In many situations where authoritarians are leaders in the church there are often people supporting them.  Some are naive “yes men” that are oblivious to the danger that false teaching represents.  There are usually enablers, people who know better but don’t object because they feel it is more important to “maintain the unity of the body.”  There really is no scripture that directs us to “maintain the unity of the body.” 

In Ephesians 4 we see Paul mentioning unity of the Spirit and unity of the faith.  In only one passage we see a direct appeal to unity with other Christians. 

Rom 15:5  Now may the God of endurance and comfort give you unity with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus,
Rom 15:6  so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The word translated unity is phroneo.  We see it translated as in varying ways in the following passages:

TNIV : “the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had”
NASB : “be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus”
NLT : “live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus”
NRSV : “live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus”
NIV : “a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus”
ESV : “live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus”

There seems to be a little bit of variance in the translations telling me their is a range of meaning in phroneo.  The gist is the same.  Thayer’s lexicon suggests “have understanding”, “to feel” or “to think.”  It sort of means going in the same direction. 

A key in this verse is the part more literally translated “according to Jesus Christ.”  Baker’s NT Commentary suggests it could be “in accordance to the will of Christ” or “in accordance with the teachings and example of Christ” or both.  My guess would be both, or one would lead to the other.  If you sought to know the will of Christ that would inevitably lead to his life and teachings and Christ’s life and teachings certainly lead us to seek His will.  Which ever number you dial you get to the same place. 

We also see that the source of this unity is God.  Paul is praying that the God of endurance and comfort would provide this unity.  It isn’t established through a structural hierarchy and organizational uniformity.  It certainly isn’t arrived at through fear, coercion or manipulation. 

It is necessary for unity to be in accordance to Christ.  If someone starts bringing destructive false teaching that standard is not being met.  Maintaining unity in a local church is not more important than living in accordance to Christ’s will and teaching. 

We have some examples in scripture where Jesus is directly addressing churches that are tolerating false teaching.

Rev 2:14  But I have a few things against you: You have some people there who follow the teaching of Balaam, who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.
Rev 2:15  In the same way, there are also some among you who follow the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Rev 2:16  Therefore, repent! If not, I will come against you quickly and make war against those people with the sword of my mouth.

Rev 2:20  But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and by her teaching deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
Rev 2:21  I have given her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her sexual immorality.
Rev 2:22  Look! I am throwing her onto a bed of violent illness, and those who commit adultery with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds.
Rev 2:23  Furthermore, I will strike her followers with a deadly disease, and then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will repay each one of you what your deeds deserve.

There is something very ironic in this.  Covering Theology teaches people put themselves in terrible danger when they fail to submit to authority but some of the sternest words of impending judgment in scripture are prescribed to false teachers.  It seems to be far more dangerous to stay submitted to a false teacher than it is rebel against one.

We also find instruction in 2John.

2Jn 1:9  Everyone who goes on ahead and does not remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God. The one who remains in this teaching has both the Father and the Son.
2Jn 1:10  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house and do not give him any greeting,
2Jn 1:11  because the person who gives him a greeting shares in his evil deeds.

Is covering theology as bad as the false teaching mentioned in Revelation 2 or 2John?  Given Paul’s strident and emotional case for freedom as an inherent part of the gospel in Galatians my first thought would be yes.   Christ came to give us freedom (Gal 5:1) and Covering Theology takes it away as well as makes idols out of church leaders. 

It is hard to be sure because we aren’t certain what the doctrine of the Nicolatians was.  We know that some false teaching lead to sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.  The issue addressed in 2John was most likely gnosticism. 

From a biblical perspective it would be hard to make a case for “maintaining unity” in church that has embraced false teaching.  If we tolerate false teachers we become a “partner in their evil work” (2John 1:11 NLT). 

One of the common teachings in Covering Theology is that Christ has delegated his authority to church leaders. They might use the term apostles or 5-fold ministers or whatever. Some proponents of Covering Theology have appealed to Matthew 28 for this.

Mat 28:18 Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Mat 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Notice that Jesus doesn’t actually say he has delegated authority to anyone. Later on in the book of revelation Jesus does speak of giving his authority to “the one who conquers and who continues in my deeds until the end.”

Rev 2:24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, all who do not hold to this teaching (who have not learned the so-called “deep secrets of Satan”), to you I say: I do not put any additional burden on you.
Rev 2:25 However, hold on to what you have until I come.
Rev 2:26 And to the one who conquers and who continues in my deeds until the end, I will give him authority over the nations —
Rev 2:27 he will rule them with an iron rod
and like clay jars he will break them to pieces,
Rev 2:28 just as I have received the right to rule from my Father — and I will give him the morning star.

If Jesus doesn’t give authority out until the end how can anyone but Him have it now?

While they claim “the Secret” is not enough they affirm the central law of attraction in “the secret”. Here is a list contributors for the DVD.

I added a new quote to the Galatians 5 page from M. James Sawyer’s post:

Years ago, I wrote my Th.M. thesis on the book of Galatians (for those who are interested, I applied the method of Discourse Analysis to the entire books of Galatians. It is posted at: http://www.bible.org/series.php?series_id=73 ) This was a slow and painstaking analysis that took more than four hundred hours to complete. The point was to trace the argument (the case Paul was building) of Galatians. I discovered something remarkable. Everything stated in Galatians leads up to or flows from Galatians 5:1: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not be subject to the yoke of slavery.” In chapter 1 he calls down imprecations from heaven on anyone who would corrupt the simple gospel of Christ: “. . . If we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell! As we have said before, and now I say again, “if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell!”

Paul was here talking about the simplicity of the gospel which was being compromised by those who wanted to add the Torah (Jewish law with all its ceremonies and particularly circumcision as its sign) but the application is wider. Many teachings have arisen over the centuries that promise protection, provision, perfection and the like. They sound good at the front end, but the results are bondage.

Parchment and Pen offers some detailed analysis of Bevere’s work.  His conclusion:

I want to wind this up by saying that while I find Bevere’s position as taken particularly in the early portion of Under Cover utterly problematic on many levels, and truly dangerous to the spiritual health of the church, in the latter part of the book he tries to qualify some of the positions he has taken early in the book. The problem I see is the qualifications, which are well stated and carefully articulated, cut against the larger broad brush strokes that he has painted from the beginning.

As I said earlier, much of what he says is good. But the framework he uses is one that is the cyanide in the Kool-Aid. While he may not go down this path himself, working out the implicit presuppositions of his teaching, I don’t have to be a prophet to foresee that his followers will. And when they do they will unleash a new torrent of spiritual abuse that effectively undermines the freedom produced by the gospel and enslaves God’s children in chains of bondage. In so doing they will come under the same curse that Paul pronounced upon those who were adding to the gospel Paul proclaimed to the Galatian church.

What I found particularly heartening are his final comments about how Covering Theology adds to the gospel and puts people under a curse.

3Jn 1:9  I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not acknowledge us.  
3Jn 1:10  Therefore, if I come, I will call attention to the deeds he is doing — the bringing of unjustified charges against us with evil words! And not being content with that, he not only refuses to welcome the brothers himself, but hinders the people who want to do so and throws them out of the church! 
3Jn 1:11  Dear friend, do not imitate what is bad but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does what is bad has not seen God.

From the Believers Bible Commentary on verse 9.

Apparently John had written along this line to the church, but his Letter was intercepted by a man named Diotrephes, who had an exaggerated view of his own importance. He was a virtual dictator in the assembly. His sin was pride of place, an inflated ego, and a violent jealousy for what he regarded as his own rights—which he doubtless defended as the autonomy of the local church. Diotrephes had forgotten that Christ is the Head of the church—if he ever knew it! He had forgotten that the Holy Spirit is the Vicar or Representative of Christ in the church. No mere man has the right to take charge, to make decisions, to receive, or to refuse. Such conduct is popery, and God hates it. Doubtless Diotrephes excused his behavior on the ground that he was contending for the truth. But that was, of course, a lie! He was doing untold harm to the truth by refusing the apostle on the pretext of being faithful to God. And not only John, but other brethren as well.

Check it out.

HT AFLJ

In May 2008, Bruce Wilson, co-founder of the blog Talk2Action, made a short video featuring a recording of Pastor John Hagee preaching about how God had sent Hitler to hunt the Jews and force them to Israel. The video went viral and McCain was forced to disassociate himself and repudiate Hagee’s endorsement. Hagee slunk off the national stage.

Flash forward to September of last year. McCain (now the GOP’s presidential candidate) chooses a relatively obscure political figure, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, as his running mate. When a CNN reporter asked a GOP campaign spokesperson about Palin’s religious beliefs, she would only say that “the Republican vice presidential candidate has ‘deep religious convictions.’”

Wilson began looking into Palin’s religious background. What he found was far more interesting than the fairly run-of-the-mill Christian Zionism of someone like Hagee.

Read more

The more I think about Covering Theology the more I believe the real issue isn’t about authority but the gospel itself. Covering Theology takes several free benefits of salvation like divine protection from evil and ads a condition to keep them or acquire them.  That condition is submission to church leaders.  Covering and Authority is not so different from the issue of circumcision in scripture. On the surface seems biblical but it lacks power. We gain the following benefits of salvation by grace through faith in Christ:

• in the eternal plan of God
• reconciled
• redeemed
• removed form condemnation
• under grace instead of judgement
• dead to sinful nature
• free from the law
• regenerated
• adopted as sons and daughters
• made acceptable to God
• justified
• forgiven
• delivered from the kingdom of Satan
• transferred to God’s kingdom
• given access to God
• objects of his power
• objects of his faithfulness
• objects of his peace
• recipients of the Holy Spirit
• complete in Him

Click here for a complete list with scripture passages.

The only way to lose these benefits are to pursue something other than faith in Christ (and some believe you can never lose at least some of them).  In Covering Theology many of the items listed above are presented as conditional benefits that hinge upon whether you are submitted to authority.  Submission to human authority isn’t necessary for that which we receive freely  through faith in Christ.   The only path to Christlikeness is the path of faith in Christ leading to a new creation.  We submit to those who have the right to speak in to our lives in our desire to come to more faith in Christ.  The role of leadership to point to Jesus, not to put barriers between people and Jesus and influence people to funnel their relationship to God through them.

The following passage of scripture is about idolatry but it very much applies to Covering Theology.

Rom 1:15  Thus I am eager also to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome.
Rom 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Rom 1:17  For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, "The righteous by faith will live."
Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness,
Rom 1:19  because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
Rom 1:20  For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse.
Rom 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.
Rom 1:22  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools

Rom 1:25  They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The people who accept Covering Theology have made a shift from honouring God as a God and honouring their pastor as God just as Paul describes in v21.  It often isn’t intentional.  It is subtle.  It might come to a choice.  Do I do what I know is right or do I maintain the unity of the body?  If I read “CoveringAndAuthority.com” am I rebelling against authority?  Slowly, subtly everything starts to be filtered through the “is this contributing to the unity of the body” lens not the  “does this honour God lens.”

The people who honour men as God are no different than the idolaters that Paul speaks of.  Because they do not glorify God they become futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts are darkened.  Claiming to be wise they become fools. 

The irony is thick because in Covering Theology people are more open to deception when they leave their church covering.  In reality it is the opposite.  Once they accept any person other than Jesus as their cover the deception sets in.