PUTTING UP READILY WITH A DIFFERENT GOSPEL (PART V)

“Pharmacodynamics of a Rightly Divided Word of Truth”

By Akin Ojumu

Trauma bonding is the term used to describe the intense emotional attachment that forms between a victim of abuse and their abuser over a period of time. Despite the fact that the bond is damaging to their psychological, physical, and financial wellbeing, victims of abuse often develop a strong sense of loyalty towards their abuser. Stockholm syndrome is a specific, extreme form of trauma bond occurring during immediate, life-threatening captivity.

Considering the abusive relationship that exists between the vast majority of church folks and the people they look up to as their spiritual leaders, you don’t have to be a licensed clinical psychologist to make a diagnosis of trauma bonding in the clergy-laity relationship dynamics. The fierce loyalty and the impassioned allegiance of many parishioners to their pastors, despite documented history of exploitation, manipulation, and deception on the part of the former, is evidence of spiritual trauma bonding.

Not only do church folks defend their spiritual leaders with fervor and vehemence against any form of criticism, but they are also known to respond to the admonition of their pastors by attacking the critics with the ferocity and savagery of a wild animal protecting its young. The reason they are so protective of their spiritual abusers is because of trauma bonding.

This trauma bonding also explains the high tolerance threshold of church folks to the false teachings of false teachers. Because they are psychologically hypnotized by trauma bonding, these folks are unwilling and unable to discern and/or denounce the erroneous doctrine of charlatans, especially when the charlatan happens to be their spiritual leader.

Besides the itching ears, beyond the symbiotic relationship with false teachers, and over and above the cotton candy taste of false teachings, there is yet another reason church folks put up willingly with false teachers and their false teachings. This has to do with what I’ll describe as the pharmacodynamics of the true Gospel. In this sense, we are talking about what the Gospel does to the soul (i.e., mechanisms of action, receptor binding, and spiritual effects) when it is accurately and precisely preached.  This is analogous to the pharmacodynamics of a medication, i.e. what the medication does to the human body when it is ingested (mechanism of action, receptor binding, and clinical effects).

3) Pharmacodynamics of the Gospel

Sound doctrine is repulsive to church folks because it pierces the human soul, exposing our guilt and wretchedness. When the Word of God is accurately and precisely preached, it cuts through the BS and lays bare our nakedness.

Hebrews 4:12

“For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

A rightly divided Word of God puts us in our proper place. It silences all our braggadocio and pomposity. We come to the realization that there’s really nothing special about us after all. Were it not for the love and mercy of God, we all are but unworthy wretched sinners saved by grace through faith, a faith which is not even our own but a gift of God.

When God’s Word is accurately handled, it punctures a hole in our bubble of narcissism and hubris. All the talk about us being the best thing to happen to God’s earth since sliced bread is exposed for what it is, a massive pile of hot bovine excrement. The blustering about our righteous deeds, the boasting about our vaunted power, the bragging about our anointing, and our bombast about our holiness are unmasked as nothing but tattered and polluted garments.

Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)

“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”

“Sunlight is the best of disinfectants,” is a famous aphorism attributed to the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. While largely a metaphor used to promote transparency in government and corporate sectors to hold decision-makers accountable, in literal terms, ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunlight has been shown to physically kill pathogens and reduce fungal contamination.

The Word of God is light i.e., the spiritual UV radiation. When it is rightly handled, it illuminates the darkness of the human soul, exposing the rot and corruption.

Psalm 119:105

“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

In addition to its illuminating power, God’s Word is a disinfectant; it sanitizes our soul. It is through the preaching of the sound Gospel that the human soul is cleansed and sanctified.

John 17:17

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

Ephesians 5:25-27

“…As Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

The tendency for church folks to gravitate towards false teachers and their false teachings is a result of the innate residual fallenness of the human soul. The natural inclination to reject divine truth is encoded in our DNA. Left to our own devices and without the quickening of the Holy Spirit, our predisposition is to shun the light of God’s truth and choose the darkness of satanic deception.

John 3:19-21

“And this is the judgment: the LIGHT has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the LIGHT because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the LIGHT and does not come to the LIGHT, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the LIGHT, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

“Darkness” in the above text is a metaphor for sin, ignorance, and separation from God. The preference for darkness over light underscores the moral and spiritual blindness of humanity. This is the consistent theme of the redemptive history. It is the story of man’s rebellion against God that goes as far back as the Garden of Eden.

1 John 1:5-7

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Obsessed with self-worth and absorbed with their sense of self-importance, all the navel-gazing Christian wants to hear is the ear-tickling false gospel that affirms their worth and validates their importance. The true Gospel which, however, is like a wrecking ball. It demolishes human pride and shatters the ego. As such it is repulsive to the itching ears. Because of their spiritual photophobia, many who call themselves Christians today are intolerant to the bright light of the Gospel which lays bare their spiritual wretchedness and exposes their unworthiness.

We’ll take it from here next time.