Scattershooting: Thoughts on my Trip
6/03/08 - 5th Day - After Breakfast. Thoughts on my trip. Many of you may not know, but I spent about 3 years on the road, traveling the country (and the world) preaching and teaching, exhorting and encouraging, learning and discerning. The Lord taught me a lot in those three years. The Lord used that time on the road, when I met, stayed with, debated, confronted, and taught literally thousands and thousands of professing Christians, to teach me much of what I know about deception, rationalization, and worldliness. Those who know me know that I now have thousands of illustrations, taken from real life, to explain the things that I teach, and why I believe the way I believe. This past couple of weeks on the road was a flashback and a reminder of those years I spent traveling and ministering on the road.
It was great to meet so many like-minded people.
In my opinion, the thing that is lacking most in the Christian Agrarian movement is a proper philosophy. Too many people are exiting Egypt and bringing Egypt along with them, and they either don't know, or don't care that they are doing it. Too many people do not know what it is that caused the failure of the industrial/mercantile system, so they are ignorant of what it is that they are doing now that must inevitably cause them to fail. The Bible says that God's people are destroyed by a lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6), and that same section of scripture teaches us that the people were saying "let no man strive, nor reprove another", as if to say "we will not be corrected and let us not be reproved", or some commentators interpret this to mean that God had hardened their hearts so that it was no use for the prophet to strive with or reprove them. I would say this about my many years on the road, and about the thousands of professing Christians I met... the thing that was most evident about them, the thing that almost all people have in common, was that they want a man of God to tell them they are ok. No matter what condition they are in, no matter what mistakes they are making, no matter how what they are doing will harm them in the future - professing Christians want to be told that they are ok. The charge that is most often leveled against my ministry, and against this blog, is that I am too judgmental, too aggressive, too condemning, etc. People believe that I do not take into account the different levels of maturity, different walks, different experiences of different people. They say that I speak as if I expect everyone to be where I am, and if they are not "up to my level", then they aren't Christians, or they are failing. I understand that no man or woman wants to feel condemned. No one wants to be told that they are falling short of the mark, or that they are rationalizing, or that they are still in concord and unity with the world. In my years of ministry, I can tell you again that there is one constant that will never change. Men do not like to hear that there is a standard. They do not like to think that they may NOT be ok. They do not want to be compared to earlier generations, or to earlier epochs of Christianity. They do not want to hear that their reliance and dependence on the world is sin, or that they rely and depend on the world because they love the world. No man wants to hear that, which is why this ministry is destined to be tiny, rejected of men, despised, etc. It is easy to say "Michael Bunker preaches an impossible standard", or "Michael Bunker doesn't understand my situation", and then just go along like before.
Here is a truth: "All men and women are not at the same level. Christianity is a walk and a process (thus the PROCESS driven life), and we are all (all of those who truly belong to Christ) in different places on the Pilgrim's Progress. Some have just started their walk, and some are farther along than others."
Here is the bastardization of that truth: "Since the above is true, then wherever I am, and whatever I am doing, and whatever I plan is acceptable". This lie teaches that the Pilgrim's Progress doesn't have a definite direction, or that forward motion is not required. This lie embraces the antinomian concept that whatever we are doing is fine, so long as we WANT or we DESIRE to please God. This lie embraces the antinomian concept that some progress or some separation is acceptable to God, and that as long as we are better, more holy, or more separated than our neighbors and our society, then we are just fine. Too many people, in their professed Christianity, will perish foully and finally with this lie upon their lips and hearts. Too many people, in their professed Christian Agrarianism, will find themselves coupled with or accounted with the Kingdom of this World, despite their protestations to the contrary.
Here is the thing... I am required to preach and teach to a standard, and that standard is the Bible. I don't preach to "the human condition", or to the corrupted reality, or to myself as the standard. I include myself in every condemnation, and in every reproof or correction. If I preach to myself, it is not as the standard, but it is because I know the dark condition of my natural heart. I know what lies I want to hear, and I know what lies I tell myself. If I condemn these lies and YOU get caught in the crossfire, then so be it. I know rationalization, because I am a rationalizer. I know self-deception, because I have spent so many years in it. I have watched literally thousands of people put their hands to the plow, and then go back to the world - so if I condemn the symptoms of apostasy and backsliding, and if I do so from years of experience, and if you get caught in that condemnation, then so be it. There are some things that are certain. You can be certain that, at some level, you are lying to yourself to maintain your comfort, condition, position, or status. You can be sure that these lies are rooted in your love of the world. You can be sure that most everyone you know is not telling you the truth about yourself - usually because they do not know the truth themselves, but sometimes it is because they do not love the truth, and they do not love YOU enough to tell you.
There is deception everywhere in these days, and I can see why. Truly Godly people would want a doctor who will tell them the truth, but people today want a doctor who will give them an automatic approval and a good prognosis no matter their condition. People want a preacher who will tell them they are ok, a guide who will approve of their plans for the future, and a prophet who will prophecy unto them smooth things. What is needed in the Christian Agrarianism movement is vision, and that is precisely the one thing it lacks. But it will not receive vision because it strives to be a movement without movement. Too many Agrarians want the picture-postcard life, and think that by grabbing a photo snapshot of true Agrarianism that they will also grab the promises of God - promises given only for diligent attention to separatism, simplicity, and holiness.
Almost the whole Bible, and every parable therein, and every shadow therein, and every picture therein, is about separation. Wheat from tares, sheep from goats, the true Church from the World, the children of God from the children of the devil. But it seems that Christian Agrarians want the product of separation - without separating. They want the product of holiness - without being holy. They want the product of of a simple, deliberate, Agrarian life - without getting rid of and rejecting the things that destroyed that life to begin with. Frankly, I don't think anyone is going to succeed in this movement without the pain and suffering that attends true Biblical separation from the world. People can grumble and complain, or, like most Agrarians, they can stick their heads in the sands of Agrarian marketing and feel-good glad-handing, but when the rubber meets the road, there is a reason that industrialism took root and overturned Agrarianism, and that reason was a tidal wave of covetousness, greed, comfort, and the deep-seeded desire for man to do things faster and easier so he can get back to his sins. The marketing arm of the Christian Agrarianism movement will do a good job in painting Agrarianism as a return to idyllic living. The theology arm of Christian Agrarianism will make sure the corrupt institutions of "Church" and "State" continue to receive their due. Modern Christian Agrarianism, though an admirable concept, will go the way of many other back-to-the-land movements... it will be crushed under its own weight, or it will fail its adherents when it is needed most (when society collapses and the economy fails). That is, it will fail unless it gets properly grounded in the Word of God, and centers itself on the critical precept that the modern world (The Kingdom of this world) is evil and corrupt, and is anti-christ, and its entire philosophy and worldview must be rejected. False prophets will preach that we must be "in the world, but not of it" - and by that they will mean that it is perfectly fine for Christians to be full participants in the ways of the world, so long as they claim that their "hearts" are with Christ. False teachers will defend worldliness and say that they defend it for evangelism's and for mission's sake. The very institutions that failed the world and the country (the modern corporate "Church" and the Nanny-State) will continue to warn Christians off of separatism, simplicity, and truly Biblical Agrarianism. The failed prophets of apostate religion (true cultists, tyrants, and liars all) will continue to label any attempt at truly Biblical living as "cultish". Those things are always going to happen, no devil ever wants to part with power. But let me tell you that if we do not accept and embrace Separatism from this world and from the ways of this modern world as a principle pillar of truly Christian Agrarianism, and if we do not reject syncretism as fundamentally dangerous and deadly to true Christianity, and if we do not begin to truly study and learn about what is wrong with the modern Amerikan society and culture, and the wickedness of the industrial culture it has produced - if we do not do these things, then the Christian Agrarianism movement is doomed to failure. I will consider it a failure if, after some reasonable period of time, professing Christian Agrarians are not, in ever greater numbers, truly exiting Egypt for the promised land, and leaving Egypt behind them as they do so. I always take the time to reflect on our own movement here, and try to make sure that we are indeed moving. Learning and reading is one thing, but most people will be ever learning and reading, and never moving or coming to a knowledge of the truth. I can tell you that, all philosophy and dogma aside, I didn't become a Christian Agrarian until we disconnected from the grid, and I never knew how far my people had fallen from God-sufficiency, until we unplugged from the world's way of doing things. You cannot live Christian Agrarianism through blogs or on paper. In the end we must act, and we must trust God to bless our feeble attempts and to lead us to where we need to go. Our circumstances are not our god, and our situation does not mandate our condition. Most people look at problems and do not demand solutions. Therefore they never MOVE... and MOVEMENT is necessary for the success of any MOVEMENT.
I am your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
It was great to meet so many like-minded people.
In my opinion, the thing that is lacking most in the Christian Agrarian movement is a proper philosophy. Too many people are exiting Egypt and bringing Egypt along with them, and they either don't know, or don't care that they are doing it. Too many people do not know what it is that caused the failure of the industrial/mercantile system, so they are ignorant of what it is that they are doing now that must inevitably cause them to fail. The Bible says that God's people are destroyed by a lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6), and that same section of scripture teaches us that the people were saying "let no man strive, nor reprove another", as if to say "we will not be corrected and let us not be reproved", or some commentators interpret this to mean that God had hardened their hearts so that it was no use for the prophet to strive with or reprove them. I would say this about my many years on the road, and about the thousands of professing Christians I met... the thing that was most evident about them, the thing that almost all people have in common, was that they want a man of God to tell them they are ok. No matter what condition they are in, no matter what mistakes they are making, no matter how what they are doing will harm them in the future - professing Christians want to be told that they are ok. The charge that is most often leveled against my ministry, and against this blog, is that I am too judgmental, too aggressive, too condemning, etc. People believe that I do not take into account the different levels of maturity, different walks, different experiences of different people. They say that I speak as if I expect everyone to be where I am, and if they are not "up to my level", then they aren't Christians, or they are failing. I understand that no man or woman wants to feel condemned. No one wants to be told that they are falling short of the mark, or that they are rationalizing, or that they are still in concord and unity with the world. In my years of ministry, I can tell you again that there is one constant that will never change. Men do not like to hear that there is a standard. They do not like to think that they may NOT be ok. They do not want to be compared to earlier generations, or to earlier epochs of Christianity. They do not want to hear that their reliance and dependence on the world is sin, or that they rely and depend on the world because they love the world. No man wants to hear that, which is why this ministry is destined to be tiny, rejected of men, despised, etc. It is easy to say "Michael Bunker preaches an impossible standard", or "Michael Bunker doesn't understand my situation", and then just go along like before.
Here is a truth: "All men and women are not at the same level. Christianity is a walk and a process (thus the PROCESS driven life), and we are all (all of those who truly belong to Christ) in different places on the Pilgrim's Progress. Some have just started their walk, and some are farther along than others."
Here is the bastardization of that truth: "Since the above is true, then wherever I am, and whatever I am doing, and whatever I plan is acceptable". This lie teaches that the Pilgrim's Progress doesn't have a definite direction, or that forward motion is not required. This lie embraces the antinomian concept that whatever we are doing is fine, so long as we WANT or we DESIRE to please God. This lie embraces the antinomian concept that some progress or some separation is acceptable to God, and that as long as we are better, more holy, or more separated than our neighbors and our society, then we are just fine. Too many people, in their professed Christianity, will perish foully and finally with this lie upon their lips and hearts. Too many people, in their professed Christian Agrarianism, will find themselves coupled with or accounted with the Kingdom of this World, despite their protestations to the contrary.
Here is the thing... I am required to preach and teach to a standard, and that standard is the Bible. I don't preach to "the human condition", or to the corrupted reality, or to myself as the standard. I include myself in every condemnation, and in every reproof or correction. If I preach to myself, it is not as the standard, but it is because I know the dark condition of my natural heart. I know what lies I want to hear, and I know what lies I tell myself. If I condemn these lies and YOU get caught in the crossfire, then so be it. I know rationalization, because I am a rationalizer. I know self-deception, because I have spent so many years in it. I have watched literally thousands of people put their hands to the plow, and then go back to the world - so if I condemn the symptoms of apostasy and backsliding, and if I do so from years of experience, and if you get caught in that condemnation, then so be it. There are some things that are certain. You can be certain that, at some level, you are lying to yourself to maintain your comfort, condition, position, or status. You can be sure that these lies are rooted in your love of the world. You can be sure that most everyone you know is not telling you the truth about yourself - usually because they do not know the truth themselves, but sometimes it is because they do not love the truth, and they do not love YOU enough to tell you.
There is deception everywhere in these days, and I can see why. Truly Godly people would want a doctor who will tell them the truth, but people today want a doctor who will give them an automatic approval and a good prognosis no matter their condition. People want a preacher who will tell them they are ok, a guide who will approve of their plans for the future, and a prophet who will prophecy unto them smooth things. What is needed in the Christian Agrarianism movement is vision, and that is precisely the one thing it lacks. But it will not receive vision because it strives to be a movement without movement. Too many Agrarians want the picture-postcard life, and think that by grabbing a photo snapshot of true Agrarianism that they will also grab the promises of God - promises given only for diligent attention to separatism, simplicity, and holiness.
Almost the whole Bible, and every parable therein, and every shadow therein, and every picture therein, is about separation. Wheat from tares, sheep from goats, the true Church from the World, the children of God from the children of the devil. But it seems that Christian Agrarians want the product of separation - without separating. They want the product of holiness - without being holy. They want the product of of a simple, deliberate, Agrarian life - without getting rid of and rejecting the things that destroyed that life to begin with. Frankly, I don't think anyone is going to succeed in this movement without the pain and suffering that attends true Biblical separation from the world. People can grumble and complain, or, like most Agrarians, they can stick their heads in the sands of Agrarian marketing and feel-good glad-handing, but when the rubber meets the road, there is a reason that industrialism took root and overturned Agrarianism, and that reason was a tidal wave of covetousness, greed, comfort, and the deep-seeded desire for man to do things faster and easier so he can get back to his sins. The marketing arm of the Christian Agrarianism movement will do a good job in painting Agrarianism as a return to idyllic living. The theology arm of Christian Agrarianism will make sure the corrupt institutions of "Church" and "State" continue to receive their due. Modern Christian Agrarianism, though an admirable concept, will go the way of many other back-to-the-land movements... it will be crushed under its own weight, or it will fail its adherents when it is needed most (when society collapses and the economy fails). That is, it will fail unless it gets properly grounded in the Word of God, and centers itself on the critical precept that the modern world (The Kingdom of this world) is evil and corrupt, and is anti-christ, and its entire philosophy and worldview must be rejected. False prophets will preach that we must be "in the world, but not of it" - and by that they will mean that it is perfectly fine for Christians to be full participants in the ways of the world, so long as they claim that their "hearts" are with Christ. False teachers will defend worldliness and say that they defend it for evangelism's and for mission's sake. The very institutions that failed the world and the country (the modern corporate "Church" and the Nanny-State) will continue to warn Christians off of separatism, simplicity, and truly Biblical Agrarianism. The failed prophets of apostate religion (true cultists, tyrants, and liars all) will continue to label any attempt at truly Biblical living as "cultish". Those things are always going to happen, no devil ever wants to part with power. But let me tell you that if we do not accept and embrace Separatism from this world and from the ways of this modern world as a principle pillar of truly Christian Agrarianism, and if we do not reject syncretism as fundamentally dangerous and deadly to true Christianity, and if we do not begin to truly study and learn about what is wrong with the modern Amerikan society and culture, and the wickedness of the industrial culture it has produced - if we do not do these things, then the Christian Agrarianism movement is doomed to failure. I will consider it a failure if, after some reasonable period of time, professing Christian Agrarians are not, in ever greater numbers, truly exiting Egypt for the promised land, and leaving Egypt behind them as they do so. I always take the time to reflect on our own movement here, and try to make sure that we are indeed moving. Learning and reading is one thing, but most people will be ever learning and reading, and never moving or coming to a knowledge of the truth. I can tell you that, all philosophy and dogma aside, I didn't become a Christian Agrarian until we disconnected from the grid, and I never knew how far my people had fallen from God-sufficiency, until we unplugged from the world's way of doing things. You cannot live Christian Agrarianism through blogs or on paper. In the end we must act, and we must trust God to bless our feeble attempts and to lead us to where we need to go. Our circumstances are not our god, and our situation does not mandate our condition. Most people look at problems and do not demand solutions. Therefore they never MOVE... and MOVEMENT is necessary for the success of any MOVEMENT.
I am your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
posted by Michael Bunker at 7/03/2008 05:19:00 AM
7 Comments:
Wow. I leave it to Michael, my brother in Christ, to do as any good brother would and grab me by the shoulders and shake me periodically if I get side-tracked. I also rely on him to tell the truth, and he does.
Thank you, Michael.
Judy
This post has been removed by the author.
Michael,
You know what Dorothy said "There's no place like home,(click, click) there's no place like home.(click, click)" Glad you made it back safe. It sound as though the Lord sustained you very well! I trust He did so for your precious family as well.
You have made some very interesting observations of this agrarian movement. I believe that you are correct and so many of us need to ask ourselves some hard questions, and be willing to give some honest answers. I for one thank you for holding up the standard, and for being an example. I don't think people like to acknowledge that they even recognize most standards (especially biblical standards) because a standard always holds us to account. I'm always somewhat taken aback to see so called Christians' reactions to them.
Rest assured I never take offense, but that does not mean that it doesn't smart a little sometimes.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Pr. 27:6
Allen
Judy, Bob, and Allen,
Thanks for your comments and your encouragement!
Michael
It is ever so very true that sadly, tearfully and regretably my life is reflected in your words. Truly even though I know these things mostly my flesh wins out for it loves the comforts of this world.
My prayer is that God will provide and sustain the forward motion of separating from the world.
Thank you for never pulling punches,
Renée
Michael,
This morning I copied off your sermon on the "Doctrine of Separation" at Lazarus Unbound and took it to work to read at lunchtime. Then I came home today to read this essay. Cooincidence?
Thanks for the admontition.
Michael,
often, part of my prayers for you include asking the Lord to continue giving you the courage/strength to keep on telling it like it is, and I always consider a scattershooting of hit the bullseye honesty like today an answer to prayer.
Bill
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