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radaphQuote
Truthtesty
To the Forum:
Perhaps I should rephrase that. No human authority should be "idolized" or held in front of the Flesh and Blood authority of Jesus. Certainly, the literal Shed Blood of Christ should not be disrespected as it is by Thieme. Thieme promotes himself and demotes the authority of the Flesh and Blood of Christ.
Truthtesty
Yes, but who is to blame? the idol or the idolaters?
The bible says that "idols are nothing." And yet it calls idolatry a sin.
COMMENT:
Thieme began the process of establishing his absolute authority by firing the board of deacons at Berachah the very first Sunday he preached as pastor. As Ron Enroth has said, "It was a harbinger of things to come."
Another useful observation came from Garry Wills' chapter on Thieme (and I do not agree with many of the things Wills has said otherwise):
Wills said that Thieme arranged his ministry so his only point of contact with the congregation was in the pulpit. He counseled no one, published in no peer reviewed or outside journals, or magazines or books. He submitted his work to no-one for any kind of review. Was this one reason he did not finish his academic program? He said it was because he was too busy studying and teaching at Berachah, his one and only church. But other men equally or perhaps even less "gifted" than Thieme have gone on to finish their programs while pastoring or working at other jobs. Why not Thieme?
Could it be that it was very comfortable to be the only person to "review" his material? Having no personal contact with the folks in the pew, could he have lost track of what people were doing with what he was teaching?
Everyone who stayed with this ministry for any length of time (30 years for me) KNOWS that THE COLONEL brooked no challenge, no disagreement, and did not even recommend writings of other people. He said this having come from Dr. Chafer's seminary and not recommending even Chafer's work says a lot. Unless he thought he was better than Chafer And judging by his high opinion of himself and low opinion of others in his field, I suspect he did think he was better than the founder of his seminary.
His claim to what appears to me to be almost popish authority telling us that we could not get truth from God's Word for ourselves, that we had to listen to him or another like him, at first one whom he personally had "trained", is DEFINITELY IDOL MAKING.
Biblical idols were STATUES or other WORKS OF MAN'S HANDS used to represent a "personality" (demonic) behind it. Thieme is a living man, who claimed much for himself and convinced his followers that he was the best and actually the ONLY ONE SMART AND BOLD ENOUGH TO TELL HIS FLOCK THE TRUTH....truths nobody else had seen before. Now this is not impossible, but judging from many years of personal experience, what came out was not equal to what was claimed.
I have come to believe that a man is responsible for what he teaches and he is in some measure responsible for what others do with what he has taught them. Hiding away in the church study over many years is irresponsible leadership....he gets to speak with SELF CLAIMED AUTHORITY OVER HIS FLOCK and THERE IS NO CORRECTIVE PROCESS AVAILABLE.
WHAT ABOUT ABUSES of his teachings in CLONE CHURCHES BY CLONE PASTORS? What of marriages broken by believing his claims of 'RIGHT MAN-RIGHT WOMAN", the privacy of the priesthood, and other beliefs that go beyond what Scripture itself says? What of families fleeing their home town having left a congregation where A PRACTICING CHILD PREDATOR preying on boys in the congregation was accepted and allowed to stay, and no one reported the offender or the offenses to the POLICE as they should have because the offender REBOUNDED? {Confessed his sin to God as per 1 John 1:9? What does that do in a group of Thieme followers? That sounds like a second generation idol to me. I do think Thieme COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE checked his giant ego at the door and TAUGHT FROM THE PULPIT THAT THESE THINGS OUGHT NOT TO BE GOING ON in any group following his teaching. And don't tell me it was because that clone pastor was INDEPENDENT OF THIEME, because his vocabulary and entire methodology was handed down from Daddy Thieme. You can't miss it unless you are blind and determined to see no wrong no fault no foul anywhere in the Thieme universe.
Mistaking Thieme for HOLY SCRIPTURE is IDOLATRY.
Don't tell me I misunderstood the teaching. I understood it then, and even more now.....and how it distorted God's character and the application of Bible truth.
The saddest picture I now retain of Thieme is of him in the depths of Alzheimer's Disease watching himself teach Bible Class hour after hour on video. If ever there was an apt illustration of idolatry taken to its last extreme, that says it all to me. My mother enjoyed all day weather channel in her dementia and was happy with it. But her eternal destiny did not depend upon what they said on that station. Unfortunately most Thieme followers are so loyal that they will and have followed their leader right over a cliff. If Thieme said it from the pulpit, it is BIBLE DOCTRINE and not to be questioned or corrected. And if you leave and stop believing everything he taught then God will get you with warning, intensive and finally dying discipline for negative volition to Bible doctrine. His teaching is BIBLE DOCTRINE.
And that IS IDOL MAKING.
Sistersoap