AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO--Part V Size and Scope of the Problem in Four Categories

CATCHIN' UP.


Today's post is part of the series, AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IS A MENTAL GHETTO. Find the first installments here. I describe the ME (Modern Evangelical) "church" in America as a Mental Ghetto because, like most American ghettos, the folks who stay there are able to get out, but staying is easier than getting out. Watching TV and getting high is more fun than taking a shower and doing job interviews. Going to the soccer game with the kids is easier than studying for an hour and sitting the kids down to tell them a Bible story. And many clergy actually like it that way because they get something out of it, too. I call them the Mental Ghetto Pimps. And I am going to use the example of a Pastor Dan Jarrell and the crew at Family Life Today as the Mental Ghetto Pimps.

MORNING SICKNESS.
This morning I had some around-town chores to do. So I did something I should probably do more often just for general information, but it's painful. I tuned to the local religious radio station and my ears began to bleed. I hate that such stuff is called "Christian". The first thing that turned my stomach was an ad for "Our Daily Bread", the monthly devotional booklet whose purpose seems to be to sooth our guilt for not reading our Bibles by means of little, three-paragraph essays with a Bible verse for a pretext and a witty quote at the end--all of which takes 45 seconds to read top-to-bottom. And that's if you go REALLY SLOOOOOW. But what the heck? You've had your "devotions", right? No muss, no fuss.

And no God.

The ad ended with the invitation to come along with them and "explore the world of spiritual meditation". That's right--spiritual meditation. I suppose the folks selling it think it'll raise fewer eyebrows than selling Ouija Boards or prayer labyrinths.

Radio Bible Class gives us this little gem. Once orthodox, RBC is now pushing mystics. (1)

Keep in mind, here, that I only listened to the station a total of probably less than five minutes total, intermittently between stops. It was certainly less than ten. Yet there was another incident during that time. The second was hearing a "Pastor Dan Jarrell" bludgeon the parable of the talents from Matthew 25. From the snippet of the conversation I heard, it seemed that Pastor Dan applied this somehow to marriage. That parable has nothing to do with marriage. It's about obedience to do God's work with the time and resources God has given each of us.

But that's just the start.

Here's the really ridiculous part: In verses 26-30 the fate of the servant who did nothing with what was given him was assigned to torment. It reads, "...and cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Pastor Dan told us that the place where there is "weeping" is where you "feel sorry for yourself", and the place where there is "gnashing of teeth" is where you "blame everybody else".

Here's the question we MUST answer:

WHY DOES ANYONE CONSIDER THIS SORT OF THING EVEN REMOTELY CHRISTIAN?
The depth of the problem makes this possible. It is in each of us individually, with a few exceptions, and it is in our institutions. I believe the depth of the problem comes to flower in four categories of collective sin.

CATEGORY ONE: BIBLICAL IGNORANCE.
How can Dan Jarrell say such things and still be taken seriously by anyone who calls themselves "Christian"? The short answer is the folks who take him seriously probably aren't Christians themselves or they'd know better because they'd have spent lots of time pursuing God through the Scripture. But that discussion is too big to get into here.

In order for Dan Jarrell to say such a thing, he has to have practiced, not just innocent ignorance, but the sin of outright aphronism. Being a "pastor", he's had time in the study to read the book of Matthew and if we give the benefit of the doubt (I wouldn't and if someone wants to know why, ask in the comment thread, please.) and say that he didn't actually lie purposely, then one can only imagine just what mental tricks this man has done to come to the interpretation of Matthew 25:30 he presented. It had to be purposeful ignorance, not innocent ignorance--lying to himself. I call it "aphronism".

In addition to Dan Jarrell's efforts to make the fantastic sound reasonable, he has to have accomplices. The people running the host program, Family Life Today, have to turn their heads to the lie. The folks at the local radio station, KURL, in Billings, MT have to turn their heads, too. I've contacted both Family Life Today and KURL in the past about such things and both have responded with anger.

So, there are Dan, FLT, and KURL, but there's someone else that has to remain in biblical ignorance for all this to work. THE AUDIENCE. There have to be enough MEs (Modern Evangelicals) out there who don't know their Bibles for this to be sold. It's a Mental Ghetto, where everyone is happy to remain ignorant. And they all get something for their ignorance. The audience gets to feel religious without actually dealing with God, studying His Word, or dealing with their own sin in light of His commandments and the threat of hell. As long as the audience stays stupid, KURL has an audience and can sell air time, FLT gets to "give the gift of hope" at $200 a couple (2), and Pastor Ignorant gets paid to spread his heresy.

Recently, forty-five students of Wheaton in their SENIOR YEAR were asked to list the ten commandments in their words (NO EXACT RECITATION). Only one could do it. (3)

This is raw sin.

CATEGORY TWO: IGNORANCE IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.
What does general knowledge have to do with biblical knowledge and what place does it have in the church? Aren't we supposed to be guided by faith?

No, we aren't to be guided by faith. At least not the kind of faith of MEism. I'm not writing about the content of faith, but the kind of faith. The content of a faith is what is actually believed. The kind of faith is how and why one believes. Christianity is a faith, but not ignorant faith. Obscurantism isn't biblical faith, but that is a discussion for CATEGORY FOUR.

Apply all the knowledge you have to your faith. Taking the example of Mental Ghetto Pimp Dan Jarrell, he counts on the fact that no one in his audience would apply even a tiny bit of literary interpretation or common horse sense to what he was saying. He counted on the fact that most of his audience wouldn't ask the simplest of questions concerning his claim about Matthew 25:30. How is "weeping" interpreted specifically as feeling sorry for oneself? How is "gnashing of teeth" analogized into blaming other people? What are the clues in the text or the context? How does this fit with anything I know about biblical doctrine? Was Jesus really thinking about self-pity and antagonizing others? Where are those subjects first taken up in the text so that we can reasonably read them in here?

Pimp Jarrell has to assume that his audience is of a mindset of switching off all their general knowledge about anything at all when engaged in things of the "faith". This is both moronic and unbiblical. It's moronic. In what area of human endeavor is progress made toward truth by means of purposely being mindless? It's unbiblical. What happened to all the reasoned arguments of the epistles and Jesus' request for Thomas to examine the evidence? Or Paul's commendation of the Bereans for examining all they heard by the Hebrew Bible or its translation, the Septuagint?

Not only should Christians strive to be logical and apply their knowledge, it's a part of Christian tradition to achieve intellectual excellence. Yet, we actually hear preachers say things like, "I'm just a simple preacher."

Then resign from the pulpit. You aren't qualified. You're in sin. And your sinful attitude has infected the entire church. Shame on you. May God deal with you for what you are.

For an example of how ignorance of general knowledge often leads to direct sins of other sorts as well, consider the following bumper sticker I got off of a "Christian" web site (4) this morning:

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.

And what is the sin? NO. What are the SINS here? Gossip, cowardice, and bearing false witness. The Puritans, by way of the strong connection between "Puritanism" and "Puritans" are falsely said to be unhappy about others being happy. Curmudgeons. Since the Puritians are dead and gone, they can't defend themselves. Hence the dual sins of cowardice and gossip. And actual history tells us the Puritans weren't anything like that. If the author of these words knew better he was lying about the Puritans. If he didn't know any better, then he lied by pretending to a knowledge he had not.

And if confronted with this, I'll bet dollars-to-doughnuts, the reprover will be accused of being picky. But how would the author like it if he was so slandered?

CATEGORY THREE: IGNORANCE OF HOW TO THINK.
Jesus disciples were tax-collectors, carpenters, and fishermen, with a doctor thrown in. I wonder if they were even literate when they met Jesus. Nevertheless, they became men of oratory and letters. Remember Peter? A blustery fisherman became the author of biblical books, capable of recognizing that Paul's writings were divinely inspired Scripture.

Why?

Why did blue-collar men become educated in ancient literature? Because that's how God communicates. The gospel is spoken and written, not felt and grunted. Nor is it communicated by a stirring chorus repeated ad nauseum. Most MEs believe that truth can be measured by how one feels. And my generation is the one who perpetrated this lie. If you think me wrong, simply go to some of the ODM sites. Find a comment thread and read. A heretic named in the post will be defended by a commenter on the basis that the commenter "knew" the figure named. No facts will be brought to bare by the commenter except one. He "knew" him. In other words, they had a simpatico. Feelings.

In the seventies CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) came into being. The emphasis seemed to be on the music, not the lyrical content. Some exceptions are worth noting, such as Keith Green. But the same generation who started CCM is the generation who said doctrine isn't important. And the distinguishing characteristics of CCM were the new style of music and the fact that it was mostly content free.

In fact, some songs actually advocated the sin of aphronism. Not only was this a doctinal position--can't we all just get along?--but it was good marketing. For Corporate Christianity to work, sales can't be limited to just the Reformeds or the Charismatics. We need the whole enchilada to make a prophet.

Chuck Girard is a prime example of pimping for a prophet for himself and the record companies. Read the opening lyrics from his 1974 song, "Think about What Jesus Said":

Think about what Jesus said
Before you let your mind reject Him
Listen to your heart instead
And you will accept Him (5)

Get that? Thought bad. Feelings good. In fact, it's worse than that. Thinking will damn you. Feeling your way along like a slug on the sidewalk of "faith" will save your soul. Is that a biblical view of man? Is that a biblical view of epistemology? How is it that Chuck was considered a Christian? He disobeyed Christ's words severely. Chuck hates knowledge. Jesus said He came to bring light to the world. Don't these two oppose? Yes, they do.

Which brings me to the fourth category.

CATEGORY FOUR: IGNORANCE ABOUT THE BIBLICAL COMMAND TO PRACTICE PRECISE THOUGHT.

Stop having devotions and don't meditate anymore. Replace devotions with serious study, not a quick time of going through religious activity, hoping you can "feel the spirit". And stop having moments of silence. Instead, take what you learn in your study and think those things over and over during your work, during your evenings, at night, in the morning.

Current private practices aren't biblical. The ME "church" is returning to mysticism, contrary to biblical injunction. While my generation passed the mystical baton, previous generations were running hard, too. For instance, the word "inspirational" has been used for decades to stand in for the word "religious". Inspiration can be anything that engenders positive religious feelings. A devout Mormon can feel inspired. It has to do only with the feelings and nothing to do with the content that was used to achieve those feelings.

My generation used to argue with itself about being too feelings-oriented in worship. Biblical content lost the argument.

And this generation is paying the price.

In Christ,
Phil Perkins.

(1)http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/index.php?p=924&more=1&c=1
(2)http://www.familylife.com/site/c.dnJHKLNnFoG/b.3204559/k.F5BB/Attend_a_conference.htm
(3)http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1817838/posts
(4)http://www.chuck.org/jokes%20bumper%20stickers.htm

(5)http://www.delusionresistance.org/christian/chuckgirard/1974%20finaltouch/ft04.html

COMING IN PART VI OF THE MENTAL GHETTO. What is biblical meditation? And the biblical commands about our minds and our thoughts.