We last left our discussion of Christianity’s collectivist philosophy by examining the assumptions behind a few questions asked of the new “home group” member, according to the North Point Ministries primer on collectivist re-education entitled “Community:  Your pathway to progress”.

As an aside, I must admit that I take serious issue with the use of the words “your” and “progress” in the title of this booklet.  Because, insofar as “your’ is concerned, let me say this: within the pages of this Marxist-Leninist allegory there is nothing but the utter denial of the individual and his or her efficacious existence; which naturally destroys the concept of the SELF altogether.  In other words, there is nothing of you or your to be seen within the collectivist paradigm to which this booklet is entirely devoted.

And as for “progress”…snort.  That’s a laugh and a half.  Progress?  Only if you consider a return to the bloody days of Stalin’s gulag, Hitler’s Jewish ghettos, or John Calvin’s pyromania  (among other examples)  a “progression”.  And in such a case, the facts of history and the stark glare of reality would like to have a few words with you.  Indeed, it is pointing out the obvious by now to say that this little ode to the Christian Marxist collective takes as many soaring liberties with language as any work of despotism does.

At any rate, let’s continue with our evaluation of said ode.

2. How have these people [the “friends” mentioned in question one, see my previous article here] influenced you?  What is something that you have learned from each person?

(p. 19, “Community:  Your pathway to progress”, North Point Ministries, 2008)

Notice how this question leaves absolutely no room for one to answer:  I have not been influenced at all. I have enjoyed their company, and they mine, but we do not share a hive mentality. We all have our own ideas about what’s best for our own lives, and any “influence” is nothing more than the free choice we each have made as individuals to appropriate some manner of behavior or thinking which we have deemed to be of benefit to our unique situations.

No…the idea of “influence” categorically eliminates such a definition of “friendship”.  One begins to wonder whether these “Christians” have any idea what friendship actually is in the first place.  As far as they are concerned, it seems it is little more than mutual osmosis: the idea that simply being around another human being brings changes to your behavior, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, even personality, wholly and utterly apart from your will or choosing.  And this is because, in part, Reformed Christianity does not recognize human beings as having a will.  The doctrine of God’s Sovereignty, which is as non-biblical as any other Reformed doctrine, forbids such an ability.  And I submit that any equivocation of the matter by your nearest Protestant “orthodox” friend will invariably arrive, should you push the matter far and long enough, at the place of “God’s mystery”, which of course is the sepulcher where ALL “orthodox” beliefs are eventually laid to rest when confronted with their glaring rational contradictions by one not afraid to clearly  spell them out.

So “influence” openly implies a lack of will on your part.  You have been influenced, and this is not open for debate or discussion.  Your only job is to explain how.  And if you shrug and say you don’t really know…well, the “influence” is apparent.  Your exposure to the devil’s world has blinded you to the facts of your existence.  You don’t even realize how colossally rebellious and unaware you have become, to proclaim some kind of immunity from or ignorance of the inexorable “influence” of others…that is, the group, be it whomever they are, which will commandeer your body, mind, and soul, because this is your metaphysical reality.  That is, you are NOT and NEVER will be your SELF.  You are always and infinitely an extension of the group; the truth is always outside of you.  YOU don’t exist.  You are sacrificed to the collective as your divinely compelled existential and moral obligation from the moment you are born.  The only difference then between your group of “friends” and this new “home” or “care” group is that they are the real collective…the one that God really likes.  And all the others are frauds, forgeries, fakes, and impostors.

So, the assumption is that your friends, constituting the secular (monstrously evil and depraved; despised by God; the devil’s play thing, and utterly destined for hellfire destruction) group, must have influenced you, because you, by metaphysical axiom, are unable to resist the group’s influence.  The trick, then, is getting influenced by the “right” group.  Which is, as I alluded to, whatever group in your immediate vicinity which happens to be pushing the Reformed metaphysic; the Calvinist/Lutheran hermeneutic, which is the sum and substance of all Protestantism, and which, again, is entirely collectivist in its philosophy.

“Think About It“

Do you tend to think of spirituality as private, or as something to be experienced wit others?

(p. 21, same source)

After all that has preceded this fucking loaded question, and in light of the obvious group metaphysical presumption, we can recognize its bullshit rhetorical nature.  And it infuriates me because it is deceptive on its face.  They are not interested in what you really think about spirituality.  They don’t believe for one second that you might have a great point, though it may be different, or even contrary to their assumptions.  In short, they aren’t interested in a fucking discussion with you, and they know it.  This question is purely self-serving; it is purely designed to test how successful they have heretofore been in indoctrinating you to their collectivist mentality.  Have you conceded? That’s the real question.  Are you buying it yet…or is it still too early?  Well, any idiot can understand what the answer is supposed to be from their perspective, but how you decide to answer and how you defend your answer helps them know just how much pressure they still need to apply.  What’s the next step, and how much force is required?  Are you ready to concede, or do you still not understand, or refuse to accept, that what they are really asking you is to abandon your “rebellious” ways and embrace their complete authority over your life?  Are you still operating under the assumption that you have a choice or say in the matter?  Or are you ready to forsake SELF and throw yourself upon the mandate of their divine calling?

The vile motivation behind such a question, particularly located at a very early point in the booklet, cannot be understated.  It is arrogant presumption, and it shows us just how highly they think of themselves.  Their influence is soooo divine; their “reasoning” soooo compelling; their apprehension of doctrine and truth and spirituality sooo fucking extraordinary that they don’t even make a strategically-placed pretense of requiring anything but a few short pages to completely rip you from reality…that is, the perfunctory and starkly obvious individual SELF of your existence.  That the idea that YOU don’t exist, but are merely an absolute extension of some group…some “force” outside of you, is soooo obvious and yet soooo mind-blowing and they soooo divinely adroit and eloquent and deft and enlightened that they would think it appropriate to ask this kind of question so early is the pinnacle of empty navel-gazing and wicked self-worship.  I mean, even physics gives you whole text books and semesters to plod through before it expects you to surrender your individual existence to absolute forces that exist in the blank cosmic ether where they transcend objects and observation.

Assholes.

“Who are the wise people in your life?  How can you incorporate more of their influence into your life?”

(p. 21, same source)

Again, this question is a test of their strategy heretofore.  How you answer is indicative of their success or failure in leading you towards conceding their ecclesiastical authority structure.  That is, in asking how you might “incorporate more influence”, they are asking if you are ready to appropriate the beliefs and actions of those you must, if you are a good Christian, concede are your “intellectual” superiors.  And your concession is not something that depends necessarily on whether you actually agree with, or, more appropriately stated, are epistemologically capable of agreeing with, these “wise” people…for your acceptance of their ideas is irrelevant.  They are “wise”, and therefore you are obligated to obey them.  Because, to the Reformed, agreement must equal obedience since TRUTH is not learned, but divinely granted.

Let me explain:

Obedience is the only meaningful response when the assumption is that “wisdom” is not a function of reasoned learning, but rather a function of divine enlightenment.  You cannot agree with the “wise” man until God grants you the “grace to perceive” what they are all about.  And once you receive your own cognitive dispensation from above, you will naturally recognize their “wisdom” as truly “wise”, and perpetually so, and therefore they will remain your authority, which you are obligated to obey, because God has revealed to them the “truth” first…that is, before you.  And indeed this is how the Christian caste system works.  Those who are first called to enlightenment have a head start on their divine “wisdom”, making them perpetual spiritual and therefore intellectual superiors (which is why so many Calvinist leaders are such arrogant tool bags).  Thus, you, in a manner of speaking, are always playing catch up…operating on a smaller amount of divine insight than they are.  And so, yet again, your ability to truly understand their wisdom is perpetually truncated by your inferior spiritual status; your understanding always lagging behind their own.  So in this case “incorporating more of their influence” means nothing more than shutting the fuck up and doing what you’re told.  And of course the leading nature of this question becomes all too apparent:  the ostentatious point is that they are the most wise of all, because they, meaning the ecclesiastical authorities–pastors, priests, and all who come before you in the God-ordained pecking order–are the only ones who have been “called” to “stand in the stead of God” (words actually uttered by pastors in my old mystic iron maiden, Sovereign Grace Ministries…egregious).  In other words, they possess a “wisdom” that defies the sum total of your understanding and your ability to understand, and cannot possibly be reached or breached.  There is no one–and I mean no one–who can ever be in a place to question the ideas of the supreme pope…that is, the senior pastor, and those upon whom he dispenses his “authority”, because this kind of “wisdom” is never learned, it is only bestowed.  It transcends human understanding to the point where if the senior pastor declares the earth six thousand years old, and only six thousand years old, then any critic is summarily dismissed as base, blind, and unsaved. Even Einstein, that old sage and genius, should he be compelled to hazard a critique, can go fuck himself.

Because in the Reformed construct reason-based understanding (from which real TRUTH springs, and there is no truth besides rational truth) is not understanding at all.  It’s “man’s wisdom”; which is a polite way of saying that all of the ideas by which we organize our universe and recognize our place in it are complete horseshit. “God’s wisdom”, you must understand, according to these people, is contrary to reason. That is, “real” truth…God’s truth,  is utterly unreasonable.

And that, my friends, is terrifying.  Because if there are no benchmarks of truth to which an individual can make reference in the event that the church attempts to violate his or her person or property, then there is no moral standard whatsoever to which he/she can appeal for justice and protection.  If truth is completely a function of the subjective whims of one who is “called by God” to “stand in His stead”, making him utterly impervious to any contrary idea, and this by God’s perfect Will, then in the event that the monster who actually believes this kind of insanity and is willing to act upon it ever acquires absolute civil power, he will murder massive numbers of human beings in the interest of perpetuating and maintaining his “authority”; because his authority is on par with God, Himself.  Everyone will be sacrificed to his whims, because whims, and only whims, are exactly what you get when you jettison reason as the rails upon which truth must ride.

Thus, what I am saying is that there is absolutely no philosophical difference between the authors of this booklet–that is, in general, the Reformed Ecclesiastical leadership, a.k.a., your Pastors–and the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS), or the Khmer Rouge, the Soviet NKVD, Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety (and though this was a product of the the French Revolution, notice the rank use of the word “public”), and even the common drug lord.  None of them recognize the right of the individual human being to appeal to, nor the ability of the individual to apprehend, truth, be it rational or moral.  All of them rule by the collectivist metaphysic: that the prime existential obligation of the individual is sacrifice to the group, as led by those who claim divine calling as the authority by which they rule absolutely.  And this sacrifice may be either figurative (e.g. the devotion of all of your time and resources to the perpetuation of the group’s philosophy and the compelling of humanity by force into the group’s sphere of influence), or it may be literal.  As in, you can “rightly” be murdered in cold blood if the leadership deems this to be the most effective and profitable way you can serve the group.  And this is why Joseph Stalin had zero problem with ordering the slaughter of tens of millions of men, women, and children on behalf of the Workers Utopia…which was Stalin, himself.

His job was to lead.  Their job, predestined by “God”, or whatever primary consciousness compelled him, was to die.  Period.  Full stop.

And in like philosophy, welcome to the mind of the Protestant priesthood.

Welcome to Home Group.

Welcome to Care Group.

Welcome to hell.