Change agents in the church. by Dean Gotcher

Change agents in the church.
It is personal. It is not 'just' business

Dean Gotcher

When you "grow" the church on the business models of the world, making merchandise (customers) of people, making salvation based upon "fellowship" ("human relationship," i.e. "community," i.e. the "mother church") rather than in Christ alone, the verses below apply to you. For example, Leonard Wheat wrote of Paul Tillich, a facilitator of 'change,' i.e. a "change agent": "Tillich is actually directing an apologetic humanistic message to a Christian audience. He is telling those Christians who can hear that they can accept humanism without relinquishing Christianity if they will accept man ["human relationship," the "feeling" of "oneness" with man] as the true meaning of God." "Tillich's elusiveness [use of generalized terms] reflects a calculated effort to remain esoteric [above detection]. He keeps his deepest meanings hidden from all but a few who are prepared to receive it." "By redefining terms [selectively picking scriptures to advance his agenda], Tillich cultivates a 'double-speak' designed to convey opposing messages to different groups. He refuses to define terms to which he obviously attaches definite meanings." "One reason Tillich is unwilling to openly disavow religion [religion based upon Christ alone, the head of the "church," and the importance of "sound doctrine" based upon the Word of God alone] is that he must be accepted as a theologian in order to formulate and gain acceptance of an imaginative Grand Synthesis of theology and philosophy [using scriptures out of context or humanizing them to 'justify' the wisdom of men and the brotherhood alone]." Tillich wrote: "Demonism concerns man's attitude toward others. Estrangement describes the condition of man which results from the Demonism of his fellow man. Humanism asserts that the test of human conduct must be found in human experience; concern for man replaces concern about pleasing God. Humanism elevates man to the rank of God." "Sin is the estrangement of man from man." (Leonard F. Wheat, Paul Tillich's Dialectical Humanism: Unmasking the God above God)

Karl Marx, thinking along the same lines, wrote: "The critique of religion [the evaluation of the Word of God through human reasoning, i.e. through dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e. according to men's opinions, how men "feel" and what they "think" in the given 'moment,' in the given situation] ends in the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man; .... The critique of religion ends with the categorical imperative to overthrow all conditions in which man is a debased, enslaved, neglected, contemptible being [wicked and deceitful, reprobate and abominable, sinful and condemned, according to the Word of God]." "Only within a social context [what a man has in common with all men and all men have in common with him, i.e. the "lust of the flesh," "lust of the eyes," and "pride of life," i.e. man's able to realize his own potential and control his own destiny, satisfying his and other's carnal desires, according to his own and other's reasoning ability, i.e. "human reasoning" alone] individual man is able to realize his own potential as a rational being." (Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right') "The ideas of the Enlightenment taught man that he could trust his own reason [man using human reasoning to 'justify' "himself" ('justifying' "human nature") in his own eyes] as a guide to establishing valid ethical norms [what is right and what is wrong behavior according to his own carnal desires] and that he could rely on himself [rely on his strength and 'reasoning' ability, making both subject to his carnal nature], needing neither revelation [the Lord God, accepting His Word as is, i.e. telling man how he is to think and act, that is, by faith—correlated with the child accepting and honoring his Father's authority; "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the God." Jesus quoting Deuteronomy 8:3] nor that authority of the church [the Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. the only begotten Son of God, through the believer telling man how he is to think and act, i.e. by faith in His Word, correlated with children living in obedience to their Father's authority—"bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ [in unwavering obedience to His Heavenly Father];" 2 Corinthians 10:5] in order to know good and evil." (Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and its Theorists) "The real nature of man is the totality of social relations." (Karl Marx, Thesis on Feuerbach # 6)

Hegel, Marx, and Freud, and all who think dialectically, find 'liberation' of "human nature," i.e. 'liberation' from Godly restraint in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant elevates 'reasoning': making it equal to faith, negating faith, placing hope, not in God but in man, i.e. where hope is found in happiness, happiness is found in pleasure, pleasure is experienced in the mind, and the mind is shaped by the experiences of life, i.e. from the immediate environment, therefore our hope is temporal, materialistic, aesthetic i.e. of the aesthetic dimension. It is therefore this aesthetic dimension, this identification with, desire for, and satisfaction via pleasure, i.e. that which we have in common with all mankind, which is the hope of mankind, i.e. where peace is to be found. "Hegel would never have found his dialectical method without the transcendental dialectic delineated in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason." (Carl Friedrich, The Philosophy of Hegel) Therefore individual man is not to find hope (pleasure) in God alone (who is spirit), but in that which he has in common with man, his desire for pleasure, finding commonality will all men according his carnal "human nature."

"It is not individualism [every individual man before God, being held accountable to Him alone, thinking and acting according to His will, personally accountable for his thoughts and actions] that fulfills the individual, on the contrary it destroys him. Society ["human relationship," i.e. "community," i.e. "equality" in the flesh] is the necessary framework through which freedom and individuality are made realities." (John Lewis, The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx) In that case, according to Marx: "The eye becomes the human eye, the ear the human ear." (Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man)

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Ephesians 4:11-24

Psychology (Sigmund Freud) brought Karl Marx into the "church," supplanting God's word with the opinions of men, i.e. truth with how man "feels" and what he "thinks" in the 'moment,' in the given situation, i.e. faith with human understanding and reason, love of God with love of man, will, in the Lord, i.e. in obedience to His Heavenly Father in all things, with the will of man. "Freud speaks of religion as a 'substitute-gratification' – the Freudian analogue to the Marxian formula, 'opiate of the people.'" "If there is a universal neurosis, it is reasonable to suppose that its core is religion.... Psychoanalysis must treat religion as a neurosis." (Norman O. Brown Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History) ". . . Definition of religious experience as experience of absolute dependence is the definition of the masochistic experience in general." (Erich Fromm Escape from Freedom) "Freud ... stressed the role of religion in the historical deflection of energy from the real improvement of the human condition to an imaginary world of eternal salvation...." (Herbart Marcuse Eros and Civilization: A philosophical inquiry into Freud) "The life which he has given to the object sets itself against him as an alien and hostile force." (Karl Marx MEGA I/3, pp. 83-84) "Every form of objectification ... results in alienation. Transcending alienation involves transcending objectification.;" (Stephen Eric Bronner Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists) "In direct contrast to German philosophy [with man and nature being directed or driven by a "higher power," a "zeitgeist"], which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven." (Karl Marx MEGA I/5, p. 16)

Relationship is not the problem, it is when it becomes the foundation upon which the church is built. When "human relationships" and "community" becomes the focus of the "church" instead of a persons personal walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. when men's opinions , how people "feel" and what they "think", becomes the foundation for "unity," instead of the Word of God, Karl Marx rules instead of Christ. The "forsaking of the assembling of one with another" verse, taken out of context, no longer bases the assembling of the saints upon their relationship with (love of) Christ, according to faith, but upon their relationship with one another, according to their "tolerance" (love) of the world, omitting, selected, and adding to scriptures (cutting, rearranging, and pasting scriptures) to 'justify' their love of the world, i.e. to cover up their sinful ways. By "ministers" (change agents) adding the opinions of men to the Word of God, given them equal (greater) status instead, they end up adding the world to the "church," scattering the sheep, i.e. chasing those who know His voice out of the church instead—accusing them of "forsaking the assembling."

"His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter." Isaiah 56:10-11

Believers are leaving the "church" not because they have left the faith. Believers are leaving the "church" because the church has left the faith (the shepherds have left the faith, feeding the flock with dirty food, with the opinions of men instead of with the pure Word of God—Ezekiel 34:1-22). Instead of the blood of the Lamb covering man's sin, "human relationship," i.e. man 'justifying' himself before himself negates it instead, with the facilitator of 'change,' the 'change agent,' helping the church "grow" itself, the Marxist way. The role of the "change agent," i.e. the facilitator of 'change,' is not to pit the church against the world (and the world against it). His role is to bring the world into the church (and therefore the church into the world), making both the church and the world one in consensus, i.e. uniting them upon human relationship instead (the "church" no longer divided from the world by Christ, no longer made up of "the called out ones"—with it "members" no longer thinking and acting according to Christ, faith, the scriptures, and God's grace alone, as the Lord leads but thinking and acting according to the "felt" needs of their flesh and the flesh of others). The blinding effect of "relationship, of the merging the "church" with the world for the 'purpose' of "community," with the "pastors" feeding the sheep on men's opinions, negates in the mind of those "growing" the "church," their alienating of themselves from believers (those seeking the pure Word of God), who, thou in the world, are called out of it (fellowshipping in their homes or wherever they can, worshiping the Lord with their families instead).

"And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities."

2 Peter 2:3-10