Calvi-cult 3: Good hearts, but...

Okay, I decided to share some preliminary notes first (published over a few posts), and then I'll get more into Calvinism word-tricks, errors, and cult-like tactics.  (The preliminary notes will eventually morph into the regular posts, so you might not even know when the switch happens.  But that's because I can't even really tell when it happens.  It just...happens.)   

Click here for part 1 of this series: "Calvi-cult's damage to hearts, minds, and faith"... and click here for part 2: "What is a cult? Is Calvinism a cult?"

"Good hearts, but..."

I alluded to this already: Calvinists, of course, don't think that they believe/teach biblical error.  They think it's the truth and that they're being faithful to it and obediently sharing it with others (which is why they're so effective).  Their hearts are in the right place (but their theology is not).  

Many of them are - generally, in my experience - very good people who take the Bible seriously and really want to know, live, and share God's Word and to humbly glorify God.  And they are often intelligent, deep-thinking people, because Calvinism appeals to those who appreciate deep, difficult theology, who like to read and study a lot to try to understand it (which, sadly, is what locks them into it even more).  

And to be honest and fair, there is a lot of good in what they teach, a lot of truth, a lot we can agree on.  95% of what a Calvinist pastor preaches in almost any sermon could sound great, setting off no alarm bells (which is how they carefully plan it).  And, therefore, unaware people can still find a lot of biblical truth in it, enough even to come to Jesus.  

And this is because we don't yet understand the hidden 5% which ruins the 95%.  We're taking what Calvinists say at face-value, trusting that what they say is what they really mean and trusting that they're taking the Bible at face-value.  And this is what gets us.  What tricks and traps us.  

But, of course, Calvinists are not trying to be wrong or bad.  They're trying to faithfully preach Scripture as they know it, using whatever means they can to spread it, to get us to believe it too.  And most Calvinists don't necessarily intend to act cult-like or even realize they're doing it.  And, of course, they wouldn't label their tactics as manipulation, gaslighting, deception, shaming, deflection, etc.

But let's be honest: Unintentionally twisting Scripture, taking verses out of context, and corrupting the gospel is still twisting Scripture, taking verses out of context, and corrupting the gospel, even if you intend to be humble, God-honoring, and to uphold the Word.  

Unintentional cult-like manipulation and gaslighting is still cult-like manipulation and gaslighting - even if you're a nice Christian with a good heart trying to spread "the gospel" - because, regardless of what you call your tactics and even if you don't know you're doing it, it still has the same effect as intentional manipulation and gaslighting.

And unintentional deception is still deception, regardless of if you consider it deception or not.  To deceive is to deliberately cause someone to believe something that's not true.  And a Calvinist pastor - especially a stealth one - deliberately uses careful strategy and often-underhanded tactics to get people to believe things that aren't true, even though he doesn't realize it's not true, even though he thinks that it's "the truth" and that he's faithfully sharing "the truth" with others.  Just because he's been unintentionally deceived himself and is now unintentionally deceiving others doesn't miraculously make it truth.

I am not judging Calvinists' hearts here, but their tactics and beliefs.  Calvinists, even stealth Calvinist pastors, are some of the most faithful Christians out there, and they really do love God, want to glorify God, and are trying to be true to His Word and to share it with others.  And they really do think they understand the Bible accurately, that they have the truth, and that they're doing God's work when they set about to reform a church or other Christians, whatever it takes.  

[But, to be honest, there are some Calvinists, especially various pastors and teachers, that are smug, condescending, rude, controlling, domineering, in love with themselves, etc.  Some of this is probably their natural personality and some is probably because they're all puffed-up because of their education and their power in the church.  (Have you read about the violent way John Calvin controlled his people?  Yikes.  And then, for fun, read about how Calvinists defend/excuse him or soften it all up, as if he can do no wrong.  Ugh.)]  

And so they would never think that they're wrong or cult-like in what they do, not even when they hide the fact that they're Calvinists teaching Calvinism... or hide their unique definitions of words, verses, and biblical concepts to make us think they're defining and using words and verses the same way we are... or present their beliefs in strategic and stealthy ways to carefully lead us from one point to the next, reeling us into their theology little by little... or bury the disturbing stuff they know we'd resist underneath wording they know we'd all agree on and have no problem with, until they've had a chance to indoctrinate us enough that we'll accept it more easily (bait-and-switch)... etc.

When they do these things, they're convinced that they're just being wise and careful in how they present "the gospel/biblical truths" and that they're doing it for God's glory and for the good of the church and the people.

An anonymous Calvinist author wrote an article called "4 Reasons Not to be a 'Calvinist'" where he says that Calvinist pastors should not identify themselves as Calvinists, that it's "unhealthy and even unbiblical" because (among other reasons) "most people don't know what Calvinism actually is... If someone does not know what a label means, then the label itself only obstructs any hope for lucid dialogue."  [So, basically, in order to not confuse people who don't understand Calvinism, Calvinists have no choice but to hide their Calvinism, to disguise it with biblical language.😕]

This Founders Ministry "church reform" plan advises Calvinist pastors trying to take over non-Calvinist churches to "avoid terms such as Calvinism, reformed, doctrines of grace, particular redemption, etc.  Most people will not know what you are talking about.  Many that do will become inflamed against you.  Teach your people the biblical truth of these doctrines without providing distracting labels for them."  ["Distracting?"  Nice spin, making it sound like they have to be deceptive... for the good of the people, of course.  But what they really mean is "revealing": "Don't use labels which will reveal your particular brand of theology as Calvinism because people will get alarmed and push back.  And if they know our theology's particular name, they'll be able to research it for themselves."  That's what they really mean.  (Do they think we're all stupid, that none of us will catch on to what they mean and what they're doing, especially when they literally admit it out loud!?!  But sadly, many of us haven't caught on, as evidenced by how much Calvinism has taken over the Church.😖)]

John MacArthur admits to being a Closet Calvinist Pastor for years (see this Faith on Fire video, start at 3:10).  And why?  As he says it: "I felt like I had an obligation to bring people who have been given a [non-Calvinist] system that was superimposed on Scripture, to bring them out of that, and I thought that labels too soon would short-circuit that."  [So, clearly, he thought it was his spiritual duty to hide his Calvinism, to indoctrinate non-Calvinists into Calvinism without letting them know it.  Because, in his mind, they had fallen for an unbiblical theology, and it was his job to save them.]

John Piper, too, admits to being a stealth Calvinist pastor (see his article "TULIP: Introduction"): "Up until that point in the life of our church — I had been there for five years — we had not made any issue at all about 'so called' Calvinism.  ["So-called"... as if it's not really what it is!]  We hadn’t made any issue at all of this controversial thing.  I had just tried to be faithful to Biblical texts because I think that’s what wins the confidence of God’s people.  They don’t want to hear a system mainly, they want to hear Bible mainly, which is what they ought to mainly hear.  I tried to just win their trust to say, 'I’m a Bible man. I’m not a system man, mainly.'  But after five years, it seemed like the time was right to talk about those verses."  [So, let me get this straight: He knows it's "controversial"... and yet he doesn't trust or respect the people enough to be upfront with them and give them all the information so that they can research it for themselves to make up their own minds about it.  No, instead he decides for them that they must be Calvinists but hides that he's teaching it to them.  And he claims that he's doing it - teaching Calvinism stealthily, with only biblical words and concepts - because that's supposedly what the people want.😐]

And for one more: The Founder's Ministries article "Reformed by the Word: One Church's Journey" shares one Calvinist pastor's strategy in reforming his church: "We took it slow at first.  I avoided the 'C' word, knowing people wouldn’t understand it.  We didn’t start with classes on systematic theology (though they would come later)... I kept the focus on God’s Sovereignty and man’s depravity... along with a focus on a biblical [he means "Calvinist"!] understanding of conversion and the new birth..."  [So he clearly went into it with a Calvinist mindset, definitions, and agenda, but he hid his Calvinism - taking time to indoctrinate the church slowly by using carefully-chosen concepts and verses, defined Calvinisticly - before he unleashed Calvinism on them completely and fully.  And he felt that he had to do it this way because if he did it honestly and aboveboard, "the people wouldn't understand".  (Note: Calvinists misunderstand sovereignty, depravity, conversion, and new birth, so even the foundation he lays is bad, totally tainted by Calvinism.  So it's no surprise that when that foundation is laid, the church has been primed and prepped to become fully Calvinist in the end.  A Calvinist foundation inevitably grows into full-blown Calvinist theology as each piece is placed one at a time on that foundation.)]

And he adds: "As I was soon to discover, reshaping a church from its man-centered assumptions to a God-centered Gospel is rarely done without opposition and pain."

Can you hear it in the quotes above?  The belief that they are the spiritual authorities who have "the truth"?  That if we disagree with them, we're man-centered and replacing God's truth with our own ideas?  That they have to be stealthy for our benefit, because it's better for us and it's what we want... or it's that we're too stupid, ignorant, or resistant, and so they simply must be stealthy and strategic?  That it's their duty to hide their Calvinism while indoctrinating us into Calvinism because they have to fix the church, to rescue it, to lead us into The Promised Reformland, whatever it takes, even if they suffer for it?  

Our heroes!

But...

But even if Calvinist pastors mean well, even if their hearts are in the right place, even if they think they've got the truth and are doing "God's work," even if they think they're doing it "for the people," even if they're willing to suffer for it, even if it's unintentional error, deception, and manipulation... it's still error, deception, and manipulation.  

Unintentionally being wrong doesn't magically make you right.  Unintentionally being culty doesn't magically make you non-culty.  

And having a good heart with good intentions can't change that.  It's just the way it is.  

The most effective and insidious kind of error and deception is the kind that convinces you that you're godly and humble for believing it and spreading it the way you do, the kind that has such a ring of truth to it that no one recognizes it as error or deception, not even the ones spreading it.    

Sidenote: I was reading the book The Cult Explosion (1980) from Dave Hunt yesterday, and I ran across a sentence in chapter 1 that sounded familiar.  A woman was explaining how she unintentionally got reeled into Hinduism through Transcendental Meditation back in the 60's.  She ended up becoming a teacher of TM, and said this about it: 

"As a teacher of TM, I was told to...lie.  We were taught that the state of consciousness of the general public was so low that to tell them the truth about TM would only confuse them... So many people came into TM as Christians or Jews or whatever - and in a year or two of meditation they had become Hindus without even realizing it."

Hmm, sounds similar to the quotes above, how Calvinists take over churches: They don't tell us that they're teaching us Calvinism because we supposedly can't understand it or handle it, and so they teach it to us in stealthy ways until - surprise - we end up becoming Calvinists without us even realizing it.

As I said in a previous post: "No one knowingly, voluntarily joins a cult, but they are 'recruited' into it by cult leaders who take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the recruits, using deception and manipulation to suck them in."

Going back briefly to that "4 Reasons Not to be a 'Calvinist'" article which says that Calvinist pastors shouldn't identify themselves as Calvinists because it would just confuse us: 

I think it's actually his last reason that's his main reason, the real reason, for why he says Calvinist pastors shouldn't identify themselves as Calvinists: "There are some who seek to stir up trouble with scare tactics.  I can only speak for myself here, but I have felt the strangest hostility from those who are most vocal about their worries concerning 'Calvinists.'  'Watch out for those Calvinists! Out them as fast as possible! How can we prevent them from ever tainting our churches again?'"  

Calvinists don't want to be exposed or opposed.  That's the real reason for hiding their Calvinism.  Because if they were exposed too early - if we knew their theology's name (or even the fact that it had a particular name instead of just being "Christianity") - then we might be concerned enough to research it for ourselves, find information against it, and share our doubts with others, interrupting their stealthy, strategic plans to reform the church without our awareness.

And so Calvinists need to hide as long as possible to buy themselves enough time to indoctrinate enough people so that when they're finally exposed and opposed, it barely makes a ripple.  And since part of that indoctrination is to precondition people to think that anyone who can't accept the pastor's theology is in the wrong, then we who finally dare to speak out against it will be judged as bad, unhumble Christians who resist God's authority and reject His Word.

And notice how he says that people want to "out [Calvinists] as fast as possible."  

He might not realize it, but he's actually admitting that he knows Calvinists are sneaky, stealthy, and deceptive about their Calvinism and that it's become a problem in churches.

Because we don't have to "out" people who aren't hiding, who aren't being stealthy and deceptive.  

We only have to "out" them when they are.

And he knows it.