Botox Dee? Say it ain’t so.

If you’ve not seen this, I highly recommend it to all Wartburgers. This is a great documentary on JD Grear’s attempted takeover of Faith Baptist.

https://youtu.be/iTx4jgQYDGE?si=EimqdAgs4gYsyx3A

EW66:
If you’ve not seen this, I highly recommend it to all Wartburgers. This is a great documentary on JD Grear’s attempted takeover of Faith Baptist.

https://youtu.be/iTx4jgQYDGE?si=EimqdAgs4gYsyx3A

Similar to David Platt’s shenanigans?

Max: “beauty of complimentary”

whoops, wrong word … there’s nothing complimentary about the “beauty of complementarity”

Arlo: Similar to David Platt’s shenanigans?

Capturing churches by stealth and deception for the glory of the New Calvinist movement is what they do. They get extra stars in their crown for that.

EW66,

I remember the good old days where many faithful clergy would serve their backsides off through prayer, systematic bible sermons – not topical – hands on pastoral home, hospital and crisis visitation, etc, etc all to the degree that they would slowly and ethically revitalise numerous church communities that were in decline or simply treading water. Granted such clergy were not always successful, especially if a dominant familiy had history in the church. Nonetheles, ethical behaviour and honouring Christ and the gospel remained top priorities.
It seems that many today due to their zealotry, lack of self awareness and inability to question their motives and the usage of success oriented phrases and cliches. All is on the table.

It’s Friday the 13th people.
Watch out for Jason Voorhees!

Arlo: https://ministrywatch.com/burk-parsons-found-guilty-by-church-commission-suspended-from-office/

“Parsons was unanimously found guilty on three charges of “being harsh, ungentle, and unkind to those under his care or with whom he interacts”; “not being a humble servant leader but instead ‘lording it over others’ (i.e, autocratic) and being domineering, contentious, and quarrelsome/pugnacious in his leadership so that those in his care and in his ‘leadership orbit’ were intimidated, bullied, and/or afraid”; and “slandering and/or demeaning other servants and churches of our Lord.””

Heck, you could convict a great multitude of New Calvinist leaders on those same charges! They are some of most mean-spirited men who ever hit the pulpit! The NeoCals would certainly never be convicted of “loving.” Their modus operandi includes manipulation, intimidation, domination … they are guilty of abuse = spiritual abuse.

Max,

I can see how traditional models of pastoral ministry could have sometimes put too much pressure on the pastor to do most of the church work themselves. I definitely think it’s important for every member to be involved in ministry. But it’s possible to go too far in the other direction.

To me it’s not always clear what the modern pastor actually considers to be their job outside of preaching & decisionmaking. Sometimes they act as if the congregation is merely a vehicle to help them achieve their own vision and goals.

Christie24: I definitely think it’s important for every member to be involved in ministry.

Indeed! Whose job is the ministry? Every believer has a part. A wise pastor will release the Body of Christ under their watch to fulfill their individual giftings, without distinction of race, class or gender. The Great Commission demands that we all work together; the pastor is but one part of the whole. Authoritarian control of every jot and tittle in a church is not God’s plan; servant-leadership is.

Christie24: they act as if the congregation is merely a vehicle to help them achieve their own vision and goals

IMO, “pastors” who have this attitude have left their first love, they have become dogmatic and legalistic, they don’t have the heart of Jesus.

Ironically, Dee, I will be undergoing my first routine colonoscopy next week!! I’m 45, gotta do it – plus my grandmother died from it, so there’s family history as well.

My now-former pastor, who just turned 30, is now serving as a chaplain in the Air Force. He came to my church straight out of seminary at the ripe old age of 27. I must admit that I asked too much of him and expected too much of him. Honestly, what can one expect from a man of the cloth who is still in his twenties, unmarried and not with a lot of…life experience? So, I agree with what you all are saying.

Max: Remember this is a guy who once wrote a book “Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart.” What did they expect?!!

While this was not one of my obsessions growing up*, I have heard and read people talking about how they first asked Jesus into their hearts as a child, then got twisted up into the whole thing with the repeated altar calls. Basically, they regularly asked Jesus into their hearts, *often*. “It must not have took.” And we’re talking about children here.

Given how frequently I’ve heard/read people talk about this as part of their Evangelical experience, I wonder how much that has affected their mental health. It can’t be good if kids are worried that they’re not saved and saying the “sinners prayer” over and over.

* I had an end of the world obsession. I’m approaching a milestone birthday next week. I didn’t expect to reach that milestone birthday as a young person.

Cynthia W.:
Arlo,

From the article:

‘Update: Ligonier Ministries acknowledged the verdict of the judicial commission, noting that “[t]hese are not criminal matters nor severe moral failings, such as sexual or financial sins.” ‘

I disagree with Ligonier Ministries’ definition of “severe moral failings.”I think habitual abuse of power is a “severe moral failing,” even if the abuse doesn’t include sexual contact or sex acts.

I agree. The scope of moral failings is woefully inadequate.

Christie24:
<a href="#comment-504976"

To me it’s not always clear what the modern pastor actually considers to be their job outside of preaching & decisionmaking. Sometimes they act as if the congregation is merely a vehicle to help them achieve their own vision and goals.

Spot on. This has been my observation in the churches that I’ve been a part of. Congregants have little to no agency beyond serving the interests of the pastors, all while having any needs of their own largely disregarded.

There is nothing worse than a proctologist with poor depth perception.

Arlo: The description of an elder being above reproach and having a good reputation with those outside the church, means that a great number of church leaders today are disqualified from holding that position.

Heck, many of them don’t even have a good reputation ‘within’ the church! It’s as if the NeoCals choose leaders who have no trouble being mean to church members if they come under question about belief and practice. Yep, New Calvinism has a totally different way of doing church.

Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Dee, I would also recommend that men get prostate screenings.

I have been going through prostate screenings for over 25 years. So far, three cancer scares, two negative biopsies, two negative MRI scans, all from continuing high PSA and low free PSA. No cancer found, just a really enlarged prostate. They really need a better indicator than PSA levels for screening.

Samuel Conner: If you think you have a direct commission from God (sort of a modern-day, if lower-key, version of Paul’s calling) to accomplish some task, that can override other considerations, including biblical considerations of basic “how to treat other human beings.”

This makes sense. It reminds me of something I read about effective altruism and how the focus on doing good in an abstract sense can be used to rationalise unethical behaviour in the present.

Muslin, fka Dee Holmes: Basically, they regularly asked Jesus into their hearts, *often*. “It must not have took.” And we’re talking about children here.

This is the saddest thing I’ve heard in a while.
Children …
No wonder that a predatory parental figure finds an easy mark.

Happy Birthday!

Sunlight Disinfectant: Ironically, Dee, I will be undergoing my first routine colonoscopy next week!! I’m 45, gotta do it

As someone who’s had three “Alien Abduction Specials” at 50, 62, and 67, I can tell you the prep is worse than the actual exam. I did notice that the Super Colon Blow they use in the prep is getting easier over time – the current Super Colon Blow is a gallon jug containing the powder that you fill with water, mix, and drink a glass of it every 30 minutes for two-three hours the night before. Vast improvement on the “salty soaps” used in the previous preps; the only problem with it is that it takes about two hours to start working, then BOOM! “Houston, we have liftoff”.

Samuel Conner: they might prosper simply because they are simply better suited than other memes for propagating in the human population.

Yes!

Unfortunately, propagation is greatly advanced when the promised rewards include heaven, torture avoidance, feelings of group and individual superiority, and cravings for certainty and absolute authority—theological crack cocaine.

Muslin, fka Dee Holmes: first asked Jesus into their hearts as a child … repeated altar calls … regularly asked Jesus into their hearts, *often* … I wonder how much that has affected their mental health. It can’t be good if kids are worried that they’re not saved and saying the “sinners prayer” over and over

I was a child once (eons ago). I asked Jesus into my heart once. I said the sinner’s prayer once (but, I daily ask for forgiveness of sin). After spending the better part of a century in the American church, my mental health is intact … although a great multitude of bad church experiences just about drove me crazy! I guess it depends on whether an initial confession of faith is genuine or not and whether an individual is continually seeking but never finding.

Samuel Conner: I think it’s unwise to encourage young people to envision ministry as a career. They are untested and it is not yet clear whether they have the basic qualities needed to function well as servants of local congregations. It would IMO be better to think of ministry as something that wise older people move into after it has become clear that they have the needed character qualities of integrity, wisdom, patience and all “fruits of the Spirit.”

That, in itself, is wisdom, Mr. Conner. Too many church leaders ‘go’ into the ministry rather than being ‘called’ into the ministry, IMO. Too many churches sign them up without adequately measuring their character and qualifications as outlined in Scripture.

Do I dare and get political over the ICE raids all over the country?

nmgirl,

When I was making that comment I distinctly remembered at least 5 ministers – all who are now fully in Christ – who pastored church congregations that way. Congregations that grew numerically and I believe, spiritually.
Yes, these men (the times) had their personal flaws and idiosyncrasies. Nonetheless, they had genuine faith, were gracious & emotionally intelligent, not to mention also secure in themselves (no big egos) and materially content.
God or the church owed them nothing!

Ian Docker,

Expressions of Christianity based on Christ alone would be a welcome change!

I am interested in instances in which the Holy Spirit intervened or gave solace to a victim in the moments of predation. These are hard to find but I am sure they exist.

In absence of such cases, we are told that the Holy Spirit is sensitive to the quenching and grieving expressed by, for example, 12 year old children. Cindy Clemishire was herself accused of being the primary predator, which if true would certainly have quenched legions of angels in their tracks.

And so I was happy to find one such instance vividly described by Cindy Clemishire as below. It seems that the Spirit can appear as a gust of wind, or a bad vibe, or the presence of a 3 year old daughter. Maybe some sort of grieving or quenching prevented further consolations until TWW came along.

As cited by NBC News, July 9, 2024:

“In another instance, in 1986, Clemishire said, another man who was staying with her family climbed on top of her while she was sleeping on a sofa bed next to his 3-year-old daughter. She believed he planned to rape her, but she said the man suddenly got off of her.

“I really think God intervened,” Clemishire said. “God made him feel like someone was walking by, and he just rolled off of me and left.””

By the way, did they get Robert Morris for trafficking? Because isn’t that what inviting fellow preachers to the party is called?

EW66: Whoa! This is such a legitimate question, and you’re right.

I just read about that part.
He had the audacity to pass her around—then blame her as promiscuous.
Hell is too good for him.

Max: “Bivocational Pastors”

It’s been estimated that 60% of SBC’s 47,000 churches have bivocational pastors. The majority of SBC churches have less than 200 members, primarily in rural areas, requiring a bivocational approach to ministry. While they are in the news a lot, the charismatic big-boy movers & shakers, highly-paid pastors within SBC are in the minority. The vast majority of SBC pastors support their families with full-time secular jobs, pastoring churches on a bivocational basis … while having to put up with changes in the denomination (e.g., New Calvinism) orchestrated by a handful of authoritarian bigwigs at the top.

Muff Potter,

But then again, the newer ones have a large screen area now.
But still, I have no desire to carry around a fish aquarium.

while having to put up with changes in the denomination (e.g., New Calvinism) orchestrated by a handful of authoritarian bigwigs at the top.
Max,

And, “religious” plutocracy trumps evangelical polity.

Nancy2(aka Kevlar):
while having to put up with changes in the denomination (e.g., New Calvinism) orchestrated by a handful of authoritarian bigwigs at the top.
Max,

And, “religious” plutocracy trumps evangelical polity.

Just like the $$$$$ from sugar plantations (using native labor) trumped saving souls for the second generation of Yankee missionaries to “Owhyhee”.

Headless Unicorn Guy,

Some trivia is very educational.
One does wonder what Veblen would make of US capitalism today when you assume he generally saw capitalism then as a flawed economic system, where today, it could be argued its evolved into an ideology pagan type god that has permeated all aspects of society, culture and religion.
No doubt small proof of that could be that this comment alone would be regarded as socialist communist rhetoric rather that a christian faith opinion.

Arlo,

Yes, hear what you’re saying. Have sat through entire messages that had zero reference, meaning and relationship to a specfic choosen and highlighted text.
I one occasion, the personal baggage from the “preacher” was so overwhelming & self focused, I wanted to literally scream.
Did so internally and discretely
and found it therapeutic.

Max: = SBC’s New Calvinist church planting program

Dear Lord, I hope not in this case. We are actually LCMS, not that the LCMS doesn’t have problems with being rigid, stodgy and sometimes sexist.

Muff Potter: Do I dare and get political over the ICE raids all over the country?

Not a wise idea Muff.
It could end your career here at TWW.

Muff still lives at The Hotel California.

Headless Unicorn Guy: What you are proposing is what my church calls “Second Vocation Seminarians”.
i.e. Those who have real-world experience before entering the clergy.

One of my brothers-in-law is a “second vocation” priest. He was a petroleum engineer before he discerned a call to the priesthood.

Arlo: ridiculous things being said from the pulpit while people sit in the congratulation taking it all in

Have found there is little correlation between the actual quality of a sermon and the number of people willing to congratulate the preacher afterwards (or tell other congregants ‘what a great message’).

Christie24: Have found there is little correlation between the actual quality of a sermon and the number of people willing to congratulate the preacher afterwards (or tell other congregants ‘what a great message’).

Oops! I’ve only just realized from your response that I typed out ‘congratulation’ when I meant ‘congregation’. Oddly enough, the not-so-young whippersnapper at my former church gets a lot (and I do mean a lot) of plaudits for his preaching. The only problem is his sermons are riddled with inconsistencies and fallacious thinking. His presentation and his gift of gab (as Max calls it) sells his message.

Muff Potter: Aw what the hell, lemme’ live dangerously:

33 “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.— Leviticus 19:33-34 —

Keeping in mind that christianity was a colonial religion…not native to North America…like the people who brought it with them.

Ian Docker,

I have noticed this, too. It’s even worse when they are self-deprecating to the point of having false humility. I understand that pastors suffer from burnout and other mental illnesses, but they should be very careful with preventing their own personal problems from seeping into their sermons.

Valerie Stewart: Before his exposition, he admitted that he has “demonic wisdom” dwelling “within him.”

At the very least, a really BAD choice of words.
Or a Brag.
Wonder if he has Greg (War)Locke on speed-dial.

Headless Unicorn Guy: Like The HUMBLE One himself, “Chuckles” Mahaney?

Who even wrote a book “Humility: True Greatness”. Give me a break! A truly humble person doesn’t have to go around telling folks how humble they are! What a joke!

Valerie Stewart,

“Why is he the magical exception but women aren’t?”
++++++++++++++

because of his magic member.

Max: Whew! There’s a lot of baggage to unpack in Leviticus 19 as it relates to 21st century American society.

How much ya’ wanna’ bet that there’s at least one nit-wit pastor out there who’ll claim that nothing in Leviticus is valid for believers today?

Max: I am thrilled to hear that he is an ex-pastor!

Unfortunately, he is still a pastor at my old church. However, I don’t consider him a pastor in the slightest because he explicitly teaches those who question or criticize the Bible have sinful motives, and by extension, his own theology. He has said that people have different interpretations/denominations because they are ignorant and selfish. Furthermore, he condemns those who deconstruct, claiming that most of them do so to excuse their own sexual sins.

The final straw in me leaving that church was when I had a crisis of faith. I had told him I didn’t know who God was, and I was finding contradictions in the Bible I couldn’t ignore. Nothing was making any sense to me. He then confidently told me, “God is not an intellectual exercise.” The absolute irony of that statement, especially when he himself had written multiple books on this subject, shocked me right out of my own crisis. I realized right then and there I wasn’t in spiritual trouble—he was, and worse, he had no idea.

Valerie Stewart: “God is not an intellectual exercise.”

I suppose he hates the Bereans because they checked Paul against their (untampered with) Old Testaments which Paul told them to do?

My (untampered with) Old Testament says my God says, “Come REASON with Me”.

According to my reading matter in church history, there have been an awful lot of christian leaders who officially said we must ignore the Old Testament.

It’s usually the very same ones that falsely extrapolate from the Scriptures legislating within the ancient Hebrew community, to their legislating for the outside world when they won’t rule us (their community) justly. That’s double lies for starters.

Max,

I differ from your enabling. And if you are referring to the poor calibre of ALMOST all so called “theology”. Remember that what is at fault is not my ability to unpack it. And my friends’ ability they were never told to believe they had. You need more years of nights of cold sweats sir. Why should I let your remark pass when I have grieved about what my peers are undergoing en masse? To the detriment of the secular world. Tell me straight, do you think I (Michael in UK) care and do you think I should think you care? Faith yes, but belief being built up from being told sense first (your assent to your degrees of your inference) (and yes children do grasp it).

Michael in UK: I suppose he hates the Bereans because they checked Paul against their (untampered with) Old Testaments which Paul told them to do?

What he said was a double whammy for me because he knew I used to be an atheist. None of his sermons or books had ever led to my conversion. God Himself convinced me right after I prayed that I didn’t want blind obedience or blind faith. I think the pastor took my “contrary” perceptions of the Bible as an attack on his teachings, especially his own 5-point Calvinism. He was confronted with someone who was poking large holes in his long-held doctrines, and I don’t think he knew what to do other than to get me to shut down.

Still, it baffles me why he thought that was a plausible response, given that Jesus is described as Logos in the Bible. Jesus spoke in parables and asked questions so astute; the Pharisees often fell silent. The pastor himself recommended Calvinistic books so large, they could be mistaken for cinderblocks. There were several better ways to reply to me, but it deeply troubles me why and how he slung that comment so quickly.

Muff Potter:
Jack,

This one’s for you Jack…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGjrmJPp01s

You always kharma and her sister comeuppance….this too shall pass.

My sister in law graduated from college this weekend so we’re in southern Ontario. My wife’s other sister drove up from New Jersey. They showed up at the convocation completely by surprise…. border be danged.

Evil can only triumph if we let it.

Michael in UK: Gruesome Grudem’s unsystematic catachresis? (Cutting Holy Spirit in half, eternally subordinating the orphans and widows in his kingdom of flesh and blood, disobeying the good lady of Prov 21: 10-31 who makes us full partners.)

It’s like you’ve read my mind! Or perhaps the Holy Spirit revealed this to you? 😉

Yes, Grudem’s (in)famous Systematic Theology blew larger holes in Calvi-doctrine than I thought possible. His long dissertation on the Holy Spirit, with the ultimate conclusion of “I don’t know” (but “I’ll tell you for sure you’re wrong”) is an incredible, if not revealing, blunder. This is the one thing that angers me most about Calvinism: they will tell you “I don’t know”, “God works in mysterious ways”, “God will not reveal this to you”, and “who are you to question the Creator, O man?” It has left me in tears several times over being told “you cannot access God.” I’m reminded of the warning Jesus told the Pharisees how they barred people from the kingdom of Heaven, yet they themselves refused to enter the gates.

Michael in UK: It comes as a disappointment for those men to have been sold such a shallow and inaccurate “bill of goods”

Throughout my former pastor’s writings and sermons, I felt a perpetual sense that he was like an outsider looking in and a novice copying someone else’s homework, but pretending to understand it. That sense never disappeared in reading other Calvinistic resources, particularly Grudem himself. The syntax is clear, but there is no logical consistency. I’m not sure whether these “teachers” don’t see the incoherency, they don’t care to see it—or worse—they know, but they’re only interested in maintaining their own doctrinal “kingdoms”. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter when the result is a confused, divided congregation or people walking away from the faith entirely. Atheists are being created in droves, and the toxicity of Calvinism bears much blame, especially within recent years.

Michael in UK: I am thrilled that you have found God so honest with you, and that you joined in sharing such observations.

I’m happy, too. I enjoy hearing other people’s experiences with God. Unfortunately, they are vanishingly few.

Jack,

Yesterday, I took part in, and marched in a peaceful protest against the ICE patrols and their ongoing pogrom against Mexican migrants whose only crime is seeking out a better life.
Nothing like it has ever happened in my town, not even back during Vietnam.

Valerie Stewart: a novice copying someone else’s homework, but pretending to understand it.

This has also been my experience. A very common accusation when disagreeing with Calvinists is that you just don’t understand it or are misrepresenting it’s position. Having taken the time and effort to interact with their ideas, I came to the realization that an awful lot of Calvinists haven’t a clue what they really believe. It’s like they’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’ve grasped something important but that’s not the reality of things. It would be an interesting experiment to have a number of them write down exactly how they understand their theology without the use of any resource but the one between the ears. I’ll wager that you would get some responses that contradict each other.

Michael in UK,

A lot of simulated thinking

Michael in UK: Not convinced in their own minds (in disobedience to St Paul) because the people that browbeat them and the people that browbeat them in turn, weren’t, and therefore determined that we shan’t be either.

And the browbeaten Pupil grows up to become the next generation’s Browbeating Master.
The very definition of a Gen3rational Curse.

Factor in increasing Entropy over time and you get (in the words of the Rabbi from Nazaeth) “make him Twice the Child of Hell as yourself”.

Mixed with the cry at the end of Chesterton’s poem “Nightmare”:
“Hasten and be done,
Is there no steepness in the stairs of hell?”

Michael in UK,

(middle bit to not be in italics)

Valerie Stewart: Atheists are being created in droves, and the toxicity of Calvinism bears much blame, especially within recent years.

Perhaps the largest growing segment of Christianity in America are the “Dones” … done with church, but not done with Jesus. New Calvinism has been a major contributor to believers walking away from doing church without God. Doctrinal propositions about God is not a good substitute for His presence, where grace-this and grace-that have replaced Grace.

Max: Perhaps the largest growing segment of Christianity in America are the “Dones” … done with church, but not done with Jesus. New Calvinism has been a major contributor to believers walking away from doing church without God.

This is my case right now.

It was death by a thousand cuts, and the last one was from a longstanding elderly member who said that “virtual churches aren’t real churches.” I realized right then and there that the current churches, as well as many of their members, are more interested in upholding the status quo rather than living like Jesus. That comment made sense in light of them being perpetually disinterested in pursuing the anxious, depressed, and lost younger generations, who are on social media 24/7.

Max: Doctrinal propositions about God is not a good substitute for His presence

You’re 100% correct. These churches like the act as the middlemen, but they place barricades around God, instead.

Valerie Stewart:

Sitting around thinking for years, with nights of cold sweats . . .

Ras al Ghul,

The anti-culture war is “cod” Allan Bloom. At least Bloom was a secular trying to address the secular with his personal take on the secular. But the christians add layers of pretence, sloppiness and dishonesty (e.g they prefer Hegel over his complete opposite, Kant)

As for the “christian” kingdom of this world, my leaders in Newfrontiers (which explicitly acknowledged a version of NAR) would waffle about influencing seven mountains – while in their neuroses ensuring we didn’t do anything (of any kind) effectively. One of the later generation of NF leaders has written some halfway good books and may – on a good day – be a bit wary of monarchical tendencies in the “spheres” that NF fissured into.

Certainly NAR ISN’T an essence, it’s a variable concept. How many apparently “normal” churches do we hear wittering about “influencing the city / region / country for Christ”. I don’t think the usual “faith” takes account of the existence of spiritual factors in life at all, but can and very much does ape doing so.

They discredited the (actual and independent) gift of discernment so they can urge their Ersatz version of it on us.

I can’t remember where I saw it, but there is a lot of explanation somewhere, of “Flatland” (thinking that lacks dimensions).

Michael in UK: Mr Nasty = SCARE
Mr Nice = triple bamboozlement even when we break the rules to figure it out

As in what you call “Hot and Cold” and we call “Good Cop/Bad Cop”?

Michael in UK: (e.g they prefer Hegel over his complete opposite, Kant)

Wasn’t Hegel the one who invented The Dialectic?
(Which a certain Marx picked up and ran with it.)

Michael in UK: Thank you for telling me Chesterton wrote poems!

I was introduced to G.K. when his best-known poem (“Lepanto”) was in one of my school textbooks. Years later I picked up a complete collection (hardback) at a used bookstore. and years after that, another complete hardback of his Father Brown Mysteries.

I don’t know if I’d like the guy if I’d met him in person, but from a safe distance…