Mike Lee: Put H-1B Program on Pause

[Hol]

I am still dealing with some from my previous denomination.

Church hurt is tough to deal with.

I wanted to share something with you Teren, during our back and forth in this thread I did pray about your past denomination struggles.

It’s easy to see that you’re so intelligent and creative.

When I was a baby Christian I sought to understand what the Bible was about, and coming from a secular environment full of very intelligent folks, when I stumbled upon Calvinism I thought okay, now it’s making sense. For a year or so I studied RC Sproul, John Mac, and Presbyterian puritan stuff. There is loads of deep intellectual arguments that drew me in. The Lord began to get me out of it by reading Dave Hunt’s book What Love is This? Since then I’ve spent hours listening to Leighton Flowers. He points out how Calvinists are very good at over complicating simple biblical teaching. The Bible is simple enough for a child to grasp, yet can take a believing scholar a lifetime to begin to gain confidence that they are beginning to understand. A child can’t grasp the writing of Calvinists because when they self-contradict they are very good at covering it with gobbledygook that they convincingly claim is their higher intellect.

It takes lots of time to overcome bad theology. I’m very grateful that God continues to heal me. I spend several hours a month listening to Leighton Flowers, but it used to be several hours a week.

I don’t know what drew you to Calvinism or how God has worked healing you. Just know that you’re in our prayers brother

 

[TCC]

Thanks dear sister @Hol. I can use all the prayer i can get on this. Amen. Honestly as I am thinking about it, I will probably have to let this friend go. I care a lot about him. But the layers of how to mess with someone's mind is likely a bit too taxing and is so refined (likely making the average cult brainwashing somewhat silly by comparison), that its hard to believe that level of manipulation "on the fly" could come from a believer. Perhaps it could. But I must say, I do marvel at its simulacrum to reality. Maybe I'm dealing with a pod person. lol.

Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement dear sister. Yeah I love Flowers and there is also Beyond the Fundamentals (somewhat controversial) and Idol Killer, Jason Breda, and Great Light Studios I have liked. As well as Alana L, the youtube lady John Macarthur told to keep her thoughts to herself. I've been meaning to get more back into Leighton but I've been going through a kind of new venture to me on atonement theories. Something I have put off for about a decade. But I think Leighton is the best direct source for coming out of reformed perspectives. Never get tired of the man.

Hol I don't think i will ever get to the point where there is zero reformed thought in me. Maybe too that is a good thing in ways. Because I don't know how overly raw i could be without some kind of filter. Well i half say that in jest. In actuality i could also say on that same note that there is kind of an operating in an "automation" vibe to American reformed thought, that like has aided and abided my absolutely not living the faith to the fullest for sure. So it would be great to have "0" reformed in me if possible.

. . . . .

What attracted me to Calvinism was actually nothing. In my early Christianity I was in camps that saw Macarthur as one operating a church without soul and spirit. So i had that view of him in the 1980s. But I heard a sermon on the radio teaching about how the old testament had many pictures of Christ in it. And i never heard anything close to that in the churches i was attending. That sermon seemed to come with an insight into scripture I never saw before. I was depressed to find out it was Macarthur. Did not want to like him. But i started going to his church (as a fairly new Christian of 3 years of Christian age) and discovered the bible could actually be studied. lol. I never knew that before. So it was this kind of anchor for me that had me interested in ways we can actually study the bible.

The reason I say "nothing" led me to Calvinism was because there was nothing about Calvinism that drew me to it. I suppose the closest we could say is: The sense that we could actually study His word. But that is not exclusive to Calvinism. I had just not been in churches that demonstrated the bible could be studied. It was more like just taking passages and running with them...like fortune cookie teaching in a way i guess. So even in my early years at Jmacs church i could tell something was wrong though. But those things and themes of what is wrong there are so well positioned within immature vs mature paradigms, I would just chalk it up to me needing to grow up. Which in ways was true. But Jmac church did that sort of "rearing" the congregation as a "super parent," approach. And to whatever degree ivy league etiquette or high society etiquette has any virtue or presence in its notion of "maturity" and its true ability to prime one to be "refined" by maturity--Jmac turned "that" into a ministry philosophy. And a church functioning operating system. It was designed for us to feel foolish for going against the system if we did.

The way Jmac taught Calvinism was the stealth way. It would be mentioned here or there. But much of the church world does not really understand in general the differences and nuances and things like that. Like even though there are many churches that are not Calvinist churches, seeing predestination as something God does individually to a believer in eternity past is the common understanding of Eph 1:4. There is very little understanding in general i have found in American churches that predestination is not about a person being chosen for salvation in eternity past. So at my young age of 3, I had no concept of what Calvinism even was. Although it would be mentioned here and there. Alan L. was once scolded online for demonstrating that what Jmac does is "indoctrination." She's 100% right. Not just indoctrination. But like it is from a pastor that was trained in rhetorical theory by a magistrate with endless financial supply and access to the best of the best 24/7. To me it is beyond masters and doctorate level versions of "being smooth.' It was next level. Almost making "being smooth" a fruit of the spirit. But not saying it like that. Yet believing it like that. And being fine with that refined level of cognitive dissonance. So i guess in one way what attracted me to Calvinism was the smoothness of Jmac to pretend indoctrination into that belief system was not what was going on. And one day I magically woke up a Calvinist...lol. For real.

What made me consider questioning it was not even all the issues I saw at Jmac Church. Like Lordship Salvation, which I had always an issue with. What made me question Calvinism was claims online i would run into that would say how wicked it was. That stood out to me. Because to me Calvinism was the gospel. I had been "smoothly" transitioned. And against that, there were these claims that Calvinism was from the devil. It was my curiosity of "How could something like Calvinism be of the devil?" I had to see how this was thought of. So when i tried to find out what made it of the devil, what i mostly got was endless railing against it without it being clear to me at all, why. So to me, people calling Calvinism of the devil and explaining it as though they had rabies did not put out the light of curiosity. There were too many claims i came across for there not to be some "fire" with all that smoke. But the "Calvinism is of the devil" PR team was extremely bad at explaining themselves. Still, i was aware of the difference of people not explaining well and the condition that there is actually something "up" with Calvinism. But it took me a year to find Leighton (which is where the total break from Calvinism completely shook my world). I can elaborate if you like...but for now...

I don't want to make this longer. In some ways I'm not even sure it is detoxing from Calvinism as much as it is detoxing from some mind virus. Because my friend is a Calvinist but a Calvinist light. But the mind virus that has him is of the same kind of high society skill level to manipulate. But more like in very close and creepy personal ways. I know some of that is from his own issues. But a church like Jmac's would train his weaknesses and his mutating social survival skill levels to perfection. And its horrifying to see and interact with. In this same way it was the personal attributes of Calvinism that i think did the most damage to me. Somehow, it was my believing that the systematic they set up (how they moved and grooved in the body of Christ dynamic) was real. My identity in that world is to not really exist. But defer so much to a system that my person no longer matters. A gutting of common male masculine social traits and social orientations. I'm not effeminate. But believing I am a part of a functioning world, to me, kind of has left me as like a punk rocker. Off to the side. Over there. Not here. Those are not so much the firm pinnings of Calvinism. But for me it is living as though i were an after glow of a super machu super Jesus Christ ministry parent that was an apostle (even though a cessationist) and is the ministry rock star of world honor--AND...those who see the wisdom in becoming its groupie are rewarded by attention and value, purpose and virtue. Kind of like however Hollywood might do something like this with some form of social engineering in movies, like. Only in the Christian faith itself. Yes, kind of like Catholicism and the Pope. After all, it did derive from Catholicism. And attests to Catholicism merely being something to reform instead of accepting it as apostate. If any of this might help in what to prayer for. Amen. Blessings. And thanks for letting me know

 

[mattfivefour]

I heard a sermon on the radio teaching about how the old testament had many pictures of Christ in it. And i never heard anything close to that in the churches i was attending. That sermon seemed to come with an insight into scripture I never saw before.

The thing many people miss, dear brother, and which I hope you can now grasp, is that the sound preaching and teaching of most famous Calvinist ministers is not because of their Calvinist beliefs; it is in spite of them. In fact, if you subject their preaching to an in-depth investigation, you will find that much of what they say is actually at odds with true TULIP Calvinism. And if you ever engage them on this fact, they are forced to resort to the convoluted mangling of word meanings in order not to admit that what they actually preach does not fit classic Calvinism.

 

[TCC]

The thing many people miss, dear brother, and which I hope you can now grasp, is that the sound preaching and teaching of most famous Calvinist ministers is not because of their Calvinist beliefs; it is in spite of them. In fact, if you subject their preaching to an in-depth investigation, you will find that much of what they say is actually at odds with true TULIP Calvinism. And if you ever engage them on this fact, they are forced to resort to the convoluted mangling of word meanings in order not to admit that what they actually preach does not fit classic Calvinism.

Yes Pastor I have seen this. Beyond the Fundamentals on youtube keeps live action update track on a church or two that is steamrolling the congregation with fluffy slippers (meaning it does not seem to them like being steamrolled). He has like 10 2 hours videos on those kinds of developments in our modern era. Jmac rose to fame initially for his casual but intelligent style. I did not know this but i came to his church right at the very time he started getting into the puritans.

Yes I was just speaking how i entered the whole Calvinist world. When Jmac did not confuse the gospel, he preached a very powerful gospel message. As recently as 2.5 years ago i came across a section Jmac did on Eph 3 that i thought was really good Something i pulled out of my deeper instigative inquiries into his church (for survival purposes...from years before). in 2015 (even though kind of trying to totally get away from that church in ways). When i heard it in 2015 I did not know the difference of Calvinism still. The message itself was not reformed. It was just one of those exiting areas of scripture where you could tell Jmac really wanted to help the church understand. Like how to start our spiritual engines.

However, in 2022, when i listened to the series over again (not a Calvinist, seriously disillusioned over Jmac and just prior to the Steve Lawson fallout) I still did not want to outright hate the man. So i put on what i thought was the best of Johnny. And at first it had the warm fuzzies. But in all honesty after the second sermon I already started to see how far out of context he was on the whole of the passage. It kind of freaked me out that i did not notice that before. I mean pretty much way off. The thing with Jmac i could see even while still at his church, he had hermeneutical issues large enough to drive a semi-truck through. So, what did i do? I went trucking for 2 years across America literally. It took time for me to catch up to where the word of God was mangled. But as @Hol mentioned somewhere in our forum about Leighton Flowers. Once i got a hold of that level of awareness, game over. So yeah i don't struggle with Calvinism in those ways. To be honest i do still struggle though with how can God use personality cults so magnanimously. I struggle a lot there. Or those kinds of things. Like how Steve Lawson was handled in the media. Or how Allistar Begg can take an evening sermon to shame his decenters with abusing the word of God to such a level even one of his pseudo supporters said he should have been church disciplined. And perhaps that is not even far enough. It just blows my mind. This is the part of God's age of grace and patience i really struggle with. Not so much the evil. Its a given. But just the outright insane super personally hurtful moves of leadership in that camp totally makes me want to throw things. So yeah. Please keep me in prayer. Amen.