Category 5
Verdict: John Pavlovitz is “progressive Christianity” and all that comes with it.
Background
John Pavlovitz started off at as a Methodist and rose to being a pastor at a Raleigh megachurch. He did not last long at this megachurch. It has been said that he was youth pastor at North Raleigh Community Church, a staunchly apostate church, in 2017. However this church, does not have Pavlovitz featured on their website at all, so it is unlikely he is still working there. John Pavlovitz is best known for his blog, “Stuff That Need To Be Said” where he espouses his liberal theology. A detail worth mentioning about Pavlovitz’s background is that his brother is a homosexual. Currently, John Pavlovitz has much online clout among socialists.First Contact
John Pavlovitz is a heretic I’ve confronted in the past, specifically how he tries to employ God in his pro-abortion leftist politics.If you are unfamiliar, John Pavlovitz is a heretical pastor who delves in universalism and the ever so present “social justice gospel” heresy. To him, Islam worships the same God, homosexuality is not a sin, hell?, support for entitlement programs is a direct reflection of one’s compassion, and Christianity’s biggest enemy, in America, are those who are conservative theologically and politically. As a result, he’s the left’s shining religious star in their Resistance.We will break down these claims of heresy later on.
As Christians, our identity is in Jesus Christ. It is not in Trump, for or against. John Pavlovitz has his identity in (opposing) Trump. But his opposition to Trump is not due to his faith but rather a desire to maintain popularity in spite of being ousted by churches. He was a heretic before Trump, seeing as with decades of pastoral experience, he has a wavering belief in hell nor does he believe in the accuracy and authority of the bible. It’s unfortunate, but unavoidable, for Trump to be a ladder for heretics to ascend to internet fame. The left calls him the “digital pastor of the resistance” which is a slight aimed at the definitive doctrines of faith. The fellowship of Christ allows for disagreement among nonessential, like politics. But there should be unity in Christ and in essential doctrines. Christians who are not conservative in their politics need to find a different pastor to champion, one who actually knows Christ. John Pavlovitz will only mislead you.
Wavering belief in hell
From the article Lately, I Hope That There’s a HellI was brought up believing that hell was real, though later in life I’d grown skeptical. It seemed like an idea incompatible with a loving God and with the very idea of Grace. I’m not sure that hell exists, but today I admit to being strangely hopeful.This article goes on to wish there to be a hell so that his theological and political enemies would find themselves in it.
Denial of Divine Authorship of Scripture
In his promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism, John Pavlovitz throws the credibility of the Bible out of the window, by denying the its God-breathed words.In truth, only a literal handful of the Bible’s 31,102 verses mention what could be translated as homosexuality(an English word first coined in 1946),and in even those few cases the reference is solely to a sexual act, never to anything remotely resembling what we understand as gender identity or sexual orientation. The reason for this is quite simple: such complex ideas were beyond the grasp of the writers, just as the shape of the planet or the inner workings of the human body or the nature of gravity were. This is understandable. They had no knowledge of how the brain worked and so they could only observe behavior and imagine that was the extent of sexual identity. This is the greatest flaw in attempting to use the Bible to address the intricacies of human sexuality—that it is woefully inadequate for that specific task. The Bible did not drop from the sky and it isn’t a product of Divine dictation where God took over the faculties of the author. It is a sprawling library of 66 books, orally preserved and then written down over hundreds of years by dozens of disparate and largely unknown, very human authors in multiple languages, during which time the concepts of gender identity or sexual orientation were formed at only the crudest levels.He says it more explicitly here in 10 Things This Christian Doesn’t Believe About The Bible
1) I don’t believe the Bible was dictated by God. The sixty-six books comprising the Bible were composed by flawed, imperfect, emotional, very human beings who never claim to have been fully possessed by God or robbed of their faculties as they wrote. This means that however virtuous or well-meaning or inspired they might have been, they can’t help but have brought some of themselves into the writing. 4) I don’t believe the Bible has much of consequence to say about gender identity and sexual orientation. I don’t advocate consulting the Scriptures for an accurate understanding of matters of sexuality for the same reason I wouldn’t want a medical text from the same time period guiding a surgeon taking a scalpel to me. What we now know is simply far more than we knew then about how the body works, and to ignore that would be foolish. The advances and discoveries over time that increase our understanding of our brains and bodies (which God enables) need to be respected and acknowledged by people of faith. It’s enough to believe that all people made in God’s image. 5) I don’t believe the Bible provides a unified, consistent message regarding marriage, war, violence, or sex. The Bible’s many authors have a great deal to say on these and other matters, but there can hardly be a single harmonious Biblical ethic found regarding any of them, no matter how much we would like this. For example, sometimes in Scripture violence is strictly prohibited, sometimes it is tolerated, and other times explicitly commanded and aided by God. So cleanly summarizing the Scriptures on this and many topics is all but impossible. 6) I don’t believe the Bible is without error. The very nature of its verbal origins, its decidedly human authors, the wide time expanse of its writing, as wells as its long and convoluted collation process, all mean that while The Bible can contain great truth, it cannot be as pure and pristine as it would need to be to be called perfect or without inconsistencies or inner conflicts. 9) I don’t believe the Bible can be objectively interpreted or evaluated.Not only did the Bible’s numerous authors bring some of themselves to its passages, we too bring ourselves to them as we read, study, and interpret them. All of our biases and desires and histories and personalities shape the lens by which we view them, and they shape those who write and preach and teach us as well. Any objective truth they contain is therefore all but impossible to claim sole ownership of and practically speaking, beyond grasping. 10) I don’t believe the Bible is worthy of worship. The Scriptures are a tool for approaching God and for trying to put into words ideas that are far beyond words. They are a way of orienting ourselves in the world, of helping us to grow spiritually and to engage our faith. They are not Divinity, and cannot and should not be made into an idol to be blindly worshiped, especially when that worship reinforces or justifies discrimination, bigotry, or injustice based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, birthplace, or income level.According to John Pavlovitz, the Bible is not the Word of God. It offers no clarity on any topics, meaning he denies the idea of systematic theology. The Bible is not inerrant according to him, and we are incapable of reading the Bible without our own preconceived biases. He also believes that the Bible can be an idol which is something said by those who do not have a Scriptural basis for their beliefs. The Holy Spirit allows us to hear God’s Word in a way that would come off as foolishness to the world. Thus the claims of John Pavlovitz about Scripture are claims in that would be made by someone who lacks the Holy Spirit inside of them.
Conclusion
It would be easy to go on and on in compiling evidence against John Pavlovitz, but its unlikely that any Christian is following him. John Pavlovitz is a Category 5 meaning that his followers are not misled Christians, they are fake Christians who live in sin. John Pavlovitz serves as the pinnacle example of Progressive Christianity. THe reason why we featured him is two-fold. One to identify the logical conclusion of the Social Justice Gospel. The second is so that you know how to interact with his followers: as non-Christians or fake Christians.Updated 01/2020 Updated 07/2020 – This post was originally a page, but the page has been removed in favor of phrasing this evidence compilation as a question for better SEO. In addition, a background section has been added, to more align the format with other verdicts.
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11 Responses
Yep. Here’s mine.
https://notourselvesblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/30/the-problem-with-pavlovitz/
Awesome. There are definitely others who wrote about this low hanging fruit. And hopefully his Google search gets flooded with articles like these.
Keep telling yourself that as you burn in Hell for your God-forsaking hatred of Christ.
First of all, great article telling the REAL truth. OMG, this John character is the epitome of what the Bible calls, “False Prophet”. The lies, lies, lies, and garbage coming out of John’s mouth is MEGA unbelievable. And MEGA are not initials for anything. Just MEGA, big, large, grand scale, etc. He is the typical extreme liberal scum that inhabits this earth and gives a bad name to actual human beings and for him “Christianity. He knows ABSOLUTLY NOTHING about the Bible or Jesus or the Father himself. He talks about not knowing if there really is a hell or not and that he hopes there is so we “real Christians” end up there. Sorry to tell him but if he doesn’t have a REAL conversion with Jesus, meaning believing in him, asking Him into his heart and getting the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, he will be one of the scum ending up there. He will find out first hand what hell is like. The Bible calls it the bottomless pit, so there is a CONSTANT fear of falling, FOR ALL OF ETERNITY. It talks about flames, meaning nobody on this earth has experienced what HOT really is no matter where you live, WITH NO WATER TO DRINK, FOR ALL OF ETERNITY. It talks about TORMENT, constantly for ALL OF ETERNITY, NO ENDING, period. If you lived to be 120 years old on this earth, that is NOTHING compared to eternity. I fear for John, he could end up like some other false prophets have or people that “knock” real prophets of God where one day he just drops dead and no Doctor can figure out why he died. The Bible says “touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm”. The best thing we Christians can do for John is pray the first Chapter of Ephesions, around verse 17 and 18 where it asks for his “spiritual eyes to be opened” so he can see the real truth and escape hell. God desires that NO ONE goes to hell. Hell was created for the devil and all of the other fallen angels, NOT HUMANITY. But the devils job is to DECEIVE people which he has so profusley with John. I could go on and write a book here but I think I’ve said enough.
y’all may prefer to live in the Dark Ages, but most of us don’t. Literalism is the true heresy.
Thanks, Ray, for your very incisive article. When I first discovered John Pavlovitz I was shocked he identified himself as a “Christian pastor,” since he appeared to be the very antithesis of that.
If you read Pavolitz’s comments on his Facebook and Twitter pages, you’ll immediately notice that he is engaged in non-stop vitriol and hatred against whatever or whoever he doesn’t agree with — especially Donald Trump. I could respect Pavlovitz if he’d at least encourage a free discussion of ideas, but he never allows that. Anyone who disagrees with him is either banned or blocked. I know this first-hand. Whenever I would try to politely offer a differing viewpoint to John or any of his followers, I’d get a flurry of angry, insulting and hateful replies. Within a couple of months, I was banned from Pavlovitz’s Facebook page three times, having to use different accounts.
In my opinion, Pavlovitz’s motivation is not Christian service, but ego. He seems to be genuinely annoyed that he has only a fraction of Franklin Graham’s popularity. However, I can easily see how he has the minority far-Left, “progressive Christian” crowd eating out of his hand.
You are un American to the max. We reject your Putinist-Trumpist newfascist BS&L (bullshit and lies) just as we reject Marxism-Leninism, or Naziism. You are against what the founders of this great nation expressly stood for: the rejection of dogma. You embrace unreason and reject rational thought. All of which is bad enough. But worse, you’re a hypocrite-you do not even embrace and practice what is commanded by the God whose name you invoke. Repent, you sinner!
Good luck. The road before you will be rocky and the inevitable dissolution of your “faith” will be devastating but you will survive. God and Jesus and all the decent, sane principles will remain – you just won’t have to fight so hard to convince yourself that humane perspectives are the workings of the devil. Kindness, equality, inclusion, empathy and compassion are actually the point. Obsession with false prophets, Satan, sin and all those monsters coming to get you is an effective distraction from whatever it is you’re running from.
You’ll be ok. Promise.
Hilarious how these neo cons, who have nothing to do with the ascetic Jesus whose circle included your “undesirables” and socialists, rant about their own Christian identity which is very white and euro centric. Wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers it is not.
Oh shut up and go back to licking the ass of Satan, you depraved Christ-hating heretic.
He is jewish. His surname is from isreal notItaly.