From the Mecca of Mormonism

Salt Lake City, Utah This is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. Where we are learning together . . . And I’m your host Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion.

Let’s pray together.

PRAYER

Show 4L Chompin on Chomsky – Part II Taped Sunday October 25th 2020 Aired Tuesday October 27th 2020 The United States and our elected leaders Include the people of Armenia The youth of the World The Gospel Seekers of Truth Sons and Daughters

Words of Appreciation

I want to take a minute and read a representative email that means so much to me and our family.

It comes from a man named Dave who lives in California and he posted this on our first Campus teaching through Romans, saying:

I'm all caught up on the podcast series, milk and meat. I'm glad because I have this comprehension, ordered in such a way – comprehensive. I'm just fortunate to have followed through, digesting the Word, the bread of life, through reading and HOTM, C.A.M.P.U.S. I've watched since 2008 or early 09. You can't stick with many people that long, and I want Shawn to know that he has another CA fan. I like his delivery, most importantly. He knows hopefully, how well viewers like me have seen him die to his flesh over time, as he radiates joy and love and a better sun tan. And I want him to know I'm inspired. Only spiritual connection to the Light Source will save this World, or Cosmos. Thanks to Mr. McCraney and his family. All praise and glory to GOD.

Dave, your encouraging words mean more than you might know and we are so blessed to know that we can somehow help someone like you who seeks and works to find; that you have given me chances (amidst my failures) and have pressed forward seeking to hear. All of us thank you and pray God’s abiding blessings on your life.

Additionally, I want to express our appreciation and love to all of you who are part of our online and live church family. I read about your pain from other religious forces but your liberation in Christ alone! And I rejoice with you all.

We truly do gather together to prayerfully understand scripture. I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be involved in this work of the King and thank you for your love, prayers and support.

Understanding Christian Anarchism

So last week in Part I of “Chomping on Chomsky,” I tried to set the table on the thinking by which I became a Christian Anarchist, or how I came to see the faith in the way I do. I explained that there were a number of things related to the development of secular Anarchy that helped me see the value and viability of Christian AnarchySomeone who follows Christ as their only authority—rejecting institutional control over their spiritual life. in the faith – especially today.

Those things included my affinity for the principles of what is called Classical Liberalism (which has no relation to Leftist Liberalism of today) and was promoted by the likes of John Milton, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill.

Remember, this view presented the idea that human nature ought to be met with unconstrained activity, that "every individual in nature, is given an individual property by nature, not to be invaded or usurped by any,” and that "no man or institution has power over the rights and liberties of another and no other over any man.”

Secular and Corporate Anarchy

The idea of Classical Liberalism was to have a society where each individual progresses in his or her own way, according to who they are as individuals, allowing them to ultimately get to a place where they will choose to contribute who they are and what they think to the world around them – again, with minimal interference from any outside powers of any kind. I am personally and certainly in full agreement with these tenets of Classical Liberalism as we defined them last week.

But then we talked about how men and their institutions, capitalist here and communist elsewhere, entered into the game and essentially snuffed out the view of Classical Liberalism and replaced it with the notion of justifiable infringement, which led to controls, and ultimately to slavery of different expressions and degrees.

Then we pointed out how secular, corporate, and governmental anarchy was a reaction to these infringements and that there were (and are) various responses to try and get Classical Liberalism back into the lives of people today.

At that point we quoted Chomsky and his definition of general Anarchy when he said:

"Primarily, [anarchism] is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination.

Christian Anarchism and the Call to Justify Authority

In human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can't justify that authority and power and control (which is the usual case) then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just. And, as I understand it, anarchy is that tendency. It takes different forms at different times."

And we wrapped up the show by pointing out that this is at the heart of Christian Anarchism too; to

1, call out the current systems of Christianity as illegitimate and forcing them to reasonably justify their existence and the authority they have over people and

2), to take any Christian system that fails to justify their control, authority and power over people and to help dismantle them as a means to replace them with something better."

Insights from Past Christian Anarchists

Now, before we address this two-pronged Anarchistic response to the powers that be, I mentioned last week that there have been a number of Christian Anarchists that have preceded me, namely guys like Jacques Elul and Leo Tolstoy. And where I have benefited in many ways from their insights, they took their Anarchy, especially Tolstoy, and added a political focus in with it.

Not here. I am apolitical, am not part of this worlds Kingdoms, and leave all responses to politics to those who care. My Anarchistic focus is solely on the faith and that is why I define it as Christian Anarchy – meaning that the focus of the anarchy is relative to all things Christian – and I define “all things Christian” according to what can be contextually determined as part of the faith according to a written word to Christians – the New Testament.

Challenges to Authority in Christianity

So, to the first objective laid out by Chomsky: As a Christian Anarchist I “label all the current systems of Christianity as illegitimate and demand that everyone of them to reasonably justify their existence and the authority, control and demands that they place on others.”

There are several points I want to make before we briefly examine the claims institutions make to justify their supposed authority.

The first point I want to make is that the most basic proof of your authority is in the pudding. Meaning, in your collective hands of maintaining the authority to act, speak, and lead for God, you have all allowed for a number of things to occur that stand in direct contradiction to Christ the King, including:

• Colonialism
• Slavery
• Racism
• Misogyny
• And even violence

You have also politicized what Jesus never made political. And instead of loving all and condemning none, you have collectively preached hate against

• Homosexuals
• Adulterers
• People addicted to vice
• And all non-Christians of other faiths

Finally, with your authority and power and demands, you have all chosen to put people in bondage to

• Denominationalism
• Division
• Doctrinal demands, practices and Laws
• Tithes
• Materialism
• And serving and fearing men over serving and fearing God.

This is what your claimed authority have amounted to. And no of you can escape scrutiny. So, I want to know how you justify yourselves as having authority over anyone in the face of these general failures?

This is central to the mandates of Anarchy – the onus of justification is upon you, not me, to provide. Specifically, our Catholic friends claim some sort of direct line to Peter as the first Pope for their authority. It’s a fiction but even if it were true, what is the fruit of that apparent authority? If is has not or does not sustain the tenets of the faith, and in fact has proven itself contrary to the Good News, the justification is hollow. And your Empire is a fraud.

Orthodoxies are worse because they, without any authority but the will of Man alone chose to break off from the apparent direct line of authority they had with their Catholic parents and started their own schismatic approach! Plus, they maintain so many non-biblical demands and practices among themselves that their justification for having God’s authority over others is completely lost.

Protestants? Every freaking one of you are standing on sand. You’ve got NOTHING. Big denom, small country church, not one of you can justify any claim to having authority over another human being in the name of God. Not one. You cannot justify speaking to them for God, disciplining people in his name, commanding anyone to do anything at all relative to the faith, and yet you all assume this right, to some extent.

Questioning Religious Authority

or another, and have for nearly 1500 years. You have zero line of authority, zero apostolic authority, and while you claim the Bible gives you the authority, nowhere does the Bible make such a claim on your behalf! Nowhere! Most of the letters Paul wrote were not addressed to you and the church in his day was overseen by living apostles – something to which you do not have access any longer. Many of you, contrary to the model Jesus had when he chose his apostles, justify your authority through formal educations. Ha! HA! All of your learning combined hasn’t amounted to any sort of unity of the faith, but only to more division! You are all S.O.L. when it comes to even justifying one smidgen of authority over another human being or believer.

You do not speak with authority, you do not possess any authority, and your relentless failures to teach the Word contextually and reasonably condemn your claim as an authority of any kind. Step the hell down, you posers, you bondage makers, you assumers of power. When the Holy Spirit moves into individuals, and the Word can be read and understood by that Spirit, and God writes his laws on individuals' minds and hearts, you should see yourselves as out of a job. Finally, the restorationist groups out there, The Jehovah’s Witnesses, Church of Christ, Seventh Day Adventists and especially the Mormons, who claim God restored his authority to men through a phony non-biblical priesthood, your own history delegitimizes your claims – as do your behaviors, policies, rites, rituals and doctrines.

Invalid Claims of Priesthood

Let’s just suppose for a minute that all of your claims to a restored priesthood were valid. Your use of that priesthood is proof enough that you are unjustified to do the job. You are like a cop who has been vested with all the rights to ticket, arrest and enforce the law, but who himself has murdered, taken bribes and lied under oath! Step aside, you liars, hypocrites, abusers and infringers on the life and liberties of Man. I challenge any pastor, priest, reverend, church big or small to try and justify their authority over anyone on this earth in the name of God because it will not take long to blow a hole so wide in your hollow justifications the Pope can walk through it – pointy hat and all.

So, there is the first principle of the Christian Anarchist – to assail any religious person or institution who claims to the authority over another human being in the name of God. When the institutions fail to justify their authority – which they all do – the second phase becomes operational, which is to seek to dismantle them (which is what we do week in and out, pretty much) and to replace that was with something better (which we have been trying to do for years).

A Subjective Faith

Note that something better here is NOT another denomination. Hear that clearly. The something better is what God instituted in the face of material religionA fulfilled system of temples, rituals, and laws—replaced by direct spiritual relationship. being blown apart nearly two thousand years ago. It is a subjective faith led by the Holy Spirit in individuals. How does that look, and work and is it justified by scripture? To answer the last question first, of course it is. I mean the very fact that the Holy Spirit moves in to the heart and lives of individual people ought to tell us that the faith is individually lived, that each and every one of our choices as a believer is between us and the Living God, and that rules and laws and ordinances of Man were long ago nailed to the cross.

Institutions seeking to insert themselves between God and individuals appeal to three things, all of which we have proven fiction, to justify themselves in that position of power – Tradition, The Bible, Direct Revelation. But none of these things hold water relative to all we have discussed. The first, tradition, has the tradition itself telling the churches that they are just in their authority. No good. And the last, direct revelation, is always found wanting when tested.

But let me address the claim that the Bible justifies people or institutions and their insertion of themselves into the lives of others in a position of authority.

• We have biblical evidence of Yeshua supporting rouge believers in Mark 9 where his apostles wanted to cast out a guy who was using Jesus name and he told them to leave him alone.
• We have biblical directives from God himself that in the day past the age

The Best Approach to Christianity

Of the Jewish law that he would write his laws on individuals' hearts and minds.

We have the day of Pentecost where some 3000 souls wandered back to their homes without any form of leadership and started their own churches as part of the Bride. We have Paul who did not convene or consult with the twelve original apostles but went out doing what the Holy Spirit led him to do. Then we have the contextual repeated evidences that the gates of hell could not prevail against the Church/Bride of that day and part of the reasons is she was under direct apostolic rule until Yeshua came back to save her. Almost all of these apostles' writings were to “them/then exclusively” and were centralized around the teaching that he was coming back and she needed to be holy, unblemished, and without spot until He did.

That Hebrews 12 plainly has God say that he was going to shake both heaven and earth one more time (which was then) and that anything that could be shaken would be leveled to the dust, leaving the only remaining things to be unshakeable things – non-material, non-man-related things – spiritual and heavenly derived. And then the day and hour arrived. At the destruction of Jerusalem, everything from the former Age of Material ReligionThe biblical era of temples, laws, and rituals—ended in 70 A.D. to make way for spiritual freedom. – touch not, taste not, temple, dietary demands, priesthood, genealogies – were leveled to the ground. And the new age of subjective faith by the indwelling of the Spirit began. This was the Age of Classical Christian Liberalism.

The Age of Classical Christian Liberalism

An Age where the Spirit led individuals to emancipation from sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace., fear, governments, and religious institutionalisms. It was an Age that echoed sentiment from the then-dead apostles who said things like:

1Co 10:29 “for why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?”

And

2Co 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

And Galatians 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

There was no agreed upon New Testament guiding believers then. There was no complied body of written letters for them to even read. There were no living apostles to correct or punish or guide. And there were no traditions being upheld and codified. There were individuals of faith, touched by the Holy Spirit, living lives in direct unencumbered relationship with the Lord God Almighty.

But it didn’t take long for men to do what men do, to organize, and capitalize, and/or communalize the flock, and to strip them of their rights, and freedoms, and liberties they have directly in Christ.

Peter said it well in 2nd Peter 2:19

And while they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

And even Paul was dealing with these sorts as he wrote in Galatian 2:4

“And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.”

Christian Anarchism

So to the second part of Anarchism, as stated which is:

2), to take any Christian system that fails to justify their control, authority and power over people and to help dismantle them as a means to replace them with something better."

So, what ought to replace these false systems of religion? It’s what I humbly, but ever so tongue-in-cheek call, The Best Approach to Christianity on the Face of the Earth. It’s a free, open approach to reaching, and teaching, and serving others. We call it CAMPUS – Christian Anarchists Meeting to Prayerfully Understand Scripture.

No memberships. No authority over doctrine or practice. No demands. Nothing signed. No commitments. No tithes or offerings collected or mentioned. No intrusions into the beliefs or opinions of others or their lives. Our managerial hand over the material elements amounts to caring for the facilities, securing the assets, and allowing anyone, believer and not, to use the facilities without a price or cost.

We do not impose church discipline, we open every gathering up to comments and questions, and we study the word together with the understanding that I may be wrong in my assertions and that I may change my mind. All people are always welcome. We pray in Jesus' name. We sing Bible verses set to music, and we exist the place after an hour or so.

Christian Anarchy and Its Historical Roots

So to go out and live our lives freely and in complete religious liberty. That is Christian Anarchy. It is Christian Subjectivism. It is Classical Christian Liberalism. And it is the best approach to Christianity on the face of the earth because it was instituted and established nearly 2000 years ago by God through Christ.

All you have to do is look at what organized religions do and have done to see that in the end, while they can do good, it’s all still slavery to Man and not service to God.

Perspectives on Organized Religion

Let’s take a gander at your online comments!