Aw man, I used to like Pac-Man. Now it will be forever linked with the Ferengi.

Anna: I watched this happen 3 times, firsthand, as an employee of a megachurch. Now we were told by leadership that these struggling churches came to THEM looking for a lifeline. That explanation never sounded right to me. Assets were aquired … it was a complete and utter takeover … They could have just helped the churches in other ways without completely taking them over.

The mega obviously didn’t follow the Biblical example of the Macedonian church which helped other churches in need:

“I can guarantee that they were willing to give to the limit of their means, yes and beyond their means, without the slightest urging from me or anyone else. In fact they simply begged us to accept their gifts and so let them share the honours of supporting their brothers in Christ. Nor was their gift, as I must confess I had expected, a mere cash payment. Instead they made a complete dedication of themselves first to the Lord and then to us, as God’s appointed ministers.” (2 Cor 8:1-5)

The mega leaders obviously had more on their mind than “supporting their brothers in Christ.” There will be a payday someday for these folks.

Normally, a congregation would hire (they pay the salary, they approve the hire) a pastor who then serves the Lord by serving them.

Qualifications for a church leader are listed in the NT, serving to guide the congregation in their hire.

Since when did the congregation with their powerful resources and decision-making power become sitting ducks for a con/leader?

Maybe it comes down to the demographics of an area. I haven’t seen this happen in our city. There are some mini megas but they don’t seem to be eating each other yet.

However they did take a big bite from all the established denominations. Except the RC church. They were able to stay vibrant because of an influx of immigrants.

We drove through the states last year and between Kansas City & Houston did not see a single mega church. Just a whole whack of small ones. Particularly in North Texas.

Sometimes clusters of them. Baptist. Baptist. Baptist. Pentecostal. RC. Baptist.

First, just gotta say- LOVE the link to the Farengi rules of acquisition.

Jack: Maybe it comes down to the demographics of an area. I haven’t seen this happen in our city.

I suspect it happens where there is MONEY to be made. Because I notice groups like Harvest Bible Chapel don’t take their franchise to small towns. Nope. They select instead suburban areas of upper middle class people. They show up with a “launch team” consisting of a pastor, worship band and 40 or 50 members (some of whom have even moved to another state to help launch this new church). And suddenly there’s a new, exciting “biblical” church everyone can run to. Nt a superstar pastor like you’ve mentioned above, but “It’s the Harvest brand, so we can trust it.”

Ricco: The hubris it takes to believe you have the one true version of Christianity that needs to be franchised is astounding

Indeed. As though God’s Body on earth can be franchised to produce a standard product. Reducing our relationship to God to a set of “7 principals” or “9 Marks”.

The leaders of Harvest Bible Chapel in my hometown (not Chicago) congratulate themselves on how great they are at church planting all over the US. Nevermind the mega debt to fund that new building. And no one EVER talks about the fact that members are all just sheep shifters.

Since we are using Star Trek references, I would liken these guys more to the Borg! The Borg are far more sinister and powerful than the Ferengi. These “church planters” only want our resources and assets but have absolutely no interest in us, much like the Borg! In our situation, they had used a NAMB-sponsored planter to set up shop literally down the street from our church after we declined their ‘help’. The Borg’s big catch-phrase is, “You will be assimilated, resistance is futile!” Yep, that sounds like the church planting crowd to me!

I don’t know what I think about all of it.

I have seen this happen in the health care industry, and frankly the ‘little’ hospital in one of our adjacent counties is far better off since it became basically a ‘campus’ as it were of one of the major hospital corporations than what happened to a similar hospital where I was in a different county and which tried to go it alone.

Well, I get it that medicine and religion are two different industries. At the same time, however, I saw small town retail not able to compete with big box retail, and frankly for me the big box was far better for my financial situation, no matter how much it changed the social structure of ‘downtown small town’.

We now have a ‘situation’ in our church which could have been much better handled privately and with a degree of anonymity had it been in a big church with elders to solve it. This ‘situation’ (consensual adultery between co-equal adults not from the same church or community) did not need to splatter all over everything-for everybody’s sake since there was not and never had been any element of risk to anybody. The church has ways of dealing with individual sin, and forcing everybody’s face into the commode is not one of those ways. Private confession to a trained priest/ pastor has its uses.

So, I don’t know. I do know, that when I visited the ‘big’ local catholic church and saw liturgy in a large group it ‘felt’ different than at our church or at the smaller catholic church in town. So is that good or not? Like I said, I don’t know. Maybe we as a nation need both life styles. I do note that Jesus preached outdoors to the huge crowds and also sat down with his followers in what might be called a small group.

One insight: I grew up with one foot in the city and one foot in the country but no body parts in any small town. Maybe it is how one grew up and what one’s temperament is and where one feels comfortable. There is more privacy in either the city or the country than in the small town.

In my former neo-Reformed former tradition, I noticed an unusual business/marketing phenomenon: Given that the nuclear family is the primary idol of this sect, which plays into the strict gender roles lunacy, I found it so odd that the majority of Southern Baptist Seminary students in the 90’s/2000’s (as the Piper multi-level marketing scheme was just hitting its stride) were early middle-aged men who were leaving established careers which they used to support school-aged children, because they had received their “calling.” This crowd typically doesn’t speak about heeding God as he calls you to abandon your responsible way of life to sponge off of others (because, hey, tithes and offering weren’t meant to fund new business ventures, and someone’s paying for that “full ride” scholarship). And it was a strange moving of the spirit (and I mean lust for recognition and greed) that quickened so many men to pursue this spiritual calling that up to this point had not been evidenced by any discernible sacrificial living in service to the least of these. But that’s just my take.

Anna: Now we were told by leadership that these struggling churches came to THEM looking for a lifeline. That explanation never sounded right to me. Assets were aquired, names changed, massive renovations, and messages piped in on the big screen.

This is the story of Evergreen Christian Fellowship of Sammamish WA, which agreed to a takeover by Mars Hill to ease financial difficulties. Then when Mars Hill broke apart, the building was sold for $6.1 million and profits distributed to faithful (to Park Fiscal) campus pastors as seed money. Remaining Sammamish muttonchops were told they could just drive to Bellevue as part of the newly replanted “Doxa”.
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/10/throckmorton-mars-hill-sammamish.html

Ricco: If you care about “the local church” and the community, then large churches should send some members to smaller churches. Not to take them over, but to help them out.

Amen! Too many mega-wannabe pastors want to be THE local church, not one of them. In the case of New Calvinism, if you believe that you have come into the world for such a time as this to restore the gospel that the rest of the church has lost, you probably don’t give two hoots if you cause the rest of the churches to fold by attracting their members to your cool church. It was predestined, you know.

“”We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.””

Sounds more like the new Calvinism

J.M.

I stay away from the mega churches. I have always thought there was something wrong when all the in crowd want to go to a church to make it a mega. And usually the old saying holds true. “A mile wide and an inch deep”.

Judas Maccabeus:
“”We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.””

Yes, we can become part of the “Collective!” 🙂

Sounds more like the new Calvinism

J.M.

And while we are at it, let me stir the mix a tad more. (No, the Deebs do not pay me to keep the pot stirred.)

I read the link from a recent comment written about ‘Arminianisms” written by a calvinist theologian and now I am reading a book by a Catholic abbot about the idea of sacramentalism in the scholastic tradition, and they both said the same thing. Both authors, from very different viewpoints, have said that it is calvinism (the Catholic used the word Puritans) that are the opposite of catholicism, not the rest of protestantism. The calvinist theologian was scathing in his denunciation of ‘arminianisms’ and the Catholic specifically noted that he meant Puritans, not Protestants as a whole.

So, if one thinks about that, they are correct. So, when the ‘reformed’ among us claim to be the one true ‘reformed’, as to doctrine they may be rather accurate in some ways. Since I am not reformed I tooteth not my own horn, just saying that this way of looking at the issues may indeed be an idea with some merit. So if Al says where ya goona go he is basically saying something similar.

So, 500 years later we have the reformation issues all over again? Hmmm.

Root 66: our church has a lot of assets that these guys are licking their chops over!

And, you mention, you were searching for a pastor.

Your treasurer/deacon got it right.

The fact that a church has assets… explains a lot. (real estate, tithers, location, a school or preschool, particular facilities – electronics, for example)

okrapod,

Nature and nurture in essence? Yes. Different churches and/or parachurch groups for different people (for good or ill)? Yea and amen. One influence on the viability of megachurches may be generation types.

One theory is there are 4 types, each occurring in succession, that repeat. See Strauss-Howe generational theory/Wikipedia. I have read that one reason that Canadians (ditto UK and France) are different from Americans is that the generations went out of sync after the Civil War: the tragedy turned what would have been a third type (Dominant [most leadership positions open up] Civic) into a fourth (Recessive [fewer leadership positions available] Adaptive). American Boomers are Dominant Idealistic (first type); Canadian Boomers are Recessive Adaptive. Some members of the American counterculture were frighteningly hardcore, for example; Canadians (my generation) went along with the movement, were more casual. At the church I attended and worked for (custodian) during the early Nineties, the young people were Generation X (Dominant Idealistic, eg spiritually minded, crusading). The group was large, pushed for modern music and casual dress at church and produced their own, crusading, publication.

Since American Boomers are partial to large gatherings, seeker-sensitive megachurches flourished. Since Canadian Boomers like smaller gatherings where people may be known and recognized, there were only some mini megachurches.

Influence is multi-faceted. I have a temperamental bent toward bigness in general, eg drawn to large companies and construction sites, and I don’t want a lot of “friendliness” if I visit a church.

Generational types are thought to explain why adults get along better with children than young people and why older adults get along better with young people: similarly dominant or recessive. When I was at the above mentioned church, the young people seemed uncomfortably high powered, unlike the more congenial children. At my next (now previous) church, Generation Y’s were becoming young adults, and I found those young people more pleasant.

Root 66: The issue, to me, is their desire to make their big church even bigger and eliminate any ‘competition’. Especially through means that are ungodly and deceptive.

Yes, that’s my overriding concern as well … the attitude of their heart.

Root 66: We are a Kingdom, and Kingdoms work on different premises than do businesses.

Much of the 21st century church in America has lost track of that.

I am having such fun with this surely divine judgment is waiting at my door.

There are those who seem to think that wealth is a sign that one is favored (blest) by God and somehow better than those who have less wealth. There is also the old tradition that abject poverty, think Francis of Assisi and his ilk, is a sign of advanced saintliness and the thusly poor are better than those who have financial resources.

Other than that, how is it that the smaller church that has lands and buildings and laid back designated funds and low debt to the extent that the bigger church wants those resources is somehow doing it for the kingdom, laying up treasures on earth, while the larger church is not doing it for the kingdom when they do the same thing?

For the sake and of the accountants and theologians what is the net worth, what bottom line, at which it switches from being for the kingdom and not being for the kingdom? When should a church, large or small sell off property and re-allocate the funds elsewhere for the benefit of their own souls?

Or is it that literally if you have two coats one of them should be given away? Is that the number..two? It used to be said ‘back when’ that a missionary should live at the level of the average high school teacher in the host country. That would be, of course, little more than a subsistence level in some countries. Should we each and all, large and small alike, be doing that? For the same of the kingdom.

Jack: Maybe it comes down to the demographics of an area. I haven’t seen this happen in our city. There are some mini megas but they don’t seem to be eating each other yet.

Same here, Jack. We don’t even have bearded neo-cal hipsters trying to plant churches and mostly hanging out at Starbucks. [Only recently, we got a Starbucks!]

I think these shenanigans are more common in larger urban areas, especially the ones that are growing and have high real estate costs. Places where things are changing quickly, and where there is more money.

Max: Too many mega-wannabe pastors want to be THE local church, not one of them.

I have seen this, Max, even here. The logic is that the “Church” is God’s plan to save the world, or at least a few people, and we call our organization a church, so therefor we are at the center of God’s plan, [and of course WE are getting the Gospel right], and you should join and give us lots of time and money. There is no mention of the other churches on the same street, or in the same town. Because they are, in a business sense, the competition.

okrapod,

I have not, however, been drawn to the typical megachurch because I am NOT fond of “contemporary” worship music. Yes, I grew up with rock and roll, starting to listen to the hit parade in the mid 60’s, but even so. At my Anglican church, music for the morning services is traditional (along with some modern serious music that is too dissonant for my taste [I used to be fond of that kind of music as well]). The evening service has contemporary music.

This issue is nothing new. On the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Ideas program there was a presentation on Gregorian Chant. The early church rejected musical instruments, in spite of OT endorsement, because of their association with pagan “rock music” (loud and repetitive). (The universal rejection of instruments has been elsewhere disputed, however, being in any case a later development. Nor can I speak for the truth of the broadcast at this point.)

GSD [Getting Stuff Done]: [and of course WE are getting the Gospel right], and you should join and give us lots of time and money

“It is your eternal obligation to join ‘our’ church; the only ‘real’ church in town. We alone possess truth; we alone preach and teach correct doctrine.”

Law Prof: Of course, to beat a dead horse, it’s about the heart, and I’ve seen tiny churches where the leaders lusted after power and domination and wealth and set up little fiefdoms that were absolute horrors of abuse.

Which is why the House Church movement (just Me and Thee in our little New Testament Church in our house) raises a red flag with me. There’s NO outside Reality Check when things go into Cult Country. How high up the CULT tree can you climb?

Ken F (aka Tweed): We could add Harry Mudd as the role model for their pastors…

No, Harry Mudd was a buffoon.
These guys are genuinely DANGEROUS.

Headless Unicorn Guy: “In America, everything starts as a Movement, turns into a Business, and ends up as a Racket.”

The American church could use a Bowel Movement right now … to purge it from the waste within it … wasted words, wasted time, wasted money, wasted faith because it’s wasted on the wrong things.

Ray,

I have no knowledge of Auxano. Nor would I have any interest in learning about them, other then the name means “increase.” I do have observations from previous experience that colour my thinking regarding church consulting.
Basically, I regard it as a complete waste.

I also view it as bad hygiene.
There are some things we don’t do in real life because we know it results in the spread of parasites, venereal disease or food contamination. But for some reason in the House of God, all critical thinking gets shut off.

Church consulting exist for the express purpose of influencing the host church. But that influence, is not motivated to make the host “better” or “improved.” Is so, the host would be told to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and have a nice day.

If your church had a pre-existing condition resulting in a desire for outside intervention, you’ll just have more of it afterwards. That, and invoicing.

Consulting may result in major improvements in professional, and superficial appearance. If the Church is in a rut, getting told to get your butts out of the rut, can in fact result in leaving a rut. But is any “improvement” a change of heart, or is it deferred facilities maintenance?

Max: The American church could use a Bowel Movement right now … to purge it from the waste within it … wasted words, wasted time, wasted money, wasted faith because it’s wasted on the wrong things.

“THIS WHOLE TOWN NEEDS AN ENEMA!”
— The Joker, Tim Burton’s Batman

“The beatings will continue until morale improves”

The words of my last manager/boss.

Those same words haunt me now as my experience with the “church” models I have had contact with are very good at breaking me into peices but no desire at all in fixing the damage wrought by the purveyors of the business of hypocrisy.
My love for my Savior is whole and solid, my view of the institutions selling themselves as “His” seems appropriately skeptical in light of the damages done in his name over the ages.

God Saves, Man destroys in his name.
http://godslittleacre.net/spiritualgrowth/the_pit.html

jyjames: For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

The writer of Ecclesiastes does not agree. Nor do I (in a partial sense). When brought into balance, there’s nothing wrong with the lust (desires) of the flesh and the desire of the eyes.

To me, much of the New Testament’s ethos is redolent with Greek dualism, an either/or proposition with no middle ground. As I’ve commented here before, certain aspects of Judaism, and especially its regard to a common sense approach to real life in the here and now, makes much more sense than traditional Christianity.

Nathan Priddis,

At the very least, hiring a company to grow your church doesn’t seem like the leadership is being guided by the Spirit and trusting in God no matter what happens.

I bet there is a Pac-Man arcade game in the dorm lobby at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

B Badger:
Law Prof,

Good points. I do, on the other hand, (mostly) enjoy my interactions with others at my church, where most of my socializing occurs.

Of course. I’m talking about the various manufactured moments, often directed by leadership, which force a form of church fellowship upon the congregation, but without the underlying reality of that fellowship.

I was an elder at such a church; we joined about a year after it was planted by a former SGM leader and Master’s Seminary graduate. People were thrown together in this church plant, some coming from over a thousand miles away. There was little real cohesion there. So it was manufactured. People acted so over-the-top friendly, all these young, good-looking people, full of energy and—we thought—love of Jesus and others. We were love-bombed into it, everyone so happy to see us, and a decade ago, when this happened, didn’t have the experience to see through it. The message was controlled from the top, we were told from the pulpit (heard this with my own ears) that our opinions were not as legitimate as those of the leaders. The first meeting of the elders after I was appointed involved the head pastor looking at each of us and asked “Are you onboard?” We were required to answer this question one-at-a-time in front of all—no manipulation there! The question was not whether we loved Jesus, if we were onboard with that, but were we onboard with “the mission” of our “local church”, the “vision” of pastor. The church had small groups led by loyal lieutenants of the head pastor (who, I assume, reported back on the loyalty of the various members to the head honcho). Things were controlled that way. When a young man (who later became my son-in-law) proposed having a bible study on his own, he was opposed. There was no room for Jesus outside of the leaders. Of course it didn’t last, the church ceased to exist within a few years. Too much abuse and control. Too little Jesus. Real fellowship was actively discouraged. THAT is the sort of thing I oppose.

Law Prof: The first meeting of the elders after I was appointed involved the head pastor looking at each of us and asked “Are you onboard?” We were required to answer this question one-at-a-time in front of all—no manipulation there! The question was not whether we loved Jesus, if we were onboard with that, but were we onboard with “the mission” of our “local church”, the “vision” of pastor.

“WE ARE UNITED BEHIND THE VISIONARY!”
— Pastor Furtick’s Elevation Sunday School Coloring Book

I don’t think Pac-Man quite fits as an analogy. I think Kirby does (Nintendo platform). Yes, the adorable pink ball eats his enemies just like Pac-Man. However, he also absorbs the powers of whatever enemies he consumes, and then can use those powers against future enemies.

And with the advent of Kirby All-Star Allies on Nintendo Switch, he can now throw hearts at his enemies, too, and brainwash them into becoming his new best friends to fight his enemies, until he decides they’ve outlived their usefulness and discards them in exchange for better “friends”.

Nathan Priddis:
Regarding church hygiene. The autonomy of a local church is both defensive and isolative. Should a church go wacko, autonomy should function as a firewall in theory. Church networking and spiritual covering between leaders bypasses this built in safety feature.

I haven’t seen much evidence that institutional churches are better then autonomous ones. While there may be more checks and balances, I think there’s just as much tendency to protect the institution over individuals.

jyjames: they waited in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit before beginning their church building enterprise or activities

That’s too old-fashioned, JY. Church planters don’t do that these days … who needs the Holy Spirit when you have Mohler, Piper, Driscoll, etc. to guide you?! The American church has pretty much gotten over the Holy Spirit.

Law Prof: “WE ARE UNITED BEHIND THE VISIONARY!”
— Pastor Furtick’s Elevation Sunday School Coloring Book

You need to start washing those brains at a young age.

jyjames: Like the post reads, “a celebrity-based kingdom”.

I find very little in the American church that resembles the Kingdom of God which Jesus preached about … a Heaven on earth to be experienced by believers in the here and now. I suppose it’s so much easier to fall in line with the kingdoms of men – to follow celebrities rather than Christ – than to seek ye first the Kingdom of God. To do the latter, you have to shut out all the noise of church-as-business and its band of charlatans.

Max: to seek ye first the Kingdom of God. To do the latter, you have to shut out all the noise of church-as-business and its band of charlatans.

Helpful reminder, Max. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you,” Matt. 6:23.

(Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them … in giving to the poor, in praying, in fasting, in not storing up earthly treasures; you cannot serve God and wealth so don’t worry, trust God to care for you, but seek God & His kingdom. – Matt. 6)

Law Prof,

You brought back memories of the cultish Restoration church I went to. (Such organizations tend to have some sort of carrot on a stick: in this case some sort of ministry position, whether a church position or sent out to plant a new church. A great revival was also predicted. leaving me with the impression that I would have an effective [Spirit empowered] role in it.) Love-bombing? You bet, eg invitations until people put feet to their perception that I wasn’t their cup of tea. The pastor even referenced the drop off (leading to discouragement, so hang in there) in one of his messages. Relationships that were actually toxic and unfulfilling, leaving me frustrated? Afraid so. Hearing about loyalty, catching the vision? Lack of balance between the LOCAL CHURCH and the Universal Church. (One time the pastor told us that God uses other churches as though he was doing them a big favour, saying something surprising.) Oh dear. Believing that leaders and maybe hard-core followers were especially spiritual? Leaders knew best? (Check with the leadership [“mature men”] re your interpretations of Scripture, any ideas about your type of service [none of this personal initiative now!].) Small groups led by core members who might report “problems”? Lack of relationship with God and others? All true. If a group seems like a loving family, is it because not much else is allowed socially? (The pastor told us to not spend too much time with those who weren’t for the church.) If people seem super-dedicated, is it because little other involvement is allowed?

I looked up Auxano ‘s site. Marketing, marketing, marketing.Logos? And it looks like funding is one of the major goals…..Where’s Jesus? Where is salvation?

Where is the church headed?

Abigail:
I get really irritated by the whole concept of a sattelite church with an onscreen “pastor.”. Last time I checked scripture a pastor is supposed to …well…”pastor” and care for his flock. Seriously?? Who came up with this $tuff?????

I was at a church dinner a few months ago, and the guy down the table was talking about the satellite church in our city that broadcasts their pastor from the main campus every week. All their pastor’s sermons are streamed online.

He said, “If they can beam in a virtual pastor, why can’t they have virtual congregants, too?”

Dave A A,

“This is the story of Evergreen Christian Fellowship of Sammamish WA, which agreed to a takeover by Mars Hill to ease financial difficulties. Then when Mars Hill broke apart, the building was sold for $6.1 million and profits distributed to faithful (to Park Fiscal) campus pastors as seed money. Remaining Sammamish muttonchops were told they could just drive to Bellevue as part of the newly replanted “Doxa”.”
+++++++++++++++++++

this enrages me. i would guess that building had been originally funded by sacrificial giving at great personal cost on the part of faithful people long ago with great hopes of helping their community.

it was stolen.

You guys are HILARIOUS! I mean knee-slapped, belly laughing, roll-in-the-floor hilarious! I’d make the introductions between Pot (You, the supposedly pure-as-the-wind-driven snow local, traditional church), and Kettle (the certifiably apostate, man-centered, corporate world, Hollywood production Mega-Church movement), but I can’t fight my way through all the Strawmen and Anecdotes that clutter the place.

Everything you say about the Megachurch movement is true, and worse, and more; your only error on that score is you fail to go far enough in describing the shameless pragmatism, devoid of any faith in God, that rules that whole movement.

But what you fail to see is, they learned everything they know from you! You are the Jedi Knights of pragmatism, they are but the Padawan learners at the knee of your pragmatism. You are the Sensei, they are but the pupils that bow at your trough of pragmatism.

Who did you turn too in the 60s and 70s, oh Precious Local Traditional Church, when the Free Love-Drugs-Rock ‘n Roll movement came sweeping in like a horde? Did you turn to the power of the Gospel, the power of Jesus to “save our youth”? No, you turned to the electric guitar and the snare drum and the pool table in the youth room to try and “reach our young people” by being hip and cool. (And you froth and boil about “Worship Wars” – you started them with your unbelief in the power of Christ!).

You’re the original pragmatists! You’re the original “seeker movement”, “attractional movement” that you rail against in this very post! You’re joined at the hip with them, you’re kissing cousins!

This quote is just too precious: “Pac-Man churches brings in lots of pastors to run the show, usually along with the celebrity pastor, along with an incredible children’s ministry, awesome worship band for thee first Sunday and other programs”.

Good heavens! I’m a life long Southern Baptist, and you’ve just described every traditional SBC church I’ve ever been a part of, and two I’ve pastored, long before Matt Chandler or JD Greear even held a candle to perfecting your art.

“Awesome worship band”? Are you kidding me? Southern Baptists have long had more confidence in their massive choirs, they’re Southern Gospel homecomings – and yes they’re “praise bands” – than the power of the Gospel and the simple singing of the congregation for decades – long before Hillsong became a household word, long before Calvinism became your latest bogeyman.

“Incredible children’s ministries”? Are you really that tone-deaf and blind? “Incredible children’s ministries” have been the heart and soul of Southern Baptist life since I was turning popsicle sticks into Noah’s Ark in SBC VBS. Heaven forbid trying to have a regular Wednesday night prayer meeting in your average, local, community SBC church – you’ll get run out with pitchforks and torches by the Kid’s Musical gang!

Are you all really that self-unaware? Can you not see there’s not a whit’s bit of difference between you’re precious, traditional local church and the megachurch than bandwidth, volume, and skinny jeans? Oh, and the fact that the mega church tends to vote for Hillary, and the traditional local church tends to vote for Trump.

Pac Man churches? You’re the one that dropped the quarter in the slot.

When Pokemon Go came out, I wondered if Augmented Reality would be a future social media.

If you don’t really like your local church, perhaps you could logon to a remote group.

*360 degree cameras can give you a room wide panorama.
*AR allows for imagery to be superimposed.

The definition of video is amazing, but at what point is HD good enough. What would it be like if instead the objective is to take me “there” instead of showing “there” “here.”

I think an initial step would be for a guest speaker to show up with limited angular interaction. A second would possible holographic projection on wall film. The speaker would now have a limited room footprint. But it feels like room size is a huge limiting factor.

Ken F (aka Tweed): We could have so much fun with Auxano here.

The founder Auxano lists some of his favorite speakers: https://www.willmancini.com/blog/whiteboard-sessions-a-lesson-in-focus

The line of speakers was great including Mark Batterson, Ed Stetzer, Perry Noble, Mark Dever, John Burke, Darrin Patrick, and Tim Stevens. I am a fan of every one of these guys and appreciated the movement toward soul stuff (for example topics like idolatry and abiding in Christ.)

Can’t make this stuff up…

elastigirl,

Remember what Jesus had to say about those types?

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”

Ken F (aka Tweed): The founder Auxano lists some of his favorite speakers: https://www.willmancini.com/blog/whiteboard-sessions-a-lesson-in-focus

I poked around his blog some, and he quoted an interesting statistic from Barna. Only 1 in 7 “pastors” is under 40. Which means, most of them are old, and many are approaching retirement. There will be some major shifts in leadership, and the topic of “succession” will be heard more often.

Law Prof: I don’t know how many people a person can “pastor” because I can’t even find in the Bible a description of what a pastor is or really, what they do necessarily.

I agree, completely. I tend to use the term from a cultural perspective, where it’s sort of the Protestant version of “priest,” or a generic term for “church leader.” I should note that the Episcopal church I grew up in had priests, who were usually married.

Lydia: People put a lot of stock in being “shepherded”. And they seem to spend a lot of time looking for an honest shepherd. It was a major topic at SGM survivor. Don’t we all have access to THE Shepherd?

It’s almost as if there’s a part of the human makeup that wants to be told what to do. A part that does not want the responsibility of making its own decisions, owning them, and then living with them.

ishy: “If they can beam in a virtual pastor, why can’t they have virtual congregants, too?”

and tithe in bitcoin.

GSD [Getting Stuff Done]: celebrity pastor

Celebrity leaders forget that: “You don’t have to be a star to twinkle,” Dr. Honey Snow, Frasier reruns.

From echurch music this week, Chris Rice:
“… There is a Spirit who brings a fire
Ignites a candle and makes His home

“So carry your candle, run to the darkness
Seek out the helpless, confused and torn
Hold out your candle for all to see it
Take your candle, and go light your world.”

jyjames: Take your candle, and go light your world.

Pastor Wade, holding out his candle for all to see (without posturing as a celeb):
“It seems to me that we’ve got a problem with the issue of authority,” he continued. “For some reason we think men have authority over everybody else.”

“When you take away this idea that men, particularly ministers, have authority over anybody, then you come to where Jesus is, to empower people in the way they are gifted by the Holy Spirit to serve in his kingdom,” Burleson said.

https://baptistnews.com/article/southern-baptists-grapple-with-metoo-complicity/#.W0WmWdJKjIV

Nick Bulbeck,

Right.

ION: Fitba: So we’ll revisit the The Hundred Years’ War…

With respect to original post, and actually most OP on the WW, I have one fairly simple thought…..
I was always taught, and thought, that “being a Christian” is to follow Christ. Is swallowing up “little churches” into one large mega church “Christlike”?

Ray: Ended up the meeting was not an open discussion. It was a “teaching” session about the auxano framework (picture frame) with a strong hint 50s+ group should step aside and be the support for the “younger” people

Getting back to the Star Trek theme, I think our generation is viewed as Tribbles: cute and fun but in the way and far too numerous. “The Trouble with Tribbles”

In my case, I knew nothing about Auxano until I confronted the board of elders on the sudden decision to cancel adult education (the Pastor or Discipleship” came into our class and announced the next one would be the last). It turned out that the board of elders was not all in agreement, which resulted in me getting a private inside look at what was going on. The senior pastor finally held a meeting with those interested. It turnes out it was a briefing with almost no opportunity for discussion. It was a done deal.

Because Auxano seemed to have convinced church “leadership” that adult education did not fit the vision, I was unofficially told we would need to call our class a Life Group and we would need to find another time and place to meet because there would be no educational opportunities for adults on Sunday mornings. The message was we are leeches. Even “Bible studies” were discouraged because they did not fit the vision.

Back then I did not know about New Calvinist takeovers. In hindsight, I believe it was an attempt by a young elder and part of the pastoral staff to start such a takeover. I had a pretty strong argument with that young elder, and my wife took great notes during the last meeting with the class that documented the displeship pastor lying to us. That young elder eventually left the board and the whole issue was dropped. But that pastor is still in place and I still see the movement toward New Calvinism. I don’t want to be there when it finally happens.

Nick Bulbeck: I don’t think there’s ever been a war between France and Croatia.

As the 1794 poem so poetically put it: “Zakaj išli bi Horvati prot Francuzu vojevati” or “Why should the Croatians wage a war against the French?” But in the subsequent years many Croatians did just that. Then there were a series of skirmishes in the early 1940s when the *Independent* State of Croatia was allied with Der Fuehrer and France was allied with the Allies.
IHTIH

Ken F (aka Tweed): Getting back to the Star Trek theme, I think our generation is viewed as Tribbles: cute and fun but in the way and far too numerous. “The Trouble with Tribbles”

Except while you and the pew-warmers are watching “The Trouble with Tribbles”, the twentysomething Truly Reformed Pastor is watching “Patterns of Force”.

Lydia:
Ken F (aka Tweed),

“But that pastor is still in place and I still see the movement toward New Calvinism. I don’t want to be there when it finally happens.”

The people left won’t know when “it” happened, in my experience. Most churches have a lot of tolerance for the new guys and want to cooperate. Many churches voted for him. They are personally invested. So, it’s a subtle reorganization usually done by enlisting a few influential people. Add to that, people don’t want to appear negative so they are overly careful questioning things. It’s a perfect set up. My former church was elated when the last Neo Cal pastor left. He absolutely used them, just about ravaged the church and then bragged in his last sermon the church was in better shape than ever as God was calling him to a mega a thousand miles away. No one said a word about his delusion. Just glad he was gone. Another year of looking and they just hired another young Neo Cal who I knew as extremelyarrogant 10 years ago in another church before he got a mega staff pastor gig in another state. Shampoo, rinse, repeat.

It’s like they learned nothing.

This is exactly why we felt led to stay and confront our pastor as a liar and deceiver. People in the church wanted to work with him when he first came because it was his first pastorate and we all wanted to help out. However, he never listened to anyone’s wisdom, concerns or advice. He was extremely arrogant and haughty for someone who had not been in the Lord’s service for very long. He could have learned from so many who had served the Lord for years, but he just saw us as a bunch of ignorant hicks!

In a fairly short period of time, it became quite evident that he was leading the congregation down this (reformed) path. We confronted him with his non-disclosure of his adherence to reformed theology and thankfully, he took his ball and went home!

Law Prof:

So this talk of “pastoring” just can’t be understood in the light we put it.It would seem to be best understood as a humble servant, willing to die for others, doing the thankless stuff, shunning the spotlight and stage, going around to others and asking “How can I help you?What’s God saying to you?Forget about me, how can I support you, what God’s telling you?”That sounds like a pastor to me, like a humble shepherd.

I don’t think the average church leader has any earthly clue what a pastor is—or has a clue that they certainly are not one.

Yes. Others in this thread have speculated that different language is needed to describe the celebrity megapastors.

My favored proposed term is “super-apostle”. They way Paul uses the term in the Corinthian correspondence seems to map reasonably well onto present day patterns.

Good shepherds lay down their lives for those in their care. What we see today is not “sherpherding.”

Muff Potter: It’s almost as if there’s a part of the human makeup that wants to be told what to do. A part that does not want the responsibility of making its own decisions, owning them, and then living with them.

Bingo! I have come to the conclusion that this avoidance of personal responsibility is the great ‘power’ that religious charlatans and other authoritarians have over seemingly naive people. It is so much easier to believe that it is someone else’s responsibility.

Max: In the case of New Calvinism, if you believe that you have come into the world for such a time as this to restore the gospel that the rest of the church has lost, you probably don’t give two hoots if you cause the rest of the churches to fold by attracting their members to your cool church. It was predestined, you know.

Just like Extreme Islam — going Jihad and getting their heads handed to them as their predestined scheme blows up in their faces.
“In’shal’lah… AL’LAH’U AKBAR!”

truthseeker00: Bingo! I have come to the conclusion that this avoidance of personal responsibility is the great ‘power’ that religious charlatans and other authoritarians have over seemingly naive people. It is so much easier to believe that it is someone else’s responsibility.

Some 40 years ago, Computerworld magazine had a tongue-in-cheek editorial about organizations, and how the goal of corporate organization is Infinite Power with Zero Responsibility (a la Caligula). And that the perfect organization for this is “Vortical” — a spiraling whirlwind of Utter Chaos.

Husband suggested this morning renaming tithing units as cash cows. Might have merit.

Another point re the money thing: was reminded that there was a time in the SBC when women were discouraged from working outside the home. (Bear with me–this isn’t a should women be employed or not point, but about official teaching.) Tithing was seen as legalistic and Baptists gave offerings since when it came to owing God anything, even the tithe, “Jesus paid it all.”

But when this teaching of storehouse tithing came in, suddenly the Proverbs 31 lady was not a hardworking homemaker but rather was employed outside the home. (Again, let us not go on a tangent of is this good or bad.) Back at that time we in our household wondered why “last mother’s day and all we can remember used Titus 2, including v5. Now if Titus is referenced part of 2:5 is awol.)

Ah, a stint in committee work revealed the truth: employed outside the home, the woman was now a second tithing unit in the family.

Regardless of where you fall in the old debate on women working outside the home, should any change in teaching be based on number of tithing units? Folks may change their mind on what the Bible teaches fair and square, but the one basis that seems to me forbidden is “what will bring in the most bucks?”

I wonder how many other theological changes have come not from better scholarship or better understanding but rather from a dollar driven pragmatism?

Again, not arguing women should be taught to stay home. Just pointing out what was said about the reason for the change in teaching.

dee:
Judas Maccabeus,

If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you will know that I am an unabashed Trekkie. I became a Christian during an episode of Star Trek which must be one of the weirdest conversion stories out there. You should see some of the blogs trying to prove that I am NOT a Christian due to my unique conversion.

God used my fascination with the stars and the universe to bring me to him. That is why I post posts of pics ofspace on my posts.

I am a 7 of 9 fan. I smile whenever she now shows up on episodes of Law and Order SVU and other series.

Ive always had a cosmological obsession.

Did not know your interest actually, but do recall your Trekkie mentions. It’s always been the pictures on the blog that caught my attention. I could see you might receive a hostile response to conversion.

I served six years in the A.C.E. penitentiary. The worst educational system created by man. To this day I find Bill Gothard repulsive. You had to self teach yourself everything in life, because the goal of ACE was not to learn. I could never teach myself physics. No physics, no astro-physics.

Ironically, I read your comment to take a break from pondering the Hubble Constant.

Texas Geehawd,

You make some salient points. The institutional ‘Christian’ church has been a seething pit of snakes from its origination by Constantine. IMO, it is only due to the grace of God that anything good has come out of it, ever. Why do we think there are so many splintered off denominations and churches; why do churchmembers allow these takeovers? Because in their heart of hearts, most people are hoping and looking for something better than what they have seen so far. Most are too frightened of being left alone to admit that ‘church’ is not what it pretends to be. Besides, it allows us to check off our ‘good christian’ box. Besides, somebody has to marry and bury us, and don’t think the ‘church’ doesn’t know it.

Nathan Priddis: Ironically, I read your comment to take a break from pondering the Hubble Constant.

Good idea.
I need a break from (1+sqrt(5))/2

dee,

If I ever darken the door of a church again, it’ll probably be Lutheran.
If only for the great and down to earth people there.

Samuel Conner: I’d like to think that “prophetic ministry” is a continuingly valid concept. The churches arguably have or should have a prophetic stance against injustice, for example. But assigning the title “prophet” to offices or people smacks of “new authoritative revelation” and is something, as you say, to run away from.

Also remember the word “prophet” originally meant “a mortal who speaks for a god”.
But nowadays it means “a seer scrying the future” or otherwise acting like a fortuneteller.
No “prophetic stance against injustice” but a fortune-telling show.

dee: Why America? Why not other countries that kill Christians, engage in trafficking and jihad, etc.

Because “All politics is local”, and this is just the Screaming Denouncing Prophet version of that.

“And stop screaming. Nobody likes a religion with people screaming.”
— The original Internet Monk, “I’m Weary of Weird Christians”

Anna: I hate to be so cynical. This church does a lot for the community, but I’ve seen how the ‘sausage is made’ (southern term LOL).

A friend of mine is a member of the “Assimilation Church,” and he started asking questions about the finances. Turns out that the church knows that the congregation is aging rapidly, and the younger members don’t give as much as the older members. So, at some point, they are going to have to keep “making the sausage,” but with a much lower budget. And that will probably mean less staff.

And if I was at a church with a Pastor of Assimilation, I would have to call him Locutus.

Texas Geehawd,

And some Churches talk about Martin Luther King or Obama more than they do Christ. That’s America.

Texas Geehawd,

Uh, I really don’t know what to say other than in all frankness, you’re a bit unhinged, only marginally literate, and don’t really have a clear idea what you’re talking about or to whom you’re talking. I must say, though, when you say you’re pastored two churches, you sound a lot like a few of the pastors I’ve seen—and make about as much sense.

GSD [Getting Stuff Done]:
Since we are discussing “pastors,” one of our local mini-megas had a staff member whose official title was “pastor of assimilation.”It was on the website.Sadly, that title has been changed, probably after a trekkie explained how silly the title sounded.Or how accurate the title actually was.

I also think that the modern job description of “pastor” is something we’ve invented.And based on people I’ve known, the job can be highly toxic.For many, the pay is low, the expectations are unrealistic, and the pressure is significant and often unhealthy.I’ve seen it destroy families and wreck people’s faith.There are a few who can rig the system and take advantage of the perks, but they are the minority.

Pastor of Assimilation. Yowzers! Talk about honesty in advertising.

dee:
Texas Geehawd,
After reading your comments here, I would tell people to avoid your church like the plague. Good night! What a way to introduce yourself to a group of people.

He does write like some wires got badly crossed and shorted out somewhere. He looks like a garden variety nebbish, the average innocuous uncle. But goodness, he writes like a lunatic!

What in the world is it with so many of these pastors? I have seen so many bizarre, disjointed sermons, so many pastors who truly seemed mentally ill, deeply disturbed, confused, addled. Are many of them just flat out given over to the depraved mind described in Rom 1:28?

dee:
Texas Geehawd,

I just read your church’s website.

http://www.graceinthecolony.org/?page_id=215

After reading your comments here, I would tell people to avoid your church like the plague. Good night! What a way to introduce yourself to a group of people.

Red Flag:
The church’s official name includes the word “Grace”.
Like the word “People’s Democratic” in the official name of a Third World dictatorship.

dee: Do you think those mini churches were all autonomous?

I think so. Most were in buildings that were fairly well-worn. Didn’t have that corporate look to them that you have with campus type buildings. Signs would identify the denomination eg “First Baptist Church”, “Calvary Assemblies of God”, “St. so and so Episcopal church”. We made a family game out of counting them – punchbuggy style. If they fit a couple of hundred people each, I’d be surprised.

Many looked like community halls, some were traditional church type buildings. If I were to describe the area along the highway, I would say working class and smaller farms.

Houston had more megas – we drove by Joel Osteen’s stadium – that isn’t a mega…it looks like a city unto itself!

Texas Geehawd,

Texas, I have a serious question for you. I looked at your church website, and you are obviously reformed, so in the corridors of God’s sovereignty, he called the elect, and then justified them, he predestined their election and justification, I get that is your position, my question is , what about your sanctification, has that been predestined, God ordained from the foundation of the world, or does your free will have any part in the sanctification process?

Is your default setting that if a seemingly saved individual, does not go on to sanctification, then they must have been deceived, and were actually not one of the elect. Or does God grant an elect person the free will to go on to perfection, as the Apostle Paul speaks of. I am studying Calvinism/reformed theology, and I am getting opinions all over the ball park from Calvinist….

Headless Unicorn Guy,

Interesting: Evangelical 1, 2, and 3. Thanks for the overview.

Benn: Is your default setting that if a seemingly saved individual, does not go on to sanctification, then they must have been deceived, and were actually not one of the elect.

Good luck trying to find a Calvinist who will fully address this. I’ve been trying for months and finally found this: http://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/48941. It’s the only defense I have been able to find, but it still does not answer the question of how anyone can know for sure that they are experiencing real saving grace and not false/vanishing grace. This link is not pleasant to read.

dee: have you ever thought about writing up your experience. We could post it and it could help others?

I doubt that my case is very applicable to most people because it does not fit the playbook very well. The senior pastor is a humble man and one of the best teachers I have ever encountered. He has become a rock star for the church, but I don’t think he ever wanted to be one. I believe he is under internal pressure to find a way to hold it together because if he faulters all the recent newcomers will move on to the next shiny object and the church could fail. He has painted himself into a corner by preaching too well. People flock to the church mostly because of him.

The other thing that is different is how I have been a burr under the saddle for the pastor and one of the elders. I went through the Auxano experience before I learned about New-Calvinism. So I did not yet know the playbook. When the Auxano thing happened I got invited to a meeting of three elders, but accidently short-circuited the effort of the younger elder by talking with the other two elders first. It turned out that the younger elder wanted to put me through church discipline, but I accidently short-circuited that by smoking him out when I called him to talk about it. He prides himself on being very calm but ended up getting in a yelling match with me in which I refused to budge and called him out for incorrectly applying Matt 18. I did finally agree to the meeting with the three eldera and a date was set. But I asked via email for a list of things they wanted to talk about and I gave them a list of the things I wanted to talk about. When I did not get their list on the morning of the meeting I called it off. My phone and my wife’s phone started ringing but ignored the calls and went out of town to visit friends. I insisted on them giving me the list. When we finally had the meeting it was also with most of the elders and it was like a big “Roseanne Roseannadanna” moment. The transcribed short-hand notes my wife took from an earlier meeting left them without much to say. All of a sudden the whole issue was dropped as soon as it came.

After the dust settled from that I started learning about New-Calvinism and discovered TWW. That is when I started poking the senior pastor and the one elder who remained friendly with me. They kept insisting that the church was not becoming Calvinist, nut I kept dounting and kept showing them all thhe evidence that they were leaning Calvinist. I think the Calvinism push is more from the other staff pastors – they very clearly push Calvinist theology when they fill in for the senior pastor. But even the senior pastor has seemed to fall for it lately as he has been sounding much more like Piper and has been quoting Piper. That is why I knew I had to leave.

I had been trying to find a way to stay, which why I kept asking so many questions. My wife got a bit irritated with me and asked me why I had to push so hard. She was wondering if my TWW reading me made me too worried. But now she is seeing the same thing and agrees it was time to leave. When we left there was no pressure to stay and I think the senior pastor felt bad about how thhings turned out.

I felt like the church was heading toward New-Calvinism a few years ago and I ended up being the sacrificial anode that prevented it. But I think all I might have done was delay the inevitable.

Ken F (aka Tweed),

It seems to me that Calvinists cannot in a persuasive way show how a person could be assured that his present subjective experience would not at some point in the future turn out, retrospectively assessed, to have been “evanescent faith.” I think that if one drills down, one arrives at the conclusion that the notional “full assurance of faith” is simply “fallible subjective belief that one is experiencing full assurance of faith.”

Personally, I think Calvinists should not worry about this; their confidence in God’s sovereignty should give them enough peace to get by from day to day, and their confidence in God’s justice and their delight in the manifestation of His glory in wrath (“the abominable fancy”) should give them solace that even if they turn out to be among the reprobate, that is an objectively good thing.

That sounds a bit snarky but it isn’t meant to be. I think that straight-up Calvinism is an unstable mental posture. Something eventually gives. For me, it was infernalism. For others, it may be “compassion for the lost”, or other things that one ought to not let go of.

Samuel Conner: Personally, I think Calvinists should not worry about this; their confidence in God’s sovereignty should give them enough peace to get by from day to day, and their confidence in God’s justice and their delight in the manifestation of His glory in wrath (“the abominable fancy”) should give them solace that even if they turn out to be among the reprobate, that is an objectively good thing.

What you wrote is what Samuel Hopkins taught based on what he understood from Jonathan Edwards. See https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/samuel-hopkins-unusual-theology-11630343.html
“One of his central ideas was that a person must love God so much as to be willing to be damned if that is for God’s glory.”

Ken F (aka Tweed): “One of his central ideas was that a person must love God so much as to be willing to be damned if that is for God’s glory.”

Their god (small ‘g’ intentional) makes me think of Palpatine and Snoke.

Fisher,

They also don’t go into ethnic neighborhoods or the inner city.I live in a large West Coast city where most ethnic congregations are small and struggling. The healthier ethnic congregations are sponsored by medium-sized (under 500) churches, for the most part.

Ken F (aka Tweed): Good luck trying to find a Calvinist who will fully address this. I’ve been trying for months and finally found this: http://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/48941. It’s the only defense I have been able to find, but it still does not answer the question of how anyone can know for sure that they are experiencing real saving grace and not false/vanishing grace. This link is not pleasant to read.

Oh my, Ken. I remember when I first mentioned Evanescent Grace, taught by Calvin, here at TWW. You were flabbergasted that there could be such a teaching. I often wonder if this teaching was driving Calvin in his views on predestination, and a host of other teachings. For certain, it is dastardly at its core.

dee: Why America? Why not other countries that kill Christians, engage in trafficking and jihad, etc.

I think there are lots of issues with America. But there are lots of issues everywhere. I would think if God we’re going to judge, every country would be on the list.

I did not intend to comment about other countries, only to say I believe God’s patience with our nation is running out.

And why? Because, “of whom much has been given, much is required.” Many nations such as China, Myanmar, or Pakistan never claimed to be Christian, never had the gospel uniformly distributed across their society as America once did, and therefore do not have the same responsibility before God that America as a nation bears for walking away from Him.

God will bring all nations into judgement on the final day. In the meantime, God deals with nations depending on where they are in the cycle of: hearing the gospel, responding, accepting and then walking away. We can’t expect God to judge a nation which has never embraced the gospel as a society in the same way he judges one which has (or once did).

Darlene: I remember when I first mentioned Evanescent Grace, taught by Calvin, here at TWW. You were flabbergasted that there could be such a teaching.

Combine it with the Calvinist teaching that God only does things to please and glorify himself, and you get a god who delights in deceiving people and then sending them to eternal conscious torment for falling for the deception. How sick.

I am glad you made a point of this. Seeing it through to its logical end is quite disturbing.

okrapod: I am thinking that this is not what they are thinking-that somebody is damned for falling for the deception. Would they not be saying that these people were foreordained to damnation, totally regardless of whatever they might think or do?

It looks to me like Calvin described two types of reprobate: those who never believed and those who were given a false and temporary faith. He wrote this about the latter:
– “but the Lord, the better to convict them, and leave them without excuse, instills into their minds…”
– “Nor do I even deny that God illumines their mind to this extent … there is nothing inconsistent in this with the fact of his enlightening some with a present sense of grace, which afterwards proves evanescent.”

If this is not deception then I don’t know what is. I’ve read that section of Institutes many times and have not been able to find a way out of the fact that Calvin taught that God purposely deceives some, but not all, of the reprobate. All for his glory, of course.

okrapod: somebody is damned for falling for the deception.

I should have added that it appears Calvin does not punish them because they are deceived, but that he judges them more harshly than the regular reprobate. This is based on this statement of his: “the better to convict them…” Why do some reprobate need better conviction than others? And why would that better conviction be based on what he did to deceive them? It would have been better for Calvin to have not stated this, but he did. And he must have had a reason for doing so.

dee,

Thank you for your encouragement, Dee!

Law Prof,

The church did many things but none of them really well. One of them was a Bible School, using a curriculum from the flagship church in Portland. I audited an evening class on the church. Interestingly the “textbook” warned against authoritarianism, eg listing characteristics of non-authoritarian pastors along with the equivalent authoritarian characteristics (spreads an awe or fear of himself among the people, overly conscious of being the “horse’s mouth” or final authority [by my observation, those who spend the most time talking about their being the horse’s mouth spend the most time being another part of the horse’s anatomy],etc). The pastor, when teaching the course, told us that, where course material and our church practices differ, we were to go by the latter. The writer didn’t have experience pastoring a church; he did. (See, if you have experience, you must be right; if you don’t, you must be wrong [!].)

B Badger: A guest speaker used the analogy of David and his mighty men, saying that if we followed our “David” (pastor), we would also become “mighty men”.

Given what comes out about Celebrity Pastor/Apostles, they also become “Mighty Men” in the sense of the Mungojerry song (1965, B side of “In the Summertime” single):

“Gonna git you in my bed;
Gonna do it to you all night long
Gonna do just what I said;
I’m a Mighty Mighty Mighty Man!
I’M A MIGHTY MIGHTY MAN!
(chik chik chik — HA!)
(chik chik chik — HA!)”

Samuel Conner: As David B. Hart puts it, the decision to worship such a god rather than satan would appear to be at best a matter of prudence.

i.e. Suck Up to Comrade Dear Leader as a matter of sheer survival.
Who holds the Biggest Whip?

Again, the analogy to Roko’s Basilisk beckons.

“Roko’s Basilisk”?

Samuel Conner: My favored proposed term is “super-apostle”. They way Paul uses the term in the Corinthian correspondence seems to map reasonably well onto present day patterns.

And he does NOT use it as a complement.

There is another application of the four generation types. The first person to describe the cycle in detail was a 14th century Bedouin who observed desert dynasties.

A dynasty forms around a strong and powerful leader, shaped by the rigours of the desert life. The second generation moves into the palace and lives out of the abundance assembled by the first generation, perpetuating the values second-hand. The third generation enjoys and extends the good life while yearning for a return to the vitality of the grandfathers. Towards the end of the third generation the dynamism had been completely lost and decline has set in. The fourth generation, lacking the character or a values system that will sustain the dynasty, surrenders any remaining prestige and succumbs to a new dynasty that repeats the cycle.

Re the comment in an earlier thread about denominations having a life cycle (thank you), would the above apply to churches, denominations, businesses, even the Mafia? (I read earlier that the forth generation Mafia is coming apart: arrested mafiosi singing like canaries vs honouring the code of omerta (silence), younger members using drugs.)

In the mid 70’s, I heard that Dr Ian Rennie addressed some Alliance pastors from one who claimed to have been there. After citing some denominations that gone liberal in their fourth generation, he told them that the ball was in their court since they were the generation that would influence the Alliance fourth generation (or were they part of that fourth generation?). In the first half of the 90’s, the president of the Canadian Alliance at least sounded like he was late third generation: we are at a crossroads, will we be able to keep our distinctives?, we need revival.

Headless Unicorn Guy: Given what comes out about Celebrity Pastor/Apostles, they also become “Mighty Men” in the sense of the Mungojerry song (1965, B side of “In the Summertime” single):

“Gonna git you in my bed;
Gonna do it to you all night long
Gonna do just what I said;
I’m a Mighty Mighty Mighty Man!
I’M A MIGHTY MIGHTY MAN!
(chik chik chik — HA!)
(chik chik chik — HA!)”

Also reminds me of the “In the Summertime” side of that record:

“If her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal,
if her daddy’s poor, just do what ya feel.”

Ken F (aka Tweed)
I had been trying to find a way to stay, which why I kept asking so many questions. My wife got a bit irritated with me and asked me why I had to push so hard. She was wondering if my TWW reading me made me too worried.But now she is seeing the same thing and agrees it was time to leave. When we left there was no pressure to stay and I think the senior pastor felt bad about how things turned out.

Reminds me of the home front tussle I had with my wife when I told her our church was up to no good and listing into authoritarian neo-Calvinism. Piper wasn’t preached much from the pulpit, though the young fellows who were filling out the elder board and small group teaching roles in the church absolutely considered the guy a demigod. Some were even planning visits or moves up to Minneapolis. Having lived there and heard his addled, flakey, nerd-narcissist vibe in person, I repeatedly told them the guy wasn’t even all that well-regarded in Minnesota and they were wasting their time following this odd little guy.

Anyway, back to the main point, that was the hardest part, dealing with the fight at home as well as at church. I was meeting privately with elders and the head pastor, seeing if there was any possibility of reasoning with them, and watching head pastor bristle and shout incoherent, irrational nonsense when you confronted him, even politely, with a glaring inconsistency, then dealing with a spouse at home who was desperate to keep up some measure of a social life, as she’d made some good friends there, and didn’t want to lose what she had, so she rationalized away a lot of ugliness coming from the leadership. We finally left with an enormous bang, but the fight on both fronts was exhausting. Leaving a church wears you out.

And then it was my turn to seek out a bad church on the rebound, and then I was the delusional spouse keeping us in an unhealthy place, trying to pretend things were OK, with my wife trying to reason with me, until my eyes were finally opened. The roles had completely flipped.

Ray: by alert went up but I could find and reviews from “Tribbles”.

I was trying to type “…my alert…I could not find any reviews…”.

Law Prof: dealing with the fight at home as well as at church

Thanks for sharing – happens often probably. Complementarianism divides the collaboration of a couple, weakens their gift-sharing, their marriage, their discernment from two perspectives (iron sharpens iron but when the wife is no longer deemed iron…) helping each other stay on guard in the larger social setting of the church.

An anthology of couple stories in churches would be an incredible book to read.

Law Prof: Also reminds me of the “In the Summertime” side of that record:

“If her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal,
if her daddy’s poor, just do what ya feel.”

A real hoot was when some commercial (Viagra? Depends?) used “In the Summertime” as a jingle to target a Baby Boomer audience. Apparently not realizing it’s a song about cruising to get laid (and in your excerpt, even Rape if there’s little or no consequences).

jyjames: Thanks for sharing – happens often probably. Complementarianism divides the collaboration of a couple, weakens their gift-sharing, their marriage, their discernment from two perspectives (iron sharpens iron but when the wife is no longer deemed iron…) helping each other stay on guard in the larger social setting of the church.

An anthology of couple stories in churches would be an incredible book to read.

It’s all about weakening the ties that ought to be strong and strengthening the ties that ought to be weak. So the husband-wife relationship is weakened, the parent-child relationship ends up with the leader of the church interjecting himself or herself into the relationship, attempting to make the children more loyal to him than to the parents and the immediate family. And the idea that your relationship with and loyalty to a church leader (who may not know you well at all or in any manner at all) should be paramount is anathema to the reality that if we know Jesus, we are all priests of essentially equal standing before God, all capable of hearing from Him and following what He guides us to do.

Anyone who tries to put themselves between you and Jesus and uses their title to justify it, cares nothing about what Jesus said as quoted by Matthew in 23:8-10. They just don’t care about you and they just don’t care about Jesus if they ignore this. He could hardly have been more clear.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

It would be better to google for a description, but it may be worthwhile to justify the analogy. The mythical basilisk killed with its gaze; Roko’s version may, if you gaze upon the idea of it too intently, damage your mental health. That’s the analogy I see with the god of calvinist understandings of predestinarianism (and arguably, though less intensely, infernalism generally).

Max: “It is your eternal obligation to join ‘our’ church; the only ‘real’ church in town.We alone possess truth; we alone preach and teach correct doctrine.”

“Where else are they going to go?”

GSD [Getting Stuff Done]: A friend of mine visited one of these churches, where the celebrity speaker was projected on stage at full-size scale.He kept having to remind himself that it wasn’t a real person.And really, if it’s the sort of celebrity pastor that would run off to the green room once the sermon is over if he were there in person, what’s the difference?He might as well be a projection.Or, someday soon, a hologram.

I’ve heard that the maximum number of people that a single person can actually “pastor” in an effective way is 50-70.Which is one reason that about 2/3 of the churches in the US have 70 or less attendees.And it’s a reason that I think we need a new term for folks who lead mega-churches, because it’s impossible for one person to pastor 2000 people.

Maybe Celebrity Speaker?Entertainer?Visionary?

Perhaps the next step is a computer-generated image, like “Mike” in Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Except that Mike seemed to have a grasp of ethical behavior.

Samuel Conner:
Headless Unicorn Guy,

It would be better to google for a description, but it may be worthwhile to justify the analogy. The mythical basilisk killed with its gaze; Roko’s version may, if you gaze upon the idea of it too intently, damage your mental health.

Yet it could in some way hold and dominate your attention so you COULDN’T look away from it?

That’s the analogy I see with the god of calvinist understandings of predestinarianism (and arguably, though less intensely, infernalism generally).

With the additional property above, Roko’s Basilisk also describes Social Media and Smartphone Zombification.

jyjames: True. And anyone who seeks your pocketbook & volunteerism (serve coffee, staff nursery) but disregards the Holy Spirit gifts (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4) God has given you, (i.e., discernment), also doesn’t care about you and they don’t care about God’s Holy Spirit.

They build their church on their “leadership” and others’ resources; hence, man-made “church”.

If the gift to be a pastor is anything, it’s to give and serve, never to take and demand service. It’s to support people and help them in what God is saying to them, not what He may be saying to you (because if He has called you to “pastor”, He has called to you serve like a shepherd, like a lowly nothing, like one who’s expendable, like a common farm laborer). Paul understood this, and he worked like a dog, hard blue collar labor, so as to be a burden to no one. He mocked and exposed the superapostles, who demanded big bucks for their preaching, and abused the people. Paul knew Jesus and loved Him, the superapostles presumably neither knew Jesus nor cared one whit about Him. I am reaching the point where I believe anyone who calls themselves a leader or a pastor is about as likely to be a scoundrel and a liar than a servant of God.

Law Prof: Paul understood this, and he worked like a dog, hard blue collar labor, so as to be a burden to no one. He mocked and exposed the superapostles, who demanded big bucks for their preaching, and abused the people. Paul knew Jesus and loved Him …

Well, at least we are in good company:

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses (the faithful, as in Hebrews 11) surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…” – from Hebrews 12.

Good company.

Law Prof,

Law Prof: I can’t know whether the leadership in your former church is beyond hope.God knows.But those behaviors you describe sound more like someone who hates God than someone who loves Him.They sound like a conscienceless, malignant narcissist.They sound like a person who is evil.Plain and simple.

Now that you mention it, it would have been better to have said that there was nothing that I could personally do (and maybe no one else at the time). God is able to do what we cannot. When God tells us not to try and counsel and help certain people (OT scorners, NT dogs and swine [they have rejected truth and delight in mocking righteous people and their standards]; those committed to teaching others error [Hebrew: nabal]), we can pray that God will chasten them. John Newton was reportedly started off as a simple fool (like the fictional anti-hero Dorian Gray) progressing downward through reactionary, sensual, scorning, to committed (also like Dorian Gray). God was nonetheless able to influence him to convert, at least through circumstances.

After being given his belated heave-ho, he tried his hand at a number of ministries. At one Vancouver IBLP seminar I met one of his daughters and her husband. With obvious disapproval, she told me that her father had gone back to that city to start a church.
The effort failed (I wonder why; is it the R word [reputation]?). Some years later the church reevaluated its ways and changed its name to reflect its new course (avoid association with its past?). Did God chasten him while he was there? For example, given the law of moral attraction, did he at times suffer at the hands of others, including some helpers? Yes.

I suffered hurt and harm at the hands of the church; others must have had it worse. He was indeed evil and lacking in conscience, he and his helpers. Alas that I ever looked to them for spiritual help!

Headless Unicorn Guy: Yet it could in some way hold and dominate your attention so you COULDN’T look away from it?

I don’t think the RB is addictive in the sense of stimulating reward circuits in the brain — though it probably does trigger warning/danger detection systems and perhaps that can have an addictive character; if anything, thinking about it too much is likely to lead to misery. But if one takes it seriously, it can become obsessive. It’s reported that when the concept first appeared in an AI forum, a number of forum participants experienced severe distress.

To the analogy with the god of calvinist predestinism; if you take the mandate to “make election sure” through producing the fruits of sanctification, this can take over your life with the result that you become very busy trying to produce good fruit out of what may be fundamentally a selfish motive (the desire to feel confident that you are among the elect), rather than from a posture of love toward God and neighbor. One might hesitate to point this out to a person of calvinist conviction for fear of giving another thing to be worried about.

It appears to me that for Calvin, while justification is not by works, assurance is. That’s one way of reading 1 Jn, I suppose. I’d like to think that a better way of reading 1 Jn would be that the various “tests” that appear there are evidences of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Rather than “I know I’m elect because I am producing what I assess to be good fruits”, it would be more along the lines of “It appears that it has pleased God to regenerate me through His Spirit as there appear to be increasing manifestations in my life of the kinds of fruits that the Spirit produces.” The latter formulation may be unappealing because of the subjective character of “appear”. I think that this subjectivity is inescapable. In the end we must rely on God’s mercy.

Samuel Conner: It seems to me that Calvinists cannot in a persuasive way show how a person could be assured that his present subjective experience would not at some point in the future turn out, retrospectively assessed, to have been “evanescent faith.” I think that if one drills down, one arrives at the conclusion that the notional “full assurance of faith” is simply “fallible subjective belief that one is experiencing full assurance of faith.”

Personally, I think Calvinists should not worry about this; their confidence in God’s sovereignty should give them enough peace to get by from day to day, and their confidence in God’s justice and their delight in the manifestation of His glory in wrath (“the abominable fancy”) should give them solace that even if they turn out to be among the reprobate, that is an objectively good thing.

That sounds a bit snarky but it isn’t meant to be. I think that straight-up Calvinism is an unstable mental posture. Something eventually gives. For me, it was infernalism. For others, it may be “compassion for the lost”, or other things that one ought to not let go of.

Good points. When one digs through the history of Puritanism in America, one finds repeated stories of lives shattered by the unavoidable fear that they were not truly ‘elect’. This is, IMO, why Calvinism mostly downplays its true theology, and most don’t even fully understand it. Hence, takeovers are a much better strategy than starting from scratch. Building on a foundation laid upon the true gospel, using the old religious buzzwords (albeit with new, unacknowledged meanings) many congregants are deceived, never even seeing how the ‘new’ Calvinistic gospel veers off from the truth.

There are many variations in the playbook, but all involve deception, lack of transparency and the now well-defined tools of mind control and mass deception, such as love-bombing, ‘us vs. them’ thinking, fearmongering, etc.

Law Prof: Anyway, back to the main point, that was the hardest part, dealing with the fight at home as well as at church. I was meeting privately with elders and the head pastor, seeing if there was any possibility of reasoning with them, and watching head pastor bristle and shout incoherent, irrational nonsense when you confronted him, even politely, with a glaring inconsistency, then dealing with a spouse at home who was desperate to keep up some measure of a social life, as she’d made some good friends there, and didn’t want to lose what she had, so she rationalized away a lot of ugliness coming from the leadership. We finally left with an enormous bang, but the fight on both fronts was exhausting. Leaving a church wears you out.

And then it was my turn to seek out a bad church on the rebound, and then I was the delusional spouse keeping us in an unhealthy place, trying to pretend things were OK, with my wife trying to reason with me, until my eyes were finally opened. The roles had completely flipped.

So then what? I ask, because I find myself still at a loss as to ‘Now what?’ The spouse, never really desiring to leave the first church, has since returned to a sister church, believing, I suppose, that eventually I will get lonely enough to go along.

In the meantime, having looked into every church within 100 miles, see little hope of finding a place I can belong, unless I join up with the Unitarians. They don’t stand for much, but at least they let people follow their own consciences. If you want to think God is a turtle, well, that’s up to you. But at least you don’t have to sign a covenant with your own blood that you adhere to this or that ‘orthodox’ doctrine.

Samuel Conner: To the analogy with the god of calvinist predestinism; if you take the mandate to “make election sure” through producing the fruits of sanctification, this can take over your life with the result that you become very busy trying to produce good fruit out of what may be fundamentally a selfish motive (the desire to feel confident that you are among the elect), rather than from a posture of love toward God and neighbor.

Once these “fruits of sanctification” were Getting Rich.
Now they’re Perfectly-Parsed, Utterly Correct Theology.
In both cases, Proving to myself that I’m Elect (and You’re NOT!)

I figure this need to PROVE to themselves that they’re Truly Elect (and not Evanescent Grace’s False Elect) is a core motivation of a LOT of the More-Calvinist-than-Calvin types.

truthseeker00: So then what? I ask, because I find myself still at a loss as to ‘Now what?’ The spouse, never really desiring to leave the first church, has since returned to a sister church, believing, I suppose, that eventually I will get lonely enough to go along.

In the meantime, having looked into every church within 100 miles, see little hope of finding a place I can belong, unless I join up with the Unitarians. They don’t stand for much, but at least they let people follow their own consciences. If you want to think God is a turtle, well, that’s up to you. But at least you don’t have to sign a covenant with your own blood that you adhere to this or that ‘orthodox’ doctrine.

We have a home fellowship now. I don’t mind orthodox doctrine…so long as it’s actually orthodox! That’s the problem with a lot of these places, they claim orthodoxy, yet wouldn’t know were it right in front of them. What they call “orthodox” is adherence to authoritarianism, peripheral stuff like a virtual worship of the notion of a 144 hour creation, etc.

truthseeker00: What we have here is Calvin’s need to explain away reality, which directly contradicted his proposed determinism.

A Reality which must always bow before Ideology.

Law Prof: I can’t know whether the leadership in your former church is beyond hope. God knows. But those behaviors you describe sound more like someone who hates God than someone who loves Him. They sound like a conscienceless, malignant narcissist. They sound like a person who is evil. Plain and simple.

That is a very painful conclusion to come to about a leader you love, and have faithfully ‘served’ alongside for many years. So painful that many simply refuse to make it. Like my spouse. Thus, marriages are destroyed as these malignant narcissists win the hearts of those whose very lifeblood they are sucking. And we call this ‘church’.

truthseeker00: That is a very painful conclusion to come to about a leader you love, and have faithfully ‘served’ alongside for many years. So painful that many simply refuse to make it. Like my spouse. Thus, marriages are destroyed as these malignant narcissists win the hearts of those whose very lifeblood they are sucking. And we call this ‘church’.

Who wants to think that someone they admire actually hates them? Who wants to think a person who claims to be devoted to God hates Him? Too many Christians respect a position and title, “pastor”, that I do not believe exists. Not saying there aren’t pastors in the church, but they are not titles and formal offices. We made that up, almost out of whole cloth, and this position that was made up we’ve imbued with reverence (even calling them “reverend” at times) and prestige; we have this tendency to give them the benefit of the doubt, to defer to them, to trust them; we give them power and authority that does not exist in the New Testament. What better occupation could the malignant narcissist seek? It’s a dream job for them! And that is why the research of Dr. Puls and Dr. Ball indicate prevalence of NPD among pastors at 500% to 3,000%(!) higher than the rates among the general population.

truthseeker00: Thus, marriages are destroyed as these malignant narcissists win the hearts of those whose very lifeblood they are sucking. And we call this ‘church’.

Astute observation, and very sick to the point where some pastors groom congregants’ wives as their own personal harems/tools: Tchividjian, Mark Darling, Hybels, etc.

Assuming Lifeway doesn’t have writers expounding on this as a service to churches. Or, a sermon or teaching with, “Congregant, beware! Ditch the preacher-cult and save your marriage and family!”

Interesting what brought Savage down. He mocked Matt Lauer, so Woodson courageously called him out on his hypocrisy. Now, Conlee resigns. Dominos fall. Woodson has far more guts than what’s coming from the pulpits/books/conferences of these clowns and their enabler cohorts/boards/trustees – all who prop them up.

B Badger,

These guys are deviously clever. They are well aware that most people will view their words with complete trust, and not challenge their actions. You accuse someone who says something like that of being arrogantving or self-ser, and your spouse is stunned that you could say that about someone who shows such obvious humility weekly. When they approach the pastor, he will just shake his head mournfully at how ‘deceived’ some can be. It is very slick; they know exactly how to push peoples’ buttons.

It was only after years that I began to see that some of the odd things my pastor said, that seemed out of the blue and off topic, proved to be ‘plants’ or seeds of misdirection. I used to just shrug them off as ‘That was weird’. I finally began to see that this statement would soon prove ‘useful’ to something he intended to suggest or against some accusation he appeared to know was soon to arise. The amazing degree of duplicity and scheming these people practice makes a normal person feel crazy to even think such thoughts. And it is this ‘craziness’ the pastor will point to when called out.

Reminds me of a story I once heard, in which a woman began to expose her ‘intelligence officer’ husband’s deeds, and suddenly bizarre things began to happen, like hundreds of screwdrivers being spread all over her kitchen counters and other strange sounding events. She perceived that the goal was to make anyone she might talk to think she was nuts. Who would believe anyone could even cook up such a plan, like Hybels conveniently mentioning his Ambien use before he practiced predatory behavior. These people are clever, leaving your average trustworthy Joe unable to process their carefully thought out devious misdeeds.

truthseeker00,
You are describing a Successful Sociopath/Master Manipulator, always twenty chess moves and “grooming” sessions ahead of everyone else. While the rest of us have jobs and lives, it is in such Manipulation that they “move and live and have their being” in constant sleepless dedication to Self and The Goal — even if the Goal requires decades of setting up the Long Con and Grooming Allies as well as Suckers. How can anyone with a job and a life stand against such a monomaniac?

Law Prof: What better occupation could the malignant narcissist seek?

In People of the Lie, M Scott Peck said there was a much older and shorter word for “malignant narcissist”:
EVIL.

Headless Unicorn Guy: Can’t find any decent info on either that isn’t their Propaganda Ministry puff piece.

Try this: http://www.schooleyfiles.com/2015/07/well-researched-3dm-warning.html?m=1

Headless Unicorn Guy: Can’t find any decent info on either that isn’t their Propaganda Ministry puff piece.

This might be better than what I posted earlier: http://www.andyrowell.net/andy_rowell/2015/05/notes-on-3dm-and-the-order-of-mission.html. Or search on “3DM cult”

I read some of Breen’s material. It’s all about control. His “people of peace” teaching is very disturbing.

truthseeker00:
B BadgerReminds me of a story I once heard, in which a woman began to expose her ‘intelligence officer’ husband’s deeds, and suddenly bizarre things began to happen, like hundreds of screwdrivers being spread all over her kitchen counters and other strange sounding events. She perceived that the goal was to make anyone she might talk to think she was nuts. Who would believe anyone could even cook up such a plan, like Hybels conveniently mentioning his Ambien use before he practiced predatory behavior. These people are clever, leaving your average trustworthy Joe unable to process their carefully thought out devious misdeeds.

Gaslighting. I’ve seen and heard things in private from a couple pastors that if I tried to explain them to anyone else, other than my wife, they’d think I was crazy. I’ve seen them say and do things absolutely evil behind closed doors that they knew they could get away with, because I’d be called the deranged person if I ever told the truth of what I’d seen.

Law Prof: Gaslighting. I’ve seen and heard things in private from a couple pastors that if I tried to explain them to anyone else, other than my wife, they’d think I was crazy. I’ve seen them say and do things absolutely evil behind closed doors that they knew they could get away with, because I’d be called the deranged person if I ever told the truth of what I’d seen.

I guess I am just relieved to know it is not just me, that I did not just imagine or blow everything out of proportion. So hard to believe, if one hasn’t experienced it. I didn’t know at the time whether I was being frightened, warned or just messed with. I was told one thing in private, then, next week would hear the exact opposite from the pulpit, or my spouse was told something that implicated me. I knew it was time to get myself and my family out, even if spouse was still fooled. (Kids and extended family were ready to leave, and God assisted by allowing our house to sell at just the right time.) In hindsight, I believe my marriage was being deliberately destroyed, so that I could be silenced.

And you are right, if you try to tell anyone what you experienced/heard, you look crazy. Who are people going to believe – ‘perfect pastor’ with well-crafted mask whom everyone admires, or honest, imperfect layperson, who is willing to admit they don’t have it all figured out? I saw so many others damaged and leave, yet always bought the story that the problem was ‘them’. They were selfish, liberal, stuggling with secret sins – I can only imagine what’s said about me. And yet, his wife knew that we were the ones to come to when she needed support or protection. When you grow up under the fairy tale of Church, it is hard to consider Granny just might be a wolf.

B Badger: You made me think of the Big Lie technique. Most people tell small lies and may suspect politicians of doing the same; few people tell whoppers and don’t suspect politicians that way. I’ve read that normal people may lie to protect themselves, e g “being polite”; psychopaths lie pointlessly, as a form of recreation. Those who are only normally evil are at a terrible disadvantage when dealing with vile, wicked
people whose disposition is beyond their ability to imagine and predict.

True. Marc Dreier, the infamous NYC attorney turned massive Ponzi schemer, spoke of how it was easier to borrow a huge sum of money to perpetrate a fraud than it was to borrow a small sum of money. He found that the bigger the lie, the less likely it’d be for someone to do the necessary background checks, under the assumption that no one would possibly have the chutzpah to make something that big up out of whole cloth. He used this principle he’d discovered to borrow amounts in the hundreds of millions, none of it legitimately backed by collateral, and none of it paid off.

By the way, fraud is my field, the main area of research now (probably a reaction to the fraud I encountered in the church), and I don’t think Dreier is a psychopath or sociopath, void of conscience, incapable of empathy–just a messed up guy who got in over his head.

Ken F (aka Tweed),

Big machine money making. It really is sick. 🙁

Bridget: It really is sick.

Check this out if you want to see something that will truly make you sick: https://www.willmancini.com/blog/same-grit-new-love-the-church-values-of-mark-driscolls-new-church-plant-the-trinity-church.
It looks like Auxano could be behind Driscoll’s rebranding.

Ken F (aka Tweed): I recently quit a SBC semi-mega church that used them for a fundraising campaign to help the church clarify its vision.

True men of God don’t need a consultant to construct a vision for their ministry! Only preacher boys do that. There’s a big difference between a man of God and a preacher boy … and their followers are as different between day and night (more night than day under a preacher boy). Men of God are led by the Spirit; preacher boys are led by their flesh. Men of God are given a vision and follow it even if it means reaching people for Christ in an obscure place with little recognition. Preacher boys want to be in a mega spotlight right out of the chute; they hire church growth consultants to chart a course to stardom as quickly as possible. Men of God are genuine; preacher boys are counterfeit. Men of God are rare and endangered species in the American church; preacher boys are a dime a dozen … you can find plenty of them in churches near you.

Bridget: This guy is spiritually dangerous as far as I’m concerned because the Spirit does seem to be involved.

I wonder how much of this explains the direction of Lifeway, which got in bed with Mancini in 2012.

elastigirl,

Back in the day we used the term Latter Rain Movement to refer to the 1947 “revival” that began in North Battleford Saskatchewan but soon fizzled. Restoration Movement to us meant its current descendant. The church itself was then called Maranatha Christian Centre (Regina Sask), now Harvest City Church. The former entity was associated with Ministers Fellowship International (although I never heard the name that I remember); the latter is part of LifeLinks International Fellowship.

If you are interested and haven’t looked it up already, you could read more at Latter Rain (post World War II movement). Dick Iverson, Kevin Conner, and (more than once) Frank Damazzo, mentioned therein, were guest speakers when I was there. Bible Temple in Portland is now called City Bible Church.

Interestingly the pastor was egalitarian, at least as far as ministry went. (His background was Apostolic, if that has any bearing on the matter.) Both he and his wife held the title Pastor; he called her his partner in ministry and told us that she was a far better theologian than he was. (I believe it: he has a blend of practical temperaments, suitable for administration; she has a blend of expressive temperaments suited to such activities as thinking well (analytically etc) and expressing it in an interesting manner, e g classroom teacher. (Think of Tolkien who could make the dull subject of languages sound interesting.)

but the fruits sound absolutely horrific and the actions seem more like a cynical, extremely narcissistic hater of God and His children.

The replacement pastor and his wife were interviewed for the church’s 40th anniversary video. Their first year was the hardest. Every night, as they went to bed, their prayer was “Help, Jesus”.

Oops! To continue, every day they would face all the problems, difficulties, and devastation that were there. It wouldn’t have surprised him if he had shown up Sunday morning for the service and been the only one left.

There must have been something that held many of them together.

okrapod: There are those who seem to think that wealth is a sign that one is favored (blest) by God and somehow better than those who have less wealth. There is also the old tradition that abject poverty, think Francis of Assisi and his ilk, is a sign of advanced saintliness and the thusly poor are better than those who have financial resources.

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
— Ecclesiastes 9:11 —

A new church gobbling I have noticed is first the deacons and trustees are not saved. So they find themselves having to find a new pastor because the previous one had enough and left after serving them for over 20 years. Now this is an Assembly of God church mind you. They carnally pick the next pastor. He wont take the job unless they significantly raise the salary – have faith, God will provide he tells them. He knows the budget can’t afford it but he knows they have land assets that could be sold and the church will be coming into money in a few years. When that’s gone, he will resign and go on to another church. Gobble up their resources and press on to next church.