On the iMonk (Michael Spencer)

[Updated, at the bottom...]

Friends of the iMonk (Michael Spencer) who has recently passed away are looking around the internet for posts about him after his passing, especially from sites where there was, let's say, some friction between the writer and the iMonk.

It's just difficult to write about a person who has recently died. It really is just bad form to say anything but rest in peace. Of course since I'm writing this I'll go beyond that now.

When people die they of course become saints. Michael Spencer was not a saint. (Nor was he the equal of C. S. Lewis, by the way.)

Michael got attention by being someone who gave some evidence that he was able to know the truth, then turned away from that truth. He also, after turning away, was in the biblical category of a mocker. He mocked 'true believers.' He did it though, again, as somebody who seemed to know enough to know better. Which isn't good.

In one of his videos where he was making a case for a pastor friend who had just lost his job the iMonk said (paraphrasing): "He's a good guy. He's more conservative than me. So don't let the fact that he knows me reflect on him badly in any way."

So if Michael knew that being 'more conservative' was a better thing then why was he hanging out with the liberals. You see Michael gave evidence that he knew the truth. He knew the truth and was, granted, in a goober sort of way, apostatizing from the truth. And his motives seemed to be to play games. To take up a middle ground where he wouldn't have to take anything seriously or defend anything that was serious, and where he could make fun of the people who took doctrine seriously. If you read Michael you'd see that liberal theologians never (OK I'll say rarely since I havn't read everything he wrote) got the mocking treatment he gave Calvinists and 'truly Reformed.'

People I suppose were attracted to his writing the same way people are attracted to writers who tell them what they want to hear. Or they were just attracted to soft-focus liberalish easy take-no-stand devotional blog writing. Where the right people were always mocked (true believers, truly Reformed, Calvinists who actually believe that Federal Theology stuff) and the idols of the world and mushy theologians were treated respectfully. Also, people were attracted to his environment where constant whining and complaining were the order of the day. (We're all guilty of this, but we have different complaints, don't we?)

Michael also liked being an opinion-maker. "What will the iMonk say about this?" And to keep people interested Michael knew that being a wobbly on doctrine did the trick. "Oh, look, the iMonk is actually saying something orthodox! Whoopi!" Then later: "Look, the iMonk is quoting Shelby Spong favorably. Oh, no!"

People can work themselves into such centers of attention. It's kind of an occult thing. They have to keep you off-balance to do it well, and to keep it going. Just being for the truth consistently is boring.

One of his friends started a sentence recently this way: "Michael Spencer and C. S. Lewis taught us that..." No, no, no. Stop. Back away from the keyboard. We all know blogger extraordinaire Dave Armstrong is the modern C. S. Lewis among us.

I believe the 'intermediate state' for the currently unregenerate is to be stuck in one's living time. Actually to be 'dead' in one's living time (to be in the bondage of sin is to be dead). We can only think of that as 'revolution', or a wheel turning, but it's more just 'living time' where a person remains the same person in their time and death and birth become mere intervals, rather shocking ones, yet mere intervals nevertheless. Don't ask me to sync that theory up with the fact that the Bible says we die once, all I can say is it *is* actually one death, it just seems to us like a wheel turning because we can't conceive of higher aspects of time any other way.

A regenerated - born again - believer goes at death to be with God. But an unregenerate person at death stays in their living time. The same person. Maybe with slight changes based on new habits or even new understanding or new tricks, or abilities, they may have picked up, but basically the same person in the same time. A season in Hades and then back 'under the sun.' Until they are born again, potentially.

Reformed theologians don't even know what to make of the 'intermediate state' for unbelievers at death. It's not eternal hellfire. Eternal hellfire is where you are judged to at the great white throne judgment. At the end of the great Age. At the harvest. The second coming. When the wheat and the tares are separated.

It's not soul-sleep.

I believe Tertullian had a big Greek word for what I am referring to which is basically recurrence (not reincarnation, but recurrence). Can't remember it.

So, don't grieve for the death of the iMonk. He is still in his time. Grieve that he may never value anything above himself. That is truly something to grieve about.

The fact that I gave him a few shocks will help him. (I write that seriously. You can't come into contact with me in any way and be the same afterward.)

Shallowness is a problem in churchianity-ville. The iMonk was a bit shallow. Most of the people he mocked are a bit shallow as well, to be honest. A lot of shallowness going around. One finds it a little difficult imagining the iMonk or James White applying themselves to a work of literature like War and Peace and actually getting through it rather than setting it down next to the iPod saying, "This is stupid."

By the way, the 'James White would not have been happy' refrain at the iMonk's old forum is not very nice, is it? Is that necessary?

Death is hardcore. The iMonk's familiar physical figure is now under a lot of dirt. I don't think he's lost (I know, he had the pious liberal Christian's mantra of "Jesus, Jesus, it's all about Jesus", but it seemed an afterthought in his last few years, and came across as pretty empty as that pious mantra usually is). But think of him as a child now. Seriously. You can even pray for him without praying for the dead. Just know what you should pray for.

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Update: We see a common thing among some mushy, wobbly, liberalish, extortionist Christians (yes, extortionist: "Give me what I demand or I just may be atheistic and mocking in what I write and say, and since I know what the truth is I can attack it more subtly than most, and you know I can, so come down to my demands or look out...". Not that the iMonk was as sharp an attacker of apostolic biblical doctrine as other types, but he was acting on the same stage.) It's a justification they use. It's: "I was raised in a fundamentalist environment, and I ain't going back there." No, you're not a mushy, wobbly, liberalish, extortionist Christian because you were raised in a fundamentalist environment; you're a mushy, wobbly, liberalish, extortionist Christian because you demand to make demands on the Word of God and you refuse to value anything above you.

You also like to play 'hard to get.' "Um, no, sorry, Truly Reformed, you just aren't scratchin' my itch, you know? Keep tryin' though, 'cause you never know when you might get it done. You just ain't gettin' it done now. 'Scuse me while I go read some Shelby Spong. Oh, my, does that make you upset? Oh, dear me. Well, you know, if y'all weren't so square..."

These are the same people C. S. Lewis wrote about who would hold all of Heaven hostage because some people go to hell. God is a patient and long-suffering all-powerful Being, but something tells me He brings His fist down hard on people like that.