Sheep and Goats

Tag: Haddon Robinson

  • Who’re You Calling a Cult? Part 2

    Jehovah's Witnesses don't fit the traditional definition of cult, but they do fit the new and improved definition [people we don't like] devised by Evangelical Christians and Evangelical Atheists, two overbearing groups who otherwise have nothing in common. If a website is run by members of either group, therefore, you can be sure we are a 'cult'.

    Of the two groups, atheists are, at least, not hypocritical. Look, they don't like God; they're real clear on that. God is a delusion, they say, and worship a sham. So it's wholly consistent that a group like Jehovah's Witnesses, who agency, would cause them to use the C-word worship seriously, and in a manner influenced by biblical interpretation of a human governing 
     
    Not so with evangelicals. There is hypocrisy here, or at least, Bible ignorance. If they were organized in a Christian manner themselves, they would not be calling JWs a cult….they would be imitating them.
     
    Doing his utmost to goad me, one character (alas…I no longer recall just where) wants to know what I would do if I disagreed with JWs about something. Would I keep it to myself? Or would I speak out? I can start a debate club at my church, he tells me. Can ya, Tom Sheepandgoats, huh?? Well, can ya? Or would ya be scared?!
     

    It's axiomatic to him that the Church be patterned on Western values, and in the West we have RIGHTS! First and foremost is the right to free speech. Robust debate! Can anything be more healthy? Wasn't it Patrick Henry who declared: "I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it!" How American! Mom! Baseball! Apple Pie! Flags a'flying! Surely that must be in the Bible!
     
    Each time the Watchtower says something modeled on Bible principles, but not ideals of the West, it prompts vicious attacks from those who assume Western values ought to be the template of Christianity. But Patrick Henry was not one of the Twelve Apostles. He might not agree with verses like:
     
    "It is necessary to shut the mouths of [self-styled authorities], as these very men keep on subverting entire households …" Titus 1:11
     
    …stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer    1 Tim 1:3
     
    How's that for free speech? How's that for robust debate?
     
    You cannot read the New Testament without being struck by the apostles' efforts to prevent sects, divisions, dissention, and at the extreme, apostasy. Christianity started in unity. They wanted to keep it that way. It's a constant theme:
     
    Now I exhort you, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you should all speak in agreement, and that there should not be divisions among you, but that you may be fitly united in the same mind and in the same line of thought. For the disclosure was made to me about you, my brothers, by those of [the house of] Chloe, that dissensions exist among you. What I mean is this, that each one of you says: “I belong to Paul,” “But I to Apollos,” “But I to Cephas,” “But I to Christ.” The Christ exists divided. Paul was not impaled for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I am thankful I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.  1 Cor 1:10-15
     
    I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among you and will not treat the flock with tenderness, and from among you yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.    Acts 20:29-30
     
    I [the Apostle John] wrote something to the congregation, but Diotrephes, who likes to have the first place among them, does not receive anything from us with respect. That is why, if I come, I will call to remembrance his works which he goes on doing, chattering about us with wicked words. Also, not being content with these things, neither does he himself receive the brothers with respect, and those who are wanting to receive them he tries to hinder and to throw out of the congregation.   3 John 9-10
     
    Now….you know, and I know, that it's not human nature to agree. Furthermore, small disagreements quickly widen into large disagreements. Yet, Jesus disciples were to be "one flock, one shepherd." So there was a human governing agency in the first century congregation, consisting first of the apostles, and it was through this agency that Christian unity was preserved. Every Christian was encouraged to know the scriptures, even before they were all assembled into a 'Bible.' The earliest Christians had known Jesus personally. All this worked toward unity and agreement, to be sure. But as Christians increased in number from 12 individuals to congregations throughout the contemporary world, do you really think unity would remain unmarred without a human authority to explain, interpret, and settle disagreements? And if so then, all the more so today when congregations exist around the globe.
     
    If Jehovah's Witnesses seem "authoritarian," it's mostly because churches, reflecting general society, have tired of authority and have cast it aside. Consumerism reigns in most churches today, so says Haddon Robinson:
     
    "Too often now when people join a church, they do so as consumers. If they like the product, they stay. If they do not, they leave. They can no more imagine a church disciplining them than they could a store that sells goods disciplining them. It is not the place of the seller to discipline the consumer. In our churches we have a consumer mentality."
     
    There's a price to pay for casting aside discipline in favor of consumerism: people cater to and start to spread their own novel interpretations, their own ways of doing things, their own outlook on what it means to be a Christian, and before long 2 Pet 2:1-2 comes to pass:
     
    "…there also came to be false prophets among the [Old Testament Israelites], as there will also be false teachers among you. These very ones will quietly bring in destructive sects and will disown even the owner that bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. Furthermore, many will follow their acts of loose conduct, and on account of these the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively"    2 Peter 2:1-2

    I vividly recall circuit overseers and the like pointing out that "50 years ago the difference between Jehovah's Witnesses and churchgoers in general was doctrinal, not moral." Time was when there was little difference between the two groups as regards conduct. Today the chasm is huge. Can internal governing not be a factor?
     
    I don't even like that question posed up there in that 4th paragraph: 'could I start a debate group if I disagreed with this or that teaching?' I don't like the premise. Christians aren't inclined to debate. They've signed on to a manner of thinking that holds truths aren't established that way. They tend to reflect the "wisdom from above," which "is first of all chaste, then peaceable, reasonable, ready to obey…"  Jas 3:17. They allow themselves to be 'readjusted" through the influence of humans, as one might expect from reading Eph 4:11-13:
     
    And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelizers, some as shepherds and teachers, with a view to the readjustment of the holy ones, for ministerial work, for the building up of the body of the Christ…
     
    They respond, even when "not favorably disposed," to a teaching style such as Paul encouraged Timothy to cultivate: "….a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, keeping himself restrained under evil, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed….."  2 Tim 2:24-25
     
    Think of it as riders on a bus. Ideally, everyone's happy as can be. Singin the camp song and all. In practice, though, not all are that way. They fret and grumble about their schedule. They don't feel all that great. The weather outside sucks. The passenger next to them has some annoying ways. The bus is too hot or cold….ya wanna adjust the temp controls? And….couldn't the driver have avoided that pothole? Did he really mean to take that last turn? That's really the best way? It's not so serious as to warrant getting off the bus (always an option), mind you….after all, they didn't have to get on in the first place, but there can be minor murmurings about this or that.
     
    All this is human. All this is easily absorbed by the congregation. It's not ideal, but it's life. You can do these things. What you can't do is grab the wheel of the bus. You can't stand up in the aisle and yell "fire!" You show reasonable decorum. If I disagree with this or that point, I say to myself: am I really so immodest as to think what is needed in the brotherhood is 7 million carbon copies of ME? I allow myself to be 'readjusted.' If I can't fully get into something, I don't fully get into it. I wait, pending a possible time when I can, submitting myself to godly instruction in the meantime. (1 Cor 16:16, Heb 13:17)
     
    Some won't like this illustration. "There is no driver," they'll grouse. "There is no bus. It's just me 'n Jesus." But the verses above show otherwise. There is authority in the Christian congregation. Human authority. Surely you can accede to that without being a "cult".

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    Tom Irregardless and Me      No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

     

     

     

  • Good Evangelicals, Bad Evangelicals

    When soreheads charge that Jehovah's Witnessses are mean, they offer as proof that JW congregations tell their people what to do. As proof of that, they point out that congregations impose discipline upon members ranging from mild reproof to strong reproof to even expulsion for individuals who persistantly and purposefully deviate from core beliefs and practices. Doesn't that prove JWs are mean? Doesn't that prove they are a manmade organization of rules, not love? Doesn't that prove members are slaves to a governing body comprised of old men on a power trip?

    No, it does not. The discipline now practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses was practiced in most Protestant denominations until less than 100 years ago – and was based on the same scriptures upon which we base ours. But when it became unpopular, they gave it up. As a result, the morals and lifestyle of today's evangelical church members are indistinguishable from that of the general population. That might be okay if the general population was a storehouse of virtue, but newspapers remind us daily that it's not. And scripture is clear that the Christian congregation is not supposed to be a mirror image of today's morally bankrupt society. It is supposed to be an oasis.

    Such is the conclusion of Ronald Sider, author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience – Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? (2005) Mr. Sider is well respected within evangelical circles. He publishes PRISM magazine and serves as contributing editor to Christianity Today and Sojourners. He is professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy, as well as director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and some other accolades. He is not happy to reach his conclusion, and you cannot but admire the man for his frankness. One doesn't readily air one's dirty laundry in public, yet Sider does so out of moral outrage and shame for the evangelical community. He points to attitudes on sex, money, racsim, and personal self-fulfillment. Evangelicals live no differently than the rest of the world, he laments.

    I vividly recall circuit overseers and their ilk pointing out that "50 years ago the difference between Jehovah's Witnesses and churchgoers in general was doctrinal, not moral." Time was when there was little difference between the two groups as regards conduct. Today the chasm is huge. Can internal discipline not be a factor?

    "Church discipline used to be a significant, accepted part of most evangelical traditions, whether Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, or Anabaptist," Sider writes. "…..In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it has largely disappeared." He then quotes Haddon Robinson on the current church climate, a climate he calls consumerism:

    "Too often now when people join a church, they do so as consumers. If they like the product, they stay. If they do not, they leave. They can no more imagine a church disciplining them than they could a store that sells goods disciplining them. It is not the place of the seller to discipline the consumer. In our churches we have a consumer mentality."

    They do. And because the church promotes it, caters to it, does whatever it must to swell its ranks, its people cannot be told apart from general society. Of course, some can. I personally know ones who, like Mr Sider himself, take living by Bible standards seriously. But the evangelical label apparantly means nothing as regards lifestyle. It points to a people who can argue Trinity and hellfire till your ears fall off, but who otherwise live no differently than anyone else. The ones who actually apply Christianity are left unreinforced, in some ways even challenged, by their own church.

    Doesn't it remind you of that endless list of negative qualities that people are said to have in the "last days?" Paul writes "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…"

    As Paul winds down his list, he observes that such people, far from being atheist or agnostics, are "having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."   2 Tim 3:1-5   (NIV)

    What to make of Sider's book? I don't really know. A few upright evangelicals I know, such as in my own family (or are they just born-agains?) make me skeptical of the book's conclusions. Can it really be that all churches have sold out? But if I think of those evangelicals who picket our conventions, I believe every word. Such an unruly looking bunch you've never seen.

    Only one other group comes to mind that has not forsaken church discipline: Mormons. Is it just coincidence that they, like Jehovah's Witnesses, carry a reputation for both honesty and family values and maintain a policy of internal discipline? Evangelicals, though, at least those on the web, deride both them and us as "cults," and rail against both for imposing rules of conduct on members. Yet discipline, even imperfectly applied (which is all you can expect of imperfect humans) has succeeded in preserving a people who can be identified by their conduct – a conduct which stands apart from the world at large.

    God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.     Heb 12:7-11   (NIV)

     

    More here, here, and I suppose even here