One thing we all must realize: Those who wish to rule over men and women fall into two categories. 1. Those who are the followers (yes, they too claim power over you via “enlightenment”) of despots and tyrants, giving into the “comfort” of their intellectual laziness and/or self-loathing by surrendering their minds and wills to those assholes. 2. The assholes themselves. The tyrants, dictators, narcissists, megalomaniacs, psychotics and despots who want to rule you for no other reason than to slake their own evil and insatiable hunger for human flesh.
The single greatest piece of propaganda they use to bludgeon the masses into submission is the idea that human existence is the root source and substance of all the evils in the world. The singular BEING of man is why there is such misery, they will tell you. The fact that you cannot do good because at your essence you aren’t good is how they convince you to surrender your mind and body and possessions to them. Their altruism goes like this: give all to me, as the Primary Consciousness demands (God, or the Church, or the State, or the Party, or the Race, or the Workers, or the Less Privileged, or the Culture), and we will, as divine proxies, save you from yourself. What this really does is preach that YOU don’t actually exist. You are always a function of some force outside yourself. Without them, this force is known as your “depraved (read, categorically evil and an affront to God just for being born) nature”; but with them in charge, they will exchange that all determining force with another: “grace” (or some form thereof, which is simply absolution for your evil existence). In either case, again, YOU are never YOU. You don’t exist, and as such, whether “depraved” or “under grace” you are completely outside of the existential equation. Therefore, you never, ever have any legitimate claim to your life, your mind, or your property. Once you concede your complete existential/ontological irrelevancy, they OWN you.
(Quick bit of advice: If you are considering churches, be sure to give a wide berth to any one with “grace” in its title. “Grace Community Church”, “Sovereign Grace Ministries”, “Grace Fellowship”, “Grace Body of Christ”, etc., etc. “Grace” is almost always a code word (read: deception) for utter doctrinal devotion to tyrannical ideas like Total Depravity and Predestination (determinism)/Election among others. Beware! And avoid at all costs.)
In Christian circles, this piece of propaganda is known as the doctrine of “Total Depravity”. If you look up any Protestant church (and the Catholics have their own version, trust me…I just don’t know what they call it. Oh yeah, they call it the Pope…see, you need a “Pope” to lay down the rules for all you savages; he saves you from your depraved belief that YOU can actually think for yourself and do good apart from the “Church”)…if you look up any Protestant church on the web and look under “Statement of Faith” or “What We Believe”, I guarantee you seven or eight times out of ten you will see a reference to the “total depravity of man”. Stay the fuck away from that church.
But should you ignore my sage and eloquent advice and do not stay the fuck away, instead deciding that Grace Fellowship Brethren Grace Church of God’s Sovereign Grace is a place you’d like to get to know, for some horrible reason, you might run into the doctrine of Total Depravity and decide you have some questions about it because something just isn’t sitting well with you in the common sense department. And you may find yourself irresistibly tempted to approach the man in the khaki pants and the shirt which is too big and the tie which is too small…or the hipster youth with the spikey hair and the the khaki pants but this time hanging low on the waist and with Converse Chuck Taylor shoes. And should you have the impudence and temerity to actually question the mystics you will undoubtedly be treated to a veritable cornucopia of bullshit equivocations. “Total depravity doesn’t mean man is as sinful as he could be”; or “Total depravity means that man is totally depraved in his ability to please God” (honestly, I don’t even know what the fuck that means, but I read it just yesterday in the comments thread of a blog I occasionally peruse), among others. The more astute and/or seasoned mystic shills will likely punt the entire doctrine into the great cosmic abyss of God’s mystery. They will shrug and then pensively drone on about how God’s ways are beyond us and we should just follow along and do as He says…for our own good, of course.
If that doesn’t satisfy you (and it soooo shouldn’t) then they’ll simply shrug again and give you a sympathetic stare–similar to the way they might look at a four year old who has shit his pants because the poor little fellow just hasn’t gotten the hang of his potty training–and explain that you’ll just have to believe before you can understand. If you would just accept Jesus and cast all your little questions upon his shoulders (“because he cares for you”), you’d become like them…under God’s “grace”, and just knowing that they know.
Yeah. You know what this is? When someone argues that you have to agree FIRST, before you can understand? (Or that they just know that they know…or, as I heard one person put it: “I just know that I know that I know”. Which merely proved that they really didn’t.) This is what a belief utterly devoid of reason looks like. It looks like mysticism and acts like tyranny and results inexorably in man’s destruction…it is cultish and completely reliant upon the intellectual surrender and sacrifice of its followers and accomplices. ANY person, no matter how altruistic or humble or kind or sage or meek or innocent they may seem, who argues from the perspective that logically reconcilable ideas and assumptions are actually the antithesis and enemy of their “truth” should be rejected out of hand and their ideas vociferously denied.
Gotta break.
Stay tuned for part two.
unreformingtheology 
The thing is, there are moral nonChristians out there, who guard their character, want to do the right thing & act better than most Christians they know!
So just look around, you will find at least one person that doesn’t fit the “man is inclined toward sin” mold. As a matter of fact, I have several right-living non-Christian friends I met while in college, who I am still friends with today, that have always been right-living.
And I know my share of Christians that aren’t concerned with living right. They have been redeemed & have the box checked OR are elect OR believe a combo of both so all sides are covered (all 3 ways ain’t good).
God gives us knowledge of right & wrong & a conscience. We can choose to listen or block it out.
Total depravity sells as the reason for Jesus. This theology falls flat on it’s face with moral unbelievers.
How about Jesus taught much about how to live the best way here & now? That has traction with moral individuals. Calvinists hardly ever discuss teachings of Jesus as applicable/valuable to life.
A Mom,
Excellent points, all. You are very, very astute…and I was so gratified to see you thundering away at “Kevin” (?…was it Kevin?), the Calvinist on Julie Anne’s blog as he was trying to sell you his spiritual snake oil. His was the comment to you “total depravity means that man is totally depraved in his ability to please God” that I referenced in this article.
I noticed he came back at you with the usual canned answers designed to make him look intelligent and so spiritual and you look like a blind dupe. It is always so awesome to see someone not fall for doctrinal trickery and reject their assumptions out of hand, and instead demand that they make a rational argument for what they believe. It doesn’t happen that often on these “discernment” blogs, so it’s great to see it when it does. 🙂 I would have posted a response too, but now I’m looked at like such a bully that I do more harm than good. Julie Anne has already refused to post a comment of mine, and I’m not about ready to go through the same bullshit with her that I went through with Dee over at WW..so I didn’t add my two cents. But I do read, and I love what people like you and Lydia and Trust4Him and Numo and Bridget (among others) are doing at those sites.
You are spreading the message! You all rock.
“Julie Anne has already refused to post a comment of mine, and I’m not about ready to go through the same bullshit with her that I went through with Dee over at WW..so I didn’t add my two cents.”
I am very sorry to hear this.
Speaking to the whole total depravity issue, I once worked for a college president who was an agnostic. I did not know this for a few years but was a bit shocked when I found out. He was so compassionate, humble, generous, kind, fair, just, etc that he could barely compete. People always came before the institution and rules. In other words, he was too “Christian” in his behavior to impress the movers and shakers out there. I have never seen a leader take so much time to interact with his employees over any changes that were imposed from above him. I heard from employees and students alike of his giving money to those having a hard time. I found out he was transporting a handicapped student every week because the college was somewhat rural. The list of his kindness and generosity is long and way over the top. Both he and his wife were givers to others.
I often mused that he was a “great Christian” in word and deed but did not believe. Now, if I had a situation, who would I go to? Him or the “Christians” at church?
Oh dear, I just read the latest thread at TWW and Wade is claiming Al Mohler has a “soft heart” even though he disagrees with his stance on women. See how this total depravity thing works? Al Mohler can discard people, lord it over people, grab for power yet has a “soft heart”. Sheesh!
Lydia, you said it best in a previous comment: the cognitive dissonance is staggering. But this is what happens when reality is contradicted by mysticism. The fundamental philosophical root of Wade’s Calvinism is irreconcilable, mutually exclusive ideas. Indeed, at the very root existence of man is a duality of “spirit and body”…and this is what practically every Christian in the world believes about man’s metaphysic. Man HIMSELF becomes a walking contradiction in terms…a duality of absolutes, one seen, the other utterly hidden from all material reality.
Now…imagine you are a rank Calvinist like Wade Burleson and compound this metaphysical contradiction with a thousand other doctrines all of which cannot be rationally explained by any use of what humans know MUST be true in order for them to exist at all (e.g. in order for YOU to be YOU, you cannot both be YOU and NOT YOU at the same time (e.g. you are “depravity” incarnate and thus cannot possibly be “free” to choose anything; you are culpable for your choices before God)).
When this is your standard philosophical operating procedure, your “orthodoxy”, the worst tyrant in the world can be the humanity’s greatest benefactor. It doesn’t MATTER that the notion cannot be reconciled. NOTHING reconciles. That’s the point. You point out Wade’s logical failure by using your senses and reason, judging cause and effect and evaluating the outcomes of ideas and actions according to their effect on individual human life. And Wade turns around and calls you an unenlightened barbarian who cannot possibly be in a position, unlike himself, to recognize the “truth” of what you observe. This is merely another way Wade assumes moral and epistemological authority over EVERYONE else merely because he’s Wade and God likes him better than you. How do you know? Because Wade has the gnosis, which you don’t have. God has “revealed” the truth to him…and the truth is something which your depravity utterly precludes.
Believing THAT leads to one’s salvation. And this is why for years in SGM I hated telling people about Jesus. I was leading straight into a theological meat grinder. Rather than a “light burden”, I knew they’d find only self-hatred, self-loathing, and universal epistemological irrelevance. They would be told that their whole life was a lie. And I couldn’t live with that.
But this is precisely what Christians walk away with Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. It is sickening.
“When this is your standard philosophical operating procedure, your “orthodoxy”, the worst tyrant in the world can be the humanity’s greatest benefactor.”
That reminds me of an interview I saw once of a grown-up child of a Mafia boss. They were saying their Dad was nothing but love. That’s what THEY experienced. They were upset their Dad was in prison, even though they knew full well their Dad was a murderer.
Honestly, some Celeb pastors & teachers & churches remind me of the mafia. Cover your back-end & your friend’s back-end. No matter what they’ve done, they’re family. Circle the wagons.
Cognitive dissonance. Would Jesus approve?
“And Wade turns around and calls you an unenlightened barbarian who cannot possibly be in a position, unlike himself, to recognize the “truth” of what you observe. This is merely another way Wade assumes moral and epistemological authority over EVERYONE else merely because he’s Wade and God likes him better than you. How do you know? Because Wade has the gnosis, which you don’t have. God has “revealed” the truth to him…and the truth is something which your depravity utterly precludes.”
Actually, I think Wade would say something very different. He would recall some of his wonderful interactions with Mohler and Patterson, mention some of the godly actions, throw in some of his public disagreements with them and claim they have made “mistakes” which were wrong. He would play the fence game but HE would look very nice for being tolerant and loving but at the same time calling out some of their behavior. So Wade looks like the better “Christian”.
These types scare me more than the Mohler and Patterson types. I would rather deal with the person I know is a despotic tyrant than one who pretends they aren’t but use the situation to look “nice” and “Christian”. He basically is redefining Christianity just as the outward tyrant is doing. Wade does NOT really help victims at all. He leaves them in a more confusing bondage to what he thinks is “nice” and tolerant of evil.. Everyone else looks “mean”. And what is worse than a person who thinks a person’s consistent wrong behavior is driven by their beliefs. Wade does not agree with this because his doctrine is all “outside” of man as you have pointed out. Mohler and Patterson can be tyrannical creeps wit bodies in their wake and be great men of God at the same time. That is Wade’s version of Christianity becaue we are ALL sinners. Moral equivalency reigns again. Wade is just nicer about it.