A Rebuttal of Paul Dyal's Blog

I have been reading a blog off and on this summer (http://paulbdyal.blogspot.com) and I know that I will receive some heat for this, but isn't that what happens to people who are brave enough to come forward and speak the truth?

Over the course of the summer, Bro. Paul Dyal has been accusing Bro. Steve Farmer of a move towards dismissing holiness. What has caused this accusation? Bro. Farmer has been espousing moving out into a greater understanding of modesty than has been previously held by the association to which both of the churches that both of these men pastor belong.

Bro. Dyal firmly holds to a set standard of holiness, and Bro. Farmer has inferred that holiness should come from a working of the Holy Spirit within you and not from some checklist. The real issue here is who is in control and that's what making this so controversial. Don't be fooled into thinking that the issue at hand is just holiness. See the problem isn't a question of whether it's the ministry who are in control or the lay persons. No, the real question is whether the ministry is in control, or God is in control.

Tradition is being questioned! This isn't how we've always done it! These aren't the principles that we were established on! Our standards define who we are! I can't adequately convey the feeling of disgust I feel even writing these four sentences, but I will address each of them separately.

1. Tradition: Here's the skinny here. Good traditions are good and bad traditions are bad. Keep your traditions if they are good; traditionalism is a very comforting thing and can bring much stability. However, teaching tradition as if it has the same standing as the Word of God is not only stupid, but it is also sinful. The Bible calls this "the traditions of the elders" (Matt 15:2). If you from a position of leadership teach that not strictly adhering to tradition or opinion is a sin, I have one word for you, beware.

2. Bureaucracy: There is a difference between bureaucracy and unity. Striving to have unity and trying to do things the same way because it is the right thing to do is honorable. However accountability must be present for unity to be good. You must have an answer for the question "why?". Hebrews teaches "Obey them that have the rule over you", but there is no obedience without understanding. Uninformed submission is nothing more than conformity or brain-washing. Questioning your leadership is not the same thing as disobedience. Holding leadership accountable is not rebellion, it's wisdom. Those who follow bad leadership are as accountable as those who lead badly.

3. Progressive Revelation: A foundation is just that, a foundation. It is meant to be built upon. It is a starting point, not the end. There is an inherent problem though with Progressive Revelation when you throw people in the mix. People only progress to the level at which they feel comfortable, and when they reach that level, they stop and begin defending their position, regardless of whether there is something more to be reached for or not. Progressive Revelation is like an unending series of progressively better furnished rooms. When you bunker down in a room that is comfortable enough for you and ignore the door to the next room, you've stopped progressing. I don't have too much of a problem with this on an individual basis, but when a leader tries to keep anyone else from going through that door to the next room, they are wrong. They are no longer leading, they are hindering and leaders who aren't leading aren't leaders.

4. We are our standards: This is the worst of the bunch. We are NOT defined by our standards as Christians; we ARE defined by Christ in us! If standards were what made us a special people, anyone who got a list of them and obeyed them flawlessly would be special by that definition. I can only speak for myself in the entire world, but I do not consider myself a follower of Christ because I keep a set of standards given to us to follow by the ministry. I consider myself a follower of Christ because I am a follower of Christ. When I was a child, I prayed to Jesus for Him to come into my heart, not to the pastor for a list of fashion dos and don'ts. To state that anything other than Christ is the foundation of my faith reduces it to the level of any contemporary made-up religion out there. I might as well be a Jedi if dress is all that we are.

I am not perfect, far from it. I also freely admit that I might be wrong on all four of my points. Please, if I am, explain to me how so, so that I can know more than I do now. This stance however is not one I share with bureaucrats and traditionalists who will staunchly defend their position, sure of their infallibility despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. How sad.

To make a point, I intend to misquote a scripture. I do not advocate doing this for any other reason than to make a point. (Rom. 12:2) most assuredly does not read: "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye conformed to a set of standards developed by a man, so ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God, which comes to us through the ministry." No, this scripture says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I became something different than I was before. I became a new creature, one born of the Spirit and I'm continuing to grow. If I'm doing something wrong, I know it. I can understand what Paul meant when he wrote "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." (Rom. 7:19) People don't need an arbitrary definition of sin.

Providing one promotes an inward focus that isn't inline with spreading the Gospel. Spreading the Gospel means to tell the good news, not teach people how to dress or to look down on people because of how they dress. Many other groups have made this mistake as well, and dress codes for some reason become such a large portion of what that movement is about, that the Gospel just gets lost somewhere. If you were honestly searching for Jesus, are the Amish the first place you would look to find him?

Reading this post you might conclude that I am some kind of anti-ministry anarchist but nothing can be further from the truth. Our body often refers to pastors as "the man of God" and also seems to use many scriptures referencing the kings of Israel when referring to these men. I only want to state that there is really, truly only one "Man of God", and my pastor isn't him. I will never refer to him as the man of God. However, if you must insist on treating pastors similarly to kings of Israel, remember Israel had good kings and wicked kings. That might hit too close to home if you really think about it. Furthermore, if you insist on putting pastors into the roll of the man of God, you have created a system that over each church is an infallible little pope. This denies the moving of the Spirit and this denies Christ. This is what I am against.

The truth about modesty is that if you put the fruit before the tree, it's not a fruit of that tree. What I mean by this is that a Christian is expected to grown throughout their spiritual life and to progress and to come higher. To expect the same fruit from a sapling as you would from an old growth tree is not only foolish, but also detrimental. Allowing people to grow into an understanding of Biblical modesty might just change the way that a congregation looks, but it will allow people to feel out the Spirit in a new way. It will also lessen the impact of a great sin, the sin of pride. A feeling of superiority because of an over emphasis of a dress standard is rampant, and it is a sin. If you look at someone and think they aren't as much of a Christian because of what they're wearing, you are wrong. The old quote doesn't read "There but for the length of my sleeve/skirt go I". When did we forget about the grace of God? Grace is God's unmerited favor, so why do we spend so much effort trying to earn it?

Additionally, teaching modesty will help us clear up some of the cobwebs so to speak about this doctrine. How is a pale blue dress shirt less holy than a white one, or a yellow one or a pink one? What is the difference between wearing a suit or dress pants and a sports coat? Women have this harder than the men and I'd like you to tell me if you can why if a woman wears a skirt that is one inch above the knee or one that is one inch below the knee changes whether she is holy or not. I'd like to understand how the key to holiness is two inches of fabric. Yes, I understand that there is a modesty issue at hand, and I have a special understanding of this being the father of a daughter. I will just come out and say that there are some times that skirts of ANY length are immodest; this is why I direct my daughter to wear pants in situations where skirts aren't appropriate. This kind of issue is at the heart of what Bro. Farmer is trying to convey, though I kept it deliberately simple and would also not presume to put words in my brother's mouth.

By the way, the statement that someone will wear something immodest if you don't have a dress standard is probably true, but Jesus said "That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matt 5:28). Someone who would dress immodestly because of a new teaching in modesty is merely showing their resentment to the old dress standard, they didn't just figure it was OK because we are teaching it a different way. They didn't start sinning when they started changing their appearance, it just started showing. Oh, and by the way, people aren't stupid. They aren't going to hear this doctrine and think the church is becoming a nudist colony.

There's no good place to address what I'm going to in the paragraph, but I'm going to state it here anyway. To those who have said or inferred that first Bro. Farmer is getting rid of all standards and eventually his church will condone wife swapping, you should be ashamed. From what I understand, the person who said this was a minister. I'm not sure about this, but if it's true, you shouldn't be a pastor. Your heart is not right.

One last argument I've heard is that we dress differently because we are a peculiar people. Allow me to post 1Pet 2:9 in it's entirety. "But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:" We are called to praise Him, not to dress a certain way. A dress standard is just not implied in this verse. If you think differently, please explain how.

Why is Bro. Farmer being so criticized when what he says not only makes sense and is Biblical, while the opposition doesn't and is merely traditionalism? Galileo Galilei once defended heliocentrism to the Catholic church, who held to the view of geocentrism. The church's interpretation of scripture led it to conclude that the Earth is the center of the universe. How did the church react to Galileo's defense of the truth? They condemned him as a heretic, imprisoned him and censured him. During a convention in September, the ministry of the body also attempted to censure Bro. Farmer, or more accurately attempted to coerce Bro. Farmer into self-censure, threatened to disassociate him and his church and threatened to remove him from a position of leadership in the body. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, they also threatened to make him sit in a chair farther from the pulpit. What is happening is that those who are speaking out are doing so because their place as the fount of God-given truth is being challenged by none other than the truth. No matter how you look at it, people don't want to admit that they might be wrong. So what this whole thing boils down to can be expressed in the following two words: Human Nature. Incidentally the question I have is how long will it take the body to issue Bro. Farmer an apology and accept the truths that he has presented. Hopefully it won't be the centuries it took the Catholic church to issue a formal apology to Galileo.

You might ask yourself why is Bro. Farmer being vilified. If you read Bro. Dyal's blog, you will not find an accurate representation of what Bro. Farmer said. As a matter of fact Bro. Farmer isn't the only subject that has been inaccurately represented this year. I would suggest to you to dig just a little bit and watch for yourself what Bro. Farmer has said, which you can do here: http://www.vimeo.com/4804181. It's a little discouraging to notice how little support he is getting during this talk.

In closing I will say this. Bro. Farmer, I pray for you often, now more than ever that you will stay strong and continue to take the heat on this that I know you are taking. I was really referring to you in my first paragraph about being brave, not myself. I support the effort you are making to bring us to a closer relationship with God and trying to clear away some of the heresies that have crept into our body. And finally, Bro. Dyal, I pray for you too, but I think you are wrong.