college, because romantic relationships distracted from God.

    They had that name where I was, too.
    Why didn’t they just make you take vows of celibacy for life and lock you in a convent?

    I got out after we women got scolded by a leader for not attending a conference they had arranged. Did they ask if we wanted or had time to go to a conference? (no) Did they ask if we Would go to a conference? (no) I didn’t feel guilty for leaving, either…

    Because you chose the Flesh over the Spirit.
    The ideal of becoming so Spiritual you ceased to be human. AND ceased to be you.
    The goal was to shed the Filthy Flesh and become a disambodied Soul, Pure Spirit.

    Wasn’t the original Christian afterlife Resurrection of the Body instead of floating around forever as a Soul in Heaven like a Shade in Hades?

  106. Friend: A long time ago, some bikers used to set, uh, conditions for women to ride on the back of the motorcycle. They even had sayings and t-shirts about it. Then women started buying their own motorcycles. Problem solved.

    Lysistrata on Harleys.

  107. Ava Aaronson: “The Women’s Balcony” (Hebrew: ישמח חתני‎) is a 2016 Israeli comedy film that plays this out. Excellent film.

    Even including an attempted takeover of the synagogue by the Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi forcing everything into “Tanakh Complementarianism” who when defeated and ousted at the end finds another synagogue in hard times and starts repeating the process. Sound familiar?

  108. Wild Honey,

    The “Beauty of Complementarity” is one of the ugliest abuses of Scripture to hit the American church since preachers/elders in the South used aberrant theology to support human slavery.

  109. Headless Unicorn Guy: HEATHEN FRIENDS SO I CAN GET THEM TO THE CRUSADE AND GET THEM SAVED! WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DO?”

    When Franklin Graham was coming to our city, my wife’s church had “operation Andrew”. In the weeks leading up, you were supposed to write names on cards, then befriend the people to get them to attend this thing.
    Lol, a week later the pastor stood at the front telling folks they didn’t need to stress about this. Apparently some folks felt pressured over being disengenuous to people they knew. My wife was brassed at me because I started laughing. By that point, I pretty much dialing it in, but sitcoms couldn’t write this stuff.
    That c-o-c (culture of compliance)

  110. Dee, Thanks. In my opinion there is a reason that Luther could stand up against all the civil leaders and magisterium of his day and say he would not recant. Many think they are “good” or “I am not so bad”. Luther gave the best effort of anyone I have ever heard of to “live a good life”. A monk, abusing his body, he spent hours confessing his sins and tortured himself over whether or not he was sincere in his repentance. Then he came to understand the gospel in all its glory. He would not give it up though they threatened him with torture and death.
    We are accepted in Christ, we need do nothing else but put our faith in His finished work. John 6:28 …”What must we do to do the work of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
    In the garden Adam and Eve had everything they could want and could walk and talk with God in the heat of the day. Yet they threw it all away to make a law for themselves to live by. They wanted to decide for themselves what was good or not and threw away enjoying God’s blessing and love and presence through nothing they could do to earn anything. The gospel restores the relationship with God. Was it at a high price? Yes, the highest!! Yet Jesus paid it all. Not me. This is the gospel. God is so good!
    It is so, so easy as humans to forget this. I think this is why Luther said we needed to preach the gospel to ourselves every day.

  111. Jack: c-o-c (culture of compliance)

    This is why disgraced pastors get a standing ovation when they confess. In fact, some churches tell employees to sit throughout the congregation and jump up for the standing o. And one sees the culture of compliance in action. Most people in the congregation stand up when others do.

  112. Ken A: Jesus paid it all. Not me. This is the gospel.

    The Gospel truly is easy enough for a child to understand … no theology or theologians needed.

  113. dee: This is why disgraced pastors get a standing ovation when they confess. In fact, some churches tell employees to sit throughout the congregation and jump up for the standing o.

    This is called a “Claque Group” and dates back to Roman theater and the court of the Caesars.
    Nowadays they’re called “Agents Provocateur” or “Shills”.

  114. Jack: When Franklin Graham was coming to our city, my wife’s church had “operation Andrew”. In the weeks leading up, you were supposed to write names on cards, then befriend the people to get them to attend this thing.

    So that Cal Poly CCC incident I witnessed was an “Operation Andrew” before the name.

    I remember ticking off the names of actual friends of mine at the time (mostly from the campus SF club and Fullerton’s D&D club) and KNOWING those guyw would NOT be interested.

    I think I told some Campus Crusaders that if they DID that and the Target found out you befriended him just to Get Him Saved, he’d be justified in gunning for you. That was not well-received.

    Lotta Crazy in those days.

  115. Max: The Gospel truly is easy enough for a child to understand … no theology or theologians needed.

    Problem is when they get to your age and experience and still stay at the child level, never wanting to grow. Those types are a major reason I’m very soured on “simple Gospel” and “plain meaning”s.

  116. elastigirl: (very mentally scattered at the moment, but here goes:) and more frankly, it would be nice to be not mortifyingly embarrassed and ashamed of my religion.

    The religion and all the stuff that got attached to Jesus of Nazareth?
    Yes, it can be embarassing if you (generic you) let it.
    That’s why for me, Messiah stands alone on his own merits and the resonance He creates in my own being, completely separate from what others may say about him.
    I might agree in large part with what others say, but when I don’t, I don’t.
    Life is way too short for fussing and fighting over this stuff.

  117. Headless Unicorn Guy: Lotta Crazy in those days.

    It looks “crazy” from the outside — manipulating people in ways that would outrage them if they realized what you were up to — but from the inside, it looks perfectly reasonable and even obligatory, in view of what is reckoned to be at stake. When the end in view is as staggeringly important as it is conventionally reckoned to be, transgressive means don’t seem objectionable.

    I had a similar experience with the “campus staff” at my U. To overcome the awkwardness many of the student participants felt at trying to get other students to read “the 4 Laws” tract with them (and that was, itself, an accommodation to the awkwardness the students felt in trying to verbalize the Gospel in ways that would make sense to unbelievers), the stratagem of a sneaky “scavenger hunt” was employed as justification to get into the campus residences and knock on doors. The items on the hunt list started out innocuous and then segued toward “spiritual”, eventually leading to “the 4 Laws” — Oh, you don’t have that? Let me offer you one — and the hoped for conversation.

    In the afterward “debrief” of the students about their experiences in this form of “evangelism”, I berated the campus staff for joining the transcendent beauty of the Gospel to a base, sneaky and manipulative tactic. They looked really unhappy; I think it was not displeasure at being reproved so much as agreement with the criticism. We didn’t use that tactic again (at least during the time I remained affiliated with the group).

  118. Headless Unicorn Guy: Problem is when they get to your age and experience and still stay at the child level, never wanting to grow.

    Yeah, that’s a big problem in most churches … longtime church members who are spiritually immature (including some in the pulpit and on elder boards). A baby in diapers sucking on a bottle of milk is cute … but an ugly thing to behold when it’s a 60+ year old deacon!

  119. Mark R: Though much of this conversation involves the influence of 9Marks and Calvinism, having started reading the learning review on TCH, what I’m seeing much resembles my experience with the seeker-driven Fellowship Church.

    Ed constantly harped about people finding their place of service. But whenever I tried, I might do something one time, then never get put on any rotation or hear back. And when I hosted one of their Home Teams, the team decided to “reconstitute” for a younger crowd “and I was invited to find a new one”.

    My last Baptist church was big on volunteerism to get new members, but once you were a member, all there was for you was volunteering unless you fit a certain demographic to be in a small group. That demographic was 30-50s married couples with children. Nearly all the groups were aimed at people in that group. Even people that attended without spouses were not welcome in small groups. Single people were expected to give all their time to volunteering, even during the services. No church, no small groups, no fellowship.

    I think both are the wrong way to go about it. Either be in or excluded from a clique or don’t get fed at all doesn’t make church a place people want to go once they join.

  120. Samuel Conner,

    So, I was not the only one that was disgusted by the dishonest tactics of CCC…. they did at several campuses that I know of… probably just a “general strategy”.
    I was “mildly shunned” for raising questions..

  121. Late to the party and related the OP…
    Did anyone follow the falling-out between Tullian Tschananigans and the Gospel Coalition a couple years before he came back from vacation er… doing God’s work… and out popped this cheating wife who forced him to seek solace from friend? They were disagreeing about grace somehow… he might have meant “license”…. maybe someone recalls the theology behind it.

  122. Jeffrey J Chalmers,

    Most of the people who spoke with me then and later were also really uneasy about these methods. And the concern about CCC continued years after leaving the environs of the U. A former student affiliate at my U. told me how, like me, he was later dismayed by the recharacterization of the results of the “Jesus Film” evangelism campaigns from “converted to Christ” to “decisions indicated for Christ.” At a purely business level, the change was warranted in the sense of “accurate reporting” — the only evidence that the JF teams had was marks on paper cards indicating “decisions for Christ”. But it was dismaying in that it indicated (no pun intended) how little the organization actually knew about what was happening in the field.

    Some time later I saw The Jesus Film at a local church outreach, and I thought it was a quite good representation of the Gospel of Luke (and the translation of the film, lip-synced, into numerous languages may be an enduring bit of missiological genius). The segue into “the 4 spiritual laws” at the end — which I suppose was to get the viewers ready to make their marks on the response cards — was to me quite jarring as it seemed to me that it bore little connection to what had previously been presented. IMO The Jesus Film was not evangelism, but pre-evangelism and, rather than looking for vague “decisions” after the film, they should simply have been content to invite the viewers to form connections with local churches in order to “learn more” (which I’m sure they tried to do. Maybe the “indicated decisions” metric was necessary to make the donors feel that their contributions were accomplishing something).

  123. Dave A A: They were disagreeing about grace somehow… he might have meant “license”…. maybe someone recalls the theology behind it.

    Yeah, he started espousing the contemporary grace movement, but there wasn’t a lot of depth to his theology, to be honest. It’s very much Arminism, so he became at odds with TGC. It also seemed to me to be very centered around himself and an attack at people who didn’t think he was still qualified to pastor.

    dee wrote about it: http://thewartburgwatch.com/2020/09/23/falling-off-the-grace-spectrum-tullian-tchividjian-on-the-left-end-and-redeemer-church-fw-on-the-right-end/

  124. Dave A A: Tullian Tschananigans and the Gospel Coalition … They were disagreeing about grace somehow… he might have meant “license”…. maybe someone recalls the theology behind it.

    IMO, Tullian is a classical antinomian … believing that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law … which he obviously demonstrated via multiple affairs while “pastor.” He will make a good living touting that “gospel” in America because a lot of 21st century churchgoers want to live in the world and of the world just like Tullian … antinomianism provides them that home.

  125. ishy: It’s very much Arminism

    Tullian’s gospel is very much Antinomianism … cheap grace which is not Grace at all.

  126. Samuel Conner: The segue into “the 4 spiritual laws” at the end — which I suppose was to get the viewers ready to make their marks on the response cards — was to me quite jarring as it seemed to me that it bore little connection to what had previously been presented.

    THEY TACKED AN ALTAR-CALL ENDING ONTO THE GOSPEL OF LUKE?????

    I knew Christianese movies HAVE to have a break-the-fourth-wall Altar Call Ending, but The Gospel of Luke?

  127. Samuel Conner: The items on the hunt list started out innocuous and then segued toward “spiritual”, eventually leading to “the 4 Laws” — Oh, you don’t have that? Let me offer you one — and the hoped for conversation.

    They didn’t lead with “If You Died Right Now, Do You KNOW Where YOU Would Spend ETERNITY?????”

    And the Four Spiritual Laws are direct knockoffs of the section headings of The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuit guided meditation.

  128. ishy: My last Baptist church was big on volunteerism to get new members, but once you were a member, all there was for you was volunteering unless you fit a certain demographic to be in a small group. That demographic was 30-50s married couples with children. Nearly all the groups were aimed at people in that group. Even people that attended without spouses were not welcome in small groups. Single people were expected to give all their time to volunteering, even during the services. No church, no small groups, no fellowship.

    I think both are the wrong way to go about it. Either be in or excluded from a clique or don’t get fed at all doesn’t make church a place people want to go once they join.

    Once FC moved to its permanent Grapevine location, their emphasis seems to totally shift toward married couples (since Grapevine and the neighboring areas are fairly affluent). The once-strong singles group seemed to fade: either people got married or left for someplace else. To this day I don’t know who I offended or what I might have said or done: if someone would have told me I could either have repented and promised to do better, or denied it totally.

  129. Max: Tullian’s gospel is very much Antinomianism … cheap grace which is not Grace at all.

    See, I can’t even define it as that, because I don’t think he applies it universally as a theology. I think it’s more about him doing what he wants and calling it “grace”, while throwing in a few theology terms to make it sound better.

  130. ishy: I think it’s more about him doing what he wants and calling it “grace”, while throwing in a few theology terms to make it sound better.

    That’s essentially what Bonhoeffer referred to as “cheap grace” … which, in my mind, is the essence of antinomianism.

  131. Dave A A: I guess he’s one who really does practice what he preaches.

    The problem is, Tullian followers would be more inclined to do that too.

    “Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). Tullian would not preach the second half of that verse.

  132. Max: “Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). … [fill in name] would not preach the second half of that verse.

    1/2 verses, half-truths (IOW, lies) are a problem.

    “Be strong …” in the Lord.
    “Wives submit …” Husbands love your wife, & BTW, both should mutually submit.
    “Confess your sin …” [of telling the truth about predators, then forgive & forget what you witnessed of the predator?]
    “Touch not My anointed …” [Are predatory clergy anointed? By whom?]
    “Confess your sins …” and bring forth the fruit (recompense, yes, it does say that) of repentance, which is evidence.
    “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, & strength…” and love your neighbor as yourself.

    Maybe others have been misled with half-truths, too; looking for a friend.

  133. Ava Aaronson: 1/2 verses, half-truths (IOW, lies) are a problem.

    Or how about cherry-picking half of a passage, taking text out of context. I once had a conversation with a young New Calvinist “pastor” in my area after hearing him refer to Romans 8:1 “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ.” His overall message sort of had a “You can live anyway you want to” theme to it. I approached him after his sermon and noted that my trusty ole KJV expanded Romans 8:1 to read “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” He held up his ESV and said “No, it’s not there.” To which I responded that the truth about walking in the flesh vs. the spirit was indeed there, even in his ESV, if he would read the whole of Romans chapter 8 carefully. He offered no counter argument, smiled and walked away … as young church members who had just heard his message exited the church convinced that they could do whatever in the flesh the following week and still please God.

  134. Max,

    Great example, Max. Like “there’s no condemnation” without the rest means there’s no Holy Spirit conviction in the heart, and no consequences in the end. Christianity as a free-for-all. Been there, heard that, too.

  135. Ava Aaronson: Authoritarianism cures all. Everybody gets to be a hero. The children & women who submit to this stuff, and the men who lead them – by following god’s leaders.

    Christians seem to have this mad and torrid Love Affair with Dictatorship, both Ecclesiastical and Political.

  136. singleman: Another reason I was interested is that the post discusses David Platt, who’s practically in my backyard as senior pastor of McLean Bible Church.

    McLean Bible as in DC area or Northern Virginia?

  137. Mark R: Once FC moved to its permanent Grapevine location

    Which “Grapevine”?
    Where I am, “Grapevine” refers to the mountain passes between the Central Valley and Los Angeles on what’s now I-5. (The twisting four-lane pre-I-5 version was immortalized as “Grapevine Hill” in the song “Hot Rod Lincoln”.) MOre specifically the northernmost grade just before I-5 empties into the Central Valley; there was a small “service plaza” called “Grapeviine” (now replaced by Wheeler Ridge to the north) right where the mountains end.