Vetting: The 'Self / Other' Psycho-Social Interview
Let a Man Examine Himself...Speak the Truth in Love...Walk In the Light...
Godly Poise & Dignity In the Priesthood of All Believers. The Christian Community has no second class citizenship. And all ministry and mission (Marturia / Witness: Acts 1:8) must come out of community (and hopefully out of a healthy community's accurate perceptions, good judgments, applicable fund of knowledge--and wisdom, confessing faults one to another and so fulfilling the law of Christ.)
'Sloppy Agape Churchianity' Emerges When There is Little Quality Control. Syncretism (mixing poison into the pot--theologically) aims to ruin the quality of Christian faith, living and ministry. Religion, loses its meaning, purpose, and mission when there are no sensible standards and awareness of what good mental and spiritual health--and wellness in biblical theology--looks like.
'Necessary Judging': Sensible Evaluation, Mental Status Examination, World-View, Philosophy--is of Critical Importance. The Christian, by the Holy Spirit, must develop the Insight with the feedback of others to not be too overly thrilled by his own press releases. Dreamy New Age (charismatic subjectivist) religionists, when confronted with their poor mental health, false teachings, careless scholarship (or theological de-definition, blurring of orthodoxy, and syncretismof a book like The Shack) whine, "Hey--don't judge..!" Yet, the Old and New Testament prophets, priests, kings, judges and apostles and Jesus Himself advocate and encourage proper evaluation, weighing, judging, and fair-minded mutual vettingwithin the Body of Christ--the community of the redeemed who have placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. (A sociopath like Jim Jones, for example, would properly have been confronted even at the age of twelve when he was torturing animals and, in his early paranoid grandiosity, announcing he was a great preacher.)
Knowing Each Other's Epistemology: What Is This Guy's Source of Knowledge--really..? Research on one contemporary mega-church pastor has revealed his epistemology to be that of Theosophy--and Madame Blavatsky--and occult works like The Secret. He propagandizes this occult philosophy in his own derivative books. One should also try to find out a self-anointed leader's anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy of good and evil, pain and suffering, philosophy of death and dying--and what he thinks is funny and not funny.
Reality Testing, Thinking, Perception: Is This Guy Mentally Healthy..? (Or Is His Thinking Screwy..?) Heh-heh...you attend a new 'soon-going-world-wide' ministry start-up by some narcissist and realize, "OMG another nut case." After sitting down with many a religious leader, para-church leader, and religiously pre-occupied person--I've discovered (much to my dismay, and with no malice aforethought) that the person has poor judgment, is insight-impaired, has perceptual distortions, has disordered thinking--and, sometimes--that the 'voice' he hears is actually an auditory hallucination--not the voice of God. Or I realize I've been listening to a guy pontificate up on a stage who's actually suffering from some aspect of Paranoia--grandiosity, persecution complex, jealously, a craziness of reference, or a craziness of influence. (Then I start feeling worried about the folks he's schlepped into his sheeple fold.)
Does He Have a Personality Disorder (or is s/he a psychopath with a secret life..?) Many a narcissistic, paranoid, schizotypal, schizoaffective or bipolar disorder has worked his way into religion in order to feed his disorder--or thaw out the frozen rage always lying beneath the surface of his personality. Under mentally ill or sociopathic 'leaders', people get hurt, emotionally wounded, alienated from a wholesome Christian faith--some (a la Peoples Temple /Jonestown) even die for the lost cause. The guy may not be a toxic sociopath. But his shallow, non-substanive, magical-thinking personality will never set the world on fire.
As It Has Been With the De-Definition-of-Art Movement, the De-Definition of Christianity is on a Rampage. In the Seventies, so-called Art started appearing in places like the Tate Gallery in London--as feces, a spilled box of corn flakes, a gash in the earth, a piece of rope nailed to a board. Now, there is a movement to de-define Christianity as 'God is an elderly, confused Black woman', as the Spirit leading a tattooed nut to kick a suffering old lady in the stomach in Lakeland, as people led around on leashes barking like dogs in Toronto, as post-Christian adulterous liaisons in Seattle, as remotely-viewed, inaccessible faces on giant megatron screens--in painted-black barns everywhere--heh-heh!
THE IMPORTANCE OF VETTING
Quality Control & The Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community
Copyright © 2014 by P.C. Brewer
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