This chapter is about a “false Jesus” Dean sees running around our
churches, and what it amounts to is that Dean is upset because children are not
taught everything about Jesus he thinks they should hear, and then he supposes
they get upset later in life when they find out “the truth”.
As has often been the case, Dean rests on 2 legs out of 4 on his stool.
The problem in inadequate discipleship in our churches is real (not just with
children, but also adults). Nevertheless it is hard to suppose that what Dean
describes amounts any more to “deception” that it is to fail to teach
kindergartners calculus at the same time as their times tables.
Dean worries that children are not told of words of Jesus like, “And if
thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the
kingdom of God with one eye, then having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched”.
Presumably Dean also thinks we can educate children ages 3-6 about such
relevant contextual matters as Semitic hyperbole and Jewish eschatology. He
wants such children to hear, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal”. He
whines that this is not mentioned because parents want their children to be “'financially responsible', and to KNOW that
WHEN he grows up, he will have to provide for himself”. (We wonder if he
would mind as well if they were taught that in the ancient world, such
financial responsibility was practically impossible; rustproofing and mothballs
were eons in the future.) Perhaps Dean has a point, if children (and adults) remain with
the view of Jesus as only a “nice man”, but it is pure paranoia to suppose that
such gentle, by-stages introduction amounts to “TRAIN(ing) YOUR CHILDREN to be the ENEMIES of Jesus Christ” and
making out parents to be “false prophets”.
Not surprisingly, Dean criminally decontextualizes Matthew 18:3 as the
atheist George Smith did, supposing it means one must be as ignorant as
a child to convert when it actually means one must be as humble as
a child. Given this mishap of eisegesis it is little wonder Dean rejects
contextual study, for we are told with paranoia attached that:
“To be AS a
little child is to TRUST and BELIEVE Jesus Christ, without demanding that He ‘explain’
what He ‘really meant’; instead of obeying what He really said. The attempt to
escape or ‘explain away’ the SIMPLE MEANING of the teachings of Jesus Christ is
to try and CREATE ‘some other’ Jesus: ANOTHER JESUS”.
If this is so, one wonders about Paul's advice to “test everything” and
why the Scripture-checking Bereans were regarded as so noble — and why true faith (Isaiah 1:18-20) is based on evidence. Decontextualized, indeed.
In what follows Dean is correct to admonish that a Jesus suited to
ourselves is not a real one. But it remains that we will not discover that
Jesus by reading the “plain” English version and drawing decontextualized
conclusions which we stubbornly defend in ignorance, as in:
“These EXCUSES
are usually in the form of ‘explanations and interpretations’, by which they
attempt to OBSCURE the SIMPLICITY that is in Christ. Instead of OBEYING or even
trying to obey, in simple childlike trust: they EXPLAIN ‘what Jesus really
meant’: When they are done ‘explaining’, SIMPLE OBEDIENCE is not necessary.
They MISREPRESENT Jesus Christ by putting words into His mouth that He NEVER
SAID, and by ‘explaining’ His teachings so that they actually CONTRADICT what
He said”.
It’s ironic that that paragraph comes from man that was “commanded by God” to write “‘explanations
and interpretations” “in the
form of” a book entitled The Great Dream.
While what Dean says is indeed done in error at times, it remains that
one such error does not make all erroneous. Dean says the fake Jesus is a sign
of apostasy and a coming end. We say that fake Jesuses have actually been
around since the Galatian controversy — and are no such special sign at all.
And that in addition, Dean's “plain
meaning” Jesus is as fake as any of the others he rails against.
Dean also abuses Mark 16:16-20, arguing that this means we should be
seeing miracles today; if this is so we need to ask Dean what miracles he has
done lately!
It is a great delusion for anyone to imagine that he possesses any gift
of the Spirit in the sense that he can exercise it whenever he so desires. And that
includes the gift of tongues —a gift Dean imagine he “possesses” and can “use”
when he pleases and, thereby, has been led astray.
Beware of false prophets like Dean Flanders (aka, JAC —short for Just Another Christian)!