De non cultus. (Against the cults: Jehovah’s Witness in particular).

This morning we were woken by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Well, I was trying to get the laptop to talk to the internet with but a half cup of coffee in me, and with a photo processed for the blog (which is still on a disconnected computer). But the son opened the door.

You have to give the JWs some credit. It was freezing this morning. In addition, we have “God bless our house” scrawled above the front door (white chalk on dark brown paint. In Latin. Which tends to keep a fair number of people away. Nonetheless, they were trying to get him interested in the Watchtower and bible studies. Until I walked down the hall, and commented that this household is so reformed we consider Catholics heretical.

Which got them to leave.

But now I’m thinking about the interaction, and the marks of a cult. There are three that I see as fundamental, and the JWs show all three. This is different from the frankly heretical, where the stigmata is a denial of the saving work of Christ. You cannot say that the JWs or my Roman friends preach that. The dynamic of a cult relates more to how things are done than the actual formal beliefs.

• An exclusivity of salvation. The Jehovah’s witnesses take this to an extreme even the most hard core of the ultra Calvinists (who can show this sign) do. They claim that there are but 144 000 people who will stand before the Lamb of God, and the rest of us will burn. The Roman teaching is that they are the true holders of the Faith, (which is also the Reformed teaching) and without the church there is no salvation, but both acknowledge that the church includes other branches that are in error.
• Additions to the gospel. This is why I was snide about the Romans, and why they return the same with interest. The argument that tradition led to scripture (within Roman thinking, the tradition confirms scripture and further revelations occur: but not to the extent of the Mormons, who add more books of prophecy. But then I think the Mormons are heretics, and I don’t think that about the Catholics are quite there) is contrasted with the reformation call of scripture alone (Sola scriptura): that our worship and theology has to conform to scripture. The current evangelical addition of a gospel of self esteem or prosperity is as pernicious as any requirement for ceremonies or the adoration of ikons or saints.
• Arguing from authority (or structure). This is the reason Calvin called the Pope an antichrist: he was challenging the doctrine of papal inerrancy (yes, I know it was not confirmed until Vatican I, but it was there within Roman thought from at least the middle ages on). But most thinking Catholics are quite aware that there have been fools and worse as Bishop of Rome, and it may be in times of apostasy the Spirit gives the Church the leadership it deserves. This, of course, does not merely apply to the Pope, and here the Catholics are not the main offenders, but the non denominational. In these groups — from the Closed Brethren to the Seventh Day Adventists and many, many small groups, the words and sermons of the founder, their teaching, is taken as holy writ. Even when, as was the case with the Quakers and Shakers, it is frankly heretical.

If you find these things, you know something was rotten in the current Kirk. And, on reflection, I was probably being a little unfair on the Romans, in my hyperbolic snark this morning. I hope they forgive me, but it was for a good cause, I need to keep the legalism and errors of the Jehovah’s WItnesses, who show all of these stigma and more, out of my house — just as much as I need to keep the therapeutic errors of “feminist christianity”.

Numbers 3:1-13

¹This is the lineage of Aaron and Moses at the time when the LORD spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai. ²These are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar; ³these are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priests, whom he ordained to minister as priests. ⁴Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD when they offered illicit fire before the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of their father Aaron.

⁵Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ⁶Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, so that they may assist him. ⁷They shall perform duties for him and for the whole congregation in front of the tent of meeting, doing service at the tabernacle; ⁸they shall be in charge of all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, and attend to the duties for the Israelites as they do service at the tabernacle. ⁹You shall give the Levites to Aaron and his descendants; they are unreservedly given to him from among the Israelites. ¹⁰But you shall make a register of Aaron and his descendants; it is they who shall attend to the priesthood, and any outsider who comes near shall be put to death.

¹¹Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ¹²I hereby accept the Levites from among the Israelites as substitutes for all the firstborn that open the womb among the Israelites. The Levites shall be mine, ¹³for all the firstborn are mine; when I killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the firstborn in Israel, both human and animal; they shall be mine. I am the LORD.

Galatians 6:11-18

¹¹See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! ¹²It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised – only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. ¹³Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. ¹⁴May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. ¹⁵For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! ¹⁶As for those who will follow this rule – peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

¹⁷From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.

¹⁸May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

Now, how does this fit within the issues of this morning? How can Scripture guide us. Well, firstly we should learn one truth that the Catholics teach much more strongly than the Reformed: the way in which we worship matters. This is not as much a sense of borrowing buildings — for every Kirk, in every time, has done that from the communions before battle to the hiring of the school hall because the meeting room is too crowded — but in a casualness around the table, a lack of confession or contrition, a refusal to speak the words of forgiveness. Liturgy matters, and all churches are liturgical. For if two of Aaron’s sons were killed because they did not keep the regulations of worship under the old covenant, how much more does our impurity, our hatred, our envy and indeed the very sarcasm which is my default mode of interactions offend the Almighty. For in this time our prayers are as incense.

Here those with a written liturgy have an advantage and a disadvantage. Many of the prayers are quite tested and correct, and prayed correctly are efficacious. But there is always the chance of error creeping in. Which is why I have problems with this ancient prayer (removed, interesting, not because of the Sybil (that Pagan prophetess) but because it “was seen as negative”. Which is ironic: I agree with the first two lines in Latin (but dislike the translation, which switches the lines around).

Dies iræ! Dies illa Day of wrath and doom impending,
Solvet sæclum in favilla: David’s word with Sibyl’s blending,
Teste David cum Sibylla! Heaven and earth in ashes ending!,

The local Anglican church priests, who often free form pray in Maori acknowledging the ancestors of the local tribes and the local mountain, fall even deeper into the same syncretistic hole.

Secondly, we need to remember that the acts we do for Christ are to glorify him and do good. Our acts do not lead to our salvation: we cannot undo the evil we have done, and we cannot stop the spirit of this age becoming more evil as it moves closer to an inevitable defeat. There is no second or third tier of salvation: there is no group of perfected humans in this life. Peter and Paul, the two great apostles of the early church, were both deeply flawed, and both made errors. Christ works despite us. There is a false piety in being seen to have done great things for God. Paul who had been judicially tortured for Christ on many occasions, tells us that we cannot rely ‘on the flesh’. Christianity is not a self-improvement organization. It is not a gym. It is not a form of therapy. It is not there for our comfort and our safety. It is there for the salvation of our souls.

And everything else may go, but for Christ.

The groups that add to gospel, requiring extra experiences and duties and qualifications, err. This is why it is useful to read Church history: most of the errors we see now have happened before and those false branches eventually died.

For without Christ, all false churches become fossils.

May that not happen to any of us.